Microaggressions: A Brief Play in Three Acts

Dedicated to all my brown friends.

CAST

ROMA: 22 years old, can look younger. Dark hair, tan skin, black glasses.
TAXI DRIVER (TD): Old white guy, whatever.

SETTING

York, England. Interior of a taxi, slightly dusty. Outside: clear and bright, flowers in full bloom, shorts weather if you’re a northerner.

ACT I: “POLYNESIA”

ROMA enters the cab, states her destination. Car starts.

TAXI DRIVER: Where’re you from, then?
ROMA: (brightly) New Jersey.
TD: Ah. (pause) Originally…?
ROMA: (beat) (more emphatically) New Jersey.
TD: You look…Polynesian, a bit. Like maybe, ah…Filipino, maybe.
ROMA: (resigned) Yeah, well, my parents are.
TD: (triumphantly) Now how did I know that? You tell me, how did I guess that one?

ROMA: I really don’t know.
TD: You know what else you look like?
ROMA: No…
TD: If you press your nose in a little bit, like this (presses in own nose with left thumb while driving), you look like you could be…
ROMA: (horrified) I…don’t know.

TD: I’ll give you a hint: the capital is Hong Kong.
ROMA: Ah.
TD: Your nose has a little bump in it, but you look like you could be from there.

ACT II: “THAILAND”

ROMA is still trapped in the car with the racist TAXI DRIVER. She considers asking him to stop at the next light, but doesn’t have time to walk. They converse about the weather.
TAXI DRIVER: You know, I’ve been to Thailand. Six times!
ROMA: (feigning politeness) Oh?
TD: Yep. A month each time, so I’ve spent six months of my life in Thailand! (laughs)
ROMA: That’s a long time.
TD: Have you ever been?
ROMA: I haven’t.
TD: It’s great there. You know why I go, though?
ROMA: (feigning ignorance) I couldn’t guess.
TD: Well, I’m a single guy! (laughs) Those Thai girls are beautiful. If I won the lottery, I’d pick up and move there, probably even before the money got to the bank! Ahh.

ACT III: “BUDDHISM”
ROMA cannot wait to get out of the car.
TAXI DRIVER: All these stone churches here, all cold and grey…I don’t like them, I like Buddhist temples. All that gold everywhere, and flowers. Much nicer.
ROMA: (silence)
TD: You don’t know anything about Buddhism?
ROMA: (facing to the side, looking out the window) No. Nothing about Buddhism.
TD: You see, they have these spirit sticks. (mimes holding a stick) They shake them like this, and… (drifts into a complicated explanation of Buddhist spiritual practices)
ROMA: (silence)

Reader Response Questions:
1) Why is the play called “Microaggressions?” What are some examples of microaggressions?

2) On a scale from one to fuck you, how racist was the taxi driver?

3) If you were Roma, what would you have done in this situation?
4) What other taxi company in York lets you book online so I don’t have to talk to anyone on the phone?

The Greatest (Most Racist) Show on Earth.

I learned something today!

P. T. Barnum bought an African-American slave woman named Joice Heth, fabricated a backstory for her, and exhibited her for enormous profit as an allegedly 161-year-old "freak." When she died, he sold 1500 tickets to her public dissection. Formerly a nobody shop assistant, Barnum built his reputation for putting on the "Greatest Show on Earth" on the exploitation of a black woman he owned as property, as well as other exhibits like the male slaves he claimed were "wild men from Borneo" who were actually kidnapped Africans, again, treated like possessions.

Today, we remember him as "an American showman, businessman, prankster, and entertainer," " an author, publisher, philanthropist, and a politician" -- but not as a racist. His extensively detailed Wikipedia page uses the word "racist" only once, in a passage assuring the reader that although Barnum's shoes were "replete with racist stereotypes," they ACTUALLY "satirized white racial attitudes"...by putting white men in blackface. In a Connecticut legislature debate on the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery, he declared, "A human soul, ‘that God has created and Christ died for,’ is not to be trifled with. It may tenant the body of a Chinaman, a Turk, an Arab or a Hottentot – it is still an immortal spirit" -- using a derogatory term for African people coined by Europeans. He later apologized only for having owned slaves, not for his unique history of human rights violations. Until his death, he continued to exhibit people of color as "living curiosities." His name is still promoted by the Ringling Brothers / Barnum & Bailey circus company.

P. T. Barnum was a piece of shit, and old-school circuses were for assholes. That's what I learned today.

My Harry Potter/Doctor Who crossover conspiracy theory.

The most exciting email I've ever gotten from my editor, after the very first one I received over a year ago accepting me for a position as a Mental_Floss intern, came in just a few hours ago with the opening line, "You're a HP nerd, right?" I've worn my Harry Potter colors proudly for years, sometimes on this very blog, so of course I jumped at the opportunity to write a piece summarizing all the information J. K. Rowling has shared about Harry Potter & friends in interviews post-Deathly Hallows, because if there is any way in which I am like Hermione, it's in the nearly obscene pleasure I take in first knowing something someone else doesn't know, then being able to teach it to them. So that article should be coming out tomorrow, and I hope I do it justice, although I don't look forward to the inevitable firestorm from fans attempting to correct my meticulously researched facts. (I have no qualms about insisting on this point: I do meticulous research. I'm not saying I don't make mistakes, but you know, I'm no slob about this kind of thing.)

While poring through the Harry Potter Wiki page on Aurors and lamenting not having the full set of seven books with me to use for reference, I found this observation about the films:

"In the films, Aurors tend to wear brown trench coats, possibly as a uniform. Kingsley Shacklebolt is the only Auror seen on-duty without one."

There's an accompanying image:

But hang on, that brown trench coat looks familiar. Have I seen it, or some similar article of clothing, before?

The Tenth Doctor was an Auror and I refuse to hear otherwise. The end.

Don't argue with me. Argue with THIS.

#NotYourAsianSidekick

Sometime earlier today, writer/artist/organizer Suey Park started a trending topic on Twitter using the hashtag #NotYourAsianSidekick. As I understand it, the phrase originated in a discussion specific to the issues surrounding Asian/Asian-American women's lack of a voice in mainstream feminism; as the hashtag took off, the online conversation has expanded to general issues of oppression, misrepresentation, and microaggressions experienced by AAPIs (Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders). It's not an easy topic to discuss with any nuance in 140-character blocks, but it's provided an incredible opportunity for an ad-hoc community to form and, if nothing else, air shared grievances and receive support for them in the form of retweets and favorites. (The less Twitter-literate might not appreciate the significance of this, but suffice it to say that it's a lot like sharing an opinion and have someone nod along vigorously, or like getting a high-five from a friendly stranger.)

For 10+ hours now, it's been an affirming space for some of us -- and here, I'm claiming my membership in the community -- to feel that we aren't alone in facing any form of oppression based on the color of our skin, the size of our eyes, our ability or lack thereof to do math, etc. There are a lot of experiences that I now take for granted, among them being pressed for where I'm really from (is New Jersey not real enough?), being asked if a horrible mispronunciation of my last name is "good enough" (no, it's not, but you'll move on anyway), being complimented on my amaaazing tan (thanks; I was born with it). By seeing those aspects of my experience as an Asian-American woman reflected back at me from utter strangers on Twitter, I've been reminded, jarringly, that they're really not okay at all. To be reminded of your oppression isn't a pleasurable experience in the least, but the solidarity is cathartic.

Of course, as soon as people of color start having any semblance of fun or dare to feel comfortable, someone has to step in and ruin the party. Today's White Savior came in the form of a "Neo-Libertarian" with a fancy college degree who happens to know a LOT more about oppression than I do, and he didn't hesitate to tell me all about it. I shouldn't have responded, but I'm a sucker for a good argument with someone who needs to lose.

The header for the Storify doesn't appear here, but it should read: "The hashtag #NotYourAsianSidekick has been trending on Twitter for hours. It's mostly filled with expressions of everyday oppression/discrimination/misrepresentation experienced by Asians/Asian-Americans and corresponding messages of support -- and some jerks. This is what happened when I responded."

If anyone wants to use this as a case study in derailment and the willful blindness conferred by overwhelming privilege, please do. Make sure to note his condescending tone, his flaunting of questionable academic credentials (and implied assumption that I have none of my own that might equal or surpass his), and his refusal to respect my desire to end the conversation civilly. Note that he continued to tweet at me, at one point telling me to "Hahaha Go to school, before you rant about topics too sophisticated for you" -- like my own life, I guess? Good thing Twitter reinstated the block function, because what a gross white guy.

(Incidentally, if this is still not clear to any acquaintances/complete strangers reading this who don't know me well enough to give me the benefit of the doubt, I understand that there are non-gross white guys. I salute them.)

More than this kind of all-too-common ignorance, though, I want to highlight the positive responses that have come out of this. I've compiled some of my favorite responses here, with mine included -- not because they're the "best," but because they're mine and it seems only appropriate to share them here.

[Suggested listening: "Concrete Wall," or any other song, really, by Zee Avi, an incredible Malaysian singer-songwriter more people should know about because...just listen to her.]

Male and female brains wired differently, according to scientists who should be fired.

According to an article in The Guardian based on a recently published study in PNAS entitled Sex differences in the structural connectome of the human brain, "scientists have drawn on nearly 1,000 brain scans to confirm what many had surely concluded long ago: that stark differences exist in the wiring of male and female brains." As a woman having read just the eight-word headline ("Male and female brains wired differently, scans reveal"), my knee-jerk reaction is that this must be wrong, cannot possibly be good science; as a former cognitive psychology student having read the entire news article and as much of the journal article itself as are available to me, my more rational, analytic response is still that this is wrong, and is not good science.

But which is the lady brain? Neither is pink...
National Academy of Sciences

This is blatant intellectual dishonesty, and both this writer and the researchers themselves should be ashamed. As unthinkable as it is that an entire team of Princeton researchers could draw such wildly inappropriate conclusions from their research, it is even more disheartening to consider the reasons why they might have done so. They argue that patterns of neural connectivity divide along gender lines, where "men's brains apparently wired more for perception and co-ordinated actions, and women's for social skills and memory, making them better equipped for multitasking." For any Neuro/Psych students who are thinking, "Hang on, that's the opposite of everything we've learned about the development of the human brain, which is primarily influenced by its environment," you're right! This write-up and even the study's own abstract are bullshit. Here's the tip-off:

"Male and female brains showed few differences in connectivity up to the age of 13, but became more differentiated in 14- to 17-year-olds."

That is to say that pre-adolescent brains proved, in fact, to be more similar than different until a certain cultural/developmental turning point, which implies that differences in neural connectivity are a product of environmental influence, not based on any biological gendered difference. To be clear: that is exactly the opposite conclusion that this writer, and the researchers themselves are touting. They gloss over the obvious implications -- that these so-called "hard-wired" differences between men and women are the product of gendered roles being forced upon them and that, in turn, shapes their brain functioning --  and the difference between cause and effect in interpreting these results in order to serve lukewarm stereotypes that men are more X and women are more Y because they were made that way. This is not only an incorrect application of these kinds of research methods; it's irresponsible, incorrect, and absolutely disgraceful.

The science correspondent's bias is obvious in his lazy introduction about scientists confirming what the common-sense population "had surely concluded long ago" about women and men's inherently different ways of thinking -- nice universal generalization of your own opinions to society at large, way to go. Even more troubling is how readily one of the contributing researchers summarizes her findings in such complacently sexist terms:

"If you look at functional studies, the left of the brain is more for logical thinking, the right of the brain is for more intuitive thinking. So if there's a task that involves doing both of those things, it would seem that women are hardwired to do those better," Verma said. "Women are better at intuitive thinking. Women are better at remembering things. When you talk, women are more emotionally involved – they will listen more."

Even the official news release from UPenn piles on the hackneyed stereotypes:

"For instance, on average, men are more likely better at learning and performing a single task at hand, like cycling or navigating directions, whereas women have superior memory and social cognition skills, making them more equipped for multitasking and creating solutions that work for a group. They have a mentalistic approach, so to speak."

Women are more intuitive and better listeners, of course! Of course, of course. They are also better equipped to cook and clean because their brains are smaller in size, and thus cannot handle the cognitive load required for higher-order tasks like running a business, leading meetings, or being ordained into the Catholic Church. Men are better at learning -- all types of learning, all the time, no matter what. That's why they're so much smarter.

I had assumed this kind of thinking went out of fashion along with phrenology, but sometimes I can be wrong, too. I eagerly await follow-up brain scan studies confirming that white men are more likely to succeed in leadership positions, black women don't feel pain, and Asians are better than everyone else at math.