Diasporic Blaming, or the (Im) Possibility of Speaking

Abstract

Focusing on online posts and hashtags circulated after the news that two lesbians were caned in Malaysia, this reflective essay investigates the rationale behind the diaspora’s ability and desire to criticize and the ways in which these practices may foreclose more radical transformations and serve the need of the settler homonationalist state. Speaking as a migrant with numerous experiences from the 'non-West'; I caution the unintended consequences of the act of 'diasporic blaming' and how such practices may reinforce the colonial and imperial expropriations of race, gender and sexuality.