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Remember the Charlie Brown Christmas show? Remember how everyone was in the Christmas spirit except Charlie? Charlie was feeling jaded. He went to Lucy for advice on how to snap out of it. Lucy told him he needed involvement and invited him to manage the Christmas...
Finding Your Voice
When I was young, I moved away from my family and was surrounded by people and things that were different from me. They spoke differently, moved at a slower pace, and didn't seem to care about the same things. At first I hated it. I felt like a fish out of water. It...
Navigating Liminal Space While Doing Shadow Work
If you’re doing consistent shadow work, the day will come when you are launched into liminal space. When that happens, it helps to have a plan for navigating liminal space. Liminal space is a place in between “this” and “that.” You’re not who or where you were, but...
Your experience when you were little is very reminiscent of mine too.
It is terrible, the “what are you?” questions. It makes my soul cry and cringe a bit to hear it again. For me, it was multi-layered. It was not just about questioning only my general ethnicity, but the specifics of the “Asians.” Like “what kind of Asian, and what region, based on skin-tone, because only “lighter skinned Vietnamese” could possibly come from the north and not the south. That kind of ignorance and insensitivity, that I had to tolerate. But the “what are you” was also in question of my gender. When I was little, I was very androgynous, ambiguous and a shape-shifter. Simply tossing my hair left or right or under a hat made a difference. And I also love wearing what style clothes I like, whether boys’ or girl. It doesn’t matter. Look at nowaday with all this “unisex” and “everybody collection” stuff. Who cares! Clothes does not define gender or sex! I enjoy the versatility and full spectrum expression and cared very little about having to “appropriate present” myself as a specific gender to the general public.
The questions are not even asked as a genuine way to get to know or learn more about someone that comes as a poorly asked question. It was simply an insulting way to satisfy their curiosity and assert superiority and power. “What are you”, an animal, extraterrestrial, a thing.
It is truly sickening in the stomach to think about.
I imagine, if I had answered “earthling,” I would be laughed at, mocked at, and thrown rocks at.
😔 More kindness is witnessed amongst the wild animal kingdom than the human one.
So sorry that you experienced that. Thanks for sharing. I hope that people will read this and begin to think about what they are saying. Seeing all creatures from a heart space, a space of inclusion, may change our language.