Dear Mrs. Kendry,
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Thank you for reaching out to me and for expanding on your motivations and feelings. I don’t want to deny your experience, but I would not say that you have led a “false life”, or at least I think it is important to see that within this society there is no way for us to live our lives “rightly”… which is why we have to change it.
It makes me hopeful to read that you share my call for change and I appreciate your interest in my personal situation. Yes, I am a person of color, I am also the fairest among my siblings and as I said within my review, I don’t know whether I would pass or not… I think I could… if I wanted to. Maybe. The way you lived your life gave me a lot to think about.
And yes, I can also say that I grew up in rather beneficial economic circumstances, I also got a very good education that prepared me well to become a journalist… Even though I am sure that it was harder to arrive where I am now for me than it would have been for a white woman.
In response to your questions I would say that I do and do not know how much strength it takes to fight racism and misogyny—I have never been an activist myself, but I had to fight in order to make the career I did.
I have been thinking about my expectations on you a lot lately… The way you decided to live and your actions have provoked me to think about racism and also the practice of passing in new ways… Even though I never passed, I saw myself in you a lot of times, your will to get what you want, your self-confidence… And I think it is therefore that I would have wished for you to be how I would like to be: someone who doesn’t accept the destiny this society has foreseen for us, someone who has the strength to fight… Someone who doesn’t play within the rules of this society but changes them. I know, I ask a lot, and I also know that this might be unfair.
Lately, I also reflected upon the different forms of our struggle. As you mentioned, we are not only confronted with racism, but also with misogyny. And sometimes I wonder if the mere fact that I am a woman of color who is working as a cultural critic, whose voice is being heard, is not already an act of resistance? It makes me sad and hopeful at the same time that—as the forces that want to keep us silent are so strong—every little success we reach has to be appreciated.