Examination

Emerging Writer Series

Every two weeks or so I am publishing an essay from an emerging writer. This week’s essay is from Kaushika Suresh. Kaushika is an Indian-American writer. They are the non-fiction editor for Black Warrior Review and are currently working on a novel about gossip, girls, and existing between two cultures. This essay was edited by Meg Pillow.

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NAME: ______________                                                                       DATE: _____________

Directions: Read each question then circle the corresponding answer.

How do you say that again?

[…]

Oh, that’s beautiful!

1.     Is this an instance of racial aggression?

• No

• Yes

• I don’t know

Can I ask where are you from?

2. Is this an instance of racial aggression?

•     No

•     Yes

•     I don’t know

Can I ask where are you from?

3. Is this an instance of racial aggression?

•     No

•     Yes

•     I don’t know

Can I ask where are you from?

4. Is this an instance of racial aggression?

•     No

•     Yes

•     I don’t know

5.  Can I ask where are you from?

•     No

•     No

•     Please no

6. You look just like Mindy Kaling.

•     Yes

•     No

•     Thank you. Do I write like Jhumpa Lahiri too.

7. A white person in my MFA program says I am ____________.

•     A misogynist

•     A feminist

8. A white person in my MFA program says I am ____________.

•     threatening

•     harmless

A person in my MFA program laughs and says, I know I’m just a white boy. But do you think I can write people of color in my fiction?

9. Is this an instance of racial aggression?

•     No

•     Yes

•     I don’t know

10. The number of students in my program that have called me loud is:

•     0

•     1

•     7

•     All of them

11. If there are twelve (12) people in my fiction workshop and two (2) people talk when I turn in a story explicitly about race, how many people talk when I turn in a story not explicitly about race?

•     0

•     2

•     10

•     12

12. If each workshop lasts forty-five (45) minutes and the professor talks about my white classmate’s story for a total of ten (10) minutes, for how many minutes does she talk about my story?

•     0

•     10

•     35

•     45

My professor tells me he doesn’t see color.

My professor misses all our conferences.

My professor never says my name right.

13. Which of these do not belong?

•     My professor tells me he doesn’t see color.

•     My professor misses all our conferences.

•     My professor never says my name right.

•     Me.

14. Or every white person I date I am waiting for the moment.

•     Yes

I am on the phone with my best friend from college. A memory comes to me. We are at a café with friends of ours. There are men behind us that keep pointing at me and a picture of Mowgli from The Jungle Book they have pulled up on a phone. I don’t even notice, but our friends do, and then there is so much action before I am able to process: someone tells the café owner, someone gets us a new table, someone moves my seat so the men cannot see me and I cannot see them. On the phone now, I say, Why didn’t you do anything? She says, I didn’t know what to do. I’m sorry.

15. Do I:

•     stay best friends.

•     stop being friends after the phone call.

•     stay best friends until we begin to drift, and I am not sure whether this is the moment I isolate my best friend or this is the moment I judge her too hard.

16. You think everything is about race, my dad says. It’s not.

• True

• False

• I cannot stop wondering if every person I meet is going to break my heart, I say.

17. We are at the bar of a restaurant. I try to grab the bartender’s attention. When that doesn’t work, my partner tries to grab her attention. What would you like? the bartender says. A whiskey sour, my partner says. I open my mouth. The bartender turns, her back to me, pours ice in a glass, and looks for the whiskey. When we get to the table, my partner says, Yeah, do you think that’s because you’re brown.

•     Yes

•     No

•     No, the restaurant is busy, I say.

18. The best joke my brother ever tells is after our parents separate and before they are divorced. My dad is talking about his girlfriend, and I say I don’t want to hear it. The car is quiet for a moment. Then, my brother: I don’t know what you’re complaining about. You always wanted a white family. I:

•     start crying.

•     laugh and I laugh and I laugh.

19. Like the loud I am, I lament to a friend about my best friend. She is so nice, I say. Yes, they reply. But there are so many nice white girls.

•     True

•     False

21a. Am I a hypocrite for once again having a best friend who is a nice white girl?

•     Yes

•     No

21b. She is really nice though.

•     You are a hypocrite.

•     You are not a hypocrite.

22. In physics class at Edison High School, there is a Beautiful White Boy named Chris Peters (football team, art club vice-president) even our teachers are sweet on, and he asks my lab group, So what should I know about going to Rohit’s house? I say, What do you mean? He says, We’re paired up for the project. What should I expect? Will it smell like curry?

We:

•     giggle.

•     giggle and do not think much about it.

•     giggle and do not think about it until we do, and now every time we think about high school, we think about it

•     and was it that Chris Peters told Sruthi she looks beautiful for an Indian girl

  or she looks beautiful like a white girl? All we remember is how fast she

  talked, how bright she smiled when she told us.

23. Which shade of foundation from Maybelline is the first girl in our teen Indian girl group to get a boyfriend?

•     Porcelain

•     True Ivory

•     Sandalwood

•     Espresso

24. We want to be girls who have sweet sixteens. We want to be girls like Colleen and Brittney and Alyssa. But when Mansi hosts her sweet sixteen in a poofy blue dress and gives out mini cupcakes and drops us home in a limo with giftbags, I tell her she is:

• whitewashed

• even though that is what she once called me, and I know it hurts.

25. In the space provided below, draw racism.

26. When my brother promises he will stop saying the n-word, does he:

•     keep his promise.

•     not keep his promise.

•     say it the next month when he is drunk to his friends

•     and when I confront him the next day, tells me he has a Black roommate, and the roommate is fine with it.

“White people burn to say those words,” Chloe Colbert writes.

27. So do other non-Black people.

•     True

•     False

28. If x = nice white girl and x + x + x = 3x and y = brown girl, what is y + y + y?

• 3y

• y3

• Too many brown girls.  

  • Don’t they have any other friends?

29. Or one time I am seeing a guy who isn’t white, and he wraps our legs together in bed and asks, What kind of Indian do you speak? In response, I:

•     laugh,

•     educate him,

•     leave,

•     cry.

My dad and I are at the Indian buffet. I always eat the same thing. He says, Do you remember when I unscrewed all the doors in the house? My friends at work sat me down and said kindly, There is a strong smell coming from your clothing. So I added hinges to make sure the doors closed automatically. Do you want some wine?

30. What do I tell him?

•     Yes, I would like some wine.

•     I explain there is no smell. If there is, there is also the pungent smell of vanilla yoghurt or tuna casserole or seared beef burgers we dutifully ignore.

•     I tell him about the time in middle school when two students in the hallway tell us we smell like curry, and not the next day or the day after that but one

  day we become walking ads for Bath & Body Works as if we like to smell like

  Cherry Blossom trees, and after changing her tampon, Mohni always sprays

  her Viva La Juicy perfume, and one time in college, I walk into my job at the

  Admissions office and an older woman says, Whew did your perfume bottle

  explode on you, and I feel embarrassed but not as much as I do in that middle

  school hallway.

31. My roommate and I get cat-called walking up the street to our apartment. It’s different for you than for me, my roommate says. They think they own you more.

•     True

•     False

•     There are times when I use my overly-sexualized brown body to my advantage, too.

32. I am seated at a crowded café, and the patron at the table next to me moves her leg to let someone pass. Therefore when I move, the patron at the table next to me will once again move her leg to let me pass. The reasoning in the argument most vulnerable to criticism is on the grounds that the argument:

•     tries to establish a conclusion simply on the premise that the conclusion agrees with the practice most recently witnessed.

•     presupposes the patron is paying as close attention to her surroundings in both instances

•   conflates her response in one situation to her response in all situations.

•     fails to consider the possibility that patron is more vigilant to some people than she is towards others.

33a. If we are at a large table and Aneri is speaking to me but I overhear Oliver say something, whom should I turn to?

• Aneri

• Oliver

33b. Who do I turn to?

•     Oliver

•     Oliver

•     Oliver

34. And all of a sudden incense is being sold everywhere, and I am allowed to use it when my white friends come over because:

•     now they won’t think I’m too Indian.

•     in middle school, I go to my first boy-girl party at Shail Shah’s house. I lie and tell my mom it is an all-girl party, but then right before she drops me off,

  I let slip it is at Shail’s house. She says, I’m coming up. I say, No please no. She knocks on the door and Shail opens up. All my friends are behind him, and they are staring at my mom in her gold jimikis and powder blue churidar and matching white blouse and her pretty pretty pottu. My mom looks at them, and they look at her, and she says, Okay, and leaves. I look at them. They say nothing, and actually, nothing happens. When my mom picks me up, she says, You hurt my arm earlier when you tried hiding me from them. 

35. In every classroom, I look to see if I am the only one.

•     True

•     False

36. Beautiful White Boy sits next to me at a party. He wants to talk to me about this piece. This is so important, he says. What happens next?

•     I say, Tell me about your tattoos, and he takes off his sweater to show me his sleeve.

•     I nod along because he is Beautiful, and I want to be liked by him. I still think each acceptance from an iteration of Beautiful White Boy will give me permission to exist in this world.

37. I’m always pronouncing names wrong, Beautiful White Boy continues. I should be more careful. I say:

•     There are times I too pronounced someone’s name wrong.

•     That is not exactly what I meant.

•     Yes and are you from here? Yes, he says and later we

38. I hate Beautiful White Boys, but I can’t stop fucking them. This is because:

• they are something I want to be—white.

• they are something I want to be—powerful.

• it is easy to sleep with someone who cannot understand all of it.

39. Beautiful White Boy : Chris :: ___________ : ____________

•     Beautiful Brown Boy, Rohit

•     Beautiful Brown Boy, Shail

•     brown boy, Rohit

•     Brown boy, Shail

40. I am ordering an Americano no milk and the barista asks, Name? I respond:

• with my name.

• Sam, S-A-M and turn to my date and say, It’s my white name, and they giggle

• In the hollow of my ear is my dad’s voice all, Jay, J-A-Y, to his coworkers and his voicemail. Jay is not his first name or his last name but a shortened and Americanized version of Jayavelu, his dad’s first name. One day I come home from school, and on the door is a nickel brass door knocker with Jays engraved in the same cursive they teach me in third grade.

41. Did it happen in the first grade or was it kindergarten, and I just didn’t know it yet? Did anyone address me by name, or did they let me go because I was too O much  O hard O confusing for them to figure out? In the second grade, Mrs. Burkhaulter pushed the syllables together in the wrong places and blew them out in other places and out came my name or what I would answer to in O elementary O middle O high school. I should have said something, but I didn’t.

42. In the fifth grade, when our class pairs with a kindergarten class for Role Models, I want to be paired with O the little white girl and everyone wants to be paired with O the little white girl and all that are left are O the little girls who O  look O  like O me. 

43. Or until college, I only wrote white characters because I didn’t know otherwise.

•     True

•     False

44. My name from a book. My name from a priest. My name from stars and moon tides. My mother tells one story all the ways. When they Americanize my name at school, first I am embarrassed for my mom, then I am embarrassed of my mom. I am late for the bus taking us to the aquarium for our middle school field trip, so Mr. Shapiro calls my mom. I trot on the bus with my lunch box she packed for me, and when he sees me, he says, Oh she’s here Mrs., and hangs up. He looks at me. He is the cool teacher. So I have been saying your name wrong for two years, he says. You can’t pronounce it right, I bet him. He says it perfectly and

•     it is the first time a white person says my name.

•     I am ashamed I made it easy for them when it wasn’t hard.

•     In the fast English I learn from TV, I say, Don’t call me that.

45.  My best friend, a nice white girl, and I have a long-distance friendship. She is feeling the loss of me and trying to make friends. I think this girl is cool, she tells me on the phone. She continues, She’s queer and a person of color. I respond:

•     Is that why you think I am cool. Because I am queer and a person of color.

•     Is that why I think I am cool. Because culture and counterculture values, or says it values, the marginalized.

•     Ew, I didn’t like that, I say and I am talking like me because with her it is not work and I do not have to negotiate whether I will lose her or myself.

46.  I lied: _______ :: It is always a negotiation: ________

•     I am sorry

My Native American friend and I say we are going to have a double Indian wedding.

47.  Is this an instance of racial aggression?

•     Yes

•     No

•     I don’t know

48.  Or when I see another Indian girl at the office I think:

•     I should introduce myself.

•     Is she prettier?

Sorry, my friend says. My music set up is so ghetto. We are at their apartment, their hands tangled in aux cords. We both laugh, and we both know better.

49.  Is this an instance of racial aggression?

•     Yes

•     No

•     I don’t know

50.  When the car in the next lane cuts us off, my dad hits the brakes, and we slow hard. Shit, he says. Probably an Asian

•     they don’t know how to drive.

51.  And my mom always says,

•     Those people are snakes, except she says கெட்ட மக்கள்.

•     Those people they are Pakistanis.

•     Those people are not our people.

And we hear it everywhere. That’s ratchet. So ratchet. Then one night I am drunk and I mean drunk. At the coat check I see all the hangers are broken. So ratchet, I say. What did you say? my friend asks. What did you just say?

52.  Is this an instance of racial aggression?

• Yes

• No

• I don’t know

  • how to answer her so I don’t.

53.  Critical question. Using the word bank below, circle all the words and/or phrases I stole from Black culture.

54. I am video-chatting with my grandma on the phone when she asks me for a sip of my coffee. It is ten in the morning here, and eight-thirty at night in Chennai. I tilt the cup to the screen. இங்கே, I say. She lets it sit on her tongue and swallows. நல்ல இருக்கிறது, she says. How are you? How are you? Good, I say. Good, she says. I recall how I’ve seen no roaches lately. My cats are eating them. I didn’t know your cats were Chinese, she says, and I wonder how she got there.

•   How did she get there?

55.  And when my white-passing roommate with a white-passing name who is not white texts me to say engaging with me has become threatening and makes them feel uncomfortable so they will not do it anymore, my fingers type Fair and press send so quick that I wonder who wrote it. In the kitchen when they walk in, I say Hello and they see me they hear me and they turn on the spot and leave me. Even writing this hurts. How powerful it is to see someone for who not what they are, and how powerful it is to unsee someone to make yourself comfortable. I think: 

•     How many people have I done that to?

56.  Train A is 540 miles closer to the city than Train B. I have a friend I haven’t talked to in three years despite them making consistent and thoughtful check-ins and requests we chat on the phone. Train A is traveling 24 miles per hour. One time, they text me they are having an anxious episode, and they know it’s not true, but I am not avoiding them, right? Train B is traveling 35 miles per hour. I answer yes I am not doing that even though I am. I feel terrible, so I keep liking their Instagram posts which the Instagram algorithm understands as me wanting to engage with more of their content. And now whenever I open the app, their posts appear first, and I see their online moniker, and I feel guilty all over again. Train B arrives at the city 3 hours before Train A. They have done nothing wrong. How far from the city is each train at the outset of the problem? They are a nice white girl and there are so many nice white girls. I repeat, how far from the city is each train at the outset of the problem?

•     Train A is 1407.1 miles and Train B is 1947.1 miles

•     Train A is 1408.2 miles and Train B is 1947.2 miles

• Train A is 1407.2 miles and Train B is 1947.2 miles

57. [THIS SPACE LEFT INTENTIONALLY BLANK.]

•     A suburb in Alabama.

•     The theme of the party is Slutty Cowboy.

•     One time I ask my Native American friend if they find it offensive to read Indian in a book when the text meant Native American. No, no, they laugh off. I am desensitized. And at the party I ask a white person, What do you think of what others think about you?

•     I think this is a fun, innocuous question.

•     He asks, Do you always say what you are thinking? and I understand he is offended.

•     Sometimes, I say. The near-empty kitchen is not empty anymore and people surround him.

•     His is a looming presence, and if I were a white writer, I would say he is like Odysseus, like Achilles.

•     A girl starts reading aloud the ingredients of a hard seltzer. There is White Claw and Topo Chico. For Black Cherry she says, Purified Carbonated Water Alcohol Natural Flavors Cane Do you not want to answer the question, I say. You can say you don’t want to answer the question.

•     Another person interrupts by telling me, I love your outfit. Everyone echoes, Yeah you look great Where did you get that top What a beautiful Sugar Citric Acid Natural Cherry

•     I want an answer, I say.

•     You know when you started your interrogation, the kitchen was packed, and now you have driven everyone away, he says. I look around. He is right. The remaining few say, Let’s take a shot.

•     From Claudia Rankine’s Just Us: “A white woman effectively ends the conversation on 45’s campaign tactics by turning our gaze toward the dessert tray. How beautiful, she says. Homemade brownies on a silver tray? Hers is the fey gesture I have seen exhibited so often by white women in old movies—women who are overcome by shiny objects. It’s so blatant a redirect I can’t help but ask aloud the most obvious question: Am I being silenced?”2

  • Here it is not white women but white people, and the shiny object is the white man. There is softness attributed to white people, and there is Juice Concentrate Sodium Citrate for me.

• After, people come find me. Are you okay. Are you mad.

  • Are you mad.

  • Are you mad.

  • Are you mad.

58. My dad and I talk like we’re trying to prove something to each other. I came here from India all those years ago, he’ll say and Mhmm mhmm mhmm, I’ll respond. It’s the same story. I’m from a different generation, he’ll say and You should see how much things have improved, he’ll say. After the divorce, my mom stopped wearing saris and churidars and buys Calvin Klein perfumes and bags on sale. I ask my brother why he still Americanizes his name, and he says, I never thought about it like that. My dad keeps telling me he’s proud of me and my mom keeps calling me to ask how to use the scanner on the printer, how to take a screenshot on her phone, what my Instagram password is because I never send her photos of me. I remember in fifth grade I was talking to my dad in English and he was talking to me in English. When I used the vocabulary words I learned that week in school, my dad got so angry so loud the TV rattled. I got up and left the room and then I heard the crying. My mom rings me on the other line. We don’t speak in Tamil anymore and I forget all my plurals and conjugations. Unless I am at my mom’s I don’t talk to my brother and even though all we do is watch the same shows the same episodes Season 5 episode 12 over and over. I make an appointment with someone the college calls Diversity Officer and we walk through the choices. She wants me to talk to my professor first. Let’s come up with a script. How might that go, she says. I think you’re racist, I say. Well, she doesn’t pause, You want to refrain from saying racist because then all they think is Racist with a capital R. Then it will become a conversation where they are defending themselves rather than Just a Conversation. When I’m editing this piece, I ask my Indian friend which questions to cut and she says, This one, and There are bigger things than someone moving their leg or not. Yes, I say. There are all the big things and I’m still stuck on this. I can’t stop thinking about it. When we were very little, my brother and I shared a room and a bed, and when my grandpa was allowed in the States for six months at a time, he would lie between us and tell stories of Sinbad. We never talked about it but I knew he did and he knew I did, and these are the moments of understanding that I think, Oh. That’s beautiful.

Bibliography

Colbert, Chloe. “Fragments of My Father and I,” 5.

Rankine, Claudia. Just Us: An American Conversation (Minneapolis, Graywolf Press, 2020), 151.