On being a nice white lady

[sqbr]

So. I really, really don't like racism. I get very upset when people around me say or do (to my mind) racist things. I've recently decided that I'm sick of feeling vague and powerless about the whole thing and am going to see what I can do to fight against racism in the society around me, specifically local fandom since that's my real social home. I decided about a year ago to start the ball rolling by doing a panel on depictions of race in sff (since it's a really interesting and important topic, and not something I'd seen much discussed), this post is a vague meander on how that turned out, and is a follow on from my previous post about the general way certain POVs get under-represented at Swancons. I've kind of discussed it with stephiepenguin but she and dabear (my co-panelists) may still have very different perspectives on the whole thing.

I've been reading various (mostly american, since there aren't any australian ones afaict) blogs etc on racism, mostly because I still quite frequently have these moments of "Oh god how did I not notice that before?" and the idea of not finding out about the injustices etc I still haven't noticed is all too disturbing. Something I've seen discussed a few places is the way theoretically anti-racist white liberals say a lot of very nice sounding rhetoric, and make a show of criticising the "bad" racist white people, but actually do very little to really combat racism in any significant (or inconvenient) way, or listen to what actual not-white people have to say(*), or (god forbid) let them speak for themselves rather than speaking for them.

So I was a little self conscious when planning my panel (also, you know, Not An Arts Major) But I decided a hamfisted but not-actively-offensive panel was better than nothing, if only to encourage more qualified people to do one next year, and I got very attached to my idea (the way sff uses metaphors to talk about real life racial/ethnic/cultural things)

And even now, in this post, I'm sure I'm being way over-simplistic etc, but if I wait till that's not true I'll just say nothing, and be yet another australian not talking about race because it's all too hard. So.

Now the way I do panels is I create a synopsis, which I run by my co-panelists to see if they want to add anything. Although I try to incorporate input from the audience and my co-panelist(s), my default state is just to talk through the points in my synopsis for an hour, and it takes some effort to budge me from this (yes, I am aware this is All Bad)

Then stephiepenguin started talking on her lj about doing her own panel on race on a different topic, as far as I could tell on the depiction of non-white people in sff. We volunteered for each others panels but worked on them separately until it turned out they were going to be merged. I sent Stephie a synopsis of what I was planning to talk about so we could incorporate it with her ideas, she said it looked good but didn't have time to add anything (it was on short notice and she's getting married in two weeks) Also I think she decided it was just easier to do a broader version of my panel than try to create a true fusion of the two, even though to me they didn't seem that inimical, just two sides of the same coin. (I
didn't get around to emailing it to dabear at all, because I suck :/)

And so during the panel itself...we basically did my panel, and it was mostly me talking. During the panel, and after watching dabear's very interesting academic paper (which was unfortunately after the panel), I got some inklings of the sort of things Stephie might have talked about, on ethnicity and identity and culture and..stuff. And it really was coming from a completely different POV to my panel.

And I thought...here we are, and I'm a white person talking about race, and the not-white person's(**) POV has been completely ignored in favour of mine. HMMM.

And it struck me that when you exclude all the cases of deliberate racism, and all the cases of unconscious racism, you're still left with stuff like this: where a bunch of white people have the power to make a decision, and they make the decision that makes sense to them, on the basis of what they think is interesting or whatever, and so the non-white POV is ignored, or elided, not out of any ill-will, but because we just don't see that it's necessary. We may not see that the POV exists at all.

Obviously it's incredibly wrong to categorise I and Stephie's POVs entirely by our respective ethnicities. I think they have as much if not more to do with our respective fields of study, there are lots of complex humanities concepts I have trouble getting my head around, dabear certainly seemed to get it fine. (Plan for next year: shut up about race and let someone more knowledgeable have a go)

And when you get down to it the reason I get so het up about race, and got so protective and over-prepared with my panel, is to do with my own partly-jewishness. I was brought up on stories of the way Grandma's family was treated in Poland, and my mother's conviction that if the Holocaust is to mean anything then we who lost family must fight to the last breath against racism and intolerance, and I often have a fairly visceral reaction to racism when I encounter it (or have it pointed out to me. Caring doesn't stop me being clueless :/ )

But still. Here we are. As I said in my previous post, racism is about death by a thousand cuts, and any "perfectly reasonable" justifications for each individual cut don't make them go away.

(Oh, and if you're wondering where the post title comes from, search for it on youtube)

(*)I realise the white/not-white dichotomy annoys a lot of people, but I'm not up to
going into that right now, so imagine I have inserted some disclaimers about
counterexamples and replace as necessary with "The people who benefit from
injustice" and "the victims of injustice" or whatever.
(**)Of course here we hit the fact that, like a lot of people, neither I nor Stephie
fit perfectly into neat little racial categories. But I'm certainly a fair bit
whiter than she is, especially if you're just talking about identity.

Comments

[callistra.livejournal.com]

I'm enjoying your thoughts. Don't stop.

[alias_sqbr]

Oh, don't worry, it really is impossible to shut me up :) I just mean I won't run any race-related panels. Which isn't much of a sacrifice given that I have a bazillion panel ideas in my head for next year, none to do with race.

[tevriel.livejournal.com]

I think that's part of why some white people avoid the topic - it's hard to do it right even if you mean well. It also gets tricky when you consider - non-white people are often marginalised and so on, but at the same time, fair skin doesn't mean that you should be voiceless.

Not just because equality is better than just reversing discrimination (at least as far as I'm concerned), but also because the dominant group has to be a part of giving equal status to minorities. Women didn't get the vote without men's help, black people didn't get the vote without white help, it's all kind of a pattern. White people can go on marginalising black people and black people can't force them not to - at best, they could set up their own separate cons and so on, but that still won't give them equal voice.

Obviously it's our duty as Decent Human Beings to do what we can to establish that equality, and to make sure they DO have a voice. I'm not saying the kind of condescension-implying situation of White People Making Room For Non-White People is ideal, but it's a necessary step in the process, I think.

It's reminding me, possibly because I'm being kind of incoherent about my point, of a general discussion I read about White Privilege, and people were arguing that white people don't want to surrender their privilege so they stand by subtle racisms.

Which, to me, wasn't quite true. Looking at a lot of the things which are deemed "white privilege", I can say with absolute certainty that yes, it's true, I do NOT want to give that up; but I DO want non-white people to have that too. A lot of "white privilege" shouldn't be privilege, it should be basic rights for everyone. I will fight like hell not to surrender my "privilege", but I will also advocate everyone else getting it too.

In a like vein, I don't wish to be rendered more marginalised than I already am by being both female and non-straight. But I want everyone to have a voice too.

[alias_sqbr]

See....I mean I think it depends on the particular thing you're talking about, but afaict the issue with "Why doesn't everyone just get white privilege?" is the same as with "Why don't we just treat women like men?" ie some aspects of the non-dominant experience are worth keeping, they just need to be given more respect, and "Why don't we just let all the peasants have castles?", ie it may not be possible for that privilege to apply to everyone at once.

[tevriel.livejournal.com]

I disagree, somewhat. If it's something that should be kept then it's not a lack of privilege; anything that isn't wanted by other people isn't really a privilege. And a lot of the things that are cited as white (or male) privilege definitely aren't in the last category.

[alias_sqbr]

*flails inneffectively*

There is a..thing I'm trying to get accross here, but it's not coming out right (or very clear in my head). I think I'll have to ponder it seriously and get back to you :)

[i-palimpsest.livejournal.com]

I think that all change is gradual and slow. I think the most important thing you can do to combat racism etc is to be aware of it wherever you can, and live your life as free of prejudice as possible and educate whoever you can. Even if that education is nothing more than living an example of how you would like others to live.

If I can raise my children to be non racist, if I can impact positively on nephews an nieces, riends children etc then I've helped to stop racism on a whole bunch of fronts for the future.

[alias_sqbr]

Mm, I do like to think of myself as a carrier for things like anti-racism, spreading it throughout the populace :)