Ameen. I’m sorry you had a bad experience. Racism is exhausting. While I think I’m long past caring, I still sometimes want to scream, “you *still* hate us?!”
The fucking ‘othering’, the cold passive aggressive exchange ! I know you don’t need advice ( and your venting is absolutely fine by me) .
I’ve a particular situation where I know I’m going to be frozen out - and while it’s hard when I can pull it off, it’s strangely satisfying to not play the game - I put on my cheesiest over the top smile, and hey how-are-you-going-chat, as if I have no idea there’s a problem; It’s even fun sometimes . Go high.
I only have to see an ad for la haine before I start saying: "so far so good", those words are engraved on my brain and have got me through so of Jo's hospitalisations when a bleak humour kept me sane.
This was the most beautiful message to receive, Janet. Thank you. I have a feeling I will come back to it often, a poem as much as a prayer. Thank you, thank you.
This effing sucks. And I'm glad you vented. We've all had those experiences. The Othering is just beyond.
I remember the big fat red SSSS stamped on my boarding pass and luggage tags every time I flew in the wake of 9/11, back when they printed out your boarding pass. I was "randomly selected" for extra security screening EVERY.SINGLE.TIME.
While I know this won't change in the short-term, I have decided that I don't want to travel to places that treat me like shit. I'm focusing on Global South countries who don't need to know the color my underwear on my first day of school in 1988 to consider giving me a visa.
I love this. Been thinking a lot about changing my aspirations for travel locations, and am hoping to explore much more of Africa in the coming years, budget allowing inshallah. Where has been on your radar?
Thank you for sharing your inner process within such casual discrimination and meanness. I appreciate the glimpse into your world, while feeling like I was you, experiencing all this for a moment.
If you do revisit what you were going to write about friendships it would be good to hear your thoughts on friendship circles as safe spaces/places we can relax.
Collectively we need to change and destroy of systems of discrimination and the ways we are awful to each other, but that’s hard and sometimes overwhelming. While it’s important I am beginning to think nurturing good friendships is a small and vital act of resistance against a perpetually online world, meta, media and political landscape that wants to disconnect us from small group communities and tie our identities to wider tribal posts (making us easier to market to and manipulate). Spending time and energy making friends and improving friendships actually pushes back against that idea that to maximise efficiency we should all adopt a set of predetermined numbers and patterns and work hard at being X and hanging with X people.
definitely a topic I will come back to, I think! It's a real live one among my circles at the moment... wht is your current feeling on all this, are you happy with your friendships?
I grew up in Canberra but spent a chunk of my adult life in Brisbane and Sydney, and have just moved to Beijing so I appreciate the power of the internet and social media to not only stay in touch but also meet new friends.
But recently I have noticed a weakening of my friendships. What had been discussions had turned into sharing links and posting memes. Debates in pubs or cafes or homes had turned into 144 character statements that weren’t meant to be drawn out and interacted with in the same way. Hour long telephone conversations filled with nuance and context and all those tiny human things that open up my heart and head had vanished, replaced with contextless photos. Direct communication had been replaced by a sense of broadcast.
So yeah, I am working on it. Trying to ensure quality face to face or conversation time, trying to eliminate the wide net of some social media and trying to relearn listening and conversation skills (funnily enough important for both old friendships, and getting off on the right foot in new ones). It’s an ongoing endeavour, but I’ve felt closer to my core group of friends than I have in ages. I understand them better. It just feels like sometimes I’m directly fighting against the tools (Facebook, discord) that are meant to turn us into a global community in order to get meaning and understanding out of the media.
I’m super curious to hear about your experiences - especially as someone who’s moved around the world - I’m two weeks into life in Beijing and I can work out the getting to meet groups of people, but I’m curious how you nourish those budding new friends and maintain the old friendships over the tyranny of distance.
I’m so sorry, Yasmin. I am grateful for your voice and your writing. ❤️ And side note: La Haine! What a powerful film. I saw that one when it first came out. I was living in Paris (because I am ancient) and on a depressing Monday, a friend and I went to a matinee. Cut to many years later and my son watched it and it is one of his favorites (he’s 20 and in film school). I haven’t rewatched in years but I can imagine it holds up and feels as relevant now as it did then. I remember it made quite an impact when it came out because it explored things that were often ignored in French society. I hope you have a good flight and that tomorrow is a much better day!
Thanks so much for the comment, Erin! La Haine - how amazing that your own son is experiencing it now, it definitely feels as fresh and contemporary and urgent as I imagine it did 20 years ago... in a way, such a shame that the issues haven't changed, but also speaks to the brilliance of his work, and the performances...
Ameen. I’m sorry you had a bad experience. Racism is exhausting. While I think I’m long past caring, I still sometimes want to scream, “you *still* hate us?!”
right?!?! I'm usually so unbothered, but sometimes, depending on the day, and how much I've slept, it hits me like a slap in the face.
The fucking ‘othering’, the cold passive aggressive exchange ! I know you don’t need advice ( and your venting is absolutely fine by me) .
I’ve a particular situation where I know I’m going to be frozen out - and while it’s hard when I can pull it off, it’s strangely satisfying to not play the game - I put on my cheesiest over the top smile, and hey how-are-you-going-chat, as if I have no idea there’s a problem; It’s even fun sometimes . Go high.
haha when I can gird my loins and swallow my pride, this is definitely a fun option!
I only have to see an ad for la haine before I start saying: "so far so good", those words are engraved on my brain and have got me through so of Jo's hospitalisations when a bleak humour kept me sane.
oh, that gave me chills. Jusqu'ici tout va bien, Jusqu'ici tout va bien...
Indeed
A prayer in "holy week" for Yassmin
Once upon a time,
A tribe would place a bloody skin on the back of a goat & send it into the wilderness.
A scapegoat for all their sins.
Once upon a time a man died on a cross and some believed it was to be the final scapegoat for all our sins, but look how that turned out?
It's Holy week & while Yassmin enters a terminal,
crossing the floor to be scapegoated with all indifference & hostility an individual can manage because what?
They're having a bad day?
And somehow, the world has chosen a group of people to take it out on?
While Yassmin crosses the floor I'm writing prayers for Good Friday
That will be spoken out loud on the streets of Sydney.
"Christ didn't die for my sins a wise man said.
He died in solidarity with me."
Yassmin crosses the floor to be struck by rejections on the body
As a writer
As a body on which the world scapegoats & marks as 'other'
As a woman on which the world marks as less than,
Yassmin crosses worlds
And I open her book on racism
And write another prayer for Good Friday
"Creating G-d, let me not be passive to the indignities given so freely to others.
Let me stand in solidarity at borders/
In shops/ on the street/ knowing the protection given to me by dint of my skin is a falsehood.
Let me not take Yassmins words lightly but rage against the passivity of shielded glances & contemptuous eyes."
May we move to a world where the 'shadow self' of petty ego is no longer revered but seen as the great lie upon which humans are enslaved.
🙏💔💖
This was the most beautiful message to receive, Janet. Thank you. I have a feeling I will come back to it often, a poem as much as a prayer. Thank you, thank you.
This effing sucks. And I'm glad you vented. We've all had those experiences. The Othering is just beyond.
I remember the big fat red SSSS stamped on my boarding pass and luggage tags every time I flew in the wake of 9/11, back when they printed out your boarding pass. I was "randomly selected" for extra security screening EVERY.SINGLE.TIME.
While I know this won't change in the short-term, I have decided that I don't want to travel to places that treat me like shit. I'm focusing on Global South countries who don't need to know the color my underwear on my first day of school in 1988 to consider giving me a visa.
I love this. Been thinking a lot about changing my aspirations for travel locations, and am hoping to explore much more of Africa in the coming years, budget allowing inshallah. Where has been on your radar?
Thank you for sharing your inner process within such casual discrimination and meanness. I appreciate the glimpse into your world, while feeling like I was you, experiencing all this for a moment.
<3 Thanks for reading and receiving with such grace. Yx
I’m sorry, that fucking sucks.
If you do revisit what you were going to write about friendships it would be good to hear your thoughts on friendship circles as safe spaces/places we can relax.
Collectively we need to change and destroy of systems of discrimination and the ways we are awful to each other, but that’s hard and sometimes overwhelming. While it’s important I am beginning to think nurturing good friendships is a small and vital act of resistance against a perpetually online world, meta, media and political landscape that wants to disconnect us from small group communities and tie our identities to wider tribal posts (making us easier to market to and manipulate). Spending time and energy making friends and improving friendships actually pushes back against that idea that to maximise efficiency we should all adopt a set of predetermined numbers and patterns and work hard at being X and hanging with X people.
definitely a topic I will come back to, I think! It's a real live one among my circles at the moment... wht is your current feeling on all this, are you happy with your friendships?
I grew up in Canberra but spent a chunk of my adult life in Brisbane and Sydney, and have just moved to Beijing so I appreciate the power of the internet and social media to not only stay in touch but also meet new friends.
But recently I have noticed a weakening of my friendships. What had been discussions had turned into sharing links and posting memes. Debates in pubs or cafes or homes had turned into 144 character statements that weren’t meant to be drawn out and interacted with in the same way. Hour long telephone conversations filled with nuance and context and all those tiny human things that open up my heart and head had vanished, replaced with contextless photos. Direct communication had been replaced by a sense of broadcast.
So yeah, I am working on it. Trying to ensure quality face to face or conversation time, trying to eliminate the wide net of some social media and trying to relearn listening and conversation skills (funnily enough important for both old friendships, and getting off on the right foot in new ones). It’s an ongoing endeavour, but I’ve felt closer to my core group of friends than I have in ages. I understand them better. It just feels like sometimes I’m directly fighting against the tools (Facebook, discord) that are meant to turn us into a global community in order to get meaning and understanding out of the media.
I’m super curious to hear about your experiences - especially as someone who’s moved around the world - I’m two weeks into life in Beijing and I can work out the getting to meet groups of people, but I’m curious how you nourish those budding new friends and maintain the old friendships over the tyranny of distance.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Yasmin. Sorry this happened to you, but your words are so powerful and really put me in your shoes.
Hoping your day improves.
Alhamdulilah, the week definitely did. thanks so much for your kind comment. Yx
I’m so sorry, Yasmin. I am grateful for your voice and your writing. ❤️ And side note: La Haine! What a powerful film. I saw that one when it first came out. I was living in Paris (because I am ancient) and on a depressing Monday, a friend and I went to a matinee. Cut to many years later and my son watched it and it is one of his favorites (he’s 20 and in film school). I haven’t rewatched in years but I can imagine it holds up and feels as relevant now as it did then. I remember it made quite an impact when it came out because it explored things that were often ignored in French society. I hope you have a good flight and that tomorrow is a much better day!
Thanks so much for the comment, Erin! La Haine - how amazing that your own son is experiencing it now, it definitely feels as fresh and contemporary and urgent as I imagine it did 20 years ago... in a way, such a shame that the issues haven't changed, but also speaks to the brilliance of his work, and the performances...
https://www.patreon.com/posts/101326655?utm_campaign=postshare_fan
I’m so sorry 💔😤
Thanks, friend. Life be like that sometimes, and I guess I just needed to vent!