Things shouldn't be this hard
Jun. 28th, 2009 02:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
It's a hard thing, sometimes, when you realize just how ingrained racism is in SF/F literature, especially the mainstream. Especially when, if you're like me, you come from the blind, privileged section of the world that has been able to overlook such things and still can, if they choose to.
I try to choose not to, but sometimes that means that I can't feel as warm and fuzzy about books which other people seem to get a kick out. Which is a small thing compared to what fans of color have gone through, and believe me I'm not here to harp on my poor White Woman Pain (oh, the hardship of being white! *swoons dramatically*).
Case in point? Not only did I just get finished with a book about thousands of alternative universes, none of which included a universe in which White/European was not the dominant culture, but I picked up "Dead Witch Walking" by Kim Harrison and got kind of a nasty surprise in a few passages both in terms of race and queerness.
Passage 1:
Passage 2:
Passage 2.5 (concerning the same character)
The problem with these bits are first that they buy into very common stereotypes. The exotic, gorgeous, sexpot Asian woman (though the character Ivy Tamwood is not actually Asian). It buys into the exoticism that Americans and Europeans have attached to a certain group of people, and exoticism which has turned them into fetish objects at some points. Frankly, the implication that looking "Oriental" should somehow give a person a more exotic or enigmatic look is deeply racist.
But the characterization of Denon, the boss who is described as being muscled and hyper masculine is perhaps even more bothersome to me in a way. In an earlier passage, the narrator states that: "Half the floor wanted to be his sex toy. The other half he scared the crap out of. (Page 43)."
I think Avalon's Willow said it best in her Open Letter to Elizabeth Bear, and I hate that so many of the very right, very wise, very true things she said got swallowed up by people who were more concerned about making the argument personal and defending a handful of privileged individuals than digesting the words she was saying and seeing how the things that Elizabeth Bear and other authors and creators in contemporary media are affecting the very people they're stereotyping and marginalizing.
And for the record? I've read each of the Promethean Age books cover to cover. Thoroughly. And Avalon's Willow is not wrong not a bit. Even back when I was rather enamored of Bear, I had to admit that had some rather troubling problems with whitewashing. What I am now ashamed of is not that I criticized the book, but that I didn't criticize it enough. I'm ashamed of the thing I completely overlooked because it was my privilege to do so.
Because the bits about the Kelpie plugging into so many of the hurtful stereotypes about black men completely passed me by. The problems with simply describing the Merlin "golden skinned" and thinking that suffices (I wish I could quote where I found that said, because it was said somewhere else by someone far wiser than I).
Because then, as now, I'm soaking in privilege. Because I'm a white woman. I don't have to think about that. I can, if I want, ignore how people of other races are getting portrayed in literature.
Now, this is not to say that having a narrator or character who has racial prejudices, or outright racism, is necessarily wrong or bad or racist on the part of the writer. Case in point, Kindred by Octavia Butler contains characters who are racist or have racial prejudices, and the n-word gets thrown around fairly frequently, as befits the 19th century setting. I'd hardly call it a racist work or call Butler herself a howling racist.
There are other books I could name that do portray racial tensions, prejudices, and problems without themselves being works engrained with racism, but in those books I find that there is nearly always something that tips the reader off to the fact that they are meant to examine this instance of racism, that they are meant to be put off by it, that there is an authorial tone of disapproval, or at least some sign that the author has examined that passage themselves, that they are not using it carelessly.
And I did not read any such examination in the tone, subtext, or text in the passages from Harrison's book of what I've read so far. My main reason for this is that I read, in the text and subtext, that we as the audience are meant to like, admire, and agree with the protagonist.
My reasons for thinking this are grounded in the fact that if one doesn't buy into the premise that this woman deserves to be the heroine, then the novel becomes more difficult to enjoy and many things become bewildering.
For instance, we are given references to many instances where cases went wrong for the heroine. In one example, she accidentally uses a spell that makes everyone in the first three rows of a city bus go bald. Yet, she repeatedly states that she believes she is a better "runner" or "witch" than that, that she is good at her job. Yet in that first chapter over and over again, little anecdotes and references to her many failures and fumbles are given.
If the audience does not find these stories humorous, bolstering their belief that this a sexy, smart heroine who leads a wacky, leather clad existence, rather than bewildering that someone who makes this many mistakes can consider herself good at her job, then the novel falls apart.
I also do not see any instances where the narrator says something that is deliberately contradictory to known, established, canonical fact that keys us into the fact that she may be unreliable, or that we are to distance ourselves from herself and her view point.
Instead, I see scene after scene which is meant to make her look like the underdog, the beleaguered heroine who's boss - the big, Black buck who is highly sexualized and very intimidating - is a scary, sexy man who's out to get her. As is revealed in chapter three, he's the one who's been ruining her cases or "runs" to make her look bad because he just doesn't like her and wants her to quit (page 44).
From a logic stand point, that doesn't really hold up for me as a reader. Because while having a boss that just doesn't like you is possible, if he has the power to keep her doing lousy jobs until she quits, why not do that? Why mess up cases, tip off targets, and do the other things that might backfire? And why is that this poor, nice, just-trying-to-do-her-job underdog White woman has attracted the ire of this monstrous, illogically hateful Black man? Because that's the situation that Harrison has set up for us.
Furthermore, having the heroine join an organization where anyone who tries to leave their 30-year-contracted position (boy, I'd love that kind of job security!) gets dead seems like a stupid move on her part. Nor does it explain why an organization would expend the kind of resources to do such a thing, and I think having the plot start out with that very thing bears explanation. But that's another rant about the use of internal logic and basic reasoning skills in the urban fantasy genre.
The problem is, in short, that I do not believe for a moment that there is an examination of such tropes by the author, or that she herself recognized how hurtful such things have been to readers of color in SF/F for such a long time.
I don't know if I can continue with this book. Part of me wants to. It's not all bad as things go. Okay, the witch-in-leather thing is annoying and there is much of the characteristic self-absorption and navel gazing which may one day make me break out in hives, but there were hints of an interesting story. After all, finding that there was a virus that wiped out much of non-magical humanity but left magical beings standing, shifting the balance of power in the world is fascinating. The fact that the virus came through tomatoes of all things also has promise.
But I don't know if I can continue reading, even if it is just to do a critical examination.
Let me say that I don't consider anyone who's reading or ever read this book or liked it to be a racist by virtue of that alone. I think it may say something about your level of awareness if these things didn't occur to you, but that alone does not a racist make.
Nor am I calling for a boycott of this author or this book. This is not a call to action. Sweet heavens, I'm not trying to do anything like that. I am the last person anyone should follow or listen to for a lot of reasons.
What I am is showing the problems I came up against in this book, and my hesitation to continue with it.
I would also like to say that I do not consider my reading to be invalid because I have continued on. Nor do I consider that Avalon Willow's reading was automatically invalid because she didn't go on with the book, and I found critics of her reading who based their objections on that fact to be, well, wrong.
I think it's a little silly for any author to say that a reader basing an opinion, criticism, or other thoughts on anything less than reading cover to cover is invalid, because um, we authors? We make our living on that very premise. How many times are we lectured that we have to find a hook, a great first line, a killer first chapter?
We ourselves count on readers making snap judgments based on covers, first lines, sample chapters on a website or the back of the previous book in the series. So why is that we're willing to accept the money and initial praise that may come from a reader enjoying the first line/chapter/fifty pages of our work, but when a reader is so put off by that same space, we feel they're completely wrong?
You can't say you want people to judge your work to be exciting, fun, and worthy of shelling out money for based just on samples and then say you think it's not valid for someone to judge a 160,000 word work negatively on a "shallow and partial reading". That's a failure of logic and unless you plan on telling someone who comes to you and says, "I just read the first chapter of your novel and am buying it and think it's great! And I love [insert thing/character]!" that they ought to wait until they read it all to decide if it's great and that their reading is shallow and partial, then you're being hypocritical.
And hypocrisy leads me to a place of anger and property damage and "MEG SMASH!", and we do not want that. So, maybe you could check that hypocrisy.
So what's the point of me enumerating all this?
Mostly for my own edification, basically. I'm not going to bullshit you guys. I'm doing this for me. If someone else gets helped out, well, huzzah for me, but I did this for my own good, for my own process.
I have made it a personal goal, because I feel it is of the utmost importance, to do what I can to be worthy of one day being called an anti-racist ally. I'm not there yet. Personally, I'm somewhere between "just opened my eyes" and "first day of Racism 101". But that's better than a couple of years ago, where I was not at all aware of most of these things, and hopefully in a couple of years I'll be in Racism 102 or 103. I think it will take me a long time before I can be worthy of the trust and responsibility inherent in taking on the mantle of an anti-racist ally. Because when we white folks screw up at this, we don't pay the price. We pass that particular gift on to the people of color who have been paying the price for our advancement and our advantages for centuries.
I know, as a woman and a self identified queer person, what it feels like to want to scream, "Gah! I think we've been crapped on long enough!" and I know what it's like when men or straight people think they're doing something good and really, they're just making it worse. Worse by acting like objectifying women's bodies in advertisements is somehow liberating them, or that feminism is about something as trivial as giving up a seat on a bus, or that reminding Western women of the horrors women in other places face is somehow helping us feel better rather than being a thinly veiled call to shut up and stop being so difficult. Worse by thinking having a queer character in a movie or novel is virtuous, even if they stereotype them and kill them off the way a thousand movies and books before them have done.
To me, it is of the utmost importance to rid the literature I love and the society I live in of the ever present, ever dangerous spectre of racism, of a past that ought never have happened the way it did. I believe it is incumbent upon me to do these things, not out of guilt, but because the goal of living on a society without dominance, without racism, without prejudice, is not only attainable, but so self-evidently worthy that I cannot ignore it. I believe that it important for every single human being on the face of this Earth, because if we do not learn now to correct ourselves, to become better, then things bode ill for our future and for us.
I don't want cookies. I don't want recognition. I just want racism to be gone and done with.
So, I'm doing this because it helps me, and this is my LJ, and well, why have one if you're not going to use it, at the very least, for your own good if not someone else's?
Saying these things out loud, in a public place, is helpful to me because it forces me not to play a part, not to hide behind silence as a tool for making myself look better than I am. It's easy to mumble some lip service and then stay quiet thereafter, and pretend that it's enough, that you've done due diligence. It's not.
I must be honest, open, respectful. I must listen, and that means when I post something, I must be willing to carefully digest and consider criticism I receive, especially from the very people I mean to one day be an ally to.
ETA: Yes, I have frozen a thread, and for reasons that are both personal and practical. I don't want the topic derailed, and I will freeze, delete, or otherwise deal with comments that are not helpful. When I say productive conversation, I mean that. If you're here just to pick a fight or argue, go AWAY.
Actually if you disagree about the existence of white privilege, racism in our society, or it's very real affects on the daily lives of people of color, just go away. I'm not going to argue with you or debate this. You're not going to change my mind. And it's certainly my job to change yours. Consider us agreeing to disagree and summarily check the exits, okay? Thanks.
I try to choose not to, but sometimes that means that I can't feel as warm and fuzzy about books which other people seem to get a kick out. Which is a small thing compared to what fans of color have gone through, and believe me I'm not here to harp on my poor White Woman Pain (oh, the hardship of being white! *swoons dramatically*).
Case in point? Not only did I just get finished with a book about thousands of alternative universes, none of which included a universe in which White/European was not the dominant culture, but I picked up "Dead Witch Walking" by Kim Harrison and got kind of a nasty surprise in a few passages both in terms of race and queerness.
Passage 1:
Her slightly Oriental cast gave her an enigmatic look, upholding my belief that most models had to be vamps. She dressed like a model, too: modest leather skirt and silk blouse, top-of-the-line, all-vamp construction; black, of course. Her hair was a smooth dark wave, accenting her pale skin and oval-shaped face. No matter what she did with her hair, it made her look exotic. (page 9)
Passage 2:
Put simply, the boss looked like a pro wrestler with a doctorate in suave: big man, hard muscles, perfect mohogany skin. (page 42)
Passage 2.5 (concerning the same character)
He had that throaty low voice only black men and vampires were allowed to have. It's a rule somewhere. Low and sweet. Coaxing. The promise in it pulled my skin tight, and fear washed through me. (page 44).
The problem with these bits are first that they buy into very common stereotypes. The exotic, gorgeous, sexpot Asian woman (though the character Ivy Tamwood is not actually Asian). It buys into the exoticism that Americans and Europeans have attached to a certain group of people, and exoticism which has turned them into fetish objects at some points. Frankly, the implication that looking "Oriental" should somehow give a person a more exotic or enigmatic look is deeply racist.
But the characterization of Denon, the boss who is described as being muscled and hyper masculine is perhaps even more bothersome to me in a way. In an earlier passage, the narrator states that: "Half the floor wanted to be his sex toy. The other half he scared the crap out of. (Page 43)."
I think Avalon's Willow said it best in her Open Letter to Elizabeth Bear, and I hate that so many of the very right, very wise, very true things she said got swallowed up by people who were more concerned about making the argument personal and defending a handful of privileged individuals than digesting the words she was saying and seeing how the things that Elizabeth Bear and other authors and creators in contemporary media are affecting the very people they're stereotyping and marginalizing.
And for the record? I've read each of the Promethean Age books cover to cover. Thoroughly. And Avalon's Willow is not wrong not a bit. Even back when I was rather enamored of Bear, I had to admit that had some rather troubling problems with whitewashing. What I am now ashamed of is not that I criticized the book, but that I didn't criticize it enough. I'm ashamed of the thing I completely overlooked because it was my privilege to do so.
Because the bits about the Kelpie plugging into so many of the hurtful stereotypes about black men completely passed me by. The problems with simply describing the Merlin "golden skinned" and thinking that suffices (I wish I could quote where I found that said, because it was said somewhere else by someone far wiser than I).
Because then, as now, I'm soaking in privilege. Because I'm a white woman. I don't have to think about that. I can, if I want, ignore how people of other races are getting portrayed in literature.
Now, this is not to say that having a narrator or character who has racial prejudices, or outright racism, is necessarily wrong or bad or racist on the part of the writer. Case in point, Kindred by Octavia Butler contains characters who are racist or have racial prejudices, and the n-word gets thrown around fairly frequently, as befits the 19th century setting. I'd hardly call it a racist work or call Butler herself a howling racist.
There are other books I could name that do portray racial tensions, prejudices, and problems without themselves being works engrained with racism, but in those books I find that there is nearly always something that tips the reader off to the fact that they are meant to examine this instance of racism, that they are meant to be put off by it, that there is an authorial tone of disapproval, or at least some sign that the author has examined that passage themselves, that they are not using it carelessly.
And I did not read any such examination in the tone, subtext, or text in the passages from Harrison's book of what I've read so far. My main reason for this is that I read, in the text and subtext, that we as the audience are meant to like, admire, and agree with the protagonist.
My reasons for thinking this are grounded in the fact that if one doesn't buy into the premise that this woman deserves to be the heroine, then the novel becomes more difficult to enjoy and many things become bewildering.
For instance, we are given references to many instances where cases went wrong for the heroine. In one example, she accidentally uses a spell that makes everyone in the first three rows of a city bus go bald. Yet, she repeatedly states that she believes she is a better "runner" or "witch" than that, that she is good at her job. Yet in that first chapter over and over again, little anecdotes and references to her many failures and fumbles are given.
If the audience does not find these stories humorous, bolstering their belief that this a sexy, smart heroine who leads a wacky, leather clad existence, rather than bewildering that someone who makes this many mistakes can consider herself good at her job, then the novel falls apart.
I also do not see any instances where the narrator says something that is deliberately contradictory to known, established, canonical fact that keys us into the fact that she may be unreliable, or that we are to distance ourselves from herself and her view point.
Instead, I see scene after scene which is meant to make her look like the underdog, the beleaguered heroine who's boss - the big, Black buck who is highly sexualized and very intimidating - is a scary, sexy man who's out to get her. As is revealed in chapter three, he's the one who's been ruining her cases or "runs" to make her look bad because he just doesn't like her and wants her to quit (page 44).
From a logic stand point, that doesn't really hold up for me as a reader. Because while having a boss that just doesn't like you is possible, if he has the power to keep her doing lousy jobs until she quits, why not do that? Why mess up cases, tip off targets, and do the other things that might backfire? And why is that this poor, nice, just-trying-to-do-her-job underdog White woman has attracted the ire of this monstrous, illogically hateful Black man? Because that's the situation that Harrison has set up for us.
Furthermore, having the heroine join an organization where anyone who tries to leave their 30-year-contracted position (boy, I'd love that kind of job security!) gets dead seems like a stupid move on her part. Nor does it explain why an organization would expend the kind of resources to do such a thing, and I think having the plot start out with that very thing bears explanation. But that's another rant about the use of internal logic and basic reasoning skills in the urban fantasy genre.
The problem is, in short, that I do not believe for a moment that there is an examination of such tropes by the author, or that she herself recognized how hurtful such things have been to readers of color in SF/F for such a long time.
I don't know if I can continue with this book. Part of me wants to. It's not all bad as things go. Okay, the witch-in-leather thing is annoying and there is much of the characteristic self-absorption and navel gazing which may one day make me break out in hives, but there were hints of an interesting story. After all, finding that there was a virus that wiped out much of non-magical humanity but left magical beings standing, shifting the balance of power in the world is fascinating. The fact that the virus came through tomatoes of all things also has promise.
But I don't know if I can continue reading, even if it is just to do a critical examination.
Let me say that I don't consider anyone who's reading or ever read this book or liked it to be a racist by virtue of that alone. I think it may say something about your level of awareness if these things didn't occur to you, but that alone does not a racist make.
Nor am I calling for a boycott of this author or this book. This is not a call to action. Sweet heavens, I'm not trying to do anything like that. I am the last person anyone should follow or listen to for a lot of reasons.
What I am is showing the problems I came up against in this book, and my hesitation to continue with it.
I would also like to say that I do not consider my reading to be invalid because I have continued on. Nor do I consider that Avalon Willow's reading was automatically invalid because she didn't go on with the book, and I found critics of her reading who based their objections on that fact to be, well, wrong.
I think it's a little silly for any author to say that a reader basing an opinion, criticism, or other thoughts on anything less than reading cover to cover is invalid, because um, we authors? We make our living on that very premise. How many times are we lectured that we have to find a hook, a great first line, a killer first chapter?
We ourselves count on readers making snap judgments based on covers, first lines, sample chapters on a website or the back of the previous book in the series. So why is that we're willing to accept the money and initial praise that may come from a reader enjoying the first line/chapter/fifty pages of our work, but when a reader is so put off by that same space, we feel they're completely wrong?
You can't say you want people to judge your work to be exciting, fun, and worthy of shelling out money for based just on samples and then say you think it's not valid for someone to judge a 160,000 word work negatively on a "shallow and partial reading". That's a failure of logic and unless you plan on telling someone who comes to you and says, "I just read the first chapter of your novel and am buying it and think it's great! And I love [insert thing/character]!" that they ought to wait until they read it all to decide if it's great and that their reading is shallow and partial, then you're being hypocritical.
And hypocrisy leads me to a place of anger and property damage and "MEG SMASH!", and we do not want that. So, maybe you could check that hypocrisy.
So what's the point of me enumerating all this?
Mostly for my own edification, basically. I'm not going to bullshit you guys. I'm doing this for me. If someone else gets helped out, well, huzzah for me, but I did this for my own good, for my own process.
I have made it a personal goal, because I feel it is of the utmost importance, to do what I can to be worthy of one day being called an anti-racist ally. I'm not there yet. Personally, I'm somewhere between "just opened my eyes" and "first day of Racism 101". But that's better than a couple of years ago, where I was not at all aware of most of these things, and hopefully in a couple of years I'll be in Racism 102 or 103. I think it will take me a long time before I can be worthy of the trust and responsibility inherent in taking on the mantle of an anti-racist ally. Because when we white folks screw up at this, we don't pay the price. We pass that particular gift on to the people of color who have been paying the price for our advancement and our advantages for centuries.
I know, as a woman and a self identified queer person, what it feels like to want to scream, "Gah! I think we've been crapped on long enough!" and I know what it's like when men or straight people think they're doing something good and really, they're just making it worse. Worse by acting like objectifying women's bodies in advertisements is somehow liberating them, or that feminism is about something as trivial as giving up a seat on a bus, or that reminding Western women of the horrors women in other places face is somehow helping us feel better rather than being a thinly veiled call to shut up and stop being so difficult. Worse by thinking having a queer character in a movie or novel is virtuous, even if they stereotype them and kill them off the way a thousand movies and books before them have done.
To me, it is of the utmost importance to rid the literature I love and the society I live in of the ever present, ever dangerous spectre of racism, of a past that ought never have happened the way it did. I believe it is incumbent upon me to do these things, not out of guilt, but because the goal of living on a society without dominance, without racism, without prejudice, is not only attainable, but so self-evidently worthy that I cannot ignore it. I believe that it important for every single human being on the face of this Earth, because if we do not learn now to correct ourselves, to become better, then things bode ill for our future and for us.
I don't want cookies. I don't want recognition. I just want racism to be gone and done with.
So, I'm doing this because it helps me, and this is my LJ, and well, why have one if you're not going to use it, at the very least, for your own good if not someone else's?
Saying these things out loud, in a public place, is helpful to me because it forces me not to play a part, not to hide behind silence as a tool for making myself look better than I am. It's easy to mumble some lip service and then stay quiet thereafter, and pretend that it's enough, that you've done due diligence. It's not.
I must be honest, open, respectful. I must listen, and that means when I post something, I must be willing to carefully digest and consider criticism I receive, especially from the very people I mean to one day be an ally to.
ETA: Yes, I have frozen a thread, and for reasons that are both personal and practical. I don't want the topic derailed, and I will freeze, delete, or otherwise deal with comments that are not helpful. When I say productive conversation, I mean that. If you're here just to pick a fight or argue, go AWAY.
Actually if you disagree about the existence of white privilege, racism in our society, or it's very real affects on the daily lives of people of color, just go away. I'm not going to argue with you or debate this. You're not going to change my mind. And it's certainly my job to change yours. Consider us agreeing to disagree and summarily check the exits, okay? Thanks.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-28 09:05 pm (UTC)I suspect writers who're sensitive about such criticism are simply embarrassed or just unaware because it does take an awareness. (For example, I have a bad habit of counting the number of black people when I step into a conference room, a book reading, or party with strangers. I don't do this because I want to find that there are less blacks and point my finger and say, see, we're being excluded! but I do it because the world has made me aware of my skin and of it being different (most of the time portrayed in a negative way).
This doesn't mean that I'm the only one who can observe this reality check. I also happen to be overweight and usually take note of the weight of men and women when I step into that same room. I don't let being overweight get me down because quite frankly, depending on what city I'm in, I can count more overweight people than skinny people. Again, I don't do this to say, "skinny people are outnumbered, ha!" but to accept that I WON'T ACCEPT the stereotypes created irresponsibly or unintentionally or yes, sometimes hatefully.
I just wish more people would give themselves a reality check. It really isn't that very hard. As writers, you'd think it would be easy to step into another POV but it's not so easy. :(
(Whoops! Edited to fix italics tags.)
(frozen) no subject
Date: 2009-06-28 09:31 pm (UTC)Ex: Dyke Stereotype fulfilled by real life.
Jennifer and I go to Home Depot at least 5 times a month.
Jennifer and I moved in together (temporarily) right after our 4th date.
Jennifer and I have great power tool collections.
Jennifer and I have 3 cats.
*shrug* Take the good with the bad when it comes to stereotypes and just be yourself.
IDK, dude, but if you don't see a lot of Asian chicks, they might seem exotic to you. Just like if you lived in Japan and saw a really tall white chick you might think she's kinda different.
I understand that you're saying it's like the book is assuming it's got a 100% non-Asian audience. Maybe it's just the narrator's experience and not a demeaning thing.
Like, say, there's this hotter than hell Kenyan woman who lives down the street, and I find her scarves and stuff really exotic because it's not as if I can pick one up just like it at Target. But that doesn't mean I'm objectifying her.
Ok, well, not any more than any other woman I see.
You keep talking about white people getting special treatment. Dude. I want mine. When do I get special white people love? When do I get a job or treated super awesome or whatever because I'm white? Everywhere I've ever got, I've fuckin' clawed my way there, fighting every damn second. And at this point, so much has been taken away I don't even have any dreams left to crush.
I'd like my special white people privileges now.
Gah, I'm on a lot of cold medicine and hot and tired and sore. I moved this weekend.
(frozen) no subject
Date: 2009-06-28 10:20 pm (UTC)First off, "white privilege" is a systematic thing. It's not like every single white person ever is better off than every single person of color ever, but it does mean that there are advantages and privileges (and they can be deceptive ones) conferred on white folks simply because they're white.
A good link for this is White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack (http://www.amptoons.com/blog/files/mcintosh.html#daily), which lists many things which are white privilege, such as:
"I can easily buy posters, post-cards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys and children's magazines featuring people of my race"
And yeah, there are some things that don't count because there are some privileges that being a lesbian or being a woman takes away from you. For instance: "I have no difficulty finding neighborhoods where people approve of our household." is listed as a white privilege, but it is something that same-sex couples don't get. The same of being able to speak in front of a powerful man. Well, if you're a woman, that dynamic changes.
That's called "intersectionality". It's where race, gender, sexuality, class, size, age, ability and other things come together.
Being white doesn't automatically equal having an easy life. If you're disabled, gay, female, older, fat, then you're going to have places where you're NOT privileged. But there are some things that being white does make easier, and that shouldn't be so.
You can't deny that if you're straight or in a heterosexual relationship (as I am), you do have things that are easier for you. I'll admit right now that Andrew and I face far less obstacles than you and Jennifer do, and that's not fair of us to have that privilege just because we're in a heterosexual relationship. It's definitely wrong that we have legal and social privileges/rights that you don't. We shouldn't.
I think this collection of links (http://delicious.com/starkeymonster/forcluelesswhitepeople) might be helpful in defining things for you and helping you to understand what I might not be able to explain very well.
The thing is that this isn't just about one or two sentences in a few books, or liking someone's scarf. It's about lots of books, lots of hurtful portrayals, lots of ways that people of color have been excluded from places they ought not to have been.
And fighting this particular prejudice in our society is part and parcel of fighting others. If we can teach ourselves not to make race a factor in deciding who gets what, then we can teach ourselves not to make gender, age, sexuality, size and ability a deciding factor either.
Gah, I'm on a lot of cold medicine and hot and tired and sorE. I moved this weekend.
I'm definitely sorry to hear that and I hope you feel better soon! I'm sorry that you're not feeling well. That sounds lousy.
And I'm sorry you feel like you've been crushed. Being white doesn't mean that you absolutely didn't earn what you have, but it does mean that some of it wasn't completely fairly given to you. But there are also things that are unfairly taken away from you as well for other reasons.
I hate to hear that you feel that way, and I hate to hear that things have been taken from you, because I know that they have and that wasn't fair. It's not fair that being a woman or being a lesbian should make things harder. And there are things that being a person of color in this country makes harder, and that isn't right either.
Again, I may not be explaining this well. I think the links say it better, and I encourage you to read them when you're feeling better and not ache-y and sore and sick and what not.
(frozen) no subject
Date: 2009-06-29 01:38 am (UTC)I'm not sure I can recall a situation in my entire life where things have been unfair to my advantage.
Except this week where when Terry got out of her cage, she miraculously crawled past the badly wired water heater and slithered under the entertainment center. If she'd gone near it, she would have been electrocuted. Like I was. So yay, Terry was spared.
But, really, that doesn't have much to do with race. And Terry is African anyway, so...
(frozen) no subject
Date: 2009-06-29 03:17 am (UTC)How many times have things been unfair against your advantage, though? I mean, has anyone ever refused you service at a convenience store because of the color of your skin?
I had a friend once (a Libertarian, incidentally), who insisted racism was dead, and when someone else pointed out a time a mutual (African-American) friend was refused service at a convenience store because of her color, he point-blank refused to believe it had happened. It just didn't make sense, he said. No shopkeeper would ever lose a sale over something so silly.
The fact that he couldn't imagine the situation? That's a kind of privilege, right there, all alone.
(Sorry to jump in on your journal,
(frozen) no subject
Date: 2009-06-29 04:46 am (UTC)I'm sorry that people have such a commitment to screwing over black people, but it wasn't my idea to do so. And I don't do it. And that's kind of all I can do.
About dude who couldn't imagine stuff and things: it's a kind of innocence. It shows his own tolerance and love. People tend to define reality by their own terms. To be fair, he's right in that it was pretty senseless.