I was talking with desertDIVA today and I'm not quite sure how I feel about "sharing" my personal experiences in class. Most of my experiences are gendered & raced and that's typically how i frame them. But today, I felt like my classmates' reactions to my experiences were overly surprised..as if this stuff was just completely horrendous and unbelievable. The stories I shared with them aren't unique...they're your typical asian fetish, we all look alike, we're all foreign, name calling, not being taken seriously, etc. Sometimes I wonder if those who haven't experienced racism directly are living/experiencing racism through my experiences. i wonder if listening to how people experience racism gives them a sense of legitimacy b/c now they know what racism feels like and looks like...and they can say "i know this girl who....blah blah blah..."
I know at the end of the day this might just be a burden we have to deal with. I DO want people who don't see how racism works to hear about our experiences and be able to understand that it really does exist and it happens to people who look like me. I just don't like being commodified.
XXunbound
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