#Identitti

[cosmicrhetoric]

oh i finished identitti this afternoon but in literally the most harrowing circumstances so i cant put my thoughts together on it yet. i will say sanyal spent most of the afterword talking about all the real people she quoted in the book and most of them were real academics that gave her their blessing! and as for jordan peterson she just stitched direct quotes from various interviews and stuck a bow on it

[ansalm]

Mithu Sanyal:

"IDEN TITTI" (2021)

Skandal! Saraswati ist weiss. Um diese Enthüllung einer Düsseldorfer Professorin für Intercultural Studies / Postcolonial Theory, die sich als PoC ausgegeben hat, spinnt sich der Plot des Romans. Der Rest ist die Darstellung des aus diesem Skandal aufbrausenden Shitstorms.

Die Fragestellung, ob nach trands-gender nicht auch trans-race diskutiert werden sollte, ist ganz interessant.

Allerdings ist der grösste Teil des Romans ein Konglomerat aus Anspielungen, Theorien, Zitaten und ziemlich flachen Dialogen, gespickt mit tweets, Instagram-Posts und Whatsapp-Nachrichten im besten Montage-Stil.

Hin und wieder tauchen Sätze/Abschnitte auf, an denen man hängen bleibt. Manchmal ganz lustig und unterhaltsam.

Mehr aber auch nicht.

Ein Abschnitt, der mit der eigentlichen Geschichte kaum etwas zu tun hat (#konglomerat), gefällt mir gut:

[buchdrache]

Review: Identitti by Mithu Sanyal

"Identity does not determine the things we do, but it does determine the things other people do to us." (S. 410)

They still exist, the novels that turn one's worldview completely upside down. "Identitti" by Mithu Sanyal is one such novel. Immediately after I finished reading the novel, I rushed to my PC to type these lines, so as not to lose the feeling that the novel had created in me. It has been working in me for days. The story has opened up a field of themes for me that is completely contrary to what I assumed up to now.

Scandal! The famous professor Saraswati is in fact white and has only lied to everyone about her Indian identity. Is it even a lie? Her student Nivedita, at any rate, is shocked by the revelation, she feels cheated and deceived. She immediately goes to her professor to get answers. Answers to the question of why Saraswati did what she did, but also to find herself and her tangled identity.

Nivedita is the protagonist of the novel and at the same time her story cannot be told without Saraswati. Nivedita's mother comes from Poland, her father from India, and she herself grew up in Germany. Is she now Polish, Indian, German? All her life, Nivedita has been looking for confirmation from outside, putting on other people's identities like others put on clothes. First this happened in the form of her cousin Priti, who grew up in England in a strong Indian community, then later with her professor Saraswati, who teaches postcolonial studies at the University of Düsseldorf.

The novel tackles a highly sensitive and heatedly debated subject area: Identity and Identity Politics, and at the same time it wraps up the subject in a witty and brisk read. I was gripped by the style from the start and soon by the subject matter. The narrative focuses strongly on intellectual discourse, but without overloading it with scientific jargon.

What moves me most personally, however, are the questions that are opened up here: If categories like race and gender are just social constructs, what constitutes our identity? Where do the lines run between identity, cultural appropriation and blackfacing? What makes us us?

The novel does not provide clear answers, because there are no clear answers to these questions. But it provides plenty of material to think about.

It is also interesting how the novel is arranged. It is a collage of different media: classic narrative text, transcripts of radio broadcasts, newspaper columns, tweets, Instagram posts and so on. Almost like real life is a collage of different aspects. For many of these posts, the author asked actual people to contribute. She described the context of her novel to them and asked them to write a tweet as spontaneously as they would if they read about a case like the Saraswatis. And indeed there was. In 2015, Rachel Dolezal was outed by the press as white, who until then had been living as a Black woman (unlike Saraswati, whose identity is POC). The case inspired Sanyal to write her novel.

"Identitti" is, despite everything, fictional, although real people appear and all the places mentioned also actually exist. But this does not diminish the questions the novel raises, as they have an all too real impact on all our lives.

If race, like gender, is only constructed, then why should it be okay to hormonally and surgically adapt one's own body to one's identity in the case of gender, but not in the case of race? Where is the difference? This question has bothered me from the beginning. I don't have a clear answer yet, but I am fascinated by this question. Perhaps there is no need for a clear answer. In any case, I have learned that there is a term, transracial, that describes what Saraswati lives.

In my search for answers in the novel, I noticed with interest how the characters engage in discourse around it. Saraswati's opponents are outraged. They accuse her of cultural appropriation, racism and blackfacing. Saraswati counters them with numerous arguments. But while her opponents are just spouting phrases, Saraswati is able to give them calm and level-headed (if occasionally a bit populist and flashy) whole lectures to justify why she did what she did, making well-substantiated arguments and numerous cross-references to academic literature. One particular passage caught my attention:

""Are you going to claim to be Aboriginal next, then, when everything can be interchanged?" sneered Oluchi's friend." (S. 244)

When I first heard about the fact that apparently you can actually change physical characteristics to make passing as transracial (cisracial?) possible, I was confused. Race for me until then was something inherent, something you are born with and that is not changeable. I can't suddenly be Black, I am, after all, white.

But the same is true of gender. I have the gender I have, I was just assigned a different one at birth. What Oluchi's friend says here is one-to-one TERF rhetoric, only applied to race instead of gender. Race as a category was artificially created. Race is not linked to physical characteristics, race has no biological basis, but oppressors use physical characteristics to support their theories. The same happened with the category of gender.

Maybe that was the moment that made me change my mind. In the epilogue to the novel, Sanyal mentions the text "trans. Gender and Race in an Age of Unsettled Identities" by Roger Burbaker. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but this text also seems to relate the categories of race and gender. So it sounds like a worthwhile further read.

I do have one criticism, however. Precisely because the novel relates race and gender as categories, I would have expected gender to be dealt with as sensitively as race. But that is not always the case. The novel is gendered throughout, so there is an awareness of the subject. A genderqueer cis woman does indeed appear. Nivedita is initially confused as to whether Toni is a man or a woman when she appears, but then nonetheless genders her based on physical characteristics before asking Toni for her pronouns. I think a gender-sensitive reading could have tweaked this a bit.

I don't know if this society is ready for the discussions the novel opens up, but it would be nice if it was. The novel is definitely a good and important loud voice on this.

"To say only gender can be truly trans is the same as trying to distinguish real science from ... other forms of knowledge-making, high art from low art, art from craft." (S. 243)

Possible triggers - experiences of racism - Racist attacks - terrorist attack in Hanau is addressed - toxic relationship

Advertising according to §6 TMG Series information Author: Mithu Sanyal Title: Identitti Language: German Cover illustration: Raja Ravi Varma: Kali, before 1906 Series: No Pages: 424 Original price: 22€ Publisher: Carl Hanser Verlag Genre: Fiction ISBN: 978-3-446-26921-7

Originally posted on 15/01/2023

[annabelle--cane]

every time being human says “we have no choice” etc I think “wow. no wonder marina’s neural pathways have been altered by this show. so true” and I Understand it

[adhderall]

I'm not even gonna bother debating all these ppl saying this shit bc they won't listen (they never do), but this shit is so blatantly disconnected from reality.

if, say, a woman was on T for a while and then went off it, I can assure you she will NOT be treated like a ~normal cis~ without voice training and laser hair removal AT THE VERY LEAST.... and there's some who don't wanna do that anyway (which is based).

like no that is NOT "just a normal cis person" that person is going to have a very very different lived experience from the ""average cis [woman]"" .

"Oh but no one is entitled to know why she has a deep voice and facial hair and etc. they can just think she has a hormonal imbalance"

what if she wants to tell people? what if she doesn't want to pretend she has a medical condition she doesn't have? etc. etc.

noo you can't use this descriptive label though it's politically incorrect.

that's dumb as fuck 🥲

identity bullshit is ACTUALLY rotting everyone's brains i feel like im going insane.

[astr0zz0mb13]

why is ur name jeffer

jrff the kiler

[snapcracklepop-myjoints]

happy birthday bunny boy!!!!

thank you !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[pixlerelish]

sorry about your identity crisis but yeah harrison ford's gonna have a red wrinkly huge thrombing cock

I hate.

Everything.

About this.

[miagkoi]

identity crisis (questioning if I really am a boob woman as I've always thought and not an ass woman after finally getting something good recommended by tumblr)

[beebfreeb]

hello hi i am oc spitballing. trying to make the worst guy alive (not alive he is a computer) his head is the computer and is removable. current concept is someone tried to create AI Girlfriend Perfect Romantic Partner and instead made an aromantic man who lies for fun and is desperate for attention at all costs. i am going to sleep now.

[pitchmoss]

my mutuals changing their urls one after the other

who are you people.

[cosmicrhetoric]

[xkcd-r34]

identity theft is so weird like bitch wdym its right here like i have it like i swear i had it right here like oh yeah for sure its just uhhh nope uh okay no its here somewhere it has to be for sure you cant just steal like an identity like i think i had it right over here but of course it isnt maybe if i retrace my steps? okay so it was 2018 and oh fuck wait maybe i never did oh shit fuck i didnt ever have one did i fuck god damn it no i

[mixtercandy]

Hello! :3 *melts into soup*

U CANT BRING MY MOOD DOWN (/nsrs) ANY LONGER, I JUST GOT THE OFFICAL MIXTERCANDY USERNAME ON DISCORD

[annabelle--cane]

hnngahggg being human is actually killing me I haven’t cried so much over a show in years. thank you so much

[rosemaze-reveries]

giragira has always felt so jokercore to me