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blasianangrymom · 7 years

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What do white people dream about: the struggle for representation

What do rich white people dream about?

Putting overtime in the unconscious to fight the battle to be considered human, as I am.

I like to imagine that out there is some person who is spending their precious time asleep dreaming relaxing, fanciful dreams.

This morning I dreamt of a brown person (sometimes he was South Asian but then sometimes he was Black, as dream characters can shape-shift without any reason or problem within the dream) with a mustache who was wrongfully imprisoned for about twenty-three years according to NPR.

I remember wondering what crime he was accused of. It turned out that I knew somehow that his mother was killed and he was wrongfully imprisoned; his father had his life upturned because he was under suspicion as well. The Wrongfully Imprisoned Brown Person went into the slammer when there was no internet or ATMs. He was seventeen, and he came out a middle-aged man.

In the dream, I meet him again and pour him some special whisky I got from Canada. We sit down together with friends in my living roothis My tall Nordic friend Stacey is here. I have a tiny glass cup from Hokkaido with lilies etched on it that I usually serve my daughter water or milk in. There’s some leftover whiskey in it. There are several glasses of whiskey, enough for the whole crowd of a few close, yet, for now, faceless white friends standing in my dining room, and we drink to the Wrongfully Imprisoned Brown Person. Right now, he presents as a striking South Asian, maybe E. Indian, jet-black hair with a part and a barely-there wave to it, rather long. He has an intense set of eyes that stare deep and is mustachioed with an almost-comically bushy (it’s shaped hipster- or 19th century person-like, but not quite handlebar as the ends don’t curl up) ’stache. I offer Stacey my baby’s water cup with the little bit of golden whiskey to drink to the Wrongfully Imprisoned Brown Person. She shrugs when I give her the leftover baby whiskey and plops it in her drink. Now, the whiskey in the cup has magically turned into milk. She makes a face (we all do). I’m sure her milk/whiskey-Jaeger-bomb (did she plop it in a beer? I’ll never know.) was nasty as hell. The white woman on NPR interviewing Wrongfully Imprisoned Brown Person says, “How do you deal with anger?” He begins to answer, a vague, polite, canned response, I cynically think. The dream ends.

When I was fed a steady diet of U.S. media growing up, I used to dream in racist. After all, it was what was around me and being ingested by me at least three to four hours a day and upwards of thirty or more hours a week. I remember in one instance, there was a tiny leathery-skinned Mexican mini-man who was about to shoot me with a revolver bigger than he was as I hung crucified on a cross between two other crosses at the edge of a cliff. He was obviously a pseudo-person modelled off of America’s favorite Mexican, the mouse Speedy Gonzales. I did not question the strange Mexican at the time; it was about 1993 and I was under ten years old. I just remember feeling terror at the prospect of being shot.

Now that I deal in anti-racist work as a full-time, compulsory position, balancing that with writing and working full time as contributor to the economy+mom+wife+daughter+friend and erstwhile art-scenester, I put in overtime during my dreams.

I had the Stay at Home Mom-privilege of attending white anti-racist notable Robin DiAngelo’s daytime workshop on Understanding Structural and Institutional Racism about a year ago. Though it was heartening to have my perspectives and feelings validated as a person of color, i.e. “you’re not crazy in thinking that white people as a social order do not acknowledge or care that you exist, because the current wave of racism is that of white isolation,” it was also re-triggering to re-live all the ways in which our society, government, business, and media are racist. She provided AV slides of the ways in which even the Donkey (its black afro-puff, brown fur, and Black male voice Eddie Murphy) from Shrek supports White Supremacy in that he dreams of his best self being a white horse with a straight, flowing white mane. Ah, Racial Purity.

After attending the workshop, that night my dreams were again colonized by racism. I dreamt that my great-grandfather had a soymilk factory in the 1800s. I was transported to a seaside ghost resort town with little commerce other than a giant gymnasium that was the former site of a world’s fair. I walked around in the giant gymnasium and upon stepping into my great-grandfather’s circular novelty soymilk wave machine (it used to contain a shit ton of soymilk and could fit probably 3-4 people at a time), I suddenly had a vision of the past. The black-and-white relics--neon signs and old machines, etc. all around me suddenly turned to a burnt sepia, with a scratchy phonographic soundtrack to match. I saw that the one Asian and possibly the only person of color (though, what would They have called us back then? Mongol-savage-oriento-afroloids?) exhibiting at the fair was my great-grandfather. He might have even had on a bowler hat or top hat and suit and tie with coattails. Although nothing major actually happened in this within-a-dream flashback, I witnessed my great-grandfather, a proud soymilk-factory-owning man and successful entrepreneur, walking along the boardwalk by himself. The other business stands, white people, sniggered, jeered, and/or glared at him as he walked by them. I saw his pride melt away as they reduced his self-image to that of a buck-toothed, queue-having yellow Oriental with slanted eyes. He had to go back to his particular corner--which it turns out wasn’t with the entrepreneurs selling their wares and promoting industry--it was the circus area alongside the naked Filipinos who were supposed cannibals or dog-eaters or whatever “savage” act the fair organizers had them on display for. As in the dream, I woke up crying.

the TICKING TIME BOMB to infinity

So much of my short (or long) 31 years has been spent unlearning self-hate. So, much of my motherhood (13 months) is seeking the tools to prevent self-hate from being inculcated in my daughter. I’ve tried the following tactics in the past few years:

1. Educating white folks about racism by explaining how POC are affected (failed; work in progress).

2. Encouraging white folks to think about their own racism by explaining how they enact the white Gaze of Normalcy (meh, like pulling teeth; work in progress)

And my new tactic is?

1. Expressing among people of color groups how we can unite together and work on our own inter-ethnic and internalized racism (total fucking failure; work in progress), without white people around.

I pore over the internet looking for baby books featuring children of color so Ruby can see that her absence does not mean she is deficient in some way. There are books out there, but few with characters that look like her Blasian, beautiful self. The best we can shoot for is Latina in terms of a skin color similarity. What well-intentioned folks saying “just read a book with animals in it” don’t understand is the negation of the self through absence.

I can’t say for men of color, specifically Asian-American males, what it means to be constantly invisible, but in a society where women and girls are judged and valued for their beauty--their image--I assume that there is an extra urgency for little girls to see themselves reflected back at them in a sea of images of white girls as the ideal--blonde thin pretty ones.

ways the struggle exacerbates the time confetti experience of ladiez

*community

*education to self affirm

*carving space

*fighting self-hate

*getting hated on

The multilayer cake to eat and have (not). I. The Need.

Fake it til you make it?

Picture perfect? Minivans and soccer?

Clean House? Therapy? (Do you KNOW how many choices of therapists there are that are people of color let alone women of color?)

Happy Marriage?

Adjusted baby?

When your early childhood experiences have the sting of you being the butt end of some racial shit--white people hating on your special i.e. otherness, you spend a lot of time trying to prevent that for your own child. When you are the sole actor of color in an ensemble of whites only, burnout is inevitable.

*CARVING SPACE

*COMMUNITY *EDUCATION *ACTIVISM *ART?

The cycle of hate, anger and release

The Asian mom way of parenting based upon fear and trepidation -- probably has some merit to it. Considering the way that parents of color have a different set of concerns than white parents - i.e. will my child be racially targeted, racially objectified, along with the worry of some kind of sexual violence. Who has time to be in the struggle, be a picturesque lady (whatever the fuck that entails), a loving partner and co-parent, be a feminist revolutionary? And have dinner, a clean house, and a put-together sense of calm?

In the same way la French Madame Louise Bourgeois carves things--makes sculptures from raw materials--because she’s not happy with the way things are---I will be

CARVING A FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE.

Carving a fortress of solitude involves twisting time’s masculinist arm to your will. A feminist has to block out messages of inferiority due to X unfinished business (manicure-less hands? Messy hair? Messy kitchen? No food hot, ready, and lovingly made from scratch?).

Here’s the thing though. A mother of color has to strategically choose from which stone to carve her time for RELAXATION and DECOMPRESSION and it is unlikely she will ever have a truly freed space without the use of heavy intoxicants.

Should she take time away from her precious family to soothe herself? Well she’s been has taught her to self-sacrifice as a woman, and likely culturally as well. My mom ate leftovers and she ate last if at all with the family, leaving the best for everyone else. She worked so hard to scrimp and save and to this day gives me a mountain of um, “useful” items like the 1980s “Can Crusher” or the acne-reduction face wash from circa 1995, In order if just to save the environment from waste and to save me a little money. Squeezing fractions of pennies from thrift shop finds like squeezing blood from a stone.

The thing about carving time is it feels like the easiest option is not to do it. Should I carve from that sparkly gem, the sleep stone? Be extra-productive by not sleeping? Okay, my (insert task) can be accomplished but then I feel like shit all day.

In the hyper-connected social media activist age where we SAHMs (stay at home moms) are underemployed if at all by the current economic system, Angry POC groups or blogs can serve as a therapeutic source of community. If I have time after deigning to attempt to keep all the beings of the house fed, watered, and diapered , I can then put on my volunteer/do gooder/activist/get knowledge hat.

My Baby broke my glasses while I was riveted by an interethnic race relations article. I assume this means something.

Is the question of either a Do I need to choose between a productive life OR a peaceful life OR an activist life OR a wife and Mom life?

The Madonna-Whore complex and Momcat Can you be a sexy, mom, activist, feminist, aesthete professional wife-partner? Do you have the energy to do so?

The Bechdel test for moms

STEREOTYPE THREAT.

Carving space from: -sleep -baby -relationship -self -idealism -volunteering -achieving professional goals -writing -art -house -eating

Every mom becomes a pragmatist. Ideals? What are/were those? Moments to breathe not filled with the drudgery of daily tasks? I can no longer fathom without much ___

SPACE TO BREATHE

giving yourself permission to be okay, say that you’re okay, in a space where clearly you are not okay. A suspension of the social order. A brief moment in time. Upsetting the social order. And not feeling bad about it. Women are in the caring industry. Do we become callous to the needs of others in order to care for ourselves? Is our pain and suffering and struggle REQUISITE to the order of society and is the corollary of this true?

CARVING SPACE for healing. In the fortress of solitude -- we set aside and get away from the din of the roar of inferiority, the voices in our own heads, hearts, that we’ve absorbed from around us. There are frequent breaks that create more fissures to patch up -- getting hated on (WHEN YOUR OWN PEOPLE hate on your daughter or your dude for being non-anglo-featured or non-light-skinned--it is a non-revolutionary betrayal and yet another fissure in the romantic idea that all POC want the same thing--equality, empowerment, self-acceptance + reminds me how much the struggle is of liberating our own colonized hearts and minds.)--

FIGHTING SELF HATE -- This society thrives on our invisibility and availability as willing participants + Free/low wage/slave labor, as women, as mothers. Our pursuits and perspectives are not valued monetarily because they are assumed. The feminine is not productive - yet our wombs (apologies to those for whom this is not true) and the work of our hands are fertile fecund as fuck. Recognizing our own power and strength is only one piece of empowerment.

I wasn’t a feminist until now; good job ma.

The struggle to accept femininity was due to my hatred of all the weakness associated with said concept. Now that I’ve birthed a human I can truly see the sheer strength and invisible struggle of women, the policing of our bodies, and the insurmountable tasks set before us to be considered normal, let alone good, members of society. It’s crippling and I cannot believe my immigrant mom with my dad's assistance did this raising kids business for so long with three kids and yet instilled a keen sense of identity and ethnic pride (along with the unhealthy self-hate and self-sacrifice to a fault).

What will it take for us to be integrated human beings? Not just a vagina and tits but a whole human person who has those parts (if they identify with those parts)? Good!!

The Momcat and Imperfection revolution

The White woman

It's been said that theis white woman is a good example of feminism or this one or that one in the u.s. white man heavy media. But so often the trope is a trope of utter perfection in looks, business, relationship, skills, sexiness, and/or motherhood, meaning all women fall short of the glory of Motherhood.

What does it mean to have an equitable society where men pick up some of the slack? Letting go of perfection. You're never going to be the whitest thinnest blondest mommiest superfreak with the hottest wife or husband and best kids. It's not going to happen.

If l stopped chasing a strangely pervasive ideal of a singular form of femininity and motherhood (overwhelmingly white middle class and upholding the Madonna/whore complex), that of perfection in self spouse house and children would I…

Write an opera?

Learn an instrument?

Take up diving?

Perhaps it is for this reason the acknowledgment that children take time and housekeeping takes time that I have thought “when my husband and I retire we can go to theology school together.” “when I retire I'll play surf rock, nirvana covers, and fix 1960s cars.”

I'm no fool. Kids take time, energy, and stress. They also create a crushing environment of sacrificial love and pure elation. Does driving perfectionism for child rearing necessitate death of self or putting your dreams on hold? Does it for men? Is having professional or creative goals impossible with children?

It's taken time to unlearn my regular mode of constant guilt or shame around failures of any kind. I went from working barely five hours a week to five jobs and forty hours, so that I could have my own earned income, stay on top of debt, but most importantly, designated non-working time (i.e. leisure). In motherhood at home, there is no such thing. Life is a constant hum of things to be done, unless you want someone to drown in poopy diapers or starve. I still wonder whether women or people of color really have ever had such a thing as leisure time…is sabbath for all or only the elite? Who was God talking to when God commanded rest?

After over a year of waking up every single night to feed Ruby, I thought since I'm working now I get some relief from that duty. I was wrong.

It's not enough that I stayed with Ruby for a year, because apparently I was lazily lounging around then (I was not); and now that I'm taking her to daycare as a daycare teacher, plus the other jobs, now I'm doing too much. It's never enough. I'm never enough. Our ideal woman does everything without complaint, effort, or any consternation whatsoever.

Why do we set ourselves up for failure?

Is there an alternative to this impossible, idealized vision of motherhood?trope to these ideas of sahmomming?

-Madonna whore complex

-ugly clothes

-your vagina is over!!!

All are middle class upper white woman?

Very unhealthy view of sex

Feel tired

Give up and be asexual or spend massive amounts of time on beauty

Double standard

What colors do mixed babies dream of?

I'd like to imagine my daughter, Ruby dreams of herself reposed and in power, served by variously hued men and breasts flowing with milk. There are so few portraits in u.s. pop culture of ANY women of color, let alone powerful ones, that it is hard at this point to imagine she will continue to dream in such grandeur without grand interludes of racism and whiteness.

Contrast that with the treatment every male but most especially cis het able bodied middle class white ones, gets on every front: divine worship, centrality, agency, prominence, the expectation of service, excellence, exceptionalism, normalcy, individuality, the benefit of the doubt, the assumption of ability and strength, AND no need to:

-be empathetic

-f with poc esp female trans lgbtq differently abled poor Black ones

-disprove any number of stereotypes about belonging or competence

What a difference a brother makes

In my private life I've wavered from being an egotistical fashionista to complete iconoclast-ascetic. I'd always admired those with swag. I never knew whether I had the “right” to have or own any swagger as the nerdy Asian model minority, so I erred on the side of caution.

However, as time wore on in my beautiful interracial marriage to a young black man, I got my “(married to a) n* wake up call.”

If we weren't being hated upon or micro-aggressed by my classist and racist family, there was always the young white male yelling “FUCKING NIGGER!!!!!” from a pickup truck, or the passing over for promotions coupled with Obama-ing (“there's something about him. I just don't trust him!”) and other beautiful stereotype quoting (“lazy, white woman stealer, crack seller, sketchy, deserving to be shot by police,” etc.) by the ridiculous white racists at work.

What do you call a patient kind loving Black dad in argyle sweaters who is a Early childhood educator and critical race theorist preschool teacher and so church worker, for christ sake? I'll give you a hint: it means Black and is a racial epithet. It doesn't matter how much white posturing this good man does because ultimately the problem is white people and their psychotic issues around identity, sexuality, racism, and fear of a Black planet. Their issues get projected onto people of color especially Black folks, and we’re blamed for them.

Every time some shit goes down and we have a n wake up call, I want to shave my head, put on expressive eyeliner, don bright colors--turn mourning into dancing. The thing white people complimenting such boldness don't understand is where the swag comes from and the fact that they can't have or take it from us (But this is a great line!). Speaking only from my personal experience, I think when a white woman who is literally oppressing me with her good intentions to be color blind and preserve the status quo of white power compliments my manicure, “yeah well it's not FOR you even though it is in response to you. You don't get this and you don't get to and you don't own me.”

The power that comes from self-expression through fashion has never been more potent when at a time women are unvalued unsexy and made to feel like “you had a baby your life is over and you're not useful as a sexual being anymore” and yet the fashion available for breastfeeding is: all made for white Christian soccer moms. Have you ever seen a couture nursing shirt or dress that doesn't make you gag with its complete lack of spirit, thrill, or pizzazz?

I haven't, unless it's out of my price range. So I've spent the last year or two wearing the ugliest clothes ever and making do with bright pink lipstick and bold blue eyeliner. White women don't have the additional burden of proving that they are sexual beings (unless they're moms), because they y'all are portrayed as the standard and ideal (although it is tough to speak for all white women). So when I'm putting on my anti oppression armor makeup and you go to PCC in your jammies sans any effort I am thinking, ok, well I look good, but it's from a place of pain, and you look schloopy but it's from a place of resignation, defeat to misogyny, or ignorant white privilege, I suppose.

The white upper to middle class woman soccer mom ideal is so pervasive and monopolizing a view of the feminine ideal that I've often distanced myself from it. As. Far. As. Possible. This is the genius of Kool AD (of “Bitch I'm Madonna” obscurity) and his parenting column in Vice (add link). Not only is he spinning an alternately gendered narrative of parenthood, it is antithetical to every white woman ideal in diction (hip-hop) and philosophy (Young Jeezy). Perhaps the closer one is to white woman idealism the more you try to be a perfectionist. The opposite is true. (Why is the opposite true?)

It's not that I think being a good mom is a terrible ideal, I think a gendered raced and patently inequitable and unachievable narrative is destructive to all, white people included. Or especially?

I can't help but think that “proper” “appropriate” parenting involves whiteness, and everything else, especially Blackness, is patently inappropriate, shameful, or harmful. If I want Ruby to be ready for her future n word wake up call, which is a horrible constituency to plan for, she's going to experiment with different modes of expression, which do not inherently have Shame around body, sex, and movement and propriety. It's like all white women were taught to look Victorian with their hands obediently crossed or in a cross stitch and stayed in that seated position with a high necked ridiculous turtleneck, but the white men went out of their way historically to rape and pillage women of color.

An old white man at the racist church my husband worked at once told me and my husband: “you are children. Children should be seen and not heard.” Ooh, was I pissed about the racial connotations. At least he didn't call Jasen boy or Negro, or me oriental hooker whore…

In response to that comment is the end note here.

No. I'm not a child for challenging your racist bullshit.

No. I will be seen.

No. I will be heard.

And Ruby the beautiful child my progeny will be too. First in her power trippin’ dreams of men serving her and mama’s flowing titty milk, then in her swaggy response to some white sexist racist bullshit. And, we will design some better pregnancy and maternity clothes for our people in the next twenty years. We can share the look but not the swag with poor tired and resigned white mommies too.

Love,

Concerned Mother of Color

#egs

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