What Happens Next: A Gallimaufry

melancholic romantic comic cynic. bi & genderqueer. fantasy writer. sysrae on ao3.

Imagine you have this neighbour who constantly mocks your choice of outfits - as does the rest of her family. Some comments are worse than others, but it’s more or less constant, running the gamut from passive-aggressive quips about how cute you look when you dress like an urchin, through patronising concern about how you shouldn’t really wear that colour or this style, all the way up to open disparagement of your taste, your body, and even your family background.

This goes on for long enough that, one day, you decide you can’t take it any more. You set your favourite clothes aside, and start to copy what your neighbours wear. Though some of the very worst comments still reach your ears - the stuff about your body and family, because that sort of rudeness was never about your clothes at all - the day-to-day harassment steadily drops away, allowing you to get on with your life.

Though you still feel sad that at how much you had to change to win the approval of people you have no choice but to deal with, you decide that ultimately, you prefer not being harassed. Your defiant sister, though, takes the opposite approach, and vows to be as brave and unapologetic in her wardrobe as ever. And that complicates things for you: because even though your sister understands why you changed, she still feels like you’ve abandoned both her and yourself in some fundamental way; and even though your neighbours have stopped trashing you, they still disparage your sister in your hearing, sometimes even praising you for having the sense to be like them instead. It’s stressful in a whole new way, but you cope. You cope, because you have to.

And then, one day, with no warning at all, you see your neighbours wearing new clothes that are clearly based on - if not identical to - your old ones. The ones they mocked you so viciously for wearing.

You are furious. Shocked. As politely as you can - which isn’t very, under the circumstances; voice shaky, fists clenched - you ask them what the hell they’re doing.

And they laugh at your anger. They laugh. They tell you it suits them better than it ever suited you, and what’s the problem? It looks trashy on your sister, but on them, it’s bold and classy and fresh, and all the more so for being unexpected. Fashion changes, they say - why, just look at you! You’re wearing clothes like ours, and we’re not angry about it. So why should we feel bad for wearing clothes like yours? Why can’t you be flattered that we’re copying you at all? It’s a compliment, really!

Having mocked your clothes to the point that you stopped wearing them, they’re citing the fact that they bullied you into copying their look as a reason why it’s OK for them to now copy you - and all the while, they’re still insulting your sister. Your neighbours are abusive, oblivious douchecanoes of the highest order. And you know what?

When you, a privileged white person, decide to wear stuff like war bonnets and saris for fun - when you appropriate from the cultures of people of colour; people who have been relentlessly and historically mocked, abused and discriminated against by people like you for wearing the fashions that they invented; fashions which have a specific historical, cultural and personal significance for them that’s manifestly absent for you?

Then you, my friend, have become the asshat neighbour.        

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