Normally when I go to school, things feel pretty chill. I show up. Go to class. Maybe drink a coffee and eat some snacks. Then it’s time to go home. This semester has been a bit… different. Right now, I’m enrolled in a class called *Diversity and Contextual Factors in Clinical Practices*. At its core, this class is all about race and how whiteness shows up in the therapy room. As a brown, turban-wearing man with immigrant parents, I’ve had my fair share of experiences when it comes to racism and being somebody who looks different from the majority. With that being said, I’m incredibly lucky to have never experienced any sort of extreme bullying or violence directly against me. I know a lot of my Sikh friends had a much different experience, some more extreme than others. It’s a topic I’ve been all too familiar with growing up and attending various Sikh camps and retreats for young adults. Having a strong support system in the community has been a source of strength, and talking about racism has never been a problem for me. At least that’s what I thought. When I began taking this Diversity class, I quickly noticed how tense I started feeling. The shift in energy was blatantly obvious, and my entire cohort of classmates no longer felt as connected as we did before we walked in. Our professor, a Black woman who is clearly a professional on this topic in so many inspiring ways, has no problem talking about whiteness in a room full of white people. Calling it out. Educating us on it. Facilitating a dialogue that has silently been in the background but has never been said out loud between my peers. As each week passed, I noticed that even though race is a topic I’ve talked about my entire life, this class was giving me anxiety in ways I never experienced before. My chest would tighten before speaking. I would rehearse sentences in my head and then decide not to say them. I worried about saying the wrong thing. I worried about being misunderstood. Why, all of a sudden, was this such a heavy conversation for me? Why was I having such a hard time participating in class discussion when I have so much to share? “Because I’m an introvert!” I thought to myself. It’s no secret that I’m the kind of guy who prefers to listen and observe over leading big group conversations. This is probably why I enjoy being a therapist so much. Being an introvert also shows up in my YouTube work. Even though I’m putting my work on the internet for thousands of people to see, in reality, I’m just sitting in a room by myself talking into a camera or typing into a keyboard. Solitude is my preference. Working alone is my default. So whenever I end up in a group setting and become the awkward quiet one, it has always been attributed to my introversion. But this time felt different. Sure, I’m a natural introvert and that’s part of who I am. But what if there’s something else going on? What if my silence runs deeper than I ever imagined? What if I didn’t just prefer quiet? What if I learned it? What if silence wasn’t just personality, but strategy? People deal with racism in different ways. Some express it through overt anger. Others try to use logic to understand it. Some use humor to diffuse the tension and move forward. For me, and for many others of Asian descent, silence can be a common coping mechanism. Instead of fighting it head-on, I’ve found myself in countless situations where I prove my worth in quieter ways. Historically, I’ve put a lot of pressure on myself at work to be a top performer in order to stand out on the team and show that I’m just as good as everyone else. With YouTube, I’ve always felt this urgency to be the best I can because that is directly tied to showing the world I am good enough to be a content creator, even though I look different than other YouTubers. I do not argue my value. I demonstrate it. I do not demand space. I earn it. That pattern suddenly became visible to me in this class. This sense of silence isn’t new. It has been passed down in subtle ways and reinforced over time. It runs deeper than just me. But I never understood the depth of it until I began sitting in a room where race was not a side conversation, but the main topic. Even though race is near and dear to my heart, it becomes a million times more challenging when I’m having that conversation in a room full of predominantly white people. A room where I feel both visible and invisible at the same time. That’s something I’ve never done before. Normally, I try to find other silent ways to be seen. Excellence. Achievement. Professionalism. Now, I was being forced to speak directly about something with the very people I was trying to be silent around. The people I was unconsciously trying not to disrupt. The people whose comfort I may have been protecting without even realizing it. All of this may not make perfect sense, and to be honest, I’m still trying to find the right words for it. But I do know this: being an introvert is only half of the equation. The other half is adaptation. Living in America, living in white culture, has shaped my voice more than I realized. Even though I’m one of the lucky ones without extreme cases of racism in my life, it doesn’t change the fact that I experience microaggressions almost every time I leave the house. The subtle comments and double takes. The quiet assumptions people make before I even open my mouth. I’m learning that my voicelessness has been a way of coping with this reality. A way to navigate spaces carefully and minimize friction while still moving forward. But coping mechanisms that once protected us can quietly limit us. It’s scary. It’s anxiety-inducing. It would be easier to stay quiet and let others carry the dialogue. But I see now how important it is to work on this. Being able to participate in cross-racial dialogue is not just an academic exercise. It is necessary if we want to build stronger relationships in our society. How else will we heal and grow? How else will we learn about each other? So I am choosing to stay in the discomfort. I am choosing to speak, even if my voice shakes. Because this class is becoming less about race theory and more about reclaiming something I didn’t realize I had given away. My voice. --- Related Notes: - [[Lessons From 2026]] This note was originally created on **February 2026**.