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I didn't want to give the white reader an opportunity to think of racism as imaginary - a sentiment that is already a central barrier in addressing the problem.

Vivek Shraya

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More quotes by Vivek Shraya

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Despite the fact that I'm not highly skilled in any visual art, aesthetics have always played a strong role in my art, including my first albums.
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I always work with text orally in the writing process, saying passages aloud to measure flow.
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It's exciting to consider how art, in its ability to reveal, can be ahead of the artist.
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Of course, I can't separate my queerness from my brownness - if anything, my queerness amplifies my brownness, and vice versa - but I spent so much of my early twenties trying to erase my differences, often without awareness of what I was doing.
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I worry about what Trump will inspire in Canada, especially given incidents that have already occurred here since the election.
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I am always hesitant to call myself an activist, mostly out of respect for the activists who are using their bodies and voices to protest or activists online who are constantly engaging and educating others.
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I especially worry about the ways Canadians can be glib about our supposed difference from the US in our acceptance of diversity.
Vivek Shraya
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Writing about racism requires a directness that writing a love story does not.
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I used singing as a safety measure. I would pay attention to what songs the popular girls liked, learn those songs from the radio or library cassettes, and then accidentally sing or hum these songs in class. This would impress the girls, who would then defend me from the boys.
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When I wouldn't leave home without my blue contacts or when I was bleaching my hair, I didn't have the language to articulate that I was trying to assimilate to whiteness. If anything, I was trying to look normal.
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As a person of color, I know race can't be stripped from admiration or preference.
Vivek Shraya
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I recently did a reading at an elementary school in Ottawa, and one of the children asked me if I was a girl. I said yes. Another child commented that I had a deep voice. I responded: Can girls have deep voices? There was a pause and then the group responded, Yes!
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Now is not the time for Canadians to be sanctimonious. It is time for us to be prudent and active.
Vivek Shraya
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When I was writing, I wanted every word to be not only deliberate, but musical. Precious.
Vivek Shraya
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I am more likely to get paid for my art if it's presented alongside a white artist, so the questions around value and agency arise: What choices should I make, or do I have to make, if I want to be compensated for my work? Why isn't my art valued on its own?
Vivek Shraya
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I have been and continue to be committed to art as a tool to ignite, comfort, and discomfort.
Vivek Shraya
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In poetry, I didn't have to provide resolution. I could ask hard questions without feeling responsible for the answers.
Vivek Shraya
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As much as I believe in the capacity for art to create change, and as much as being an artist is physically and emotionally challenging, there is ultimately something a bit comfortable about making art in the comfort of your own home.
Vivek Shraya
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I feel like I have had to catch up to the art I've made, and learn from the protagonists I have written, especially in relation to gender.
Vivek Shraya
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Making music has been connected to one of my greatest heartaches, because my own music has never quite connected with audiences. But it was this heartache that pushed me to explore other artistic avenues, like writing and filmmaking, and I ultimately feel most at home in a multidisciplinary environment.
Vivek Shraya