Virtual Grounds Participant Stories — Milan Gokhale
Virtual Grounds is a 2-part training and research initiative that considers how we navigate the future, protect our virtual selves, and shape digital landscapes. Over the course of the last year participation engaged in workshops and research to build out their year end projects. Over the course of the next several weeks we will be showcasing their work through presentations and blog posts. Participants have provided interventions/provocations/explorations on how we navigate building community with/without technology. This program is a collaboration between Digital Justice Lab and Trinity Square Video. Funding support provided by Canada Council for the Arts.
- What inspired you to do this project?
Early on, I wanted to write about how we as South Asian fathers are navigating consent for our children. Around the same time that I was working on this consent and power writing piece, Black Lives Matter protests broke out across the world. I started talking to my family, both in Canada and in India, as well as friends on WhatsApp and work colleagues on Slack about what was happening. I was already seeing the protests through the lens of consent, power and privilege. The more that I talked, read, learned, unlearned, argued and listened, the more I became concerned that I was writing the wrong way about myself and my community. Black Lives Matter has forced all of us, myself included, to re-evaluate each layer of our own stories of pain and triumph in Canada.
For brown men like me, the story we write about ourselves is constantly delicate and historically complicated. Within these stories, we can be memorable protagonists and arch villains. In Canadian contexts, we are frequently nondescript, forgettable extras. In this moment, I was writing one story around interpersonal consent that unapologetically centered me, my friends and family. And there was an anti-racist story in which we were seemingly uninvolved. When I pulled further on that thread, I reached an uncomfortable place where I came to the conclusion that I’m part of a generation of people that is far more involved in upholding oppression than dismantling it. It starts with me being cis-gendered, heterosexual, male, able-bodied and comfortably middle-class, but it’s even deeper than that — I began to research my family’s ancient history of Brahmin privilege that has much of the same Hindu supremacist history in India as white supremacy in Canada. My family is historically closer to whiteness than I ever thought. And that realization, the uncomfortable reality that I am more oppressor than oppressed in every country that my bloodline calls home, felt like the center of what I needed to write about right now.
- In your essay you talk about the role of the model minority as a part of the myth of multiculturalism. What is the model minority, and how does it relate to systemic racism in Canada?
The model minority myth is a lie that the “best and brightest” immigrants are quiet, polite, hard-working, tolerant and smart. Many people of colour want to fit into that model minority stereotype — for many years, it was my only goal — because those qualities have become desirable in multicultural Canada.
As Black feminist scholars like Robyn Maynard have pointed out, Canadian multiculturalism glosses over a long history of anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism. The model minority gets used by Canada’s business, political and community leaders to perpetuate a myth that model minorities are somehow different than other non-white populations. That logic is used to justify inhumane, unfair, racist treatment of Black and Indigenous people.
In reality, people of colour who have successfully assimilated into Canada have succeeded in a country that was founded on genocide and land theft. They have many generations of Black, Indigenous, racialized, feminized, working class people to thank, for hard-fought victories in the struggles for human rights. Those of us who live comfortably as non-white people have a responsibility to stand firmly with those who have been systematically denied those same comforts.
Canada has immigration policies designed to uphold systems of power that include white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism. Immigrants to Canada, including those from South Asian diasporas, are immediately divided into categories that flatten our identity and strip us of our humanity. It has lasting effects on how we think of ourselves.
- How do you think activism today is different?
I’m not sure it is all that different. The systems of power are always present in the background, and the major piece for an activist to produce change — action — remains the same.
- You mentioned in your essay, for brown families, it is often the case that the idea of the model minority and its history is perpetuated throughout generations. Why is this important to you? And, is it possible to break the cycle?
I think it’s too much to expect us to fully break the cycle of intergenerational trauma. I’m more focused on just trying to slow down the cycle, or maybe re-orient its energy! I got there because I was pushed by many South Asian women in my life to do better, starting with my wonderfully supportive wife. I can’t speak for all South Asian families, but it’s important for me to attempt solidarity with Black and Indigenous folks, because ultimately, their liberation is intertwined with mine.
Bio
Milan Gokhale is an Indo-Canadian, Toronto-based tech worker and writer. For the last fifteen years, he has delivered technology systems for retail, media and non-profit sectors. He writes independently as a freelance essayist and poet. He has been quoted in the New York Times, Business Insider, CBC Radio-Canada and several Toronto based media outlets. Milan completed software engineering and MBA programs. He speaks English, French and Marathi. He is learning Hindi with the help of his wife and their daughter.
Social Media
Twitter: @milang
Medium: @milang
