I never felt like an outsider until my graduate school professor pointed it out to me.
It was towards the end of class. In between yawns and stomach growls, the professor droned on. One of my teachers had a lowball strategy of slamming books close or pounding desks, but she had a subtler technique.
Back and forth she went elongating each syllable to stretch the time. Her pace and pause turned an ordinary letter by a gay woman into a soliloquy.
And then, it stopped. She was standing right in front of me.
“Brandi. You would know what that’s like,” she said pointing to me.
I desperately panned the room hoping someone would say something as blood seeped into my pale Asian cheeks. But no one did. I was grateful when class ended. Normally I stay after class to ask a question, but the anger of feeling outed made me linger for another reason.
“I didn’t appreciate you comparing me to her,” I said to my fair skinned teacher.
“Oh I’m sorry,” she said smugly. “I’m glad you brought it to my attention.”
“Well, I’m not gay,” I said.
“I only meant that you would understand her experience since you’re a minority.”
“Excuse me?”
“You do know you’re not like everyone here.”
“I don’t think I realized it until you said it.”
“Really?” she asked.
This may come as a shock since I’m Japanese American and this was a primarily Caucasian school. But I was born and raised in Hawaii, a place where Asians make up the majority culture. My naiveté also stemmed from the fact that I was in graduate school, in counseling psychology where empathy and compassion are epitomes of the curriculum.
The sting colored my face and remained with me for years. It was the shame of being judged for something I wasn’t but also an in your face reminder that even at this graduate program where I paid as much as others to get there, I am and would always be a minority lumped into a group of all minorities. Had this been cushioned with a conversation about compassion and empathy, and what it felt to be judged or treated differently, I might have left that day feeling empowered instead of what I felt during most of my time at that school – disempowered and othered. Because no matter what I said or how much I studied, I wouldn’t be perceived as equal to my classmates. I was like the girl and her letter, a silent representation of what it means in this country to be different. Identified by the identifier.
This happened on the heels of another class’s perspective on culture day, which to one teacher consisted of students sharing their stereotypical beliefs about different races. Words like “shy,” and “smart” were painted across the board.
“Yeah those are pretty much true,” the teacher said dusting off her hands and dropping the chalk.
Maybe it was so triggering because I had a personal connection to feeling other-ed. It was not long ago when my grandparents lived with the fear of being sent to concentration camps. We still live in a time when people are killed for being different. Separation even unconsciously justifies people to leave their compassion at the door.
There’s no argument that could give the experience of what it feels like to wear color on your skin. Except for one blatantly obvious fact so harsh we often cushion the blow with a false sense of safety. People who look different may feel the vulnerability more regularly, but everyone is susceptible to tragedy, death, and suffering. We’re equally as different as we are the same. The solution isn’t to wear blindfolds. But it’s also not about pointing fingers either.
Ten years later, when I was blasted with criticisms for how I mothered my kids, I realized judgment and putting people in boxes wasn’t saved for issues about race. I listened to Megan Devine in a podcast entitled, “The Howl at the Center of Grief,” and began to put the pieces together. Distancing, Devine said, works as a protective barrier. If we’re not like someone else, then we have a superior moral guardrail that protects us from discrimination, prejudice, harassment and even death. You’ll recognize it if you’ve ever heard someone say, “Well I would never do something like that.”
Richard Rohr says in his book Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, “It is not that suffering or failure might happen, or that it will only happen to you if you are bad (which is what religious people often think), or that it will happen to the unfortunate, or to a few in other places, or that you can somehow by cleverness or righteousness avoid it. No, it will happen, and to you!” The fear of our own vulnerability makes us put people in boxes. Distance keeps us in denial and protects us from that reality.
There is a psychological term called, “cognitive dissonance,” which is the discomfort that occurs when people try to accept conflicting beliefs. Maybe that’s the key. Can we balance both truths? On one hand, we’re grown from different soil, raised with circumstances as individual as our fingerprints, and yet we’re all the same. Each of us is exposed to the mercy of life. Each of us deserved of its beauty, wonder and pain.
With everything I know now, with everything happening in the world today, it’s more important to share our own truths and reveal our own stories. If I could go back in time, I would tell those professors I didn’t need to be told I was different. I feel it every day. There was more to me than the stereotypes that filled the chalkboard.
This happened to me decades ago, and yet our world is still grappling with compassion and empathy. We label people. We point fingers of blame. We are quick to judge because it’s our way to feel safe. But this only deepens the divide. They are fast food ways of shoving years of discrimination under the rug that leaves people who are identified as different to either rebel or suppress who they are. The only way is to pause, stop assuming and judging, and take time to ask, “Is this true?” Take the time to get to know people who are different from you. Find commonality in what makes us human. I truly believe hope resides in common ground, and a remembrance of our humanity.
