by Sophia Terazawa
“Decolonizing Touch” is a monthly column about love and intimacy. If the revolution will not be televised, then the erotic, the heartbreaks, and interpersonal relationships most certainly will go unseen. But I believe that what happens in private is the most radical space of all. What does it mean to desire the Other? How does it feel to need the oppressor? I hope to answer these questions (and more) in my column.
Sweet Dreams are Made of This
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| Ripe for Business: A Self-Portrait, Illustration by Sophia Terazawa |
Last night I woke up repeating, “Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me.”
Talking in my sleep was not new, as my family and college roommate would always let me know the next morning.
“Who were you talking to in your dreams?” They asked.
I never remembered.
To stir awake in the middle of a conversation, now that was unusual.
SOME OF THEM
WANT TO USE YOU.
WANT TO USE YOU.
In this dream, we wore black suits. The man’s hand was on my back. His voice, quiet but firm. We were standing at a conference table with a large map spread upon it like a bed cover.
I stiffened as he moved his hand around my waist but did not hesitate to snap, “Don’t touch me.”
In that moment, my eyes opened. The man was―poof!―gone, and there I was, awake, chanting in the dark.
SOME OF THEM
WANT TO GET USED BY YOU.
White men are everywhere. I cannot avoid them, even in my sleep. Worse still, I have the feeling they want to colonize me (yes, my subconscious, too). Let me explain.
SOME OF THEM
WANT TO ABUSE YOU.
Last night in my dream, the map laid out on the table represented my identity, the land of my mother’s people before the French colonizers arrived, tapping on rubber trees and milking them dry.
According to one of my Aunties, we were rumored to have French blood in our veins. Perhaps it could explain the peculiar phenomenon of our eyes changing color with age―black, hazel, and finally, sky grey. By the time my grandmother died, her irises were golden yellow, a sign of old nobility.
But I digress.
The man wanted more, clearly, from me. I was not just a guide, some shrewd topographer. To him, my name was Indochine. My flesh, the giving tree. Coconuts, dragon fruit, warm papaya seeds. He wanted more, just a taste of jungle deep in me.
My blazer could not hide it. Perfected English could not hide it. Composure could not hide it. I was there, in my own mind, ripe for business. Ripe for picking.
The horror of it all was waking up to the same reality.
SOME OF THEM
WANT TO BE ABUSED.
The colonizer with no spirit―no depth beyond what he takes―is inside of me already. He is a real person with a real family and a name. In every movie, I am taught to sympathize with his hunger before my own. In every conflict, I fear his power before my own. I give because he asks, and nobody ever taught me how to ask.
Why are your eyes so empty?
Why are your lips so cold?
Why do you stand so close?
Why do your hands feel like they know how to pull a trigger? I ask because my cousins say they don’t speak Vietnamese in public anymore in case a white man is listening. I ask because my Muslim sisters now cross the street when a white man comes their way. I ask because my Black brothers now say a prayer when a white man blocks their path. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil... I ask because our lives depend on what you say.
THE DECOLONIZER
December 2015
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