Sharpening the word sword, again

A few weeks ago I found myself alone in Seattle, a luxury I wasn’t going to let pass without some revelry of the type suitable for a middle-aged mother the night before a work-related conference. I landed in sideways snow a somewhat sweaty-palmed adventure for a consummate Californian, who truly dislikes the unknown variable of white stuff falling from the sky. Icy flurries smacked the windshield of the car creating the illusion of a massive blizzard tunnel, but when I looked out a passenger window, I saw a peaceful flake flutter, a light dust atop evergreens and slick black highway. So weird how perspective changes everything.

I had read online that Ta-Nehisi Coates was speaking at Benaroya Symphony Hall about two blocks from my old-fashioned hotel, of the style with glimmering chandeliers and effusive concierge. Surely this was a sign, a cue to tell me something I needed to know, as I had his book “Eight Years We Were in Power” tucked in my backpack, the edges of the jacket already curled up from wear and a bookmark at the last chapter. Plus, I had made no plans on purpose, hoping to find my way, as I used to before family and work-life carved me into a highly scheduled person. I’ve always loved coincidences, for a moment I start to believe there is something larger out there guiding my way, a personal message from some secret source of inspiration. Of course, Coates’ talk was sold out but I figured I’d try to grab a ticket like a teenage groupie waiting to see a glitzy rock band. I checked in to my cozy room and set about my mission, and as my feet crunched down salted sidewalks, I was dazzled to be alone in the crisp air, no distractions, nobody asking me for a thing, just my random plans. As I anxiously waited at the box office for standby tickets to be released, a beautiful black woman, like Diana Ross beautiful, with long natural hair scanned the crowd, she overlooked the tall man standing next to me who was also waiting for a spot but her gaze connected with mine and she asked if I needed a ticket. I said, yes, and as she handed it to me she said “Spread the love sista” and I swear she floated off into the crowd. The man next to me, raised his hand as if to say, what about me, but I didn’t wait to see his outcome and bolted off to grab my seat.

So, I gotta do it, spread the love! I had my marching orders and a solitary evening that didn’t make me feel wistful for any companionship. I wanted to be alone, listen hard to a writer that I feel is treading on some truth, using well-chosen words and research as his guide. I took notes like a rapt student listening to a master essayist, but more accurately he is an observationist, a polemicist, someone who is not going to back down from the narrative he formed through great personal energy and rumination. I find his writing brave, his ideas necessary as if he uses his pencil to poke at the beehive. His objective to write felt similar to my own, although I can’t say I have his level of experience and surely not his dedication, I could still relate. I had been feeling a little out of touch with my writer self all this year, distracted by activism, paralyzed by a combination of fear and hopelessness at times. Most of 2017 has been a horrendous journey into our worst anxieties about our country led by a bigoted, racist, and unfit president. But at that moment, in my singular space, in the balcony of a large symphony hall, surrounded by cozy Seattlite liberals who were in the thrall of Coates’ ideas and words, I could only think that spreading the love meant I must write more because it brings me closer to loving myself.

I had figured that the night would be filled with talk of Trump’s election, the definition of whiteness, the politics of our age, and how we missed the signs of the racist backlash that was gonna smack us out of our Obama-fueled hope daze. I looked around the hall, and some semblance of positivity about the future filled me as I saw real-life humans, mostly white people, nod, some snapped their fingers in approval as they do now in universities and activist circles as Coates described whiteness, not as a genetic characteristic or ancestry, but a belief that these characteristics guarantee a place of power in society. When he said such words, about how white supremacy works in his book and now on stage, it usually strikes me as a comfortable position, and for a brief moment I feel heard and understood as brown woman, until I realize how difficult it to really grasp, even for me, that some of us have an advantage on the backs of others loss. But nevertheless, on this evening, Coates and the moderator sat on two arts and crafts leather chairs, a small table between for resting water bottles and note cards, and an entire stage rimmed with glowbaby hand-blown glass candles, and I was taken back to little dashes of hope, a feeling that is hard to relinquish. I let my mind wander, and yes hope, that even if one person in the audience could begin to understand that we have to do more than just react to our current situation, that we have to build a plan that directs towards a vision of a country that is different than one we have accepted up until now that maybe we could actually do it. The vastness of this idea is not lost on me, I know it will be generational, but it has to begin, and the more I reckon with our white-supremacist, misogynist systems, and culture the more I am sure we need to find a different mechanism for change. And so listening to Coates, reading his work that is built upon research and actual stories of people in this country who have lived under the strains of our often merciless laws and regulations is an important step in the process. Coates’ work is footnoted and references many other academics whose work is just as important, researchers, and writers who have spent their lives dismantling the notion that our system is fair and just. Without this important backbone, and without Coates’ own narrative voice and personal story, I think his work would fall flat but he is wise enough to know that his pointing to the white supremacist structures will require that he as a black man, a college dropout, an author from Baltimore, will have to work triple time to make his point, he is afforded no shortcut in this area. This inspires me to great lengths, to build writing upon knowledge, interactions with people, historical context, an unacceptance of easy narratives and myths that we adore so much in our country as this way of life have often been my natural frame of mind. I’ve always been a contrarian, a debater someone who rankles at doing things because that’s how they’re done, and throughout Coates’ work I recognize this in him as well.

But what I wasn’t expecting was the night would essentially be a class on writing and as I looked around and saw I was one of the few (or only) people taking notes, I realized he might just be talking to me, and perhaps one or two others. For he admitted he compiled his essays so he could share his process and journey as a writer in the last eight years, and he wanted to come to Seattle to speak to all of us young writers, and I took young not to mean age but lacking in experience or audience. I took his words as a direction, just as I was told to spread the love, he also reminded me that writing is fighting, and we have to keep our swords sharpened, that we must wake from the dream and into the struggle. I wrote this and paused, that moment when I felt so aligned in exactly where I was sitting, at exactly the time I needed to hear exactly the words that were spoken, and I was open. He told me, that fear is a productive force, something I hadn’t heard enough, as I am surrounded by intellectual people who also say fear is a paralyzing force. That writing is a private act, that it’s how we feel, and an important part of writing is curiosity. He mentioned when people would throw out terms like The System or White Supremacy, he wanted to know more. What do those words really MEAN? So he set out to learn. And he would research a topic and think one thing at the start and after a while, he would think differently on a topic, that writing is about habit, a willingness to be wrong, struggle, and questioning. Ah, how I loved all of these ways, they do not shrink me, these insights encourage me, and even though I have little space for a full-on writing habit, I can make something happen with the time available. Because he also said writing is a process, and yet not stuck in amber. He wrote this book for writers.

Then he went through his process for writing, and he said his first draft is always really, really bad and I believed him. Because his brilliance is that he sticks with it, and rewrites that horrible draft until it transforms to really bad, to bad, to still bad, to average, to passable, to maybe he can share it now, to something that is a final published piece. And that was honest, it’s what I know every author has told me, drafts always start off bad, but it’s a start. Coates also said he just couldn’t sleep at night knowing he wasn’t writing and that’s the rub, for I have had many a sleepless night, only to wake and stand in the shower while my head is a swirl of ideas. If I’m lucky I write down a blurb in a notebook, or I do the lazy thing and post a ranty Facebook update only to get a like or two. And that can feel deflating, but I also realized that’s my problem, I’m choosing the wrong medium. And I struggle, do I write long posts or not, are they worth anything and then I force myself to stop, even though I’m dying to share. But it’s still writing, it’s still a tiny bit of sword sharpening, so as of now I feel less guilty about my posts. I’m reminded think of what Coates wrote about the defiance of being a writer:

This lack of expectation dovetailed with my writing, because writers too must learn to abandon appeal and expectation. Failure is the norm for writers–firings and layoffs, rejected pitches, manuscripts tossed into the wastebins, bad reviews, uninterested editors, your own woeful rough drafts, they all form a chorus telling you to quit with whatever dignity you still have intact. And if you are going to write, you must learn to work in defiance of this chorus, in defiance of unanswered pitches, of the books that find no audience, and most of all, in defiance of the terror radiating from the blank white page. And so, in writing, I found that black atheism and defiance morphed into a general theory of life. No one was coming to save me, and no one was going to read me. My reasons for writing had to be my own, divorced from expectation. There would be no reward.

Of course, he goes on to say there was a reward for he became the Atlantic’s black writer, but I take his point to write in defiance of the chorus. My friends and followers on social media, they don’t regard me as a writer, yet I have to write for my own reasons and understand not everybody reads. I have to relinquish feeling sheepish for writing long facebook updates, blog posts with so few readers and reading poetry out loud amongst a clique of talented Berkeley writers. I have to stand my defiant ground when a friend cautiously asks me, not out of curiosity, but tinged with a sort of shorthand judgment, as to why I posted and shared so much on Facebook. That she didn’t “get it” should reveal more about me than her scrutiny. I got it and I know a few others do too but writers live in a very small world. If I think of sitting with Coates in Seattle, I did feel like one of the few who would take his words to heed. That should fill me with energy, not this diabolical fear, for not everyone’s mind is racing a thousand miles per minute, as I gorge myself with long-form essays, and hours a week writing drafts nobody may ever read.

I had such high hopes to write about 2017 a bit more scrupulously than I have done so far. I had an aspiration to be a diarist documenting all the chaos around me and from what I see there is still time. It might even have been a good thing to step back for a moment. About a month ago, my brain lit up with a new realization that left me uneasy. This most horrific year had churned me up and left me by the wayside at times. I was unsure of my direction and where I had been placing my energy. Surprisingly, I felt frustrated that the resistance compromised my writing, although maybe I will see that it was fuel to be in the streets all this year. But I recognized my urgent on-call activism had taken up so much brain space that I had nothing left to give, even as my mind filled up with ideas, observations, and revelations. My notes app and journals are brimming with ideas and titles for blog posts, and there is a sizable amount of niggly little bits one could call bad first drafts, and this is not a bad thing. For most of these past months, I’ve been over-eating and under-creating, paralyzed by frustration and comforted with candy, bread, cheese, and wine. Hitting a wall is nothing new, and oh, do I know the drill. It was time to make a plan, start writing, start exercising, eat clean, and the big one, less news consumption, more reading, and more editing. As for the list, I can just check “start writing” the other stuff is more challenging but I know I will get there.

So I’m back at the Writer’s Studio again, creating persona narrators and talking about literature with other writers. I had started here a few years ago when I began to put more faith in myself as a writer. I already feel the limbering up has made a difference, I feel able to say that I’m a writer without feeling like a liar. My struggle about whether I should write or not feels less consuming. I know I have to do this and almost every day I stumble up little happenstances that reminds me to keep going. Most days I am clear, there is a place for my words, voice, and ideas. Coates reminded me that writing is a fight and I take it to mean one worth the battle. I also take away that the internet is a sword. It’s been so easy for most people to bemoan the toxicity of the internet, more specifically social media and its bots that allow for a constant stream of rhetoric and harmful propaganda. But Coates also pointed out, as well as other “under-represented” writers, that although the internet did destroy the gatekeepers, and this is perhaps why we see the fake news, those same gatekeepers also controlled ideas and who was eligible to share those ideas. Without the gatekeepers, writers like Coates and probably so many of the beautiful tide of diverse writers of color and women, wouldn’t have had the platform they do. It was a reminder not step aside and let the populace continue to slide into easy to digest soundbites about right and wrong, but that if I was to write, I needed the internet, and social media to be a healthy space for ideas. Even this small reminder, showed how easily I’m influenced because the toxicity online, and it does exist for certain, was also keeping me from taking on this blank page. If Coates is right, that white supremacy in all of its forms is also fueled by a shared body of knowledge and if my hope is that we work to fight for a new vision of our country, than perhaps I need to add my voice, narrative, and question ideas from my position so that we change what is shared. Coates has been labeled fatalistic, the oppositional point to Obama’s hopefulness, but I don’t see it that way at all. He said on that chilly November night in Seattle, to me that writing matters, it’s meant to be enjoyed, it’s an expression of who he is, and it’s pure. So perhaps it’s not hope in the way we’ve been trained to embrace it, but what Coates’ is asking is that we all make something worthwhile out of our lives, and for us, it’s writing.

November 30, 2017 2

Protesting is not the problem

The past two nights, I’ve attended rallies in Oakland and San Francisco marching against police terror and violence. I chose to march to unify, to be a body in a sea of protesters, to bring attention and to call on Oakland City Council to reform our corrupt police department. I attended in solidarity, but I was also there to learn, to LISTEN HARD, to give space to ideas some may find uncomfortable.

A few of my white friends said “thank you” to me as they noticed I was marching. I get it, but I don’t want to be thanked. I don’t want to have to stand in front of City Hall, shedding tears as a mother wailed over the deaths of her sons. When you said “thank you,” I understood your sentiment. I think you want to do something but don’t know how? Instead of thanks, I’d rather if you’d join me at a rally exercising your protected right to assemble peacefully and demand justice together. We can listen, find new ways to engage. We can raise our fists together in defiance and anger, shaking them with fierce agitation against violence.

Some of you may say, you call this peaceful? How can your anger bring peace? Why would you shut down streets and freeways and inconvenience others? This is no way to make allies, your angering and annoying others. Or maybe you think some of the speeches from the movement have a negative tone or sound scary, or incite violence. It might freak you out out to hear ideas like ending the police, revolution, black self-determination, anti-capitalism and that’s a good thing. It should freak you out to learn that we have an unjust system!

I get why this all sounds too much, but we just had another really frightening week of violence in the US and I’m at a point where I want to shake things up, I want to something. I figure a little anger and outrage is due and this is why I marched on the streets of my city. Luckily a friend reached out on Facebook when she noticed I was interested and a protest buddy was exactly the last little push I needed to get off my butt. Like many, I have held back my actions because felt confused, maybe even a little complacent and cynical. This is about black lives. Not privileged Asian-American lives. Do I have a right to speak out, or to hold up my fist? Am I’m co-opting a movement? Am I’m just trying to attend a march to feel good, or assuage my guilt or sing “We Shall Overcome?”

Some of this may be true, and I’ve struggled with many conflicting thoughts the past few nights, rallying and marching in Oakland and San Francisco. And to those of us who have guilt in any form, what is the point of feeling badly it if we don’t act? Why would I sit home giving in to my pathetic guilt. The very least I can do is show up in solidarity, not expect thank you’s and stand with humility when facing my privilege. These have not been easy events, and I’m still coming to terms with what I can do. But like I said, I went to listen and learn. And I learned that the mostly young activists are pouring out their hearts, they’re tearing their souls open asking all of us, to feel outraged, to get out of our safe little houses hiding behind social media and act now. I also learned real quick that these protests are not about feel good messages that only serve to make you feel warm and fuzzy but don’t address inequality, racism, and injustice. You can’t fight for change in a corrupted and ugly system and hope it stays positive, especially when the negative is so grave. Of course, Martin Luther King Jr, said it best:

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.”

You may worry that protesting and demanding change, revolution, pointing out the rigged system during this election cycle is not so convenient. It would be better for us if we could share positive vibes, so we don’t upturn the apple cart. I’ve also heard the argument that protestors are fomenting Donald Trump’s supporters. I recognize this tactic as means to keep voices muted. And furthermore, I feel strongly that if we don’t protest, if we don’t speak truth to power RIGHT NOW, we are obediently allowing his narrative to take hold. I recognize what is at stake, and the train has already left the station, we have the potential as a Nation to elect a very dangerous man to the highest office in the land. This threat is exactly why mobilization is utterly essential, now more than ever. The finger has ALWAYS been pointed at protestors, because of course, those in charge (the media, politicians, government, police) want quiet obedience.

Civil disobedience, as I put it to the audience, was not the problem, despite the warnings of some that it threatened social stability, that it led to anarchy. The greatest danger, I argued, was civil obedience, the submission of individual conscience to governmental authority. Such obedience led to the horrors we saw in totalitarian states, and in liberal states it led to the public’s acceptance of war whenever the so-called democratic government decided on it…

In such a world, the rule of law maintains things as they are. Therefore, to begin the process of change, to stop a war, to establish justice, it may be necessary to break the law, to commit acts of civil disobedience, as Southern black did, as antiwar protesters did.― Howard Zinn, You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times

And to this you say to me, what does a protest accomplish? You know you’re just pointing out the divide, you’re allowing the other side to use your arguments against you, giving fuel to their agenda. Bruce Hartford, a veteran of the civil rights movement defines “The purpose of Nonviolent Resistance is to affect peoples’ thinking and build political movements for social change.” And using this definition, I’d say that the current protests are achieving this objective. Haven’t you heard more about police shootings against blacks, seen more videos showing injustice, or seen more cops arraigned than ever before? Even if these cops are not getting convicted, we’re at least getting them to face a trial, and convictions will happen in due time. To overturn laws and policies that created a racist criminal justice system will take many years, a lot of protesting, direct action, debate, and re-framing. Part of what is making the change is the long hard work of activists directly engaging in civil disobedience, protests, social media campaigns. Yes, yes yes, it brings out the dark side, it’s angry, ugly, no fun, icky, and uncomfortable. And this is why I marched, why I had to get elbow to elbow with my neighbors and hear the words for myself, out in the open under a foggy sky. I took part to feel some of this;

In some circumstances and for some people, taking part in direct action is a profound expression of defiance and courage, for others it can sometimes be a living rejection of the conformist societal norms that previously governed their lives. In some instances, nonviolent protest can be life-changing affirmation of dignity and self-worth — I AM a Man — and a living experience and expression of human solidarity — I Am Not Alone. And, of course, actively planning and participating in a protest provides a depth of political education that no leaflet, speech, article or manifesto can match. –Bruce Hartford, The Onion Theory of Nonviolent Protest

So please, don’t thank me, join with me instead. At this point, I feel I haven’t done enough. If you’re thanking me, I know you have it in you to get on your feet! Marching and rallying is actionable, hopeful and hard (as it should be). If you’re worried or sad about all that is happening you can do something. At least lend support to those on the streets, rather than criticize or believe the inaccurate portrayals of protesters being rabid, angry, frothing, vandals that are out for destruction. You should go out once and see for yourself. I’m here to be a friend, and I’m sure there are others. Ask for a hand and we can face these challenges as a united front against injustice. Staying quiet is no longer an option.

July 9, 2016 0

I tested my racial biases and got a kick in the gut

I’ve always had a good reason for not marrying within my own race, religion, caste, and class–as my Punjabi-Sikh parents would have liked. My usual response to everyone, Indian or not, is that I would’ve married someone from my own race if I had met the right guy, it just never happened. Really, I’m just an open-minded person, I don’t value one race, class, or religion over the other because I like everyone equally. That’s why I fell in love and married a man from Iceland. I valued him the same as every man, and as a person, for his values, attitudes and beautiful smile. His race didn’t have any bearing on my decision.

Recently, I was hanging with friends, we’d been talking about diversity and race all afternoon. I brought up my choice to marry outside of my race and gave my little speech about how I view everyone as equal. One friend interrupted my cliche little story and said “Na, na, na…I gotta challenge you on this. You have your own biases and they played into the decision not to marry someone Indian.” That stopped me in my tracks. I wasn’t put off by the point he made, partly because he is an African-American who married a white woman–so he’d probably explored his own choice. But mainly because, I knew that he was right in that instant. I looked at him and said, “Hmm. Maybe I’m biased against Indian men?” He shrugged, rhetorically. I laughed, “You know I’ll be thinking about this for a while”.

The thing is when you’re invariably talking about racial identity, culture, diversity, black lives, brown lives, white lives, conversations go deep. You begin to challenge others, to notice your own bias and to see points of view in a different light. If you’re lucky, you’ll have a friend such as mine, who is smart as a whip and doesn’t let you get away with crap. Now this is progress if you think of it. Each of us opening up, digging into the murky ugly bits. Sometimes it’s mean sounding, growling and unrelenting. The conversations can leave you with a squirmy, uncomfortable itch that crawls from your toes and rolls around your belly. It’s everywhere, it’s nowhere and then it’s back out to surprise. Your nerves get frayed. You hope the conversations go away. But sitting in a sweat-inducing spot of discomfort is the first clue, you’re onto something good.

So what about my own revelation? It didn’t take me long to get to the core of my friend’s objection. He was proposing that I chose not to marry someone Indian because I have a bias against my own race. I knew enough about implicit bias to recognize it right away. But it was the first time that I realized it within myself. Denial or unawareness of implicit bias is a defining principal, as this definition from the Kirwan Institute from Ohio State University points out;

Also known as implicit social cognition, implicit bias refers to the attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner. These biases, which encompass both favorable and unfavorable assessments, are activated involuntarily and without an individual’s awareness or intentional control. Residing deep in the subconscious, these biases are different from known biases that individuals may choose to conceal for the purposes of social and/or political correctness. Rather, implicit biases are not accessible through introspection.

Recognizing bias is a first step, like any subconscious thought that has been buried under deep layers of denial, facing such issues takes a willingness to sit with discomfort. I’ve been down this road before, coming to terms with personal baggage over the years. Honestly, I thought I had worked pretty hard to uncover what was hidden from my conscious self. But here I was again, I had to face this and I did want to understand how it was possible that I had a bias against my own race? Once it was pointed out, I couldn’t unsee it. I mean I laughed at Stephen Colbert every time he joked about race saying he didn’t see color. I laughed because it’s a ridiculous statement. And yet I was saying the same thing to everyone, without seeing the joke!

I figured I should take The Implicit Association Test (IAT) that I had seen referenced many times, mostly when discussing bias against African Americans or gender. It struck me that I never thought to take the test myself up until this point. Why was that? If I think about my explicit statements about race, mainly that I liked everyone equally, it made sense that I wouldn’t find it necessary to test my biases. Consciously, I genuinely felt I had no biases against any race, gender or sexual orientation, and definitely not against my own race! I’m a product of multiculturalism, immigration, and the American Dream. But now that my position that I viewed people with absolute racial equality had been questioned, I became more curious about my unconscious motivations.

According to the Project Implicit website, “the IAT measures attitudes and beliefs that people may be unwilling or unable to report. The IAT may be especially interesting if it shows that you have an implicit attitude that you did not know about.” This is exactly what I wanted to learn, what was I unable to see about my own biases. Interestingly, the test comes with several warnings and this is the last statement before entering the site; “I am aware of the possibility of encountering interpretations of my IAT test performance with which I may not agree. Knowing this, I wish to proceed.” I entered the testing site and was surprised that there were 14 different tests, arrrgh. I naively thought that there would be one simple test that would show my bias against Indian, or South Asian men. Hint Hint, Project Implicit!

But no, that would be too simple, so I had to improvise. The first test I took was the Arab-Muslim IAT because it seemed the most relevant because it compares Muslims to Other People and I figured an Arab-Muslim is kind of like and Indian. Plus, I grew up in a Sikh household and Muslims were not spoken of in a positive light. Long before the negative propaganda hit mainstream media, my grandmother was already priming us never to speak to Muslims. Not only that, as a young girl I was also told that the worst thing I could ever do was to marry a Muslim. This goes back to centuries of conflict between religions in India, including the fact my grandmother walked from Pakistan to Punjab, during the 1947 partition amidst murderous strife between Sikhs and Muslims. But I grew up in America where diversity and freedom of religion were pounded into my head. My father talked of the egalitarian values of Sikhism, that preaches we are all one in the eyes of God. So, I always felt uncomfortable with the negative portrayal of Muslims and I’ve often stood up for them arguing that xenophobic statements are dangerous and untrue. So it’s fair to say I was more than surprised to read the results of the Arab-Muslim IAT that “suggest a moderate automatic preference for other people compared to Arab Muslims.” Okay, well it at least it was moderate and technically it plays into my hypothesis that I may have a bias against my own race and I preferred other people.

I felt a little stunned and I understood why the test had so many disclaimers because the results are not suggesting that I’m explicitly racist toward any group, rather I had a more nuanced, subconscious bias, despite my well-meaning liberal intentions. Based on my upbringing and the more recent portrayals of Arab-Muslims since 9/11, it’s no wonder I have a moderate automatic preference for non-Arabs. Ugh. I can barely write this sentence without feeling the need to be apologetic and guilt-ridden. But this is the whole point of implicit bias, we don’t see it, but we may act upon it.

Okay, well the only thing to do next was take another test and so I chose the Asian IAT, knowing full well it would focus on East Asian identity, which is different that South Asian identity. Maybe that would get me closer to testing my bias against Indian-Americans. This test was less alarming in one sense that it didn’t compare a race against negative terms like disgust or pain. But, it was testing my ability to categorize Asian-Americans, European-Americans, American landmarks and foreign landmarks. But it did tap into an old memory, growing up in the 70’s and 80’s in Southern California. It was always in the atmosphere for Americans to complain about Asian immigrants as foreigners, unable to integrate into American society. I could feel old memories creep back into my conscious mind as I took the test and I could sense a bias toward one group over the other, just based on how quickly I answered. The results of this test showed that I had a “moderate association of Asian-Americans with American compared to European-American.” Basically, I feel that Asian-Americans are more aligned with the US than European Americans. That’s also probably because I’m biased due to growing up in an immigrant household and don’t associate foreignness with otherness or being less American. It also shouldn’t go without noting that I’m married to a European and I do think of him as non-American. Interesting, how the test can suss out this slight variance. But, now I was bothered that I didn’t show “no automatic preference” proving that I simply didn’t have a bias, as I’ve so often mentioned and wholeheartedly believed.

Okay, one last test. I can do it. Just the process of taking these tests bring to light the moments that you have a slower reaction to one bias than another. As your fingers are placed on the keyboard, there are are easier to answer combinations and then there are others that take a second thought, or a re-read to combine two usually disconnected combinations. I really wanted to learn if I had a bias against Indians and because there wasn’t a direct test that compared South-Asians with European-Americans, I had to hodge-podge it together. So I decided to take the Skin Tone IAT. And what do you know, I show a “strong automatic preference for light skin compared to dark skin.” In fact, 70% of respondents score either strong, moderate or slight preference for light skin and just 12% score a preference for dark skin over light. I was pretty disappointed not to be a part of 17% of respondents that show “no automatic preference,” which is what I’ve consciously thought.

All in all, after taking three IAT tests, I show a slight preference for other people over Arab-Muslims, slight preference for Asians as American and a strong preference for light skin. But does this prove I’m biased against my own race? This is complicated and startling and has made think back to what I’ve absorbed my whole life. Obviously, I have been thinking a lot about this topic since my friend pointed out that my attraction to my husband was subconsciously influenced by my implicit bias towards something I may not have explored. What I’ve learned is that I prefer light skin and I have always found white guys more attractive, so I guess it’s true.

If I think about influences, I was raised in an immigrant household and my parents did everything they could to assure I was on the right path in life. That may have meant they instilled some sense that white America was an ideal identity, either by abandoning a second language or watering down their own religious and cultural practices. It was more important to my parents that I worked to blend in with my white friends than to stand out or promote my own racial background, even though at the same they scolded me for being too American. This focus was sometimes very subtle, but other times, in the case of language, it was entirely concrete. Along the way, someone told my parents that my education would suffer if I spoke a second language, and so I was told to only to speak English. So there goes Punjabi. Also, my parents moved to Southern California and started a family in the early 70’s when there wasn’t a large community of Punjabis, as there is now. We had close family friends that were white and Indian, of every type, Hindu, Gujarati, and Sikh. Although this sounds ideal, and in many instances it was, my parents also had a strange distrust towards Indians. I always remember a time when I was about 13 and my parents decided to work with an Indian couple as their real estate agents. Over the course of many months, I had seen both of my parents struggle with this couple and at one point they told me that they just didn’t like doing business with Indians. Strange, right? You’d think that they’d have an allegiance towards fellow countryman, but in many instances that I can clearly recall, they didn’t. Another factor I find interesting is that they began to see a second wave of immigrants come to the US, and this group had stronger ties to their culture, homeland, and language. I can image that this made my parents feel like outsiders within their own race and at the same time not fully integrated with white American families either. We always straddled both cultures, kind of in an isolating way.

I suppose this is the whole point of digging into implicit bias. It’s not as apparent as explicit racism and the causes, sources and backstory tend to be complicated, nuanced and hard to understand. For me, I can understand now that I have a bias against Indian men, even if at the same time I love many things about my culture, like yummy food and over the top Bollywood films. But the few Indian men that I dated only served to validate my assumption that they were chauvinistic, close-minded, and arrogant. I still joke that no Indian man would put up with my mouthy, rebellious and adventurous ways. If I think about it, this version of my story is counter to the myth that I was really open to marry anyone. I just happened to fall in love with a fairly feminist man who is the complete opposite of the stereotype I created for Indian men. Was this a bad thing? Probably not, I do feel I found a partner that I prefer, for many reasons. But for my parents and my family, it was a disappointment and I’m sure they felt that I turned my back on my own culture. Up until this point, I would have argued that this wasn’t true and I just followed my heart. But now I know that there was plenty more going on subconsciously that led me to this decision.

I think this is the lesson, that going forward I may have a more accurate picture and won’t continue to propagate a very narrow view that I was just such an open-minded person that race and skin color played no part in choosing a mate. There isn’t an easy way to deal with this revelation, except to pass on to others how important it is to challenge one’s own deeply rooted subconscious biases. Yes, it’s uncomfortable to face the idea that you may not be living the dream as openly as you thought, but it’s utterly necessary if we are to understand how racism truly affects our society. Also, learning about biases shouldn’t validate our current position, it’s important to try to remove the power bias has in our decision making. We can’t just go around saying “I don’t see color” and expect people to believe us, especially if we can’t believe ourselves.

September 7, 2015 2