More fail, with blood pressure warnings.

[glass_icarus]

Oops! I thought I'd poke my head in to see if any productive conversations were being had on the RaceFail front, and instead I ran face-first into this. (First-alert credit, for me, at least, goes to luzdeestrellas.) Here's a few glimpses, with my Fail-o-meter in bolded text.

Strike one: Dismissal.

People imprint on what they know as they grow up. They can work to change that imprint, or to alter it. But growing up white in the U.S. isn't an automatic ticket to being racist.

What sets me off every time is the pity whine "You don't know what it's like to grow up (insert ethnicity here). You're white, so you don't understand my paiiiinnnnnnnn!" Yeah, whatever. Until you can understand

[airing out of laundry here, which I would empathize rather more with if not for the rest of the post]

I don't want to hear about how you've been prejudiced against all your life.

Strike two: Resentment and Dismissal (or, since when was Toni Morrison top of the "pretentious" list?).

When I was in graduate school, I took an African-American lit course. I didn't make it past the second book that we had to read, not because of the topic of the class, but because I'd bitten off more than I could chew, and the other two classes were required. The two books I did read were Ralph Ellison's The Invisible Man and Beloved by Toni Morrison. I loved the first and hated the second. Why? STORY. Ellison's book had so many shamanistic elements in it that fascinated me to no end, told in easy-to-understand prose. I loved the book. Very Taoist. Morrison's book...oy, the pain. The first 36 pages made absolutely no sense. The prose was beyond thick; it was incomprehensible. I kept reading, and fortunately the book got easier to understand from there, but by that time, I was completely turned off by the pretentiousness. What should have been a fascinating ghost story with powerful undercurrents in African-American culture became something that I rejected. Morrison talked down to me in that book, at a scholarly level. I won't read her again. I don't even care if Song of Soloman is a much better book. In Beloved, she did not respect the reader, or at least this reader. I have no time for authors who are like that.

Strike three: Not Listening and "Reverse Racism."

Straight to that stupid meme that some people feel they should post in the fall-out of RaceFail '09. I'm not going to dignify its text with a copy here. Sufficient to say, I think the post itself is bigotry. I'm not going to turn into a Pharisee, sit in the temple, and wail that I've been bad, look how bad I am, look at how evil I am, and look at me trying to be good again. Excuse me, but no.

I've been studying and working my ass off to understand cultures, and one of the things I've learned is that prejudice is prejudice. If it isn't the color of your skin, it's your accent, it's your hair, it's your social status, it's the actions of the past or the suspicion of future actions. Every culture has its prejudice, and while it's a good struggle for each individual, to mea culpa in this manner is to hand power over to those who would make you feel guilty to give themselves power. It's not a sane or safe transfer of power. No matter the wording, this meme is being used as a big stick to keep any one of a number of categories down, and I refuse to participate.

I am not beholden to anyone or anything except my conscious in the matters of prejudice. My ethics and my morals are my guidelines, and while I will not claim to be perfect, I will claim that I'm already doing my damnest. Anyone who demands proof will never be satisfied with that proof. Nothing that I can say or do, up to and including posting that ludicrous meme, will be accepted beyond a begrudging "at least she's trying." That response is vile beyond belief, and I refuse to drown in it.

Well, hey now. Your life is your business, and we've all damn well got our own baggage to deal with. That's something we have to work through on our own, and I'm certainly not looking for tea and cookies from you. But what you just did right there is what I call White Privilege, because you're trying to invalidate my baggage as an internet meme. You're speaking your piece and, you being white, everyone on the whole damn internet is hearing you talk, but when I and other PoCs and allies are telling our stories, not everyone on the whole damn internet is hearing us. And when you lock the comments to that post after people call you on what you're saying, that's called silencing, and not listening. And for the record, it's most definitely not trying.

And that's what I wanted to say, since my original response* was really quite intemperate and not phrased in a constructive manner. But hey, in the interests of fair play, I'll put up my comments, too, even though they're screened at the moment and you probably won't deign to reply anyway.

ETA of some importance: I don't know if it's better or worse that you posted that as a "research study", but... I'm done wasting words about it, since other people have expressed exactly what they, and I, think about that.

*cut for edited-down-prior-to-posting-there mini-rant:
1. Congratulations! I am a person of color. How Privileged of you to categorize this latest conversation about our hundreds of years of institutionalized pain as a "meme." I don't care how anti-racist you think you are- if nothing else, that right there? That was racist. If your reaction to people like me saying "Hey, watch it, you're hurting me and that's not cool" is "WELL WHATEVER BECAUSE LOOK AT MY PAIN OVER HERE," that tells me that you are not only failing, but also not trying, and what do you know? That's also racist. You know why? Our pain is not and will never be the same, but if a white friend of yours had said something to you about her problems, you'd be listening instead of plugging your ears.

2. I realize that you are probably not going to unscreen my previous comment, let alone reply, but the bit about listening- I'm sure you don't care about the rest- is something I would like to point out to you, in the hope that maybe a few years down the line, you'll pull it out as something to think about.

Comments

[such_heights]

Oh my god, EPIC FAIL. I keep thinking that surely the worst response to this issue has already been written, and then no. No, there's always something else, and though it's trite and a bit useless, I really hate what it's doing to you. ♥

I really cannot begin to imagine why she thinks anybody cares about how those horrible non-white fans are oppressing her -- oh, right. Her white pain trumps all, she's really taken that part of her privilege to heart. Nice.

[glass-icarus.livejournal.com]

It's amazing the way it seems like a competition for the title of Biggest Failboat, isn't it? Non-comprehension is understandable, but the "LA LA LA NOT LISTENING" part- seriously? Seriously? I'm not exactly surprised at this point, but man- you know you said something damn "special" if I got spitting mad enough to actually engage instead of leaving it to someone more eloquent than me. *g*

[kispexi2.livejournal.com]

I wonder if part of the problem is that, because they've generally been top of the pile, white people don't feel as attached to their history as PoC? Because they feel they've never been seen as a single group - despite all the misogynism, classism, ageism, fattism, homophobia etc etc. They've had just enough agency in their lives to feel they're their own creation?

The idea of feeling my ancestors' pain is alien to me. I don't really know why. Upbringing, temperament, western society? Or perhaps it's because I can't do anything about it? Then again, maybe as a member of the latest generation of a not-at-all-remarkable, working-class family, my history has been denied me?

The extended family has become less and less important in western societies. We're expected to sink or swim as individuals. And, as a result, white people's baggage has possibly become invisible to them?

I'm not sure. All I know is that, although I'm horrified by the things white folk did to PoC in the past (and still do), I can't really *own* it. To me, it's another aspect of a system that exploits by fostering divisions and uses those very divisions to justify exploitation.

I haven't read a lot of the RaceFail stuff because it seems like there's a lot of shouting and not a lot of listening in some quarters. (I know the quarters I've read are limited but it's interesting to me that people like WS, people with a bit of power/status but not a lot, are so defensive. They've got a rung or two up the ladder and are desperate to maintain that superiority. That's what I mean about our exploitative system - it sets people, who are really much alike, against one another. Tosses some folk a tinsy bone, a bone that everyone wants/needs but which the vast majority is denied. The resultant scrabbling results, IMO, in a distraction from the important question: who is all this fighting benefiting?)

I don't know if I've said half of what I wanted to say or if the words I've used convey what I really mean. But I hope it shows I'm at least listening. I haven't quite abandoned my colour blind ideal but, after our last conversation about it, I'm seeing it slightly differently.

[glass-icarus.livejournal.com]

Well, I'd say that at least part of the problem is that a lot of white folks don't want to look at their history as a group. It's pretty damn uncomfortable for them to look back at even this last century- the Holocaust, the Japanese-American internment camps, the KKK, the actions of the Republican Party propagandists for even this past election... and that's just scratching the surface in the United States. And, yes, given this whole individualistic ideal, it's pretty damn easy to get defensive and say "it wasn't me." No one likes to be associated with the "institution" of racism, and no one really likes to apologize- even when it's necessary, even when it's not in this context, because doing that means that we did something wrong, and we all would prefer to be right.

History is ugly. Whether you're white or not, there's just no way around that fact; most of it's written from the winners' point of view, after all. But the difference is that, as PoCs, we have to own it, even the parts that aren't ours as individuals; we have to swallow it whole, in order to even have a coping mechanism, because there are going to be people who hate us, who look down on us as a group, for institutionalized/ingrained reasons that have nothing to do with us as individuals, and we can never just walk away. Our ancestors' pain becomes our pain, because we're judged on the basis of everything they have been in this country and in the world, and at a certain point it becomes disrespectful to ourselves to not be aware of that.

I know that I personally am not looking for apologies or explanations; it'd be really excruciating for me to sit through that, because I know you guys aren't terrible people, and it'd be kind of silly for you to say "I'm sorry" to me when neither of us are really having an argument. I think all that most of us are asking for is that the folks currently 'Failing try to consider that, to shut up and listen, and barring that, to at least leave us to our own conversations so that we can continue to reclaim our history, and to maybe even build something beautiful out of its ashes.

[kispexi2.livejournal.com]

But the difference is that, as PoCs, we have to own it, even the parts that aren't ours as individuals; we have to swallow it whole, in order to even have a coping mechanism, because there are going to be people who hate us, who look down on us as a group, for institutionalized/ingrained reasons that have nothing to do with us as individuals, and we can never just walk away.

Yes. That makes perfect sense. And what you've been talking about just got a lot clearer.

ETA: I hope my earlier response didn't sound defensive or as if I was trying to justify WS' (or anyone else's) behaviour. I was simply trying to understand why they'd behaved as they did and, indeed, to understand in general.

[glass-icarus.livejournal.com]

Hee, no, I get that part. &hearts I keep trying to come up with rationalization behind these arguments, and all I've been ending up with is "ME >>>>> YOU, GET OVER IT."

[secretsolitaire.livejournal.com]

Oh my god, it gets worse and worse! O_o

I have contributed nothing to this discussion, which I've been reading bits and pieces of as they show up on my flist. I am just trying to listen and learn, which it sounds like some other white folks need to do rather than taking over the conversation and offending right and left!

[glass-icarus.livejournal.com]

I know! I am agog. Not surprised, but... agog.

It's totally okay not to know what to say, and I think that working through things on your own is perfectly fine. *g* Though it's always nice to see posts cropping up in support when we're confronted with all this whopping fail on the other side! White or PoC, it's a personal thing, dealing with this business, and it takes time to process, so don't feel guilty about not saying something. :)

[sheafrotherdon.livejournal.com]

Holy fuck.

You know, I keep thinking there are no new ways for people to be assholes, and then they prove me spectacularly wrong. I cannot believe the entire substance of what she said, but I PARTICULARLY cannot believe she blamed Emmett Till for his own murder.

I am speechless.

[glass-icarus.livejournal.com]

You know, I think I missed that part due to the slack-jawed incredulity- though, granted, I'm not actually aware of what happened to Emmett Till. Context?

[sheafrotherdon.livejournal.com]

And Jesus fuck, I just saw, further down the page, that she posted as she did as research for a novel:

I have a couple characters who are just as self-righteous as I came off in my OP. The reactions that you, the commenters, gave me help ENORMOUSLY in clarifying how these characters will act and react, as well as the people who will work to change them.

asdjfhlaksjhdf AGGGGGGGGGGGH. People's pain is not fair game for your dumb RESEARCH, woman!!!

I can't tell if your context question is asking for more about ET, or is aimed at her not thinking it through?

[glass-icarus.livejournal.com]

OH yeah, that. luzdeestrellas went off about that part as well, so I felt okay about not addressing it in this particular post. It was the "meme" thing, and, ironically enough given the rest of the post, the Toni Morrison bit, that tipped me over the edge and into the realm of FLAMING PISSED, DO NOT MESS.

And yes, I should clarify- I don't know about what happened to ET, I've given up on the "not thinking it through" portion for the moment. I feel the need for more information- I'd like to know his story in terms of facts, and not her "reference."

[sheafrotherdon.livejournal.com]

The most basic facts are - Emmett Till was an African-American, fourteen year old boy who went to visit relatives in Mississippi during the summer of 1955. While in a grocery store in the small town close to where his relatives lived, he interacted with a white woman - some reports say he whistled at her, some say he merely said "bye, baby" as they left the store; things are still, to this day, muddled.

What is not muddled is what happened next - Emmett was murdered by four adult, local white men who gouged out his eye, beat him, shot him, and threw him into the river attached to the fan from a cotton gin. His body was found three days later. His mother insisted on an open casket funeral so that Americans would have to confront what society had permitted, even encouraged.

There are photos of his body in that casket, but I would urge caution before googling for them. They are profoundly disturbing, and could for many, many people be triggering.

The wikipedia page on Emmett Till is well written and has numerous great links to further reading - it does contain the photo of the open casket, however, so again, beware triggering.

[glass-icarus.livejournal.com]

.............. Wow. And here I was thinking she couldn't possibly have made me more speechless. Wrong again, it seems!

[sheafrotherdon.livejournal.com]

She is staggering in her faildom.

[delux-vivens.livejournal.com]

There's also the part where the men who did it confessed in a magazine interview and... not much happened.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/till/sfeature/sf_look.html

[glass-icarus.livejournal.com]

... heh, just linked to your comment as it seems to be the relevant piece of WTF. People should know about that part if she's going to use it as "justification."

[avendya.livejournal.com]

I think Amy said it best, but OMG FAIL. Way to claim that your suffering >> everyone else's, without having a clue what anyone else has gone through. No, being white doesn't make life easy; it makes life easier than being non-white.

I think it is time for a post on RaceFail from me (and I know it is my white privilege that has let me delay this long; said post would basically consist of "if I am being racist, fucking call me on it" and "people of color, I want you to feel safe here"). I hate that it's gotten to the point where I have to make that post, but I want to make my stance very, very clear.

[glass-icarus.livejournal.com]

No, being white doesn't make life easy; it makes life easier than being non-white.-- THIS. Do they sell pills of this? Because I think that lady needs a prescription.

&hearts

[avendya.livejournal.com]

Also, did you see this (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090307.BKREAD07/TPStory/?query=guy+gavriel+kay)? (Unrelated to Racefail.) Mainly, I want to tell GGK to get with the program and enter the 21st century. He does not seem to get the blogosphere.

[glass-icarus.livejournal.com]

HAHAHAHA, OMG. GGKay, you are precious. xD "Oh no, fanwank! How shocking!" Like that was ever not an issue before the internet existed.

[whymzycal.livejournal.com]

Yikes. Some people fill me with AAAARGH. And it's really quite sad that she apparently feels the need to get defensive and fingerpointy instead of really listening to what people are saying.

[glass-icarus.livejournal.com]

Seriously, the entitlement astounds. The novel research comment was... icing on the failcake.

[whymzycal.livejournal.com]

SERIOUS failcake. With fail ice cream on the side.

And how much you want to bet that she doesn't even get how her sense of entitlement just proves how horribly misguided she really is? She's just made the opposition's point for them without even intending to.

[cinnamon-sakaki.livejournal.com]

I don't want to hear about how you've been prejudiced against all your life.

Just. There are no words. And then the added bit about 'research'? Blech. Causing people pain is NOT valid writing research or some cute little social experiment.

[glass-icarus.livejournal.com]

URGH, exactly.