Willow H.,
UK
Since I can remember, I’ve been taught that a bigot was one of the worst things a person can be and I have always agreed. I still do. I think that hating someone for something like race or gender or sexuality is a horrible thing and all my friends and family agree.
Almost two years ago now, when I was thirteen years old, I was writing for a project I am still working on to this day. I won’t go into details, but my vision for this world was a dystopia in which the chaos has turned all countries into groups much like criminal gangs, so all people are born neutral with a number for a name and then join a country when they get older, rather than being born somewhere. The main gangs the storyline focuses on are France and Japan, as well as America and a few other places (but less so).
This resulted in white characters with Japanese names, which I didn’t even think about until my friend’s boyfriend (who has always been really kind to me) told me that this was “racism and cultural appropriation” and that if I showed my project to the public they may view it as such. I was shocked and I completely freaked out.
After much crying, hyperventilating and obsessively researching the subject for hours on end, I came to the conclusion that things may or may not be fine. I’m still not entirely sure. It took me months to be able to look a person of colour in the eyes without fearing that I would say something out of line and offend them. The slightest suggestion that I might be racist now, even just a petty joke, can send me spiralling. I don’t know why or if anything is wrong with me, but I can’t even hear the word “race” without feelings of dread and fear rising within me.
Here’s a couple of examples of things that set off my fear now:
-The fact that I am white and I like anime and cosplay. And yes, roll your eyes all you want, but I really do like the Japanese language and hope to learn it sometime in the future. This only made matters worse, however, as I often see people saying that white people enjoying anime is cultural appropriation.
-I once watched a video that said that white people using non-white emojis is cultural appropriation. If I happen to remember this while scrolling through my emojis, I tend to get upset all over again.
-The fact that “people of colour” and “coloured people” are such similar phrases with such different connotations. I’m always terrified that I’ll accidentally say the wrong one and everyone will hate me.
-White guilt stuff. Makes me feel like not hating myself makes me racist.
Anyways, this got super vent-y, but I’ve kept this bottled up for years with nowhere to talk about it, so I just had to finally let out all my feelings on the matter. Hope this doesn’t offend anyone who reads it.
