Timely warning about internalising inferiority

When I was about to get married to my Kiwi husband, a good friend gave me advice that has stayed with me to this day. She asked me to regularly remind myself that my Iranian culture was not inferior to my husband’s Kiwi culture, or else my marriage would not be a happy one.

My Iranian friend had good reasons for giving me such advice. She had entered into her own marriage with a belief that her husband’s European race and culture were superior to hers. And so it was that, for the entire duration of her marriage, she had battled to shed her Iranian skin, to walk, talk and look completely European.

In the years after her marriage ended, and after much soul-searching, she realised she had experienced two types of mutually enhancing racism: internal and external.

During her marriage, in her zeal to prove her equal worth, she had decided to become more European than Europeans themselves – but the estrangement from her own culture, history and language had left her feeling empty and without a cultural anchor.

Worse still was the realisation that by taking on the values, actions, behaviours and worldviews of her husband’s European family, she had in fact validated and confirmed their superiority to her. And this is exactly how internalised racism, itself a consequence of structural racism, colludes with, and enforces broader societal racism.

It is easy to assume my friend’s self-view had to do with common human conditions such as ‘‘low self-esteem’’ or ‘‘self-hate’’ but internalised racism is not a problem of individuals; it is structural.

At a young age, my friend was sent from Iran to boarding school in England. It was there that she was first exposed to what sociologist Joe Feagin refers to as the ‘‘White Racial Frame’’– a broad worldview embedded in language, imagery, films, emotions, interpretations and reactions that regards everything white and Eurocentric as superior. My friend unconsciously internalised these messages, and in a way became her own oppressor.

There is an old American rhyme, which summarises the racism of a racial hierarchy: ‘‘If you are white, you’re all right, if you are yellow, you are mellow, if you’re brown, stick around. But if you’re black, stand back’’.

Here’s what James Baldwin says about the inevitability of internalised racism: ‘‘You know, it’s not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do it to yourself.’’

These days, the messages of the ‘‘White Racial Frame’’ are all over the internet and accessible to boys and girls growing up in the East as well as the West.

This might explain why skin-lightening creams are so popular in India, or why so many Iranian women, and increasingly men, dye their hair blonde and wear fashion lenses to make them appear blue or green-eyed.

I myself feel a pang of satisfaction whenever I am mistaken for being French. Why is that? Can it be for anything other than an internalised belief that being French is superior to being Iranian?

I was lucky I married into a family that not only has welcomed me with open arms but has also taken great interest in my culture and my country. In 2003, my parents-in-law made the big effort of travelling to Iran and exploring some of its cities. My mother-in-law has since given multiple talks to various groups about the hospitality and warmth of Iranian people and the sites they visited on their trip.

I myself feel a pang of satisfaction whenever Iam mistaken for being French. Why is that?

Unfortunately, the strong connection I had with Iranian language, arts and literature considerably weakened shortly after leaving Iran in my late teens. On reflection, my cultural disconnection was partly because of distance and partly because of internalised racism that subconsciously encouraged me to camouflage myself in the dominant culture.

I started to dilute my ‘‘Iranian-ness’’ when I became a university lecturer in north London, just to fit into my work environment, which at the time was dominated by white men.

Before I knew it, my persona had changed. Today, my old over-excited emotions, which exist naturally in almost all Iranians, are barely there.

The ways I interact and speak to other people have changed too. I have altogether dropped the Iranian ‘‘taarof’’ (a common form of civility used to show respect and at times favour) and adopted some new Kiwi habits, including smiling at complete strangers and talking about the weather.

But thankfully there is still plenty of Iranian left in me, and I am reminded of it whenever I hear Persian poetry, or get a scent of the saffron and aromatic herbs used in Persian food.