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

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."