Leela G. Ramachandran

The lid will be pushed ajar by the fist of a social justice warrior… 

SEPTEMBER 23, 2009

Utter humiliation in my elementary school cafeteria was the last thing my insecure self needed and yet, that is exactly what I was subjected to. As I awkwardly maneuvered my lanky legs into the benches attached to hexagonal tables, everyone looked up from their pop culture lunch bags or paper bags. I did my best to stave off the inevitable, but my gurgling stomach betrayed me. I unzipped the rectangular safe haven, carefully extricating metal tins of what I told my peers was ‘Indian food’. Seven pairs of eyes were focused on my hands as they tugged the lids off of my rice with garlic and tomato daal, upkuri, and puran poli. I looked up and the staring faces confirmed my suspicions; my food and I were met with scrunched faces and upturned noses snickering in disgust.

My heart sank and my body shrank, unconsciously attempting to shield my defenseless self from the onslaught of comments about the smelliness of my food, how mushy it looked, and oddly enough–assumptions that I was poor. At that moment, I froze. Legs glued to the seat, my brain recycled the same few thoughts: You don’t belong. You can’t show your embarrassment. Just deal with it. This is what you get for bringing rice and daal instead of a peanut butter and fluff sandwich. Then after a few minutes, I laughed along. I participated in my own ridicule.

As the daughter of Indian immigrants in a primarily white town and school district, I frequently felt stuck in a nebulous space between “Indian enough” and “American enough”. My lunch was comfort food. The daal was a lentil dish my mom made on late nights when she didn’t have much energy to cook. The green bean and upkuri reminded me of the maid who was like family; when I visited India, she would sit and shred coconut with me on the kitchen floor. The sweet roti made me feel like my grandmother had just taken one off the stove and handed it to me. My culture and memories were instantly robbed by the ignorance and criticism of my peers. To the kids who saw themselves as American, my food was smelly. The turmeric-induced yellow looked gross. The aroma of spices from my lunch was a foreign assault on their senses. Responsible for it was a girl who didn’t look like them with food that didn’t look like theirs.

These moments stuck with me as I grew up, serving as sideboards that quickly ricocheted me back to arbitrary norms when I dared to explore who I thought I may be. These expectations and filters were suffocating. They forced me to question my own sanity and wonder why I never truly felt like I belonged. I stopped bringing Indian food to school; instead, I opted for raw vegetables and deli meat sandwiches. Further mocking led me to abandon calling my parents “Amma” and “Appa”. They were renamed “Mom” and “Dad” to suit my classmates. The dissonance between my home context and that of school continued until I took a college course cataloging racism over time with Dr. Josephine Wright. Her teachings gave me knowledge that functioned like a photograph of a finished puzzle–I was able to see how my fractured experiences fit into the whole and situate them within hundreds of years of history.

After the first day of Dr. Wright’s class, I called my mom to excitedly tell her about all that I would learn. Little did I know, the history and systems would be entirely applicable to my own experiences and it would force me to confront the why of my life events. White supremacy provided justification for the atrocity that was abducting and enslaving African people. It provided justification for redlining, the practice of color-coding federal maps by racial makeup of residents and assigning value to neighborhoods. As such, areas on the map coded with red were primarily Black neighborhoods and banks would typically refuse to issue mortgages for homeownership in and around these areas. During the Jim Crow era, white supremacy justified the segregatory practices of separate but [un]equal spaces and facilities when white folks had access to their own water fountains, bus sections, and schools. Not only has white supremacy affected the lives of Black folks in the United States, it affects all people of color by creating dominant narratives around belonging and worth.

By innocently critiquing my food, they taught me that I only belonged in the lunchroom with sandwiches, salads, and Lunchables; food void of flavor were expected. The spices were jarring and disrupted the comfort of mushy potatoes and white bread. By judging the names I used for my parents, they taught me that English titles for family were the standard. Using words that they didn’t recognize made them feel excluded. Ironic, seeing as Europeans forced Black and brown people to speak English as they violently colonized the existing inhabitants of the land. By expecting that I would see my extended family during breaks, and then critiquing my family’s love based on my sharing that holidays typically consisted of my mother, sister, and myself spending time together, they taught me I must not be worth enough. The elementary school version of myself did not fully understand the enormity of living oceans away from family rather than state lines away.

Dr. Wright showed the class how white supremacy can be traced through history; I learned how white supremacy can be identified at every single stage of my life thus far. My peers at McCarthy Towne Elementary School were not special. Their treatment was not cruel and unusual. Their perspectives were not outlandish and influenced by science fiction movies. In fact, they were typical. They were products of an environment made of people who clutch their pearls when accused of aiding systems of oppression but rarely actively oppose the oppression of others. In fact, those students likely had parents who speak about slavery as a horrible atrocity and denounce racial slurs, all while ignoring that their occupation of land in Acton, Massachusetts is a product of settler-colonialism, genocide, and redlining.

Though comments about food are seemingly innocent, the structures, systems, and norms are pervasive and violent. In Kindergarten, I couldn’t find a crayon that matched my skin tone, leaving me to use a peach-toned rod of wax despite the inaccuracy. There was the time when I was loud in the high school hallway with a couple of Black friends, and they were suspended while I was merely spoken to. Then, as I protested racial injustice in 2020, I was told, “speak English in America you social justice warrior!” The woman assumed that based on my melanin content, I must have been native in another language. That comment cut deeply, as I remembered feelings of shame when I uttered “Amma” and “Appa” at school–eerily similar to this moment 11 years later.

When we avoid learning about history and fail to actively avoid reproducing the same failures and horrors, we leave kids like me feeling isolated and forced to assimilate. We leave my Black friends with less time in school because they were perceived to be more disruptive. We leave mothers in heaven because their pain during birth was not listened to or honored. We leave little Black boys shot and killed because their toy guns must be real when melanin-rich hands hold them. When we do what we have been collectively doing for hundreds of years, we merely reinvent and perpetuate systems of oppression that marginalize, burden, exhaust, and kill people who are perceived to be different than the norm.

I reflect on this 22-year-old lifetime of mine and wish that I could love and support younger versions of myself since the United States of America clearly cannot be trusted to nurture Black and brown souls.