“The most segregated hour in American life is high noon on Sunday. That says a great deal to me about a Christian nation.” – James Baldwin

Have you ever met a smug white Christian? You know they carry that air of holier than thou, I’ve been saved, too bad about the whole you’re going to burn in hell eternally thing about them? I don’t know where you’re reading this from, but America- home of the ‘free’ land of the br….is littered with them. How rude of me. I haven’t introduced myself. My name is Meesha, I am a first generation Indian-American. My parents immigrated here (legally you crazy kids!) to get their PHDs and seek a better life than they had in the land of their ancestry. Just a few short years after getting here, they made me, and here I was- browner than ever, the first person in my entire lineage to be born on American soil. Joy. 

So back to the Christians. As I was saying, you can’t live in America and not come across these self righteous saltines. In fact, they are what this entire country was built on. White people convinced they’re the only ones who have ever talked to God and the only ones who deserve to live on this land (enter mass genocide and missionaries). 

Naturally, I made many friends of this variety growing up. You see in the U.S. you have two options (if you’re lucky: you can follow the money and opportunities with the trade off that you’ll be in almost exclusively white neighborhoods dealing with racism for the rest of your life…or you can find some real culture and deal with systemic poverty and outsourced pollution! A real utopia for the displaced children of the world. Being first generation, much like being mixed, is quite the pickle. Not Indian enough with your American clothes and accent, and not American enough because well, you’re brown. There’s an unspoken rule about all of this: Brown = not real American. White = …You get it. Quite a conundrum. Anyways this prose isn’t just me whining about my split identity, I have other points, I promise. 

So these caucasian Christian adults are interesting- they give off the facade that they are comforted by their faith, but underneath lies this crazy insecurity fostered by their upbringing. You can see it exemplified in their baptized kids. These children are told their whole life that fear is the heart of love. They can’t dress a certain way, speak a certain way, hell even touch their own bodies in a certain way without fear that God is watching and shaking his big bearded head in disgust. 

My upbringing was very different than those kids. I was raised in a Hindu household. We wore bright colors for special occasions, and did pujas to honor God. We ate spicy food, and had photos of many different deities hung all over the house. It was oppressive in a different way- if you didn’t do well in school your dad would shake his big mustached face in disapproval. Every day I left my house, it felt quite literally like I was leaving one world for another. When my mother would put almond oil in my hair (an Indian tradition to keep my locks fresh), the boys would tease me and tell me I was dirty. A brown girl in a white world. 

I soon learned that white Christians have this penchant for shaming everyone and anyone. It’s like their kink or something. Once 9/11 happened they had a field day shaming everyone who was or looked middle eastern. Well, my nose was too big and I was too brown to avoid the scrutiny. I remember being bullied on the bus in middle school by a boy who kept calling me Osama Bin Laden’s cousin and threatening me. I cried a lot, and that day I learned my new brown coping mechanism- come off as non threading as possible or face the consequences (which led to much more bullying throughout the years). 

Let’s recap real quick: Due to my parents method of acquiring money, and desire for their kids to go to good schools, I was drowning in white rich Christian douchebags my whole life. Due to sample size and population, I befriended some. Especially if they were pretty (my burgeoning queer identity made for this to be an extra special experience where I simply wanted friends and was in turn tokenized as the wild brown one that seemed kinda gay). Then 9/11 happened and I experienced racism harder than ever before. Cut to college.

College was the first time I experienced some semblance of diversity. I was still in Massachusetts so the rich whiteys ran rampant, but I also met a variety of other nationalities, skin tones, and religions (thank God). I also witnessed something interesting- the Christian kids finally pried themselves away from their parents house, leaving them to create their own identity. How liberating! The choice many made in this pivotal moment in their lives was to…..appropriate my culture. Enter white hippies.

White hippies- the perfect counterpart to my confused self. They are almost too American, and therefore seeking reprieve from their Bible ridden youth. So, in order to escape the boredom of their Sunday school rearing, they seek out Buddhism, Hinduism, Native traditions, and “Wicca” (whatever that is). Ah, to be free of one God, and embrace (fetishize) the many- so novel, so good. Then there was me- desperately trying to find my place in the world as well. In some sick way, I found kinship in these people, and ended up befriending many (especially the pretty ones).

I graduated college and moved to sunny San Diego. Seeking sunshine, surf, and good vibes, man. I found all three- if you’re looking to party I suggest you visit. However, if you’re brown looking to escape toxic Christianity and find your true identity, it may not be ideal. You see, yet again I was steeped in rich white people but this time, they were cutely masked under the guise of enlightenment. Most of them grew up under Jesus law, and when they decided to pretend to be brown for a change, they did something quite fascinating. They managed to turn ancient cultures into neo-Christianity. I’m guessing they never healed from years of abuse/repression/shame from the church life, so they were still hardwired to thrive on shame and guilt. You ever meet a smug white hippie? Instead of admonishing someone for not going to church, it was that they only went to yoga once this week. Instead of telling them off for masturbating, it was looking at them sideways for eating meat. Instead of internalizing guilt for not praying, it was self loathing at any emotion other than bliss and happiness, man. 

Of course with my lifetime history of being gay, brown, and confused, I let these people into my life (especially the…yeah you get it), and let them boss me around the same way they did back in middle school. The nerve man- they took a corporate 200 hour yoga training and thought they could school me on what karma is, and I let them! I had learned to let white “christian” people oppress my brown ass everywhere I went, and I couldn’t even see it. 

The point. The point is this- we are in an important moment in history. We are fighting for black rights, and attempting to educate everyone on the racism that runs rampant in our system. It is a key time to look at all of these white christian supremacists- from the ones who bullied me in middle school, to the ones quite literally running the country, and demand some things. One is that they heal- they need to acknowledge the toxic Christianity that hurt them so deeply that they continued this cycle of shaming and oppression without even recognizing it. Two is that they need to say sorry; what I experienced was nothing compared to folks who die at the hands of these war criminals every day (ACAB). Three, they need to find a new identity that is inclusive of themselves and others who do not look like them. And four, they need to help us rebuild a system in which no one feels like a displaced child in this country. Then maybe we can all find that elusive enlightenment Aiden thinks he’s finding doing micro doses of DMT every day. Maybe it’ll just be feeling safe in our bodies, minds, souls, and country. 

Thank you for reading my story.