Some Racefail thoughts

[firecat]

If a person has multiple identities and names, and if they state that they do not want other people to publicly associate their different identities and names, it is wrong to publicly associate their different identities and names. (There might be exceptions to this if a person has committed criminal activities. But writing things that piss you off does not count as an exception.)

It is wrong to try to shut people up by threatening legal action against their blogs. If someone has done this to you, there are resources to help you.

When talking about systemic oppression of certain groups of people, the word "privilege" is used to describe the advantages a person gets if they happen to belong to a group that is "approved" by the system. The word applies to the behavior of the system as a whole. In this context, it is not synonymous with "advantage" or "influence." Therefore, in this context, there is no such thing as oppressed groups of people having "privilege...in internet debates."

50books_poc is a really cool community.

http://asim.livejournal.com/388028.html is an awesome post.

I am interested in the possibilities of the new LJ community fight_derailing.

I agree with what papersky said about trying to blend families, and I posted this comment:

Also, sometimes this happens: A person gets away from their family of origin for a while and gets a different perspective and decides that some of the things they "made allowances" for were not just rude/crude but toxic/damaging/abusive. And sometimes this person goes back and tries to talk about this to the family. And the family isn't able to entertain the different perspective, for whatever reason, and there's a great deal of hurt on both sides.

I think this is part of what's happening too. Not only in this Racefail thing, but in discussions of racism in general, and other isms.

Edited to add: jordan179 has taken strong exception to my viewpoint about the term "privilege" and my statement in the comments that privileged people have a moral obligation to non-privileged people. He has made a post in his journal inviting people to come over here and disagree with me.

I'm not interested in repeating the whole RaceFail'09 argument in my journal. I have my journal set to screen comments from people who are not on my friends list, and I will be screening comments that I don't want to deal with. If this isn't enough to prevent my becoming seriously upset, I will freeze comments on the whole entry.

This is an excellent example of how white privilege gives me advantages. I can walk away from a conversation about race that I don't want to deal with. People of color can't, because it informs their whole lives.

Comments

[pandarus.livejournal.com]

Okay, we don't know each other but I found this via rydra-wong's links, I think. And then went to read jordan179's post, and its comments.

Jesus. I wish I could say I found it funny (I did boggle at the assumption that you were a guy - I'm pretty much assuming everyone I encounter in fannish circles on LJ is female, and your profile certainly suggests as much) but, overall - man, that was depressing and disheartening. So many people commenting there, so very cluelessly. And I can't even be mad with them about it, I'm just FRUSTRATED TO DEATH by the smugness and sense of cheerful, guilt-free entitlement, nd the straw-man arguments.

It is my sincere hope that at least some of them will, over time, be cluesticked into recognising that acknowledging white privilege, and trying to make that awareness inform your thinking and your actions, does not mean grovelling and abasing yourself and failing to engage in intelligent discourse. Somebody - I forget who, just now - posted recently that the language that EBear used pinged her particularly that this was being conceptualised as a game, with winners and losers, and that's the self same paradigm that I was seeing all over that comment thread. This idea that one can play the race card and trump the opposition.

And, fuck, that's just DEPRESSING.

You do not lose anything by recognising and acknoweledging that you benefit from (white/male/heterosexual/cisgender/whatever) privilege. You GAIN something - you gain self-knowledge, you gain perspective, you gain understanding. You get the chance to grow, and to see the world as a more layered and complex system.

[firecat]

acknowledging white privilege, and trying to make that awareness inform your thinking and your actions, does not mean grovelling and abasing yourself and failing to engage in intelligent discourse.

I think that's well said. For me it doesn't mean going around feeling guilty (although I did go through a stage like that).

It means seeing the world, well, in color.

(When I hear people saying they are colorblind, meaning they believe that they ignore differences among people, I think it's ironic and sad, because they seem to be bragging about missing something.)

colour-blind

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

FWIW when i described myself that way, it wasn't about not seeing differences between people, it was about not letting it affect my opinions and treatment of people.

not saying that it wasn't wrong, mind you. *wry grin*.

[kmd.livejournal.com]

You do not lose anything by recognising and acknoweledging that you benefit from (white/male/heterosexual/cisgender/whatever) privilege.

So then why do you think people resist that recognition/acknowledgment so? Why is it so hard, even after recognizing and acknowledging, to keep surfacing all of the aspects of privilege?

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i do think people feel they lose something -- they lose innocence (i am not a racist!), they lose agency (i've worked hard for where i am!), they lose plausible deniability -- now that they know, they might *gasp* have to do something about it.

[kmd.livejournal.com]

Yes.

Privilege is real, so the unearned benefits accrued by privilege are real. First benefit to go is the self-image of innocence, of not participating in or benefiting from systemic racism. The resistance to letting go of that self-image resurfaced over and over again in RaceFail.

White people lose real tangible benefits when our privilege is surfaced and challenged. Otherwise what is the point?

[askesis.livejournal.com]

Would you mind if I borrowed parts of this comment?

[pandarus.livejournal.com]

By all means!