Tag: imperialism

Jason put his hand to his face. There was stubble. How long had he been sitting there?

Nadia realized she desperately had to pee. And she was hungry. Had she been dreaming…?

The short dude was asleep on his feet. The girl just stood there, watching, showing no signs of fatigue, finally content.

Nadia stood up. Wow, she really had to pee. She headed for the door, opened it easily. Outside, that bland hallway stretched in both directions. There was a world outside…?

“Leaving so soon?”

Nadia jumped. The girl had appeared at her shoulder.

“At least take a sticker.” The girl handed Nadia a sticker covered with tiny writing: “I visited the Safe Space, and now I’m a better person than you.” Nadia put it on. It was surprisingly satisfying to wear.

“It’s no badge, but hopefully it’ll make you feel better about yourself while changing nothing about the world,” the girl smiled. “Come back soon!”

The girl vanished as suddenly as she had appeared. Nadia fingered the sticker. It really did make her feel like a better person for no justifiable reason. She stepped into the hallway and began to swing the door closed.

“Straight White Male…”

Nadia frowned. She swung the door open again. The girl was back on the couch, whispering in Jason’s ear.

“Straight White Male…”

The short dude jerked awake. He stared at the smiley face on the wall and tried to smile himself, but it was horribly forced.

Nadia realized right there and then: she couldn’t leave them there. Reassuring yet sanctimonious sticker be damned.

She marched back into the room, yanked open the toy chest, pulled out the ball, and shoved it in Jason’s face.

“What is this? Tell me! What is this?”

Jason stared at the ball, glassy-eyed. There was a flicker of life behind his gaze.

“When we first met. It was your special word. You’d just learned it. Tell me!”

The girl looked thrown off. “Now you know we make a lot of allowances for Bisexual Women of Color in here, but I’ll have to ask you to put that back.”

“What am I doing right now? What am I playing?” Nadia juggled the ball with her knees. The fog was starting to lift from her head. She remembered who she was. No labels required.

She kicked the ball against the wall repeatedly. Passed it from foot to foot like an expert. “Come on, Jason, you know this. It’s the world’s game!”

The girl stood up and advanced on Nadia. “Stop this minute!”

“Why, is this a microaggression?” Nadia teased. The girl sputtered.

Jason watched the commotion, wrestling with himself. He knew the word Nadia was asking for, but he couldn’t say it. Straight White Men couldn’t use that word. It was appropriation, or imperialism, or something. The Badge… he had to keep feeling ashamed. He had to prove he was tolerant.

“Say it! Say the word! Say it!” Nadia danced around the room with the ball. The girl stood in place, trembling with anger. Her eyes were turning red. Her fangs were sprouting.

To who? The thought burst unbidden into Jason’s head. Who did he have to prove he was tolerant to? The girl? He didn’t care what the girl thought of him. He looked at the badge in its case. Why did he want that anyway? He had forgotten who he was. He loved words. He loved learning them, and he wasn’t afraid of them.

“Fútbol!”

The girl froze. Even her transformation seemed to halt in shock. Jason discovered that he was on his feet, though he had no idea how he got there. Nadia jumped for joy.

“Fútbol!” she shouted back.

The short dude jerked out of his trance. “Fútbol?” he asked, his eyes misted with confusion.

“FÚTBOL!! FÚTBOL!! FÚTBOL!!” Jason screamed.

“EEEAUUUUUGGGHHH!!!”

The girl’s shriek was even louder than last time. And yet Jason could still hear himself above the din. He kept chanting “FÚTBOL!! FÚTBOL!!” Nadia and the short dude joined in.

A siren pierced the air. It was the PC Police! Sparkly uniforms and all. But there were four of them this time…

“Justin!! NOOO!!” the short dude yelled.

The fourth officer was the tall dude, his face hidden behind sunglasses. He showed no remorse as he grabbed the short dude by both arms.

“To the Tolerance Dungeon!” the tall dude who was once Justin roared.

Two of the PC Police officers chased Nadia, but she danced away from their grasp. The last officer advanced on Jason, slowly backing him against the wall. The girl lurked behind the officer, her red eyes, blazing with hate, boring into Jason.

No way out. Jason resigned himself to the horrors of the Tolerance Dungeon. Maybe he would be a better person after they did whatever they did to him. Maybe he would forget he was a Straight White Male.

All at once, he realized he was backed against the list of microaggressions. He craned his head back and spotted one that had been too tiny to read before.

“DO NOT TOUCH the Safe Space administrator.”

…

…

Oh.

He ducked under the PC Police officer’s arm and grabbed the girl’s hand.

SSSSSSSSSSS!!!

The hand smoked! It was melting under Jason’s grasp! The girl’s shriek morphed into a scream of horror. The PC Police officers stopped in their tracks. Jason got another idea. He gave Nadia a significant look. She nodded in acknowledgment.

“How would you like… A BIG HUG?!” Jason yelled.

He threw his arms around the girl. SSSSSSSSS! She was melting even faster.

“How would you like… A HUG SANDWICH?!” Nadia grinned.

She tackle-hugged the girl from behind. “BWAWUHBLERGARRRR,” the girl blubbered in her final moments. As she dissolved, the space between Jason and Nadia shrunk. Their arms gradually found each other.

SSSssssss…

The girl had melted. Nadia and Jason discovered they were hugging each other. And they didn’t know how to let go. But they didn’t want to, because they kinda liked it. The seconds dragged on…

“Manny!”

Jason and Nadia jumped and let go. Across the room, Justin ripped off his sunglasses. His eyes shined with recognition as he held the short dude, er, Manny, by the arms.

“My man!” Justin yelled with delight. He and Manny did a sick-ass chest bump / handshake / backslapping secret friend combo.

Nadia and Jason realized that their feet were covered with ash. They bent down and ran their fingers curiously through the piles. They discovered bits of burnt paper with familiar phrases: “cultural appropriation,” “white savior.”

“She wasn’t really a person,” Nadia realized. “Just a collection of ideas.”

“But from where?” Jason wondered. He found a larger fragment with part of a heading: “Prof. Higglestrom            CORE-103”

“MLA format,” Jason murmured.

He and Nadia looked at each other, immediately grokking the answer. “Bad college essays,” they said together.

Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

Everyone looked around in alarm. The walls of the Safe Space were falling away. The ceiling shot into the sky, the floor dropped out from under their feet. Beyond the walls were…

Stars. Nebulae. A passing comet.

Jason, Nadia, Justin, Manny, and the three PC Police officers were floating in space. It could have been terrifying, but somehow, they all felt safe. Safe in space.

“Guys, I don’t think we’re on campus anymore,” Nadia deadpanned.

“Sometimes I dreamed about a place like this,” said one of the officers, who they all noticed was a wide-eyed, baby-faced man. “But then I woke up and remembered I was PC.”

“Who are we?” asked another officer, a squat, kindly middle-aged woman. “I’ve been PC for so long that I’ve forgotten.”

“Maybe we’ll find the answer somewhere out there,” said the last officer, a dark-skinned older man with short, bristly gray hair. He nodded to the stars.

The second officer frowned at her Tolerance Badge, then ripped it off. The other officers followed suit. The second officer considered her badge for a moment, then handed it to Jason.

“Keep it if you want,” she said gently.

The other officers left their badges floating in midair, then all the officers swam into the distance, kicking and tumbling happily like babies in the womb. Soon they were specks among the stars.

Jason flung the Tolerance Badge into space. It shot off like a missile. Nadia somersaulted in midair and kicked the other two badges away. Jason watched in awe at her zero-g coordination.

“Bro, we have so many Netflix binge nights to make up.” Justin shook his head at Manny.

Manny barely held back tears. “I’m so glad you’re back, man.”

“Hey, I think we’re gonna go,” Justin said to Jason and Nadia. “Got stuff to do. But thank you guys so much. You saved us all from… from…” He couldn’t find the words.

“From being safe,” Manny finished.

Justin and Manny extended their fists to Nadia and Jason. Fist bumps all around. The two dudes locked their gazes, gathering their energy.

“Ready, Justin?”

“Ready, Manny?”

“FLEXNESS TO THE MEXNESS!!” they roared together.

Their feet grew miniature rocket nozzles. WHOOSH! With a burst of flame, they jetted toward the stars. Jason and Nadia waved away the smoke.

“That just happened,” Jason deadpanned.

Finally, it was just Jason and Nadia, alone with the universe. They glanced at each other, then glanced away. Shuffled their feet, embarrassed.

Jason took a deep breath. “Do you want to…?”

“Of course,” Nadia interrupted.

They hugged. And this time, there was no reason to let go.

“What do we do now?” Jason mumbled into Nadia’s hair.

“Try to find Earth, I guess,” Nadia mumbled into Jason’s chest.

Jason opened his mouth to say something. But he still felt inhibited. “So… is it a microaggression if…?”

“Stop,” Nadia cut him off. “Forget everything that girl said. You can say whatever you want around me.”

“¿Donde está el baño, mi amor?” Jason said in his obnoxious nasally English accent.

“Shut up, gringo,” Nadia teased.

They drifted through space. Hopefully, they would find Earth again, but if not, at least they had each other.

They were each other’s Safe Space.

There was a boy, and there was a girl.

They approached from opposite ends of the hallway. The girl looked at the boy. He had white skin, a slumped-over posture, an air of general disheveledness, and eyes that were always searching. The boy looked at the girl. She had brown skin, straight black hair tied back with a colorful band, and a bounce in her step, as if her feet were always restless.

Each noticed the other looking, and looked away. But not before each felt a little fwip deep down.

They met outside a nondescript door with a colorful sign that said “Safe Space.” Both reached to knock simultaneously. Both pulled their hands back, gesturing for the other to go ahead. A standoff. Silence. They laughed nervously, and both knocked.

“You here for the Safe Space?” said the boy, dumbly, he thought.

“Yep,” said the girl. Then, trying to reignite the conversation, “I hear it’s nice. I hear it makes you a better person.”

“I’m getting class credit for visiting,” the boy continued. “Something about teaching tolerance?”

“Good, because I’m kind of racist,” the girl teased. “Like old-timey 1800s kind of racist.”

The boy did a mock sigh of relief. “I thought I was the only one!”

The girl stuck out her hand. “I’m Nadia.”

The boy shook it. “I’m Jason.” The girl’s hand was unexpectedly sweaty.

“Sorry,” said Nadia. “I just came from soccer practice.”

“Fútbol!” blurted Jason without thinking.

Nadia gave him a weird look. “Sure, if you want to call it that.”

“Sorry, I just learned the word. I’m taking Spanish for the first time. Chinese, Russian, and French in high school. I want to be a translator for the UN. I’m a linguistics major.” He thought for a second. “I should’ve said that in the exact opposite order.”

Nadia smiled. “I’m biochem. But mostly I play soccer. I almost made the US Olympic team this year.”

“What?! That’s awesome,” said Jason.

Nadia nodded confidently. “There’s always a next time. And until then, I eat, drink, sleep, and breathe…”

“Football,” Jason finished.

“There’s an accent on the ‘u.’ Fútbol.”

“Fútbol,” Jason repeated perfectly.

“Good job! Now you don’t sound like a gringo.”

“Hola. Me llamo Jason,” Jason said in an obnoxious, nasally English accent. “Qué tiempo es la football match?”

Nadia barked out a laugh, then busted out an exaggerated Spanish accent. “You got some hot dogs and ketchup to eat, you pickup-truck-driving, baseball-cap-wearing, stick-up-your-ass…?”

The door opened. Jason and Nadia jumped. They’d forgotten why they were standing there.

A girl came out, with wavy blonde hair, blue flowered dress, and a plastic smile.

“Why, hello there. Welcome to the Safe Space. What are your labels?”

Nadia and Jason stared at her in confusion.

“What are you?” tried the girl. Still no response. She turned to Jason, pulling a clipboard from behind her back. “Your sexual orientation?”

“Heterosexual,” replied Jason, wondering why this was relevant.

“OK then, Straight White Male.” The girl made a note on her clipboard, then turned to Nadia. “And you?”

“Umm, I’ve kissed boys and girls,” said Nadia, also wondering why she should have to share personal details. “I like to say I’m still figuring things out.”

“Bisexual Woman of Color. Excellent!” the girl beamed. “The more diverse you are, the more welcome you are in the Safe Space. Please come in.”

She entered the room. Nadia frowned. “More diverse?” she asked, confused. Jason shrugged and gestured for her to go first.

Inside, Jason and Nadia shivered. It was cold in the Safe Space, and it didn’t quite feel real. The walls were decorated with smiley face emoticons, in every color known to humanity. A low red couch faced an open area where two students, one dark-skinned and skinny, the other short and beefy, tossed a ball back and forth. Plop. Plop. Their faces looked dead.

Nadia and Jason looked at the Safe Space girl, wondering what to do.

“Just go,” said the girl, always with that smile. “I’ll explain the rules as you go along.”

Plop. Plop. The students threw the ball. Jason and Nadia sat on the couch, suddenly feeling awkward.

“So where are you from?” Jason asked Nadia.

“STOP!!”

It was the Safe Space Girl. The students stopped throwing the ball. They bowed their heads down in fear.

“Never ask a person of color where they’re from. It’s a microaggression,” admonished the girl. She pointed to the far wall, where a poster hung titled “List of Microaggressions,” with a block of text so tiny it was almost solid black. Jason and Nadia squinted at some examples of microaggressions: “Referring to a person’s color (hair, skin, eye, etc.) out loud,” “Looking at a person the wrong way,” and “Exchanging ideas and dialogue honestly.”

“Sorry,” blushed Jason. “What happens now?”

“Write his offense on the wall,” the girl ordered Nadia, pointing to a whiteboard. Nadia, feeling uncomfortable, wrote “He asked me where I was from” in loopy cursive.

Suddenly, the room turned red. The girl and two students crowded around Jason, shoving their fingers in his face.

“Shame! Shame! Shame!” they all chanted.

The room turned white again. The students went back to their ball. Plop. Plop. Nadia shuffled back to the couch, feeling ashamed herself.

“Why was that a crime… I mean, microaggression?” Jason asked.

“By asking where a person of color is from, you imply that they’re foreign and therefore othered,” the girl explained didactically.

“He was just asking,” Nadia objected.

“No one just asks.” The girl gave Nadia a dangerous look.

Nadia shrunk away from the girl. Maybe it was the bland lighting, the oppressive silence, the leering smiley faces on the wall, but the room itself seemed to give the girl ultimate authority.

“I’m from Phoenix, by the way,” Nadia mumbled.

“How interesting!” the girl perked up. “I like your hair tie!”

“Thanks,” Nadia replied. “My grandma made it for me. It’s an Aztec design.”

The girl gasped. Her face sank into an expression so sympathetic it was sickening. She grasped Nadia’s hands and looked into her eyes with watery gaze.

“I am so sorry for what my people did to your people,” the girl intoned, deadly serious.

“Who, Cardinals fans?” Nadia quipped. Jason chuckled. The girl shot him a glare.

“You know what I mean,” the girl whispered to Nadia, her lip quivering.

Nadia steeled herself for this discussion. This wasn’t the first time. “I’m American. Third generation.”

“Stop making assumptions about her.” Jason was getting angry. “Isn’t that a microaggression?”

“We don’t need a White Savior in this conversation,” the girl snapped. “That’s a microaggression.” She pointed to the board. “Write it.”

“No! I’ve had it with this place!” Jason sprung to his feet. “I don’t care about class credit. This place is… sick!”

He stomped to the door, turned the handle. It was locked.

“Straight White Men can’t leave. Not until they get a badge.” The girl pointed to a glass case on a shelf. Inside was a small golden shield that read “Tolerance Badge.”

“Straight White Men are the ones most in need of reeducation,” the girl continued. “The Tolerance Badge proves that they have renounced their Straight White Male attitudes. I never even talk to Straight White Men who aren’t wearing them.”

The phrase echoed around Jason’s head. Straight White Man. Straight White Man. Maybe it was the way the girl said it, but it made him feel dirty somehow.

“But I’m not a…” Jason tried.

“Don’t deny who you are. Embrace your label,” the girl interrupted.

Jason shuffled back to the couch. The label buzzed around his head: Straight White Man. Straight White Man. He stared at the Tolerance Badge in its case. He had never wanted anything more. Both so he could escape the Safe Space, and get this damn label out of his head.

“Can I go?” Nadia asked.

“Of course!” the girl chirped. “Any time.”

Nadia looked at Jason. His shoulders were even more slumped than usual, his eyes sunken, his face haunted. “I’m not leaving until he leaves.”

The girl smiled sadly. “It might take him a while. He’s at the lowest level.”

“What does that mean?” Nadia asked, afraid of the answer.

The girl perked up. She liked explaining things. “In the Safe Space, everyone has their place on the Diversity Hierarchy. At the top, women of color. Then men of color. Then white women. At the bottom, white men. I know, I know. I’m pretty low. But I atone for the crime of my birth by overseeing the Safe Space.”

“So I’m the highest level of diversity?” Nadia asked.

The girl smiled warmly. “You should be happy.”

But Nadia wasn’t. She’d always hated having things handed to her. She preferred to work hard, earn her achievements. She hadn’t done anything to earn her place atop someone else’s hierarchy.

“So I’m the lowest level?” Jason murmured, depressed.

The girl put her hand on his shoulder. “The more ashamed you are, the closer you are to earning your Tolerance Badge!” Jason looked at the case. The badge gleamed.

Nadia lurched off the couch. She needed to fight the sense of malaise that had afflicted her ever since entering the Safe Space. She approached the two students, who were still tossing the ball back and forth. Plop. Plop.

“Can I play?” she asked. The students made a space for her in the circle. She caught the ball, then threw it. Plop. Plop. Plop.

On the couch, the girl leaned in close to Jason’s ear, whispering in soothing tones. “There are plenty of things to feel ashamed about. Like your sexuality. Straight Male sexuality is the scourge of the world. The vast majority of sexual assaults are committed by men. Women are afraid of you, and for good reason. Feel ashamed.”

“I’m ashamed… I’m ashamed,” Jason intoned, hypnotized.

In the circle, the tall, skinny Student caught Nadia’s gaze. “Help us,” he whispered hoarsely. He glanced at the girl in fear, but she was too busy with Jason to notice their conversation.

“She won’t let you leave either?” Nadia whispered back.

“There’s something about this place,” the short, beefy Student chipped in. “The longer you stay, the more your brain rots. You forget how to leave.” He squinted hard at the tall Student. “I think we were roommates once. People called us The Dudes.”

“Flexness to the mexness,” the tall dude blurted, as if by automatic reflex.

“I think that was our inside joke,” the short dude realized. “But I can’t remember what it means.” He choked back a sob. “I can’t remember…”

“I have a plan.” The tall dude leaned in close. “There used to be other people here, but they were… taken away. I don’t know where to, but it’s got to be better than this.”

“What do I do?” Nadia whispered.

“Follow my lead.”

The tall dude whirled away from the circle and hurled the ball toward the wall. It hit a bright green smiley face dead center.

“One point!!”

Everybody froze. The girl fixed the tall dude with a look of pure venom.

“No points allowed in the Safe Space,” she growled.

“One point!” the tall Student repeated, shaking head to toe. “And we’re playing to one, so that means I win. I WIN!!” He grabbed the ball, spiked it into the ground, then raised his arms to the imaginary crowd.

The girl stood up. She looked like she was about to burst with anger. She opened her mouth…

“EEEAUUUUUGGGHHH!!!”

Her shriek was piercing, inhuman. Everyone covered their ears. The girl’s eyes turned red. She grew fangs. And still the shrieking, in one long, unbroken note.

A secret hatch popped open under the whiteboard. Three police officers emerged, wearing sparkly uniforms with huge gleaming Tolerance Badges.

“PC Police! To the Tolerance Dungeon!” one of them yelled. They grabbed the tall dude and dragged him across the room. The tall dude laughed hysterically.

“I win!! I win!! I…” His cries were silenced by the closing of the hatch.

Nadia spun to the girl, outraged. “What did he do wrong?!”

The girl’s eyes were back to blue, her fangs gone. She pointed to the list of microaggressions. The final one: “NOBODY WINS.”

“No more games!” the girl snapped. She picked the ball off the floor and stuffed it into a toy chest. “Stare into space!” she barked at the short Student. He scurried to the wall and fixed his frightened gaze on a red smiley face. “Sit down!” The girl pointed Nadia to the couch. Nadia plopped down sullenly, arms crossed. “Talk! And don’t break any more rules!” The girl stood in front of the door, hands on hips, watching the room like a hawk.

Jason and Nadia sat in oppressive silence. Jason opened and closed his mouth. He kept glancing at the list of microaggressions, policing his thoughts. He was afraid to say anything.

“Are you sure we can’t play some fútbol?” he asked the girl meekly.

The girl started to groan, then caught herself. She balled her hands into fists, marched to the list of microaggressions, and pointed to one buried deep in the middle: “People may only use words native to their culture.”

“So… American?” Jason asked.

“NO, YOU STUPID…!” The girl caught herself again. She tried her darndest to keep her voice calm. “Your ancestry is British, correct?”

“How did you know that?”

“So you may only use words invented by your native culture. The same goes for you,” she turned to Nadia, “and your Native American ancestry.”

“But that’s stupid. Why can’t we use any word we want?” Nadia was getting more impatient by the minute.

“That’s cultural appropriation. Or imperialism. Ugh, I can’t remember. You two have made me so upset. The point is: CULTURES MUST NOT MIX.”

Jason thought hard. What English words could he actually use? Not “chair” or “person:” those came from French. Not “kindergarten” or “doppelganger:” those came from German. Not “flashlight” or “ballpark” since those were American, and for the purposes of the Safe Space, he wasn’t American. Ugh, why does English have to be such a cannibalistic language? he lamented. He decided that the best thing he could do was to use only words that Shakespeare invented. Shakespeare was British, right? But he also stole stories from mythology and set his plays in Denmark, Italy, France… Jason put an end to this rabbit hole of thinking. In the Safe Space, everyone looked like an imperialist.

“I laughably assassinated King Charles I,” Jason said proudly to Nadia.

Nadia thought hard. She resented that the girl was forcing her to treat “Native American” as a monolithic category. How the hell was she supposed to think of words that were specifically Aztec, as opposed to Navajo, Cherokee, Apache, or Algonquin? She didn’t really mind the term “Indian” anyway. “Native American” was such a mouthful. Plus, she didn’t study this stuff. She couldn’t summon etymologies on command, just to avoid stepping on someone’s toes. Reluctantly, she settled into the box the girl put her in, and combined the only Native American words she could think of.

“I tobogganed over caribou guano in Mississippi.”

“That’s majestic,” Jason managed.

Nadia shrugged. She had run out of words.

“Eyeball,” said Jason weakly, pointing to Nadia’s ocular organs.

The two gave up. Nothing left to say. In the Safe Space, language died, and all was quiet.

Time crawled on…

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