“He was suddenly overcome by an uncontrollable desire to leave everything here and go away once without even saying goodbye to anyone. He had a feeling that if he stayed here even a few days longer, he would irrevocably be drawn into this world, and that this world would become his world henceforward. But he did not debate the question with himself even for as long as 10 minutes, he decided at once that to run away was “impossible,” that it would be almost cowardice, that he was faced with such problems that now he had not right not to solve them, at best not to do all he could to solve them.” — The Idiot
Disclaimer
I felt a little masturabatory and without cause, when I started writing about my experiences with race in Bellingham. Well trained by the university that one must never write in first person, and never express anything without intellectual support, I wondered if I was being a bit haphazard. Though I feel sheepish in pulling from my studies of post-colonialism and ideas on feminism, I have come to the conclusion that it is okay to link my ideas with those of smarter people, and that these connections aren’t vapid or too self- absorbed. It shows a, granted, clumsy attempt at bridging theory and practice.
This zine does not offer a “solution” to my feelings about the inadequacy of discussions of race and consciousness in our town. Literary critic Gayatri Spivak, in her studies of constituency, post-colonialism and feminism is interested in the “radical interruption of practice by theory, and of theory by practice and to an extent the inability to produce a quick answer is because it’s a genuine interruption.” She calls it a discontinuity. I think discontinuity is a good start. Bell Hooks writes that, “Groups of women who feel excluded from feminist discourse can make a place for themselves only if they first create, via critiques, an awareness of the factors that alienate them.”
With that in mind, I write this in an attempt to cultivate a space for my thoughts outside of a university setting. As a result of a somewhat “academic” upbringing, I cannot escape certain essentialist points of view steeped in sophomoric academia (see previous sentence for example). Still, I hope to blend my real experiences/interrupt my leanings towards theory with genuine examples of practice. I think cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard is slightly pessimistic, but not far from the truth, when he says that “You’re forced to admit to yourself that everything radical you can do or say in this society will only ever be the radicality of this corrupt society. You’ll never have any other truth to tell than that which concerns this society at a given moment.” I wouldn’t be so grandiose as to assume that my truths easily fit anyone else’s, but this is the point of a zine: a selfish platform for one’s thoughts to be aired somewhat publicly.
This is a deconstruction of some sort, an analysis of radical awareness in Bellingham. Spivak believes that deconstruction is important in that “it is interested in the ‘strategic exclusions’” created by narratives of history that “always [secure] a certain kind of subject position which is predicated on marginalizing certain areas.” Still, she cautions against lauding deconstruction too much. Jacques Derrida suggests that deconstruction in the long run will encounter the same problems as empiricism, distinguished only by that one trick which is a certain version of awareness.” This zine is a version of my awareness.
THEORY SHIT INTERLUDE
In her essay “Rights and the Politics of Performativity,” Karen Zivi discusses Judith Butler’s views on language and the performance of gender identity. She writes, “Butler suggests that we are not sovereign subjects who use language as a tool, but rather, we are beings who come into existence through language and one of the things that we do through language is create rather than simply describe our personhood.” Zivi continues, “The point here is that gender performance or acting in accordance with any other kind of hailing is not purely voluntary.” Much has been written about the limitations and constraints of language on women. The discussion of the masculinization of language has often been considered ridiculous by mainstream society- an example of the ludicrousness of those crazy feminists who want to spell women with a y. However defensive one may get about the gendered quality of language- I do believe that language shapes and guides. ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,’ is bullshit. Monique Wittig’s idea that “Language casts sheaves of reality upon the social body, stamping it and violently shaping it” definitely has merit. I am reluctant to believe that I am so determined by language- but the way I am often addressed in public by strangers certainly does signify something about the way I am reflected to others. Michel Foucault, in his book Discipline and Punish writes about “disciplinary regimes” or “mechanisms.” These discourses sanction norms that society is pressured to follow, in order to ensure obedience and functioning of structures. Judith Butler borrows from him, as well as other theorists, in her ideas that one’s identity is shaped by the community that surrounds them. You become recognizable in certain structured ways.
Jacques Lacan writes that the subject is constituted through language. The question that intrigues me is one’s sense of identity in connection to the perception others have of them. In everyday discourse that inadvertently tokanizes, how does one find agency?
Caucasianham/The Potential for Radical Growth
According to the 2000 census, 87 percent of the general population in Bellingham is white. This is six percent higher than in Washington State as a whole.
Discussing race in DIY communities is essential if the community wishes to find unity and strength. It is important to acknowledge that not everyone comes from the same class, race, sexuality or privilege. It is perhaps easy for liberal groups to admit that racism is entrenched in institutions like the police, or even in university settings. While it may also be easy to state that one’s community is predominantly, uncomfortably white, it is imperative that this conversation goes further. Even in feminist communities the admission of the exclusivity of the scene often ends too soon. The subject is always abandoned with uncomfortable looks and a final, helpless, “But we just don’t know how to address it!”
Perhaps the lexis needs to change. To “address” something presumes that a solution is obvious, and that there is a level of knowledge and expertise. I suggest “consideration.” Consideration connotes reflection and thoughtfulness, but does not presume manifestations of any kind. On the other hand, one can momentarily consider something, and move on. I want more than that. So I guess I would settle for healthy discussion.
In the 1960s, the collegiate social activist group, Students for a Democratic Society, were passionate in their drive to eradicate racism, but their attempts at activism were flawed. While well meaning, the white, mostly middle- and upper-class college students refused to examine their own racism in their determination to “help” other communities. The Black Panther Party frequently critiqued the SDS, insisting that the students needed to critically assess racism in their own communities before attempting to help others. This was radical, and it is something worth thinking about in our own DIY communities where many people are reluctant to dive into race issues, having never felt the effects or exclusions of racism for themselves. talk about the assumptions of punk communities being politically aware
Discovering community in Bellingham has made me feel lucky. My group of lady friends are fiercely intelligent, kind and radical in their dreams to transform our spheres of existence. I am honored to know them. No Bra Time, Ladyfest and Girl Noise are spaces where I have developed the capacity to learn more about myself and challenge purveying notions that I need to dismantle from my patterns of thought. It is extremely gratifying to find a niche that seems to fit you well. When you find a community that meshes with a lot of your values and interests, it is startling when you realize that there still is a gap, a wedge that divides you from them. As an Indian American girl living in the Northwest, I am always the minority. This is something I have not paid much heed to during my life. I don’t feel that foreign. I was adopted when I was a baby, so I guess I am pretty much “all-American,” whatever that means. I have been lucky to have parents who were always supportive and are currently putting me through college. My positive blending experience is why lately I have been surprised at my feelings of disconnect.
At one No Bra Time, we were talking about the exclusivity in DIY scenes. One girl brought up the idea that perhaps it is radical to diverge from the typical college kid path. The underlying tone being that we were not typical college students who waste their youth on beer pong and clubbing. We were better than that! Hella punk to the max. If the people in the group all come from a certain class/background- is it still radical? We emulate waves and waves of middle-class white kids’ and the products of their liberal arts schooling and upbringing.
My friends and I played a show at a music festival in Anacortes, at a venue called the Department of Safety a while ago. I’ve been to the DOS numerous times and I like Anacortes; it’s a hotbed of a lot of talent. Despite my deep appreciation and respect, I felt out of place at the festival. I question why I felt so foreign and awkward in such a safe, positive space. Maybe that was part of the problem- it was so safe. So uniform. A big enclave of alternative WASP culture. That sounds unduly harsh. I am well aware of the comforts and sensibilities of niches in and out of cultural communities. We choose to surround ourselves with people who share the same values and similarities. Sometimes I question the validity of my feeling out of place. Is it really the lack of local color that has been bothering me lately? After all, as I noted before, I am roughly of the same economic/educational background as my peers. Should race matter? I know it matters and deeply affects positive and negative outcomes for others, but how about me? If you have the same music tastes, art aesthetics and political values in common, does race really have any bearing? I know it shouldn’t, but I can’t help but feel that it does, and that it is being ignored. And that is the problem. The pretense of total similarity. The comforts of an enclave.
I think what is troublesome is the lack of perspective on race in our community. Yes, we talk about it in a theoretical way, behind the walls of our university lives, yes we can acknowledge that Second Wave feminism was tinged by racist ideologies- but what about our contemporary lives? Where is our modern conscious raising on racism and intellectuality? At No Bra Time, I brought up some of my musings about Anacortes. I was disappointed by the lack of response. One of the ladies agreed that there is a lack of discussion on race. “I know these conversations,” she said. “And these conversations aren’t happening.” That was about the extent of the conversation- and then we moved on to a discussion of the theory of body image, a conversation that everyone had energy and no reservations about taking part in. I was hesitant about bringing anything up after that. I realize that perhaps these ideas may not seem relevant to a group of nearly all white kids. Important, obviously, but not relevant in an everyday way, as body image is. But still. We can acknowledge the lack of diversified thinking in our “radical” subculture, but that’s all?
At the 2009 Take Back the Night rally at WWU, the creator of the Bamboo Girl Zine, Sabrina Margarita touched on her frustrations of being a girl of color during the riot grrl movement. While it was easy to break down gender and sexual barriers with other women, there was no discussion of class or race. It’s hard to talk about something as complicated and sensitive as racial politics. That’s not a good excuse, though. Bellingham has been important to me for many reasons. My lady friends and I have gone through the process of discovering our voices, and reclaiming ideas that have been dormant, or silenced for far too long. We struggled with discussing and dealing with horrible events of sexual assault. How does one construct language to express something as sensitive and political as rape? (I am not at all trying to compare rape and racial politics, I am simply trying to illustrate the fact that my group of peers have been able to tackle a complicated topic together, despite having no guidelines or rules of engagement.) How do you express something so raw and unequal? We supported each other by reminding ourselves that what we were mapping out was something we had no experience in. School certainly never teaches us the social tools we need to wade through life more peacefully.
Discussing race needs to happen. Bell Hooks writes that, “We resist hegemonic dominance of feminist thought by insisting that it is a theory in the making, that we must necessarily criticize, question, re-examine, and explore new possibilities.” I don’t want to be stuck in the mid 70s mentality, still self congratulatory about our radical conscious raising groups and DIY women’s health teachings, but still oppressively silent on any topic beyond the second wave, privileged white feminist rhetoric.
THE RACIALIZED BODY
Although I do not believe that I am a passively mute person without any control over my own self-image, I believe that to a certain degree I am tokenized and Essentialized as a young, ethnic looking woman in a liberal, predominately white town with a fair amount of white guilt.
Working as a cashier at a grocery store, customer service is the number one priority. The job requires attentiveness, subservience and smiling no matter what. There is an obvious unequal power equation between the customer and retailer. The cashier is physically and intellectually restrained in their relationship with the customer. The customer is always right, they are free to move on from the thirty second conversation with the cashier. However, the latter party must stay behind the cash register. This may seem like a dramatic analysis of normal interactions in consumerism, especially as power dynamics are unavoidable and everywhere. However, it is interesting to think about these interactions when you consider race. Radhika Mohanram in her discussion of race, writes “First whiteness has the ability to move; second, the ability to move results in the unmarking of the body. In contrast, blackness is signified through a marking and is always static and immobilizing.”
At the franchise discount grocery store, I stand at a register eight hours a day with a perky nametag and a smile perched precariously on my lips. I have always hated wearing a name tag, but never really knew why. I think it is because of the constant butchering of my name when people attempt to be personable and address me. I also am creeped out that random people address me in public and presume to know me. Small talk is easy. The weather, the affirmation of an item the customer buys…. My friend Steve who works the door of a bar for concerts, likens it to speed dating. A whirlwind of different people, and a few short minutes of sizing each other up and trying to say something out of the ordinary and witty.
Countless times during the day, I am asked about my ethnicity.
The light that goes on in people’s eyes when I say that I am Indian in forced conversation. I see can almost see the, “Ahh! I’ve placed her,” pop up in a cartoon thought bubble by people’s heads and it inspires my curiosity about norms that shape us. The questioning of my race is almost never meant in a mean-spirited way, so I am not sure why I am so disquieted by constantly saying, “I’m Indian.” Perhaps I just feel minimized by my ethnic origins that by no means sums up my identity. I am adopted from India, came to the states when I was five months old, and therefore really only have a biological connection to India.
One day at work, I was ringing up groceries for an older white woman. “I love coming to your line,” she exclaimed. I was touched, happy that my people skills effective in my work. She then continued, “I am so happy a person of color works here!” Perhaps this is an attempt at bonding and conversation. Despite no trace of an accent, and visible markers of existing as an obviously Americanized woman (I have a tattoo, carry myself in a way that betrays me as an American young person, and wear clothes that exemplify a certain subculture in the US) I was once mistaken for a recent arrival. A man who had come through my line before (we had talked about my ethnicity – he had been to India) asked me this time if I was Punjabi. I told him that I was actually from Calcutta, and he then remembered our past conversations. On his way out the door, he cheerfully called out to me that he hoped I enjoyed America and liked “our way of life here.”
The “Where are you from” Question
I hesitate in using the word “Racism.” It seems too strong of a word in relationship to my experiences. In her book, The Racial Middle, sociologist Eileen O’Brien discusses non-black minorities’ experiences with discrimination: “The most recurring experiences of discrimination fall into categories more unique to non black minorities in society. When reflecting on negative experiences associated with their racial-ethnic background, respondents most often discussed standing out because of the way they look (being asked, “Where are you from?” Or worse yet, “What are you?”), and facing assumptions of foreignness, particularly having their integration status or their ability to speak English questioned.” “Where are you from” is something a person would never ask of someone who appeared white. O’Brien cites a study that took place in a technical school where graduates discussed their experiences in blue-collar jobs. “[The woman who conducted the interviews] discovered that black students unanimously described their teachers as positive and supportive, while these same teachers were giving all kinds of boosts and job opportunities to their white students, unbeknownst to their black peers.” O’Brien contrasts this with the frequent experience of Latinos and Asian Americans who are unaware of the meanings behind the “where are you from” question. This friendly person has never asked folks that appear white this same question. The racist hoop they are being asked to jump through is a “friendly” obstacle reserved only for them and those who share their not-black-but-not-white appearance.”
I reference this not to try to evoke sympathy or suggest that I am bombarded by the racism of “friendly white folks” 24/7, but to suggest that seemingly innocuous statements often have connotations that are contrary to the speaker’s surface perceptions.
I don’t mean to imply that unconscious stigmatizing of the racial Other is something that one can only experience in places outside of peers and community. Too often I feel like it is easier to be critical of . When I share my experiences from working at a grocery store and dealing with customers, a typical response is, “Well, you do get a lot of low-income people, don’t you?” implying that ignorance is coupled with poverty and therefore, low education and intelligence.
While I don’t deny that the more education one has the more one is able to be receptive to new ideas and experiences,I feel like intellectualism easily masques racism under the rationalizations of academia. “We’re not being racist! We’re having a discussion!” There is also plain ignorance justified by the fact that one has never experienced a certain type of discrimination. This is magnified in 101 college classes all over the county when someone defiantly denies that racism existed in their high school, or that asserts that “blacks were treated just the same as us!” I am often bothered by “academic” discussions of race. While it’s an important and often eye-opening discussion to have in classrooms when it is predominately a middle-upper class white setting, it becomes much too theoretical for me when conversation is cloaked with Othering phrases that divide more than they unite. More often than not, the one or two students of color are put in a position of tokenized discomfort.
Spivak in one interview discussed her presence in conferences and interviews. “These days, I am constantly invited to things so that I will present the third world point of view. When you are perceived as a token, you are also silenced in a certain way. Because, as you say, if you have been brought there, it has been covered, they needn’t worry about it anymore, you salve their conscience.”
Spivak writes about guilt and responsibility. This is about responsibility in our community.”Guilt is intrinsic to responsibility because one is never responsible enough. The real issue, then, for ethical judgment, is not the cultivation of a beautiful soul, rather the task is to develop a strategy of response.A kind that will hold open the future to the other who is not the same.”
I like what Zizek says in summarizing Badiou’s, “mieux vaut un disastre qu’un desestre- “better a disaster of fidelity to the Event than a non-being of indifference towards the Event.” Granted, he is discussing the collapse of the communist regime, but I think it is appropriate in furthering discussion in radical communities. Zizek loves quoting Samuel Beckett. He paraphrases, “After one fails, one can go and fail better, while indifference drowns us deeper and deeper in the morass of imbecile being.” We will fail, but it is better than being indifferent.
Spivak is often critiqued by native Indian theorists for discussing Indian identity, when she is not a “native intellectual” meaning that she does not live in India, and participates in Western intellectualism. She was educated in America and taught there well before she ever lectured in India. In one interview discussing her experiences she says, “Yes, I’d never taught in India and I discovered a lot of things. Before I went, I’d chanced upon a book by a white US male, “Mortal Questions” by Thomas Nagel. It said something which really gave me a kind of understanding about what was happening to me in India, after the event. Talking about his feelings during the Vietnam years, he writes “citizenship is a difficult burden- especially for those of us who are not very patriotic.’ You see? I am an unpatriotic citizen of India.” I relate to this interview, because while I am absolutely a woman from India- something exotic in itself, I feel that I hold none of the claims to multiculturalism, in that I don’t speak anything but English, and I have grown up in a thoroughly American household. Still, the presumptions about me abound. I am constantly explaining that I don’t know any Hindi- that I am adopted, and my parents are white. Sometimes I get patronizing compliments furthering me as an other, exotic and diminutive to white Americans. “Oh, you are so lucky that your parents adopted you! Imagine what life would be like in India! I’ve learned to just thinly smile.
Regardless of India’s real social and economics standing, the country holds a mythic place in people’s minds. America is a benevolent empire, while India is a far away, exotic third world country beholden to first world nations. Spivak, writing about conceptions of the”Third World” says that the idea of the “third world as a monolithic entity… actually reflects the site of desire for people in the first world to have a manageable other.”
Perhaps seeing me, a ‘foreigner,’ a physical representation of Otherness, successfully integrated into American culture, I serve as a source of comfort to some white Americans. My success in America proves the power and dominance of the USA in ‘helping out the poor third world citizens.’ Whether or not I am fully Americanized and only exotic in my skin color is irrelevant. I was once complimented on my “accent.” Mistaking my confused expression, for one of embarrassment, the man congenially laughed and airily said, “But then, I guess we [presumably meaning white people born in America] all kind of have accents though, huh?” I didn’t quite know what to say. The man signed the credit card receipt and warmly assured me that ‘I was doing a great job!’ Congratulations you little foreigner- you are assimilating well.
It’s easier to make sophisticated, sharp critiques rather than intelligent, applicable solutions. It is in an attempt to find security and comfort in a sense of identity that I egotistically and passively entreat others to behave in certain ways through writing. Obviously perceptions don’t necessarily connote truth. Just as I felt out of place at the festival in Anacortes and questioned the sincerity of the scene, I was equally guilty of marginalizing the creativity and kindness of the kids by casting them in my “indie WASP” alternative stereotype. The truth is that we feel power in being able to judge and categorize others. If not power, at least confidence and comfort. Feeling out of place in Anacortes, my feelings of otherness were genuine but I didn’t attempt to change my surroundings and agency.
I don’t really know the solution to my community’s lack of discussion over race. Zivi, still referencing Judith Butler in her thoughts on political agency writes that, Butler wants the “unteathering [of] the speech act from the sovereign subject [which] founds an alternative notion of agency, and ultimately, of responsibility- one that more fully acknowledges the way in which the subject is constituted in language, how what it creates is also what it derives from elsewhere.” Butler gives me hope when she says that, “By dislodging a speech act from its original context, we may be able to resignify the meaning of a word or practice.”
I don’t expect huge changes; I am very much a gradualist. Over the last couple of years, I have been getting better at being vocal about things that are offensive to me. I am going to consciously work on not being afraid about voicing my feelings about race as well. I think sometimes the only way to battle all the defensive sarcasm that veils ignorance is to reply as thoughtfully and intentionally as possible. When I encounter homophobic, racist or sexist shit, I need to remember that it is not all on my shoulders to change the person’s narrow views. All I can do in the moment is find agency in my use of language. However, I also need to protect myself by stepping back and choosing not to engage when I feel like the dialogue will ultimately not be useful and will only harm me. I should not feel obligated to make everything a teaching experience. After all, while this is an unfair burden, it is also egotistical on my part to presume that I can change someone’s mind.
“For if there is something real in the ideas of Rousseau, it is that we can form ‘voluntary associations’ here and now, and here and now reformulate the social contract as a new one, although we are not princes or legislators. Is this mere Utopia? Then I will stay in Socrates view and also Islancon’s. If ultimately we are denied a new social order, which therefore can only exist in words, I will find it myself” Monique Wittig- On the Social Contract
- Anjk, originally from Girlfriend Junction
*EDITOR / MODERATOR*
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