my friend, whose a chinese international grad student, recently went to the lgbtq hike hosted by my university's cdi. the night she got back she texted me about how much she hated the experience and how isolating it felt, where she wanted to connect with native english speakers and get to know her place in the queer community—having recently realized that she is interested in women. however, everyone she met there just kept to themselves and their own groups, and would end conversations with her quickly. one thing she is very interested in currently is learning about race in the united states, and wanted to talk to the other students about her own experiences: both as a foreigner with a racial/class landscape that she's used to, someone currently learning about america, and a student in social work (or policy, i forget which program shes in). most of the fellow students were white and seemed excruciatingly averse to the language/cultural barrier that existed between themselves and my friend.
a lot of students—even asian americans i talk to—repeat this sentiment that chinese international students are all rich and keep to themselves. and while this is true in that they do often have expensive clothes and get to live in pricey apartments, this evidently isn't always the case. my friend is a wonderful person whos been excited and eager this whole year to meet and befriend english speakers, but theyve been so overwhelmingly dismissive that shes getting very very frustrated and losing hope.
when she and i first met i talked about how "boring" i find the rest of students on campus and my frustrations—as a queer asian american— with the queer community, the asian american community, and the queer asian american community here on campus. she of course didnt understand because shed only been in america for a few months then, but it was heartbreaking to receive her texts a few nights ago about how she understands what i meant now. i hate to relate my experience with hers—i am a native english speaker—but sometimes it does feel like i speak a different language from my peers, and rarely get included in whatever groups or social rituals they partake in.
true inclusivity, in my opinion, immediately collapses once it has a definable static identity. ie, associated stereotype. let me explain.
two days ago i was in the car with someone i knew and respected, but this was my first time like getting one on one friend time with. he was listening to ariana grande and conan grey. we were talking about music and i can talk about ariana grande because she is, unfortunately, part of how my psyche defines femininity, but i did have to admit ive never listened to conan gray. do i listen to girl in red? no. do i listen to ricky montgomery? no. do i listen to any of the standard gen z (queer community claimed) artists? no. i dont.
a few days before that me and my other friend were talking about our favorite musical artists. she had rene rapp and boygenius and finneas and whatever and i have fucking pj morton and jon batiste and nina simone and brittany howard. and bruno mars and t pain and john legend and janelle monae and tyler the creator. i remember going to the pj morton concert about a year and a half ago, maybe more, and it being right next door to japanese breakfast. going to japanese breakfast were a bunch of obviously queer kids—dyed hair n shit (and white)—and i was going to pj morton with middle aged black ppl in line. and i was dressed in like this goregous yellow silk kimono and went completely alone and sober. it was a fantastic fucking time, but im sure you can see how the optics of this whole ordeal are just... odd. god were there so many good ass singers and dancers in that room.
good art inspires you. not to recreate what you see but to awaken something inside of you that may have laid dormant or youve been too afraid to let it show. i didnt know i was willing to dance in public until i saw janelle monae perform, for example. when pj morton performs its hard not to sing along because you are a part of the soul channeled in that very room. when jacob collier does the audience choir stuff you get to join in and contribute to a beautiful sound you didnt know you ever could be a part of, because that voice was in you the whole time. art isnt about making us all have something to latch onto, but helping us all be ourselves as much as possible, because there truly is enough space for us all.
and the same thing is true about inclusivity. its not about carving out a space where all the queer, terminally online, gifted kid burnout white kids to go... its about carving out a space where anyone can go. and everyone gets to play a part in the active definition and redefinition of that space—the active process of becoming.
ig you can tell that there is a lot of contempt in this post for the kids at my school. i do go to a big ticket university with a lot of rich kids. and ive built up a lot of frustrations from being on the outgroup of outgroups.
i remember overhearing a kid from our cdi talk about how "basically all the trans students in our school are in our group" while i was in the room. like, shut the fuck up, white ass.
