Enough about racism, let's talk about me.

Subject line notwithstanding: this is another post about Race Fail, and you know what, I'm not cutting it. Nobody has to read it, but I'm not hiding it.

There's a lot of talk about the tone of the conversation... obviously, the tone is heated. We're talking about race. One side is angry because they don't like being thought of as racist (or thinking they're being thought of as racist) and one side is angry because, well, RACISM... and some folks are suggesting that if the latter side would just be less angry about RACISM, the former side could calm down a little and things would be a little more productive.

I mean, there are a lot of writers and bloggers of color out there explaining why the anger is there, where it comes from, even while I'm sure some of them are seething at the fact that they have to explain why RACISM makes them angry... I've got nothing to add to that so I'm going to leave it alone... but can you see the problem with this? With suggesting that people who are angry about RACISM need to worry about offending people?

That's like telling people with a boot on their face that they need to worry about stepping on toes.

I already know as I type this that some people will look at it and think/say something along the lines of "But racism is just a form of people being judged unfairly. If somebody is labeled a racist when they aren't, that's the same type of injustice, isn't it?"

That argument could certainly be made, but there's a concept of magnitude of problems, which has been concisely summed up as "OOH DID I HURT YOUR WIDDLE FEELINGS?"

See, "Innocent until proven guilty." is a cornerstone of our justice system. "I would rather a hundred guilty persons go free than see one innocent one executed." is one of my personal core beliefs.

But "It's better to shut down a whole conversation about racism rather than let one white person feel scorn they haven't personally earned." is FUCKED UP, and that's what the argument about "tone" in the ongoing discussions of race (and actually, a similar argument comes up with regards to sexism, to sexuality, etc.) actually boils down to.

That's what a lot of this Race Fail business is about... let's stop the conversation to talk about how I'm not a racist. Let's stop the conversation to talk about how it makes me feel when somebody says "White folk do this and this." and doesn't prepend a qualifier like "Some white people..." or "A few white people..." or "Excluding anti-racist ally and all around swell person alexandraerin, white people..." in front of it. Let's stop the conversation so that you can be more respectful of me when you talk about the disadvantages life in our shared society has thrown your way that it didn't throw mine.

This is a conversation that's rooted in people getting shit they have done nothing personally to deserve. This phenomenon is the reason the conversation exists. It's not hypocritical of the people pushing the conversation forward to... incidentally and along the way... cause emotional hardship to a white person who is not the specific, personal, and proximate cause of any of their oppression. It's not.

What that is, is messy. It's a messy world. It's a messy problem.

But dear God, worse collateral damage than bruised and deflated egos has happened in the service of more dubious causes. Demanding that POC stop and think about how it makes a white author feel to be challenged on an aspect of their writing before they do it is not necessarily an action that comes from a racist intention, but it's an action that impedes the fight against racism, it is an action that puts one in alliance with racism... in short, it is a racist action.

As chienne_folle points out in this comment, a lot of us hear "racist" and think about intent or motivation... the cause of actions... rather than the actions themselves, or their effects, but of course it's the effects that are felt in the world.

When an attitude or practice is institutionalized, it doesn't require the conscious agreement of every participant. You don't have to be "racist" in the sense that you have a thought in your head that these people over here are inferior to your people to participate in a racism behavior, and in fact you can even have a firmly held belief that such values are wrong to hold.

And even if the action is not motivated by overt racism, it's rooted in privilege because it comes from failing to understand how entrenched institutional RACISM is a worse problem than one person's feelings. "Getting over it" solves hurt feelings better than it solves RACISM.