|| >> I've no idea what racism means to non-white people, <<
Some aspects include ...
* Never knowing when someone will attack you.
* Some people are most aggravated by microaggressions, the endless tiny stream of signals that you aren't good enough or don't belong.
* Others are more upset by rarer but more serious things like fearing for their life at every police interaction, or worrying they'll get deported despite being a citizen.
* Some people thing racism is stupid and exhausting and want nothing to do with any of it.
* People of color raised by white parents are especially screwed because they don't learn the in-race survival skills.
Fortunately, some people of color talk a lot about how racism affects them and what changes they want. So if you can find those references, it creates a more complete picture. I've looked at Native American, African-American, and Hispanic branches primarily -- and they all have very different concerns. ||
Rephrase here - I have no idea how they use this specific word, and what the word means to them. I have a rather better idea of some of the shit they receive disproportionately, and some of the crap they are statistically more likely to have in their individual backgrounds.
That's partly because people talk and publish about problems they encounter, and some publish about systemic issues.
It's also because of personal intersectionality.
- I share the experience, more common among black than white children, of being raised poor and being afraid of both the police and child welfare services. - I share the experience of never knowing when someone might attack me; all female-appearing persons do. (So do queer-appearing persons, and many autistics.)
Amusingly, part of the current shibboleth rules is to never compare my experience to that of those in the target demographic I'm supposed to be allied with. In my world, comparing helps develop empathy. "If it's this bad for me, I can hardly imagine how people who have it worse manage to cope". "That sucked when .... happened to me - and you have incidents like that all the time?!" But in the officially correct world, comparing with my experiences is a whole raft of things, all of them hateful, and should be avoided at all costs.
Related to this, in the real world, I see a smart kid trying to do well in school, either for its own sake or to get themself out of the poverty they were born in, and I see someone like me in ways that matter very much to me. I want to help them. But as an ally, I'm supposed to focus on them being black and me being white. Focussing on our differences rather than their similarity, and obscuring my awareness of their individual nature, is the only acceptable attitude for a "good ally". Likewise, when I see an interviewee with a particular set of skills and experience, which may be similar to mine and similar to those we need, I'm supposed to pay less attention to that, and more to their racial categorization. I.e. I'm required to deal with them as "not us", as part of improving the way I treat them. That way lies condescension and charity, not anything resembling equality. But it's not OK to say that, and in any case, all good allies "know" that as a white person, I'm incapable of empathy with any black person in any case.
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dancing_serpent
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2021-12-02 06:17 pm (UTC)Some aspects include ...
* Never knowing when someone will attack you.
* Some people are most aggravated by microaggressions, the endless tiny stream of signals that you aren't good enough or don't belong.
* Others are more upset by rarer but more serious things like fearing for their life at every police interaction, or worrying they'll get deported despite being a citizen.
* Some people thing racism is stupid and exhausting and want nothing to do with any of it.
* People of color raised by white parents are especially screwed because they don't learn the in-race survival skills.
Fortunately, some people of color talk a lot about how racism affects them and what changes they want. So if you can find those references, it creates a more complete picture. I've looked at Native American, African-American, and Hispanic branches primarily -- and they all have very different concerns. ||
Rephrase here - I have no idea how they use this specific word, and what the word means to them. I have a rather better idea of some of the shit they receive disproportionately, and some of the crap they are statistically more likely to have in their individual backgrounds.
That's partly because people talk and publish about problems they encounter, and some publish about systemic issues.
It's also because of personal intersectionality.
- I share the experience, more common among black than white children, of being raised poor and being afraid of both the police and child welfare services.
- I share the experience of never knowing when someone might attack me; all female-appearing persons do. (So do queer-appearing persons, and many autistics.)
Amusingly, part of the current shibboleth rules is to never compare my experience to that of those in the target demographic I'm supposed to be allied with. In my world, comparing helps develop empathy. "If it's this bad for me, I can hardly imagine how people who have it worse manage to cope". "That sucked when .... happened to me - and you have incidents like that all the time?!" But in the officially correct world, comparing with my experiences is a whole raft of things, all of them hateful, and should be avoided at all costs.
Related to this, in the real world, I see a smart kid trying to do well in school, either for its own sake or to get themself out of the poverty they were born in, and I see someone like me in ways that matter very much to me. I want to help them. But as an ally, I'm supposed to focus on them being black and me being white. Focussing on our differences rather than their similarity, and obscuring my awareness of their individual nature, is the only acceptable attitude for a "good ally". Likewise, when I see an interviewee with a particular set of skills and experience, which may be similar to mine and similar to those we need, I'm supposed to pay less attention to that, and more to their racial categorization. I.e. I'm required to deal with them as "not us", as part of improving the way I treat them. That way lies condescension and charity, not anything resembling equality. But it's not OK to say that, and in any case, all good allies "know" that as a white person, I'm incapable of empathy with any black person in any case.