Muscovado: A Disturbing, Powerful Play that Heralds an Extraordinary New Voice

A school night, in the midst of a busy week, and a very full day of teaching is almost enough to dissuade one from venturing across the river for pretty much anything. Add a blustery, rainy day, and Clapham Commons seemed even further away from my north London office. Still, I had tickets and company to nudge me along, so off I went...to the Holy Trinity Church, that almost forgotten spiritual - and political - home of William Wilberforce who campaigned for the abolition of the slave trade.  It seems apt, in retrospect, that I went to the church - for the first time, last night - to see Muscovado, written by the startlingly talented young playwright Matilda Ibini, and produced by Burnt Out Theatre. 

The brand new play had an initial run of ten days as part of Black History Month, but I might as well tell you right off the bat, it should be running at a major venue, backed by Britain's theatre big-wigs, and be seen by a LOT more people.  And frankly, if British Council and other tax-payer funded organisations are listening, they should be sending this one abroad too! 

We were greeted by a cheery atmosphere at the entrance, and my first reaction was surprise, and gladness, at very racially diverse, mixed audience -  in terms of race, ethnicity, class and nationality. Sadly, theatre-going in London - despite all its diversity - can be a strangely mono-racial phenomenon and I often feel marked out as the 'odd' one in most audiences. There were other little welcoming signs: in addition to the usual glasses of wine, there was the option of a warming, lovely rum punch. And much welcome it was after my cold, exhausting day! There was also a stand from the Caribbean Cafe selling the most delicious, restorative, food; ladies, you saved my life! 

As the doors opened and we streamed into the church, we were greeted by Parson Lucy (played by James G Gunn), and other characters from the play were already dotted around, seated in pews, eerily lit by candle light, or slowly weaving their way through the shadows. It can be tricky to perform in a space that isn't a formal theatre, but the director Clemmie Reynolds used the space well, and placing the actors in the church established an early complicity and intimacy with the spectator that made the play itself much more disturbing. 

The play itself unfolds in 1808 on the Fairbranch sugar plantation in Barbados. The timing is key as a year before Wilberforce had successfully pushed through the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in British parliament. On the Fairbranch plantation however, the Act brings little change to the slaves' brutalised lives, and commercial calculations of its owners. The set was sparse yet effective, with props moved around, and the church surroundings were used fully to stage, with the audience seated in the pews in the chancel, and a few chairs spilling out into the nave. 

The plot skilfully weaves together multiple characters including the plantation owner's wife and daughter, the local parson, and various slaves. However, Muscovado keeps the owner of the plantation as an off-stage yet all-powerful, sinister presence/absence. It is a masterful choice, signalling the invisible pervasiveness of racial, gender, and class privileges that continue to this day. It is this off-stage evil 'deity' who repeatedly rapes his wife, Kitty, and in a grotesque coming-of-age ritual, is also the invisible rapist of the distraught child-slave Willa (who may/may not be his daughter).

While the most upsetting parts of the play are familiar to us from slave narratives - the whippings, humiliations, brutal violence in guise of discipline, the casual but persistent degradations and dehumanisations of quotidian plantation life - they draw power from a source that is not often seen on screen or stage. Muscovado presents the Fairbranch slaves as fully formed humans, not merely as props for a morality play; they dream, they dare to laugh and love, they find hope and strength in unexpected places, and most importantly they continue to resist by reasserting their humanity in innumerable small acts, words and thoughts of defiance and courage. The script has - perhaps unsurprisingly - been compared to Twelve Years a Slave. 

I would reject that comparison. I found Muscovado more humane and more powerful of the two as it finds little need to make narrative and commercial compromises. Unlike the film, the play offers no easy resolutions. But it also refuses to let historically dominant narratives push slaves to the sidelines of their own history. Instead Muscovado offers one of the few instances where non-white bodies - and even more importantly female black bodies - occupy centre stage, in all their fullness, complexity, grace, and tragedy. 

There has been a long tradition - in writing, art, and performance - of silencing and erasing the female nonwhite body from our stories, stages, screens and imaginations; Muscovado is compelling for its powerful insistence on placing the ignored, fetishized, brutalised black female (and a single male) bodies, lives, and beings at the centre of its narrative. By keeping the sexual and non-sexual violence inflicted on the black female body off-stage, it refuses to let the audience revert to the default practices of fetishization we have been taught and thus distance ourselves.  Furthermore, by similarly keeping Miss Kitty's rapes off-screen, it forces us to examine both the similarities and brutal disparities of gendered violence; and yet by performing Willa's invisible violation on-stage, the play also refuses to excise the role of race in gendered violence.

Moreover, the script fully explores the complex web of relationships, oppression and brutality of slavery and racialised oppressions. It does not shy away from messy hierarchies of gender and race: Kitty is not only fully complicit in the exploitation and brutalisation of slaves, she is also the mastermind who realises the ban on slave trade can be subverted by using her own slaves as 'breeding stock.'  Yet, she is at the same time, also a raped, desperate, isolated wife who can find few allies and fewer friends and can drunkenly order a house slave to help her kill herself.  

Muscovado also confronts the role of the church, and its clergy in upholding, maintaining, and actively promoting slavery, thus also reminding us of the ways organised religion - and religious scriptures - were, are, and can be used to justify the most inhumane and unjust practices and structures. Parson Lucy's hate filled racist rant took on particular resonance when delivered from the Holy Trinity Church's pulpit.  I couldn't help but imagine that Wilberforce himself had likely heard similar justifications of slavery and wondered yet again about how and why some (so few) of us refuse the dominant narratives of our times, and the necessity of such dissent. 

The play is both powerful and disturbing, and more so for its insistence on complexity. The dialogue is both unflinching and at times scorching. Despite a myriad range of characters, the script maintains tight control of each character's trajectory.  If there are some loose ends, such as for Olive's fate, they offer a glimmer of hope, however false, in a bleak setting. The end is shocking, upsetting and unpredictable, perhaps because the motivations of all involved are clear and familiar, but also because the multiple layers of complicity are rarely explored in narratives about slavery, or indeed contemporary race and racism. 

The actors were well suited to their part, and I walked away once again wishing there were more room for talented non-white actors on British stage. Alex Kissin as Asa, DK Fashola as Elsie and Shanice Grant as Olive brought both emotional power and physical vulnerability to their parts. It is a credit to the script, the director and the actors, that despite the brutal setting and theme, it still provoked empathic and not only discomfited laughter. 

The Holy Trinity Church made a symbolically apt setting for the play although the acoustics are not ideal. I do wish however that Muscovado would find a longer run and larger stage for itself: it is ambitious, complex, powerful, and it delivers dramatic, emotional and political punch. That it is the work of a playwright not yet twenty-three is both extraordinary, and exhilarating for the promise it holds for the future. 

Full disclosure: I know the playwright Matilda Ibini who graduated from the Creative Writing programme where I teach. However, she did not take many classes with me and I can certainly claim no hand in her growth and stature as a writer. I am however very privileged to have watched her grow as an intellect and a writer during her degree. 

Surviving Casual Racism: I Get By With a Little Help from My Friends

Last month, I posted this piece on casual racism. Many of you read and commented on it, here and various social media platform.  I also posted the piece on my FB wall where it had a more intimate, disturbing, and yet ultimately heartening reception. It also became a sort of learning experience and an odd measure of the people in my life. I had been planning on writing a follow up piece but as some of you will know (from my twitter feed), another unexpected and hurtful incident occurred yesterday. In many ways, it cemented what I had written about in my original piece. But it also threw into stark relief what I have noticed and learned in the last few weeks. So here are some of thse new insights:

First, for some odd reason, racism hurts more than sexism does. I am not quite sure why this is the case, but increasingly I feel that it is linked to growing up in an environment where I did not face racism on a daily basis. As a female child in India, sexism was, and still is, part of my life from the earliest moments of consciousness, and I learned from many people - both male and female - to identify it and resist it.

Racism, however, was something quite academic. I knew about it, I even experienced it indirectly and structurally as a colonial legacy, but I never faced it on an individual level until I landed in New York City as a sixteen year old. Because I came to individuated racism late, I experience and resist it differently:

1. I notice it and I lack the ability to ignore it
2. I am more hurt by it as I don't guard against racism as vigilantly as against sexism, mostly because I don't expect it and so am baffled each time.
3. I have increasingly lower tolerance for racism. But I also have increasingly lower tolerance for all forms of injustice.  I thought age would inure me, but instead it seems to make me less patient. Perhaps 'intimations of mortality' urge me to fight this more desperately because I know I have increasingly less time to do so.

Secondly, I realised that until recently, I would not speak about racism except to friends who were, like me, people of colour. I didn't feel comfortable enough speaking about racism to white friends, mostly because I didn't want them to pity me.

In this sense, racism is like many other forms of intimate violence. The humiliation and pain of being reduced, othered, and dehumanised is so great that I felt that I could only share the feeling and seek support amongst other victims.

Yet posting the piece last month has opened up a new, and in many ways, liberating and empowering world for me. Yes, writing the piece has meant I lost a couple of friends - mostly people I didn't know that well and who felt that the piece was 'attacking' them personally. In one case, someone I have not seen for twenty years took issue with the piece on facebook and demonstrated just how embedded racism can be.

On the other hand, writing openly about racism I face in my daily life, mostly in small gestures and words, also blasted open the doors to other conversations. Many friends wrote and messaged to offer support and unconditional love. In the last month, I have had conversations about racism with many white friends, discussing the insidious ways racism turns up. In all these cases, I have been fortunate to find allies who want to listen, understand, find ways to support me, and try to change things at their own individual levels.

I had long worried that speaking openly about daily racism may be seen by white friends as 'drama' or 'over reaction.' Instead I had a friend point out that I regularly 'hid' the racism I experience, and asked me why I did so.  It was only after that conversation, I realised that he is right: I do hide racist incidents, and for multiple reasons.

The humiliation seems never ending and acute, and talking about a racist incident revives the trauma of living it.

In an odd way, telling white friends about racist incidents makes me feel less than equal to them. Even as I write this, I can intellectually recognise it as a victim's reasoning, similar in some ways as that of abuse survivors.

Experiencing racism makes me feel 'dirty,' even though it isn't my fault. Experiencing racism makes me question myself and makes me wonder if I 'deserve' it. It heightens every insecurity I have about my achievements and experience. Each racist incident - no matter how small and unthinking - reminds me that regardless of my experiences and achievements, I can be reduced and dehumanised on basis of my skin colour. It also makes me paranoid and makes me question what white colleagues, friends, bosses 'really' think of me.

In addition, recounting it to white friends, makes me feel the humiliation all over again, because it is something they never have to face, never have to experience. It is a privilege they have that I will never be able to access, and speaking to them, the structural imbalance of power between us threatens to overturn whatever sense of equality we share.

In turn that recognition of inequality threatens any friendship we have. After all, aren't friendships made and shared amongst equals? Can we still be friends if we are unequal, at an intrinsic biological level?

Yet the past month of discussing racism openly with white friends has been illuminating. Speaking about the humiliation of racist experiences has dissipated some of the shame and anger. I have also been consistently surprised, heartened and comforted by the support I have found.

I have also found that the cliche about speaking up in relationships matters. While racism is something my white friends don't experience in their daily lives, they are not oblivious that I face it. All they need from me is trust that they stand on my side. And they need me - not always - but at times, to tell them how to fight my corner. They are already staunch allies, they just need to know how they can protect, help and nourish me.

I don't have race privilege and never will. On the other hand, I have a hell of a lot of friends who do have that privilege who recognise and question it, acknowledge the injustice, and most importantly, stand by me as equals. Not on racial grounds, but as humans.

If I were the religious sort, I would say, that is a blessing! 

An Open Letter to White Friends: How Not to be a Racist (Even Unconsciously)

Dear friends,
As my friends, you are part of a group that is international, diverse, and for most part, extraordinarily liberal. In some ways, you are probably more open to difference than the rest of society and therefore, in many ways, at the cutting edge of social change. And yet, just as many men who adore their wives and daughters but can still be deeply misogynist, being friends with me - an obvious woman of colour - does not mean you automatically stop behaving in ways that is racist.

Note: this does not mean that you ARE racist. But it does mean that sometimes the things you say or do are racist. And no, you don't have to burn crosses in my lawn or make up a lynch mob to be racist. Being oblivious to historic inequalities, disparate privileges, and or how these impact my daily life is also racist (and therefore damaging). So is repeating and replicating behaviour that confirms historical power inequities.]

In a friendship, we like to believe we are equals.

Unfortunately, a love for pinot grigio or an understanding of Italian Futurism does not automatically erase structural inequalities that some of us have to face, and fight, on a daily basis. This also means that unthinkingly racist acts, or acts that have a long racist history, the same acts that we face as micro-aggressions on a daily basis, are supremely hurtful when performed by you.

As your non-white friend who deals with racial micro-aggressions (and sometimes macro ones) on a daily basis, it is not excessive to expect friends - of any colour or background - should be a safe space for me. But our friendship also means that the unthinking acts of micro-aggression hurt more coming from you than from a random stranger.

However, I realise that levels of invisible social, cultural and psychological privilege that Western societies offer to its white citizens means that you probably have not ever thought about how you behaviour can come off as racist - or indeed hurtful because of the implicit racism - so here are a few pointers:

1. Understand that your seemingly innocent acts can be triggers. Most non-white people have a few centuries of embedded memory and their own lifetime of experience of inequality and prejudice. We grew up with this and live with it. And no, this is not 'playing the victim' or 'using the race card.' It is just my daily, normal life.

This lived experience and memory means your actions will have larger significance and import, often in ways you do not understand. This also means that what may count as 'banter' and 'fun' to you may well be quite hurtful to me.

There is a simple way to deal with this: stop, observe and listen.

2. Realise that a lot of what we use as normal terminology has deep racist roots. You may never have had to deal with these words as dehumanising, or with demeaning terms and images, but your non-white friends  have and do on a daily basis. So terms and actions that seem 'normal fun' to you can be not only deeply racist, but also horribly hurtful.

3. When a nonwhite friend calls you out for racist behaviour, it obviously hurts your image of yourself. Especially if you think of yourself as liberal and 'non-racist.'

However, chances are that your one act that has actually been called out has been the final proverbial one to 'break the camel's back.' Most non-white people are so accustomed to racist acts and speech on a daily basis that unless something really stands out, most of us won't protest. Many of us make the choice between social interaction, friendship, even love, and demanding equality and human dignity on a daily basis.

And yes, that does means I choose - on a regular basis - how much prejudiced humiliation I can take from you in exchange for being your friend. Yes, I am sure that sounds terrible to you but it is a choice I make in order to live, work, love, in a society that systemically devalues me for the colour of my skin.

We make this choice not because we don't hurt. It is just that if we protested every act of prejudice in our daily lives, we would not get through a single day. If we insisted that we be treated equally at every moment we are demeaned, we would not survive a single hour. We would not have a single friend, colleague or boss who would be white. We would be forced to limit our existence in a closed ghetto, with all its corollaries of material, social, emotional and psychological poverty. (And then we would be blamed for closing ourselves off!)

So when you ARE called out on behaving in a racist way, realise that your behaviour or speech has been unconsciously hurtful for a long time before your friend spoke up. Chances are you have been hurtful for much longer than you imagine, recognise or are able to accept.  You should not be feeling hurt that your friend called out your racism, but horrified that they have been forced to do so.

4. If your non-white friend does call you out on something, try and stop yourself from (1) announcing that you are NOT racist; (2) explain how you are part Asian/African/Native American/Hispanic - these are not free passes for prejudice; (2) demand that they educate you on what you did/said to offend them, all the while declaring that they 'misunderstood' you.  Yes, defensiveness is an instinctive response and an understandable one. But it is also the least useful of responses.

Yes, being told that you are bigoted hurts. But being the daily target of bigotry hurts a HELL OF A LOT MORE. And racist behaviour or speech does not have to stem from active prejudice. So much prejudiced behaviour and speech is normalised and acceptable that few of us who are not on the receiving end of the hatred are even aware of the how much bigotry marks our daily existence.

Also understand that it isn't your non-white friend's job to explain and educate you. If you care about that friendship/relationship (or not being racist), it is your job to LEARN the innumerable ways in which racism is normalised in our daily existence and try not to repeat those.

5. One final pointer: 'race blindness' is actually a form of racism. Refusing to acknowledge that your non-white friends have different (and often horrifically damaging) experiences does not make you non-racist. It actually reinforces your racial privilege. All too often 'race blindness' is also used as a mechanism for saying and doing things that are racist and hurtful but with a comforting fig leaf of being socially acceptable. If this is you, then stop!

Structural racism means that even if you went to the same schools, make the same amount of money, live in the same neighbourhoods, and shop in the same stores, your non-white friend is treated differently. Not because of an innate ability but because of how they look. A lifetime of being treated differently means that your non-white friend looks at things you take for granted (bars, immigration counters, designer shops) very differently. What may be a small, normal, indulgence for you - like a trip to the spa - may well be a point of stress or fear for them. Refusing to acknowledge this difference does not make you non-racist. It makes you insensitive and callous!

Yes, acknowledging this inequality will likely make you uncomfortable. Recognising that you have privilege based on the colour of your skin IS uncomfortable. Or it should be! But the way to deal with the discomfort is not to wish it away or argue that you don't have the privilege. Or pretend a non-existent equality because that erases your 'friend's' life and experience.

The way you deal with the discomfort is by consciously and actively recognising those structural inequalities that your non-white friend lives on a daily basis. You can't wish the discomfort away...in any case, it will be a negligible fraction of what your non-white friend lives with on a daily basis. What you can do is recognise, acknowledge, accept the difference. And what you should do is introspect and question yourself on the ways your behaviour reflects, replicates and sustains small forms of bigotry. To you those may be negligible but to others, who cope with those micro-aggressions daily, those form a huge, overwhelming edifice of prejudice.

In many ways the world has moved forward even in the last few decades. It is increasingly difficult to remain in racially exclusive enclaves. Diversity - of language, race, ethnicity - is increasingly our 'normal' in our workplaces, our social networks, our homes and our bedrooms.

But the diversity also means that old rules of behaviour and speech don't work any more. That is also good! Yes, it is uncomfortable (and will continue to be so for a long time) to accept that your behaviour and speech must change. Change - and improvement - is always born of discomfort and its recognition.

None of us is perfect or born knowing everything. We go through life learning and changing. The fact that you have a non-white friend is a good starting point: it means that you are at least open to learning and changing.

With affection,
Your non-white friend

On Allies: May there be ever more in 2014

Yes, I know. I missed the year-end reflections on all I had learned in 2013. I have also missed the new year resolutions moment.  However given my recent readings and discussions, and in the spirit of optimism, I have decided to kick off the year with a post about allies.

As an ally to various causes that are not intrinsically my own, I come to this topic with some degree of understanding and experience.  When it comes to supporting causes in countries like Egypt or Guatemala or the Democratic Republic of Congo, I am not always fully educated about the complexities. In case of my support for equal rights, as a straight cis-woman, I can't even in my imagination experience what my LGBTQ friends do on a daily basis. And in case of racism, Mandela's death reminded me of my time in apartheid South Africa and how the experience of racism changes by location, period, structure and individual.

And yet as someone who discovered the theory of intersectionality soon after being disillusioned by mainstream Western liberal activism at university, I can also see that there is a way forward. At university, I had found little room for my experience as an Indian woman whose life did not fit the easy 'oppressed over there' category. As a foreigner who did not buy into the 'American dream' and planned to leave after finishing my degree, I could also not be categorised in the 'good immigrant' slot. There was also very little room for an Indian with a 'nice' education in many of the anti-racism groups as many believed my university education and Indian-ness inoculated me from racism in America (To be fair and honest, yes, it did and still does protect me from the worst excesses of structural and individuated racism in the US and various other countries). On one hand, few groupings, both in or outside India, represent my personal concerns and interests. On the other hand, my experience at the margins means I experience a range of micro-aggressions (and major discrimination) based on gender, class, race, nationality and so on on a daily basis. No surprise that intersectionality is the most logical way of explaining my liminal existence.

But living liminally is also a great advantage, I have learned. One finds points of contact, recognition and identification in the most unusual places. Liminality also ensures that I am always aware of my structural privileges and of my acute disadvantages, and am conscious that these are constantly changing based on my location and surroundings. I have learned to negotiate both my privilege and its lack with relative expertise, barring of course the regular, still unforeseen glitches.

This has also taught me how to be an ally, for causes where my support may be necessary but any intervention may well be unwelcome.  In no particular order, here are the rules to be an ally that I developed for myself (and apply):

1. Listen first. And listen hard. There may be points of similarity between struggles but my first job is to learn everything I can about another's cause.

2. Even if I know a lot, or even more than a local interlocutor, keep my mouth shut. It is not my struggle and often 'offering insight/help/suggestions' is seen as and can really be a form of appropriation.

3. Offer tactical and practical support, but do not insist on it. Know about how to deal with tear gas? Offer the information. Have experience about protest safety? Extend that knowledge. Lawyer? Medic? PR expert? Offer my expertise but don't take it personally if it is rejected. At the end, it is NOT my cause.

4. If I am allowed to participate and get involved, don't feel smug. This is not about me, it is about the people who are fighting and will continue fighting when I have left (An aside: my pet peeves include the entire genre of war/revolution/civil war stories and films where the generally Western hero jets in with good intention, 'grows' by being part of someone else's struggle - often even gets to lead it - and the story ends when he/she flies out).

5. Don't make a fuss when I am rejected. And for god's sake don't get on a high horse because my good intentions didn't cut the slack.  Remind myself: this is not about you!

6. If allowed to participate, ensure that I do not - by my knowledge, expertise or personality - end up at the centre of the movement/group/struggle. Even in a protest march or demonstration, my place is to the side of the key players, not at the front and centre.

7. Don't expect gratitude or indeed any acknowledgement. I chose to join someone else's struggle and it isn't their job to reward or even acknowledge me for my 'generosity.'

8. Keep reminding myself: THIS IS NOT ABOUT YOU (rinse and repeat as necessary).

However, the biggest lesson that I have learned - and apply to myself - is simpler: compassion. Perhaps I should clarify that I use the term loosely to indicate the range of meanings it evokes for me from the Indic traditions, including that of karuna, samvedana, and dayavirata.

Over the years, I have realised why so many Indic texts describe compassion as a difficult experience and idea. It is because compassion demands far more than most of us imagine: an ability to feel another's pain without centering ourselves in that suffering. In simple terms, for me compassion is about feeling the pain of another, of approaching them with a view to ease that pain, even if only by recognising and acknowledging it clearly. Compassion, in this definition, requires suppressing the need 'to do good' by appropriating another's decision-making and agency. Compassion in this sense insists that we allow the injured party to make their own choices, even if it means they reject us. After all, any pain of rejection we may experience will still be a miniscule fraction of their agony.

As I continue to fight my own battles, and stand as ally for those I care for, I sometimes forget that my allies can offer me the same kind of compassion.  It is easy, I know, when one is hurting to believe that any offer of support is another micro-aggression, another attempt to appropriate one's narrative and suffering. In those instances, it takes an enormous effort for me to accept that I too have allies. After the initial surprise at their response, I am always grateful for their compassion.

I end with a poem written by an ally after I had another unpleasant real world encounter with prejudice. As I raged on twitter, Sandy Nicholson tweeted this to me:

Let's make swords out of things! That sounds fun!

Let's make swords out of things! That sounds fun! / Stare at me all you want. I choose not to give peace a chance.

And the only thing really evolving is information, From matter to animals to humans to technology.

It's all really just about storage space, and if that's all you have planned for yourself then I've already won this fight.

You can talk to me about progress if you want but the end of that timeline is our extinction either way.

so don't be so eager to iron out all the creases.

I choose instead to get pissed off when my friends are cornered

by a the kind of meat and potatoes idiocy that should really be boring by now. Never mind offensive. It's boring.

I choose not to let logic and decency form a callous over the part of me that gets angry.

I don't just want to win the war against casual racism I want to leave it looking like a knife fight

I want to cut trombones from victory laps And I want to have fun doing it

So bring me some sharp stuff I'll forget how to hold it properly and prick all my fingers but I'll do it honestly.

I may not win the battle, but I'll fight it so you know for sure whose side I was on (it was yours)

It did exactly what allies are supposed to do. Offered recognition of my hurt and extended compassion. And it reminded me that I am not alone.
Happy new year!

PS. Another lovely tweep, MJ Berryman storifyed the poem and it does read quite amazingly in tweets so do look it up.

Casual Bigotry and Daily Living

Initially this was a post I was planning on every day sexism, but as a woman of colour, and despite the many mainstream press articles by leading neo-imperialist feminists about how intersectionality does not exist, my experience as a woman is often exacerbated by the way I experience the world because of my visible racial markers and my not-so-visible sense of self that has been shaped (and continues to be) by individual and structural responses to those racial markers. So instead I am left trying to address a complicated intersection of casual bigotry - both misogyny and racism - that I experience on daily, painfully destructive, basis. These micro-aggressions come fast and furious on a quotidian basis. For most part and on most days, I like many of us utilise the myriad of coping strategies and move on. But then...there is always that one, slightly vulnerable moment, when the defenses are down, or perhaps just the micro-aggression is a little less micro and more socially sanctioned. In those moments, suddenly and without warning, all coping strategies fail and one is left feel as isolated, marginalised and devalued as ever. Then the casual bigotry stops being casual, and suddenly grows again into the destructive, horrific, nasty force it always has been.

We often talk of bigotry - both racial and misogynist - in overt terms: names called in the playground or street, laws enacted to limit our freedoms, safety, dignity, histories of structured discrimination and centuries of complex and Hydra-headed narratives that enable it. And for many of us who live the daily experience of bigotry, as a woman or a person of colour, or in that double-whammy, as both, we know that we have continuous legal, political, economic, social battles to fight, and struggles that continue regardless of how long we have been fighting. But there is another sort of bigotry that many of us face, probably more frequently, one that is more insidious, damaging and soul-destroying. It is also more prevalent and harder to counter.

This sort of bigotry is not as easy to counter with intellectual debates on structures of power. Nor is it as terrifying and upsetting as slurs or shouted abuse on the streets. Or as physically harmful as hate-motivated physical violence. It is far more subtle and insidious. And perhaps because it is none of the above, it is the one we often are taught no strategies to counter.

As a young girl, I was taught about personal safety, specially in face of sexual harassment or assault. The men and women in my family were enlightened or informed enough to teach me the four key points to strike in case I were attacked. I was taught, perhaps more than most women, how to yell out, attract attention, make an escape. I was even taught how to speak up and seek support both from family and friends, and from the law. Unfortunately, the first time I faced sexual harassment, none of these lessons helped at all. You see, it wasn't a stranger on the street, with a scary mask and police record. The attempted assault came from someone we knew socially, was part of my parent's social circle, and occurred in a house inhabited by family friends. Suddenly, hitting hard or yelling to attract attention didn't seem like applicable or effective strategies.  I remember removing myself from one part of the crowded room to another, running into another teenage friend who giggled nervously about 'groping hands' and feeling utterly powerless. And yet in some ways, the social groper is still an overt phenomenon, one you can fight against in a range of ways...personal and social.

But how do you cope with embedded prejudice that shows up not only in a host of ways that are not only socially acceptable but also socially sanctioned and enabled by everyone around you? For me, and for many others, there is a social ritual: we walk into a gallery, book launch, literary talk, and we smile while we are consistently and repeatedly othered, devalued, dehumanised by those who are holding forth.

Yes, rape jokes in comedy clubs are a part of this experience as are literary events where 'witty' writers are lauded and applauded for their use of language while their misogyny is enabled by that same appreciation. Subtle valuing of male opinions over female ones, especially on 'big' topics such as economics, politics, war, are part of this casual sexism.  Here race gets a slightly better hand: thankfully racism disguised as wit is not nearly as acceptable these days, at least in overt ways. However, racism cloaked in more subtle forms walks the same polite spaces: what many race activists call 'white saviour complex,' is rife in the more polite parts of Western capitals as is an embedded Eurocentrism that values certain narratives, experiences, histories over others. It often manifests itself with 'amusing' personal anecdotes about travels abroad or apparently unself-conscious tales about 'foreigners' (the key to this is the implicit 'othering' with its corollary of exoticising, devaluing and dehumanising the foreigner). It shows up in academic studies including scientific ones that extend and reiterate reductionist views and stereotypes, often in guise of 'study.'  It shows up in the choice of approved cultural informers, be they journalists, writers, artists, who can and do restate older dominant narratives rather than challenging or subverting them (and are rewarded for the subservience).  It also shows up in virile defensiveness when the othered dares offer an opinion that is contrary to the accepted, popular one.

For the 'othered', this subtle socially sanctioned form of bigotry is much harder to counter. As a woman, I can call out misogyny in my writing, in my classes, and in public fora. Yet when faced with persistent casual sexism in social situations, I have no recourse. At a recent literary event, I sat feeling utterly repulsed not only by the speaker's casual misogyny but also by the laughter around me that enabled the speaker's continued and cherished belief that he were merely exercising his 'wit.'  At the end, the only act of resistance available for me was my decision to not buy his book (even though that is usual form in this particular forum) and thus register a silent, personal and most likely unnoticed dissent. Had I called him out on his sexism, I know exactly how the conversation would have unfolded: it would start with a vehement denial of the prejudice, followed by rallying of support from surrounding similar minded people, and ended with accusations hurled at me for lacking humour or worst yet, that ultimate social poison, 'being difficult' (sometimes the order of these changes slightly or all three are simultaneously taken up).

As a woman, I know from experience that I am supposed to 'play nice' or be punished with professional, social and personal repercussions in face of such subtle, socially enabled misogyny. After all, terms like harridan, harpy, bitch have all been created for and deployed against women who are socially inconvenient. As a person of colour, I am even more aware that any attempt to point out socially embedded, accepted and enabled racism - either structural or individual - marks me as the 'angry' one, the one who cannot be 'trusted to behave appropriately in polite society' that I have been let in to as reward for 'good behaviour' (as in not challenging the prejudiced narratives and actions).  The punishment for not playing nice is grim and has social, professional and personal repercussions...after all any token 'other' is easy to replace by a more amenable one!

Yet the price for living with such casual bigotry is immense. Despite the decades that have passed, I find myself seeking solace in repeated readings of Franz Fanon, if only to remind myself that the constant sense of feeling conflicted is neither a new nor solely my experience. I find myself questioning myself on a daily basis whether I am enabling the rife and casual bigotry by not taking a more active stance in challenging it. And yet, I also know that I am unwilling to pay the social, professional, personal price for a more aggressively dissident stand. On good days, I tell myself that I am working from within the beast, that every time I survive a micro-aggression, that every time I make it back to the safety of my mind and home, I am fighting the good fight. On bad days, I find myself wondering if I am a modern version of the 'house slave' (or the ayah, the collaborating Maharajah, the Macauley's elite) who help sustain the edifices of prejudice by participating in them for the lure of the dregs from the master's table.  And on both sort of days, I find myself angry at the invisible privileges that ensure that I shall remain on the margins, regardless of all I work toward and/or achieve. And on all days, I am reminded consistently that there is no escape for the likes of me! 

Shilpa-Gate 2: Karan Thapar, Get a Reality Check

With more racist remarks against Shilpa Shetty being aired in the past 48 hours on Channel 4's Celebrity Big Brother, you would think the English-language press in India would pause in its usual pompous declarations. But no such luck from our old guard of "Macauley's elite" baba-log.

Today's Guardian quotes Karan Thapar as saying: "What this seems to be is that a middle-class young Indian woman has come face to face with [British] working-class crassness. It is unfortunate but she is being paid $680,000 (£346,000) to go on the show."

RIGHT Karan!

Which world do you live in?

Beyond the rarified air of your South Delhi posh residential neighbourhood, the five star social scene, and political intrigue of the Dilli durbaar, there is a larger world: A world where a lot of us "middle-class" Indians take up jobs in UK, Australia, USA, and many other countries. We take up these job to promote our careers, to make money, and yes, to experience new places and things. And yes - in many cases we get paid LOTS of money for the jobs we do.

But get a reality check Karan!

Our choice to take up these jobs or indeed the money we are paid does not mean that basic rules of civility and workplace regulations or laws regarding workplace harassment do not apply.

Holding a job and getting paid for doing it does not mean we should be sexually or racially harassed or abused, or indeed be subjected to workplace bullying.

Are you really saying that those of us who work abroad have forfeited our right to be treated as human beings? That racism against us doesn't count because we "choose to have these jobs and be paid for them"? That we can be bullied, harassed, abused, perhaps even beaten up or killed because we "chose" to explore new horizons? Will you justify all acts of racism against those of us who live and work abroad as "unfortunate" but "hey, they are getting paid a lot of money"?

Lets get one thing straight: Shetty is in the CBB house to do a job. She is an actress and getting paid to do a TV show is what actors do! Yes, she is getting paid for it, just like her "colleagues" in the house.

NONE of this however means that she ought to be subjected to bullying or racism. If her "workplace" were a bank, or indeed a media house, she would be well within her rights to sue her employers. Why should she forfeit those basic employee rights simply because she is on TV or getting paid for her job?

To indicate - even implicitly - that the behaviour meted out to her is somehow justifiable simply because she "chose" to go on the programme, and because she is getting paid for it is perverse!

But then what can we expect of a "journalist" (or is that a "media personality" now) who couldn't stomach Shahrukh's "policitally incorrect" answer regarding Muslims in India!

Shilpa-gate in Britain: What will Channel 4's CBB do now?

After a long time, I have a post. No excuses really except I have finally been working on the thesis.

And I have been watching Celebrity Big Brother – and yes, this is where my family starts to giggle uncontrollably – because it is RESEARCH! Let me explain – as a student of cinema, my doctorate looks at how films work. More specifically, I look at how commercial Hindi cinema works!

That means all those “first day, first show” scrambles are research. So is incessantly played Hindi film music in my house and office. And all the DVDs and cinema books! To quote a family member, my PhD thesis is a “Laloo-barabar scam!” Be that as it may, my thesis - for the record - is extremely scholarly and theoretical.

Going back to CBB - I began watching the show primarily to see how stars are constructed, and star narratives are built. With Shilpa Shetty entering the house, I had a perfect case study. After all here was an “unknown Bollywood star” as one British tabloid called her. The general British audiences did not know her (except of course the small minority of Hindi film fans, from South Asia and beyond) and she was going up against well-known names and faces from the West. It was the perfect scenario to answer a question that confounds me: do stars have something inherently different that makes them stars, or is their star status a function of media “spin.” Of course, it is most likely a combination of the two but Shetty was the perfect case to study. And what a case study this has been!

She stated her motivation – and thus indicated her screen persona for CBB – by explaining that she wanted to represent India and Indians as “glamorous, modern and intelligent.” So of course she arrived at the house looking radiant, in a pink sari, and proved herself supremely articulate. She emphasised her “Indian-ness” by teaching the firangis to chant “Om” and meditate, cooking Indian food, walks around in gorgeous kurtas and gold bangles, with stunning pashminas and jamawars flung about her shoulders – a picture of Indian cinema diva.

Then came the first clashes – with another “house-mate” named Jackiey (sic) who refused to pronounce her name, decided to call her “the Indian,” wondered whether the star lived in “a shack,” and threatened to “sweep her out of the kitchen with an Indian broom.”

When that particular housemate was voted out by the public, a trio of other British “chavs,” famous for rather dubious reasons “celebrities” decided to gang up on the actress. These “celebs” btw are: a foul-mouthed, pea-brained woman who apparently was ranked fourth on a prior Big Brother show; a former Miss Britain whose crown was revoked for a sex scandal involving one of the judges; and former popstar whose music is apparently unknown beyond British borders (ie, people famous for being famous!).

In the past few days, the three have mocked her accent (which I am grateful Shilpa Shetty has neither tried to adapt nor disguise), told her that she was “just the cook” while others in the house were friends, suggested that she “wanted to be white,” and finally suggested that food prepared by her was making them ill, and that Indians were “unhygienic” for a host of reasons including, eating our chicken raw, eating with our fingers (“who knows where the hands have been”), and that Indians were “thin and sick” because we all suffered from constant food poisoning from poorly cooked food.

Shetty has also been called a “dog”, “wanker” and a “fucking cunt,” (the last is still under discussion as Channel 4 chose to beep out the word and many viewers believe the word was the racist slur for Asians in general, ie, “Paki.”). Of course, she has retaliated, although with far more grace and attitude than I would have ever expected from her: “I am not patronising, look it up in the dictionary,” “It’s a name, not a frigging sentence,” etc. However many of the nasty digs have been out of her hearing.

Here it must be said that Shetty has neither backed down nor stooped to the level of the bullying trio. On the other hand, she has played the audience and the three bullies with the skill of a maestro. The softly spoken, articulate, sympathetic, tearful, and fragile-looking Shetty has managed to gain the audience’s sympathy. At the same time she manages to effortless rile up and counter the bullies. This must surely count as Shetty’s greatest performance yet!

Of course more of the narrative has unfolded beyond the boundaries of the text. From the “unknown” Bollywood star to the centre of “race row,” Shetty has managed to acquire a massive sympathetic following in Britain in days (so how is a star made again?) Press has pitched in to support her, and reaction against the racist remarks lobbed at her and her bullying have flooded Ofscom (the media watchdog body) and Channel 4. Net forums seem to be grouping to pressure the show’s main sponsor, Carphone Warehouse into pulling its support. An opportunist Keith Vaz has taken up the issue in the parliament. What a “masterful” star narrative in making! What a pleasure to watch the process (won’t bore you with the technical details of this one).

Within two weeks, Shetty has moved to occupy a volatile intersection of class, race and gender. Her mastery of English and manners (not to mention the “fabulous” lifestyle) has managed to startle and annoy the bullying trio. Her ability to attract masculine support and attention within (and outside) the house is forms the crux of sexual jealousy (bell hooks, you are SOOOO right! So much for Western "sisterhood" bs!). Finally, the race factor burst the floodgates of anger and outrage against her treatment. Channel 4’s refusal to acknowledge the racist bullying and an attempt to “spin” the abuse as having been incited by Shetty herself has worsened the situation. At the close of business (5 pm GMT) on Tuesday, media watchers had clocked 7,600 complaints lodged at Ofcom while another few thousand had been lodged directly with Channel 4.

Shetty – ironically has become the rallying point for the South Asian diaspora in Britain. While terrorism and religious fundamentalism have divided the South Asian communities in Britain on mostly national lines (Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi) over the past years, the current incident has hit viewers across the board, raising personal memories of racial abuse. Moreover, Shetty is not an unknown quantity among the diaspora – she has been a well-known, and often well-loved figure of Hindi cinema for many years and her ill-treatment by CBB housemates has been taken far more personally by viewers than imagined. Perhaps, Channel 4 had underestimated the power of Hindi cinema?

A final factor must be noted here: the internet! Although CBB is only being broadcast in Britain and Ireland, a quick search on youtube.com for “Shilpa, CBB” throws up all the necessary footage required to be outraged on Shetty’s behalf. Same goes for the heavily edited and controlled Big Brother website on Channel 4’s homepage:
http://www.channel4.com/bigbrother/index.jsp. The coverage and forums on http://bigbrother.digitalspy.co.uk/ as well as the bbc.co.uk’s Asian network forums have also been prime movers in mobilising the protests.

So what happens next? Well, Channel 4 better find a quick way to solve the crisis they have on their hands. This afternoon, the show’s live feed was blocked and only reinstated when the bullies had been separated from Shilpa and her support group in the house. The live feed has been since censored to prevent viewers from discovering the reason for the separation (one hopes that Shilpa wasn’t physically attacked in the house – that could have ugly consequences outside).

And they better hope that no Indians with internet access – from home or other parts of the world - get in on the act. After all if Indians with net access could upstage all Hollywod stars to vote Amitabh Bachchan the “star of the millennium” on BBC’s online poll back in 2000, imagine what we could do with a few choice addresses from Ofcom and Channel 4.

Fyi in case you want to follow this one on your own: www.youtube.com (seach for Shilpa and CBB), http://www.channel4.com/bigbrother AND to protest: ofcom.co.uk, bblb@channel4.com, bbbm@channel4.com, AND here is the petition doing the rounds already: http://www.petitiononline.com/Shilpa/petition.html

I know, I know - but I am Indian yaar, and nothing better than some sabre-rattling (nonviolently of course) and rabble-rousing to get things going....