exhausting conversations.

It's the same old thing, every time.

You share discussions on possible problematic uses of cultural appropriation and call out people who are ignoring their privelege. You get people asking you why you find it problematic, and you talk about how people are still being exploited for their cultural heritage, while they themselves aren't able to fully embrace their own cultural heritage without being significantly disadvantaged or discriminated against. About how it's part of larger patterns, about how it's so ingrained many don't realise it, about how people need to be more aware and take more responsibility for what they do and say.

Then those question-askers drag you into convoluted pleas of "how dare you say I'm privileged!". They say that because you have privilege your opinions are automatically invalid. They claim that you pointing out how unfair it is that someone from a dominant class can get away with looking "exotic" while the locals still suffer is "racist and elitist". And then, because you brought up examples of how this affects you now, you get told you're "taking this personally".

It's the same old patterns, the same old arguments and derails. You find yourself resending links to Racialicious, the Invisible Knapsack, to Derailing for Dummies. People much more learned and patient than you have researched this for many many years before you even started thinking about it. There's only so much you can convey in 140 characters.

You feel like a parrot. You feel like you are a recording machine stuck in a loop. You are drained. You have gone through this exact conversation how many times now? And you're still hearing the same old, same old.

(And it's frightening how it's only ever people in that Dominant Class that get all upset and repetitive. Thank goodness for those others that are being and spreading awareness.)

You've been living this directly since you were a child. You have been debating this for years. You're exhausted. You wish you could stop, that you could just ignore this and it will all go away.

But you know you can't wish it away. You know it will not go away that quickly, not at least when you're alive.

Not when your name and passport still affects your ability to get a job.
Not when you are automatically classified as "High Risk" by government agencies just for your parents' origins.
Not when speaking another language gets you told off - "hey, speak the NATIONAL LANGUAGE you fool!"
Not when your self-worth and acceptance hinges on having a skin colour, size, and features that are alien to you.
Not when just wearing something from your culture or having an accent gets you "go back to your country!!"...if you're lucky and escape physical harm.
Not when people take your appearance as an excuse to crack stupid jokes, to subconsciously place you into pigeonholes, to deny you your voice and claim to speak for you.
Not when you are denied access to welfare, to funding, to scholarships, to education, to credit - unless you can prove that you are not a dangerous dole-bludging (what dole?) FOBbie.
Not when people refuse to listen to you because you sound different, but take in your words when said by someone who looks more "normal".
Not when you are still judged against an arbitrary "normal".

Even if you decide to stop, even if you decide to just shut up - you will still face this. Over and over. People and structures will still take advantage. You will still be pigeonholed, be ostracised. And they will still keep doing this, because no one's told them the problems, because people are excusing them and celebrating their behaviour and refusing to look at the consequences. Because people have pride and when you tell them they're doing something problematic, instead of working out what the problem was, they accuse you of being accusatory.

And the patterns go on. And the debates are smothered because the other side is too tired to stand up for themselves. Because they're accused of "not following the rules" of discussion - rules set by the Dominant Class without any consultation on their end. Rules that disadvantage them from the very start.

If only it was that easy to say "I'll stop now". But until I stop being discriminated against just for anything that makes me "foreign", until the structures that keep these attitudes flowing are dismantled and new structures of real diversity and intergration are established, until I decide to submit to abuses of power and just accept that I will always be pigeonholed and put away and ignored -

- I can't stop talking.

Comments

1. Wow, I am so repulsed by that entire thread. It’s so clueless and ugh. UGH.

   Sometimes I really do wish I could stop talking. But you’re right – we can’t. I’m glad you are talking. :o)

   — stephanie · Mar 3, 04:30 PM · #

2. oh, thank you for writing this. yes, yes, yes.

   i haven’t looked at the linked discussion threads, though i know of some of the privilege/derailing websites you linked to. but yeah, i know the kind of discussions you’re talking about, and i’m sorry, and i hate that it happens too.

   — Shana · Mar 29, 10:59 AM · #