Star Trek has never really been my fandom of choice, but I've picked up a good deal of information about it from cultural osmosis and dabbling
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Those were fascinating. Thanks for the various perspectives.
One of them, however, really bothers me. The casual comparison of the hurt caused by words to the hurt caused by serious physical damage, damage that may cripple for a lifetime, sickens me. I'm sure there are words that would give as much pain and take as much time to recover from as that much physical damage, but I do not imagine that they could be described simply as insults. To compare a sentence, or a few, with some offensiveness to that is to analogize across degrees, and in so doing show contempt for those who have been crippled by accidents.
In some ways, and I know that this is asking for controversy, it strikes me as similar to the comparison between abortion and murder. The word murder has connotations of a deliberate killing of a fully individuated human being, the without-amelioration taking of not just a life, but a conscious individual. Only if you flatten the two into the "taking of a human life" without any connotations do you get a workable analogy.
I'm much more convinced by the arguments of racist words making someone feel like a nonperson, which relates back to offending as an attack on status. Making someone feel like a nonperson is a specific offense which can be accomplished in a number of ways, and we can thus talk about how to reduce it in a number of more productive ways.
And yet you (generally) only get hit by a car once, while you can be attacked verbally over and over again.
The analogy, like all analogies, is an imperfect equality, but I think it's a valid and useful analogy. It certainly resonated with my experiences of sexism, and with what I've read of other people talking about their experiences of racism. "[D]amage that may cripple for a lifetime" is absolutely right.
I have seen yeloson take productive actions and start productive movements to deal with the problems caused by racism.
Did it resonate because it seemed like an apt metaphor, or because it attributed a higher level of damage than had generally been attributed before?
Perhaps, if it's the case where it's not a single incident is a car collision, but rather, many incidents causing pain over time, it'd be more apt to analogize to a long term chronic pain or illness? Granted, this is about analogizing, and the purpose there is as much to convince the reader of the level of pain, and most readers are unfamiliar with how debilitating a chronic illness is, so it's unlikely to work as effectively for communicating the level of upset.
One difficulty with the analogy to a car collision is that it seems to be asking people to be careful not of creating an environment of (for example) sexism, but of any one sexist comment. It likens the one sexist comment to a car collision -- to a man, not having experienced the backlog of sexism from the environment, that seems ridiculous, and so the sort of thing to respond to with the usual complaints about "those people"("histrionics" in the case of women? I'm not sure what the words are). Whereas if the analogy argues not for the damage of a single comment but of the damage of a lifetime of them, it may be more possible to reach those who don't experience a lifetime of them, and thus aren't damaged by a single insult.
Perhaps, if it's the case where it's not a single incident is a car collision, but rather, many incidents causing pain over time, it'd be more apt to analogize to a long term chronic pain or illness?
Absolutely not. He is making a point about people hurting other people, not people being hurt by forces beyond our control.
He's also not talking to the consciousness-raising 101 crowd. His intended audience (as near as I can tell from outside his head) are people who already understand that racism exists. It's very hard to have a conversation about something like racism or sexism that's of any value to the people experiencing it if you're trying to drag along people who dismiss it.
I found his metaphor to be interesting and a helpful lens to view racism, as well as various other -isms, through. You didn't. That's fine -- people are different and like different things. I'm not going to rewrite his description of what racism feels like to him to suit your sensibilities.
Okay. From the comments, and this, it does sound like the audience he's talking to views this analogy as valuable. And I'm not intending to ask you to suit my sensibilities, but
a) Your response--that my analogy is wrong because isms are about people hurting other people, not people being hurt by forces beyond people--sounds very similar to my response to his analogy: a significant complaint with the underlying like-ness, and an objection to the views people would take away from that analogy, and
b) there's a difference between dividing the world into people who "already understand that racism exists" vs "people who dismiss it" and "people who experience ism on a regular basis and are seriously hurt by it" and "people who don't" (whether or not they accept it exists, whether or not they think it should be fixed.)
Anyway, I see much more clearly how easily any such metaphor is going to be fraught with misinterpretation by some audience.
I think I see part of the communication problem between us: I was talking specifically about his analogy, not about general analogies about -isms. I feel like, given that I'm white, a POC's description of racism is sufficiently not my ... my space that while I can appreciate it, respond to it, publicize it, or ignore it, changing or reframing it is rude.
One of them, however, really bothers me. The casual comparison of the hurt caused by words to the hurt caused by serious physical damage, damage that may cripple for a lifetime, sickens me. I'm sure there are words that would give as much pain and take as much time to recover from as that much physical damage, but I do not imagine that they could be described simply as insults. To compare a sentence, or a few, with some offensiveness to that is to analogize across degrees, and in so doing show contempt for those who have been crippled by accidents.
In some ways, and I know that this is asking for controversy, it strikes me as similar to the comparison between abortion and murder. The word murder has connotations of a deliberate killing of a fully individuated human being, the without-amelioration taking of not just a life, but a conscious individual. Only if you flatten the two into the "taking of a human life" without any connotations do you get a workable analogy.
I'm much more convinced by the arguments of racist words making someone feel like a nonperson, which relates back to offending as an attack on status. Making someone feel like a nonperson is a specific offense which can be accomplished in a number of ways, and we can thus talk about how to reduce it in a number of more productive ways.
Anyway, thank you.
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The analogy, like all analogies, is an imperfect equality, but I think it's a valid and useful analogy. It certainly resonated with my experiences of sexism, and with what I've read of other people talking about their experiences of racism. "[D]amage that may cripple for a lifetime" is absolutely right.
I have seen yeloson take productive actions and start productive movements to deal with the problems caused by racism.
Reply
Perhaps, if it's the case where it's not a single incident is a car collision, but rather, many incidents causing pain over time, it'd be more apt to analogize to a long term chronic pain or illness? Granted, this is about analogizing, and the purpose there is as much to convince the reader of the level of pain, and most readers are unfamiliar with how debilitating a chronic illness is, so it's unlikely to work as effectively for communicating the level of upset.
One difficulty with the analogy to a car collision is that it seems to be asking people to be careful not of creating an environment of (for example) sexism, but of any one sexist comment. It likens the one sexist comment to a car collision -- to a man, not having experienced the backlog of sexism from the environment, that seems ridiculous, and so the sort of thing to respond to with the usual complaints about "those people"("histrionics" in the case of women? I'm not sure what the words are). Whereas if the analogy argues not for the damage of a single comment but of the damage of a lifetime of them, it may be more possible to reach those who don't experience a lifetime of them, and thus aren't damaged by a single insult.
I wonder if that made any sense at all.
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Absolutely not. He is making a point about people hurting other people, not people being hurt by forces beyond our control.
He's also not talking to the consciousness-raising 101 crowd. His intended audience (as near as I can tell from outside his head) are people who already understand that racism exists. It's very hard to have a conversation about something like racism or sexism that's of any value to the people experiencing it if you're trying to drag along people who dismiss it.
I found his metaphor to be interesting and a helpful lens to view racism, as well as various other -isms, through. You didn't. That's fine -- people are different and like different things. I'm not going to rewrite his description of what racism feels like to him to suit your sensibilities.
Reply
a) Your response--that my analogy is wrong because isms are about people hurting other people, not people being hurt by forces beyond people--sounds very similar to my response to his analogy: a significant complaint with the underlying like-ness, and an objection to the views people would take away from that analogy, and
b) there's a difference between dividing the world into people who "already understand that racism exists" vs "people who dismiss it" and "people who experience ism on a regular basis and are seriously hurt by it" and "people who don't" (whether or not they accept it exists, whether or not they think it should be fixed.)
Anyway, I see much more clearly how easily any such metaphor is going to be fraught with misinterpretation by some audience.
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