A Seat at the Table Doesn't Afford You Safety

On representation, empire, and what we trade to be seen.

I have always thought about who GETS to be seen, affirmed, asked, and why. The question has come back in the past week as I was told I should be happy there was Punjabi representation at the Met Gala and to be happy our people are “winning”. But if representation is supposed to feel like a win, why does it so often feel like a compromise? A costume? A form of currency? A form of tokenization?

Last week, Diljit Dosanjh’s Met Gala appearance was celebrated as a cultural milestone. A Punjabi man in a pagh (turban), styled in a sherwani, walking the carpet of one of the world’s most exclusive events. And ofcourse, it’s a powerful image. But once the camera person goes away and a Punjabi man stands there with his designer, I am afraid we need to ask the deeper questions:
What does it mean to be represented within empire’s house? What does it mean when we’re allowed in, not for what we fight for, but for how well we can play the role we’ve been assigned?

Diljit wore a sherwani fit for a maharaja. And in the context of this year’s Met Gala theme: a celebration of Black dandyism and a broader homage to the art of tailoring, it definitely stood out.

When I questioned Diljit’s outfit choice, I had people in my DM’s on instagram arguing that his look aligned with the theme. That his sherwani, his pagh, his poise were tailored to fit. That the royalness of it, and the Punjabi fashion itself deserved that moment, that grace. And I don’t disagree that Diljit looked GOOD and that it felt meaningful.

But alignment in fabric is not the same as alignment in politics. Because Black dandyism is not just about fit, it’s about resistance. It emerged from traditions where style became survival. Where elegance was a direct rebuke to dehumanization. Where dressing beautifully was not just performance but it WAS the protection. It was the protest. And rightfully so, it was also pride.

So I want to be very clear: this is not a critique of the theme itself, nor of Black imagination. This is a critique of what happens when people enter the space through mimicry rather than alignment. This is a question of what happens when the style is borrowed but the struggle is not carried to and through. When empire gets adorned but not dismantled. It is one thing to honor a tradition of resistance through dress and it is another to reproduce symbols of monarchy and feudalism while calling it empowerment, especially when that power was never ours to begin with. And especially when we refuse to name the harm those aesthetics have caused across caste, class, and occupied lands (YES PLURAL).

And as I write this, I also want to credit @furahameansjoy on TikTok, who while I was processing everything posted a video and pointed out something many missed: the figure Diljit may have been styled after was the Maharaja of Patiala who was not an anti-colonial icon. He and his father were collaborators with the British. They accumulated wealth, jewels, and status while ordinary Punjabis lived under violent colonial rule. So then, what does it mean to embody that lineage on a global stage? And if we’re invoking those images today: where are the reparations — especially for the African folks whose ancestors were used as enslaved people to mine the jewels we want back so badly? Where is the reckoning ? Not just with British theft, but with the Indian elite who aligned themselves with empire for personal gain. Representation, without that reckoning, risks becoming a reenactment of oppression with better lighting.

The Met Gala or any other space in which hierarchies are enforced is not a neutral space. It is a shrine to wealth and spectacle, curated by gatekeepers of taste and status. Every invitation is a signal of alignment.

And I do not say this to shame any of us, but to name all the layers as we envision what true community, liberation and care looks like. It is to name how easily we are celebrated when we conform to empire’s fantasies of who we are.

Many of us have been in rooms like this before in some capacity. When we let people misname us, when we let people say, “you’re really nice for a [insert ethnic identity],” when we let someone say “caste doesn’t exist here” and don’t correct them, when we don’t speak Punjabi or Spanish or Tagalog at work because it might “sound aggressive,” when we nod during “land acknowledgements” without mentioning the pipelines, when we get quiet in the room because we finally made it in, when we get praised for being well-spoken, when we are asked to represent everyone like us, be the tokens, but not too loudly, when we turn down rage so the room doesn’t flinch. Do you see how often our people are kept out unless we enter in carefully scripted ways? How caste and class quietly determine who is seen as “appropriate” to represent us.

I am a Sikh Punjabi woman who comes from an upper-caste lineage who also grew up low-income in San Diego, CA. I name this because caste doesn’t dissolve in diaspora, it shapeshifts. It shows up in who gets platformed, who is centered, who is believed. It lives in our family trees and our silences, in the histories we’re told to bury, and in the ways we are taught to measure worth. I have also watched my parents stretch every paycheck, translated school forms they couldn’t read, learned early what it means to be smart in a world that doesn’t see you. While caste granted me unearned access, class locked just as many doors. I’ve been able to see all the rooms: the ones told I should be able to enter, and rooms I could barely afford to stand outside of.

I also carry the privilege of education. As a first-generation daughter of immigrants, I navigated broken systems in two languages and still found my way to classrooms, to college, to vocabulary that let me name what my mother had only ever lived. That education gave me tools. It gave me proximity to power. And with that proximity comes responsibility, not to protect my seat, but to ask: Why were so many of us never invited to sit?

When I did see other Punjabis growing up, it was usually in places I felt I didn’t belong, which was in wealthier neighborhoods and at gurdware where class hierarchy parked itself alongside imported SUVs. And I also know the privileges I hold when I go back home to Punjab where Dalit folks continue to fight for their basic rights.

I write this while holding my own contradictions and as an invitation to be honest because I didn’t always think about all of this. At many points, I’ve been moved by representation too, by seeing someone who looked like me on stage, in a room, in a headline. But over the years, through building with Black, Palestinian, Indigenous, Dalit, and Pinay organizers, through sitting with discomfort and growing alongside others, I’ve come to understand that visibility isn’t the whole story. My solidarity was shaped in conversation, and in deep love. So no, this isn’t about being perfect or pure. You can still love your favorite artist. You can still feel joy. But I’m asking us to hold that joy alongside responsibility, to let our celebration expand, to include the people who are always left out. To ask the questions and allow for us to hold nuance. Because the few times I saw people who looked like me, they often didn’t reflect the life I was living. So I ask now, with tenderness and truth: Who was my representation then? And what does it mean when even our own spaces aren’t built for all of us?

Because representation often hinges on who can afford to be seen. And empire loves complexity only when it is polished and made profitable. Representation that is divorced from justice is not liberation: it’s theater. A stage. And too often, we mistake applause for people power. But empire does not hand us power. It hands us roles. Empire says, you can play the noble king. You can play the aesthetic. You can play the soft, smiling version of your people, BUT do not play the disruptor.

This is what W.E.B. Du Bois called double consciousness: the feeling of looking at yourself through the eyes of others, of being seen but not fully known. Of always being two things at once: who you are, and who the world lets you be. It is a disorienting inheritance, especially for those of us invited into spaces where our people have never been welcomed. It teaches you to shape-shift, to PERFORM safety, to code-switch and smile while something in you remains clenched.

And when you speak truth to power, you are rarely invited back. That is by design.

And this is where I need us to acknowledge: Sikhi and Punjabi aren’t the same, though they are often flattened into each other for aesthetic or symbolic purposes. And even if we say “we were represented” this year, again the question begs: who does that actually include?
Are Kashmiri Sikhs safer now? Are undocumented Sikhs any less afraid?
Are Dalit Sikhs, queer Sikhs, incarcerated brown boys, the ones pulled into gangs by poverty and policing, are they suddenly protected because a Punjabi man dressed like a maharaja made it onto the carpet?

And while we’re here, let’s talk about who wasn’t invited this year. Wisdom Kaye, the Nigerian-American fashion creator who has graced past Met Galas, embodies Black Dandyism and become a beloved figure in the style world, was absent. Maybe it was a scheduling issue. Or maybe it’s because he spoke up for Palestine? We may never know, but we do know this is how empire operates. You can be beloved until you are inconvenient. Until your voice threatens comfort. Until your resistance costs them something, because justice has never been comfortable.

And I know, you must be like “well, celebrities are not the representation we seek anyways.”
They are artists, performers, public figures. BUT dear friend, they are also beneficiaries of systems that reward silence. And still, we can love them, and ask for more. To be in community means we hold each other to a deeper standard. Not to shame, but to grow. To say: I see you. I believe in you. And I want you to rise with us, not above us.

So when we say we want representation, I pray we ask, from whom? For what purpose? And at what cost?

Because Rashida Tlaib being in Congress is powerful, and she may tell you herself: it is not enough. It is not enough that we learn about Rosa Parks but never learn about Assata Shakur in our textbooks. That we are handed Gandhi, but not Ambedkar. This is why we have to fight for Ethnic Studies just to teach our own children about the Ghadr Party, about revolutionaries who crossed oceans and borders to resist colonial rule. And fight for education to be accessible to everyone to this day. So no, it is not enough to be “let in,” when we are asked to leave our politics at the door. Not all resistance is palatable. And not every crown is worth wearing.

I want representation as much as anyone else but from those that truly reflect all of us, not just the ones empire finds convenient. I want it to lead to resource redistribution, structural change, and community safety, not just visibility. I want it to look like hiring and funding Dalit, queer, undocumented, working-class, migrant, and incarcerated folks to tell their own stories, shape the policies, and build the institutions. It means designing spaces with access in mind: language justice, childcare, mental health care, transportation. It means rejecting tokenism and creating actual pipelines, not just platforms. It requires naming harmful isms and systems like caste, capitalism, and colonialism, especially when they are inconvenient. And it demands we move beyond symbolism: not just celebrating who gets in the room, but changing what that room is for, who it answers to, and who it keeps safe.

(Punjabi Suba protestors at Darbar Sahib Amritsar via Punjab Digital Library via KaurLife.org)

Glossary of Terms

Diljit Dosanjh
A globally recognized Punjabi singer, actor, and performer known for his music across bhangra, pop, and devotional genres. He has starred in major Punjabi films and became the first Punjabi singer to perform at Coachella.

Representation
The act of being visible or symbolically present in media, politics, or cultural spaces. In this essay, it refers to the politics of who is seen, why, and how that visibility often serves power rather than disrupts it.

Tokenization
When a person from a marginalized group is included in a space to give the appearance of diversity without actual redistribution of power or structural change. Tokenism uses bodies as symbols, not participants.

Empire
Used here to describe both historical colonial powers (e.g., the British Empire) and modern systems that replicate those hierarchies through cultural, political, and economic domination.

Caste
A hierarchical social system rooted in South Asia, particularly Hindu society, that continues to impact South Asian communities globally. Caste shapes access to power, respect, and opportunity, even in the diaspora.

Class
A socioeconomic category shaped by access to wealth, resources, education, and social capital.

Diaspora
The dispersion of people from their ancestral lands. For many South Asians in the West, this includes navigating inherited privilege and oppression in new geopolitical contexts.

Black Dandyism
A cultural and political tradition within Black communities that uses fashion, especially tailored or elite dress, as a form of resistance, self-expression, and pride in the face of structural racism.

Ghadr Party
A revolutionary anti-colonial movement founded in 1913 by South Asian immigrants—primarily Punjabi Sikhs, but also Bengali, Hindu, and Muslim nationalists—based in North America. The Ghadr Party was secular, transnational, and rooted in the belief that India must be liberated from British rule through armed resistance.

Reparations
Material and structural acts of repair, restitution, and accountability for historical harm. In this piece, reparations refer to both the acknowledgment of British colonial violence and the complicity of Indian elites who benefited from empire.

Palestine
Used here as both a geographic place and a global symbol of resistance to colonial occupation.

Punjab
A region historically divided by Partition, now split between India and Pakistan. Often romanticized in diaspora through royal or warrior imagery, Punjab is also a site of deep struggle: farmer resistance, addiction crises, and state violence.

Kashmir
The world’s highest militarized and occupied region at the heart of decades-long conflict. Often invoked symbolically, but rarely centered as a site of lived dispossession, surveillance, and resistance, especially in South Asian diaspora narratives.

Assata Shakur
A revolutionary Black woman and former member of both the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, Assata Shakur was targeted by the FBI’s COINTELPRO program and later granted political asylum in Cuba after escaping a wrongful conviction. Her life and writing expose the violence of the U.S. carceral system and reimagine what liberation can look like outside of state control. She remains a global symbol of unapologetic resistance, Black feminism, and abolitionist thought.

Sources + Influences

• @furahameansjoy on TikTok – for the historical critique of the Maharaja of Patiala

• Heather Streets, Martial Races – for insight into British colonial constructions of “loyal” Indian subjects

• W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk – for the concept of “double consciousness” and the tension between being seen and being free

• Mariame Kaba – for her unwavering abolitionist teachings, insistence on collective care, and the reminder that “hope is a discipline.” Her writing and organizing offer a radical vision of justice that centers accountability, not punishment, and have deeply shaped how I understand liberation.

• Dalit feminist and caste abolitionist organizers – whose ongoing labor informs any meaningful critique of caste in the diaspora

• Palestinian liberation movements – for lessons on collective memory, steadfastness, and refusing to be symbolized

• Rashida Tlaib’s public statements and congressional record – for illuminating the limits and dangers of representation in oppressive institutions

• Punjabi and Kashmiri historians, poets, and activists – for reminding us that love for a place means telling the truth about it

• Indigenous elders and land protectors – whose teachings remind us that liberation is land-based, intergenerational, and inseparable from kinship and sovereignty

• Pinay/Pinoy educators, healers, and movement workers – for teaching me to move with tenderness, interdependence, and embodied resistance, especially in community education spaces