Moments of Permanence - Miscellany

From: willow Date: June 9th, 2010 01:58 pm (UTC) (Link)

I think I'm too busy wincing and pulling back from that phrase you keep using in italics - to get what your point is. Somewhere in there are you remarking that people categorized as black aren't seen as human by the people who call them names?

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From: bossymarmalade Date: June 9th, 2010 04:25 pm (UTC) (Link)

I had the same reaction. Yes, in this instance it's swans, but nevertheless that phrase recalls its more usual racist context enough to be really distressing.

Frankly, I'd *prefer* "I hate Canadians".

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From: attentive Date: June 9th, 2010 04:52 pm (UTC) (Link)

Thirding this feeling. It's terribly hard to read.

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From: sami Date: June 10th, 2010 04:10 am (UTC) (Link)

It's edited out, and I'm really, really sorry.

I only just woke up literally five minutes ago, so *handwaves* my thoughts are kind of scattered across replies to comments now, but I am very very sorry that I used that phrase. Had it occurred to me it would be painful for people I would not have done so.

As a reason, I offer that I am, it seems, accustomed to a different language of racism, because it doesn't read that way to me. This isn't an excuse, though, which is why I've edited it out.

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From: sami Date: June 10th, 2010 04:03 am (UTC) (Link)

Edited out.

I think I'm used to a different language of racism, because it doesn't, as a phrase, read like that to me. However, if it is making people uncomfortable (I feel awkward saying "you", because I hadn't read your comment when I edited, only Willow's, so it - never mind, I'm weird) I don't in this context have anything even approaching justification for using it.

(I can't imagine in what context I *would*, but I don't discount entirely the possibility that such would exist; this just isn't it.)

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From: bossymarmalade Date: June 10th, 2010 04:24 am (UTC) (Link)

I know what you mean about a different language -- I grew up with it being okay in the West Indies to use certain words a certain way that isn't okay now that I live in North America. Thanks for changing the post.

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From: sami Date: June 10th, 2010 04:28 am (UTC) (Link)

*nods* Exactly the thing.

And seriously, any time I have used words that hurt people, as a rule I will be only too glad to change it - I would have done it sooner, but, you know, asleep.

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From: sami Date: June 10th, 2010 03:57 am (UTC) (Link)

The phrase about the swans? I'm sorry, I didn't think of that - I'll change it.

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From: sami Date: June 10th, 2010 04:26 am (UTC) (Link)

Okay. Now that I'm marginally more awake than when I first read your comment and was more or less reacting with "OH SHI-" because I didn't mean to hurt people and it turns out I did and I feel very bad about that and wanted to stop doing so immediately:

Essentially, yes. I think I got distracted from my point, which included that I wonder if that's what's behind all that "All [race] look alike to me" bullshit. If you acknowledge their individuality, their person-ness, then you're a fairly significant step on the path to having to acknowledge that by treating them as less than a full and proper person, you are, in fact, being a bad person.

I hold a couple of rough generalisations to be true of all human beings, barring exceptions who are probably fundamentally broken specimens of humanity. One of them is: Nobody wants to think they're a Bad Person.

So when people do things which, to me, make them Bad People, I try to understand how. How they can do that thing and not realise that it makes them a Bad Person.

This includes racists, because the thing is, racists, no matter how vitriolic and vile, are still (technically) human beings, which means that they probably think they're still Good People.

I want to understand the mechanisms by which they reconcile that. Ultimately, so I can [do my part to] break it, because it's goddamn toxic, but it's very difficult to change people's minds until you find the point at which the conceptual basics you and they are operating from diverge.

This kind of meta empathy-for-assholes stuff is definitely in the category of things that I figure should be strictly optional for people who have to deal with actual racism. But I don't, most of the time, and since we can't just shoot all the racists, persuading some that racism is, in fact, something that makes you a Bad Person is something I'd like to be able to do.

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From: willow Date: June 10th, 2010 05:25 am (UTC) (Link)

Barring the individuals who revel in the day when they were considered superior human beings (something they still believe to be true) - most individuals who do racist things and carry on racist behaviors do not believe they are in fact, doing racist things and carrying on racist behaviors. They believe they're good people and get very upset if you try and say ANYTHING that contradicts their idea that they are good people.

If they're not burning down a home, throwing rocks through the window, killing and mutilating then their actions - no matter how detrimental aren't racist. And sometimes even if they do commit those acts, they still aren't. Heck in Australia self recently there's a group of men of 'good character' who were NOT being racist when they ran down, harassed a group of Aboriginal individuals and eventually killed one. So says the Judge.

I think not only did you get distracted, but in your contemplating of how these people cannot realize what they're doing is bad - you make it all about them AND NOT about the people they dehumanize so easily.

Also, as someone who's been called that phrase in italics - along with the death threats; yes, it was very jarring. And I found myself thinking you had the privilege to have no idea that little children have been shouted at with that very phrase, and some spit on and threatened with cars in recent history; not the past 15 yrs, or the past 10 or even the past 5. But recently - as in this year.

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From: sami Date: June 10th, 2010 06:35 am (UTC) (Link)

I realise that in trying to understand how they can't realise that they're doing bad things, it's making it about them, but...

I'm trying to think how to explain my objective in this consideration.

Operating on the assumption that we can't kill all racists, even the ones who deserve it, we are stuck with these people on our planet.

These people do bad things. I would like them to stop doing bad things. Making it illegal alone won't work, not least because we have to stop the people in the judicial system doing bad things.

The only way I know to stop people doing bad things is to make them realise that it's bad, and that doing it makes them a bad person.

The only way I know to persuade people to change their ideas involves finding out what basic assumptions they've made from which the ideas I dislike derive.

Which means, to me, that if I want to stop racists doing this shit to real people, then I need to understand why they think it's okay, so I can convince them they're wrong, and hope for that idea to spread, or at least to stop being propagated through their children, etc.

The objective is still to make them stop hurting people, but it seems to me that to a certain extent, I can't do that if I just dismiss them out of hand as Bad People.

And it is my responsibility to consider this kind of thing, because anyone who actually has to deal with the putrescent bile they spew should be in a position to tell them to go to hell. It's not even Racism 101, it's Remedial Racism for the Terminally Douchey, but there's that thing, where I'd like to live in a world where everyone actually realises that that shit makes you a bad person. And so I want to do my part to try and bring that world about.

It's like... if you're trying to cure a disease, you have to think about the infection, not the patients, sometimes, otherwise you won't work out how to kill it.

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From: willow Date: June 10th, 2010 05:29 am (UTC) PS (Link)

This isn't discounting the concept of differences in language, and dialect - just that you have the privilege not to consider that putting the word black (or other words associated with dark skin, representations of darkness) with a curseword as not automatically implying a 'creative' slur.

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From: sami Date: June 10th, 2010 05:58 am (UTC) Re: PS (Link)

It is privilege, as well. On the one hand: where I live, "black" isn't really used that way, because African-descended black people aren't really a target of racism in my experience; Aborigines and Asians (in that order) are, and neither is generally referred to using black or darkness-representational terms. (Because black and associated terms means African-descended black.)

On the other hand: I'm not sure this is going to be equally true in all parts of Australia, as opposed to the parts of Perth where I grew up, suddenly, and in any case it's not true every where.

Regardless: I'm white, so this is not my call, and I apologise absolutely for using those words at all.

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From: silverai.livejournal.com Date: June 10th, 2010 11:33 am (UTC) Re: PS (Link)

Oh hey, "black" is totally used for aboriginal people, quite a lot. In fact, they themselves identify with it as far as I can tell. I've been listening to Noongar Radio (100.9fm) for the last month or two, and they definitely use it quite often. I'm aware of several racist jokes regarding the word black and aborigines too.

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From: elspethdixon Date: June 9th, 2010 09:59 pm (UTC) (Link)

Personally, I think you should fear all swans, and white ones especially (the swans in Lucern, Switzerland are some the most terrifying animals I've ever seen in my life, with necks as thick around as a human calf, and most species of swan, regardless of color, can break bones with blows from their wings), but the bit about running over black swans and the epithet you use for them here made me cringe a little as someone from the American South.

Because I've heard people express almost that exact same sentiment ("maybe someone ought to run them over"), with pretty much those exact descriptors, except about people, not birds.

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From: sami Date: June 10th, 2010 04:07 am (UTC) (Link)

... oh my.

So, uh. If you read comments above, because I only just woke up and am kind of reading/responding in order, you will find that you are not the only one, and I have, in fact, already edited that out.

It didn't read that way to me, at all, but - yeah, cultural context, and different languages of racism, and possibly different levels of acceptability of racist sentiment. In my experience, racist diatribes against the dark-skinned (as opposed to Asians) tend to be about cutting off their social services, not killing them. I'm kind of shocked that someone has actually said that out loud in front of other people.

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