This really frees up your weekends?
The thing about Sherpas is, they’re also *necessary *- white people can’t climb Everest without them. So then question is, do you want people to climb that mountain?
When white people want to climb Everest, do they ask random Nepalese acquaintances to take them up? Or do they hire professionals?
When white people want to climb Everest, do they wait until they get to the foot of the mountain before searching for information about it? Or do they read as much as they can before they even committing to the journey? None of us would take a prospective climber seriously if they admitted to not even doing the most basic of online research. To not even google “what to do when preparing to climb Everest” would mark someone as remarkably lacking in resourcefulness.
So then tell me, how would you respond if a person like this then lamented “How can you climb Mt. Everest when you are ignorant of how to do it?”
Yup. This is something I’ve had to learn in the past several years. My community doesn’t have a huge number of black professionals, and those that are out there are getting asked constantly to weigh in on matters of racial equity and are asked to join nonprofit boards and so on.
These requests come from a pretty good place: white people looking at their organizations see that they’re pretty monochromatic and know that they need to diversify and get voices from people of color in the organizations.
But what ends up happening is that the people they’re asking are a pretty small community, and they get inundated with those requests. They’re being asked for far more unpaid labor than the white board members are asked for.
Something similar happens in schools. When you have one black teacher on a staff of 30 teachers, well-intentioned white teachers can go to them all the time to help brainstorm solutions to tricky situations involving equity. It adds a huge workload to that black teacher.
Part of the solution is for the individual white teacher to take on that workload by doing research first. Part of the solution is for white teachers to work on equity without requiring black teachers to participate, using book-club formats or the like, and paying for the books.
ambivalid, it sounds like you consider the “In your opinion” part of your question really significant. Is that true? Is it also possible that Mark didn’t think that was a particularly significant part of your question?
All right then.
But what you wrote wasn’t that you thought Cecil might be silenced around white people because of previous exposure to prejudice from white people. What you wrote was:
which read to me as if you meant ‘this isn’t a response to racism, there isn’t any racism involved; it’s just utterly natural for people to only want to talk around others who are members of their own social group.’
And I read it that way at least in part because I’ve run into other (white) people who were making explicitly that argument: that segregation exists/existed not because of racism on the part of white people, but only because black people preferred to live solely around other black people.
(And, while I do see segregation by age and gender, I also see plenty of groups mixed by age and gender – and even by “race” – in which nobody is silenced. If I knew a woman who was lively and talkative routinely when around other women, but who shut up entirely the moment any man came into the room, I wouldn’t think ‘oh, that’s only human.’ I would think ‘there’s something seriously wrong’.)
I once had a white coworker laugh at me when he overheard me talking to a black coworker in AAVE. Like, he actually pointed and laughed at me. Because it was early in the morning and I wasn’t in the mood, I told him to leave me the fuck alone. He avoided me for a whole month.
It was wonderful.
That wasn’t the “it” in my sentence, as you’re well aware.
They could, though. But it would involve a lot more suffering on the part of those White people. So they’ve never even tried.
I would think many of the same issues discussed here wrt to racism would have similarities with abelism. I would assume there are struggles with employment, issues in the workplace, housing, the way you’re treated, etc. As not many people have friends with similar disabilities, he may be approached often for requests on how to deal with handicapped issues. I know Ambivalid has shared some of his experiences in threads here. He engages with the people responding, answers their questions, clarifies misconceptions, etc. As a result, more people understand the situation both for him and in a global sense. If instead he responded “Google is your friend”, I doubt many people would engage in discussion or do any research. Likely, they’d just click over to another thread and go on with their life. Certainly it’s a person’s right to tell someone they don’t want to engage, but it misses a great opportunity to increase awareness that likely won’t happen otherwise.
Just curious how many times you’ve been asked to share your thoughts and feelings about painful experiences from people you don’t know well and you eagerly obliged them without suspecting their motives.
It is easy to say that members of minority groups should be happy ambassadors when you’ve never had to be anyone’s happy ambassador. So have you ever been someone’s happy ambassador?
There’s a difference between asking someone a question in a thread on a forum called In My Humble Opinion and reaching out to someone on their FB page. I’m sure if someone reached out to Ambi through his Insta page and asked him to share his opinions on abelism, Ambi would probably find that strange. But asking Ambi to share his thoughts about abelism in a thread he’s created about abelism wouldn’t be strange, of course. Different internet media have different unspoken rules.
Being a straight, white, able-bodied male, I haven’t had too many struggles that compare. But certainly there are things I complain about in life, relationships, job, etc. If I was complaining in a space where others could respond, I would respond in a way that would help whatever goal I was hoping for when I made my complaint.
Even he didn’t want to be a happy ambassador, there are ways to disengage that aren’t so off-putting. Take this thread as an example. Here we are on page 4 of a discussion about how the response was made rather than talking about the issue of white privilege. That’s the reality of how these things go and how people react. Even if Mark didn’t want to engage, which is fine, he could have done so in a way where Ambivalid didn’t have such a strong negative reaction. Then instead maybe he would have come here to start a thread about ways to combat white privilege and we’d have 4 pages of great ideas of things we all could be doing in our day-to-day lives to make Mark’s life better.
Huh? He wouldn’t have had to do any such thing. Whether to make a thread about how to combat white privilege, or whether to make a thread as he did, was entirely his choice, regardless of what Mark chose.
And this thread has had some ideas about how to combat white privilege. They’ve been dismissed or ignored.
Here’s another link that came across my FB feed today: 10 Books About Race To Read Instead Of Asking A Person Of Color To Explain Things To You. Relevant to our interests :).
Mark isn’t responsible for Ambivalid’s feelings, though. And I think Ambivalid could have done better with framing his question so that Mark wouldn’t have felt like he was being put in a vulnerable position. Like, there wasn’t nothing stopping Ambivalid from sharing his opinions first. He’s a smart guy with some opinions on things. Why not share those opinions and then invite Mark to share his?
And what if Mark had responded to Ambivalid with his honest opinions, and Ambivalid had still come away feeling hurt and frustrated? Would Mark still get a finger wag from you?
The fact that Ambivalid had such a strong negative reaction to something as benign as “Google is your friend” suggests to me that Ambivalid may not be ready to hear what Mark really has to say right now.
I dont think its the ONLY reason but I think people feeling more comfortable around a certain group plays a part. Alot of that is just plain learned behavior such as if you grew up basically only around a certain group of people you might feel more comfortable just around them.
I feel that over time people working and living around each other breaks down barriers.
IME that in itself can come across as tactless, when somebody who benefits from a particular form of structural injustice—and therefore has the privilege of remaining largely ignorant about it—is talking to people who suffer from that structural injustice. The people who have to deal with this shit all the time are expressing their frustration at having to deal with this shit, and one of the people who never has to deal with this shit pipes up “Gosh, folks, I don’t know anything about this, can you explain to me some ways to fix the problem?” I can see how that would be something of a :rolleyes: moment for the people being addressed.
Rachel Jane Liebert on the relation between ignorance and privilege:
Except we are talking about the issue of white privilege. Ambivalid’s hurt feelings and other people’s reactions to them are providing a lot of insight into how this “experience of ignorance” associated with whiteness in a racist society affects us all, and affects our interactions across racial lines.
If Mark instead had just patiently put on his “happy ambassador” hat and told Ambivalid a few truisms about being a good ally, we’d probably never have had this discussion at all. And almost certainly Ambivalid wouldn’t have gained any understanding about the problematic aspects of his question. Sometimes a little candid expression of exasperation supplies more enlightenment, and a clearer view of our own ignorance, than large amounts of patient deferential coddling.
I’ve corrected such notions many times throughout this thread, what’s one more? 
I was never at any point, hurt and frustrated by this exchange with Mark. Perhaps I’ve been frustrated at times here in this thread but that is something completely different. And in what world does “confused” and “wishing to understand” qualify as “strong negative reactions”?
I’m beginning to suspect many commenters in this thread did not read the OP. The post which he had shared provided all the framing to my question that was needed. I absolutely did not just come up to him and ask him to give me “his opinion on racism”. You say I’m such a smart guy then characterize me as asking stupid shit like this? 
No, for the gajillionth time, he shared a post from a black activist group. This post talked about the white supremacist patriarchy and how it thrived off of death and bloodshed and “capitalism” and why it would be a part of this country until it was destroyed. However, it didn’t mention any possible methods, means or ways in which to destroy it. My question seemed a logical follow up to a thought-provoking post he had shared for thousands of people to read and digest.
You’ll forgive folks for being confused, given your OP:
(emphasis added)
That sure sounds to me like someone who was hurt and frustrated, who had a strong negative reaction.
How on or off-point would you say my understanding of the concept of white privilege is (from the OP)? Just your opinion.
And why is it so tempting for people to stray from the reality of my experience and characterize me as “having hurt feelings” or “wanting to be seen as a good white guy” or simply asking for “his opinion on racism” or wanting “deferential coddling”? This wasn’t some conversation between a bunch of black people “expressing their frustration at having to deal with racism”, this was an interesting excerpt on a discussion of the nature of the white supremacist patriarchy which my FB friend had decided needed to be shared to a whole shitload of people decidedly not frustrated with having to deal with this racism or this patriarchy. The discussion in the post ended where one might expect to find it turn to talk of ways of destroying said patriarchy. My brain immediately went there and since he had posted this and wanted others to see it, it seemed a straightforward question for me to ask him if he had any opinions of ways of combating said patriarchy. He could have given me as in depth or as quick an answer as he saw appropriate (which he did), it didn’t need to be anything exhaustive.
Ok, I can see how that could be read as a bit of a confusing segment. However, me saying I was stunned and unable to grok what had happened is a description of not understanding, nothing more.
When I was describing the denigration, being taken out of context and especially being labelled “epitome of the white supremacist patriarchy” I was describing an unpleasant experience. But I have been specifically characterized as having “strong negative reactions” to specific lines such as “google is your friend”, which I only had a reaction of confusion as to why he would give such an answer. No negative feelings. The only things to which I had a negative reaction were having my words twisted into things that they weren’t, being called names and having motives of malice attributed to me for doing nothing more that expressing a desire to understand. And the vast majority of these things were done by tangential posters to the conversation Mark and I were having. But he was also mischaracterizing my words too.
But I think I have responded specifically each time when I have pushed back against the hurt feelings comments or negative reactions comments. For those comments were always attributed to Mark just telling me “google is my friend” or other curt, tight-lipped responses to my questions. I never had any reactions that were anything but stunned, unable to grok, confused, or wanting to understand. Certainly having disagreements with what I understood some of the arguments to be (most likely incorrectly at the time) is in no way having a “negative reaction”. That is how dialogue goes, how ideas are formed. I said I disagreed and then gave rather extensive personal reasoning as to why. I’d categorize that as “positive”, if anything. I stand by my previous corrections with the caveat that I did experience frustration at my inability to gain any understanding. Frustration was the most negative reaction I had to my interaction with Mark himself. And that only had to do with my inability to attain any level of understanding as to why I could get no feedback from him on a question I felt was logical and in line with the post he had shared with thousands of others on Facebook.