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It's the fundamental lack of respect. Or, no, I will not take notes for you.
I've seen some really good justification 'round and about the blogosphere by PoC who are telling others that they won't be doing Racism 101 anymore.
A few of the highlights:
We Don't Need Another Anti-Racism 101 by Guerilla Mama Medicine. And after what went down a couple of entries back, I really understand what she means by this:
GuerillaMama is NOT wrong. At all. Notice that Euro-centric white mythology and fantasy even has emphasis on "magic words" in our faery tales and fantasy books. Harry Potter is a good example of that. You say "Accio!", wave a wand, and you've got magic. I realize it gets more complex in the books, but there are certain words that must be said just right. And that's what's important. The words. Even just shows as Buffy the Vampire Slayer are rife with examples of spells and magic that rely on saying the right word. Both of those are straight up slices of Euro-centric White Culture.
In fact, Harry Potter's system of magic is a great way of describing white culture's interactions with privilege. In that book, some are born wizards, some are not. Magic is never earned, a person is born to it whether they like it or not. Part of harnessing that magic is learning the magic words.
White culture is word obsessed, and it is to our detriment. Because it teaches neither to listen nor to act in accordance with our good words. It teaches us to build walls of words to guard us from the consequences of our actions.
Language is a mirror in which reality is reflected. We twist the mirror in white culture to make it look more pleasing to us without the reality actually being pleasant. We blind ourselves with words. We turn color off and look at a wonderful white world and feel comfortable there.
The magic in Harry Potter is a good metaphor for white privilege. You are born to it by virtue of being born white and part of learning to use it to your advantage and to propagate it is learning the right words to deflect criticism, to discredit people of color, to disguise privilege and give it a veneer of plausible deniability.
We white folks ask people of color, "What do you want to be called?" or "what do you want me to say?" or "how should I have spoken?" We white people walk into the joint and go around feeling entitled to an education, like it's frickin' Hogwarts out there, and want to know all about the definitions and theory and words.
I do it, too. Oh you best believe I do it and still do it. Because I am only slightly less clueless than before. So if I say these things, it is because I am sadly expert at being a racefailing white person.
But ask us white folks to do something, to act? Suddenly you've got an uprising. Ask us to DO something as simple as working the google-fu to do some independent reading on what's been said, on who's speaking, on the issues? Well, then, you're being rude and hostile. You're trying to act offended. You're not explaining it to us white folks and we're going to pitch a fit.
I know, I've done this. I've been the fool in question.
We don't just want the right words, we want them given to us in little bow ties. Because that's our privilege, to demand explanations and justifications of you chromatic people at all times. Sure, you can have President who is a man of color. You can have a Latina up for a spot on the supreme court.
But you have to justify it, explain it with twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles
and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one is. Because if you don't, then you're in the wrong. Never mind that it's been explained FIFTY MILLION TIMES already and if you even bothered to go to Wikipedia you could find at least some basics.
It's your fault, not ours for not being arsed to fucking use a search engine to read the decades of literature and writing and the years of blog posts and LJ entries and webpages that are all out there, telling us anything we want to know and more.
Oh no, you have to gift wrap it.
And what do we do with this wrapped up gift? We use it against you.
You can say all the right words and be a giant racist. Want to know how? Because I was and sometimes still am.
Here's a story of How I Failed Epically.
When I was 15, I had a job at a movie theatre. At my place of work, we all had to leave our purses and coats in the back room where we kept the cleaning supplies. It would be easy to steal because your purse is just hanging out there in the supply room where people are going in and out.
There was, also, at this movie theatre, only one black employee. We'll call him "A".
And you can see where this going.
So, one day, I go to get my purse and notice the ten bucks I had for lunch was gone. I panicked and immediately assumed it was a robbery. And I went to my manager and said that someone had stolen from my purse. And then I said, "I saw A hanging around the supply room earlier, too."
Yes, kids, my assumption was that our sole black employee was more likely to steal than any of the other employees. Never mind the girl who got fired for smoking weed out behind the theatre. Never mind the guy who was a broke college student and stole from the cash register. Never mind either of my managers who were in there all the time.
They were all white. A was black.
Now, here's the thing. At 15, I wasn't completely racially unaware. In fact, if you live in a place so entrenched in racist ideas, you actually have very keen understanding that race matters. Of course, being racist, you assume that it matters in deciding who is a worthy human being and who isn't. But you're aware.
And I was plenty aware, at 15, of all the right words to say. I knew to say "African-American" or "black". I knew that you did comment on certain things in front of black people. A relative who worked at a department store at the time, was keen to remind me, "Now, you don't ever call a black woman 'girl'. You call her woman or lady or ma'am, but if you call them girl, they'll get mad at you. They got mad at me at the cosmetic counter. I don't know why. The white ladies love it when you call them girls."
Trust me, at 15, I had all the politically correct, polite society rhetoric and mannerisms shoved into my head. I could pass as not racist quite admirably.
But when it came to my actions, there was no requirement not to act racist. No one every said, "Don't assume that a black person will be more likely to steal" and "don't assume that your boss, who is Indian, is greedy" or "don't cross the street if you see more than two black or Latino males walking together because you assume that means they're in a gang".
I wasn't required to act in any manner differently than those around me who were openly racist. All I was required to do was say the magic words.
The thing is, even as I was turning in my co-worker - who, to my great shame, had been really nice to me before that - I would have called him "African-American". I would have used the magic words.
As far as the money goes? I found out when I got home that my sister took it without asking me. Because why suspect your younger sister who said that she wanted/needed money when there's a convenient person of color around who's never been anything but nice to you?
The people who aren't saying the right words, who may be so entrenched in privilege that they can afford not even to be subtle about it are not going to be improved by being taught to deflect. Teaching them words is like painting a rotten apple a pretty color. It's still rotten down to the core. The rot will not be obliterated by the paint. Rather, you're just teaching someone to nestle among other apples to lay as an unpleasant surprise for whatever unfortunate PoC is unlucky enough to take a bite.
Teaching people to not say this, or don't say that ignores that you need to fix society so it doesn't enable those people to say those words without consequence. They live in an all white atmosphere of privilege and dominance and until you yank dominance out from under them, your teaching doesn't really work.
This is why it is disrespectful, I believe, for us white folks to leave comments or say things in person asking "what does this word mean" or "how are you using that word" or "I thought this word meant this other thing" or "what do you want to be called?"
Yes, even in other white people's entries.
Because you're really just asking, "How can I better disguise my racism instead of changing my behaviors?"
It's like teaching an alcoholic to be more functional. They're still an alcoholic. At that point in my life, I was a functioning racist. Every white person around me pretty much was. I'm only slowly beginning to end that process.
Which is why, if you come here asking for definitions and explanations, you're not going to get a very nice response for me.
I cannot be your teacher, because I am still figuring out how to be a good student myself. Furthermore, it would be wrong for me to even attempt to be. That's like having a recovering alcoholic buy you beer. That's only going to help me slip back into the thought patterns and behaviors that come with being privilege.
That is only going to teach me to prize my own words and the thoughts/feelings of white people above those of PoC.
I can't do it.
Asking another white person who is still failing is disrespectful to those being oppressed who are practically screaming at the top of their lungs. It's willfully ignorant. Because in doing so, you're saying (no matter what words you're writing/speaking):
a) I don't care enough to look it up on my own.
b) I prefer to hear it from another white person rather than listening and acknowledging people of color when they speak.
If you care that much about anti-racism, do your own work. Go do the reading. Listen. Google "Racism 101" and just keep following links. Any question you have, any thing you want to know, I promise you it has been said and is still being said. No one's come up with a new question in, like, fifty years.
But you have to shut up and listen and listen to the people who are being oppressed. You can't get the PoC-to-Privilege White Person translation from a fellow honky. Especially not this fellow honky.
So if I get angry at you, that's why. I'm still trying to figure out how to be less racist, how to one day be worthy to be considered an ally (I'm not nearly there), what my actions should be. I try to do what I can that is positive, but I have to be careful. I am blind and clumsy. My efforts may be as harmful as good if I am not extremely cautious.
So, I cannot help you guard your own privilege because it will tempt me to again pick the very few parts of my own I have learned to shed. I've got a default programming that will snap back into place if I am not careful.
A few of the highlights:
We Don't Need Another Anti-Racism 101 by Guerilla Mama Medicine. And after what went down a couple of entries back, I really understand what she means by this:
white folks love love love being told the right words and phrases and theory to use. because white culture does not take rhetoric seriously. white culture does not have a function that says: your words and your actions must match.
GuerillaMama is NOT wrong. At all. Notice that Euro-centric white mythology and fantasy even has emphasis on "magic words" in our faery tales and fantasy books. Harry Potter is a good example of that. You say "Accio!", wave a wand, and you've got magic. I realize it gets more complex in the books, but there are certain words that must be said just right. And that's what's important. The words. Even just shows as Buffy the Vampire Slayer are rife with examples of spells and magic that rely on saying the right word. Both of those are straight up slices of Euro-centric White Culture.
In fact, Harry Potter's system of magic is a great way of describing white culture's interactions with privilege. In that book, some are born wizards, some are not. Magic is never earned, a person is born to it whether they like it or not. Part of harnessing that magic is learning the magic words.
White culture is word obsessed, and it is to our detriment. Because it teaches neither to listen nor to act in accordance with our good words. It teaches us to build walls of words to guard us from the consequences of our actions.
Language is a mirror in which reality is reflected. We twist the mirror in white culture to make it look more pleasing to us without the reality actually being pleasant. We blind ourselves with words. We turn color off and look at a wonderful white world and feel comfortable there.
The magic in Harry Potter is a good metaphor for white privilege. You are born to it by virtue of being born white and part of learning to use it to your advantage and to propagate it is learning the right words to deflect criticism, to discredit people of color, to disguise privilege and give it a veneer of plausible deniability.
We white folks ask people of color, "What do you want to be called?" or "what do you want me to say?" or "how should I have spoken?" We white people walk into the joint and go around feeling entitled to an education, like it's frickin' Hogwarts out there, and want to know all about the definitions and theory and words.
I do it, too. Oh you best believe I do it and still do it. Because I am only slightly less clueless than before. So if I say these things, it is because I am sadly expert at being a racefailing white person.
But ask us white folks to do something, to act? Suddenly you've got an uprising. Ask us to DO something as simple as working the google-fu to do some independent reading on what's been said, on who's speaking, on the issues? Well, then, you're being rude and hostile. You're trying to act offended. You're not explaining it to us white folks and we're going to pitch a fit.
I know, I've done this. I've been the fool in question.
We don't just want the right words, we want them given to us in little bow ties. Because that's our privilege, to demand explanations and justifications of you chromatic people at all times. Sure, you can have President who is a man of color. You can have a Latina up for a spot on the supreme court.
But you have to justify it, explain it with twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles
and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one is. Because if you don't, then you're in the wrong. Never mind that it's been explained FIFTY MILLION TIMES already and if you even bothered to go to Wikipedia you could find at least some basics.
It's your fault, not ours for not being arsed to fucking use a search engine to read the decades of literature and writing and the years of blog posts and LJ entries and webpages that are all out there, telling us anything we want to know and more.
Oh no, you have to gift wrap it.
And what do we do with this wrapped up gift? We use it against you.
You can say all the right words and be a giant racist. Want to know how? Because I was and sometimes still am.
Here's a story of How I Failed Epically.
When I was 15, I had a job at a movie theatre. At my place of work, we all had to leave our purses and coats in the back room where we kept the cleaning supplies. It would be easy to steal because your purse is just hanging out there in the supply room where people are going in and out.
There was, also, at this movie theatre, only one black employee. We'll call him "A".
And you can see where this going.
So, one day, I go to get my purse and notice the ten bucks I had for lunch was gone. I panicked and immediately assumed it was a robbery. And I went to my manager and said that someone had stolen from my purse. And then I said, "I saw A hanging around the supply room earlier, too."
Yes, kids, my assumption was that our sole black employee was more likely to steal than any of the other employees. Never mind the girl who got fired for smoking weed out behind the theatre. Never mind the guy who was a broke college student and stole from the cash register. Never mind either of my managers who were in there all the time.
They were all white. A was black.
Now, here's the thing. At 15, I wasn't completely racially unaware. In fact, if you live in a place so entrenched in racist ideas, you actually have very keen understanding that race matters. Of course, being racist, you assume that it matters in deciding who is a worthy human being and who isn't. But you're aware.
And I was plenty aware, at 15, of all the right words to say. I knew to say "African-American" or "black". I knew that you did comment on certain things in front of black people. A relative who worked at a department store at the time, was keen to remind me, "Now, you don't ever call a black woman 'girl'. You call her woman or lady or ma'am, but if you call them girl, they'll get mad at you. They got mad at me at the cosmetic counter. I don't know why. The white ladies love it when you call them girls."
Trust me, at 15, I had all the politically correct, polite society rhetoric and mannerisms shoved into my head. I could pass as not racist quite admirably.
But when it came to my actions, there was no requirement not to act racist. No one every said, "Don't assume that a black person will be more likely to steal" and "don't assume that your boss, who is Indian, is greedy" or "don't cross the street if you see more than two black or Latino males walking together because you assume that means they're in a gang".
I wasn't required to act in any manner differently than those around me who were openly racist. All I was required to do was say the magic words.
The thing is, even as I was turning in my co-worker - who, to my great shame, had been really nice to me before that - I would have called him "African-American". I would have used the magic words.
As far as the money goes? I found out when I got home that my sister took it without asking me. Because why suspect your younger sister who said that she wanted/needed money when there's a convenient person of color around who's never been anything but nice to you?
The people who aren't saying the right words, who may be so entrenched in privilege that they can afford not even to be subtle about it are not going to be improved by being taught to deflect. Teaching them words is like painting a rotten apple a pretty color. It's still rotten down to the core. The rot will not be obliterated by the paint. Rather, you're just teaching someone to nestle among other apples to lay as an unpleasant surprise for whatever unfortunate PoC is unlucky enough to take a bite.
Teaching people to not say this, or don't say that ignores that you need to fix society so it doesn't enable those people to say those words without consequence. They live in an all white atmosphere of privilege and dominance and until you yank dominance out from under them, your teaching doesn't really work.
This is why it is disrespectful, I believe, for us white folks to leave comments or say things in person asking "what does this word mean" or "how are you using that word" or "I thought this word meant this other thing" or "what do you want to be called?"
Yes, even in other white people's entries.
Because you're really just asking, "How can I better disguise my racism instead of changing my behaviors?"
It's like teaching an alcoholic to be more functional. They're still an alcoholic. At that point in my life, I was a functioning racist. Every white person around me pretty much was. I'm only slowly beginning to end that process.
Which is why, if you come here asking for definitions and explanations, you're not going to get a very nice response for me.
I cannot be your teacher, because I am still figuring out how to be a good student myself. Furthermore, it would be wrong for me to even attempt to be. That's like having a recovering alcoholic buy you beer. That's only going to help me slip back into the thought patterns and behaviors that come with being privilege.
That is only going to teach me to prize my own words and the thoughts/feelings of white people above those of PoC.
I can't do it.
Asking another white person who is still failing is disrespectful to those being oppressed who are practically screaming at the top of their lungs. It's willfully ignorant. Because in doing so, you're saying (no matter what words you're writing/speaking):
a) I don't care enough to look it up on my own.
b) I prefer to hear it from another white person rather than listening and acknowledging people of color when they speak.
If you care that much about anti-racism, do your own work. Go do the reading. Listen. Google "Racism 101" and just keep following links. Any question you have, any thing you want to know, I promise you it has been said and is still being said. No one's come up with a new question in, like, fifty years.
But you have to shut up and listen and listen to the people who are being oppressed. You can't get the PoC-to-Privilege White Person translation from a fellow honky. Especially not this fellow honky.
So if I get angry at you, that's why. I'm still trying to figure out how to be less racist, how to one day be worthy to be considered an ally (I'm not nearly there), what my actions should be. I try to do what I can that is positive, but I have to be careful. I am blind and clumsy. My efforts may be as harmful as good if I am not extremely cautious.
So, I cannot help you guard your own privilege because it will tempt me to again pick the very few parts of my own I have learned to shed. I've got a default programming that will snap back into place if I am not careful.
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I'm talking about people expecting an education from any PoC who talks about racism, and I'm talking about those people who want to know the words and the theory but don't want to change their behaviors.
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Yes. I often think a lot of the basic questions (that are easily googleable or even stuff that could be answered if one would just click on a link and read) that get asked are to show one's support or interest in being an anti-racist person, without going any further than that. And perhaps related to this, it's like some people, even if they do read what's out there, don't make the connection between what they're taking in and how it possibly applies to them -- or they get mightily offended when it's pointed out that, hey, you're sort of doing the same thing/please stop being so clueless or if you refuse to educate them personally through every step of the process. For people who say POCs or white allies shouldn't get so offended (or look for stuff to be offended about) or be offensive (eg, pointing out someone's cluelessness, however politely or subtly), they can sure hold on to their feelings of anger and offense.
Basically, what I think it boils down to is if a POC has to be very careful about what they say or how they point out someone's ignorance or else the other person isn't going to listen or work on being anti-racist... then they weren't going to be an ally in the first place. Or yet -- hope springs eternal and all that, but I don't know that all the hand-holding in the world is going to get another person to that point until they actually sit with their discomfort for a bit, which then hopefully leads to change to be more aware of privilege and racism and how it affects them (I've also seen some white people say they're not participating in race discussions -- but silence has an effect too; like it or not, they're part of the discussion already, by nature of being part of the human condition, even if they're not saying anything, out of fear, apathy, disinterest, whatever) and others.
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2. For people who say POCs or white allies shouldn't get so offended (or look for stuff to be offended about) or be offensive (eg, pointing out someone's cluelessness, however politely or subtly), they can sure hold on to their feelings of anger and offense.
This is quote of the week material. You're completely right. It's funny sometimes that a lot of the worst emotions and vitriol don't come from PoC/white allies - but rather from clueless folks who seem to think that having their cluelessness pointed out is an affront to their existence.
I want to scream, "I didn't have to go looking for things to get offended over. They came and hit me in the face, thanks!"
Which only makes me wonder how people of color in America/Canada do not just go insane over the cluelessness.
3. I don't know that all the hand-holding in the world is going to get another person to that point until they actually sit with their discomfort for a bit, which then hopefully leads to change to be more aware of privilege and racism and how it affects them
YES. YES. YES. YES. 1000000X YES. This here. This. You are like ten times better are saying stuff than me, just so you know. Because this is precisely it.
The previous discussion went awry when a friend (if we're still friends, I dunno) who is an English professor brought up that she wants to know by somehow studying my experiences (because apparently my experiences as a white person are special? IDK) how she can explain to her students why saying "colored" is wrong.
But like you said until you make them confront and own their own discomfort and their own privilege, you can't do it. It's like teaching algebra to a dog. Until it grows a whole other part of it's brain, it can't learn algebra.
Or, in short: what you said.
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No, that is not what I said. That is not even remotely what I said. I said that I was trying to figure out how you, specifically you, were using a phrase. You accused me of being interested only in "words," and I responded that I had to be interested in words because words are one of the things I have to deal with. By example I said that I have students who think that there's nothing wrong with the word "colored," and I need to be able to explain why that word is problematic. Nowhere in that is there anything about studying your experiences.
There is one point I've had to repeat a lot that you seem to have a great deal of difficulty understanding: not everyone in this country gets to be confronted with their prejudices in day-to-day life. For an astounding number of my students, the first time in their lives that they're going to be confronted with their prejudices is when they use the word "colored" in class and I call them on it. Merely being offended is not going to accomplish anything.
Merely being offended is never going to accomplish anything.
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For my own edification, is there a sanctioned definition somewhere that says the phrase "color blind" (as used in this kind of context) actually means "can't see/distinguish between colors".
You didn't ask how I was using the word, you asked if there was "A SANCTIONED DEFINITION SOMEWHERE". You wanted to know the definition of "colorblind" within the context of not just my post, but ALL ANTI-RACISM DISCUSSIONS.
And you said:
And every year I spend hundreds of hours with roughly 250 white, rural, Christian, males--many of whom see no difficulty at all with casual use of the word colored to describe someone. I need to be able to go into my interactions with them and explain HOW LANGUAGE HURTS. Not just that is does, but why it does. In order to do this, it means I need to understand how you're using the terms and what they mean, because you're a living example of someone who is invested in the argument.
Then you said (in another reply):
Some of my students are going to be going out into the world and reading blogs like yours--if not yours--and they're not going to know how to make sense of it.
What PRECISELY were you hoping I would glean from those exchanges about your intentions?
You asked an all encompassing question about how a phrase applied to anti-racism discussions. Then you justified that question by saying you needed to know because you have to explain why colored is wrong by "understand[ing] how you're using the terms and what they mean, because you're a living example of someone who is invested in the argument"
What else did you want me to think? Because your own words do not seem to support what you are now telling me.
There is one point I've had to repeat a lot that you seem to have a great deal of difficulty understanding: not everyone in this country gets to be confronted with their prejudices in day-to-day life
And you think I do? I'm a white person! I don't get called on my privilege any more than your students do. I don't have someone going around saying "oh, wait, you're being prejudiced!". I don't have a little guide on my shoulder. This is something I must MAKE myself do. The only thing confronting me with my own privilege is myself.
You seem to be more worried about me being misunderstood than I am. I frankly, and let me state this strongly, DO NOT CARE if the clueless, privileged folks of this world don't understand what I'm talking about, especially not people like your students. I am not here for them. This is NOT ABOUT THEM. Worrying and fretting over what they will and will not understand instead of saying that their understanding is THEIR responsibility is just so much derailing.
Because instead of focusing all these replies on ways that you could be helping the PoC students you do have, or how you can get involved with diversity programs to enroll more PoC students, or how you might introduce your students directly to the word and works of PoC themselves instead of using me as a "living example" - we've been circling 'round and 'round because you seem angry that I didn't include a glossary for clueless white folks at the end of every post.
People have been trying to educate and explain nicely to the clueless for decades. It hasn't made them less clueless. What makes people less clueless is an internal change in which they wake up to the world around them and realize they need to GET A CLUE. And that's a long process, but it starts when someone is ready to do the simple act of listening and opening their eyes.
No words, used in any way, can teach you how to be ready to listen. Listening is a wordless act.
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Yes. That is pretty much the definition of privilege.
I think
(I would suggest the racefail09 linkspam (http://rydra-wong.livejournal.com/tag/gcadod+09) too, but people tend to get a bit wide eyed and frightened by the sheer number of posts.)
*What sort of American history are these kids taught in school? Yikes.
Merely being offended is never going to accomplish anything.
If someone said something racist to a POC, even if it was unintentional (they didn't know any better), I don't think that has to turn into a teaching moment for the clueless person -- demanding that is another marker of privilege. If said clueless person is then offended by being called on their cluelessness and privilege (which happens A LOT)... Well, at some point, the onus is on the privileged person to educate themselves, which (IMO) is not all that difficult to do, given that this is the age of the internet and people have even rounded up links (http://handyhunter.livejournal.com/166574.html). It's one thing to be clueless, because everyone is at one point or several -- not that it's okay to hurt people (it's not the intention that matters; it's the outcome), but everyone makes mistakes; it's another thing to be informed of one's ignorance and then not do anything about it, or to continue derailing or denying racism exists.
Also, most POC and allies who discuss racism do not necessarily start out or automatically go to a place of feeling offended. It tends to take some doing - which is different for everyone, and possibly certain offensive actions are invisible to privileged people - to reach that level. There is also this (http://ciderpress.livejournal.com/214072.html):
However, in the intense and almost singular focus on clueless white people in this discussion and the often repeated statement that this was an opportunity to dialogue, that there is solace in the fact that it has been worth all the pain and difficulty, that they are somehow *glad*, the underlying assumption is that:
# PoCs have emotional/intellectual catharsis after such discussions.
# PoC's pain being part of an educational moment for clueless white people is worth it to PoCs because it's worth it to white people.
# Anti-racism matters the same amount, in the same way to clueless white people, allies and PoC.
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