I am a dancer.
I worry what you hear when I 

say that is I like dancing. Which to 
be fair, I do. I love going to Brown 
parties and busting out all the 
latest Bollywood moves, or trying 
to see if my muscles remember 
the motions from long ago ballet 
classes, or trying and failing to 
imitate those cool K-Pop routines.

But that’s not what I said.
I said, I am a dancer.
Specifically, I am an Indian 

classical dancer trained in the 
North Indian style known as 
Kathak. It’s a beautiful form that 
originally was a temple dance 
before getting bastardized as 
a whore’s dance by the British, 
before getting bastardized again 
by 
Bollywood 
before 
being 

reclaimed once more in recent 
years.

It’s a part of my culture, but it 

feels like, just with every beautiful 
aspect of my heritage that I so 
cherish, it gets warped.

Like the other day, when my 

Dada (paternal grandfather) and I 
spoke. For those of you who don’t 
know, one of the most important 
religious texts for the average 

Hindu is the Bhagavad Gita, and 
not once does it say anything to 
the effect of “man shall not lie 
with man” or some other bullshit 
nonsense like that. So why was 
there such a toxic backlash toward 
the LGBT community? The repeal 
is too recent to have changed 
the 
national 
culture 
toward 

queerness.

That shouldn’t be my culture, 

because that’s not what my 
religion preaches, but somehow 
that’s a part of my culture now.

My religion teaches us the 

power of women: these angry, 
glorious 
women 
who 
killed 

demons, brought their husbands 
back from the grips of the lord of 
the dead, stayed strong in the face 
of terror, and represent knowledge 
and wealth. Somehow, it’s been 
twisted into this belief that girls 
are burdens. The same people 
who say a daughter-in-law is a 
form of Lakshmi, the goddess of 
wealth, taking human form also 
bemoans the fact that they have a 
daughter in the first place. (These 
are the same people who ignore 
daughters-in-law used to come 
with dowries because daughters 
were sold into marriage).

It’s hypocritical and I hate it.
The deities who are depicted 

in caves and ancient art as dark 

skinned. The deities became blue 
skinned when Victorian artists 
decided it was more aesthetically 
pleasing. Yet also, Bollywood 
only rewards light skin and every 
aspect of media shows fair and 
lovely is better than any kind of 
melanin.

It makes it so hard to love 

myself, including my heritage.

There’s this distance between 

my culture and my religion and 
I can’t understand how these 
discrepancies formed. It can’t only 
be the last stubborn remnants of 
colonization, can it?

I feel like I constantly have to 

twist myself to defend a religion 
I don’t practice very faithfully in 
order to feel somewhat proud of 
the culture I am so grateful to have 
inherited. I have to weave through 
the bits and pieces I believe are 
wrong to settle into what feels 
right.

When it comes to my identity, 

I’m always dancing around the 
labels and categories that come 
with my heritage to put together 
something that bridges the gap 
between what I’m taught and what 
I see. I don’t stop performing when 
I’m off the stage, because I can’t.

I am a dancer.
And sometimes, it feels like 

that’s all I’ll ever be.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Michigan in Color
Monday, October 22, 2018 — 3A

Twisting meaning: my religion

AKANKSHA SAHAY

MiC Blogger

COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR

The thing about being the only 

woman of color in the room is 
that sometimes I forget that this 
is not how it has to be.

If I am just hanging out 

with my friends, sitting with 
the fellow interns or meeting 
with my superiors at work, it 
is easy to forget about race and 
diversity demographics. In the 
same way that you might forget 
about a distinctive feature on a 
friend (like brightly dyed hair) 
or in the way that I don’t notice 
my mother’s Chinese accent, 
familiarity with the individual 
has a way of making us forget 
our differences and see through 
to the person.

That’s not to say I forget who 

I am. I value my heritage greatly. 
My sisters and I will often 
remark that we are thankful 
that we are not fully white (as 
mixed-race people are often just 
identified with their non-white 
part). But as a biracial person, I 
can also often pass as white or at 
least be seen as a stereotypically 
non-threatening 
minority, 

and this may contribute to my 
ability to not constantly think 
about my race and feel relatively 
comfortable in spaces without 
much diversity.

But the thing about being the 

only women of color in most 
rooms is that it can become so 
normal — until you realize it is 
not.

My office (which is otherwise 

wonderfully 
welcoming 
and 

amazing) has only a handful of 
people of color working here — 
two of which are interns. When 
I am sitting with my bosses (two 
white men) or with the other 
interns, I sometimes forget that 
I am the only woman of color 
voice in that room. I don’t feel 
uncomfortable or like an outsider 
— I am just a team member.

But there are other times 

when I sit in our large conference 

room in a meeting with half the 
staff, and staring at me from the 
other side of the table are dozens 
of blue eyes with blonde hair 
and the room starts to feel warm 
and almost suffocating in its 
whiteness. Instead of focusing 
on the presentation at hand, I 
can’t help but count the people 
of color in the office and in the 
room, wondering if they are 
thinking the same thing I am.

These 
feelings 
manifest 

themselves in different ways, 
too. 
One 
night 
I 
had 
the 

opportunity to hear from a panel 
of former Barack Obama White 
House staff members who were 
all women of color, and it was 
uplifting to see people from 
such diverse backgrounds have 
a major influence on policy. 
The audience was also filled 
with more women of color, and 
I felt overwhelmingly at peace 
yet also excited to see so many 
young professional women of 
color succeeding in Washington, 
D.C., where too often we are 
surrounded by white men.

Another night, in a very 

different context, I was drunk 
at a bar and met an Asian man 
who had recently moved to the 
U.S. He talked about how he was 
having a difficult time finding 
community here. Overflowed 
with emotion, I hugged him and 

sobbed uncontrollably for the 
next hour. It struck me then that 
I also had not found an Asian 
community here, and I could 
only imagine how much more 
difficult it was for him as an 
immigrant who was new to the 
city and country. The encounter 
reminded me how much I value 
my family and community at 
home and how much I missed 
that bond.

So, when I say I forget about 

being a woman of color when 
surrounded by white people, 
it’s not that I forget that I am, 
in fact, a woman of color. It’s 
that I almost suppress those 
emotions and forget how much I 
value those connections in order 
to find new ways to bond with 
white people to succeed in the in 
the world they rule.

I’ve learned about sports that 

I don’t care about so that I can 
chat with my boss about the 
latest college football updates 
after the weekend. I hold my 
tongue when my superiors talk 
about China and policy and 
marketing projects there because 
it is not my place to criticize their 
strategy as the intern (even if I 
lived there and have family there 
and understand the culture way 
better than they ever could). I 
pretend it is normal to be the 
only person of color in the room.

It can seem like everyone 

with any power is a white man 
in places like D.C. or in the 
corporate 
world 
sometimes. 

That every room you enter you 
will be the only person of color. 
But at other times there will be 
glimmers of hope when you hear 
from successful people of color 
who build each other and their 
communities up with them. Or 
when you attend an event aimed 
at your community and you 
finally feel at home.

It is sometimes easier to forget 

when you are the only woman of 
color in the room — easier to try 
to blend in and make people like 
you — but that doesn’t mean it’s 
right. 

Being the only WOC in the room

LYDIA MURRAY

MiC Columnist

When I first read “The Hate 

U Give,” I remember feeling 
emotional. 
More 
than 
just 

understanding the very core of 
what was being discussed and the 
politics around Black activism, 
I was the main character, Starr 
Carter: attending a private white 
school and doing her very best 
to never give anyone a reason to 
call her “ghetto,” playing by the 
rules, but going home and finally 
taking off that facade she put on 
when she went to school. Though 
I didn’t grow up in a neighborhood 
like Garden Heights, there are 
undeniable parallels between Starr 
and me that I have never seen 
represented in a book, movie or TV 
show before. For the first time, it 
felt like a part of my life that I was 
so timid to speak about was being 
shown to the world because it was 
more than just my experience. It 
was the experience of thousands of 
other Black girls who were put into 
private schools by their parents 
who wanted the world for their 
babies, sacrificing anything to send 
them to a good school.

Add in that her childhood best 

friend, Khalil, reminds me of my 
childhood “brother” who still 
mocks me for hanging around 
“white kids who don’t know what 
real music is” and laughs at my lack 
of knowledge of remixes he plays 
when he has the aux cord in the car. 
The trio of my sister our best friend 
— who always seemed to get us in 
trouble – and me: We were Khalil, 
Natasha and Starr.

I just wish that losing someone 

close to us at the hand of a gun 
wasn’t 
something 
that 
Starr 

and I didn’t have to share, but 
nonetheless, we do.

Sprinkling in the ignorance of 

her “friends” who could care less 
about the blatant mistreatment 
of the Black community around 
them because “it doesn’t matter” 
is also something that I had 
the misfortune of dealing with 
through my years in high school. 
Starr’s character was the closest 
I had ever come to seeing my life 

become a part of a conversation 
bigger than myself and I felt so 
incredibly proud to be able to have 
read something so moving and 
inspiring.

But, imagine my surprise when 

I found out Amandla Stenberg was 
going to play Starr in the movie. 
You’re probably confused as to 
why, so here’s a visual presentation:

This is the original cover of 

Starr, dark-skinned and rocking 
her type-4 fro.

Here’s what Amandla taking the 

role of Starr looks like: 

See the difference?
The thing that stuck out to me 

most was her skin color. Starr in the 
book is darker, as she is described 
as being “a medium brown” shade. 
Apparently, it was a decision by 
Fox Studios to make Starr into 
someone the shade of Stenberg, 
who is much lighter skinned than 
Starr’s original character. Besides 
Stenberg being the “go-to” Black 
girl for the rise of many diverse 
films, her politics are startling to 
me.

A point of contention right now 

is role representation and what it 
means for individual actors and 
actresses to demonstrate their 
solidarity against colorism and 
focusing on representation in 
Hollywood. Stenberg, known for 
her many roles in blockbuster hits, 
could have easily turned down this 
role like her counterpart Zendaya, 
who has been rejecting roles that 
darker-skinned 
women 
could 

only dream of because she knows 
Hollywood will never budge on 
casting talented Black women 
otherwise. But, she took the easy 
route and played the role in a movie 
that was destined to propel her 
career. Can I blame her for wanting 
to succeed in a white world? No. 
But I can blame her for taking 
this role from someone with less 
exposure than her to accurately 
portray the girl I saw when I first 
opened the book.

And don’t me get started on 

Starr’s original white boyfriend 
being played by Kian Lawley, who, 
after filming the movie, was found 
yelling the n-word in a hidden 
YouTube video and promptly 
kicked off the project. I don’t have 
the energy to give to racist white 

boys.

Despite the controversy, the 

content of the movie is what 
actually matters.

*Spoilers ahead*
Everyone knows that movie 

adaptations can be, well, terrible. 
However, the cast fit the characters 
perfectly from the books and 
even gave the spotlight to some 
undiscovered Black actresses and 
actors, which is something that 
movies like this should aim to do 
when discussing topics that affect 
an entire community of people.

I cried. I didn’t expect to; in fact, 

I felt like I was going to dislike the 
way the plot and characters didn’t 
seem natural. Instead, I found 
myself immersed in a world that 
had mirrored my own for so many 
years of my life that I almost felt 
violated. To me, the movie focused 
on the important parts of the Black 
experience as it did in the novel.

The collision of worlds that were 

compartmentalized within Starr’s 
mind falling apart in front of her 
eyes as she held on so desperately 
was heart-wrenching. Just like 
in our eyes, when something that 
we worked indescribably hard 
to uphold unravels, picking up 
the broken pieces to repair them 
is our first instinct. However, in 
realizing something of value to our 
character has fallen apart, there 
is an acknowledgment that part 
of ourselves never being the same 
again.

Starr realizes to move forward 

with the events in her life, tshe 
has to push aside her feelings 
of guilt that have followed her 
since childhood. Shedding the 
unsureness and utter fear she 
encounters as she speaks about the 
gang violence, police brutality and 
hatred she and those she has loved 
faced their entire lives.

As Tupac once said, “The 

Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks 
Everyone.” It was more than 
violence that killed Khalil, it 
was the very pain that had been 
passed down from generations of 
degradation and hatred. 

Relating to “The Hate U Give”

LORNA BROWN
Senior MiC Editor

In Arabic class this week, 

our 
infamous 
textbook 

AlKitaab transitioned from one 
controversial and politicized topic 
to the next, the new lesson being 
about violent Arab revolutions 
and governments as opposed to 
the previous lesson on marriage 
traditions. 
One 
advantage 
of 

this stark shift in topics is that a 
lot of the content material was 
reminiscent of the 2011 Egyptian 
revolution, and discussions of the 
chants used by protesters made 
me think of the music that arose 
as part of the movement. Despite 
not living in Egypt when the 
revolution broke out, this music 
connected me to my country, 
taking a distant cause and making 
it accessible to everyone.

“Yalmidan” 
(Oh 
Square) 
- 

Cairokee ft. Aida El-Ayoubi

“Oh Square, where were you 

long ago?”

This ode to Tahrir Square, 

where the protesters gathered in 
Cairo, captures the spirit of the 
revolution more than just about 
any other song in my opinion. The 
singers attribute their success to 
the Square, personifying it with all 
of the vigor and emotion behind the 
revolution. They tell it, “You have 
turned on the lights and collected 
around you a broken people. We 
are born anew,” crediting the 
Square with unifying the Egyptian 
masses and their struggles. What 
really stands out to me about 
this song is the fact that it isn’t 
looking at the revolution through 
rose-colored glasses. “Yalmidan” 
invokes the reality of life in pre-
revolution Egypt, helping listeners 
understand 
the 
long-lasting 

desperation and essential nature 
of finally speaking out against the 
regime and the hope they gained 
as a result. They describe how 
“The sound of freedom gathers 
us, our lives now have meaning. 
There’s no going back, our voice 
is now heard, and to dream is no 
longer forbidden.” Additionally, 
the anxiety of where the revolution 
would take them and whether the 
momentum would pay off is not 
forgotten as Aida El-Ayoubi sings, 
“Sometimes I’m scared we will 

become a memory, we move away 
(from you) and the idea dies,” but 
she later reaffirms her faith in the 
movement, reassuring listeners 
that “Our idea is our strength.”

“We will protect our country, as 

will the children of our children, 
and we’ll restore the rights of the 
youth who died for it”

“Sout el Horeya” (The Sound of 

Freedom) - Cairokee 

“I came down and said I’m not 

coming back

And I wrote with my blood in 

every street

We made ourselves heard by 

those who weren’t listening

And all the barriers were 

broken”

To me, this song always evokes 

an image of the whole country 
holding their heads up in the face of 
injustice and poverty, and working 
toward a common goal. This image 
is translated beautifully into the 
music video of different protesters 
singing the lyrics in the sea of 
demonstrators. 
One 
particular 

lyric calling out the regime’s 
selfishness by telling those in 
charge to stop using the word “I” 
embodies the community and 
connectivity of the protesters who 
were truly fighting for something 
bigger than themselves.

“In every street in my country
The sound of freedom is calling” 
“Hor” (Free) - Black Theama
This song, while not explicitly 

referencing the revolution, is 
essentially a list compiled by my 
absolute favorite Egyptian band, 
Black Theama, of simple things 
they consider part of becoming 
free. While these things included 
being free to style their own 
clothes or choose what time they 
sleep, they also touched on more 
complex freedoms that we may 
take for granted, like being free to 
dream, pick their religion or love 
their country. They also mention 
freedom to live their childhood 
and hate their government, both 
rights that were robbed from 
them as conditions didn’t permit 
some kids to just be kids without 
the weight of the world on their 
shoulders, and criticizing this 
corruption was punishable by 
imprisonment. They explain the 
need to fight for these freedoms 
and not stand idly by while the 
government profits off of their 
impoverishment, saying clearly 

“I like to live a peaceful life, but if 
you force me to be violent, I will 
be violent because I’m free.” It is 
also important that they describe 
their desire to be peaceful but 
being forced to action as I think 
media tends to portray violence 
as the first resort for Arabs as 
opposed to a final one. Perhaps 
the main point Black Theama is 
trying to make is that freedom 
means not only being afforded the 
opportunity to make decisions, but 
also being given a platform to say 
what’s on their mind. This desire 
for independence and to be heard 
is best articulated when they say, 
“I won’t be part of a machine, I 
won’t be a human extra. On my 
own I want to be important, and 
important means I’m free.”

“Ezzay” (How?) - Mohamed 

Mounir 

This song, also by a personal 

favorite, 
Mohamed 
Mounir, 

quickly became an anthem for 
the revolution. In it, Mounir asks 
Egypt, “How come I raise your 
head up high, but you push my head 
down, how come?” He goes on to 
describe how he is Egypt’s oldest 
street and biggest hope, pleading 
with 
the 
country, 
imploring 

why he was left vulnerable and 
abandoned when all he has ever 
done was hope for the country’s 
prosperity. This song explains 
the injustice brought about by a 
corrupt regime to the people who 
have lived their whole lives loving 
and working for the same country 
that is bringing them down.

“Irhal” (Leave) - Ramy Essam
One of the most powerful 

and unifying aspects of the 
revolution 
were 
the 
chants 

used by the protesters to call for 
Hosni Mubarak to step down. 
These chants were colloquial 
and accessible to the masses, 
making it all the more powerful 
as thousands of protesters united 
in shouts of defiance and anger 
against the regime. Aiding in this 
accessibility was Ramy Essam’s 
song “Irhal,” collecting many of 
the chants into one combined song 
that he often performed in Tahrir 
Square during the revolution. 
The chants used in this song are 
translated and listed below.

The soundtrack of the revolution

NADA ELDAWY

MiC Columnist

“I can’t help but 
cound the people 

of color in the 

office in the room, 
wondering if they 
are thinking the 
same thing I am.”

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