30 Days Journal - Day 11

I am a terrible journal-er. As an exercise to become better, I decided to do a 30 day journal challenge for myself. Just like during my quarantine, I am using Isolation Journals for daily journal prompt.

Prompt: Reflect on the first time you became aware of race—either yours or someone else’s. What meaning did you make of it then? How has that meaning evolved?

This is such a tough subject to tackle. I know I am very lucky to grow up in such a diverse environment. Despite the fact that the first bit of my life I lived in a homogenous place, I was young enough and moved to enough places to realize how diverse the world is. To be honest, I have not really thought much about race growing up in Canadian schools. My friends are from different part of the world and have widely diverse backgrounds. I celebrate many different holidays during high school because I was very lucky to be in a high school with such a diverse student body. I got adopted by many culture groups to learn more about what they love and what they practice. But looking back, I don’t know if it was what I thought of myself as “being woke” or just blissfully ignorant. I think my biggest learning was when I return to home the first time after going off to university. I went to a predominately caucasian university, that was when I realize my upbringing was in an environment that is predominantly visible minority. I realize my ability to fit in has muted my sense of the obvious truth of what is race.

I think over time and time again, is when I was privileged to listen to my friends’ own experiences with race was when race become clearer. Then the real shocker kicked in was when I went to do my MBA in France. I thought I knew what diversity was, until my classmates showed me I don’t. Canada is really good at being inclusive, but it was still a toned down version of what diversity is. Most people who moves to Canada believes in the idea of embracing the new and the Canadian ideology of diversity but it still has a “Canadian” version of diversity - it is not how the rest of the world operates.

I think during my time in lock-down, where the BLM movement has become more prominent, I chose to listen to more books about race. Previously I always thought I knew what it is and listening to it would not yield any benefits for me. But through listening to friends and educating myself about it, I had shattered many of previous conceptions about the subject. Although I am still not there yet, but I want to be a better ally for my friends and the society.