(no subject)

[holli]

I left a comment on witchqueen's *excellent* post about the current SGA brouhaha and issues of race-- especially issues of *talking* about race-- in fandom, and one of the things I said was:

"And, okay, there's a whole post I should be making about how while I am technically a member of a minority, I always feel wildly unconfortable with claiming that status in any discussion of race, because anti-Semitism in my part of the country is virtually nonexistent. So I feel like I haven't quite earned the right to participate in the conversation as anything but another privileged white girl. And hangups like that are probably part of the reason why everyone gets so damn uncomfortable around these conversations. Augh."

This is that post, as well as I'm able to make it. Which isn't very: it's astonishingly difficult to resist the impulse to just say auuuuuuuugh, this is too hard, I don't wanna talk about it. But I should, so I will.

So here's the thing: growing up Jewish in a place where a lot of other people were Jewish, and anti-Semitism is effectively gone, and everyone I interacted with knew plenty of other Jewish people-- well, sometimes I kind of forget that I'm a member of a minority. I shouldn't, because this is a pretty recent development, and my parents remember swimming pools they weren't allowed in and realtors who wouldn't rent to *their* parents. But I do forget. Because I'm privileged, and I have the luxury of doing so.

This is why privilege sucks, you know? Because I know I have it, because I'm a white girl from an affluent family, who went to excellent schools, for whom racism is an abstract thing. But I don't have a choice about having it: it is, as Anya would say, a gift with purchase, never mind that I didn't get a choice about what I bought.

And, hey, I've already got that horrible cringing stop-talking-about-it feeling, because who the hell am I to whine about the privilege I have? Having it is an awful lot better that *not* having it, that's for sure. No one gets to opt out of privilege; no one even gets to decide how much they have. The only thing we can do, most of the time, is be aware of that fact, to have our eyes open, to think about the ways it makes our lives-- and the lives of those around us, and the lives of the characters we write-- easier or harder.

Which, I guess, is where I lose sympathy for the people who just don't want to talk about it, who want to deflect the conversation or change the subject. No one says you have to think about this stuff 24/7. But when someone asks you to open your eyes and pay attention and *think* about how it affects you, just this once, just in this situation, it's rude as hell not to.

Comments

[machineplay.livejournal.com]

I've been there with my brother. He lives with my parents in one of the nicest places in the province, and he looked me in the eye and told me he didn't think he had any privilege. In fact, he finds himself OPPRESSED by feminists and DISCRIMINATED AGAINST because he has bipolar disorder. So while he understands black people's problems, it's because he's in the same boat.

I shit you not. If we hadn't been preparing for Thanksgiving dinner, I would have beat him with the damn turkey pan. He's really not very welcome in my house anymore after that and his little freak out about how he won't call a transgender woman "her/she/woman" because the whole concept of woman is so central to his existence that he refuses to "sully" it by applying it to someone who was born male. I'll tolerate him for the family's sake, but, frankly, he freaks me the hell out, especially since I'm gender-queer.

I think all you can do is walk away. My uncle was a devout fundamentalist Christian who never proselytized without invitation. He said that if his life wasn't enough of an example to bring people to Christ, he wasn't being a good enough Christian. Sometimes, that's where we end up with people. We just have to walk the walk and talk the talk and if they can't catch on, we have to move on and just try and mitigate the damage.

[holli.livejournal.com]

Your uncle sounds *awesome*. Sadly, there are not nearly enough people like him in the world, and I end up all-to-frequently going "PEOPLE. It's called A CLUE. You should consider GETTING ONE."

[machineplay.livejournal.com]

I think that's why people like us need to go ahead and poke at the issues when they come up, even if we don't feel 'qualified', and not wait some FOCs to pull on their 'teachin' panties' and do it... AGAIN. I can't speak for them but I love to hear some male-identified person speaking up on feminist issues before I have to get my knickers on and likewise for straight friends of mine speaking up when they feel there's queer-discrimination going on. Sometimes, it doesn't feel as tiring to step up again when someone's broken the path first.

Walking the walk and talking the talk means taking our chances and maybe getting jumped on because, "ZOMG, I ARE NOT RACIST, I ARE CANONIST!" We're already questioning ourselves and our own work and trying to write it well; maybe it's time we started questioning each other. Granted, we're n00bs at it, but we can be taught, and we can learn as we go.