“I Am Not Here To Educate You”
I have been known to utter this from time to time. Rage. RAGE! That’s usually the underlying emotion behind the utterance.
But then I remember. Not everyone is a native English speaker. Or, in my very particular case, not everyone who speaks English knows how to relate the ideas to Dutch (the language of the country where I live; or Spanish, my native language). So, when I use certain words, others might effectively not know what they mean. Then there will be many people, just like me, who were educated at a place where Gender Studies or Racial Studies or many other sub-branches of the humanities do not exist. Yes, that is right. The assumption on the Internet, especially in the Internet that takes place in the English language, is that we all share a common knowledge, a common language, so to speak. And certainly, the basis of the language might, in appearance, be common. But it might as well be a foreign dialect because so many people will not understand it. We talk about gender (and not gendered), we talk about race and privilege and we assume that everyone, by virtue of being able to understand English, will know what those words mean and know how to use them in the way that us, speakers of the Social Justice dialect do.
And then, of course, there is the lived experience.Because so much of the English language internet originates in an hegemonic place, North America, it is accepted as sort of default that these North American discourses are a) known to everyone and b) universally applicable. And we label Whiteness or “Color” from a North American perspective that is very, very specific to North American socio-cultural constructions. But that might as well be useless to explain realities someplace else. I have tried to explain before how racial constructions, perceptions and identifiers are pretty different in some countries in Europe (and more specifically, in The Netherlands, where I live), but still, I see that dominant view of what is White and what is not, will be predominantly North American. Which, OK, I know the difference. However, not everyone else will.
Source. I highly recommend reading the rest of it; it's a short piece, and saying what's been on my mind for a while now but I didn't have the words to describe/wasn't sure it was my place. Some parts of USian social justice are relevant where I live; others, such as Latin@ being considered a separate race and whom 'Asian' refers to, are not.
x-posted to ontd_feminism
But then I remember. Not everyone is a native English speaker. Or, in my very particular case, not everyone who speaks English knows how to relate the ideas to Dutch (the language of the country where I live; or Spanish, my native language). So, when I use certain words, others might effectively not know what they mean. Then there will be many people, just like me, who were educated at a place where Gender Studies or Racial Studies or many other sub-branches of the humanities do not exist. Yes, that is right. The assumption on the Internet, especially in the Internet that takes place in the English language, is that we all share a common knowledge, a common language, so to speak. And certainly, the basis of the language might, in appearance, be common. But it might as well be a foreign dialect because so many people will not understand it. We talk about gender (and not gendered), we talk about race and privilege and we assume that everyone, by virtue of being able to understand English, will know what those words mean and know how to use them in the way that us, speakers of the Social Justice dialect do.
And then, of course, there is the lived experience.Because so much of the English language internet originates in an hegemonic place, North America, it is accepted as sort of default that these North American discourses are a) known to everyone and b) universally applicable. And we label Whiteness or “Color” from a North American perspective that is very, very specific to North American socio-cultural constructions. But that might as well be useless to explain realities someplace else. I have tried to explain before how racial constructions, perceptions and identifiers are pretty different in some countries in Europe (and more specifically, in The Netherlands, where I live), but still, I see that dominant view of what is White and what is not, will be predominantly North American. Which, OK, I know the difference. However, not everyone else will.
Source. I highly recommend reading the rest of it; it's a short piece, and saying what's been on my mind for a while now but I didn't have the words to describe/wasn't sure it was my place. Some parts of USian social justice are relevant where I live; others, such as Latin@ being considered a separate race and whom 'Asian' refers to, are not.
x-posted to ontd_feminism