A hard conversation? On Widow’s Lure? No way!

We all know that the only way to cure ignorance is education, and then it’s up to the person receiving it to decide whether they learn and grow from it, or choose to remain willfully ignorant.

However, I’ve always believed that the hardest conversations – the ones that make the air leave the room, and the ones that might make people even the slightest bit uncomfortable – are the conversations that really need to happen. Like, how would you understand why a certain word is considered a slur to a certain group of people if no one will plainly explain it to you?

For that reason alone, I don’t shy away from tough conversations. I may use humour to dilute the seriousness of these conversations from time to time, but if I can power through a hard conversation with the hopes that it helps or educates at least one person out there, then I feel like my job is done.

So with that long introduction out of the way, I wanted to touch on a fairly serious topic that some people might not even be aware of.

Code switching. Ever heard of the term?

At its core, code switching is when someone adjusts or changes the way they speak, act or behave depending on whom they’re around, the setting they’re in, and other external factors. In a very general and low-level sense, some examples of everyday code switching would be going from talking very casually to your friends (“Biiiiitch, guess who I walked past the other day?”) to then speaking more formally with zero profanity when in the office (“Can we set up a one-on-one to go over next week’s tasks?”) You might even behave or communicate differently depending on your friendship groups, like you might be a certain way around your friends from high school than you are around your friends from uni.

Those are very real and valid examples of code switching that everyone goes through in everyday life. But for many minorities, code switching is not just a social flexibility. It can be tied to safety, acceptance and a sense of belonging.

Enter: ethnic and racial code switching.

If you’re Polynesian, you’ll know what I’m talking about when I refer to the ‘Islander laugh’. And for those who haven’t been inducted into the Islander laugh, it’s a certain laugh that every Polynesian has where it’s loud, boisterous and has a supercharged energy or mana behind it. By all accounts, an Islander laugh is absolutely infectious and it’s when you know your Polynesian friend is comfortable around you.

I was talking to my dear friend and sister Eugenie (fellow Polynesian) about the Islander laugh, and I in all sincerity told her I didn’t think I had an Islander laugh, to which she replied that I absolutely do have one and she’s definitely heard it when it was just the two of us together. At first, I thought she was pulling my leg because I genuinely didn’t think I had it in me to produce an Islander laugh. (I was born and raised in country NSW predominantly around white Australians, then moved to Sydney where there was a Pacifika influence but I was still more around a western influence with friends of all cultures.) But as I stopped to think about it, a part of me realised that I did have an Islander laugh and maybe I had subconsciously only reserved it for other Polynesians because I code switched my laugh when around other ethnicities.

If that’s not a clear enough example of cultural code switching, let me quickly introduce you to the ‘pākehā voice’. For those playing at home, pākehā is the Māori word for a non-Māori and is more commonly used to describe white or predominantly white folks.

Now as a friendly reminder, I was born and raised in Australia and have never lived in Aotearoa or Samoa, or even Ireland for that matter. I proudly identify my nationality as Australian and I am very privileged to have grown up in a great country like Australia. So it should be fairly surprising to some that I even have a pākehā voice in general because theoretically that should be my default.

Pākehā voice is the voice and tone you reserve for when you need to communicate with people of other cultures (but mostly white folk) because you have an underlying or subconscious thought that they won’t take you seriously if you use your normal speaking voice. For example, when I am calling a business to make a first-touch enquiry or I’m calling to make an appointment at a clinic that I’ve never used before, my pākehā voice comes out to play because god forbid they take me seriously if I didn’t code switch my voice. When I take podcast interviews or other media talks for my wrestling career, my pākehā voice comes out, and I’ve even had my sister Toni tell me that she heard me using my pākehā voice outside my bedroom door and knew not to knock because the voice alone gave away that I was in an interview of some sort.

The idea that I have to adjust myself, even slightly, to accommodate people from other cultures is quietly laughable to me because I know that nothing about me needs to change and I know that I am very comfortable in who I am and I never shrink to fit in a room that doesn’t deserve me. But even with that knowledge, I still do it.

One thing that I’m big on is always pronouncing words like “Samoan” and “Māori” properly and not using the whitened pronunciations unless I absolutely have to because I don’t feel like I need to adjust my own culture to be more palatable or easier to understand to someone who might not be familiar with the natural pronunciation.

And if cultural and racial code switching wasn’t enough, welcome to queer or gender based code switching.

Some blatant examples of this include: keeping your partner’s gender purposely obscure because you’re unsure of the reaction you’ll receive when that information is divulged; deepening or heightening your voice to avoid possible discrimination; and toning down your wardrobe choices so not to offend others when it’s something you wouldn’t particularly want to wear.

While ethnic and racial code switching is more based in needing other people to understand and consume you, queer or gender based code switching is more based in protecting yourself and feeling safe in environments that you aren’t familiar with. And god forbid I have to go through both on a daily basis just to exist in Australian society.

I love that for the most part, Australia is generally safe for LGBTQIA+ folks and embraces multiculturalism that we are known for. But being a minority from both a racial and gender/sexual orientation standpoint, I find it interesting that my subconscious mind defaults to these kinds of redundant code switches even though I know I don’t need to. Especially as someone who does not shrink to fit into rooms and always embraces my truest self in social situations.

Perhaps underneath the boldness, the glamour and the confidence that I genuinely wield, is that little girl that needs to be understood and needs to feel safe, so these tiny code switches help to put her at ease. And if that’s what I need to do to nurture her, then so fucking be it.

And I’m not saying that in my pākehā voice.

– by The Black Widow