I have, no kidding, about 12 posts sitting in draft mode. Everything from my review of a product to some randomness about an ex-boyfriend.
But I can't get to work on any one of them because they all seem so frivolous to me today. I've spent my morning muddled in something deeper, something that is ever-present whenever I'm perusing the blogosphere. Today, the pressing thought on my mind is race and ethnicity. And while everything is a jumble in my head right now, I feel a need to get these thoughts about there, to process it all, to join the conversation and say a few words on behalf of the Hispanic side of the blogosphere (Hispanic side, mind if I speak for you? Thanks!).
People. Gente. I don't want to tell you (again) that my hyphenated identity makes me feel left out in a community that is largely white. Because while this is still true, it is less true now than it was just weeks ago. The parenting blogging community has been (hopefully, rightfully) turned on its head after one of the panels at this year's BlogHer Conference (wherein Mocha Momma and CityMama raised very important questions of race, diversity and marketing in the parenting blog world).
One of the thoughts that's been rolling around in my head is the idea that race is invisible or non-noticeable on the blogosphere (this began with my inclusion/exclusion post at BlogRhet but has been expressed elsewhere). On one hand, I get it. I want you to see me as "Tere" - mother, wife, writer, all-around interesting human being. I want you to read me and email me and be my friend regardless of whether I'm white or olive or bi-cultural or speak English with a distinctive "Miami accent". On the other hand, I can't shake the feeling that only white people don't see color because well, they don't have to. When you're the majority and part of the race that dictates what's "normal", race isn't much of an issue to you personally. That's not to say that I've lived my life solely through the lens of being Hispanic (because let's face it: in Miami, I'm in the majority and it's white Anglos who are minorities), but I am well aware that, outside of South Florida, in person, that is what jumps out first, and that is what "marks" me, far and above anything else.
How does this translate in a medium like the Internet? I get why people would read someone else's site and not attribute a race or ethnic identity to them. I mean, even as someone who is proud of her Cuban heritage, that's not all I want you to see, nor do I feel compelled to work it into every post. So no, white people, when you say you don't see race, I'm not insulted. But I do wish you would see my ethnicity and recognize the monumental role it plays in making me me. And, just as I feel lost sometimes because of cultural differences, I am, in many ways, just like you. And whether you believe it or not, whether it's has or hasn't occurred to you, you have as much to learn from me as I have to learn from you.
At the same time (paradoxically so?), race doesn't *matter* to me inasmuch as determining whom I will read. It is not the sole reason I would read someone; I need good substance to read a blog regularly. I greatly enjoy blogs by minorities - the voices they bring, the perspective they offer. I see a reflection of myself there sometimes, a recognition. But in looking for good content, and for content that I can relate to, race ultimately doesn't matter. Go figure. It's something I'm still trying to make sense of myself, even as I write it.
This issue has spun a tangent about marketing (or rather, the lack of it) to minority parents. And yeah, it's true: PR folks and companies don't hit up overtly ethnic blogs/bloggers. I can't begin to guess the reasons for this (oh, I could: ignorance, cluelessness about different cultures, misguided notions about particular ethnic groups), but it's been pointed out that marketers care mainly about hitting blogs that have high traffic numbers. In this regard, I think I fall somewhere in the middle, or perhaps I slipped through the cracks. I get a good number of pitches, many of which are irrelevant to me or what I write about. And as you can see on my sidebar, I'm now a member of the BlogHerAds network (which, I'll admit, I thought was only for very high-traffic sites). I don't know what the perception is on the marketer's end. Do they know I'm Hispanic? Do they care? Do they know that my traffic numbers are pathetic compared to the popular mom bloggers?
My attitude about this is that I'm happy to review products (and therefore provide free PR) for companies/things I would really use (but not anything else). I'm flattered that I'm "noticed". But you know, I would love to be contacted, to be asked my opinion and for reviews, to have advertising on my site, precisely because I am Hispanic. I would love for my ethnicity to be a highlight, a reason for - anything. Like Mocha Momma asked, where indeed is the Black/Hispanic/Asian/Indian Dooce?
The general question seems to be: does race matter in the blogosphere? The wonderful part is that bloggers of color are taking the issue head-on. For me, for this Cubanita, it does matter. I want you to know me as I am, as I see myself. I want you to expand your horizons and get to know people who are different, even as you make your way through the delicate topic of race and culture. I want to be part of a larger parenting/blogging community without feeling like my ethnicity is ignored or unimportant simply because the majority doesn't quite know how to address it.
I have found the best summation of my own feelings in what Julie wrote today, and I take her words to reflect my thoughts:
"Because while I don't think another person's race ought to matter to me, in my assessment of them, it can matter to them in how they feel a part of the world and therefore I ought to respect that, especially if they ask me to consider it as part of my understanding of them as an individual. I ask the same. My racial experiences are a part of me, too, and have affected how I view race, racial issues, and culture. Where I come from, the place and the people, affect who I am and how I perceive things, as well as my beliefs. I think this rings true for all of us, regardless."
There's more to be said on this topic. Other bloggers are asking good questions for this conversation to expand upon. I'll be tackling these as time allows and as my thoughts cohere.
Monday, August 6, 2007
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76 comments:
Yes.
This really helped me understand why race matters:
Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
Tere, This is another wonderful post.
I know from personal experience that it is easier for me "not to see race" because I'm white. It is not the same for my sister who isn't.
Frankly, as a white woman, I would prefer to listen to other's perspectives so I can understand. But, I don't want folks to mistake my silence for acceptance of the status quo.
Thank you for continuing the conversation.
Great post, Tere. I said on Julie's blog earlier that I think it's all too easy for those of us who are white to say that race doesn't matter. But what you & Julie have pointed out is why sometimes it *does* and *should* matter.
Fantastic Tere, as I said on your blog. And glad to see this here. So many people discussing this in such a wonderfully eloquent and meaningful---as well as moving---way.
Julie
Ravin' Picture Maven
I'm real happy/excited to see feedback to this topic.
I wanted to add/clarify, to Mamma and Lawyer Mama (and any other "white girl" who reads this), that IMO, the "not seeing race" thing is not something that I think you should feel "bad" about - it is what it is, and I don't mean to imply that it should be a source of guilt.
Rather, it's good to recognize that and then maybe look at the whole issue with new eyes and perhaps some understanding.
Tere,
This was phenomenal. I am so glad this has been raised and is being actively discussed. So glad.
Thank you.
Well thank you for that thought provoking post. I can honestly say that it's not something that has ever crossed [my tiny] mind, only the issue of anonymity which isn't quite the same thing.
Best wishes
Tere, there's something else to take into account here, too.
What about those of us who simply don't care about race?
It's not about white liberal guilt or anything else. We simply don't care. Speaking only for me, I care about the ideas presented. I care whether those ideas are interesting, exciting or teach me something.
I just plain don't care what race someone is. It's just as irrelevant to me as whether you favor strawberry ice cream or vanilla.
You know.. in some ways, it feels almost as though I should care about it or I'm some kind of wacko in denial or something.
I guess I'm just so not invested in this culture that I couldn't give a rat's tail about its weird, quirky excuses for hate.
Peace,
~Chani
Chani, I'm willing to bet that you're not alone in that sentiment, and I understand where it's coming from - but wouldn't you say that it's a *privilege* to not care about race? A privilege to those who - being (usually) white - don't *have* to care about race because it's never presented itself as an issue in their lives?
HBM, no. I don't think it's a privilege. I believe it's a choice.
I am a definite minority in this culture. I am also unpartnered, childfree, middle aged and low income. Plenty of basis for discrimination on several levels.
There are so many things in North American culture that are used to divide. Most of those things are superficial and stupid. Yeah.. I said the "s" word because that is what I truly believe.
Racism is not only immoral.. it's stupid.
I also believe that until the real origin is addressed, it will never be solved.
The root problem is the culture. It is a culture that believes there are limited resources. The only way to grab one's own share is to edge others out of the way. It is a culture that values money, greed, self-fulfillment and achievement above all else. It's competitive rather than cooperative. Until those who support that culture *choose* to change, it will remain the same.. and this debate will continue long after you and I are dead and the result will be just as useless.
Cultures make choices about what is of value and what isn't. It's not some external force over which we have no control.
Sick of racism? Change the culture.
If I, someone who is certainly not the sharpest tool in the shed, can re-acculturate, so can anyone else.
Peace,
~Chani
"But I do wish you would see my ethnicity and recognize the monumental role it plays in making me me."
I think Tere makes an excellent point that "seeing" race is not automatically about recoursing to racism. It can also be about acknowledging and respecting difference, and how our different contexts and experiences necessarily inform our subjectivities, our sense of *I.* Race is not the whole story, of course it isn't, but it's an important one. Just saying race matters does not mean everything then becomes reduced to race, IMO. When we celebrate diversity and the cultures of others, we also acknowledge race, but attempt to do so without racism (although even this can be sticky at times--and more about cultural tourism than any real change).
sorry, getting overly academic and ponderous here!
I love the way this conversation is taking turns, and there is so much to chew on. Tere, at Jason's I asked a few questions about the whiteness of blogging. So often whiteness becomes what Audre Lord called the "mythical norm." To be white was to be unmarked racially, and uninterrogated as a racial category.
As we continue these conversations, I realize that it's important to foreground that "race" does not automatically mean to foreground people of color. (<--see that white, mythical norm usage there?). Beyond economic reasons, for instance, I am interested in why it is that white women seem to be drawn to blogging in higher numbers? What is going on culturally that is perhaps different for women in other contexts/cultures? What are many white women looking for that perhaps is absent from many of their daily lives (especially "mommybloggers"?). Why are white, middle class women turning to blogging at the moment when they become mothers? (and when I refer to middle class, I am referring less to an income bracket, and more to a level of education and access). I see a lot of blogging about alienation, loss of identity, and an acute sense of isolation on entering motherhood.
Is this a white thing?
Of course it's not entirely, but I am interested in thinking about this a little more. What brings various communities of women to blogging?
Tere, loving this conversation and the ideas issuing from it.
i do think there's privilege involved in not "seeing" race, just as there's privilege involved in not "seeing" disability. if you have no legs and i pretend not to see that, even in order to focus on your humanity rather than label and box you as "the legless person," i deny a part of who you are. and because the norm in society involves legs and our language is full of metaphorical references to "standing" and "walking", i'm likely to eventually "stumble" in my choice of language and then be exposed in my charade. while all along, you probably know you have no legs and would prefer that you be accepted as you are. i think "not seeing race" does a parallel thing.
this doesn't mean that those who don't focus on a person's race or difference are being pompous jerks, or elitist...most are sensitive people who want to focus on the humanity of others. which is important, and i'd even venture most important. but all of our humanity is coded by identity and experience, and we don't really understand another's experience if some aspect of their identity marginalizes them from the "norm" in a significant way.
in a sense, i think Chani's right...the problem is with the "norm." but every culture has its norm, and marginalizes some folk...here in the West, we're dealing with those issues more openly than some other cultures because our once-hegemonic norm is no longer the physical experience of a massive proportion of people.
i think one of the biggest challenges in addressing issues of race is that many of us who identify as white feel that bringing the conversation to the table isn't our place. but that puts the burden of saying "this is a problem" further outside the hegemonic norm...which contributes to marginalization of the statement itself.
so i guess i'd better take up my part in the conversation and bring this over to my own blog. hmmmm.
Joy, you are asking some vital questions, IMO. I would love to see this evolve to another post.
Obviously, as a non-white person, my guesses would be based on observation, the little I know from being married to a white boy and whatever sense I have about "white" culture. And I'm not sure it's my place to answer? When I only have guesses?
I would love to hear thoughts about this...
Bon, I LOVED your analogy!
Tere, a great, balanced compelling post. As one of those who before perhaps, yes, was privileged not to see race, I assure you now thanks to you and others writing on the issue that I am sitting up and listening.
Having just moved from a MAJOR majority of white folks state (Utah, yeah, I know) to a state where Whites are the minority I have been schooled quick that race doesn't really matter, and it shouldn't. Take off our skin and we're all the same. Exactly the stinkin' same.
I may not be physically distinguishable in any big way but I am a part of a Religion that gets shunned, mocked and ignored. While I'll never know the ignorance that can come from racial differences I'm well aware of religious ignorance and it blows. (Insert more eloquent verb there if you want)
Excellent post.
Oh BON! That comment rocked!
Joy and HBM...you guys have asked a lot of good questions. Can I post those questions in my Hump Day Hmm post tomorrow? I'm trying to collect a link list of all the race and culture essays.
Tere, can I include you?
Julie
Ravin' Picture Maven
I'm not a mother myself. I've never given birth to a child. Does that mean I can't understand and comprehend how mothers feel about things, just because I never gave birth?
I'm not a gay man. I have many friends who are. I've been there for them as they have been there for me, through the ups and downs of life. Does that mean I can't understand what it means to be a gay man, because a) I don't have a penis and b) I'm not involved in a same sex relationship?
I've grown up in Australia. We have many cultures here. I've got friends from pretty much all of those cultures. Because I do not come from that culture myself, does it mean I cannot understand what it means to be of their culture?
When you call me a "white girl" based on the color of my skin you are doing to me exactly what you do not want done to people of your culture. You are stereotyping and generalizing. You are making assumptions. And the worst of those assumptions is that we "white girls" cannot empathize or understand what it is like to be NOT white.
I see race. I grew up with a Chinese best friend, an Iraqi best friend and I'm in a relationship with our country's version of a "Black Fella". Sure, he looks pretty white from the outside, but he's Aboriginal.
I also grew up in school as the fat kid, I was in a minority of 2 among 500 kids and all the other kids were stick thin, so I know what it is to be discriminated against, teased, called names and beaten up purely based on what you look like.
I'm writing a post for the Hump Day on this topic but last night I could not sleep because I was so angry about the "white girl" assumption thing. Never in my life has anyone told me because I am white, I can't see color or appreciate other cultures. I live in this world. I am not blind to it. I can understand other cultures and appreciate them.
Perhaps this has never occurred to you because you are of a minority yourself, but did you ever think we "white girls" long to be a part of a culture such as your own? That we see other cultures and think wow, it would be great to belong to a culture in that way? I don't have my own culture. I'm Australian, born here, but I don't belong here. I am sure that many Americans feel the same way. I'll cover that a bit more in my post.
I just wanted to put that out there, get it off my chest.
Snoskred
http://www.snoskred.org/
Snoskred...speaking only for myself...my point is not that "white girls can't get it" but that excluding race as a factor *is* sort of a white privilege.
Bon said it better than I can just now:
"this doesn't mean that those who don't focus on a person's race or difference are being pompous jerks, or elitist...most are sensitive people who want to focus on the humanity of others. which is important, and i'd even venture most important. but all of our humanity is coded by identity and experience, and we don't really understand another's experience if some aspect of their identity marginalizes them from the "norm" in a significant way."
I think anyone who wants to can understand. No doubt.
Still, her parallel to the norm of two legs and the privilege of ignoring disability is a good one.
As someone whose phenotype is white who has cousins whose phenotype is brown (our racial ancestry)...I know the difference. My grandmother was right. She knew I'd get the privilege of white as a white person. And I did. I got swept right along. My cousins, however, got discouragement. It made me see red so many times (no pun intended...wow, piss poor choice of language, I ought to edit but won't).
So much is associated---misused---with race. And part of the world, parts of the US are notorious. Skills, medical diagnoses, traits, abilities, and even potential can be---and often are---associated with race.
Many of us? Never even realize. Never know the many ways in which race can be used to undermine those who are in the minority.
I will NEVER forget my cousin fighting anger and bitterness for years because---despite my support of him attending university, preferably my own---his high school guidance counselor said *people like him* do better at trade schools and so he went to a trade school. Ten years later he still spoke very regretfully, even though he'd done very well for himself and had gone on to later get a degree.
Nobody ever said people like you to me. Well, not meaning it THAT way anyway.
But also...we are speaking from two different countries and cultures.
I am on tenterhooks to hear of this difference you and Ally allude to. I think it will be great to know and understand that.
Bon said -
"we don't really understand another's experience if some aspect of their identity marginalizes them from the "norm" in a significant way."
We do if some aspect of *our* own identity has done that to us.
I personally believe that it is the same experience regardless of what that thing that marginalizes us is. We just have to open our eyes to see it that way. It is something everyone who has ever been in a minority can relate to, and it does not matter whether that minority is skin color or weight or thin-ness or a disability or whatever it is that means you're an outcast in some way.
The assumption you're still making, Julie, is that white people exclude race as a factor. That's where the stumbling point is.
I exclude it as a factor in the same way I exclude someone's weight as a factor. I see the inside them, I see who they *are* not how much they weigh or what color their skin is. That doesn't mean I don't consider their weight or racial culture. It just means I don't judge them on it.
I deeply appreciate the differences between cultures - this is something you CANNOT avoid in my country. If you go out here, you're going to see such a mix of people. You have to have some understanding of where they come from - it is no different to knowing body language. To a chimp showing your teeth means fear. To someone of a different culture a gesture I might make could mean something utterly different to what I intend. In order to live in a multi-cultural society you have to know these differences and respect them, otherwise you're likely to get yourself into trouble.
I often think people in the US are so busy looking for the things that divide them from their fellow Americans that they cannot see the things they have in common.
Snoskred
http://www.snoskred.org/
Tere,
Great post. Thank you so much for writing it.
I think that so much of what happens in the blogosphere is that the assumption of the norm gets placed on everyone unless they bring a voice to the table to reject it. What I mean is that b/c this space is predominately white and middle class only those bloggers (who are invisible except in their typeface) who exist beyond that assumed category of norm ever feel the need to acknowledge or even justify their subject position.
The old cartoon, "on the internet, no one knows you're a dog" just doesn't hold up because the second a blogger finds herself outside the assumed category of inclusion, her natural response is to clarify her position vis-a-vis the norm (at least I do which is why I am always blathering about class and regionalism and the like). I said at Julie's place today that I have never been so caught up in identity politics as I am on the internet.
I work a lot with children's books and one of the most instructive bits of information I've picked up along the way is that in a picture book, seemingly neutral objects are encoded by race and class. Winnie the Pooh is not a bear. He is white. Paddington is not a bear. He is white. Frog and Toad are not amphibians. They are white. So, too, it is with the internet. No one can see you and so your whiteness is assumed. This unfortunately always places the burden on minorities to prove they run counter to the norm.
Ahg, this comment is getting long-winded and it really isn't adding anything that you, Julie, bon and others haven't already said. I guess that what I am really trying to say is that the promise of the internet as a place where the coporeal does not matter is simply not true. A blogger is presumed white and middle class unless she kicks and screams at the world to see her as something else or something more. Meanwhile all us white, middle class women are relieved of that burden of proof. It is a privilege indeed.
Here is where this logic fails. Are all "white" people of the same culture? Are all "white" people privileged?
Are French people the same as German people the same as South Africans the same as Americans the same Canadians the same as Spaniards? Are they all the same, because their skin lacks the same amount of pigment? Ask them and I assure you that their cultures are vastly different, yet a quick assessment pegs them all privileged white folks who don't have the stones to have an opinion on race relations.
Is it a privilege to have people automatically assume that you live a life of privilege based on your skin color? To assume that your accomplishments and your lifeway and your outlook is one of privilege and was handed to you because you are "white"? It is no more so than it is to have the opposite assumed because you aren't.
Is it a privilege for it to be assumed that you have never struggled, never worked,never fought, never persevered? That you have never been a trailblazer, a ballbuster, a survivor? That those monikers can't belong to you because you are simply a white girl, suffering from privileged guilt?
Because, to be honest, I am offended that my comments and opinions somehow mean less because assumptions are made as to the validity of my experiences, before I even open my mouth. Isn't that what we are all working against?
Amen, Flutter. What you said is how I felt when I first started seeing this "white girl" tag thrown around. I don't understand how people from a multitude of backgrounds, belief systems, cultures, religions etc, can all be lumped in together like that? It makes no sense to me.
I've posted my Hump Day Hmm, too.
Snoskred
http://www.snoskred.org/
flutter, speaking as someone who reveres all those gutsy, white ballbusting ladies that forged the way for me to be able to work, vote, and live with a massive amount of freedom, I would say, no!
you are right to urge caution about lumping all "white people" together--there are differences in class and experience that are critical.
nonetheless, there are some relative universals when it comes to race, and that is that those of us with white skin, for the most part, have not been forced to think about how our skin color affects our sense of self, our sense of identity. we just haven't. of course there are exceptions, and of course there are stories of deprivation, prejudice, and struggle among people of all races. I believe that feminism still needs to exist--for women of all colors, including white women, because we're not there yet. But this does not mean I can't acknowledge that there is a correlation between skin color and power (or lack thereof)in this society.
i do think this post is about more than arguing over who is *allowed* to speak, and it concerns me that this is how it is being read. this is not about silencing voices, but whenever we take on sensitive issues like this we will inevitably be accused of doing so.
Gingajoy said - nonetheless, there are some relative universals when it comes to race <--- that is exactly where the trouble begins for *all* races.
As soon as you're talking universals, you're talking stereotypes. You're talking labeling. You're talking lumping a group of people all into the same basket.
I don't do that to people of color. Why would people of color choose to do it to white people?
Gingajoy also said - i do think this post is about more than arguing over who is *allowed* to speak, and it concerns me that this is how it is being read.
I don't think that's the case actually. What concerns me is the apparent it's ok on the one hand but not on the other. I mean, if I were to go around talking about "hispanic" people as being this, that, or the other, I would EXPECT them to be offended by that. There is no one thing I can say about Hispanic people that applies to every single one of them. It really is that simple. There's an exception for every rule, every stereotype, every label you try to put on people. Yet it's apparently ok for the reverse to happen?
That's like saying all overweight people just like to eat and are too lazy to exercise, in my opinion. Do you see what I'm saying? ;)
I am a white girl, but I am so much more. Actually I have olive toned skin, not sure whether that is luck or genetics but you need it in this country to have any protection from the sun. Lucky me. ;)
I'm putting smileys in here because I don't want anyone to feel like I'm angry - I'm not. I'm passionate about this one.
Snoskred
http://www.snoskred.org/
I should clarify. When I say "universals" I am referring to the fact that we can say that there is a power disparity along socio-economic lines among races.
This is a universal statement I am comfortable in making. One of the few.
I am *not* trying to make universal/stereotypical claims about racial identities themselves.
There is a critical distinction here.
You brought up very good points. And Julie's quote is dead-on.
For me, when in the blogosphere, I honestly wouldn't know a blogger's race unless they wrote about it or have a photo of themselves on the sidebar.
It's so easy to NOT think about it when surfing from blog to blog.
I have to agree with so many here who have noted that making generalizations about any group of people is equally destructive.. and equally inexcusable.
Peace,
~Chani
Let me begin by saying I've been very curious about this topic as a cultural researcher and author of a book on multicultural practice (specific to Music Therapy). It might be because I'm half-Asian, but it's also because I'm a student of culture and am aware of it in that vein.
I think at many levels, people read what they can relate to. The bigger question should be, do folks of color and folks who identify as white have shared experiences that bring them together and elicit a desire for reciprocity and readership?
I don't get turned off by a blog based on the person's ethnic identification. I do get turned off by bad writing. I'm sure I'm not alone in that. If it's boring or, more importantly, doesn't relate to my life in a meaningful way, I probably won't read it. Is that trite? Perhaps. But more it comes down to a time issue.
As a hapa woman, I enjoy reading Rice Daddies and Kim-chi Mamas. But quite frankly, for folks who are not Asian or who aren't interested in Asian issues, you can't really blame them for not wanting to read it. Their posts are focused to a specific group. I think that's why PR/Marketing is such an issue. They are looking for a broad range of readership (of course, there's no excuse for the dufus comment made to Stefania). But I don't think she has any trouble getting marketed to.
You can't slam the marketers for looking for high traffic blogs, although I do believe there's much more to finding a well liked, "smaller" blogger with a dedicated/loyal readership. It harkens back to the old quantitative/qualitative research question in grad school -- which is more valid? For most, it's a numbers game, but at PBN we try to show clients that it has a lot to do with the quality of the writing as well as the relationship the blogger has with their readers.
That being said, I personally wouldn't want a PR person to choose me because I'm Asian. I'd rather them choose me because of my interesting or compelling writing. But I know they are choosing me because of traffic. The thing is, that while I talk about general mothering issues that are fairly widely appealing, my writing does lend itself to white privilege.
I'm a SAHM/WAHM and my husband is a pilot. A single WOHM African American woman might roll her eyes and find that totally annoying and uninteresting. And I can't blame her. In fact, I imagine to many folks of color, I'm totally uninteresting. I'd like to think my writing overrides my topics, but sometimes, it doesn't.
BUT is it wrong for me to find her writing about her own struggles with daycare or whatever issues she might have that don't relate to me not interesting either? Perhaps her writing is interesting and compelling. Does that factor in, or are blog readers CONTENT driven over quality? (another good thought question).
That lends itself to my last point. I think we have to look at what bloggers of color are writing about. Is it really that we're just not interested in them because they are 'different' than us, or is it more that we don't feel connected to what they're writing about. Or, is it that they are not interested in us.
Blogging is a hugely reciprocal endeavor. And so, if a white blogger seeks out bloggers of color that's great. But what if the bloggers of color aren't interested in what bloggers who identify as white are writing about? I think that takes the discussion to a whole other level.
And as a caveat, I know I'm using terrible "us/them" language, which I personally loathe. I consider myself to be bi-racial and part of the them group, however, I'm definitely in the "majority" when it comes to blogging readership. Therefore, I use the us/them.
Mad said: "A blogger is presumed white and middle class unless she kicks and screams at the world to see her as something else or something more. Meanwhile all us white, middle class women are relieved of that burden of proof. It is a privilege indeed."
I say: YES.
Also, Kristen, BRAVO.
As she who wrote this post in the first place, I want to clarify (defend?) on some of the points made here that I am saying "all white girls" this and "all white girls" that.
I think I have gone out of my way to couch my phrases with acknowledgments that my terms may be generalistic but that I chose them for the sake of simplicity. I also haven't accused white people of being anything other than privileged as far as race is concerned. I certainly haven't meant to offend anyone with my terms, and am sorry to see that my greater message was lost in semantics.
Kristen, I understand where you're coming from, why you want the readership, ads and attention based on your writing. I do, too. Ultimately, I want it to be *just* about my writing. I made some points in the post that race/ethnicity will draw my attention, but bad writing will make me lose it. There are ways that race doesn't matter to me. But in the face of a blogosphere/society where white is the assumption, I am compelled to say - don't make that assumption about me. Not because there's anything wrong or bad in being white, but because I want to stand out for the fantastic Hispanic woman that I am proud to be.
The somewhat amusing thing to me in all this (which was the root of my thoughts about this whole topic back in March), is that in my "real" life, this race/ethnicity issue is non-existent. Part of what "got" me, what fueled my frustration (and in large part, my frustration was with myself, for feeling ignorant about all the "normal", status quo things that all the other moms seemed to know about), was encountering this in the "transparent" Internet more than a quarter of the way into my life. That's not to say I haven't had some individual ethnicity-related experiences in my life, but it has not been the overriding thing. Blame it on being from Miami, where Hispanics are the majority, but in my daily life, I have never felt, nor been, a minority. And that has affected me deeply, to the point that feeling like I am, in fact, a minority (through the homogeneous, predominantly white parenting blogosphere) is (to put it bluntly) utter bullshit to me because that is what a racial/social/ethnic *majority* has deemed me but which I am not. Not in the way I live my life, the opportunities I have had and continue to have, the level of education I've achieved or the social/cultural/financial power that is available to me.
I don't know if that makes any sense; it may require a whole other post of its own. But part of what is driving this for me (which, I admit, may not have come through), is my struggle to understand how I am a minority in the blogosphere when I am not one, never have truly been one, in my regular life.
Thank you, Joy, for saying so well my evolving concern here about reading in judgments and censorship.
I know from my end that's not something that's there. And I haven't seen or read it.
I don't see anyone here saying---to reiterate again---that white people don't get it, can't get it, are all the same (in some lumping) or mean less.
I'm white. I don't feel generalized or censored in this discussion. I have been a big voice in this discussion. I have related how my understanding grew from other people's experiences and experiences in which I felt myself challenged by a grouping, therefore obviously I think that is something that can provide understanding.
One thing I have grown to understand is that being white in the US can be a privilege.
However, I think it is important to understand that saying this doesn't imply belief that your entire life (if you are white) is one big privilege. And nobody here is saying that.
I think it is even more important to understand that saying that doesn't imply belief that being white means you don't have a voice in this discussion or can't understand.
I think it is most important to understand that saying that doesn't imply belief that people who enjoy that single privilege at some point in some way are therefore anything in particular, such as abusers of the privilege, racist,bigoted, etc.
Beyond that, I think we need to keep in mind that this is a group of women on a blog that encourages discussion from all points of view.
I feel positive the last thing anyone wants is for a voice to be silenced or dismissed.
My paragraph that Tere quoted is pretty much my POV.
But Joy also said something else that encapsulates how I think:
"..."seeing" race is not automatically about recoursing to racism. It can also be about acknowledging and respecting difference, and how our different contexts and experiences necessarily inform our subjectivities, our sense of *I.* Race is not the whole story, of course it isn't, but it's an important one. Just saying race matters does not mean everything then becomes reduced to race, IMO. When we celebrate diversity and the cultures of others, we also acknowledge race..."
That said, growing up alongside family more brown than white---I will say that while I can understand on one level, it is like visiting another land. I can understand the feeling of it from similar experiences, I can be sensitive to it...but it's not the exact same.
I would never look at someone who was mugged and say, "Oh I know *exactly* how that feels," because I've never been mugged. I can say, "Oh wow, my house was robbed once, it was such a violation, I can imagine how you feel...how are you?" It affects us in different ways. I might feel wary walking into my home, whereas my friend feels wary walking down the street.
That doesn't mean I don't get it or can't speak to it, or that my understanding or point of view is lesser, but I haven't exactly walked in her shoes *in this one thing.*
Tere, I am so intrigued that both you and Mad have identified such a strong sense of identity politics on the Internet. Yes. I think that is a whole other angle to look at for this!
Julie, I am glad that you don't feel marginalized in this discussion. I do.
Therefore, as someone who is obviously not welcomed in it, and as someone who obviously cannot see past semantics, I'll remove myself from it. Because, the greater point that I was trying to make is apparently not going to be heard.
Flutter, I'm with ya! :)
This is the first time I've ever done this.. but, honestly, this discussion and the way it's been handled has made me angry, too.
Apparently one has to echo the dominant viewpoint in order to be considered worthy of consideration... or ending up on the love linkfests.
I'm done. I know that.
I hold the same view I did in the beginning. If racism is distasteful, do something about it. Change the culture that promotes it.
And I'm out of here now, too. Cliquishness makes me sick.
~Chani
It appears to me that this discussion has taken on the exact dimensions that exist in the U.S. culture. Race and ethnicity are difficult issues to discuss. I would guess that they always have been and would also venture to guess that they always will be.
It is also important to note that no one, not one person, likes to feel marginalized. Feeling such a thing can be a heavy burden and hurts deeply. Not only that, feeling marginalized can define you, or at least parts of you.
This discussion allows us to see that race and ethnicity are extremely important and should be acknowledged as such. They are important in how each contributes to our personhood, our heritage and how we exist in the world. They are also important inasmuch as dominant culture attempts to look beyond the confines of race and burrows itself into the meaning of humanity.
We all want to be understood in a way that is respectful. Whether we want to be heard while reflecting on how our race and ethnic heritage define us or how we have tried, with every fiber of our being, to see beyond those barriers of race.
No one can speak for any other. So, I will stand up and say...I hear you all. I understand your words to ring true for you. I also stand tall and proud, declaring that I am willing to listen, to engage in this conversation and to learn, in any way that I am able, to be a more understanding human being.
I am open to that, open to learning what I can in this space. But learning is not always prim and proper, sometimes it is sticky and icky and makes us feel uncomfortable. Let's all stick with it though; it is a worthy endeavor, this learning and growing and coming to a place of deeper understanding.
Thank you, Bobita. I'm glad your mind is so open.
I respect that.
Maybe I just need to remove myself from this conversation for a while because it has really pissed me off and I'm not accustomed to feeling that way.
I will keep my mind open as well...
I commit to that.
I didn't read the comments, so apologies for the disconnect. But. I wanted to say that I think you're talking about locality. A lot of people try to blog anonymously and place-less-ly, but I don't think it can be done. I live in a small town in Central Oregon and that's so important to me, to who I am and how I experience the world. I'm white and middle class and all that, but I don't think you can get where I'm coming from unless I make it known precisely where in the world I come from.
The internet is global and English and faceless, but locality still matters to us individuals.
Julie said - One thing I have grown to understand is that being white in the US can be a privilege.
That's another issue which I think is not mentioned - the amount of US bloggers who dominate the blogosphere. Being not from the US, I have some prejudices about the US. I'm sure if I mentioned them here, some people from the US would feel just as I felt when I felt lumped into the "white" group. You wanna try it out?
People from the US are insular, self absorbed, arrogant, can't seem to see there's a world outside the US, and the majority of them NEVER travel outside of their own country. In fact 49% of them don't even own a passport.
Steaming yet? I bet some of you are.
The real truth is, I know for a fact that not *all* people from the US are like that. I have encountered people from the US who are like that, but I don't let it color everything. I look at a person from the US in the blogosphere based on what they write. As I do with everyone in the blogosphere.
Just the same as in real life I look at people for what is on the inside rather than what is on the outside. I mentioned before, I was the fat girl. I know perfectly well that judging books by their covers doesn't work for me. It is what is on the inside that is important and that is why the blogosphere works so well for me, because effectively it cuts off those outer layers and we can get back to the important stuff.
I don't care what color you are, what size you are, what shape you are, whether you're a parent or childless, whether you're heterosexual or gay or lesbian, whether you're male or female, whether you are from Earth or outer space.. I care that we have something in common.
I have a big blogroll and on it are people from many cultures, many colors, many sizes. Sometimes I don't even know what color they are or what culture they are from. It doesn't matter. Their writing touches me in some way. Not all the time, because if someone could touch the same people all the time with their writing that would be very surprising. But there are enough times there when things click for me. If there's not, I unsubscribe.
I believe that in Australia we are masters of looking for things we have in common with others. We have to do that. If we didn't do that, we would not survive this multi-cultural lifestyle.
Tere, I feel a bit hurt about the fact that you think I'm not seeing what you're saying because of the white stuff. That's incorrect. I am surprised because I thought you would see what I was saying better than anyone else. Maybe it is because you feel like you need to defend yourself from the whole white thing.
You said - I also haven't accused white people of being anything other than privileged as far as race is concerned.
That's bad enough right there, though. That's an issue for me. When I read the comments through on the last post, I honestly felt like you were saying white people have no right to speak on this because they cannot possibly understand it. I know others felt like "I'm just a white girl, what would I know" in response to what you'd said, so it wasn't just me.
Whether you like it or not, you're doing that lumping thing - saying all white people are privileged when it comes to race. That's just not true. And it does get in the way of having the discussion you want to have because many of the white people are feeling crappy about that - they're just not SAYING it out loud. They probably won't even say it in response to this comment. They will nod and smile and pretend like they know what you're saying but the real truth is - they don't want to be excluded from the group because they disagree, so they're going to zip their mouths and say nothing. They don't want to lose blog traffic over a discussion as UNimportant to them as this. Sad but true.
Not for everyone - that would be lumping everyone into the same basket - but certainly for some. Especially because one of the people who did come out and say how they were feeling has been completely ignored (I see you there, Flutter :) I get what you're saying) as well as misinterpreted.
I'm being honest about that but probably others won't be. Me personally I'm not concerned about losing blog traffic over what I say here, the majority of people here don't read my blog and those that do aren't going anywhere just because I express myself. We Aussies are an outspoken bunch.
I certainly understand what Chani is saying about echoing the dominant viewpoint. It's sad to see that happen because I didn't think that was what this place was all about. It seems to me this is not a discussion we can continue to have, because people aren't hearing what others are saying.
I've worked so hard all my life to understand other cultures, to get where other people are coming from despite our differences, to cast off the outer and look at the inner, to see what is on the surface but to know there is so much more below it that I should never judge what I see on the surface. It's ironic to think my comments here are being taken as just saying I'm unhappy about being lumped into the "white" category. Perhaps if you go back and take another look, you might see what I am really saying.
Snoskred
http://www.snoskred.org/
I certainly understand what Chani is saying about echoing the dominant viewpoint. It's sad to see that happen because I didn't think that was what this place was all about.
I appreciate your acknowledgment. Yes, I am saying that.. in part.
I can honestly say that no discussion in this community has ever made me so angry... nor has any other discussion stung quite so much.
This is the stuff of alienation.
This is where it starts.
Right here.
The point that I tried to make, the one that was ignored and was not worthy of mention in the linkfest, was this:
And I'll spell it out so that no one misses it.
I have suggested that in order to solve this problem that cultural shifts must be made before we will see any substantial change. Some of the viewpoints and observations made by Snoskred sum it up pretty well.
Insularity.
That's a hard pill to swallow when change is needed. It means that people will have to change their thinking... and perhaps even change their way of life.
Racism is rooted in economic inequality. It is a necessary function of capitalism.
This is such a glaring example of not being willing to look at a viewpoint that challenges the status quo. So.. likeminded others cling together, support each other, link each other, hear each other's voices and *other* those who don't agree. Then they can pat each other on the back. Heavens! I can't see for the glare of utter and complete self-righteousness!
That.. is why we will all be having this same conversation in 20 years. Well, I won't. I'll be dead by then. Nevertheless, the point is made.
Nothing changes. It's the same old stuff, again and again, without any proposed solutions because, heaven forbid, someone might have to take a long hard look at what's really at the root.
In advance, I will ask forgiveness for my vociferousness but this has made me seriously angry.
In 11 months of wandering through this community, I have never been so angry.. nor have I been so completely offended. Never!
~Chani
the difficulty with race as a conversation is that it is impossible to talk about it without in some way engaging in a particular discourse...and i think the hurt feelings here are related to discourse, at least in part.
there are a wide variety of discourses about race available, and they don't always have shared premises. i get the feeling that if the premises from which all of us were speaking were more evident in our comments here, we'd be treading on each other less. or at least that's my guess, because i don't think anyone joined in this conversation with the intention of excluding or hurting another person.
for me, for what it's worth, the term "privilege" in relation to any kind of identity politics is an automatic in whatever partial ways one is taken up as a member of the hegemonic "norm." so...i'm white. it's definitely only part of who i am...one i seldom think about now that i once again live in a place where white is "normal". but both in my quite-whitebread Canadian hometown and in my years in Asia and in Inuit communities up north, there have been assumptions made about me based on skin colour. this is what i mean by "privilege". it's not about anything i deserve or even anything related to my reality in the rest of my identity, it's just "the assumptions made about me based on the colour of my skin." and it's privilege because the majority have served to paint me as harmless or unthreatening or non-exotic and thus not-extra-specially sexualized except where, of course, my female body calls out different assumptions made about me and my quality as a person. i haven't always enjoyed these assumptions, don't get me wrong - that's irrelevant to my concept of privilege. sometimes, in Asia, my whiteness has gotten me embarrassingly favourable treatment. sometimes, up North, it made people assume i was rich and thus to be taken advantage of, while i was actually a poor kid with a single mum who lived under the poverty line, so that made me furious. but my whiteness associates me with power, even when it's uncalled for. and where the rest of my class markers or body language make people assume i'm not powerful, their assumptions are still not the same (or as disempowering) as they might be if i were a woman with a different skin colour.
so...that's what i mean by privilege. a lot of it is covered, really well, in the "unpacking the invisible knapsack" link that Rachel posted as the first comment here.
the fact that i'm white doesn't mean i'm privileged all around, or that i don't think i get to have a voice in conversations about race.
and the kind of privilege i'm talking about is not related to blame, or anything like that. it's not an accusation of "you Paris Hilton creature" or any such thing. it's something that even differs from situation to situation...and mostly isn't something i think about. but i suspect, certainly in the rather narrow community in which i live, that if i were other than white i'd have to think about it...and THAT'S why white is a privilege. just because i don't. and even when i did, when i lived in Korea and had taxi drivers trying to touch my then-blond hair like i was some sort of show poodle and a complete novelty, it was still the false lens of Meg Ryan through which i was seen and judged. that is a privilege, even if i didn't ask for.
just my opinion. or rather, a clumsy effort to explain the discourse in which my opinion is grounded.
because i think this conversation is important, however hard.
It can't be a worthy discussion when politics enter into it.. or the politics of group dynamics where the dominant view is the only one acknowledged as worthy.
Sorry to bang on this drum so much.. but this is important!
I wrote a post about it on my site. I have the feeling that trying to talk about it here is like banging my head against a brick wall.
Bon - what disturbs me in this discussion is the assumption that white people cannot possibly understand what it is like to be non-white and a minority and discriminated against.
You said it yourself - except where, of course, my female body calls out different assumptions made about me and my quality as a person.
Tere said in her original post- On the other hand, I can't shake the feeling that only white people don't see color because well, they don't have to. When you're the majority and part of the race that dictates what's "normal", race isn't much of an issue to you personally.
In my lifetime, I have been discriminated against because I am a woman, and because of my weight. This gives me a general understanding of how it feels to be not considered "normal". I may not walk in the shoes of a person of color, but I am certainly able to consider what it means to do so based on my own experiences, and for anyone to tell me that is impossible because I am white, I say bull poo. Basically. ;)
Does that give a better idea of where I am coming from on this?
I think there's a post in why Fat is the new Black. In the US constitution, it does not say you cannot discriminate on someone because of their weight. It should.
The bottom line is, people are made to feel miserable because of something out of their control. Gender, sexuality, color, weight, etc. When you strip it back, that's what it comes down to.
I think in order to have the discussion properly you have to strip it back to a level where everyone can relate. People make assumptions based on appearances all the time - and THAT is the problem, that is what we have to strive not to do.
Bon, I decided to answer this over here since this is where it is being discussed more widely than on my site.
The concept of privilege doesn't bother me. However, I think that's more an economic concept than a racial one.
What bothers me is that this discussion is being broadened to other sites.. and only certain viewpoints are being linked.
And that IS silencing!
In my not very humble at the moment opinion.
Words don't bother me. Actions speak volumes.
~chani
Snoskred, race is just part of it. we all have all kinds of crap read on to us all the time, every time we interact - embodied or disembodied here on the net - with other people. gender's a huge site of assumptions, and as you acknowledge, there are different power differentials depending on whether one is male or female. age is another...and in different cultures, being aged gets you very different reactions and access to privilege. weight is a very significant site of privilege and discrimination, like you say. attractiveness in general, however relative it is, is one as well. abled-ness, and class, and education and vocabulary - all sites for discrimination or privilege.
and very very few people are privileged in all these contexts. i completely agree with you - struggling in one area, and feeling discrimination in one or many areas, can make one empathetic to what it feels like to be discriminated against in other areas. i don't think that as a white woman you can't imagine the pain of a person of colour who's discriminated against. and i definitely hear you saying you've been outside the "norm" and that you can imagine walking in the shoes of a person of colour. i agree that it's bullshit to say that you can't.
part of the "white privilege" discourse, though, assumes that each norm carries some of its own baggage. and that growing up in a culture where pop culture, at least, still presents whiteness as weirdly hegemonic and neutral affects all of us. because racism, in this viewpoint, isn't a matter of individual evil or bigotry, but is a societal problem of believing that there IS such a thing as a neutral.
that discourse doesn't actually conflict with anything you're saying, as far as i can see...they're just parallel conversations.
Chani, that's not silencing. That's you didn't get linked to or quoted someplace you wanted to be.
I didn't link you because you didn't email me to say you'd done a Hump Day Hmm, I checked my trackback links and didn't see one from you, and your blog had an entirely different post up this morning.
That's not anybody telling you you can't talk. That's not anybody excluding you. "Excluding" and "not being included" are not the same thing.
I'm sorry you feel excluded. I don't dismiss that you feel that way. But honestly, that's you. People have bent over backwards in this discussion to be polite and respectful while being true and honest to their opinions.
It hasn't worked in all cases, and some people are upset. That's too bad. But until now, it's not from someone dealing a below the belt punch. That's been a true and honest difference of opinion on a touchy topic that some of us feel very strongly about.
Telling people they are being false, political, and exclusionary for the sake of strategic alliances and personal gain is pretty low as a blow. Let's not make it that ugly and personal, please.
Julie, please don't patronize me.
I apologize if you feel personally attacked. I'll watch my words more carefully. I never mentioned you specifically. But since you've mentioned it, I will.
Saying that it's just because I'm not included where I want to be completely dismisses the point I made.
Mine was the viewpoint that was ignored.. and, yes, I'm offended.
If that doesn't bother you, that's fine. I'm no longer invested.. but that doesn't mean I won't call it as I see it.
~Chani
I've just read through the comments here. Goodness, have I been out of touch.
There are two broad beliefs about racism, it seems to me, and for a long, long time now there has been a great divide between them.
One is that one can be colorblind regardless of one's race.
The other is that simply by virtue of being a member of a majority race, one must be racist.
All the hurt feelings and anger I see in these comments (it seems to me, anyway) boil down to this essential difference in philosophy.
Quite frankly (and here comes the philosopher in me, watch out) this struggle is not unlike the tabula rasa (blank slate) vs. original sin debates among philosophers like Locke and Hume in the 17th and 18th centuries.
I'd encourage folks to step away from that aspect of this debate, because it is so very deeply entrenched, and I believe it muddies rather than clarifies. There are many other issues to discuss with regard to race in virtual communities, no?
Just my two cents.
And, BTW, I'm not wanting to silence discussion. Only redirect it a bit, because there are some preconceptions here that are causing some trouble, precisely because (in my opinion) they haven't been spelled out as such.
SM, I understand what you're saying.. and I'm willing to dial it down.
I apologize for my part in the ugliness. Any issue I have with another individual will be taken to that individual.
Truly. I apologize for my bad behavior here the past few hours.
Peace,
~Chani
Snoskred, I want to address what you've specifically addressed to me.
Honestly, I don't think you're understanding what I'm saying. Of course white people have a say in this. Of course their thoughts and stories are a vital part of this conversation. I don't even know where I stated that they had no right to speak on this, when what I'm begging for is for them TO speak about this!
I didn't mean to imply that individual white people could not "see" racial issues or have empathy, etc., but as a whole, as a race, no, race isn't an issue to white people from the perspective that they are not affected by it in the same way.
White people don't have the deck stacked against them as far as expectations in achievements and capabilities. A specific example: when I was applying to colleges, all the ones I chose accepted me. And ALL of them, in their acceptance letters, expressed the same thought: wow! A Hispanic girl who's so smart! They were "pleasantly surprised" with my SAT scores and level of achievement, telling me I was in a higher bracket than the "majority of applicants". And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that the majority of applicants to Cornell, Hofstra and Syracuse are white. What was I to take from that except the message that I blew their socks off not just because I was a nerd, but a Hispanic one, to boot. Go figure!
And to me, I was just me: a high achiever with a mom who would kick the shit out of me if I got less than an A. It had nothing to do with my ethnic background. But to these colleges, it did.
All that rambling to say that I feel you are taking my saying that white people don't see race a little too literally. I know they see it, but they are not affected in the same way. It's simply impossible. The majority cannot be affected the same way the minority is; the effects of that which the majority imposes is different for both the majority and the minority.
And keep in mind, it's impossible for me to speak for any other place but the U.S. I wish I could be more inclusive and offer a larger world-view, but that's impossible.
Also, I get the point you're making about knowing discrimination even though you're white. But I disagree that types of discrimination are interchangeable. I too have been discriminated as a woman. And it is completely different than being discriminated against, or having assumptions made, because your skin and heritage are not white.
I hope that does something to further clarify my point of view. I can only reiterate that by no means do I feel that white people have no right to speak on this. But what I share here is simply my take on the matter, shaped by my experiences.
Tere said - All that rambling to say that I feel you are taking my saying that white people don't see race a little too literally. I know they see it, but they are not affected in the same way. It's simply impossible. The majority cannot be affected the same way the minority is; the effects of that which the majority imposes is different for both the majority and the minority.
And again here is where your logic simply falls down.
How can you know how the majority is affected? You say the majority can't understand how the minority is affected but then you say the minority can understand how the majority is affected?
If I can't understand how you feel, you can't understand how I feel. Or, we can equally understand how each other feels if we're willing to try.
Either you can't have your cake and eat it too, or you CAN. Do you see my point? ;)
A lot of what you say in your post I myself feel. I spoke in my hump day hmmm post about feeling left out in a community that is largely multi-cultural. I personally feel like a Australian minority in a US dominated blog-o-sphere. None of this has to do with color specifically. But the feelings are very much the same. It's only that you aren't feeling them yourself. I am feeling them.
Does that make sense?
Well, holy crap. (I know, I'm so erudite.) I missed quite a bit here.
Tere - Don't worry, I didn't interpret your post as saying I should feel guilty. I guess what I was saying is that, while I would make a general statement that race shouldn't matter, when you break it down there are times when it does matter.
As for other comments, I see that there seem to be 2 conflicting points of view regarding the "privilege" of being white. And this is where the discussion seems to break down.
If I recall, and maybe I can do some research on this later when I have time, psychological study after psychological study has shown that we *do* see race and automatically associate it with certain personality traits. It's unconscious and automatic, but it's there. We may not realize it, but it *is* there.
Of course, a small percentage of people don't react the same way the majority do to someone who is fat or white or brown or has tattoos or a disability. And maybe that is what we should acknowledge: that some people truly don't see race in the same way.
Another important thing to note is that this unconscious viewing of physical traits of others can be retrained. But it can only be retrained by acknowledging that there is a problem in the first place. And that is why I think this discussion is so important.
Forgive me if I'm being dense, but I just don't get what all the hurt feelings are about. People are *disagreeing* in this discussion, and that's GOOD, isn't it? If your viewpoint isn't generating tons of 'oh, yeah, you're right!' comments, that's not because peple are cliquing up and privileging one dominant viewpoint, it's because that's how the discursive chips are falling. We join in on this discussion as *individuals* - nobody is getting together in back rooms to decide upon a point a view to impose on anyone else -we're all just weighing in here with what WE think, each of us. And if what I think doesn't square with what you think, don't take it personally. It's a conversation, not a conversion.
And as regards what other people do with posts and links on their own blogs, that has nothing to do with this site. Neither Joy nor myself nor any contributing writer sets down a perspective that must be followed, or else. What someone posts on their own blog (what they post here) are THEIR thoughts. And again, if they don't square with yours, that shouldn't be taken personally. And if they don't link you? Well, that's their prerogative, and nothing to do with BlogRhet as a collective discussion space. But if you didn't actually ask for a link or at least make sure that they were aware of your post, you really shouldn't take it as exclusion.
I totally get the arguments that Chani and Snoskred are making - I don't agree entirely, but there are some valid points there. I think - and I've said, elsewhere - that online communities pose special issues for matters of identity (including race) because so much is veiled in text. We can't SEE each other. For the most part (unless you're a prolific picture poster like me), all we have is our words. It's problematic to assume that there's any uniformity of identity behind those words, because there's not. That, I think, is what this discussion is about - sorting through the questions concerning how we write those identities, understand those identities, online. The aspect of identity that is currently under discussion is race. That doesn't mean that anyone here thinks that that is the *only* aspect of identity that is relevant to such discussions - it means that that is the aspect under discussion right now.
And I, for one, think that the discussion has been good. Where there are no differences of opinion, there is no discussion. Our differences here give this conversation its force.
Yes, I see your point. But I've never claimed to know what the majority feels, nor that they can't understand. I've just expressed my opinion that the majority can't see race in the exact same way as the minority because they experience it in different ways. That is not a criticism of the majority on my part. It just is what it is.
And even further: minority groups experience race/ethnicity differently from each other. I can't claim, and don't even feel, that I know what African-Americans go through, because I don't. Whatever my community as a whole or I as an individual have gone through, it's not what they have gone through.
There are underlying similarities in what each group feels, but to get to the level at which you're taking it, it's worth mentioning.
I'm not sure I get your last statement about my not feeling something and you feeling it... if you mean that I am not feeling your particular type of left out, you're right. Because I'm not Australian, nor am I white. I can empathize and try to draw parallels between your experiences and mine, but I can't possibly know exactly what you feel or what it's like to be in your shoes.
And there's nothing wrong with that! I can listen and learn and carry it with me, which is all I would hope from people reading my post.
I feel wholly unqualified to lend anything to this conversation, but I'm going to give it a shot. I hope this comes across in the right way.
I think race needs to be SEEN, UNDERSTOOD, AND ACCEPTED. To ignore it altogether is to ignore a piece of what makes a certain person an individual. Race affects the experiences you have in your life, and to decide not to see it, reduces a person, I think. It might make us more comfortable to "not see it" but we are disregarding a portion of someone, of their heritage, of their personal experiences, of their individuality.
Does race matter to me when I'm meeting someone new? No. Yes, I see you. I notice that I am white and you are Hispanic. I understand we've had different experiences, both stemming from race and from a million different factors that go into making us individuals. But it does not change anything for me. You are you and I am me. If we hit it off, race is not a factor in that equation, although I do understand it is part of who you are and a part of who I am.
In the Blogosphere, it is the same, at least for me. I choose blogs based on whatever bunny trail I happen to take and the content I find at the end of it. I don't choose blogs based on ethnicity, though. In the interest of full-disclosure, I do think all of the blogs I read are largely white, heterosexual women...but not because I sought that out. Over half of my regular reads are Canadians, and I don't know how that happened either! My regular reads are just happenstance, I think. I clicked here and there and just ended up these places. They were not chosen based on race or sexual orientation.
I think not seeing race can be slightly offensive, because to not see race, you have to disregard a portion of an individual and we all want to be see for who are and accepted in full. I think that is the crux of the issue.
But if you didn't actually ask for a link or at least make sure that they were aware of your post, you really shouldn't take it as exclusion.
Your point is taken, but you don't have all the pieces here. And I understand that. :)
I fought really hard for an idea yesterday because I believe the idea had merit. It is not my idea or something I thought up. It was relevant to the discussion.
It was not my attempt to create a popularity contest or factions. (If I unwittingly participated in anything that smacks of it, attribute it to my ignorance rather than malice).
I just believe that all ideas have to be heard in any roundtable discussion for it to be legitimate.
You know.. that's basically all.. I was saying.
Unfortunately it got really bungled. I'm sorry for that.
I will continue reading because it's an interesting discussion but doubt I have anything more to contribute at this point.
Sometimes disagreeing can be difficult.. for everyone.
Peace to all,
~Chani
Fair enough, Chani - thanks for responding so graciously.
It's a - sometimes challenging - function of this medium that not all points will get taken up. Because we're all individuals, with our own views and agendas and issues, we tend to respond selectively, to specific ideas or prompts that capture our thinking. Which is fine - we can't force people to take up the discussion threads that we want pursued - but also, sometimes, uncomfortable.
Socrates insisted that disagreement MUST be uncomfortable - that it's not really dialogue in the true dialectical sense if we're not disrupted and discomfited, if we're not put into the experience of aporia, of being at a loss/without resources at the most difficult steps of the exchange. If it's comfortable, it's not going very deep. But it does take some getting used to. We just all have to be patient with each other.
HBM, I don't and didn't expect anyone to cater to me.. just because of what I said.
Anyone who knows me knows how much I hate exclusion.. and anyone who knows me also knows that I sometimes react from PTSD rather than using my logic.
So.. I had a few trusted others look it over and give me their feedback.
It was, indeed, only mine that was not mentioned.. and that triggered me off. It was humiliating and I responded unkindly.
I don't apologize for fighting for the idea... but I sure as hell apologize for the way I did it. I could have done it differently.
Maybe there is something to be learned in all of this... and some good to come from it. Right now, it doesn't feel that way.. but somehow things always work out as they should.
~Chani
From Peggy McIntosh's "Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack"
Thinking through unacknowledged male privilege as a phenomenon, I realized that, since hierarchies in our society are interlocking, there are most likely a phenomenon, I realized that, since hierarchies in our society are interlocking, there was most likely a phenomenon of while privilege that was similarly denied and protected. As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage.
I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege. So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have white privilege. I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was "meant" to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools , and blank checks.
Describing white privilege makes one newly accountable. As we in women's studies work to reveal male privilege and ask men to give up some of their power, so one who writes about having white privilege must ask, "having described it, what will I do to lessen or end it?"
I am reprinting this portion of McIntosh's article because the article (as Rachel mentioned at the start of this comment string) is EXTREMELY important in terms of this discussion. The article also helps to provide some definitions for some of the concepts that are being discussed here (also a big "thank you" to Slouching Mom for describing two major philosophical differences in terms of the discussion).
I also wanted to add a sincere "thank you" to ALL of you for your contributions and especially to Tere for writing this post and moderating the comments. Such an important topic to tackle!
I would like to reiterate what Mamma said. My silence isn't disinterest. It's listening and seeking to understand. I am a white woman and have the "luxury" of race not being an issue with my blogging. If I felt marginalized because of my minority status, it would be different. So, just here,taking this in, and apreciating the interesting dialogue.
Thank you, Bobbie.
I, for one, have lost sleep over this comments thread. I think quite a few of us have. I think the last few days have been draining for many of us. I enjoy debate, but I do not enjoy conflict, but sometimes, sometimes it is just not possible to disentangle the two.
But in the end, what I see here is a group of (mostly) women fighting fiercely and intelligently. I see a group of women who care, deeply, about the issue at hand.
It's messy. It's painful. And it's life.
How very interesting.
While I agree with the original premise about the privilege of color-blindness, I think one of the most important statements was this"
"...because i think this conversation is important, however hard."
If people can just TALK about this stuff, like adults, there would be less and less reason to FIGHT about it.
For my part, I wonder, sometimes if many of the people that read my blog, read it BECAUSE I'm black.
The blogosphere is an odd place. 95 percent of the people that read/comment at my blog are white women. Most from the United States, but some are Canadians. Two are asian-Americans. Two are African Americans, and one is a white South African. An amazing nuimber of them are members of the LDS church.
What does this say about invisibility? What does this say about anything?
Probably only this: People will read what they want, and what they like.
Race is an important matter in the United States (in other places as well, but I live here).
Keep talking, folks.
Gunfighter -- so funny that you should wonder that, because I would have guessed people (women) read your blog because you're MALE. And because your moniker (and your career) is "Gunfighter."
Glad to see you in these BlogRhet parts.
In my freshman dorm people made friends because of race. After the racial barrier was finally broken I asked a girl who had black skin why she didn't try to make friends with me(I have white skin). She pointed to another girl with black skin and said "I knew that she wanted a black friend, I didn't know if you would." She asked me why I didn't approach her and I said "because you glared at me every time I walked down the hall and you scared the crap out of me."
This was the first time I saw race because I had to.
This conversation is so important, I've been fascinated by it.
Bill (GF) - I think you were a white LDS woman in a past life. Honestly, I read your blog for 2 reasons: the things we have in common and the things we don't. (Well, Shoot 'Em Up Fridays are really neat too.)
This is why I read many of the blogs I do. I don't want just a perspective that's identical to mine. I want some common ground, some shared feelings and experiences, but I also want to hear different points of view on pretty much everything. In race, politics, religion, even just parenthood, our differences are what make us interesting.
I forgot to add another demographic about my blog: There are at least 4 women, three of whom are white, that read my blog and are law school graduates... oh, and I have many readers who are lesbians, although most of them rearely comment.
Slouching Mom,
You may be right.
LM,
You and I have lots in common... one of the most important things is that we both like grits.
And right there is something I don't get - grits. I have no idea what grits are. That's an American thing.
I apologise if people are thinking I'm angry, I think I mentioned before that I'm not, I'm just passionate.
This comments thread has been keeping me awake too. And I have felt drained by it, not because I feel like we're arguing - to me this is a calm and rational discussion but I've been on internet forums where discussions get way out of hand so I don't react the same as everyone else does to these things.
What I think now, after lying awake for a couple of hours last night - it's not about race at all. It's about the cultural differences.
What you don't understand about Australia would fill several books. What I don't understand about the US would do the same. What I don't understand about Hispanic culture would fill a couple more but only because I haven't spent a great amount of time with Hispanic people - they don't seem to have a great desire to live in Australia.
So when you, Tere, write about something only people from your culture know about there's a disconnection. If I were to write a post on pie floaters and the differences between the states here in Australia and how when I see a numberplate from Victoria I freak out and look for somewhere to hide, you'd not *get* that. Like I don't get grits.
And then it could even show up in a difference between the states in your *own* country. Like if someone posts about a major retail chain in their state that is only in their state and what it is like to shop there, neither you or I and everyone who has never been on the inside of one of those stores will get that.
When I first saw that Sex and the City episode about Krispy Kreme doughnuts, I did not understand it as well as I did when I watched it again after Krispy Kreme opened a store out here.
Am I making any sense yet?
It would have been tempting to give up on this discussion a few comments ago, but I'm hanging in there and I hope that's a good thing.
Snos, that's an interesting point.. and a valid one, I think.
I do not share an ethnicity with my culture. But.. I'm very identified with it. That can present an interesting set of challenges when people automatically assume I share similar values and perceptions as the dominant culture where I am currently living.
So, yes, I can see what you're saying.
Hm. I'll have to think about it more.. but in general I think you're on to something.
Peace,
~Ch
Race, like religion and morals, is deeply a part of a persons psyche. It is what the race contributes to the personality that should be 'seen'.
Snoskred, you've hit on what is one of the roots of this whole race talk for me.
It makes perfect sense for us to not *get* those cultural differences. It's one of the things I love about living in Miami - you always meet someone from yet another culture and you learn something new. I live in a place where the idea that I am a minority has never touched me. A lot of my friends have moved to other places only to be shocked (and insulted) at how "the majority" treated them. In fact, here the Anglos are the minority, and racial/ethnic tensions have been high here since the first wave of Cubans arrived here in the early 60's.
When I joined the blogosphere (actively and publicly), I was looking for more of the same - to learn about people and their views, habits, behaviors, etc. (which are all, in a way, dictated by their heritage). So to find a homogeneous white world that has seemed both foreign and exclusive was both surprising and disappointing. It had as much to do with individual exclusivity as with identity exclusivity.
My frustration has been directed mostly at myself, because for every new "thing" I encountered, I thought, how am I an American and I have no clue what they're talking about?
The thing is, I'm not an American. I am a Cuban-American, born in this country to parents who had to flee their country and start from scratch here. And that one thing has affected everything about who I am and how I live my life.
Anyway, my point is that I think most people will happily learn about and celebrate cultural differences; but I, on a personal level, have been struggling with what it means to be a minority in the blogosphere when I have not been one in my life, and on a more public level, am interested in how the concepts of race, culture, ethnicity and identity that we deal with in our daily lives translate into the Internet/blog world.
I'm o.k. with there being a disconnect when I write about my culture. What I'm generally not o.k. with is when those of us who are ethnic get dismissed or left out simply because we're not in line with the "white" or "Anglo" norms.
I know there are new voices in this conversations, and I thank you for your input as well (Kyla, believe me, you DO have much to add!).
This has been a fascinating discussion. I'm sorry I came so late to the party.
In a way that seems comparable to what Tere experienced, on my blog I have felt the need to clarify the ways in which I am outside the 'norm' -- where the norm is defined by the US media, but also by what I read in other blogs.
For example, I find myself insisting, over and over, that where I live is rural. In fact this town has been growing exponentially and the people who live here constantly lament that it's become a big city. But it feels to me like "everyone else" (that is, my readers) lives in either an urban or a suburban place, and by that standard, my town is itty bitty.
Another one that has really bothered me is weight. In my offline life I never, ever think about my weight, and as far as I know, no one else does either. But on my blog I keep wanting to confess that I'm underweight, because it feels like "everyone else" is dieting, and assumes I must be, too.
I know I bring my own set of assumptions to others' blogs, because I'm always being shocked -- sometimes in trite ways (one blogger's preschooler is in a daycare with a swimming pool. For goodness sake, we don't even have pools in the high schools here. How wealthy her community must be! Or not? Is that common, to have pools in a daycare?) -- and sometimes in fundamental ways. I'll never forget the day I learned one of my favorite bloggers was MALE, for example.
I don't mean to trivialize the discrimination that non-white people face in the US. Apologies if this comes across that way.
Tek, it's not trivializing, it's part of the discussion, too.
You make some points about locality that I think are important. I know I sometimes feel compelled to offer some background on Miami, because what gets out on the news or CSI:Miami is false; or because I assume my readers have no idea what Miami is really like.
The place from where we come from, or where we live, is just as important in how we express ourselves and what our points of reference are.
Tere I am glad I found this blog. What an interesting conversation. I am also from Miami, Cuban and am the mother of a 2 1/2 year old Asian child. At the airport an American lady approached me and my little girl while we were laughing and talking. She said, "she is beautiful, is she yours?" I answered, "yes" then she pauses and asks,"Does she speak English or Chinese?" and I told her, "No, she speaks Spanish for now." She had nothing left to say, she looked at me, at my child and walked away.
The above does not offend me, it does however bring to mind our differences.
Glad to see another Hispanic talking about such an impacting topic.
Yoli
I'm coming into this discussion 75 comments later, wow! My few cents:
I'm Hispanic, grew up in Miami, but have been living outside of Miami (Pittsburgh, PA; Berkeley, CA; and now Durham, NC for the past 13 years). I have a white, German-American husband who was born in Bolivia. I'm olive skinned - dark enough to never be confused for "anglo" white, but light enough to be considered light-skinned among the browner of us.
To begin with, this whole concept of "privilege" is absolutely on the social level. When we speak about a local event - individuals doing something together - these larger, social forces play out with respect to how those individual take up these larger social forces.
In other words, "white privilege" is a *social* truth. That's what I hear in these comments by Tere and GingaJoy, among others. And that cannot be debated because it simply happens to be that in our particular world, and in particular in the US, the hegemonic voice of society is white. And not just the color of white skin, for there are many people with white skin who are not considered white in the US, like Tere. And there are many people with darker-than-white skin who are considered white. Those who fall into the (admittedly mishmashed) category of what is considered "white" in the US (and in much of the rest of the world) are given - at a social level - that privilege. You may not ask for it, you may not know it, you may have experienced a life that is far from what you would define as “privileged”, but you are afforded, in a social sense, a particular racial privilege.
That racial privilege is experienced by not necessarily having to be aware, at every moment of your waking life the fact of your race. Racial privilege is experienced by the experience of everyday racial normalcy. You walk in to a store, and –at a racial level- you are just in the store. You don’t necessarily think about your whiteness.
I know this experience because I grew up in Miami, where Cubans in particular are the social majority. Now, do not confuse this with population numbers. Hispanics are also the majority in certain parts of California and they are NOT the social majority. Miami is very unique in the fact that Cubans have social power. The governmental and business leaders are Cuban. The language spoken in places of high status – expensive stores, restaurants, banks, etc – is mainly Spanish. The Cuban identity and the Spanish language –in Miami and ONLY in Miami – is afforded social power and privilege. Therefore, when I am in Miami, it is the only place on the planet that I have been to so far where I walk into a store and am afforded the privilege of just being a PERSON in the store. I might be very aware of other aspects of me that are not normative in Miami, but racially, I am just normal. When I leave Miami, I leave that privilege because I am back in a “white world”.
My husband has the opposite experience. Anywhere he has ever been in the US, he is just a normal guy. Plain old Raf. In Miami, he is a gringo. He is a tall, pasty, awkward, funny-looking gringo. His Spanish – considered fluent everywhere else – is not considered truly Spanish in Miami because it has an American accent. When he’s in Miami, his racial identity is very marked. He walks around not as plain ol’ Raf, but as White Raf, Gringo Raf, American Raf, Anglo Raf. It is something he has to deal with in Miami. I don’t have to deal with it there. But I do have to deal with it everywhere else.
This reality has nothing to do with an individual person’s ability to empathize. My husband doesn’t know what its like to be an olive-skinned, Cuban-American, female with black curly hair, walking around the U.S. north of Miami. But he does completely “get” my experience, and while he “got it” before I took him to Miami for the first time, you better believe that he “got it” that much more when he finally went down there and understood the experience of being racially marked.
This reality has nothing to do with white or non-white people’s ability to love other cultures, long to be a part of other cultures, understand discrimination, or speak to the topic of race and identity. Every person on the planet has these abilities and rights.
Its important to separate the social from the individual, yet understand that the two constrain and enable the other.
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