If we were to think back to our first experience of otherness— the first time we felt like we stuck out (and not in a good way), the feeling of being strange or odd— many of us would find ourselves in a memory of being in the classroom at lunchtime:
The thinly-veiled casing of alikeness that the school uniform provides, comes crumbling apart as the lid of the tiffin box is lifted with meticulous haste, revealing its homey contents— idli sambhar, cold maggi, cheese sandwich, seekh kabab, sabzi rolls, chicken nuggets. All delicious, but unequal. It doesn’t take a lot of growing up to recognise when someone expresses disgust. It is especially not difficult to recognize, when your deskmate wrinkles her nose and exclaims “Oooo Yuck!”, at the sight of your rolled up (and very pungent) methi-parontha. She on the other hand has something of a bento-box going with a whole display of fresh fruit skewers and leftover pasta from Big Chill.
We may find ourselves in either of these positions depending on where and how we are situated in this world. And in a single instance, the classroom becomes the first of many locations where one confronts their social identity, leaving our bubble of home, family and locality to share space with individuals carrying varied stories of race, class, gender and religion. This anecdote might feel too common, yet it is deeply significant, not only in the lasting impact it has on how we view ourselves and others from the world’s eye but also in undoing the unconscious dynamics that underlie the experience from both sides— whether you took a methi parontha or the penne à la vodka.
It must be noted that most likely, in fact almost certainly, we have all been this little girl at multiple points in our lives. I would even go so far as saying that actions like these are exactly what have shaped us into the people we are and identities we hold. Our “taste” and preferences, however natural or authentic we might believe them to be, play a significant role in keeping class hierarchies in place (Bourdieu, 1984; Layton, 2006). This might explain the shame and embarrassment surrounding the situation where a diner at a restaurant gets mistaken for a waiter, or a customer at a clothing store for a salesman. A kind of anxiety precipitates around being perceived as someone belonging to a lower social category than our own. It is fascinating how we develop a taste for things that reflect, no— confirm our inclusion in a fixedly marked group. And so long as we are successful in preserving this membership, anxious feelings remain at bay. With the rich getting richer, exclusivity of groups is at an all time high, leading to greater insecurity about being ‘outed’ as anything less-than. Limousines are not stretchy enough, gold doesn’t litter like it did and truffles are just not as rare. Possessions only go so far in confirming inclusion, and the route we often take to pacify the anxiety of losing status is to discard any sign of our inclusion in a lower fraction. What at least consciously is experienced as an innately developed “taste” for all things aesthetic and pleasing to look at, are to a great extent defined by our defensive rejection of any object that might attach us to a “tackier” or “tasteless” category. It frightens us to our gut when we gag, scorn at or joke away at a life we fear inhabiting.
One of the many forms that this defensive ‘throwing-out’ of parts unwanted often takes is in acts of microaggression. Dr. Derald Wing Sue, who has worked extensively on this topic, would describe microaggressions as “the everyday slights, indignities, put-downs and insults that members of marginalized groups experience in their day-to-day interactions with individuals who are often unaware that they have engaged in an offensive or demeaning way” (Yoon, 2020). The cumulative effect of these ‘subtle’ or indirect jabs have very real consequences on an individual’s mental health and have been likened to a death by a thousand cuts. “It’s not me it’s you!”, can be recognised as the underlying dialogue fuelling most microaggressions. Even if unconsciously motivated, taking a jab at someone in an already marginalised position serves the function of maintaining the perpetrator’s self esteem. This is evident in the situation for instance when a student from the North East of India studying in Delhi University is questioned for their competency as it is assumed that they have secured the seat solely because of the provision of reservation. Their membership in the classroom is put into question because of the discriminatory assumption of intellectual inferiority.
When inclusion is made so impossible, we feel a great amount of insecurity in retaining whatever benefiting social position we might cling to in this world. Even as classrooms and workplaces have shifted to a virtual existence, so has our vigilance for the scrutinising gaze of the 'Other' that gatekeeps the borders of these spaces. Upon opening our homes (for many of us our most intimate existence) to the world’s eye, we might catch ourselves trying to emphasise and de-emphasise parts of our life from the camera’s frame— squeezing in a plant here, shoving out a ‘tacky looking’ blanket there. The idea however is not to restrict ourselves from making these adjustments, but firstly to notice and be curious of ‘what is this feeling’. Most likely, the feeling we will arrive at is of ‘belonging’, or the desire to belong. A feeling we have known forever, as it is after all, this very feeling that makes us ‘people’, that makes us do things that ‘people are to do’ (whatever society at the time might consider ideal)— wear clothes, eat with a fork and knife, be attracted to the opposite sex, marry within your religion, marry.
I like to imagine that queer existence and experience is one of the creative adaptations to these limits that categorise us into ‘kinds of humans’. As individuals we interact with these expectations queerly and in doing so radically change the world for ourselves, others and the future in all acts of queerness, big and small— sometimes that might simply mean allowing yourself to dunk garlic bread in your favourite homemade achaar.
Making more belongingness possible requires us to create chaos in what we otherwise have got used to consider as ‘clean’ and fixed categories of existence. I think a perfect example of this is the film Ratatouille, particularly the final scene. The film so poignantly questions widely accepted notions of “purity” and “safety” that act as violent gatekeepers against greater belongingness. At least the film ends in a happy queer mess, something our world could use more of, something new.
References:
Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction. A social critique of the judgement of taste (R. Nice, trans). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Layton, L. (2006). That place gives me the heebie jeebies. Psychoanalysis, class and politics: Encounters in the clinical setting, 51-64.
Yoon, H. (2020, March 3). How to Respond to Microaggressions. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/03/smarter-living/how-to-respond-to-microaggressions.html
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