halfway through, and mildly drained.
at the circus in bath.
so much has happened since my last blog post, i just know that i'm going to be leaving out a lot of really great things. a lot of really wonderful things happened at work in the past week+ and during my travels over the weekends, but -- there's a big but.
there really are lots of wonderful things that i can talk about. in terms of what i'm doing at my placement -- interviews and plans, compiling materials for a social impact report, brand design processes. i learn something new every day, and i'm beyond happy to actually get to be working at a real social enterprise, employing real problem-solving and interacting with real people.
but --
sometimes, i feel unsafe.
that's a strong statement. but i'm writing this post directly on the heels of a discussion that has left me feeling particularly raw, mostly because i spent the entirety of it feeling like i needed to hide how i felt and who i am.
the atmosphere here is -- different. culture is different, demographics are different, values are different, history is different.
i'm used to being in toronto, where multiculturalism gets touted and celebrated and critically developed. where the majority of my work and volunteer experience has usually sprung out of at least one of the ways i fit into neat little diversity "boxes," through my race or gender or queerness or disability. because ultimately that's what my overarching passion for social change is rooted in -- that's where it's personal and real for me, and those are the related marginalized communities that i have close ties to and want to be able to learn how to build and empower.
but here, it's... very different.
in terms of race:
i'm constantly wondering, did i just walk into this bar and look around and realize that i'm the only person of colour in here because of my own insecurities, or is it because people actually did stare at me as i crossed the floor to meet my friend?
in terms of gender:
it's genuinely not safe for me to walk alone in my neighbourhood past 10pm, and men -- and boys, all the way down to 10-year-olds on bikes -- are hooting and catcalling and leering as women walk by.
in terms of class and disability:
the support that the government gives towards people with disabilities and the working class is incredibly strong, in comparison to toronto -- incredibly admirable, really. but i've still met people who casually throw around slurs that seem so outdated to me -- ret*rd and f*g, queer as an insult...
so in terms of queerness:
in terms of queerness.
it wasn't something that i ever intended to shoot the breeze about, here. not about queerness in general, or my queerness specifically. and not with the people that i work with.
brilliant people. wonderful, sweet, friendly people, who have taught me a lot and made me laugh a lot.
but they're very much from a far different background than me, never more apparent than when they talk about
how caitlyn jenner's name isn't caitlyn, or
how the police need more authority, or
how people just like to play the "race card," or
how queerness isn't the norm and will never be the norm and political correctness is ruining society.
it's been a very long time since i've needed to
out myself in a professional setting;
realize that sometimes straight people actually do complain about not being able to reclaim slurs like queer or q*een when they have gay friends;
remember how to respond (or not) to people who ask rhetorical questions about why gay people need pride, anyway, and why they need to act so "campy";
decide whether or not i want to make the remaining half of my stay here incredibly awkward for people who say they don't understand people like me without knowing that they're talking to a person like me.
in a way, this is indirectly the reason i wanted to work outside of toronto, outside of an environment i'm comfortable in. i'm going to be living through so many more experiences throughout the rest of my life where i need to remember that people are more than the sum of their parts, even if those parts include racism and sexism and homophobia and transphobia.
but part of me feels like i'm failing at something, by not taking this opportunity to bring this up to at least a manager or someone, if not my coworkers directly -- but i don't intend to, not for the rest of the next month that i'm here for.
because educating people is draining. explaining things in a way that respects where people are coming from, even if they might not do the same for me, is exhausting. and educating one person, three people, the whole company -- sometimes it's all so futile; sometimes you wonder "why bother?" because that won't change the cultural and systemic reasons why they believe the things they believe.
there are too many other things that i'm actually expected to be doing, instead. there are too many other things that i actually want to be doing, right now.
bristolian street art (with maybe a hint of sass, on my part).
