The Oppressor as hero

[sqbr]

When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like "Avatar"? does a good job of going through why the "White person helps lead Oppressed Native People to freedom" plot is at it's heart all about white supremacy. (But don't read the comments)

But I've been thinking about how a lot of ostensibly anti-oppression narratives take this form.

• You have the aristocrat who leads the working classes to freedom, as in the stories described in the beginning of "Historical AUs and race" (which inspired this one a bit)
  
• The able-bodied person who saves the poor disabled people eg "Children of a Lesser God".
  
• The man who saves the poor victimised women eg a lot of Dollhouse.
  
• I'm having trouble thinking of any to do with sexuality but I'm sure they exist. EDIT: "I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry"?
  

And not all of these stories are bad individually. After all, history does have a lot of people who did good works helping those they had privilege over, and their stories are as worth telling as anyone else's.

But what's a problem is
a) that this is seen as the only sort of story worth telling
b) The way this story is generally told

If your intention is to fight an oppression, surely you should act contrary to that oppression, not to reinforce it's biases. The Kyriarchy says that white straight able-bodied upper/middle class men are natural leaders and better than everyone at everything. So having a story where such a character joins a group of non-white/GLBT/disabled/lower class etc characters and immediately proves himself better than them all at everything and their natural leader, not to mention having their POV the only one worth seeing the story through..is not so anti-oppressive a message in my book.

See also why Glee only seems anti-racist if you only identify with the white charcaters.

EDIT: Please note that comments to this post are screened, though so far at worst I've delayed unscreening a comment until I can come up with a good explanation of why I think it's problematic.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

(over from LJ - don't mean to anon. search vasever if you're looking to respond.)

just a question: what does non-racist media look like? would it be the reverse of this kind of story - if a person of color infiltrated a white group and became their leader?

[sqbr]

Well, there's as many forms of non-racist media as there are racist ones(*). But one example is a story with no white people in it all in any major capacity (or at least not as leaders), with the POC fighting their own battles.

I'm white, so I'm not the best judge of this sort of thing, and post-christmas blah is messing with my ability to think of examples, but this is my attempt to counteract the "Yay the white Americans saving the poor Egyptian peasants plot of Stargate.

*makes a mental note to come back to this question, because it's interesting*

(*)EDIT: thinking about it some more, most media is a mix of racist and anti-racist and not-related-to-race aspects. But there are non-racist plots :)

[(Anonymous)]

hmmm. so, as allies of PoC, we should stand back and let them fight their own battles, rather than actively helping them?

sorry. i'm kind of at that point of "well meaning but badly informed," and i'm trying to get to, "well meaning and well informed."

[(Anonymous)]

hmmm. so, as allies of PoC, we should stand back and let them fight their own battles, rather than actively helping them?

How about

"Have the white character lend aid, but don't make them the hero that is better than all POC, gets women shoved at him because he's so great, fights better, and is at the end their natural leader because they're too dumb to lead themselves"?

Seriously. If you ask me to help you out on something, you won't expect me to stay, and become your overlord, do you?

Just look at the gazillion movies where it's a white culture needing saving. The saviour comes from WITHIN the society, and often doesn't end up with every female fawning over him (Avatar: "Oh, and you can marry any of these women, just pick one!") while turning into the one true ruler without whom everyone else is utterly helpless.

[noracharles]

I think the same thing goes for a white person helping people of color as goes for anyone helping anyone: You ask "How can I help?" and people will tell you if and how they could use your help. Basic respect and courtesy, like your parents taught you.

What you shouldn't do is decide for yourself what's best for other people and try to impose your interference on them or start ordering them around "for their own good".

here via metafandom

[munchkin]

hmmm. so, as allies of PoC, we should stand back and let them fight their own battles, rather than actively helping them?

I'm at the same stage as you, well meaning and trying to become well informed.

Something I've realised from these discussions is that it isn't either fight the battles of PoC or stand back and let them fight their own battles alone, but that we - as white allies - shouldn't be telling PoC how to fight those battles.

Sometimes it's best to just listen, then ask what I can do to help.

[rydra_wong]

IMHO, "actively helping" is very different from "taking over, trying to lead, and telling them how they should be fighting their own battles".

Really, being an ally is about -- well, being an ally. Not putting yourself in charge. Not making yourself the star of someone else's story.

[ten]

There is a difference between 'helping someone' and 'being their saviour omg'. If White Man encounters Coloured People and Coloured People have been Totally Helpless so far and only White Man can save them from their helplessness, that's quite likely to be a very icky message. It implies that White Man is so superiour, without him Coloured People would be Lost Forever

If Coloured People have been fighting pretty well so far on their own and White Man just happens to be able to be add to their fight, it promotes an equality of power and importance.

This is of course a very abstract description. The context of the specific story has a big influence on the message. Is White Man shown as superior by himself or does he too need help from someone else to be able to Save The Coloured People? Do the Coloured People ask White Man for help, or does he just impose himself on them? What reasons does White Man have to help the Coloured People?e etc.

[sqbr]

I agree with your underlying argument, but I'm pretty sure "Coloured People" is a seriously offensive term to a large number (all?) of non-white people/people of colour.

I remember hearing that "people of colour" and "coloured people" are considered synonyms in many languages other than English and I'm assuming that's where you're coming from. They are not synonyms in English (especially not American English), even though the literal meaning is the same! The historical usage and connotations are very different, though I don't know this history well enough to explain it.

I understand the confusion: "People of colour" feels offensive to my Australian ears and it took me quite a while to get used to it's use online. Ah, language, getting in the way of communication for a hundred thousand years...

[(Anonymous)]

hi, yes, i too was confused when i first saw the term "person of color." i know the historical definition in US english, but i know we're using it differently here.

unfortunately, i'm not totally certain about the exact definition we're using here. who is a person of color?

[sqbr]

I really don't feel confident giving an exact definition, and googling hasn't given me any really reliable looking sources, but roughly speaking I use it to mean people who are not white/ experience racism. Of course then the question is:how do you define white? Or race? And then I flail because definitions are not my strong point.

[ten]

I'm using 'Coloured People' specifically as the trope used by Hollywood here (thus the capitals, same goes for White Man). Call me cynic, but I expect that's exactly what the people who create movies or series with that kind of story call them in their head.

(Personally, I use neither terms. I'm not fond of grouping people into a phrase, just my personal preference.)

Sorry that I didn't make that clear! Maybe I should've used "" instead.

[sqbr]

Huh, fair enough.

Yeah, in this sort of situation I think it's really important to be careful with language. I've inadvertently hurt people before when they took my sarcastic satire of prejudiced attitudes as sincere, it prompted me to make this icon.

[ten]

Yeah, I see now how my post can be misread. I'll edit it to make it clearer.

[ten]

Woops, I can't. Sorry 'bout that >_>.

[sqbr]

People will be able to see this conversation/explanation so hopefully won't be too bothered by it.

[sqbr]

Sorry you got so many replies at once, I was out so they were all screened and it looked to others like noone had replied to you.

Anyway, this has mostly been addressed but: Fiction is not reality! The fact that anti-racist narratives should not be All About The White People doesn't mean white people shouldn't be anti-racist. It just means we shouldn't expect the anti-racist movement to see us as the Most Important People.

And yes, as other people have said: we should actively help, but not actively lead. We help fight the battles, but we don't choose them.