No app no website no page is going to save us
[Music]
scented
it’s what azalea banks called zayn manic
over a twitter dispute back in 2016.
banks was accusing malik of stealing
elements of her music video and
incorporating it into one of his own
unfortunately the confrontation got ugly
with banks calling malik a range of
nasty names ranging from the n-word to
homophobic language and eventually
a curry scented she later
apologized
now i’m not here to play morality to
police on
what happened during this twitter
exchange nor am i here to decide whether
zayn actually was a copycat
or to judge banksy’s use of social media
over the years
including recently digging up her dead
cap
but what i am more interested in is what
happened in the days to follow
this heated exchange the hashtag
curry scented went viral
and no not because fans of one direction
zane’s former band
were swooping in to support their
beloved singer but because
the young asian female diaspora across
the globe
took ownership of the slur images of
young brown women were filling up
feeds on instagram twitter and facebook
for me the hashtag reminded me of the
many times
i was worried that my school blazer
would smell of turkey
a smell i now love in brown cooking a
smell that no amount of
impulse body spray could mask
but more importantly i was tired of
carrying this
internalized self-hate that had been
with me since i was a teenager
a self-hate that derived from being told
that we had no place here
social media had helped change that
the digital age also had given
marginalized voices voices that had been
muted or ignored for so
long a platform to be heard
to show the world that we will no longer
be left
invisible as a brown woman
i felt a constant sense of erasure of
our existence and
by erasure i mean that our stories and
our voices are often ignored
our voices our story our history was
never mentioned in the school
textbooks the storybooks and the tv
screens but now
the digital world gave us that
opportunity we were
unmuted and we were ready to shout
as well as giving us a voice it gave us
a sense of sisterhood
and solidarity a unique bomb that hasn’t
happened in
any other time in human history it’s
happening in south asia but also
across the diaspora too
these platforms have allowed
marginalized women
women of color trans women and
non-binary people
to design their own forms of feminism
sometimes even a transnational feminist
vision
we’re currently in the fourth wave of
feminism
a wave characterized by a focus on the
empowerment of women
and the use of internet tools and
intersectionality
and like all waves they’ll probably fade
and move on
to the next but before it does i want to
make sure that brown women aren’t just a
footnote
in the history books
i’ve had a love-hate relationship with
social media over the years
but without it my journey as a spoken
word poet
would have never begun it transformed my
life
it gave me a way of instantly sharing my
story with a global audience and the
same goes
for other brown women that now become
household names
youtube stars like lily singh and liza
koshy
actresses like jamina jamil and social
activists like ashtakar
poets like rupee corps musicians like
mia
when my first poetry performance went
viral
little did i know that a new chapter in
my life life was about to begin i could
share
my words with the world and it could
actually make a difference
i found other inspirational brown women
too
they were online fighting against
patriarchy the systemic forms of
oppression the
eurasia i found poets and writers
academics
and friends ready to empower one another
many who truly changed my life i didn’t
have the social capital
or powerful allies and influential
positions that could
get me to the front of the line on tv
screens or at the top of a publisher’s
desk
all i had were my words my keyboard
a decent wi-fi connection a mission
and a dream a dream to make sure that
the brown woman’s experience in this
world could be a happier
and healthier one and that was
empowering
but all this empowerment that arrived
with the digital age
it came at a price i naively thought
that because nowhere no one could
physically hurt me or say anything to my
face that i was safe
but unfortunately i was very
very wrong there were people
especially men that wanted to mute me
again those that
feared seeing women at the title of
books
rather than in the footnotes telling me
someone with a history of
depression and anxiety that i should
kill myself
death threats rape threats troll attacks
bigotry and misogyny there are people
who hate women
so much they hate marginalized women
voicing their opinion so much that
they’d want you to die
and for what to make themselves better
or more superior
or out of fear that we women may
dismantle their patriarchal
understanding of the world
there’s also all the other scary stuff
too like data mining and cyber snooping
and the use of our personal
data as capital with us having no clue
about
it the kind of behavioral data that can
even be used in political campaigning
maybe it wasn’t such a safe space after
all
we’re left holding this double-edged
sword
the same place that gave us empowerment
and freedom to express
is the same thing that could cut us back
down
so what can we do to make sure that
brown women
don’t get muted again
well first we need to consider
how to be safe online and how to use it
wisely how to
use it as a tool than don’t be the tool
because if you don’t pay for a product
it’s most likely that you are the
product
and to consider what you use social
media for and how much of it you consume
turn your notifications off and your
self-awareness on
i usually remove social media from my
phone entirely
when i’m working on big projects or
during festive periods too
so that i can feel more present with my
family my friends
and my work diversify your media
so that you can use it as an opportunity
for learning and to think critically
about the information
and the news that you are seeing
unfollow
block or delete people who bring you no
light or no joy and protect your energy
because it’s precious and it could be
used more wisely in other places
we need to make sure that our voices are
being heard off
the internet too because ultimately
no app no website no page is going to
save us
it may help us heal you may help us find
solidarity and sisterhood in the
struggle
but it can’t be the only thing we rely
on we still need to be fighting for our
voice to be heard in wider fields too
in politics on screen in books in music
because
one kamala harris and one mirror seal
isn’t enough
think about the area that you work in or
the skill set that you have and how you
can use that
as your platform to be heard in a
sustainable
way and finally
we need to make sure that we take this
sense of community spirit this
sisterhood and solidarity
offline too whether that’s book club
supper club support groups monthly
meetups
art exhibitions music events or even
meeting up with someone for a cup of jar
for me tea has always provided me with a
sense of calm
and for generations brown women have
been having discussions about politics
and identity
about motherhood and relationships about
revolutions and change
over cups of tea we still need to hold
space for that
let’s lean into old traditions because
there’s still a magical energy energy
that can be found when you
meet with someone face to face when you
have a group
discussion in certain insane in the same
physical environment or
when you simply are in the same room
with people that you feel a sense of
solidarity with
a large group of brand women perhaps
elderly women
grandmothers or those with specific
health needs might not be able to access
the digital world in the same way that
we do
so we need to involve them in these
important moments of dialogue too
because these intergenerational
conversations can
benefit us all there is a power
in human connection and i’m not sure
that’s something that’s
always able to translate online
so let’s grab our cups of jar and head
to these spaces
make sure that we use the online world
safely and not to treat it as our only
means of empowerment and continue to
fight to make sure that our stories our
experiences
our voices never get erased
or muted again
i would love to finish up on one of my
favorite poems
entitled aging beauties
why do brown women hardly age
maybe it’s because they’re used to
swallowing ugliness
down in spades holding its height
in their belly and to never let it show
they’re aging on the inside but i guess
we’ll never know
how they’re dying on the inside learning
to bottle in that rage
the screams filling up in a cage that
they will later call a womb
a womb that will birth out a daughter an
ugly
loud fierce daughter fighting battles
like her mama taught her
so my sisters stand proud
loud and be heard like you should
let’s do it for our beautiful mothers
that never could