"Everyday spaces are rife with diverse social dynamics, power, and subjectivity, much like Gregson and Rose suggest: ``performed spaces are not discreet, bounded spaces, but threatened, contaminated, stained, enriched by other spaces'' - Mahtani (2002) Tricking the border guards: performing race.
Back in March, I was made to feel I could not eat lunch.
We meet at 12pm in the same building we always do, we sit down in the room we do every week, with the people who typically show up, with a few new faces.
We finish our lunches and were about to leave the room, when someone makes a comment about 'what Chinese people do'. I turn around as, I myself am Chinese, and just question what they have just said. I say "well I am Chinese and I don't do that" to assert the falseness of their general comment about the Chinese community. To visualize the room, I was stood between this white woman and a table of Chinese PhD students having lunch, with a white man right next to me.
The white woman's response was to turn and look and point at the table of Chinese students, turns to look at the white man next to me, and looks at me to say with a slight laugh "you are not Chinese".
I stopped in shock for a moment, but given my expertise in the topic I stood my ground and told her, you cannot tell me what my racial identity is, and that is a racial microaggression.
She said she was "sorry I took it that way" and "didn't think I would get offended".
She took away a safe space from me that day.
I used to go to those lunches with joy and happiness, now I enter with a sense of distress, anxiously waiting and ready for the next student to question my identity.
For most, this experience is nothing. Some might read this story and think it's not a big deal. But that one interaction stopped me from going to those social lunches for weeks. I was isolated.
This is the effect a lack of race equity knowledge can have. This is what not taking an ACTIVE anti-racist stance looks like.
All from a few comments made by one white student in an 'inclusive' space.
I am sure many people can relate to the idea that just because you call a space 'inclusive', does not mean it is. What makes it inclusive? What are you doing to make it inclusive? What are your procedures when things like this happen?
I tell this story with one point to make: If you are saying your spaces are inclusive, who are they inclusive for? Inclusivity in higher education usually means for white people.
Dr Nirmal Puwar (2004) in her amazing book Space Invaders: Race, Gender, and Bodies out of Place, Puwar explains how white bodies are seen as the norm:
"While all can, in theory, enter, it is certain types of bodies that are tactically designed as being the ‘natural’ occupants of specific positions. Some are deemed the right to belong while others are trespassers"
It feels pretty lonely to see this number. Mixed heritage experiences are unique in many ways, but we tend to share some similar experiences when it comes to experiences of space and place on campuses. White bodies are not in the minority and therefore are seen as the 'norm', in this community we see it a lot and therefore do not question it, but we should.
Inclusivity is not something we have, it is something we do.
Taking an anti-racist stance is doing, not thinking.
This is not an isolated incident, this happens to me very often, to the point where I have become used to it. This should not be the case, but it's a survival tactic I guess. This is also not just something that happens to me, but many others who are often silenced.
To finish, I want to share with you a video campaign that is being done at the University of Exeter, to raise awareness of racial microaggressions and their effects on staff and students, which can be found here.
I tell this story to make people aware of their actions, comments, and consequences
Reading this isn't going to make you an anti-racist person, reading this isn't going to make your spaces safe, reading this can start your thinking, but your actions speak for themselves.
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