privilege and ignorance and the limits of good intentions
I have a tendency, when I hear about shit like what has been going down in Arizona lately, to consider it's affects in terms of me...and then the usual suspects as described in the evening news...and then not really anyone else. Shamefully, it takes more than a while sometimes for the ways in which it affects all the people in between - even the people I'm close to - to really sink in.
(I'm working on this. Although likely not nearly enough.)
A few days ago, when the passing of Arizona's recent immigration law was all over the blogs and twitter and facebook and other various realms within the internets (and, one presumes, the evening news, but I wouldn't know as I don't watch it) I noticed that my cousin, who lives in Arizona, had a status update about it. It made me smile because my cousin is a strong believer in social justice, but had to swallow a lot of that during law school and immediately after. I figured this was in part a natural outgrowth to finally standing up to some of what she hears on a daily basis from some of the people within her social circle.
It wasn't until a few days later - as I was reading discussions about who is likely to get stopped and who isn't, and how that first group is larger than many people realize or will admit (and nodding along to that last part) - that it occurred to me that my cousin was (also?) being a mama bear. Her husband is biracial (Hawaiian and caucasian) and so their 6 month old son is as well. K's spouse is hardly the most likely person to be stopped and asked for his papers, but there is a lot higher risk of him being stopped than there is of her or myself being stopped.
It's not like thischanged my views on the law - I knew it was wrong and racist and unjust to begin with - but it did suddenly change from being about people that I respect in the abstract to people that I care deeply about on a very personal level. At that makes a difference in how we prioritize things.
I do this a lot. I get into to discussions about the rights of and stereotypes about various groups of people and forget that I'm not just talking in the abstract, but also about K's new family. Or my Mexican born cousin by marriage and his kids - my three first cousins once removed - who are consequently biracial.* Or about my Taiwanese-American** cousins. And it's really weird to me and it's WRONG and I want it to stop.
But I also know the only way for that to happen is for me to work at and stop myself from doing it as best I can.
*I'm not entirely certain how the experience of being biracial generally plays out for people that identify as Hispanic, as Hispanics are more widely considered to be a diverse culture made up of various races and origins (at least among the people I know), but I use the term biracial here to acknowledge that, like many biracial individuals, my young cousins will spend much of their life dealing with people who assume that they are either "All-American" OR Hispanic rather than considering that they are both.
**It would be more accurate to call them American-Taiwanese, maybe?. Their father was born American (I don't know what his current citizenship is, but I think it must be American or dual), their mother is Taiwanese, they grew up in Taiwan, but at least one I know of (yeah, our familes aren't close) is going to college here in America.
(I'm working on this. Although likely not nearly enough.)
A few days ago, when the passing of Arizona's recent immigration law was all over the blogs and twitter and facebook and other various realms within the internets (and, one presumes, the evening news, but I wouldn't know as I don't watch it) I noticed that my cousin, who lives in Arizona, had a status update about it. It made me smile because my cousin is a strong believer in social justice, but had to swallow a lot of that during law school and immediately after. I figured this was in part a natural outgrowth to finally standing up to some of what she hears on a daily basis from some of the people within her social circle.
It wasn't until a few days later - as I was reading discussions about who is likely to get stopped and who isn't, and how that first group is larger than many people realize or will admit (and nodding along to that last part) - that it occurred to me that my cousin was (also?) being a mama bear. Her husband is biracial (Hawaiian and caucasian) and so their 6 month old son is as well. K's spouse is hardly the most likely person to be stopped and asked for his papers, but there is a lot higher risk of him being stopped than there is of her or myself being stopped.
It's not like thischanged my views on the law - I knew it was wrong and racist and unjust to begin with - but it did suddenly change from being about people that I respect in the abstract to people that I care deeply about on a very personal level. At that makes a difference in how we prioritize things.
I do this a lot. I get into to discussions about the rights of and stereotypes about various groups of people and forget that I'm not just talking in the abstract, but also about K's new family. Or my Mexican born cousin by marriage and his kids - my three first cousins once removed - who are consequently biracial.* Or about my Taiwanese-American** cousins. And it's really weird to me and it's WRONG and I want it to stop.
But I also know the only way for that to happen is for me to work at and stop myself from doing it as best I can.
*I'm not entirely certain how the experience of being biracial generally plays out for people that identify as Hispanic, as Hispanics are more widely considered to be a diverse culture made up of various races and origins (at least among the people I know), but I use the term biracial here to acknowledge that, like many biracial individuals, my young cousins will spend much of their life dealing with people who assume that they are either "All-American" OR Hispanic rather than considering that they are both.
**It would be more accurate to call them American-Taiwanese, maybe?. Their father was born American (I don't know what his current citizenship is, but I think it must be American or dual), their mother is Taiwanese, they grew up in Taiwan, but at least one I know of (yeah, our familes aren't close) is going to college here in America.