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!

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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!

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In the midst of this racial injustice crisis moment, the term white fragility is consistently coming up. And finally so!

As we move forward in the fight against white supremacy, it’s so important to talk about what white fragility is and understand the negative impact it can have on our efforts to dismantle and change systems and structures that are permeated by white supremacy and racism — and on our efforts to even have conversations about racism.

So what is white fragility?

In this video, I share a definition of white fragility, how it shows up for white people, and why it can be such a problem when it comes to social justice work.

Watch now!

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As a woman of color, I’m no stranger to dealing with racial micro-aggressions on an almost daily basis, from people pronouncing my name incorrectly to people touching my hair uninvited.

All of these behaviors are problematic and upsetting — and manifestations of white supremacy — but one of the micro-aggressions that really gets to me is when someone asks me, “Where are you from?” followed by, “No, where are you really from?”

I have been asked variations of this question more times than I can count, and after a while it starts to feel like the people asking this are actually saying, “You aren’t from here, and you don’t belong here because you’re not white.”

Being asked this repeatedly can be incredibly hurtful for people of color, but there are ways you can respond that will leave you feeling empowered.

In this video, I share three ways you can respond to questions about where you’re “really” from and some tips for people who want to ask about another person’s culture in an inclusive — and not racist — way.

Watch now!

The post What to do When People Keep Asking Where You’re *Really* From appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.

We are in the thick of a racial injustice crisis, and anti-racism and allyship have taken center stage in many of our newsfeeds and daily conversations.

In the midst of this, so many people are saying that they want to interrupt racism and that they care about fighting for social justice, but despite these great intentions, they don’t shift their behavior or they do so minimally, which can be an example of performative allyship.

Given the surge of this discourse, you may have heard this language: You’re either racist or you’re anti-racist.

This concept is a driving insight from Ibram X. Kendi’s excellent book How to Be an Antiracist where he writes, “One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an antiracist.”

While it may be hard to hear that you’re either racist or anti-racist and there is no in-between, it’s so important to understand what this concept actually means. And so in this video, I share the difference between racism and anti-racism and what you must start doing if you want to contribute to the fight against racism.

Watch now!

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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.

Watch now!

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.

It’s inspiring to see the outpouring of support for social change, but we must also acknowledge that it is long overdue. White supremacy has caused immeasurable harm to Black and Indigenous peoples in particular, in addition to other communities of color, for centuries now.

As BIPOC, we feel the harm and pain of white supremacy every day. It riddles our bodies and minds, it grips us with fear, and it prevents us from fully stepping into our brilliance. It is a trauma we live with on a daily basis.

I recently shared a video where I define what white supremacy is and talk about how white supremacy sometimes shows up in some visible ways — like state-sanctioned violence against Black people or when people who aren’t Black use the N-word — and shows up in more subtle and insidious ways — like colorism or giving nicknames to people of color rather than trying to pronounce their names correctly.

In this post I’d like to dig deeper into something that isn’t acknowledged very often in the context of white supremacy and racism: white supremacy hurts white people too.

Before I elaborate, I want to explicitly state that the hurt that white people experience due to white supremacy is NOWHERE near the harm that Indigenous peoples and people of color — especially Black people — experience. But it’s still worth drawing attention to this fact, especially if understanding the adverse impacts of white supremacy on white people will help them to be more committed to interrupting and dismantling this system of oppression.

There are several ways in which white supremacy hurts white people, but here are key three reasons to consider:

1. If even one community in our society is in pain or suffering, we ALL hurt and lose out in the end — white people included.
   
2. White supremacy gives white people a false sense of superiority and, when this sense of superiority is challenged — whether through the excellence in communities of color or through white mediocrity — it can be extremely destabilizing for white people. (On a related note, I believe that cultural appropriation is, in part, connected with this issue).
   
3. As long as the belief that white people are superior to BIPOC is entrenched in our society, it will be impossible to develop authentic, meaningful, and equitable relationships between us. A barrier will always exist that prevents true and healthy connection because of the inequitable foundation of our dynamic.

This final point warrants emphasis, because I believe that a lack of friendship between white people and BIPOC hurts white people more than it hurts BIPOC. Why? Because despite the pain, hurt, and harm we are subjected to, BIPOC are fiercely bonded over our collective experiences of oppression. In our communities, we seek healing with each other through dancing, singing, eating, laughing, and so much more. We have each other, and our love is profound. White people will continue to miss out on this sense of community until white supremacy is dismantled.

With so many discussions around systems disruption and how to be a better ally happening, it’s more important than ever that we acknowledge the ways that white supremacy and racism hurt every member of society.

For white people reading this, I’d like to offer the following guidance: if you truly want to be an ally, you must be actively anti-racist and you must commit to dismantling white supremacy and other systems of oppression in your own behaviors and in all that you see around you.

For people of color who are not Black who are reading this: we must do more to call out the anti-Black racism that runs rampant in our communities. We can no longer hide behind our brownness and benefit from systems of oppression at the expense of our fellow people of color.

And for people who are Black who are reading this: my heart is with you. I’m sending you so much love today and every day. As long as I am alive, I will keep fighting to disrupt anti-Black racism.

The post White Supremacy Hurts Everyone — Including White People 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.

Watch now!

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