what i hate about brown

there's a lot of things actually. and i don't know if it has to do with south asian culture, or purely pakistani culture, so for all intensive purposes, brown here refers to pakistani(s).

in no particular order:


i am irked when i am told to respect elders. when they enter a room, you must stand up with respect and offer your seat. i have no problem with this. my problem lies in the fact that you are not allowed to question the ways of elders, or the thoughts they may have. you are definitely not supposed to question when they ask you to do something. the idea is, with years under their belt, they should be revered. the belief is that age presupposes knowledge and authority. this is absolutely ludicrous. there are plenty of old people out there who do not know what they're talking about. moreover, if gender presupposed authority (and i'm sure that would mean being male presupposed authority), then women would be screaming and shounting and demanding their freedom(s). so why is age any different? should we add race to the mix too? what do you teach your children when you teach them to quietly listen to adults? how many children are exploited daily because they do not question what they are hearing, witnessing, and going through?


another popular lesson brown people learn early on in their lives is that things must be done out of a sense of obligation. more and more each day, my problem with this belief grows and grows. as someone who had many individuals show up to her mother's funeral (many of whom i had never met, and perhaps many of whom had never met my mother), i understood obligation at 16. it means showing your faces places, and making appearances, when you would much rather not. it means saving face and preventing people from thinking badly of you. you showed up to the funeral of a stranger, so you can not be an evil person... that is the line of thinking. it makes me seethe with rage when i think of people showing up to dinners, parties, funerals, anywhere near me, because they feel obligated to do so. this has affected me so drastically that i can not bring myself to go places unless i really, truly, want to. just this past december, one of my closest friends lost her father, and i was at her place everyday, helping her heal, because i wanted to be. when you ask me to do something, and i say yes without any hesitation, it's because i want to help, not because i feel compelled to since i was asked by a friend. when i go places it's because i know the company will be good for me, and i will do good for/to them. i don't care that it's a significant day- that is not reason enough for me to be present. why be fake? why pretend? why the farce? this however, does not sit well with my browner counterparts.


there's more where that came from, but i'll save it for another day. i had to get those two issues out, because they are every minute, pressing concerns. and well, no one here seems to get it.

shocking.