Or: this is why I'm probably never going to WisCon.

[megwrites]

ktempest responds to Kathryn Cramer's proposed WisCon panel "More Oppressed Than Thou".

Just to note, Ms. Cramer has removed the post that started all this, but K. Tempest Bradford has said she will supply screencaps later on.



Honestly, I'm appalled. I'm appalled that the subject of oppression has become such a joke to people that someone would even think of titling a panel that way, much less holding it! I don't care if I get accused of having no sense of humor. I don't find the subject of human beings getting treated like crap because of their race (or gender, or sexual orientation, or ability, or size) all that funny. If you do, please never try to entertain me and maybe try not to be in the same room with me. We will not get along.

Second, I'm appalled that apparently in order to understand oppression you must have been beaten up by the cops. Since when did oppression only come in violent, physical forms?

I direct you to the famous, much linked to list of white privileges made in 1990. I direct you to today's date: September 17, 2009.

It's nearly twenty years after that list was penned and I can't think of any items I can, in good faith, remove from that list concerning the way American society functions to date. In fact, I can still think of items to add.

Want to hear a really disgusting anecdote from my own life about how we're not even close to post racial?

Recently, my mother (who is white, as am I) and stepfather (who is black) went to my mom's class reunion in Kentucky. Now, her classmates were all very nice and had a great time was had by all - but after the class reunion, my mom and stepfather (who had never been in the state of Kentucky before, since he's a Jersey boy through and through) got separated and my stepfather got lost -- for several hours.

Of course, in her worry, my mother and her friends called the police after he was missing (without his cellphone) for a few hours. The police dutifully sent an officer who took a report and asked the prerequisite questions about where he was seen last, would he go off with a stranger, etc. At first, the officer takes my mother's worry very seriously. After ascertaining that he knows nobody in Kentucky, that he would never get into a car with a stranger, the cop starts to get a description of my stepdad while radioing it to his dispatcher.

My mom stops the cop to say, "No, my husband is black."

At which point the cop stops what he's doing, gives her a very pointed look, and says, "Are you SURE he didn't run off with another woman, ma'am?"

My mother had to assure the cop that my stepfather was a teacher, a veteran of the air force, and a man with his master's degree to convince him that my stepfather hadn't just run off with someone after being in town for all of twelve hours.

What if my stepfather had been robbed? Or had a heart attack? What if he had been kidnapped? What if every second counted in the difference between him living and him dying and the cop stopping to re-quiz my mother on whether he was just a cheating scoundrel because of his race had cost him his life? What then?

What if my stepfather hadn't had all those nice sounding credentials to his name that made the cop take him just a little more seriously? What if he had just been a mechanic? A clerk at a store? A janitor? I can promise you that if he had been white, my mother would not have had to practically give the cop his goddamn resume just to get him to do his fucking job.

When the cop assumed my stepfather was white, it was all serious business. When the cop found out he was black, the score changed completely. Not the situation. The situation was still the same. A 52-year-old man was missing and no one could find him.

Ask all the missing children and people of color who's stories don't get splashed across the news five minutes after the police report is filed because they're not the Missing White Woman Du Jour. Ask how many of them are victims of crime but assumed to be complicit or even deserving of what happens to them because of the assumptions law enforcement makes about them and their communities based on race.

My family was lucky. My stepdad had merely gotten lost trying to walk back to house where they were staying. Eventually, he arrived safely at the house and all was well. Like I said, he's a Jersey boy and he's used to cities where the roads make sense and are laid out in grids. Down south, our roads do not make sense and they're all named after trees and flowers and have the word "deer" affixed to them. Don't ask me why, that's just how we roll in Dixie.

The point is that people like Kathryn Cramer can just go take a big glass of shut the fuck up if they think oppression is only about being beaten up by the cops. Oppression is being ignored by the cops when you need them. Oppression is about being invisible when you desperately need to be seen. Oppression is about being swept aside when you desperately need to be taken seriously. Oppression is the negative assumptions made about you when you need someone just to give you a fair shot. Not a hand out, not a gimme. Just a square deal.

Oppression is the business loan you can't get because people of your race are "too high a risk". Oppression is the young women who look at themselves in the mirror and go through great (and often painful) lengths to change their eyes, their hair, their bodies to look like white people. Oppression is the professor or teacher who assumes you cheated. Oppression is the many books you read where there are no people of your race, or those people are all tokens, stereotypes, or soon to be dead in service to white characters. Oppression is the neighbors who don't want you there and think that your presence brings down property values.

So, if you're reading this Kathryn Cramer, from one white woman to another? Please stop. You're hurting people, and you're making yourself look like a really terrible person. You and I (yes ME) are the ones who don't know a damn thing about racial oppression. We're the ignoramuses in this. Not the POC who you seem so set on debunking even when they present you with irrefutable evidence from their own lives.

The POC who are speaking up, speaking out? Those are the people who deal with it every damn day. You need to respect them, respect what they say (and try listening to it without getting defensive, too!), and respect the fact that you and I as white people are idiots when it comes to this subject. Because we've been blinded and numbed and dulled and stupified by our own privileges as we have been our whole life.

But even if you're not reading this, if you don't listen to me (fair enough - like I said, I am an ignorant idiot when it comes to this topic), listen to them. Just openly and honestly listen. You might be surprised.

Comments

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

When I visited her site, the main thing I learned is that she's been anthologized so many times, and what--does this give her some type of authority in speaking about oppression? NO! She's full of herself and needs to take a hike!

Apparently her business is to be in anthologies and stir shit - and right now business is, unfortunately, good for her. I have my suspicions that she and Shetterly have made a bet as to who can fail most spectacularly.

By now, I'm kind of used to hearing my fellow white people vent their ignorance about the topic of how oppression works in America - but this really got under my skin like crazy.

What got to me is that she presumes to have the authority to a) lead a panel on the topic and b) decide who's oppression is legitimate and deserves attention, recognition, and serious discussion! As though she can pick and choose who she validates and who she doesn't.

How in the world did she ever get the idea that she, Kathryn Cramer, could be the authority on this topic? What gave her that right? Furthermore, what gave her the idea that somehow there needed to be someone around to pick and choose in the first place, that some people needed to be told, "Sorry, we're not going to consider your pain and lack and experience valid right now!"

What made her think she had any right to set down a definition of oppression (which, oddly enough, seems to work in her very UN-oppressed favor and support her ideology) and say that anyone who doesn't stick to it is wrong or only working in the "theoretical"?

Well, on behalf of my stepdad and my family and all those people who have lived under this system and have had their lives shaped by it, Kathryn Cramer can "theoretically" kiss my ass.