Sometimes my White friends who are learning about anti-racism will get frustrated because their efforts are not always fruitful and because they continue to make mistakes. Here they are, slowly learning and examining themselves, and they say or do something with good intentions, and someone like me comes along and tells them that while the effort is appreciated, the end results are still problematic. It can be deflating and it’s common to see people throw up their hands while exclaiming that it seems they can’t do anything right.
I don’t experience these feelings or thoughts very often
anymore, and I have to remind myself that most of my White peers haven’t had
the same personal experiences nor the time committed to anti-racism principles
as I have had. This doesn’t mean I am better than any of them, it only means
that I have been doing this longer and have developed – over time and after
messing up A LOT – a different perspective on critique that comes my way
related to my White privilege.
One of the things often explained in anti-racism
writings, trainings and conversations is that we are going to make mistakes. We
are always going to make mistakes.
WE ARE ALWAYS GOING TO MAKE MISTAKES.
This is something that can be easily understood, but no
matter how well we know it intellectually, it doesn’t feel like something
inevitable when it happens. It feels terrible – at least it usually did, to me.
Knowing that I am bound to make mistakes forever doesn’t stop me from feeling
remorse when I realize – or have pointed out to me – that I have derailed a
conversation, or have made an assumption about someone or their identity, or
when I make a joke I think is funny which is offensive or hurtful to someone
else. But knowing I am bound to make mistakes forever does help me recover from
that guilt and disappointment in myself, and it does help me get back on my
feet, brush off the dust and get back on the path toward my goal: combating
racism.
There is actually some freedom in knowing I am never
going to “get this” exactly right. I don’t have to hold myself to a standard of
perfection because everyone knows I will never attain that standard anyway. So
why is it still so mortifying when I/we mess up?
We certainly have a lot of examples in the public eye
where people have made major mistakes around race, and I know no one wants to
find themselves on the front page of “Racism Times” (you know, the publication
which outs anyone who does something stupid related to race). It’s important to
distinguish between people being vilified for their initial racist action and
their response to the public outcry, though. Too often, people get defensive
rather than stepping back and examining whether there is truth to the critique
being lobbed at them. When people make the news for racist words or actions,
the story tends to drag on and on if they deny they’ve done anything wrong, or
try to explain how their actions are justified. When people admit they were fully
in the wrong and that they are going to do something to learn more and be
better, the furor tends to go away. Unfortunately, people don’t respond this
way very often.
A while back someone asked me about navigating the
“minefield” of winter holiday greetings. They were scared to offend someone by
saying the wrong thing – what if they said Merry Christmas to someone who
doesn’t celebrate it? Exactly how far down the road of developing generic
holiday greetings would we go before people realized we’re making a big deal
out of nothing?
My response was this: I don’t know about you, but the people
I know who make a big fuss about holiday greetings are the ones who celebrate
Christmas – NOT the people who don’t celebrate it. Of course, many employers,
especially in service industries, now have policies which require their
employees to use generic greetings and holiday language. Certainly, the only
reason employers and others have made the switch to more generic holiday
greetings is because some of the non-dominant groups made a fuss, and
understandably so – they weren’t being represented AT ALL. There is a
difference, however, in making a fuss because of no representation EVER, and
making a fuss because even though you are represented the majority of the time,
you are not represented every single time, by everyone.
Still – what does one do if they mess up and extend a
greeting that’s offensive to someone? Well, humility goes a long way. Instead
of getting huffy because someone corrects you, why not apologize and inquire
about more details so you can have a better understanding? Here’s a possible
exchange, and the sort of thing I have both witnessed and been involved in
myself:
Me: Merry Christmas!/Happy Holidays!
Them: Actually, I don’t celebrate Christmas/any holidays
at this time of the year. I’m not Christian/Jewish/religious.
Me: Oh, dang, I’m sorry. You know, I’ve been saying this
so long that sometimes I forget to be more inclusive in the way I speak. Gotta
keep working at it! Are there other times of the year when you celebrate something
important to you/Do you have something you celebrate that is kind of like the
equivalent to Christmas in terms of importance, or your community coming
together with a lot of fanfare?
Them: Not really, just the usual federal holidays/Yes,
I’m (insert faith) and we celebrate _____ during (month/time of year)/Well, I’m
atheist so I celebrate certain things along with my family but I don’t ascribe
to the religious aspect of the holiday . . ./Other response about their
traditions.
Me: I don’t know much about (insert holiday/faith/tradition).
What’s the significance/what does it represent/how do you celebrate it?
And so on. Humility + willingness to learn about someone
else’s way of doing things = evidence to the other person that you have room in
your life for more than your own perspective and experience. The more you
practice having this sort of response, the easier it becomes to receive
critique and the easier it is to know that the world isn’t going to end because
you flubbed again.
This post is highly interesting. You fulfill all the hallmarks of a cult leader and you prove SJWism to be a religion. SJWism has such intense parallels with Christianity. Of course, this is secular humanism, which in itself is a morally relative. I went through all of this and it crippled me emotionally. The problem with being an SJW is that you are choosing to let go of certain defense mechanisms but not all of them. It's sort of like... humility lite, where you're pretending to be humble in order to seem like your work is worthwhile. Unfortunately, you end up virtue-signalling, which as Devon Tracey so eloquently put it: virtue-signalling is narcissism on parade as empathy. The gross, churning sensation of 'guilt' that you're associating with being white and privileged is just anxiety caused by your self-loathing. This type of feeling is common is pedophiles who realize how abhorrent their sexuality is and then work to make change their ways. You don't have to self-loathe your skin colour, and just because there are white people who are very powerful in America doesn't mean that all white people are privileged. Your 'systems' that you learned from sociology stem mainly from a few experiences and statistics, which, let's be honest,are only functional in the hard sciences.
ReplyDelete