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using one of my exemptions

using one of my exemptions

I wrote a discussion post for Orientals in Our Homes on the last day of add/drop

I participated in the memorial for Mahsa Amini on sept 27

Samra Habib's We Have Always Been Here is a beautiful account of coming to terms with one's queerness and identity as a Muslim and a racialized person in the diaspora. Samra's main desire is to find their "people," which they explain is an incredibly complex and challenging thing for queer Muslims. Queer Muslim seems like an oxymoron to some people, leaving these individuals seemingly without community. I thought the idea of a chosen family was especially interesting in this context. A chosen family in the context of Habib's work implies a queer community, but not necessarily a Muslim community, in which queer folks who their families don't accept can find refuge. However, queer identity is more complex for the children of immigrants and religious communities like Muslims. Being accepted in a chosen family of white or non-muslim queer people might not feel entirely in line with the Muslim queer identity. Depending on one's culture and relationship with their family, there could also be a stronger desire to maintain a connection with family, complicating the idea of a chosen family. I thought Habib's writing on Unity Mosque and their emotional experience there was incredibly poignant and essential for readers to understand that queer Muslims have "always been here."

Thangaraj's study explores the dynamics of race, gender performance and queerness in the context of basketball. I found this paper incredibly insightful, and it seemed only natural to examine these social dynamics in sports, as this is such a racialized and gender-constructing space. African American men are associated with hypermasculinity and athleticism, which can be warped into harmful stereotypes of aggressiveness and violence. Arguably, these race and gender-based associations also allow African American men to embody a coveted American masculinity - like in the case of NBA players.
By appropriating particular aesthetics and language from the African American community and by playing basketball, South Asian men gain proximity to "American-ness." Despite the prevalence of anti-Black racism in other minority communities, Black "American-ness" is much more attainable for South Asian men than proximity to White "American-ness." Since African American men are rarely stereotyped as "effeminate" or passive, South Asian men can subvert these stereotypes by practicing "Cultural Blackness." These stereotypes also raise issues of homophobia and misogyny. To be feminine is to be passive and weak, and this connects to stereotypes about queer men who are constructed in this way. I would imagine the stereotype of the effeminate brown man derives from Orientalism to harken back to our early classes, and the way to avoid this classification is to Westernize oneself.

Thobani explains that the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism established the English and the French as the "two founding races" of Canada, reproducing the colonial erasure of the many Indigenous nations present on this land before settler colonialism. This use of the words "founding races" re-iterates the country's assumption of the inherent superiority and normality of settlers and their customs over Indigenous law, practice and ethics.
Multiculturalism also asserts Whiteness/English and French Canadian culture as the status quo, othering immigrant cultures and positing them as static and unchanging. I think that Indigenous cultures are excluded from modernity and the future of Canada in a similar way. Both minority groups in Canada are framed by the government and popular culture as "traditional" and unchanging. These stereotypes perpetuate the idea of the White settler as the rational, forward-thinking person, justifying their positions of authority in Canada.

Baldwin describes the melancholia of Algerians in France as being grounded in their displacement from a place they know as home. As an African American, Baldwin can relate to their experience of marginalization in a racist society, but he cannot relate to their specific melancholia as people who "knew exactly where home was" (2). He has no clear idea of a home to return to since it was robbed of him by the slave trade.
Baldwin observes how the French view their colonial expansion as a "civilizing" mission. They justify the exploitation and subjugation of Algeria by highlighting what they "brought" to the colonies (schools, hospitals, etc). The French are indignant when the Algerians resist or assert independence. They hang on to their unfounded ideas of their benevolence to Algeria.
Just as the French refuse to confront the realities of their colonial violence, White Americans avoid the implications of slavery and racism. Both of these groups also refuse to let go of the idea that the people they have oppressed are inferior to them. To create change, oppressors must accept the reality that they are not superior to the oppressed.

When reading Shawndeez's PhD thesis, their discussion of Iran perceived as a homophobic entity stuck with me and reminded me of some of our earlier class discussions. They explain that Americans especially perceive Iran as an image of "pure" Islam, considering the Islamic Republic. They also note Americans have a longstanding issue with the "Islamic world," which was exacerbated by events like 9/11. By positing Islam as homophobic and rigid and unchanging in its antiquated values, Western powers legitimize their violence and oppression of the Middle East in a way that is almost akin to the function of Orientalist stereotyping. Weaponizing this idea of homophobia is a tactic to disguise the hateful actions of the West from liberal Westerners who naturally value LGBTQ+ rights. This strategy creates divisions between the Iranian diaspora and Iranians living in Iran and between people in the West who would typically have similar values, and creates an illusion that queerness does not exist in the middle east. In reading that section of Shawndeez's work, I was reminded of a comment someone made in our class on queerness about how Zionists had managed to weaponize homophobia in the Middle East to justify settler colonialism and genocide in Palestine.

As Asal explains, the Canadian government’s immigrant criteria were rooted in a desire to maintain the nation’s "racial" and cultural homogeneity, prioritizing immigrants of European descent who were supposedly more easily assimilable. A desirable and admissible immigrant was expected to integrate smoothly into Canadian society, adopt its values, and contribute economically without becoming a burden on the state. This criteria included whiteness (in skin colour), Christianity and a certain socio-economic status. When classified as "Asiatic," groups such as Syrians and Armenians were deemed too culturally different to assimilate naturally in Canadian society. However, after making legal cases to be classified as White, claiming status as the original caucasians etc., they were "white and free".

This chapter by Neda Maghbouleh rang true to many of my memories of my mother's parents, especially my grandfather. He would boast about the great accomplishments of the Ancient Persians, and insisted that my younger brother be named Cyrus (after Cyrus the Great, of course). He absolutely played into the idea of "Persian exceptionalism," and it felt as though he legitimized his identity to my dad's (white) parents by distancing himself from Islam and the Arab Middle East. I wonder if his affinity for Ancient Persian history and an Aryan identity were amplified by his melancholia for a pre-revolutionary Iran, or perhaps just a strategy for easier integration into North American society.
I also resonated with Donya's story of childhood bullying in this chapter. I am only half Iranian and my father is white Canadian, but growing up in a very white area of Toronto (the Beaches), my Iranian features did not go unnoticed. My big curly hair, unibrow and hairy arms made me a target for bullying, leaving me confused about my racial identity. I now consider myself white, knowing that some people see me that way and some do not, but at the time I felt distinctively not quite white.

You make a great point about Dog Tribe challenging the status quo in Britain. The controversy of this video is absolutely born out of the British public's reaction to the explicit shows of violence, and racist attacks on brown or Asian youth. There is a degree of discomfort that comes from being confronted with one's own participation and complacency in racism- which is avoided when racist crimes are met with (as you've described) a "slap on the hand." On another note, the prevalence of symbols like the "scarf with Islamic insignia" and the Keffiyeh also cause discomfort to the White British viewer (Hutnyck, 58). These are symbols of resistance to imperialism and colonialism which have been imbued with a narrative of violence, danger and "islamic fundamentalism." This is due to the underlying fear that the status quo, which serves the white upper middle class, will be disrupted. By censoring and creating fear around these kinds of responses to racism, and to the racialised "other," imperial and colonial entities ensure the maintenance of the status quo.

I really enjoyed reading your comprehensive breakdown of this week's topic. The concept of cultural appropriation in this context was much more complex for me to think about than most other cases. I completely understand the motivation to rebuild the Black identity in the US, and imbue it with more positive and empowered history. As a community of people who were stripped of their national identity, it makes sense to me that they would seek a geographical place to form community that feels agential and not forced upon them. However, I agree with you that the adoption and modification of Islamic doctrine to fit this narrative did not work because of how incompatible that practice was with the core values of the religion.

I completely agree with your critique of the superficiality of cultural "appreciation" in this context. I find that this point connects to Mannur's discussion of the "stench of otherness" in her chapter 4, "Intimate Eating" (Mannur, 104). She explains how the white upper-middle class is inclined to be repulsed by the mexican-korean fusion food truck, citing their sanitary concerns as the reason while, in reality, their repulsion is rooted in an aversion and stigma surrounding working class people of colour. Owners of restaurants and food trucks serving "ethnic" foods have to take extra precaution to accommodate white fear and stigma, perhaps compromising the way they would have liked to serve their food. Food is such an intimate vehicle through which to share and connect with one's culture, and so many immigrant people of colour experience a feeling of shame and othering when it comes to sharing their food in a Western context, tainting their relationship to their culture on some level.

While reading Ward's piece, I repeatedly noticed similarities between the anti-immigrant rhetoric he describes, and that which I have heard in my lifetime. The idea that Asian immigrants were raised in a way that is "totally opposed to the civilization and environments under which we of Western civilization are born and reared" is not a relic of the 20th century (Ward, 84). The efforts of racialized immigrants to maintain community in the West is still regularly misunderstood as an inability to assimilate to their new home. These immigrant communities are still met with a hostile reaction from their white countrymen in some cases, and violent outbursts, like those described by Ward in British Columbia, are not unheard of nowadays either - especially in the context of Islamophobia.

I also note the peculiar nature of Canada's desire for a white national identity. White Canadians are, of course, settlers on this land. In the context of Ward's piece Canada was not yet an independent country, but its settler inhabitants were clearly extremely threatened by the presence of non-white individuals and their impact on national identity. I wonder if the country's anti-Asian reaction also had to do with Canada's attempts to assert its legitimacy as a Western nation.

I really enjoyed reading your post! Some of the points you bring up were also ideas that resonated with me when reading Dr. Mohabir's beautiful piece. Your mention of his second-generation identity reminded me of our class discussion of the difference between first and second generation melancholia. Mohabir's being born in Canada makes him slightly more palatable to the white Canadian. So, with some of this worry about assimilation relieved, he is left yearning for a connection to his culture, which his father does not express as a first generation migrant.
I also appreciate your discussion of the role Dr. Mohabir's queerness would have played in his struggle to form his identity. I wonder if this aspect of his identity would have distanced him from his culture entirely or only from his father, who was already actively working to separate him from his background. Perhaps embracing one's queerness in this specific context could actually facilitate the pursuit of a culture that has been made somewhat inaccessible. Maybe by defying his father in one way, Dr. Mohabir could have allowed himself the freedom to explore his identity in all ways.

In reading Cook's work, I was especially interested in the role of the Indigenous witnesses in the accusations against Moriscos. I wonder if these individuals benefitted in some way from giving these testimonies, or if those testifying against Spanish Catholics would have faced any repercussions. I also wonder if there was more to the relationship between persecuted Moriscos and the Indigenous community in a similar way that marginalized groups tend to feel solidarity with one another in the postcolonial present.

Ahmed explains Freud's distinction between mourning and melancholia in that melancholia is the inability to "let go" of grief. This idea of letting go is continuous throughout the text. To achieve happiness, Jess in Bend it Like Beckam must let go of her family's cultural "impositions" and pressures. She must also let go of her hurt and emotion resulting from her encounters with racism, which she does. Jess is depicted as the model migrant or "happy object," as Ahmed writes, because she accepts the gift of empathy and the gift of heterosexual love from her white male coach. Ahmed indicates the significance of heterosexuality, as well as the proximity to whiteness that Jess achieves by entering this interracial relationship.

Jess's parents, on the other hand, cling to their melancholia and hurtful experiences withe racism. While Jess can "put racism behind her," her father is unable to limiting himself to a status of "melancholic migrant" instead of a "happy object" like his daughter. This expectation of the migrant to display gratitude to the imperial, colonial entity is imperative not only to the migrant's individual happiness, but to the happiness of the nation. So, in order to successfully integrate, the migrant must serve the colonial nation by forgetting its violent history and remembering the past as "happy."

Ahmed asserts that happiness has been used as a colonial tool, and it continues to permeate contemporary colonial national identity. Native peoples were required to accept the imposed happiness of the colonizer, and migrants must do the same to assimilate into these nations.

Rana describes the parallels between how the Native Americans of the "New World" were conceptualized by the Spanish and the way that Catholic Spain constructed its identity in contrast to Islamic Spain. In the case of Muslims in Spain, and later of Indigenous people in North America, Spanish Catholics constructed an "Other" who was so unreasonable that they were justified in their colonial and imperial project (Rana 38).
Christians, both British and Spanish, imagined the Muslim and North American Indigenous subjects as sexually perverse. They were also denounced for their homosexuality, which was not only immoral in the view of the European Christian colonizer but also a threat to their masculine ideal (Rana 39). This idea of sexuality and masculinity as a colonial tool harkens back to Said's argument that "Oriental" men were constructed by the West as effeminate to further assert the backward nature of the Orient as opposed to the Occident.

I think you make a really good point about ignorance and its dangers in this context. I think that the most significant inhibitor to social change might actually be fear, which you mention as well. As Baldwin writes in his letter, "people find it very difficult to act on what they know (...) the danger, in the minds of most white Americans is the loss of their identity." As Yancy explains through the work of Sarah Ahmed and others, white people have not had to think about their whiteness. Whiteness is "invisible," and addressing their privilege would be a threat to a white person's comfortable position as the default, or the normative existence. The unwillingness to look critically at whiteness, or to allow others to do so, perpetuating whiteness as the default, is what inhibits real systemic change.