Frankie Decaiza Hutchinson
Jasmine
1.what name do you go by?
Jasmine Ann Cooray
2.how do you identify ethnically?
Mixed race
3.to what extent does your ethnic identity influence your character?
I am quite a complicated mix of ethnicities- sri lankan, dutch, russian, polish. my blood comes from four different places at least so I find it difficult to attain solidity of racial identity. It has pros and cons. The pros are that I am not tied to one specific set of stereotypes with other people on first impressions. The cons are that I don’t feel an authenticity of cultural identity. I don’t have strong cultural links to any of the places that my genetics come from.
4.describe a particular incident where you have encountered racism.
I find that because my ethnic identity is not obvious then I get a lot of questions about it. Usually when people ask ‘where are you from’, it means ‘what kind of brown is that?’, regardless of where that person is from. My favourite’s are ‘what are your tropical roots?’ and ‘are you part foreign?’ All of these things, especially when asked by white people, feel destabilising and annoying because you feel like someone is asking what you’re doing here. There are also two incidents separated by 18 years…(there are many more but I picked these two for now)
1. aged 5, infants school. Small white girl called lou-anna says ‘you can play with us, we’re playing princess and witches, but you have to be the witch because your hair smells of rice and curry’.
2. aged 22, kissing a white man on a patch of grass. I’m sitting on him. He says ‘oh god, your so sexy and amazonian and exotic, I can just imagine you milking my cock’.
5. how do you feel your oppression as a woman of colour differs from a white woman's experience?
Quite often I am expected to provide a perspective as a representative of all brown women or all asian women as opposed to my perspective as an individual.
6. do you feel comfortable identifying as a woman of colour?
it is weird, but sometimes I forget. I think it is because of the complicated mix, but it is becoming more and more part of my identity. When I first went to university it was something that I played up as the only non white person on my course, but I don’t do that anymore because I don’t want to encouraging a limitated representation or perpetuation of stereotype. A lot of time when you’re mixed race people behave as if you’re not there, because they don’t think you can ever fully be anything.
7. do you feel there is a problem in homogenising women as one oppressed entity and not acknowledging that women's oppression differs depending on your race, class, health, sexuality?
Yes. I also think there needs to be communication (and importantly, not competetion) between groups to explain what goes on.
8. if yes, do you think the term woman of colour could mobilise a new radical political agenda, where we understand our experiences as different from other women by tracing histories of colonialism and patriarchy? we can relearn history through the narratives of women of colour to gain a better understanding of the subjugation of our bodies today, and the continuation of white supremacy. And in learning this stand in solidarity with other women of colour globally who are being oppressed, and work to empower ourselves locally.
This is a difficult one. It’s a similar issue to the reclamation of ‘queer’- in that it can be recognised and appreciated within radical talk but outside of that, it serves a negative purpose or confuses people’s constructions of political correctness. You will get a lot of people who will react to it like ‘oh god a NEW thing we have to say’. But we have to use something. Identifying as Black politically isn’t always appropriate, and neither is Non-White.
9. finally please write if you have anything else to say, keeping in theme with the questions. or any opinions on the questions asked. write ANYTHING related!
It’s a hard line to tread. Sometimes in the separation within a group there can be competition ‘who is the most oppressed? No, we’re the most oppressed’, and also as a result of that we can lose sight of a common goal.I agree that the nature of that common goal is not as simple as people might think, but I also think that motion is important. Too many times in radical groups the dialogue takes over from the action, and we don’t get anywhere. If politics is a hobby, there isn’t really any point.
Jasmine
1.what name do you go by?
Jasmine Ann Cooray
2.how do you identify ethnically?
Mixed race
3.to what extent does your ethnic identity influence your character?
I am quite a complicated mix of ethnicities- sri lankan, dutch, russian, polish. my blood comes from four different places at least so I find it difficult to attain solidity of racial identity. It has pros and cons. The pros are that I am not tied to one specific set of stereotypes with other people on first impressions. The cons are that I don’t feel an authenticity of cultural identity. I don’t have strong cultural links to any of the places that my genetics come from.
4.describe a particular incident where you have encountered racism.
I find that because my ethnic identity is not obvious then I get a lot of questions about it. Usually when people ask ‘where are you from’, it means ‘what kind of brown is that?’, regardless of where that person is from. My favourite’s are ‘what are your tropical roots?’ and ‘are you part foreign?’ All of these things, especially when asked by white people, feel destabilising and annoying because you feel like someone is asking what you’re doing here. There are also two incidents separated by 18 years…(there are many more but I picked these two for now)
1. aged 5, infants school. Small white girl called lou-anna says ‘you can play with us, we’re playing princess and witches, but you have to be the witch because your hair smells of rice and curry’.
2. aged 22, kissing a white man on a patch of grass. I’m sitting on him. He says ‘oh god, your so sexy and amazonian and exotic, I can just imagine you milking my cock’.
5. how do you feel your oppression as a woman of colour differs from a white woman's experience?
Quite often I am expected to provide a perspective as a representative of all brown women or all asian women as opposed to my perspective as an individual.
6. do you feel comfortable identifying as a woman of colour?
it is weird, but sometimes I forget. I think it is because of the complicated mix, but it is becoming more and more part of my identity. When I first went to university it was something that I played up as the only non white person on my course, but I don’t do that anymore because I don’t want to encouraging a limitated representation or perpetuation of stereotype. A lot of time when you’re mixed race people behave as if you’re not there, because they don’t think you can ever fully be anything.
7. do you feel there is a problem in homogenising women as one oppressed entity and not acknowledging that women's oppression differs depending on your race, class, health, sexuality?
Yes. I also think there needs to be communication (and importantly, not competetion) between groups to explain what goes on.
8. if yes, do you think the term woman of colour could mobilise a new radical political agenda, where we understand our experiences as different from other women by tracing histories of colonialism and patriarchy? we can relearn history through the narratives of women of colour to gain a better understanding of the subjugation of our bodies today, and the continuation of white supremacy. And in learning this stand in solidarity with other women of colour globally who are being oppressed, and work to empower ourselves locally.
This is a difficult one. It’s a similar issue to the reclamation of ‘queer’- in that it can be recognised and appreciated within radical talk but outside of that, it serves a negative purpose or confuses people’s constructions of political correctness. You will get a lot of people who will react to it like ‘oh god a NEW thing we have to say’. But we have to use something. Identifying as Black politically isn’t always appropriate, and neither is Non-White.
9. finally please write if you have anything else to say, keeping in theme with the questions. or any opinions on the questions asked. write ANYTHING related!
It’s a hard line to tread. Sometimes in the separation within a group there can be competition ‘who is the most oppressed? No, we’re the most oppressed’, and also as a result of that we can lose sight of a common goal.I agree that the nature of that common goal is not as simple as people might think, but I also think that motion is important. Too many times in radical groups the dialogue takes over from the action, and we don’t get anywhere. If politics is a hobby, there isn’t really any point.