asiyah

Back home I didn’t really think about what it meant to be black, and the importance of that. But, when I came here, I started identifying myself in a lot of different ways. So, being a Muslim, being a woman, being black, and what that really meant. I realized that in certain circumstances, in the past, I would see it as a weakness. I would see it as, “Oh, this is going to be a barrier for me to overcome in order to get this opportunity, or get whatever it is.” A goal for me, and I path I have been on in the last two-ish years, and really in the last couple of months, has been using that instead of as a weakness, as a power; finding the power in being black, in being a woman, in being Muslim, and how can I utilize that strength because I have been working a lot in equity and human rights around power and privilege, and I have been trying to have that conversation around, we constantly talk about white privilege, but what is black privilege, what does that look like, is there such a thing? What is that conversation? It has been really important for me to have this independent journey in a place where there is literally nobody like me, and trying to figure out what that means for me, literally being in this space. It has been very eye opening, very challenging for me to figure out like, why would I be ashamed of being an immigrant here? But, I think it is also because I didn’t know I was an immigrant. I didn’t come here with that mindset that I was coming here to become an immigrant. I didn’t realize that was the way people looked at me. I started having conversations with people and they would say, “Oh, you immigrated here?” I would say, “No, I am just studying,” but in that way I am seen as an immigrant, and in some cases I am seen as this pitiful person that someone wants to come and protect, and show me the ways of the world. But, I have always been a very independent person, and coming here I have had to fight for my place. But, in other ways, I have definitely been very privileged in the opportunities I have gotten on campus, but I realize that at first I was overly thankful. I would be saying thank-you for this opportunity, thank you for this, thank-you for that, and then I realized that I was the only one there. The only black person in that conversation, the only international student there, and maybe even sometimes the only woman or the only youth. So, it has been really important for me know, since I have been in certain circles, that I am starting to fight for those certain identities, and try to figure out, “why is there no-one else here with me?” In my circles, there are a lot of intelligent people. There are people who can do literally everything better and more impactful than I can, and I’m like, why aren’t they here, and why aren’t we bringing them to the table, and why aren’t we talking to them, and why aren’t they part of the conversation? So, that has been a really, really, really big thing for me, you know? In terms of going home, I want to go home, but I am afraid of getting into this norm. I think there is a lot more independent learning that I need to do for myself away from the comfort of my home, in all honesty. So, I think that I will stay here for the next two-ish years, and then figure out what I am doing. But, in terms of home, I have a lot of plans for my home. I have a lot of growth goals; I have been talking to educators about starting different plans in terms of STEM and that kind of thing. I definitely have a lot of goals for home, so even if I am not physically there, I will be there in presence. I will not be leaving my home at all. No, there’s no way. I am Bahamian through and through, there’s literally no way. I have a map that is literally the size of the door in my room, there’s no way for me to ever forget that I am Bahamian. 

In the last year, a lot of people have been asking me if I want to go back, and I don’t know about you, but because I came here to study, I always had the idea, at least initially, that I would come here and study and leave. I never thought that I would find a community; I never thought that I would find a family; I never thought that it would be a home for me. I just came here with the idea that I would come and then go, that’s it. The more that I started to grow roots here, and find friends, and find that community, the more I felt fully torn between this and home. I almost felt like a fraud, because I would say that I am from the Bahamas, and yet, I don’t want to go back? I would say that I love my country, and yet it’s not always on my mind, and I really felt torn. Then, in 2010 when those hurricanes hit, man, worst time of my life. I talk to my mom every freakin’ day, and I had exams, and people expected me to study, and focus on my exams, and I hadn’t heard from my mom in two weeks, and I was freaking out. And all I hear is the death toll rising in Haiti, and watching the videos of tsunamis, and water tearing through Jamaica and the Bahamas, and I just see water everywhere. A hard rain drowns us, so this hardest category (hurricane)…I was just shook, man. That tore me apart. That was a struggle. I went home this summer and it really hurt. I knew that we had been bashed, but we had never been hit that hard, and buildings that I had grown up around had been completely destroyed and they are not being fixed, because of the economy, and we just don’t have the money to fix certain buildings. Golf courses had been ripped apart, and I played golf my entire life. There are places we can’t even go anymore, and I had kind of forgotten about it until I got home, and then I thought, “Damn.” I was honestly just shook. Every place that we drove, there is always a memory, but with that memory came a broken building, and it felt really bad because I had been sitting here living my life, and I was just happy to hear from my family, and everything was good, and yeah the economy was bad, but I thought that everything would pick back up. But, when I went and visually saw what was happening, and all of the hotels that are closed. It really hit. I also want to go home and travel every island. Seven hundred islands, I want to go to all of them. Seven hundred Bahamian islands, because we are an archipelago. Some of these islands, they don’t even belong to us anymore. This celebrity owns an island, and this celebrity owns an island. 

When I came here I was shook. My graduating class was fourteen people. My whole high school was two hundred people or less. I walked into my first year class, two hundred and fifty people. I thought, “Where am I? How am I supposed to even talk to somebody?” You know islands, you know everybody, or at least their parents know you, so everything is chill. You don’t have to introduce yourself to anybody, everybody just knows everybody, the end. So, I had completely forgot what an interaction is, how do you introduce yourself, how do you start holding a conversation, how do you start talking to someone who doesn’t know your dad. And so, I am walking into this classroom like, “How do I make friends?” My first year, honestly my mom was so worried, because I am a talkative person. I am loud, I’m talkative, and I’m engaging. First year I was as quiet as anything, I made no friends, the only people that I knew were the library attendants. It was the saddest thing. I just didn’t know what to do. I was so lost, and then I met one Nigerian in my second year, and then I met twenty-five million after that. 

There was this one time on the bus. Normally, I sit at the front of the bus because that is just where I sit. But, there was a wheelchair coming in, so I got up to move to the back of the bus. And there was one guy in the back row sitting in the middle, and I was sitting in the corner. He just turned to me, and then he got up and started cussing. He told me to take my ass home, said, “why the f are you here, you need to get out of this country.” He was bitching at me for 5 minutes. I think two things shook me about this instance. One, it wasn’t an empty bus, and nobody spoke up. The second one was, I didn’t know if he hated me because I was a girl, because I was Muslim, because I was black, or because I was Muslim girl, because I was Muslim and black, because I was a girl and black. I had no idea why he didn’t like me, and then I was ashamed of who I was. I thought, “Is there something I need to change? Did I approach him in a certain way, did I do something wrong?” And that pissed me off, because why the hell do I feel some type of way about some guy cussing at me? Why do I feel like there is something I need to change about myself? I think that has been the biggest thing, I didn’t realize how many personalities or identities that I have that would be seen as some sort of target. I didn’t know how many minority boxes I tick off until I got here, and I think that is the biggest thing for me, when I walk through life, trying to figure out how is someone seeing me. Are they looking at me today as a woman, are they looking to me just as a Muslim? I notice that in certain circumstances, it depends on where I am. If I am talking to a Muslim community, they are seeing me as a Muslim woman, and if I am talking about the Muslim community, they are seeing me as a Muslim woman. But, sometimes, when for example I represent UVic, they put me in UVic Viewbook, and I started to question things, like are you putting me there because I am intelligent, or because I literally tick off every single box of the minority check box that you have within your agenda. I am a woman, I’m Black, I’m international, I’m Muslim. I am every diversity that you need. So, am I just it on one page, and you can continue flipping for your regular people? I didn’t realize how much my identities would mean to the perceptions of people. I didn’t walk through life thinking about what other people thought of me in those ways, but now, I am much more aware of it. It makes me second guess opportunities I have had, or instances. I think in the last two years, like I said, I am very much just trying my best to make it as a strength, and not see it as a weakness, not see it as something that people should look down on me for, but it should be a strength. When I do something, yes it is me doing it, but I also want you to notice that it is a Bahamian doing, it is a Black person doing it, it’s a Muslim doing it, it’s a girl doing it, it’s a youth doing it. I want you to see that. I think the good thing is that I am working a lot with equity and human rights and diversity, and I find that being in the circles that I am in, and talking to Moussa Magassa and Ruth Mojeed, with those two really strong presences in the community, it helps me really be able to find strength within my identities and figure out what is equity, and what are these microaggressions that I am experiencing, and to tell me, “speak up!” It is not a crime to do that. There is this perception of a Black woman being that noisy, complaining individual, and I think I have always been afraid to show that, when I came here I just wanted to blend in. But now, I’m like, “Listen, I have something to say, and I am going to say it.” There’s a thing that I really like, something that Ruth said to me was, “some of us don’t need to be empowered; we just need to be amplified.” I think that a lot of people walk into certain communities, and are like, “I’m going to empower these people.” But, y’all are having table talks; y’all don’t need to be empowered, someone just needs to sit in that conversation and listen to what you are saying. I really liked that, because I find that it’s not that we aren’t talking, it’s just that you’re not listening, or you’re not hearing the message that I am trying to teach you by telling you my story. I have been questioning a lot of people recently, and being like, “did you actually hear what I said? Are you actually listening?” Or, are you just going to say, “Thanks for the story,” and move on? Are you going take what I told you and implement that in some sort of way? One of the biggest things I think I have been working on is accountability. So, now that we have told you this, now that we have had this conversation, now that you have invited us to the table, and we’ve had this talk, how are you going to implement this and how are we going to be able to see that in the next year, in the next couple of months? Accountability. I did an interview recently, and someone asked me about tokenism; why does it happen, and why do we have tokenism, and how do we identify it? I said, “Well, if you are going into a room, and you need that diversity voice, and there is one specific person that comes to mind, then you know that is a token person, because if there is only one person that can give you the perspective that you are looking for, that is more diverse than yours, then you are not surrounding yourself with more diverse people.” Also, I think tokenism comes in when people have decided, “Ok, I have reached a threshold, I have invited enough people to this table, I have reached all of the voices, and there is no one else that needs to be heard.” There is a great harm in thinking that you have reached the peak of diversity, and you have reached the end of inclusion. Someone said, “diversity is just a fact, inclusion is a choice,” and I liked that. Diversity is happening, we are diversity, but inclusion is that choice; are you going to bring the diverse population that you have into the conversation? 

When I came here, academically, I thought, “I’m going into stem cell, and that’s it. Can’t tell me nothing else.” Then, working and volunteering in the groups that I do, and talking to the people I have spoken to, I realized that I like to help others find their own power, I like to change workplaces, I like to ruffle feathers, I like to have those hard conversations, I like to force someone to look at themselves. I like looking at myself. I love being self-aware. I love considering, “How could I have said that better, and who am I offending in this circumstance, and whose voice isn’t here?” I think that is what makes me happy, and that is where I see growth happening in the communities that I am surrounded by, and that is what I want to keep doing. What that looks like, no clue. But, that is what I want to do. That, and sing. 

I don’t know if you know about the Inclusion Project? It was pretty cool. It brought together youth, and business, and CEO’s, and everybody in the world, and we had a lot of speakers. Mayer Helps said something that I really, really liked. She said, “Let’s not recolonize the decolonization process.” I liked that, because I find that we are doing that. We have white people who are pushing forward for certain things, but they don’t want to hear the voices of anybody else, unless it is their voice. They want a diverse voice, as long as that voice represents what they want. I understand that they should be doing the work, but they should also be listening to those who need the work done for them. We have seen an increase in the amount of people who are diverse coming into the workplace, but they aren’t staying there. Why? Because you haven’t changed the environment that they are coming into. So, it is still the same environment, nobody appreciates them, they are still not being heard, so why would they stay? So, how do we not just bring more people in, but how do we change the environment that we bring them into? There were a lot of conversations around that, which I really, really liked.