Some of My Best Friends (and Family) Are Racists
| September 26th, 2007Editor’s Note: I don’t often share very personal stories, but I think there is something instructive in this story, so I am prepared to deal with the blowback.
I remember an argument I had with my mother a few years back. I had brought my boyfriend, a black man, who I had been dating for 4 years, to a family picnic. At the picnic, my grandfather and his wife refused to shake my ex-boyfriend’s hand because he was black. I knew something like this was going to happen, as my maternal extended relatives had made numerous bigoted comments going back to my childhood. I felt terrible for putting my ex in that situation, and I felt terrible that nobody in my family stood up and said something. They pretended like nothing happened. I was sobbing and furious, and he and I left the picnic soon after. We stopped at a fast food place, and he said, “I’ve never had anything like this happen to me before. I’m so glad we left.” I was glad to be gone, too.
After leaving I had an over the phone discussion with my mother, where my mother suggested that it was unfortunate that we left because my young cousins were crying. They liked and missed my ex and could not figure out why he had left. Her tone suggested that my ex and I were responsible for my cousins being upset, and perhaps, if we came back, they would stop crying. I remember being furious with my mother’s reaction, and I blurted out, “They should be upset. Racism hurts people. The fact that they are crying is a good thing. Hopefully, when they grow up, they will remember this so they don’t ever treat people that way.”
Later that evening, my mother and some of my aunts and cousins who felt bad about the situation came over to my apartment. I guess it was their way to try to make up for not saying anything at the picnic. They brought my younger cousins, so they could actually talk to my ex and hopefully feel better. At some point, they tried to tell me how my grandfather felt uncomfortable, and he felt like everybody was looking to see what he would do, and he made the claim that this was why he and his wife refused to shake hands. They also reminded me that my grandfather was notorious for being an abrasive person outside of his racism. But I wasn’t having it. To me this was all bullshit. Racist bullshit. Yes, he had been an asshole on other occasions, but this time he was a racist asshole.
I had listened to him and some other relatives in my extended family say pejorative things about blacks and Latinos for years. These offensive comments ranged from using the word nigger, to talking about lazy “colored” people, and making all kinds of statements about Mexican migrant farmworkers. It was rare for anybody but me to challenge this, and I didn’t even do it every time. In fact, it reached a point where people didn’t saying these things around me anymore because they knew I would get mad.1
The next Christmas my father and brother showed their solidarity with my ex (and me) by refusing to attend any events that my maternal grandfather attended.
I half forgave my grandfather and his wife even thought they never apologized and most likely they weren’t sorry for what they did. I’m not exactly sure how my ex dealt with this in the long run. By the time I saw my grandfather again, about 2 years later, I was no longer is that relationship. I had recently found out my grandfather was diagnosed with cancer, and I sat at the table and bit my tongue, while trying my best to act friendly. I know my mother, who felt torn over these events, was happy to see me sitting at that table, and I cheered when I saw him again 6 months later, and he announced his cancer had gone into remission. But I can’t lie. I was happy to be living very far away from him; I knew I didn’t have to confront this issue over and over again.
In my first month in New York, he suffered a severe stroke and heart attack. He suffered a great deal for a month or two, and then he passed away. I was sad that he died, and part of that sadness was with the fact that he never confronted any of the pain he visited on others. That racist incident defined my relationship with him over the last few years of his life. It’s really hard to remember the jokes he made when I was a child, before I knew or understood the depth of his bigotry.
This incident didn’t only change my view of him; it still lingers in the background of the relationships with many of my relatives. Some people may believe the lesson in this story is that you should make up with your loved ones before they die, but I don’t see it that way. I didn’t do anything wrong, and I didn’t want to expend any more emotional energy fighting an uphill battle. It would have been nice to get an apology for my ex and myself, but the odds of that happening were slim. To me, the lesson is that racism destroys relationships. It makes, otherwise decent people, turn a blind eye to suffering. The theory that says many white people don’t care about racism because it doesn’t effect them or their loved ones makes sense until you realize that in many cases loved ones are either perpetrators or inactive bystanders when racism is directed at their loved ones.
Racism is so insidious that it anesthetizes people to suffering of others (even others who they care about). It destroys empathetic reactions to human suffering. The victims of racism are expected to be the “bigger people” while the perpetrators get the “Get Out of Racism Free” card. Even when they know racist behavior is wrong and harmful, many white observers of racism suffer from moral paralysis. Rather than doing what is morally right, they do nothing.2
Moral paralysis is learned. It is not something that you are born with. This is actually why I was happy that my little cousins were crying when we left that picnic. Even though they didn’t quite know what was going on or why this situation was bad, it showed me that they hadn’t quite learned to be immune the suffering that racism causes. I hope, nearly 10 years later, they still get upset in those situations. I hope they have the courage to respond to bigots inside and outside our family. It may be the more difficult path to take (as I can attest to), but it’s the right one.
- I’d like to think that some stopped because they had a change of heart, but I’m not so convinced. (back)
- I’m not saying that it is easy for people who observe racist behavior to speak out. In these cases of family racism, there are often long protracted battles where people choose sides, which is not easy to do when you love someone but don’t love their behavior. Personally, I chose to withdraw rather than lobby for support. Partly, because I knew I was right; partly because I had been fighting on this issue for years prior to this; and partly because I didn’t expect to get too much support. In fact, I suspect that the amount of sympathy my partner and I received would have been inversely related to how much lobbying we did. (back)
September 27th, 2007 at 12:46 am
When my white mother’s black fiance died in a motorcycle accident, her parents refused to come to the funeral.
My mother, who lived in an orphanage during the early years of her childhood, fervently believes in the need to forgive family members. I can understand how her personality and experiences have shaped this belief, but I’ve never been as interested in forgiving her parents for the evils they’ve visited on others over the years.
Still, it was jarring to see my grandfather after he was in the car accident that killed him, when he was in so much pain and all he wanted was for someone, anyone, to keep holding his hand.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
September 27th, 2007 at 5:18 am
Rachel’s Note: I let this bigot through just to make a point. Y’all need to see some of the idiots out there.
This comment was written by Ed.Are you a professional victim? You knew his presence would be noted and you , forgive me, seemed to enjoy rubbing their noses in the fact of his extra melanin. Oh look everyone! I am sooo superior to you because I have the metrosexuality to be with another race! Feh. In isolated areas, they need to make a personal connection with those that are not common to their experience. Did you allow them the time and place to view him as a person or did you show him off in the manner of a designer toy?
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September 27th, 2007 at 5:23 am
Im ashamed to admit that I’ve been the white person who said nothing at moments I wish I hadn’t. This was particularly true around my ex’s family; He and I felt like it wasnt my place to challenge his family, and he felt like it wasnt worth challenging them. In no instance I can think of were there people of color around to be hurt by the casual racism, but that, to me, is not an excuse for letting that kind of stuff go.
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
September 27th, 2007 at 6:17 am
It seems to me this racism did hurt your grandfather - it cost him his relationship with you. It hurt everyone in your family who was denied your presence at family events where he attended and you did not because of his attendance.
This comment was written by Disgusted Beyond Belief.Report this comment to the moderators
September 27th, 2007 at 7:18 am
A friend of my wife can no longer speak to her father because of her lesbian relationship. So freaking depressing. He even skipped their wedding.
This family-breaking stuff reminds me of this story:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/566630,092007mayor.article
“Mayor Jerry Sanders abruptly reversed his public opposition to marriage for same-sex partners and revealed that his adult daughter is a lesbian.”
Some people can make the wrong decision in life, but change their minds when it personally affects them. It’s stupid to ignore a problem until it personally affects you, but at least some are humble enough to change their minds. But it’s ludicrous to be so stubborn when you can see that your actions are hurting loved ones for no goddamned good reason at all, and keep pushing on.
@Ed:
There’s no excuse - it’s not the ’40s anymore. Even an old curmudgeon who was raised to hate blacks has had decades upon decades to get over it. There is no excuse for having a problem with an interracial relationship in the year 2007. No, you don’t need a gradual introduction, or a warning.
This comment was written by Silenced is foo..Report this comment to the moderators
September 27th, 2007 at 9:25 am
This story is painful, and painfully familiar; here’s my (Jewish) grandfather’s description of his father-in-law, my great-grandfather.
“He was a Good man. A good Christian man. A good praying baptist Christian man. And he HATED Jews.”
This comment was written by SamChevre.Report this comment to the moderators
September 27th, 2007 at 9:56 am
What I find facinating about Ed is his assumption, with no evidence, that you were parading your ex around just to feel superior. There ARE liberals who do this kind of thing to their families, but he offered no support from your story to back up his assumption that you were acting this way, rather than just , you know, bringing your boyfriend to the family picnic. Ususally, when lefties accuse whites of racism for being assholes to blacks, other whtes are quick to question the assumption of racist motives for the assholery, just as your relatives did with regard to your grandfather. Interesting that Ed did not extend the same curtesy of assuming non-racist motivations to the victims of the behavior.
This comment was written by Decnavda.Report this comment to the moderators
September 27th, 2007 at 10:04 am
Your grandfather’s behavior was abhorrent, that’s for sure.
You mentioned that you had been dating your ex for four years at the point of the family picnic. Had your ex met members of the family, or was this the first introduction?
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
September 27th, 2007 at 10:43 am
My mother is married to a Panamanian man. She is unable to associate with her brother and his family because they would be even more openly uncomfortable than they were when she was a widowed single mother single-handedly raising two children without the support of any man. We’re talking southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois area here. It shocks and saddens me that people allow their own personal issues to interfere with their relationships with their own kin. If you can’t love your own blood unconditionally, then how can you function in larger society? I just don’t get it.
This comment was written by Blitzgal.Report this comment to the moderators
September 27th, 2007 at 11:43 am
Actually, whatever the commenter Ed did or didn’t do or see correctly, his point about whether you were using your ex as object really seriously merits some self-reflection IMO.
I don’t have to fully understand or agree with Ed to see the value of that point that his comment raises.
Your story presents you as a “good” white person to some extent, in relation to the overt racism you encountered.
And you know what, I actually do see racist objectification of your ex in this story itself. His subjectivity is not central. Instead, he is just part of a larger “plot line” that is centered on the subjectivities/inner realities of you and your family, the white people. He shows up in the story not as an actual person but as a Black object who the white people respond to. You have one pretty abstract line of attention to how he felt in his voice (presumably), and that’s it.
You named Ed a bigot, and you locate some of the other white people in your story as racist — are you exempt from being a primary perpetrator of white supremacy? You address passivity (not interrupting/calling out others’ racism), but I am talking about you actively perpetuating white supremacy through less overt methods, such as objectification of a person of color while maintaining the centrality and “most-humanness” of white people.
This comment was written by michelle.Report this comment to the moderators
September 27th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
@michelle
My best friend is gay, and within an artistic community that has a very small gay population. He says he has to constantly deal with straight people who want him in their little cadre of friends as a mark of their character. I believe his exact words were “I’m not your fucking Pokemon”. So, at least in my second-hand, anecdotal experience, I perceive that the problem exists.
However, I have to agree with Decnavda. It’s rather prejudiced to assume that Rachel had any reasons other than romantic ones for having a relationship with a black man. It is possible that she was initially attracted to the man out of some sort racial curiosity or something, but it’s not our place to consider it. It’s not like she’s actually given us any evidence to think so.
This comment was written by Silenced is foo..Report this comment to the moderators
September 27th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Michelle, You’re treating this like a work of fiction, not like real life. The reason the story marginalizes his point of view is because it is told from my point of view, and when I talk about real life, deeply personal, and potentially painful issues, I cannot pretend to speak for someone else. Unfortunately, since he and I are no longer in contact and I cannot ask his permission to get his side of the story, I think it would be unfair to him for me to publicly discuss more intimate details of his reaction.
The story is about whiteness and racism, and how it negatively affects whites. I suppose I am reaffirming whiteness as central to this narrative, but for the time being I think it would be more offensive for me to pretend to speak for someone else and to publicly post more intimate personal details about the same person.
I’m curious what you (and Ed) think a white person in a serious interracial relationship is supposed to do about their racist relatives? Should you disown you’re family and make sure that your spouse or partner never has to deal with them?
This comment was written by Rachel S..Report this comment to the moderators
September 27th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Robert said, “You mentioned that you had been dating your ex for four years at the point of the family picnic. Had your ex met members of the family, or was this the first introduction?”
Without going into all of the details. He knew many of my relatives. He had know my parents for a long time, almost the entire relationship. I’m not particularly close to my extended family, and I was in college at the time this relationship started. So my parents lived in southern Ohio (a 6 hour drive), my ex and I lived in Detroit, and my extended family lived about 1.5 hours from Detroit. I graduated from school in Detroit, and started attending a school near where my extended family lived. I saw my paternal extended family relaitves often, and they knew my ex during that time. I’d say only a few of my maternal extended family relatives had met him. Definitely my aunt and my 7-12 year old cousins had met him before. My grandfather and some of my mother’s kin had not met him.
Ok, too many details :), but it’s a complicated story.
This comment was written by Rachel S..Report this comment to the moderators
September 27th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Silence is foo said, “It’s rather prejudiced to assume that Rachel had any reasons other than romantic ones for having a relationship with a black man.”
Yep, plus if a relationship was based on purely on racial curiousity it’s probably not going to last for 4 years.
This comment was written by Rachel S..Report this comment to the moderators
September 27th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
Some of my family in Louisiana has a couple problems. I’ve tried to address this in a small way, but it took me a while to even notice the racial situation in their neighborhoods.
This comment was written by hf.Report this comment to the moderators
September 27th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
Some of my family members are seriously racist too. I try to stay away. But as a child and even sometimes as an adult, I’ve been one of the people who sat back and willfully ignored racist comments and actions. I think I didn’t say anything because:
a) some of my racist family members are unpredictably violent and I am afraid of them.
b) the comments and actions are so frequent that I’ve chosen my battles, trying to say one thing here and there, but it would just take too much effort to call out every racist thing.
c) I don’t know what to say. Sometimes “that’s racist” isn’t enough because they don’t care if they’re racist.
It’s a tough problem. I’ve avoided all family reunions partially because of it. If they’re not family, it’s one thing. But when the racists are relatives, it’s really hard to take.
Rachel, thank you for sharing this story.
This comment was written by Elaine Vigneault.Report this comment to the moderators
September 27th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
Thanks for the comments and your insights. The richness and the diversity of views showed me once again why this blog is one of my favorites.
This comment was written by Ed.Report this comment to the moderators
September 27th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
The wife of an old friend of mine had an uber-bigot for a father. He was an Equal Opportunity Bigot: just about everyone not in the immediate family had some negative label. Race, ethnic background, religion, sexual orientation, being born in a different part of the U.S. from where he lived, being rich or being poor (relative to his economic situation), having the effrontery to apply for welfare or even unemployment insurance… you get the idea. I met the man once, when he foisted himself on his daughter for a two-week visit, and I invited them over for dinner. It was the most miserable dinner party I’ve ever given.
So, did I behave morally? No. I ignored the rants and snide comments and let them pass. That was probably the kindest thing I could do for my friend and his wife, but that wasn’t why I did it. I just didn’t have the courage to say anything in the face of that bigotry barrage. I’m ashamed of my lack of backbone that day.
Rather amazingly, this man’s daughter managed to absorb fairly little of his attitude. Of course, by that time she’d been married to my friend for two decades, and he’s actively anti-bigotry. But still…
This comment was written by Karen.Report this comment to the moderators
September 27th, 2007 at 9:37 pm
My only surviving relatives of my grandparents’ generation are garden variety, Oklahoma-grown bigots: n-word this, watermelon that; Indian cadillac this, welfare that; immoral sexual perverts this, coming after our kids that….
Since I’m gay and in a 5-year relationship with a woman of color, I’m constantly confronted with a kind of dissonance. I love my family — if I stopped loving everyone who failed me in some way, I would have no one. I know they don’t fully accept who I am or who I’m with. I’ve had hard conversations with all of them. I’m used to not being fully recognized in family situations.
The single hardest thing I’ve had to do is realize that racist, homophobic, sexist people are people. They’re pastors and grandfathers, they cook their kids oatmeal and cheer on their softball teams. They’re good people. Salt of the earth people. Who have a serious problem. They don’t get a pass because they’ve managed to end up on the wrong side of a moral battle.
I like that the lesson of your story isn’t that you should make up with relatives before they pass, it’s to realize that racism damages relationships. The point, for white people, is that we have racism in our families, in our communities, in our churches, in our jobs… we have to live with it.
This comment was written by murphy.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2007 at 4:08 am
What!?
You had a ‘black’ boyfriend. You have a demonstrably racist family.
You invited your ‘black’ boyfriend to a gathering of your demonstrably racist family.
And then you have a Mary Sue breakdown because of the outcome.
Clearly, in order to show off your ‘enlightened’ sensibilities about race to your ‘family’, a ‘black’ man had to first walk the plank.
How many melanin enhanced men tossed over the side without a life preserver do you think might actually guilt your family into at least silent hate?
Why are you associating with your racist family anyway? Don’t tell me…you think you can change them?
Had I been him I would have been appalled by your casual disregard for my dignity, your childish need for affirmation from your racist family, and then, while walking out the door, told you to go polish some other lawn jockey.
This comment was written by Jolly Wacker.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2007 at 6:27 am
Ug, jolly. That comment was not only rude it was sexist.
Yeah, in retrospect, it might have been better not to go. But if you don’t go because you once heard one relative say a racist thing once (thats how your family will understand your hesitation, should you choose to explain it) you are a hypersenstive elitist liberal snob. If you choose to go alone, your boyfriend, or the racist family, might think you’re ashamed of your boyfriend because he’s black.
Certainly the boyfriend deserves some kind of warning/chance to opt out in advance. But there’s nothing in this story to suggest that he didn’t get that.
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2007 at 7:07 am
Because Rachel is my best friend in real life, I’m going to beg commenters to stop assuming she’s some closet racist liberal who likes to “parade” her interracial relationships for her own sake. Does she harbor some white racism? Of course she does, as a white person, we pretty much all do. And Rachel will be the first person to tell you that. And then in the next breath she will tell you that she attempts to recognize it in herself and challenge herself about it, as much as she challenges others and institutions to the degree it is in her power to do so - which is the only thing we can do.
I’m just going to say. Read her site. Realize that she does more than quite a lot of people to bring racism to the discussion, to illuminate on racist attitudes and instutional policies and she puts up with a crapload of hatred in the meantime. You can’t even believe the kinds of sexist and racist threats to her LIFE she gets harassed with basically everyday because she dares to speak out about racism. She doesn’t deserve a medal (and she’d say exactly that), she’s doing what anyone who cares about equality should be doing, she just stands out because she does it more publicly and more vocally than most whites. Give her the benefit of the fucking doubt. I know her well. I know her spouse well. I know that she’s not in an interracial relationship because it’s “cool” or to “challenge people.” She’s in an interracial relationship because the person she loves and connected to is black.
So just quit attacking her for sharing a deeply personal and painful experience. Realize that she is not, nor did she then, diminish her ex partner’s feelings or dignity, but she wrote this to illuminate on the difficulties that racism in families present to couples in interracial relationships. It’s easy for an outsider to say, “just write them off. Just ignore them all, get them out of your life.” Could YOU write off your immediate family so easily? Is she talking about how white racism hurts white people too? Yes. Is that claiming that whites are THE victim of racism? HAVE YOU READ ANYTHING RACHEL HAS WRITTEN BEFORE? Her point is much the same as Joe Feagin’s which is that racism hurts EVERYONE, including white people. Is it more personal and more detrimental to people who face the brunt of it everyday? Absolutely. And she’d be the first to tell you that. But, is it really so awful of her to point out her personal experiences of how family racism hurt her as well? Really?
Gah, I’m rambling, but this is pissing me off and Rachel is probably too diplomatic to tell you all to fuck off, so I’m doing it for her. I mean, if you’ve never ever seen anything she’s written before I guess I could understand better your less than favorable assumptions, but for God’s sakes, she’s been writing here and on her own blog for 2 years. It doesn’t take much reading of her to see that those assumptions are not only unfair, they are simply untrue.
**Note to moderators and in particular Rachel. If you think I’ve crossed a line of decorum I will understand if you want to edit or delete this. I am angry that she is being attacked like this and this post was written in anger. Rachel, if you think I misrepresented anything here or you simply think it’s better to delete this, feel free. I just can’t stand by here and watch you get attacked like this without saying something.**
This comment was written by Kate L..Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2007 at 8:00 am
Speaking just for myself, I don’t think you’re out of line. Actually, I find that you are expressing sentiments I share wholeheartedly.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2007 at 10:51 am
” Actually, I find that you are expressing sentiments I share wholeheartedly.”
Ditto.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2007 at 11:22 am
Ditto, ditto, ditto.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2007 at 11:41 am
Well… I understand what Rachel is saying in this piece and what she is trying to present, especially as I’ve been reading her both here and on her site for a couple of years now, so I read this through that prism, but I also understand Jolly Wacker’s point of view - mainly because, in the way the story is told, the boyfriend seems surprised that he faced this reaction from some of Rachel’s family.
I don’t know, but I am going to assume that, in the 4 year relationship, that the fact that some family members were racist was discussed and that he knew what he was getting into, going to the picnic. It’s one thing to go to something like that with the expectation of, “yeah, we’re going to meet some wacked out people, let’s just deal with it, make them show who they really are”; it’s quite another to walk into what you think will be a pleasant, family type experience (”they love me, so they will love him or at least be polite to him, etc”) and be confronted with outright racism “out of the blue”… to you, the recipient.
It is not clear, from the recounting, which was the case here but I’m hoping it was the former.
The point, for white people, is that we have racism in our families, in our communities, in our churches, in our jobs… we have to live with it.
Yeah, well… unfortunately, the rest of us have to live with it too. I sometimes feel sorry for white people and the racist friends, families, communities, churches and jobs they have to live with and I am not sure what the solution is. However…
The single hardest thing I’ve had to do is realize that racist, homophobic, sexist people are people. They’re pastors and grandfathers, they cook their kids oatmeal and cheer on their softball teams. They’re good people. (emphasis mine)
I disagree. They are not.
This comment was written by Nanette.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
My wife’s family is/was as racist as the day is long. I had lived my life up until age 15 in the Boston/Providence area. Very very few blacks, but racism was not tolerated in my family. I came home as a small child and used the “N” word one time having no clue as to what it actually meant. My mother literally washed my mouth out with soap and then had a bit of a talk with me.
At 15 I moved from the Boston area to the SW Chicago suburbs. I started dating the girl I’ve now been married to for 33 years about 6 months after that. As I got to know her family, the racism was astonishing to me. Especially how casual it was.
When we got married, I had no family in the area outside of my parents and brothers. So my dad, who worked for the Boy Scouts in Chicago wanted to invite some of his friends. I gave the list to my incipient mother-in-law, only to see her get angry and start to ask me a bunch of questions. She refused to believe that I a) hadn’t read the list and b) didn’t realize that people with names like “Otis Wilson” would be black. She thought that my parents’ desire to invite blacks to her daughter’s wedding had to be either ignorant or malicious. She predicted that if any blacks showed up her family would make a scene and/or walk out. My incipient father-in-law was worried that the men would get in the reception line and kiss his daughter; he was clearly revolted at the thought. And other stuff it would take too long to write down.
I had a very hard time getting my parents to believe all this, that they were really that racist. The decision at the end was that there was no way my parents would take the chance of subjecting their friends to snubs and insults.
I really had had little exposure to racism up to that point. Even when you hear people use racist terms and thoughts, it’s hard to believe that people you know and love would actually do something like that. So I can see where Rachel would invite her black BF to a party expecting that, no matter what people thought, they’d at least act civil and behave themselves. it’s hard to believe you’re wrong until it happens.
The single hardest thing I’ve had to do is realize that racist, homophobic, sexist people are people. They’re pastors and grandfathers, they cook their kids oatmeal and cheer on their softball teams. They’re good people. (emphasis mine)
These two were hard-working folks. He was a carpenter, a union member for 40 years. Supported charities, volunteer work. Knights of Columbus, VFW, VFW Women’s Auxiliary, Eastern Star, etc., etc. You’d have never thought this kind of thing.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Having recently listened to my brother go on at great length about how the racism in South Africa isn’t about skin color, it’s about culture, etc., etc. I’m well aware and freshly frustrated at the problem.
If you challenge the assumptions behind the racism, or sexism, or anti-Semitism, or homophobia, then you’re the one who’s so angry and difficult. It’s the same phenomena that permits men to harass women on the street, the same sort of behavior that permits religious leaders to sexually abuse their flock. We police ourselves, as well as being policed by our families.
This comment was written by Kaethe.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
Having recently listened to my brother go on at great length about how the racism in South Africa isn’t about skin color, it’s about culture, etc., etc. I’m well aware and freshly frustrated at the problem.
To me, this attitude is hilarious. MOST racism is about culture. Do you think American bigots hate blacks because they’re black? No, they hate blacks because they think that every black person is a stupid inner-city drug-dealing pimp.
Racism is the combination of negative cultural assumptions and the prejudiced application of those assumptions to an entire group based on their most identifiable feature - their race.
Do South Africans really think they’re better than other bigots because they happen to have crime-ridden ghettos of undereducated Africans in their country?
This comment was written by Silenced is foo..Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
Perhaps I should have made it clear that we knew the racist reaction was possible. I just figured that people would realize that within the four years my ex and I had obviously discussed family issues (both his and mine).
I personally feel like the tendency to think we hadn’t discussed my family’s racism is part of a common racist reaction to interracial relationships. For whatever reason, when you are in an interracial relationship, people tend to take your relationship less seriously than it really is. They also tend to think you have more problems than you do. Seriously, does anybody really think that I would have gone 4 years without bringing this issue up or that my ex (who is a very socially intuitive person) could not have figured out that some of my relatives are bigots.
It reminds me of a recent thing that happened at my gym. My husband and I have been going there for three years (3-5 times a week), so people know us and see us all the time. About 4 or 5 months ago, one of the guys who signed us up said, “I didn’t know you were married.” Now I can understand why he could think this–we have different last names; and we never wear rings to the gym. But it’s a small gym and we’ve been there for 3 years, and it’s this has happened before in other places. People think we are dating, not married. It could be coincidence, but I don’t think it is.
This comment was written by Rachel S..Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
Nanette said, “I understand what Rachel is saying in this piece and what she is trying to present, especially as I’ve been reading her both here and on her site for a couple of years now, so I read this through that prism, but I also understand Jolly Wacker’s point of view - mainly because, in the way the story is told, the boyfriend seems surprised that he faced this reaction from some of Rachel’s family.”
I wasn’t surprised that people were racist, and we debated long and hard about whether or not to even go to this event. However, what was surprising was the ways their racism manifested. I expected people to either sort of ignore the two of us or make odd inappropriate comments. What I didn’t expect was that my grandfather would even shake his hand, and I also thought that at least someone besides me would shame him and his wife for acting that way. In fact, the silence of others was in some ways more disturbing because it was less expected. I think he was surprised that someone would be so blatantly bigoted.
We never know exactly how others are going to react when they are bigots. Whether it’s anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-Jewish, or in this case anti-black, we can only guess how people are going to react. You can’t hide from them or avoid them for ever. At some point they need to be confronted. I’d venture to say everyone here has dealt with these issues at one point or another. I have yet to meet a person who has bigotry free friends or relatives.
This comment was written by Rachel S..Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
Thanks Kate. :)
You’re a great friend.
I was too annoyed to even respond to that racist, sexist, condescending, pig.
This comment was written by Rachel S..Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
@ Rachel and Kate L:
Oh Rachel, I so hoped you wouldn’t respond defensively! I so hoped! I really truly did! Because I am a fool and no matter what I know about the patterns, I keep hoping that “this time will be different.” But no.
Anyway, for me it wasn’t about intimate details or fiction or whatever, it was about how you locate a Black man as an object in what you recounted of your experiences.
I feel that deserves some critical self-reflection rather than a defense of yourself and argument and attempt to redirect the conversation to what is most important to you …
Sigh
Kate L: IMO attending to a white person’s practice of racism is not an “attack,” and really doesn’t require defense (in your case, defense for the vulnerable and courageous white woman). Why perceive it that way? She is raising the issue of white people’s active practice of racism and seems to want to address it in others in her family and not in herself. Why, is she one of the “good white people” to the point where she is certified “racism free” and has only to look at how she responds when others actively practice racism?
—————-
@Silenced is foo
My best friend is gay, and within an artistic community that has a very small gay population. He says he has to constantly deal with straight people who want him in their little cadre of friends as a mark of their character. I believe his exact words were “I’m not your fucking Pokemon”. So, at least in my second-hand, anecdotal experience, I perceive that the problem exists.
I don’t appreciate you, a straight person I assume, using your gay best friend’s experiences as supposed evidence that you can assess whether “the problem exists” (and there are just SO many layers of wrong in how you are saying/seeing this that I won’t get into all of it, but especially because you then went on to dismiss it).
You then wrote:
It’s rather prejudiced to assume that Rachel had any reasons other than romantic ones for having a relationship with a black man. It is possible that she was initially attracted to the man out of some sort racial curiosity or something, but it’s not our place to consider it. It’s not like she’s actually given us any evidence to think so.
Okay (sigh):
1. That assumes that the default for white people is “not racist” — and that there needs to be evidence for the assumption that Rachel is or was actively practicing racism in this situation. I disagree with that totally.
In a racist/white supremacist society, white people are agents of racism/white supremacy in many many ways, including ways that white people perceive as “normal” and “having nothing to do with race” — and yes even “romantic.”
2. And I myself personally do see evidence that Rachel is practicing racism here, the evidence being how she objectifies her ex in the actual telling of the story. But then I already said that.
3. Your focus in the comment and especially the part saying that “it is not our place to consider it” invests control in the white person’s hands.
In your approach, the assessment is about Rachel’s inner motivations, intentions, feelings — rather than her actions that are observable by others and do not require her consensus to analyze how she might be practicing racism. In your approach, she is the only person who can speak to her inner motivations, intentions and feelings. That means she is ultimately in control of defining the situation and has the final say in assessing whether and how she is practicing racism.
But if we look at her ACTIONS as primary, then anyone can make an assessment, whatever it is, accurate or not, based on what is right in front of them — and there is no need to consult the white woman in order to suggest, discuss, name etc her practice of racism.
————————-
And in general:
What’s the deal with white people wanting to prove “look I am not racist!”? (that is both a rhetorical and non-rhetorical question).
I mean, as if it is some essence rather than action, as if a white person who acts against racism over here cannot act to perpetuate racism over there. As if there is some sort of special not-racist white “self” and image and it’s all about maintaining and defending that, rather than honestly looking at what is going on?
Seems to me that the whole thing with this rests on the assumption that there are good and bad white people and that racism is more like an individual inner essence — rather than specific actions that perpetuate a racist/white supremacist system.
So instead of honest and open attention and curiosity to “how might I be perpetuating this system in my specific actions” … the task for white people is to prove “I am not a racist.”
And so attention to acts that do or might perpetuate racism morphs into a supposed test of the white person’s character rather than attention to what is actually going on and how it might be supporting or challenging the white supremacist system.
This comment was written by michelle.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
And, I missed this on the first read through of the replies, Rachel wrote:
I personally feel like the tendency to think we hadn’t discussed my family’s racism is part of a common racist reaction to interracial relationships. For whatever reason, when you are in an interracial relationship, people tend to take your relationship less seriously than it really is. They also tend to think you have more problems than you do.
So wait a minute … just a minute … so does that perspective mean that you as a white woman have shifted locations in the system and become an actual or potential victim of racism in the racism/white supremacy system if you are in a relationship with a Black man?
If not, good. But if so, that really doesn’t seem right to me. Not at all.
And I’m thinking you might want to look at who raised this specific issue in this discussion. I don’t know the details or who is coming from where, but reading the comments and where/how this was raised, this question comes up for me:
Given the actual situation on this blog in terms of who raised this specific issue — could you possibly be suggesting that you as a white woman in a (past) relationship with a Black man, could you possibly be suggesting that you have been targeted in this discussion by people of color who are “racist” about it because they are not just assuming the correct things about your relationship?
(that is not a rhetorical question in any way).
This comment was written by michelle.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Rachel said: Perhaps I should have made it clear that we knew the racist reaction was possible. I just figured that people would realize that within the four years my ex and I had obviously discussed family issues (both his and mine).
I personally feel like the tendency to think we hadn’t discussed my family’s racism is part of a common racist reaction to interracial relationships.
Hm. Well, I don’t think that necessarily follows. Nor (though I did lean toward assuming it) is there much indication in the original accounting of the event that there was prior discussion of what he might be faced with, partially because your ex- boyfriend is only briefly sketched into the story (for reasons you’ve explained in comments). Still…
“I felt terrible for putting my ex in that situation,”
he said, “I’ve never had anything like this happen to me before. I’m so glad we left.”
I’m not exactly sure how my ex dealt with this in the long run.
… all combine to give the impression of someone possibly blindsided by something and maybe even experiencing some residual trauma as a result of it. I am not sure it’s helpful (to the overall discussion) to assume that the reaction of some people to that part of the original post - which also made me extremely uncomfortable, though probably less so since I am familiar with your work - is because of bigotry.
This comment was written by Nanette.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
[Comment deleted. On reflection, I have no interest in this particular thread of the conversation.]
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Michelle raises an important and interesting point; it’s one that Iam about to try to deal with in the My Daughter’s Vagina essay that I am serializing on this blog. In Part 1 I talked about the two women with whom I did an independent study and how they each wanted to write about their experience of child sexual abuse; I also mentioned in that section that they were women of color and that I am a white man. When I originally wrote My Daughter’s Vagina more than five years ago, the fact that they were women of color disappeared after the initial mention; I did not take it up as an issue in the essay at all, even though I mentioned the women themselves again and again. I’m not going to go into much detail here, since the details will come out in Part 6 of the essay when I post it. What I want to say here is, simply, this: It is not that the women and I did not discuss race and racism in the context of our working together. We did, at length and in detail. When it came to write about them, though, I did not have readily available to me a conscious vocabulary, integrated into my own experience, with which I could bring our discussions/awarenesses of race into the discussion of sexuality that was/is for me the central concern of the essay. It was only after I wrote the piece, and only after some time had passed, that I understood what I had left out and how what I had left out actually skewered the essay itself on a whole range of different levels. I did not, in other words, even perceive this aspect of my own racism until I had, so to speak, performed it.
This comment was written by Richard Jeffrey Newman.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Michelle, I have no idea how many times you have read this site or any other sites I have posted on, but I have never claimed that I am not racist. I believe everyone is part of the system of racism.
What I object to is your desire to have me tell another person’s view on the same event. You want me to reframe the story and speak for someone else, and I won’t be doing that.
But what you and some of the other commenters seem unable to do is offer any real life concrete suggestions about how people should deal with these kinds of situations. You’re tone is incredibly abstract, and you seem unable to understand how whites can be the targets of white racism.
I agree with you that racism isn’t only about “moral failings.” It is a system. And I agree that we have to examine our own privilege.
Anyways, I have more to say and not enough time to say, so perhaps I’ll return to this discussion later.
This comment was written by Rachel S..Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
Yeah Nanette, I think you are right people latched on to those particular lines of the post, and twisted them around a little while ignoring some other relevant details, such as the fact that the relationship was long term. Perhaps I could have written the story in a different way.
Moreover, I think people are also misinterpreting me saying I regret putting him in that situation. Maybe I should have used a different word choice because I don’t regret taking him there to the family gathering. I regret that my relatives acted like racist assholes, and if he never would have known me, then perhaps this would have never happened. You know when you care for people you try to look out for them, and it’s really hard to protect people from relatives unless you cut off contact and pretend they don’t exist, which is what I did for a long time after this event. Unfortunately, that didn’t make the problem go away either.
This comment was written by Rachel S..Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
michelle said, “So wait a minute … just a minute … so does that perspective mean that you as a white woman have shifted locations in the system and become an actual or potential victim of racism in the racism/white supremacy system if you are in a relationship with a Black man?”
Michele the author Heather Dalmage uses the term rebound racism to describe these kinds of incidents. So yes, I have been the victim of white supremacy because I was and am in an interracial relationship. That doesn’t mean I don’t have white privilege; it doesn’t mean that if my relationship ends that my life is going to get easier.
White racism does victimize whites, especially whites wh o stand up to it.
I don’t think that whites are hurt in any way to the extent that people of color are hurt by racism, but the system of white supremacy can hurt whites.
“Given the actual situation on this blog in terms of who raised this specific issue — could you possibly be suggesting that you as a white woman in a (past) relationship with a Black man, could you possibly be suggesting that you have been targeted in this discussion by people of color who are “racist” about it because they are not just assuming the correct things about your relationship?”
First, of all I don’t think everyone who has targeted me is a person of color (when people assume they make an ass out of themselves). I want to know how you think people are assuming the “correct things” about this relationship. On what basis do you know that you personally have all the facts and are being fair.
I think you’re point about reflecting on privilege is fair, and if you read the totality of my work you would find pieces that do that. What I think is unfair is that you felt more than OK jumping to conclusions, and telling me to write something different and do so by using my voice to speak entirely for someone else.
I am saying that most opposition to interracial relationships is a product of racial prejudice and white racism, and I’m not going to back down from that. A few people have felt more than free to make assumptions and somewhat inappropriate comments in this discussion; comments that they would never direct at a couple where bother people are of the same race.
This comment was written by Rachel S..Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
And more more thing so it’s very clear, I am not now, nor have I ever said,
1) People in interracial relationships cannot be racist.
2) Whites in interracial relationships face the same level of discrimination as people of color.
3) Being in an interracial relationship means I understand everything about racism.
I just want to make that t-totally clear, since I know not everyone has read everything I’ve written on the subject.
This comment was written by Rachel S..Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
Rachel,
You wrote: But what you and some of the other commenters seem unable to do is offer any real life concrete suggestions about how people should deal with these kinds of situations.
My suggestions are:
1. If you are going to write publicly about “these kinds of situations,” do so from a space of being actively open to criticism, because as a white person recounting stuff like this, you may well be practicing racism in what you are doing and/or how you are doing it.
2. Stand responsible for what you do each and every time you act, and don’t be defensive.
3. When you write about racism, assume that you likely do NOT know all of the implications and effects of what you are saying or how you are seeing things.
…. Which are probably all versions of the same basic suggestion.
Other stuff:
First, of all I don’t think everyone who has targeted me is a person of color (when people assume they make an ass out of themselves). I want to know how you think people are assuming the “correct things” about this relationship. On what basis do you know that you personally have all the facts and are being fair.
You’re still being defensive! Why why why? Rachel, what are you defending and why is it so important to defend it? What would happen if you just stopped being defensive? Would that be such a horrible thing to do?
Anyway. In my comments I am responding specifically to what is in front of me in your post and this discussion — your recounting of your experiences and perspective, your (and others’) responses etc. This is not abstract to me, since what you are doing is right in front of all of us.
As I see it, your post was messed-up in some specific ways. And in your responses, you have employed various very common white-person tactics of defending yourself (both explicitly and subtly), rather than being genuinely open and honest and standing responsible for your actions and their effects, regardless of your intent or what you really meant or whatever.
The way I see things, there is no reason for me to assume you are overall thoughtful and self-critical on these issues (offline or online) since you are not being particularly thoughtful and self-critical in this discussion in any substantive way. You just keep defending yourself — to the point where you can’t even admit that there was something not-okay about what you wrote without casting yourself as misunderstood and others as twisting and latching on and making incorrect assumptions.
Your actions speak here as elsewhere. They may not always say the same thing, but they speak louder than your interpretations of and defenses of your actions, in my view.
This comment was written by michelle.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
I had my ‘husband’ first read Rachel’s post and then my comment so that I might obtain a measure of my rebuttal. Did it fall wide of the plate? And you know what? He was just as appalled by the level of narcissism on display as I was. Obviously, to some here, he too would be ‘wrong’. Or “sexist”. Or whatever label dished to stifle dissent.
As is demonstrated by other’s comments, I am not alone in the opinion that it is not only your framing of this ‘personal’ story, but the objectification (let alone active absence) of the other principal player, the ‘black’ man, which invites interpretations such as my own.
I am not at fault here, your story is, and posting addenda in comments does not bring greater legitimacy to the post. Perhaps if you had passed this across the desk for review prior to publishing you would understand your error in judgement. We expect journalists to provide their sources so how you could possibly recount this story without providing the ‘black’ man’s side of the story. As it is he’s just a token player in a morality tale which reads like a recovering racist still working out the kinks in their deprogramming.
As for slapping my comment with the “sexist” label, curiosgyrl, perhaps you could go to the bother of validating your claim rather than just throwing labels around like so much confetti.
As for others who run to the parapets like clucking chickens to throw epithets in Rachel’s defense I, for one, assume Rachel is a grown woman who, if she is prepared to recount her ‘personal’ life in public, also possesses a skin thick enough to endure the slings and arrows thrown at her because of said content. Perhaps you regard her and her story as a fragile thing to be cherished and cooed over like a little pony, but I’m under no obligation to coddle or patronize her like the ’sexist’ meanie curiosgyrl would assume I am.
I’m neither her mommy, her daddy, her brother, her sister or BFF, and it shouldn’t be a requirement here to frame my comments as though I were. I am an observer, an observer who could recount his own objective and subjective observations of and responses to racism, sexism and homophobia—whether overt or casual—if I were so inclined. But submitted accounts of my life’s experience are not relevant here, and I neither desire or need to hold your hand as though I were on the set of Oprah.
Rachel is who she presents herself to be in her own writing. If she is criticized for its content or that content is readily misconstrued or misinterpreted, well, that’s the author’s fault, not the readers. Defaulting to blaming the reader insinuates that the validity of Rachel’s interpretation of her own experience supersedes any other—just because…just because she is the author.
This comment was written by Jolly Wacker.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
1. That assumes that the default for white people is “not racist” — and that there needs to be evidence for the assumption that Rachel is or was actively practicing racism in this situation. I disagree with that totally.
In a racist/white supremacist society, white people are agents of racism/white supremacy in many many ways, including ways that white people perceive as “normal” and “having nothing to do with race” — and yes even “romantic.”
Please. Please, in the name of all that is holy and beautiful in the world, tell me that this is a troll. You’re seriously arguing that we should be prejudiced about peoples prejudices?
Doesn’t this cause some kind of mental recursion stack-overflow thing?
This comment was written by Silenced is foo.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2007 at 7:53 pm
Listen Jolly, you were patronizing and sexist. You deployed several very virulent stereotypes. You said, “…but I’m under no obligation to coddle or patronize her like the ’sexist’ meanie curiosgyrl would assume I am.”
Well then why in the hell did you do that?
This comment was written by Rachel S..Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
Michelle said, “You’re still being defensive! Why why why? Rachel, what are you defending and why is it so important to defend it? What would happen if you just stopped being defensive? Would that be such a horrible thing to do?”
I’m being defensive because two people launched very insensitive, patronizing, sexist, and racist attacks at me and this post. And you came in a defended what was really an absurd comment. I’ll stop defending when people stop attacking and thinking it is OK to make very racist, sexist, and patronizing assumptions.
Michelle said, “As I see it, your post was messed-up in some specific ways.”
Such as…….
Michelle said, “…rather than being genuinely open and honest and standing responsible for your actions and their effects, regardless of your intent or what you really meant or whatever.”
So now you are calling me a liar? And I’m not supposed to be defensive. LOL!
Michelle said, “The way I see things, there is no reason for me to assume you are overall thoughtful and self-critical on these issues (offline or online) since you are not being particularly thoughtful and self-critical in this discussion in any substantive way. You just keep defending yourself — to the point where you can’t even admit that there was something not-okay about what you wrote without casting yourself as misunderstood and others as twisting and latching on and making incorrect assumptions.”
Ok, offer something…..
This comment was written by Rachel S..Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
“You deployed several very virulent stereotypes”.
Examples and context, please.
This comment was written by Jolly Wacker.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2007 at 8:57 pm
You know upon further reflection. I suppose I should explain to Michelle why it is so easy to become defensive over this subject. When you are in an interracial relationship, you frequently have to deal with people who question the legitimacy of your relationship based on nothing other than blatant racial stereotypes. So part of my defensiveness (to two comments that just about any person in an interracial relationship would find insulting) is from the fact that you do constantly have to defend your relationship.
I know this is probably hard for someone who has never been in a serious relationship with a person from another racial background to understand.
But when you are in an interracial relationship, you are frequently defending your relationship (and your children if you have them). You have to fend off to racist friends and family members, who would rather see it end. You fend off strangers who stare at you and your partner and make rude or snide remarks. You even fend off threats to your health and safety. My stepson (who is black) had to deal with little kids bothering him by constantly asking, “is that your mommy?’
So I suppose I am indeed defensive, it’s hard not to be defensive when people constantly attack the legitimacy of your relationship and your family.
If this were a one shot deal of a debate in a blog forum it would be different, but it’s not. It’s real life; it’s everyday. I wrote this post about a week ago, and I delayed putting it up because I debated about whether or not I would have the mental and emotional energy to fight. I’m still waiting for my mother to read the post and complain about how I aired the family dirty laundry, and I expected negative comments. Of course, anybody who’s been around here long enough knows damn near every post I put up attracts criticism, so I’m somewhat prepared, but on something this serious and this personal the criticism stings much more.
This comment was written by Rachel S..Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
Rachel, I appreciate that you chose to share this story & I realize that this represents a young idealistic you.
But this has to be said. Black people are exactly like every other human being. We want our friggin peace of mind! We have to deal with racism– overt or subtle–most days. We experience racism before we’re even old enough to know that’s what we’re experiencing. While some of other races love us, they can never be us. HERE’S THE SCOOP: We don’t EVER want to deal with racists when we don’t have to. Would any of you want to spend you free time dealing with racism directed towards you?
I’ve been in a situation where I wondered if I called the abuser a ’small minded skeevy b$$$$’ will I still have a relationship when this is over? Do I want to keep going through this for a slice of cake & punch? Wouldn’t it be easier to end the relationship & not have to do this again?
Rachel’s family brought her to tears. You know what makes me want to cry? The denial shown by the people who care about us when they walk us into these bizarre situations. If nonblack people don’t know how to respond to these people, what the hell can a black person say or do to change them? I mean at least they like you. Maybe some think that because blacks deal with this attitude on a regular they develop a ’strong back.’ Not true, each ignorant action/remark feels like the first.
It’s not wrong to hope that your family will except your partner, but it is wrong to put that hope above reality & damage someone you care about. From your response to another commenter, your partner was already accepted by those closest to you. I’ll bet that you went to that gathering with the attitude ‘I’m gonna make them accept him.’ But he didn’t need that. He had tons of people who already loved & accepted him. Black people & other POC understand the way the world works. We don’t have a need to change the heart of every racist, we don’t need to be accepted by everyone (just the people who care about us). Also, because we’re human, we don’t always turn the other cheek.
This comment was written by patsgirl.I will always stand up to hate. Whether it’s directed at me or someone of another race/sex. Thanks for letting me speak on this.
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September 28th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
This seems like a particularly important point to me. In attempting to reform (if that’s even possible) other people from their bigoted viewpoints, is the direct approach really all that useful?
I’ve ran into this problem myself; out of fear of losing or alienating my friends, I typically (and, I’ll be the first to admit here, cowardly) keep quiet around bigotry. Sometimes, I’ve gone a little farther, become confrontational or argumentative. All that ever seems to happen is that the friendship becomes a little more sour; I can’t see into anyone else’s minds to be sure, but it doesn’t seem like I’m making progress.
For a third party, staying silent during situations like Rachel’s just conveys approval, but speaking out just seems to create antagonism. So, is there a good balance that I can strike between these two extremes? Do I just need to learn to make my points differently? What are y’alls experiences with this?
This comment was written by David Simon.Report this comment to the moderators
September 28th, 2007 at 10:08 pm
“The point, for white people, is that we have racism in our families, in our communities, in our churches, in our jobs… we have to live with it.”
Black families have racists too (and the reasons are historically warranted). The difference is black families make it clear to their members that if you can’t be civil then sit your ass down & shut up. It’s a whole ‘don’t embarass the race’ thing. That’s why whites believe that black families are so much more accepting of interracials. But this is not true. Black families have strong negative feelings, but will rarely act on them. And they usually get over it. None of that disowning stuff.
“The single hardest thing I’ve had to do is realize that racist, homophobic, sexist people are people. They’re pastors and grandfathers, they cook their kids oatmeal and cheer on their softball teams. They’re good people. (emphasis mine)”
Nanette is right. That’s like saying rapists are good people.
This comment was written by patsgirl.Report this comment to the moderators
September 29th, 2007 at 12:01 am
Jeez! I keep coming back.
This comment was written by patsgirl.Rachel, You ask for concrete ways to respond to this crap, ways to defend yourself & your loved ones against it. Hell, even black people don’t always know what to say to racists. Honestly, our first instinct is to kick ass. If there is a way to get rid of racism a lot of good people want to know.
Most of us are weary as shit. Some of us have turned to denial to get through (accepted the ‘color blind’ theory). When I hear & read some the pompous comments here & in other places it makes me tiiiiiiired. I don’t like the ‘I’m such a matyr to the cause’ thing, because it comes acrosss as ‘I’m doing you people a favor by sacrificing my priviledge to be with one of your kind’ (not said by Rachel). Aren’t you getting something out of the relationship too–love, companionship, etc? Otherwise why go through the stress of being in it.
Being a minority in a racist society is constantly being paranoid about who you let into your world & who you voluntarily interact with, because you really never know who’s a racist. The same applies when you’re with a minority–you’ll always question peoples motives (like with the guy at the gym).
You said that you’re on the defensive because of peoples responses to your relationship. That’s how every black person I know & love lives (whether we’re in an interracial relationship or not).
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September 29th, 2007 at 2:03 am
Michelle wrote:
I think your expectations for three paragraphs of an autobiographical blog post are questionable. (I know the post is more than three paragraphs, but there are only three paragraphs set in the time period in which Rachel was dating this man; the other paragraphs take place in other periods of Rachel’s life). In a longer piece — a magazine essay, say, or certainly a book — it’s reasonable to want all the characters to be fully fleshed-out characters. But that expectation isn’t realistic for three paragraphs of a blog post.
I also think it’s critical that white people write critically about whiteness and white racism. Doing so will necessarily entail focusing on white people and whiteness some of the time. I think this post — which is centered on the racism of Rachel’s family, not on the subjectivity of her ex — is an example of this.
None of this is to say that Rachel or anyone else should be immune from criticism in general. I just think that the specific criticism you have made isn’t fair, in this context.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
September 29th, 2007 at 8:49 am
patsgirl said, “You said that you’re on the defensive because of peoples responses to your relationship. That’s how every black person I know & love lives (whether we’re in an interracial relationship or not).”
I think thats a very important point. It’s the psychology of racism for people of color and whites who challenge racism. There is a constant defensiveness because there is a constant attack.
This comment was written by Rachel S..Report this comment to the moderators
September 29th, 2007 at 9:18 am
Sexist:
you used the story as evidence of feminine neurosis in a stereotypical way
this sentence uses sexist and racist stereotypes to demean rachel. That you were pretending to “speak” in her ex boyfriends voice makes it more, not less, offensive.
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
September 29th, 2007 at 10:25 am
Frankly, I also think the word “objectified” is being misused in this context, though if someone wants to pull out the sentences where Rachel S. treats her ex as an object rather than a person, that would change my mind.
Lack of character development =/= objectification.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
September 29th, 2007 at 10:31 am
Yeah, I’d say everyone is right — racists aren’t “good people.” Neither are homophobes or sexists or …
But my larger point is that most, if not all, white people are racist. You can probably count the number of fully gay-accepting straight people on one hand. My brother, great as he is, still thinks women can’t drive and aren’t funny. One of the defining struggles in my life is how to recognize political, emotional and moral faults in people close to me and see them as opportunities, not barriers. The way I’ve done this (and this is just a personal coping method, really) is to try to reach the good in them. I think there’s good in most people, they’ve just grown up in a horrible system.
I can understand that this isn’t the only way or necessarily the best way to deal with family. Sometimes you have to isolate yourself from that kind of poison. There’s a lot of shame in realizing your family is full of horrible people with huge blocks around race, gender, sexuality (and that being somehow ‘better’ than them about these issues doesn’t exempt you from having your own blocks). I actually wonder my strategy isn’t a product of being queer — since the people I love the most and really respect were horrible people when I came out to them, I had to have faith that they could change and that I could learn to forgive.
This comment was written by murphy.Report this comment to the moderators
September 29th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
Because:
and
and:
When racism is both thought to be the “default” or “assumed” white condition; when being racist is thought to disqualify one as a good person and even get one compared to a freakin’ rapist…
If you need to ask a fucking “non-rhetorical question” about why someone might want to AVOID getting classified in that manner, you need your head examined.
And if you’re willing to judge Rachel so harshly, i invite you to start putting aspects of your life on display. Can’t you distinguish between a retrospective writing that someone uses to help themselves and others see more about an issue, and a boastful writing in which the author claims omniscience and perfect quality? To use your phrase, that is both a rhetorical and a non-rhetorical question.
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
September 29th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
If Rachel’s post had been about the effect of this incident on her and her ex’s relationship, some of the criticism about “objectifying” ex might be more on the mark. You would expect more detail on his feelings and reactions than “I’m so glad we left.” You would certainly expect more detail about him as a unique human being beyond the fact that he is black.
However, the focus of the article was the impact this incident had on Rachel’s relationshiop with her grandfather and other family members. There was no need to go into detail about her ex and how the incident affected him. Besides, she has given no indication that her ex would be incapable of writing about the incident from his own perspective if he were to choose to do so. There’s no need for her to speak for him, and wouldn’t it be racist for her to presume a need to do so?
This comment was written by Paul R..Report this comment to the moderators
September 29th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
Curiousgryrl, how doesn’t Rachel’s description of her thought process and actions in this story not meet the definition of the Mary Sue archetype? Moreover, how isn’t the stress of living and dealing with racism a catalyst for neurosis? For instance, have you read this.
“Pretend,” curiousgyrl? Who are you? Rush Limbaugh? With your preternatural skill to reveal people’s REAL thoughts and feelings, why aren’t you working in Vegas? I suppose your crystal ball, or whatever sooth-saying device you consult, has also told you that Jonathan Swift really wanted to feed Irish babies to the English, too?
And if you don’t like the tone of that paragraph either I suggest you not brandish your intellectual dishonesty so proudly.
To Paul R.:
I disagree.
So the boyfriend played no role, provided no input, provoked no response whatsoever which would later influence or shape the author deliberations on the events that transpired?
In other words, he’s just a McGuffin?
This comment was written by Jolly Wacker.Report this comment to the moderators
September 29th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Jolly,
Modulate your tone, please.
Also, at some point you might want to define McGuffin as you’re using it. None of the definitions I’m aware of apply to this personal essay at all.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
September 29th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
It would be surprising if that were the case; however, going into detail would have resulted in a potential invasion of his privacy, not to mention a much longer post.
This comment was written by Paul R..Report this comment to the moderators
September 30th, 2007 at 2:02 am
“The single hardest thing I’ve had to do is realize that racist, homophobic, sexist people are people. They’re pastors and grandfathers, they cook their kids oatmeal and cheer on their softball teams. They’re good people. (emphasis mine)”
Perhaps they should be referred to — in a throwback to the Nice Guys discussion — as Good People/Person (TM). Calling racists good people both cheapens/subverts the definition of a good person as well as negates the feelings, opinions, and perceptions of the group(s) aforementioned Good Person (TM) decides to be very bad to.
When I first started reading blogs and message boards on the Innanets, the amount of virulent anti-black racism was shocking, but much more so was the glaring, disheartening dearth of censure. I had been raised to believe that such things were unacceptable and inappropriate in our society, and it disturbed me greatly to see that few people — even under the cloak of complete anonymity — were interested in acting as if these things were unacceptable and inappropriate. It’s scary to go out into the world and feel as if no one really has your back, your reputation’s not worth defending, and the voices of those that despise you aren’t going to be routinely drowned out by those who don’t. I can tell you… silence and “ignoring” of such comments feels a lot like approval/complicity. And I’ll ask, if someone addressed the group(s) that any of you belong to in a similarly derogatory fashion, would you still stay silent, ignore the comment, or stay friends with that person?
This comment was written by Banana Danna.Report this comment to the moderators
September 30th, 2007 at 9:37 am
Personally, I believe someone can have bigoted views and still be an over all good person. I wish it were just as simple as “good people” aren’t bigots, but it isn’t.
Personally, I tend to think racism, sexist, heterosexism, ageism, ableism, classism, Antisemitism, and whatever other system of discrimination you can think are are bad ideologies. Moreover, they are bad parts of our social institutions, and they are so overpowering, I’m not sure we can get around participating in those systems. If participating in those systems makes us bad people, then we are all bad people.
This comment was written by Rachel S..Report this comment to the moderators
September 30th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
Well, if racists still get to be “good people” (which, according to some, is all that matters), and people rarely speak up against them, what are the mainstream social penalties for being racist? Are there any? If you can keep your friends, your family, and your “good reputation”, what impetus is there for racists to stop being racist, and what solace is there for those who are targets of racism, if bringing any of this up makes them whiners and troublemakers, subject to further ostracism?
This comment was written by Banana Danna.Report this comment to the moderators
September 30th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
Jolly, yeah I have no idea what he was thinking. My only point was there are lots of scenarios which dont fit your unfavorable reading of Rachel. And I think you are wrong that her actions fit some neurotic stereotype; you read that on to the story.
And I am not Rush Limbaugh.
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
October 1st, 2007 at 12:03 am
Rachel:
-I am seeing how you pick and choose what you respond to from a couple of commenters who have offered important information to you, and who you try to agree with by taking a bit of their comment and replying to it — but whose critiques and stated pain and discomfort about your story you studiously ignore. Do you know what I am talking about? It’s right there to see so you can look for it yourself.
-I already did “offer something” in my initial comment. And as it is now, I feel like my original criticism is only useful in the context of the other important criticisms from several other people that you are but not taking seriously enough. Take it seriously. Listen to them. Listen dammit. Please.
So really, I would rather you understand what I wrote in that initial comment in relationship to what other people have said that you (and those defending you) have been disrespecting. And where my initial comment doesn’t relate to what other people have written about problems with the post and the situation, it isn’t relevant.
But to do this you would need to take in content from other commenters that you have offered no indication that you have actually taken seriously as important critical information.
-I would also suggest you look at why you can only see the alternative as you “speaking for” the Black man in how you recount the situation he was a part of. Why that is the only option you see other than having his perspective so relatively absent? Are those the only two options, really truly? White person either barely includes the person who is Black in the telling of something he was a part of, or speaks FOR that person? Really?
-About your defensiveness — white person defending self (or having self defended by other white people) when called out on racism is nearly always problematic in the actual practice of it. Your experience in interracial relationships does not mean you are no longer white.
Let me say it again:
Your experience in interracial relationships does not mean you are no longer white.
You seem to not be fully aware of this. It is relevant IMO because as a white person you are capable of practicing white supremacy in particular ways that require critical attention. And when you let yourself off the hook, that’s just another way to evade taking responsibility for what you do. Evading responsibility for the practice of white supremacy is a very seriously typical White Person thing to do.
You still have responsibilities, in my view, and if your experience in interracial relationships supports and assists your White Person Defense Mechanisms — which it seems from this discussion that it has — then that is just bad all around.
So part of my defensiveness (to two comments that just about any person in an interracial relationship would find insulting) is from the fact that you do constantly have to defend your relationship.
You are claiming a truth of feeling and response to those comments for “just about any person in an interracial relationship”? Seriously, you are a white woman speaking for and on behalf of “just about every” person of color in an interracial relationship? Really? And what happened to your concern about not “speaking for” the Black man in your story? If you can speak for nearly every person of color in an interracial relationship in this way?
This comment was written by michelle.Report this comment to the moderators
October 1st, 2007 at 12:16 am
@Sailorman,
If you need to ask a fucking “non-rhetorical question” about why someone might want to AVOID getting classified in that manner, you need your head examined.
Okay, so that is part of a definition of crazy, to not get it?
To not get why there is such insecurity among white people about not being perceived as “A good person,” why there is such deep deep freaked-out-ness not being perceived as a “good person” who have to consider the truth of being active agents of white supremacy?
Seriously. Well, I mean I get it cognitively, I guess I do maybe… or not, I don’t know. But I don’t get it in my gut. I really don’t.
I mean, Sailorman, you wrote: When racism is both thought to be the “default” or “assumed” white condition; when being racist is thought to disqualify one as a good person and even get one compared to a freakin’ rapist
I don’t get why this is so horrible to you, such fear/concern about whether white people can be “disqualified” as “good people” or under what conditions.
I mean something deep is challenged here, obviously, you are really freaked by this possibility but ..
I mean, this is the situation, that being an agent of white supremacy is horrible, this is a horrible inhuman system! and the so much more so for the actual people who actually are targets of it.
But this deep void of WHAT IF BEING WHITE MEANS I AM NOT CLASSIFIED/ QUALIFIED/ PERCEIVED AS A GOOD PERSON!! (focus focus focus upset upset defend) …. Yeah, I don’t get that. Don’t get the deep freaked-out defensiveness of it, don’t get whatever deep terror this seems to bring up in you. Again, maybe I get it cognitively, analytically, but I don’t get it in my gut somehow.
And if that means I “need my head examined” then I openly accept that I am crazy.
And if you’re willing to judge Rachel so harshly, i invite you to start putting aspects of your life on display.
Who — and what system of value, and what perspective — decides the terms of what is harsh and what isn’t? Who and what defines acceptable terms of engagement — what is speakable or unspeakable and how, what tone is okay or not, and what is “so harsh”?
And, whose concerns are central — whose pain and vulnerability is “real” and relevant and whose is not?
And, I absolutely don’t believe Rachel is doing anything special or heroic in this post. I don’t believe she deserves a special cookie or protection or defense for her courage or vulnerability because she posted this.
She is a white person posting publicly about racism. Of course her life experiences would be an appropriate thing to post about, because the life experiences of white people (not the inner reality-sense of white people a lot of times, but what is done/what happens) speak to how racism functions. So she decided to post about that.
As a white person posting publicly about racism, whether or not Rachel shares information about her personal life or not, however she does or does not exercise her privilege to stay protected from the pain of this system — in my view, she has a serious responsibility to be open to strong questioning and criticism about what she did, how she described it, what she is doing now in response, and how she is doing that.
White people don’t learn how to do this — take actual responsibility — from white culture (which in fact teaches white people how to evade of that kind of responsibility for self and in impassioned defense of other white people).
But the responsibility still remains, whether or not white people, individually or collectively, admit it or step the hell up to it — it is there even without white consent.
This comment was written by michelle.Report this comment to the moderators
October 1st, 2007 at 7:48 am
I agree that’s an awful scenario, but I think that the problem here is the stuff following the word “and.”
I think that bigots of all varieties — including the anti-fat bigots and anti-Semites I’ve encountered [*], who have treated me with hatred — might be “good people.” There’s more to most people than the worst thing about them.
However, just because I think a bigot might also be a good person in most ways, doesn’t mean that I think being a good person is all that matters; that I won’t speak out against their bigotry; that I think others should not speak out; or that there shouldn’t be mainstream social penalties for being bigoted.
Nor does it mean that when I’m treated with bigotry, it’s at all my responsibility to see or give a shit about the ways that the bigot might not be a bad person.
[*] I bring up anti-fat bigotry and anti-Semitism because upthread it was suggested that we think about bigotry against our own classes of people when considering the “good person” question.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 1st, 2007 at 7:54 am
Michelle:
Can you please directly quote where Rachel has said that because she’s been in an interracial relationship, she is no longer white? Or even that because she’s been in an interracial relationship, she doesn’t think she can be racist?
Again, I don’t think Rachel — or any white person — should be immune from criticism for racism or participation in a racist culture. I just don’t think the particular criticisms you’re presenting in this thread are well-grounded.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 1st, 2007 at 11:00 am
Can the vitriol being directed at racheal be seen as justifiable anger? I don’t think that she meant it the way they’re reading it, but I’ve been reading her blog for over a year now. Based on only this post those interpretations aren’t impossible.
As for the racists can be good people I guess it would depend on how racist are we talking about and what they’re like in other ways. Also, how are we defining racist? I think Racheal would say that the electoral college is racist because it benefits low population states and those states are more white. Thus whites are over-represented in presidential elections.
I wouldn’t because (as far as I know) there is neither intent nor blatant disregard for non-whites in the design or implementation of the system. I think that if more people equated racism with disparate impact they wouldn’t care as much if they were called racist.
I will say that I don’t understand how/why some of the critics have been called racist, bigot or sexist. It seems like loudmouth, obnoxious ass, or rude jerk would be more appropriate. But I guess that get’s back to the question of how I (a white guy) can try to tell a POC the proper way to express their anger.
Either way, I liked the story and think this is a good lesson on why you should be cautious sharing personal stories online.
This comment was written by joe.Report this comment to the moderators
October 1st, 2007 at 11:40 am
One difficulty is that “racist” has become a word with a bifurcated meaning. Activists use “racism” to describe a variety of social practices and outcomes that have deleterious effects on particular racial groups, but which have little or no intentionality behind them. But ordinary folk think of a racist as a Klansman burning crosses.
I don’t think there are many people who burn crosses who are “good people”. I think that there are many people who participate in structural racism who are “good people”. Both types of activities/participation are called “racist”; this is problematic from a descriptive POV because two things that almost everyone agrees are pretty different, have to share the same language.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
October 1st, 2007 at 11:45 am
I think “a goood person” is a silly term. It doesn’t mean anything. In the case of its first use, I believe it was being used as shorthand for “Racists are, like other people, complicated enough to possess more dimensions than just their racism.” Good person is a bad shorthand for this.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
October 1st, 2007 at 12:12 pm
This is true, the definition has been bifurcated into what some refer to as individual racism and institutionalized racism. I referenced the former, because that was what the original post was about — bigoted people, not unequal outcomes. Amp, the question I posed wasn’t “can you see those who are bigoted against your group as good people”, it was “would you continue to stay friends with/refuse to speak against someone who was bigoted towards your group.” I’d also still like to know what are the social penalties for being a bigot in mainstream society if ostracism and direct vocal opposition of bigots are infrequent and rare, and, do the social penalties for being a target of racism and/or speaking out about it it in mainstream society surpass the penalties for bigotry? Furthermore, what reason would bigots have — assuming they’re baldly motivated by self-interest like the rest of us — to stop being bigoted, if there’s no real repercussions?
This comment was written by Banana Danna.Report this comment to the moderators
October 1st, 2007 at 12:23 pm
Banana Danna said, “I’d also still like to know what are the social penalties for being a bigot in mainstream society if ostracism and direct vocal opposition of bigots are infrequent and rare, and, do the social penalties for being a target of racism and/or speaking out about it it in mainstream society surpass the penalties for bigotry? Furthermore, what reason would bigots have — assuming they’re baldly motivated by self-interest like the rest of us — to stop being bigoted, if there’s no real repercussions?”
Those are really good questions, and I think that is central to the original point of the post. It’s often the people who challenge bigotry who are socially punished and ostracized, not the bigots themselves. If more people did speak out than their would at least be a little bit a penalty for bigtory.
This comment was written by Rachel S..Report this comment to the moderators
October 1st, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Individual bigotry can be unconscious. One can be both an antiracist and a racist.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
October 1st, 2007 at 1:13 pm
Furthermore, what reason would bigots have — assuming they’re baldly motivated by self-interest like the rest of us — to stop being bigoted, if there’s no real repercussions?
There are repercussions outside the realm of the social. Bigotry forecloses options, which is likely to impose significant costs. (One of the reasons the South is poor relative to the rest of the country is that anti-black discrimination seriously retarded economic growth for everyone.) Over time, an otherwise rational bigot might grow aware of these costs, successfully identify their origin as stemming from racism, and modify the behavior if not the attitude.
We can hope, anyway. ;)
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
October 1st, 2007 at 1:46 pm
Think back to racism. There are many ways to cause harm (not physical harm) which don’t require overt action.
The same applies to bigots. If people react poorly or treat them worse as a result of their bigotry, there can be an enormous effect even absent overt confrontation. The bigot might not get fired, say…. but he won’t get invited to do the “good” gigs and perhaps he won’t get the benefit of the doubt at review time. And so on. As we’ve seen this can be very effective–it’s currently used BY bigots, not against them–but there’s no reason it can’t work in reverse.
However that only works if there are enough non-bigots who give a shit.
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
October 1st, 2007 at 8:40 pm
I’m not sure whether a white person can write about racism without inevitably being racist to some extent. And this is especially true when the theme is how white racism hurts white people (as if the hurt white people experience is even comparable to what black people go through). It’s kind of like complaining that the holocaust resulted in German goyim being deprived of the services of Jewish doctors and scientists. However, white people can be the victim of white racism, and it’s a subject worth writing about (even if you can’t avoid be racist when you do it).
Where I disagree with Michelle is her locating this racism in Rachel’s failure to make her ex’s “subjectivity” central to her narrative. The implication seems to be that when a white woman is in a relationship with a black man, she must make HIM the center of her existence and must never talk about her relationship with anyone else except in the context of her relationship with HIM (which strikes me as somewhat sexist).
This comment was written by Paul R..Report this comment to the moderators
October 1st, 2007 at 9:36 pm
@Ampersand:
Can you please directly quote where Rachel has said that because she’s been in an interracial relationship, she is no longer white? Or even that because she’s been in an interracial relationship, she doesn’t think she can be racist?
Again, I don’t think Rachel — or any white person — should be immune from criticism for racism or participation in a racist culture. I just don’t think the particular criticisms you’re presenting in this thread are well-grounded.
Rachel has not said this directly that I am aware of. The way it works, she would not say this directly, it’s not how the thing flows. I see it in the underneath assumptions in some of what she is saying and how she is saying it, and how she has responded and participated in this discussion. It is not about what Rachel has or hasn’t claimed, it is how she is acting & responding here.
If what I see isn’t visible to you, then that’s the way it is. There are dynamics here I don’t have words/language for entirely.
I’m okay with it if you don’t see my perspective as grounded. The dynamics that for you don’t exist are for me vivid, bright as day, really strong and visible and in some ways unmistakeable in not only the original post, but in how Rachel has responded in this discussion. Even if I can’t articulate them in the way that makes sense to you or whoever else.
In my perspective, it’s all right there for anyone to see. In what I see, the racism in how this has flowed is subtle but very strong. Maybe part of why it is strong is because of its stealth/subtlety. It operates at the level of .. I don’t know. What/who is most real? What people do or don’t pay attention to in any given situation, what is part of and what is not? Reference points? Something. Something. Again, not so much good with the words.
I hear you that you don’t think my criticisms are well-grounded. Since what I see is so vivid, so unmistakable, it feels like an upside-down distorted-mirror funhouse-world discussion to me at some level. What is screamingly vivid to me isn’t there — simply does not exist — to you. I hear you. I don’t get it but I hear you. I am sorry I don’t have better language, but it may not be an issue of that anyway, it may be something else entirely.
This comment was written by michelle.Report this comment to the moderators
October 1st, 2007 at 9:52 pm
Since what I see is so vivid, so unmistakable, it feels like an upside-down distorted-mirror funhouse-world discussion to me at some level.
Exactly, that’s a great way of putting it. I’ve been thinking the same thing - the entire discussion just seems so weird and … off kilter, to me, that I’ve just sort of let it be.
This comment was written by Nanette.Report this comment to the moderators
October 1st, 2007 at 11:03 pm
Critics: how about y’all think of a realistic way in which Rachel could have changed her post to avoid these attacks. (Ask a guy she may not know anymore to write the post for her? Go back in time to shun her entire family, or beat herself up for not doing so?) Then ask yourself if it makes sense to demand whatever you came up with.
This comment was written by hf.Report this comment to the moderators
October 1st, 2007 at 11:38 pm
I hear this, and you’re right — there certainly can be dynamics which exist, and are important, and express bigotry, but are not expressed openly but rather through unstated assumptions and tone. And I’ve been in the situation of seeing dynamics underlying a conversation, but being unable to make others see them.
I don’t agree that the dynamics you see are necessarily going on here (although I realize maybe they ARE going on, and I’m just not seeing them!). But I sympathize with what you’re saying here, and how frustrating I imagine it is for you to be having this conversation. (For whatever that’s worth.)
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 2nd, 2007 at 6:53 am
There is no realistic way that Rachel could have avoided these comments. People here seem to think that you can treat your family members objectively. Good luck on that. It’s one thing to realize that your family members are racist. It’s quite another to understand or believe that they are going to act like assholes or worse when you actually bring someone you care about around them. And as far as I can tell, the origin for the various comments getting on Rachel’s case above is that she’s being considered self-absorbed for not figuring that would happen. I call “bullshit” on that.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
October 2nd, 2007 at 8:22 am
Good point, RonF. Folks, what could she have ideally done? Should she have never brought him around her family — leading to a possible rift in the relationship and worries about “sneaking around”/looking as if she was ashamed of him? Should she have notified her boyfriend ahead of time so he could’ve been emotionally prepared for what may have ensued? Should she have cut ties with her family — or at least that part of her family — completely, or only dated men that she knew her family would approve of?
This comment was written by Banana Danna.Report this comment to the moderators
October 2nd, 2007 at 9:51 am
I have been reading through this thread off and on since it started with varying degrees of interest and frustration, largely because I think that the people who are critiquing Rachel and the people who are defending Rachel, including Rachel, are conflating what I think michelle rightly identifies as a textual problem in Rachel’s story–something that has to do with how Rachel wrote what she wrote, not what she meant by it, not her motivations for writing it or anything having to do with Rachel as an individual–with Rachel as an individual. To make things simpler, I am going to quote the entire first paragraph of her post:
When I read this, I too was taken up short by the very sketchy picture we get of the boy friend. Not because I think Rachel was somehow obliged to reveal details of his life, or to speak for him, or to somehow turn him into the center of the story, but because in a story that introduced itself as being about an argument between Rachel and her mother–and, therefore, by implication about Rachel’s relationship with her racist family–we get bits of information about the boyfriend that begin to present him too (and by extension his relationship with Rachel) as subject of the story, but then he disappears.
So, for example, we find out the Rachel and he had been dating for four years; then we find out that she felt terrible for putting him in the situation described in the post; then we find out that he said, “I’ve never had anything like this happen to me before. I’m so glad we left.” That last statement, given as it is without any contextualizing information about Rachel’s relationship with her ex-boyfriend, certainly makes it sound like he’d had no idea what to expect. From there–and please remember that I am talking here simply about this text, not about Rachel as an individual human being whom I have met–it is not a far to jump to wondering if Rachel and he had ever talked about her racist family at all. Maybe he never met them; maybe they had not talked at all about this particular picnic; and so on and so on. And in the context of this wondering, it is difficult not to read Rachel’s statement that she felt terrible for putting her ex in the situation at the picnic as paternalistic, at best. And from there it is not difficult to move to the kinds of critique that michelle has been leveling throughout this thread.
Now, when I read the post the first time, I did not make much of the way the first paragraph gave me pause because I know Rachel, I have met her and talked to her, and I have been reading her for a while, and so I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, which meant that I was willing to separate Rachel’s text from what I know of her and to read out of her text those aspects of it that do not fit with what I know of her. Michelle, however, was not willing to do this, and she honed in very carefully on the textual issue.
Where I think michelle’s critique becomes problematic is that she didn’t even give Rachel a chance to address the textual question and immediately positions Rachel as someone who is unaware of her own racism:
Michelle’s response, in other words, is in some ways the inverse of mine. Where I was willing to read what I know of Rachel into the text so that the problems with the text essentially disappeared, michelle insisted on reading Rachel immediately into the problematic aspects of the text, so that it became impossible for Rachel to assert the ways she does take responsibility for her own racism without sounding defensive and making it seem like she was trying to justify the problems with the text rather than address them.
Ah well, there is more to say, but I need to get back to work. The main point I wanted to make is that I think michelle is right: there are problems with the text that Rachel wrote, and because she wrote it, Rachel is responsible for those problems, but I think that they are textual problems, and I think they emerged because Rachel was struggling with how to tell a story that has many facets in a way that would allow her to focus only on one, but some of the other facets found their way into what she wrote. This is an issue that all writers go through–see my comment #37 above, clumsy as it is–but it is an issue here because once it has been published on the blog, it has been published and so it is fair game for a great deal more than a writer’s critique.
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October 2nd, 2007 at 10:03 am
Moving into the discussion-of-the-discussion, Michelle (and Jolly Wacker to some extent) raise some thoughtful ideas about whether an analysis of racism from a white person’s perspective objectifies black people. Upon reflection, I come to a different conclusion.
I cannot avoid seeing the world from my own perspective. Sure, I can strive to appreciate other people’s perspectives, and I see merit in people reminding me to try to do so. (That’s not to say that I always appreciate that message exactly upon receiving it.) But I see nothing unusual in one person discussing another person’s circumstances.
Does Rachel S.’s story objectify her boyfriend? Perhaps. But no more so than any narrator would objectify an account of any person who was not herself. Indeed, in the process of boiling down the richness of any person’s experience into a narrative, I expect narrators objectify themselves as well. Was it narcissistic? What first-person account isn’t?
In Catch-22, a military psychiatrist asks the soldier Yossarian why he believes that people are trying to kill him. “Cuz people are shooting at me!” he answers, referring to the enemy troops. Oh, they’re not shoot at you, they’re shooting at everybody, the psychiatrist responds. And both parties are right. The point of the satire is to illustrate the conflict: Governments tell the story of war from the view of nations; individuals soldiers experience war from the viewpoint of individuals. Which is the right point of view? Take your pick.
And now the discussion-of-the-discussion-of-the-discussion: Why would we expect anything different? I see Rachel S.’s story as addressing conflict between herself and her family, and the propriety of family members’ failure to publically choose sides. If Rachel S. had told a story about the tension she experienced when her boyfriend arrived at the picnic inappropriately attired, or smelly, or drunk, or late, would anyone accuse Rachel S. of objectifying him? Is there something about discussions involving race relations that make them exempt from the standards we apply to other discussions?
Along with Paul R. (Post # 59), I look forward to reading an account of this event written from the perspective of Rachel S.’s ex-boyfriend, if he ever writes one. And if he narcissistically makes himself the central character of his own subjective experiences, focusing on his own hurt and insecurities with only passing references to how the event affected his girlfriend’s relationship to her family, I don’t think I’d find fault with that.
If there is any objective truth, it is that I can’t expect any person to provide objective truth – only subjective truth. Trouble arises not from subjective speech, but from the expectation that anyone has a duty to speak from a larger perspective.
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October 2nd, 2007 at 10:07 am
I struggle with the issue of love – when Person A, without any obvious compensation, promotes the welfare of person B, even to the detriment of other persons. Jesus said that a true follower would forsake his family in order to adopt the true way. Apparently only a small percentage of people are inclined to do this.
Rachel S. seems to make a similar argument: Family members should have turned on their grandfather in order to promote some larger social good and to vindicate the feelings of Rachel S. and her boyfriend. Again, the number of people willing to follow this path seems to have been small. I can’t say that I’m surprised. Or dismayed.
Sure, I could imagine things going differently, whereby a contrary message could be sent without also sending a message that people were distancing themselves from the grandfather. Comedy is one way. Ideally there’s be someone of equal standing to the grandfather – the grandmother, say – who could have smacked the grandfather on the shoulder and upbraided him as if he were a child. “Mind your manners! Do we want our daughter’s friends to think we’re a bunch of uncultured boobs?” Or, if the grandfather were comfortable with the fact that he held minority views, others might have said lightly, “Oh, never mind grampa. He’s never shaken a black man’s hand and I expect he never will, but we love him anyway.”
Alternatively, we have the example of the crying kids. They, like court jesters, are able to tweak those in authority because they pose no threat to, and are not expected to demonstrate respect for, authority. Adults don’t get this option.
Absent these options, I don’t know what else anyone could have expected. I don’t see a picnic presided over by the family patriarch as an appropriate occasion for an impromptu Showdown at the Race Relations Corral.
I regard this issue as focusing on the tension between a desire to uphold norms against racism and the desire to show love for a member of your family. As an aside, however, I can’t overlook the issues of personal autonomy. I believe in freedom of conscious and freedom of speech. I don’t think I’d want to chastise, browbeat and pressure my Jewish grandfather into taking Communion if he didn’t want to, even if everyone else in the family were sincere, fundamentalist Christians. Similarly, if my grandfather didn’t want to shake someone’s hand, I think he should have the absolute discretion not to. I don’t have to agree with his opinions to defend his autonomy. Yes, the symbolic message he sends by not shaking hands may be deeply hurtful; that’s the nature of free speech.
At the same time I have my own conscience and my own speech. Ideally I’d be able to extend my own greetings to the boyfriend and extend apologies for the grandfather’s behavior. But if the boyfriend was about to storm out of the picnic, then my decisions are once again governed by concerns about love.
I don’t mean to show disregard to the problem of racism. But I also don’t want to make a fetish of racism. I regard racism as just one more human foible, to be negotiated with all the other foibles. And whatever consequences the events at the picnic may have for race relations generally, I think those consequences are utterly swamped by the consequences they will have for the participants specifically. Given a choice between showing love to a relative stranger at the expense of showing public disdain for my grandfather, or remaining passive, I think I’d remain passive. The race card simply does not trump all other concerns.
For what it is worth, my wife loves getting into public political disputes. And when she starts making inaccurate statements about what “we” think, I sometimes feel the need to publicly disagree with her. But not always. I value my own autonomy, but I also don’t want to embarrass my wife. Love involves compromises. It’s a daily negotiation.
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October 2nd, 2007 at 10:29 am
I don’t actually agree that the way in which she presented it is textually a problem. It seems to me that it’s in line with the ways win which memoir essays are presented, particularly in an informal context.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
October 2nd, 2007 at 10:31 am
Damn enter key.
Anyway, I think the memoir form allows for subject changes and fiddling with memory, in the way that’s presented here.
Is Rachel, from this presented excerpt, a professional quality memoirist? No. The text is rough.
But this particular excerpt is in line with the dictates of the genre, and I think it requires a strained reading to make those part of a racist background, rather than a facet of the form.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
October 2nd, 2007 at 12:00 pm
This entire conversation is just so weird. I’ve a ramble ahead with, as RJN says, nothing to be considered as commentary on Rachel or anyone else as a person. I have some issues, though.
The thing is, obviously people are looking at this post, and the entire situation presented in it, from different points of views and life perspectives. That’s only natural. Some are identifying with having the white racist family and friends, not knowing what to do in various situations, loving the family but hating the bigotry and so on. Others are identifying with having been the comma or short paragraph in the life stories of people dealing with their white (or whatever) racist friends and families.
There was trouble with the original text, definitely. I had the “Jeebus - what was she thinking?” reaction first, then contextualized it with what I know of Rachel’s work, figured she was targeting the conversation towards white people and dealing with their families and with silence in the face of racist speech or situations, and so on… and when white people are talking among themselves about racism and such, I tend to just let them get on with it, and only observe.
Where the conversation got problematic for me (prompting me to decide to add my 2 cents) was when others entered the conversation and it began to seem as if only one perspective was being considered valid. Alternate (non-white) perspectives, however inelegantly expressed - and arising from the actual text, not the clarifying comments - questioning the narrative and the situation described, were immediately positioned as being bigoted or racist, in an apparent attempt to invalidate them. I find this troubling. Even more troubling, to me, is that when I did decide to comment I found myself automatically dropping into full “white people code-talking” mode, in reaction to the (real or perceived) hostility and closing of ranks.
Oh well, I’ve lost interest in talking about all this, for the moment.
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October 2nd, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Oh Nanette.
Even more troubling, to me, is that when I did decide to comment I found myself automatically dropping into full “white people code-talking” mode, in reaction to the (real or perceived) hostility and closing of ranks.
Makes my heart hurt. I registered that. I wish I could say more about this but … anyway, reading this makes me realize how much I was hoping I was wrong about what that was.
And, I share your perception of the closing of ranks and hostillity, so if it is not real and only perceived, FWIW you are not the only one who perceives it.
Wait, editing to add: I still think that anyone who is actually paying good attention to what you and others said would be able to see what you actually said. IMO the real barrier is the White Defense Mechanisms, not how you or anyone else said what you said.
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October 2nd, 2007 at 12:37 pm
I think there’s a certain set of stereotypical — and, yes, racist — expectations that get foisted onto anyone who’s into an interracial relationship. Y’all may think you see a different dynamic going on, but that’s the one I see.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
October 2nd, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Mandolin–
About this, you and I will have to agree to disagree, not about memoir as a genre, but about whether the flexibility and fluidity of form in memoir as a genre is really what’s at stake here. I don’t think it is. I think, rather, what is at stake here is the degree to which the roughness you recognize in the text lends itself to the kind of reading michelle brought to it. I also think the question of audience that Nanette hints at is also at stake here. Were Rachel to bring, as a draft, this post into my creative writing workshop, I would raise precisely the questions about the text that michelle raised, though without the personalizing subtext.
This comment was written by Richard Jeffrey Newman.Report this comment to the moderators
October 2nd, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Given the constraint that this is an essay about how a white woman deals with racism within her own family — say, she’s targetting it as an essay at a magazine with that pitch — would you suggest she clarify the transition from a narrative about a relationship to a narrative primarily about self, or that she develop the ex as a character? (Or both?)
Feel free not to answer, of course. I’m curious about where our disagreement about the piece lies, because I think it has some significance as to the credibility of the subtextual reading that you see & I don’t.
I have an alternate reading, which is that there are racist and sexist assumptions levied against black-man/white-woman pairings suggesting that the people don’t really love each other, are using each other, and often impugning the motives of both parties. I see those narratives in play here, especially given suggestions that Rachel is using her partner, that she is trying to rub her family’s faces in his blackness, and that she is treating him like a “lawn jockey” to “polish.”
If we accept there’s a slippage in the initial text, in which Rachel sets up the piece as being about a relationship, and then moves to talking about her own subjective experience, then that provides a grounding for seeing the male, black character as being ignored. To move from that grounding to the assumption that Rachel is using her partner so she can “polish a lawn jockey” requires the leverage of nasty racist and sexist stereotypes about white women who engage in interracial relationships with black men.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
October 2nd, 2007 at 3:25 pm
I think there’s a certain set of stereotypical — and, yes, racist — expectations that get foisted onto anyone who’s into an interracial relationship. Y’all may think you see a different dynamic going on, but that’s the one I see.
This is reminding me more and more of that “when all you have is a hammer” saying and it seems to be used, both here and at Rachel’s own site (the first comment there, too, by a person of color questioning the text, was greeted with the “racism against people in I/R’s” reply), to … I don’t know what. Refuse to see how others could possibly interpret the events - as set out in the original text - as something other than having issues with an I/R relationship? Or maybe all there really is is a hammer.
Just for context, I don’t have any problems at all with people in interracial relationships. I’ve been surrounded by them most of my life, in many different combinations, and I’ve been in them myself. The fact that this was an interracial relationship is irrelevant to me. The same stuff sometimes happens with friends and acquaintances introduced into hostile racial situations with a person’s family members or friends.
That said, there are problems with the original text. I’ll just repeat that. There are problems with the original text. When person after person (seemingly most of color) who reads it comes away with issues with what it is saying it might be best not to assume that they are all racist against white women who are in interracial relationships with black men. Or any other color men/women. Is it possible some have issues with I/Rs? Sure, it happens. And um… so what? Why would that be considered a good excuse for dismissing the substance of the comments?
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October 2nd, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Mandolin:
I just lost a relatively long response to you that I don’t have the time to write again. So let me say this: regarding the question of how to revise Rachel’s post: I don’t tend to give directive suggestions in my workshops, and so I truly don’t know how to answer your question. In additon, I am uncomfortable talking about how she might revise the piece if she is not part of the conversation; I don’t want to rewrite the post, even hypothetically, without her participation.
As to your second point about the different readings we have/see: It seems to me that you are critiquing the thread in its entirety, and I think you are not entirely wrong in what you say. My point is, simply, that Rachel’s text is problematic as a text and that these problems have been both conflated with and overlooked because of the more personal questions/critiques that have been raised here. You are critiquing, I think, the result of that conflation.
This comment was written by Richard Jeffrey Newman.Report this comment to the moderators
October 2nd, 2007 at 4:44 pm
This is my last comment on this thread. I just can’t participate anymore because I can’t respond in a rational way.
For the record, I just want to make a few things clear.
1) My ex and I had discussed my mother’s family’s prejudice well before this day, and we also discussed whether or not to go to the picnic.
2) I’m more than open to criticisms about writing or tone, but thus, far I haven’t seen a clear critique that I follow (other than the idea that I could have offered more discussion and more background to the situtation and to the relationship with my ex).
3) On Nanette’s comment in #96. Over at my site the argument in the comments between Lyonside and Luckyfatima is between two women of color both of whom ironically have mixed raced backgrounds and are in mixed race marriages. I’m not so sure that this argument breaks down neatly along racial lines. Nobody know what Ed’s race is, and Jolly Wacker insinuated that he is white (but wasn’t totally clear). It’s only Michelle who has asserted that she is a person of color, and Richard, who is a white guy, is supporting some of her contentions.
Ok, I’m out have it :)
This comment was written by Rachel S..Report this comment to the moderators
October 2nd, 2007 at 8:53 pm
figured she was targeting the conversation towards white people and dealing with their families and with silence in the face of racist speech or situations, and so on…
It didn’t occur to me that anyone might fail to see that. I thought the last paragraph said it quite clearly.
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October 3rd, 2007 at 9:20 am
The boyfriend is a McGuffin because he could have been anyone or anything. He entered stage left and just exited stage right. He is incidental to the conflict and has no bearing on the outcome of the story:
He could have been a park attendant picking up trash. He could have been one of a gang of ’scary black’ men who had the temerity to look her grandfather in the eye while passing on his way to the… basketball court. He could have been a rapper overheard on a stereo from a passing car. A menacing photo on the front page of a newspaper which blew in on the wind. Even just an unremarkable mention mid-sentance which pricked an ear.
He doesn’t have to be present. He served no function—other than to grant leverage for the author to to prove once again the salability of white guilt over the ‘black’ experience; that, and demonstrating for the millionth time that there is a HUGE audience for this brand of ham fisted proselytizing from the bleachers.
“Give ‘the audience’ a protagonist they can relate to,” hinted the editor, before adding, “white girls in distress sells big”. (that’s written in the 3rd person, by the way, for those with the seeming habit of confusing authorial voice).
But poor, poor, Rachel. Whatever could she have done? That Big Daddy! Racism is like a cancer on the soul… And the little chilluns should not be afraid to speak right in the face of EVIL. Blah, blah, blah.
I don’t know why we need black people at all when there seems to be enough white folks at least willing to own the copyright on the facsimile.
Finally, I probably wouldn’t have written a contentious word had Rachel the guts, let alone the intellectual grace, to introduce herself first as a coward and then, and only then, as a Person of Guilt™.
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October 3rd, 2007 at 9:52 am
Okay, so if I’m reading you correctly, then a McGuffin, in the context in which you’re using it (there are at least two valid ones), is a plot point that appears to provide conflict before a reversal occurs revealing the real conflict.
So, for instance, in The Wizard of Oz, we could say that the struggle with the neighbor who wants to take away the dog is a McGuffin, in that the real conflict in the piece is Dorothy’s later journey to go home. The conflict over the dog never manifests, although to someone seeing the movie for the first time, the first few minutes might suggest that the major conflict in the story will deal with that.
The dog itself is arguably a McGuffin. There are two people who are seeking to own it.
So, arguably, in this story, we could say that Rachel’s relationship with her boyfriend was a McGuffin — in that the relationship produced the circumstances that create the main conflict of the piece, which is between Rachel and her own grandfather.
[The boyfriend himself is not a McGuffin. He is not an object that everyone wants ownership of. (At least, not in the piece. He is in this conversation.)]
Also, the term McGuffin, which is usually used in like mystery writing (although we SFers have co-opted the term), is really only applicable in terms of fiction. It’s a contrivance, constructed to draw the audience’s eye in one direction while the magic hand of fiction creates a different plot.
It’s often said that if we were to actually live our lives in the way that people live fiction, we would all have referential schizophrenia. Our lives don’t fit neatly into boxes with plot arcs.
Analyzing personal essay with the tools of fiction can lead to some bizarre constructs. We can’t necessarily expect that one’s experiences will fit into the shape of story, with balanced plot arcs, manifesting Samuel Delany’s rule that everything mentioned once must be mentioned twice.
Are we to read Jo Ann Beard’s _The Boys of My Youth_ as though all her relationships are a McGuffin leading up to the shooting incident that is at the center of the book? Or Mary Karr’s _Liar’s Club_ as though all the bizareness of her childhood is merely misdirection leading up to the molestation, around which she seems to structure the text?
Life moves like this. We meet someone. We don’t know how their lives play out. One incident triggers another. Our focus shifts. Our memories do the same.
That sounds awfully bloodless, because an analysis of these things is necessarily bloodless, because its an abstract discussion of what kinds of structures are usable in memoir. If your objection was to the structure of the piece, then we’d be talkign about it on that level. Your objection is not to the structure of the piece.
Your objection is that the structure of the piece in itself demonstrates racism, which is only viable if we accept the idea that for a character’s relationship not to be the focus of the story is inherently objectifying. You’re condensing the concept of “not focused on in this story” (which you’re condensing with McGuffin, IMO) with “treated like an object,” and I just haven’t seen you support that textually. I haven’t seen RJN support that textually, either. The most I’ve seen either of you do is point to a roughly written transition.
Further, you (and not RJN) are arguing that the piece is structured in a way that is so incontrovertably racist that a reading of the text as racist is necessary and inarguable, and proves something about Rachel and her life about which you will accept no different explanation.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 10:10 am
OK. So, this feels addressable. Is the whole essay about white people’s experience with racism another form of white people wanting everything but the burden? (Or in this case, wanting a facsimile of the burden?)
I dunno. Maybe. Certainly, it shouldn’t be the center of the discourse about racism.
But it’s also a time-honored tactic, isn’t it? Down to Frederick Douglas trying to argue against slavery by saying “it makes white people corrupt and sinful?”
Pam @ Pandagon often talks about trying to find ways to get white people to talk about racism, and how and where it exists, and not to hide behind a facade of “Oh, I just don’t know about that.” Most of Rachel’s work — here, academically, and at Rachel’s Tavern — seems to be addressing the ways in which racism affects its primary and real victims.
In a forum like this one, which she rightly addresses as majority white, it seems like part of the goal is not just to raise awareness but also to get white people involved in the conversation. People often say whites have to take control of racism, and I agree with that assertion. For many of us white people that means that we’ve got to deal with it in our own families.
Rachel’s assertion that we shouldn’t forgive it is an oddly important first step. Racist acts like these are unforgiveable, certainly absent a genuine reformation. But the narrative that children should forgive everything — from racism to sexual abuse — is extremely strong.
We often hear that patriarchy hurts men, too, particularly those men who don’t conform to gender roles. White supremacy hurts whites, too, particularly those whites who don’t obey the lines our culture draws about race. Effeminate ittle boys who play with dolls are bullied, and white women who marry and raise children with black men are targetted as race traitors.
Those experiences shouldn’t be the main part of the dialogue, but I don’t know why we would refuse to talk about them, or why talking about them is inherently racist or sexist.
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October 3rd, 2007 at 10:28 am
I’m rereading the above posts, and I think I may have gotten confused on something.
I agree that it’s psosible to read the post as if Rachel was being paternalistic when she put her boyfriend into the situation at the picnic. That objection makes sense to me, and it feels rooted in the text.
What I don’t feel is supported is the assertion that the text, by introducing the relationship between Rachel and her boyfriend sketchily and then moving away from it, is therefore objectifying.
It is the willingness of people to move from either of these readings to various assumptions about Rachel and her relationship which, to me, demonstrates hostility to white women in relationships with black men, because the assumptions are part of the stereotypical narratives about such people in such relationships.
If I’ve assumed anyone is arguing something they aren’t, you have my apologies.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 10:28 am
Nanette writes:
I think this is true. You, Michelle, and RJN have persuaded me that the original text is problematic and can be read as racist, because it ends up sounding like Rachel’s ex is impossibly naive and wasn’t forewarned at all. Ideally, Rachel would have written the post in such a way as to foreclose that reading (for example, by making it clearer that she had her boyfriend had discussed her family’s racism before deciding to attend the picnic). With hindsight, I suspect she wishes she had written that bit more carefully.
But although I think criticism and questioning of Rachel’s text is appropriate and fair, questioning while assuming the answer — and while being absolutely close-minded to the possibility that one might be wrong about anything — is not fair. I don’t think you’ve done this, but Ed and Jolly Wacker certainly have, and Michelle to a certain extent has.
The condescending and insulting tone with which some comments have addressed Rachel (see Jolly Wacker’s most recent comment, for example) really bugs me as well.
I don’t think that everyone who has had issues with what Rachel wrote is racist against people in i/r relationships. I certainly don’t think that about you.
I do think the level of hostility and condensation that has been directed against Rachel in some (not all) of the critical comments suggests that something more than wanting what the boyfriend knew beforehand clarified, and a question about structural approaches to whites telling stories in which a POC is a supporting but not main character, is going on here. Maybe that’s prejudice against i/r relationships; maybe it’s something else. But just because you apparently don’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not going on.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 10:32 am
You do not regard the boyfriend as having been objectified, therefore he does not meet your standard for a McGuffin.
We differ on that point.
Of course there is ownership over the man. The entire arc of the story pivots on the ownership over the idea of the ‘black’ man. Who he is and what he represents to white people, and the actions these white people take or do not take when claiming ownership of him.
The article in the end; what is it? It’s a white woman’s advocacy for the cause against that big bug-a-boo, racism. Individuals at the receiving end don’t even rate much of a mention, except that the ‘black’ man was left empty handed (as usual)—and of course those darling little white children who weep with knowing but unknowing tears. Don’t forget the children
(”Weepy kids gets them all the time,” she had left behind scrawled on a Post-it).
This comment was written by Jolly Wacker.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 10:35 am
Jolly wrote:
(Edited to add: And in earlier posts: “Mary Sue breakdown” (an obviously sexist insult, in this context… it also shows ignorance of what a “Mary Sue” character is, since an explicitly autobiographical character cannot be a Mary Sue by definition); ““Pretend,” curiousgyrl? Who are you? Rush Limbaugh?,” etc. Also, Jolly, your complete unwillingness to engage in any self-reflection when you are told that you’re being sexist suggests that you aren’t serious about being in discussion here.)
Jolly, please read the moderation guidelines. If you aren’t willing to forgo making personal attacks, then please don’t post here at all. (Edited to add:) If you’re not willing to make some positive contributions to the discussion — as I believe others, including those critical of Rachel, have been trying to do — then go away.
I am not in any way saying that criticism of Rachel or any other poster here is forbidden. There’s a distinction between criticism — even harsh criticism — and attacks.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 10:47 am
Like others, I’ve found much of this discussion baffling. I’d like to thanks Jolly Wacker for stating his (?) position so clearly. I never disagreed with the substance of his remarks. Now I think I’m understanding more about the affect as well.
I hadn’t really thought about it before, but now that you mention it, I expect stories of white guilt are more salable than stories of black experience. We all want to see something to relate to in a written work, and let’s face it – whites are probably a bigger share of most audiences for English writing than blacks.
I hadn’t really thought about it before, but now that you mention it, I bet this is damned frustrating to people who want to see more focus given to black experience. I can imagine people might repeatedly read a title that leads them to expect to hear something about black experience, only to be fed another story about white experience (of guilt).
This is the sort of stuff I love about this blog. Thanks again for those insights, Jolly Wacker and others. You’ve managed to pry my eyes open a little here.
That said….
I’m sensing that we’ve entered one more round of the Do-you-blame-whites-for-benefitting-from-white-privilege? discussion. Rachel S. is white. She wrote about her experience of an intra-family conflict in which – Jolly Wacker correctly observes – a black man plays a catalytic role but is not the center of the action. Rachel S. could have written a different story. She didn’t.
Is there anything wrong with this? Does Rachel S. owe some duty to incorporate someone else’s experience into a 10-paragraph memoir?
Admittedly, there’s little in Rachel S.’s post that alleviates the problem that white guilt is more salable than black experience. But even if Rachel S. had attempted to write her entire post from black experience, it would not have changed that dynamic. I sense Rachel S. has become a lightning rod for entirely justified frustrations that really have little to do with her.
Perhaps the greatest fault with Rachel S.’s post, then, is that it raised expectations in some readers that the post will focus on black experience, and then does not fulfill that expectation. That’s something I’ll try to bear in mind in future writing.
This comment was written by nobody.really.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 11:04 am
@nobody.really
Or it could cause a chilling effect. If white bloggers can’t discuss their own, personal experiences with anti-black racism in an open manner without a bunch of people jumping down their throats for choosing to use their own personal perspective instead of trying to discuss someone else’s, then do you think they’ll continue to discuss them in the future? (whoa, run-on).
It’s a hard subject to talk about. Making it harder to talk about, when people are AGREEING with you (saying, roughly: “yes, these people are doing a bad thing by being racist, and yes, I’m ashamed for not speaking up”) is not going to further your cause, whatever it may be.
There’s idealism, and then there’s pedantry.
Or will they allow the discourse to become yet another insulated echo-chamber of the internet?
Frankly, I’m quite disturbed by the backlash that Rachel’s post received.
This comment was written by Silenced is foo..Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 11:04 am
The first paragraph was intended as a mocking follow-up to those who raised questions that sounded like: what would Rachel do? The error is mine in not framing it soundly.
As to the second—I know, I know—we’re supposed to feel sorry for Rachel.
I guess that’s it.
This comment was written by Jolly Wacker.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 11:48 am
Ampersand, I suppose in the same vein that someone here could ascribe the “hostility” directed at the author’s story by a certain commenter to, oh golly gee whiz, maybe a philosophical aversion to those afflicted with jungle fever (The guys got issues with white women. It must be that! It just has to be that!), I can ascribe literary terms to a character called Rachel, who, coincidentally enough, dons the traditional guise and manner of all those Harriet Beecher Stowe readalike heroines so many trees have laid down their lives for.
The sun’ll come out…tomorrow, tomorrow… meanwhile, 155 years later: “Oh, look! The latest sequel in the Mary Sue and the Great White Hope series is out. I wonder how she gets away this time”?
This comment was written by Jolly Wacker.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 11:56 am
Jolly: “As to the second—I know, I know—we’re supposed to feel sorry for Rachel.”
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 12:16 pm
Wow. You . . . you are very banned.
Unless Amp disagrees, of course.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Rachel wrote: I’m not so sure that this argument breaks down neatly along racial lines. Nobody know what Ed’s race is, and Jolly Wacker insinuated that he is white (but wasn’t totally clear). It’s only Michelle who has asserted that she is a person of color, and Richard, who is a white guy, is supporting some of her contentions.
Actually, I have not asserted this. Because it is not true.
I am white. White female Jew lesbian if those other pieces are relevant also.
I made deliberate and ongoing decisions to not do the ritual “I am white” statement either on its own or as part of the writing in various comments (plenty of places I could have put in we or us), which now I am thinking were wrong decisions. I figured — possibly incorrectly — that people who were attending would perceive that I am white; we aren’t as “stealth” and “raceless” on the internet as we like to believe. And I have been getting tired of the various rituals of white anti-racist internet declarations because I feel something fake in them somehow.
But anyway, that seems like bad and wrong decisions on my part, because now in Rachel’s mind I am the only person asserting I am a person of color, while others who are very clearly (IMO) speaking from the subject position of people of color … aren’t?
Because there are various people in this discussion who have very clearly IMO spoken from the actual subject position of people of color and offered perspectives critical of what Rachel is doing, whether or not they have “asserted” anything on Rachel’s terms.
It seems to me that Rachel is reading comments to find a way to defend against critics. So she just doesn’t see a lot of what is being said, especially by the people of color engaged in this discussion, and is in that way protected from a lot of what is being said. I don’t mind saying I made a bad decision in not naming myself explicitly as white.
I take responsibility for the situation with my own posts, my wrong actions and decision. But also, why would Rachel “not see” the people who are actually people of color and speaking from that space? I feel like there is a problem with that invisibility that comes from Rachel’s lack of paying attention to what they wrote.
And I will also say this: I have been noticing that white people’s responses to me in this discussion show an embedded (even if unconscious) understanding that I am also white and thus “deserving” of certain kinds of respect and attention.
And even when I said to Rachel: My initial comments are only relevent in the context of what other people have been saying in their criticisms, please listen to what other people are saying.
We white people do this little dance, we recognize each other culturally. Example: I have been taken far more seriously (and mostly treated less violently, with the exception of Sailorman) by other white people than have the people of color speaking in this discussion. I do believe this stuff maps below the surface among white people. Example: the way Richard is using my comments and asserting his authority in doing so. Example: Rachel didn’t do to my comments the “quoting way out of context and just ignoring the rest” disrespect that I feel she did she did to comments from two women of color earlier in the discussion.
I have also had the privilege of being more .. I don’t know what the word is, not having to choose so carefully what I say on one side or another of the spectrum? … than people who aren’t white have. And, I have been more vocal maybe because — while this discussion hurts me directly on some levels given how I actually feel/experience some of the white cultural dynamics, it doesn’t hurt me directly on others.
This comment was written by michelle.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Hmph… never took to Buffy. One of the few, apparently.
Added:
Though, if it counts toward cultural brownie points, I did take to reading Twisty regularly—until she got bored, that is.
This comment was written by Jolly Wacker.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 12:24 pm
You know, in a lot of ways this follows the pattern of
This comment was written by joe.White person says something
POC says it’s racist and offensive
White person says they’re not racist and it’s being misconstrued
Other say intent doesn’t matter and that POC own the decision of what is racist
White person (and those that agree with them) get defensive
Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 12:35 pm
And you know what? About this ban of Jolly Wacker (if the white man agrees of course)?
I would prefer that you ban me too. In fact, in reality, I wish that you could ban me and let him continue engaging and stop hassling him and listen to what he is actually saying. If he would be willing to stay in this discussion, can you do that? Seriously, can you do that?
Because as I see it, he is doing some very important stuff here and calling things out in a way that is much much better than I have done.
Example: This obsession with protecting the white women: he’s calling it, consistently and well.
Because the truth is: WE DON’T REALLY NEED THAT PROTECTION.
It is a lie.
When white people claim that we need special safe space to examine our and other white people’s racism — it is a self-centered, self-involved self-referential LIE and at some deep level: we know it. It is a way to evade reality and more importantly to control what is going on. Ooooh, poor us, we need safe space or we will CONTINUE BEING VIOLENT TO YOU SO GIVE US WHAT WE DEMAND BECAUSE IF YOU DON’T WE WILL CONTINUE TO HURT YOU!
Seems to me that I haven’t reacted like Jolly Wacker because of my position as white in this thing. I have been disgusted with the stuff he is correctly and incisively calling out, but didn’t go there because I felt exhausted just thinking about it and didn’t want to deal with the shitstorm of bullshit that would surely follow. Poor me.
IMO Jolly Wacker has done a seriously positive service to this discussion and … acted and spoken consistently from a clear refusal to protect whiteness and the white woman. And so he is banned. And I think that is nasty and wrong. Ban me because I agree with what he is doing here.
Disgusting.
This comment was written by michelle.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 12:44 pm
@michelle
You miss the point. It’s not about a safe space for white people. It’s about flamewars. I’ve taken some very unpopular opinions on this forum (since, even though I’m a liberal, I have some minor MRA sympathies) but the only times I get threatened with banning is when I start actually making offensive, personal comments. That is far more than can be said for most liberal forums.
In other words: Jolly’s not being banned because he’s taking shots at Rachel’s story. He’s being banned because he’s making offensive comments.
Seriously, this forum is a lot better than some. Want to get banned so fast your head will spin? Go say something controversial at Pandagon.
This comment was written by Silenced is foo..Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 12:53 pm
What Silenced is foo (Dude, what a name) said is essentially correct.
This is not a forum in which to flame. Furthermore, because of the sensitive nature of all of this, I think there’s been a hell of a lot more leeway here than there would be in many discussions.
And Jolly already had a warning (post 106) which he chose to ignore.
Many many people who disagree with Rachel are free to continue posting here. Jolly is not some kind of martyr, he was just sort of being . . . jerky.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 1:07 pm
Mandolin:
I just want to be clear: I did not make this claim. All I have claimed is that I can see how the roughness in the text can lead to the “treated like an object” reading. What I actually wrote was:
This comment was written by Richard Jeffrey Newman.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 1:14 pm
Richard Jeffrey Newman
The only relevant piece of information on the boyfriend is that he’s black. Why? Because this story isn’t about the victims of racism, it’s about a perpetrators of it. And the only thing that is important to the perpetrators about that boyfriend was his race. If he were tall or short, talkative or quiet, athletic or nerdy - any of those things - would it have mattered to the grandfather and his wife?
That’s the point. This was an anecdote about what racism looks like from the POV of someone who is close to a racist person.
This comment was written by Silenced is foo..Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 1:19 pm
“Seriously, this forum is a lot better than some. Want to get banned so fast your head will spin? Go say something controversial at Pandagon.”
That’s basically false. If you have more comments about moderation, here or elsewhere, head to the most recent open thread.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Yup, it does follow that dynamic.
I’m sensitive to that dynamic, and aware of it. I am making a particular choice to go ahead and go with it, because in this particular case, I think the conclusions are bullshit and racist in themselves.
Michelle,
Jolly should have been banned the moment that he implied Rachel had “jungle fever” with the polishing a lawn jockey shit. If I hadn’t been worrying that this was the dynamic that you speak of, I would have banned his ass then. Instead, I’m banning his ass now, even though I’m not the white man. (Myca, however, is a white man, so your crack is silly.)
“Jungle fever” “polishing a lawn jockey” etc. etc. are all racist comments according to my interpretation of the dynamic Nora of The Angry Black Woman describes in this post which contains comments like this one:
Interracial couples are — as interracial couples — a minority that faces oppression. They are capable of being targetted by racist comments, and here, they have been.
That is not to say that there can’t be thoughtful criticism of interracial couples, and the people who are in them, but when that criticism is framed through phrases like “jungle fever” and “polishing another lawn jockey,” that criticism crosses from interesting analysis to barriers of racism and acceptable discourse.
Your criticism of Rachel’s essay has not crossed those boundaries, so you will not be banned unless you do so.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 1:30 pm
Oh, and Jolly,
You’re banned. Please don’t attempt to post here again. Have an interesting journey through the intertubes.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Sigh. I may actually start from the beginning of all this (including the original text) and explain some of the problems I have both with it and the comments, in an orderly, easily grasped manner. Maybe. But first….
“Jungle fever” “polishing a lawn jockey” etc. etc. are all racist comments according to my interpretation of the dynamic Nora of The Angry Black Woman describes in this post which contains comments like this one:
No. Ban Jolly Wacker if you want… it’s your site (well, yours among others), your rules, moderation policies and all the rest… but why not do it on your own, simply because it seems to you (and whoever others) the right thing to do? I am assuming you think Jolly Wacker is a person of color? I do too, but don’t know for sure. Regardless, it’s very bad form to use the words of a woman of color - again, the one short paragraph, out of a very long and complex essay, that apparently fits what you felt you needed, in your mind, for justification… especially considering the fact that the very next sentence states:
Framed that way, the answer is a clear yes. But as Ignatiev, Zia, and Tatum’s books all illustrate, that’s the wrong way to ask the question.
If one is going to do that though… use the words of one person of color to justify actions against (or for, for that matter) another person of color (if that is indeed the case), it’s always best to make sure one has a clear understanding of all the dynamics involved. Or you run into making appalling mistakes, like this one male feminist who - for 25 years - used a throwaway line by one famous woman of color - which he did not understand in the least, though he thought he did - about how she’d faced more sexism than racism in her life - to justify dismissing the lived experiences of women of color regarding racism and sexism.
I find this “people of color are morphing into the oppressors” thing - especially when it comes to white women involved in relationships with non-white men, as they are the real victims of oppression - interesting… but I must confess, I’ve always associated it with H***t and CM and so on. I had no idea that that sort of feeling was so widespread.
In my experience with people who have issues with interracial couples… and admittedly my experience with this type is limited as, for the most part, in my family and friendship circles interracial couples are quite common and unremarkable… but anyway, when there ARE people with issues, it’s normally persons of one ethnic group going after the person in the relationship that is of the same ethnic group. They may or may not be rude to the person of the other color/race whatever, but both the main concern and the main antipathy is usually saved for the one doing the “betraying of the race” or whatever.
Where this sometimes changes and more of protective thing kicks in, (and this is both with people who do or do not have issues with the relationship itself), is when it looks like the person with the least outside power in the relationship… in this case, it would be the black man in the midst of a partner’s hostile white family… is both being treated as… a sort of faceless prop in a story as well as someone who was unprepared for the situation they found themselves in, with little concern for the affects the incident had on them.
That this was not actually the case was not at all clear in the original story, and is only marginally apparent in the subsequent comments, and is (in my view) the basis for most of the pushback against this recounting and anger at the story itself, some of the later comments and so on. Not necessarily that there are issues with the idea of a interracial relationship (although there may be that as well), but that the of color partner is being treated shabbily. Or so it may have seemed, before all the context was supplied.
I have problems with the story even with all the context but at this point I guess it doesn’t matter much.
This comment was written by Nanette.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 3:46 pm
[Comment deleted. On reflection, I'd prefer to allow discussion of my moderation decision to go on without me. Have at.
--M]
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 4:23 pm
Michelle wrote:
Actually, no, it’s just the opposite. I’ve been assuming you’re a POC, and frankly would have responded much more critically to what you’ve written — specifically regarding your refusal to seriously acknowledge that you may have internalized racism regarding interracial couples — had I known you were white.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 4:30 pm
Nannette, just for the record, I had kind of thought Jolly was white, but then I thought Nanette was a POC, so clearly my guesswork on this thread is pretty lousy. The truth is, I have no idea. (I’m not saying I’m “colorblind,” just that in this context, with only text on a screen to look at, I don’t know people’s race.)
With all due respect, do you disagree that for someone (I think white, but I could be wrong) to refer to an interracial couple with terms like “polishing the lawn jockey” is offensive and bigoted?
In retrospect, I think I should have banned Jolly immediately for that comment. The only reason I didn’t ban Jolly right away after that comment was that he was criticizing Rachel, and I tend to give our critics — especially people who are probably criticizing us from an anti-racist or feminist POV — more leeway than I give posters in general.
I’ve gotta go draw now, but I’ll check in with this thread tomorrow.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 4:39 pm
[Comment deleted. On reflection, I’d prefer to allow discussion of my moderation decision to go on without me. Have at.
–M]
I missed whatever was originally there… bummer.
If any part of the above is directed towards me, however, I wasn’t actually discussing your moderation decision. In fact, I tried (and apparently failed) to make clear that whatever the site policies were are what they are, and up to the moderators, whether I approve of them or not.
I was going to restate what I was discussing, but I see it’s still there in the comment up above, so… no need.
This comment was written by Nanette.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 4:41 pm
Hell, at this point we might as well have another flame war about generalized tactics for changing an oppressive system. (Or anarchy for that matter.)
Just for clarity, do you mean to say that Rachel could have avoided this if she’d explained why her relationship with her now-ex-boyfriend did not objectify him, and that it makes sense to demand this?
This comment was written by hf.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 4:57 pm
Nannette, just for the record, I had kind of thought Jolly was white, but then I thought Nanette was a POC, so clearly my guesswork on this thread is pretty lousy.
See? This conversation gets more confusing by the minute! People are having their colors changed with alarming frequency. I am a Black woman, so poc for sure. I don’t know Jolly in any other way other than this thread, but here I got the impression that he was a person of color. I could be wrong. I knew Michelle was white from the beginning. And have mostly just assumed that everyone else was too, although as it’s a long thread I may have forgotten someone.
With all due respect, do you disagree that for someone (I think white, but I could be wrong) to refer to an interracial couple with terms like “polishing the lawn jockey” is offensive and bigoted?
It can be, for sure. I don’t know if he is white or not, I would find it more offensive if he was, in one of those odd race quirks. I don’t use terms like that and I think they are unproductive but there are definitely Black people who do if maybe not in the same way. I tend to think that when he did use that term he was reacting, again, to the original text where things were a tad murky. My first thought was that he was reacting strongly out of personal experience but again, I could be wrong.
Here is what he said:
Had I been him I would have been appalled by your casual disregard for my dignity, your childish need for affirmation from your racist family, and then, while walking out the door, told you to go polish some other lawn jockey.
Had the situation been as it appeared in the original text, I may have done the same thing (in so many words). So, while I winced a bit, I did not consider the use bigoted or offensive (well, actually, I think it was meant to be strong and offensive), as I assumed he was speaking of himself and what his reaction would have been (or maybe had been) to a similar situation to how Rachel’s situation (with no context but the original text) seemed.
This comment was written by Nanette.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Silenced is foo:
I don’t know that I will have the time to continue to be part of this conversation, but I have to say that you have just made michelle’s and jolly’s point for them much more powerfully than I think Rachel’s original post did.
This comment was written by Richard Jeffrey Newman.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 5:16 pm
Well, since I am clogging up the comments, I may as continue on…
Just for clarity, do you mean to say that Rachel could have avoided this if she’d explained why her relationship with her now-ex-boyfriend did not objectify him, and that it makes sense to demand this?
Rachel could have avoided all this in a couple ways, in my opinion.
1)Not put the boyfriend in there at all. He’s not central or even necessary to her main theme, which is the relationship between non racist white people and their racist families.
2) Put the boyfriend in there completely. This does not mean center the story around him or write oodles of words describing him or his feelings or whatever…. it could have been something as simple as:
“I had brought my boyfriend, a black man, who I had been dating for 4 years, to a family picnic. Over the years we’d discussed my racist family but we still weren’t prepared for what happened. (The picnic event). ”
Actually, I don’t know how she could have handled, in the telling, the aftermath, as that is one of the things I have issues with even with the context - she doesn’t know what, exactly, it was that was the worst thing that happened to him, or how he dealt with it in the long term.
It’s a personal story and the essay is not about the relationship or why this seemingly wasn’t talked about afterwards, plus she wishes to protect his privacy and not speak for him, so it’s not an easy situation. I would have opted for leaving him out completely, I think.
This comment was written by Nanette.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 5:25 pm
…how?
This comment was written by hf.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 5:28 pm
Wait, you don’t mean she should have exhorted us to show courage and challenge racist relatives without giving the personal story?
This comment was written by hf.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 5:40 pm
You don’t think she could have exhorted people to show courage and all that without the personal story? Now that I read it again, maybe not, as she is using that incident to show why all the other stuff happened.
In that case, then the answer would be to put him in completely.
[added] That would have taken care of at least one part of things, anyway.
Just as an aside, I wanted to answer one of the questions above, on what she should have done or what people should do when they have relationships with people of color, and also have racist relatives (or something like that).
Hope is not a plan, as someone once said. In my opinion, if you are going to invite a poc into a known hostile environment, no matter how much you might hope that good manners or something among the racist faction will win out, I wouldn’t plan on it.
I (being an old woman and wiser now) will not enter into any similar situation without a few things happening first… The relatives (friends, coworkers, etc) are informed that I will be there, know I am Black, and are informed that either they can be decent or (we will leave, so and so will disown you, whatever).
This not only lets me know that I am important enough in the scheme of things to be afforded this courtesy, with complete backup, if I am willing to endure the hostile family for a time, but also puts the onus for the success of whatever event on the racist family members (friends, etc).
(this may come thru twice… I am trying the editing thing for the first time)
This comment was written by Nanette.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 9:30 pm
Want to get banned so fast your head will spin? Go say something controversial at Pandagon.
Wow. I’ve said lots controversial at Pandagon, up to and including really vitriolic arguments with Amanda, and I’ve never been banned.
Maybe I should try trolling? Is that what worked for you?
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 9:59 pm
Let’s say that Rachel had written the identical essay except that instead of being black, her boyfriend was Jewish and her grandfather was so antisemitic that he refused to shake the Jewish boyfriend’s hand (this all assumes, of course, that Rachel and her family are not Jewish, which may or may not be the case).
Would anyone be claiming that her essay itself was antisemitic?
This comment was written by Paul R..Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 10:53 pm
Au contraire.
I myself have engaged in controversial, extremely heated, and also vitriolic exchanges at Pandagon. Not banned yet.
The decision to ban, either here or there, is multi-faceted.
This comment was written by Bonnie.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2007 at 11:45 pm
Nanette,
I’m sorry I misread you.
As to using the quote from Nora, I hear your objections. I felt that her words have helped to inform my theories about what I see as JW’s racist responses here. I did not feel I was misrepresenting Nora on the basis of what I’ve read of her considerations of racism, but it wasn’t necessary to embed the quote, and I apologize for doing so.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
October 4th, 2007 at 2:46 am
The only relevant piece of information on the boyfriend is that he’s black. Why? Because this story isn’t about the victims of racism, it’s about a perpetrators of it. And the only thing that is important to the perpetrators about that boyfriend was his race. If he were tall or short, talkative or quiet, athletic or nerdy - any of those things - would it have mattered to the grandfather and his wife?
That’s the point. This was an anecdote about what racism looks like from the POV of someone who is close to a racist person.
This — the relentless perpetrator POV, the way it is there and subtley persistent and continued to persist in the defensive responses to the criticism — this is a big part of what got to me about the story and the responses. Like, in the gut got me.
I think there is a difference between having white people at the center of the room under serious critical scrutiny, and supporting white people’s POV at the center of the assumed reality of what is going on.
And if there is some feeling out there that white people under scrutiny (as perpetrators and people who should take responsibility) is or requires the same thing as white people’s POV at the center, then … well, yuck.
That is ugly nasty stuff, the white cultural POV — endlessly self-referential, aggressively centered on the concerns of the white self like no one else matters, hierarchical and exclusive (ignoring and/or trivializing the existance of other people’s humanity and experiential realities), defensive, and objectifying.
I have a gut-level experientially based thing about the subtle relentless ways that the white cultural self operates to claim and maintain the center — the most-human, the most-real. The white cultural self-defense tactics that can seem (to some) good and polite and smiley and friendly but are actually none of those things, are actually ugly erasures and … I still don’t have the words. Anyway, I feel this as a form of quiet but real violence — right or wrong I feel it like that.
This comment was written by michelle.Report this comment to the moderators
October 4th, 2007 at 3:15 am
Nanette, quoting me, wrote:
I meant to write “but then I thought Michelle was a POC,” but I wrote “Nanette” instead, presumably because my brain had decided that this conversation needed to be even more confusing. Oy.
As for the rest of your comment, what you say about the use of “lawn jockey” in that context makes sense.
But I also think the reading that this was an extremely insensitive use of bigoted language to bring up common prejudices against interracial couples, also makes sense.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 4th, 2007 at 3:37 am
There’s a big difference between thinking that putting white people under scrutiny will occasionally include autobiographical pieces by white people talking about their own experiences of being white in a racist society, and thinking that it requires it in all instances.
The idea that white people should never talk about whiteness in an autobiographical fashion, which is where your critique leads, is not useful and merely encourages white people not to talk seriously about racism. I think racism is about white people, just as rape is about men, in the sense that racism is mostly perpetrated by whites. I’ve talked about rape from the male POV for that reason (for example in this post), and I think it’s valid and necessary for whites to talk about racism from a white POV, too.
To say otherwise — to say that only blacks may talk about racism in autobiography (which by definition centers the author’s POV) — is to unfairly take the burden of opposing racism off of white people, in my opinion.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 4th, 2007 at 6:07 am
@Richard Jeffrey Newman
I said “relevant” not “important”. The story mostly was about a racist’s person’s reaction, and, shock-and-surprise, racist people don’t care if the black guy has any other characteristics besides race. So, other attributes weren’t relevant. [Needless snark deleted by Amp.]
We also didn’t hear much about the grandfather’s wife, who was also described as racist. Does this mean that Rachel is sexist? No. It means that her reaction wasn’t as relevant to the story as her grandfather, who is a blood relation and thus it is more destructive to her family if she has a feud with him, so his opinion is more relevant.
This comment was written by Silenced is foo..Report this comment to the moderators
October 4th, 2007 at 7:40 am
Silenced is foo:
And precisely how does this not make michelle’s and jolly’s point?
This comment was written by Richard Jeffrey Newman.Report this comment to the moderators
October 4th, 2007 at 9:10 am
Again, I think michelle and others make some thoughtful and difficult-to-express points. I can’t help but think of others who have wrestled with the challenge of how to describe the challenges created by a world view to people who share that world view. “[Men's world view] is metaphysically nearly perfect. Its point of view is the standard for point-of-viewlessness, its particularity the meaning of universality, its force is exercised as consent, its authority as participation, its supremacy as the paradigm of order, its control as the definition of legitimacy.” Catharine MacKinnon, “Feminism, Marxism, Method, and the State: Toward Feminist Jurisprudence,” 8 Signs 635, 638-39 (1983).
And again, notwithstanding the merits of these points, I don’t share michelle’s dismay. I sense I’m hearing insights about the dearth of stories from a black viewpoint combined with insights about the limits of story-telling in general.
The fact that stories from a black person’s point of view don’t get enough attention leads me to conclude that black people’s stories should get more attention. It does not lead me to find fault with stories told from other people’s points of view, however flawed and partial their points of view may be. After all, are there any stories that don’t ignore or marginalize someone else’s experience? I’d be interested to hear a few titles. God may mark the fall of every sparrow, but oddly she didn’t include a list of these accounts in any of her published works.
One white guy’s perspective: To know anything, you must it is necessary to know everything; to say anything, it is necessary to leave most things unsaid. The choice about what to omit is somewhat arbitrary. The need to make a choice is not. I don’t doubt that Rachel S.’s boyfriend would have told a different story than Rachel S. did. And I don’t doubt that his story would have been partial, too, albeit partial in a different way. I appreciate how commentors here can identify a list of subjects that went unsaid and unexplored in Rachel S.’s story. I don’t share the view that there was therefore something “wrong” with the story.
This comment was written by nobody.really.Report this comment to the moderators
October 4th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
The level of active deceit in this discussion overall, coming from white people defending Rachel as oppressed, is appalling and horrifying to me. (I know I should not be so shocked and outraged because this is the way things go in this system, but I am an idiot because it always gets to me).
Rachel and others are claiming she, a white woman, is a victim of oppression against interracial couples.
In terms of actual concrete historical and current context: Oppression against interracial couples is a part and product of systemic white supremacy, intersecting with white patriarchy and other systems. It is not some interpersonally-generated independent acontextual ahistorical apolitical different pattern that just happens in families and bounded interactions and blog discussions.
It has a historical context in things like miscegenation laws (as ONLY ONE EXAMPLE), it is linked strongly into the multi-mode gendered practice of racism against men and women of color, and whatever its mutations over time, it is a piece of white supremacy in intersection with other systems.
So the way I see it, real genuine honest discussion using the concept of “interracial oppression” would need to include the actual context. And in this case, when we are talking about a white woman claiming she is being oppressed here because she was in a relationship with a Black man, honest context about how the system operates might include realities of how white men have used white women (and how some white women participated in this pattern in various ways) to provide a pretext for lynching Black men on the basis of their claimed violation of pure white womanhood.
This is just one example, there are so so many other historical/contextual/current pieces that never ever would come up in how the white people here are talking about this thing they name/define as “oppression of interracial couples” because it doesn’t fit the twisted way they are trying to use this pattern to justify … protecting a white woman.
This is what I see:
In this discussion, the claim that Rachel is in victim status because she was in an interracial relationship has come only from white people.
In this discussion, the claim that Rachel is in victim status because she was in an interracial relationship has served specific functions:
1. It has flipped actual reality upside down and meshed with the white supremacist construction of white womanhood — making Rachel the white woman the “oppressed one” within white supremacy, and an individual who was speaking from the subject position of the Black man in her story a racist oppressor who must be banned.
2. It has provided justification and rationale for Rachel to be defensive, thus rhetorically turning a pretty typical case of Wounded White Woman Syndrome into a virtuous fight against racism.
3. It has given another white person, Mandolin, who is a moderator here at this blindingly-white-owned site, the opportunity to use another woman of color’s words about interactions *between people of color* to refer to how someone who is probably a person of color was racist against Rachel, who is white.
4. It has done a whole whole lot of other things that I don’t have the time or energy to lay out.
Like I said, the level of active deceit in this whole thing is appalling to me.
In my view, there is no way to have a real discussion about anything when the active deceit level is so high, when the flow of bullshit is so constant, so relentless, that it is impossible to even name all of it.
And while my girlfriend tells me that this kind of thing is just normal operating procedure in this shithole of a white/European cultural system, and while I know this cognitively and experientially, it seems I will never ever EVER get less shocked, less disgusted, less outraged by the shamelessness and relentlessness of the deceit.
I wish there were some kind of accountability to the actual truth, actual reality, independent of what anyone wants to believe. I wish that you white liars who are saying whatever the fuck you can say to protect the poor white woman victim — just because you CAN say it — would be zapped by some truth deity each and every time you engaged in this deceit, each and every time you twist reality to conform to what you want things to be.
Maybe that would at least tire you out a little and ease the flow of the bullshit. And I would welcome being zapped myself when I am not accountable to the truth.
But it is not going to happen. Not going to happen, and you all with your rhetoric in this twisted funhouse mirrorworld space have apparently endless energy to keep up this practice of bullshit, and there are a whole lot of you who have been going on and on about this. This is not a real discussion where people are trying to understand something together, it is an energy-sucking pit of white-people-running-lies bullshit. Which I know isn’t rare on the internet — or in this society — but I am an idiot and can’t seem to stop getting shocked and outraged about it.
I will not be coming back again to this discussion or this site.
This comment was written by michelle.Report this comment to the moderators
October 4th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
Seriously, go and check out that link. It would make a much more interesting flamewar, if we insist on having one.
This comment was written by hf.Report this comment to the moderators
October 5th, 2007 at 9:55 am
honest context about how the system operates might include realities of how white men have used white women (and how some white women participated in this pattern in various ways) to provide a pretext for lynching Black men on the basis of their claimed violation of pure white womanhood
And a discussion of how women are seen as property, and vessels. Here, ‘pure white womanhood’ isn’t really about the woman as a person. It’s about her value to white men.
I don’t see that race and gender issues cannot exist at the same time in any discussion.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
October 7th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
Aren’t there an enormous number of understandable and acceptable ways to have a conversation? And shouldn’t they be at least somewhat measured by their results?
I can speak to another man about his sexist act in a variety of ways. i can try to interact with him in a “macho” way; I can try to bring the focus onto the personal experience of the woman he offended; I can do a mix or something entirely different. But in the end, what matters is the RESULT: are he, and I, made “better” with one option than the other? the process is relevant as it affects the result.
It seems clear that Rachel’s essay probably has some intrinsic cost–it references the boyfriend in a way that some find objectionable. But cost is only one side of the equation. We also need to look at the intrinsic benefit. Is the essay helpful? Would it be more, or less, helpful, if it included all the modifications that some here suggest (or if it wasn’t written at all, as I suspect some would prefer)? Would it still convince some (more, fewer) people to fight racism; to look at new ways to take on their racist family members?
Doesn’t that matter? A lot? Whites are the main perpetrators of racism; change in whites remains one of the very important ways to affect it. Doesn’t it?
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators