“In turning the volume down on myself, I am, in part, turning the volume down on everything that oppresses me. Systematic racism, glass ceilings, LGBTQ+ discrimination – they all hum quietly in the background.”
“It seems a choice must be made between maintaining this masquerade and doing the right thing. Am I really going to pretend I don’t know the difference between capitalism and communism and then get on my soapbox when the fifth round of beers at the pub begins the slagging of immigrants and the working class?”
“That word [deceptive] came from white hands but I didn’t have to take it. I chose to. And maybe that’s the most subversive power of all – taking what the world gives us, unwrapping it, and claiming it for ourselves.”
No matter how sweetly I smile, when I reject the stereotype of the ‘angry black woman’, all I’m saying is, ‘I’m not like other black or mixed girls, I’m not smart or confident. I don’t care about my rights.’ Yet what’s the alternative?
“For marginalised people, tools of power don’t always sit the same in our hands. They’re weighted with oppression, with systems, with expectations. For some, like me, they’re too heavy to hold day in and day out.”
Deception is key to being an imposter. I am an imposter in that I am aiming to carve a space for myself in a society that does not want me to. This is not a syndrome. And my ‘deception’ is not a symptom.
For marginalised people, tools of power don’t always sit the same in our hands. They’re weighted with oppression, with systems, with expectations. For some, like me, they’re too heavy to hold day in and day out. There is nothing wrong with putting down one tool, and picking up another – a lighter one, one that doesn’t feel so dangerous in the hand. As Audre Lorde wrote, “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”
Eilidh is a twenty-year-old Glaswegian, studying English Literature, and is interested in intersectional feminism and everyone looking after each other. Overall, she is just trying her best. @eilidhakilade_