Conflicting loyalties: challenging white orientalism and homophobia in diasporic communities

For a long time now, I've thought a lot about the issues with talking about the oppressive stuff in my family and culture in a white-dominated context that constructs non-western cultures as more oppressive, inferior and generally more backward or authoritarian. Having worked with young women from Asian, Middle Eastern and African backgrounds coming out of family violence situations, there's quite common response of internalised racism. In these cases, resulting from trauma. This dilemma between challenging orientalist and racist ideas that present non-western cultures as more oppressive and challenging the very real oppressions that affect me directly in my own family is a really hard one to straddle and difficult to know how to talk about it publicly without painting my family or all Chinese people as sexist or homophobic, or more so than the dominant Pakeha culture.

I recently came out to my parents as queer, not directly using that term but indicating that I'm not heterosexual. My parents are also Christians, my mum doesn't just think it's sinful to be sleeping with women but that I have a mental illness and I need 'treatment'. She claims that according to the internet that 70% of homosexuals are fake and can be cured from such disease. She also keeps repeatedly asking me whether I think of myself as male and pressures me to grow my hair long and dress more feminine. After I came out, I went home the next weekend and she had taken out all these old photos of me from intermediate school where I had long hair and wore dresses just to remind me that I am a GIRL. I don't think I can even begin to try to explain what genderqueer means. I asked, so what if I do think of myself as male and she said that's also a mental illness and that I'll need to be cured from it. It's not normal. Apparently if we didn't leave China, I would not be queer, it's a white people thing.

On the other side, if I'm having issues in my queer relationship with my white partner the discourse my mum uses is that same-gender relationships just don't work and aren't supposed to work. Find a (Chinese) man, get married and have babies like she did. You don't have to love him to begin with but you will grow to love him. Like my mum did, apparently. It's like if you're queer and there's problems in your relationship it's because you're queer and the solution is to be heterosexual. If you're Chinese and there's problems with your family it's because Chinese culture is just more conservative or backward and the solution is to distance yourself away from it or try to assimilate into Pakeha culture. It shouldn't have to be like this.

I think there's a lot of issues involved and I don't really know where to start to begin articulating them. There are tensions between ethnic loyalty under conditions of racism and eurocentrism where your culture/people is considered more homophobic or sexist if you talk about those kinds of oppressions in among people of your ethnicity. They then become marked as "cultural" oppression. When this oppression is talked about in Pakeha culture they're considered "structural" oppression, because Pakeha apparently don't have culture (but have structures, lot of them, hierarchical ones). I don't know how many times Pakeha people have expressed this "I don't have a culture" sentiment. As Marilyn Strathern said, "the nice thing about culture is that everyone has it". It's just fucking invisible to you because you're part of the dominant culture. Then also with diasporic experiences, your family is usually your first point of understanding of your cultural background and however your family operates becomes a characteristic you might attribute to 'your' culture. I can see that slippery slope towards internalised racism when violence is added in there in the context of wider societal racism that makes your culture seem more backward anyway. But that distinction between "cultural" and "structural" oppression is interesting, with "cultural" oppression as a problem with this thing called "culture" and for that oppression to stop, the culture must change. With "structural" oppression, it's the structure that has to change. Maybe we need to talk about "structural" oppression within all cultures or use "cultural" oppression universally including the dominant one because oppression justified and exercised through cultural hegemony especially in the dominant culture.

I hate that super annoying framing of having to choose between anti-racism and queer feminism. In a dominant white context it just makes it fucking hard to talk about. How do you address these forms of oppression that may be culturally specific in a diasporic context without adding fuel to racism and colonial feminism? How do you unlearn internalised racism when that's been a response to trauma? How do you explain this shit to white people without feeling like you're providing evidence that their culture less problematic and being a 'victim' that needs them to save and protect?

At the axes of multiple structural yuckness, we gotta figure out a way of combating oppression intersectionally without undermining other shit that's important to us. That context of Pakeha cultural supremacy that adds a dense fog to the rough terrain that's already hard to walk and navigate. But we can't let it get in the way of where we need to go. We have to figure this out together.

CONVERSATION ON COLOUR SHAME (AS AN ASIAN FEMME)

Hey all, I wrote the below in response to someone asking me to write about an aspect of my journey to anti-racist work... hope there is some value to you in reading this. Thanks heaps :-)

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So. Yesterday I was explaining to a white person about my choice to stay as tanned as possible. How it is a conscious decision on my part in response to the status given to pale Asian women. In Asia, there are heavily marketed whitening creams, lotions and operations, as there is a belief that paleness (or "whiteness") is connected to status and conventional ideals of beauty. Many advertising campaigns and films and other media will feature pale Asian women, or purposefully employ part-Anglo/Saxon/Celtic Asian women to feature in said media.

Darkness of skintone still plays into preconceived notions of savagery, primitivism, animalistic tendencies, and other exoticisms. Lightness of skin still suggests purity, pristine beauty, innocence, and thus, being appropriately feminine.

These are generalisations, from conversations with my educated, informed radical queer friends. These are associations people make, despite their reluctance to. In the last few years I have been called "Pocahontas", "Warrior queen", "Amazon woman", and "Tribal Priestess" from these friends. People have also guessed my nationality as Pacific Islander, South or Central American in initial interactions. I am 100% Vietnamese. I don't mean this to take away any burden of history from black or brown people in my community or reading this, and I am not expressing these anecdotes as complaints, merely observation for analysis. I also apologise if I come across as if I am appropriating any other struggles that are not my own.

In my conversation yesterday I explained to my white friend that my choice now to be as dark as possible was one choice of many that I have made over the last 20 or so years, of thinking about race, and in particular, my own journey with my racial identity. I am 31 years old. I explained that up until my early 20s I made a conscious effort to stay as pale as possible, I was a teenage goth, I stayed indoors in Summer, only went to the beach at night... and how that was a conscious denial of my Asianness. I was aware that I was disassociating or attempting to detach from my brownness, my other-ness - these conditions that brought me emotional and physical pain as a teenager growing up in the white oceanside suburbs of Sydney. I was ashamed to be Asian, and I tried to hide it in many ways. I am now trying to dismantle that shame.

My choice now, besides to get healthy doses of Vitamin D, to stay sunlit and brown, are a reply to the conversation I started as an 11 year old. I am now here and proud and fierce.

I have recently started to accept my skin and body as part of who I am, as I realised that I disconnected from these states as a child and teenager as both these physical attributes attracted physical, sexual and verbal abuse from those around me. I am attempting to reclaim my self.

I write this, aware that this is still the beginning of my epiphanies, processing, acceptance.

This is one example of many, many decisions I have made around my intentional anti-racist politics, decisions made from the age of 11. I could write about those decisions, but feel there are too many to recount. The main aspects is that I alternate between empowering People Of Colour in POC-only spaces (workshops, lectures, shows, activism, direct action, community work, refugee work, work in developing countries, journalism) and educating White People and White Spaces (social work, youth work, Critical Whiteness workshops, Privilege workshops, talks on Gentrification and Displacement, talks on Responsible Methodology for NGO refugee services, etc). I have spent years in POC-only countries doing work, and then return to Anglo-Saxon countries to do other work (and usually to save money to fund the other experiences and travel). There has been (exhausting, draining, alienating) years of serving a predominantly white community, and then making a conscious decision to take a break from that and serve intentional POC spaces. This is a continual ellipse, however the older I get, the more focussed I am on giving time to POC-only communities, to asylum-seekers, to immigration and workers' rights.

At this point I am writing a book for Asian-Australian teenagers, will go on another Race Riot zine tour later this year through the south of the States, and hope to seek more work supporting immigrant communities in some way.  I am living in a predominantly white country at the moment, with an almost entirely white radical queer and punk scene around me, which is an aspect I wrestle with daily.

*** I hope this has not offended anyone, as I understand talking about skin colour and shades as an Asian person expresses ALOT of the choice and privilege I have in society. I mostly hope that I have been able to contribute something to the reader. ***

Please contact me if you would like to discuss anything further - annavo@riseup.net

A Slice of Waitangi

One of the reasons Leeland moved away was because of the ghosts. Pakeha ghosts to be precise. Less pakeha, less ghosts – went the plan.

White seduction, golden maps and hemisphere migration had sacrificed his ancestral tongue. He got an English one instead – complete with Kiwi twang and mumble. It had served him well. It also meant pakeha ghosts took a liking to him. Leeland often wondered if he had known his mother tongue, would Chinese ghosts speak to him too. 

 

Leeland felt the Maori spirits stirring. That wasn't a special thing about him, everyone could feel them, coudn't they?

Especially today. Waitangi Day. Day where the pakeha got prickly, and the 'others' were confused and vulnerable to pakeha angst in the media. Day where Papatuanuku tugged at her children up through the soles of their feet and gripped the crowns on their heads.

Leeland, like many men, excepting his father, didn't cry much. Not because he refused to, but because feelings that rode with tears, didn't make it up far enough from his chest to his eyelids.

The karanga was like a magnet that made all his tears feel like they would spill not just out his eyes, but out of his skin. He could feel all the passed before, running their fingers and breath all over the tiny hairs on his body as they were called onto the marae by the haunting, realm-crossing call.

Maori ghosts didn't talk to him, they didn't need to. Their stories were ready on the lips of their descendents, written in tears on so many parchments, and all online now too. It was in the soil, and chanted by trees, rivers, lakes and mountains if you knew how to listen. 

 

It was the pakeha ghosts that had so much to say. Their descendents that had silenced their song, sought to erase it. The tales, ordeals, sacrifices and crimes of their migration journeys and new settlements barely six generations back. Time doesn't mean much for ghosts. And they found Leeland's tongue. Made him sing their mournful ballads, and listen to their stories.

At first it terrified Leeland. Then he was angry. 

 

Leeland couldn't speak to his own living grandmothers as they had different languages in their mouths and ears. Yet these pakehas ghosts, demanding in passing, as in life, followed him around until they'd spoken and sung enough to move on. Everyone needs an audience.

So he watched. Used this ghostly gleaned knowledge to supplement in living conversations. Ghosts spoke with their bodies, or the shapes and whisps of their bodies. Spoke emotion like that. Leeland tried to stitch the holes in the living pakehas with his words. The pakehas were hurting, dead and alive. So like school yard bullies, played it out on the backs of Maori. And Maori, dead and alive, continued to struggle. 

Against the battering rams of Westminster Law, privatised prisons, poisonous health care and lobotomising, heart-dehydrating curriculum, the people of the land continued. And the earth sung to them quietly in caress, balm to wounded souls. Leeland knew the land would never stop singing to her children. And those songs made him weep.

You had to pick a side.

You couldn't live with your eyes and ears open, and not realise what's going on. But once you picked that side, you realised it wasn't about sides. It was about remembering. The memories that live through bodies, and words, and actions, and refuse to be erased or re-written.

And the bully stomped on and threw its toys.

There aren't really sides to understanding. Being quite short seemed to help Leeland. Easier to not get caught in tall poppies heads being chopped off.

Standing underneath the rhetoric, propoganda, denial and hot-air, to see where it's all leading. 

For wounds to heal, the thorn must be removed; not ignored and 'moved on from'. Common sense really. Unfortunately commonsense was not so common these days.

In time Leeland realised it was merely a price for living on this contested lands. Though he wasn't a pakeha, to Maori maybe they were all colonial settlers. White, yellow, red, black, rainbow, off-white. So he tried to pay his part, taxes and rent perhaps. Someone had too. The price was too great and could never be repaid, but maybe the act of trying spoke in volumes.

So he hoped.

#J11 Migrants in solidarity with Idle No More

On this global day of action in solidarity with Idle No More, members of Young Asian Feminist Aotearoa (YAFA) went inside the Canadian Consulate and Trade Office in Tamaki-Makau-rau (Auckland) to demonstrate our support for indigenous rights everywhere. 

RISE AGAINST RAPE CULTURE: A Silent Protest in Solidarity with Women's Struggle in India

A woman in Delhi was brutally raped and beaten ON A BUS. The woman has just died as a result of her injuries. There is a lot to this story so do check out the links below.

Today the world finally learns of her name - RIP Jyoti Singh Pandey.

In light of her story as well as the many unnamed unsung women victims there, here and worldwide, a group of young Asian women with the support of Shakti, are organising a silent protest to mourn in solidarity and extend aroha and support to those still in grief and disbelief over this injustice.

Why a silent protest? Because words cannot express the pain and rage we have been carrying in our hearts since the loss of our sisters.
Our mana has been broken!

Immigrant women of colour and young people in Aotearoa New Zealand seek the tautoko of all members of New Zealand society, from all walks of life, to join us for a silent protest in honour of the women victims and their families. Join us as we rise against rape culture and collectively build hope and strength.

In respect of Indian custom, wear something white as a colour for mourning. Black scarves will be distributed at the event for people to wear as masks symbolising our "silence". You may bring posters and placards to "speak". Silent protest will go for 30 minutes, after which speakers from the community will be invited to share a few words.

When: Saturday 12 January 2012
Where: Aotea Square
What: Gather from 1pm
ALL WELCOMED

This event is graciously supported by SHAKTI (http://shakti.org.nz/)

Informative links:

http://www.3news.co.nz/Group-protests-violence-after-India-rape/tabid/423/articleID/282139/Default.aspx

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/indian-rape-victim-has-brain-damage-lung-infection-doctors-struggle-to-save-her-life/2012/12/28/cf4ad07c-50b4-11e2-835b-02f92c0daa43_story.html

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Delhi-gang-rape-victims-answers-to-police-could-be-a-crucial-dying-declaration/articleshow/17821132.cms

Whoa whoa waitaminute... who's the decolonizer here?

So I was at the UNHQ last month as part of the representative delegation of NZ women's NGOs at CEDAW, and had a chance to catch up with a friend who works at the UN. We were catching up on lots of things an hour lunch can afford; so obviously, we went straight to the political situation in NZ including the emergent wave of radical activisms gaining momentum with Occupy, Blockade the Budget, student protests and the like. I was also earnestly sharing about my POC feminist punk band and my embrace of veganism, and started talking about this thing called decolonization, its relevance in facilitating a fair dialogue between indigineous and tau iwi people of colour in Aotearoa.... and then I wondered if such a thing can be contextually applied  in a country like Singapore (where I was born), and even perhaps a revivalism of Nusantara (Malay archipelago) indigeneity.

How would that work? he asks.

"Well, you know," I started. "Singapura as it has been since Independence is a mess. We (the Malays) are constitutionally recognised as the native people of the land but politically, socio-economically, we're disenfranchised, marginalised, still trailing decades behind.. " I meant this according to the steers of the global capitalist machinery of course. "The idea of utilising indigenous rights as a tool to ignite decolonisation in Singapura excites me...and why not? I mean, my granduncles were communists and they tried; some got detained, some got disappeared in the 70s, then my parents' generation probably traumatised by previous generation and the increasingly regimented government rule took the safe way but here we are, and our generation.. we have the tools at our fingertips.. "

He goes: Okay.. so in Singapore, the natives are Malay... and who would be the colonizers?

The majority.. the Chinese...

But if you talk about Nusantara,  the colonizers in Malaysia and Indonesia.. not similar is it?

He continued. "With the situation in West Papua and Indonesia at the moment.. and the political history between Bumiputra Malays, and indigenous tribes of West Malaysia.. I think it's an entirely different playing field very unlike the west.. there would surely be complexities in who can claim indigeneity..."

By this point, I listened intently to what my friend was saying. He was describing to me the Indonesia situation, since invasion of East Timor and more recently Papua, and relating how Indonesia is, in this light of day, a colonizer. How do we talk about decolonization now? Colonization which has perhaps since the late 80s/90s been interchangeably referred to as Orientalism and academically situated within a "Post(colonial)" context, has always historically been written by the west, and critiqued by the east as a legacy of white supremacy. We imagine Colonizers or those "superpower" white nations like the British, Dutch, Americans, Russians, Germans, Portugese. Yet in the history of the East, invasion from Sino/East Asian nations such as Japanese and Chinese throughout Southeast Asia is so brutally visible today not just in terms of population demographics, but the wider scale of the who's who (in economic power) in Asia...

Well, that's why I think whiteness is a privilege of colonizers, and not necessarily owned by white people in the west, I responded. In the context of Southeast Asia, I think that is still historically apt. My friend didn't look too convinced. To be honest, I wasn't too convinced of my own answer either!

Who are the colonizers today? That question took me a while to munch at. It made me tense and uncomfortable because here I was excited by the possibility of reviving indigenous dialogue with Malay communities in Singapore, thinking I could utilise international human rights language such as UN DRIP, and leverage off strategies tried and tested in the context of tangata whenua in Aotearoa for one, and then suddenly I get this reality-check smack on my head: there's still so much dialogue that NEEDS to happen and HASN'T yet happened in Asia. I bounced this question amongst other Asian migrant/descent activists as well as with an Indonesian guest speaker whom I met at a Communist League forum when I returned to NZ. Somehow, (and for me, disturbingly) consensus is the acceptance of nations such as Indonesia today as colonizers.

But shouldn't the question be why has this "colonization" taken place? Who (which nations//read: USA, Australia, NEW ZEALAND!?) are pulling the strings to make it happen? To whose interests is it to attribute a country such as Indonesia considerably renowned (for better or worse) as the largest Muslim country in the world, to gain such a reputation?

Let's begin with this. Firstly, how can we simply label Indonesia a colonizer without critically looking at the roots of white colonization. Dutch colonialism. Japanese occupation. Dutch re-colonisation attempt post 1945... Hello?!

Secondly, when we talk of colonizer-colonized characteristics, we observe colonizers generally being that of a majority in rule/ power and often an occupier ie. not the native of the land. Indonesia is ethnically diverse, not just by tribes, but also sub-sects of Hindu, Muslim, Christian all over. However Javanese are probably the largest ethnic group whose Suharto-led policies motivated inter-province migrations across various cities to an extent that they are considered the "majority" of Indonesia. But the Javanese, bio-anthropologically, a Malay race, are a people of the land, the natively Indonesian because Java is not a colony island of Indonesia. So in my view, we cannot simply compare them in the same way we do as the Chinese in Singapore.

I think that for people of colour with an indigenous affiliation in a different country such as myself, the way we frame our politics must continue to be challenged and would be required to constantly shift if we want to truly relate to the process of decolonisation. It's literally about multiplicity. Thus far, it feels like I have been doing decolonisation as an Asian migrant in New Zealand, as a member of the wider tau iwi community with respect to Maori. But I have yet to access, connect and participate as an under-recognised and under-rights protected member of the global community of indigenous people. Because somehow when we try, then something like Indonesia pops up and makes us doubt what we already know was true and real in the first place: colonization is a process historically white, historically west and still presently, true. And we really need to trust our instincts when it comes to how we communicate through this politics, this language, because at the end of the day, dude we're all trying to describe, narrate, relate in English. And we all know that there is inherent politics in itself. That must always be the first sign in where, when, how ever the conversation is happening before we, people of colour activists, come to any consensus on what decolonization means for us looking from the outside, but with roots so deep in Asia.

nasi goreng vegan - a vegan version of indonesian fried rice - heres hoping food comforts thy raging souls.

There's doing, and there's doing

There's doing and there's doing.

One of my favourite stories about Haunani Kay Trask, was at yet another gathering where well meaning white liberals had congregated to engage on the topics of indigenous rights, white privilege and what else have you. The liberals, were then wringing their hands saying things along the lines of “Oh, it's so bad, that's just terrible, what can we do?! We just don't know what can be done, what can we do?!”.

Haunani Kay Trask replied with “Do you have a house? Well give it to us. Do you have a car? Well give it to us? Do you have a job? Well give it to us. Do you have money in your bank account? Well give it to us”.

Not quite the answer they were expecting. Because it was a rhetorical question. Or at least one where they wanted a theoretical, intellectual or philosphical answer. Nothing tangible, nothing practical, nothing that actually involves you, situates you, locates you, gets your hands dirty.

Haunani Kay Trask, was not, of course, suggesting that the effects of colonisation could be solved merely by guilty white liberals giving indigenous Hawaiians their things. She was, well I like to think, challenging their inaction, their willingness to only engage on these issues on an esoteric level, as intellectual exercise.

And here's the other side to the pendulum. And on the pendulum is not where we want to be, not on either side. And this other side is also dangerous, so I'll share two stories, so we can try and get off the pendulum.

A friend of mine was rung up one day by a well meaning white womens' health group. Well that wasn't its name, it was a womens' health group that only had white women in it. Anyhow, they rung my friend up and told her that it was soon breast feeding celebration day (or something like that) and they felt it was an international issue, so, as my friend had lots of connections with refugee women, could she gather a bunch of them to wear their ethnic clothes, and cook their ethnic food for everyone attending.

My friend told the well meaning group, that it was pretty offensive to ask such a thing in that fashion and not think about those dynamics, let alone the practicalities of lost wages, child care, and cost of transport. And that if their group was interested in cultivating a meaningful relationship that didn't involve simply trucking ethnic women along to their events to dress up and cook for them, she might be able to assist.

The womemns' group canned their idea and didn't get back in touch with my friend.

The other story I've been told, is one where well intentioned development workers went to some “developing” country, and felt aghast that the women of the village had to walk a mile or so down the road to wash their clothes. So the good intentioned development workers, got their tools together, and after some digging, channeling, rediverting etc, popped a tap into the centre of the village.

The development workers, expecting wonderful thanks and gratitude from the village, instead got an earful from the women. The women were very annoyed, as the trip to the river to wash clothes everyday, provided them with an important opportunity to meet with each other, away from their menfolk, to discuss issues, problems, and support each other. The arrival of the tap, took away that opportunity, and they were now expected to do more chores.

One part of the problem, is privileged people in dominant groups like to talk about stuff, decrying the woes of things, outlining the myriad of ways things are so screwed up, and what structural things need to change, and why they won't change. All over a hotel banquet, conference drinks, or vegan gluten free shepherds pie. No one actually wants to do anything that will put themselves out in any way. They just want to look good, like they are well meaning, well intentioned, and by discussing these difficult issues, are proving their willingness and worth. All while not really doing anything.

Another part of the problem, is privileged people in dominant groups like to get in there and fix things. They have to be “doing” something – or feel like their doing something, or look like they're doing something. And often, it has been their “doing” that has messed things up in the first place. One of the big problems here is that they're not doing what has been asked of them, because they often haven't asked what they should do, or if they have, they've not listened to the answer. They “do” things out of an entitled feeling of “I know what need to happen”, or out of figety habit and guilt. Not unalike workers when when their boss walks in and everybody tries to look busy. It's that dynamic internalised.

I'd volunteer that that meaningless unengaged “doing” (meddling) is merely a distraction, a procrastination. A short circuit that skips the required praxis part of listening, reflecting, knowing, knowing what you aren't knowing, then doing, then listening, reflecting.. so on and so forth.

Quite paradoxical, but there you have it. Doing and doing.