sees fire
Oh, Internet.
It used to be good. I thought it was good, because I didn't really know better (although I knew enough to use a pseudonym, because I am a woman of colour and I was young), and I thought you really listened. I thought we were the same.
Then you started behaving hurtfully. I suspected it was my fault, my lack of education or my colonized mindset or any number of things I've been raised to feel ashamed about, but I had to face the facts.
You were full of people who saw me as shallow, or nothing, or lacking "good faith". And I decided it was getting too hard to be with you anymore.
You see, I couldn't just decide not to have a conversation about race anymore, because it follows me home. My race issues ARE my home. Other people can pick them up when they want to look at something shiny, something exotic tasty foreign bright colourful strange exciting; they toss them around, try them on. Start to explain them to me and find different names for them, like classism and learning experience.
And then they get confused that those race issues, shiny, aren't also malleable submissive accepting pliant silent cowed controllable; they drop them, scowling, and complain that I should have warned them they might get pricked, especially as they were so well-meaning in their actions.
Well, I say, maybe you shouldn't touch things before you learn about them or know how to treat them with respect.
The funny thing is, I ended up making more friends than anything else from this fight. Because I was finally able to see that I *wasn't* alone in feeling the way I did, and even though some white "progressives" will panic and act poorly when they think they're being accused of racism, actual white allies will not. They will stick around and apologize if they've hurt me, and they won't pretend that they're the Only Brave Ones who Speak The Truth, and they'll make a real undeniable *effort* to own their privilege and not co-opt spaces in discussions that aren't about them.
I realized that how pseudonymous people act on the internet to each other is an excellent marker of their good conscience.
And the whole *other* set of friends I met? They're not golden-skinned, not exactly, but their hearts and minds are a different matter. They, like me, go home with their race issues and live them and love them and know that for all the pain there, our complex intersecting dark light in-between loud proud strong wounded eloquent issues were also a place of comfort and pleasure and beauty. When they say things I'm unsure about, I don't assume they missed something; I assume I have something to learn. I've read their joys and their laughter and found that they understand the cathartic power of mocking the wilfully ignorant, because this is (one of the many) coping strategies that chromatic people have developed, valid even if outsiders don't understand. I found that there was an entire new vocabulary opening up to me, words that felt round and sour-salt and soft in my mouth, nestling in my cheek and throat to wait until the time I'd need them.
I didn't realize how many people would listen to me speak and offer me love.
I don't make modest proposals (because I have never seen anybody appropriate Swift and do it properly).
And I would never dream of telling anybody to "let it drop" when what "it" is ... is themselves.
My good conscience is intact, because it stands in companionship with all of you. The people allowed into my space have been supportive and investigative and witty and wise, and I cherish that because I know, now, the value of safe space. As well as the value of maintaining a voice no matter what, and the way a community can hold you up when you feel all slumpy and disillusioned.
I tend to wryness more than to sentiment, dear ones, but I cannot help but feel as though this is a gorgeous moment, right here. We're having conversations. We're going to keep having them. There's a whole big internet out here for us to finally talk.
This is my voice: maggie, brown and soft and sour-salt.
I want to hear yours, now and for the longest while.
follow-up, and why i decided not to reply to comments here
It used to be good. I thought it was good, because I didn't really know better (although I knew enough to use a pseudonym, because I am a woman of colour and I was young), and I thought you really listened. I thought we were the same.
Then you started behaving hurtfully. I suspected it was my fault, my lack of education or my colonized mindset or any number of things I've been raised to feel ashamed about, but I had to face the facts.
You were full of people who saw me as shallow, or nothing, or lacking "good faith". And I decided it was getting too hard to be with you anymore.
You see, I couldn't just decide not to have a conversation about race anymore, because it follows me home. My race issues ARE my home. Other people can pick them up when they want to look at something shiny, something exotic tasty foreign bright colourful strange exciting; they toss them around, try them on. Start to explain them to me and find different names for them, like classism and learning experience.
And then they get confused that those race issues, shiny, aren't also malleable submissive accepting pliant silent cowed controllable; they drop them, scowling, and complain that I should have warned them they might get pricked, especially as they were so well-meaning in their actions.
Well, I say, maybe you shouldn't touch things before you learn about them or know how to treat them with respect.
The funny thing is, I ended up making more friends than anything else from this fight. Because I was finally able to see that I *wasn't* alone in feeling the way I did, and even though some white "progressives" will panic and act poorly when they think they're being accused of racism, actual white allies will not. They will stick around and apologize if they've hurt me, and they won't pretend that they're the Only Brave Ones who Speak The Truth, and they'll make a real undeniable *effort* to own their privilege and not co-opt spaces in discussions that aren't about them.
I realized that how pseudonymous people act on the internet to each other is an excellent marker of their good conscience.
And the whole *other* set of friends I met? They're not golden-skinned, not exactly, but their hearts and minds are a different matter. They, like me, go home with their race issues and live them and love them and know that for all the pain there, our complex intersecting dark light in-between loud proud strong wounded eloquent issues were also a place of comfort and pleasure and beauty. When they say things I'm unsure about, I don't assume they missed something; I assume I have something to learn. I've read their joys and their laughter and found that they understand the cathartic power of mocking the wilfully ignorant, because this is (one of the many) coping strategies that chromatic people have developed, valid even if outsiders don't understand. I found that there was an entire new vocabulary opening up to me, words that felt round and sour-salt and soft in my mouth, nestling in my cheek and throat to wait until the time I'd need them.
I didn't realize how many people would listen to me speak and offer me love.
I don't make modest proposals (because I have never seen anybody appropriate Swift and do it properly).
And I would never dream of telling anybody to "let it drop" when what "it" is ... is themselves.
My good conscience is intact, because it stands in companionship with all of you. The people allowed into my space have been supportive and investigative and witty and wise, and I cherish that because I know, now, the value of safe space. As well as the value of maintaining a voice no matter what, and the way a community can hold you up when you feel all slumpy and disillusioned.
I tend to wryness more than to sentiment, dear ones, but I cannot help but feel as though this is a gorgeous moment, right here. We're having conversations. We're going to keep having them. There's a whole big internet out here for us to finally talk.
This is my voice: maggie, brown and soft and sour-salt.
I want to hear yours, now and for the longest while.
follow-up, and why i decided not to reply to comments here