feel it breathing down, heavy on you

[intertribal]

I've never been made unsafe because of my demographics.  I'm half-white and half-Javanese, but I pass.  I look a lot whiter now than I did when I was younger (my skin has gotten paler, I've started looking more like my mother, IDK).  I guess most people can identify that I don't look totally teutonic, or whatever, but I get to rest in the safe "mildly exotic" zone.  The only people that actually broach the ethnicity subject with me are themselves not white.  And I know that has made my life a lot easier.

Lately I have started to feel uneasy.  I keep having nightmarish visions of America entering some kind of... social bottleneck, or something, because the amount of combative racist agitation in the country seems so high right now.  A little while ago it was Arizona and the border.  Now it's Islam.  And while the anti-immigration rhetoric did make me nervous (and pissed for non-personal, more philosophical reasons) the anti-Islam rhetoric actually creates physical discomfort, because I was raised in Indonesia and my father's family is Muslim.  To be honest I don't know much about the religion.  I went to a Muslim school for two years, learned nothing (I was too busy talking to myself), was registered as Muslim at my international school, literally raced through my prayers, the end.  My best friend was Christian.  I was more excited about Christmas (presents!) than Idul Fitri (adults talking).  But it was a Muslim society, and save for my atheist mother, all the responsible adults in my life were Muslim - though they ranged all the way from my dad, who was mostly atheist, to a friend of my dad's who was like a freelance preacher.  To this day hearing the adzan comforts me.  So I guess I have some cultural identification with Islam.  

I pretty much know that the anti-Islam stuff going down in the U.S. is never going to hurt me, personally.  I don't identify with any religion (right now I'm immersed in Christianity, and dabble in paganism, a la Christine O'Donnell I guess) and I look white enough that no one's going to bring it up.  But I guess... I just feel more on-edge about it than I used to.  I don't know if that's because of the changed climate or because I've gotten more sensitive or what.  But these days I feel wary about saying I used to live in Indonesia, because what if they know Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim population?  Why did that woman at work mistake hearing "Indonesia" for "Egypt" and then say "close enough"?  That is how hyper my neurosis is.  After all, if that is how Obama has been identified as Muslim - going to school in Indonesia, having a Muslim father - well, shit, my cover's blown.  I shudder to think of the number of people who would happily high-five me in Memorial Stadium now who wouldn't if they knew.  And believe me, thinking that way - feeling paranoid that I'm going to be somehow "found out" - makes me feel very cowardly and hypocritical, because WTF, right, there should be no shame in identifying with whatever ethnicity or religion, and how lame am I in propagating that there is something shameful about Islam through my actions.  Like I am braver about sticking up for other people (who I couldn't be mistaken for) but don't have the balls to put myself on the line.  That's fucking awful. 

But then there's the question of whether I should even identify with Islam enough to feel uneasy and paranoid.  I mean, there are a whole lot of people who have more cause for concern than I.  It's not part of my identity.  If we're going to pick out cultural/ethnic markers for me, I would say something along the lines of "l'enfant colonial."  The line "Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo" is my favorite from "We Didn't Start The Fire."  And on the other hand, I totally believe that people shouldn't wait to be a member of a group at gunpoint to, you know, say or do something.  A lot of casual and/or combative racism upsets me mentally - but this is the first time I've ever felt physically and emotionally uncomfortable, for purely self-defensive reasons.  It is very different from anything I have felt before. 

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

The music in this video is really beautiful. Somehow it, combined with your post, are really affecting, this evening.

I dunno--I got nothing, as they say.

Just holding out your hand to people, speaking up for people. And you do that.

Not sure there's much else....

And you will be changed in everything

The music is really beautiful.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you know, I hope I do that.

And yes, it's one of my favorite songs. Glad you like it.

derailing the conversation with music

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I'm going to not only buy the song on iTunes, I'm going to buy it for someone else, too.

Re: derailing the conversation with music

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Did you get the one from the Moon Pix album? Because she's got a different version on an album called Jukebox.

Re: derailing the conversation with music

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I got the right one--the one that sounds like the video. And I've been playing it constantly. I really love it. I must be in a melancholy mood--no, strike that; I AM in a melancholy mood--and it fits the mood perfectly.

Re: derailing the conversation with music

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

It's a really plaintive, pleading, emotional song. My favorite part is actually when she sings a little bit of "Amazing Grace."

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

It's damn difficult, and I wish I had anything to say that might help. Seriously.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

The wish alone is meaningful! Thanks.

[selfavowedgeek.livejournal.com]

RE: "I shudder to think of the number of people who would happily high-five me in Memorial Stadium now who wouldn't if they knew."

If we ever were to meet, I would totally double-high-five you. Just because.

Interesting post and, as usual, thought-provoking.

Funny. I've grown up in the Deep South all my life. We're in the midst of rec ball soccer season, and Thing 1 is doing his Bad News Bears Play Soccer gig.

At an adjacent field in the complex, just as there was Tuesday, was a family, the mother of whom wore a purple hijab. Families of other ethnicities all around. We tend to get a bad rap down here in the land of cotton, but, you know, I think it's pretty dope that nobody is getting up in arms in a small town soccer complex over that. Kids are just playing soccer. Parents and family and friends are there to watch and chill and hang.

I wish more of our society would just chill and hang and quit seeing Satan/Shaitan/boogeymen behind every frakkin' tree.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Sadly, people of all ethnicities and traditions and religious practices hanging out peaceably at a soccer game doesn't make the news, but the more this happens, the better for all of us.

[selfavowedgeek.livejournal.com]

Yeah, 'cause plain folks being plain folks is too passe for ratings.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Heh, same to you.

Yeah, and you know, it's true that I really don't know how people at Memorial Stadium would react. I presume bad things because of other incidents, but I don't know, and that's something I should keep in mind. Anyway, I am glad to hear that about the soccer game.

[selfavowedgeek.livejournal.com]

Sometimes, though, presuming bad things might fall under presuming others don't always have our best interests in mind, which is loaded with suck.

The soccer games will, hopefully, continue to be good community experiences. Our county has a superb feeder program via the rec dept. leagues. And definitely for a small southeast Georgian town, there's a crap-ton of diversity which is quite startling. Mainly in good ways.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree - I totally presume that most of the people in my town wouldn't have my best interest in mind (under the circumstances - as I appear on the surface, I'm sure they wouldn't care either way). There are a lot of stories about stuff happening in dorms, and I also know people personally who would not react in positive/neutral ways. I suppose the question is whether you extrapolate from the "few bad apples" to the rest of the community. I don't think that it should not rest on the shoulders of the marginalized to presume they will be treated well, if they have no indication that would be the case. Not that they should go out with knives bared either - just that I think giving the benefit of the doubt can be a little much to ask. You know what I mean?

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

I want to believe that this is just the spasms of some of the more warped racial and cultural dynamics in this country that are headed for the grave. I want to also believe that no one is going to innocently predecease them in the thrashing.

I also want to believe that when I die, there will be a chance to hang around and swap stories with people and fix all my shit and hash out all the things that went wrong before moving on to whatever. But I tend to think that probably none of these things are true.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

I want to believe that this is just the spasms of some of the more warped racial and cultural dynamics in this country that are headed for the grave. I want to also believe that no one is going to innocently predecease them in the thrashing.

Yeah, I hope so too. On good days I do believe that! I mean, hell, the way my family has developed leads me to think those dynamics are headed to the grave.

I also want to believe that when I die, there will be a chance to hang around and swap stories with people and fix all my shit and hash out all the things that went wrong before moving on to whatever.

That's something that I think we gotta do before we die.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

On good days I do believe that!
As do I. They have been in short supply this week.

That's something that I think we gotta do before we die.

Truly, but then there are the cases where you don't realize there are problems until all is said and done, or until someone is already dead, and sentimentality makes me wish there was a way, but, eh, I suspect we all knew what we were getting into when we signed up for this. Okay, I'm sure we didn't know or sign, but I am aware of no better deal.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

That's something that I think we gotta do before we die

Amen.

[timesygn.livejournal.com]

First off, great post. I knew you were part Javanese, but the business about attending Muslim school is fascinating. I for one would be interested in hearing more about that experience - even small details of it that you remember. This kind of cross-cultural, "intertribal" information tickles my anthropology/sociology bone.

I think folks with your experience (particularly those who are writers) have the ability to open a window into Islamic culture for the rest of us. Any stories you spawn based on your cultural/personal background could really force a needed wedge of understanding into the cultural climate. Stories have that power. And yours are good.

(And if it makes any kind of difference, please know: your identity as part-Muslim the curiosity and interest - as opposed to the suspicion and dislike - of this WASP male ...)

[timesygn.livejournal.com]

Make that:

your identity as part-Muslim arouses the curiosity and interest - as opposed to the suspicion and dislike

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Well, it was first and second grade. It was considered a fairly good school (pretty much because it at least wasn't public), and taught all the regular subjects, plus religion, plus Arabic. We had to begin and end our paper assignments with the written opening and closing prayers, and we had to recite various prayers to various teachers in order to move onto the next grade-level. I always passed by the skin of my teeth, because it was all garblegarble to me - not reinforced at home in any way, and my dad was bad at helping me. I remember having to learn an insane amount of prayers that scared me because they were things like "prayer before looking in the mirror" and "prayer before going to the bathroom." Prayers I never heard used outside this school, I will add. I would tell classmates that I was actually Protestant or Catholic because I was American, and my mother was Protestant/Catholic, which seemed to elicit "oohs" and "ahhs" - at one point I also tried to change my name to Nadia Bulkina, which my 1st grade teacher gently said I could not do without my parents' permission. My 1st grade teacher was awesome; my 2nd grade teacher wanted bribes from the parents, and my mother refused to pay, so she took it out on me the rest of the year. Also, the school was supposedly haunted, but I only heard about this after the fact. It was a pretty crappy experience.

I also took Islam classes at my international school (with a teacher we all made fun of), but absorbed nothing. When I was in fifth grade I told my mother I didn't believe in God.

As to the second part, yeah, I agree. On the other hand: I think it can also be risky to read a writer's work as representative of their background/experience. And I also don't know how much of a window I can open - but I will say that I don't think the window would be based on that school.

forewarning: I am sick and possibly delusional...that's an exageration, but you know

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

Just don't go getting too paranoid on me. I dunno, I had a minor freakout myself on vacation, because traveling with Vincent wears on me, the way he's always automatically treated like just another human being and has to do something 'off' to change that in the slightest, but I'm automatically the 'white foreigner' and I have to work to prove I can at all function as a normal human being, much less be a part of society (and you know how most things come down to, or are grounded in large part by, some sort of social value, from everyday greetings to writing philosophy [if it's personally beneficial, it makes me a better person, with better determined by some kind of value placed on how I act in society; otherwise I want it to be read, and that's social value], which is probably why I get depressed and crazy when I don't read...), since white people are never just part of Chinese society, no matter how good your Chinese is.

Anyway, I felt like this restaurant owner lady was being a bit condescending to me--the details really don't matter--and for some reason it really bugged me at that moment in time. I'm pretty used to that sort of attitude by now, but all the little things, you know, they add up, especially when I'm traveling (why does traveling have only one L? I always want there to be two) and stressed and having to do more in Chinese than I normally would, at places I wouldn't normally go. And I said something, hoping for some reason that Vincent would understand the not-fairness of it.

It's that--the mildly discriminatory, unequal part of it--that bugged me, for once. Sometimes, like when I first came here, it's just about not being able to function at all, but for me at this point, it's like my Chinese is good enough to get by, and that's still not enough. It has to be perfect, flawless, and I'm sure even then, well, it won't be enough to change my skin or my parents. He can mumble things and hardly say anything at all and still be treated like the one who understood and did everything right, and I won't, and that's just How It Is. And of course it's not that bad, it's not like I have hugely negative stereotypes hanging over my head, but nonetheless I can't just be normal, undistinguished, and that's all I want. I don't want people fetishizing me. That doesn't help me feel like a real human being.

Anyway, I wanted him to understand, but he was kind of like what the fuck, and we had this conversation in the street, which of course forced me to dwell on it more than I would have at first. I might have just brushed it off otherwise. One thing he said, of course, was that again, it is not That Bad, I don't have people coming up to me on the street in the country I was born and raised in asking me if I speak English and talking all slow or calling me a chink (I was a bit surprised that people in Michigan actually do these things, but I should know better, and as you say, a few bad apples, always around). And another was even as it was, and even if I wasn't that upset, it shouldn't get to me, I shouldn't feel ashamed or less worthy or whatever, seeing as I was just the same person, I was no less intelligent or talented or anything that really mattered to me. On that count, he's right, and it made me feel better, though I did try to explain a bit more why it was hard to just do that automatically, which I think he got eventually, since he didn't know any Chinese when he came here either, and other things. Some people, like John when he was here...actually I think a lot of people are more sensitive to it than I am, and John was one of them. John made a joke of it, and he'd be all like "That's racialism!" when the waitresses would treat us differently and so on. I thought that was a good way of coping.

pt 2

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

But that's the whole thing, is it makes you sensitive, it makes you paranoid, this hyperawareness of your own status. (Why this at all resembles how I felt at Reed, I should really try to pick apart sometime.) Like when Dethorn was here, he was so afraid of what people thought of him as a black man--both the other teachers and all the Chinese people. And the students, you know, mostly they're just village kids. They don't know anything, they really don't--many of them have never seen a black person before, and whatever they know they know from books and movies and sports and music. He could shape their whole impression. But I know he was stressed about what they would think, because he said so. As for us, he'd like...go about his normal life downstairs with his suitcase full of shoes, talking to his mom and listening to R&B. But when he'd talk to us, he'd be all like, "You know what band I recently found that's alright? Radiohead." Or telling us he'd put up pictures of us on Facebook that he deliberately took out of his China photos, or whatever.

There's a good maxim, "Our distrust of another justifies his deceit." I think you get it, for the same reasons people have to 'defend' themselves from other countries. The distrust justifies it only because it locks you into a cycle--if you don't trust someone and treat them with respect, then they will do the same, and why not? Point is, I hope you don't get into the cycle of paranoia, because it hurts you the most.

Re: pt 2

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

Just so it's clear, I told that story (or stories) not because I think it's the same experience, but because it relates to the parts about shame and worthiness, pride and paranoia.

Re: pt 2

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

And maybe b/c I just wanted to get that off my chest, I dunno.