The Problem of "Woke Racism"

[ysabetwordsmith]

The antiracism movement has, regrettably, forgotten what racism actually means. The whole "woke" thing is performative rather than practical. Oh, and anything that quashes discussion and dissent is almost certainly a bad idea.


Racism isn't about who you are or how you look. It's about what you DO. It's a belief that some groups of people are inherently inferior, and then acting on that belief by trying to oppress them. This has nothing to do with what vagina you fell out of or how much pigment you have. It has to do with thinking your appearance entitles you to act like an asshole. Just because some people think skin color is important, doesn't mean you have to agree with them. You are free to call it stupid. You still have to deal with the mess they make, but that doesn't make their nonsense valid.

Antiracism is the same. It doesn't matter what you say or what slogan you wear. The only thing that matters is whether you support or oppose the interests of diverse people.

You want to fight racism? Listen to what people of color ask for -- things like "Stop murdering us" and "We need affordable housing" and "Don't run oil pipes through our water supply." Then simply back their goals.

https://reparationscomm.org/reparations-plan

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/25/us/indigenous-people-reclaiming-their-lands-trnd/index.html

https://unitedwedream.org/our-work/#campaigns

https://www.thedemands.org

As much as possible, support people of color in solving their own problems. Encourage them to lead. You can reduce the tendency toward tokenism by trying to get them in clusters instead of alone, and making sure they have authority and resources to make meaningful choices.

Look at your strengths and skills. How can you apply that to undermining the idea that skin color is a thing which matters? I happen to be a writer, so my contributions include things like boosting the signal and writing culturally diverse characters. *chuckle* And some very subversive classes in which I hooked some mostly black and brown prison inmates on reading and writing.

Another option, open to everyone, is shopping. Buy goods and services from businesses owned by people of color. Pour resources into their communities.

https://intentionalist.com/b/tag/minority-owned

https://www.goodreads.com/list/tag/people-of-color

As always, check your results as you go along. You do not want to create solution-caused problems.


Be aware that skin privilege is NOT as indelible as some people say it is. It rubs right off as soon as you align with people of color. People might mistake you for a racist from a distance but the difference should come clear as soon as you open your mouth and tell them where to shove their jokes, their NIMBYism, or their thin blue line. Choose mindfully. Some of them will be just as happy to beat you to death as they would your friends of color.

Comments

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> I've been saying this for a while, based on my experience in my workplace. <<

Well, good. Somebody should or we'll never fix this shit.

>> At this point, I believe the best analogy is racism:modern leftists as original sin:non-modern Christians. It's something to acknowledge, loudly and performatively, with no hope of salvation except perhaps by Grace. <<

LOL Pharisees LOL

>> But at the same time, it's something one must visibly work against and feel guilty about. <<

Guilt doesn't fix anything. Action fixes things.

White people complain that ethnic materials make white children feel bad about themselves. Well, no, the actions of white ancestors did that; the materials only reveal it. But every family tree has some rotten fruit. That's just how genealogy and history work. Nobody is to blame for other people's bad choices.

What matters is what YOU do here and now. If you don't agree with racism, you can call bullshit and work against it, so you're not responsible for it. If you do agree with it, and take advantage of it, then you are morally responsible for it in proportion to your contributions and support.

Racism is about behavior, not appearance.

>> Attending confession might be good too. But since salvation is by faith not by works, there's no point doing anything useful. (Only God/Black People can grant absolution, and they do so - or not - for reasons mere sinners shouldn't presume to understand. But nonetheless, we are all privately certain - at risk of the sin of hubris - that we are personally among the Elect.) <<

If you don't understand how it works, you're never going to get anywhere. If you want to understand cosmology, study religion and the world and people. If you want to dismantle racism, you need to learn multicultural skills and work with different people. Heck, multiculturalism and interfaith work improve both your social and spiritual awareness. It's like the blind men and the elephant: if they had put together all the descriptions, they could've assembled a pretty good conceptualization of an elephant.

>> Or perhaps I should say - modern US AWAB leftists. (AWAB being a coinage for "assigned white at birth" ;-)) <<

*LAUGH* That is so awesome! I've found another way to describe my identity. So far, the best was something a black friend said in college: "Yeah, you can pass for white -- until you open your mouth." I really do look it, but I don't sound it. The other bits are hidden unless you know exactly what to look for, like the fact that white girl hair does not break "unbreakable" hair things and throw the pieces contemptuously across the room. I just don't feel compelled to agree with genocidal maniacs just because the meat I'm currently wearing bears a superficial resemblance to the meat they wear or wore.

I've no idea what racism means to non-white people, or those not over-influenced by US categories. It actually doesn't matter; I'm never mistaken for non-white, so I'm permanently assigned the "white" role in our stupid social drama. (And never mind that, being half Jewish, I'd have been assigned-non-white-at-birth if born when my grandparents were.)

>> 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.

>> or those not over-influenced by US categories. <<

Other places can have very different categories. I read one fascinating piece about a Brazilian family who had members of different skin tones -- they were all what I'd consider mixed-race people -- who were surprised and unsettled when they moved to America and were suddenly considered different races and treated differently as a result.

One white person from South Africa referred to himself as white African-American, which is an accurate description. I don't know why people freak the fuck out over that. He's white; he's from Africa. If he just said African-American then people would think he was black.

Australia has a different issue. For some reason, Aboriginal skin tone washes out in just 2-3 generations. One such descendant described himself as "a blackfella in a whitefella's body." I've encountered examples of racial dysphoria before, but that was among the most dramatic. He really looked white -- until you looked at the nose and the hair texture, then you could see the Aboriginal aspects. So that must have been really frustrating for him.

Now, there are concrete biological markers that cluster in certain areas. But they're obscure things like ear wax texture and tooth funneling, along with a few evolutionary ones like how one African gene protects against malaria with a single copy but causes sickle-cell anemia with a double copy. Skin tone, hair, eyes, etc. don't correlate consistently like people think they do.

Looking at many different conceptualizations of race, ethnicity, and culture reveals that most of them are just things that people made up. That makes it easier to take them with a grain of salt.

>> It actually doesn't matter; I'm never mistaken for non-white, so I'm permanently assigned the "white" role in our stupid social drama. (And never mind that, being half Jewish, I'd have been assigned-non-white-at-birth if born when my grandparents were.) <<

Yeah, that's another thing. The categories have changed over time, a lot. Early on, Irish people were brought over as slaves. Native Americans were enslaved when not simply butchered. Then slavery became identified as a black thing. New Orleans had a three-part caste system with black, creole, and white people; after the Civil War, it collapsed into two and the creoles lost status. If you look at old census records, you can see the racial terms change over time.

Re: Thoughts

[arlie]

> Guilt doesn't fix anything. Action fixes things. <

The goal of this obscene drama is not to fix things, it's to provide yet another shibboleth to distinguish "us" from "them".

One way in which it does this is by tending to exclude people on the autistic spectrum, who often didn't internalize "correct" racial attitudes in the first place(*), and equally often lack the social instincts to spot a change in requirements and shift to the new ones smoothly. (Whereas normal people often shift so smoothly that they forget that the requirements were ever different.)

As an autistic person, I found this switchover extremely threatening. I could all too easily lose promotion possibilities, or even my job, for failing to switch in sync with the latest in shibboleths. So I put a lot of effort into figuring out the new rules.

There probably are people - mostly young, naive ones - who believe that this is actually helping. And at the margins, it might be helping a few black people, though like as not at the expense of others. But IMNSHO, that's pretty much not the point.

Note that this analysis, for me, is entirely separate from any attention to avoiding harming people who don't deserve it, particularly those already disadvantaged. That's a whole different thread, though with a bit of overlap.

(*) I, as an example, had to have my misunderstanding of who "looked black" corrected in both directions when I was in my late teens. I cared that little about knowing how to correctly assign people to categories the normals had all incorrectly internalized as being innate and obvious. Of course by that time I'd already read enough to know that "Jewish" or "Semitic" had been a "race" even in my parents' lifetime.

I also recall finding (some) black people beautiful, a a child, and envying them their appearance. I.e. some of the normal programming sailed over my autistic head, and more was directly challenged contradicted by my left wing intellectual parents.

It wasn't until I was in college, when every American-born black person I met treated me as someone to be shunned, except one social climber who treated me with normal non-autistic condescension, that I began to even find the category salient. And even then, I formed a friendship with a black girl "from the islands", who hadn't picked up normal US black socialization in spite of being raised at least partly in New York.

Eventually my attitudes normalized, at least somewhat. I'm not trying to declare myself guiltless of all racist attitudes and associations. And I certainly believed a lot of the nonsense I read, including racist nonsense, when I was at the life stage of primarily absorbing new knowledge. But the whole area has been one of the many where I never was "normal".

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> The goal of this obscene drama is not to fix things, it's to provide yet another shibboleth to distinguish "us" from "them". <<

I agree, and that's why I dislike it.

>> One way in which it does this is by tending to exclude people on the autistic spectrum, who often didn't internalize "correct" racial attitudes in the first place(*), and equally often lack the social instincts to spot a change in requirements and shift to the new ones smoothly. (Whereas normal people often shift so smoothly that they forget that the requirements were ever different.) <<

Particularly when they don't bother to write down either the old or the new rules.

>> As an autistic person, I found this switchover extremely threatening. I could all too easily lose promotion possibilities, or even my job, for failing to switch in sync with the latest in shibboleths.<<

The same is true for people who don't readily adapt to such changes for other reasons (e.g. second-language learners, people with brain injuries) or simply disagree with them. It's a problem.

>> So I put a lot of effort into figuring out the new rules. <<

Thus raising the risk of autistic burnout. >_<

>> There probably are people - mostly young, naive ones - who believe that this is actually helping. And at the margins, it might be helping a few black people, though like as not at the expense of others. But IMNSHO, that's pretty much not the point.<<

That makes sense.

I mean, if you want to know what to do or what's working, it's pretty straightforward. Ask the people affected by it. They can usually identify what they need and whether a given solution is helpful, useless, or harmful. If the people pushing something are mostly not the target group? Be suspicious. And follow the money.

>> (*) I, as an example, had to have my misunderstanding of who "looked black" corrected in both directions when I was in my late teens.<<

It's a fashion that changes. Used to be hair texture was the leading qualifier, now it's mostly skin tone. But measuring skin tone is rude because racists have done it.

>> I cared that little about knowing how to correctly assign people to categories the normals had all incorrectly internalized as being innate and obvious. <<

While I appreciate cultural differences, and I'm aware of historical baggage, I can't really take "race" seriously because I know too much biology.

>> Of course by that time I'd already read enough to know that "Jewish" or "Semitic" had been a "race" even in my parents' lifetime. <<

Yyyyeah.

>>I also recall finding (some) black people beautiful, a a child, and envying them their appearance. I.e. some of the normal programming sailed over my autistic head, and more was directly challenged contradicted by my left wing intellectual parents. <<

I really, really did not pick up most cultural programming from this culture. I mean, so much of it is crud. Fortunately I had other options. My parents supported that, being hippies and teachers and whatnot. They hunted high and low for then-rare toys and books of different cultures.

>>And even then, I formed a friendship with a black girl "from the islands", who hadn't picked up normal US black socialization in spite of being raised at least partly in New York.<<

Go you. The Caribbean has a very different perspective on race than America does.

>>But the whole area has been one of the many where I never was "normal". <<

"It is no great sign of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."

Re: Thoughts

[arlie]

|| >> 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.