A World of Cheese, For your Pleasure

But then, if the Man doesn't define me, who will? Me? Easier said than done. When people ask me where I'm from, more than half the time the answer "Montreal" will not satisfy them. Neither will "Ontario" (where I was born) or "Canada". White people want to classify my otherness, and non-white people seem to want to share some kind of non-white solidarity, which is alternately comforting and annoying. When I resist the labelling, they simply think that I am being difficult, which is true. Resistance creates difficulties. But damnit, I do get sick and tired of it sometimes. Here are the types of questions and comments I get:

• "No, but, where are you from?"
• "Oh, I didn't know you were black. (This can happen when someone meets me after having spoken to me on the phone. My landlady is the most notable such case.)
• "So, what ARE you, anyway?"

What am I, indeed. What in the holy name of flying sheep do you think I am? 150 years ago the big brains of the day weren't even sure. Many weren't certain that we should be classified with whites as humans in the same sense that they are.

Now, some people might say that if they go to a country where they are the visible minority, then they might get asked similar questions. They might have certain assumptions made about them and be defined by the Man of that part of the world. They might say that this sort of thing is human nature, not racism. This may be true, and I wouldn't necessarily say that it is racist (although I might in certain circumstances), but these people will likely never be in the position I am in in North America. They will never be othered and defined by some other group of people. It is too easy for them to say these things, like it's just "Oh, well, that's just the way it is." I would recommend that they ask a white woman who has spent time in the Middle East how it feels. Or even a white woman who has spent time with young Middle Eastern men coming to North America for school, expecting all white women to fuck them since they're all sluts anyway. This is just for starters.

Have you ever met a person that is dating an Arab/black person/white person/Native person, instead of a person? They fall in love with the diversity that they are encountering, the "rich culture" and all the expectations of being with that Other, but the relationship fails because the Other realizes that it wasn't they who were loved, but the racial exoticness that the Man thought was fashionable at the time. Meanwhile, the first person, figures that Arabs/black people/white people/Native people aren't worth dating because the cultures are too different, or that they are too sensitive or something like that. This is simply pathetic when it happens.

I would like anyone reading this to really question what they think of how beauty is presented. We've heard a lot of the outrage of the so-called plus-size women and how their beauty is not well-represented. I think that they aren't the only ones.

P.S.: I know a couple of half-Indian women. Maybe they could collaborate and weigh in on what an Indian woman thinks about the Telegraph article. (Hey, I can be an ignorant dweeb, too.) In particular, the following reminds me of zura:

Still, she has found that Indian men look down upon her American-side, while American men fail to understand her Indian-ness.