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Some miscommunications in a discussion of race/racism
I've stayed out of recent debates about race and gender on the internet— I've read most of the relevant material/discussions, but have not posted anything. I mentioned some reasons in a previous post, which basically boil down to "I've been doing research on rape all year and I kind of can't handle talking about misogyny/racism/homophobia/etc right now."
Recently two people I know here on LJ started a discussion about race. This discussion bothered me a lot. Feelings were hurt on both sides. Also, from what I can tell, both sides were earnestly trying to communicate their points. I'm trying to understand where the miscommunication happened, because I'm convinced there's a lot of it in here. There was some hand-wringing about whether I wanted to jump into the fray or not, but I'm not sure how to work through such issues except by having discussions. So here's a try.
I decided to post this in my own journal rather than attempting to comment in either of the participants' journals. This is in part because I expect this to get long, and in part because I am hesitant to invade either of their spaces. Likewise, if you first heard of this discussion here and wouldn't normally engage with these people, please don't bother any of the participants about it on their journals. Part of this discussion is no longer viewable, as the post (which gave a lot of context and valuable information on the participant's position, both in the post itself and in the comments) was friends-locked after its initially public posting. Also, I admit outright that I am trying to read some intent here. If the actual parties involved want to correct me on any such interpretations, I really hope they do.
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bottle_of_shine posted her responses to a meme asking about books you've recently read by minority authors. A couple of people, including kenderlyn [here] and shanaqui [here] brought up some good points about the meme. Both were concerned about judging books based on the colour of the author's skin; both were concerned that categorization such as the one employed in the meme may be divisive or promote simplistic views of race/identity. (All terms from the meme: female, African or African-American, Latino/a, Asian or Asian-American, GLBT, Israeli/Arab/Turk/Persian, 'any other "marginalized" authors'). Likewise, both were concerned that this meme was urging people to read for activism, not for fun; that there was something inferior about reading a book for fun.
I think both of these are valid concerns. I do admit I am somewhat suspicious of the meme's wording, since it does seem to focus more on skin colour than cultural upbringing and other major identity factors.kenderlyn was concerned that reading a book simply because it is by a minority author can be seen as patronizing to the author, because they're being read for their skin colour, not their skill as a writer or the strength of their ideas and imagination. shanaqui expressed similar concerns, saying that the meme does not appear to be concerned with content; that reading books that address issues like race, human rights, and sexism is important and valuable.
shanaqui also expressed concern that focusing on non-white groups as different made them more different and excluded.
shanaqui makes repeated attempts to explain the situation in Wales (some of which are no longer publicly available); she (as far as I can tell) earnestly tries to educate her interlocutors about the situation so she can explain why she is is using it as an example for her concerns. The gist of it, as I gather from her explanations, is that Welsh-English relations have historically been quite hostile, that the English oppressed the Welsh for a long time, and that the Welsh have resented the English for this. Today, however, the Welsh no longer seem to be oppressed and are actually the recipients of many beneficiary programs. Yet, many Welsh people hold onto the grudge and still make a lot of noise about English oppression, and this is divisive and unhelpful to current Welsh-English relations. I would also like to point out that shanaqui elsewhere mentioned that there are still highly unsavoury stereotypes against the Welsh in England.
She wraps up her example like so: "But I worry that all this focus on ~diversity~ means that people will actually forget unity." Later on she says: "I'm not saying diversity is a bad thing, I'm saying it is over-emphasised, because the way to get over racism is not to stick people in a box and say You Are Different."
I think this is a valid point. Race is a social construct, and the more we use it to label people, the more discussions we have that divide people along racial lines, the more we reinforce the reality of this social construct. However, this is a damn powerful social construct, with centuries of grief and history behind it. Right now, we cannot pretend race away. We haven't reached that point yet. I like to believe that some day, we will. But right now, race is a reality of our social world, and we have to address it and discuss it and try to root out all the places where racism hides.
shanaqui also says: "We are all part of the same race: the human race. Our DNA is almost the same. I'm not saying this because I'm white (although I am, as you know) and privileged (although I am, as you can tell), I'm saying this because I believe everyone is equal [...] I guess what I want to say is I wish people would embrace the ways we are the same -- we are all humans, we all have emotions and imaginations, hopes and desires, all of it."
As I hope these quotes make clear,shanaqui is clearly not racist. I believe she means all of these things in earnest. And I think these are great things — acknowledging our common humanity. No one can reasonably argue with this.
However, in response to these and other statements byshanaqui, several people attempted to explain to her how her discourse was racist. Please for the love of Betsy: no one has called shanaqui a racist. What people DID try to show her is that she was using racist arguments. I think this is step one of the many misunderstandings that cascaded down this discussion. This is a very common problem. I think it's helpful here to remember that racism does not consist of individual acts of meanness. Racism is a system. When you commit racist acts, you participate in the system. When you use racist arguments or tactics, you participate in that system. I believe that it is in this sense that bottle_of_shine, jabbberwocky, and others on the now-locked post attempted to show shanaqui that she was being racist.
I think this initial misapprehension helped escalate feelings and lead to subsequent misapprehensions.shanaqui at one point admits that she is not familiar with RaceFail'09's "required reading" list (much of which she was linked to in this disucssion), but that she had seen a video that described the difference between calling someone racist and telling them they're being racist. However, once shanaqui made clear that she was not familiar with a lot of the assumed background material for this discussion, it may have been helpful of her interlocutors to make this distinction (a racist/acting racist) absolutely clear. It may have helped he subsequent discussion.
As I see it, the second major misapprehension here is about the Wales example. Everyone who engagedshanaqui in this discussion tried to tell her that this example was inappropriate. To those who have done their extensive RaceFail reading, it is probably immediately apparent why. However, I don't think anyone tried to explain to shanaqui exactly why; they only gave her links. I don't think this is unreasonable. But I think a small summary would have helped. It goes something like this: conflicts among white ethnicities are not invalid or somehow less bad than race-based conflicts. However, because the groups involved are white, they still have white privilege. And this will automatically place them and their problems above coloured people and their problems on the global pecking order. And using white-group conflict examples brings the discussion back to white people and their problems. Again. Like history consistently has done.
Now, here is what I think happened.shanaqui, in good faith, tried to use an example she is intimately familiar with and could speak about with informed confidence. She tried to relate the discussion of race to other conflicts that she is familiar with. Her interlocutors reacted to this example by calling it a derailment of the discussion.
However, after the reactions bybottle_of_shine and others, I think the impression she got was that her interlocutors believed that Wales was in no way analogous or relevant — that the issues she brought up were being dismissed.
bottle_of_shine, jabbberwocky, and others, meanwhile, were only trying to tell her that, while her experiences are valid and address real problems, the way she used them was not helpful in a discussion of race. Not that Wales is not one example of oppression, but that it is an example of a different KIND of oppression. In important ways, Wales cannot be compared to racism, and invoking such white-group conflicts is a widespread tactic used by white people in discussions of racism. Such examples, as a whole — as part of a system — rather than clarifying the issues, tend to obfuscate them— and bring the discussion back to white people and their problems.
It is not thatshanaqui's example of Wales can never be a good example of oppression; can never be helpful, relevant, or informative. It was certainly informative; I learned a lot from shanaqui's explanations. I think this issue lies at the heart of a lot of hurt feelings. No one, to my knowledge, was trying to dismiss shanaqui's example and experiences. And shanaqui, likewise, was earnestly attempting to use her experiences to provide examples and help her understand the issues in the discussion, and explain the issues she saw to her interlocutors.
But let me bring this back to an important point that seems to have been lost in the fray. Even thoughshanaqui's example of Wales was a good example in some ways, it was still a racist tactic because it participates in the system of racism. Let me try to spell this out. It is not that every individual use of white-group conflicts as an example/analogy to race-based conflicts is automatically invalid, or a bad example. It is that every time white people use such examples in discussions of race, they are participating in a system that makes more white voices heard than non-white. These individual people, people like shanaqui, are probably not racist. But they are contributing to racism.
There were a lot of other issues brought up in these discussions, including being colour-blind, structural inequalities in the publishing industry, reading for fun, etc. And there were misunderstandings on those issues, too. But this post is already long, and I mostly wanted to address what I saw as the main miscommunications in this discussion.
So.
shanaqui tried, in good faith, to use examples she was familiar with to engage in a discussion about race. Her interlocutors told her that her example was derailing the discussion. I think shanaqui should have read the links provided her before engaging in further discussion. I also think her interlocutors should have stopped to think about why they weren't getting through to her before continuing to engage her. But everyone runs out of teaspoons eventually. I read this as an unfortunate instance of enough explanation to hurt feelings but not enough to change minds, because everyone was tired of explaining things to everyone else.
I'm writing about this because I think it's important to think about when/why attempts to have discussions about race fail, among friends, among intelligent, non-racist people.
Recently two people I know here on LJ started a discussion about race. This discussion bothered me a lot. Feelings were hurt on both sides. Also, from what I can tell, both sides were earnestly trying to communicate their points. I'm trying to understand where the miscommunication happened, because I'm convinced there's a lot of it in here. There was some hand-wringing about whether I wanted to jump into the fray or not, but I'm not sure how to work through such issues except by having discussions. So here's a try.
I decided to post this in my own journal rather than attempting to comment in either of the participants' journals. This is in part because I expect this to get long, and in part because I am hesitant to invade either of their spaces. Likewise, if you first heard of this discussion here and wouldn't normally engage with these people, please don't bother any of the participants about it on their journals. Part of this discussion is no longer viewable, as the post (which gave a lot of context and valuable information on the participant's position, both in the post itself and in the comments) was friends-locked after its initially public posting. Also, I admit outright that I am trying to read some intent here. If the actual parties involved want to correct me on any such interpretations, I really hope they do.
bottle_of_shine posted her responses to a meme asking about books you've recently read by minority authors. A couple of people, including kenderlyn [here] and shanaqui [here] brought up some good points about the meme. Both were concerned about judging books based on the colour of the author's skin; both were concerned that categorization such as the one employed in the meme may be divisive or promote simplistic views of race/identity. (All terms from the meme: female, African or African-American, Latino/a, Asian or Asian-American, GLBT, Israeli/Arab/Turk/Persian, 'any other "marginalized" authors'). Likewise, both were concerned that this meme was urging people to read for activism, not for fun; that there was something inferior about reading a book for fun.I think both of these are valid concerns. I do admit I am somewhat suspicious of the meme's wording, since it does seem to focus more on skin colour than cultural upbringing and other major identity factors.
kenderlyn was concerned that reading a book simply because it is by a minority author can be seen as patronizing to the author, because they're being read for their skin colour, not their skill as a writer or the strength of their ideas and imagination. shanaqui expressed similar concerns, saying that the meme does not appear to be concerned with content; that reading books that address issues like race, human rights, and sexism is important and valuable.shanaqui also expressed concern that focusing on non-white groups as different made them more different and excluded.It's hard, though. I think that sometimes people focus too much on a certain ethnic group not being properly represented, and that just makes them more clearly not a part of everyone else. But if you ignore them, and there is institutional racism or sexism or whatever, then it gets worse too, in a different way.To illustrate this, she used the example of Welsh-English relations.
shanaqui makes repeated attempts to explain the situation in Wales (some of which are no longer publicly available); she (as far as I can tell) earnestly tries to educate her interlocutors about the situation so she can explain why she is is using it as an example for her concerns. The gist of it, as I gather from her explanations, is that Welsh-English relations have historically been quite hostile, that the English oppressed the Welsh for a long time, and that the Welsh have resented the English for this. Today, however, the Welsh no longer seem to be oppressed and are actually the recipients of many beneficiary programs. Yet, many Welsh people hold onto the grudge and still make a lot of noise about English oppression, and this is divisive and unhelpful to current Welsh-English relations. I would also like to point out that shanaqui elsewhere mentioned that there are still highly unsavoury stereotypes against the Welsh in England.She wraps up her example like so: "But I worry that all this focus on ~diversity~ means that people will actually forget unity." Later on she says: "I'm not saying diversity is a bad thing, I'm saying it is over-emphasised, because the way to get over racism is not to stick people in a box and say You Are Different."
I think this is a valid point. Race is a social construct, and the more we use it to label people, the more discussions we have that divide people along racial lines, the more we reinforce the reality of this social construct. However, this is a damn powerful social construct, with centuries of grief and history behind it. Right now, we cannot pretend race away. We haven't reached that point yet. I like to believe that some day, we will. But right now, race is a reality of our social world, and we have to address it and discuss it and try to root out all the places where racism hides.
shanaqui also says: "We are all part of the same race: the human race. Our DNA is almost the same. I'm not saying this because I'm white (although I am, as you know) and privileged (although I am, as you can tell), I'm saying this because I believe everyone is equal [...] I guess what I want to say is I wish people would embrace the ways we are the same -- we are all humans, we all have emotions and imaginations, hopes and desires, all of it."As I hope these quotes make clear,
shanaqui is clearly not racist. I believe she means all of these things in earnest. And I think these are great things — acknowledging our common humanity. No one can reasonably argue with this.However, in response to these and other statements by
shanaqui, several people attempted to explain to her how her discourse was racist. Please for the love of Betsy: no one has called shanaqui a racist. What people DID try to show her is that she was using racist arguments. I think this is step one of the many misunderstandings that cascaded down this discussion. This is a very common problem. I think it's helpful here to remember that racism does not consist of individual acts of meanness. Racism is a system. When you commit racist acts, you participate in the system. When you use racist arguments or tactics, you participate in that system. I believe that it is in this sense that bottle_of_shine, jabbberwocky, and others on the now-locked post attempted to show shanaqui that she was being racist.I think this initial misapprehension helped escalate feelings and lead to subsequent misapprehensions.
shanaqui at one point admits that she is not familiar with RaceFail'09's "required reading" list (much of which she was linked to in this disucssion), but that she had seen a video that described the difference between calling someone racist and telling them they're being racist. However, once shanaqui made clear that she was not familiar with a lot of the assumed background material for this discussion, it may have been helpful of her interlocutors to make this distinction (a racist/acting racist) absolutely clear. It may have helped he subsequent discussion.As I see it, the second major misapprehension here is about the Wales example. Everyone who engaged
shanaqui in this discussion tried to tell her that this example was inappropriate. To those who have done their extensive RaceFail reading, it is probably immediately apparent why. However, I don't think anyone tried to explain to shanaqui exactly why; they only gave her links. I don't think this is unreasonable. But I think a small summary would have helped. It goes something like this: conflicts among white ethnicities are not invalid or somehow less bad than race-based conflicts. However, because the groups involved are white, they still have white privilege. And this will automatically place them and their problems above coloured people and their problems on the global pecking order. And using white-group conflict examples brings the discussion back to white people and their problems. Again. Like history consistently has done.Now, here is what I think happened.
shanaqui, in good faith, tried to use an example she is intimately familiar with and could speak about with informed confidence. She tried to relate the discussion of race to other conflicts that she is familiar with. Her interlocutors reacted to this example by calling it a derailment of the discussion.However, after the reactions by
bottle_of_shine and others, I think the impression she got was that her interlocutors believed that Wales was in no way analogous or relevant — that the issues she brought up were being dismissed.bottle_of_shine, jabbberwocky, and others, meanwhile, were only trying to tell her that, while her experiences are valid and address real problems, the way she used them was not helpful in a discussion of race. Not that Wales is not one example of oppression, but that it is an example of a different KIND of oppression. In important ways, Wales cannot be compared to racism, and invoking such white-group conflicts is a widespread tactic used by white people in discussions of racism. Such examples, as a whole — as part of a system — rather than clarifying the issues, tend to obfuscate them— and bring the discussion back to white people and their problems.It is not that
shanaqui's example of Wales can never be a good example of oppression; can never be helpful, relevant, or informative. It was certainly informative; I learned a lot from shanaqui's explanations. I think this issue lies at the heart of a lot of hurt feelings. No one, to my knowledge, was trying to dismiss shanaqui's example and experiences. And shanaqui, likewise, was earnestly attempting to use her experiences to provide examples and help her understand the issues in the discussion, and explain the issues she saw to her interlocutors.But let me bring this back to an important point that seems to have been lost in the fray. Even though
shanaqui's example of Wales was a good example in some ways, it was still a racist tactic because it participates in the system of racism. Let me try to spell this out. It is not that every individual use of white-group conflicts as an example/analogy to race-based conflicts is automatically invalid, or a bad example. It is that every time white people use such examples in discussions of race, they are participating in a system that makes more white voices heard than non-white. These individual people, people like shanaqui, are probably not racist. But they are contributing to racism.There were a lot of other issues brought up in these discussions, including being colour-blind, structural inequalities in the publishing industry, reading for fun, etc. And there were misunderstandings on those issues, too. But this post is already long, and I mostly wanted to address what I saw as the main miscommunications in this discussion.
So.
shanaqui tried, in good faith, to use examples she was familiar with to engage in a discussion about race. Her interlocutors told her that her example was derailing the discussion. I think shanaqui should have read the links provided her before engaging in further discussion. I also think her interlocutors should have stopped to think about why they weren't getting through to her before continuing to engage her. But everyone runs out of teaspoons eventually. I read this as an unfortunate instance of enough explanation to hurt feelings but not enough to change minds, because everyone was tired of explaining things to everyone else.I'm writing about this because I think it's important to think about when/why attempts to have discussions about race fail, among friends, among intelligent, non-racist people.
no subject
I admit outright that I'm not nearly as familiar with the discourse on racism in Britain as I am with the American versions. Thanks again for letting me know about these different conceptions of race/racism -- it also really helps explain why it felt like everyone was talking at cross-purposes. I'm pretty sure that there must be discussions of race and racism from the British perspective, but I can't remember offhand which, if any, of the RaceFail posts are. I'll let you know if I remember/find anything like that.
I'm sorry someone did end up calling you racist. I hope I've made it clear that's uncalled-for. It's also a great way to shut down discussion, so whoever's batting that label around isn't doing any sides any favours here.
I understand you're really busy right now, and I appreciate you taking the time to come here and read and respond and try to help me understand what happened. (It's exam/essay time for me, too, of the "if I don't get this shit done I'm not graduating in two weeks" variety.) I hope when you do have time you go through the links people gave you-- they included a lot of good reading that's becoming pretty basic/standard background material for discussing race on the internet. (Of course, it gets fun when we have run-ins between people who assume a basic familiarity with these readings and people who weren't aware of such standards. Awesome.)
I know that you're a reader of SF in particular, though. That's mostly what I read, too. With that in mind, if you have time anytime soon to read just one thing, I really, really recommend that you read
Good luck on your exams and essays!
no subject
I think even within Britain, I'm expecting a bit too much of people in general. Looking at it now, I realise how different my experience is to people who I know come from areas without high populations of British Muslims. I was raised in a mixed environment: British Hindu next door, Welsh family, one of my closest friends was Turkish, the girl I spent most of my schooldays with was a British Muslim, and then, of course, there was the English. And I was raised by someone who deals with the effects of a culture clash every. single. day.
I know one of my best friends, much as I love her, has probably never spoken to a British Muslim, unless one drove her taxi or took her money in a supermarket. I... feel like my parents raised me to examine my own bias without really teaching me about how bias is ingrained in other people. For a long, long time, I was under the impression that everybody in My Enlightened Generation felt the way I did (despite evidence to the contrary re: how I was treated by the English). I feel that's translated into the way I've spoken about this, and I've expected everyone to... well, decide I'm a special snowflake.
Just an example, but. My parents never particularly stopped me from reading anything. But I do recall, on various occasions, my mum taking note of whatever book I was reading, and then asking me about it. I remember some book had a cliché stereotypical view of gypsies, which I swallowed whole. When my mum asked me about it, and I explained what I thought gypsies were like, she said, "Never say that again, ever." I'm not sure I ever did fully understand the issues of gypsies, but I knew that I did not understand.
Man, I don't even know if the "gypsies" example translates. There's a tendency to think of them as filthy, thieves, unable to keep work, sucking up resources that "normal" British people deserve more, law-breaking. There's little recognition that "gypsy" might mean some kind of subculture, it's assumed that people are simply gypsies because they're "too lazy" to be "normal".
The fun thing is that my mum does still have her assumptions -- particularly about sexuality, the English, and Americans. Which I point out to her. I do not suggest for an instant that she is a paragon of virtue!
I guess what I want to say is that if I remain true to the way I was raised, I can't really discuss race at all. My response would be to shrug my shoulders and say, no, I don't know. That doesn't leave me with room for my own opinions on the matter, which is I guess where I clash with myself. It also kind of leaves me feeling that, well, you don't know either. Your opinion, your experience, is not the be all and end all, whether you are white or not.
I think I've been trying to apply my own personal feelings to the whole debate, and it doesn't work. I can say "if everyone thought like me it'd be fine" until I'm blue in the face, but everyone won't think like me, and people don't have to think like me. It's all very well to, on a personal level, say "I don't take any account of skin colour", but a) people won't believe that because they can't see inside my head and heart, and b) they're right not to believe it because people say it and don't mean it literally.
I believe I do mean it literally, but I can't prove it, and the more I protest, the less honest it seems.
no subject
This issue is all very muddied up by my understanding of the Welsh issues, which (hopefully understandably!) seem like The Most Important In The World in my heart of hearts. I... am aware that in the past I have been what I consider to be racist against the English (one of my mother's assumptions that I originally swallowed whole). I believe I'm not that way now, but... do I have any right to ask people to believe it? I guess not. Especially not when I am being so insistent that The Welsh Have Been Oppressed. I feel like I have a naive outlook on this and although I've discussed and studied issues of race, that naivety is at the base of my response -- along with problems of definition. I wouldn't say it's ignorance, because I was made full aware that there are issues of race and inequality, although I think sometimes it looks very like it in what I say.
What I almost want to do is start again, and define what I mean by race, and define what I mean by racism. Because I (and others I've spoken to) suspect that I am operating with a broader definition of both. I'm not in the slightest bit convinced that my definition is invalid in itself, but I am sure that it is not applicable in the same way in this discussion.
Note for anyone/everyone: This is not an attempt at making excuses. Mostly, I am examining why I react/ed the way I do/did. In summary: I do not have the right to special consideration and in this discussion I am not a special snowflake, no matter what my experience is on an individual level.
...I don't think any of that answers your commment. Blargle. I hope it was interesting nonetheless. *grin*
What I do want to talk about, sometime soon, because it is on my mind, is the representation of Welsh/Celtic culture in SF. Which means I will read at least the thing you linked me to first, to get an idea of how other people feel about representation of their culture. For some people, I'm guessing it's not there at all and there are no parallels. For me, I feel it's been hijacked (and that people think that's okay). King Arthur was, after all, first a part of the Welsh tradition. The hijacking might not be modern (I'm looking at you, Geoffrey of Monmouth) but it's become so pervasive that I have trouble convincing people it exists at all. I've got a lot of thoughts on this inspired by studying the Arthurian myth as presented by Sir Thomas Malory, so hopefully I can manage this objectively and in as scholarly a manner as possible.
And now. Now I really must go. And shower, and eat breakfast, and write my essay! Mine is just "must get into second year" style importance, though.
Anyway, thank you, Ira, for trying to understand what is going on, and helping me understand what was going on, and also (I hope) being patient with this long ramble of mine.
Edit: Argh, um. I can't stop thinking about this and what I've said here/everywhere, and my brain keeps going round in circles and some things I wish I hadn't said because this is making it all about me and this issue isn't about me. I'll let it stand because I've put it out there already, but, yeah. I have been thinking all about this since Tuesday night and I keep changing my mind all the time!