About

"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, and obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board." - Henry David Thoreau

Who Are You?

I’m Squid – a multiracial and South Dravidian hacker, medical laboratory scientist, and intelligence analyst with more than a decade of higher education. I grew up partially in the corn fields of the American Midwest and spent most of my teens in Bengaluru, the capital city of the Southern Indian state of Karnataka, before moving back to America. I currently reside in Champaign-Urbana or “Chambana” Illinois. I move away from time to time to surrounding cities and towns and occasionally venture back to my home state of Indiana. I’ve traveled a lot, both within the U.S. and outside of it, but I find myself frequently returning to the Midwest. Maybe it’s the emo teen in me.

I’ve maintained a blog since 2019 – it’s really more of a personal journal. Only people who are looking for it, already subscribed, or who follow the topics I write about usually find it. You have to want to know what’s going on to find me. As a mentee of Attrition.org, everything posted to my blog undergoes critical analysis and careful factchecking before it is posted. This website goes from having a sudden onset of new readers when I publish a new article, to just having a few, dedicated return visitors.

My blog entries are on the lengthier side because they will eventually be turned into a book. Think of this blog as an early rough draft, most of which remains in a private Google Doc before it is gradually moved over here. I choose to write as someone who is brown, autistic, and female, because my voice is my most powerful weapon in a society that encourages my obedience and rewards my silence. Even more so in a society that celebrates the deaths of gender-nonconforming queer people.

My topics center around anti-racism, queer activism, feminism, and decolonization. I frequently touch on these themes in my own personal life and lived experience because getting the message across to my readers that the personal is political is deeply important to me. I am also a vocal advocate of digital privacy and the right to anonymity in the current surveillance state we live in. Funnily enough, advocating in an impactful and meaningful way frequently requires me to maintain visibility to raise awareness and keep my resources accessible to others. This is a sacrifice I am willing to make if my writing helps even one person find representation or aids them in developing a toolkit they can pass along to community.

I focus primarily on decolonial feminism, choosing to center the voices of women and queer people in the Global South. I’ve been a supporter of the 4B movement since its conception around 2019. I am staunchly anti-caste, and anti-zionist. While my feminism has always been rad-leaning as I acknowledge crucial differences between sex, gender, and orientation, I am strongly against political lesbianism which reinforces “sexuality as a choice” rhetoric. This sentiment actively causes harm to queer people in the same way that the notion that all sexuality is inherently fluid, currently popularized and pushed by white queer people, contributes to the erasure of homosexuality. It pushes conversion-therapy tactics by reframing same-sex attraction as just a preference capable of being changed, thereby implying choice.

In choosing to speak out and let my voice be heard, I noticed that the most vocal supporters in my life have been Black women and Black queer people, including Black hackers, those who’ve met me once and have reached out to show support, and who made themselves a safe space for me in my 20s while I was navigating a predominantly white corporate environment for the first time. I am beyond grateful for the support that helped me develop the backbone to keep speaking.

I’ve heard “drama seems to find you” from more white people in my life than I care to count. The people who have said this to me can never seem to grasp that as someone who is marginalized in society, I face an undue amount of hardship simply for existing as my authentic self and refusing to conform or mask. The difference is, unlike many others facing the exact same hardship, I do not stay silent. This is a big deal in a small, predominantly white, midwestern town.

It is also going directly against the shame instilled in many South Asian youth who decide to speak up or challenge the status quo. Swalpa adjust maadi only seems to apply when we are expected to adjust to others and make them comfortable, up to and including tolerating racist microaggressions. It's time for white America to adjust a little and for all Desi people to stop adjusting for them.

Many "high caste" and savarna Indians, the equivalent of the Bourgeoisie in the Caste System, like to elevate themselves through their association to whiteness in an effort to escape their own marginalization. As do many others who attempt to elevate themselves by stepping on the heads of those deemed below whiteness in this country.

I refuse to do so.

Speaking up is unusual and labeled as aggressive or manipulative. This is because white people have historically weaponized victimization and white tears. They see others speaking up about hardship as an attempt to manipulate or take power away from them. This is partly because white Americans are privileged enough to have more resources available to them from birth, so they maintain a “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality. For these people, if they try hard enough, almost anything is obtainable for them.

In stark contrast, people of color are forced to acknowledge in early childhood that we will be victimized by society, and even those who obtain certain resources or wealth will only get so far unless we attempt to whitewash ourselves to the point of erasure. The closer we are to whiteness, the safer we are. This is often subconsciously why many Indians living abroad maintain a predominantly white friend circle and make themselves appeal to the white people around them. I think of this as an unfortunate side effect of 200 years of British colonization.

Speaking up is refusing to conform, it is a refusal to be further victimized by people who oppress us, it is rejecting the false safety net created by appealing to white people. It is how many people of color choose to fight back against a victim mentality. Speaking up means refusing to be invisible and reclaiming a sense of self and confidence that was forcibly taken before we even had words to describe what was happening to us.

It takes an unreal amount of courage to discuss our sexuality, mental health, and our personal struggles openly in a world that belittles and celebrates our hardships and cheers our failures. It takes tenacity to speak about our own mistakes and break the illusion that as marginalized people we have to be the model minority, maintain a clean image free of any and all mistakes, and be perfectly agreeable for our lives and our voices to be humanized, believed, and worth something.

That is why I write. Not for recognition or approval, but to reclaim what was stripped from me, and for others like me to feel seen. It’s my personal rebellion against a system that demands my perfection while denying my humanity.

-Squiddy

I don't know about influential, but sometimes people have created art of me and that's been pretty nice.