I am not sick of hearing about racism. racism is real and must be combated. racism isn't just ugly; it's dangerous, and apparently infectious. no one should have to give "the talk" to his or her kids, to make sure they know how to behave if stopped for an imaginary traffic violation or arrested for walking while black. no one should be followed around by store clerks because they're considered more likely to shoplift than persons with lighter complexions. no one should be denied jobs, housing, bank loans or education, because of that social construct that has no anthropological meaning, race. no one should be paid less because of it. no one should be in more physical danger because of it. these things that should not happen ARE happening, and they're not isolated incidents, they're not earned, they're not the fault of those to whom it happens, and they're not trivial.
i am not sick of hearing about patriarchy. it isn't a small thing. it's real, endemic and must be combated. no one should be afraid to make eye contact with a man for fear he will think she is inviting sexual assault. no one should have to give "the talk" to her daughter so she'll know not to appear too smart because men won't like it, and how to attract men without getting herself raped and blamed for it. no one should be denied jobs, housing, bank loans or education because of the social understanding that women are weak and intellectually incapable. no one should be paid less because of gender. no one should be in more physical danger because of it. these things that should not happen ARE happening, and they're not isolated incidents, they're not earned, they're not the fault of those to whom it happens, and they're not trivial.
talking about patriarchy and combating it isn't a distraction from talking about or combating racism. there is no pain contest.
i am sick of hearing these two issues presented as conflicting, as if anyone who cares about racism is an antifeminist, as if anyone who cares about patriarchy is a racist. that's crap. it's crap plain and simple. i am sick of having one of these issues deemed more important than the other, as if we can only fight one wrong, and the other wrong must stand because it's less important.
guess what? some women are black. some black people are women.
meanwhile, i am not sick of hearing about how black women are getting up and voting blue and running for office and winning, and turning tides. that's a wonderful thing. i am, however, sick of hearing how black women are not going to pull white women's fat out of the fire anymore. i think some of this comes from statistics about how many white women voted for trump. let me present some context for the stats, even as i admit that too damned many white women voted for trump (those of you who want to call me names will skip that part, conveniently enough):
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the stats come from exit polls. that's the only way anyone can break down who voted for whom. voting is private. if you don't tell someone, no one knows. if no one asks, who you voted for isn't counted in the polls. amazingly, some people actually lie. amazingly, most people never get asked. (amazingly, no pollster ever asked an absentee ballot!) the stats from exit polls count how many white women who happened to be asked SAID they voted this way or that. that may be the best info available but it sure isn't reliable.
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hillary won the popular vote by almost three million. someone sure voted for her. if the numbers were fudged (the fbi says no, but then, look at the "investigation" the fbi just conducted on brett kavanaugh) she may have won by more. did black women make the difference there, in the popular vote? i have no doubt they did. did they do that grudgingly because they wanted to save some white women from their own folly? hell, no. that would be stupid. they did it because they voted their hearts and minds, which is proper and right. so why are people now saying that black women are not going to save white women's asses anymore? what does that mean? isn't that cutting off one's nose to spite one's face? i mean wouldn't it be that -- because i am not sure that is how most black women feel. unlike pollsters who deal in small samples, i don't pretend to know that.
i am sick of being told i am racist for bringing up the above points. i am sick of being told that because i say i am not racist, i am obviously racist. i am sick of being told that because i am a feminist, i must be a racist. (oddly, i am never told that because i want to combat racism, i must not be a real feminist.) i am sick of being told that because i don't buy the idea that black women are not going to vote blue because they don't want to help white women anymore (black women i know don't feel that way! they vote blue because red means keeping racist, misogynist criminals in power!) i am sick of being told that black women are not going to vote blue because the democratic party doesn't give black candidates enough funding (it may be true, but it isn't true particularly for black candidates, or for black female candidates; the dccc, which is not the same as the dnc, always has to figure out where funding will do the most good, and that means balancing need with odds. that's a tough thing to do. it means there is always someone who gets less, and someone else who gets zip. even the people who complain about the issue admit that and don't claim it's racially motivated, but then some political writer picks it up and runs with it and suddenly it's a racial issue. there are plenty of damned racial issues and there is plenty of damned racism in this country; we don't need to find it where it isn't, and finding it where it isn't DOES make it harder to fight it where it does exist! how about we admit that black women voted beautifully blue and that their motivations were the best, without now turning it into a black women vs. white women thing? how about supporting black candidates, especially black female candidates, instead of saying there aren't enough (so run!) how about doing this thing TOGETHER! can we, please?
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.I took my kids to an indoor activity group a couple of times and my son wasn't comfortable there because they were the only white kids. We lived in a racially mixed community in which they were comfortable. This was in a neighboring community. Just like the only black kid in an all white school might feel different, the only white one in a black environment does too. I explained our reasons for not continuing and was told that I was racist. That woman's and her children had supposedly never noticed that the activity was not integrated. I think that it is more racist to pretend to not notice the difference. Until we acknowledge and deal with our differences, they will continue to divide us. I have a black friend who was telling me how he feels when people are describing someone and will go out of their way to not mention race even when that is the most discriminating factor in their recognition. It's like it would be insulting to mention black as one of the characteristics. What should that be something that you can't say. Is there something wrong with it?
Stephanie99
Level 8
Oct 9, 2018
0
well, exactly! and then there are the fools who will call you racist for mentioning it, for not mentioning it, and for talking about whether or not to mention it. you can't win; there will always be someone calling you racist, and that doesn't exactly help our efforts to get rid of actual racism! it did surprise me, though, the first time i was called racist, on facebook, by a stranger, because i disagreed with her about something and the topic was racism. i wasn't disagreeing about racism. i was disagreeing about her assertion that a certain candidate hadn't gotten funding from the democratic party because she was black. this is so easily disproven by the fact that the democratic party funds a whole LOT of black people, including black women; obviously there was some other reason that this woman hadn't been funded, if she really hadn't been. it wasn't necessarily her fault; it could be so many things, like she was one of 10 candidates in a race and the dems thought someone else was a better candidate, or would make a better public servant if elected, or that the dems had already spent all their money on that race, or that the republican in that race was so strong there was no use wasting the funds in that area to start with or... any NUMBER of things. so i looked her up and even she wasn't saying she wasn't funded because she was black. she was talking about the dccc's limited funds. just this one person on facebook was saying it was about race.. so i told her what i had found and she not only called me racist, she called me a white supremacist. (she went beyond that and speculated that i didn't know any black people, claiming i'd actually SAID that... how can people claim you say something you didn't when you're typing and everyone can see whether or not you said something? i don't know whether she was deliberately gaslighting me or just insane!) it was surreal, honestly, like telling someone you would like eggs for breakfast instead of cheerios and getting called racist for that. then it happened again. weird weird weird.
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@genessa That kind of behavior is getting normalized these days.It's sad.
@Stephanie99 i wish i could say nah, isolated incident, but i can't say that because it happened twice, which is still not a lot of times, but it's twice more than it used to, and twice more than it should.
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We are all racist. It's part of the normal human tendency towards tribalism.
Stephanie99
Level 8
Oct 8, 2018
0
i disagree. we're all prejudiced but not necessarily racist. and some prejudices are okay. i am terribly prejudiced against nazis and i do not feel my prejudice is unjust.
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@genessa I think that we all have unintentional biases. It's something that we need to be aware of so that we don't discriminate. Pretending that it isn't so, doesn't help. [healthypsych.com]
@Stephanie99 i didn't pretend it wasn't so. having unintentional biases does not make someone a racist, and it specifically doesn't make someone a racist to disagree with something someone says about black women. that is a ridiculous reason to cry "racist!" we are NOT all racist, and that's not pretending that we have no biases. there IS a difference. i am not pretending ANYTHING.
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@genessa I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that you were pretending. That was a general reference. There seems to be a tendency to pretend not to notice differences rather than acknowledge that they exist and deal with it.
@Stephanie99 oh, i'm not like that lol. i remember when i first went to work for the department of justice. there were four employees who sort of took me under their wing: a middle-aged white woman from alaska, very politically and socially conservative; a young white man somewhat older than i (in my mid-20s) but not much; a black women who was about my age; and an older white man who soon vanished from the group because he was laid low and eventually defeated by cancer. so these kind people adopted me and i became closest to the two who were closest to my own age. i have two stories to tell about them that are pertinent to our discussion.
one is that when i first started, things were hopping to the extent that nobody could find the time to get me a desk or give me anything to do, so i sat for a few days in a chair in the front office of my boss' boss' office, reading magazines. i habitually read the new yorker and that week's issue featured a substantial excerpt from james baldwin's then-newest book, the devil finds work, which wasn't even out yet. it was (to simplify) about how baldwin felt when he saw black people on a movie screen, and why he couldn't identify with them but instead identified with bette davis, joan crawford and the like: white women instead of black men. as i was reading this, my new friend, the only black person in the quartet, walked into the room. i looked up and asked her how she felt when she saw a black person on the large or small screen. "do you feel like 'oh look, that's me!' or 'oh that's not real, people i know aren't like that,' or...?" i don't remember her answer because what i do remember was the look of shock on her face. no one had ever asked her that before. in 1976 one wasn't supposed to NOTICE that some of us were black or white or asian or whatever; it was rude! well, too bad; i knew i was asking something important and not derogatory. i just wish i could remember what she said! she wasn't mad -- but it sure threw her for a loop!
the other is that one day, maybe a year later, i found myself alone with the younger white man. we were in washington, d.c., of course, that being where the doj is housed, and he said something about d.c. being "chocolate city." this time i was the dumbfounded one. he worked with black people, he was friends with the aforementioned black woman, how COULD he say that? it wasn't a matter of being p.c.;' there was no such concept back then. what struck me was his assumption that i would be okay with his saying that because my skin isn't dark. us, them. this time i don't remember what i said. it may have been something like "how can you SAY that?" i hope i said something like that.
no, i'm not colorblind, and i don't think people should be colorblind. i think we shiuld talk about our differences and celebrate them (unless the difference is that i'm a jew and the other party is a nazi, or that i don't rob banks and the other person does -- you know what i meant by differences!) differences that should have no judgment attached but are interesting at times. it's not terribly interesting that my eyes are hazel, but if we're talking about eye color, there is no point in my pretending everyone's is the same! my friend got teased not for being black but for being tall; she couldn't find a guy tall enough for her. apparently this was not completely because people didn't care, but at least a little because of some pre-p.c. taboo against mentioning such a horrible thing as blackness. when people stop thinking of it as horrible, they won't have that taboo anymore.
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