Two things I wanted to link to - one fun, one not fun.

[beccatoria]

Hey guys - thanks to my flist, two things have been brought to my attention that I feel I ought to share. One is fun, the other is not fun.

The fun thing is that emmiere linked me to this piece of awesome:

Watch on Vimeo

I love it for a couple of reasons. The music itself is not my favourite thing ever, though I like it. But I do really love her voice, it reminds me of some of my parents stuff from the sixties, I think, though obviously updated via 2010. Which ties into the real reason I keep watching it, almost hypnotically: the dancing. I do not even know what she is doing but it's amazing! It's like some fantastic hybrid of tap dancing, jive dancing and ballet!

Plus apparently her entire ArchAndroid album is basically her pretending to be rebellious android named Cindy Mayweather. I mean, really, what's not to love?

* * *

On the other end of the spectrum, sabaceanbabe linked to this. Basically it's about a fic that some people in SPN RPF fandom wrote that is incredibly racist. I'm not in SPN fandom, and I dislike RPF, so I've only heard about this because it's making the rounds on LJ, but one of the points in the linked post is that silence on the issue isn't really helpful. So I'm not posting this because I have anything new to say on the matter - all the issues of intent and effect and apologies and who is hurt at what point and why and when that matters - all that is dealt with in the post linked to and various posts and comments branching off of that. I have nothing smarter to add on the topic that others have not already said. This is just me not being quiet about it, and practicing the idea that when something that ridiculously nuts comes across one's path, the correct response probably isn't to quietly excuse oneself because "it doesn't affect me" or "isn't quietly disapproving enough" or "it wasn't in my fandom" but to comment, "This is wrong, I do not approve" publicly, before moving on.

This is wrong and I do not approve.

And if you ever see me doing anything a fraction as weird as this, please stage some kind of intervention.

Comments

This is wrong...

[tackdriver56.livejournal.com]

What's wrong, as this ripples out, is that the accused is still be criticized by people who never even got to see the original post, to be able to make an informed decision about it. The author received, read, and tried to understand and respond to negative feedback. She was mobbed, for reasons she apparently did not understand.

I did not read the piece myself... it was gone by the time I saw the reference.

Why does this mob remind me of the mob that nearly killed Reginald Denney in the wake of the Rodney King verdict? Or the priveleged suburban black teenagers who slowly saunter across the street while glaring at politely stopped white drivers, because, well, all white people deserve to be harassed and intimidated.
Or the posts I've seen on LJ (forgive me for not preserving a link), by female authors who justify treating all men like crap, if they try to strike up a conversation, because of the rape risk.

99 percent of people are decent. If they are culturally challenged, they need to be gently corrected, not mugged. Mugging is how enemies are created and shooting wars start.

This IS wrong. That's as politely as I can say it.

1/2

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

What's also wrong is privileging the few occasions when a member of a privileged group is attacked by members of a disprivileged group as more important and more wrong than the majority of instances where the reverse is true.

I'm not qualified to comment on the issues regarding race that you raise as I lack contextual information although my kneejerk reaction is that you're promoting racial stereotypes with little thought to social context when talking about "intimidating" black people and "polite" white people, so please do not take my lack of more granular information on the issues you raised as conceding your point; I can somewhat address the parallel gender issues you raise.

The vast, vast majority of rapes are perpetrated by men, against women. The vast, vast majority of those rapes are never prosecuted. However, the majority of rapes that are prosecuted result in convictions. While highly publicised (and yes, incredibly unfair to those on trial), the problem of unconvicted rapists, and the problem of rape against women in general, remains far, far higher than the problem of false allegations of rape.

And yet, what rape means to an alarming number of men I've spoken to (not all, not at all, but far more than I would have thought when I was a younger person), is the SHOCKING INJUSTICE, not of the enormous number of women who get no justice, but of the few men who get none. A cry for the protection of women is interpreted as an aggressive stance against men. Which it is not. It is only a request that women be made more safe. If we can protect the men falsely accused too, then fantastic, but frankly, as tragic as it is on an individual level, it's not a socially endemic issue.

To use another example, it's tragic - perhaps moreso - when people are wrongly accused of murder. But do we ever, ever get a default assumption that the major issue regarding murder rates is really the number of falsely accused murderers, those poor people - how are we going to protect them?

And that's what privilege is. It's you coming onto my LJ and telling me that the real issue here isn't the global issue of women dying because men kill them (rape, domestic violence, honour killings, etc., etc., etc.,), the real issue is that a couple of women on LJ offended your sensibilities.

2/2

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Do I feel bad for the person who wrote that story? Yes, I do. I feel awful for her. I sincerely doubt that she knew she was writing something so racist. I'm sorry she's ended up as a temporary five-minute-of-fame scapegoat for an issue that is far, far wider than her.

I also wonder if, had someone "gently corrected" her, her original statement of "I'm not a racist because I didn't mean it" would have held sway and essentially allowed her to continue doing the exact same thing.

But mostly, I meant when I said I had nothing new to add. All these issues are discussed and dissected in the linked post and the myriad of posts that post links to and all the comments therein.

This isn't a post about the person who wrote it. This is a post about how it wasn't an okay thing to write. This is a post about how, when you see things that aren't okay to write, it's important to say, "this wasn't okay". I cannot and will not be held responsible for the tenor others take in the methods they use to say "this wasn't okay". Frankly, some of them, yes, are more strenuous, or even outright cruel, than I would like. But...that is not my responsibility.

I am saying, I understand the person didn't mean it, but what she wrote was horrible. And not all right. And it is only ever through general public censure that these things will become unacceptable.

I also would like for that to be done in a civil fashion.

So, civilly, I would like to point out that your comment reads as a classic avoidance of the issue. I am never impressed with arguments that white people, or men, or any other dominant group are really the oppressed ones, and I'm even less impressed with the idea that it is the job of oppressed groups to make their oppressors comfortable, and to proceed with equality only on their schedule. And I think it's flatout bad taste to start suggesting that black folks are gonna start a shooting war with their habit of mugging white people. I mean, you do understand why that's a poorly chosen metaphor (I hope it's a metaphor), right?

So ultimately, I reject your argument. I'm not trying to pile onto that girl, I'm trying to say, "this story is a really strong example of subconscious endemic racism and how NOT TO DO THINGS".

You're the one who decided to twist the issue back around to how her treatment was the real issue (and it is an issue, but a different one). And that is half of the damn problem here.

There's this stonking big example of how racist we still are, right now, without even, half the time, realising it, and the first response of many is to sweep aside the issue - the story, the fact someone wrote it, what we feel about that, whether we think that's acceptable or not - and turn it into a discussion about something else entirely. To move the discussion from racism to the tragedy of an individual.

Kind of like ignoring the bloody history of lynchings to concentrate on one racially motivated murder of a white man, or the global legacy of rape to concentrate on that one bitch who won't chat to you at the bar.

And that's as politely as I can say that.

(edited for grammatical issues).

Re: 2/2

[nicole-anell.livejournal.com]

*in awe of your ability to respond to that comment in the least bit civil way*

I'm getting weary of the postmortem dogpile on that ridiculous fic, but wow. WOW.

Re: 2/2

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :)

Honestly, I get being tired of all the postmortem stuff if this has been all over your flist for the last few days - I genuinely had no idea about it until I saw sbabe's post and surfed over to the post I linked, but then realised like EVERYONE ELSE knew all about it already. It seems, as usual, I've managed to miss all the big wank until it's almost over. ;)

Re: 2/2

[nicole-anell.livejournal.com]

Ha, that's true, I realize it's only been three or four days (!) since I was in the DEAR GOD THIS IS AWFUL position and eating up all the links I could about it (while the fic was still up, even! and thankfully someone preserved the full extent of the fail in those quotes). So I'm basically complaining that other people aren't as LJ-addicted as me and many are still finding out about it and reacting whole days later. XD

Edit: Also, that tightrope video and dance is awesome, thanks. :D

Re: 2/2

[sabaceanbabe.livejournal.com]

You are so much more eloquent and articulate than I can ever hope to be.

I'm sorry the first response you got to your post was one of classic derailment.

Re: 2/2

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Aww, thanks, but you do yourself a disservice - I thought your original post was entirely clear and articulate.

I confess I was mostly expecting this part of the post to go by as an unnoticed "and also there was a dumb thing" footnote, but hey; I'm glad to see that if there's going to be a debate about the issues, people seem to think I'm handling that okay.

Re: 2/2

[pellucid.livejournal.com]

Word, my friend. *fistbumps*

Re: 2/2

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you. *fistbumps*

Re: 2/2

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

Dude, I stand in awe of both your patience and eloquence.

Re: 2/2

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Wow, thanks. I'm certainly glad others feel I come across that way. <3

Re: 2/2

[chaila.livejournal.com]

To move the discussion from racism to the tragedy of an individual.

YES. Well-said, generally. Just. Dude. Because talking about racism being compared to actual violence? No. *more fist-bumps*

Re: 2/2

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you *more fist-bumps, and then an extra one for your icon*

Re: 2/2

[frolicndetour.livejournal.com]

*stands in awe of everything you've just said and the way you've expressed it*

Re: 2/2

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Wow, thank you. <3

Re: 2/2

[emmiere.livejournal.com]

*is also impressed*

Very, very well said

Re: 2/2

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

Re: This is wrong...

[fig-aruna.livejournal.com]

Tack...

I think you need to step back and really think about what was said here... (especially with respect to your raising the specter of physical violence...)

I personally don't see anything in this situation resembling a mob other than the fact that there many more voices joining the evaluative discussion than I've seen in similar epic fails in the past, and *that* is what is refueling my faith and patience in the human race.

99 percent of people may be decent, but personal intent (i.e., ignorance) does nothing to mitigate the overall crippling effect of racism and other insidiously working -ism's. It's the silent, unknown, cumulative impact of these ignorant decisions, works, and behaviors that creates reactionary mob violence, not the other way around...

Re: This is wrong...

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this detailed and reasoned response - I know it was not addressed to me but I appreciate that you took the time to type it up.

Re: This is wrong...

[ticketsonmyself.livejournal.com]

I like your comment.

http://www.pbs.org/race/000_About/002_04-background-02-05.htm
The entire interview transcript is great, but I would single out this for relevance here:

Isn't racism just a form of ignorance and fear?

When I teach about racism the first thing I say to my students is that racism is not ignorance. Racism is knowledge. Racism in some ways is a very complicated system of knowledge, where science, religion, philosophy, are used to justify inequality and hierarchy. That is foundational. Racism is not simply a kind of visceral feeling you have when you see someone who is different from you.

Because in fact if you look at the history of the world there are many people who look different who are seen as both attractive and unattractive. It is not about how you look, it is about how people assign meaning to how you look. And that is learned behavior, you see.

And that is why you can't think of racism as simply 'not knowing.' That is not the case at all - on the contrary.

Re: This is wrong...

[fig-aruna.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting that link and excerpt, ticketsonmyself. That is a very important distinction that I often have a hard time articulating myself. Racism, like all propaganda- and institution-driven systems of power, is everything that works to create, re-create, and justify an unjust status quo. Ignorance is encouraged for and by those in the groups that dominate a system because education is information -- the information that puts light on how the game is rigged to favor some and to fail others...

Re: This is wrong...

[ticketsonmyself.livejournal.com]

You're welcome.

Racism, like all propaganda- and institution-driven systems of power, is everything that works to create, re-create, and justify an unjust status quo. Ignorance is encouraged for and by those in the groups that dominate a system because education is information -- the information that puts light on how the game is rigged to favor some and to fail others.

Yes.

Links

[ticketsonmyself.livejournal.com]

I know people with relatives who WERE LYNCHED, so I will say nothing except to post these links:

http://www.withoutsanctuary.org/
Anyone who may click on this link, please note MAJOR TRIGGERS. "Searching through America's past for the last 25 years, collector James Allen uncovered an extraordinary visual legacy: photographs and postcards taken as souvenirs at lynchings throughout America. With essays by Hilton Als, Leon Litwack, Congressman John Lewis and James Allen, these photographs have been published as a book by Twin Palms Publishers. Please be aware before entering the site that much of the material is very disturbing. Experience the images as a flash movie with narrative comments by James Allen, or as a gallery of photos.")

http://theangryblackwoman.com/2008/02/12/the-privilege-of-politeness/

http://www.raceandhistory.com/selfnews/viewnews.cgi?newsid1024893033,80611,.shtml
Tim Wise, "A Look at the Myth of Reverse Racism"

http://www.rainn.org/statistics
From the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network. A quote: "60% of rapes/sexual assaults are not reported to the police, according to a statistical average of the past 5 years. Those rapists, of course, never spend a day in prison. Factoring in unreported rapes, only about 6% of rapists ever serve a day in jail."

http://ephemere.dreamwidth.org/16818.html?thread=238514&style=light#cmt238514
A quote: "I am weary of people speaking of anger as if it were a chosen, controllable thing. It is so tiring, this anger, and I would will it away from me if I could. It exhausts me to go into arguments with the full expectation that I will have to defend myself from accusations simply because I am angry. I don't even have to wonder about the lines of thought that lead to these statements -- why should I, when I'm surrounded by the same system that has taught us to suffer in silence, to be patient, to work hard, to deserve the voices and the rights to be regarded as equal with those who have taken these very things away? I know (because I have been told, over and over) that one shouldn't blame anyone else for ignorance, that one should value intention, that one shouldn't deride those who mean well because eventually they'll learn.

Maybe they'll learn. Maybe they won't. But I refuse to stay silent in the meantime. An act that perpetuates oppression, if unchallenged, only serves to reinforce oppression. The more people that choose to recuse themselves from speaking out, due to fear of giving offense, the less there will be to join the struggle against these wrongs. Speak to me of the hue and the cry. Speak to me of it, again and again, because it is still necessary, and it is still not enough, and the fact that we have to raise these issues, over and over, is an outrage in and of itself."

http://ellia.dreamwidth.org/31567.html?style=light
A quote: "But keeping quiet can be part of the problem, when people speak up, when they add their voices to the chorus of complaints, they aren't dogpiling, bullying or trying to drive someone out of fandom, they're simply saying that they were offended by something and are no longer willing to sit quietly and ignore the problem in the hopes that it will go away."

http://2-perseph.dreamwidth.org/9149.html?style=light
An open letter to the fic's author (written before the author's second "apology" post) succinctly analyzing what's fucked up in her story and her responses to comments and why that matters.

http://faunaana.dreamwidth.org/152706.html?style=light
A detailed response to the second "apology" post, why people still have major legit issues with her words/actions/failure to act, and why it matters to continue talking. "[S]he's disabled comments, so I can't reply there. So I am, here. And I'm not going to PM her because race!fail conversations need to be public."

http://inkstone.dreamwidth.org/101114.html?style=light
The same kind of fail - with Haiti, even - is happening in yet another fandom.

http://hesychasm.livejournal.com/304457.html?format=light
A quote: "This is not an obscure topic. This is not an unknown area of study. Racism and how to avoid it is not a mystery - it is HISTORY. All of that has been going on in the world you live in. All of that has been going on all around you and it is continuing."

Re: Links

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Again, I know you are not commenting directly to me, but firstly thank you for the comprehensive list of links - I will be looking through them in the coming days.

Secondly, I completely respect your decision to say nothing, given the circumstances. However, while I hope it goes without saying, I did want to say, just so it's clear, that you are welcome to say things even if they are very angry things, on this LJ. I would like to endeavour to make this a safe space for that to happen, should you ever want it to.

Re: Links

[ticketsonmyself.livejournal.com]

However, while I hope it goes without saying, I did want to say, just so it's clear, that you are welcome to say things even if they are very angry things, on this LJ. I would like to endeavour to make this a safe space for that to happen, should you ever want it to.

Thanks. That is a really important thing to make clear.

In my previous comment I stated my intent to say nothing in the comment beyond description of the links because other thoughts would have been like a word salad of anger and despair. There are only a few things I want to add at this time. First, an edit: http://2-perseph.dreamwidth.org/9149.html?style=light is an open letter to the fic's author (written before the author's second "apology" post, I think) succinctly analyzing what's fucked up in her story and why that matters. I mistyped the original description, didn't think it was worth reposting the comment.

Second, I also recommend http://facetofcathy.dreamwidth.org/151733.html?thread=898741&style=light#cmt898741, "How could they? How could anyone?" A quote: "... And finally: in order for that initial response to become part of a story, to become this story, it is necessary for there to be an overwhelming history in literature and film of stories told only from the white point of view. The people and location make up an exoticized background, plot device, thematic colouring, but are never the focus. Never the point. There are rarely stories about Haiti and Haitian heroes out where they can be consumed by the masses. Even when mass-media stories are not this egregiously formed, they still make up a part of the whole of the single story. The white story.

It's possible, if you can achieve a little dispassion about this (white privilege helps with that too), to see what a person gains by the above responses to this and similar events. There's a comfort in simplifying the human suffering from random earthquakes, systemic racism and inequalities, the culpability of the US and the rest of the wealthy, white-dominated nations into nothing more than a stage with players upon it. There's a relief in giving up the analysis and the history and the critical thinking. Giving up responsibility. Focusing on yourself. And I don't think I'm immune to any of the influences that led to this story. I don't think I have any purity of heart or mind or thought on this front.

This story doesn't actually deserve that bitter, tongue in cheek trademarked name I gave it up above, because it's not unique. It is not unique to J2 fandom, slash fandom, SPN fandom or to fandom in general. It is not an artifact just of fandom, but of the world at large. I don't think it's even a uniquely bad example of the genre it makes up a part of. I do think it is a foreseeable outcome of what happens when white people in wealthy nations choose to selfishly indulge their privilege and passively consume the reality of the rest of humanity as entertainment."

Finally, I think that anyone who would like to casually use the word "lynch mob" or "lynching" or other word choices of that ilk, as for example to describe fandom reactions to racist bullshit, should have to view the photo exhibit at http://www.withoutsanctuary.org/ in full. And then maybe report back to me if you (the general "you") still think you need to use "lynch" that way, because I would like to know so I can use killfile for Greasemonkey and blot all your words out from my browser for the rest of eternity. "Without Sanctuary is a photo document of proof, an unearthing of crimes, of collective mass murder, of mass memory graves excavated from the American conscience. Part postal cards, common as dirt, souvenirs skin-thin and fresh-tattooed proud, the trade cards of those assisting at ritual racial killings and other acts of mad citizenry. The communities’ best citizens lurking just outside the frame. Destined to decay, these few survivors of an original photo population of many thousands, turn the living into pillars of salt."

Re: Links

[ticketsonmyself.livejournal.com]

The thought I keep coming back to is: if 99 percent of people have good intentions, I am actively terrified of what those "good intentions" are, because it's obvious even at a casual glance at how (for example) U.S. society at large positioned itself and continues to position itself with respect to racism that far more than one percent of total results are ACTIVELY TERRIFYING. I don't believe for a millisecond that they're all due to one percent of the population. And "road to hell, etc.," just doesn't cut it.

And I guess here's another post worth reading, since I keep coming back to the way she and her commenter(s) phrase stuff: http://impertinence.dreamwidth.org/531491.html?style=light
A quote: "Here's the thing: your thoughts are your responsibility. If the idea forms, you start planning, you get really excited and then you write eighty thousand words? It doesn't actually matter if somehow you post it in a void and the people who might've been offended never see it. YOU. STILL. FAILED. Yes, it is possible to racefail in your brain. THAT IS WHAT MAKES OUTSIDE-YOUR-HEAD RACEFAIL THAT MUCH WORSE. it is not other people's job to police you - particularly people of color. And unless your response to someone being like "you're a racist" is "fuck yeah!", then you should shape up.

Be your own thought police, fellow white people. Believe me, it helps. The moral of this story is not "think about your readers, because you might offend them and then people will be mean to you". It's, "think about other people, and slap yourself if you start plotting something that pings you as offensive, because otherwise you will hurt people".

Am I making any sense? I don't know. I just think it's such a privileged fucking breakdown to be like "well, obviously I didn't think about my readers, I just really enjoyed writing this". Because...yeah. Yeah, clearly you didn't think.

Your apology shouldn't be "I'm sorry I posted this". You shouldn't think the only fuck-up was posting your racist writing publicly. The most important thing in this whole debacle is that people were hurt reading that fic. On a shallow level, that's because it was posted publicly, and they read it. But we're not children here: the fail started way earlier than that. Your thoughts do not exist in a vacuum. Our thoughts, our patterns of thinking, that is where the problem starts, that is the beginning that leads to PEOPLE BEING HURT.

So you know, fix that shit. Work on fixing it. If you don't want to hurt people, don't blunder around the world acting like it's everyone else's job to nailbat you where you go wrong. There's no shortage of nailbats in the world, and there are a lot of brave people in LJ fandom willing to wield them, but...they shouldn't have to."

Re: Links

[pellucid.livejournal.com]

I wandered back over here, and I was also still thinking about the conversation about Ellison over at Chaila's, and I just wanted to give an extra shout of agreement with this, in particular: "think about other people, and slap yourself if you start plotting something that pings you as offensive, because otherwise you will hurt people"

Obviously the clusterfuck that is that story is of a magnitude many, many times greater than whether people find Ellison uninteresting, what with the whole involving actual human beings whose lives were devastated part. But the common missing element in both cases seems to be a basic lack of empathy--and a basic obliviousness that empathy might be called for, which I suppose is just another way of saying selfishness. And this ties back to what facetofcathy says so well in her post, and it ought to be an obvious point anyway. But god. How difficult is it just to THINK ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE and what it might feel like to be them? To try to imagine the world through someone else's eyes? (I mean, there's a point at which that line of thought goes too far, because if you're a middle-class American white girl you really cannot know what it's like to be a Haitian person of color, and to claim that you do can be equally problematic. Though arguably this is really a manifestation of a lack of recognition of other people as having lives so vastly more rich and complex than can be understood by anyone else.)

Anyway. Yeah.

Re: Links

[ticketsonmyself.livejournal.com]

Obviously the clusterfuck that is that story is of a magnitude many, many times greater than whether people find Ellison uninteresting, what with the whole involving actual human beings whose lives were devastated part. But the common missing element in both cases seems to be a basic lack of empathy--and a basic obliviousness that empathy might be called for, which I suppose is just another way of saying selfishness. And this ties back to what facetofcathy says so well in her post, and it ought to be an obvious point anyway. But god. How difficult is it just to THINK ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE and what it might feel like to be them? To try to imagine the world through someone else's eyes? (I mean, there's a point at which that line of thought goes too far, because if you're a middle-class American white girl you really cannot know what it's like to be a Haitian person of color, and to claim that you do can be equally problematic. Though arguably this is really a manifestation of a lack of recognition of other people as having lives so vastly more rich and complex than can be understood by anyone else.)

Yes entirely, to all of that. And: were and are still being devastated, in an ongoing way.

(Also I am drawing a cloud of hearts around Sisko.)

Re: Links

[ticketsonmyself.livejournal.com]

Oh, thinking back to the conversation at Chaila's. Especially given that Chaila said in her post, "You don't have to come justify to me why you honestly don't like him (and if you do, please not to be personally insulting him in the comments, thanks)," I find it problematic for a white person to come over to a post about cross-fandom patterns of racism, with general fannish treatment of Ellison as an example, and do that whole "not liking Ellison doesn't make me racist!" thing (and also go on to call him arrogant, stupid, etc.). And by problematic I mean characteristic of the seemingly unending reserves of white defensiveness that rise up LIKE EVERY TIME somebody talks about fandom racism in public. I don't know how many times people have had to say IF IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU, IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU in discussions of privilege, erasure, etc. And by "I don't know how many times" I mean COUNTLESS TIMES, I HAVE SEEN IT. But apparently if you don't say it explicitly in your post IN THOSE EXACT WORDS (and even sometimes if you do).... I don't have the spoons OR the forks (http://the-willow.insanejournal.com/867790.html?mode=reply&format=light) to engage, but I think it's relevant, too.

Re: Links

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Yes, you're making sense. While I will take making a racist person not say racist things (or any other ist saying other ist things) simply because they have learned that when they say them, they get yelled at, and they want to avoid the hassle, it's far, far less preferable to said person actually learning something - it's not a shift in the underlying perspective that causes the problem in the first place.

The other half of the issue here being that this shouldn't be about a learning experience for a white person (in this instance the author), it should be about creating a safer and more responsible community space where such things are challenged when they are expressed. It's a catch-22 in that by attempting to educate - which is really the only way things will ever permanently change - it often makes the entire conversation, once again, about the oppressor.

Ultimately, the only solution is to take responsibility for your (generic) behaviour, and also the underlying opinions and thought patterns that are responsible for your behaviour. No one else can do it for you. And the blindlingly obvious but surprisingly under-recognised reality is that we live in a world that through various patterns of privilege is actively invested in preventing such self-scrutiny, self-education and self-improvement from seeming necessary.

At which point I'm not sure I'm saying anything that hasn't been said better by others, many times. But, um, the point is, you're making sense. I hope I am too.

and this is the oppressor's language

[ticketsonmyself.livejournal.com]

I agree with your whole comment.

The other half of the issue here being that this shouldn't be about a learning experience for a white person (in this instance the author), it should be about creating a safer and more responsible community space where such things are challenged when they are expressed. It's a catch-22 in that by attempting to educate - which is really the only way things will ever permanently change - it often makes the entire conversation, once again, about the oppressor.

1. There are methods but we do not use them. (http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/99/jrieffel/poetry/rich/children.html)
2. Conversations are going on in locked entries and/or POC-only spaces that are different from the ones going on in most of the links in various posts, including the ones I have linked here. This is because a lot of the things about how racism works that is news to white people and/or needs constant reminding is not news, or even really surprising, to a lot of POC. Still painful and damaging every day, not surprising. For example, delux_vivens pretty much said what facetofcathy's post said, but in two sentences. But those two sentences would probably not be acceptable to a lot of white people, because that one comment A) comes from a WOC and B) doesn't do the legwork for white readers.
3. The conversations I have with other POC about this and other issues in POC-only spaces are different from the ones I have with white people, generally in important ways. For that matter, the conversations I have with people who turn away from a discussion implicitly or explicitly focused or led by white, nondisabled, cisgender, heterosexual, middle-to-upper-class women are different from the conversations I have with people who... don't (http://meloukhia.net/2010/05/sarah_palin_and_the_arbiters_of_feminism.html). (See also the final paragraph before the footnotes here (http://sanguinity.livejournal.com/445554.html?format=light).)
4. My own experiences are kind of an abbreviated version of this (http://guerrillamamamedicine.wordpress.com/2009/03/17/we-dont-need-another-anti-racism-101/). Sometimes I keep trying with white people, always conscious of myself as a POC. But honestly, mostly I don't. Because:

its one thing to be anti-racist. its another thing to be respectful or humble or loving. to not take that new job position w/o realizing that there are poc who are more deserving. or to not insult that woc when you know that doing so will increase your readership. or to not quote a woc when you know it will make you sound smarter and garner more respect from white folks.

im not sure if this makes sense.

i guess what i am saying is that in my experience if white folks want to be respectful of poc or understand where they are coming from–they dont need a workshop. there are centuries of writing from poc that they can dive into. there are plenty of poc in their neighborhoods and community organizations. when white folks are ready to be anti-racist, when they are ready to turn from facing the center, to facing the margins, and stand with us. we will be here.

they dont need to be converted or preached to.

they dont need to learn the right words to use. or the right theory.

we dont need more of that.

and it is harmful to them to give them a bunch of new theory and rhetoric while they are still angling to get as close to the center as possible. to get to the top of the caterpillar pile.

and antiracism theory will just be used as another means, another tactic for them to reach their goal.

and the funny thing about culture, is that culture provides us with a set of assumptions that we dont have to verbalize internally or externally in order to act those assumptions out. and one of those assumptions in white culture/eurocentric culture is an isolationist, individualistic sense of success and failure. the: i gots to get mine. you gots to get yours.

and until folks stop living out that cultural assumption, no amount of anti-racist theory is going to do any good.

if anything it will be harmful because now we as poc have just given them one more tactic to get over. get ahead. step on others in the kyriarchy.

I guess the other thing that goes with "Without Sanctuary" is

[ticketsonmyself.livejournal.com]

everything at this interview transcript (PBS linked them, but I read this first): http://www.pbs.org/race/000_About/002_04-background-02-05.htm

"When I teach about racism the first thing I say to my students is that racism is not ignorance. Racism is knowledge. Racism in some ways is a very complicated system of knowledge, where science, religion, philosophy, are used to justify inequality and hierarchy. That is foundational. Racism is not simply a kind of visceral feeling you have when you see someone who is different from you.

Because in fact if you look at the history of the world there are many people who look different who are seen as both attractive and unattractive. It is not about how you look, it is about how people assign meaning to how you look. And that is learned behavior, you see.

And that is why you can't think of racism as simply 'not knowing.' That is not the case at all - on the contrary."

Re: I guess the other thing that goes with "Without Sanctuary" is

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thanks, the importance of acknowledging the fact that racism isn't based on actual ignorance, but rather knowledge - just knowledge the individual may not be aware is learned behaviour, or may choose to pretend isn't learned behaviour - is such a good point. It's the kind of simple, truthful statement that makes complete and total sense. And yet, somehow, even though, "our racist society trains you to be racist; it's behaviour we need to unlearn" is something I might very well have said at any given point, the simple refutation of racism as an act of ignorance (thus implying naivety and less culpability than one might otherwise have) is something I never would have thought to put together. You say it, and I know instantly it's true, but I never would have been able to convey it so pithily - I never would have even thought to, and that itself is tragic and worth consideration.

So thank you - that is going in my mental list of Things Not To Forget and Maybe Pass On.

Re: I guess the other thing that goes with "Without Sanctuary" is

[ticketsonmyself.livejournal.com]

I think Robin Kelley puts it really clearly, yeah. A useful and true way of thinking about it, and also about other systems of oppression and how they interact with each other.

this is the oppressor's language / yet I need it to talk to you

[ticketsonmyself.livejournal.com]

Points I forgot to add:

1. It occurs to me that I know that which is the oppressor's language for me is also, literally, the oppressor's language for you, since you are Welsh.
2. I think that just copy-and-pasting that multi-paragraph excerpt from impertinence's post made it look like it wasn't all a quote, despite the quotation marks I added at the beginning and end; I didn't fix the ones actually inside the excerpt to match. Anyway, all those words are impertinence's, not mine, though I (obviously) think they make sense too.
3. The conversations I have with people who turn away from a discussion implicitly or explicitly focused or led by white, nondisabled, cisgender, heterosexual, middle-to-upper-class women - to clarify, I am not talking about white, nondisabled, cisgender, heterosexual, middle-to-upper-class men in this context either, since there are very very few I've found who don't have way more untouched baggage than I am willing to educate through. I mean, those few exist and I know because I have met a couple. But generally not so much.
4. My views diverge at least a little from this (http://guerrillamamamedicine.wordpress.com/2009/03/17/we-dont-need-another-anti-racism-101/) insofar as I think the right words do matter, because in various contexts statements are performatives, or have the potential to be performatives, too. Ideas and the meanings of words matter, and they continue to help me break out of internalized oppression. However, in the course of both antiracist activism and other types of activism (which overlap, like LGBTQAI activism), what I have found a lot are people who publicly claim the label of "ally" yet don't walk the walk - in terms of actually speaking up on a regular basis when the shit hits the fan, as it so often does, but also in terms of really shifting the ways each of us is used to thinking about and doing things every day, and I work to do this too. Which is in large part what "We Don't Need Another Anti-Racism 101" is about, as I interpret it. Sara Ahmed talks about performative statements in anti-racism here (http://www.borderlands.net.au/vol3no2_2004/ahmed_declarations.htm), in a way that ties these thoughts together (in the full article, at the link) - a short quote: "In other words, the task for white subjects would be to stay implicated in what they critique, but in turning towards their role and responsibility in these histories of racism, as histories of this present, to turn away from themselves, and towards others. This ‘double turn’ is not sufficient, but it clears some ground, upon which the work of exposing racism might provide the conditions for another kind of work. We don’t know, as yet, what such conditions might be, or whether we are even up to the task of recognizing them." In a way it does come back to the same kind of thing sanguinity recapped in her review of Conquest that I linked to earlier.

Re: this is the oppressor's language / yet I need it to talk to you

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

1. Ha, yes, good point. Actually an intriguing point of common reference between myself and my best friend (who is both male and second-generation Chinese - from Hong Kong so he speaks Cantonese) is the issue of linguistics. SO MUCH of our cultural-linguistic experience as bilingual people is different, but we did find that we both implicitly understood the cocktail of pride/shame in being able to fluently speak our respective languages, and yet in being more comfortable in English. In forgetting less common words at awkward moments, and feeling like your accent gives you away as one of those kids, at the same time as desperately wanting to explain to the people who think your language is pointless or threatening that it isn't. (And you made it so I can't even speak it right). It's such an interesting, almost surreal convergence in what are otherwise very different sets of cultural experience.

3. Thanks for the clarification, but that's what I understood from that sentence, yes. :)

4. In many ways I think I'm very lucky because my mother introduced me to the concept of interalised oppression and allies when I was very young. Which doesn't particularly mean I feel educated on the subject because it's not like I've really read anything like enough on it, but it means that these are very familiar concepts to me, as far as I do know about them, and they have weight. And one thing that uniformly makes me uncomfortable is the way the term "ally" has the potential to be unfairly claimed and to unfairly distance such a person from a power structure s/he is still part of. I also worry that by not actively referring to myself as such, people will assume that it is not a goal of mine to be one. It is. But...I very much feel that it is not my title to give. It is a useful concept, a useful title, and a useful descriptor for specific occasions (I am here at this event as an ally), but in a wider sense, in terms of using it as a day-to-day descriptor of oneself...I don't know. I feel it's something that you work on, you don't declare achieved.

a map of our failures

[ticketsonmyself.livejournal.com]

SO MUCH of our cultural-linguistic experience as bilingual people is different, but we did find that we both implicitly understood the cocktail of pride/shame in being able to fluently speak our respective languages, and yet in being more comfortable in English. In forgetting less common words at awkward moments, and feeling like your accent gives you away as one of those kids, at the same time as desperately wanting to explain to the people who think your language is pointless or threatening that it isn't. (And you made it so I can't even speak it right). It's such an interesting, almost surreal convergence in what are otherwise very different sets of cultural experience.

My own history with internalized racism (like your friend, I am second-gen) is a map of failures when it comes to having lost the language my guardians spoke - I can understand it almost perfectly, but I grew up for a number of years in a white-dominated area with literally no one but my guardians who spoke that language. When I moved to a more diverse area, I went to language school for a few years but whatever spoken skills I had didn't stick, and looking back to that point in my life, it was too hard to follow through when those were probably the worst years of my life (unrecognized internalized racism, unrecognized disabilities, etc.). It's not the same shame, but your and your friend's experiences "in being able to fluently speak our respective languages, and yet in being more comfortable in English. In forgetting less common words at awkward moments, and feeling like your accent gives you away as one of those kids, at the same time as desperately wanting to explain to the people who think your language is pointless or threatening that it isn't. (And you made it so I can't even speak it right)" are really familiar to me, not only because of the people I know who have similar cultural-linguistic bilingual or trilingual experiences, but also because these experiences are all derived from the living heritage of (in cases like that of Wales, ongoing) colonialism.

3. Yeah, I figured, but just makin' sure. :)

And one thing that uniformly makes me uncomfortable is the way the term "ally" has the potential to be unfairly claimed and to unfairly distance such a person from a power structure s/he is still part of.

Yes.

I also worry that by not actively referring to myself as such, people will assume that it is not a goal of mine to be one. It is. But...I very much feel that it is not my title to give. It is a useful concept, a useful title, and a useful descriptor for specific occasions (I am here at this event as an ally), but in a wider sense, in terms of using it as a day-to-day descriptor of oneself...I don't know. I feel it's something that you work on, you don't declare achieved.

I have really come to trust people more who don't necessarily call themselves allies (as you put it, as a day-to-day descriptor of themselves) but who support groups with whom they work in alliance regardless. And I absolutely agree with the rest of that you've said, too. "Being an ally" is the rabbit to my greyhound - the point isn't catching-the-rabbit-and-now-I-have-it, it's learning to run faster.

Re: a map of our failures

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thanks for taking the time to tell me about your experiences. They remind me a little of the situation my aunt (my father's much older half-sister), and my grandmother (my father's mother) and a number of the older generation of welsh people find themselves in. Welsh actually suffered its most crippling reduction in speakers during the first half of the 20th century, after most of the legal oppression had ended but due to the fact that further education and better jobs, lack of social stigma, etc., seemed more achievable than in previous generations, and more available to those who were better English speakers. My aunt's mother was a fluent welsh speaker but died when she was very young. She still claims she can't speak welsh, but she understands everything I'm saying when she overhears me chatting with my welsh-speaking cousin, for instance. Similarly, my Dad grew up believing that his mother didn't speak welsh even though her older siblings did because her family chose to switch their home language in the years before she was born to give the kids a better chance. I'm reasonably confident that she genuinely couldn't speak welsh (or believed this) simply because she always told my father she was disappointed by that fact. But then my father found out in the years after her death that she had been the secretary for a welsh-speaking chapel for years after he'd left home, and on talking to people from that chapel, discovered that she used to take minutes of meetings, etc. She didn't really have either the confidence or knowledge to speak the language (much like my aunt), but understood it pretty well.

I speak welsh because my non-welsh speaking father made a deliberate decision that I would and sent me through the welsh-language immersion schools, for which I am very grateful. I grew up essentially assuming that my welsh relatives were all monoglot English-speakers, and it was only as I grew older that I found out almost everyone older than my dad (my aunt, uncle, both grandparents) ALL had a high level of facility with the language in terms of understanding but a reticence to speak it, often due to feeling that it they couldn't speak it "properly", and so never tried with me and I gave up trying with them because they were resistant and shy. It's what makes getting accurate statistics on welsh speakers in Wales so difficult - a lot of unrecognised internalised oppression about the language.

Anyway, thanks for the chance to discuss experiences of linguistic colonialisation, and I'm definitely glad that you're no longer in a place where you have so many unrecognised issues,"Being an ally" is the rabbit to my greyhound - the point isn't catching-the-rabbit-and-now-I-have-it, it's learning to run faster. even as I'm sorry that you were not able to retain closer ties to your language (if you wanted them).

"Being an ally" is the rabbit to my greyhound - the point isn't catching-the-rabbit-and-now-I-have-it, it's learning to run faster.

I like that - it's a very succinct way to put it.

[sabaceanbabe.livejournal.com]

I'll have to watch that vid when I get home, but I wanted to tell you that, in regard to the current racefail discussion, you said what I wanted to say so much more clearly than I did in my post. *hug*

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Hee! The vid finally gets some love! ;)

As to the racefail issues, firstly thank you for pointing it out to me and secondly, as I said above, I think your post was perfectly clear. *hug*

[emmiere.livejournal.com]

Since you posted about two things in this post, I thought I'd come back and comment about the less ragey one too (we can pretend I haven't already done that once...or twice), because OMG, DANCING! I don't even know what to call it either, but it's seriously amazing and kind of beautiful to watch. Her stuff being kind of hybrid of many fantastic things is one of my favorite things about it. :)

ETA: Really appreciate the simplicity of "I do not approve". I don't have much I can add to the larger discussion, but it's important to say that much, I think.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

HAHAHA! Yes, the DANCING! :D Poor, overlooked dancing. I'm so glad others love it, and your icon.

(I'm also glad that I made sense with that; I liked its simplicity too.)