Category Archive

Five days ago, a professor of mine, in a class that I am required to take, that is centered around 18th century European (read: white, male) philosophy, announced to the class that I had visited him during his office hours to let him know that I struggled to understand the course material (this was in an effort to meet with a new professor and discuss with him my feelings about his class - and people wonder why many women of color often resist asking for help).

This is a class in which I already feel insecure, due to my race, gender, and inability to relate to any of the material on a personal and political level.

How humiliating. I’ve written about insecurities in the classroom before, so I won’t reiterate. For those of you that don’t understand why this is problematic and hurtful, please do not contact me about this.

Lesson learned: the next time I visit a professor, I will ask for a verbal contract of confidentiality, even if it sounds ridiculous.

I stumbled across this today, a new show on CW Tv called “Crowned: the Mother of all Pageants” - I’m going to side-step the obvious annoyances I have with a mother-daughter pageant reality show (not even because they are obvious to me, more like it’s one in the morning, I should be writing a paper, so this post has to be short) and get straight to pointing out some things I noticed about the cast descriptions on the website. Get ready, because this is just amazing - and by amazing I mean I want to laugh and cry and scream at the same time.

1. Ada and Christian: white mother who has a daughter of color; the tagline under their names is “Hot & Not.” There is simply no way to justify this title.

2. Angela and Tenia: black mother and daughter team whose tag is “Skin Deep” even though neither of them mentions the relationship they have with one another, or their race or ethnic identity of any kind. What does “skin deep” even mean here?

3. Annette and Alana: another mother/daughter of color pair and lo and behold their title is “Silent but Deadly.” I like to refrain from cursing in blog posts but seriously: what the —-.

What I really don’t need right now is another reality show that is telling me that women of color cannot be “dream gals” or “sassy sisters” or “tomboy queens” (these are some of the other taglines of castmembers - not without their problems, but that isn’t my point here) - instead the threat they place on their competitors has to be indirectly or directly refer to their category as a racialized Other. None of the titles talk about their attitude or personality, and two of the phrases involve some sort of negative comparison - they’re silent, but also deadly! Watch out bombshell blondes, they’re coming after you.

And seriously, someone explain to me what “skin deep” means.

I really dislike:

when students talk about immigration as if there were no first or second generation students in the classroom.

when people use statistics to negate experiences about my life and my family

when people say “culturally insensitive” when they mean “racist” or “xenophobic”

when (white) students start off a sentence with something like “My friend went to Africa….” in order to support a problematic claim

that people question or become annoyed with women if they seem upset or serious or grumpy but they don’t question men and hell, that strong silent type is really attractive

white student activists who think it’s harder to be an ally to people of color than a person of color on campus (that’s a whole separate entry for another time)

I’m tired and my suffocation on campus is getting so strong that it’s cutting off my ability to blog. So I’ll be back in a couple of weeks, after exams and final papers have subsided.  It makes me angry that I feel so resistant to writing but I just have to accept it and come back when things get better.

Happy end-of-November.

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’ve been meaning to write a post on this show for a while now.

I have seen pretty much every promotional video about this show and I’m attaching the one that sends the clearest message regarding the plot-line of the show:

When I saw this video, I actually thought it was a skit from a late night comedy show. Turns out, it is the real deal, folks. This is a show about a white middle America family with a young awkward teenage boy whose mother tries to get him a friend by signing up for an exchange student. Turns out, the exchange student is a Muslim Pakistani boy, who follows every ridiculous stereotype for South Asian men who are “fresh off the boat” - this clothes, his naive enthusiasm and wonderment for the United States, his lack of social cues, etc. The thing that struck me the most though, is his thick accent. It sounds fake, it sounds contrived. It sounds like the makings of some racist television.

I have a feeling that the show is supposed to be a clever commentary on the xenophobia that plagues many predominantly white communities and families. The scene in the classroom for instance when the teacher says something like “Raja, in this country we raise our hands when we want to talk” then proceeds to ask if people are angry at him because “his people blew up the towers”. This is the only scene that appears in any way redeemable to me.

But this is the problem I really have with this show.

People, as a general rule, who watch mainstream television, are not that smart.

They don’t necessarily have a critical eye for the nuances of racial and political commentary. So when a character like Raja shows up, there aren’t going to be a whole lot of people who look at him as a smart and possibly witty caricature of how America perceives Muslim people. Instead, they are going to proceed to think that all Muslim people are awkward outcasts, that they all have really thick accents (think Apu from the Simpsons) and the boys are emasculated by their “foreign” values and cultural or religious practices. This is the kind of show that perpetuates stereotypes.

I guess the argument would be that it is a show about coming together despite differences. Two boys who are social outcasts from their big bad high school, can come together over food and religion and music. They can both feel like Aliens in America together.

This is some big, bad bullshit to me. This show is falling into the myth of the melting pot - we can all come together and overlook, even erase our differences and be happy living and working together. If we focus on our similarities, then our histories of institutional racism and sexism and homophobia will melt away. Enter the color blind zone. Of course, what’s even more complicated about this show is it isn’t advocating for color blindness so much as nation-blindness. “People are awkward in America, too. White kids are dealing with bullies and socially uncomfortable situations here, just like when a person of color visiting from another country comes to the United States” - This is such a problem, I’m having trouble stating why exactly it is. It just seems so obvious to me.

I’m going to say one last thing about this which is that I think it’s easy to focus on individual conflict and circumstance and ignore the larger framework that the circumstance is taking place in - what an endearing plot, to meet someone who understands what it’s like to be an outsider. I can only imagine what kind of lessons Raja is going to teach his host family and host brother, through his exotic culture and religion.

Also, it’s 2007. I really think it’s time to stop using cliched “ethnic music” whenever a brown person appears on screen.

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..

It’s 2007 and I’m an adult that is not only exploring the possibilities of public policy, but is also continuing to ask myself what it means to be a progressive and socially-conscious individual; so it’s no surprise that I’ve spent the summer slowly trying to peek my head into the world of politics. By this I mean, keeping up with debates, reading publications such as Mother Jones, and wikipedia-ing as much as I can about free trade and straw polls, school vouchers and civil unions. Educating myself about politics, as it turns out, is tricky. I tried watching the news on television and couldn’t seem to do it - my brain spends so much time teasing out the imperialist and Euro-centric agenda of broadcasts that I can’t seem to concentrate on names and events. I started listening to podcasts - that was helpful, because now I have access to BBC broadcasts and NPR broadcasts whenever I want, for free. And I’m still developing a bookmarked folder of politics publications.

When Bush was elected in 2004 for a second term, I was still an underclassman in college. I teared up and hibernated for the weekend at the thought of the POTUS remaining the same, and therefore, U.S. foreign policy and agendas staying the same. Now as the next election rolls around, I find myself wanting to really look at the media coverage and debates surrounding the candidates - probably because there have only been two families in office for the majority of my life. That scares me.

Over the summer, I’ve been working as a research assistant and have had the chance to read a substantial amount of feminist theory and literary theory related to American Studies. This is a field I was never particularly interested in - but after 10 weeks of reading hundreds of essays and writing hundreds of abstracts, I’ve realized more than a few interesting things.

The thing I want to share here is this: While I have tried to acknowledge my citizenship privilege in my day to day life (these privileges include being able to travel abroad without complications, applying for scholarships and financial aid, etc.), I still have an us-vs.-them mentality when it comes to the decisions made by Congress, the House of Representatives and Mr. POTUS himself. In college, there are always general comments made about the government: “Look what they’re doing, they’ve started this war, they’ve continued the war, they’re trying to ’save’ oppressed people abroad, they’re not helping public education” and on and on. When do I begin to really own up to the reality that as a citizen, and as someone born and raised in the United States, I’m carrying the burden of my country’s actions and decisions on my shoulders as well.

When we talk about institutional vs. individual racism, we learn to rethink the mentality of “Oh, I’m not racist. Other people are racist” - we learn instead, to think about whiteness and white privilege and about what it means to be benefiting from an institution that helps certain people over others.

There is a parallel here and it is the fact that it’s easy to get caught up in claiming that as a progressive liberal, as a Democrat, as someone who didn’t vote for the individuals who are appointed to govern the nation, that there is no blood on our hands. It’s easy to just feel sorry or guilty about it and then move on - because we can move on, because we can put everything on conservatives or the GOP (My reference to political parties should not suggest that our beliefs also fall along a similar binary - I merely mentioned the Dem. Party and GOP because they are labels that often get used in the us-vs.-them debate).

I guess what I’m saying is that for those of us who are not already, for those of us who are U.S. citizens and have citizenship privilege, we are responsible and all need to continue engaging ourselves in issues of national and local and foreign policy; we need to read feminist and antiracist materials that look critically at nationalism and imperialism and colonialism and globalization and the War on Terror; we need to get past feeling sorry and guilty and, as Audre Lorde urges so well, do our work.

I might try to rewrite this post soon - these are thoughts that have been swimming around me since 2001 and it’s the first time I’ve tried to ‘pen’ them down.

In the last month, I have:

1. figured out that I don’t want to get my phd in English. Right now at least. I don’t want to be a professor and pursue a life in academia - not because I think I couldn’t do it, but because right now I feel there are other things I could do that I might love just as much; not because I think it would be too hard, but because there are certain sacrifices I don’t feel I would be willing to make. There are other careers, other jobs, other opportunities, that I want to pursue. Getting a master’s in Public Policy, for instance..

2. Found that public policy is something I could really enjoy. I still have yet to figure out in what capacity - but in the last three years I’ve done a lot of student organizing and mentoring and managerial work and I’ve come to realize that I really enjoy those things. I really love writing and editing and researching - so maybe my road to finding a working life that I would enjoy means finding internships for publications I admire, programs I encourage, organizations that need help. Then in the future, maybe I will go to graduate school. I’m ready to find work opportunities that work for me.

3. Realized that I don’t want to study abroad after I graduate. It isn’t for me. I feel fine about that. There is other work that I want to do that I feel more excited about.

4. had to come to terms with the fact that every time something wonderful like this comes along (nominate someone you know!), there is going to be something horrible and offensive like this that more people know about - for every semi-forward step that is taken by large companies to attempt to do some good and allow the public easy access to “social change,” there is something that makes me want to vomit because it is too ironic and too unbelievable and appropriating.

5. Had to accept that the blog posts are just going to be slow from now on. There are times I want to write, but I am too tired, times I want to yell and scream but too flustered to type. Some of the reasons are excuses and some of the reasons are just things that happen in life that force you to re prioritize sleep and well-being and academics over writing. Rest assured the posts will continue, and rest assured they are going to get back into commentary about the elections and the United States and about the news and the media.

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 

I’ve been doing well for the most part - busy but well. Doing work, but doing good work. Attempting to start many posts only to have them as saved drafts that linger on the top of my wordpress write-post page.

Then yesterday I was thrown off of my steady course. I had applied, about a month ago, for grant money to do research for my thesis - it was a considerable sum of money that I would get in exchange for doing research on food as a metaphor for diaspora identity, gender, etc. in contemporary South Asian literature. This is a topic I’m interested in, that I’m passionate about, and that I think is unique in comparison to many of the English proposals that are put in.

My proposal was rejected. I received a very diplomatic response that told me my proposal was interesting but not refined enough, that there were many applications received, and that I should take an independent study course over the summer.

Dear grant committee

While I understand that there may be many reasons why you did not select me as a recipient of grant money, please do not suggest that I take an independent study course over the summer. Your grant gave me money to do the research I wanted to do because I cannot afford to do it over the summer without being paid. You have suggested I take and i.s. course, which is something I would have to pay for. Instead of paying me to do this work, you want me to pay to do it. Sorry that I am not part of the wealthy elite that roam the hallowed halls of this institution - I would say that you couldn’t be expected to take class into consideration, but I’m going to refrain from making such claims, because the institution has one of the largest endowments in the country.

Furthermore, I noticed that a lot of the grants go to science majors. This is perfectly understandable, but also reminds me that you don’t think humanities work can be considered research. Though I did hear an example of a white man who received a grant for studying African-American business in New England. Does it seem less legitimate to give money to a south asian woman wanting to research South Asian postcolonial literature? This is the second year in a row you have rejected my proposal, so I’m inclined to be a little irrational. Now you put me in the position to ask myself where I can find a job this summer that pays me the money you pay to do work that will help me get into graduate school.

To top it all off, you will probably be sending me another rejection letter on Monday regarding another research proposal - perhaps next year when you come across students like me, you can put both rejections in one email so they can get past their insecurities and frustrations about being dependent on money sooner.

Thank you for your time,

-obw.

Now I am desperately looking for some sort of paid internship - which is difficult, and far more difficult than it should be considering the college is supposed to have amazing career resources. Turns out resources means business and finance. Turns out the college does not provide a stipend for unpaid nonprofit summer internships.

Of course, the thing that upsets me the most - along with the money issue - is that this experience makes me doubt the work that I’m doing. I keep asking myself - is postcolonial studies and doing work in south asian literature and in food and in colonial hospitality in victorian literature really valid? Maybe this isn’t work I should be doing. Maybe there are just people who are better thinkers, better writers, who are doing this work and I should stick to something else. I’m pretty confident that that isn’t true, but I hate doubting myself.

Rejection is a difficult thing - and the experience is helping me gain the thick skin I know I need if I want to be in graduate school and/or in academia in the future - but it feels….awful.

I guess I’m just in a mood where seeing this annoys me to no end. Leave it to a commercial to be the thing that encourages me to blog instead of writing a midterm paper.

Here is the first iphone advertisement which came out on Oscar night:

This is what I think while watching this video.

1. Hey look, one token person of color in a sea of white people saying “hello”

2. I bet the iphone is just for white people - and since it is so expensive, I guess it makes sense to advertise to the majority of people who are rich.

3. It’s so annoying that there were probably not enough clips of people of color saying “hello” in film/television (unless it was with some artificially thick accent, or in another language) to put into a 30 second commercial. Not only do I get to remind myself that iphone wasn’t made for “people like me”, I also get to be reminded that no one “like me” makes up even a fraction of what I see in television and film.

4. If they did put people of color in the commercial, I would probably be annoyed by the fact that they used token people of color in their advertising because it would be cheap diversity sell-out tactic. And I would probably be angry about the films/television shows the clips were taken from.

5. I can’t get over the “history of american cinema saying hello” tactic as my reminder that people of color can never really be American, especially not an American “classic” (unless they are racistly portrayed of course).

6. I hate the media. And I hate how easily aggravated I get by the media.

Sometimes I feel like I can never win. And sometimes I feel like neither can the media.

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.

Over thanksgiving, I had the opportunity to watch way too much television. I’m in the middle of an episode when I caught a commercial for Crayola - one of their “use your imagination” advertisements that is supposed to be very sentimental and endearing, possibly nostalgic.Well this commercial was a little bit more than all of that - let me try to describe it as best as I can. I wasn’t able to find a copy of the commercial online, but maybe someone will and can add the link - because it really should be seen.

Young white girl is drawing - she draws a lion. The lion jumps off the page and the girl is transported into a jungle - trees, elephants, and other animals (all animated to look like they are made of cutout paper or markers, etc.). The ywg is riding an elephant and is now wearing a purple and pink outfit that can only be described as a cross between Princess Jasmine’s clothes and a problematic halloween costume. (Strike one)

She turns around to wave a young white boy - who is also drawing. He’s dressed in (deep breath) and outfit that strongly resembles a British colonial officer’s clothes.

Actually he looks just like those little miniatures above - sans gun/facial hair. (Strike two)

And just when you believe that it’s over - the boy removes what he’s been drawing off the paper - turns out it’s a bridge - and places it in the jungle, over a waterfall. I’m pretty sure there are little stick figures walking across after he puts it up. (Oh yes. Definitely strike three.)

I just don’t understand the thought process involved when this commercial was being produced. Someone thought “I want to encourage children to use their imagination - so I’ll put them in a jungle dressed as colonizers and appropriaters and have the women explore culture while the men build bridges and show the natives how it’s done”?

They thought “in our post 9-11 world, the historical nostalgia we want to bring up and echo is one of colonization, of remembering that our place is to help the less fortunate. the earlier we begin to imagine this, the better”?

Oh wait. They didn’t think.

I understand, it’s one advertisement. But - it’s always one advertisement, one statement, one instance - until these instances and moments become the instituional norm, the foundation that our foreign (and domestic) policy begins to echo, and continues to perpetuate.

I wish I could be more articulate about how frustrated I was about the depiction of the White West exploiting the Other. But I can’t right now. Rest assured, I will be writing about this again.