A Hybrid Girl’s Place in Racism and American Turmoil
By: Jennifer M. Wilson
Tags: Self Improvement, Life Lessons, BlackLivesMatter, Life, Culture

A Hybrid Girl’s Place in Racism and American Turmoil

Half white, half brown. Not fitting in anywhere.

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Unless you live in a cave, you know there’s inequality among Black Americans and other minorities. White folks who have a shred of decency are looking inward to their behaviors, rushing to read “White Fragility”, and trying to support their non-Caucasian friends through their Facebook posts.

I’m half-Indian and half-Caucasian. My parents met in England and moved to Canada where I became a first-generation Canadian. As an adult I moved to the United States where the differences between ethnicities were more pronounced. When the Black Lives Matter movement grew, I enthusiastically supported it. To support Black Americans I have to look at myself as well, except I’m not quite sure where I fit in: I’m not white enough to be white and enjoy all the perks but I’m not so brown that my life is anywhere near as challenging as other minorities. Can I wag my finger at white folks or do I reflect upon my privilege and biases? Can I empathize as someone with dark skin pigmentation and a Middle-Eastern maiden name or do I keep my mouth shut because my experiences aren’t as tragic?

To support Black Americans I have to look at myself as well, except I’m not quite sure where I fit in: I’m not white enough to be white and enjoy all the perks but I’m not so brown that my life is anywhere near as challenging as other minorities.

My Canadian suburban upbringing was similar to any American suburbia that had primarily Caucasian residents. There wasn’t any clutching of pearls if a person of color came by but there were so few of them that no one noticed them anyway. Or maybe I didn’t notice because as a kid, I was too self-absorbed with my feelings of being different.

On the inside

Inside my house, we were a hardcore Muslim Pakistani family of Indian descent. I knew that we were not like other Indian kids who had a dot between their eyebrows and ate vegetarian. We were of the “pray 5 times a day, don’t eat pork, and fast a few times a year” variety of brown.

My clothing requirements were to wear loose pants, sleeves no shorter than a t-shirt, and all tops needed to cover my butt. Short skirts or shorts were out of the question.

When watching television we had to change the channels during any scenes showing kissing, sex, bikini-clad women, and beer commercials. As my parents became more religious, full cable TV became “whatever stations you can get with an antenna” to eventually putting the television in a trash bag and throwing it out. Not having access to television in the 90s was akin to cutting all access from the internet; I wasn’t able to participate in discussions relevant to my peer group (which, back then, were music videos and sitcoms).

Even literature faced religious and cultural scrutiny. I received the Narnia book series as a birthday gift one year; my dad flipped his lid and refused to let me read them. I read them years later and saw them as books about fantasy worlds and creatures without religious undertones. I did not run to the nearest church screaming that I was ready to convert.

Magazines needed extra covert operations to hide from my parents. My mother, the more lenient one, accepted my Seventeen and YM subscriptions. But then all hell broke loose the day my dad got the mail and saw Luke Perry on the cover of YM magazine. It was World War 3 that day in my house.

Since I was intended to have an arranged marriage (or at least, a husband who passed a series of criteria before I was allowed to choose), dating was out of the question. No kissing, no holding hands, no phone calls from a boy, no hanging out with a group of mix-gendered friends at the mall.

I didn’t have the parents who excitedly took pictures of their child with their prom date. I snuck out of the house and used a very Mission Impossible style of entering my house at 6am the next day. I changed in the garage before entering the house.

Inside my house felt like I was living in a completely different country.

On the outside

At surface level, I tried my best to look as “normal” as possible. My friends thought it was odd that I never wore shorts. I told them I was worried about sun damage. I certainly never wore tank tops.

I pretended that I ate mac and cheese all the time, despite that I only had it for the very first time in highschool. The same goes for pizza; I had no idea delivery pizza tasted way better than my mother’s attempt. I wasn’t supposed to eat either of those food items because they contained non-halal (aka, kosher) additives.

Is it normal for a child to read ingredient listings and know that rennet, gelatin, and pepsin are common in foods but must be avoided? I was once dropped off to a birthday party where my mother gave me strict orders not to eat the hot dogs. She failed to mention that to the birthday kid’s parents. I still remember that poor mother begging me to eat something (I eventually ate a bun) because she didn’t want to send a hungry child home.

My friends must have wondered why I obsessed over their televisions when I went to their houses (which I always did, since my parents refused to let me have guests). They’d yell, “okay, ready! Let’s get Slurpees!” and I would reply, “yeah one sec, let’s just finish watching Saved By the Bell”.

While all my friends became expert swimmers, I was the one who flailed around in the water. At age 12 my parents pulled me from swimming lessons. To this day I even own a pool and yet can barely swim.

Boyfriends or male friends had to pick me up a few houses down to avoid my parents watchful eyes. There were no public displays of affection, including holding hands. The brown community is very tight-knit and gossip would have spread faster than coronavirus at a Trump rally.

The absolute worst was when I had to out outside to visit other brown families or attend weddings. It felt mortifying being seen wearing traditional shalwar kameez. Nowadays different cultures and clothing are celebrated; back then, conformity was necessary. I would hide my hands Monday mornings in school if I had henna applied over the weekend.

There is nothing kids and teenagers hate more than to be different and not blend in with their peers.

Adulthood

Everything went to hell after 9/11. Anyone Middle Eastern was the boogeyman. While I had the luxury of being very pale-skinned compared to other brown people, my last name gave me away.

Flying was a nightmare. TSA stopped me every time. A TSA agent once pointed out a code at the bottom of my ticket; I was on some list that meant I had to be patted-down and searched every single time. Have you ever had the TSA open up your contact lens case to check for miniature-sized bombs?

In person I didn’t experience too much brown hatred, aside from a coworker who teased me mercilessly after 9/11 (I was too young to know how to file a complaint with HR and back then, even sexual harassment was acceptable). Online, it was terrifying. The hatred and violent threats coming from forums, online communities, and posts were terrifying. It felt like I had to keep my veil of whiteness over me at all times. I didn’t feel safe being out in public with strangers not knowing who was Islamophobic and anti-brown people.

Once I married and took my husband’s very Caucasian last name, magically everything got better. Flying was a breeze. Getting my work visas and eventual green card was a snap. I could make comments and posts online without fear of harassment over my ethnicity.

2020 and the changing mindset

As the atrocious murder of George Floyd and subsequent country insanity goes on, I struggle to find my place.

I don’t know “white fragility” and I haven’t had the luxury growing up as I’m experiencing now with a Caucasian last name. On the other hand, when I get pulled over by the police my biggest concern is how to sweet talk my way out of a ticket.