ibarw

[maygra]

I've been trying to formulate some kind of post for ibarw all weekend. The miscegenation row tipped something ugly in me and I've been trying to get a handle on it since then.

However.

Every post I try to write, that I put together, all come off as either, "This is why and how Maygra comes by her racism, conscious and unconscious," or as a justification of why, despite my best efforts, those often subtle tendencies and reactions still surface, or how, after a lifetime of actively trying to cultivate colorblindness I now resent (because it is my privilege as a white woman to do so) discovering that that effort may have been misguided and even hurtful in ways I never intended.

That probably says more about me than even I want to know.

Anything else I could say about it would be more self-justification, and while usually I'm all about that?

Not this week.

Comments

[kadymae.livejournal.com]

Actually, I rather like this post because it's such a raw self-examination and shows how insidious racism really is. That the hurt and the damage ultimately touch everybody, in different ways and to different extents, and what we discover during acts of "exploratory surgery" is often not what we thought (feared) we might find, but it is something different, but no less painful.

[maygra.livejournal.com]

It is insidious and while I can, indeed, point to the roots of it in myself (both familialy and geographically), I'm of a mind that my experiences really aren't the point.

I mean living where I live, white privilege isn't exactly something either unconscious or even unacknowledged and until a very few years ago, it was more of a banner flag to wave than something to shed yourself of...

[i-naiad.livejournal.com]

What kadymae said.

Also, perhaps you could consider phrasing the post you've been thinking about in terms of self-exploration as opposed to self-justification.

I wasn't going to post anything, because I feel that I'm still at an embryonic stage of recognising racism in myself and understanding my behaviour, but after reading around I think that maybe these experiences are important to share. That it's important to have as many voices talking about and decrying racism as possible. Perhaps if we talk about how hard we find it to shed our preconceptions and what we do to counter that, it may lead to other people explore their own.

I don't know. Like I said, I'm a newbie to all this (and that's my privilege).

[maygra.livejournal.com]

Thanks and I have tried. I don't dismiss the need to do that self-exploration, but in posting it it becomes more about, look what I've overcome rather than any exploration of what's needed, or what could even be termed as progress.

Just as the idea of being colorblind felt like something I should be acknowledged for, which you know, regardless of whether its a good or bad or even important thing, kind of misses the entire point.

IF we believe there's a right and wrong way to live our lives, that there are distinction between being a good or bad person (even incrementally) then doing the right thing and being a good person shouldn't be expectant of a reward, they should be the default. Kind of like, no one expects a citizen citation for not speeding.

[stele3.livejournal.com]

There has never been nor will ever be anything that upsets me deeper or more consistently than knowing full well that I have racist thoughts. It's something I hate, something I don't know how to get rid of.

But I'll own it. I'll own it as my responsibility, and though I want to make excuses for it, I won't. It's the only way I know how to fight it.

[maygra.livejournal.com]

I do own it for the most part -- I'm kind of at a loss as to how to fix it most days, which of course, is how I view it, that it's like a wart I can have removed. Part of it, I think comes form living in a results driven culture -- that results have benchmarks, that success has measurable impact. And racism, or even overcoming racism?

Not so much.

[stele3.livejournal.com]

I feel exactly the same way (and I hope that my initial comment didn't come off as lecturing). I don't know how to be rid of it.

I know my thoughts have changed significantly as I am exposed to more people with more backgrounds and diversity - but it's still in there, bouncing around. I don't know what to do about it.

[ethrosdemon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the colorblindness issue really kills me, too. It troubles me, because I actually think in the best possible world that's how we would all be, but it seems like recognizing difference and accepting it is how we need to go now. My own racial issues get wrapped up in this and it becomes a personal issue that I feel somewhat disenfranchised about.

[maygra.livejournal.com]

Allie pointed out to me that, for me at least (and likely for you) that it's an artifact of living in the deep south, of the generation I was born into, that dead center of the baby boomers.

And the truth of it is that I get the why part of it being hurtful and not exactly the best response because it does dismiss the history of everything before.

It just leaves me without a plan, without a response, without something to *act* upon and so I'm kind of flopping around like a dead fish with no idea how to act or even to be.

[ethrosdemon.livejournal.com]

It's kind of funny, because Allie was talking ME yesterday about how she's sort of at loose ends with being from a white activist culture and how she thinks that culture is to some extent an outgrowth of a desire to Not Be a Racist, and oddly enough in my own life I consider myself an activist, but just because it's the right thing to do. Sometimes I wonder if I'm naive even about myself.

[gretazreta.livejournal.com]

" how, after a lifetime of actively trying to cultivate colorblindness I now resent (because it is my privilege as a white woman to do so) discovering that that effort may have been misguided and even hurtful in ways I never intended."

Okay, THAT is probably the most thought-provoking and insightful thing that I've read recently that reflects (unfortunately) my own experience, my own racism.

Perhaps that's the thing - a good thoughtful writer encapsulates the experiences of others - even if you feel like you're just trying to unpack your own?

And where that becomes, jeez, practically a public service, is that others have to take that away and think more about it -as I am now provoked to do. So, it's not just a mirror of your own concerns, it's a mirror to me of mine? And so much more articulate and to the point than I have yet been capable of on my own?

And... it doesn't read as self-justification, it reads as a challenge against self-justification - not to let ourselves off lightly simply because we MEAN well. Personal truth isn't of necessity self-indulgence, either.

It's an uncomfortable position for a reader, as well as a writer.

So I reckon you should write it, I suppose I'm saying. I guess that's presumptuous, if so, I'm sorry (but obviously not enough not to say so, :) ).

[maygra.livejournal.com]

I don't dismiss my own experience with racism, as a racist in a family of people who were, geographically and culturally and generationally inclined to be racists. There's that old saw about if it's broke, fix it. And that was my fix it for the past thirty years and now I'm left without something*active* to do about battling my own racism. I know I'll find something, but as was pointed out elsewhere, that act of willful colorblindness was a destination an fighting racism isn't an end point, it's a constant journey...so you know, there's my privilege again of wanting to and realistically, *being able to*, get off the train if I want. Which in deference to fairness, POC's can't.

[meko00.livejournal.com]

I haven't been around lately, but I do have some thoughts on things I've read about here on LJ. It's just that my perspective is Scandinavian, and I've already been somewhat burnt from attempting to discuss cultural differences so I'm wary of jumping into the fray.

I found a thought-provoking article via Arts & Letters Daily yesterday: The downside of diversity. I think I need to reread, though. We have problems of our own, but they're not easily transferrable to US circumstances.

[adelheide.livejournal.com]

My lady, I salute your honesty. *clinks glass*