Unpacking "points for trying."
Whenever I'm thinking through something that requires me to step back from the perspectives I automatically and most comfortably occupy, putting it into words helps me fix it in my mind. So this post is the first of what could be a series of posts in which I sort out my thoughts and experiences related to racism and white privilege. And because I'm me, I'm already thinking of these as "white kid self-improvement hour." Whenever I make one of these posts, I'm going to try and kick it off with one or more links to other people talking about racism and white privilege that I've found eye-opening. Most of these are links I'm likely to have gotten to from rydra_wong's archive of RaceFail '09 links.
coffeeandink's hysterically, skeweringly accurate guide for white people on how to suppress discussions of racism.
The Unapologetic Mexican's glosario of terms he uses in his blog. The Wite-Magik attacks are dead bulls-eyes.
I was one of a medium-sized handful of Jewish kids at an elite, private college prep school for girls.* Somewhere in the middle of high school, I had a conversation with a member of the kitchen staff I was friendly with about Passover -- when it happened, the basic dietary restrictions, etc. Some months later, Passover rolls around, and I walk into that cafeteria and the staff-person comes up to me and tells me happily that they'd remembered Passover this year and they'd adjusted the menu especially for us.
For lunch that day, they'd laid out a bagel bar. Bagels are hametz. None of the kids who were keeping kosher l'pesach could eat them.
It was a ridiculously ironic mistake, but at the time, I was touched by the fact that they'd thought about Passover at all and made an effort to include us. That effort failed completely, but I still gave them points for trying.
Now, years later, I'm thinking about why I gave them points, and the answer is: it was easy for me to do so, because their mistake did me no harm. This was lunch at a private girl's school, a three-table buffet -- there were bound to be some things I could eat, even if the selection wasn't great. If I really struck out one day, I just knew to pack a lunch the rest. And bagels, while a stereotype, are a pretty harmless one. So I was no worse off for their having made the attempt (most of the meals were based on pasta or bread or whatever), and while the ignorance was par for the course, their good intentions made both them and me feel good.
I've been present for a number of incidents where white people made an effort to include or represent people of color, failed in some way, and then were stung and angry when the people of color they'd extended a hand to didn't give them any points for trying. After all, they'd made the effort, hadn't they? Wasn't any effort at thoughtfulness logically better than no effort at all?
When it comes to trying, and failing, not to re-enact racism? Frequently, no, it isn't.
Here's the thing. As I said, my response could be to give points for trying because I experienced no harm as the result of the mistake. But when we, as white people, try and fail to act in ways that are racially inclusive, we don't simply fail to help -- many times, our attempt at inclusion effectively erases or silences people of color, or invokes painful and damaging stereotypes. How many times have we seen (or been) a white person turning the topic to hip-hop because there was a black person in the conversation? Or hanging up "diverse cultural materials" that were designed by white people and reflected white myths about the traditions, symbols, and values of non-white cultures? Or holding a dialogue on diversity and then moderating it by the white dominant culture's rules for appropriate discourse, where emotional intensity is a sign that someone is out of control, where unrestricted back-and-forth between participants is chaotic and aggressive, and where it's assumed that people who do not move quickly to answer a question greeted by silence don't have anything they want to say in response?
These are racist actions, and as such, they are harmful whether or not they were benignly meant. From our perspective, we acted positively in making an effort and believe it is reasonable and polite for us to want that effort to be recognized and rewarded. From another perspective, we just smiled and tossed a bucket of icewater in somebody's face, and now we want a hug and an endorsement for providing such a refreshing change.
This tension between conflicting perspectives came up a lot at the residential treatment center where I used to work.* A central part of the treatment there was that for the girls we worked with to unlearn dysfunctional behaviors and learn adaptive ones, their actions needed to be followed by appropriate consequences. This meant rewarding positive behaviors and (to skip the therapeutic nuance and jargon) punishing negative ones. Thing was, the girls didn't always share our perspectives on which actions went in which category. Which meant that when they destroyed a roommate's possession in an outburst of anger, then tried to make amends by replacing it with something they stole from someone else, we would have difficult conversations about how we understood that they'd been trying to make up for action #1, but we weren't going to let them off the hook for good intentions because action #2 had still been stealing.
We can expect points for trying in kindergarten, in tests with partial credit, in voluntarily aiding people suffering medical crises. When we attempt to correct general racism by taking specific actions that are racist, we should not expect anyone to give us points. When a person of color says, "I am not giving you points for good intentions because the action you want points for harmed me," we need to learn their statement is not an attack on us. The guilt, hurt, and defensiveness we feel at having points withheld is a natural consequence of having our expectations not met, of having harmed someone else and been called out for it. Those emotions do not mean we are now the victims, and we are only compounding our first failure if we move to take the victim's role.
I don't know what the best thing to do is when we make those mistakes. Some kinds of failure I'm really good at -- I trip all the time, so I have gotten really good at last-minute recovery. Like a lot of white people, I tend to shy away from taking actions that I believe will be racially charged, mistaking avoidance for neutrality. In other words, I haven't fallen over this particular step enough times to get good at it. The best I know how to do right now is to listen when I'm called out, to try and curb my desire to defend myself, to listen, and then to say, sincerely, "I'm sorry. That was a mistake, and I hurt you, whether I meant to or not, and I'll own that. What would be the best thing for me to do now?"
Maybe that's a good response, maybe it isn't, but I'm using it for now on the hope that, if there's something better I should be doing, the person I ask after screwing up might be willing to tell me.
* Longer story for another time.
coffeeandink's hysterically, skeweringly accurate guide for white people on how to suppress discussions of racism.
The Unapologetic Mexican's glosario of terms he uses in his blog. The Wite-Magik attacks are dead bulls-eyes.
I was one of a medium-sized handful of Jewish kids at an elite, private college prep school for girls.* Somewhere in the middle of high school, I had a conversation with a member of the kitchen staff I was friendly with about Passover -- when it happened, the basic dietary restrictions, etc. Some months later, Passover rolls around, and I walk into that cafeteria and the staff-person comes up to me and tells me happily that they'd remembered Passover this year and they'd adjusted the menu especially for us.
For lunch that day, they'd laid out a bagel bar. Bagels are hametz. None of the kids who were keeping kosher l'pesach could eat them.
It was a ridiculously ironic mistake, but at the time, I was touched by the fact that they'd thought about Passover at all and made an effort to include us. That effort failed completely, but I still gave them points for trying.
Now, years later, I'm thinking about why I gave them points, and the answer is: it was easy for me to do so, because their mistake did me no harm. This was lunch at a private girl's school, a three-table buffet -- there were bound to be some things I could eat, even if the selection wasn't great. If I really struck out one day, I just knew to pack a lunch the rest. And bagels, while a stereotype, are a pretty harmless one. So I was no worse off for their having made the attempt (most of the meals were based on pasta or bread or whatever), and while the ignorance was par for the course, their good intentions made both them and me feel good.
I've been present for a number of incidents where white people made an effort to include or represent people of color, failed in some way, and then were stung and angry when the people of color they'd extended a hand to didn't give them any points for trying. After all, they'd made the effort, hadn't they? Wasn't any effort at thoughtfulness logically better than no effort at all?
When it comes to trying, and failing, not to re-enact racism? Frequently, no, it isn't.
Here's the thing. As I said, my response could be to give points for trying because I experienced no harm as the result of the mistake. But when we, as white people, try and fail to act in ways that are racially inclusive, we don't simply fail to help -- many times, our attempt at inclusion effectively erases or silences people of color, or invokes painful and damaging stereotypes. How many times have we seen (or been) a white person turning the topic to hip-hop because there was a black person in the conversation? Or hanging up "diverse cultural materials" that were designed by white people and reflected white myths about the traditions, symbols, and values of non-white cultures? Or holding a dialogue on diversity and then moderating it by the white dominant culture's rules for appropriate discourse, where emotional intensity is a sign that someone is out of control, where unrestricted back-and-forth between participants is chaotic and aggressive, and where it's assumed that people who do not move quickly to answer a question greeted by silence don't have anything they want to say in response?
These are racist actions, and as such, they are harmful whether or not they were benignly meant. From our perspective, we acted positively in making an effort and believe it is reasonable and polite for us to want that effort to be recognized and rewarded. From another perspective, we just smiled and tossed a bucket of icewater in somebody's face, and now we want a hug and an endorsement for providing such a refreshing change.
This tension between conflicting perspectives came up a lot at the residential treatment center where I used to work.* A central part of the treatment there was that for the girls we worked with to unlearn dysfunctional behaviors and learn adaptive ones, their actions needed to be followed by appropriate consequences. This meant rewarding positive behaviors and (to skip the therapeutic nuance and jargon) punishing negative ones. Thing was, the girls didn't always share our perspectives on which actions went in which category. Which meant that when they destroyed a roommate's possession in an outburst of anger, then tried to make amends by replacing it with something they stole from someone else, we would have difficult conversations about how we understood that they'd been trying to make up for action #1, but we weren't going to let them off the hook for good intentions because action #2 had still been stealing.
We can expect points for trying in kindergarten, in tests with partial credit, in voluntarily aiding people suffering medical crises. When we attempt to correct general racism by taking specific actions that are racist, we should not expect anyone to give us points. When a person of color says, "I am not giving you points for good intentions because the action you want points for harmed me," we need to learn their statement is not an attack on us. The guilt, hurt, and defensiveness we feel at having points withheld is a natural consequence of having our expectations not met, of having harmed someone else and been called out for it. Those emotions do not mean we are now the victims, and we are only compounding our first failure if we move to take the victim's role.
I don't know what the best thing to do is when we make those mistakes. Some kinds of failure I'm really good at -- I trip all the time, so I have gotten really good at last-minute recovery. Like a lot of white people, I tend to shy away from taking actions that I believe will be racially charged, mistaking avoidance for neutrality. In other words, I haven't fallen over this particular step enough times to get good at it. The best I know how to do right now is to listen when I'm called out, to try and curb my desire to defend myself, to listen, and then to say, sincerely, "I'm sorry. That was a mistake, and I hurt you, whether I meant to or not, and I'll own that. What would be the best thing for me to do now?"
Maybe that's a good response, maybe it isn't, but I'm using it for now on the hope that, if there's something better I should be doing, the person I ask after screwing up might be willing to tell me.
* Longer story for another time.