Originally appeared in The Toronto Film Scene in 2015; some language has been updated to be correct in 2023 with the exception of direct quotations.
One thing our society is very often guilty of is ignoring the voices of the people whose opinions should matter most. We seem to think that if our intentions were good, it doesn’t matter if people are offended because we didn’t mean for it to happen.
Read Morehe was a writer; so, he did lots of writerly things, like read foreign books on the terrace of cafes or on oscar wilde’s grave, teach plebeians about the complexities of the english language and enter into devastating love affairs that inspired his work. from Illinois, he was of the world of cotillions and debutantes but fancied himself an accidental lowlife who valiantly turned the other cheek when he ought to have hated the world.
Read MoreOriginally published on Wear Your Voice on 14 August 2019.
Language purity is a trend I’ve seen more and more of lately, which isn’t so surprising considering how quickly the English language is evolving as it becomes more and more liberal in its grammatical rules; the singular “they” is a perfect example of that. And it was around the time that it started becoming more normalized that I noticed a slew of people — whom I call language purists — suddenly coming to the defense of the English language as if it were in danger of a sudden demise rather than the powerful, omnipotent, contradictory colonial monster that it actually is. What these not-so-well-meaning defenders of the English language seldom realise or admit is that their staunch refusal to accept anything outside of standard English is rife with racism, classism and ableism.
Read MoreOriginally appeared on Wear Your Voice on 29 November 2017
Recently, I was involved in a Facebook “discussion” in which there was a majority of people (mostly white but also some white-passing) who were arguing that when people see a skinhead, they shouldn’t automatically assume that they’re a neo-Nazi or even racist. One of the biggest non-white supporters of this theory was a white-passing Indigenous person and a light-skinned Black man. Both had grown up seeped in punk and rudeboy culture and saw the relation between those (mostly) harmless subcultures and the skinhead subculture. But what they all failed to realise was that most people — particularly visibly non-white people like me — don’t have the luxury to give any skinhead the benefit of the doubt.
Read MoreWhen I still lived away from Mama Khan, I would often visit her for meals and hangouts. Once such time, while visiting one weekend, we happened to be lunching with the television on behind us. My back was to the TV and Mama Khan, who sat across from me, was facing the television with partially glazed eyes taking in the local news.
Read MoreOn a whim, I happened to read through some of my older non-fiction work, most of which has me very delicately and romantically describing my depression. But I was actually shocked by how good it was — how lovely and melancholic with perfect similes and metaphors that still so perfectly describe the hell I suffer when the sads come to visit.
Read MoreMy name is Sarah Alma Khan –– pronounced SAH-rah AHL-ma KH-an –– and for the first 26 years of my life I hated it. Now, at 32, I think it’s one of the coolest names ever.
Read MoreI’ve been thinking about the concept of “high” and “low” art a lot lately, and the more I think of it, the more it infuriates me. The concept itself as it was conceived doesn’t bother me as much as does the fact that in this day and age there are people who unironically still use the terms to differenciate between “good” and “bad” art — or worse, “worthy” and “unworthy” art. The fact that they fail to acknowledge (or even recognize themselves) that the terms are rooted in classism and continue to widen the gap between classes is infuriating.
Read MorePeople who claim that the book is always better than the movie either haven’t seen enough movies or haven’t read enough — usually both. This idea that books are inherently a higher art form than film (or television) is such classist bullshit that I can’t say much more than that about it lest this turn into a furious rant about the deeply ingrained classism in art.
Read MoreYou may or may not know that I have a TinyLetter in which I send out short stories I've written to the hapless few who (now likely regret having) signed up for this newsletter. It started out being a biweekly thing but then I got bored, like I do with most things, and now it's a whenever-the-hell-I-feel-like-it deal.
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