Learning to ‘Speak Your Truth’ in a Racist University

By Niroshnee Ranjan

This semester, the ANU Ethnocultural Department launched their Semester Two campaign Are You Racist ANU?. Some may think this is a new wave of identity politics. It’s not. The movement intends to empower members of the Ethnocultural community at the ANU to ‘Speak Your Truth’, or in other words, tell their story.

When having to witness the severe lack of minority representation in ANU academia, to non-critical representations of historical figures on campus grounds or even ANU’s lack of anti-racism resources and training, one thing remains clear above all. This university is not free from the clasps of white supremacy. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Unfortunately, there is no hiding the emotional labour that comes with telling one’s story. Being oppressed, let alone finding the words to explain that very oppression is a mentally exhausting task. As writer and academic Toni Morrison says, “The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining over and over again, your reason for being…” having to prove your experiences with racism. This constant need to not only justify yourself but also having to verify the anti-racism movement for the white gaze is dehumanising to those who are oppressed by racism in the first place. It is one of the underlying reasons for the disempowerment of minority communities in their fight towards an antiracist world. If only we could all just say, no Karen, this isn’t the Oppression Olympics. These are my experiences and I can speak about them in any way I want to. It’s a privilege to listen to the stories of racism without ever having to experience racism in the first place.

So, what is the point of speaking your truth?

In the white, patriarchal, capitalist society we live in, racism is both explicit and implicit. It is the very nature of this white, patriarchal capitalist society that associates racism with isolated incidents of harassment and abuse, diverting attention away from the structural nature in which racism infiltrates our institutions.

Racial Justice movements like Black Lives Matter cannot be boiled down to the murder of George Floyd or the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer. They may be the unfortunate catalysts these movements needed, but we can’t forget how has embedded itself in the way we are socialised to behave and communicate in this society.

The only way we will actually start seeing it, is if we speak our truth.

For instance, I spent the last two years of my university education living in a residential college that was predominantly white. I was very lucky to find my clan both inside and outside of college but when I had to interact with the rest of the college community, I would put on my ‘white voice’ and hone my ‘white personality’. The dual nature of my identity and interactions with those at my residential college went unnoticed not only by those around me but also by myself. That was, until it was pointed out to me by my friends and I began to see that the very nature of white supremacy ingrained in the institution I called home, was to make you believe that this was the norm.

It wasn’t until very recently that I confessed to my white friends about this duality in my nature. They were shocked to hear what I had to say. However, they know this is how I feel now, and their rose-coloured glasses have been tainted by the harsh realities of the world as we minorities see it.

This was a positive experience of speaking my truth. But there is a fine line between speaking your truth in this way and having to explain yourself and ‘prove’ your experiences with racism all the time. The difference is, that by speaking your truth, you are weaponising your agency as a person, whilst also sharing your experiences for the benefit of others. But most importantly, for the benefit of yourself.

Truth is not only born from the fact that you are telling other people about your story. Truth is also born from the fact that you are sharing your story on your own terms, and are consequently carving out an anti-racist, white-supremacy-free niche for yourself in this world.

Speaking your truth will also allow you to bring to light the complexities that underlie the creation of the ethnocultural community at the ANU in the first place. In a world where minority communities have to look to one another for safety and comfort, these communities can often be mistaken for thriving simply off a sense of relatability. Let’s take Subtle Asian Traits for instance. The content shared on this group is always #sorelatable. Yet, we are so much more than that. There is unseen beauty in the intricacies underlying our identities which are often misunderstood or cast aside as unimportant.

Speaking your truth is just as much owning up to the bad as showcasing the good. However, the power of the anti-racism movement lies in being able to unlearn those biases that are both visible and invisible in their own ways. I’m on a very long journey to dismantling internalised white supremacy but the least I can do along the way is speak my truth in the process of it all.

Nevertheless, my truth in many ways, is still one of privilege. For it is masked by the niceties of my skin colour, socio-economic class and model minority status. I am not black. Nor am I Indigenous. I don’t face the same extremities of oppression and blatant fear for one’s life that my peers do. I will never truly understand how it feels as I too am on stolen land. But I can provide a platform where they can speak their truth, whilst I speak my own.

Perhaps you read this and noticed how I speak my truth. Perhaps you didn’t.

Maybe this piece will convince someone else to do the same. Maybe it won’t.

Reading this piece will definitely make someone feel uncomfortable. But isn’t that the point of it all in the first place?

It’s time we make people uncomfortable when speaking about racism at the ANU.

So, will you ‘Speak Your Truth’?