A few thoughts on the latest round of White Guilt discussions

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I think that came off as snarky.  Let me restate it:

Apparently, I have offended some people here recently.  I am unsure whether or not I have actually been more crass than usual.  I'm pretty sure I haven't.  But the fact remains that I have offended people I respect, and I DO try to avoid repeating mistakes.  So I'm gonna tone it down a bit.

Problem is, as the man said, "If I send away my devils then my angels may go, too".  Thing is, I'm pretty sure all I HAVE is devils, one on either shoulder.  One is named "Bad", and the other is named "Worse".  Each of them has a big mallet, and they hit me upside the head when I see something that's laugh-worthy, or DUMB, or inhuman, or whatever.  It is this continuous trauma to the skull that makes me pour out the horrible.

Either I've changed or other people have changed or maybe both.  The gags I find funny are offensive and not funny to other people.  But they're the only gags I know.  I'm some sort of horrible anachronism that wanders around laughing at all the wrong things and at all the wrong jokes.  I've always known this, but I never thought I was coming off as basically Lester Maddox talking about "niggers".  Needless to say, this is very upsetting, and I don't mean "I am mad at the person that pointed this out", I mean "I am upset with my own behavior, and at not having seen what is apparently plain as day to other people."

That being said, since I cannot trust my own judgement as to what is funny and what is offensive, I'm going to have to stop laughing.  My sincerest apologies to anyone I may have offended in this manner.

I think you're blowing things out of proportion a bit, honestly. It's really just that we've had this conversation before, and perhaps you're thinking something like "Why is she taking offense again? I've already said that I don't mean her" and I'm thinking "Why is he generalizing about that again? I've already told him that it's hard not to take it personally even when he tells me he doesn't mean me" and the fact is, no matter how many times you state that you don't mean me, it's still going to be hard not to take it personally when you make disparaging comments about something I identify with, whether it's activism, feminism, health science, or any other aspect of my personal identity.

Like we talked about in text earlier, it's a bit similar to your reaction to Pixie saying what she did about privileged white boys needing a good slap. She meant a particular person, but inadvertently included you and LMNO in her statement. I think it would be pretty hypocritical of me to say something to her about that, but not say anything when you do the same thing.

Maybe it isn't that you shouldn't joke anymore, but that I'm too serious to enjoy being here anymore. I think that jokes that generalize can be funny, but that just didn't register as a joke.

That said, I accept and appreciate your apology. I'm not mad, at all, and I hope you have no hard feelings either.

No hard feelings?  Of course not. 

Sincerely,
George Wallace

I have no idea what that means.

Some guy that ran for president in 1972, on the Nazi screwhead ticket.

Because that is apparently what I am.  If I disagree or yank on someone's chain, I am the next Lester Maddox, or Bull Daley or something.  I spent the entire day in my office, sick to my stomach that anyone - you particularly - would think that of me.  On the other hand, I had the refreshing experience of a panic attack, which I haven't had in 2.5 years, so I guess it wasn't a total wash.  It's like hitting yourself in the junk with a hammer.  It feels so good when it stops.

Then I realized that the comparison was ridiculous and unfair, a false equivalence that would rate a 10 if you'd gone straight for the Hitler reference.  I also realized that it was an unbelievably shitty thing to say.  It hurt, and it was meant to hurt.

Was it wrong for me to haul on Garbo's chain like that?  Absolutely.

Was it wrong for you to say what you said?  Damn right it was.

Am I angry?  No.  I'm not sure what I am.

It wasn't a comparison, it was an analogy, and the analogy, being an analogy, was not meant to be a direct comparison, but rather, something much stronger, so as to make the connection with why making shitty generalizations is hard not to take personally.

Okay.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I don't have the energy or the inclination to participate in this meltdown. I'm not your enemy, I'm not trying to manipulate you, I'll still be your friend when you're done, and I won't hold it against you.

And I'm still your friend.  Just a little shell-shocked, is all.

[AFK]

b) it's harder for privileged people to be good allies

The problem is in your head, not theirs.

But it occurs to me that all these conversations have ever brought me is grief, so I'll leave it at that.

No, this is a fact, Roger. 100% fact. I have to work harder, pay more attention what I say and how I say it, because I'm white and middle class. End of story. Society brought me up a specific way (which is to look down on those "below" me, and I/we don't always realize that what we're saying is asshole-ish) and I have to be more aware because of it. This goes for any privileged person. We're needed, but we kind of have to be more aware of what we're saying and doing because of it.

I don't have to work any harder, it's called not being an asshole.  Obviously if I'm an ally to a woman's cause, for example, it really doesn't take any kind of mental gymnastics to remember that I'm not a woman and that my role isn't to represent whatever the women's issue is.  It's my job to grease the wheels.  It really doesn't take much to figure that out.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Today sucked.  I'm gonna take my pills and go to bed.

G'night.

[Juana]

b) it's harder for privileged people to be good allies

The problem is in your head, not theirs.

But it occurs to me that all these conversations have ever brought me is grief, so I'll leave it at that.

No, this is a fact, Roger. 100% fact. I have to work harder, pay more attention what I say and how I say it, because I'm white and middle class. End of story. Society brought me up a specific way (which is to look down on those "below" me, and I/we don't always realize that what we're saying is asshole-ish) and I have to be more aware because of it. This goes for any privileged person. We're needed, but we kind of have to be more aware of what we're saying and doing because of it.

Yeah?  Then let's have a little perspective.  The enemy is the spouse-abuser, the crooked cop, the sexist employer, or (for a uniquely monstrous example) this guy:

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/saudi-offers-castrated-african-slave-for-sale-on-facebook/

It is not some silly-ass punk White kid in dreds, it is not the dumbfuck who THINKS he's on the team but then makes some dumb fucking comment about bisexual women being hot, the privileged yutz who doesn't know any better.  THESE people are your CONVERT POOL.  Are they ignorant?  Yes, they fucking are.  Are they TEACHABLE?  Yeah.  But you have to go out and DO it, not badmouth them.

Talking trash is easy.  Fixing shit is hard.

That is not related at all to what I said. What I said is that it's harder, not that it makes the privileged automatically the enemy or unteachable. It just means we have more bad, self-serving signal to sort through (and it's harder for humans to get rid of what serves them, isn't it?) and it's difficult to write over those lessons we got growing up that we were Better Than Them. It can be done. It just takes a lot of effort.

b) it's harder for privileged people to be good allies

The problem is in your head, not theirs.

But it occurs to me that all these conversations have ever brought me is grief, so I'll leave it at that.

No, this is a fact, Roger. 100% fact. I have to work harder, pay more attention what I say and how I say it, because I'm white and middle class. End of story. Society brought me up a specific way (which is to look down on those "below" me, and I/we don't always realize that what we're saying is asshole-ish) and I have to be more aware because of it. This goes for any privileged person. We're needed, but we kind of have to be more aware of what we're saying and doing because of it.

I don't have to work any harder, it's called not being an asshole.  Obviously if I'm an ally to a woman's cause, for example, it really doesn't take any kind of mental gymnastics to remember that I'm not a woman and that my role isn't to represent whatever the women's issue is.  It's my job to grease the wheels.  It really doesn't take much to figure that out.

b) it's harder for privileged people to be good allies

The problem is in your head, not theirs.

But it occurs to me that all these conversations have ever brought me is grief, so I'll leave it at that.

No, this is a fact, Roger. 100% fact. I have to work harder, pay more attention what I say and how I say it, because I'm white and middle class. End of story. Society brought me up a specific way (which is to look down on those "below" me, and I/we don't always realize that what we're saying is asshole-ish) and I have to be more aware because of it. This goes for any privileged person. We're needed, but we kind of have to be more aware of what we're saying and doing because of it.

I don't have to work any harder, it's called not being an asshole.  Obviously if I'm an ally to a woman's cause, for example, it really doesn't take any kind of mental gymnastics to remember that I'm not a woman and that my role isn't to represent whatever the women's issue is.  It's my job to grease the wheels.  It really doesn't take much to figure that out.

Yes, yes you do have to work harder. There are things that privileged people were brought up to think of as normal and natural and are in fact symptoms of privilege and asshole moves all around - things we don't even connect to bigotry. And don't lie; you fuck up sometimes, even when you're trying not to be an asshole. I know I do ocassionally and I work fucking hard on this.

You are totally misconstruing what I said.

Am I?  Please clarify.

See, it might be a coincidence of timing, but recently what I'm hearing from you and Pixie is how everyone's doin' it wrong.

And if it shows here, it sure as hell shows in meatspace, and that's not going to accomplish much other than to reinforce stereotypes in the po'bucker set.

In Pix's case, I believe she's talking about *one* person in particular. I was expressing frustration with a certain kind of behavior that, yes, a lot of people do. But not everyone and it wasn't meant to tar everyone who calls themselves an ally with the same icky brush.

When's the last time anyone had anything GOOD to say about their fellow activists?

I rarely participate in actual activism (ocassional letters or phone calls, or donating what I can when I can; mostly I just stick to on the ground stuff), but me. I can link you to a couple people. They aren't perfect, of course, but a) don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, b) it's harder for privileged people to be good allies (we don't always see the issues as clearly or realize exactly how much of an asshole we're being, even when we're trying not to. This isn't a defect in us, it's a defect in a society that HAS privileged groups, and as little as we might like it, there's a limit to how much control we have over our cell).

Uh, no, that's wrong.  In fact, I would argue, you NEED some "privileged" people as allies, particularly "privileged" people who have sway, power, connections to help move the needle.  I can think of movements to get poor veterans better access to services, if they didn't have "privileged" allies they wouldn't get anywhere.  Someone needs to have that extra bit of muscle to get legislators to move.

No where in my post did I EVER say allies weren't needed. Never, ever have I said that, in fact.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Today sucked.  I'm gonna take my pills and go to bed.

G'night.

Good night. Hope things are better tomorrow.

[AFK]

Yes, yes you do have to work harder. There are things that privileged people were brought up to think of as normal and natural and are in fact symptoms of privilege and asshole moves all around - things we don't even connect to bigotry.

Like what?  Be more specific.

And don't lie; you fuck up sometimes, even when you're trying not to be an asshole. I know I do ocassionally and I work fucking hard on.

Uh, no, like I said if you aren't a self-absorbed asshole it isn't very difficult at all.  Maybe I'm special or something, but I think many people who get involved in causes, and are really committed to change, tend to have that clarity of thought.

No where in my post did I EVER say allies weren't needed. Never, ever have I said that, in fact.

No, you said "privileged" people couldn't be good allies, but you are horribly wrong about that.  They are VITAL allies for the reasons I outlined.  If you actually want to make change, you absolutely need people with some kind of power, pull, or sway.  It is EXTREMELY, rare that you are going to move anything just with pure activism, with just people taking to the streets.  At the end of the day, there still needs to be some politiking, and so you need to have "privileged" peole at your sight.  Those are VERY good allies.

[Juana]

Stereotypes. Quiet little assumptions about what sort of people the underprivilveged are and why they're that way. What kind of people custom breakers are (promisicous women are bad people, people who have different values than the "mainstream" are bad/not as good as us), etc. Watch the way white women act around black men sometimes, see how many of them clutch their purses or switch shoulders to keep the purse away. If you were to ask them if they were racist, they'd probably say no and that they actively fight against it.They just don't realize they're doing it.

It's more complicated than that. They're hidden biases you don't necessarily think about (like the purse clutching). It takes active effort to pay attention to things like whether or not a privilege holding person is making eye contact or how they talk to the other person (I don't mean tone, necessarily, I mean mistakes and word choice. They change, depending on the type of under privileged person they're speaking to.).
Go take a couple of implicit association tests. I doubt you'll come out with no biases showing (everyone does, pretty much).

No, I didn't. I said it was harder because it takes a lot of work to weed out those things. Stop putting words in my mouth, please.

[AFK]

But it isn't harder, at all, because as an ally they don't have the same role.  Again, if you want your cause to actually result in change, you need people who have power, connections, sway, etc., and those people are usually going to be people who have what you would call privilege.

[Epimetheus]

It seems like RWHN is talking about an ally as a promoter of a cause in practical/logistical terms ("the muscle of the operation"), whereas Garbo is talking about an ally as a person who truly understands the cause, and subsequently works to improve themselves and their behavior based on that understanding.

Both are people working to forward the cause, but each definition of ally has different conditions.

[East Coast Hustle]

b) it's harder for privileged people to be good allies

The problem is in your head, not theirs.

But it occurs to me that all these conversations have ever brought me is grief, so I'll leave it at that.

No, this is a fact, Roger. 100% fact. I have to work harder, pay more attention what I say and how I say it, because I'm white and middle class. End of story. Society brought me up a specific way (which is to look down on those "below" me, and I/we don't always realize that what we're saying is asshole-ish) and I have to be more aware because of it. This goes for any privileged person. We're needed, but we kind of have to be more aware of what we're saying and doing because of it.

Yeah?  Then let's have a little perspective.  The enemy is the spouse-abuser, the crooked cop, the sexist employer, or (for a uniquely monstrous example) this guy:

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/saudi-offers-castrated-african-slave-for-sale-on-facebook/

It is not some silly-ass punk White kid in dreds, it is not the dumbfuck who THINKS he's on the team but then makes some dumb fucking comment about bisexual women being hot, the privileged yutz who doesn't know any better.  THESE people are your CONVERT POOL.  Are they ignorant?  Yes, they fucking are.  Are they TEACHABLE?  Yeah.  But you have to go out and DO it, not badmouth them.

Talking trash is easy.  Fixing shit is hard.

Post of the thread right there.

[East Coast Hustle]

b) it's harder for privileged people to be good allies

The problem is in your head, not theirs.

But it occurs to me that all these conversations have ever brought me is grief, so I'll leave it at that.

No, this is a fact, Roger. 100% fact. I have to work harder, pay more attention what I say and how I say it, because I'm white and middle class. End of story. Society brought me up a specific way (which is to look down on those "below" me, and I/we don't always realize that what we're saying is asshole-ish) and I have to be more aware because of it. This goes for any privileged person. We're needed, but we kind of have to be more aware of what we're saying and doing because of it.

Yeah?  Then let's have a little perspective.  The enemy is the spouse-abuser, the crooked cop, the sexist employer, or (for a uniquely monstrous example) this guy:

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/saudi-offers-castrated-african-slave-for-sale-on-facebook/

It is not some silly-ass punk White kid in dreds, it is not the dumbfuck who THINKS he's on the team but then makes some dumb fucking comment about bisexual women being hot, the privileged yutz who doesn't know any better.  THESE people are your CONVERT POOL.  Are they ignorant?  Yes, they fucking are.  Are they TEACHABLE?  Yeah.  But you have to go out and DO it, not badmouth them.

Talking trash is easy.  Fixing shit is hard.

That is not related at all to what I said. What I said is that it's harder, not that it makes the privileged automatically the enemy or unteachable. It just means we have more bad, self-serving signal to sort through (and it's harder for humans to get rid of what serves them, isn't it?) and it's difficult to write over those lessons we got growing up that we were Better Than Them. It can be done. It just takes a lot of effort.

b) it's harder for privileged people to be good allies

The problem is in your head, not theirs.

But it occurs to me that all these conversations have ever brought me is grief, so I'll leave it at that.

No, this is a fact, Roger. 100% fact. I have to work harder, pay more attention what I say and how I say it, because I'm white and middle class. End of story. Society brought me up a specific way (which is to look down on those "below" me, and I/we don't always realize that what we're saying is asshole-ish) and I have to be more aware because of it. This goes for any privileged person. We're needed, but we kind of have to be more aware of what we're saying and doing because of it.

I don't have to work any harder, it's called not being an asshole.  Obviously if I'm an ally to a woman's cause, for example, it really doesn't take any kind of mental gymnastics to remember that I'm not a woman and that my role isn't to represent whatever the women's issue is.  It's my job to grease the wheels.  It really doesn't take much to figure that out.

b) it's harder for privileged people to be good allies

The problem is in your head, not theirs.

But it occurs to me that all these conversations have ever brought me is grief, so I'll leave it at that.

No, this is a fact, Roger. 100% fact. I have to work harder, pay more attention what I say and how I say it, because I'm white and middle class. End of story. Society brought me up a specific way (which is to look down on those "below" me, and I/we don't always realize that what we're saying is asshole-ish) and I have to be more aware because of it. This goes for any privileged person. We're needed, but we kind of have to be more aware of what we're saying and doing because of it.

I don't have to work any harder, it's called not being an asshole.  Obviously if I'm an ally to a woman's cause, for example, it really doesn't take any kind of mental gymnastics to remember that I'm not a woman and that my role isn't to represent whatever the women's issue is.  It's my job to grease the wheels.  It really doesn't take much to figure that out.

Yes, yes you do have to work harder. There are things that privileged people were brought up to think of as normal and natural and are in fact symptoms of privilege and asshole moves all around - things we don't even connect to bigotry. And don't lie; you fuck up sometimes, even when you're trying not to be an asshole. I know I do ocassionally and I work fucking hard on this.

You are totally misconstruing what I said.

Am I?  Please clarify.

See, it might be a coincidence of timing, but recently what I'm hearing from you and Pixie is how everyone's doin' it wrong.

And if it shows here, it sure as hell shows in meatspace, and that's not going to accomplish much other than to reinforce stereotypes in the po'bucker set.

In Pix's case, I believe she's talking about *one* person in particular. I was expressing frustration with a certain kind of behavior that, yes, a lot of people do. But not everyone and it wasn't meant to tar everyone who calls themselves an ally with the same icky brush.

When's the last time anyone had anything GOOD to say about their fellow activists?

I rarely participate in actual activism (ocassional letters or phone calls, or donating what I can when I can; mostly I just stick to on the ground stuff), but me. I can link you to a couple people. They aren't perfect, of course, but a) don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, b) it's harder for privileged people to be good allies (we don't always see the issues as clearly or realize exactly how much of an asshole we're being, even when we're trying not to. This isn't a defect in us, it's a defect in a society that HAS privileged groups, and as little as we might like it, there's a limit to how much control we have over our cell).

Uh, no, that's wrong.  In fact, I would argue, you NEED some "privileged" people as allies, particularly "privileged" people who have sway, power, connections to help move the needle.  I can think of movements to get poor veterans better access to services, if they didn't have "privileged" allies they wouldn't get anywhere.  Someone needs to have that extra bit of muscle to get legislators to move.

No where in my post did I EVER say allies weren't needed. Never, ever have I said that, in fact.

You're speaking for an awful lot of people about something that you should really limit to speaking for yourself. I'll thank you not to tell me that I have to make a concerted effort to not be an inadvertent bigot or asshole.

[Aucoq]

Go take a couple of implicit association tests.

Well, it turns out I have a preference for Other People over Arab Muslims (I'll have to warn the people who go to my mosque that they scare me, lol).  But the good news is I got "Your data suggest little to no automatic preference between African American and European American."  Oh, and apparently I think Native Americans are foreigners even though they're... Native... Americans...

[AFK]

It seems like RWHN is talking about an ally as a promoter of a cause in practical/logistical terms ("the muscle of the operation"), whereas Garbo is talking about an ally as a person who truly understands the cause, and subsequently works to improve themselves and their behavior based on that understanding.

Both are people working to forward the cause, but each definition of ally has different conditions.

Eh, but I don't think they are mutually exclusive or distinct.  Someone can be the muscle AND still have an in depth knowledge andunderstanding of the cause, they will certainly be more effective of they do.  They maybe haven't LIVED it, but you don't have to have LIVED it to be an effective advocate, which is what we are really talking about here.  That's what an advocate is, an ally, and they are almost always going to be someone of "privilege".

[AFK]

Go take a couple of implicit association tests.

Well, it turns out I have a preference for Other People over Arab Muslims (I'll have to warn the people who go to my mosque that they scare me, lol).  But the good news is I got "Your data suggest little to no automatic preference between African American and European American."  Oh, and apparently I think Native Americans are foreigners even though they're... Native... Americans...

This simply means you are a seal.