Oftentimes, white people think they’re complimenting me by saying I look ‘exotic’. They don’t realize that the word ‘exotic’ itself is bloodstained with a history of colonial rape, or what it means for me, as a WOC, to be the exotic Other in a white supremacist world. Or white women will sigh with longing over Jasmine tropes and evince a desire to embody/consume the Other: darkening their hair, wearing black eyeliner, big earrings or saris. They like to play at being what they think I am, what they think Jasmine is. For them, Jasmine is a an exciting adventure, a garment they can put on and take off at will. For me, she’s real, she’s my everyday, she walks in my skin and looks through my eyes. The degradation and violence that she endures is done to me. The brilliant Emi Koyama once said “There’s no innocent way of being in this world", meaning that no one, not even the most enlightened among us, can exist outside of history, outside of the legacies of colonial violence that shaped the world we inhabit. “ — Tassja, The Jasmine Diaries Part II: ‘Exotic’ is not a Compliment
Posted on: Sun, 28 Jul 2013 09:47:21 +0000
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