The Current Race Discussion and That Caught-in-the-Middle Feeling

[ultranos]

(I don't know if I want this posted publicly, because I'm still not sure if this sounds like whining. But I need to get this off my chest. Help?)

ETA: After being assured that, hey, you're allowed to have your own perspective, I'm going to unlock this. Here's to hoping I don't regret this. Also, fixing spelling errors.

I saw rydra_wong's link roundups of the current race discussion (here and here) and have been reading through them. Actually, let me be a little more honest: I first had to gather up my courage and then read them. Because I always get profoundly uncomfortable during race discussions.

And I was talking to abyssinia4077 last night about it and was finally able to articulate why I'm uncomfortable and confused. It's not that I want to make it "all about me" or my interactions and perspectives. Actually, it's, I'm sort of ashamed to say, the opposite:

It's never about me.

Because, you see, in these discussions about race and being Othered, I never see anything from the perspective of those of us who are painfully caught in the middle. Those of us who have a foot in two worlds on the race discussion. Those of us who get scrutinized in sandwich shops at the check-out line and asked "what are you?" Those of us who always have that little moment of grief and confusion whenever we fill out a form and are asked to check one box for "Race".

Yes, I'm talking about the mixed kids.

In the course of my life, I have been asked if I am Italian, Spanish, Latina, Hispanic, Turkish, and I'm probably missing some. My brother has been asked if he's related to Saddam Hussein. (Yes, I'm serious. I seriously hope the kid was joking, but I remember feeling like I'd been punched in the gut when my little brother told me this.) We don't fit into people's little boxes. We're not "brown" enough to be immediately put into one of those boxes, but at the same time, we're not "white" enough to be obviously white.

I was pathetically grateful and amazed when one of my professors this past term was the very first person to correctly identify what my cultural and ethnic background was, after I explained that my last name is Slovak. It was the first time in my life where I didn't have to awkwardly explain that I was a product of Imperialism at its best, and by god the sun really hasn't set on the British Empire.

Because that's what I am. My mother's family came from India to the British colony of Guyana as indentured servants. And in that melting pot of the British Empire's sugar cane fields, they began stripping away some of those cultural things in order to survive. And then, in the 1960s, there were race riots in the country and clinging to Indian culture was the equivalent of painting a target on your head. And when my mother went to college, she went to a school in Canada (all hail the British Commonwealth), where she was mocked by a professor because of her accent.

Meanwhile, on my dad's side, the Slovak language has died with my great-grandmother. I grew up with only scraps of that culture, all of which can almost be held within Christmas Eve dinner, and even that I see slowly slipping through my fingers. And it hurts.

And because it hurts, I can empathize so much with people when they talk about being Othered, about feeling the negative effects of white privilege. And at the same time, I feel horribly awkward and guilty, because that's half of me. Because I don't immediately draw stares or whatever when walking down the street. Because I can "pass" at a glance. I may not be carrying an invisible knapsack, but damned if I don't feel like I'm carrying at least a satchel. Because I feel that weight. Because I feel like a horrible liar and a fake when I let people assume. When I "pass". Whenever I have to decide to BE one or the other. Because it always feels like I have to choose which side I'm going to be on.

Because I'm the kid caught in the middle. I'm the person with a foot in two worlds and belonging to none, and a cultural orphan to boot. (And I can get on a soapbox about American cultural appropriation etc, and how American "culture" is sometimes a bad thing, but dammit, it's the only one I have.)

When shewhohashope wrote:

- There is no equivalence between the misrepresentation of Othered groups and the misreresentation of [insert white ethnicity]

No, really. It's about power imbalances and a dearth of decent representations. Think about five childhood heroes from novels that are the same race as you. I bet you can find more. Try to think about five that are South Asian. Arabic. Sub Saharan African? Call me back you're not drowning in decent representation of people who look like you.

I had a horrible moment of realization and it felt like a punch to the gut.

You see, I'm still trying to find one. Because there's never the story about the half-Slovak, half-Guyanese-Indian kid. Hell, let's be a little more broad: there's never the story about the half-Slavic, half-South Asian kid. Actually, I'm still trying to find the stories about the mixed kid in general. This is probably why I unconsciously clung to the half-Elven heroes in fantasy stories, because it was practically the closest I could get. Because at least there I got the cultural tug-of-war that IS being mixed.

And then there are those tiny little slaps that happen every time the rare mixed hero or heroine DOES grace the screen or print, and the comments come of how that character is "a cop-out". Mixed with white to be "more acceptable". How it isn't "really" a PoC. And how every single word just twists the dagger a little more.

Because I'm freaking invisible. Because I can't help but believe that some people would be a little more comfortable if people like me didn't exist. And I'm always afraid of these discussions on race to even speak up, because I'm afraid at best I'll get a pat on the head and at worst shoved aside and belittled because I "don't count".

And maybe they're right. Maybe they're not. I don't know. But it's been flying around, and I just needed to get this out because it's swirling in my head, and I DON'T NEED THIS on top of all these other identity issues I have right now.

Comments

[duskpeterson.livejournal.com]

Here via a post at slavefics (http://community.livejournal.com/orig_slavefic/139355.html) that mentions your post.

(1) I have a hidden disability (I'm partially sighted, but people can't tell it by looking at me). (2) I've been Other in various ways unrelated to race throughout my life, again, usually without people being able to guess. And (3) I routinely include mixed-race and mixed-nationality characters in my stories.

I hadn't thought about it till I read your post, but (3) probably follows from (1) and (2). My first mixed-nationality novel, Blood Vow (http://duskpeterson.com/threelands/#bloodvow) - which eventually turned into a fantasy series (http://duskpeterson.com/threelands/) with a lot of characters of different skin-colors, including several characters with one light-skinned parent and one dark-skinned parent - was originally drafted when I was sixteen. At that age I was still feeling like the social pariah I'd been in my junior-high years - I'd gone to a school for the emotionally disturbed for a while, which meant that, hurrah, my bus got to go past armed guards every morning, and the guards weren't there to keep the bad guys out of our school; they were there to keep us from leaving school and doing bad things to the good guys. I was still feeling like a caged animal in high school, even though, to all outward appearances, I was part of mainstream society, because I knew that I was still Other in various ways that people hadn't yet guessed.

My protagonist in "Blood Vow" is someone who's caught between two cultures and feels frustrated that he must choose between them. I very deliberately did not create racial tension in the world I was writing about - I'd grown up in an atmosphere of racial tension, and I wanted to see what a world would be like where race wasn't one of the things causing division. But there are definitely national and cultural divisions in this world, which are silently reflected by differences in skin color. And some of the characters - whether they are of mixed blood or not - find themselves in a position of divided loyalties between the different national cultures.

So to me these racial discussions in fandom will be beneficial if they inspire people to go out and write a bunch of good fic - or to realize they need to rewrite older fic - but not if the discussions stop people from writing stories out of fear of offending someone.

Oh, and by the way, the "one box only" checking thing? Totally identify. I'm androgynous. :)

[ultranos-fic.livejournal.com]

I hope you forgive me for never having heard of your novel, but I have to say that the back-of-the-book blurb intrigued me, so I'm probably going to check it out. So thanks for that.

More related to the content of your comment, though, is that I'm kind of amused at how much this post of mine has resonated with people, and how people who don't come from the same exact situation as me are still able to draw analogies to their own experience. And it makes me glad too.

And I think you're right. Discussions like these should inspire people to write or rewrite things, and if they fail, fail better next time. I think these discussions can make people more aware of things that can cause offense, so, logically, one could avoid doing the thing that causes offense.

[duskpeterson.livejournal.com]

I'd be surprised if you had. :) It's online fiction, actually.

Thanks for posting your thoughtful commentary.