The burden of representation is real, and a heavy one at that
Earlier this year I was listening to the Brown History Podcast, and this particular episode was an interview with British Indian writer and screenwriter Nikesh Shukla. I’m paraphrasing here, but he spoke about the added baggage that writers and creatives from minority backgrounds carry. That baggage is so heavy that it effectively hinders your ability to perfect your craft and produce your art. When you’re a person of colour trying to produce art, so much of your time is spent networking, lifting people within your community up, fighting your industry against discrimination, proving that your deserve a spot at the table, and carrying the burden of representation for your people. That baggage is so heavy that it effectively hinders your ability to perfect your craft and produce your art. When you’re a person of colour trying to produce art, so much of your time is spent networking, lifting people within your community up, fighting your industry against discrimination, proving that your deserve a spot at the table, and carrying the burden of representation for your people.
Pitching ideas to media companies is an uphill battle. You’re met with ‘people don’t care about this’, or ‘we already have a show with a brown lead, we don’t need two’. This is exhausting and unpaid work. This is work white people with privilege generally don’t have to do, giving them all the time in the world to hone their craft, and to get paid for it.
“That baggage is so heavy that it effectively hinders your ability to perfect your craft and produce your art. When you’re a person of colour trying to produce art, so much of your time is spent networking, lifting people within your community up, fighting your industry against discrimination, proving that your deserve a spot at the table, and carrying the burden of representation for your people. ”
In light of the awfully named film based on Jacinda Ardern’s response to the Christchurch Mosque Shooting ‘They are us’, this struggle rings more true for me than ever before. White Hollywood has the green light to produce a film about a massacre of Muslims, but centred on a white woman who was, let’s be honest, just doing the job she was elected to do.
Hollywood has never taken any duty of care for how they portray already oppressed people. I certainly don’t expect them to now, all of a sudden, care what a Muslim from Christchurch has to say about their trauma, Islamophobia, racism, and life as a Muslim in a Western country after the shooting.
As I write this, a 9-year-old Muslim boy in Canada is coming to terms with the fact that his sister, parents, and grandmother are no longer with him. He now has to navigate his life alone because a white terrorist decided that he hated how his family looked and worshipped. He saw this family and connected them with the images he saw on TV and in films, decided they were one and the same, and deliberately ran them over and killed them.
This is our reality and it is the fear that we live with. His story is the raw and uncomfortable truth that we are still reluctant to understand. But these are the stories they don’t allow us to tell. They instead prefer to know how white people respond to a white supremist terrorist attack.
Can you imagine Muslims being given the same liberties? Have you ever watched a film about how Muslims respond to terror attacked caused by Muslims? Have you ever seen the way we rally around each other, raise funds, and pray together? No, because it doesn’t fit the narrative. As Riz Ahmed said, ‘Muslims in films are either invisible or villains’. They can’t stand to humanise us and if they had bothered to do so, I wonder if this beautiful young boy would have his family by his side today. Perhaps they would be going for another walk, enjoying a lovely and warm summers day in Toronto.
Instead of a film about ‘they’ being one of ‘us’, why not a film about Haji-Daoud Nabi – when the time is right, of course, which is not now. What had he faced in his life, and what was the state of his heart and soul that when he saw a man coming at him with military-style guns, that his first instinct was to greet him with ‘Hello brother’. Can we see this story, or does this not fit the image of what men from Afghanistan are supposed to be like?
With the global persecution of Muslims, the way that we are analysed and scrutinised through a fine tooth comb; the opinion of one is applied to over a billion people all over the world. The burden of representation is real, and a heavy one at that.
The more I think about this, the more I wonder how much freedom do we really have? Systemic censorship and misrepresentation of ethnic, indigenous, and LGBTQ+ voices runs so deep that I can’t even tell if what we do say is a true and honest account of what our reality is.
I’m reflecting on books I’ve read by people of colour, and how much freedom they have to write what they want to without worrying about external forces. I know that for me personally, so much of what I write is motivated by correcting mistruths about my community and offering another side to the story.
“How much do we create just to retell our own history through art and fiction? How much are we bound by funders’ ideas and expectations of how minorities should behave? How much are we influenced by the feeling of the day? This is the system of censorship that stops us from telling our own stories.”
I wonder if when minorities are at the table, it comes with conditions that censoring the issues we can talk about. This is not real change, and it is not real representation. Censorship of minority voices doesn’t start when books are burnt. It starts with barriers, and so many barriers that many don’t bother trying. It’s a sneaky, sly and subtle process, but it works.
Things about Christchurch you should read and listen to —
Widows of Shuhada – a podcast series about four women made widows after the shooting, and how they navigated life in the year following without their husbands. Created by then-broadcasting student and member of the Christchurch Muslim community Asha Abdi
The Guest House – a podcast by Mohamed Hassan where he speaks with New Zealand-Muslims as they come to terms with the attack
Husna’s Story – a book written by survivor Farid Ahmed and his martyred wife who’s heroism saved him and other women and children that day
Words — Latifa Daud
Image — Afghanistan circa 1970s (source unknown)
