Category Archive

It’s definitely one of those weekends where the weather got suddenly rainy and cold and it’s all I can do to keep from staying in bed all day. I finally felt the overwhelming impulse to write again - it’s hard when the majority of my time is spent feeling anxious about producing papers and thesis work. Blogging has moved from the backburner to the tupperware in the fridge, and that’s just the way it’s going to be for a few months. The occasional post is my way of making sure the remains of this site doesn’t spoil.

I canceled three individual sets of plans in the last week; plans that I had initiated making with people that I thought I could catch up with; plans that I backed out of because I didn’t have time because I was trying to write a thesis chapter and had deadlines to deal with….plans with men.

Ok let’s recap. The last time I intentionally spent time with a man in any capacity was in November. He was/is a good friend and we hadn’t seen each other in a long time. We grabbed coffee and what I thought would be a superficial play by play of our lives turned out to be a very wonderful conversation that allowed me to share my anxieties about my last year in college. He was a great listener, we had worked very closely together for a year, and he really heard me. Furthermore, I was able to listen to him speak about his own life, where he was at, and feel comforted by the level of openness we had silently committed to that evening. I’m a sucker for good conversation and could write extensively about it - right now, let us just say that good conversation is truly a few and far between aspect of my life these days. Is this the nature of being around very busy people? Of not truly wanting to open up to everyone I see? Or maybe it’s just a rare thing, and that’s why it’s so wonderful when it happens. Thinking back, I want to believe that every conversation I’d ever had was amazing; I doubt that’s true. I think with some people, family, certain friends who connect with you, it’s possible to replicate good conversation because it just clicks. Something in the air. Something in ourselves, as well.

Tangent aside, it was a great conversation, and yes, of course part of the reason why is because it was a rare occasion where I found myself able to be frank with a man about how I was doing, because I was comfortable.

I don’t really want to get in to why I have such few male friends; regular readers can probably guess, and for those of you who have stumbled across this post, let’s boil it down to bad relationships, the insecurities that were created out of them, and a genuine and strategic desire to spend time building a network of friends who are women of color. This last bit makes me want to clarify that 99% of me has absolutely no regrets about the way I have prioritized getting to know people.

But that isn’t what this post is about. It isn’t really about any of that. It’s about the fact that I haven’t had a good conversation with a man in a long time, but then I committed to swimming back to this island and working through some of issues that keep me from simply picking up the phone and calling someone who I’ve been friends with for a year and want to see.

But I finally did that last week. I made plans to catch up. And then the day before, I emailed to cancel. Thesis chapter, I said. No time.

Two days before I backed out of going to this lecture with this guy that is a really good guy and under other circumstances, I think we could have become great friends. Thesis chapter, I said. No time.

Four days before that I canceled lunch with this same person.

I initiated all of these plans - I took a deep breath and made them all, and then one by one, I canceled them. Shuffled away, and it didn’t really hit me that having work was not the problem until recently. Lord knows I’ve made plenty of plans while being swamped in work. I couldn’t do it.

I couldn’t allow myself to feel close to a man in any capacity - one a once-close friend and one a possible new one.

What’s the big deal, right? It’s just lunch, it’s just catching up. I know everyone’s thinking it. But it is definitely a big deal. I think that’s just what happens when you’ve experienced such closeness to friend after friend and they eventually just walk away or you wake up and realize that their attempts to make you a better person or a better partner are actually just verbal attacks on your well-being.

The difference between me now and me a year ago though, is that even though I recognize this, I want to work through it. I can’t keep letting these demons follow me around forever, not about something like this.

But it’s so hard because I’m at a loss of what to do and I think a part of me childishly just wants to write it off as, well I’m a busy person and I don’t want to take initiative on anything that has to do with men. Why should I after all; shouldn’t they take some initiative? When was the last time I knew a male peer to have to schedule plans? All the women I know are so swamped in extracurriculars and running organizations and working that it’s all we can do to plan a weekly meal. So when I meet someone who has no real schedule, why shouldn’t I expect them to take the two steps forward?

There’s a lot to be said about vulnerability and intimacy and trust, but this post is long enough, and I haven’t quite figured out what to say about it, and it would also require a long prequel about the gender-based attitudes placed on women regarding these issues.

A brief note: this post is meant to be often sarcastic and sometimes ironic and even a bit harsh. Heaven forbid a woman use such narrative techniques to express her anger towards issues of patriarchy in and out of the classroom! But in all seriousness, this rant is in response to so many liberal men that I run into that I end up in conversations with, only to walk away frustrated at how simple considerations are completely ignored during these interactions. Enjoy.

Dear Mr. Liberal,

It has come to my attention that while all this time I have been worried that I was unable to talk to you, due to your performance of charm or wit or intelligence or social acceptability, in fact it is you who is unable to speak to me, due to your inability to actively acknowledge your privilege as a male in and outside the classroom. For your convenience, I have listed a few of your many offenses, in hopes of clearing up some of my concerns, and providing answers to the claim, “I don’t understand what the problem is”

1. Listen with your ears, not with your interrupting mouth. I’m sure you’re really eager to prove to yourself and everyone around you that you understand what I’m saying - hey, maybe I haven’t heard about that article in the paper yet, or maybe there’s something neat that happened to you last week that is sort of related to what I’m saying or maybe you found a quote in this book that adds to my point- It really doesn’t matter when I can’t get through what I’m saying because you cut me off. It also doesn’t “make it all better” to throw something in afterwards like “Oh sorry. What were you saying?” Don’t tell me what a good listener everyone thinks you are when I’m in the middle of telling you something. I know this might hurt, but sometimes, it’s ok when you can’t hear your voice in a room. It’s even ok not to be the first person to bring up a particular point. Remember, listening when I’m talking doesn’t necessarily mean that you are not engaged in a conversation.

2. If you simply have to interrupt, try to remember that I was telling a story. Mr. Liberal, you have such a tendency to go off on some sort of tangent and upon returning, you do not acknowledge that I was in the middle of a story. I shouldn’t have to use the phrase “what I was saying was…” I’m going to make it really easy for you, too and list out some of the things that I personally think are appropriate to use after your rude interruption:

“Wow, sorry for interrupting you, I got so excited about that thing I wanted to tell you. But you were talking about ____ ___ and I really want to hear the rest of the story/more about it”

“I’m so rude. So what happened with ______?”

I even have an example of what to do if you are just bored and really don’t want to hear what I have to say! (Because, yes, I’ll admit, that definitely happens)

“So sorry to interrupt. I actually have to go [insert excuse here]“

These sentences may be adapted to suit your own personal conversational style. Collect all three! Then try to remember that first point I made, about not interrupting.

3. Ask questions. You know what’s rude? When I ask you a question like, “What did you think about [insert progressive point here]?” and then you spend five minutes talking about it, narrating in circles and finally getting to a point, and then wait for me to ask your opinion about something else. It’s pretty cool when you say “what did you think?” - and yea, I know you think you do that all the time. But trust me. You usually don’t. Questions are good because they are indicators of engaging in conversation.

Don’t want to ask questions because you don’t want to know my opinion?
Good point- why am I even trying to talk to you. Good day, sir.

Don’t want to ask questions because I always ask them?
Hm…you should think about why that is a little more.

4. Don’t patronize me. Isn’t this self explanatory? Let’s hope it is.

5. Try to keep in mind that you carry with you certain entitlements that I will never understand. It’s a good thing you claim to be so well-read and brilliant, because that means you have probably encountered at least one or two texts that elaborate on this statement. It’s tricky, understanding why my eyes glaze over a little while you’re talking, I know. But if you attempt to shift your paradigm a bit, perhaps you’ll see that usually I’m taking into account why you are able to say certain things without hesitation, why you are so confident in your ability to project and perpetuate norms, why you don’t notice that I was in the middle of a sentence, or was waiting for you to engage in a conversation. When we are affirmed at every moment because of a particular part of our identity, it may be difficult to understand why every other individual around us does not “just” do certain things or “just” say certain things or “just” speak up in class. But then, it is also difficult to survive every day when one is subjected to daily violence because they are marginalized in society. So, yeah. I don’t really feel bad for you.

6. Don’t thank me for doing the work you should have done. Take accountability for the fact that you did not do it. This one needs a bit of explanation because it can be easily misinterpreted. One day, I went on a semi-tirade in class about the lack of critical discussion going on, particularly when it came to the colonial apparatus and issues of race/gender (it was a postcolonial literature class, so this was not an unreasonable criticism). After class, a member of your Liberal label approached me and said: “Thanks for saying that. I was going to say that, but I was really tired”

(Funny, so was I.)

With privilege comes the opportunity to step back from the fight without consequence to your own emotional or physical health. Perhaps your friend, dear Liberal, should have simply affirmed my comment instead of making some patronizing excuse as to why they weren’t able to articulate themselves in a moment where criticism of the class became necessary. There are times to thank me for doing work and taking action, and there are times to acknowledge your lack of work. Work on understanding the difference, I beg you.

7. Just because you can point it out in academic text doesn’t mean you get it. Mr. Liberal, you are so well read! You have certainly taken steps in your academic life to educate yourself about issues of gender and possibly race or class or sexual orientation. You’re at a point even, where you can read a novel or essay or article, and point out the problematics of the text. Maybe you even get to this point before some of the other women in the class, because you’re just so eager to share your wealth of knowledge.

Maybe if I wrote a story about a Liberal Man who interrupted women, never offered to take notes during meetings, never took accountability for their lack of effort, never directly admitted to their participation in patriarchal norms, and felt the need to prove his awareness of gender dynamics at the cost of silencing women in the classroom, you would be able to see that your understanding of theory does not translate into your everyday praxis.

8. Read some articles that make you uncomfortable and possibly knock you off your high liberal pedestal.

Laurelin has a great letter to Leftist men that you should read. And in case you never got around to understanding male privilege, here’s this for you - actually that site is where I will start recommending all the Liberal Men I run into in my day to day life, who want me to educate them 24/7. Then, you should read every single thing on this site.

And so Mr. Liberal, I have reached the end of my letter. Take care and remember, you can’t call yourself progressive when you aren’t making any progress.

-obw.

I am plagued, dear readers, by three large and loaded words that have haunted me in college for nearly four years. Two terms that are plagued themselves by overuse and misunderstanding. And I’m going to try to get to my issue with both terms, though it could very well happen that I get stuck on one and have to finish up at another time.

I’ve been called oversensitive many times, in many different contexts. I remember having to do assignments in middle school where you have to describe yourself for some reason, and I often picked the term “really sensitive.” Hell, that’s what I was, really - sensitive about things, about what people say to me, about what people say to other people, about people’s actions. I still feel this way; of course now I don’t connote these traits with oversensitivity. I don’t believe sensitivity towards certain actions and hegemonies keeps me from developing the thick skin I need to survive. And I don’t believe there is anything “over” about my sensitivity.

There is a line drawn, it seems, that divides the normal or appropriate amount of concern from all other amounts. If normalcy dictates what is an appropriate amount of sensitivity (which varies based on race, class, gender, sexual orientation, age, etc.) to have about a given circumstance, then oversensitivity perhaps implies sensitivity in some sort of marginal space.

I think maybe using examples is a better way to explain myself. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this in the past (long ago, when this blog was in its first weeks) that there was an ex- who was filled with good intentions who told me that I was emotionally high maintenance and didn’t I think I was being a little bit too sensitive about certain things? This was in response to my bringing up the way our time was divided and whose schedules we worked around in the relationship (if you guessed “his,” you would be correct). At the time, my response to this criticism was to hold my tongue whenever I felt compelled to ask why aspects of the relationship were going the way they were.

I won’t suggest that my response now to claims of oversensitivity is to look those claims in the eye and spit on them. There are moments when the doubt creeps in, that perhaps I’ve searched too far through my progressive lens and have started to split hairs, have felt emotionally charged or impacted by something that doesn’t matter, that signifies nothing about larger institutional systems of oppression. The little voice says to me…maybe women need to buck up.

This is a part of self-loathing, though, isn’t it? It appears in it’s ghostly form and haunts us from the inside, telling us we are not as good as the beautiful people around us. It makes us doubt, makes us drained of our thick-skin-reserves so that we must take the time to exhale, exhale, exhale away the comments we have heard all our lives that rise to the surface again.

Sigh - those comments. They really are like a little plague that doesn’t seem to be an ailment until you are having a conversation with a male peer and you find yourself wondering why he looks slightly disengaged when you bring up the political and you think, “I talk too much. I’m talking too much. He’s looking at me like I’m oversensitive.”

And then you return to your room and you call those women of color who support you through your thick skin and thin and they help you ward off those ghosts for a little while longer.

I keep getting asked what I dressed up as this weekend for the big Halloween party on campus. I was a bit hesitant in my response, because at this point I still hadn’t decided whether or not I could handle the event. I was probably going to go, I had this great 90s dress I’ve been wanting to wear that I cannot pull off on a random Wednesday. Furthermore, I wanted to do some article research, having recently decided to be an opinion writer for our school paper. Let me tell you, this is entering a lion’s den to some extent. And it’s actually an entirely separate post that I’m still not ready to write that involves racism and sexism in the classroom and my choosing mainstream journalism in an attempt to keep from feeling like a quitter. A lot of students argue that Halloween is the one holiday that’s all about fun and is sort of this horrifying combination of debauchery and identity swapping, but the reality is, in the way that it is practiced in mainstream America, Halloween is never all about fun for me - it’s usually about trying to deal with the problematic costumes around me.

I’m to focus on two examples here because there is simply too many things to cover and these two examples really got me thinking this weekend.

First, I saw these students dressed as homeless people jingling bowls and hats to beg for money from the crowd. They had gone all out: dirt smudged faces and tattered clothing and unwashed hair and expressions that attempted to emote wear-and-tear. The argument for the costume I suppose is that part of Halloween should be about dressing up in identities that are completely different from our own. But I think the reality is that Halloween is the time where people can get away with dressing up in particular costumes, a way of being racist and classist and homophobic without being called out on it because they aren’t actually saying anything or expressing opinions, they’re “just dressing up”. It’s “just a costume”. I’m going to make a few assumptions here, but I think the students who chose “homeless people” as their costume are probably in the exact opposite situation as homeless people on campus: they are provided housing. They are getting an over $100,000 education. They aren’t starving, they aren’t living in the streets, they have access to showers and probably have enough money to purchase new clothes and live a comfortable life. The privilege of being able to dress up otherwise is offensive and classist, and reflects a kind of ignorance that even now I’m having trouble processing.

The second costume I want to talk about is one that I seem to have seen a lot on websites and over the weekend: the Pocahontas/ stereotypical Native American costume. With regards to the argument “Pochontas is from Disney and I was dressing up as a Disney character” my response is that Disney has racially problematic representations of individuals and helps to perpetuate many stereotypes about particular groups of people. So hiding behind Disney isn’t really going to help justify your costume. So often, the majority of individuals around me, myself included, ignore and exclude the history of indoctrination, imprisonment, destruction, and annihilation of Native Americans in California and the United States. When students dress up as Native Americans they are suggesting that the history of violence and oppression against Native Americans is something that can be forgotten, that their history and identities can be reduced to a culturally appropriative costume that can be donned by anyone on Halloween, that racist representations of Native Americans is appropriate.

My point here is that the “geishas” and “gangsters” and “belly dancers” and “maids”, the people who have the racial privilege to be able to dress up as “terrorists”, and “ethnic people” need to think about the racial and class privileges that allow them to do this….

Many people seem to choose costumes that are outside of normalcy - there is this combination of stereotyping and further marginalizing and often culturally appropriating communities. This is about exercising one’s privilege by dressing up as the Other - so when I see a white woman dressing up in the everyday clothes of someone from India, for example, there is something that allows that individual to feel comfortable in exploiting and appropriating another culture and identity, while also disregarding the history of that community, for a day that is apparently “all about fun”.

Yuck.

I’m writing about Halloween in conjunction with The Day of Red not only because they are happening on the same day but because there’s something to be said about costumes and the violence that these costumes are ignoring and making invisible. We need to think about the violence that occurs everyday against women of color and why there are so many women that think it’s ok to dress up in ethnic costumes, that do not encompass the history of violence and silence that affects the actual communities of women who are being stereotyped and caricatured.

We need to think about cultural appropriation of cultures and the kind of violence that appears in that process and in those cultures and what it means to simply walk around with particular aspects of the Other culture but without that trauma and without that violence (colonial and imperial and physical and emotional and patriarchal) that is deeply embedded in those communities.

We need to think about why there are people who can dress up today as Native AMericans, Geishas, Mulan, Princess Jasmine, Arabs, South Asian People, Belly Dancers; who can dress up today as beaten and murdered and bruised and bloody women from stories and myths, while there are Other women of color who are dead and who are stripped of their agency and who are raped and traumatized and beaten and silenced everyday.

I’m still settling into a new (and final) college year, which includes having to maintain a thesis blog for a seminar class - clearly, keeping two blogs that couldn’t be further from one another is frustrating, but I am determined to try!

I found out yesterday that an ex-boyfriend from a few years ago is writing his English senior thesis with an emphasis in male privilege and the ways in which masculinity and gendered expectations for men end up being detrimental for men as well as women, albeit in different ways.

A year after I got so fed up with relationships that I walked away from my last one for who knows how long (this is a good thing - I desperately needed to learn more about what it means for me to be a woman of color in this world…I still need to, every day) this ex-boyfriend contacted me in an effort to find closure for himself. I wonder if anyone knows what sort of situation I’m talking about - a call out of the blue in order to make himself feel better about himself, draining all my energy from me in an effort to explain to him what it meant for him to be a white male in a relationship with a woman of color, and him walking away hoping that he could continue to be educated by me.

We haven’t spoken since. But in reading this thesis work, I can’t help but look back at women of color I know who have dated men and, through the course of their relationship, have ended up educating them, or at least pointing out certain gendered and often racial dynamics. At the end of the relationship, people wonder why the women let such a good man get away. In the particular experience I’m referring to, I can’t help feeling like this ex-boyfriend of mine was able to take what little understanding of male privilege and turn it into a progressive pick up line. And a thesis topic. What did I get? A lot of his white friends giving me that judgmental look that says “you were that girl.” It’s a small campus so that happens more often that I’d like to admit.

That girl. I’ve used that phrase so many times in the last two weeks that I now have no idea what it really means. Maybe someone can articulate what it is about that phrase that I find offensive but continue to use it - maybe I’m trying to reclaim the idea - that girl: the jealous girl, the loud girl, the unfeminine girl, the smart girl, the argumentative girl, the freckled, dark skinned, curvy girl, the unapologetic girl.

Now I’ve typed “girl” so many times it is starting to look even more nonsensical than it actually is..

need to read something like the following:

as soon as we thought of marrying, our first few conversations included gender politics. included domestic violence. included cheating in marriages, and our views on divorce. we have both resolved to test for hiv before getting married. “romantic”? no. but sure as hell reassuring, and realistic.

we’ve worked our way through several issues to keep our wedding as in line with our politics as possible. we’ve had long talks about what rituals we’ll have, how we’ll organise our house, our personal comfort levels in conforming to gender dictates - and those talks haven’t just been between us, we’ve obviously had to talk to everyone else involved. a lot of hard work, but well worth the investment

The whole post can be found here at Scribble Pad.

I’ve waited a while to read something like this, and in the midst of dealing with many appearance/future related demons in the last month (which I am just beginning to write about - and blog about), this was what I needed to put a tear in my eye and reignite my faith in what m. so rightly describes as the “happily and political ever after”.

I wrote the entire post - it took me two hours. I was so looking forward to putting it all up.

And then wordpress did not save the draft even though it said it had and it is lost forever. It was such a good post. It was such a well written post and it simply cannot be replicated. Nothing you’re about to read will be as good as what are now mere ashes floating in cyberspace.

It’s one of those days where this kind of thing makes me get so mad and then I just cry for 10 minutes and then it’s over.

So instead of finishing up my work at home this afternoon, I will be attempting to rewrite the post as well as trying not to mumble profanities while doing so.

I have spent nearly a month going back and forth between commenting on the New York Times article that was published regarding skin lightening creams in India. As a U.S. citizen and inhabitant of the First World/Global North, I find myself so weary of commenting on trends or situations of this kind that are taking place in the Global South/Third World/developing countries (from here on out I will be using the term developing countries). It’s very easy to get caught in the mindset that somehow, one’s education or upbringing or condition or geography grants the person some kind of right or privilege to decide what is best or appropriate for another community of people. It’s easy to get swept into the postmodern missionary system, where phrases like “helping” and “saving” become ways of further removing agency from those communities. Language is an important and influential thing. So I’m going to try very hard not to get caught up in deciding what is right or wrong about skin lightening in India, and focus on the argument that is being made about the companies that are making these creams. This is a complicated issue because it speaks volumes about the larger issues that are at play here - the media and advertising, sexism in the workplace, long histories of patriarchy, and globalization.

I will be referring to this article here - entitled “Telling India’s modern women they have power, even over their skin tone” - it is an archived article so I’m not sure if there will be full access to it. Maybe someone will find a link to the article on another website. For now I will be putting up small excerpts from the article in order to talk about a few things that I thought were a big problem.

“The modern Indian woman is independent, in charge — and does not have to live with her dark skin.

That is the message from a growing number of global cosmetics and skin care companies, which are expanding their product lines and advertising budgets in India to capitalize on growth in women’s disposable income. A common thread involves creams and soaps that are said to lighten skin tone. Often they are peddled with a ”power” message about taking charge or getting ahead.

Avon, L’Oréal, Ponds, Garnier, the Body Shop and Jolen are selling lightening products and all of them face stiff competition from a local giant, Fair and Lovely, a Unilever product that has dominated the market for decades.

Fair and Lovely, with packaging that shows a dark-skinned unhappy woman morphing into a light-skinned smiling one, once focused its advertising on the problems a dark-skinned woman might face finding romance. In a sign of the times, the company’s ads now show lighter skin conferring a different advantage: helping a woman land a job normally held by men, like announcer at cricket matches. ”Fair and Lovely: The Power of Beauty,” is the tagline on the company’s newest ad”

Fair and Lovely’s advertising has always been targeted to dark skinned and often working class women who should lighten their skin if they want that promotion, or a job, or respect, or a husband. You might YouTube some advertisements of the company - they often depict women who are shunned by some high power executive or modeling agency or studio run by Western-clothes-wearing-light-skinned-Indian folk. Then they go back to their homes and use the cream and transform into similar looking W.c.w.l.s.I.f and everyone is so taken aback at how good they look and then they look so happy and youthful now that they have new skin. The problem goes beyond the issue of telling women that they can obtain lighter skin and invoke more opportunities - the problem is that this company is reflecting companies and workplaces that do in fact discriminate against women who have darker skin, or are not from global cities like Bombay or Delhi. Before I go on, I will say that this is not an exclusive characteristic of developing countries - the U.S. still, albeit not necessarily as overtly, privileges certain women over others in the job market and in everyday situations and discriminate based on gender (how much do you look like a woman), color, race, age, sexuality and class (where did you go to school, what kind of education have you pursued, etc.). The advertising for products like Fair and Lovely (and for newer lightening creams made by L’oreal - called White Perfect - big sirens going off in my head about that) continues to enforce certain color and regional and class related prejudices in communities.

Here’s the thing that I really want to get into though.

“‘Half of the skin care market in India is fairness creams,” said Didier Villanueva, country manager for L’Oréal India, and 60 to 65 percent of Indian women use these products daily. L’Oréal entered this specific market four years ago with Garnier and L’Oréal products, but so far has a small market share, he said.

The idea of ”glowing fairness” has nothing to do with colonialism, or idealization of European looks, Mr. Villanueva said. ”It’s as old as India,” he said, and ”deeply rooted in the culture.”

There’s no denying that the notion of ”fairness,” as light skin is known in India, is heavily ingrained in the culture. Nearly all of Bollywood’s top actresses have quite pale skin, despite the range of skin tones in India’s population of more than a billion people.”

Fairness has nothing to do with colonialism or the idealization of European looks?? Oh Mr. Villanueva, what a silly man you are. Because what you should have reminded the large population of people who read the New York Times and use quotes from authentic Indians as facts about the entire Indian population is that while fairness, i.e. light skin, has indeed been privileged in Indian culture for years before British colonization, it doesn’t mean colonialism didn’t reinforce the power of white skin.

I remember extended family members always reminding me of the many things that can apparently make you dark - don’t be out in the sun too long. Don’t drink so much tea (did anybody get that one?) it will make your skin dark. I had the feeling that everything that young girls weren’t supposed to do was rooted to dark skin. Dark skin, at least for North Indian communities, meant you worked in the sun. Maybe you couldn’t afford servants. It meant you were poor or working class. But if anybody thinks that privileging white skin didn’t get reinforced by white folk coming to India and taking over the entire nation, then I’m going to go as far as to say maybe they’re in a bit of denial. Because with the white skin of Britain came whiteness and white privilege and those things become very tied together. So while fairness doesn’t have everything to do with colonialism or whiteness, it sure as hell as something to do with it.

I read some comments floating around the internet, and on the Sephora blog, that compares skin lightening in India to tanning in the U.S. This is a very interesting comparison to me, because from the outside it appears to be a valid one. But I’m going to argue that it isn’t and here’s why in a nutshell: when white people tan, they aren’t stripping themselves of any kind of white privilege that they have - I understand that there is a stigma about white people being considered “pasty and unattractive” but tanning does not strip white people from the privileges that they benefit from because of their race. In fact, tanning is a way of benefiting from the exotic-ness and trendy appeal that comes from dark skin without the racism and colorism that many if not most people of color face in their day to day lives. Lightening one’s skin strips brown folk of oppressions that they will encounter based on the way they look. Tanning is a luxury. Skin lightening is a process that is created out of the institutions that tell women (and men) that it is a product of survival. Big. Difference.

I’m going to end on this final reinforcement - this is a complex issue. Not because skin lightening creams are a big issue - education is an issue. Poverty is an issue. Patriarchy is an issue. And they are issues everywhere. Skin lightening creams, and that NY Times article, is an issue because it is a testament to these larger issues. It is a lens through which issues of race and color and gender need to be challenged and talked about. It is a portal through which whiteness and patriarchy and media can be discussed.

Now I am going to save this post in three different programs and proofread and publish it.

Crossposted at feministe 

It’s really difficult for me to write these days. I’ve just come back from a 3 day wedding - a wedding filled with firsts: the first Indian wedding (this was a North Indian wedding), the first family wedding I’ve attended (my cousin), and the first event where I have had to be around family, fully decked out in North Indian clothes and seen as an adult.

A lot of life is about performance, I’ve come to realize. It’s all about those little details that keep family from getting caught in arguments - what I refer to as “family politics” - a fake laugh, keeping your mouth shut when your elders tell you that you’ve gained weight, learning not to correct “art college” from “liberal arts college” when they attempt to belittle your choice in humanities. At a certain point, whether I intend to or not, I find my eyes move slightly down, my walk becomes a little slower and my voice is heard considerably less when I’m at family events (hereby referred to as “functions”). These things all come down to the gender roles that have been assigned to me through a variety of things - little comments that were made to me as a child by extended family, the media. And the particularities of these gender roles are dictated by my family’s culture.

I have a long history with battling culture. I was sitting at the henna-ceremony, looking around at the one of 40 women that had attended the event who was around my age. The first was 23. And married. Her hair was perfectly straight and her outfit was perfectly tailored and her husband was an attractive and wealthy South Asian man. She looked like an Indian Barbie doll. She looked domesticated and manicured and feminine - and to be honest, it doesn’t matter whether she is reading Sister Outsider under her covers with a flashlight while her husband is asleep or not. What matters is her performance - her ability to fit a model that is dictated by a culture that I cannot relate to.

My claim is this: I don’t know if I ever will feel connected to my identity as an Indian-American because of culture. Culture is not the thing that dictates my struggle for social justice. The reality is, the aspects of “Indianness” that make me feel like an Indian-American is the solidarity I share with other Indian-Americans regarding racism, sexism and homophobia in the community. It is often shared experience my family has with other South Asian families that immigrate to the United States. It is the brown color of my skin that I have grown to love that helps me to identify as Indian-American. It is my parents. My grandparents. My aunt.

There is more to say, but it will have to wait.

Cross-posted at Feministe

That said, I will be writing. My academic writing is my first priority these days and I don’t have to time to write papers and keep a blog consistently. I used to be able to before. But it seems I only have the capacity these days for one or the other.

I have however continue to read blogs daily and there are so many posts I always want to link to. Here are a few - not all are very recent, but they are all worth reading.

1. Bollywood and the Oscars. Ok there are two reasons why I love this post. One, I completely agree. India can never be allowed to submit “universal” films. It always has to be specific to Indianness or Indian culture (whatever that means). Two, I found out the author is a friend of one of my professors whom I respect a lot.

2. Tyra Tyra Tyra… Racialicious continues to be the blog I read most frequently (can you blame me? how can one resist the daily stories that appear about race in the media), and this post on Tyra Banks and her talk about body image are… I don’t know if I can find the words. Her sports illustrated cover makes her look even more stretched out than she does on the show. How many women of color do I know have the curves (or lack thereof) that she does? Yeah. Thought so.

3. Male privilege! Ah, Andrea, I’m so glad you continue to write for shrub.com - it makes me so happy. This is a great overview of how male privilege is seen in discussions about sexism, that comes down to the reality that being a pro-feminist man means stepping up.

4. ” Is it okay to work this damn much for the desire of trying to create change?” I’ve read this post so many times because I realized in the last week that I am probably going to go into academia and pursue a career as a professor. And there are too many questions and fears related to this question of work, and whether or not it is great work, and whether or not it is worth it, especially in thinking about “future things” such as children, and family (in fact so many questions, that this is what my next blog post is about). I really love the blog in general too, particularly the new look - it’s one of the few blogs that keeps me inspired to write!

Until next time.

My grandfather was recently diagnosed with being bi-polar. He is in his 70s, perhaps early 80s, and he was officially diagnosed in a clinic in Delhi about a year ago. I’m kind of unclear about it, because although my mother is fairly open about discussing mental health, she and my grandmother consistently worry about news that might affect my state at school (i.e. they don’t want me to worry). For the last 8-12 months (again, unclear to me), he has not spoken more than a couple of sentences at a time. Even when I went to visit, he really only spoke to me if I asked him a direct yes/no question. I can’t really get into how overwhelming it was to see a man who was part of my upbringing and realize that he was not as I remembered him. To realize that he was not how he wanted me to remember him. Being the traditional patriarch of the family, he has caused a lot of problems for his wife and daughters. But to me he still lingers in my mind as the man who taught me long division, let me pretend to cut his hair, and sang old Hindi movie songs while we walked to the mailbox.

My father is a very stoic man. He has always been very introverted - according to the bits and pieces of his childhood that I have collected from his in-laws, who were very close to his parents. He changed career paths about five years ago - hotel management to yoga instructor. All of his yoga students talk about how compassionate and sensitive my father is (my mother is considered a very “lucky woman“) - a few refer to him as “a man in touch with his feminine side”. He cooks, does the laundry, and has always had an attitude towards my mother that appears to be very liberal, progressive, and “unlike the average man”.

My father has never talked about his childhood. I’ve seen him cry three times. The first time was when I was very small, and we found out his older sister died of cancer. He loosened his tie while he sat in this chair in our apartment, put his hands in front of his face, and let out a sob that I can’t ever forget. The second time was when he left for New York for six months to work as a line chef at a holistic institute, in the time between his career change (I was about 12). The third time was when I left for college. When I think about my father, the things I hear about him, and the way that I know him, I only think of that first time I saw him cry. In a suit, failing to resist vulnerability. My father has a biting quiet temper (which appears at any time - my relationship with my father depends on my ability to consistently walk on eggshells) that is garnished by the context he grew up in: where man was patriarch, and where, at the end of the day, his wife still owes him something.

There have been five straight men in my life - three white and two men of color - who have at some point in our relationships or friendships - revealed the fears, failings, and vulnerabilities that were embedded inside them, amidst years of gender socialization. (Don’t cry. Be strong. Be a man. Don’t be weak. And never fail anyone ever.) Some of these conversations happened over a period of time, and developed because we were in a relationship, we had become close, and because I could not stand never knowing what was wrong. Other conversations were not conversations at all - they were ephemeral confessions that probably held more meaning to me that they did to them. I am not friends with the three white men anymore. The first joined the marines. The second I pushed away upon realizing the extent of our verbally abusive relationship. The third - we never were friends to begin with. Both men of color have stayed in my life, for very different circumstances that are irrelevant right now. All of them, at some point, have thanked me for being able to share something about themselves. Everytime that happens, I cry.

I cry because I’m angry that men continue to come to their token woman of color friend because they can’t explain why, but she listens the best. Because despite feeling greatful, they continue to disrespect and take advantage of me. Because they are afraid that their significant others will get to know this “side” of them.

But mostly it’s because I think of my father and my mother’s father. Men who are never going to open up. Because they can’t - for different reasons - but because they hear the voices in their heads that tell them to be men. To never talk about how they are doing. To never admit to themselves how they are doing. To never let people get too close to them. I cry because I have to accept that there are whole histories there that I might never get to hear about - because it’s not ok for them to talk about trauma and pain and the past.

And also I’m scared that I might become like that. Because it’s the only way to “make it in this world”.

I gave up on the Asian vs. South Asian post. I tried writing it so many times and then realized that 1) it makes me too mad to want to write about and 2) I don’t really have any conclusions about it. Since I think about it all the time, I don’t really want to blog about it.

Here’s what I do want to write about.

The Nice Guy. I’ll link here and here before moving on with my own additions and expansions of appearing to be and being a nice guy. Read them, reread them. Lovely things are being said.

I used to think I met a lot of nice guys (just a disclaimer: since I’m about to sarcastically and unforgivingly tear apart the myth of the nice guy, let me just say that i use the term to refer to straight men.). And you know what? I do. I meet nice guys all the time. They are polite, and they open the door for you and they don’t raise their voice or run away when you challenge their views. They are smart and have a good and unsexist sense of humor. They walk their drunk women friends back to their rooms on Saturday nights and don’t take advantage of them.

Ah nice guys. “He’s such a nice guy!”. I hear it all the time. And every time, I also hear the click of the bar being lowered a notch or two - the bar of “nice guy” standards.

Here’s what I’ve learned in the last year. Nice Guys - real nice guys (see links above) are not common. They are very rare. And one of the reasons why this can be hard to figure out is because nice guys often disguise themselves as Nice Guys. nice guys cover the basics - but when it comes to speaking up or owning up to one’s own privilege, that sheep outfit disappears to reveal the wolf of male-privilege.

They’re still speaking over women. They’re still reaping the benefits of being charming. They’re playing the nice guy card so that they can cruise on through life without being called out.

Is it a start? Yes. Is it awesome?

Nope.

Ah charming nice guys. Ever met a cng? Oh yea, they’re real interesting - they listen well and they don’t patronize you and they ask questions. But underneath it all they are still socialized the same way as the assholes.

It’s easier to think about when we talk about race, I think. Beverly Tatum talks about the moving walkway - and how we continue to think about this walkway in a binary. Some people walk in the direction of racism (active racists, individual racists) and others just stand there. The people standing there think they are resisting racism, because “I’m not racist! I have a black friend!” or other ridiculous white guilt/defensive comments. But really, as Tatum articulates, there is a third category, the group of people who are walking against the direction of the moving walkway, thus actively and consistantly challenging and resisting institutional racism. The passive people twiddling their thumbs towards racism are still benefiting from it.

In my experience, with gender, it seems more complicated, or more difficult to understand this. Actually, I retract that statement. It isn’t that it seems more difficult. It’s just the people that I spend time around are mostly people or color or actively anti-racist white people who understand their privilege. So, race seems to be an “easier” thing to grasp than gender. Oh but patriarchy and male privilege work the same way, don’t they. nice guys passively standing around on the moving walkway, handing gatorade to the women who are running against it. When there are so many passive standers, who can blame women for thinking that’s all there is? And to be honest, I don’t think that women think that’s all there is. It’s just who can wait around for something that exists in such rarity? There are other factors, other experiences, other situations, that make those standers seem like runners. And that’s ok, in a way. That’s something I can’t really argue with.

But for those of us who are in a place where we can constantly and actively run against patriarchy and sexism, and be outspoken activists about it, I think it’s more than necessary to knock a few nice guys down in order for them to realize where things are headed.

The thing I hate the most is nice guys who appear nice because they say nothing at all. They appear to be progressive because they don’t argue for or against anything. Everything’s fine and good and mediocre. Nothing lights their flame of anger and outrage because those nice guys can afford to warm their hands against other people’s fires when and how they want to. Women cannot afford to just stop. There’s no on and off switch for the people who do not benefit from privilege. But at the heart of it, that’s what privilege is, isn’t it? Being able to stop running against the grain whenever you get tired. We all do it, with our respective privileges. All we can hope to do is remember what it means for us to be able to rest and then start running again, next to the people who can never stop. And then hit a point where we can go from nice to Nice. yup.

I have this fond memory of being at the Embarcadero with a great friend - she made this joke about staying in touch with friends based on what they could do for you in the future. A friend to help with your accounts. A friend who can get you into publishing. A friend who paints. A friend who provides free childcare because they love babies so much. Etc.

I extend this joke into my personal mindset about friendship. Friendship is a pie-chart for me. Each “pie slice” is something that I look for in a friendship. Friendship qualifications, if you will. For example, the ability to listen well. To speak about privilege, power, marginalization, and everything in between, both academically and personally. To have shared/similar personal experiences. To be reliable and consistent. To respect themselves and me. To love sipping tea at midnight over long conversations. To love going out and laughing for hours. Etc.

There was a time where I secretly wanted every friend to cover the entire pie-chart. And this is not to say that my friendship standards have decreased - I think they have just become more realistic, as circumstances changed. Friends that I kept in touch with since middle school, for example, have not necessarily been able to handle my transition through college very well. We avoid talk of race, feminism, and class, at all costs. Or maybe only I do. I don’t quite know. At some point I came to a crossroads where I had to choose between pie slices: do I filter my rants about white privilege and patriarchy in order to maintain a friendship that I have had for almost a decade? Yes. For as long as I can without it becoming overwhelming and unfair, yes.

I arrived at another crossroads recently, in regards to the pie-chart-friendship-reevaluation. And it happened this fall, when I was forced to ask myself “Is it possible for me to be friends with and maintain friendships with men?”

The women in my life are strong support systems. Most of them are self identified women of color. They are friends, family members, co-workers, pseudo-sisters. They have seen me at my best and worst and have helped me feel the most protected when I feel incredibly unsafe.

But the men in my life…are few and far between. I wish I could say that I put in the effort to stay friends with the few men who are somewhat reliable, and do not write me off as a far-too-vocal-maneater, because they are wonderful people who care about me. And they are and they do. But the real reason I feel so attached to those few-and-far-between men is because the voice of socialization tells me that if I lose the men in my life…then the myths about the angry-brown-woman are true. The maneater cannot curb her appetite for anyone - she cannot reconcile her beliefs about patriarchy and gender and still have male friends.

I’ve been lucky to have found friends who cover multiple sections of the pie. And I’ve even been blessed to know someone who can fluidly move between all the sections. But perhaps the most important thing is that the pie-chart works for me. It enables me to be honest and loving while still knowing the limitations of each friendship. It keeps me from having expectations that cannot possibly be met and politely informs me of when someone has faded out of the chart altogether…be it because of circumstances or timing.

Perhaps one day I will write about the ground I may cover in other people’s charts.