Racism in the closet

Are queer spaces run by people of colour free of ableism, body shaming and an obsession with fair skin? Absolutely not, writes Chintan Girish Modi

I am amazed to find people who can name the exact ‘body type’ they are hunting for on digital dating apps. On the one hand, this seems dehumanising because a person is assessed like an item on sale in a supermarket. On the other hand, it appears that these people are being honest about their expectations, unlike others who hesitate to admit that they have specific ideas about what constitutes attractive in terms of shape, size, colour, look and texture.

“All of our desires, our preferences...they come from somewhere, right? We don’t exist in a vacuum. This idea that we somehow arrive at our desires without any input from the external world is wildly inaccurate,” says Josh Rivers, creator of the Busy Being Black podcast, during his appearance in Blaise Singh’s documentary film Pride and Protest (2020). I watched the film this October as part of the online Coalition of South Asian Film Festivals (CoSAFF) that was produced by Tasveer, a Seattle-based South Asian social justice arts non-profit organisation.

While addressing how queer people of colour in the UK challenge queerphobia and racism, this film makes room to discuss issues that are often swept under the carpet. It is perhaps easier to talk about hostility received from others than about the oppressive nature of internalised shame. What happens when queer people of colour realise that they want to date only White people because their minds are so colonised that they feel desirable and sexy only when a White person says so?

Josh Rivers in 'Pride and Protest'

Uncomfortable but true

According to Rivers, “sexual racism is a thing, and it’s something we have to grapple with.” I fully agree with him. It might be uncomfortable but hiding away from it is not the answer. Why do queer people of colour resist this inward gaze that might reveal something about the pain they carry? He says, “People are really scared to confront sexual racism because they see
themselves as not racist...there’s also this weird thing that happens...when racism is couched in desire, it’s somehow not (seen as) racism.”

While the film does not revolve around Rivers, he gives viewers an entry point into the complex emotional and political terrain that queer people of colour have to plough through when they seek friends, lovers and partners.

Queer support groups dominated by White people might not feel safe or inclusive to queer people of colour if their racial, cultural or linguistic identities are unwelcome. This is why UK Black Pride calls itself a “celebration for African, Asian, Middle Eastern, Latin American and Caribbean-heritage LGBTQ people.”

Skewed notions

Are queer spaces run by people of colour free of ableism, body shaming and an obsession with fair skin? Absolutely not! In the film, Rivers says, “The reduction of people to their exterior parts, to their skin tone, to their blackness, to the size of their penis...it’s all racist!” These notions of attractiveness circulate among queer people of colour as well.

They do not live on a separate planet unaffected by capitalism, popular culture and the inherited trauma of colonisation. How do caste hierarchies play out when the context is South Asian? In an essay titled ‘A Letter to My Lover(s)’, published in the anthology Eleven Ways to Love (2018), journalist Dhrubo Jyoti writes, “I had been trained to know what good looks are (Brahmin), what good queerness is (English-speaking), and what attractive background is (urban rich). You were casteless because you had all of these...But I worry that when we lie in bed together, I will fear how much you will recoil from my body if you knew my caste, or whether you are recoiling because you already do.”

Read this alongside Padma Iyer’s 2015 advertisement, looking for a “well-placed, animal-loving, vegetarian groom” for her activist son Harrish Iyer. It ends with “Caste no bar (though Iyer preferred).” In a blog post titled “I’m Gay, My Ma Placed An Ad Looking For a Groom For Me’, published after they were called casteist, the son writes, “My mother said that the preference for Iyer was obviously not important. She said she wouldn’t mind even if I marry someone differently-abled.” Wow!

(Not Only But Also is a regular column with a fresh take on gender, sexuality and more. Chintan Girish Modi is a writer, educator and researcher who tweets @chintan_connect)