in other news this is what i wore for my senior pics
Hi! It’s @reclaimthebindi week and I just wanted to share a quick story. So elementary school was really fucking hard for me due to the fact that I was still learning English and I had only been in the US for a few years. So making friends was incredibly difficult because nobody wanted to be friends with a F.O.B.
On top of that people would make fun of almost every aspect of me. My facial hair , my mehndi, my big nose, my skin color, my food, my clothes. They took all my characteristics and just ripped them apart. After a few years of enduring bullying, I had enough and I assimilated. I brought ham sandwiches for lunch. I never wore mehndi or put on a bindi. I put away all my lehengas. I was acting as “American” as possible.
Flash forward about 6 more years and all of these things associated with Southwest Asia are now turned into fucking accessories by the white girls who tormented me throughout elementary school. The same people who made fun of my thick eyebrows were now filling in their shitty-ass white people bows with Anastasia Dipbrow. The same people who thought my mehndi was some weird disease were now scribbling it on their arms. The same people who called me a “dot” for wearing a bindi were now wearing rhinestones on their foreheads to Coachella.
Fuck those cultural appropriators. Fuck those who tormented me for years because of my culture. Fuck those who made me ashamed to be Indian. Fuck all of them.
Now, I’m proud to be Indian and I will not let anyone take my culture away from me.
Happy Diwali, everyone!
