This feels like the right time to share an
embarrassing story.
My mitigating factors are that it was when things
had just started getting worse with Mom, and I'd had a really horrible week.
Also, about a third of my Twitter time is bolstering up depressed teenagers. I
got online and saw someone talking about erasure, referring to the erasure of
Black contributions to history and culture. Suddenly "Oh L'Amour", by
Erasure, started playing in my head, and it was the first thing that had felt
good that week, so I replied about listening to Erasure, because they gave me a
boost and I wanted to give her a boost.
It came off as very flippant. That wasn't how I
meant it, but I hadn't thought it through. Danceable English pop has an
important place in my memories and emotions, but not everyone shares that. When
your people are being systematically erased, that is big enough that even if
you love the band (and it could be hard to get past the name), it still
wouldn't make the interjection welcome. Finally, that bad attempt to comfort
came not at a time when she was expressing pain but when she was teaching. It
may be tinged with pain, but that doesn't make it okay to derail the lesson.
The saddest part is that I did it already knowing
about this:
I saw it at the time, I understood what Charlize
Theron did wrong without attributing any bad intentions to her, but I still
repeated her mistake.
In Theron's case, beauty is complicated for women
anyway. There are many social and media influences telling you that you must be
attractive and why you aren't and how you need to change. It is easy to be
sensitive to that, and want to be supportive.
I don't know if it gave Viola Davis a boost to be
called hot, but I know it can't make up for years of history and dehumanization
where your gender and color is constantly compared to animals, and has to be
the opposite of feminine so you can work while the "real" (white)
women are protected and put on a pedestal (which does have its own problems),
and where you are assaulted and it can't even be rape because they're too
promiscuous to be raped. And then if you say anything about it you're an
"angry Black woman".
Even if Davis is getting good roles
now, that doesn't change all the years that she didn't. It doesn't change
things for all the other actresses who aren't getting their fair chance. That's
exceptionalism, like President Obama being elected twice. There are wonderful
things about it, but the problem is not resolved. That doesn't get fixed by a
compliment. If the compliment eases the discomfort of the listener, and ends
the conversation, well, when is it going to get fixed?
So, people get upset when the "racist"
label is applied - even when you are identifying an action or something said as
racist, without writing off the person. That's letting feelings derail again.
If something is in fact racist, it is harmful, and therefore a decent person
must be willing to listen to the criticism.
Structural and systemic racism are real, with deep
roots. They also make it easier for personal racist beliefs to persist. A
person can justify thinking of Black people as criminals because that's what
they see on the news without examining how the media reports news or how the
law is enforced, but inequality is a factor.
We had been at a point when it was considered bad
and low-class to be overtly racist, but privately believing it and allowing the
structure to endure was fine. That has brought us back to where overt racism
has become really popular. Of course it did, if people won't openly face the
structure.
Notice how many of these stories focus around Black
women. They face racism and sexism together, combined into what Northeastern
professor Moya Bailey has named "misogynoir". They are all too
familiar with the depth and breadth of the problem. If we support them, we will
be fighting the real ugliness.
Here are some more good posts:
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