Uhm, clueless much?

[maygra]

Look, I can be as stupidly offensive as the next person. However, you don't need to have been brought up or live in the deep south to get what [[Witchqueen]] is explaining in incredibly patient and very clear terms. And you don't have to be a Person of Color to understand how deeply, deeply offensive and coded this word is, regardless of its etymology. How it was and has been used, in this case, is everything.

Also, see liviapenn's round up [[here]].



I haven't had much to say about the current fandom discussion/debate on race and racism. Mostly because I don't have much to contribute, and because living where I live, and having grown up here, I know without a doubt that that there are racist undertones to some of the ways I think and even some of the ways I act and react. Most of them I'm aware of and actively try to overcome, with lesser or greater success. Reacting to people on the basis of their skin color or race or religious persuasion in this part of the country is like breathing for most people. For others, it's like a sideline sport. You can ignore it, but you can't be unaware of it.

I don't know that I'll ever be rid of all of it. But I do know enough to understand that being a white woman in Georgia doesn't actually nominate me to be the know all and end all of what is or isn't offensive to People of Color.

When another white woman told me she was offended that I used the word "pissed" in what was, admittedly, a pretty angry diatribe, my concern that I'd offended her because I was cussing was markedly less than it would be if a person of color told me a word I'd used was offensive because it was racially coded. I'm pretty clear that if I'm really angry at someone, it's about something they've said or done, not the color of their skin.

I've got nothing more, because to say more would risk me either offending more or being offended more.

It's an effing fic prompt. Change the damn word.

Comments

[shay-renoylds.livejournal.com]

Zvi mentioned that in her (very articulate) first post. But the "offence", of course, ends up being different for everyone.

I honestly think that, offencive or not, this has started some really amazing dialogues on the discussion. I'm not condoning it; however, I do think it's important to keep these concepts in the open. I'm, personally, glad that there are as many intelligent thoughts being thrown around on both sides.

[maygra.livejournal.com]

I don't disagree, although the bugger of it is that people who are willing to talk about it and aren't really the problem. The problem arises when people who aren't willing to talk about it use their privilege to be able to ignore or obsfucate, in order not to address it because it is their right and privilege to do so even while denying they have either the right or the privilege.

I'm one of them. Racial issues are very much like a thorn under my skin, that I keep scratching but refusing to remove, mostly because while I like to think I'm smart enough and good enough to rise above it, I fear that's not true. I fear I use my own white privilege far more often than I'm aware of because I can and because it's easier than wandering back into what I perceive as an unattractive and intimidating briar patch.

Sorry, Shay, I'm not meaning to dump all over you. But in even making this post I've had to confront the fact that I don't denounce racist attitudes (intentional or otherwise) nearly as often as I encounter them, and do in fact ignore them, more often than I address them. I'd like to think I'm a better person than that, that the POC's I know I respect and adore for themselves as opposed to in spite of their skin color.

But sometimes, I'm not sure if I'm lying to myself or them.

[shay-renoylds.livejournal.com]

I fear I use my own white privilege far more often than I'm aware of because I can and because it's easier than wandering back into what I perceive as an unattractive and intimidating briar patch.

I hate to say it, but we all do if we're white. It's not really something you can get away from. Here is Peggy McIntosh's article "Unpacking the Invisible Backpack" Warning -- it's a .pdf. Now that article was written in the 80's, and has been used in feminist arguments for ages; however, I feel it's still relevant today.

And don't think of it as dumping at. all.

Seriously, if I were to be more irreverent I'd link you to Avenue Q's Everyone's a Little Bit Racist -- but that's irreverent so I won't.

I think, honestly, it's just going to have to be a "people are people" thing in my mind. There are some people who are jerks who go out of there to be assholes to everyone. Generally hardcore racists also tend to be misogynists and yeah... it just spirals. That's an overgeneralization, but hate tends to instigate more hate rather than anything else. It's rare to find someone who is hatefully racist who is generally "nice" the rest of the time.

[shay-renoylds.livejournal.com]

Cuz I'm a nob -- the link to the song here.