Driven up the wall, by bias

I am struggling to find it in me to be compassionate and kind to someone who, instead of reflecting on their own awkwardness around race, preferred to convince me of the falsity of my memory. Representation pic

After an intense two-day excursion to San Marino, a tiny country within the territory of Italy, I was glad to return to my apartment in Venice. I was physically exhausted from having spent Tuesday evening waiting for our infinitely delayed train to arrive, then realising it most likely wouldn't, and quickly organising our night's stay in Rimini so we could rest some hours before taking the morning train. Having spent months in lockdown in the bliss of my own company and that of my partner's, it has been somewhat difficult to handle being with more than a few people. It's like having to re-learn how to be social, especially when one is meeting those with whom one feels digitally intimate. It has been immensely rewarding, being around a group of emotionally literate people who behave responsibly and with respect and affection towards each other. The level of conversation and the ease of laughter have felt delightful. Still, when I finally returned to my apartment in Venice and cooked myself a pasta lunch, I had to crash on the sofa from sheer exhaustion, both physical and mental. I had the windows open to allow for maximum cross-ventilation and despite occasionally sweating from summer humidity, I fell into a deep slumber. I allowed myself the luxury of resting until I felt ready to be awake again.

The last week hasn't been easy for me. Remember how I had written about conflict resolution and finding the courage to address hostile situations and resolve them amicably? Some hours after I wrote the column, I found out that I had been manipulated by the person with whom I had addressed two instances of inappropriate behaviour, both involving her making comments that directly referenced my skin colour and that of another person of colour. She expressed ‘doubts' about the first instance, and blatantly denied the second. She did it with so much confidence, she had succeeded, during our interaction, to convince me that I had fabricated my memory of it. Thankfully, I was not the only person to whom the comment was addressed. There was another who had the exact same memory of the incident as me.
It was when I was debriefing her about my confrontation with the white woman in question that she seemed alarmed, because her memory aligned with mine. Two of us couldn't be liars. The comment, too, had been so absurd and random, we couldn't possibly have invented it.

Since then I have been struggling to co-exist with this person who not only gaslighted me but eagerly manipulated me into believing I had been defaming her. When she denied the incident, she also asked me if I would consider telling those with whom I had shared details about it that she had not behaved as I had remembered. Of course I have done no such thing, because, once my memory was validated by my colleague, I felt it was important for me to assert what had happened. I had every right to talk about it with whomsoever I wanted. I found it hard to swallow that instead of choosing to categorically apologise for an inappropriate comment, this person should invest energy in convincing me, and possibly herself, that it never happened, simply because they are unable to see themselves as the kind of person who could have made such a comment. I felt hurt and disappointed and angry, and each time I see this person these emotions are triggered all over again and I am struggling to find it in me to be compassionate and kind to someone who, instead of reflecting on their own awkwardness around race, preferred to convince me of the falsity of my memory.

As I return to the conversation I'd had with this person in private last Thursday, I feel tormented. Should I have simply chosen an institutional form of resolution. Should I have gone directly to the organisation and made a complaint? I thought I was acting from a space of grace and kindness by choosing to privately address the person who caused me grievance rather than shaming them through bureaucratic procedure. Where is the reparative justice in this situation? When my colleague reported to her that she'd had the same memory as me, she was also greeted with blatant denial instead of acknowledgement of wrongdoing. Sometimes I feel quite shocked at the casual racism of people in authority here in Europe. Because I spend so much time trying to be sensitive about my own use of language so as to minimise any form of harm to another, I feel desperately agitated when someone is unmindful in their interactions with me. I'm still learning how to be alert and respond to the grievance in the very moment of its utterance, and not retrospectively. As a woman of colour it is sometimes frustrating how much awareness one has to continually demonstrate in order to make clear ones emotional boundaries and to project a no-nonsense approach towards sexist, racist, and casteist behaviour. There is no form of sleep that can revitalise me from how exhausted I feel by white and savarna feminism, not to mention Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists (TERFS), all patriarchs in feminist disguise who always cry wolf when called out for their reprehensible actions.

Deliberating on the life and times of Everywoman, Rosalyn D'Mello is a reputable art critic and the author of A Handbook For My Lover. She tweets @RosaParx

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The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.