Anti-Racism
Wow, it’s been a minute (read: nearly three months?!) since I last posted. When I started this blog, I made a commitment to myself that I would write regularly, and not easily give up on this endeavor due to lack of time. What I didn’t anticipate, however, was a lack of words.
These past few months, I’ve been up to plenty of new DIY projects and work experiences, but none of it has felt right to post since late May. With the new re-focus on #BlackLivesMatter and anti-racist work that needed to be done, I spent a lot of time wrestling with my thoughts, and trying to figure out what I wanted to say, and if it would be okay for me (not being a member of the Black community) to speak up with my voice. I ultimately kept my thoughts fairly private, but bought (and am currently still reading) several books to educate myself, filtered through the onslaught of social media information, had hard conversations with family, had illuminating conversations with some groups of friends and kept my mouth shut around others (which I regret, but I’m still learning), donated money to causes I supported, and even found time to attend a protest/rally. I have watched over these last three months as slowly, slowly, policies changed and mindsets transformed and a social revolution ensued in the midst of a pandemic. Though the initial “social media” impact has inevitably faded away, it remains important to keep the conversations alive and to continue doing the work. I kept coming back and back to these words, oftentimes frustratingly furiously typing stream-of-consciousness thoughts, and have finally found the courage to edit and post it.
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Lately, I’ve appreciated the power of little actions sparking change (see above), but one of the things I didn’t utilize was my voice on social media. In a world that’s more interconnected than ever before, and literally every person having the opportunity to say their piece, it’s easy to get lost in the cacophony. I didn’t think my voice was important to use or that it would have any impact, but with each comment and post and interaction (both in real life and virtually) we have the ability to reach those we wouldn’t have otherwise. Sharing all this may be unnecessary or too much or fall totally flat, but I figured it was time to utilize the platforms I had. “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall down for anything”, right?
Throughout these past few months, a quote from the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) has continually come back to me: “Whosoever of you sees an evil, let him change it with his hand; and if he is not able to do so, then [let him change it] with his tongue; and if he is not able to do so, then with his heart — and that is the weakest of faith.”
In this regard, I have always had the weakest of faith. I had many excuses for not acting when seeing injustices around me - I’m not strong enough, I don’t have enough money, no one would listen to me anyways, what would people think, is it my place, there’s so many terrible things out there anyways, would this be changing anything at all really, I don’t know how to help - if I couldn’t solve all of the world’s problems, what good would it do to do the little things? I recognized the logical flaws in my thinking, but that didn’t inspire me to change my actions
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When I was in the 7th grade, I distinctly remember having to fill out some career aspiration survey that started off with the usual demographics questions. The strange part was that there were only a few options “White”, “Black”, “Hispanic”, “Native American” - no “Asian”, or “Other”. I, perplexed, raised my hand and had asked what I should do for this required question. “I guess just put Black,” was her reply. 12 year old me was extremely taken aback. I’m not black… why would she even say that? Why wouldn’t she say white? Why do I even have to fill out this stupid survey?
I am not Black, and I can not and will never understand what it means to be Black in America. I am not White, and I can not and will never understand what it means to have an entire system built to cater to and to serve your existence.
I am somewhere in the middle, a first(and a half?) generation Indian Muslim growing up in the idyllic city of Naperville. I was absolutely privileged in my upbringing and opportunities, but turned a blind eye to the racial/religious prejudices that loomed in my periphery, and was instead always striving for acceptance, for whiteness.
When I say I strove for whiteness, oh did I strive. It wasn’t even conscious at first - it was being told that I should avoid going out in the sun, that I should do lemon and honey masks to achieve a brighter complexion, that it was a shame I wasn’t as light as my sisters - and it firmly took hold. The indoctrinated colonial mindset that runs in our South Asian heritage, that whiteness was good and beautiful and desirable and that blackness was bad and unwanted, was deeply instilled into me. Even though I have actively combated my beliefs on whiteness and worked to unlearn them, it’s a work in progress. The teenage me who would only look at skin care products if their results promised brightening and whitening and realized how messed up that was turned into a 26 year old me who was still buying Fair and Lovely creams. The younger me who would go to weddings and hear the complexion of the bride/groom being commented on and cringe at the conversations turned into present day me sometimes wishing I could fulfill rishta aunties and their requirements for fair skinned candidates. I could go on (and on) about colorism, but I’ll save it for another post. I will just say that we as a society have so much work to do, and that starts with me (and you) individually addressing our problematic ideals.
Despite all of this, I, like many of you, did not consider myself a racist person. I had done the requisite learning in social studies and history classes, I had phenomenal teachers (thank you @ Naperville District 203) who encouraged us to think critically, was overall aware of current events, and thought I was a generally good person. I, like many of you, paid attention to tragedies and injustices as they flitted across my social media screens - every time feeling bad, every time wanting to know what more could be done, and every time moving on once the topic stopped trending.
There was always an uneasiness in the back of my mind, constantly growing and surfacing unexpectedly, about the injustices I would see - against black people against incarcerated people against immigrants against palestinians against muslims against my people against against against - but I was privileged enough life that I could turn away from it when I wanted to, give my aforementioned excuses about why I couldn’t do anything anyways, further envelop in my studies, enjoy time with family and friends, and get on with life.
How does one get anything done when their heart is so heavy with the tragedies of others, I would wonder, and cast the feelings away. These experiences (along with my residency training as a surgeon) have forced me to understand that terrible situations will always exist, and we must accept them for what they are, and understand your place and role and ability to help, support, and affect change for those involved. That ability ranges from person to person and situation to situation.
In terms of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, we have to accept that no matter our thoughts about ourselves, because of the system we live in, we have all perpetuated racist (and all -ists, to be fair) ideals. It goes beyond education and empathy and good intentions, although that is a start. What matters in our anti-racist work is our actions. In the week after George Floyd’s death, I kept seeing words and posts and pretty pictures and gruesome pictures and millions of black squares posted. I refused to participate at the time because I hated the sensationalism of social media activism. I wanted real, actionable change. I was also aware of the fact that those posts were not reaching the ones they’re meant to target. How do you change a 400 year old system that’s been engrained through the blood sweat tears and toils of both sides; how do you shift the narrative and begin to heal when some have not accepted that there even exists a problem? Honestly, I’m still in the process of figuring it out (we all are). In addition to the small actions and step I have taken personally to become anti-racist, I’ve decided to use my voice - and I’m asking you all to do so as well. There may be others who are in a similar position where they feel stuck in a position of knowing that there’s an unfair world out there where everything seems to be going to shit but just pick one thing that you care about or are passionate about or something that tugs at your heartstrings and start there. Educate yourself and others and then do something, anything, to make sustainable changes in the direction that you want the world to eventually go. Real, actionable change starts with you, it starts with me, it starts with little steps.
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For three months of pent up thoughts, it wasn’t anything y’all haven’t heard before, but the repetition can only help, right? I want to end this post with a quick reminder that although we must take the steps and actions that we can to care more and help each other out and address problems where we can, we must also take care of ourselves first. It is impossible to be aware of every injustice that exists and extremely overwhelming to feel responsible for solving them. May we all give of ourselves what we are able, and to have our actions bring help to those who need it.