Of course you're right that the soul of Rachel's statement was a very good message. The problem comes from the phrasing, really--the idea that Cassie, as the minority, would worry whether she is acceptable to him (you know, not just as a person, but specifically based on her race), while you see no balancing insecurity on Jake's part (no worrying whether Cassie or her family will accept him even though he's white ever pops up).
Cassie has to be reassured by her (white, beautiful, blonde) best friend that Jake likes her "even though," and the idea of a white author writing a black character like this feels a little off--I imagine questions about interracial dating would cross both kids' minds at times, but I think the OP is right that something feels wrong about the presentation this time. There's nothing wrong with her worrying about being different or being insecure in general. It's just that in the rest of the series, Jake pretty much not even noticing that Cassie is black is done best by exactly that: showing him being that kind of guy, with his narration never even mentioning it. Cassie worrying about whether Jake is "okay with" it sounds like she considers her own race a thing that must be excused or overlooked.
I don't care about race either and judge on an individual basis too; I think most of us do. But all human beings aren't equal in society, even though we should be. The danger in being part of the majority and stating that we're color-blind in a post-racial society is that it really does undermine the struggles of the marginalized. People tell themselves that now that there are laws protecting minorities, the problems don't exist. It doesn't have to be outright racism/institutionalized oppression. "He doesn't even know you're black" probably just sounded a little too much like what people say when they deny that there even is a problem, and people who don't see a problem are often unintentionally contributing to it. And while people like you are surely doing the right thing by judging on an individual basis, privilege for racial majorities exists regardless of how rich or poor you are, just like women who come from rich families still experience sexism.
Knowing the characters, I'd think worrying about whether Jake minds her blackness would be the last thing Cassie would have on her mind. Unless he'd said or done something that she couldn't find reason for and had started grasping at straws to explain it, I don't see her just randomly wondering something like this.
While I agree the phrasing could have been better, overall, I still don't mind the message. You're right though, maybe the best way to show Jake didn't have any issue with Cassie physically is just have "actions speak louder than words" and plain show it throughout the series. Maybe the publishers wanted a more overt explanation. Maybe KA was being too subtle and they wanted the message slapped really hard in the series so there'd be no "missing it". Remember, it's not just ghost writers that can derail a series, the publishers have their hands all in it too. If the publisher says "Make sure Jake is *really* cool with Cassie, you know, because they're an inter-racial couple and all", maybe this was just KA's way to (perhaps, clumsily) ensure that the message was put out there.
People basically live their lives through self-fulfilling prophecies, whether they're aware of it or not. If you're optimistic, upbeat and positive, you will see the world through that lens (which is how I see life). If you're pessimistic, downbeat and negative, you will see nothing but that in the world, in life and in people. While I find it's important to learn history (so we aren't doomed to repeat it), I feel that all the racial-specific things have just set up more barriers and more problems than they're supposed to help. The reason being, it just doesn't work on my moral scales. My scales are set up so if you have a problem on one side, you set up the opposite "problem" in the other side and if it doesn't level out, there's something wrong with the picture. For instance, if there are scholarships for black people, then to be equal, there should be scholarships for white people. See how that automatically sets off alarm bells? That means both ways are the wrong way to go about it, that's not what should be done.
What actually helps to solve the problem is to see and treat everyone as equal- show what you believe through actions, don't worry so much about words. If a certain section of society is falling behind, instead of putting band-aids on the problem (giving people scholarships just because of race), find out *why* there is a problem in the first place and attack it at it's source. In order to make something fair, the answer isn't to just enact revenge on the other side somehow or to artificially lift people up. It's to make it truly fair for both sides. Make sure everyone has good schools, make sure everyone a decent place to live, make sure crime is combatted everywhere, equally.
As far as race in general, the way I equate it is like if a husband does something wrong in a relationship and a wife only "pretends" to get over it, but whenever the husband makes the slightest infraction, the wife keeps bringing up the old problem and throwing it in his face. They aren't ever going to move forward, there is no resolution with that kind of attitude. Things will only stay the same as they've always been. To constantly see racism everywhere negatively impacts forward momentum and to constantly bring up the issues of the past isn't getting over it. It's just trying to feed negativity.
I tend to do things *despite* the odds, not *in spite* of them. I think there's a big difference between the two. One way makes you proud of what you're able to accomplish, the other never leaves you fulfilled because you're just trying to feed a negative emotion, which can never be properly satiated.
eh, I get what you're saying, but no matter how much you look at everyone as equal, not everyone does. Some people are going to be racist/sexist/homophobic forever, and they're going to pass those attitudes down to their kids, and that's going to influence how things end up.
Because you know what? I think you're right. All people are born, at least on average, equal. Men, women, transgendered, blacks, eskimos, whites, gays, straights, whatever. If the system in place was likewise equal, then we wouldn't need corrective measures. If the system in place was equal, then we wouldn't see disproportionate amounts of straight, white, cisgendered men receiving privilege over minority races, women, etc. And yet, all things being equal, these people tend to have a better chance to succeed.
Systemic inequality is a much harder thing to fix than I think you're making it out to be. And, just speaking for myself, as someone who also considers themselves an egalitarian, I still get nervous driving through "the bad part of town." I still catch myself thinking along gendered lines that privilege men (if you hear about an accomplishment that took place in a lab or NASA, who do you think did it?). I very much doubt that you never have racist or sexist thoughts, because these attitudes are insidious and pervasive, and as much as we'd all like to think of ourselves as entirely immune to the social pressures and mores that make these attitudes persist, I think we're doing a disservice to the entire movement if we don't.
This is basically a huge long defense of those stopgap measures you don't like. I don't like them either. It's sort of a post-hoc fix rather than a foundational fix that we'd all prefer. But if we don't account for the privilege that certain dimensions grant people after the fact, and we can't fix them on ground level, what can we do to fix it? It's not perfect, I'll agree. Putting underqualified people in positions to fill gender or race quotas will a) introduce inefficiency and b) perpetuate the very prejudice we're trying to fix. But without them, would people be used to the idea of seeing a woman or a racial minority in a position of power? Like it or not, we've created a society from one that was overly dominated by white males to one that still is, but has the capability to accept someone other than that in a position of power. White males are the norm, but not the default, and certainly not the only acceptable alternative. We've rewritten the very laws of society that only permitted one class of person any political or economic power.
There's a lot of work to still do, and I'm not even sure that we're going about this the totally right way. But these things are not a zero-sum game. If you give something to a minority, it doesn't mean you're taking something from a white person, it doesn't mean he can't also benefit. Giving everyone equal opportunities to succeed doesn't flood the labor market, it just puts people where they rightfully belong, based on their abilities and talents and desires. I don't think anyone can say that's a bad thing.
Actually I was thinking the opposite. Your point about putting disadvantaged people into visible positions to get people used to the idea is a very good one.
It helps where the problem is--and that's where we both agree with Char, because this ultimately IS an attitude problem. It won't change until we believe that everyone's equal and then give them resources as a matter of course. But we have a tendency as humans to simply assume that people are where they are because they deserve to be there--the privileged excuse themselves without seeing all the advantages they truly have as an accident of birth, while assigning flaws to people who weren't as successful and convincing themselves that things are as they should be. (And that furthermore it's actually the disadvantaged who are at fault for handicapping themselves or making a fuss. People in power are often honestly bewildered, saying "But we gave you what you want! You're equal now! What could you still think you deserve?" But considering it was the moneyed elite sitting with the other moneyed elite deciding what would be fair for them, I don't think anyone actually asked the people in question. . . .)
I wish it was as easy as "Okay everybody, let's just see each other as equal and have a group hug," but people aren't listening. I'm a big fan of notracistbut.com and some of the dialogues on the invisible knapsacks and whatnot, but I didn't want to go too into that since, well, after all we are kiiiinda off-topic already and I don't want to come off as obnoxious with all this, you know, personal experience of my own. :P
Edit because I fail at spelling and I am a pedant.
definitely. And I don't even think privileged people excusing themselves is some kind of act of prejudice or selfishness. When I first learned about the concept of privilege, I got all defensive, like "I don't actively take things away from minorities! I am not the problem here!" And even though that's not totally true, it's not like privileged people are the bad guys. Privilege is not something you obtain by doing something wrong. It's a reality, and that doesn't mean you're a bad guy.
I think that perception of privileged might be part of the cause, or at least along the same self-excusing lines, as the just world fallacy. I got here because I earned it, not because there are totally random forces in the universe that give or take things arbitrarily. No one wants to feel guilty about the good things they have, so they construct this fake karmic system so they can absolve themselves of feeling uncomfortable with or uncertain about their comfort and success.
And I think even if you convinced everyone of this, that being poor or unprivileged was not the fault of the victim, these attitudes would still persist. Even if we could all agree that being a woman or a minority or gay or boor poor is an automatic social handicap, and that the disadvantages they receive are less a comment about that dimension and more a comment on how our society treats that dimension, we wouldn't eliminate privilege. You will never convince parents not to love and do well for their children, and a part of me thinks this is what all talk of privilege comes down to. Rich white people may be philanthropists but will still give, directly or indirectly, most of their fortunes to other rich white people, namely their children. Unless we can conceive of some unilaterally communist/socialist system where wealth was redistributed totally equally, there will always be privilege.
Exaaactly. You RECOGNIZE that you have benefited from privilege, and that in some cases you can actually help by not perpetuating attitudes that reinforce the stereotypes, etc. Recognizing that you have privilege isn't the same as acknowledging that you're AN OPPRESSOR. You very well may not be. BUT YOU HAVE BENEFITED from things that are not your fault, just like minority populations have often suffered because of things that are not their fault. Shrugging at it and saying it's not really there helps it stay there.
We rationalize. We want the world to be fair, and we like to trick ourselves into thinking it is. So we look at people in poor situations and say "so and so shouldn't have done this." But given the tools many people have--or the lack of them--we can't expect them to act like we might have to have the education, ability, or knowledge to escape whatever fate befell them. I earned a lot of things in my life--I had to make it through college, for instance, and did so on scholarship--but I don't think I could have done it as easily, as quickly, or as successfully if my parents hadn't supported me by making a deal with me over my living expenses if I kept my grades up, so I wouldn't have to work during school and divide my attention. I deserve some of the credit, but realistically? I know a lot of people who either wouldn't even have the chance to try, or had to overcome SO much more than I did just to get into college.
I'm like you in that I'm idealistic and want everything equal, and I think it can happen. But there's no realistic way to accomplish equality without seizing everyone's assets and redistributing them "fairly," isolating and erasing cultural/familial values, and starting from 0. If anyone had the power to do that, you can bet they wouldn't, because they're the ones holding the reins and they're happy with what their advantages have afforded them.
People who aren't as fortunate are not being negative when they say "This is unfair." It continues to be unfair, so it sounds like victim-blaming if the privileged class refuses to listen to their real, everyday, lived experience. You understand that getting a scholarship or a boost through Affirmative Action doesn't equalize things or stop the disadvantaged from continuing to experience oppression, right? And that scholarships and special breaks are there to help people who don't have the resources otherwise, right? And that privileges many of us don't even realize we have invisibly help us to get ahead in life, right?
The short answer for why people who are already well represented in positions of power don't get boosts is that they often already have them. They just can't quantify them because they weren't handed a check.
I can't make sense of your scale "moral," because you're saying the scale was balanced to begin with and that the help each side can receive weighs the same. It doesn't. Poor people who can't feed their kids shouldn't get free food unless we made it "fair" by giving free food to people who don't need it? The hungry are just being negative if they continue to report their hunger?
Idealistically speaking (again) it would have a longer-reaching effect if we helped the hungry provide for themselves, like you said about "let's just attack it at its source." But can you do that? Can you revolutionize their country's agriculture and sponsor widespread education on how to use it--with the moneyed elite voting against your cause? Say, can YOU "make sure everyone has good schools," etc.? Lawmakers clearly don't think it's important, and it's no surprise since they benefited from better schools, making it hard for them to imagine that some schools are in a sorry state. And what do they do? Vote budget cuts on education.
We're working for large-scale change too, both in attitude and practice. But in the meantime, organizations that don't have the money and power to revolutionize a country but do have the money and power to distribute occasional care packages should be commended for doing so.
If you truly believe that racism is perpetuated by people "seeing it everywhere" rather than its actually BEING everywhere, I don't know what to say. If you can't hear what oppressed people say to you about what they go through, you're saying you--as a person who doesn't experience it--are better qualified to describe their experience and judge it unimportant, exaggerated, or nonexistent. That attitude helps keep the status quo in place. If it doesn't affect you every day, it's very easy to say it isn't a big problem. And if you think it isn't a big problem, you reinforce the belief that things are okay this way. Many people out there can tell you how much more difficult racism or homophobia makes their lives, and their answer to your "why do they keep bringing it up?" is "because it's still happening." I have no idea why you think this proverbial wife has pretended to get over it. Most people probably just can't hear her.
I'm not a fan of the presentation of this Cassie/Rachel exchange, but I'll agree that the idea of race not mattering is attractive and healthy. But you do have to "see" race--not just in the ideal, but in the present, with the disadvantages it brings as well as the places it doesn't matter. We should all embrace this idea, but society wouldn't be the way it is if those in power had already done that. It's insulting to say these issues are in the past and that people still living with their effects are whining and need to get over it. They aren't perpetuating the problem by saying it's still there. People saying there's no problem--while holding the keys to the resources--are helping perpetuate it.
Cassie has to be reassured by her (white, beautiful, blonde) best friend that Jake likes her "even though," and the idea of a white author writing a black character like this feels a little off--I imagine questions about interracial dating would cross both kids' minds at times, but I think the OP is right that something feels wrong about the presentation this time. There's nothing wrong with her worrying about being different or being insecure in general. It's just that in the rest of the series, Jake pretty much not even noticing that Cassie is black is done best by exactly that: showing him being that kind of guy, with his narration never even mentioning it. Cassie worrying about whether Jake is "okay with" it sounds like she considers her own race a thing that must be excused or overlooked.
I don't care about race either and judge on an individual basis too; I think most of us do. But all human beings aren't equal in society, even though we should be. The danger in being part of the majority and stating that we're color-blind in a post-racial society is that it really does undermine the struggles of the marginalized. People tell themselves that now that there are laws protecting minorities, the problems don't exist. It doesn't have to be outright racism/institutionalized oppression. "He doesn't even know you're black" probably just sounded a little too much like what people say when they deny that there even is a problem, and people who don't see a problem are often unintentionally contributing to it. And while people like you are surely doing the right thing by judging on an individual basis, privilege for racial majorities exists regardless of how rich or poor you are, just like women who come from rich families still experience sexism.
Knowing the characters, I'd think worrying about whether Jake minds her blackness would be the last thing Cassie would have on her mind. Unless he'd said or done something that she couldn't find reason for and had started grasping at straws to explain it, I don't see her just randomly wondering something like this.
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People basically live their lives through self-fulfilling prophecies, whether they're aware of it or not. If you're optimistic, upbeat and positive, you will see the world through that lens (which is how I see life). If you're pessimistic, downbeat and negative, you will see nothing but that in the world, in life and in people. While I find it's important to learn history (so we aren't doomed to repeat it), I feel that all the racial-specific things have just set up more barriers and more problems than they're supposed to help. The reason being, it just doesn't work on my moral scales. My scales are set up so if you have a problem on one side, you set up the opposite "problem" in the other side and if it doesn't level out, there's something wrong with the picture. For instance, if there are scholarships for black people, then to be equal, there should be scholarships for white people. See how that automatically sets off alarm bells? That means both ways are the wrong way to go about it, that's not what should be done.
What actually helps to solve the problem is to see and treat everyone as equal- show what you believe through actions, don't worry so much about words. If a certain section of society is falling behind, instead of putting band-aids on the problem (giving people scholarships just because of race), find out *why* there is a problem in the first place and attack it at it's source. In order to make something fair, the answer isn't to just enact revenge on the other side somehow or to artificially lift people up. It's to make it truly fair for both sides. Make sure everyone has good schools, make sure everyone a decent place to live, make sure crime is combatted everywhere, equally.
As far as race in general, the way I equate it is like if a husband does something wrong in a relationship and a wife only "pretends" to get over it, but whenever the husband makes the slightest infraction, the wife keeps bringing up the old problem and throwing it in his face. They aren't ever going to move forward, there is no resolution with that kind of attitude. Things will only stay the same as they've always been. To constantly see racism everywhere negatively impacts forward momentum and to constantly bring up the issues of the past isn't getting over it. It's just trying to feed negativity.
I tend to do things *despite* the odds, not *in spite* of them. I think there's a big difference between the two. One way makes you proud of what you're able to accomplish, the other never leaves you fulfilled because you're just trying to feed a negative emotion, which can never be properly satiated.
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Because you know what? I think you're right. All people are born, at least on average, equal. Men, women, transgendered, blacks, eskimos, whites, gays, straights, whatever. If the system in place was likewise equal, then we wouldn't need corrective measures. If the system in place was equal, then we wouldn't see disproportionate amounts of straight, white, cisgendered men receiving privilege over minority races, women, etc. And yet, all things being equal, these people tend to have a better chance to succeed.
So yes, obviously, the best way to fix this system is to go into its foundation and find the flaw. Figure out how to make it so subjugated, oppressed forces can (and do) achieve success on par with the privileged apex. But what do you suggest? How do you do that? When prejudice from 600 years before informed how much the Nazis hated the Jews and women are penalized for negotiating salary at new jobs just because they're women, how can you delve into the fabric of society to change those people's minds?
Systemic inequality is a much harder thing to fix than I think you're making it out to be. And, just speaking for myself, as someone who also considers themselves an egalitarian, I still get nervous driving through "the bad part of town." I still catch myself thinking along gendered lines that privilege men (if you hear about an accomplishment that took place in a lab or NASA, who do you think did it?). I very much doubt that you never have racist or sexist thoughts, because these attitudes are insidious and pervasive, and as much as we'd all like to think of ourselves as entirely immune to the social pressures and mores that make these attitudes persist, I think we're doing a disservice to the entire movement if we don't.
This is basically a huge long defense of those stopgap measures you don't like. I don't like them either. It's sort of a post-hoc fix rather than a foundational fix that we'd all prefer. But if we don't account for the privilege that certain dimensions grant people after the fact, and we can't fix them on ground level, what can we do to fix it? It's not perfect, I'll agree. Putting underqualified people in positions to fill gender or race quotas will a) introduce inefficiency and b) perpetuate the very prejudice we're trying to fix. But without them, would people be used to the idea of seeing a woman or a racial minority in a position of power? Like it or not, we've created a society from one that was overly dominated by white males to one that still is, but has the capability to accept someone other than that in a position of power. White males are the norm, but not the default, and certainly not the only acceptable alternative. We've rewritten the very laws of society that only permitted one class of person any political or economic power.
There's a lot of work to still do, and I'm not even sure that we're going about this the totally right way. But these things are not a zero-sum game. If you give something to a minority, it doesn't mean you're taking something from a white person, it doesn't mean he can't also benefit. Giving everyone equal opportunities to succeed doesn't flood the labor market, it just puts people where they rightfully belong, based on their abilities and talents and desires. I don't think anyone can say that's a bad thing.
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It helps where the problem is--and that's where we both agree with Char, because this ultimately IS an attitude problem. It won't change until we believe that everyone's equal and then give them resources as a matter of course. But we have a tendency as humans to simply assume that people are where they are because they deserve to be there--the privileged excuse themselves without seeing all the advantages they truly have as an accident of birth, while assigning flaws to people who weren't as successful and convincing themselves that things are as they should be. (And that furthermore it's actually the disadvantaged who are at fault for handicapping themselves or making a fuss. People in power are often honestly bewildered, saying "But we gave you what you want! You're equal now! What could you still think you deserve?" But considering it was the moneyed elite sitting with the other moneyed elite deciding what would be fair for them, I don't think anyone actually asked the people in question. . . .)
I wish it was as easy as "Okay everybody, let's just see each other as equal and have a group hug," but people aren't listening. I'm a big fan of notracistbut.com and some of the dialogues on the invisible knapsacks and whatnot, but I didn't want to go too into that since, well, after all we are kiiiinda off-topic already and I don't want to come off as obnoxious with all this, you know, personal experience of my own. :P
Edit because I fail at spelling and I am a pedant.
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I think that perception of privileged might be part of the cause, or at least along the same self-excusing lines, as the just world fallacy. I got here because I earned it, not because there are totally random forces in the universe that give or take things arbitrarily. No one wants to feel guilty about the good things they have, so they construct this fake karmic system so they can absolve themselves of feeling uncomfortable with or uncertain about their comfort and success.
And I think even if you convinced everyone of this, that being poor or unprivileged was not the fault of the victim, these attitudes would still persist. Even if we could all agree that being a woman or a minority or gay or boor poor is an automatic social handicap, and that the disadvantages they receive are less a comment about that dimension and more a comment on how our society treats that dimension, we wouldn't eliminate privilege. You will never convince parents not to love and do well for their children, and a part of me thinks this is what all talk of privilege comes down to. Rich white people may be philanthropists but will still give, directly or indirectly, most of their fortunes to other rich white people, namely their children. Unless we can conceive of some unilaterally communist/socialist system where wealth was redistributed totally equally, there will always be privilege.
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We rationalize. We want the world to be fair, and we like to trick ourselves into thinking it is. So we look at people in poor situations and say "so and so shouldn't have done this." But given the tools many people have--or the lack of them--we can't expect them to act like we might have to have the education, ability, or knowledge to escape whatever fate befell them. I earned a lot of things in my life--I had to make it through college, for instance, and did so on scholarship--but I don't think I could have done it as easily, as quickly, or as successfully if my parents hadn't supported me by making a deal with me over my living expenses if I kept my grades up, so I wouldn't have to work during school and divide my attention. I deserve some of the credit, but realistically? I know a lot of people who either wouldn't even have the chance to try, or had to overcome SO much more than I did just to get into college.
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People who aren't as fortunate are not being negative when they say "This is unfair." It continues to be unfair, so it sounds like victim-blaming if the privileged class refuses to listen to their real, everyday, lived experience. You understand that getting a scholarship or a boost through Affirmative Action doesn't equalize things or stop the disadvantaged from continuing to experience oppression, right? And that scholarships and special breaks are there to help people who don't have the resources otherwise, right? And that privileges many of us don't even realize we have invisibly help us to get ahead in life, right?
The short answer for why people who are already well represented in positions of power don't get boosts is that they often already have them. They just can't quantify them because they weren't handed a check.
I can't make sense of your scale "moral," because you're saying the scale was balanced to begin with and that the help each side can receive weighs the same. It doesn't. Poor people who can't feed their kids shouldn't get free food unless we made it "fair" by giving free food to people who don't need it? The hungry are just being negative if they continue to report their hunger?
Idealistically speaking (again) it would have a longer-reaching effect if we helped the hungry provide for themselves, like you said about "let's just attack it at its source." But can you do that? Can you revolutionize their country's agriculture and sponsor widespread education on how to use it--with the moneyed elite voting against your cause? Say, can YOU "make sure everyone has good schools," etc.? Lawmakers clearly don't think it's important, and it's no surprise since they benefited from better schools, making it hard for them to imagine that some schools are in a sorry state. And what do they do? Vote budget cuts on education.
We're working for large-scale change too, both in attitude and practice. But in the meantime, organizations that don't have the money and power to revolutionize a country but do have the money and power to distribute occasional care packages should be commended for doing so.
If you truly believe that racism is perpetuated by people "seeing it everywhere" rather than its actually BEING everywhere, I don't know what to say. If you can't hear what oppressed people say to you about what they go through, you're saying you--as a person who doesn't experience it--are better qualified to describe their experience and judge it unimportant, exaggerated, or nonexistent. That attitude helps keep the status quo in place. If it doesn't affect you every day, it's very easy to say it isn't a big problem. And if you think it isn't a big problem, you reinforce the belief that things are okay this way. Many people out there can tell you how much more difficult racism or homophobia makes their lives, and their answer to your "why do they keep bringing it up?" is "because it's still happening." I have no idea why you think this proverbial wife has pretended to get over it. Most people probably just can't hear her.
I'm not a fan of the presentation of this Cassie/Rachel exchange, but I'll agree that the idea of race not mattering is attractive and healthy. But you do have to "see" race--not just in the ideal, but in the present, with the disadvantages it brings as well as the places it doesn't matter. We should all embrace this idea, but society wouldn't be the way it is if those in power had already done that. It's insulting to say these issues are in the past and that people still living with their effects are whining and need to get over it. They aren't perpetuating the problem by saying it's still there. People saying there's no problem--while holding the keys to the resources--are helping perpetuate it.
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