Janani Balasubramanian

May 08 2013

Thoughts

On the Merit of Blurred Lines

by Surabhi Nirkhe, ’13

I am tired of discourse that divides brown from white, the oppressed from the oppressors, students of color from white students, and the underprivileged from the privileged. Tracing and retracing these lines prevents us from creating identities that are much more complex, often in the spaces where these lines blur.

In her recent STATIC article, Holly Fetter ended with a powerful statement that resonated with me: “unless we confront our fears and make active changes to educate ourselves about the perspectives and experiences of those in other communities, we’ll never be able to see past the illusion of isolation”. To me, the recent mixer held between Sanskriti, the South Asian student organization, and the Stanford Israel Alliance represents just that. I did not attend the mixer, but I have been a part of similar events at Stanford, and I can honestly say that experiences which have pushed me to interact with individuals from outside my community have been some of the most valuable.

I do not mean to say that I don’t hold opinions; I do and I hold on to them very strongly. Continue reading →

Tagged colonialism, diaspora, ethnicity, family, immigration, India, Israel, Janani Balasubramanian, nationality, oppression, Palestine, privilege, race, Sanskriti, Surabhi Nirkhe, Tel Aviv meets Bombay

May 06 2013

10 Comments

Thoughts

On Mutual Privilege and South Asian Assimilation

by Janani, ’12

I am responding to Amrita Rao’s op-ed in the Daily responding to my recent piece in Static. Back-and-forth internet arguments are rarely my thing, but this particular piece was full of enough casteist and Indian nationalist propaganda to warrant a reply. I want to note first that because we’re operating in a global North context, both Rao’s words and mine have the very real danger of being taken as ‘native informant’ insight on this homogenous far away place called ‘India’. This is our strange privilege as diasporic people speaking for a country whose conditions we do not operate under. I hope you will be suspicious of both our positions when we speak about India. I hope you will seek out some of the sources I have named here, and more, especially by activists and scholars located in the global South.

I found two major structural problems throughout Rao’s piece:

Rao frequently (and uncritically) separates culture, politics, and religion. As I noted in the original piece, neither culture nor religion can be taken at face value without their political contexts. These forces are constantly influencing and shaping one another. Rao indicates I was trying to ‘put down’ Indian and Hindu culture. My aim is the opposite. I love my peoples and culture enough not to want them used in the service of colonial and other violences. I want to talk about our problems and injustices rather than participate in continued silence (silence that is enabled by my class, caste, and geographic positions). Continue reading →

Tagged Amrita Rao, caste, colonialism, Hinduism, Ilina Sen, India, Israel, Janani Balasubramanian, Judaism, Palestine, religion, Sanskriti, Stanford Israel Alliance, Tel Aviv meets Bombay, The Karma of Brown Folk, Vijay Prasad

May 03 2013

30 Comments

Thoughts

On ‘Tel Aviv meets Bombay’ and South Asian Assimilation

by Janani, ’12

My migration story looks and feels like the migration story of many South Asian immigrants in the late 20^th century. My parents were upper-caste Hindus, who, through a combination of a casteist education system and enough money to attend school, became skilled in computer science and math. We landed first in Ohio, where they both secured IT jobs, and began their relatively short ascent into the American middle class. We moved from our formerly colonized country to become settlers on this other occupied land. Our brown bodies and the professional income they would eventually carry were also gentrifying neighborhoods.

Unlike many Black, Latino, and Native communities, my community did not face disproportionate levels of police brutality, incarceration, etc. Indeed, until 9/11, when folks from across the South Asian diaspora were persecuted as possible Muslim terrorists, I did not consider myself a target for racist state violence. My assimilation was easy. I was becoming a White lie packaged in a brown body. The expectation in my household was also clear: that I would get good grades, attend a good school, continue my family’s class ascent, and not challenge or question the racist attitudes of this nation.

This strategy of assimilation has its roots partly in colonization: it was often safer to collaborate with the British colonial government than to challenge its White supremacy. Continue reading →

Tagged colonialism, colonization, diaspora, ethnicity, India, Israel, Janani Balasubramanian, race, racism, Sanskriti, South Asian, Stanford Israel Alliance, Tel Aviv meets Bombay

Mar 27 2013

13 Comments

Thoughts

Stanford Students on Marriage Memes

by Holly Fetter, ’13

You’ve undoubtedly seen an onslaught of red squares in your newsfeed this week as the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), a national LGBT rights organization, has encouraged supporters of marriage equality to display their politics via their profile photos. A red and pink version of the ubiquitous HRC logo has been consuming Facebook alongside many creative reinterpretations, including my personal favorite — the Tilda Swinton one. (Is it a political commentary? Is it a meta meme? We may never know).

But what do all these symbols mean? And what’s the difference between = and > and Paula Deen? I asked several Stanford students to share their thoughts on what these images mean to them.

I have the ‘greater than’ symbol, as a symbol of solidarity with all those whose relationships and models of community and care are excluded from the state’s recognition of marriages, and a statement that our queerness neither begins nor ends at assimilation. Marriage is not a ‘first step’ that has the potential to launch more conversation; it is, right now, an eclipsing step, that has overdetermined LGB politics in the US and erased much of the history of queer resistance pioneered by people of color, low-income queers, and trans* people.
—Alok Vaid-Menon, ’13

Continue reading →

Tagged Adam Detzner, Alok Vaid-Menon, DOMA, Erika Kreeger, Ethan Li, Giselle Moreau, Holly Fetter, HRC, Human Rights Campaign, inequality, Janani Balasubramanian, LGBT, LGBT rights, marriage equality, meme, Monica Alcazar, Prop 8, queer politics, queer rights, Supreme Court, Tess Dufrechou, Zoey Lema

Mar 13 2013

20 Comments

Thoughts

Dear Palestine

by Janani Balasubramanian, ’12

Dear Palestine,
On behalf of the student body of Stanford University, I am so sorry.
Four days ago, our undergraduate student government voted to support the continued invesment of our university’s money in corporations that profit from your suffering.

Palestine,
you have to understand this is the Obama age of politics.
the Obama age of hope and change and Haas Center fellowships.
Every day in our classrooms we invent new words for violence
call it ‘human rights’
call it ‘conflict’
call it ‘democracy’. Continue reading →

Tagged academia, academy, art, colonization, divestment, education, human rights, institution, Israel, Janani Balasubramanian, occupation, Ohlone, oppression, Palestine, poem, poetry, resistance, revolutionary art, suffering, violence, white supremacy

Jan 28 2013

2 Comments

Thoughts

White Fetish

by Janani Balasubramanian, ’12

A failing of the word ‘activism’ is its designation of certain activities as political engagement and the rest of our lives as some other floaty and apolitical space. In reality, we are always enacting and interacting with the structures of power and social positions each of us inhabit. My friend Alok and I were at a queer conference this weekend in Atlanta to facilitate the same workshop that we’re presenting tonight: ‘Because You’re Brown Honey Gurl!: A Dialogue about Race and Desire’. Our intention was to bring to bear a conversation on spaces where desire, sex, and romance circulate as political spaces. The project of queer liberation isn’t limited to our policy engagements or our organizing work — it is also about considering how we desire and are desired in white supremacist realities.

We use the term ‘sexual racism’ to describe the ways that racism and racist traumas inflect our romantic and sexual relations. Continue reading →

Tagged activism, activist event, art, colonialism, Creating Change, desire, Janani Balasubramanian, liberation, love, poetry, politics, queer, queer liberation, queer sexuality, race, racism, revolutionary art, romance, sex, sexual racism, sexuality, spoken word, White, White Fetish, white supremacy, whiteness, workshop

Nov 08 2012

A Unicorn of Color Mourns the 2012 Election

by Janani Balasubramanian, ’12

I think I am supposed to be excited. Because Obama being President means Obama is President means we have a biracial man sending drones to murder my Yemeni and Pakistani siblings instead of a white man–because what would the world think of us then? Because fewer undocumented folks will be deported, maybe. Because Obama being President means that Romney isn’t President means that the violence that ensues will look different; because at least he isn’t Mormon. Because Obama being President means that brown boys can now dream of being President instead of dreaming that they can live without the State. Tell me boys, what does your pride taste like?

You are being ungrateful.

I am grateful for a list of things
as long as time
(most of them are femmes of color).
That list does not include a government
that funds the occupation of Palestine.

Continue reading →

Tagged 2012 election, drone, immigrant rights, inequality, Janani Balasubramanian, loving the margins, Pakistan, poetry, President Obama, queer politics, racial justice, United States, Yemen

May 27 2012

2 Comments

Thoughts

Queer Rage

by Janani Balasubramanian, ’12, Alok Vaid-Menon, ’13,
and Cam Awkward-Rich, graduate student in Modern Thought & Literature

This poem, “Marriage”, also known as “Queer Rage”, is a critique of gay marriage politics as a strategy of liberation. Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage (or anyone else’s) is not where the struggle ends, or even begins, really. In the piece we call for a consideration of race, class, and other systems of control that complicate and intersect with queerness. We also point to the increasing corporatization and overwhelming whiteness of gay marriage politics. Overall, we point to a more critical consideration of violence and material oppression that is linked to queerness, and how insufficient marriage equality is in this regard. This piece was performed by the Stanford Slam Poetry team at the 2012 College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational. Video and transcript below.

Continue reading →

Tagged 2012 College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational, Alok Vaid-Menon, Cam Awkward-Rich, Janani Balasubramanian, LGBT rights movement, poetry, queer, queer politics, queer rights, revolutionary art, same-sex marriage, slam poetry, Stanford Slam Poetry, Stanford Spoken Word Collective

May 09 2012

23 Comments

Thoughts

A Guide to Hipster Anti-Racism

by Janani Balasubramanian, ’12

There have been quite a few articles floating around the net recently about hipster racism – that is, racist attitudes that are passed of as ironic and therefore excusable. This can include anything from Urban Outfitters making “Native print” underwear to blackface to the colonialist attitudes presented in period dramas. Racialicious presented a particularly great history of hipster racism and anti-racist responses to it. Here I want to delve into what I’m calling hipster anti-racism. It’s a term I’m using to describe those moments when (usually) white folks perform anti-racist/liberatory attitudes about a racialized issue in an attempt to appear subversive and often “hip.” Unlike hipster racism, it is not a performance of ironic racism but actually a performance of anti-racist attitude as a signifier of hipness. It is important to understand that hipster anti-racism can be performed by anyone, not just those we characteristically label as hipsters. Hipster anti-racism is defined by by being 1) insincere, 2) momentary, 3) subversive for the sake of being hip, and not for a deeper dismantling of systems of power and oppression, and 4) present in rhetoric almost exclusively, with little indication of substantive shifts towards anti-racist behavior or action.

In other words, hipster anti-racism, like much of hipsterdom, is defined by its appropriation and lack of historicity. Continue reading →

Tagged anti-racism, hipster anti-racism, hipster racism, Janani Balasubramanian, privilege, white anti-racism, white privilege, whiteness

Oct 19 2011

3 Comments

Thoughts

Out of the Margins, Into the Streets

by Janani Balasubramanian, ’12

“This might be a faulty assumption, I can’t help but wonder: where are all of Stanford’s lesbians (and bisexual and questioning women)? I have some theories, but I have no way to tell if any of these are actually true. It’s hard to track down a hidden or missing population.”

The quotation above is from a Stanford Daily article printed last week in which Jamie Solomon asked Stanford where all our lesbians are “hidden.” Her op-ed is frustrating to me on multiple levels. Some of my issues with the piece are easy fixes. We can replace “lesbians” with “queer women” (the latter term including women who are bisexual, pansexual, etc). We can also remove unfortunate stereotyping of gay men (whom she purports to know well because of her involvement with theater and a capella). It’s not Solomon’s lack of appropriate vocabulary or inexperience with the queer community that bothers me; it’s the fact that she was unwilling to look around just a little bit before determining that queer women are invisible on this campus. (And to note, a Google search for “Stanford lesbians” would have led her to the LGBT Community Resources Center.) Continue reading →

Tagged feminism, identity, Janani Balasubramanian, queer rights, queer women

STATIC

A site for Stanford activists to connect and create.

Tag Archives: Janani Balasubramanian

On the Merit of Blurred Lines

On Mutual Privilege and South Asian Assimilation

On ‘Tel Aviv meets Bombay’ and South Asian Assimilation

Stanford Students on Marriage Memes

Dear Palestine

White Fetish

A Unicorn of Color Mourns the 2012 Election

Queer Rage

A Guide to Hipster Anti-Racism

Out of the Margins, Into the Streets

Follow “STATIC”