Entangled Black and Asian Sexual Politics
In this piece, I explore how an understanding of Asian American Sexual Politics (Chou 2012) and Black Sexual Politics (Hill Collins 2004) can aid self-understanding and group analysis of those who hold multiracial Black and Asian identities. I draw on personal experience to highlight how multiracial Black and Asian individuals experience both Black and Asian Sexual Politics simultaneously. While Black and Asian Sexual Politics are well-developed by both Chou (2012) and Hill Collins (2004), there is still the tendency to erase non African-American and diasporic “Indo” experiences from these conversations. I therefore critique the exclusion of Indo-Caribbean-American identities from Asian (American) Sexual Politics and question whether both Black and Asian Sexual Politics combined can provide a sufficient analytic framework for those with multiracial Afro and Indo-Caribbean identities.
Reading Asian American Sexual Politics (Chou 2012) was an extremely therapeutic and refreshing process, as both a “scholar” largely exhausted by the US’ Black-white binary and more intimately, as someone with “Asian” heritage. I have often contemplated the ways in which Black Sexual Politics have influenced my own socialization, however, I have not had the opportunity to explore how an awareness of Asian (American) Sexual Politics could enhance my understanding of self and self-definition. As an educational migrant from the UK to the US, it is important to note that there are divergent histories between these two nation-states, particularly with patterns of migration. This means that not all of the arguments made in Asian American Sexual Politics are applicable to a UK context. For example, the “myth of the model minority” (Chou 2012; Chou and Feagin 2015) is less prevalent in the UK. There are also migration-based socio-economic differences. East and South Asian migration post-Civil Rights brought “highly educated or middle- to upper-class individuals and families” to the US (Chou 2012:151), whereas South Asian ethnicities in the UK experience the worst rates of poverty compared to any other racial/ethnic group with 60% Pakistanis and 70% Bengalis living in poverty (The Poverty Site 2011). Although much of Chou’s (2012) work is applicable to the UK context, there are also geo-historical differences to take into account.
I draw on an autobiographical narrative to explore my own relationship to Black Sexual Politics and Asian (American) Sexual Politics. Navigating both Black and Asian Sexual Politics has shaped and impacted me in unique ways. Throughout my life, I have experienced certain instances of racial, gendered, ethnicised and/or sexualised discrimination and oppression which could be externally seen as specific to Black Sexual Politics or Asian Sexual Politics. Perhaps, at times, one racial identity is more salient than the others as “identities do not always become salient at the same time or with equal force” (Chou 2012:4). Nonetheless, there are other times where my identity as a multiracial person with both Black and Asian heritages cannot be separated in my self-understanding and analytic reflections. In these moments, at least, Black and Asian Sexual Politics should be viewed as intertwined. Although intersectionality as a critical social theory has aided comprehension in the interlocking nature of identities and systems of oppression (Chou 2012; Crenshaw 1991; Hill Collins 2019), it provides an insufficient framework for the identities and oppression(s) of multiracial individuals. This is demonstrated by the focus on monoracial or Black-white/Asian-white identities within work on racialised sexual politics.
Navigating the world has been undeniably shaped by my multiracial identity, as well as others’ perceptions of my racial/ethnic identity. Some of my childhood experiences clearly reflect my racial “ambiguity” in the UK/US and others’ confusion as to where to place me within rigid colonial racial and ethnic categories. For example, I was told at 14 that, “You are not mixed-race, you are a mix of races,” which reflects the pervasiveness of mixed-race identity being associated with being “half”-Black and “half”-white. This is exacerbated through media imagery which constructs mixed-race identity as synonymous to biracial Black-white individuals. Multiracial-Black individuals such as Yara Shahidi, who has both Black and Iranian heritages, are often siphoned solely into performing/representing Blackness due to legacies of the one drop rule in the United States (Lopez 2006). “Mixed-race” therefore gets reified as Black and white and other multiracial Black identities are ignored.
One prominent example of navigating both Black Sexual Politics and Asian Sexual Politics arose in an occurrence of bullying from both white and Black boys. Frustrated with my conversations about Black Lives Matter (BLM) and white privilege in secondary (high) school, a Black boy commented online in a stream of discriminatory abuse:
“Under normal circumstances I would never hit a girl but your truly pitiful performance in slumdog millionaire coupled with your white privilege rhetoric has left me with no choice”
This was followed by their renaming of Monisha to “Pacquisha,” accompanied by a meme of my face photoshopped onto a bodybuilder/wrestler in what I can only describe as a “slave-like” battle between myself and another Black boy. The “fight” was named “Pacquisha vs Mayzegwu” — Mayzegwu being a problematic and racist play on the boy’s actual surname Nzegwu and Floyd Mayweather’s. This experience highlights the ways in which I have been subjected to both Black and Asian Sexual Politics, which become entangled for multiracial Black and Asian people. For example, the “Slumdog millionaire” comment is specifically reflective of an externally perceived Indian identity. This was supported by various comments throughout my teenage years that I “wash in the river Ganges” as well as derogatory remarks in relation to “excessive” body hair. In this particular moment on cyberspace, I was racialised as an Indian woman — or at least a woman with some Indian descent. These upper-class boys viewed Indian women as “dirty,” “hairy” and poverty-stricken while enjoying their Indian takeaways at the weekend. This experience is similar to that of Fareena, discussed in Chou (2012) who spoke about“issues of body hair” and feeling “dirty” (Chou 2012:62). Fareena’s perceptions of her own body hair cannot be separated from the white racial frame (Feagin 2006) which places whiteness as universal, neutral and standard as well as Eurocentric patriarchal beauty standards which idealise white, hair-less bodies as the epitome of womanhood and femininity (Chou 2012).
The consequent renaming process utilised stereotypical, racist anti-Black language and imagery which further complicates this interaction. Both anti-Black and anti-Indian abuse was perpetuated. Self-definition is an extremely important part of identity formation and self esteem (Chou 2012), however, in this moment my agency was stripped from me and I was renamed in an intentionally demeaning anti-Black way. Moreover, these boys and the white girls liking the comments were involved in cajoling and promoting a slave-like battle between myself and another Black boy. As a white boy created and posted this imagery, this interaction cannot be separated from histories of white slave-owners forcing slaves to fight (often until death) for entertainment (Lussana 2010). Further, placing my face onto a man’s body contributes to a masculinisation process and denial of femininity, which Black women often experience (Hill Collins 2004). This process can be parallel for “hairy” South Asian women who are also often masculinised due to colonial constructions of womanhood and femininity. From their comments, it became “acceptable” to threaten to enact physical violence against me; in part due to white anger over a woman of colour speaking about white privilege and BLM, but also due to this process of masculinisation. I was masculinised through both Black and Asian Sexual Politics due to hierarchies of femininity which construct women of color as less feminine, deviant and inferior (Chou 2012). This experience was gendered, racialised and sexualised. White girls actively “liked” these comments, supporting this racist-sexist violence. They were complicit in assisting the racist and sexist “fantastical pornographic gaze” which is placed on women of colour (WOC) (Chou 2012:79). The fact that Black boys were involved throughout this interaction exemplifies their adoption of the white racial frame as well as their perpetuation of racist-gendered-sexualised politics targeted at WOC (Chou 2012).
Monoracial BIPOC or those who fall more neatly into rigid constructions of “Black” or “Asian” can draw on one set of sexual politics to help explain their experiences, however, for multiracial Black-Asian individuals this process becomes more complex. This is even further complicated by holding identities that are multiply diasporic, for example by my African (Black) heritage being Afro-Guyanese and my South Asian heritage being Indo-Guyanese. I agree with Chou (2012) that Black migrants in the US can draw on African-American counter-frames for self-empowerment, however immigrant status and nationhood create disconnect simultaneously. My racial identities do not fit clear-cut Cartesian categories of racial/ethnic identification and these boys drew on the white racial frame (Feagin 2006) to discriminately racialise me as both Black and Indian concurrently.
For various reasons, I have previously found it difficult to identify with “Asian” identities and experiences. Diasporic Indo identities are not considered authentically “Asian” and are marginalised from discourse on Asian experiences (Persadie, Boodram, and Baksh 2019). Indo-Caribbean and other global diasporic “Indo” identities [e.g. Fiji, Mauritius, Kenya, South Africa and Mozambique] are persistently excluded from general discussions about Asian populations. This has profound implications for those with Indo-diasporic identities viewing themselves as part of a collectivised category of “Asian.” Chou (2012) poignantly highlights the ways in which this term “Asian” is problematic due to its inherent essentialising and homogenising nature, erasing inter-ethnic differences. Within this colonial, white socially constructed group however, diasporic Indo identities are most often non-existent. Exploring experiences of South Asian descent that do not neatly originate from South Asia complicates understandings of “Asian” identities. Further, the Caribbean is popularly viewed in the global North as a site of Blackness, erasing those who are of Indian, Chinese, Indigenous, Portuguese and mixed Caribbean descent. There are also issues of tension and conflict between people in Indo-diasporas and people in South Asia due to histories of caste and class influencing who were stolen by colonisers to become indentured servants in the Caribbean and elsewhere. Furthermore, generational differences also factor in as elders in the Caribbean are more likely to identify with India or South Asia more broadly, whereas younger generations often construct their identities in relation to Caribbean nation-states (Persadie et al. 2019). This becomes even more difficult with more recent migration patterns of Afro, Indo and other Caribbean identities to the US, UK and Canada. Those of us, in these unique positions, grapple with racial and ethnic identity formation in relation to the global North, the Caribbean and broader African/South Asian origins.
Reading Asian American Sexual Politics (Chou 2012) helped me to understand that only focusing on Black Sexual Politics will never fully account for my specific experiences of multiraciality. Drawing on Black and Asian Sexual Politics simultaneously can aid individual and group understanding of those who hold multiracial Black and Asian heritages. The identification with these sexual politics becomes more difficult, however, for those who are “Black” but not African American, and for those who are “Asian” via another country. A more extensive exploration of sexualised politics should also take into account the specific ways in which Caribbean women are hyper-sexualised and fetishised in the global North due to the colonial exotification of island/Caribbean cultures.
References
Chou, Rosalind. 2012. Asian American Sexual Politics. Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronto, Plymouth, UK: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Chou, Rosalind S., and Joe R. Feagin. 2015. Myth of the Model Minority: Asian Americans Facing Racism, Second Edition. Routledge.
Crenshaw, Kimberle. 1991. ‘Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color’. Stanford Law Review 43(6):1241. doi: 10.2307/1229039.
Feagin, Joe R. 2006. Systemic Racism: A Theory of Oppression. New York: Routledge.
Hill Collins, Patricia. 2004. Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism. New York: Routledge.
Hill Collins, Patricia. 2019. Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory. Durham & London: Duke University Press.
Lopez, Ian. 2006. White by Law 10th Anniversary Edition: The Legal Construction of Race.
Lussana, Sergio. 2010. ‘To See Who Was Best on the Plantation: Enslaved Fighting Contests and Masculinity in the Antebellum Plantation South’. The Journal of Southern History 76(4):901–22.
Persadie, Ryan, Aruna Boodram, and Darrell G. Baksh. 2019. ‘The Politics of Brown Mutuality: Reflections on Lilly Singh, Cultural Appropriation and Queer Amnesia’.
The Poverty Site. 2011. ‘Low Income and Ethnicity’. Poverty. Retrieved 8 November 2019 (http://www.poverty.org.uk/low-income-and-ethnicity/).
TIME. 2017. The Family Shahidi. Retrieved 28 February 2021 (https://time.com/collection-post/5041021/yara-shahidi-afshin-shahidi-keri-shahidi/)