The readings and videos this week gave the most heart wrenching feeling through out; this deep sense and theme of outside looking in transcended across each piece hurt me every and I could not imagine the actual lives of queer diasporic South Asians as they navigate themselves through colonization and de-colonization.

The experiences of brown queer men living in a world that tells them queer is to be white, rendering them invisible, yet still a part of the “community”. Are they in or are they out? This place of outside/in between resonates feelings of diasporic living as queer brown mens’ identities that they cannot let go of.

I felt personally connected to a line in “bodymaps” that mentions the panic of leaving and not being able to return–the sense that you don’t belong neither here no there. Where do you belong? How do you come to peace with your situation?

But, “Corporate Tax” by Darkmatter has left a lasting impression on me, as I have archived it and will hopefully watch it periodically through out my life. I want to do this as a reminder to remain resistant, to stay true to myself, to not allow others, societies, anyone’s interpretation of me to define me, to not allow goals to be set for me, to not let anyone determine or guide my life for a purpose outside of myself. I do not want to lose myself.