"inscrutable."
Jun. 6th, 2010 01:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
glass_icarusSo 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.
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.
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Date: 2010-06-07 01:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-07 01:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-07 02:05 pm (UTC)