'subaltern cannot speak'

(the original title was: 'those who are oppressed are deprived of a voice', but then spivak has already provided me this ready-made sentence- so why not?, though this title has perhaps gotten some baggage now. . .)

today's research day meeting was 'internationalism' and it was a bit disappointing. it was good that we finally had a space to talk about certain things such as being hurt or ignored or stereotyped simply because our race, nationality and other things that are usually not equated to represent overally who we are of our own accord.
the disappointment was that among overseas students, the two american white people dominated in the integrated, whole-group discussion. they juxtaposed their experiences of being challenged as american because of george bush and 'the american way' with experiences of being thrown with a stone or yelled at as 'chinese pigs'. as ann pointed out at that time, there is a difference between dealing with naivety and intended harms. i thought, too, that it was very unfair/unjust for the hurting experiences of racism to be washed away, or even neglected, because of their hasty emphasis on their experiences with people's ignornace or lack of sophistication in dealing with the americans.

i thought i could say something to balance out the american concerns. but the thing was that i personally have never been yelled at, attacked or thrown with a pack of milk/a stone, and i didn't want to put on the spot the people who were there and who had been thru these terrible acts done by 'the locals'. i was afraid that anything i said _for them_ will further oppress them, making them confronting things they are not yet ready to. i also know how experiences as such can be almost too hurtful, embarrassing and difficult to tell, especially in front of a group of people who are your colleagues and who might identify themselves as locals. but i just felt it was so sad that their experiences of being unrighteously treated could not be voiced, and neither could i voice these stories for them.

it was then i truly saw the mechanism of how the oppressed is deprived of a voice. it is exactly because the status of being a subaltern that they cannot speak. they are still under the influence of being subjugated and subordinated. but what worries me was that people from a less powerful country generally lack support in an infrastructural way: the language, the culture, the system. . . and their sense of security is generally much lower too, which results in a whole set of 'difference' in their daily life- they might just speak less, be more self-protecting or even 'secretive' in their dealings and so, in some people's eyes, simply 'strange'. these are the real and concrete evidence to their anxieties of living in a drastically different environment, and they don't even have the luxury of recognising some projected stereotypes or putting ideas as such into understandable english.

i am however in a totally different place. i am no longer deprived, though marginalised- but no longer deprived. while i earnestly hope that i can do something about this, the process of gaining a say for oneself, in my experience, is such a personal process that nobody can be part of it. it's something i am struggling with: the more i want to do something, the less i realise i am able to do.

all i can do is write, keep people company, be as helpful as i can, lead a good life and be sincere and honest with people and things around me.