Big Boss told me that a wealthy white man––someone he knows through a Christian group––this well-meaning white man asked BB
to explain racism to him after the police murdered George Floyd.
BB spent an evening educating him.
There's a philosophy going around that you, an oppressed person, shouldn't have to do the labor of EXPLAINing oppression to members of the dominant class.
People of color shouldn't have to explain racism to white people, women explain to men, queers to straights, etc. etc. etc.
This is a great philosophy! I hold it myself.
It's heavy labor, having to explain to nice people (over and over again) why the knee of their class is on other people's neck.
Other people's ignorance can be enraging and draining. Sharing your pain and insights can be emotionally expensive. It takes your time and sucks your life energy. What you couldn't be doing with that time instead!
(Restorative napping comes to my mind.)
Here's the thing, though:
if you (they, we, I) don't do the heavy lifting to educate people, a lot of those people--well meaning, but comfortable nestled in the dominant culture--just aren't going to bother to educate themselves.
And who pays the price for their continued ignorance?
You do.
So THANK YOU, people who try, try again to educate others, in all the different ways teachers do.
(I try to do my bit, but I get fed up pretty quickly.)
I was thinking about this when I read Going Gently's post, "Pride Again", about his Gay Pride rainbow T-shirt.
The blogger, John Gray, is gay--"the least interesting thing about me," he says.
He'd posted a picture of himself wearing the rainbow T-shirt. Some of his many loyal readers had objected--why do gays have to flaunt themselves?
I am awed and appreciative that John wrote a second post:
instead of shutting down the commenters (which I would have done), he kindly and patiently explained why their comments were "ill judged and rather offensive".
Which elicited another round of comments---almost all entirely supportive. But there was still the one who accepts gay people, but isn't their goal to be accepted as "normal"?
Aren't pride parades working against that?
Shouldn't flaunting difference just "fade away"?
Fade away?
What a colorless world it would be.
The whole "Why can't black people be more like Obama" p.o.v. would whitewash the world.
To flourish is to grow well, to flower.
It also means excessive embellishment, the sort some people object to seeing in Pride parades.
I miss the flourishments of the old Gay Pride parades.
As people sought to gain acceptance, the old gay communinty itself tried to shut down the flamboyance. Instead of a flourish of tulle on top of a cake, we got business suits marching under the banner of corporate sponsors.
I think the addition of T for trans and Q for questioning and queer has brought some color back again.
This is romanticized and simplified––(it's not always so pretty and successful being "crazy", as this corporate ad suggests)––but I say,
Let's celebrate and support deviance from the norm.
Let's create conditions where we all flourish.
Potatoes are good. But don't we want orchids too?
And artichokes?
And nettles?
BB spent an evening educating him.
There's a philosophy going around that you, an oppressed person, shouldn't have to do the labor of EXPLAINing oppression to members of the dominant class.
People of color shouldn't have to explain racism to white people, women explain to men, queers to straights, etc. etc. etc.
This is a great philosophy! I hold it myself.
It's heavy labor, having to explain to nice people (over and over again) why the knee of their class is on other people's neck.
Other people's ignorance can be enraging and draining. Sharing your pain and insights can be emotionally expensive. It takes your time and sucks your life energy. What you couldn't be doing with that time instead!
(Restorative napping comes to my mind.)
Here's the thing, though:
if you (they, we, I) don't do the heavy lifting to educate people, a lot of those people--well meaning, but comfortable nestled in the dominant culture--just aren't going to bother to educate themselves.
And who pays the price for their continued ignorance?
You do.
So THANK YOU, people who try, try again to educate others, in all the different ways teachers do.
(I try to do my bit, but I get fed up pretty quickly.)
I was thinking about this when I read Going Gently's post, "Pride Again", about his Gay Pride rainbow T-shirt.
The blogger, John Gray, is gay--"the least interesting thing about me," he says.
He'd posted a picture of himself wearing the rainbow T-shirt. Some of his many loyal readers had objected--why do gays have to flaunt themselves?
I am awed and appreciative that John wrote a second post:
instead of shutting down the commenters (which I would have done), he kindly and patiently explained why their comments were "ill judged and rather offensive".
Which elicited another round of comments---almost all entirely supportive. But there was still the one who accepts gay people, but isn't their goal to be accepted as "normal"?
Aren't pride parades working against that?
Shouldn't flaunting difference just "fade away"?
Fade away?
What a colorless world it would be.
The whole "Why can't black people be more like Obama" p.o.v. would whitewash the world.
To flourish is to grow well, to flower.
It also means excessive embellishment, the sort some people object to seeing in Pride parades.
I miss the flourishments of the old Gay Pride parades.
As people sought to gain acceptance, the old gay communinty itself tried to shut down the flamboyance. Instead of a flourish of tulle on top of a cake, we got business suits marching under the banner of corporate sponsors.
I think the addition of T for trans and Q for questioning and queer has brought some color back again.
This is romanticized and simplified––(it's not always so pretty and successful being "crazy", as this corporate ad suggests)––but I say,
Let's celebrate and support deviance from the norm.
Let's create conditions where we all flourish.
Potatoes are good. But don't we want orchids too?
And artichokes?
And nettles?
I had to pop over to John's blog to read the comments before commenting here. (I'd missed them when I read his first post yesterday.) Some people just DO NOT get it. Frankly, I'm astonished some of those commenters felt comfortable saying such things. (They may as well have said, "I'm not homophobic! Some of my best friends are gay!" INDEED.)
ReplyDeleteI understand the frustration that some people feel when asked to "explain" a certain perspective, as if they're a spokesperson for a huge subset of the population. But I also think we sometimes have to have a conversation when asked.
I live in a liberal bubble- I am truly shocked when someone sends a meme or a voices a thought re: otherness be it sexual identity , race, genitals, what ever the damned difference may be. This happened just yesterday, in my email from an old friend I thought I knew, I am stunned. You are right, have the conversation, offer perspective, stand up!I did read the comments on John's blog, glad he addressed them so well , though it would have been easier to just kiss it off, dump the comments -so ignorant they can barely be addressed without anger. John is a stand up guy! I love his shirt and love his blog and the difference he is making to difference..
ReplyDeleteI read the comments. After all this time it is so sad that all the hate and intolerance still goes on.
ReplyDeleteSTEVE: As I wrote on my new Comment Moderation, some people seem to have a big ball of spam where there brains should be.
ReplyDeleteMore power to people willing to teach well-meaning inquirers.
Mostly I want to give them a reading list and say, "get back to me when you've read some of this."
LINDA SUE:I remember when I (so foolishly) thought the hateful -isms were on the wane. THey certainly seem back in vogue.
Reading comments on blogs by bloggers like John, who tolerates a wide range of views helps remind me that there IS a range of views.
Working at the thrift store has broadened my awareness too.
GZ: I agree, it is so sad. Such expressions of pettiness.
Really, people?
I love the title of that book. It kind of says it all. Normal is such a dodgy word. The only way I would like to see it used is in terms of everyone has their own normal and unless they are impinging on the rights of others then that should be accepted. I went to have a look at John's blog and was impressed with how he dealt with the situation. Also your boss-it is up to individuals how they deal with things and ultimately if it has a positive effect then good.
ReplyDeleteSARAH: That book with the great title, "Why Be Happy..." is Jeannette Winterson's nonfiction memoir about growing up--it's much of the same material she fictionalized in her (better, I think) first novel, "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit"--a book that made me laugh out loud.
ReplyDeleteI looked up the etymology of "normal" (I like to do that!). It makes sense to me that its roots are from carpentry--
you do want your garden shed you build to "conform to a rule".
If a society is healthy, its social rules are pretty elastic and allow a lot of freedom--like society is a garden, not a building.
Oh, I just remembered, child psychologist Alison Gopnik suggests raising children as if you were a gardener, not a carpenter.
Probably that's where I got that analogy.
(Maybe you know her work, since you work with children.)
normal (adj.)
c. 1500, "typical, common;" 1640s, in geometry, "standing at a right angle, perpendicular,"
from Late Latin normalis "in conformity with rule, normal," in classical Latin "made according to a carpenter's square," from norma "rule, pattern"