Tag: discrimination

The River, the Storm, and the Whole: On Identity, Humanity, and Peace

We exist before and after the storm. We are the steady river before, after, AND during turbulence.
Because we exist, turbulence and storms are possible. Because we exist, peace does, too.

One learns to be bold when they have already experienced, and survived, that which caused them fear. Perhaps peace, then, is not the absence of turbulence, but the understanding that we can exist through it.

And yet, we create storms of our own.

The words we create to define ourselves.

The words we use to define our identities are created by human beings. We have developed these words in an attempt to recognize, understand, and value the various parts of ourselves. We assign meaning to them, draw boundaries around them, and use them to distinguish ourselves from one another.

And yet, our identities are far more vast than the words we use to describe them. No matter how many labels we create, no single word, or even the sum of those words, can encompass the entirety of who we are.

The Gestalt principle offers an interesting perspective here: the whole is not simply the sum of its parts. It is something different, something that cannot be understood merely by examining each component in isolation.

Perhaps the same can be said of identity. We are not merely our gender, race, culture, nationality, beliefs, or any other label we use to define ourselves. Each may represent something meaningful about who we are, but none can capture our existence in its entirety.

Because we participate in creating and assigning meaning to these identities, we CAN question the labels without questioning the legitimacy of the people who identify with them.

The problem lies not necessarily in the existence of these labels, but in what we choose to do with them.

When identities become our storms AND our means of survival.

Sometimes, these identities become the source of our turbulence. We discriminate, exclude, and create divisions based on the very labels we invented. We reduce one another to individual parts, forgetting that each person is more than the sum of them.

And sometimes, those same identities become the means by which we survive it. They give us belonging, solidarity, and the courage to be bold in the face of that which caused us fear. They allow us to recognize shared experiences, articulate struggles, and find strength in knowing that we do not face our storms alone.

The very words that distinguish us can become the basis for both discrimination and solidarity.

Perhaps that is the contradiction worth examining. If we create identities to recognize and value the different aspects of who we are, why do we sometimes use those same identities to diminish the value of others? And why do we sometimes treat the recognition of one identity as though it must come at the expense of another?

Recognizing the whole does not erase its parts.

To recognize our shared humanity is not to deny the distinct experiences, histories, and struggles that shape our identities.

Being a humanist does not mean feminism has no place. Recognizing the value of humanity as a whole does not negate the need to recognize the particular inequalities experienced by women. Similarly, the principle that all human lives have value does not contradict the recognition that Black lives matter, or that Black communities have experienced extensive and systemic injustices.

There is, however, a distinction between a universal principle and the way it is expressed. The phrase “All Lives Matter”, for instance, has often been used in response to “Black Lives Matter.” Linguistic analyses explain how, in that context, the response can redirect attention away from the specific injustice being identified, regardless of the speaker’s intentions.

The words themselves may express a universal principle, but the context in which we use them influences their meaning. And perhaps that brings us back to the very question of identity.

We create words to communicate meaning, but those words do not exist independently of our experiences, our histories, or the meanings we assign to them. Recognizing the whole should not require us to ignore the experiences of its parts. Equally, recognizing the struggles of one part need not suggest that the others are without value.

Universality does not require uniformity.

Our shared humanity does not mean that we share identical experiences. The storms we encounter may differ, as may the ways in which we survive them.

Some experience turbulence that others may never encounter. Some face storms created and sustained by the very social structures within which they exist. Acknowledging these differences does not diminish our shared humanity. It allows us to understand it more fully.

The whole cannot be understood by ignoring its parts. Nor can it be understood by examining each part as though it exists in isolation. Perhaps the same is true of humanity.

The choice between turbulence and peace.

We exist before and after the storm. We exist through it. We learn to be bold when we have survived that which once caused us fear. We find strength in our identities, in the solidarity of others, and in the recognition that our experiences are not ours alone.

But if we have the capacity to create turbulence through the meanings and boundaries we assign to our identities, do we not also have the capacity to question those boundaries?

Not to erase them. Not to invalidate the histories, experiences, and struggles they represent. But to recognize that the words we created to distinguish ourselves need not become the means by which we divide ourselves.

The same boundaries that distinguish us need not divide us.

If the identities we create can become the basis for both discrimination and solidarity, why not choose solidarity? Why not recognize our identities as distinct parts that nonetheless come together to form the whole?

We do not have to be identical to belong to the same humanity, nor must we abandon our differences to recognize what we share. Our identities can remain meaningful without becoming the entirety of who we are. And perhaps peace begins with this understanding: that recognizing the whole does not diminish the value of its parts, and recognizing the parts does not require us to forget the whole.

We are the steady river before, after, AND during turbulence. The river does not cease to be a river because its waters move differently, nor does it cease to be whole because its waters are never quite the same.

Because we exist, storms are possible.
Because we exist, peace does, too.

Discrimination and being a Multicultural Adult

Over the past few months, there has been growing unrest regarding the assaults – and sometimes murders – of black people at the hands of the police. Indeed, these protests have spread globally. Some of you who read this may find issue with what I write. However, whatever I write here is my personal experience and thoughts as a multicultural adult. And the issues that are being faced by Black people around the world made me question where I stand in my little microcosm.

I am a Third Culture Adult, or TCA. What is that? Recken and Pollock (1999) defined Third Culture Kids (or TCKs) as “persons raised in a culture other than their parents’ or the culture of the country named on their passport (where they are legally considered native) for a significant part of their early development years.” So, I grew up as an Indian in Hong Kong for the first 18 years of my life. Extend with age, and you have Third Culture Adults.

It does not completely encompass me, however, so I have begun using the term multicultural more often to describe my cultural identity. As a young adult, I spent 13 years in India where I gained even more values relating to my Indian identity. Having been exposed to US culture growing up, and then living here for the past 7 years, has led to me identifying with values here as well.

So, why this info? Because of how I experienced discrimination, not just towards my race but towards all the cultures that I identify with.

An article came out recently that the Indian minority is being used by the government of a particular country as a counterpart to the systemic racism faced by black people, and it spurred me to write this. Basically, the governing body was providing ‘evidence’ that Indians in their country were financially and occupationally successful, so that meant that racism wasn’t an issue.

In my personal life, I can agree to some extent, and disagree to another. First of all, finances and occupation are not the only areas where racism may exist. However, I will admit that I have not experienced racism in these areas. Having lived in affluent Hong Kong for 18 years before moving to India, our family could be considered quite well-off. Likewise, I have never worked part-time, and have only ever held full-time jobs (albeit in a poorly paid but emotionally rewarding field).

That is not to say I have not faced micro-aggressions due to my identity. From bullying and social exclusion as an Indian child in British-occupied Hong Kong to discrimination on how I walked, talked and dressed in India, to responses from educators in both countries, micro-aggressions were so rampant that I thought they were ‘normal’.

Nonetheless, they were exhausting to deal with. So I made a choice to go to a country where the world’s perception of my identity and what it truly is was similar – where we both could agree “what I am” for lack of a better expression. After all, both the world around me and I agree that I am not American.

Then I started working as a therapist. You’d think we are all culturally aware. Not true. Unfortunately, this didn’t mean there was a reduction in micro-aggressions, just new ones. At the start, they were within my education. Peers unwilling to help a newcomer find people for field work. Teachers asking “oh, so you grew up in British-occupied Hong Kong? You must speak the Queen’s English”. Being suggested to do another Masters degree on top of the two I already had because “doing a Masters in India doesn’t really prepare you for doing a Doctorate in the US”.

Turns out choosing to do my third Masters in the US was a blessing in disguise – it was more suited to what I wanted to do, plus I had more culturally competent teachers who didn’t judge me because of my cultural identity. There were more questions of curiosity about my cultures rather than assumptions. And I was looked at solely for my academic skills.

Then I started working as a therapist. You’d think we are all culturally aware. Not true. One colleague asked “Oh you’re Indian? I don’t know if this question is appropriate, but…dot or feather?” I took it as a question of curiosity. My answer? “I’m an Indian with a dot. I’m East Indian not American Indian”. She needed education, I gave it to her. Let me also add that she stuck to using East Indian after that interaction.

Here, however, was a different type of discrimination – my friends wondered why I didn’t consider that discrimination. Why wasn’t I upset that my colleague had asked that? Why wasn’t I identifying it as a micro-aggression? To me, however, these questions could not be assumed as discriminatory. Yes, the question was assumptive. Indians are not just identified by a dot or a feather. But it was a learning experience for her, and – for me – the positive emotion associated with a successful learning experience trumps the negative emotion of a racial micro-aggression.

Compare this with another experience that I had with another colleague. As I prepared for my licensure exam, a mentor (yes, a mentor) stated, “it must be hard for you because of the language gap, since it’s in English”. I figured this, too, was to be a learning experience, so I clarified “well, even if English isn’t my native language it is my first language – I grew up going to British schools, and the first language I learned was English. My parents would only speak to us in English, too, so that we wouldn’t get confused”. And here is where it differed. Her response was, “but still, being Indian it must be hard”. No learning, just a pretty firm hold on her belief that my skill at the English language was inferior because I was Indian. THAT was an unacceptable micro-aggression.

I guess the question I always land up asking myself is this – where do we draw the line between what is discrimination and what is innocent questioning? Not everyone experiences the world the same way. Many people haven’t ever left their own countries, or even their own cities. They learn how to express themselves from the people around them. Yes, I may be more aware of micro-aggressions in New York city as compared to, say, a small town in Wisconsin. But if, in the end, they leading to learning…if they can be corrected and that correction becomes a part of their mindset and behavior…do we really have to continue carrying it with us?