Inspired by asim...
Click to viewAnd asim also has more HERE. WJH often makes you think. And I'm glad he's here to do so.
Key moment in his post...
The irrational part saw a white guy Dominating me -- and I'm someone who knows from Domination -- and reacted not with strength, but with passivity. Reacted with the instinct, not even a thought, that, if I make a scene, I'm going to be the one in trouble, no matter what the reality is. Reacted with the reality of growing up in South Carolina, in a town with a school that banned my race from dating the race in power, with a family that grew up in conditions that were Even Worse, and raised me to be ultra-aware of my skin color in, oftentimes, a very negative and disheartening way. Not that the people around me were, at times, much help; the downside to going to Parochial schools is that they have, shall we say, some Parochial attitudes amongst students and staff alike.
"Don't fight," the black male quickly learns. To fight is to prove to the Dominate culture that you are the savage they think you are already. It proves that you're no better than the Black Panthers, or Malcolm X, and that you don't love America, you just want to destroy it. To fight, to show anger, to be resentful of you status in this country, simply says to many people that you're a Traitor, and that they can ignore your views. Communists are angry too, you see.
In short -- it's OK for Bill Cosby to be angry at Black people. But how dare he criticize the culture we all live in for racism? The laws prove we're not racist anymore!
I know of this feeling. In fact, if you have truly known me for any length of time, you can and have seen it in practice. And now you know a bit of why.
If you pardon me for a moment, I'm going to use those words as a semi-related launching pad to talk about the 2 key points of discussing race/racism and something I shared with bookofmirrors just yesterday.
A while back an LJ friend of mine and I had a series of offline discussions on the subject. The last of these included the statement that (and I'm paraphrasing). "You weren't saying that I do this, you were saying 'This stuff happens.'" And that's a large part of where our discussions on race go off the rails. While no group of people is monolith in their opinion, when looking at issues of race and racism, white people tend to view it as an individual thing and black people tend to view it as institutional (yes, it's a contradiction - but many truths are contradictions...work with me here). This means that when the issue of racism comes up, both "sides" get frustrated because they think they are having the same conversation when they are having 2 different conversations that are so closely related that they seem to be the same. It's a situation where Person A and Person B keep talking around and around *AT* each other, each feeling defensive because one feels accused and one feels like they aren't being listened to.
For myself, unless I'm talking about an individual act someone has committed, I am always referencing racism as institutional concept. This means, I'm not accusing you of anything. I am telling you that this stuff happens and that you should be aware of it. Why? Because if you do stumble and fall into that state, you can catch yourself and if it's not you and it's someone else, you can call them on their crap. When the veil it's removed it makes it harder to hide.
And that leads me to the other major thing...
A moment is not an eternity.
I tell everyone that doing something racist, sexist or homophobic doesn't make you ANY of those things.
It means you did something racist, sexist and homophobic. It MAY be a reflection of your soul, but I and or anyone else "listening" may not be privy to that, but we were and are privy to the thing you did. And we can talk about that.
And in the end, what makes someone ANY of these things is an unwillingness to listen, learn or change and a consistent pattern of behavior. Or to seek validation of those racist, sexist and homophobic behaviors so that you don't have to change. When that stuff is embedded deep in your soul and you have no urge to do any moral or ethical housekeeping.
Example: I'm a guy, I know I've done sexist things and I will do so in the future. I do guy things. Some of which aren't cool. I don't know all the things that aren't cool, but when I learn a new one, I make sure to learn from it try to not do it anymore.* None of my female friends would label me as sexist (at least I hope none of them would) because I listen, I adapt, I learn and I don't try to validate my behavior.
That moment is not my eternity.
Whenever you discuss something of such emotional volatility (and it doesn't have to be race), you need to give yourself the "freedom to be wrong." To put your foot in your mouth and be willing to face up when you do. Giving yourself that freedom means that you can called on something without taking it personally, without having to "validate" yourself.
To quote bookofmirrors, it is about "having bad moments, apologizing and learning from them, and moving on in a better direction."
The trick is to separate wanting to "be right" from wanting to "get it right." They aren't the same thing, but we tend to make them so in our heads.
When you start with that footing, it's easier to get moving on the rest, and the discussions while emotionally impactful, are less hostile.
I close with this...
Just something light and airy to think about on a Sunday morning.
/soapbox
Peace,
-O. (aka popfiend)
*FYI - stopping a behavior to avoid confrontation IS NOT learning. That avoidance. Learning is understanding why what you said may have caused offense and resolving that that offense will no longer be made by you. Just sayin'.