What does it take to make a home in whitened space?
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To make a home in a white space is to sacrifice and compromise. During the early 1900s as depicted in Bengali Harlem, trying to be as white possible helped black people to survive. Black identity was met with disgust, fear and oppression by the white man. Though there were “individuals who had successfully passed as white in order to access better jobs and accommodations”, having to relinquish every ounce of one’s culture, upbringing and perhaps mother tongue to do so highlights one of the many sacrifices it takes to try and make a home in a white space. For those who could not achieve this, as argues by Bald on page 50, their skin “ultimately determined where they would return at the end of each day, the type and quality of the houses in which they would live, the health conditions they would face, the public facilities they could and could not access, and the risks that attended their daily movements.” Simply because they were operating within a system that was designed to limit, persecute and dominate them. Therefore, this ‘home’ was one built on resilience and grit but also fear and injustice. Though this was over 100 years ago, modern day British Asians are facing a similar fear and injustice. In the Swet Shop Boy’s ‘Batalvi’ the line, “Who's that P***i in the Guardian the EDL trolls wanna start with” resonates perfectly with the Anti- immigration race riots in 2024 run by the EDL. The song was released ten years ago and yet harassment, violence and slurs towards Muslims and immigrants are still prominent and rising in the UK. Therefore, similar elements of masking one’s skin colour or staying inside occurred for many brown people in order to stay safe this summer. This shows that people of colour have, and continue to compromise, in order to exist in a space that is not only not designed for them but has also been built on their labour and sacrifices without any appreciation or reparation.
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This is such an eloquent post. Thank you @anya_valimahomed
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To answer this question, I want to relate some of the readings to my lived experience:
This was not my first interaction with Edward Said’s text, but reviewing the first few pages, along with the class discussions and suggested questions, made me think about this subject differently. Most of my previous readings of Said were part of the literary criticism syllabi, so I always approached his work through an analytical lens, examining a text or something similar. However, this class has opened a new door for me—one that encourages me to reflect on my lived experience as a Middle-Easterner who has recently migrated.
Living in Iran, I share many of the experiences of Middle-Eastern people. I once remember a Lebanese colleague telling me, "This is the difficult responsibility of being Middle-Eastern! Whenever you want to travel home, you're thinking about the possibility of bombs and missiles—things that not many Canadians (as she put it) are familiar with." That day, I reflected on her words and on the contrast between the life we are trying to build for ourselves in this "whitened" space. There are experiences we've lived that others simply cannot imagine. It takes a huge effort to navigate this space as a Brown person, where there is little understanding of the burdens and difficulties that shaped our past.
However, this sense of displacement doesn't end when you're back home. There are moments when even your own home feels exotic, as if you're a foreigner in your own land. Speaking from my lived experience, this has often left me with a feeling of dislocation—a feeling that, at times, closely aligns with the notion of "disidentification" that we discussed in the last session. Suddenly, you find yourself in unfamiliar dimensions, lost in this "whitened" space, struggling to find—or create—meaning in life.
As Said states, "because of Orientalism, the Orient was not (and is not) a free subject of thought or action." I find it fascinating, yet unsettling, that this statement resonates on an individual level as well. Much like the systemic and individual racism we talked about last session, this Western-dominated framework has persisted for so long. The fact that European culture "gained strength and identity by setting itself off against the Orient as a surrogate and even underground self" makes the discourse between the Orient and the Occident even more complex. This is evident when such discussions occur on a personal level, especially among young adults.
There is an idealized version of Europe (or the West) that often takes center stage in these discussions, while the motherland is frequently blamed. At some point, you find yourself caught in a conversation with yourself, almost as if you're battling against your own identity. It’s as though there is no freedom of thought—you are compelled to obey what has been imposed upon you, that Western style of governance, even when you’re in your own homeland.
Hence, I assume the widespread "whitened" space does not merely concern you as the migrant but it is so widespread that even at home, in your motherland, there are instances where you find yourself fighting against the 'white' space which is being cast upon your life! And at some point you find yourself sacrificing and compromising even in your hometown which I find extremely complex.