The icky wobbly greyness of my brain

[sqbr]

So, I've been thinking for quite a while about writing a "Why I'm an antiracist" post along the lines of my why I'm a feminist one. Partly to explain because people have asked, and also to get it straight in my head.

Some of the reasons are reasonably straight-forward and reasonable¹, but I had a rather unpleasant epiphany about it today. Namely, I think one of the reasons I focus on race in particular, instead of other "-isms" I'm not personally oppressed by like homophobia, is because in some ways it's easy.



Warning: this is all a bit navel-gazy and awkward. Also I poke my brain for it's attitudes towards race and sexuality, and you might not like the results any more than I do. I thought about waiting until later before posting but, well, I have an interview tomorrow and don't want this on my mind.

Two of the defining features of my personality are that I like the moral highground, and I deal badly with being yelled at. Thus my least favourite thing in the world is being yelled at and knowing I'm in the wrong.

Australia is an incredibly racist society, and australians on the whole are incredibly racist people. It doesn't take much to be good-average at fighting racism by australian standards, and pretty much all the australian anti-racist messages I've encountered are non-challenging pre-digested pap like "other cultures are fun! Fight racism by trying some new foods!". I can think of two times in my entire life when I've been sincerely accused of racism in Australia, both by non-australians, and both in highschool (both times I dismissed them out of hand, yay me) Posting about race on the lj, the most negative reaction I've gotten has been "Um, I don't see that that's a big deal" (plus some very polite corrections when I was factually incorrect)

Discussion about racism on the internet, on the other hand, is almost entirely dominated by the american perspective (for reasons of demographics). There's a lot of very challenging and subtle analysis, which I find really interesting and sometimes very difficult, but I can always go "Ah well, so I don't get it, must be because I'm not american". For a start, most of it is about racism towards african americans, a group I have had (and am likely to have) vanishingly few real life interactions with, and whose oppression I am not directly implicit in. And even though a lot of the ideas and issues transfer over here pretty neatly, they still engage my "Not my problem" field to a certain extent allowing me emotional distance, meaning that even when I have been yelled at by POC online I haven't been that upset by it (for me, it was still pretty confronting), and also I'm able to admit I might be wrong quickly when criticised because I am at peace with having a poor understanding of racial issues in America.

I have tried to challenge my own racist assumptions and privilege, but challenging yourself is much less confronting and difficult (and effective) than being challenged by someone else.

Compare to homophobia: (from my ignorant perspective) it works pretty much exactly the same way here as it does in America etc, the subgroups and issues are pretty much exactly the same and in my experience australian GLBT people are much more likely to confront others homophobia than australian POC are to confront racism². I have encountered a lot of very vocal GLBT folk and while I haven't had them yell at me I've seen them yell at other people (who deserved it, may I add) If I see a discussion, say, about homophobia amongst american left-liberals, I don't feel that much distance and am likely to see it as applying to me as an australian left-liberal. I have a lot (a lot!) of unexamined heterosexist assumptions, and I have occasionally been called on them by my GLBT friends (which is good!). When I asked myself "Why don't you post more about homophobia?" my immediate answer was "Because I'll say something stupid and offend someone! And they might yell at me! And think I'm dumb! I should leave it to all the smart GLBT people on my flist to talk about that stuff" (even though you guys have never yelled at me about this stuff, just ever-so-politely suggested I might be ever-so-slightly misguided) n.b. I'm not saying Australia isn't homophobic! But the dynamics are different than with racism.

I mean, thinking back, the time I remember making the most effort to be anti-homophobia was in primary school and early highschool, when (as far as I knew) everyone I knew was straight, and the main issue was fairly blatant, easy-to-spot-and-criticise homophobia. Once a bunch of my friends came out and my peer's homophobia got more subtle and complicated, I was forced to confront some of my dodgier heterosexist assumptions and let go of my self image as a morally pure campaigner for justice.

On the other hand, I have a more uncomplicated antipathy to transphobia, probably because (a) the background level of transphobia in Australia is so absurdly high it is again easy to look good in comparison and (b) I don't actually know any transfolk (beyond the level of acquaintance) so it's easy to feel smug in my not-oppressing-the-trans-ness without going to any effort.

So, yeah. This is cowardly and lazy of me.

I'm not going to stop talking about race, because it is important, and the level of discourse in this country so watered down and thin on the ground that we need all the voices we can get. And gee, if everyone who did social justice partly out of misguided smugness were to stop we'd be in all sorts of trouble :)

But homophobia, and discrimination against the disabled (is there a neat word for that?) ablism, and all that other stuff is important too, and if I genuinely care about understanding the way the world really works and making it better, I need to focus on that stuff too.

So! This is me vowing to try to be less easy on myself in the future, and opening myself up for you guys to tell me when I'm full of homophobic/sexist/racist etc crap³. I can't guarantee I'll react well in any specific instance, because I am as prone to defensive whining as the next person, but I'll probably thank you in the long run (I will understand if that doesn't sound like it's worth the reward :)) Also, while I'm at it, I'd like to apologise for any stupid sexist/racist/homophobic/generally tactless stuff I've said or done in the past, and will say/do in the future. Sorry I'm such a doofus :/

And have any of you had similar issues? How do you confront your own prejudices and privileges without sinking into complacency and not-my-problem? Any other comments?

*crosses fingers none of you big scary meanies yells at me*

EDIT: I realise this may come across as me blaming me being full of crap on other people for not calling me on it, but I don't mean to, except in a "society's to blame" sort of way.

(1) As I went into here, in general believe that it is the job of every human being to fight for a better and fairer society for everyone, and as I went into here see racism as a cognitive disfunction which clouds my vision. Learning to see racism is learning to see the truth, and the more I see the more impatient I become with myself for the huge spots in my vision that remain.
(2) This isn't meant as a criticism! It's just based on my observations of similar situations in say unisfa.
(3) I'm less open to being told by white straight men etc that I'm too oversensitive about racism/sexism etc but will accept it if you can provide a polite and reasoned argument and are open to being proven wrong :) EDIT: by "less open" I don't mean "not open". I mean "I am not actively seeking it out, because I already encounter a fair amount of it". Really I'm just annoyed becuase I've been having an annoying conversation with a borderline troll. *flails some more*

Comments

[alias_sqbr]

But people who have genuinely different cultural rules we cope very badly with. Islam is a current one. Aboriginal culture is another. I know people who think they aren't racist because they only hate Aboriginals 'who behave badly'.

Absolutely: non-white people are fine as long as they act like white people "real australians".

Oh, you don't need to convince me we have a class system! I think the fact that so many poor people are white (because pretty much everyone is white, for less than benign historical reasons) means there isn't the whole poor=not-white=bad subtext you get in say America, but yes it still interacts with race in a significant way.

Every now and then I reflect on the fact that I had a lot of aboriginal friends and acquaintances growing up in a poor area, but then had none whatsoever for the entirety of my university education (not counting stalls at O-day etc). Working in the same building/area as a number of government aboriginal services I'm now encountering a fair few middle class aboriginal public servants and my brain is having trouble dealing with the cognitive dissonance. I think the stratification is so hard wired into our society it just seems natural, which of course makes it very hard to overcome.

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

because pretty much everyone is white
though for fairly broad values of white. A lot of people who wouldn't have been considered 'white' a few decades ago (such as those of meditteranean descent, and if you go back a little earlier, even the Irish) now are more or less considered white.

And people of south east asian descent are the classic example of people who are considered white if they act white.

I find it quite interesting here in Alice, because people still talk about 'black and white', but its pretty obvious that the 'white' part of the town isn't all that white (the vietnamese and chinese descended health professionals definitely count as white, for example -- actually, the health professionals have a fairly wide and interesting range of backgrounds), and by 'black' they mean 'aboriginal', rather all black people - for example, the small number of black americans in town actually fall into the same category as the white americans, which is more or less 'super-white'.

I once went with my family to a rather misguided Australian day lunch that was supposed to illustrate Aboriginal and white families celebrating together (not one of that particular aunts better ideas). It failed dismally, as the the two groups had little in common and obviously very different expectations (several people where very drunk before we turned up), and pretty much entirely stayed separate -- but it was interesting that the few middle class, university educated, Aboriginals who had been invited, were definitely on the 'white' half of that divide. Class barriers can be harder to cross than race ones.

Australians are actually pretty good about race, really. But we are much worse than we think we are at real class and cultural differences, and tend to get that all mixed up with race in our heads.

And it really is pretty hard to overcome cultural differences, harder than race. It hasn't escaped my notice that, living in Alice here, that our one close Aboriginal friend just happens to be university educated, and share very similar tastes to ourselves.

[alias_sqbr]

I was waiting to reply to this until I had something to add, but I can't think of anything beyond: yes, that's pretty much what I think (I have a few vague quibbles but nothing I can articulate)