A few people that I have been acquainted with over the years have turned into motivational Instagram influencers. In an articulate and empathetic fashion, they bring together affirmations and human psychology to represent the confidence that they hold within themselves. They then attempt to instill that confidence into their viewership – they reach out of their screens and hand over a piece of this spirit to viewers now enraptured by much needed encouragement and support. I was browsing my Instagram discover page and found one of these motivational videos discussing our right to claim space. In true influencer fashion and also exceedingly aware of the demographics those who view motivational content, this person began by expressing how unique our voices are. Unique voices dictated by different perceptions and experiences that have shaped our opinions as people. He mentioned that because of this, our voices deserve to be heard and we should no longer wait for permission to take space at tables where we deserve to sit. I thought his video was beautifully put, but I realized that I could never identify with this experience of being shunned from a space based solely on my identity.
I was never raised to think of myself within categories – categories of gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity. Maybe because once I became old enough to understand the nuances of human categorization, I had moved into the comfortable homogeneity of Pakistan life. I had my identities and as I grew, I knew that those identities played a critical role in my experiences. But I always felt that despite my categorical restrictions, I deserved to take space for the basic premise that ever since I was born, I was physically occupying space. I was birthed into the world without choosing so. And based on that, the world had been handed to me so that I may be a part of it. I was never uncomfortable in male dominant classes because I felt I had earned it by virtue of bringing myself into that space. I never found it difficult to speak up in meetings and conferences where I am the only woman present. Not because I think my experience as a woman is diverse enough to be spoken from, but because my opinions stem from an intelligence that I have had the privilege to foster. I have never been spoken over, or ignored, in an academic and professional setting. I have felt included and valued in every dialogue, every interview, for the words that I chose to speak. But I do not deny that these feelings of self-doubt and isolation are very valid experiences that women and minority communities reckon with on a daily basis. Because regardless of my experience, homogenous spaces function like communities and as a result, are always tailored to exclude.
An acquaintance of mine told me that she was once in a car with her boyfriend and his friends, and every time she spoke someone cut her off. That in that moment, she had never felt so invisible, so negligible, because they did that only to her and never to each other. A very close family member of mine once told me that after 7 years of exhibiting success in a male dominated industry, she has finally begun to recognize the value that she brings to a space plagued by monotony. A value that her male coworkers claim to have mastered upon first entering their spaces. I’ve seen my coworkers in meetings get interrupted incessantly because they do not speak as quickly as native English speakers do. Or because they have accents from other regions that seem so magically “foreign” to people claiming to be from societies so heterogeneous. I’ve seen people of color being called-on only to provide a “minority perspective” rather than a professional, company perspective. Or being asked to speak as the representative of their community, to generalize generations of experiences that they may not even be aware of.
It is luck, that I have never felt like I had to reclaim space. It is luck that I always felt like there was a seat for me at any table I chose to approach. Maybe it is a deep-rooted entitlement that brought me here, that gave me comfort in a room full of white men to speak my mind. Maybe because I always felt like within homogeneity, it is only when the diverse enters that evolution occurs. And I think that these spaces were always meant to be ours, that they’ve been placed on hold so that we may grab them once we’re ready. Because if we already occupy physical space, why should it be a challenge to migrate that space elsewhere? Who decides what belongs in a particular space when we’re all born on communal land?
I do believe with every fiber of my being, that diverse opinions make tables more inventive and expansive. But it is also important to consider which voices – not which people – are being sought after. That just because our identities are diverse, does not mean our thoughts and perspectives extend past the general norm.
Our communities often get stuck in the narratives that have been tacked onto them, so much so that when we speak, our thoughts are made dull by the burden of uniformity. We discuss our colorful cornucopia of ideas, but we water them down for the white man in front of us. We make them softer for him, more digestible. And in this process, our thoughts lose their meaning. We become the hollow voices that talk about “de-colonizing the mind” when we don’t know how to de-colonize our own minds. The hollow voices that uses buzz words to draw people into ideas that sound “ethnic” and “fresh” but are just heavily academicized thoughts about nothing tangible enough to be acted on. In those moments, our plethora of diverse experiences are lost. We’ve stepped onto a euphemism treadmill of gargantuan proportions, trapping ourselves within our own desires to belong in a space where we are innately different, rather than celebrating the difference that will propel us forward.
We do deserve to take space. We deserve to sit on powerful tables and we deserve to be heard on platforms spanning continents. But the question was never whether we deserved to be there, the question is whether once we get there, we’ll be willing to speak our truths with a veracity that shows how valuable we really are.
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