On who can be --ist and the need for a new lexicon

[jedifreac]

I was out with a group of friends a few days ago and a conversation about my really inexpensive (but apparently has problematic plumbing) apartment came up. The origin story for Casa Jedifreac.

The truth is, my apartment is brilliantly cheap for the area I live in. The narrative behind why that is is a bit more complicated than that. If you ask

Comments

[jedifreac]

Everything you commented makes sense to me (and I hope you can tell that we are in agreement and I was commenting on the WoW thing facetiously.).

Here is the thing, though- when you are in the majority class, when you are constantly privileged, you don't notice when you get an easy-in, you only notice when others do. For example, it would be really easy for me to complain that there are no special scholarships for straight students, without acknowledging that on a systemic level if is already much more difficult for LGBT students to get into college given the issues they have to wrestle with in high school and quite frankly the day to day privilege they face in their daily lives. So I think in a way the friends I was speaking with would not necessarily have the self awareness to recognize when they face barriers and when they have easy ins, and when others do. It takes a certain amount of self awareness that you are more likely to develop if you have experience with privilege, but may not ever necessarily develop.

What do you do though, when you are in a public space, the tone is already dismissive, and you don't have the luxury of lecturing. You can't say "So, tell me about that time your ability to speak English easily helped you get an apartment" or, as you said, "I would so totally trade you my once in a blue moon bilingual apartment negotiation and positive discrimination for your ability as someone who is white to likely have avoided all of the past micro aggressions and macro aggressions I have encountered with previous landlords."

Or "when you interpret the argument as 'people of color can never be racist' to mean people of color can never be bigoted assholes and then dismiss what they are really trying to say, you're not really recognizing the reality of systemic racism."

All i can really do is sit there and nurse my beer and think to myself: I feel really damn uncomfortable right now, and these friends, who I care about and respect--are sounding totally asinine and privileged right now. I thought they got it, but I guess I was wrong.

Hmmm

[rhymezer]

Yeah, no I know we're talking about the same thing differently. It's something that I struggle with, from a young age I was actively engaging in these types of discussions and a handful of people really got into it with me and it made for some incredible dialogue. But it's also what we call preaching to the preached. The people who most need to hear it, will simply shut off and walk away. Or be like, Oh I'm not like that. Or my friends aren't like that. Or my family isn't like that so it's OK, ignoring again the larger systems at work. It led me to be very divisive and separating from a lot of my peers from a young age when racial epithets or homophobic remarks were murmured - at first I would call people on it. But after a while, years or decades of trying to get them to think critically about what they were saying and equating homosexuality with negativity or POC as less than whites, it simply became overwhelming and I feel with some populations you will get burned out constantly trying to defend a minority point of view.

What I have found that works is talking to individuals one on one about what they have said and how it has negatively affected you. If they are really your friends they will care for you and be more cautious about jumping on the bandwagon or even try to check themselves or their friends when around you. If they're not - then you either have to accept them as they are or let them go.

It's a lot easier to be racist/bigoted when everyone around you is as well and the images that you see constantly in the media are re-inforced. It's a lot harder when those views are questioned and you need to think for yourself why you came to believe things this way.

But, as you can probably imagine this is usually easier said than done. If you can get them to see an example such as your own, and then flip the table and get them to empathize with you that's the best. It's even better if they can recall an instance when they themselves have been discriminated against for not fitting into a majority - such as taking them to Chinatown/Monterrey Park - South Central - or another area where the majority of the ethnic enclave is not them and if they get a chance where they are treated differently because of their appearance the better. Unfortunately, because the way systems work they can simply choose to avoid those neighborhoods so it is not quite the same thing, but when they have no choice but to interact in that situation they tend to wise up faster. I believe that most people eventually will have a situation down the line that will allow them to think critically - or that's my hope at least.

It's not easy - and that is why race is such a touch and go subject that is often not discussed or talked about except in the confines of comedy.

I'm sorry that you have had these experiences, but I am sure that you will grow stronger from them. If you want to talk about it further let me know.

Another thing that helps is to sometimes give space - I know with my friends I have had a few instances where I would get really upset and heated about different topics and it was overwhelming. Give it some space/time - a week or two and then come back and re-visit it. You might find that after thinking it over and realizing how upset about it you really were they were simply unaware of the effect and power of their words/actions.