Tag: reality

Privilege, Blackface, and the Burden of Education

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(This post is coming as a result of a debate on a listserv of which I’m a member)
The first reaction to a claim of “that’s racist” or “that’s fucked up” or anything in that vein should not be kneejerk defensiveness + “I AM NOT RACIST” + “LOOK AT ALL MY MINORITY FRIENDS.” In instances where someone is calling us out, we need to listen before trying to defend ourselves. 
No, blackface is not an homage, even if the wearer intended it as such. Blackface and any other cultural appropriation can be deeply offensive, even under the guise or art and political commentary. Have any of you heard the “We’re a culture, not a costume” poster campaign? If not, you should check it out. A poster on Autostraddle summed it up pretty well:  “The problem with racially insensitive Halloween costumes: While people who dress up as racial stereotypes might be able to take the disguise off the day after Halloween, people who are minorities can’t. And the resonance of everything from a geisha to a terrorist stereotype persists long after the end of October.”
Another interesting discussion? This video from The View. It’s interesting because two folks “of the group being discussed” don’t agree on the matter.
My takeaway points?
  • Just because some folks in a minority group are not offended does not mean that the action is suddenly okay or shouldn’t be construed as offensive to other members of that community. In this case, just because Whoopi was fine with it doesn’t discount (and shouldn’t minimize) the point that the other person was making.
  • People can be very aware and sensitive around some issues, but entirely clueless about others. Also, let’s remember that just because someone makes fucked up OR super intelligent statements doesn’t mean they are fucked up OR super intelligent across the board. For example, in the Halloween video I was totally on board with the speaker opposing Whoopi, but in this video, I’m totally on board with Whoopi and her defense of Sasha Grey.
  • Being ignorant about an action’s cultural baggage and the stereotypes that come along with it is UNDERSTANDABLE when folks come from a position of privilege where they have never had to think about that baggage. HOWEVER, that doesn’t mean the ignorance is OKAY or that it should be allowed to continue and be perpetuated. *This is an important distinction.*
  • At the same time, people with privileges shouldn’t just expect that people from oppressed groups educate them one-on-one and on-demand. This is what happens a lot, though, and it’s exhausting as fuck. For a person who’s asking to be informed about privilege, it’s just one question; for the person getting asked, it’s sometimes a constant stream of “please educate me.” And EVEN if the people come with great intentions, they need to understand that minority groups don’t have all the time/energy to educate every single person. There needs to be empathy on both sides, of course, but we need to understand how these things work so we can see where the anger comes from. There are many resources out there at our disposal. Let’s use them. Let’s also not be *afraid* to ask our friends who are part of minority groups to help us learn, but let’s understand their potential reluctance/rejection and not take it “personally.”
  • Aside from the issues around education, folks in minority communities DAILY have to deal with the systems that fuck them over. Not trying to paint this as “woe is me I’m so oppressed,” but honestly–we need to think about all the daily stressors people face around their social positions and identities so we can be more compassionate and try to understand where they’re coming from. 
Finally, here are some more resources:

Knowledge vs. Ignorance : Unhappiness vs. Bliss

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Before analyzing Sollors’ own words, I read the quotation he included by Alexis de Tocqueville—one that seemed to establish a correlation between happiness and a lack of history, heritage, and national character. This reminded me of a text I read last semester, which argued in favor of moving beyond ethnicity and/or race and instead focusing on other concepts that could bring us together as a people. At first, this seemed absurd on a practical level. How could we all abandon the things that shaped us as we grew up? How could we forget the past that brought humanity to where it is today? In addition to absurd, the very idea of moving beyond race or ethnicity seemed somewhat insulting. To move beyond our roots seemed to imply an erasure of that past which, not only molded us, but also established the hierarchies that were currently in place and accounted for most, if not all, the systems of oppression that worked against people characterized as “The Other” by some dominant group. It would effectively erase the history of inequality faced by millions and silently deny and invalidate the feelings left over from their struggles because they would “no longer be an issue.” To begin completely anew while people still had their past in their minds would be impossible. It would be too silencing, too alienating, and too complicated.

Finally, on a very personal level, I just couldn’t imagine the world without ethnicity, race, or such categories for identification and differentiation. It seems too homogeneous, too boring, too…robotic. But what if it WERE somehow possible to achieve a complete and successful erasure of our routines, prejudices, memories, etc.? Would I be willing to give up these “luxuries” in exchange for happiness? After all, isn’t that what most people say they strive to have in their lives, at least to some degree? The situation is somewhat parallel to the picture presented by the saying “ignorance is bliss.” If we were ignorant of our differences, or if they were completely nonexistent to begin with, we would be blissful and happy. However, would this last? Wouldn’t we just find new ways to build coalitions, and in so doing, separate ourselves from others? Imagining that this state of blissful ignorance could be forever maintained, how would society progress? If revolution is a means to achieve progress, if difference and dissent and argumentation are the biggest ways in which we expand our minds and our points of view, how could we keep achieving these things in a society full of happy lemmings? Isn’t a balance required? Is it possible to have a lot of ying and no yang and STILL move forward?

My mind tells me that we need contrasts—that we need the sour to balance the sweet, the sad to balance the happy—but I wonder how much of this way of thinking is informed by the way I’ve been taught to analyze such things in the first place and how I could think about them differently if I had another way to frame them. Regardless of this last train of thought, would we even NEED progress to be happy? How much would progress, scientific discovery, and all these other things matter if we were blissful? Just like a fish living in an aquarium, one that can’t dream of the sea because it doesn’t know it exists, we would be content with our lives because we wouldn’t be dreaming of the possibilities; we wouldn’t know of their existence and thus couldn’t be unhappy about our inability to reach them. I guess what this all boils down to, in simplistic terms, is a choice between happiness and uniqueness…bliss and diversity, and all the things that go along with those two concepts.