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

[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.