One of these things is not like the others, one of these things does not belong.
And that's okay!
Nota Bene: There is gonna be a long running series here of observations on identity and the literal ‘situation’ of our material selves. I think not even contra-technological progress, but enhanced by it, it will matter more than anything.
I recently saw a completely unremarkable but useful to read story shared by Daithí Ó Fallamháin, the Irish Freedom Party Secretary, from the Dublin InQuirer:
“A woman searches for space to offer yoga classes to minority women”
The article runs too long. Jane Xavier is a Brazilian woman who has immigrated (or at least now resides in) to Dublin, Ireland. She had a miscarriage in 2019 after an understandably difficult experience with the hospital midwives and obstetricians. In 2021 she had an abortion. Readers will know that I am highly sympathetic to women who suffer miscarriages, and generally suspicious of abortion. There is some evidence to suggest women with African heritage are more likely than European women to suffer miscarriages but the article slyly suggests by implication the hospital staff are at fault (and worldwide, moreover).
This dimension of the Jane’s story is presented overly to contextualize what she describes as trauma - but it’s evident that’s not the only objective, or even top of mind for Jane herself. The real reason to tell the story this way is because of what actually motivates her trauma (hereafter: discomfort): not fitting in.
Jane Xavier says she felt the weight of cultural differences for the first time at her daughter’s funeral in Dublin.
She grew up in Brazil. “I had never attended a funeral [in Ireland],” said Xavier during a Zoom meeting on Wednesday 12 July. “I was like, ‘Wow, people don’t really cry.’”
At the heart of her initiative is the idea of making yoga classes in Ireland – which are often White spaces – more inclusive of women from minority backgrounds.
A friend suggested lunchtime yoga classes…It helped, but she felt isolated and out of place in classes, said Xavier. “I just don’t want to be the only Black person in the room.”
Xavier envisions minoritised women of all body types being themselves, moving at their own pace, with poses that will help their bodies release troubling emotions and grief.
“My dream is going to a room that will be only Black and ethnic minorities, and we don’t need to be worried about, ‘Oh, is someone doing handstands?’” she said, during the Zoom launch.
Take a good long look at that map. Jane Xavier, a black ‘Afro-Brazilian’ woman, moved to Ireland. She was from somewhere but then went to Dublin. The Irish, meanwhile, are so very much from Ireland that they are called the “Irish”. Their paleness, a result of their rainy clime, northern latitude and relative reproductive isolation for millennia before the airplane could take Jane anywhere, is renown.
To state the obvious: Jane would have an easier time achieving her stated goals—of not being the only Black woman, and of not feeling her discomfort, and of being able to walk into a room that only has Blacks and other ‘ethnic minorities’ (hasn’t she realized what that requires?)—by simply going back to Brazil.
On a fundamental level, her discomfort with living in Ireland is a result of her not feeling a sense of belonging there. But why is that odd? She doesn’t belong.
She’s not from Ireland. Her ancestors aren’t from Ireland. Her family isn’t from Ireland. She has no extended relatives who have made their home in Ireland. She moved as an adult, and so presumably, she didn’t even have many, if any, old childhood or school-days friends or former colleagues in Ireland. Think about it:
Do you?
I sure don’t. I mean, if you’re one of my Irish readers, sure, I guess you do, but even if you’re an Irish-American reader of mine, do you really? It’s not certain. Would you move to Ireland tomorrow if all the expenses of relocation and a year of living were included? I certainly wouldn’t. It would be a crazy thing to do. It’s not even really advisable to move to a new city where you know literally no one, without a purposeful and driven mission (usually one taken on early in life, related to educational or career ambitions). But of course, Jane Xavier has a mission. Her mission is: making yoga classes in Ireland – which are often White spaces – more inclusive of women from minority backgrounds.
I think Jane’s story is useful because the path to a remedy for her problems and the path to a remedy for everyone else are the same: we need to be much more open about how many people don’t belong where they are and should go home.
Obviously, as an Indian ( hyphen, American) writing in the US a long way from the Deccan, I don’t exclude myself. To the extent I have any misgivings with longstanding features of American society, it would be fair to just point out “It’s not yours, you arrived”. But to be even more fair—I don’t invite myself to BBQs just to whinge about why there are no vegetarian options and a separate grill.
There’s nothing wrong with not fitting in everywhere, or feeling discomfort.
We can’t fit in everywhere, if we did, we wouldn’t be people with any kind of identity. A glam metal band from the 1980s does not belong in a 2010s Buddhist funeral. People who can’t play golf don’t belong in golf tournaments. We are well along in the process of denying this principle when it comes to biological sex, but that’s another case where the simple wisdom of what people are and what they are not should be something we gently, firmly, assert over the delusional.
This doesn’t even need to come with any kind of physical brutality or jackbooted thugs rounding up those who don’t belong—though this is the mental pattern resorted to immediately by capital-L Liberals. I think Mitt Romney was right about ‘self-deportation’; either by finally piping down or by going home, a lot of maladjusted activists in the West would be better off and so would everyone else, if they were just told that they don’t belong where they are.