Being Amber Rhea

Here’s a list of What I Think about some recent and not-so-recent happenings, designed to illustrate the fact that very few issues are cut and dry, and context matters. To some I might look like a big ol’ contradiction with all this. I’m okay with that.

White progressive bloggers Photoshopping blackface on politicians and claiming it’s satire or “ironic” - Not cool. Totally agree w/ Liza Sabater and many other bloggers who pointed out that, hey, white dude, you don’t get to be the arbiter of what is and isn’t racist. And the more you try to defend your shit with “It’s satire!” the more of an ass you sound like - especially when you go on to tell a woman of color not to “assail [her] betters.” I remember how shocked I was with T-Rex’s behavior when all this went down. Big ol’ FAIL stamp, except, sadly, I didn’t have one of those two years ago.

New Yorker cover - I feel the opposite of above, although I do understand and appreciate the same sentiment at work. I think it is a good example of actual satire; and after all, this is the New Yorker, not the New York Post. Overall, I lean toward Jon Stewart’s “It’s just a fucking cartoon!” but I want to be very very careful about that, because I don’t think “It’s just _____” is or should be a justification for anything. Just look at this, for a particularly timely and unfortunate example. Also, it’s the same kind of rhetoric assholes of various Republicanish-leaning stripes use against progressives, especially feminists: the old “no sense of humor” trope. Hi, here’s a thought: maybe it’s not that we don’t have a sense of humor, maybe it’s that your jokes aren’t funny.

The stripper cartoon referenced in the above graf - I don’t think it’s racist. I’m trying to just chill out and appreciate where/how some other folks whom I respect do think that, but I admit to feeling a little exasperated with it. But, I don’t think I have to say there’s about a million things wrong with that cartoon anyway. I just wonder why the focus has to shift away from the obvious central message, which is that strippers are too stupid and deluded to make their own decisions and it doesn’t matter what they think anyway.

Toby Keith lyrics (not satire) - This hadn’t even been on my radar; let’s just say I’ve had more pressing things to deal with. Then I saw Griftdrift had a post about it. I didn’t read the Huffington Post article because I didn’t care enough; I did go read the lyrics to the song out of curiosity, though. At Manuel’s I was telling Griftdrift that I can see how you could interpret the lyrics as being about racist lynching, and he started to get all up in my face about it (right after I’d told that story about the guy on the plane who could’ve been in first class but ended up in jail, with his name on the no-fly list!) but I kept talking so I could finish my sentence, which was something like, “But it’s pretty flimsy.” I definitely agree about self-identified progressives having preconceived notions about the South, and being big fat fucking hypocrites. Anyway, about the song, mostly I don’t care. It’s Toby Keith for fuck’s sake.

Cliff Bostock’s column about political correctness and a 1967 essay that uses the N-word - I agree with Cliff’s main point that flying off the handle about any usage of the N-word without considering context is a bit much. I think there are some good points to be made here, but he weakens his entire argument by resorting to the “lack a sense of humor” thing. Come on, Cliff, you can do better than that. Why go for the low-hanging (not to mention totally irrelevant) fruit?

John Kerry says “tar baby” (and Tony Snow said it a while back, too; also not satire) - Not racist. Sorry, sticking to that one (oh, ha!). I get that the term “tar baby” has also been used as a racial slur. But that’s not the case here. Here’s what it actually means. And I hate that saying this lumps me in with people like Daily Kos denizens (or Firedoglake!), but there you go.

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Consider this yet another attempt at writing as if no one is reading. I’m nervous about hitting Publish, but I might as well get some practice in. And besides, as Joseph reminded me via email today (thanks, Joseph!) it’s not like I haven’t dealt with a whole hell of a lot of shit on my blog already.

*sigh* Oh well.

1) On racism

Racist is an adjective, not a noun. A person is not “a racist” or not; but certain actions or words are racist. I agree w/ Courtney:

I’ve long felt like calling people “racist” was the most pointless shit ever. It allows those who are doing the labeling to pretend they’re not–even though we’re all socialized in a racist society, and therefore, a little bit racist (in the words of Avenue Q). And it allows those who are the people being labeled to grow irate and not have a real conversation about race.

2) On “feminist acts”

You can’t determine whether something is “a feminist act” based simply on the act itself. The act alone gives you no basis on which to make such a determination, because you are lacking contextual information. It’s pointless to argue over whether [X] is a feminist act; what makes it a feminist act or not is all the other stuff around it - motivation, context, etc. But, I’m repeating myself.

More quoting. I’ll have a real post shortly.

This is from The Angry Black Woman - which, btw, is an excellent blog I highly recommend to everybody.

What does not affect you personally often will not impact on your consciousness unless you’ve trained yourself to see and understand.

Therefore, the next time you feel yourself declaring something “not racist” or “not sexist” or “not offensive”, think about whether you feel that way because you’re not the one on the receiving end of racist, sexist, or offensive behavior/words/actions/images.

Via Sassywho.

From Ilyka Damen, on what happens when white folks start trying to step outside of white privilege and acknowledge the way it can color (no pun intended) the way we see things:

After awhile, you’ll start to notice you’re seeing things you never saw before, perhaps couldn’t see before. Things that made no sense to you even just a few months back, suddenly make too much sense. Where before you saw legitimate complaints against OVERSENSITIVITY and PARANOIA and JEALOUSY and PETTY DIVISIVENESS, you now see an order and a method. But the order is all out of whack and the method is brutal and graceless. The order constrains what you would see free, and the method is only used to punish whatever, or whoever, threatens the order.

Things look different, and things don’t always look so good. Your White Lens is shrinking. It isn’t filtering your vision as well as it used to. Instead of seeing everything bathed in a pale rosy glow, you see more individual colors. You see more light, too, but the light reveals much that disturbs you.

Some days you about claw your own eyes out trying to put that lens back on. Like a relationship you know is no good for you that you nonetheless return to occasionally for familiarity, for comfort, or for sex, so is that lens. But you can’t revive that dead relationship and you can’t seem to make that lens grow back to its original size, either.

Spoiled now is the way you used to see things. A lot of pleasant reading has turned coarse and awkward. Where before you would read:

I think what is most amazing to me is that this doesn’t take place in some tent in the middle of the desert or a stone hut. These people are not dressed in tribal garb — they are wearing jeans and t-shirts and the whole thing takes place in a street in what appears to be a modern town.

–and say, “Yes, how odd that is!”, now you’re aghast. You wish you could find another interpretation for this besides, “I wouldn’t be shocked by such brutal behavior from primitive savages. But from modern, Westernized people? Bizarre!”

And you know that it is anything but bizarre, and you know the author knows it too, and you know that is not what she meant, so now you worry. You worry that maybe you, too, are becoming oversensitive. And is it really important? People are dying. You should fight the real enemy. Don’t be petty. Don’t get so hung up over mere language. They’re just words! Don’t be divisive. George W. Bush is still President. Focus! Fight the real enemy.

Plenty of real oppression to tackle without you imagining more from people who mean well. Let it go.

But you will remain uneasy. You will have been reading different points of view than you once did, and you will notice something ugly the purveyors of these viewpoints have in common: They will all, at some point, or maybe often, maybe even daily, have been told to shut up and fight the real enemy. They will have been told this by people who have hurt them, even as those same people swear they mean well.

Because of this, the people you are newly reading will sometimes make the same decision you just did, the decision to let it go; but they will not always make it for the same reasons you did. Sometimes that decision will be made to stave off an inner exhaustion you don’t have. Other times it will be made in a heartache you don’t know, and still other times in a rage you can’t imagine.

No, you will not know what any of this could possibly be like. You will only know that you hate to see it.

The same holds true, too, for men who decide to acknowledge male privilege and start to look at things and situations with a critical eye.

One thing I would like to mention is that a type of defensiveness is a natural part of this process of coming to an understanding (for most folks, in my experience). If we’re all patient with each other, as long we’re willing to actively listen, learn, and grow, then the results will be profoundly positive.

Side note: Some of you might think it’s odd that I’m posting this and nodding my vehement agreement after the way I apparently have “defended” Jessica Valenti. Eh, too bad, so sad. Acknowledging white privilege and systemic oppression on various levels and for various reasons doesn’t mean everyone falls lock-step with identical views. (Not for white folks, and not for POC, either; to suggest otherwise would be offensive and reductive to all.) I stand by everything I wrote about the FFF fiasco; I believe all of it and will say it again and again if challenged. My posting of Ilyka’s words was not motivated by this specific situation, but by trends and patterns of behavior I’ve come to recognize during my 5+ years blogging - and, not to mention offline interaction. Ye gods.