Self Identification and Privilege
Identity is comprised of multiple aspects and angles of self that adds to the complexities of humans. Anything from race to gender to sexuality to immigration status.
In a Harvard research, there are two things people notice first about another, it is gender and skin color. Immediately people have a natural instinct to try and understand and interpret the gender and race of the person before them.
Everyday I have this interaction. Someone will see me and immediately try and pinpoint my gender and race subconsciously. This is where the gravity of identity comes in, if I could control my identity in others people’s eyes then I could happily be able to self define and live beyond stereotypes and preconceived thoughts.
Identity and the freedom to identify oneself is of the most important things in my life. The root of racism in my life is caused by the ignorance of people of my identities. The root of most-isms and -phobias is caused by the fear of minorities identifying them- selves and reclaiming their definitions and celebrating them.
Islamophobia is one of the most poignant forms of religious discrimination in my life. Even though I am not Muslim but am Sikh, people wrongly diagnose my religion and tag me as a Muslim. That tag then allows them to proceed to calling me names, the most common being “terrorist.” Even though I can defend myself by saying I am not Muslim but Sikh, I would be just enabling this type of hateful behavior and form of uneducation about religions. As a woman of color, I do not have the privilege to drop all my identities because I don’t look like the majority race in this country or in this city.
82% of Walnut Creek is white, according to the American Community Survey, and every day I hear things like “I don’t like labels,” or “I don’t see color.” Both of those statements show to me a level of unconsciousness.
Labels put identities in a bad light, my identity is something that took me years to be proud of. Not seeing color is to only see black and white, that is the definition of ignorance and it’s far from being able to embrace color.
In a lot of cases, when one isn’t part of the solution I see them as part of the problem. To be an ally is to not only just say your are one, but to act upon that.
Often times, I see people calling themselves “woke” but don’t understand the experiences of their contemporaries. Just to be an advocate for one issue does not mean your are a conscious thinker when it comes to inequity.
Identities are a comprehension of self, without understanding who you are then how can you ever understand others? It isn’t no one person’s job to speak for all, but it isn’t anyone’s job to especially a person of the majority race to tell someone that they shouldn’t use identities when that was the very thing the majority race tried to suppress in the first place.
