Embracing the Hyphen is a TED Talk given at TEDxUniversity of Pittsburgh. It highlights the need for rethinking the definition of intersectionality to include both identities of race, class, gender, etc and individual lived experiences - the importance of embracing the hyphens of your identity and bridging the gaps between your experiences.
Transcript of the talk below:
EMBRACING THE HYPHEN
A TEDxUniversity of Pittsburgh talk by Satvika Neti
So, I’ve got a dilemma. I’m starting a project and I need a diverse group of people to advise and lead me on this. Thankfully, I’ve got an incredible team who have handpicked two teams for me to choose from. Now, I’m going to need y’alls help on this:
Team A is made up of a black woman, an Asian man, and a latina woman. Team B, on the other hand, is made up of three white dudes. Now, which one is more diverse? Raise your hand for Team A, raise your hand for Team B.
Now, what if I told you these other facts about them? Team A – all of them grew up in the same neighborhood, and studied the same thing at the same college.
Team B on the other hand - one of them is a transgender man, one of them grew up in poverty, and one of them is wheelchair bound. Now which one is more diverse? Raise your hand for A, raise your hand for B.
That one’s a little harder, isn’t it?
Ok, so that was a little contrived, thank you for bearing with me. But as I’m sure most of you have picked up on by now - that was a TRICK QUESTION. There is no such thing as “more diverse than.” Diversity can’t be quantified – it can’t be codified, or quantized. And trust me - I wish it could! I’m a computer science student at heart, I want there to be an easy algorithm you can plug some data points into for an easy answer of how “diverse” something is. But that doesn’t exist.
Because identity is complex. People are complex. So, so complex.
Intersectionality is a word coined by Kimberle Crenshaw in 1989 to describe this exact complexity - the particular experiences of people who live within overlapping identities of race, class, or gender. Specifically, how the structures of race and gender in this country act differently upon someone like me, a woman of color, than a man of color or a white woman. This word - intersectionality - transformed the way that we view feminism and the way that we advocate for people. It made us look deeper, and look within identities in a way we hadn’t before.
I propose that we need to rethink the way we define intersectionality to embrace both individual lived experiences as well as the larger systems around us of race, class, and gender.
Going back to my contrived example from the beginning - saying an “Asian man” or “Latina woman” doesn’t really tell you anything about these people. Asia is a huge geographic area, made up of multiple countries and countless ethnicities, languages, and religions, as is Latin America. When two people have the same identity of “Asian man,” or “Latina woman,” their experiences could be wildly different even as their identities are the same.
To clarify, i absolutely am not saying that identity isn’t a necessary part of diversity. It is - but it can’t be the whole story. When we look at what is diverse, we have to look at both who you are and what you are.
Something that I’ve had to come to terms with in the recent years is that my identity is that of oppression but my experiences are those of privilege. I’m going to say that again, because I think it bears repeating. My identity is that of oppression but my experiences are those of privilege. So, what does that mean?
Let me tell you my story.
I identify as a queer brown immigrant woman. It’s easy to look at the way that i identify myself and mark me down as having certain experiences or feeling a certain way about certain topics. When you look at that, you automatically think: homophobia, assimilation, cultural appropriation, racism. There are certain checkboxes I check, and so there are certain boxes I fall into.
It’s easy to reduce me to my identity.
And while all of those are true - I did experience all of those oppressions - I also was privileged to have a family that never let me forget how loved I was, to have easy and constant access to food, water, and a roof over my head. I was bullied in school incessantly over my food, my clothes, the smell of the coconut oil that my mom insisted I put in my hair, but I was privileged in that my parents always always always put education first, and instilled the value of knowledge and learning in me at a young age. My parents still refuse to talk to me about my sexuality, but my mother is still both my biggest fan and the first person I call when something big happens, and I know that I have them as an anchor and a safety net to fall back on should I ever need it.
And other people might not view those experiences as privilege. The point is that i do.
My hyphen for years and years and years was this hyphen - the hyphen between my identity, what I felt I should be feeling, and my experiences, what I actually was feeling. It was so, so difficult for me to answer the question of who I was. What I was, though, that part was easy for me. It was always easier to tell people what I did and about my accomplishments and even failures than to tell them anything about my identity.
And this was because I didn’t know who I was - I was constantly struggling with my Indian heritage and American upbringing. I felt stuck between two cultures, two lands, two homes. It seemed like this vast, untouchable landscape that I couldn’t hope to ever cross myself, let alone build a bridge across.
Now, I tell people: I’m not Indian or American. I’m not either one or the other. I’m not even Indian and American - I’m not both. I’m Indian-American, and on a personal level, that means something wholly different and other and more than either Indian or American. I learned to embrace that hyphen, and with it, embrace the hyphen between my identity and experiences to really find out what makes me me.
My hope is that after this talk, you’ll be able to identify the hyphens within your own lives, and start on the journey toward embracing them yourselves.
So, you’re probably sitting here and thinking to yourself: Well, that’s cool, Satvika, but - who cares? Why does that matter?
Well, on one hand, on a personal level, there’s value in being able to be fully, authentically yourself.
When I was first coming out, I realized quickly that all my queer friends were white and all my South Asian friends were straight. It felt like I had to chop up my identity into different parts when I was with each group.
But in creating Mirrors, a collection of LGBTQ+ South Asian Voices, I was in a space where I was able to be fully and wholly myself. We weren’t sure if creating this publication was possible - there had been nothing like done in Pittsburgh yet. But we felt that it was important to try.
So we put out the call for submissions, and were blown away by the response to it. People were hungry, starving for a space like this. Other LGBTQ+ South Asians out there wanted this just as badly as we did. We curated the content, put together a design and layout and then came the hard part - fundraising for the book. We weren’t sure if we would be able to do it. Would people think it was too niche to be important? Would our hyphen make sense to other people? We made our goal a modest 1000, the bare minimum we would need to get the project off the ground. We blew past that goal within 3 days of the campaign.
And I’m proud to say, as of this morning when I checked, we had raised over 1,600 dollars to create a home and a space for LGBTQ+ South Asians here in Pittsburgh. Because when you’re able to be wholly, authentically yourself, you’re able to give others a space to be be wholly, authentically themselves.
On the other hand, on a professional level, there’s value in being able to build bridges. Between sectors, between disciplines, between people. The best kind of solutions come from the liminal spaces between different fields.
When I was in college at CMU, I noticed that a lot of technology solutions to sexual assault and the bystander effect were only tackling the symptoms of the issue - they were nail polish that would change color at contact with rohypnol, or an app that you could hold down a button if you felt unsafe walking home. None of these solutions tackled the root cause of rape culture itself.
I also noticed that of all the hackathons at CMU, a lot of the products that were coming out of it didn’t have a social impact focus at all, and since tech is such a powerful tool, we set out to change that. A friend and I created Beyond the Binary, a social impact hackathon dedicated to finding solutions to rape culture and the bystander effect. And we got results.
From apps that connected victims and bystanders with support systems in place on campus and that connected the nations Title IX offices to one another, to apps that let people anonymously and securely report unsafe or suspicious activity at parties, all of these solutions were right in the middle of useful and practical and scalable and adaptable.
And the reason they were able to exist is because we were able to bring together people that had subject matter knowledge in both sexual assault prevention and app development. That would be able to speak to both the technology and the people it was meant to serve.
Okay, so now that we know why it’s important - how do you do it? How do you go about embracing these hyphens?
Remember that hyphens are additions - and embracing hyphens is multiplying. It’s about adding to your life and your identity, and multiplying the effects of your experiences.
Try new things. The more things you try, the more experiences you’ll have and be able to notice. I stumbled into a computer science classroom my second semester of college and haven’t looked back since, and now it’s an integral part of who I am.
Notice the negative space. Who’s not in the room? What’s not being talked about and referenced? And why?
Be authentic. Know who you are and who you aren’t, in both identity and experiences. what are you willing to compromise on? What aren’t you willing to compromise on? Know the spaces you inhabit, and the spaces you don’t (and ask yourself why). This lets you know how to step up to mention that negative space, but know yourself well enough that you can step back if you recognize that you don’t have the identity or experiences to engage.
Combine your passions. Are you a biologist who likes to write? Write about biology. Are you a gamer that loves classic literature? Build an RPG game based on classic books. I’ve met a PhD student in who studied both astronomy and mythology and for her honors thesis, wrote a science fiction novel based on a planet around a sun she studied. I know someone who studied both stage directing and computer science, and now writes interactive plays. I had a friend who studied physics and dramaturgy, and taught fundamental physics concepts to elementary school children through theater. There’s a woman in Pittsburgh who combined her love for baking and of social justice by creating custom social justice themed cookies. The biggest myth in life is that you have to choose between two things, when instead you could combine them.
Create spaces for yourself, and for others. I’ve talked about how being part of a space that is wholly authentically you is so important, but it’s hard when they don’t exist. So sometimes you have to create them for yourself, because no one else has it on their radar screen, and no one else can do it like you can do it.
Amplify the voices of others, wherever you are. Whether that’s the boardroom, classroom, courtroom, or even just out with your friends at happy hour, find ways to uplift and amplify the voices of the marginalized. How can you use your skills to further the goals of social justice? Is it financially? Is it emotionally? Is it through your work?
Take care of yourselves. You can’t pour from an empty cup. Make sure to eat, and stay hydrated, and get enough rest.
It wasn’t until last summer that I was finally able to rethink the way that I thought about my identity and my experiences - to really be able to truly answer the question of who I was. During my job interview with my current job, at the Women and Girls Foundation, the question I always dreaded came up: “Tell me about yourself.” This time, though, I was able to say “I’m an intersectional feminist to truly believes in the value and ideals of America and wants to make sure that we stand up to them.” Now I work as a Digital Social Justice Advocate for the Women and Girls Foundation, and I work to build bridges and embrace hyphens around the city.
There’s a feminist quote out there that says “The future is female.” I’ve even got a sticker with it on the back of my notebook. And it’s true, in many ways. The future is female. The future is black, Asian, disabled, trans, bisexual, poor. The future is intersectional – intersectional in both identities and experiences. It has to be. The problems we face right now as a society and the problems we will be facing in the years to come – climate change, automation, the large dumpster fire that is currently our nation’s capital – are intersectional.
So, our solutions have to be too. So go out there, embrace your own hyphens, because that’s the only way we’re going to fix this. And make sure to take care of yourselves while you’re out there saving the world.
Thank you.