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minxyYou know what's wierd about International Blog Against Racism Week? It feels like carte blanche to say what you think, to Make A Statement, to save the world by opening the world's eyes to racism this week, because the repercussions will be felt ALL YEAR, right? And by just saying something, anything, you've contributed to making the world a better place and omg ending racism!
It's so wierd. Seriously. But, now someone's asked, I shall now tell you what I think. Here is my disclaimer: I get my color in the summertime, and I am currently a deep cherry wood color: brown to cream to curvy areas of darker and some abrupt lines of demarkation. I also have some other rainbow colors not on the brown to cream spectrum, they are primarily in my eyes and toenails. I dislike disclaimers.
What I am thinking is not what other people seem to be thinking; but then, I don't write the same stories other people write either. So there you go. Maybe I have something to contribute, but I make no claims towards saving the world with it (I'm recovering from a bad cold + migraine, I'll save the world tomorrow.)
What I'm thinking about are those moments when you feel your world view shift, and by that I mean take an abrupt left turn into areas you'd been only vaguely intellectually aware of. I remember being called exotic for the first time, and having grown up in a town where everybody looked like me, let me tell you, I was floored. I thought it was wonderful, exciting, different, and an adventure. I remember that despite this 'exotic foreigner' status, people seemed to have really firm ideas in their heads about who I was and how I would behave as an American in their midst. I couldn't figure out why it was such a shock that I wanted to learn their language, wanted to practice, I remember being held repeatedly accountable for the Monica Lewinsky scandal and the entire country's reaction to it, and omg that got really annoying. I remember eventually tiring of being exotic and deliberately altering my wardrobe so that I would blend in and people wouldn't automatically speak English to me, I remember feeling like it was tiresome to constantly explain that I don't drink a lot of Coke and I hadn't seen the Simpsons. I thought it was strange that so many people swore at me in English so readily, having learned it from television, without any concept of why I was growing steadily more alarmed.
I remember being so excited about finding the American store, and Oreos (which I never eat) and tortillas and refried beans and soy sauce and cranberry juice. I remember coming home and being completely overwhelmed by the cereal isle in the supermarket.
What I mean by all of this is that it was the first time my default had been challenged. The first time people's perceptions of me mattered more than what I chose to reveal of myself. The first time I sought out the chance to belong, either by removing the outward appearance of being different or by seeking my own community. There have been other moments when I remember this, there have been times when I've forgotten it. It's that basic shift in world view, though, that has provided me the best platform for relating to experiences that are not my own, without appropriating them, switching the conversation, or claiming to understand that which I really don't.
Does that mean that I feel free to reach out and pet my girlfriend's hair because it's different than mine? No it does not (I mention this because it is becoming increasingly clear to me that my black girlfriends deal with that a lot, and I deal with people randomly touching my head rarely.) It does mean that I take a surprising amount of joy at reading the 'how to do your child's hair' book she got from the library when she went natural with her hair for the first time in two decades and that it was infectious; there was a lot of laughter over my inability to wrap my brain around deliberately putting oil on your head.
I remember being asked my ethnic heritage in polite and impolite ways. I remember racial heritage being spoken of with apologetic tones and with an almost exclusive pride (an, oh, you're not special like we are? That's a shame, kind of pride). I have been told I have a little sistah in me, I've been asked if I mind the topic of conversation since it was entirely possible that I wouldn't relate to anecdotes about raising a mixed race child (the fact that I have no children at all was only part of the concern).
All these things relate back to defaults and expectations. I grew up in a town where everyone looked like I do. I found it infinitely more tiresome than revisiting the subject of difference or race or defaults, even if there is nothing particularly new to contribute, even if it's in a contrived 'black history month' or 'blog against racism week' or a lecture or what have you.
As long as there is a default that is racially defined there will be a privilege inherent in it: it is that white America (or whatever your default) has the option of thinking about race or racism or defaults, or challenges to our way of thinking, or of turning it off and not thinking about it for a while. Colorblindness, while a good place to start if there are really strong prejudices we need to wipe off the slate in order to start a productive dialog at all, is only a starting place. There are differences; they matter. White people are not going to reach a place where we can bandy about references to the civil rights movement and appropriate them as our own, but we can reach a place where conversations don't shut down because people assume we don't want to speak that language or talk about something the default culture doesn't have a reference for.
Getting there, I think, involves learning to celebrate the differences that make us unique, and respecting the right of other people to not explain what you just did wrong just now but to consider it on your own if it's clear that you've let something slide by without realizing it. It means understanding that our defaults matching our national cultures defaults is a luxury many people don't have, and gods, isn't that interesting? It means that you don't demand that a girlfriend tell you all about the cultural impetus to straighten her hair, but you can ask to look at a book she has lying around, and maybe that will lead her to come over and ask what you think about it, and laughter about how differently you both dealt with your hair growing up. Maybe it won't be something you can bridge all by yourself despite your best intentions, if, say, you're dating an Asian American guy who doesn't understand that you would learn Vietnamese because it's the language he speaks with his parents (and ends up breaking up with you and dating a girl you have a lot in common with except that she already speaks Vietnamese). Maybe it's a case of sitting back and laughing when an islander tells you you are hard core. Smiling and being polite can get you so far, if you're interested in people who have different stories than you do.
Anyway, I really don't know that I have anything to say about race in television or casting that hasn't already been said, with regard to Firefly or Stargate or all manner of other shows. If TPTB are listening? It's time to reevaluate your default on race in your shows, dudes. Way past time, really, but now would be good.
I'm using an Alias icon for my default 'blog against racism week' icon because Dixon was such a wonderful character, and as they put on and took off aliases on that show, in some cases to better effect than others, Dixon got to wear some fantastic accents, outfits and hairstyles, while playing a warm, sympathetic, smart, dignified character. Wonder what that show would've been like if Dixon had been The Hero, and not partner to the Hero. I forgive it because he was totally competent partner to the Girl Hero, which struck me as so NOVEL... but anyway. You too can cast a black man (or woman) as a hero, Stargate! It's totally possible! Or, you know, other races! People who don't get killed off or ignored or alienated or who aren't aliens to begin with! Wouldn't that be interesting? I may be in the minority with this next statement, but I've always found the 30-40 something white American males cast by Stargate as the ostensible heroes to be rather boring. Maybe it's showing some personal growth that they're branching out and creating Canadian characters? Lord, but we have a long way to go with that.
Anyway, defaults, world views, being aware of your culture as your culture, but perhaps not everyone else's. Anyone else have experience with this? With really realizing that you'd been working in tunnel vision? Maybe you live abroad and it was realizing that the movies coming out of Hollywood feature a lot of people speaking with a funny accent, or the idea that your news is subtitled when they're interviewing someone who speaks with a different dialect. Maybe it's growing up constantly aware of being different, or fighting for your place, or turning heads. Dunno, share if you wanna. Ask me questions if you like.
If you want to blog against racism this week, switch your default icon to something deliberately IBARW, or otherwise appropriate, blog about racism in your LJ, post these rules. Rilina is collecting a grand list of links here and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
coffeeandink has a painfully funny satire on the subject here: How to Suppress Discussions of Racism.
It's so wierd. Seriously. But, now someone's asked, I shall now tell you what I think. Here is my disclaimer: I get my color in the summertime, and I am currently a deep cherry wood color: brown to cream to curvy areas of darker and some abrupt lines of demarkation. I also have some other rainbow colors not on the brown to cream spectrum, they are primarily in my eyes and toenails. I dislike disclaimers.
What I am thinking is not what other people seem to be thinking; but then, I don't write the same stories other people write either. So there you go. Maybe I have something to contribute, but I make no claims towards saving the world with it (I'm recovering from a bad cold + migraine, I'll save the world tomorrow.)
What I'm thinking about are those moments when you feel your world view shift, and by that I mean take an abrupt left turn into areas you'd been only vaguely intellectually aware of. I remember being called exotic for the first time, and having grown up in a town where everybody looked like me, let me tell you, I was floored. I thought it was wonderful, exciting, different, and an adventure. I remember that despite this 'exotic foreigner' status, people seemed to have really firm ideas in their heads about who I was and how I would behave as an American in their midst. I couldn't figure out why it was such a shock that I wanted to learn their language, wanted to practice, I remember being held repeatedly accountable for the Monica Lewinsky scandal and the entire country's reaction to it, and omg that got really annoying. I remember eventually tiring of being exotic and deliberately altering my wardrobe so that I would blend in and people wouldn't automatically speak English to me, I remember feeling like it was tiresome to constantly explain that I don't drink a lot of Coke and I hadn't seen the Simpsons. I thought it was strange that so many people swore at me in English so readily, having learned it from television, without any concept of why I was growing steadily more alarmed.
I remember being so excited about finding the American store, and Oreos (which I never eat) and tortillas and refried beans and soy sauce and cranberry juice. I remember coming home and being completely overwhelmed by the cereal isle in the supermarket.
What I mean by all of this is that it was the first time my default had been challenged. The first time people's perceptions of me mattered more than what I chose to reveal of myself. The first time I sought out the chance to belong, either by removing the outward appearance of being different or by seeking my own community. There have been other moments when I remember this, there have been times when I've forgotten it. It's that basic shift in world view, though, that has provided me the best platform for relating to experiences that are not my own, without appropriating them, switching the conversation, or claiming to understand that which I really don't.
Does that mean that I feel free to reach out and pet my girlfriend's hair because it's different than mine? No it does not (I mention this because it is becoming increasingly clear to me that my black girlfriends deal with that a lot, and I deal with people randomly touching my head rarely.) It does mean that I take a surprising amount of joy at reading the 'how to do your child's hair' book she got from the library when she went natural with her hair for the first time in two decades and that it was infectious; there was a lot of laughter over my inability to wrap my brain around deliberately putting oil on your head.
I remember being asked my ethnic heritage in polite and impolite ways. I remember racial heritage being spoken of with apologetic tones and with an almost exclusive pride (an, oh, you're not special like we are? That's a shame, kind of pride). I have been told I have a little sistah in me, I've been asked if I mind the topic of conversation since it was entirely possible that I wouldn't relate to anecdotes about raising a mixed race child (the fact that I have no children at all was only part of the concern).
All these things relate back to defaults and expectations. I grew up in a town where everyone looked like I do. I found it infinitely more tiresome than revisiting the subject of difference or race or defaults, even if there is nothing particularly new to contribute, even if it's in a contrived 'black history month' or 'blog against racism week' or a lecture or what have you.
As long as there is a default that is racially defined there will be a privilege inherent in it: it is that white America (or whatever your default) has the option of thinking about race or racism or defaults, or challenges to our way of thinking, or of turning it off and not thinking about it for a while. Colorblindness, while a good place to start if there are really strong prejudices we need to wipe off the slate in order to start a productive dialog at all, is only a starting place. There are differences; they matter. White people are not going to reach a place where we can bandy about references to the civil rights movement and appropriate them as our own, but we can reach a place where conversations don't shut down because people assume we don't want to speak that language or talk about something the default culture doesn't have a reference for.
Getting there, I think, involves learning to celebrate the differences that make us unique, and respecting the right of other people to not explain what you just did wrong just now but to consider it on your own if it's clear that you've let something slide by without realizing it. It means understanding that our defaults matching our national cultures defaults is a luxury many people don't have, and gods, isn't that interesting? It means that you don't demand that a girlfriend tell you all about the cultural impetus to straighten her hair, but you can ask to look at a book she has lying around, and maybe that will lead her to come over and ask what you think about it, and laughter about how differently you both dealt with your hair growing up. Maybe it won't be something you can bridge all by yourself despite your best intentions, if, say, you're dating an Asian American guy who doesn't understand that you would learn Vietnamese because it's the language he speaks with his parents (and ends up breaking up with you and dating a girl you have a lot in common with except that she already speaks Vietnamese). Maybe it's a case of sitting back and laughing when an islander tells you you are hard core. Smiling and being polite can get you so far, if you're interested in people who have different stories than you do.
Anyway, I really don't know that I have anything to say about race in television or casting that hasn't already been said, with regard to Firefly or Stargate or all manner of other shows. If TPTB are listening? It's time to reevaluate your default on race in your shows, dudes. Way past time, really, but now would be good.
I'm using an Alias icon for my default 'blog against racism week' icon because Dixon was such a wonderful character, and as they put on and took off aliases on that show, in some cases to better effect than others, Dixon got to wear some fantastic accents, outfits and hairstyles, while playing a warm, sympathetic, smart, dignified character. Wonder what that show would've been like if Dixon had been The Hero, and not partner to the Hero. I forgive it because he was totally competent partner to the Girl Hero, which struck me as so NOVEL... but anyway. You too can cast a black man (or woman) as a hero, Stargate! It's totally possible! Or, you know, other races! People who don't get killed off or ignored or alienated or who aren't aliens to begin with! Wouldn't that be interesting? I may be in the minority with this next statement, but I've always found the 30-40 something white American males cast by Stargate as the ostensible heroes to be rather boring. Maybe it's showing some personal growth that they're branching out and creating Canadian characters? Lord, but we have a long way to go with that.
Anyway, defaults, world views, being aware of your culture as your culture, but perhaps not everyone else's. Anyone else have experience with this? With really realizing that you'd been working in tunnel vision? Maybe you live abroad and it was realizing that the movies coming out of Hollywood feature a lot of people speaking with a funny accent, or the idea that your news is subtitled when they're interviewing someone who speaks with a different dialect. Maybe it's growing up constantly aware of being different, or fighting for your place, or turning heads. Dunno, share if you wanna. Ask me questions if you like.
If you want to blog against racism this week, switch your default icon to something deliberately IBARW, or otherwise appropriate, blog about racism in your LJ, post these rules. Rilina is collecting a grand list of links here and
coffeeandink has a painfully funny satire on the subject here: How to Suppress Discussions of Racism.![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-07-19 11:31 pm (UTC)We were living in the Very Very White environs of Northern Nevada and I took the kids to the store. My oldest, a bare 5 years old or so, was *staring* at a man. He was black.
There were questions and talks, etc, but that was when I realized that not only had she never really seen people of color around town, but she hadn't even seen them on TV in a way that was memorable to her.
Now, back in CA, my neighbors on one side are Korean and on the other side are Mexicans. 2/3 or more of my neighborhood is non-white, and I love it. My son came home from kindergarten one day all a-flutter about a new little girl. He gushed about her pretty dress, her braids, the little butterfly clips... he was smitten. I asked if she was black. He looked at me strangely. "No, Mama, she's *brown*."
no subject
Date: 2006-07-20 12:35 am (UTC)Years later, I saw pictures taken at an outdoor school event from when I was five years old, and I'm about to participate in some sort of game, and I'm surrounded by black kids. I don't think I ever noticed that they were different. At any rate, two years later, after moving, I had no memory.
My last two years of grade school, there were one or two black students bused in for the Academically Talented program. I don't know what their experience at this all-white school was like, but they were certainly good role models for an ethnically challenged little white girl like me. :-)
When I was 13 my homeroom teacher took me aside and asked if I would object to sharing my locker with a black girl. I said of course not. She was the first black person I ever remember speaking to.
Roll on several years, and I've made friends with a black woman at work, who invites me to her church. They say 11 a.m. on Sunday morning is the most segregated time in America. I never felt anything less than welcome, and went back several times.
And that's how I defeated racism and saved the world. The End.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-20 05:54 am (UTC)A couple of years ago, one of his friends, a half-Native Alaskan boy was making bigoted remarks and my son told him that if he kept talking like that, then their friendship would be over. And he pointed out that our neighbor, Dave was a great guy and dang, hadn't his friend noticed that Dave is black and wouldn't those kinds of comments hurt Dave's feelings? His pal took it on board and doesn't talk trash about other races anymore.
I could wish for better grades in school for him, but I think he's already a success in life.