Growing up as the child of immigrant parents, I often felt out of place in my predominately white neighborhood. Aside from being one of the only Brown kids in my school, I also had — at least according to many of my teachers and peers — a “hard to pronounce” name. (FYI, it’s not that hard to pronounce! Here’s how you say it.)

In my twenties, when I decided to reclaim the correct pronunciation of my name, one of the things I repeatedly heard from people who had only ever known me by the incorrect pronunciation of my name was:

a) that they wish they’d known they were saying my name wrong and

b) that they don’t know how to ask someone the correct pronunciation of their name in a way that doesn’t seem rude or awkward.

Learning the right way to ask someone about the correct pronunciation of their name is such an important skill for anyone who wants to be more inclusive. So in this video, I share a helpful script for you to use when you want to ask someone about how to pronounce their name correctly.

Watch now!

The post How to Ask Someone the Correct Pronunciation of Their Name appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.

Our names are so important. Names are a huge part of our identity, a reflection of our cultural backgrounds, and more. Speaking from my own experience, having your name mispronounced repeatedly feels really awkward and alienating — you start to feel like you’re the “other” or an outsider.

But correcting people when they mispronounce your name can also feel awkward and difficult, especially as a person of color, when you’re already consistently on the receiving end of biases related to your cultural background.

In this video, I share how to get people to pronounce your name correctly if you have a “hard-to-pronounce” name, based on my own experiences with people mispronouncing my name.

Watch now!

The post How to Get People to Pronounce Your Name Correctly appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.

Do you know how to say my name in the correct Indian pronunciation? I ask this because I can’t tell you how hard it is for most people to say my name correctly!

From a young age, people consistently got my name wrong. Even though my name is common in India, where my parents immigrated from, in Canada my name is quite unique, and for years it was a constant source of teasing and bullying. Eventually I gave up on having people pronounce my name correctly and just went by “Ree-too”. I started to hate my name.

This is a common experience for so many people who have “hard to pronounce” names. Many of us will change the pronunciation of our names or even legally change our names to more Anglo (i.e. white) sounding names (I personally wanted to change my name to Carice for a while…) just to avoid having to constantly hear our names mispronounced.

The pressure I felt — and which I know many other people feel — to have an Anglicized (“white”) name is tied back to white supremacy and is a manifestation of the racism and racial bias that people of color have internalized for generations.

In this video, I share why our names are so important and talk about why we should reclaim our names as a key part of both interrupting white supremacy and living as our authentic selves.

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The post Help! I Have a Hard to Pronounce Name appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.

You may have noticed in your discussions with others about race or when you’ve been reading through the comments section on content posted by a BIPOC writer (including on some of my own videos), that people use the phrase “reverse racism”  to talk about how white people are also the target of racism.

This perception comes up in many different situations, whether it’s because a white person feels adversely affected by affirmative action policies or because they’re upset that they’ve been called out for cultural appropriation.

This phrase has now become a full beehive in my bonnet and so I’ve been itching to take this on because reverse racism reflects a lack of understanding of white supremacy.

In this video, I explain why reverse racism doesn’t exist and share a helpful way of explaining the difference between racism and prejudice the next time someone brings up reverse racism.

Watch now!

The post There’s No Such Thing as Reverse Racism appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.

When people hear the language “white supremacy,” many instantly think of white hoods and the KKK. This is certainly one aspect of white supremacy, but it’s just a small manifestation of the concept and takes us away from overarching meaning.

Very simply put, white supremacy is the ideology that white people are better than people of color and Indigenous peoples. It is through power and privilege that this ideology permeates our lives, systems, practices, structures, and more. There is increasing talk in public forums and the media about supremacy, power, and privilege and how they show up in our world, but for many of us these concepts are still quite difficult to contextualize in our real lives.

In this video, I break down the difference between racial supremacy, power, and privilege, how these three concepts are connected, and why white supremacy is the root issue that needs our attention.

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The post What is White Supremacy? appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.

My cousin’s teenage daughter, whom I affectionately call my niece, was recently hanging with some family friends her age when a boy in the group started using the N-word when speaking with another group member, using it like you would use the term “buddy”. Like us, the boy was South Asian, so my niece told him it wasn’t right for him to use the word. He disagreed, saying, “My Black friends don’t mind.”

Knowing that I teach about equity, diversity, and inclusion for a living, the next time she saw me my niece inquisitively asked, “Is it ok for people who aren’t Black to use the N-word?” It took me less than a millisecond to respond — “No!”

Hearing this story, you might be thinking, “Oh, this can’t be happening!” Unfortunately, I continue to hear that the N-word is constantly being used across the South Asian community and other communities who are not Black — communities that should know better and would vehemently tell you that they’re not racist.

I’ve had enough of hearing paltry excuses and “explanations” from people about this. In the spirit of allyship and fighting against anti-Black racism, I want to use my voice to speak out about the use of the N-word.

In this video, I talk about how no one — other than someone who is Black — should use the N-word. It’s flat out wrong. Why? I spell this out in my video.

If this feels unfair to you, I urge you to hear me out. Watch the video to learn the reasons why you shouldn’t use the N-word if you’re not Black.

Watch now!

The post If You’re Not Black, Don’t Use the N-Word appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.