David Chariandy
I knew that I needed to try to write to her
In the final months of 2017, my 12-year-old daughter began following what some would call “politics” By this, I don’t mean that she started, only then, observing the displays and effects of power around her — in everyday life, in the daily bombardment of images and video, in who gets to embody belonging and authority in all walks of life. What I mean, much more simply, is that my daughter started following a national election.
As a parent, I should have been happy about this. Whatever cynicism I often feel about the rhetoric of elections, I think it’s important to mind and discuss. I was additionally happy that my daughter, specifically, had taken interest in the campaign strategies, glimpsing as I do the heightened obstacles faced by women in electoral politics. But these positive feelings were undermined by the fact my daughter was following the spectacle of the latest United States national election.
President Trump was inaugurated in the January of 2018. And shortly after, we found ourselves celebrating my daughter’s 13th birthday party. Much of the talk around the table turned to what she had just witnessed. “Just what kind of leader says such things about women and immigrants?” my daughter asked, rhetorically. We are not a Muslim family but my daughter was extremely upset by what had just been announced as Mr Trump’s new executive order, his aptly-called “Muslim ban”.
“Could it really be passed as law?” my daughter asked. “Could it happen here?” she asked in a
softer voice, looking directly at me. This time, she wanted an answer.
My daughter and I are Canadian, not American. But the plain and simple truth is that Canada, like any other nation, has its own histories of ethnic and racial prejudice. I know this intimately as a person of African and South Asian descent; I would like to think I know this, also, as a caring human being. But when faced at my daughter’s birthday party with the question, “Could it happen here?”
I answered: “No, such a law could not be passed here, not now at least.”
Then, two days later, something else happened. Someone apparently enthralled with far right and anti-Muslim rhetoric entered a mosque and killed six worshippers at prayer. The next evening, we attended a vigil at a local mosque. In the dark and rain, sheltered lit candles with others.
My daughter prides herself in being a physically tough girl but when we returned home and I was tucking her into bed, she said she was so very cold. I kissed her goodnight, turned off the lights and she whispered something I had to lean in closer to hear. “It’s so bad,” she said. “What?” I asked. “The world,” she answered. I couldn’t think of how to respond. I just held her hand.
I’d known for years that I needed to have a discussion with my daughter about the politics of race and belonging. I’d wanted, very humbly, to share what I’ve learned and experienced, hoping that someday she would return the gesture. But the timing that night was bad. My mind was clouded. I needed time to compose my thoughts. And the next day, by bitter chance, she was scheduled to travel with her classmates so very far away from me, on her first extended trip from home. I knew then that I needed to try to write to her.