My book obsession is quite well known, in most circles I move and am allowed in; there is a long-standing joke that I don’t need food but just a fresh page to live. So when my student asked me rhetorically whether I ‘ever tire of theory’, he was rather surprised to know I did — can’t entirely blame him for holding this view, after all I did spend the last seven months talking solely in theories and of texts — in fact, I agree with Spivak¹ when she accuses prose of ‘cheating’. We are taught theory in a manner that we will be able to ‘frame our realities intelligibly’ – pretty problematic on its own already — but when it comes to translating words to practice, somewhere we break and falter. I teach English to children of lower caste and socio-economic backgrounds — technically speaking — this is the space I should be unleashing my postcolonialism in, making sure the harmful ideas that say, “Only a person speaking Good English will ever get a job anywhere”, but I can’t. The truth is, they do need a functional level of English to be employed anywhere  and if I start saying, “Forget the Empire’s tongue! Let’s subvert it and smash the system”, I will confuse them and even humiliate them — for subversion happens once you’ve mastered the tongue — and as first-generation learners of English, learning this tongue is hard enough as it is. On most days, the best I can do is not scold them — as the institution ‘requires’ me to — and not shame them when they code switch² to their native tongues.

(Un)Ironically, what I do end up doing is teaching postcolonialism, Said, Spivak and others to my IB students who are at times even more caste and class privileged than I am. We talk of the Subaltern, while when talking to the Subaltern — my code-switching students in this case — we still re-enforce the most heinous ideas concerning them, their languages and perhaps most importantly, routinely erase their Englishes. When this broken pattern of relating to people above and below us in the hierarchy of being is brought to light, the best we do is, “acknowledge privilege” and then hit a dead-end. The only difference is that now we have Shiny Good Activist Medal™. This isn’t to imply that my students — or even the Subaltern itself — don’t know about the neato colonisation thing, or the reason why certain texts are canonised and others weren’t, we’ve talked of those things — but that’s what it really is: rhetoric, words and talk. These words swirl out of my tongue, out in class, they nod and ask questions and we study on. When they see exam questions using standard forms of English — one they haven’t mastered particularly well — and their ‘intelligence’ is rated on how they fare in these exams, that are designed in an Othering tongue, so to speak. Then we hear stereotypes like,” Those damn Dalit buggers! We educate them, but what use? They still fail exams and waste our time and money. They are basically a waste of space and seats, I tell you!”, when we’re making sure they remain in the same position — one step under us.

Lonely Island are my fucking heroes today.  Song about a worthless penis?  They said that it couldn't be done.  Not true - behold.

As LGBT individuals we already experiencing the shame and guilt of abuse but we may feel also now the pressure to hid our true identity so that we can use services such as shelter, support groups or crisis lines. The belief is if I pretend to be heterosexual I will get more acceptance and care for my situation. Or there is the pressure to “come out” to get help and risk that information not being kept confidential and losing your home, job, custody of children etc. With our LGBT status made public, as nothing in treatment is absolutely confidential especial when law enforcement is concerned, negative life changing events may happen due to lack of local and/or state laws. We have limited protection compared to our abused heterosexual counterparts. Disheartening is that even with me sharing this information with you, they will be many that will not take it further and seek help!

Often LGBT victims are not joined financially to their partner, so ending the relationship is met with little resistance in the money sector. What if though there is conjoined financial responsibilities, such as paying mortgage, there are no legal structures in place that assure that assets are divided equally. Heterosexual have no idea how much laws protect them and how we are seating ducks risk everything for who we are.

Conventional resources for domestic violence often lack training, expertise and sensitivity in understanding LGBT relationship and abuse. We have to deal with other bias, stereotypes, and homophobia. Society also uses the information of finding out that gays hit each other as another reason why homosexuality is immoral and dysfunctional, which makes finding genuine and help difficulty as well as making us feel even further isolated and alone in our pain.