Further Thoughts On Fandom & Reverse Racism

[woodwardiocom]

I just added this lengthy comment in my previous post, as a reply to jordan179. I thought it was worth bringing out for its own post. (Slightly edited for the different context.)

As a white person, I can understand the "it's bad if whites do it, therefore it's bad if blacks do it" position, since I've thought the same way from time to time. The reasons I have thought this way are:

1) The power of analogy is tempting. "Such-n-such happened to a black person. If such-n-such happened to me, how would I feel?"
2) My desire for justice believes that the same rules (of laws, of etiquette) should apply to everyone.
3) I have spent my life learning stuff, in order to better understand stuff, and this is just one more thing to learn, right?

The problem is that the lifetime experiences of a black person (or a woman, or a homosexual) are radically different from mine. There is pervasive discrimination that simply does not happen to me. They therefore bring an expertise to these topics that I do not share, and can't learn except by listening to them.

This is intensely frustrating! I'm a smart guy, with a good education, so I'm used to being right about stuff. The epiphany came when I had to admit that it was literally impossible for me to understand what their experiences were like, and I would never be able to match or exceed their expertise in the issues.

Therefore, in order for me to not say wrong things on the topic, it is absolutely required for me to listen to them, defer to their expertise, seek out their help, and acknowledge my own ignorance in the area.

Now, we've agreed that racism is bad. The problem is that the definition of "a racist act" has very fuzzy boundaries. White people set them in one place, black people have a larger set, Jews have a different set, Southerners, Northerners, Republicans, Democrats, SF fans, etc.

Given the above, when people disagree about whether a specific act is racist, the greatest expertise on the topic will generally not come from white people. When the white people are informed of this, they tend to get really cranky.

This is a problem in any demographic, but it can be worse for SF fans. One of the strongest messages of Campbellian SF is that smart people can solve any problem (even if it involves laws of physics you just discovered this morning), and if you read SF, you're one of the smart people. A more subtle message of Campbellian SF is "Men of Northern European extraction are the best!", since (per Asimov), Campbell actually believed that.

So, smart SF fans of Northern European extraction, when they are told that they are wrong about issues of race, and are incapable of gathering the experiences necessary to be experts, throw huge pissy fits.

They need to learn to admit their ignorance and listen.

Comments

[ayelle.livejournal.com]

Keep fighting the good fight, man.

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

Thank you muchly.

[mzrowan.livejournal.com]

Well said.

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[tamidon.livejournal.com]

Well said, and thank you. It's a small thing in the greater context of racism, but I get infuriated at white people who say "How come I can't use the N-word when they do, that's not fair". Seriously? Let's put aside the fact that most black folks I know, women my own age mainly, are mortified by it's use by younger folks. Even so, in the face of the obvious institutional racism faced by people of colour in this country, and the effects of that racism on their day-to-day life, your problem is there is a word they can use that you can't? That's a problem for you? You can't let there be one thing that you, as a white person, can't do that a person of colour can? Maybe it's time to think about all the things they can't do because of racism before you publicly bitch and moan about fairness.

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

Well said.

Gratzi beaucoup.

[j. c. salomon (from livejournal.com)]

Perhaps you’ve heard people complain about unfairness in this matter, but I’ve never come across it myself. The way I’ve heard the argument made goes something like this:

Premises:
• If calling star-bellied Sneetches “Hey, Astro!” were offensive, they would not call each other that.
(Implicit argument: It would be unwise for them to call each other that, keeping the term in common use; and one assumes they would not commonly commit such an unwise act.)
• Many star-bellied Sneetches do, in fact, routinely call each other by the term “Astro”.

Conclusion:
• “Hey, Astro!” must not be as offensive as is claimed.

The logic of the syllogism can be argued, primarily by attacking the implicit argument (people—and presumably Sneetches—do often do unwise things; perhaps there are elements of in-group identification that outweigh concerns about keeping an offensive term in use; etc., etc.) or by noting (as you did) that many SBSs find the term offensive even when used by other SBSs, or….

But simply dismissing this by saying, “What the star-bellied Sneetches say amongst themselves is not your concern; it’s offensive when you say it,” is offensive against anyone habituated to logical thought. (I suspect it’s not the unfairness of the “double standard” that you’ve heard complaints about, but the illogic of the dismissal; but again I will defer to your experience on the matter.)

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

It is impossible to understand language and communication without understanding that context matters. The first part of your syllogism ignores the context of "the speaker" which is surely the most important part.

[minkrose]

<3 It's been really great to see you talking about this stuff. I agree with the overall content of your post.

However, I think it's more than just "get really cranky" or "throw huge pissy fits" in reaction to these kinds of situations -- you have to WANT to get better at these things, and if you haven't yet committed to that change, then I think people lash out because it hurts a lot (but that's still the responsibility of the person with those feelings, not of the people who are speaking up about they way they are being treated). Around the time of the first public internet Racefail in 2009 (http://fanlore.org/wiki/RaceFail_'09) I started LISTENING to people. I suddenly, thoroughly understood that I did not know SHIT about this stuff, and the one message that came through loud & clear was "be quiet and LEARN before you try to help." It's only in the past couple of years that I feel confident enough in my ability to read an article or a comment or whatever and feel like I can correctly interpret any problematic elements, and asses whether it's something that should be shared.

I recommend this tag "For Whites, like me" on this blog (which does sometimes have a religious aspect, but seriously, don't let that get in the way of listening to these people). http://livingformations.com/category/for-whites-like-me/
The first post in that category is also a good read: http://livingformations.com/2013/08/01/for-whites-like-me-prelude/

And yes, I definitely want to advocate listening to black voices, and people of color, but it's also not THEIR job to single-handedly explain racism to us. So I try to highlight someone who is speaking to white people about their racism, since that may be an easier place for white people to start learning. Those resources were harder for me to find in 2009, and I would've found them really helpful (and I still do).

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

It's been really great to see you talking about this stuff.

Merci.

[drwex]

Mink and I have been talking about this: http://www.wpcr-boston.org/faqs/
and talking about taking their workshop at CCAE: http://www.wpcr-boston.org/upcoming-workshops/

If you were interested I would be both happier and more likely to do this.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

One trouble with this, to my mind, is the often made assertion that no black person can ever be racist.

Quite a few years ago, now, I took a long trip by Greyhound, and when I got back, I went to the bus stop to head for home. And a black man waiting at that same bus stop started threatening me, telling me he didn't want me at that bus stop; in fact, he explicitly said, "I'm a segregationist." I was tired and just wanted to go home, and I'm not good at dealing with violent situations, but fortunately I was rescued by the intervention of a bystander—another black man, as it happens—who told the first man to back off.

Now, it seems to me that there is no sensible way to describe that sort of behavior and attitude except as "racist"—that is, based on adherence to an ideology of racial difference and of hostility based on that difference.

There is an argument that black people cannot be racist because they are not in power in society as a whole. But power is not simply holistic. Power is largely situational and negotiated—socially constructed—and the process of construction takes place in concrete circumstances that differ from place to place, moment to moment, and person to person. And who's in power can change. The Christians were a contemptible minority in ancient Rome; a thousand years later they were in power in most of Europe—and their laws included death penalties for sodomites and heretics. I don't judge people's attitudes purely by how much power they have now; I judge them by what they are likely to do if they get into power.

I'd also note that, stipulating that a black person knows more than a white person about the abuse to which black people are subject, the accusation of "racism" is also used as a trump card in arguments—and any such trump card will attract people who want to use it to win arguments, whether or not it's relevant and whether or not they have anything valid to say. I've been accused of racism in response to my criticizing the health care proposals of Barack Obama (whom in fact I voted for in 2008, because I thought his original proposals during his campaign, if not ideal, sounded endurable and better than Clinton's). This gets to have a flavor of "shut up, he explained": It says, "I can make an accusation against you because you're white, and you can't refute it because you're white, and that makes anything you say that I disagree with wrong, and no evidence or argument you present can be relevant." And you can't pursue empirical truth if evidence can be ruled out in that way.

Now, maybe you believe that there is no empirical or objective truth to be pursued, and everything is purely a matter of superior power. But it seems to me that that implies that what I ought to do, out of prudence, is to make sure that people like me are in power, and people different from me are kept out of power, by any means necessary. That's a position I reject, and I don't think it's one you actually want to adhere to either.

[mzrowan.livejournal.com]

Are people of colour sometimes racist? Sure. Do people use straw men and other such tactics to silence others? No question. But I believe that those incidents are far, far, far outnumbered by the systemic racism people of colour experience every day. Continuing to harp on them whenever someone talks about manifestations of that systemic racism is like insisting on bringing up "false accusations" whenever the topic of sexual assault is raised.

(And in case anyone reading this *does* like to shout "But false accusations!" whenever the topic of sexual assault is raised, I direct you to these links:
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/03/13/false-rape-allegations-ra_n_2865823.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape#Estimates_of_prevalence)

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

I don't think that saying "but there is this other worse problem" is a legitimate justification for not recognizing a problem, or for not addressing it, when it actually arises.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

But I believe that those incidents are far, far, far outnumbered by the systemic racism people of colour experience every day.

On what do you base this belief? What's more, how would systemic racism against "people of colour" make systemic racism against whites cease to be important? And why do you split all humans between "whites" and "people of colour" given that there is nothing at all in common between blacks, Hispanics, East Asians, South Asians, and Amazon Indians than their "non-whiteness?"

The question of false accusations is very important to a discussion of rape, or even sexual assault, because the existence of such false accusations makes it harder to prosecute actual rape and sexual assault. Obviously, the guilty will claim to be innocent, but the innocent will also claim to be innocent. And women have the same power to lie as do men -- it is a human universal. Why do you assume women are less capable of mendacity?

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

One trouble with this, to my mind, is the often made assertion that no black person can ever be racist.

Yeah, I'm not going to assert that or defend it.

I'd also note that, stipulating that a black person knows more than a white person about the abuse to which black people are subject, the accusation of "racism" is also used as a trump card in arguments... It says, "I can make an accusation against you because you're white, and you can't refute it because you're white, and that makes anything you say that I disagree with wrong, and no evidence or argument you present can be relevant." And you can't pursue empirical truth if evidence can be ruled out in that way.

That is indeed a danger. It's the same danger someone with no knowledge of physics has when arguing with a world-renowned physicist. The phyisicist could be saying complete nonsense, but the layman has no way to know or argue. The difference is that the layman could learn physics, but you and I can't learn what it is to be black (or a woman, or whatever). It's freakin' annoying.

In actual practice I have friends I trust who are black/Hispanic/gay/women/trans/etc., and able to offer good input on these matters, and I check with them. In the absence of being able to determine empirical truth for myself, I have trusted sources. (Which, frankly, is the same way I determine truth in physics, since I'm no physicist.)

[desiringsubject.livejournal.com]

There's an apocryphal story told in The Peaceable Kingdom about George Fox and Margaret Fell (the founders of the Society of Friends). George Fox was very very adamant about the Golden Rule, and advocated that everyone should always treat everyone else the way they would wish to be treated. One specific instantiation of this, so goes the story, was that in an argument, rather than escalate the argument, the Quaker participant in the argument should embrace their interlocutor "in the spirit of the Lord." When Fox was in prison, and Fell was receiving letters from new Quaker converts everywhere, she was trying to interpret Quaker "doctrine" (such as it is) to respond to these letters. One other person in prison wrote that as much as he tried to embrace those who spoke against him, the embraces seemed to anger the combatants more and what should he do? Fell replied to his letter suggesting that before he treat others the way he would be treated, he might well check if their tastes were the same. Fox disapproved, but I suspect that Fell kept many an imprisoned Quaker from getting beaten up extra...

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

This post and ensuing thread gave me a lot to think about. Thank you for that.

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

Back at you, dear.

[phil-masters.livejournal.com]

My closed belief system alarm just went off.

If part of the argument is that white people confronted with this argument can be expected to "throw a pissy fit", then any white person contradicting this argument can be assumed to be throwing a pissy fit, and therefore whatever they say can be disregarded, and indeed can be taken as proof of the argument.

That's very dangerous ground.

[j. c. salomon (from livejournal.com)]

You have just diagnosed the kafkatrap (search Google for the term; my link to the definition on ESR’s blog was marked as spam for some reason), specifically a fuzzy blend of models M and L. Shades of Bulverism as well.

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

That's why I recommend a system of trusted sources.

[queenofhalves]

nicely said.

[gothelittle.livejournal.com]

I have to say I dislike the divisions of race into "black", "white", "brown", etc. In fact, I find it downright offensive. Within each "race" is a whole bunch of tribal identities that have been at war primarily with each other, often to the point where they are much friendlier with tribes comprised of other "races" than with each other, for thousands of years!

Take the Irish, for instance. They've been marginalized and oppressed for a long time. When the "black" (West Africans, mostly) were being taken into the U.S. as slaves, the Irish were being taken into the U.S. as slaves. The first Irishman in America was a slave in the most iconic way possible. He was whipped when unruly, not allowed to own property, and his ability to take a wife and the nature of his relationship with her was called into question frequently. He was not an isolated case. Remember the jokes about potatoes? Remember the signs that said "No Irish Need Apply"? That was *after* the Irish slaves in the New World were mostly "freed".

And yet their descendants and their oppressors' descendants, that whole profound conflict that ruined lives and kept an entire tribal group suborned, are all dismissed under the label "white".

The blanket term "black" in this country has stripped these people of their own tribal identities. When you take the descendant of West African slaves and the descendant of, say, the Kenyan Luo tribe as well as certain other Northern African groups, and you call them both "black", then you are labeling with the same identity the oppressor and the victim whose people he slaughtered before selling her into a lifetime of slavery in a strange land. Northern Africans are not Central Africans. Central Africans are not Southern Africans. There are people who will treat my Ethiopian nephews as if they are West Africans, even though they have absolutely nothing of the same history, culture, or language. They will try to strip these boys' very tribal, cultural, and ancestral identity away from them and assign them the blanket term "black", which has mostly been defined in American culture by a tribe on the *other side of the African continent*, by people they've never met, in a history they've never lived, with patterns of behavior that they've never experienced.

Asian groups, Hispanic groups, Indigenous groups... all of these "groups" are filled with a rich variety of history and culture that is all dismissed under an amalgam of stereotypes and assigned a color, as if the specific tone of your skin is more important than the people among whom your ancestors have lived, loved, fought, and transacted with for most of known human history. People who pontificate about (for instance) 'white racism against Asians' picture these people with Han Chinese features eating sushi with blunt-ended chopsticks and watching Gundam Wing before practicing Kung Fu. They go to China for a visit and try to thank their hosts with 'Domo Arigato'. And let's not even get into what happens when you add in Korea, Vietnam, and Thailand among others.

I think it's time for *all* of us, if we are to maintain these distinctions for the purpose of addressing 'racism', to acknowledge our *tribal* roots, and understand who precisely has oppressing and whom has been oppressed in a more detailed and truthful manner.

Only then can we not only listen, but truly begin to understand when a "minority" person explains his quarrel with another "minority" person.

[tamidon.livejournal.com]

this sounds like a much more detailed and involved explanation of the argument " I'm not a racist because race is a biologically invalid concept that I don't believe in . We're all just human". That just erases the realities of life that minorities face and is racist in itself. You are going in the other direction, with examinations of tribal culture that doesnt really fly. Tribal culture has not been wiped out from the experiences of black people because of using black as a term for all these subsets, it was wiped out when they were brought here, literally wholesale, and oppressed and abused for centuries . Being offended by such a straw man is also pretty offensive in itself.
yay for tribal identities and differences being recognized and celebrated , boo for thinking that somehow makes the concept of race the problem.