Long hair is refusal; weave is refusal of an era when enslaved women tied their hair up.
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Denying your identity doesn’t make it go away.
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Your teeth are just too menacing to be in the show.
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Filmmaker Teona Bonsu explores her own struggle with racial identity in Behind Closed Doors, an ambiguous drama about a birthday party on a quiet suburban street.
Teona Bonsu is a filmmaker from Manchester. She has partnered up with Manchester Camerata and the BFI, and worked as associate producer on a feature film.
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In my Social Problems class, we’re spending the next few weeks on race, racial inequality, and racial politics. Step one is this lecture on race and racism.
After a tangent on racial identity, idealism and its enemies, I address biology and race, describing the classic racist racial categories in relation to vast human diversity in Africa and the world overall, with discussion of biological evolution and the sources of human variation. Then I turn to the US and discuss social definition and self-definition, race versus ethnicity, definitions of racism and discrimination, and how the Census Bureau measures US race and ethnicity, before summarizing current and projected race/ethnic composition. And I used the new Zoom feature where your PowerPoint slides are the virtual background (which is harder than it looks because your image isn’t mirrored while you speak!).
It’s 35 minutes. The slides are here, CC-BY: osf.io/uafvp. To see all my videos, visit my YouTube channel.
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This post was previously published on Familyinequality.wordpress.com and is republished here under a Creative Commons License.
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Unless you have been in a deeply comatose state, you have probably noticed the profoundly intense battles that have occurred over the issue of critical race theory. Hell, you can hardly pick up a local, state or national newspaper without seeing references to it. Read a magazine or a blog, listen to podcasts from across the political spectrum, or engage with social media or other similar entities and you’ll note that the topic is largely dominating public discourse.
The truth is, it’s become hard to keep up with the flurry of state bills aimed at banning the teaching of what are often called “divisive concepts,” including the idea put forward by one Rhode Island bill that “the United States of America is fundamentally racist or sexist.” The irony-challenged Mike Pence also tweeted:
We will reject Critical Race Theory in our schools and public institutions, and we will CANCEL Cancel Culture wherever it arises!
Indeed things have reached a fever pitch in some state legislatures. Some states, such as Mississippi and Oklahoma, have enacted laws prohibiting the teaching of such content, arguing that this kind of literature teaches children to develop an augmenting hatred for their nation and causes White children to feel bad about themselves. Furthermore, the Washington Post’s Dave Weigel pointed out that Glenn Youngkin, a candidate in Virginia’s Republican primary, recently released four anti-critical-race theory videos in the space of 24 hours.
This is just one of the numerous defensive positions that have been echoed by many on the political, social, and cultural right. Charges of being “anti-American”, “racially divisive, and “hate-filled” have been leveled at those who highlight issues of prejudice in American society; some of the most fervent observers have also been freely hurling terms like “Marxist” and “communist” as insults. There is no question that emotions have been running high. It appears that the conservative right believes that they have found another issue in the so-called culture wars to entice their largely bigoted, sexist, homophobic, and xenophobic base of voters with. Right-wing Florida governor, Ron DeSantis is one of the leading opponents of critical race theory.
These (largely White) men and women who believe that the nation they have grown up in has become infested with hordes of immigrants, overtaken by non-White radicals, and saturated with gays and lesbians advocating supposedly “perverted and unhealthy lifestyles”. The values of allegedly self-hating White liberals and progressives and radical non-Whites who rabidly embrace Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, antifa, and other movements are in direct contrast to their White supremacist ideals. Consequently, the situation has become a battle royal of irrational emotions.
Critical race theory recognizes that systemic racism is part of American society and challenges the beliefs that allow it to flourish. It is one of a number of approaches that examine White supremacy; moreover, the model combats the nostalgic beliefs of those who harbor the idea of a sedate America that was once innately fair and confronts those who seek to promote and embrace a “let bygones be bygones” message among the American public. It also advocates the following:
Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Professor of Law at Columbia and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), is one of the founding members of the movement. Crenshaw and her fellow inaugurate scholars hosted a workshop on the critical race theory movement in 1989. However, the idea behind it goes back much further to the work of civil rights activists, such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Fannie Lou Hamer and Pauli Murray. According to Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, some of the theory’s earliest origins can be traced back to the 1970s, which is when lawyers, activists, and legal scholars realized the advances made during the civil rights era of the 1960s had stalled.
Crenshaw was among a group of intellectuals, including Derrick Bell, Alan Freeman, and Richard Delgado, who attended a conference in Wisconsin in 1989 that focused on new strategies to combat racism. A few years later, in 1993, Delgado, Crenshaw, Mari Matsuda, and Charles R. Lawrence went on to write Words That Wound: Critical Race Theory, Assaultive Speech, and the First Amendment.
Some critical race theorists also believe notions of racial identity are the product of social thought and relations rather than biology. A sense of urgency since the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other African Americans last year by police officers led to a national reckoning on race. Over the past 12 months, many Americans have called for an examination of systemic racism — in part, through education, such as the teaching of The New York Times’ 1619 Project in schools. Authored by the journalist Nicole Hannah-Jones, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning scheme re-examines American history from the period surrounding August 1619, which is when the first slave ship arrived on the country’s shores. That being said, Hannah-Jones’s project has not been without its critics, nor has it totally avoided controversy.
Critical race theory has become the latest bogeyman for many right-wingers. A number of conservative cultural critics have been working morning, noon and night in an attempt to discredit proponents of the movement. While some of these antics have been amusing, others attacks have been disingenuous and downright offensive.
Part of the reason the right is putting so much time and a seemingly herculean amount of effort into this endeavor is due to the fact that they are having a demonstrably difficult time cultivating opposition to the vast majority of President Biden’s agenda. His economic legislative spending is much more ambitious than Barack Obama’s; nevertheless, the Tea Party of 2021 remains much the same as it did during its inception in 2009.
Also notable is the fact that many voters view Biden as more moderate than Obama, a misconception that critical race theory scholars would have no trouble explaining. Republicans have consequently groused about how hard Biden is to demonize. They need a more frightening, enraging villain to keep their people engaged; thus, they believe they have found a suitably malevolent specter in the form of critical race theory. At the moment, offering up a scapegoat appears to have had some temporary effect in terms of fostering hostility, but the truth is that such victories are likely to be Pyrrhic as opposed to substantial or long term. White fragility, White supremacy, and intellectual dishonesty are vices that must and will always be challenged.
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This post was originally published on Medium.
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The sun’s rays reflected off of our family car to show a word that represents the dark history of a country shrouded in shadows. The “n-word” had been written in the dirt that coated the hood, similar to how my daughters draw on our car windows on cold Vermont days. Six letters arranged in a sinisterly calculated way by one harmful finger were able to direct generations of hate towards us, as if it came from the conductor of an adept orchestra, which had honed its evil sound for hundreds of years. We are still feeling the blow that was delivered from a quick and fleeting, yet powerful, unidentified finger of a human being whom we may never know, leaving our lives feeling upside down. The car sat in the driveway next to our home, once an oasis of safety and place of sanctitude for our multi-racial family, living in a desert of whiteness.
Light had done its job by illuminating the darkness that exists in the world around us, demonstrating how close we are to it, always. It was a reminder that we are never safe from the pervasive tentacles of racism, trying to check us and keep us living in fear, even in our home. The word hit like a dagger through my heart, so I can only imagine how my partner, Ferene, who is a Black woman, felt when I showed it to her. I watched as she took it in with shock, which turned to rage and then to pain. The impact that we have had on the community, as we lift up Black and Brown voices, needed a strong warning from whiteness that change will not come easily and without a fight.
“This was written for me,” Ferene said as we sat in the car, explaining the intimacy of the harmful act that would have her bed ridden for days and our family rocked to its core. Our eight year old daughter, Melodie, sat in the back seat and watched mom and dad search for words while we shed tears. We engaged in a conversation that seemed very familiar to an eight year old Black girl who had a prodigious understanding of racism, which is all too common for Black youth who are forced to carry the brutal truths, while their white neighbors are shielded from these realities. After the police inspected the vehicle, I wiped the letters and dirt off the car and threw the towel in the trash. The word was gone, but the wound would remain open.
I am deeply connected to Ferene and the girls so I suffer when they are hurting and yet I can never truly know what it is like to walk in their shoes as Black women. This divide creates a different type of pain for me as I am unable to absorb the same levels of harmful energy that have been directed towards our family. I see the impact on Ferene’s mental health and know the girls will have to fight a battle that I can avoid as a white man. I watch every step of it and attempt to go to this place with them, with the knowledge that I can never fully be there. There is a helpless feeling that is heartbreaking and forces me to be mindful of my privilege and do as much as I possibly can so that others who look like me and are “surprised” that this occurred can understand how real the pain is and how prevalent this hate is. Existing in the same space, but breathing different air, has been challenging for Ferene and I. These moments take a toll on our family, as we navigate the intersection of Black and white identities. Our love also grows through a beautiful struggle that results from the meeting of our differences with each other and the world around us.
We asked ourselves many questions in the coming days as our hearts and minds grappled with an act that doesn’t make any sense and is also precise within the racist society we live in. Who, when, and where led to deeper reflections such as, did they realize the pain it would cause or was it done without an understanding of the impact it would have? As we began to navigate a process of healing and forgiveness, moving from our personal situation to a more global perspective, we thought about the conditions that could allow someone to commit this type of act and those that are much worse. What allows a person to cause harm to another human being because of their skin color? Regardless of intention and level of awareness, it is a glimpse into a shared consciousness that is still occupied by much fear and hate. One could only be hurting and disconnected from their heart to inflict this on a family that has done nothing but exist in love and will continue to do so.
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Your air is polluted from the fear and hate that exist in this world. Whiteness and systems that are the veins that pump its blood, poison the oxygen you inhale. Blue eyes and blonde hair looking back at you from television screens, a president who denounced your heritage and schools where there are no teachers that look like you. All taking a toll on your self-worth, but remember that you come from the stars.
“Am I really your daughter?” You are already aware of our contrasting realities. I say “different skin colors are beautiful” to which you respond “yes, but if there weren’t different skin colors Black and brown people would not be suffering.” Wisdom that can only come from the soul of a queen who has cried oceans through the many lifetimes that you have graced this world.
I walk down the street and breathe freely. Greeted with hellos and safe within a cocoon of whiteness that protects its own. I wish that I could wear the colors of my loved ones like a badge for all to see, but I shamefully assimilate into a white abyss. The bootstraps that have allowed for the advancement of my ancestors have been a noose for yours. You are kicked to the curb by the schools, employers and systems that embrace me. Shadows lurk in the white skin that I wear, while light emanates from your melanin reflection.
Mom says, “it is so hard to exist in this Black body right now.” I wonder when you will reach this breaking point. It does not have to be the bullet that killed Breonna when an essential element can do the dirty work. A torturous weapon for mass genocide from slow and painful deaths. Time is of the essence to purify the air we breathe.
You sing, “Brown skin girl, your skin just like pearls, the best thing in the world, never trade you for anybody else.” I am blessed to know this truth.
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This post is republished on Medium.
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The post The Air We Breathe appeared first on The Good Men Project.
By Michal ‘MJ’ Jones
I’m shopping in the mall with my father in Ballwin, MO.
I want to take a peek at some snapbacks, so we venture into Lids, and I take a quick look around. We are the only customers in the store.
Maybe ten seconds pass before I notice the two brothers behind the clerking booth holding back laughter and smiles as they gawk at me, quickly looking away once I notice them.
Immediately irritated, I glance up at my dad, who is in his own quiet, stoic zone and hasn’t noticed.
As the poorly concealed laughter and under-the-breath comments continue, I eventually have had enough and storm out of the store. I hear their laughter erupt and my father trail behind me, still unaware.
I tell him, curtly and ignoring my tears, what happened. At first, he brushes it off. Later, sensing something is wrong in my icy silence, he asks again what happened.
I’m frustrated and tell him that he doesn’t know what it’s like to be Black and queer and different in the middle of nowhere – that the men had taunted me, that I wanted to go home.
“I’m Black with a doctorate in the sciences!” he interrupts at one point, angry.
Of course he knows what it’s like. Of course he does.
And he expects me – his “daughter” – to swallow my feelings and move on, as he had so many times. So many times that he now felt nothing – or wanted to feel nothing.
Pissed that he’s made it about himself, I remain coldly silent as we file out of the mall and into the parking garage.
As we reach the car, he’s somewhat remorseful. “I’m sorry, kiddo,” he sighs quietly, full permission for me to let the tears escape.
“I can’t always react,” I say, “because if I did, I’d be pissed all the time.”
He rubs my back, his voice full of the controlled rage that I find more frightening than anger. “Because if I had heard them, I woulda kicked their asses and wound up in prison!”
I look at him and know he understands. His layers of hurt are just deeper than mine are.
I’ve been called “too sensitive” for my entire life – you could say that I’m now desensitized to it!
As someone socialized as female who felt deeply not only my own pain, but also the pain of others, I was an easy target.
I was taught that my tears and so-called “hypersensitivity” were shameful, and that I should learn to control it, learn to fight back.
Being sensitive, I was also an easy target in school and was bullied relentlessly. People loved to pick on me because I would be visibly upset by it, and some of these kids had no other sense of control.
Maybe they couldn’t make their own lives better, but they could hurt other people the way they hurt.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve noticed the ways in which my or others’ supposed state of being “too sensitive” has been used to justify daily microaggressions and overt instances of oppression:
A white friend became outraged when I wouldn’t let her touch my hair; a classmate claimed that racism ended once Obama was elected and that we’re “making too much fuss”; and countless other examples that show ignorance, privilege, and a lack of empathy.
And I understand on some level.
When folks who haven’t experienced a certain type of oppression unintentionally step on the toes of someone who has, it can be shocking and upsetting.
Most people I come into contact with don’t walk around with the intention of being racist, sexist, ableist, transphobic, and so on, but many others do.
If our first response to offending or microaggressing someone of marginalized identity (or an ally) is to become defensive and point the blame back at them, that shows a lack of respect and accountability that hinders relationship building.
If our first response to being asked to use more inclusive language is to complain about how we “can’t say anything anymore,” or how we’ve become too “politically correct” or sensitive, we’re suggesting that it remains the responsibility of the oppressed to accept the oppressive labels and behavior, rather than to resist it.
In most of my experiences being called “too sensitive,” what people actually didn’t like was my refusal to ignore their problematic behavior and my audacity to feel something in response to it.
I may be tender, but oppression is also cold, harsh, traumatizing, painful, unaccountable, ruthless, and ancestral.
And when you step on my toe, it may have been the fifth time that day that someone has, and it hurts much more now.
The same is true for the hurtful words, snide comments, and stares that have piled up on our backs, but that are seen as “not a big deal” to so much of the world.
These are not isolated incidents, and there are layers to our “sensitivity.”
It is ancestral, connected to deep personal pains we have experienced throughout life, and rooted in current events.
Before accusing someone who has come to you vulnerable enough to share their pain of being “too sensitive,” consider first all of what that person has been through.
A white friend became outraged when I wouldn’t let her touch my hair.
It took many, many years for me to have a sense of ownership over my own hair that was not influenced by white supremacy and European standards of beauty.
As a child who was increasingly bullied, I traded in my thick braids and berets for a sleek, shiny, straight relaxer.
I was complimented and called “beautiful” more than ever before – now that I had the “good hair” to go with my already light skin. Never mind that the chemicals burned my scalp until it bled and scabbed. That was the cost of beauty!
By the time I was a sophomore in college, finally learning about true Black history and rocking the Angela Davis fro, I had finally accepted that not only was there nothing wrong with it, but in fact, my natural hair was beautiful, too.
And whenever a white hand reaches out to grab it, uninvited, I am reminded that it’s “different” or “exotic,” that white supremacy controls the beauty industry, that slaves were not allowed to care for their own hair and were forced to cover it.
Now, did my friend (at the time) know all of what lay underneath my instinctive backing away from her?
No, but she also became defensive and dismissive when I tried to calmly explain myself (which I also get sick of doing constantly).
When Black people and people of color are told to “chill” and “stop being so sensitive” about the racism thing, it tells me that there is a massive disconnect somewhere.
Not only are we being told constantly to “get over” racism so that white people can live more comfortably, but we are also being told that slavery happened a long time ago, so we should stop bringing it up.
Transatlantic slavery was horrific, traumatizing, and decimating for Black folks across the Diaspora “back then,” and we still feel its effects and see its ghosts in current times.
It is literally in our blood and ancestral heritage. Slavery is legal in our prisons, which are overflowing with Black and Brown people.
So, I beg your pardon for having an emotional reaction to current manifestations of racism!
But most self-identified liberals would agree that racism is a problem in the US and abroad, while chortling over Cards Against Humanity with its jokes about the three-fifths compromise or watching Family Guy and getting a kick out of your commonplace rape joke.
And anyone who has a problem with that is immediately “too sensitive” or “victim to the era of political correctness,” right? Wrong.
A woman who is sick of being catcalled and openly harassed on the street and dares to say something about it is not “too sensitive.”
Transgender and gender non-conforming activists of color who demand accountability from LGBTQIA+ organizations who silence them and ignore the violence they are experiencing are not “too sensitive.”
Students with disabilities who rally for more accessibility at their university are not “too sensitive.”
The problem is a lack of critical self-reflection.
The problem is a lack of empathy for the histories of oppressed groups of people.
The problem is a system that allows racist fraternities and sororities to get away with blatant racism because it’s “all in good fun” or so-and-so “didn’t mean it.”
The problem is that we see individual insults or jokes as separate, isolated incidents when they are actually reflective of a toxic and oppressive society.
The problem is not sensitivity or marginalized people daring to speak out against things that are not okay – it is the indifference and defensiveness we are most often met with.
“I can’t always react, because if I did, I’d be pissed all the time.”
My father is a wise man – and he has a good point about “picking our battles” and being careful with our tenderness.
Although I don’t entirely agree with him – and take the more “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention” perspective – I have come to understand that desensitizing is a tool of survival.
Both of my parents are tough, raised in large Black households where they learned to fight, not necessarily to feel.
And yet, I know each of my parents to be deeply sensitive and feeling people who have learned to pretend that things don’t hurt.
They have had to in order to function.
Andwhile numbing out is a natural reaction after centuries of oppression and daily reminders that we are “less than,” I also think it is one of the most dangerous things that can happen in movements for justice and equity.
Oppression is bizarre and contradictory – on the one hand, minorities are seen as “too sensitive” or “too angry” when we object to our own suppression, and on the other, we are seen as less than human, as less likely to feel any pain.
Capitalism and white supremacy profit off of our silence, our numbness, our lack of reaction and sensitivity.
Sensitivity is not a weakness. In fact, it is incredibly powerful and threatening. And powerful emotion is one of our greatest sources that fuels change.
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About Michal ‘MJ’ Jones
MJ is a Contributing Writer for Everyday Feminism. They are a Black, queer, and genderqueer educator, activist, writer, and musician based in Oakland, CA. They believe in the power of storytelling, vulnerability, allyship, and artistic expression to build movements and community.
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This post was previously published on Everydayfeminism.com.
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The post Being ‘Too Sensitive’ Isn’t the Problem – Oppression Is appeared first on The Good Men Project.
It’s taken my entire life to find the nerve and vocabulary to articulate what being gay, trans, and biracial have meant for me. I felt like I’ve always lived in those hard-to-relate-to in-between places. I have always struggled with black and white, circular thinking which made holding nuance really uncomfortable for me, especially as a teenager. I’ve found that navigating the intersections that I do has a unique set of challenges that very few people have understood when I’ve tried to seek support. And sometimes, I’ve been met with outright hostility and silencing in response to my desire to connect. As a method of protection, I stopped talking about them all together in most cases. It didn’t feel safe for a long time. Over the last three years, though, I’ve started to find people who navigate the world the way that I do, and we all seem to be struggling with the same things. I want to give voice to those things, despite how scary it is and how often these perspectives are intentionally suppressed.
Though I knew I was trans at a formative age, I didn’t tell anyone about it because I was raised in a household that vocally demonized men. They are dangerous, they are the enemy, and we will only be cared for by other women. I know that this ideology came from the violence and suffering that women have suffered from under patriarchy, but I internalized the idea that men are biologically predisposed to harm. It made me believe that the worst thing I could ever be was a man. So, I didn’t tell anyone until the dissonance was too painful to endure any longer. Once I freed myself, I felt a sense of alignment so profound that I grieved the years I deprived myself of it. Manhood is a gift, to me. And not just manhood, but transexual manhood. And a manhood that allows me to love other men. I love being a gay man.
When I first came out and was desperately seeking community, I thought that entering into queer and trans spaces would be enough to finally feel at home. I quickly found myself bumping up against the same disdain for masculinity. Sometimes it was latent, but sometimes it was vitriolic. I was receiving the same message: the worst thing you can be is a man. I found that I was either 1. an enemy of the movement by joining the side of the oppressor and if I want to be treated like a man I should accept divine feminine wrath, or 2. I’m not like those men, so I can still be “one of the girls” as long as I don’t take up too much space and I constantly acknowledge my newfound proximity to patriarchy. I was expected to smile and laugh along while those around me flippantly proclaimed “Men are trash, even you Von.” As though as soon as I came out, I suddenly had the secret key to all the power and privilege that cis men had in our world.
So, I tried to find a home in cis men’s spaces. That didn’t really work for me either, because I didn’t have a lot of shared experiences with them. I will say, some of the most affirming and healing experiences I’ve had have been with cis men, but I didn’t feel like I could really be vulnerable with them. Cis men’s spaces is where I learned just how suffocating patriarchy is for masculine-of-center people. It’s where I also learned that I am not considered “one of the guys” either, more of a spectator than a participant.
Then, I tried spaces advertised specifically for trans men and was still met with the same disdain for masculinity. There was so much internalized hatred, and self-deprecation. I regularly heard my fellow trans men say “Of all the genders, I had to be a man, ugh!; I’m a man, unfortunately; Being a man is so gross and stinky.” I did not feel at home with people who felt they had to self-flagellate to be taken seriously by other queer people. I also found that most of them were attracted to women, and were more aligned with lesbian communities prior to coming out. I didn’t share that alignment, as someone who has always been attracted to and dated men. It felt like a club that I was supposed to be a member of, but had somehow missed orientation day.
Similarly, in queer spaces, I encountered what I can identify as socially acceptable homophobia. It’s a borderline expectation in queer spaces to be misandrist, to the point that attraction to men is akin to a disease. You know, the same way that patriarchy and white supremacy pathologized it up until the 1990s? The way the alt-right is attempting to do so again, right now? I’ve had queer non-men say to my face: “You’re attracted to men? Get well soon.” This is so commonplace, that the trope of the bisexual woman who hates men and loves women is considered an accepted in-community joke. Being attracted to men, dating men, loving men, as a man saved my life.
Why have we normalized this treatment of masculine people in our communities? The foundation of queerness is to free ourselves of the bioessentialist expectations of the gender binary that are rooted in white supremacy, but it seems that only applies to those who embrace “divine femininity.” I’m speaking from my own experiences for this particular piece, but the misappropriation of divine femininity is also very often used to exclude/erase transgender women from womanhood. Assigning expectations of emotional bankruptcy to masculine-of-center people is still TERF rhetoric. It is the same rhetoric that says transgender women will never be “real” women, because they are born predisposed to violence. Modern queer politic has lost the plot in so many ways, and a lot of queer people need to revisit bell hooks and Leslie Feinberg.
To complicate things further, my racial identity has always been hard for me to feel settled in. I now mostly identify as biracial, but I don’t feel like this captures my lived experience as a mixed Filipino-American. I’m still looking for a word that makes sense for me, and exploring what feels good and right. It’s been challenging for me to share about being bi/multiracial in any context, because I am either “too white” and therefore do not experience racism, or “too brown” to be treated equitably in society. I’ve experienced anti-Asian racism at every stage of my life, and I find it hard to talk about even with my own family members because not all of them see me as Asian — on both sides of my family. I’ve been on the receiving end of “No fats, no fems, no Asians” on Grindr. I’ve been on the receiving end of “What are you?” questions from kids in my college classes. I’ve been on the receiving end of “Do y’all really eat dogs?” I’ve been held to the impossible standards of the model minority myth at work and in school.
In my experience, trying to talk about what it’s like to be part-Asian in white, Asian, and non-Asian POC communities has been met with resistance and comparison. I’m not accepted in my complexity in Asian spaces, I’m racialized and microaggressed in white spaces, and I’m not racialized enough for other communities targeted toward people of color. Similarly, in queer and trans communities, where folks self-proclaim they are committed to an intersectional approach to liberation, I found (particularly white) queer people policing my racial identity. White queers, doing their best to be anti-racist and find ways to reconcile their own proximity to privilege often felt empowered to tell me how to navigate being biracial. These same white queers could never imagine that a part-Asian person might not be Wasian. That our community does, in fact, include people mixed with Asian and other non-white people. That, no, Asian people don’t only co-exist with white people.
And while I know that all of this intra community policing stems from a good-faith attempt to build anti-oppressive spaces, the message I have received over the last 10 years of trying to find community is that I have to perform my masculinity, whiteness, Asianness, and sexuality in a way that is palatable in order to be welcomed in. So, where can I exist freely? My point is not to debate the influence of patriarchy, or to say that I don’t benefit from my proximity to whiteness. My point is that sometimes, I want to share my lived experiences and feel understood. I want there to be space for biracial people to discuss the unique ways that we move through the world, without having to perform the “right” way of talking about it. I want the people in my community to witness me, and be witnessed by me in return.
Living in the gray can be so fucking lonely. It can feel like no one on earth understands you, and they don’t care to learn. It can feel like you’re either too much or never enough. Not enough of a man for the world, but yet too oppressive for gender-expansive spaces. Too Asian for White America, but not authentic enough for the Asian support groups. We deserve to have a place somewhere. We deserve to show up fully in our truth and be received in love. We deserve to have support systems that celebrate all of our complexity. As I’ve started to talk about this more openly, I’ve started to find more people like me who struggle with the same questions. And what I’ve realized is that we just don’t have spaces to connect. It doesn’t have to be this way. We can be that light for us, to guide us home to each other.
When I was much younger and more insecure, I also used to ingratiate myself to anyone who would listen, putting myself down for being a man, leading with my whiteness so that I immediately acknowledge my privilege, apologize for it, and don’t take up too much space. And you know what? It doesn’t actually make people like you to grovel and self-deprecate. Further, the goal really shouldn’t be to make people like you. The goal should be to live your truth, and find the people who want to live it with you. You don’t have to be all things to all people. The reality is, racial dynamics, gender equity, and sexuality are complicated. No matter what intersections you navigate, your lived experience is complex and systemic power dynamics are never a 1:1 comparison on the individual level. Now, as an almost-30-something, I’m beginning to feel more self-assured and I keep coming back to this question: Aren’t we tired of trying to reinvent the boxes white cisheteropatriarchy puts us in anyway to keep us from unifying against it?
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Previously Published on Medium
photo of Von, taken by his fiancé Otto
The post Living in the Gray: Where Is Home for the Biracial Trans Bois? appeared first on The Good Men Project.
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