Racial Microaggressions

[kelkyag]

Signal boosting: Racial Microaggressions.

I know I'm much more aware of equivalents with respect to gender and religion, and will try to be more attentive to such things in general. By all means call me on it ...

Comments

[golden_meliades]

When I lived in Ottawa, I was in a black neighbourhood. I had a female friend who came over and was paranoid about locking the car door, jittering about how my neighbourhood was such a 'bad' one. I was blank...didn't know why she thought I lived in a bad neighbourhood. She actually lived in a much worse one...more theft and so on and bars over the windows of all the stores, none of which happened in my own neighbourhood. (Well it happens everywhere, but I mean it was more of a problem in HER neighbourhood than mine.) So in retrospect I guess the constant present of non-white people made her think it was a bad/dangerous neighbourhood?

All the same, there's always two sides. So now a white person is racist if they ask someone where they grew up/come from? Don't we ask that of EVERYONE? Don't people of all races do that, in every country?

Personally I think Caucasians are in a Catch-22 situation, too. There is no way we CAN'T act racist. We are white, and will therefore be seen as such. If you ask questions, you're racist. If you don't ask, you're PRETENDING you're not racist/just trying to look good.

I'll just keep staying home. I'm not actually a human being anyway, I'm a tree.

[golden_meliades]

Presence, not present.

[nuclearpolymer]

See, this is exactly the problem. Many of these micro-issues can sound like perfectly innocent or normal things to say. But, they do not have the same implications coming from a person in the majority group to a person in the minority group.

My parents are from overseas. Many times, I meet a white person in the US who asks "Where are you from?". When I say "I grew up in Ohio" or "I was born in Minnesota" they will then ask "No, but where are you FROM?". Obviously, they are not asking this question in the same way that they would ask it to a white person they are meeting, and they are expressing an assumption that a non-white looking person cannot be FROM the US.

If I say "I grew up in Ohio" and then they say "Oh, I'm from Kentucky" or "Huh, what's it like in Ohio?" then I'm unlikely to feel insulted. But, if they keep asking "No, but where are you FROM?" or "No, but where is your family from?", then yeah, I'm going to feel micro-insulted.

This is similar to how if someone who is a peer/friend says "Oh, what are you doing this weekend?" it is just conversation, but if a creepy older boss guy who has been making comments about "Why don't you ever wear short skirts?" and sitting too close asks the exact same thing, it is creepy and harassing. Being the female, I am burdened by worrying about this sort of thing. Being a nice, non-creepy guy, some of my friends are also burdened by worrying about not coming across as a harasser. Well, tough luck for us both---but them complaining about how much of a burden it is for them doesn't make it not a burden for me, either.

[golden_meliades]

Sure, but is saying 'It's tough when I try to say hello to a girl at the bus stop, and she looks at me like I'm a rapist,' mean that he's saying that women have no right or reason to be cautious? Or is it just that he's saying that he has his own role, too, and it's not comfortable or fair *either*? Everyone needs to be able to express their own feelings on how an issue affects them.

As a white female who equally dislikes every race, including her own, I just feel like saying 'You know, it kind of sucks to be white. It's not like I *chose* it.' (I'd have chosen 'tree' anyway.)

[kelkyag]

Or is it just that he's saying that he has his own role, too, and it's not comfortable or fair *either*?

It's not comfortable or fair for him, either, but he's comparing his worry about being looked at funny with her worry about being assaulted and raped. They are both real possibilities, but one of them is vastly worse than the other, and bringing it up rejection as if it's just as bad as rape trivializes rape. That's especially problematic when it's brought up forcefully in a forum intended for the discussion of rape or rape prevention -- which happens dismayingly often.

At least around here, it sucks less to be white. Being aware of that and not making it worse seems to me like a better path than being oblivious.

But being a tree sounds pretty tempting at times, too. :)

[golden_meliades]

There's no comparison, there, just a statement of situation. But I'm done, because honestly...tree. I really DON'T leave my house any more than I am forced to do and I plan to keep that up until I die. I just don't like being a person, or with people. They all (ALL) make things too complicated, both where there is harm and where there is none.

Part 1

[eredien]

You don't have to be a person or think of yourself as a person if you don't want to, but it's not like non-humans don't have their own problems.

Or is it just that he's saying that he has his own role, too, and it's not comfortable or fair *either*? Everyone needs to be able to express their own feelings on how an issue affects them.

I agree that everyone needs to be able to express their own feelings on how an issue affects them, and that's exactly what's happening here. But why and how those feelings are expressed is vitally important. Let's take the issue here (rape):

The man in this example expresses his feelings on how rape affects him by saying, "but all men are not rapists. Why do women always think all men are out to rape them?" In that expression of feelings, he:
- admits his ignorance. He doesn't know why many women think men are going to rape them.
- questions womens' judgement. "All men are not rapists" implies that "some men are not rapists," but "some men are not rapists" does not imply "I am not a rapist." There's an implication that women should be able to tell from a glance that Good Guy X is not a rapist. But that's simply not the case (if people could tell who was a rapist and who was not a rapist by looking at or talking to them, we'd have a lot fewer rapes).

Part 2

[eredien]

By expressing his feelings, he's asked a question and answered it himself (Q: "why are women often afraid of men? Why do they think we will rape them?" A: "Women are more likely to be raped by men, and can't tell which men are and aren't rapists"). But he can't see that he's answered his own question because he is not actually looking for the answer to the question "why are women afraid that men will rape them?"

If he were interested, he would realize that he'd already answered it. Or if he didn't quite get the answer on his own, he can go look up the answer on the internet, in books, or maybe even on the headlines of the magazines at the grocery checkout line "(the problem of rape!" "why women need to learn self-defense!" etc.)

The woman in this example, on the other hand, is speaking directly from her knowledge of the problem when she speaks about her feelings. She, too, has the answers--"men often rape women. I can't tell a rapist from a non-rapist. Rape victims are often blamed for their rapes, told that they had to do something to encourage it. Do I want to encourage Good Guy X? He's cute, and maybe I'd like to date him. But he's a stranger to me. Is Good Guy X at the bus stop a Good Guy? Or is he a rapist? How am I going to calculate those odds? By looking at what he does and says. What is he doing? Checking me out at the bus stop, and then asking me out. Here is what I know about Good Guy X: he thinks I'm beautiful and probably wants to sleep with me, and he is hitting on me without knowing my name. Good Guy X might be a Good Guy, but what he's doing is definitely making me feel uncomfortable and like a sex-object. I'm going to turn him down."

The man in this example, who got turned down and is hurt because of that, expresses his understanding of the situation by saying that he was hurt. Why was he hurt? Because he was ignorant of the knowledge that the woman has about rape.

The woman in this example, who turned the man down and might be hurt that she might have passed up on a genuinely Good Guy because of that, expresses her understanding of the situation by saying that she was hurt. Why was she hurt? Because she has no choice but to possess the knowledge she does about rape; she cannot be ignorant.

The man has the ability to learn what the woman knows about rape, but instead of learning it, he has decided not to learn it. The woman she does not have the ability to not learn about rape it in the first place; in fact our culture believes that it's the woman's "job" to learn about rape in order to defend herself from it.

The man knows that he can figure out what the woman knows, but doesn't have to learn it (a choice that a women really cannot make in this society). That's having privilege. In this case, bus stop Good Guy X has chosen not to learn what women have to learn. That's using your privilege as an excuse for ignorance. Then, when placed in a situation where a little knowledge of the rape fears of women is the one thing that would affect the outcome of a situation, he finds that he cannot draw on the knowledge that he does not have, and then uses his own lack of knowledge as an excuse to call women ignorant and pass judgment on women as a whole. That's using your privilege to hurt other people, as well as yourself.

Why "as well as yourself?" The entire situation would probably be tilted in the man's favor if he took it upon himself to learn about why women in this culture have no choice but to know about rape and men are able, culturally, to be ignorant about rape. But as long as he's bought into the idea that it's ok for men to be ignorant about rape he's never going to be able to tilt that situation into his own favor. (And, to the extent that women help perpetuate that idea, they too are hurting everyone).

Part 3

[eredien]

The better choice would be to think, "well, it's unfair when women look at me like I'm going to rape them, because I'm not that kind of a guy. Why do women look at me that way? Because they're afraid of being raped by men. Why are they afraid of being raped by men? Because a lot of men rape women. Why don't women automatically know I'm a man who's not a rapist? Because you can't automatically tell a man who's a rapist from a man who's not a rapist. How do women tell rapist men from non-rapist men? The non-rapist men show that they respect and care about women, in part by educating themselves about rape and taking responsibility to avoid raping women. How can I show women that I personally am not a rapist? By acting with respect toward women, educating myself about rape, and making sure to avoid raping women. Gee, I bet that when men educate themselves more about rape and their own responsibility to prevent rape, fewer men will be rapists, so women won't be so scared of being raped by men, and if women are less scared of being raped by men they will be more receptive to the idea that most men are good people who respect women."

But instead of that, bus stop example Great Guy X is saying, "it's unfair when women look at me like I'm going to rape them, because I'm not that kind of a guy. Why do women look at me that way? Women should be able to tell that I'm the kind of guy that respects women. Women who can't tell that I'm the kind of guy who respects women are ignorant idiots." Of course, that's not really respect for women at all. Also, failing to correct his own admitted ignorance about women also shows lack of respect for himself ("I'm too stupid to learn this stuff; It's too hard for me to understand") and women ("This isn't important. This is never going to be a problem for me. It's not manly to learn about this stuff.")

Disclaimers: Yes, any person of any gender can be raped by any other person of any gender. However, most rapes are done by men to women, hence the gendered nature of these comments.

This also applies to many other forms of prejudice and discrimination, not in the particulars so much as the general ideas of what privilege is.

[eredien]

You don't have to be a person or think of yourself as a person if you don't want to, but it's not like non-humans don't have their own problems.

I wanted to expand on this a little.

One of the problems that non-humans have with living in a human world is the problem of having to live in a human world.

You may not like it, and you don't have to like it (I myself often find it either bemusedly baffling, or saddeningly outrageous), but I think it is to one's advantage as a non-human person to learn how to live with humans, since you are living in a human-created world.

I find that if you learn how to live with humans, they will be better at accepting that you are not human and learning from your non-human perspective.

Also, I found my life was happier. Here's why:

Part of learning to live with humans in a human world is learning to respect and care about humans, and part of that is learning to respect and care about human problems, even if they are not your problems, and doing what you can to allieviate those problems.

Just like part of learning to live in a multicultural, multireligious, multilingual, multi-gendered world is learning to respect and care about those cultures, religions, languages, and genders, and part of respecting and caring about those things is learning what problems they face, and doing what you can to allieviate those problems.

I find that I am not living in a body and in a culture that I would call my "own," and would not have chosen for myself, but I can learn to alleviate the pain of those problems by recognizing:
- I am not the only one who has ever faced the idea that humans in this world are often not very nice to each other and to other creatures or ways of life. Humans often face this problem, daily.
- Therefore, my own non-human way of life and thinking, as well as various human ways of life and thinking, are all at stake as long as I do not confront the problems and divisiveness that humans have created in this world. These human problems really do affect me.
- What do humans think are some of the major problems about humanity that need to be solved?
- How are humans already working to solve these problems?
- How can I help them?

And then, as a non-human, you are obligated to ask yourself:
- Are there problems that non-humans have created in the world?
- What are non-human people doing to solve these problems?
- How can I help them?

I think that's one of the special responsibilities of non-human people that humans can't do: recognize and work to fix the problems that non-humans have created in the world. I think that one of those problems is the idea that "the existance of self-proclaimed non-human people is itself a problem that humanity needs to fix."

[desireearmfeldt]

The thing I worry about as white-person-worrying-about-inadvertent-racism is usually the opposite situation: treating everyone like I assume they have the same background as I do and not inquiring or acting with knowledge of their actual background.

(There is a question I'd like to ask about your experience from the other side of this, but I am not articulating it well in my head at the moment.)

[kelkyag]

Yes, this. I trip over it often enough with religion (being agnostic and not raised christian) that I have to assume I'm making similar assumptions about things I never think of.

[eredien]

I think a good place to start educating yourself about racism is through reading some books, and also I've found reading Ta-Nehisi Coates' blog to be really useful.

Also, there are a bunch of resources if you go google "unpacking the invisible knapsack."

[nuclearpolymer]

For work, I have to ask all visitors whether they are US citizens so I can register them correctly. If I have a group of visitors, I make sure that I send the email to the entire group saying "Please tell me if you are a US Citizen or not". I do not assume that all the white people are citizens, and just ask the non-white people. I also do not send everyone individual emails about this, unless I say "I need to ask every visitor..." because I don't want the non-white people to think that I am assuming that they are foreigners.

But...I also include a line on my resume: "US citizen". This is because if I don't say this, it is likely that someone along the way will assume that I am not eligible for a security clearance, and may just decide to not interview me. It took me a little while to catch onto this trick.

[kirisutogomen]

I've certainly been asked "Where are you from?" followed by a "No, but where are you FROM?" and I'm a member of every privileged class there is.

[marcusmarcusrc]

Hah. I was just asked this today, in almost those words - in my context, though, it meant "no, not the city you just flew in from, but rather where you did your grad school work".

Also, i felt the first example given in this linked webpage was actually an example of something that might have been innocent: if you come in and need to rebalance weight in a room (which, is, admittedly weird), you choose the people who are sitting furthest back, regardless of their color. It seems to me that if the white guys had sat behind the speaker, they would have been asked to move back. So this particular example is, in my mind, a perfect example of being over-sensitive. Now, one could argue that in a world where some people were once asked to the move to the back of the bus due to their color, it would be appropriate to respect that by making an effort to avoid anything which might have the appearance of a repeat of such an action... but that's stretching it, in my opinion.

-Marcus