Category: ‘race’

Categories
'race' privilege sociology

What the Fuck are we Supposed to dress up as on Halloween?

I feel a little uncomfortable with my last post for a few different reasons.  Not the least of which was a message I received from a really smart friend of mine. He made me realize that my last post really didn’t contain *my* voice. In order to explain what was missing from my analysis of ‘race’ and appropriation, I’d like to talk a little about humour.

I have a lot to say about humour. In fact, I’ve said many times that a good comedian is a good sociologist; they are able to direct our attention to the absurdities of the taken-for-granted social world, and reframe in hilarious and relatable ways what we typically think of as mundane. An excellent comedian, in my opinion, is able to do this, while revealing something insightful politically. That is the sociologist in me, who believes that if you’re going to represent the taken-for-granted world, you should have something to say about it, and whatever you have to say should be a critique of the status quo and lend support to those who hold less political power.  I know, hilarious, right?

This whole issue was highlighted about two years ago when Daniel Tosh made a rape joke at his show. He was rightfully criticized by feminists, and good humans in general. The ‘feminist consensus’ (haha… that’s like the most oxymoronical oxymoron ever) around rape jokes at the time is that ‘rape is never funny’, so don’t joke about rape. I was always uncomfortable with this rigid, and quite frankly uncritical stance. And as it turns out, so were other feminists.  Perhaps some rape based jokes are funny, especially those that that are constructed in a way that challenge the rapist, and do not occur at the expense of (potential) rape victims.  For example, Jessie Kahnweiler’s “Meet my Rapist” is powerful example of a rape victim using humour and irreverence to challenge rape culture.  This is a great use of humour.

In response to my last post, my friend also suggested that Halloween is not just about mischief and mockery, but for many others, it is about “wit and satire”. And the dude is right. The notion that ‘rape is never funny’, so all rape jokes are wrong, is just a facile, and logically flawed as saying that ‘racism is wrong’, so all costumes that implicate ‘race’ are wrong.   Both are logical fallacies, especially when we think about how ‘race’ based costumes, like rape jokes can be done responsibly.

The formula is simple: At whose expense is the joke being made? Are we being encouraged to laugh at those who already encounter societal oppression (rape victims, women, or racialized people) or those who currently benefit from the oppression (rapists, racism, white privilege or rape culture)? In being encouraged to see the absurdity of privilege, the status quo is challenged, and therefore your joke or costume is progressive. Although I’m quite positive that it is not that simple.

For example, as my friend suggests, what about a white person using their body to depict “Paula Deen in Blackface?” Who would we be laughing at here? Clearly the intention would be a humourous critique of Paula Deen’s own brand of Showboatesque racism. That said, the effectiveness of irony and irreverence has just as much to do with the sophistication of the audience’s politics and awareness as it does the producer. Satirical humour requires and active audience to make sense of the performer’s intention. So, context would be important to consider.

Categories
'race' General privilege sociology

Memoirs of a (White Girl who dressed up as a) Geisha

White people like this time of year. We pick apples, wear sweaters and according to my facebook newsfeed, we visit pumpkin patches. For the most part, we are pretty happy.

That said, it is precisely this time of year that we are also likely to fuck up. Halloween, as many critical Internet dwellers have pointed out is a holiday associated with racism in the form of cultural appropriation and misrepresentation. There are plenty of photos available through social media depicting white folks dressed up a Mexican people, Arab people, Asian people and Black people. And there is so much evidence that this issue is not disappearing.

But, there are lots of whitesplainers  (like those quoted near the end of  this post) that are happy to smugly defend the practice of turning the racialized Other’s culture into a costume by reassuring those affected by the phenomenon that they are ‘taking themselves so seriously’, while others pull the “reverse racism” card arguing that it is actually racist to prevent white people from appropriating the cultural symbols of the ‘Other’, just because they’re white. I think that is definitely my favourite rebuttal. Yes, the implication is that resistance to colonialism is actually “reverse racism”. It takes a keen social scientific mind to spot that historical blind spot. Quick, some add “reverse racist” to Ghandi’s Wikipedia page.

To be clear, I think that it is irresponsible to dress up like someone from another culture. It is disrespectful, racist, and completely irreverent (and not irreverent in a funny way).  In fact, I feel pretty passionate about the whole thing. Whenever I teach in the fall semester, I like to discuss this issue, and assign an exercise where my students are encouraged to notice and critique racist (and sexist) elements of Halloween costumes.

But, despite my current politics regarding the matter, I have a confession; in 2003 my friend and I dressed up as Geishas. I had just finished reading Arthur Golden’s 1997 book, “Memoirs of a Geisha”, a book that would be impossible for me to get through today without squirming and cringing with feminist anti-imperial angst. But, at the time I liked the book, and my friend and I felt that the costume was appropriate, and perhaps even a little feminist.  Of course looking back, it was anything but.

Over the past few years, I have been actively trying to forget the whole thing, but this brand of lifecourse cognitive dissonance is persistent and embarrassing.  So, it is clearly something that has to be resolved. But, how does one repent for their imperial gaze? First off, whitesplainations are out of the question, because they are riddled with privilege, the denial of racism and colour blind racism. I’m also not going to simply apologize, because that isn’t productive or sincere either. Just ask Paula Deen.

I think that the best way to approach a mistake like this (and maybe ‘mistake’ isn’t the right word, as it sound too innocuous in the situation) is to recognize why I felt entitled to use (incorrectly) elements of other people’s culture, which I honestly knew nothing about (except for the ‘information’ I gleaned from some fictional account produced by some white dude).  It was my white privilege that uncritically drew me towards a “memoir” of a fictionalized Japanese woman written by an American male in the first place. It was my fascination with the culture of the Other that lead me to mimic rather than actually learn about Japanese culture and Japanese women. It was my white privilege that allowed me to go several years (which were spent in Masters and PhD programs… In Soci-fucking-ology) without thinking about my own role in cultural appropriation, and the exoticization of Asian women.

I have read about the problematics associated with identifying as an ally. For a long time, I felt that it was acceptable for a non-racialized person to call themselves an ally. I now see that this is indeed problematic. Especially considering that for quite a few of those years after 2003, I would not have hesitated to identify as an ally in terms of ‘race’ relations. And, obviously, I was not an ally, I was actively participating in the imperial gaze like a big jerk.

Categories
'race' education perspectives

The N-word in the classroom: Two different perspectives

A few months ago I was involved in an interesting discussion with two other instructors. I am a white female sociologist, and was talking to another sociologist who is of Indian descent, and a white female historian. We all broach the topic of ‘race’ in our classrooms. So, we started to talk about the ‘N-word’. I, as well as the other sociologist involved in the conversation took it for granted that we don’t use that word in the classroom, especially considering that neither of us, or our ancestors were targeted by that word. But, then the historian shocked us.

She told us that when reading primary historical documents which contain the word, that omitting it or changing it would be revisionist, which from my understanding of serious historians is problematic. She went on to tell us that she wanted to get her students to experience the shock, and visceral effect of the term. She actually made the argument that not using the term was actually ineffective pedagogy.

This really highlighted how complex this issue is. All three of us would describe ourselves as anti-racist feminists, and we share very similar politics.  But, in sociological discourse the use of this term in the classroom, at least by a person who is not Black would be considered to be troubling. I suppose that this is one of the differences between historians and sociologists. We both have theoretical justifications for how we treat this powerful symbol, and I don’t think either of us are necessarily wrong.

Imma shutup about teaching for today.

Categories
'race' education perspectives privilege sociology

Teaching: Privilege and the Denial of Oppression

Whenever I teach intro sociology, I (for better or worse) always hit my students with the most controversial chapters in the first 3 weeks: ‘race’ and racism, gender and sexism, and social inequality. Bam! I do this for many political and pedagogical reasons which I won’t go into here.  But, the effect of this is usually pretty intense. My students tend to experience anger. This anger is either directed at their culture, but often times it is directed at me. I am, after all pointing out the flaws in their culture, showing them that it isn’t always fair, and despite our best efforts, hard work does not guarantee us success. This is a lot to handle. People like to see their social context as fair and just. So, I come up against a lot of resistance.

Learning, especially in the social sciences necessarily entails a level of discomfort. Only when we become uncomfortable with the frame through which we are accustomed to viewing our world through, will we consider changing that lens. This is one of the main goals in teaching sociology. We want to push our students towards seeing all of the taken for granted disparate power relations that operate in all of our social interactions (both micro and macro), our identities/roles and our social institutions.

I always expect a level of resistance.  But one particular form of it drives me bananas… “white people/men also suffer from discrimination… blah, blah, blah, reverse-racism, blah, blah, blah.” Ugh.

I was discussing the phenomenon of “driving while black” in Toronto where we have a racial profiling issue. This is not an issue simply dreamt up in the minds of bored lefties. Even Bill Fucking Blair acknowledges this issue. Yet, this empirical fact is refuted with statements like “My son is white, and he was pulled over the other day, so yeah.”  Not only is this argument illogical, but it reveals this desperation to ‘fight’ for the privileged group, and refute that the oppressed group is actually oppressed.  It’s about aligning oneself with the valued group.

So, I’ve prepped my lecture notes for next week. This one is about sexism. This particular group (43 women, who are 40+) is outspoken in their advocacy for privileged folks. So, in my discussion of feminism, I actually spend most of my time talking about what it can do *for men* (it can do a lot, btw). This is ridiculously ironic, and actually quite manipulative on my end. It is an attempt to get them to stop advocating for men, when I go on to point out that (white middle class) men have more power in our culture by virtue of their gender.

 I will inevitably, at one point this semester hear that “women rape men too” in an effort to degender a discussion of rape and rape culture. But, hopefully I’ll come up with a similar strategy.  

 

Categories
'race' post-feminist problems privilege

Does this Outfit make me Look Racist?

I’m a white lady, and sometimes I find myself engaged in friendly chit -chat with other white folks, who I don’t know. This happens in such places as the mechanic’s, grocery stores, bars, and most often, in my experience, the gym. In fact, I find myself talking to women working out next to me on the elliptical machines more often than I’d like. It’s actually very physically uncomfortable to maintain eye contact without hurting your neck, so I rarely initiate these conversations, but because I’m such a well-socialized girl, I will always willingly go along when I am invited into conversation. Frequent topics include such things as husbands, careers, grown sons that they would like to set me up with, and chores. But sometimes the conversation takes a turn towards the racist.

As other white people (or people who are perceived as white) might relate, there is an assumption that because I am white I am also racist or at least ok with it.  Today at the gym, I was talking to this other white lady, a teacher, who started making several comments about her students, attributing (what she saw as) their shortcomings to their ethnicity. “You know how those people are. They have no respect for women.”

Ugh. Right, because white dudes are always so respectful. Despite how clearly racist this shit is, I also know that fellow white lady probably doesn’t see it that way. In fact, I think it is fair to say that she might see herself in socially progressive or feminist terms. Because we live in a society that largely sees itself as “postrace”, it is often hard to identify the hateful things we say as racist.

I always find these encounters to be so awkward. My first instinct is to be like, “back off. I’m a Sociologist!” and tell them loudly that they are racist, and under no circumstances will I tolerate it.  Actually, no that’s a lie. I wish that were my first instinct. What I really want to do is offer a subtle critique of ‘white’ western culture, or change the topic altogether (perhaps like a successfully socialized –feminine- girl). This is what always happens.  I know that this is not the behaviour of an ally.   At the same time that I know this, I also know that a quick Sociology lesson will do very little to change attitudes. I know that I have to develop other strategies in these situations.

 

But, for the time being, I’d like to encourage other white people to see ‘not racist’ as the norm, and racist as the exception, because I don’t like having to deal with it. I know that this is certainly not the case, but… fake it till you make it.

 

So, if you don’t know, now you know.

 

I honestly can’t stop quoting 90s rappers today.  I’ve already worked in a “don’t hate the player, hate the game” today.

 

I should also mention that this post is totally saturated with white privilege. Yes, I am a white girl who is complaining that racism makes me feel awkward while I do cardio. Yes, that is a very privileged complaint. Racism doesn’t deny me opportunities, present economic barriers, make me more vulnerable to law enforcement, or make me feel unsafe. I realize this.