#as someone who joined a non-panhellenic sorority

[94andsizzling]

divesting from whiteness

is something that is going to be very difficult for me. totally against the grain. i’ve built all my ideals and goals based on it. i grew up with looking a magazines and learning names of models in a world that put european beauty standards on a pedestal and does not want color in their books. i memorized the names. if brands showed people of color in ads or runways, then and now, it’s probably from an absolute need to or to escape ridicule. if they showed an incredibly dark skinned black person on an ad with accessories, i thought they must have done so to grab someone’s attention by showing a huge visual contrast. not because they wanted to be inclusive, but because it’s a play on eyes. i still think this today. i wished i looked like the models i was seeing on tumblr and magazines. it’s one thing to address that i don’t look like them, but i thought i was flawed and, i need to say it, ugly. i wanted be pretty. and i wanted to look white. it’s no secret to anyone who knows me well that i have an asian complex. i tell them. i say it with a tiredness from repeating myself and having to explain because they don’t relate (or simple can’t, because of who i’ve chose to surround myself with) but even with all that repetitiveness it still makes my heart well up sometimes. i say it and in those moments i think that i am aware. but i’m really not. i’m still learning. but it’s hard because i’ve normalized it. always ending with something like, “yeah, i know, it’s just how i am.” almost as if to say: just accept it; i already have.

i am a product of an environment that promotes whiteness and sees emulating whiteness as an achievement. i want to say i’ve practiced self-love and that i’ve come a long way. but it’s complicated. i think i made room for self-love after there was validated from others. it started with compliments that i didn’t really believe, but kind of started to due to where they were coming from. white people telling me i looked good gave me validation. i feel more comfortable today than any time in the past, in my body and with my face, but i still have a long way to go. 

i think today is probably the most honest i’ve been with assessing my core and answering questions like: where my mind goes, why it go there and why i do things. some things that immediately come to mind:

assigning judgments to people based on their color/looks,

organizations i join (or more notably the ones i dismiss) and circles of people i try to make my communities,

what i think about the area i live in,

where i plan on locating myself (this pertains to both life and travel).

1. i judge strangers by the color of their skin and vilify people as being shady and potentially dangerous especially at night when i’m by myself. if i speak to someone who’s black or poc and they turn out to be amazing, i’m humbled and tell myself to be better. i made a conscious decision to stop making these judgments. but it’s hard to change a habit and i constantly catch myself reminding myself to be better - more than i’d like to admit.

2. i’ve always had asian friends growing up and i don’t think i connect as easily with white people. or maybe it was my mind playing me down. joining an organization like a sorority was not what i ever imagined for myself. i never thought about it before living at school, but after meeting an acquaintance who was in one, it just became this thing that i wanted so badly to be a part of. i wanted to be in a panhellenic sorority aka og sororities that are primarily white. i wanted to be part of a fun, cool and pretty group that mixed with other fun, cool and pretty groups. this is greek life in a nutshell. i dismissed the idea of an asian sorority or a business fraternity, which would have come in handy for career advancement, but those were heavily asian and we know how i feel about that. these other organizations were pretty much non-options for me from the start. i didn’t want that label and i didn’t want to be in that crowd. i wanted to have fun. the most fun. my whole teenage life, i felt like i was this closeted person that was meant to be social, but didn’t know how to get there and get those fun friends that i wanted. i was a sheltered and shy and i hated it. being accepted into the sorority was my ticket to this big, social fun fest. i loved being in the organization. it made me feel important and special, like i achieved something great. i don’t like tokenism but didn’t mind it in this context, because it crowned me as this asian person who is cool and pretty. cool and pretty for white sorority standards is a huge deal for someone like me who’s grown up with white ideals. this validated my worth ten fold.

3. i don’t like where i live. it has an overwhelmingly large asian presence. while diversity is a good thing, living in this town feels like drowning in a culture that i don’t want any part in. i really judge asians and their culture (i just realized that i used ‘their’ instead of ‘our’) and i despise asian people’s lack of awareness and spinlessness. i hate the image of a dumb, meek asian so much. so naturally i’ve tried to become the opposite of it. i don’t want anyone to even have a chance at labeling me as that. i’ve also categorized asians as uncool and in effect have put whiteness on a pedestal.

4. i plan on locating myself if communities that are diverse but not flooded with a minority such as my home. i value diversity in a place for the food culture it brings. i don’t worry so much on how i might feel more included or safer in a diverse community than one that has strong white presence. i don’t worry about the racial bias i might face if i move to a new city and i’ve wondered why. i’ve proximated myself to whiteness and perhaps i feel like that has to show for something. outside of daily life, i want to travel to places that i like that i think look beautiful in photos. i’m biased against traveling to some asian countries because i don’t have an appreciation for the culture (sometimes a dislike) and have formed a huge opinion on normative spacial distancing in different countries.

i’ve always thought of asians as being second class to white people and i think the only way to change that narrative in my head is to find super educated and well spoken people who are asian, that i admire and listen to the conversations they’re having about racism and the asian american experience. introducing a different narrative and putting it on loop is probably the only way to divest from whiteness in a lasting way. i realize i’ll be reluctant to seek out these new people and show resistance to whatever they’re putting out or only absorb it at surface level, so i’ll have to set some intentions with how i go about it.

for starters, these questions ellie yang camp wrote are a really great place to start and i’m grateful for them.