The Conversation Grinds To A Halt

Feb 17, 2009 16:12

Melissa McEwan has a post up on Shakesville that goes more into detail on the subject I was talking about in the comments of the previous post about the domestic violence murder in Buffalo.

The whole post is worth reading, but I'd like to excerpt the end:

Patriarchal religion of any stripe is merely a symptom of that global menace. And using it as a scapegoat, or suggesting somehow that if the religion itself were eradicated it would take gendered violence with it, effectively provides an excuse for not looking the source dead in the eyes. It's a handy way of absolving oneself of any responsibility, too-it's just that religion; there's nothing I can do about it except hate that religion.

I suppose that's what the blame game's all about, isn't it? Never having to look too closely at how very much your own environment resembles that of a man like Muzzammil Hassan, lest you feel obliged to lift a teaspoon rather than simply point a finger.

Unfortunately, there will always be people who want to take the easy way out. For example, I found this post via a trackback on the CNN article, from a blog called UrbanGrounds which entirely misses the post and says

Now…back to Ms. McEwan, who doesn’t think the fact that Hassan... is Muslim has anything to do with him cutting his wife’s head off.

Way to illustrate her point.

But here's where we come to mine. I'm not making this post simply to regurgitate this story or hash the issue to death. He goes on to say:

Typical idiot Liberal blathering - let’s not blame the guy who actually cut his wife’s head off. Let’s find some other evil “system” to blame. It’s the Liberal mantra - everybody is a victim.

Did anybody who went and read Ms. McEwan's post come away thinking she's portrayed the man as the victim? Did anybody get the idea that by labeling Patriarchy as a material cause of the crime, she was excusing him?

Here's a real problem, when people are talking about the dynamics of privilege and oppression and, yes, blame: people don't like blame. They don't like getting it on them. They don't like the possibility of getting it on them. When the Pigeons of It's All Your Fault are all roosting comfortably in the same tree, it's easy to not stand underneath it. But when they take wing and they're flying around up in the air, everybody starts getting afraid that they're going to end up underneath the flock when it's time to unload.

This horrible crime has a single culprit. This is true. He is responsible for his actions. This is true. On a micro/local level, he takes the blame.

But it didn't happen in a vacuum.

The folks who are ridiculing the idea that "Patriarchy" had anything to do with this know that it didn't, which is why they're quick to tie the whole thing to the Muslim identity. If it's THOSE FOLKS' fault, it's not OURS, you see?

Nobody wants to get the blame on them.

And this makes it awfully hard for there to be any public conversation about the root causes of things, which is unfortunate. There's all kinds of discussions going on on feminist blogs and in feminist LJ communities and in feminist circles about this sort of thing, but when someone like the UrbanGrounds blogger stumbles across it, their first and last thought is "AIN'T MY FAULT, CAN'T BLAME IT ON ME." If somebody reaches out to try to engage with them and asks them to understand their privilege and how they've benefited from it, they hear "SO YOU SEE, IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT. YOU'RE GOING TO BE BLAMED EVERY TIME A MAN BEATS HIS WIFE. WHENEVER SOME GANG MEMBER GETS ARRESTED AND HIS DEFENSE LAWYER SAYS SOCIETY FAILED THIS YOUNG MAN, THE LAWYER WILL BE TALKING ABOUT YOU AND EVERYBODY WILL KNOW IT."

Often, these are people who grew up with a positive association for the word "privilege". "You've earned certain privileges." "Rank Hath Its Privileges "We're entitled to certain privileges." "It's a privileged life." If they were privileged enough to have a decent upbringing, they were taught that privilege and responsibility goes hand in hand... which may only make them touchier about the idea that their privilege is something that needs examining.

The conversation stops before it begins.

This happens all too often.

Certainly too often for a public conversation, a public consciousness-raising, to happen.

A lot of feminist sites will point out--rightly--that it's not their job to educate the privileged and that people need to educate themselves a bit before they jump into a discussion on serious topics. It can also be said that it's not the duty of the oppressed to tiptoe around the feelings of the oppressors... i.e., we shouldn't have to censor ourselves for fear of making men feel like they're coming under assault for being male.

Even taking that as pure truth, though, we're still left with a problem: how do we have a public conversation about the greater causes of anti-woman violence (or, for that matter, racially motivated violence) in this environment?

A feminist will raise a point, somebody will raise a counter, we all cry "BINGO!" and go back to our corners. A lot of talking goes on. The conversation... the public conversation... grinds to a halt, which is unfortunate, because a realization of privilege really needs to be the beginning of a discussion, not the end.

I don't necessarily think that trying to engage with the UrbanGrounds blogger would be worth it. He seems pretty well invested in his view of feminists and liberals and similar heathens to be convinced that there's anything to talk about. I also don't think that a blogger on a site like Shakesville needs to thinking about what somebody like him's going to think when he stumbles across one of her posts.

But he represents an extreme permutation of a prevalent point of view, that any talk of Patriarchy and privilege and what is going on in society that leads to a crime is an attempt to absolve criminals of their personal responsibility and assign it to a nebulous us to which they belong.

This is why we can't talk about reparations for slavery: "slavery was horrible, but it ain't my fault". This is why we can't talk about Patriarchy: "Some women have a rough time, but it ain't my fault". This is why it's so hard to do anything for the unemployed and the uninsured and the homeless: "I'm really sorry for their situation, but it ain't my fault".

So... acknowledging that the whole world's got bigger problems to worry about than how privileged folks feel when called on their privilege... what are some ways of educating about and illustrating the concept of privilege without provoking this sort of reaction? Has anybody here ever had a "lightbulb" moment on this one, where something either clicked for you on the subject or where you saw it click for somebody else?

murder victims, domestic violence, violence against women, shakesville

Previous post Next post
Up