Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Race Relations and Why This Week Was Really Hard
So we looked at race relations and racism in post-Civil War America at the beginning of this week, reading DuBose's The Souls of Black Folk. I've read a bit of DuBose before, but never anything quite this lengthy. I found it a lot easier to get through than I was anticipating, and it was really powerful. As a social justice warrior (I refuse to accept this term as a pejorative, name-calling strategy against millennial activists as it has frequently been used as of late) I've been highly invested in racial issues over the past few years, beginning with the Treyvon Martin case and reaching its summit with the Ferguson riots and the Michael Brown case. I attended Black Lives Matter protests when I lived in DC. I read book after book. I took a class specifically geared toward social justice issues for my J-term when I returned to campus so I could have a forum in which to talk about these issues. I watch and read and listen to around 5 different news programs/publications a day. I'm invested. These classes, today and yesterday (Monday and Tuesday) have been really, really, insurmountably difficult. I adore the way that Marcy teaches about race and history. I love that she asks us questions, makes us clarify our language so that we're being careful about what we're saying. I learned things I didn't know before. Today's class was awful. The lecture was great, don't get me wrong, but looking at 50+ pictures of lynchings was difficult (and that's an understatement--I sat in class crying, watching every slide go past that said "unidentified black man," or that showed a crowd of hundreds of white people watching the "spectacle" of a goddamn human being being murdered for no reason, and I felt my heart sink more and more) and while it was important, it wore me out emotionally. I'm not complaining--this was a very significant and moving lecture, and I'm glad I saw it--I'm just expressing the immense emotional toll something like this took on me. I think that when I get involved in race-related activism, I feel a little silly, like it's not my place to interfere or like people will think it's strange for a white girl to be so invested in the issues. It can be intimidating at times. However, I think it's really important to remember, especially when moved like this, that the only way things will ever change is if the party that is oppressing the oppressed makes a change. Like it or not, I was born into the party that is doing the oppressing. I cannot change the fact that I am white. I cannot change where or how I grew up. But I can help. I can check my white privilege and try and understand the other side, and by looking at these pictures it threw me right into the other side emotionally. The important step to remember that is especially poignant after today's lecture on the color line is that I need to find a way to accept that there is a line, but that the line doesn't need to be there, and that through open discourse and activism we can all find our own individual ways to reach across the lines and hold hands. (Apologies for the vomit-worthy cheesiness of the last sentiment. Unavoidable cliche.)
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I think that we can all agree that class on Tuesday was hard. And your response to it has brought to mind a couple of questions, one about engaging in activism in a culturally sensitive manner, and the other concerning emotional identification with black victims...
ReplyDeleteI haven't done too much with the black activist community. I've read a bunch, sure, but I haven't participated in protests, attended meetings, or changed my class schedule to further educate myself. One of the reasons for this is, as you describe, the feeling of being out of place, of not knowing how I can help in a way that is constructive, sensitive, and which revolved around the problems themselves, not my experiences with them. So, given my own difficulties, I was wondering how you manage it, and what your experiences actively supporting the causes have taught you about being an ally?
My second question stems from some of the reading I have come across concerning being an ally in situations where I am not the oppressed. I was wondering how you believe the phenomenon of "the white woman's tears" interacts with presentations like the one we had in class. How are we supposed to view tragic material without, in essence, making our experience about ourselves instead? When viewing, I found myself not identifying with the victims but rather horrified at my own demographic similarities to the oppressors, the murderers and sickened by their actions, expressions, and sheer numbers. While situations like this illicit immediate, intimate, and inherent emotional response, how does that response change or shape the larger discussion of racial brutality in the US today?
Also, just for context, here are two of the better articles I've found explaining "White Women's Tears":
http://www.damemagazine.com/2014/12/15/white-women-please-dont-expect-me-wipe-away-your-tears
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ899418.pdf
There are innumerable ways to make a difference, and they do not at all have to include marching in protests or even doing anything visible. When my kids were little, I actively sought out medical doctors who were not white so that my children could see people in positions of authority and expertise from a range of backgrounds. I deliberately read them books with non-white main characters. And I challenged stories they brought home from school (as I mentioned in class). You don't have kids, but I use these examples just to point out that we can make choices about perpetuating privilege or challenging it. DuBois (and many others) argue that fundamentally, we need to learn to respect one another as equals (which is equally challenging in some ways for African Americans who are not immune to the messages of inferiority any more than white people are immune to the messages of their superiority). You can actively demonstrate your respect in your own life, and you can think about the often-subconscious ways that we express disrespect. These are small, yet powerful steps. The more people who take them, and who simply recognize the need to take them, the better.
Delete#Caroline
ReplyDeleteLooks like you might be working on the Dill Pickle club and the area around the Newberry itself, right? I saw a cool photo of the soapbox free-speech zone in action in the Art Institute the other day. Remind me about that when we do our field trip, and I can point it out to you.
______
Caroline, I share your sense of how daunting this history is to us. I worry that the sense of “learned helplessness,” which someone mentioned in class (and which is a corrolary to despair) might apply not just to the victims of oppression but to U.S. culture as a whole, so I’m glad to see that you feel that learning about these issues is ultimately inspiring rather than (just) daunting.
I’m also thinking about Lucy’s response, and I understand her anxiety about her own subjective position. However, when I went to the links you gave, Lucy, they seemed very different from what you are perhaps worried about in yourself. You say, “How are we supposed to view tragic material without, in essence, making our experience about ourselves instead?” But the white women’s tears articles are about tears deployed as an implicit attack. For example, we hear “Susan began to cry while responding that she ‘felt attacked.’” I don’t think that is what you are doing when you feel the horror of recognizing yourself in an image of lynching. Subjectivity is never entirely escapable, but tears can sometimes be sympathetic and meaningful rather than selfish and crocodilian.
Of all the aspects of white privilege, the biggest of all is the privilege of not having to think about race. White people begin to lose that privilege when they make honest attempts to think about it (though obviously they need to do more than just think).
Sorry about that first bit. I'm keeping my responses to everyone in a single file, so I ended up repeating the last response I made. This one starts under the "____" line :)
Delete"Of all the aspects of white privilege, the biggest of all is the privilege of not having to think about race." I really love that line. I appreciate both of your responses and I'm thrilled that we can have an open dialogue about white privilege and race relations pertaining to contemporary events.
ReplyDeleteQuick note -- it's DuBois, not DuBose.
ReplyDeleteI am so glad that you found the lynching class to be awful. It ought to be awful, and I share that material because we all (but especially white people) need to see, and to know, ad to confront, and to admit, and to address this history that has so profoundly shaped the social standing of both whites and blacks. I hate the day I teach this material each semester, but the day I no longer hate it is the day I should stop teaching this subject. It is hard and agonizing, but this is what shakes us out of the privilege of not thinking about race.