R A C E D SPR I N G
2014
MAG A Z I N E
RacEd’s first edition debuted in the spring of 2012, but since then the project had been temporarily suspended. The aim of the publication was to “empower readers” and “reinforce the academic legitimacy of the study of race within the Tufts community,” “connecting the linkages between our lived experiences and the academic theory that we have studied within our classrooms.” This year’s editors of RacEd have attempted to revive this project in an effort to continue the legacy of the founders of RacEd and most importantly, to create a space for students to critically engage with race. We believe that the architecture of race infuses each of our lives, and by extension, this entire magazine. Within these pages are snapshots of lived experiences, reflections on identity, encapsulations of emotion; pieces of our heart-work, journal entries from our paths to freedom. We each live in the “racial house,” as Toni Morrison puts it. This publication is an effort to bring light into our houses, so we may dust out the corners and continue the long, slow process of making our homes. Editors: Bianca Blakesley Dirayati Djaya Chrystal Koech Sophia Wright Chartíse Clark
Jen Wang Sabrina Ghaus Ju-Hyun Park Katie Martin Selcraig Erica Satin-Hernandez
This secondary issue of RacEd is co-sponsored by Tisch College and the Office of Intercultural & Social Identities Programs.
Cover art by Chinami Michaels
TABLE OF CONTENTS When Courtrooms Are Rites Of Passage by Sophia Wright The justice system is at best flawed, and at worst, a system of legalized slavery. page 3 Inclusionary Identities by Naomi Legros Highlighting the centrality of Haitian and Brazilian experiences within the Latino identity. page 5 Ten Things I Fear About You by Sabrina Ghaus Islamophobia is yet another form of racism – and we should address it as such. page 7 Revolutionary Reimagining: What is Asian America? by Bianca Blakesley A look back at Asian American photographer Corky Lee’s exhibit and how his work complicates the dominant imagery of Asian America. page 9 Whiteness Does Not Monopolize Privilege by Chartíse Clark Reexamining how we can simultaneously be in a position of oppression and privilege. page 12 What’s in a Radical? by Jonathan Moore Introspective piece about one’s role in the struggle for social justice. page 16 The Nina Simone Biopic and the Whitening of Characters by Zuri Anderson Connecting the recent controversy surrounding the casting of Zoe Saldana as Nina Simone in the forthcoming biopic “Nina” to past instances of whitening in Hollywood. page 17 Every White Girl I’ve Ever Loved by Ju-Hyun Park Questions about love and race, the architecture of relationships in the context of white supremacy. page 19
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WHEN COURTROOMS ARE RITES OF PASSAGE by Sophia Wright
W
atching the 10 o’clock news broadcast with my parents on March 21st, 2013 (over Spring Break), my heart sank into my stomach. I was unable to contain the panic and rage that I felt when I saw Joshua Burgos’ face flash across the screen. The report stated that fourteen-year-old Joshua Burgos was to be tried as an adult. Accused of “pistol-whipping” an employee at McDonalds and demanding money from the safe, Joshua Burgos was caught by police running down the street at around 5:30am on March 13th, with a duffle bag containing the money and the gun. I became gripped by intense fear, sure that he would be convicted and sucked into the endless abyss of the justice system, given no second chances. The critical question: Who gets to decide when to give up on a child and when to further condemn them to a trajectory considerably more damaging, and surely not habilitating? Our justice system is flawed at its core. The United States Prison System is maintained by a number of interests, among them public opinion and monetary interests, which converge to enable the proliferation of incarceration, despite high costs and their failure to rehabilitate inmates. Prisons were not expanded throughout the United States to better achieve the goal of rehabilitation, although that is an assumption held widely amongst U.S. citizens. The U.S. Prison System was the natural progression from slavery into the Jim Crow era, where legal doctrine no longer allowed African descent to be enough cause for enslavement. The only legal form of slavery in the United States became slavery within prisons. A cold calculation was made, given that free labor could no longer be gained outside of prisons, anyone interested in free labor would need to enter the Prison Industry. I am not alone in this suggestion, a stark example being that of the Angola State prison that was, in fact, built on the foundation of a 1,800-acre former slave plantation. Racial disparities within policing ensure that the majority of the communities affected by the Prison Industry are not white. Essentially, the discretion of police officers, judges and juries maintain a system in which black and brown people are convicted at a higher rate and given steeper penalties than their white counterparts.
In his face I saw the fourteen-year-old Burgos brothers who used to go to the Boys and Girls Club everyday after school. I saw my twenty three year old brother, who throughout his teens was never able to catch a break with the police. As an adult he would get stopped by the police and held over night. Early the next morning he would be pressured by the public defender to settle for no lo contendre, not knowing that the police had not followed proper
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Joshua Burgos, age 14, Fall River Court, March 21, 2013
Trying juveniles as adults is acceleration into adulthood at an age in which one’s future may seem uncertain, at best, and one’s life is far from being under one’s own control. It is the scared-straight tactic, the institutionalization of no mercy, and the use of a human life to create an example for peers. But this message is reserved for black and brown youth (and black and brown adults for that matter). Yes, IF the reports of Fall River police are true, Joshua Burgos committed a violent crime, wherein no lives were taken. Yes, IF the reports of the Fall River police are true, Joshua Burgos used a gun to rob a McDonalds, wherein the gun was used to strike the employee. Yes, IF the reports of the Fall River police are true, Joshua Burgos stole money from the cash register, though the police later retrieved all of the money. What does it mean when the term “pistol-whip” is applied to a fourteen year old? It becomes an obfuscation of the actual action; a political term meant to envelope him in greater condemnation. Tried as an adult, his actions become endowed with the intent and forethought expected from an adult. Tried as an adult, his actions become deserving of adult consequences, consequences that far out pace his access to the institutional knowledge required for self-defense. Here a fourteen year old boy held a gun in his hand and did not shoot with it. Here, another brown boy is made to face the full force of the United States (in)Justice System, within which he will be treated as an adult, although he is without the adult faculties and life experiences necessary to aid him in his own self-defense. Joshua becomes laden with such heavy backlash that there is little, if any, acknowledgement of the trauma that produces a fourteen year old who feels compelled to rob a McDonalds, gun in hand. Joshua Burgos is not an adult, but the courts have ushered him into adulthood and there is no going back.
procedure and that their case against him could not hold up in court. But it was easier, safer they said, that he just take the plea they were offering, it would go on his record but at least he would not get jail time, which is what could happen if he choose to challenge them in the courts.
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INCLUSIONARY IDENTITIES The centrality of Haiti and Brazil in Latino identity by Naomi Legros
W
e all know that race is socially constructed and not biologically inherited like many scientists and higher institutions have tried to legitimize throughout American history. In 1790, the census composed of four categories, free white males, free white females, other free persons, which included free blacks and Native Americans who paid taxes and slaves. Initially looking at this, it is already clear that the concept of race was going to be one of those things that the government and other higher constitutions were going to continuously reshape in order to keep the privileges that comes with whiteness within the white race. It wasn’t even all whites that were initially included. Jews, Italians, Greeks, and the likes were categorized black in order to preserve the purity that Anglo-white Christians (Protestants at that) firmly believed in. Legal cases came and gone, immigration swept the nation and civil rights movements changed the game plan of racism and racial discourse in the United States. Blacks, whites, Native Indians and Asians were “easily” labeled. But there was one group that was quite complex to fit under a certain race. And that was persons of Latin American descent. The government simply for demographic reasons of course, created the term Latino. Demographics are key towards gaining political and economic power, and by creating a group that will soon overtake the white population as the majority in many American cities, there are consequences that follow. Latinos from Ecuador, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina are just some examples of how different Latinos can be. Argentina has a predominantly European population, whereas Brazil has the largest black population outside of Africa. America thought it was so easy to just band these completely opposite groups of people together, but in actuality, it only caused further confusion about how people, with different cultural, education backgrounds, geographies and other intersectionalities, qualify to be labeled under one single category. What tops it all off is that Latino, and the forever interchangeable “Hispanic”, is not even a race. If we are going to continue in the same patterns as the U.S. census, we know that ‘white’ and ‘black’ are races. But then they start blurring the lines when they start
throwing in “Asian”, “Hawaiian” and other Pacific Islanders, “Native Indians”, and “Hispanic”. Then, they further break it down with Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese and “other Asians” as if those countries don’t matter. Then the same comes with Hispanic/ Latino. Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans and Cubans are all thrown out as races then “Other” takes care of the rest. Last time I checked, those were nationalities and ethnicities… but are being reconstructed as race. This is the problem that America has thrust upon persons of Latin American descent. Now the problem that is woven within the Latin American community boils down to “who” qualifies as Latino? The definition that I have learned is that Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages (which derive from Latin) are primarily spoken. Those languages are Spanish, Portuguese and French. That could only mean that every country starting from Mexico below in the region of Americas, excluding Suriname, Belize and Guyana qualify. Spanish is widely spoken in the majority of Latin American countries. Portuguese is only spoken in Brazil, but Brazil is the largest country in South America, making it one of the most widely spoken languages. French is spoken in Haiti and other islands that make up the French Antilles (Martinique, Guadeloupe etc.), but since those other islands aren’t independent, still under some sort of French rule, Haiti remains the only French speaking country in Latin America. With all of these facts laid out, I wonder why it becomes so difficult to accept Brazil and Haiti in particular as Latin American (Latinos). The definition that I provided is widely controversial; many people want to exclude Haiti from Latin America. It even came to a shock for me that Brazil sometimes gets cut out from definitions. Why is that? Why is it that a collection of people that were grouped together for American purposes decide to turn their back on their “own”? I personally think that it is race, rather than language that divides the Latino community. It seems pretty plausible — Brazil has the largest black population outside of Africa, and Haiti is a black nation period, with a five percent biracial population and probably
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a smaller percentage of “other” groups of people. Blackness has come to represent everything that is opposite whiteness, the achievable position that all evidently want right? Whiteness is pure, innocent, clean, hygienic, well kept and the list goes on. Blackness is everything that is not white. It’s dirtied, its unhygienic, its guilty, tarnished, dark. It’s the unspeakable and the unknown that no one wants to discover. And in the united states, the discourse of blackness and the tremendous efforts made to marginalize the black race and permanently keep them in a position of limited upward mobility has probably scared off any other group of wanting to acknowledge their blackness. Now I’m not saying that the countries in Latin America don’t have their own issues concerning race- it’s just that America has been straightforward, yet not so transparent throughout the historical discourse concerning this topic. In America, the media has had a large control of how Latinos are portrayed. Latina
Magazine, which has been in circulation for 15 years, for Hispanic women usually, features celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez, Shakira, Paulina Rubio, and Sofia Vergara. The issue just recently started an AfroLatina’ beauty segment that caters to the darker Latino community. However, it is still problematic, having the term Hispanic in the headline of who your target audience is, which eliminates your Haitian and Brazilian community members. With immigration issues headlining our newspapers and news segments every night, Latino identity has been politically classified. Puerto Ricans have the easiest time immigrating because of their commonwealth relationship with the US. Cubans also have had an interesting immigration history because of the arrival of Fidel Castro in the 1950s. By immigrating to the US, it is a sign of the rejection of communist ideals that the US fervently supports. Mexicans who are the most blatantly targeted group in the media.
They control 55% of the undocumented population and are less likely to become citizens then other groups. When the media has a strong voice in the reimaging of the Latino population, Haitians and Brazilians need to get recognized as a part of this community. We had Henry Louis Gates Jr. narrate a wonderful series on blackness in Latin America, featuring countries such as Haiti, Dominican Republic, Cuba and Brazil. But then again, he is a black man who understands the history of Haiti and Brazil, and what it entails to have both identities and still be a good representation. We need more Latinos in the media to speak about Afro-Latina identities. We need Spanish speaking Latino communities to address the issues of the black/ white binary complex. And most importantly they need to make a stronger impact and effort to incorporate the forgotten nations of Haiti and Brazil to Latin America and Latino discourse in America.
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TEN THINGS I FEAR ABOUT YOU by Sabrina Ghaus
1. 2. 3. 4.
“Don’t talk about politics on the phone, beta, you don’t know who is listening.” “Their house was searched without a warrant.” “In that line over there. We’re getting randomly searched – again.” “A nine year old girl was arrested at the rally last weekend!” “What’s happening? Why are there police in the mosque?” “They just turned away two CIA agents at the fundraiser.” “How are your parents?” “I don’t know. Mosul was bombed.” “Tell your Muslim friends not to go outside. They are looking for brown men. You don’t know what could happen.”
When I hear talk about Islamophobia, I can’t help but laugh. Islamophobia. It sounds like a cartoon word. There’s arachnophobia, the fear of spiders. Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia, the fear of long words. Triskaidekaphobia, the fear of the number 13. Then; Islamophobia, which the Oxford Dictionary defines as “a hatred or fear of Islam or Muslims, especially when feared as a political force.”
Fear is an integral part of the Muslim experience in this country. Everyone is afraid of you, so you, too, must be afraid. Maintain constant paranoia, or risk being labeled a threat. Watch what you say, and become a suspect regardless. Your fear – of being arrested, extradited, searched, questioned, tortured, beaten, verbally assaulted – is not the fear they care about. They are afraid of you, so your fear is invisible.
Avoid Muslims and Islam, scream when it comes too close, smash it, bomb it, drown it, waterboard it, kill it when it enters your house – just like a spider. Arachnophobe, Islamophobe.
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5. 6. 7.
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Some people can’t help looking ‘Muslim’. They can’t help being afraid.
Violence is always justified with fear.
When you say Islamophobia, you are telling me that when Wade Michael Page riddled bullets into a Sikh gurdwara in Wisconsin, he was afraid. When Erika Menendez pushed Sunando Sen in front of a speeding New York City train, she was afraid. When that kid in fourth grade called my grandfather Bin Laden, he was afraid. When the Tufts Daily published a full-page advertisement from the Horowitz Freedom Center, they were afraid.
8.
This is not – it cannot be – a mere phobia. It is not only Muslims who are affected by “Islamophobia” – it is anyone who presents as Muslim. This could be my White friend who, when she puts on a hijab, is mistaken for an Arab. It could also be brown and black people who are not Muslim, but have foreign names or look South Asian or Arab. The problem is not missing your target. The injustice is not that non-Muslims are profiled as if they were Muslim, it is that anyone is being profiled at all. The problem is that a target exists.
9.
Look the monster in the eye and call it what it is. “Islamophobia” is an innocuous word for an insidious and destructive machine. Say “anti-Islamic racism,” not only because it is more honest but because calling the monster “Islamophobia” masks the inherent alliance between people of color and Muslims. Muslims, regardless of our diversity, have been racialized in the Western world. Active discrimination against people who “look Muslim” – aka foreign, brown, Arab – is a product of racism against Muslims and non-Muslim people of color, not just a fickle phobia of the weak.
10.
The systems that oppress and imprison, colonize and erase are the same. Anti-Islamic racism kills. It tortures. It fills prisons and then extradites the prisoners; it censures your voice and destroys your self-worth. Silence is not an option, and the options are limited – fight or fight, the only difference is how and with what. You are both the feared and the fearful – counter that with compassion and companionship; search for the hands of those who are next to you in the struggle and to hold them tight. Make friends. Make alliances. “Iqra bismi rabbika alladhi khalaqa” – “read in the name of your Lord who created.” Educate yourself, open your mouth, and speak truth.
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REVOLUTIONARY REIMAGINING What is Asian America? by Bianca Blakesly
R
Student curator, Goldhmong Vang, laughs during the opening of the exhibit. Photo by Esther Kim
enowned photojournalist Corky Lee is humble but humorous when he admits that his student curators probably know more about his photography than he does, though he has been documenting the lives of Asian Americans across all nationalities for over forty years. On March 1st, the opening of his exhibition A Place Called Asian America served as a celebration of Tufts’ launch of an Asian American Studies minor under the American Studies Department in the beginning of the 2012-13 school year. In the fall, a group of students and faculty (Diana Wang, (A14), Shinny Vang (A15), Zoe Uvin (A15), Esther Kim (A15), Jean Wu (Senior Lecturer, American Studies), and Thomas Chen (Lecturer, American Studies) teamed up to create this exhibition of photos taken by self-taught New York photographer Corky Lee. The event marks a victory in diversifying Tufts curriculum to be representative and more inclusive of a multicultural population, but is also a critical reminder of the urgency in continuing to shed light on Asian American studies, politics and histories. When exposed to A Place Called Asian America, I don’t only see a collection of images that challenge the way I read Asian bodies — I see decades of survival and documentation as a tool of resistance. What does it mean to photographically preserve narratives that were never supposed to be told? The images positioned on the left wall present a spectrum of lived experiences, challenging the viewer to digest new representations of Asian Americans that are sometimes contrary to controlling images. A photograph of two petite middle-aged women is positioned near the center. The caption below the photograph reveals that the New-York natives are hot-dog eating contest champions-- one of whom regularly dominates competitions head to head with men. Maybe that throws a wrench in the stereotype machine. But, there’s something else nagging me when I
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see these blatant “I’m-not-what-you-think-I-am” counterexamples: it’s the notion that one must show how atypical they are, how much they engage in hegemonic activities to “prove” their Americanness. Equally important to the content of these photographs must be checking the way we read them. If an Asian body juxtaposed to an “American activity” reads atypical, that says something about the way we position phenotypically Asian bodies as foreign. The consequences of misreading Asian bodies are silenced in public discourse but often too evident in the history of violence against members of Asian American communities. Many Asian Americans are not strangers to being stereotyped as the “perpetual foreigner”. The perpetual foreigner, whose identity as American is continuously rejected and unacknowledged, often receives the question “where are you from?” and knows that it is followed by the unspoken “When are you going back?” It is in part due to this positioning and objectification as a foreigner, paired with having the “face of the enemy”, that transforms Asian-looking bodies into targets for violence and into trespassers in their own homes. Too often this particular violence is inflicted with a false sense of patriotism. For example, look towards the photographs aligned along the opposite wall. Protestors rally in rage against the understated murder of Vincent Chin, a 27-year old Chinese American man who was beaten to death in a racially motivated attack by two unemployed, white autoworkers in Detroit. The men, who plead guilty, faced three years of probation and no jail time. Another photograph captures the deep grief of the parents of Daniel Chen following his suicide. Danny Chen was the sole Chinese American soldier in his military unit in Afghanistan, and the sole target of racial physical and verbal abuse from both his fellow soldiers and superiors. On October 3rd of 2011, Chen was found to have committed suicide at his post with a gunshot wound in his head. All soldiers implicated in his death faced light sentences. It didn’t matter that Chen was a fellow American citizen. It didn’t matter that Chen was a fellow soldier, participating in one of the most purportedly patriotic duties as perceived by many Americans. It didn’t matter that he called the United States his home. And these things didn’t matter because Chen possessed an Asian body that could never belong--and his unit made sure he knew that. Who can call his death “suicide” when his white comrades continuously pulled the trigger of verbal, physical and racial violence against his head--dehumanizing him until he ceased to be a breathing human altogether? If you haven’t heard of this case, don’t think of it as an isolated incident. The trigger continues to be (silently) pulled targeting the faces and bodies of Asian Americans. But passive, dehumanized victims are not produced
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from these violations. We can see reactions against such violence in photographs poised adjacent to the former scenes. The documentation of the states in which Asian Americans have been politically active and resistant to marginalization directly refutes the stereotype of this population as “submissive”, as the model minority stereotype would have us believe. Maybe one of the most prominent points in the birth of Asian American studies is nostalgically revisited by Lee in his photo of the 1996 student demonstrations at Columbia University demanding Ethnic Studies, highly reminiscent of the San Francisco State College Strike of ‘68. The demand for Ethnic Studies was a widespread activity undertaken by Asian Americans across the country in an attempt to rectify injustice through exclusion. From these scenes we sense that Corky Lee is dealing with a particular area of photographic justice which asks the viewer to engage in the larger historical context. How does Lee synthesize these historical connections to allow a photograph to perform justice? Consider the portrait of a Chinese male Amtrak railroad conductor. “If you work for Amtrak, I have to photographic you!” Corky recounted saying during the time this picture was taken. This portrait is reminiscent of the history of the 12,000 Chinese Americans who completed the transcontinental railroad on the West Coast in 1869 under forced labor and dual wage systems. The classic image of railroad workers in any U.S. history book, depicting only white laborers, is symbolic of how the dominant narrative of labor is claimed by whites despite the majority of railroad workers being Chinese. Lee excavates this erasure of history and colors in the missing pages by documenting these marginalized narratives. So where do these images place Asian America, and how do we read them? The geographical becomes entrenched with the “cultural” and political, because being Asian American has less to do with the extent one identifies with being Asian — or at least, that is only one piece. It means that regardless of selfconception, outcomes, opportunities and histories are shaped by the way one navigates the United States’ systems of racist oppression, how one is read by others, and even how one reads herself. It means that existing in an Asian American body in this context is to survive. A Place called Asian American is a place where disparities are not erased in order to maintain a racial hierarchy, and the controlling images of Asian bodies are re-imagined. While this exhibition provides a visual axis for us to begin re-imagining or unveiling Asian Americans, let’s not forget that Asian America must claim its rightful place in the discourse on race and civil rights in the United States. The institution of an Asian American Studies minor is only one way in which Asian Americans are wedged into this conversation at Tufts, considering that only a minor was achieved despite push and demand from students and faculty for a major. The oppression of Asian America is rooted in silence and erasure--and so to avoid contributing to this subjugation, we need to keep bringing Asian America into conversation about race and reflecting on the optic we use to read Asian bodies.
All photos by Corky Lee
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WHITENESS DOES NOT MONOPOLIZE PRIVILEGE
PAGE 12 I am black and identify as queer as well. I prepared for general backlash, but the distinct consequence of “Sister Censure” was still unexpected. I began to unpack this new designation.
* * * I have, after some years, realized that it is not only Audre Lorde who is “Sister Outsider.” She did not write for herself alone, but for me, too. We are Sister Outsider. Melissa Harris Perry helped enhance what Audre began: the recognition of myself as by Chartise Clark black woman: both intimate and strangely beloved, yet also distant, feared, hated… ssues of race are not limited to critiques and shift accountability to the shoulders of but always, always integral… Through of whiteness. It is important for people the straight and white. Assumptions that Melissa, I realized I am also “Sister Citizen.” I did not quite realize (until it was placed of color to be free to critique one this is possible / acceptable - that one’s raanother and to be mindful of perpetuating cial geography and queerness are somehow before me) that when identifying privilege, systems of oppression that compound the markers of exemption - usually accompany particularly in the eyes and minds of the male-bodied, a vocal black woman also negative effects of racism. There is little what I see as stark contradictions. space for women of color to critique sexism While we may share certain struggles becomes Sister Censure. I am, when they and misogyny among men of color. When and solidarities as people of color, our ex- choose, still sister/sista (an intimate, familmarginalized social geographies are factors, periences are distinct. To ignore the op- ial designation), but also – with incredulity it is common for people to assume they are pression of others or to attempt to claim and a clear sense of indignation – am told outside of paradigms of oppression, as they one’s particular geography as exhaustive to shut my mouth.I am a bit unclear as to how a black woman’s formal exare The Oppressed. pression of disapproval of (and The silence that settles redispleasure with) male privilege moves us from opportunities Until we are willing to interrogate – or anything, for that matter – for emergence and generative the geographies of privilege authorizes the creation of a desthought that can be found in the ignation for her that is both perecesses of issues regarding race, in which we find ourselves, in spite of jorative and ironic. I admittedly and instead we re-hash tired, geographies of oppression, as fiercely (and understandably) have a difage-old conversations that have ficult time finding many claims of been discussed ad nauseum. We as we interrogate whiteness, love and respect for black women recreate work from the past four we bar ourselves from liberation. (as well as a recognition of their decades without providing new oppression), as honest, sincere thought. While the past is cerand complete expressions. (In tainly extant, the future is nevershort, I think they are often partheless distinct. Misogyny is an issue queer men of color embodies the entitlement of male privilege tially, but rarely completely true.) How does need to address. Within the queer commu- in a way that is more common for men of one reconcile espousing protofeminism yet nity, men of color often discuss queer white color than white men. There is a growing naming me Sister Censure because of my men’s issues with sexism and patriarchy need for queer men of color to talk less critique of queer men of color’s male privwithout interrogating their own. Critiques about white men’s sexism and more about ilege? What this has taught me, is that as a of patriarchy are often voiced with an aver- their own. Occupying marginalized geog- black woman (and whether I am addresssion (or more benevolently, a failure) to raphies – womanhood, brownness, black- ing “ally,” friend, individual in solidarity, or really identifying the self as complicit in ness, queerness… - does not make one foe), I am to be supportive, agreeable, and the oppression of others, namely women exempt from occupying space as an oppres- assenting, or otherwise silent; I should not of color. Queer masculinities aren’t whol- sor. I have asked that queer men of color critique. And often, the message to me and all ly outside the paradigm of patriarchy and recognize and respect the fullness of othsexism; queer men of color are as complic- ers’ geographies, particularly those of queer -women of color is thus: “If you must identify any privilege, stick to the classics it (and for me, more painfully so) in the women of color. oppression of women. It’s not exclusive to I feared and imagined several outcomes – white men, white women, gay white men white men and straight men of color. as the result of openly writing and sharing maybe, and you should probably stop there; I have witnessed countless attempts by my thoughts, primarily for the fact that I don’t get too carried away. Stay behind the queer men of color to disavow patriarchy am a woman, but also given the fact that line, keep your arms in the car, sit in your
Moving from Submergence to Emergence
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section of the train, and it’ll all be good. Abide by the codes of conduct we set, not your strategies of resistance.” Queer men of color, who at times operate as if they believe they are the end-allbe-all of the fullness of oppression – the embodiment thereof – will not always allow for much else… not without scuffles, wounds and battle scars along the way. Calling them out on their privilege detracts from a power and tyranny that can be held over communities of color. It is, of course, rare for a group to willingly, without anxiety or resentment, acknowledge or give up their privilege. * * * In deciding whether or not to actually begin writing publicly after years of internal debate, lack of focus and anxiety, I encountered a number of fears that became more apparent as I worked to find the courage to speak. What helped was (re-)encountering validation and solidarity over the past few months in a chorus formed by the writing of other women of color who’d given voice to fears I could not yet find language for:
who told you anybody wants to hear from you, you aint nothing but a black woman… and you know what happens when a black woman opens her mouth to say anything other than do it to me! do it to me! do it to me daddy do! dont you? – Hattie Gossett Who am I, a poor Chicanita from the sticks, to think I could write. – Gloria Anzaldúa
How hard it is for us to think we can choose to become writers, much less feel and believe that we can. What have we to contribute, to give? – Gloria Anzaldúa A woman who writes has power. A woman with power is feared. In the eyes of the world this makes us dangerous beasts. – Gloria Anzaldúa Cherrie Moraga1 * * * I have always appreciated, and thrived by, cultivating the joy found within various commonalities and solidarity in communion with other people of color, women, activists, queer people, writers… Nevertheless, there are critical distinctions between the oppressed and oppressor (where there is the former, there must be the latter, though naming the oppressed is much more popular than naming the oppressor) within these shared geographies as well. These were and are often difficult and painful to voice and unpack. Oppression creates a dynamic where those accustomed to recognizing themselves as oppressed find it difficult to recognize – and accept – instances in which they (as are we all) privileged and (in turn) the oppressor. I am not accustomed to being called out on my privilege. When it happens, I 1Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa. This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. (New York: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, 1983)
am usually taken aback, but it is always a moment of growth (painful, usually, but extensive). As a defense mechanism, I have seen many people of color resist recognizing moments when we occupy the role and privilege of the oppressor by rattling off a list of our various oppressed geographies to deflect naming and identification of our privileged selves as complicit in the oppression of others. This is apparent – and easy for many people, especially people of color – to recognize in the responses of white people. (To keep this bit brief, responses are often along the lines of “but I have suffered/am not that privileged/my family had a hard life/we worked really hard and I am actually the oppressed, violated, disenfranchised person here because I am poor/didn’t have a nice house/am middle class, not upper class/am not that white because I’m really down/am gay/am a woman/love Barney and people used to tease me for that, etc.”) In my experience, this becomes really hard and tricky – it’s fraught territory, to be a bit more eloquent – for many people of color. There is a sense of entitlement to name oneself as oppressed but never see oneself in the naming of an oppressor… and a sense of incredulity, disbelief, anger, and a sense of wrongful assault, often, when it does occur. It’s real hard for women of color and queer people of color (not exclusively or entirely, but certainly) to reconcile. I know this is true for me, and I’ve seen and heard it echoed / recreated by others. * * * What has always been very relevant to me, particularly in the consideration of relationships between black women and men and our capacity for collective growth, are our issues with silencing black women’s voices, especially when they express critique. Oppressed people(s) are taught not to critique one another, or else risk marginalization as selfish, divisive or (ironically) oppressive. If we critique the men of our race, they accuse us of hindering their development and liberation (and subsequently our own). Liberation often centers on their oppression(s). It is not a mutual struggle that cannot be successfully mitigated without the liberation of all (and particularly - and most importantly - requiring each of us to give particular focus, concern, and space for voice to the individuals and
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groups whom we oppress). For me to accept that (queer) black men need to be made visible at the expense of (queer) black women, I need to buy into the old, tired narrative that each struggle must supersede another. I have to believe that we are not actually comrades. I have to believe that there is not space for all of us to be free, but that there must always be someone at the bottom (and my primary concern would have to be that it better not be me). Specifically (or in addition), I’d need to believe that black women need to fall back, make ourselves subservient, and/or generally allow black men to do as they please or to do what they determine is necessary so they can shine and find peace, even if it may be at our expense. I’m (not) sorry, but no. I can’t accept that black women inhibit or repress black men’s visibility because of the immense amount of documentation / records (in many forms - narratives, manifestos, memoirs, essays, literature - and written by both black men and women) of black men’s mandates and reprimands… instructions for black women to take a back seat so they can do their thing, because we do not know their oppression. This is chronicled in various forms within Soul On Ice by Eldridge Cleaver, Dark Continent of Our Bodies: Black Feminism and the Politics of Respectability by E. Francis White, A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America by Paula Giddings and again, Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde and Sister Citizen by Melissa Harris Perry. What I am saying is not a new issue, but perhaps a bit more nuanced since I am speaking to and acknowledging myself as queer and other queer black folk as well. In “The Pill: Genocide or Liberation,” Toni Cade (before she was Toni Cade Bambara… she wrote this in 1970, by the way) captured the process of submerging black women when they emerge to speak and the relative ease with which this is done. “Unfortunately quite a few of the ladies have been so browbeaten with the Black Matriarch stick that they tend to run, leap, fly to the pots and pans, the back rows, the shadows, eager to justify themselves in terms of ass, breasts, collard greens just to prove
that they are not the evil, ugly, domineering monsters of tradition.” Patricia Williams in particular has written about dealing with the accusation of terrorizing, demonizing, and traumatizing oppressors whose actions and words she
Occupying marginalized geographies – womanhood, brownness, blackness, queerness, and the like – does not make one exempt from occupying space as an oppressor. used for illustrations. I’ve read about her struggle - and the pain - of being wrongfully labeled the oppressor when she was in fact in the position of the oppressed. If I am truthfully to be believed to be Sister Censure (and if other black women are to accept this as a rising stereotype to join the ranks of Mammy and Jezebel), who is being bamboozled here, and why? What is it that is being (so ferociously) protected? Why is privilege guarded, and what function does victimizing the dominant serve? * * * I am grateful for the naming; it is an impetus to write. It is a reminder that though I may have the courage to recognize (and embrace) myself as Sister Outsider or Sister Citizen within, I must wearily be aware of being new designations - like Sister Censure - arising from without. It is both a reminder to write, and a challenge to do so or sacrifice my ability to name myself. I thought for some time about how to address my christening as Sister Censure. How to address or respond to my new name? How to carry that with my knowledge of myself as Mammy, Jezebel, Sapphire, Aunt Jemima, Black Bitch, Angry Black Woman, Black / ”Juicy” Berry,
Black Man’s Womb, White Women’s Foil, Queen-Mother of a Monolithic Africa, in contrast and concert with the names I’ve also somehow maintained the sanity to give myself? I thought about whether I should write about it, and I concluded that, like my initial entry shows, the prose and intimate voice of black women - storytelling, narrative - is “central to the development of contemporary feminist theory” (Nancy K. Bereano on Audre Lorde). While I write using various observations and illustrations from my life, I intend to discuss issues that extend beyond my immediate personal sphere and scope. I also intend to share them. So, I stopped thinking and agonizing… And then I made the decision to continue to write, both freely and bravely. * * * I am Isabella, Harriet, Saartjie, Belinda, Staceyann, Melissa, Angela, Audre, Patricia, Toni, Lorraine, Zora, Christina, Karen, Katherine, Alice, Shirley, Mary, Ida… I am Sister, in all her roles and manifestations. In writing this, I found a few messages that I like to think were left for us over the decades. I’d like to share one from Toni Cade. “Fortunately, while we Black women have often been held in contempt, we have never been irrelevant… We’ve contributed too much to the household, to the social fabric, to the movement, been too indispensable and productive and creative to be invisible, overlooked, laid aside… We’ve been too mobile, too involved with the larger world outside of the immediate home, to be duped…” So, I say to myself, and other women of color, present and future… “Write, mama. Write, sister. And I will write too.” It is difficult to speak when our heads are held underwater. Yet when we emerge, we cannot allow ourselves to be silenced by the concept of “airing dirty laundry.” It is a silencing tool, not a benign maxim. It makes it difficult for people part of marginalized and stigmatized communities to be vocal in ways that would encourage collective and generative response. Until we are willing to interrogate the geographies of privilege in which we find ourselves, in spite of our geographies of oppression, as fiercely as we interrogate whiteness, we bar ourselves from liberation.
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Tupac Shakur once said, “I feel cheated because instead of me fulfilling my prophecy, I have to start one.” I’m still looking for mine.
Peanut Gallery by Evan Bell
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WHAT’S IN A RADICAL? by Jonathan Moore Nearly two years ago, I looked at the photos of Trayvon Martin and thought about how closely he resembled my first crush. I grew up in a little Catholic school in inner city Detroit where I was born and raised. For those who don’t know anything about Detroit (someone once asked me if it was in the South), it has the highest percentage of African-Americans of any major city in the United States. I come from Mississippi Blacks on my father’s side and first generation Mexican-Americans on my mother’s. Rarely knowing what it felt like to be in the racial minority, to say that getting used to Tufts continues to be a life-changing process for me would be an understatement. As a poor, gay, bi-racial, atheist kid from Detroit, I’ve often been assumed to be “radical” by many as a side effect of my very existence. Undoubtedly, I’m not the face of the Republican Party base, nor am I a poster boy for conservative values — but I’ve had to restrain myself from using the word “radical” to describe who I am. This is not because I think that my views and beliefs are traditional or not extreme, nor is it because my own self love and confidence is not radical, but because I don’t feel comfortable defining myself by what I think or say and not by what I’ve done to change the status quo. The 2012 murder of Trayvon Martin and the subsequent media circus proved to many young Americans of color that even the most logical of words and reasons have their limitations in confronting systems that are codified to oppress, exterminate and devalue the lives of millions. Stunningly, I too often find people in denial about the real world realities of racism and institutional oppression in an effort to achieve some otherworldly sense of political correctness. “I don’t see race,” they’ll say. “We’re all the same.” These same people go on to assert themselves as “radical” thinkers and champions of racial equality. Pause. Not only are these “post-racial” decrees by people harmful to our acceptance as a society of the work that still needs to be done, they are also a slap in the face to the very existence of people of color. I’m happy that you’re so colorblind — while you’re at it, you can forget about gravity and motion too since the laws of human nature bear just as much weight on this world as the natural ones. Denial can only go on for so long until it becomes accepted ignorance — most people of color don’t have the luxury of denying reality. As the name Zimmerman remained wedged in my throat and the face of Trayvon Martin became etched into my memory like the face of Emmett Till in my grandmother’s, my 16-year-old body did not feel radical. I did not feel like a liberal-leaning Democrat. I felt afraid. I felt rage in my fingertips and, as if a hunting season had just been declared, feared that someone I knew would be on the dinner table of some sick son of a gun sooner or later. Real radicals bussed down to Selma on their own accords, faced inhumane brutality in the hopes of building the “beloved community.” Real radicals felt the scald of cigarette burns on their backs yet thought nothing of it compared to the ache of longing for elusive equality. Real radicals say things like, “If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door,” knowing that nothing worth fighting for will be won without great loss. True radicals put life and limb and love and longing all on the line to say “enough.” True radicals act. But me? I’m nothing but a brown boy trying — succeeding, yes. But still trying, aspiring — to be more than just radical or progressive or whatever buzzword is on the tip of the tongues of the brightest and best. Trying to be more than just a set of fingers gnashing away at a keyboard or an outspoken voice spitting rhymes after midnight, I am not here to be politically correct, or incorrect. I am here to be real. Tupac Shakur once said, “I feel cheated because instead of me fulfilling my prophecy, I have to start one.” I’m still looking for mine.
* This piece was originally published in The Daily on January 30, 2014 as the first installment for the author’s column Politically Erect.
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THE NINA SIMONE BIOPIC AND THE WHITENING OF CHARACTERS By Zuri Anderson
D
uring a pre-Oscars interview with HipHollywood, Zoe Saldana addressed the reasons why she chose to accept the role of Nina Simone in the upcoming biopic Nina. Saldana has received much criticism for accepting the role after the original actress, Mary J. Bilge, declined for financial reasons. Saldana said, “I did it out of love: Out of love for Nina, out of love for my people and who I am, and my pride of being a black woman and a Latina woman and an American woman.” These things may be true, but is Saldana missing the point? The majority of the negativity directed at the choice of Zoe Saldana as Nina Simone is due to questions of “blackness” and just how black Saldana is. Is Zoe Saldana black enough to play Nina Simone, a civil rights activist whose greatest struggles in life were intertwined with racism due to her inescapable blackness? Many people say no. There is no denying that Saldana is of African descent, but also being Latina (Dominican and Puerto Rican) has exempted Saldana from some of the undeniably black features that Nina so famously possessed. This is where the controversy lies. Because Saldana does not have a wide nose, full lips, dark skin, and afro-textured hair, all of these things must be given to her through make-up, prosthetics (nose), and wigs. Many are wondering if this process of “blackening” Saldana is eerily similar to blackface. While it is true that some alteration of skin color and facial features is necessary to make movies and characters seem more realistic, Saldana’s transformation for the biopic is shocking to say the least. Every feature on her face (except for her eyes) had to be altered in some way to make her look more black—or more like Nina. It only seems logical that if changing Saldana’s entire face is the only way to get her to look like Nina Simone, than maybe it would have been smarter to just cast an actress whose features favored those of Simone. In an interview with the New York Times, Simone’s own daughter expressed her unhappiness with how little Saldana resembles her mother. “My mother was raised at a time when she was told her nose was too wide, her skin was too dark…Appearance-wise this is not the best choice,” said Ms. Kelly. She even suggested actresses that she thinks favor Simone more, like Kimberly Elise and Viola Davis. She also added that Whoopi Goldberg was her mother’s own choice to play her in a biopic. So why was Saldana chosen? It should come as no surprise to anyone that lighter skin is seen as more sellable in Hollywood, and it is extremely ironic that these rules would apply even to a biopic about Nina Simone. So the greater question might not be is Zoe Saldana black enough to play Nina Simone, but is Nina Simone too black for Hollywood? Casting Zoe Saldana as Nina Simone is a way to tame the “radical blackness” that Nina embodied and make it more acceptable or whiter, even at the expense of authenticity. This is not a new phenomenon, since its beginnings, Hollywood has been completely and partially whitening important historical characters from Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra, to the recent Prince of Persia starring Jake Gyllenhaal. The only difference with the Nina Simone biopic is that Saldana is in fact black, but this does not change the implications of casting her in this role. It plays into the absurd notion that any minority can play the role of any other minority, which is barely a step up from casting white people in minority roles.
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Zoe Saldana in costume and makeup on set (left), Nina Simone (right). Picture from stefscoop.com.
Also, it is important to recognize that Zoe Saldana is in a very difficult position. She is Black and Latina, but in the world of film she is seen as just black. Black Latinas are rarely, if ever, casted as Latina characters because of Hollywood’s narrow definition of what it means to be Latino or Latina (that is, someone who is closer to being white). So, the solution to this problem isn’t to criticize Saldana for not being black enough, but to pressure Hollywood not to tell the stories of minorities through the lens of whiteness—which is extremely difficult considering who is making the films. Just like most films meant to tell the stories of minorities, the Nina Simone biopic was written and directed by a Caucasian person (Cynthia Mort). This is a huge problem considering that they are solely responsible for who is cast in the movies—and they profit hugely from these films. Because these white filmmakers are creating work that is so far removed from their experience, they don’t always have a personal stake in the authenticity of the stories they are telling. For most Hollywood filmmakers, it is just a question of profitability, regardless of integrity. However, there are some minority filmmakers, such as Kasi Lemmons, who have and continue to make great films that truly capture the essence of culture they are portraying. The problem is that these filmmakers are few and far between in Hollywood because filmmaking is an expensive and highly specialized career that most minorities just don’t have the access to. Even the most prominent minority filmmakers don’t have anywhere near the amount of money and resources as prominent white filmmakers. The only exception to this rule is Tyler Perry—let’s not even go there. It may seem like nothing can be done to change this, but there is something that each individual can do to help change the portrayal of minorities in films. People must support films and filmmakers who are dedicated to the integrity of the stories of minorities and showing up in great numbers to their films. Minorities—and a lot of whites—are aching for movies that more accurately portray people and stories that relate to their lives, and people must show Hollywood that we won’t accept anything less. End.
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Every White Girl I’ve Ever Loved by Ju-Hyun Park
Artwork by Sabrina Ghaus
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met her the first day of second grade. I’d just moved to America a few months before, and by the end of that first summer, I was already schooled in the basic lessons of surviving in America. I knew not to speak Korean to my parents around the school; I knew Brian Doherty, Adam Levi, and Tyler Collins would make fun of my eyes if I even looked at them; I knew the only people I could eat lunch with were Kee Sasano, Kaz Kobayashi and Quang Le, because they couldn’t make fun of my kimbab while they were stuffing their faces with onigri, donkatsu, and banh. I knew the teachers expected you to look them in the eye, or they’d assume you were lying, and I knew that bringing that behavior home would earn me a smack upside the head. I knew “idiot”, “suck”, “hell”, “shit”, and “fuck” were all “bad words” that I “should never say”, but “ching chong ching chong” was “just not very nice”; something I “shouldn’t mope about”. All these lessons paled in comparison to the one that started the second I set eyes on Teresa. As second graders, our classes were held in a row of trailers at the edge of the field. It was 1999 in Silicon Valley, and the school currency was gel pens and Pokémon cards. Ms. G arranged our desks in four-group clusters spread around the classroom. Teresa sat in the group next to mine, and the second I saw her, I fell head-over-heels in crush with her. That long, brown hair, those soft green eyes, and that gaptoothed, crooked smile were all too much for my six-year-old self to handle. For the next two years, I harbored my crush as a dirty secret. I never told Teresa how I felt. Letting people find out that you had a crush on someone in elementary school was a good way to get the whole class talking about you for a week. One time in the third grade, Kaz told Amanda Powers that she had a sexy buttcrack, and then Gina Johnson poured glue in his hair. The next day, Kaz was bald. Teresa’s friends weren’t that mean, but then again; Gina hadn’t even been friends with Amanda till that day. Teresa finally broke my heart in fourth grade. The flu was going around, and I was the only one of my friends at school. I spent the whole lunch waiting by the music classroom, going over sheet music as I played jacks with some pebbles I’d found. Teresa and her friends came by and started chatting right next to me. They were talking about boys. Celeste Neumann said she thought a guy’s hair was the most important thing. Teresa said she liked guys’ eyes. “Tyler C has really pretty eyes,” she giggled. I looked up from the sheet music and let the pebbles fall to the floor with a clatter. I couldn’t let Tyler C. take away my woman. He had so many freckles you could barely see his damn face. Fuck that kid. “Do you like my eyes?” I blurted out. The whole group of girls turned around and stared at me. “Ew,” Teresa said. “No, they’re all muddy and stuff.” The bell rang a few minutes later. I spent all of music class wallowing in self-pity as I pretended to play the recorder. I’d practiced the whole week before, but I didn’t feel like playing. All I could think about was why I didn’t have light-colored eyes. By the end of class, I decided I didn’t like Teresa anymore, and after that
we barely spoke. I didn’t believe a single person who said I had nice eyes after that. Not until I met Katie Lynn.
*
*
*
*
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In middle school, there was Shirley, an Irish-Catholic ballerina with sandy blonde hair who only knew how to talk about musical theatre and how badly she wanted to live in France and Japan. Ours was an AIM romance; one of those hushed up middle school relationships that blossomed online with the super-dramatic declaration of “like” after a month of chatting for three hours every night. As for the social context of the relationship: it was a private middle school. I wasn’t cool, and neither was she. I pretended I was anyway. She was my first kiss, but I never let her know that. I told her I’d kissed so many girls I’d lost count. The time she smashed her face against mine in a corner of Naitri Modi’s house, sucking at my sinuses with the grace and accuracy of a toilet plunger, was the first time I ever kissed a girl. It was exhilarating, confusing, and terrifying, but I’d never felt cooler in my life. Shirley always denied we were together to our friends. Everyone knew we were together anyway, but reputations were at stake! In a way, we were never really “official” (as official as two preteens can get, at least). It was a very particular, and punctual, arrangement. Every day, we’d sneak off during the last minutes of lunch for the sake of a few desperate minutes of sloppy, elbowy making out, and that would be our only contact as a “couple” until we both logged on to AIM in the evening. It didn’t make sense to think it would last forever, but three months already seemed like a lifetime then. It wasn’t long before we said, “I luv u.” Things fell apart faster than they’d come together, and pretty soon, I was crying into a pillow all night and listening to Mariah on repeat. I will always remember two things from that period. The time she called me a wigga, and this: “OMG, just cuz u lived in Asia and ur Asian duznt mean u kno everything about Asia”. She’d just told me fortune cookies were Chinese food.
I was obsessed, convinced that every day I remained a virgin was another day spent being a loser. I had shit to prove, and that was all part of it. And it had to be a white girl.
*
I moved to Seoul my freshman year of high school, and attended an international school made up of Western expats, members of the Korean diaspora, and diplomat kids under the tutelage of white American, British, and Australian Christians. I hated Seoul, and I hated my parents for bringing me there. But, again, I was 13; I hated everything, including myself. I started acting out a bit. I traded in G-Unit and Ludacris for My Chemical Romance, Avenged Sevenfold, and Bright Eyes. I was insufferable. In class, at home, and on the street. By the end of the first semester of my freshman year, I was smoking a pack of Marlboro Reds a week, skipping hagwon to go with my friends to the piercing shops in Sinchon, and had managed to get myself completely shitfaced at least three times. I didn’t need Shirley; I was a man now. I was going to bars, and I smoked. I wanted to grow up faster than time would allow, thinking
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age would bring happiness. But the most important thing to me was losing my virginity. I was obsessed, convinced that every day I remained a virgin was another day spent being a loser. I had shit to prove, and that was all part of it. And it had to be a white girl. I didn’t realize it then, but out of about 400 students, more than half of them Korean, and even more of them Asian. I only went for white girls; that’s what impressed the guys at the bar. When I met Katie Lynn at the start of sophomore year, I had no idea that she’d end up being one of the more important people in my life. She was standing there in the cafeteria with my friends, her 4’10” frame topped with a long mess of brunette curls, boot-cut jeans, and Slash t-shirt. One Friday night, all our friends were going to a Linkin Park concert. We went to Ali Baba’s Hookah Bar in Itaewon together, the same place where we’d kissed the week before on a dare. We sat on the cheap, floppy ottomans for hours, playing the nervous game on each other’s thighs between puffs of apple-mint flavored smoke. Finally, we ducked out of the bar and bought a few cans of Hite and OB from a street cart. In a few minutes, we managed to find a chill spot on a stone staircase that led up to a strip club from Itaewon Road, chug the beers, and fall into each other’s arms in a mess of lips and elbows. To this day, Katie Lynn still says I wanted her so badly I threw myself at her. I might’ve “fallen” into what was our second kiss, but she’s the one who yanked me down from where I was standing. I put Katie Lynn through hell for the first six months. I made jokes about her height, weight, and everything in between. She knew I had a crush on one of my close friends, who was older, more experienced, and better endowed than her. She found out that I’d told our friends about some of the stuff we did together, and that was the first time I made her cry and she didn’t try to hide it. Katie Lynn still talks about that time as “when I was ugly”. I’m most of the reason she thinks that. The beginning of our relationship wasn’t as one-sided as it might sound. There was the time she called me a chink, thinking it was a term of endearment. The time her tía spoke to me on the phone for a moment just to ask if I’d ever tried dog. For every jab I made at her shortness, her baby fat, her freckles, or her Southern drawl, she
had a comeback for my acne, my eyes, my gangly frame, or my KoreAsianness. Her father, Mark, an English-born, Bostonraised ex-Navy man with bright blue eyes, didn’t like me at first. Mark helped manage embassy housing on the base. He said I could probably calculate the curve of a ball but couldn’t throw for shit, which was only half-true (I’m an English major, damn it). Her mom, Seina, liked me. She was coffee colored, and a little shorter than Mark, who was about 5’6”. She and Mark met in high school. Seina was the livelier of the two.
That’s when Katie Lynn started saying she loved my eyes, that she wanted “butterscotch-vanilla babies... with curly or wavy hair, single eyelid eyes, olive skin, and English/Catholic names.” She said it was obvious how studious I was, and that my Spanish wasn’t half-bad either. Maybe I could teach Katie Lynn. I didn’t understand why at the time, but Katie Lynn didn’t like it when people called her Latina. We never fought about it. Whenever it came up, it was responded to with a curt declaration of whiteness. “What about your mom?” I asked once. She said it didn’t matter, she “didn’t feel Puerto Rican”, so she had to be white. I never asked her again. The last time we spoke, she still identified as white, even with her newfound love for the “biracial hair” she now straightens regularly. We stayed together for two and a half years. Her parents learned to love me as I spent more time with them, and I learned what life in an “All-American” house was like. What roast beef, casserole and eggnog tasted like over a game of Trivial Pursuit or Taboo. Which household chores I could help out with and which ones were really
only meant for women (Katie Lynn forced me back into my chair whenever I offered to help in the kitchen). I stopped planning to do things and started “fixin’” to do them. Sometimes her drawl slipped into my speech. My band tees, ripped jeans and beatup Chucks were traded in for dark straightleg Levi’s, bright v-necks and button-ups. I stopped cursing so much, learned to cross myself properly, and wound up going to church and not paying attention with Katie Lynn more than I did with my own family. Katie Lynn did her own learning, too, mostly how to properly hold her chopsticks and some basic Korean sentences. We never really spent much time at my place. I had to walk her through most of the rules of Korea, how to bow and to whom, how to save face, what this word and that gesture or that look meant. In the end, she never really understood my world; she was terrified of it. She asked me if I would grow up to work 100-hour weeks like my father. She wondered if one day something in me wo-uld snap and I would make her eat in a separate room from me and only let her speak when spoken to. Meeting my family didn’t help. The only person Katie Lynn got along with was my little sister. My Jehovah’s Witness halmuni refused to shake her hand. Katie Lynn thought it was because she was white, said she never felt like she’d belong in my “stupid Korean family”. She didn’t find my parents particularly receptive either, though they really were trying their best. I reminded her one of my aunt’s husbands was white, but it didn’t matter. It was mostly our age that my halmuni disapproved of; she didn’t want her grandson getting distracted from school by any girl, much less a Catholic. But before she met my family, Katie Lynn had me at her place every weekend. I quit smoking and stopped my infantile tirades against the church, the school administration, and Bush. I knew the name of each one of Katie Lynn’s family members, even the ones I’d never met. I found out that most of Katie Lynn’s family married young, and they were expecting, hoping, for the same from us. After our first and only pregnancy scare, I started expecting it too. The more we thought about our future together, the closer it loomed, until its ambiguity coalesced into a seeming inevitability. That’s when Katie Lynn started saying she loved my eyes, that she wanted
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“butterscotch-vanilla babies with eyes just like that.” That became the plan. Butterscotch-vanilla babies with curly or wavy hair, single eyelid eyes, olive skin, and English/Catholic names (coz “if I’m poppin’ ‘em out, I’m namin’ ‘em, and they’re getting baptized”). At least, it was until Mark was diagnosed. It was stomach cancer, stage three. The doctor said Mark might have a few years left at best. They moved back to Florida to be with the rest of the family. Mark lasted six months. We kept at it long distance, but part of Katie Lynn died with him. It was over after that, but neither of us was willing to admit it at the same time. A little before graduation she finally left for someone else. His name was also Matt, aspiring musician, good Christian, and certified conservative double to Michael Cera. He was my double, too, and the affirmation that she always wanted me to be white without wholly realizing it. It’s hard to say which part is worse. We were both in Boston our freshman year, and we saw each other sometimes, trying to get closure. She said she was sorry for everything she did, that she never thought she’d be able to hurt me as much as she did those last few months. She says after fucking up with me so many times that she just needed someone new to start with, that she had to be able to think of herself as a “good woman” or she’d never be happy. Eventually, Katie Lynn moved back to Florida and broke up with Other Matt for good. Today, we’re so different from who we were before that we can barely recognize each other. She doesn’t like the person I’ve become. I’m never surprised by her increasing religious passions. We still talk sometimes. She calls often enough that I feel compelled to call on her birthday. Seina still says I’m like family, apparently. Katie Lynn says I have a piece of her; I don’t think she understands that she has a piece of me as well.
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I’m not telling these stories to smear or accuse anyone of
anything. Today, I hold nothing against Katie Lynn. There were bigger things working against us that neither of us could overcome, together or alone. Love comes before everything, and interracial love is beautiful. But love itself is malleable, and multifaceted. Its power can affect anyone in any way, for better or worse. It binds the erotic, relational, and spiritual, bringing euphoria and anguish, fear and vulnerability, and usually regret. Love is neither safe nor above criticism; how we love and why we love are as or more important than love itself. What or who we love rarely matter on their own. To paraphrase Toni Morrison, the conceptual architecture of the home is built on race. Who we seek to build “homes” with, for what reasons and under which terms, are all determined in part by race. Love, though maybe transcendent, operates within white supremacy, patriarchy, classism, heterosexism, capitalism, and ableism—our norms, expectations, and longings have all been shaped by these forces. If we do not seek to unpack and uproot them, they will continue to shape our lives and the “homes” we create with others. One or more partners will have to ask, “but why is this room placed here? And this window facing this direction? Who picked the colonial design? How is it only you can pass with ease through this doorframe?” Teresa and Shirley made me resentful, and maybe depressed. Katie Lynn, I think, made me cautious. She may have loved me, but that love could only be reciprocated and deserved by my willingness to learn and imitate her ways. I didn’t belong in her home with everything I carried with me. I had to leave so much at the door: my family, my history, and other parts of myself that could never be shown within those walls, lest they destabilize and come crashing down around us. Whenever I find myself at another door like that, leading to a home never conceived of with someone like me in mind, I hesitate. I do not know what part of me I will have to remove to belong in that space, or if any amount of amputations will make me fit for entry. And even if those cuts are small, if those inside will see their scars at all.