Attention-Seeker: Constance McMillan and flashbacks to primary school.

I have been following the Constance McMillian story for a while now - the girl who wanted to bring her girlfriend and wear a tux to her prom, got denied, sued, saw her prom cancelled, got a lot of accolades for speaking up, and then on the promise of a "prom" was sent to a decoy with only 7 people (including 2 learning disabled kids!) while everyone else disappeared to a private party. Metafilter has a pretty good links roundup.

Recently a Facebook page titled "Constance Quit Yer Crying" popped up, as well as some nasty letters from one of the students, claiming that basically everyone found Constance annoying and the cause of their cancelled prom, and that's why they excluded her, not because she was gay. Never mind that the same school hounded a trans student and his family out of town just some months before after only four hours. Never mind that kids with learning disabilities were involved. Oh no, it must be because Constance is annoying. (Oh, and maybe because her mother's gay.)

WHAT THE HELL.

This whole thing is giving me flashbacks to primary school. Replace "being queer" with "being a racial minority" and you pretty much have my story. In 2008, I wrote an open letter to my old school - Sultan Ibrahim Girls School (Primary) Johor Bahru, come on, own up to your bloody bigotry - detailing some of the most egregious and terrible bullshit they put me through just because I was Bangladeshi ("Other" in Malaysian bureaucracy), my parents were migrant professionals closer to the "Expatriate" category who weren't diplomats nor starving labourers, and because I actually did pretty well in school. The first two may have been forgivable, but how dare I be amongst the top in the class, how dare I come to school in a chauffered company car, how dare I be the best student in English in the entire damn school the 6 years I was there! How dare I demonstrate a love for learning, an affinity to non-Malay English teachers, a keen interest in computers? Even my best friends left me after Standard 5, when most of the rubbish happened, partly due to peer pressure and partly because I was not dealing with it very well.

A lot of the racism was ring-led by the teachers and administrators, many of whom were Malay and benefited from Government-sanctioned Malay privilege (think of the White privilege in Western countries, change the dominant race, and add Government codification). My existence, and that of my parents, was an affront to them, their identity, their politics. My family was Muslim, which should bring me closer to their side, but I was a "labourer" race and not even properly a citizen (despite being born in Malaysia - another long rant), so I didn't make sense to them. I was a contradiction, I defied the labels mainstream media and the ruling parties put on me - and instead of accepting me and working with me, they decided to shun me and make me an outcast.

Secondary school wasn't that much better: there were more opportunities to get involved, so I developed a level of infamy just for being busy. I was revelling in it for a while, taking the applause as sincere, when suddenly one of the more well-known teachers told me "Tiara, they're not applauding for you, they're making fun of you." Even if she was right, why the hell tell me that?! Way to ruin my relationships and trust in humankind (if it wasn't ruined already by primary school). In Form 4 I gained controversy for skipping Pure Science in favour of Humanities, putting myself in the "last class" and being top of the class almost by default. In Form 5 I had a diagnosis of panic disorder and depression, as well as some new insoles that required wearing sport shoes instead of normal school shoes, and the students & teachers claimed that it was all in my head. I was so glad to be gone from school; it was an absolute waste of time and I wish I'd just skipped the whole malarkey.

Anyway, back to Constance. I read the story about the fake prom, the teachers joining in, the Facebook page. And I'm pretty sure that if Facebook existed in my time (and I wasn't the defacto Internet geek of the school), and if our schools had a prom culture, they would totally do the same to me. Hell, they may have been behind-the-scenes scheming without my knowledge; why else would I be denied the award for English Language skills when it was well-known that I was the best in the school? And then you have this absolutely horrible letter, where the students (and presumably the teachers) pegged her with one word:

Attention-seeker.

Attention-seeker, because she was out and proud.
Attention-seeker, because she wanted to bring her girl to the prom.
Attention-seeker, because she spoke up against injustice.
Attention-seeker, because her mum's gay and that just made her even more undesirable.
Attention-seeker, because she probably did very well at school too.
Attention-seeker, because she existed and did not hide it.

Attention-seeker. The term brandied to me mostly in primary school but also in secondary school for some parts. The term that justified verbal and emotional abuse for years, sanctioned by administration, ignored by the Government.

Attention-seeker, because I did pretty good in exams and competitions while hardly trying - I loved to read and picked up stuff that way.
Attention-seeker, because my love for reading (and then the Internet) meant that I was often a year or two ahead of the students.
Attention-seeker, because I was passionate about what I believe in and didn't allow myself to be silenced.
Attention-seeker, because I refused to participate in hazing sessions (whether as hazer or hazee) misleadingly named "orientation".
Attention-seeker, because I got involved in anything interesting and so was up on stage to pick up some award or another a few times a month.
Attention-seeker, because even though I was not Malay and the rest of my class was, I still was apparently the only person who knew how to fill in an exam bubble sheet right the first time (this happened in class in Std 6).
Attention-seeker, because my parents were upper-middle-class Bangladeshis and my dad was head of a Government-owned company, with almost all his other staff and peers being Malay.
Attention-seeker, because I declined a spot in the top-performing Science classes to study Literature.
Attention-seeker, because I would speak to a teacher in English and when yelled at by a classmate for "not speaking your mother tongue" I wondered if I should break out into Bengali.
Attention-seeker, for apparently making art so bad it apparently warranted taunts from teachers saying their 6-year-old does better, a demand to redo my exam piece in the middle of the text, and the teachers stopping a 12-year-old me in primary school one morning before assembly to tell me that my contribution to a poster contest was so terrible, they tore it all up.
Attention-seeker, because I had random debilitating panic attacks in Form 5 and sometimes went home early, to the point of missing an entire month before exams started.
Attention-seeker, because I did fine in exams anyway.

Attention-seeker, because I did not want my race to be a barrier or even a factor in being considered as a human being.
Attention-seeker, because I was born in Malaysia as a foreigner and didn't get permanent residency since I was 7, because my dad wasn't a diplomat that moved countries every 5 years, because I went to school with permanent residency that required me to go to a Government school that kept trying to kick me out every few years due to my permanent residency, because I was the only non-Malay in the Malay prefects meeting and the only Muslim in the non-Malay prefects meeting when they discussed who should be Head Prefect.
Attention-seeker, because I existed.

Hell I still get the same rubbish now - I recently had a big fallout with people I used to be tight with in the Brisbane burlesque world because I'm quite outspoken about issues of cultural appropriation and race representation on The Merch Girl, and that's apparently "insulting, derogatory, and pushy". People tell me that if I "cooled down on the feminism/activism" I would get more opportunities. I can't rock the boat of the people whose whole genre is all about rocking the boat, because I'm the Exotic Other and I should just accept my role as such.

Maybe Constance and I have utterly repulsive personalities, who knows. But even so, it is no excuse for absolutely reprehensive behaviour. You don't want to hang out with her at prom? Fine, but don't go deflecting her to a fake prom! You don't want to hang out with me? Fine, but don't go making me account for every single overblown news article on some Bangla crime when I'm 11. Dear God. Is there no human decency anymore!? 

Maybe we're attention seekers. So fucking what?! Why is it such a bad thing to seek attention anyway? Just because we're different doesn't mean we're shrinking violets. Just because we're asserting our presence and speaking up against injustices doesn't mean we're uppity or sanctimonious.

The more I read this, the more sick to my stomach I get. For every Constance or myself there are likely more and more kids who are facing this in school and don't have the same level of support. I wish I knew how to support them. EducateDeviate was my attempt at bringing change, but my move to Australia and change of interest put that on hold. But I still want to support the outcasts, the weirdos, the attention-seekers. I want to protect them from those that would harm them, cut them down, abuse them, hurt them, and give them significant complexes that they are still dealing with many years later.

I want to protect and support them the way I wish someone had protected and supported me.

Comments

1. you’re a twit. you’re also an angry little attention seeking girl. rant much?

   — candace · Apr 8, 01:00 AM · #

2. Whoa hello unnecessary vitrol! Where have you come from, person who likes to infantilise others (using a fake email address, no less?).

   — Tiara Shafiq · Apr 8, 04:22 AM · #

3. Sigh

   — JL · Apr 8, 03:02 PM · #

4. The first comment just proved your ENTIRE post right. Justified it.

   Way to go, Ti! :D

   (Incidentally, captcha was “panic loans”)

   — Naoko · Apr 8, 06:11 PM · #

5. Sadly attention seeking appears to have been made into “a tension” seeking. I think the roots are jealousy and a zero sum view of the world i.e. if you’re gaining then I must be losing. Its entirely Wrong, and everyone owes it to themselves (and the world) to seek as much attention as they possibly can. The alternative is Laziness and mediocrity. So you keep on seeking attention. Good luck!

   — Mickey · May 15, 05:03 PM · #