"inscrutable."

[glass_icarus]

So I read Madeleine L'Engle's A Severed Wasp yesterday... that was a mistake. I'm still coming to terms with the inescapable whiteness of some of my favorite childhood authors. It's an exhausting process.

I'm still sick and this heat is making me cranky as well as tired, so I won't attempt a full takedown of the fuckery in this particular book today, but I do want to say something about this line in particular: When he was on his feet he looked down at her, his face as inscrutable as Oriental faces are supposed to be, and, she was sure, intentionally so.

(Look, it's an older book, it was published in the eighties, I've come to expect a certain level of non-awareness. I KNOW. But I am still going to say FUCK THIS SHIT, because it is not a defense.)

I don't know how exactly we got this reputation for inscrutability and I'm not sure I care to, because honestly? None of my guesses are pretty. If you're too busy staring at my ~exotic~ skin tone and features to actually read what's in my face and body language or listen to the words coming out of my mouth, I don't want to know, and I also don't want to know you. (This is not a speculative example.)

I balk at expressing/having to express my emotions in exactly the same ways a white person would; I balk at the assumption that if I express my emotions my way and at a time and place of my choosing, they are incomprehensible. I balk at the assumption that white people should have access to all of my emotions, that I should put on public display that which is private, and mine alone. I balk at the mean and vengeful POC trope that means that when I express my rage, I am scary, and all of the circumstances that lead me to bite my tongue- so often, in fact, that when I finally hit a breaking point and say something, people ask me "but why are you so angry?" This, when as it is, I bite my tongue less- but more strategically- than I used to, and with more explanation.

I balk at having to lay out the details of my personal history in order to have the right to anger; I balk at the fact that these details are so often mundane and yet remain invisible to the white gaze. I balk at the fact that speaking up so often becomes an all-or-nothing game.

If you cannot see below the surface level, or recognize that there is anything beneath the surface level; if you cannot read our faces or listen to our voices; if you cannot empathize with our emotions or reach within yourself for understanding, and thus decide we are "inscrutable"- it is not my problem, not a fault in those who share my skin or chromatic status. The disconnect lies in what you, who are on the outside looking in, are looking at; what you have trained yourself to see and not see.

Comments

[dhobikikutti]

::applauds with mysterious smile and inscrutable gaze::

[glass_icarus]

&hearts &hearts

[littlebutfierce]

A big HELL YES to this entry.

My dad likes to refer to himself as "an inscrutable Oriental" (non-ironically) & it just kills me.

I read a fantasy novel a few months ago that was lauded for having a lot of POC cultures in it (& was by a POC), but the culture that was supposed to be faux-Asian (someone referred to someone of that culture as being "slant-eyed" or something like that) was also described as being "inscrutable." AUGH. And this book came out, like, two years ago.

[glass_icarus]

Yeah. I mean, it's one thing if I want to be inscrutable- because fuck, if I can't develop a poker face for awful-but-important situations, I am screwed- but because I'm Chinese? FTN.

I wish these stereotypes would DIAF. They're damaging enough coming from the mouths of others, but to have them repeated so often that they become embedded in our psyches- that's maddening, and saddening, and just... ugly. :(

[crossedwires]

*hugs* and this is a great post, though I'm sorry you had to write it. :((( I had that book on my TBR list, but now I will be skipping it. It also makes me not want to reread any of her books I liked when I was younger.

in fact, that when I finally hit a breaking point and say something, people ask me "but why are you so angry?" This, when as it is, I bite my tongue less- but more strategically- than I used to, and with more explanation.

Oh, yes. I'm always like (at least in my head), "You haven't even seen angry yet," (but if you keep going down this road of perpetuating racism, you will).

[glass_icarus]

*hugs*

Yeah, I saw it in the library and was like more L'Engle! it's been a while! but um, hello, disappointment. (Although now that I think back on it, A Swiftly Tilting Planet wasn't unproblematic either, as much as I loved it as a kid. D:)

Hahaha, exactly. I'm always thinking "oh, please, if I am THAT angry, you will know it. Without a doubt!"

[such_heights]

You > universe. Ugh, I'm so sorry a childhood author let you down, that's always so disappointing.

[glass_icarus]

&hearts

Yeah. The sad thing is, I remembered reading a book she wrote about racial tensions in the USian South (which I'm now wary of rereading, given this and another book of hers I borrowed), so I figured it was okay to give some more a shot despite the problematic race stuff in some of the Murry books.

[surpassingly]

YES. ♥

[glass_icarus]

&hearts!!!

[vi]

The disconnect lies in what you, who are on the outside looking in, are looking at; what you have trained yourself to see and not see.

This!

And if we're not inscrutable, we're "polite" (sometimes implying superficiality) or "angry". There's no winning.

[glass_icarus]

Right?? Ugh.

&hearts!

[yiduiqie]

a+ i support this post

[glass_icarus]

&hearts!

[miss_haitch]

This is a fabulous post! Thank you for writing it. ♥

[glass_icarus]

Thanks! &hearts

[kairia.livejournal.com]

Fabulous post! OT but just commenting to let you know I subscribed to your DW: I share some of the same fandoms as you (A:TLA, Saiyuki) and I've seen your work at The Asian Women Blog Carnival - I'm Komal, a Pakistani teenager who's currently at LJ (though contemplating shifting to DW). You don't have to grant me access or anything, just wanted to let you know ^_^

[glass_icarus]

Thanks! And if you'd like a DW code, I have seven left here. :)

[kairia.livejournal.com]

The 'so you wannna move to Dreamwidth' post is extremely helpful, thanks!

[ciderpress]

Great piece of writing, thanks for sharing it.

The inscrutability of our faces is what makes us so exotic and mystical and tricksy, wot?

The thing is that while my oriental face might be inscrutable, my white friend just plays it (her emotions) close to her chest. As you rightly point out, there's so much history and culture accumulation behind a simple sentence. Deliberately inscrutable? Why can't it just be that white people don't know how to read our faces because they've culturally othered our faces and bodies(even those of us who have spent all our lives here) for generations and never bother to learn what we looked like when we were thinking?

[glass_icarus]

&hearts!

Seriously, right? (And exotic, heh- another word I would be more than happy never to see used anywhere again. Exotic to whom, for one??)

Clearly we Asian people are not SMRT enough to have Thoughts of our own, or we are so robotically supergenius that our "thinking" looks exactly like computer processing, or something?! GAG.

Linked here by, erm, someone....

[spiralsheep]

Great post. Thank you.

Re: Linked here by, erm, someone....

[glass_icarus]

Thanks for reading! :)

[jhameia]

omg yes.

It's getting to the point where I don't even like it when Asians refer to themselves as Oriental because they think it "sounds more exotic". I don't look inscrutable. Apparently, I just look intimidating <3

[glass_icarus]

Yeah, "Oriental" pings me in the bad way too. (I confess that I will gladly take "intimidating" if it spares me bullshit from strangers, though! ;D)

[livrelibre]

Exactly! Thanks for making this post.

[glass_icarus]

Thanks for reading! :)

[ce_jour_la]

Brava. Couldn't agree with you more. I'm an inscrutable bitch on a good day, but that's usually because I don't like whoever I'm talking to; I'm pretty damn sure it has nothing to do with the shape of my eyes or the colour of my skin or anything else.

[glass_icarus]

Thanks! & yeah, if I'm using my poker face, that's one thing, but if not, that's something else entirely.

Great rant.

[(Anonymous)]

I haven't read L'Engle since I was a kid, and now I'm kind of afraid to. I do remember, though, even as a kid, noticing some of the gender role assumptions she made.

Re: Great rant.

[glass_icarus]

I hear that. ;\ I'm now hesitant to reread the books of hers that were actual childhood favorites (of which, thankfully, A Severed Wasp was not one).

[onyxlynx]

Thank you for this.

I have been known to mutter "Oriental? You mean rugs?" (British usage, at least early in the 20th century, seems to have been that anything east of Greece was "Oriental." This got rather confusing...)

I suspect inability to read faces is inability, not unreadability, but I'm a bit cranky this morning.

[glass_icarus]

HEE. I may have to borrow the rugs thing the next time somebody aggravates me.

Thanks for reading!

[escritoireazul]

Though I'm angry and frustrated you have to write this post, it was really excellent to read, so I'm glad you did write it. Thank you.

[glass_icarus]

Thanks. :>

[troisroyaumes]

Coming to this post late, but I agree completely.

In high school, people used to tell me that I was "hard to read" and that I seemed "emotionally repressed", and I took this to be evidence of my personal failure to communicate properly. It didn't occur to me until much later just how much of their assumptions about me were due to my race and ethnicity rather than my actual personality or social skills.

[glass_icarus]

Hello! &hearts

Also, augh, this so much.

[via_ostiense]

Linked here via troisroyaumes.

I balk at the assumption that white people should have access to all of my emotions, that I should put on public display that which is private, and mine alone.

Exactly.

his face as inscrutable as Oriental faces are supposed to be,

[ender24]

*snorfles*
riiiiiiiiight. inscrutable. Orientals.

why not writing "because of my scrutable, innate western-white low level of EQ, I could not read that non-caucasian person".

this ranks about the same as questions, that most of us probably had to face our entire life such as from white folks : ohhh you speak English/German/French/whatever soooooooooooo well, how did you learn that?!??!.