Hi EYD! Our post today is by Trisha Avula, who discusses the inherent performativity that can often be present in cultures and belief systems. Through her incredible writing, she discusses her personal experience as well as digs deeper into the positive and negative side of Desi cultures, and provides her thoughts and how we, as a community, can create change. We hope you enjoy reading!
P.S. If you would like be featured on our blog, please DM us @empoweringyourdesi or email us at empoweringyourdesi@gmail.com!
With today’s challenging, confusing, and quite frankly- rather disappointing- times, our eyes have been opened to look into aspects of our community, culture, and ourselves through a new lens. Social media these days seems to start up an “uncomfortable” conversation right and left, and sometimes I wonder: are we, as South Asians, gaslighting ourselves to the point our activism is more of a performance than we originally intended?
I’ve grown up in a very traditional household all of my life, this entailing the occasional racist remark and the presence of subliminal homophobia. With that being said, this is not to “drag” my loved ones. I know they are good at heart, and they cannot help but practice these ideals that have been ingrained in their minds by their family and other religious idols. However, when I do have these difficult, cramped, and sometimes even irritating conversations with them, things are magically written off as being inexplicable because they are a “part of the culture” or “that is just how it’s always been”. When that happens, I feel hopeless sometimes, because as progressive as they’re trying to be, there are just certain things they are not willing to budge on because these problematic principles have, unfortunately, been normalized.
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, culture is defined as “the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group.” At first thought, South Asian culture (specifically Indian, because that is what I am most familiar with), brings to mind the multitude of religions and languages the country holds, the vivacious festivals and celebrations, the delectable, flavorful food, the unique symbols and clothing, the prodigious arts, and so much more!
But actually, when I sit back and really think about Desi culture, all of the beautiful things are almost rained on by clouds of sexism, colorism, classism, internalized racism, and career shaming.
Let’s start from the bottom. When someone has a child, the first thing they come to know about them is their sex. It’s not an unknown fact that Indian families are genuinely pleased to see a son, while blatant looks of worry and distress meekly covered up by feigned happiness are present when families learn they will get a daughter. In Desi culture, it is widely believed that sons will work for the family, bring good luck and happiness, and take care of the elders when the boys grow up. As much as sons are appreciated, daughters are regretted; they are seen as a burden, an object meant to do housework, and a foreigner that is going to leave home after marriage. Due to this bias, boys get more rights, free passes for wrongdoings, and significantly more affection, and girls are guarded, limited in their rights, and cautioned against dreaming. Unfortunately, this holds true in despicable situations such as sexual assault, rape, child marriages which are all denounced on paper but not spoken up about.
With these issues being brushed under the rug, women too, without thinking, end up being a part of the bigger problem of sexual discrimination. These dreadful values have made their place in even the minds of the oppressed.
Moving along with the theme of acquired realizations as life progresses, one tends to recognize the color of their skin and their social class, more traditionally known as a “caste”, and the resulting treatment of such early on. Even though these aspects should be celebrated and embraced, the opposite often occurs, with children wondering why they were born a certain way.
To understand the disparities within communities because of skin color and social status, let’s take a look into their shared origins. When the British colonized India, a British commissioner wrote a book named the “Manu-Smriti” which essentially created the concept of the caste system and resulted in a social divide in India. With disruption within the country, this was easier for the British to set up a hierarchy and prevent power imbalances and uprisings.
Over time, the word “caste” equated to the word “race” and the idea that one should marry within their caste to maintain “racial purity” surfaced. Even after the British left, this carried on for years, which has translated now to internal discrimination against other castes and classes. Similar to the start of the caste system, the British also brought their Eurocentric beauty standards with them.This caused more fair, European-like features to be idolized; this idea of beauty still exists today! As a darker-skinned Indian myself, there are days where I still feel inferior to lighter skin colors and I have to mentally remind myself of my worth. Not helping the situation, I’ve had many adults advise me countless times to use fairness creams, to not go out in the sun for too long, and to avoid wearing colors that make me “look dark”.
It is absolutely devastating to see such outdated, damaging ideals be endorsed to young children in 2020.
As a child notices these inevitable traits, they start to absorb any and all information from their trusted ones. These include racist stereotypes that are learned and believed by our parents and are eagerly passed down to us with intentions of nothing but love and caution. These ideas are harmful and can plague a child’s mind even when they are grown up. Although I say this, I am aware what circumstances these notions come from. Oftentimes, when immigrants leave everything they’ve ever known, they go through traumatizing experiences with different races; but they fail to associate the actions to the person rather than the race. This causes unfair generalizations to be made on the race as a whole. With this being said, these stereotypes originate from a much bigger problem-media representation.
People from other races are typically misrepresented or not given the opportunity to be presented in a positive way at all. If you think about it, the roles of minorities in television are very inaccurate. They are usually cast in demeaning roles with older ideas to cater toward the majority rather than what’s right. These depictions, after passed down a generation, can reside in the subconscious of everyone; therefore, when racist remarks are made, they are almost seemingly “justified” by “prior experiences” when none of these hold true to the individual races as entities themselves.
This constant dismissal makes it difficult to unlearn these beliefs or to even help others around us do so.
While fighting these moral battles at home, children have an added struggle to pursue-the career they are genuinely passionate about. You’ve all probably heard the famous saying “Indian children have three career choices: doctor, lawyer, or engineer.” We’ve all had our fair share of laughs at that, but when you think about it, this saying holds a lot more true than perceived. Most of the time, we are forced to package our potential early on for the satisfaction of our parents or simply because we are guided blindly to these career choices. Obviously, parents only push these careers on their children just so they can have a happy life; once again, there’s nothing wrong in the intention. But, the execution becomes really harmful when certain paths are deemed as “forbidden” and “not good enough.” Unfortunately, this holds true for, but is not limited to, many liberal arts careers. Now, this is not me undermining the true interest of those who wish to pursue the three careers mentioned above; it’s just me bringing up the loss of freedoms that occur.
Moreover, when one does fight for what they want to do, they are often threatened to be unofficially “disowned,” and no one deserves to go through that just because they want to chase their dreams.
The Black Lives Matter movement is one of the most insightful, profound, and inspiring initiatives to ever exist. It is incredibly important to stand with them and fight for rights that should have been theirs in the first place. These problems in our community I mentioned above (sexism, colorism, classism, internalized racism, and career shaming) are much more prevalent in the Black community and we, as the model minority who even got the chance to live here because of the Civil Rights Movement and as basic, decent human beings, should amplify our voices to help make a change for them as they are regularly on the receiving end of blatant prejudice, discrimination, and murder.
Going back to gaslighting ourselves, while I am delighted to see the Desi community fight for justice by posting about these issues, I cannot help but think of the hypocrisy and double standards that are present throughout.
These same issues are present in our culture, yet most of us shy away from having these conversations with our parents and we unintentionally accept the negative effects of these issues to please our loved ones further feeding into the idea that “this is just how it is.” Us not displaying the same activism we do for other communities makes us a slave to these anachronistic beliefs. If we cannot even fight for ourselves, how can we fight for others? As unanimously said, change starts within us, and it is our responsibility to make sure the cycle of these issues ENDS NOW. Yes, we should focus on standing with the groups that need the most help, but along the way, we need to strive to rebuild the true meaning of Desi culture with values that embody the way it should have been all along.