Because the price of procrastination is having to do it later, more stressed
I haven't been posting, partly because I have been applying for actual jobs, including about four significant anxiety attacks over three weeks of working on one job application. I hope the fact that I'm recognising them sooner and am somewhat able to defuse them is a good sign.
And I've not been saying much about whatever the cultural appropriation/racism disaster around LJ the last month or so is now called, because I'm White, and I couldn't figure out what to say that might actually help.
I'm still White, and I still can't figure out what to say that might actually help, but in the spirit of This Is My LJ So Of Course It Is All About Me:
I'm white, and I have white privilege. I am still learning to recognise and understand what that means, and I fully expect, even though I'm trying hard to not, that I will do stupid clueless White things. Probably for the rest of my life. As I was discussing with bcholmes, a permanently recovering racist. I don't see that that's so terrible, because I am white, I live on a racist planet, and my choices seem to be, given these facts, to try to be aware and learn, or be oblivious, and I've never been a fan of oblivious.
I also suffer from "I'm not really White because". I'm trying to correct that to: I am white, but I'm not as close to the centre in certain other aspects of the kyriarchy, and it might be relevant to me not having made as much of an idiot of myself. The thing about the kyriarchy: it's easy to spot the dimensions of the kyriarchy in which you are not close to the centre, and much harder to see the dimensions in which you are.
So it has always been obvious to me, growing up as Danish, that the kyriarchy speaks English (with an American-ish accent); and living in Australia, that the kyriarchy is based in North America, or maybe on an underwater base in the North Atlantic, off Maryland. I can also easily tell that the kyriarchy is male, and although I myself am a middle-class city girl with more university education than is good for anyone, I do have enough knowledge of my family history for it to be clear to me that the kyriarchy is urbanised and middle-upper class, and and has western-style education.
It's taken me much longer to wake up to just how WHITE the kyriarchy is. And in that dimension, I totally am white. It's not what I originally intended for this icon, but that's what it's about now. Okay, sure, this cat has different eye colours. But it's still a WHITE cat.
I'm also vaguely embarrassed that although it's obvious to me that the kyriarchy speaks English, it took much longer to figure out that it was probably relevant that the kyriarchy can read and write, uses the roman alphabet, and uses an Indo-European language.
I don't honestly know what it's like to be a PoC in a white society. The closest I've experienced is being white in a part of Thailand with very few white people. And it was obvious, simultaneous with the stares and attention, that these were PoC looking at White people, and that that is not the same thing. The absolute closest, and there was still no hostility, just the absence of awareness of what White means, was a baby who couldn't stop looking at me because I was the very first non-Thai face she had ever seen. Trying to extrapolate from PoC-looking-at-White through baby-looking-at-foreign, to what it could conceivably be like to be looked at as a PoC makes my head hurt, and therefore I'm going to take PoCs' word for what it's like. And of course, that's just the first glance of "oh, another human being, what kind?"
Now this is starting to feel like self-indulgent wallowing. I am trying to be open, I am trying to understand, and I'm going to fail, and it's probably just par for the course if this is an example. But if I don't post this, I don't even have a chance to fail, and I will learn slower that way.
And I've not been saying much about whatever the cultural appropriation/racism disaster around LJ the last month or so is now called, because I'm White, and I couldn't figure out what to say that might actually help.
I'm still White, and I still can't figure out what to say that might actually help, but in the spirit of This Is My LJ So Of Course It Is All About Me:
I'm white, and I have white privilege. I am still learning to recognise and understand what that means, and I fully expect, even though I'm trying hard to not, that I will do stupid clueless White things. Probably for the rest of my life. As I was discussing with bcholmes, a permanently recovering racist. I don't see that that's so terrible, because I am white, I live on a racist planet, and my choices seem to be, given these facts, to try to be aware and learn, or be oblivious, and I've never been a fan of oblivious.
I also suffer from "I'm not really White because". I'm trying to correct that to: I am white, but I'm not as close to the centre in certain other aspects of the kyriarchy, and it might be relevant to me not having made as much of an idiot of myself. The thing about the kyriarchy: it's easy to spot the dimensions of the kyriarchy in which you are not close to the centre, and much harder to see the dimensions in which you are.
So it has always been obvious to me, growing up as Danish, that the kyriarchy speaks English (with an American-ish accent); and living in Australia, that the kyriarchy is based in North America, or maybe on an underwater base in the North Atlantic, off Maryland. I can also easily tell that the kyriarchy is male, and although I myself am a middle-class city girl with more university education than is good for anyone, I do have enough knowledge of my family history for it to be clear to me that the kyriarchy is urbanised and middle-upper class, and and has western-style education.
It's taken me much longer to wake up to just how WHITE the kyriarchy is. And in that dimension, I totally am white. It's not what I originally intended for this icon, but that's what it's about now. Okay, sure, this cat has different eye colours. But it's still a WHITE cat.
I'm also vaguely embarrassed that although it's obvious to me that the kyriarchy speaks English, it took much longer to figure out that it was probably relevant that the kyriarchy can read and write, uses the roman alphabet, and uses an Indo-European language.
I don't honestly know what it's like to be a PoC in a white society. The closest I've experienced is being white in a part of Thailand with very few white people. And it was obvious, simultaneous with the stares and attention, that these were PoC looking at White people, and that that is not the same thing. The absolute closest, and there was still no hostility, just the absence of awareness of what White means, was a baby who couldn't stop looking at me because I was the very first non-Thai face she had ever seen. Trying to extrapolate from PoC-looking-at-White through baby-looking-at-foreign, to what it could conceivably be like to be looked at as a PoC makes my head hurt, and therefore I'm going to take PoCs' word for what it's like. And of course, that's just the first glance of "oh, another human being, what kind?"
Now this is starting to feel like self-indulgent wallowing. I am trying to be open, I am trying to understand, and I'm going to fail, and it's probably just par for the course if this is an example. But if I don't post this, I don't even have a chance to fail, and I will learn slower that way.