Very seriously and with all due respect you with the face I am not going to expend too much additional effort.
John made a statement about how he was treated as gaijin in Japan. You then stated that the reason he was not very offended by people leaving baths when he entered is because of what you know is the confidence he has from White privilege.
You are correct that I am not John, but if you said anything like that to me about any thing I have posted about specific actions I have taken I would find it presumptuous. Not wildly inappropriate but no you do not know what is in my head or why it is there. As sympathetic as I am to the accumulated impact of thousands of pebbles and to why statements that seem innocent to me may cause offense to others that I am unaware of (and why I should thus try to consciously modify my behavior accordingly), such a presumption is offensive. I find that offensive, to be an aggressive act.
Now stop and objectively hold your response in progress to that statement and look at it. Think about how you want others to respond to your complaints about being offended when they don’t get why what they said is offensive. Like at all.
You, correctly I believe, are asking others to be sensitive to what offends you whether they get why it offends you or not. And you seem to be saying that you are under no obligation to demonstrate any sensitivity to what offends others unless it makes sense to you that they are.
If that does not sense to you then we are better off just not continuing this part of the discussion further.
Count me in as another person who thinks you’re distorting what ywtf said to score points.
She’s making an observation that’s is in no way controversial: people’s reactions to a certain stimulus are highly dependent on what has preceded that stimulus.
If white male poster after white male poster posts “I don’t get why X is offensive” and everyone else patiently explains why X bothers them so much, we can draw a reasonable inference: That being a person’s identity is related to their perception of X.
Now why would this be? Is it that whiteness and/or maleness just make a person less sensitive to certain lines of questioning? Well, no, as evidenced by grude and others. Could it be that whiteness and/or maleness possibly confer a certain degree of protectiveness, at least in the context of American society, such that something that may otherwise be annoying isn’t perceived that way because it is offset by something else–like lack of insecurity or self-consciousness associated with being a member of the dominant class? Certainly! This is a very reasonable explanation. The first hypothesis–that white male Dopers just happen to be especially stoic and level-headed–is not a very reasonable explanation based on available data.
Reams of psychological and social science research support you with the face’s argument. If you want me to point you to some literature sources, I can do that but it will have to wait till I get home.
I will give you one more example of what we are both talking about. I consider myself fairly stoic and level-headed, but I have two sensitive areas where my sense of humor just isn’t inadequate. My intelligence and my work ethic. Someone can poke fun at just about anything else on a normal, non-bad hair day, and I’ll roll with it. But if you imply anything negative about my cognitive abilities or my work ethic, and I’ll get a bit salty.
I’m gonna guess that I’m not unusual in this regard compared to the majority of black professionals. Our competency is ALWAYS being questioned, and we’re constantly bombarded with messages that we just aren’t good enough.
Would you really be surprised to learn that white males aren’t nearly as sensitive about jokes made about their intelligence and work ethic as black people tend to be? If a white guy said, “People make dumb Pollack jokes all the time, and I just laugh!” would you infer from this that this individual is more stoic and level-headed? Or would you think, “Well, a Pollack joke is a lot different than having to be lectured to by the likes of Chief Pedant–a practicing physician–on how black people are intellectually inferior due to genetics, year after year after year.”
I too am curious what is a fair inference of the fact that almost all the “durr, I don’t get it” posts seem to be coming from white guys. If it is only your position that everyone’s feelings or lack of feelings should be respected, I agree. I don’t think anyone is a bad guy just because they lack empathy. But if it is your position that white guys’ lack of empathy should be considered when determining whether something counts as a “microaggression”, well, I don’t agree with this AT ALL. As long as white guys are the dominant bloc, they are always going to be a bit blind–to use ywtf’s word–to stuff. Minorities don’t need buy-in from white guys before labeling something as hurtful.
Huh? The reason you are arguing they don’t get it, is their identity. That’s a classic ad-hom. Though again, based on context, it may not be fallacious.
The actual quote was not ‘blindness’ but ‘that kind of blindness’. Which you quite carefully did not provide a label for, though you provided plenty of description to allow anyone to figure out.
I’m afraid the irony is all on your side - the “what, me offend?” is exactly what you are claiming to be against!
Not, as I hasten to point out, that I find anything you said offensive, myself. I am merely attacking your debate as being unpersuasive.
What should be clear is that I’m making a general statement. Where did I did say anything about him not being offended by people leaving baths? That shows up no where in anything I’ve written. I said the experience of being interrogated about his origins–which is the microaggression we’re talking about–will affect him differently because of him being accustomed to being a member of the dominant group.
I don’t know how any of this is my responsibility. Not only are you offended by a comment that wasn’t even about you or directed to you, but you’ve misconstrued it to justify your complaint about it. Even going so far to accuse me of talking about actions that are actually macroaggressions–like leaving a frickin’ bath. I can’t take any if this seriously.
In this situation, I think your reaction is your own to deal with primarily because you’ve attributed to me things I haven’t said. Like, what am I supposed to do with that shit? Apologize? That ain’t going to happen. Believe it or not, simply saying something is a “microaggression” doesn’t make it so. It doesn’t mean we’re required to take your offense seriously either.
If me simply speaking the truth about white privilege is a microaggression to you, then I don’t mind being aggressive in that way.
It isn’t an ad hominem, and it’s intelllectually embarrassing to see you insist otherwise.
Consider this position:
“I don’t get why Issue X is a big deal. When it happens to me, a white guy, I just laugh it off. Why doesn’t every one feel this way?”
Consider the following responses:
“You are an idiot.”
“You’re white, that’s why you don’t get.”
“Because you are white and thus a member of the dominant group, when it happens to you, the context is different than when that shit happens to minority. That is why you laugh and others don’t. Rollercoasters are funny too…unless you live on one.”
The first is an ad hominem. The second is borderline, depending on whether white is assumed to be synonymous with being an idiot. The third is not an ad hominem, because the response is not attacking the asserter. It’s explaining why the asserter’s experience differs from others.
You may not think you’re acting offended, but it’s clear you’re frantically searching for something to call offensive. Persist all you want down this road, but it only makes claims about white male stoicism all the more laughable.
I want to give an example of a microaggression that I deal with, as a white American in China, every single day of my life, and it goes like this:
你的中文说的非常好！你是哪里的？
This is Mandarin for, “Your Mandarin is so good! Where are you from?” It seems like a nice question, doesn’t it? Little bit of praise and encouragement. The first couple of times, it was fun - it was fun being the center of attention. Five years on, and I get this quite truthfully every single day, multiple times a day, often after saying nothing more complicated than “hello” or “sixth floor” or “a pack of cigarettes” or something trivial and completely phrasebook.
I know people aren’t doing it to be mean, and I know that they don’t intend to be mean - on the contrary, they are trying to do what they perceive to be a nice thing. But that doesn’t change the fact that when they do it, it hurts my feelings - because it reminds me, constantly, that I am an outsider who does not belong there. It reminds me that despite my best efforts to live my life as a normal person, to go to my job, to keep house, to participate in the community around me in a good way, that I am not and never can be a normal person. It reminds me that however friendly people may be to me, they will always see the world in terms of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ and I will never cross that border, even on the most basic social level. It reminds me that I live at the mercy of forces that I cannot control or predict, that my whole livelihood and property are at the whim of my employers, that the law and government regard me as a problem to be solved or as a means to an end rather than a stakeholder in their community, and that at any moment, depending on the shifting of the political wind, I could be forced to leave my home, my friends, my job, my livelihood, and everything I have built over the past five years and return to America.
It is not a nice thing to be reminded of. Sometimes, I want to lie in bed and think, ‘this is my home.’
They don’t mean to be rude. They don’t mean to be unkind - in fact, they are trying actively to be kind.
But it still brings me down, and I wish that they didn’t do it.
I was going to write a longer post, but basically - they are reminding you (not on purpose, either) of something that is a fact of life. If someone reminds you that you cannot flap your arms and fly - is that a microaggression? If someone reminds you of (you’re a man, right?) that you cannot give birth, is that a microaggression?
I wouldn’t find any of this offensive except the “idiot” one. I can grok “you’re white that’s why you don’t get it” as an explanation.
If you want to become offensive, you’d have to do it like this:
“Because you are white and thus a member of the dominant group, you need to check your privilege. You should experience being silent like marginalized people are silenced and STFU because your ignorance in this matter does not excuse your microaggression in this instance. You just invalidated the experience of everyone in here who doesn’t find themselves unable to just laugh it off.”
Why does Scholar need reminding of something that is patently obvious to him all the time?
If you are an “outsider”, you KNOW it already. You wake up every morning hoping that maybe THIS day, you will feel like you belong.
When someone treats you in a manner that reminds you of your status, you lose this hope. It hurts.
When someone tells me that I “speak so well”, I’m reminded that the default assumption for black people is that they we DON’T speak so well. It makes me think that people are never going to assume I’m just as intelligent, educated, and competent as anyone else. That is a depressing thought.
Just because a person who says “you speak so WELL!” has good intentions doesn’t mean that their words don’t hurt. Most gaffs and faux pas are done out of good intentions.
I really don’t know why people feel compelled to blurt out every thought and opinion. There’s nothing wrong with thinking, “Hey, this white man really knows his Chinese!” But there’s no need to say it out loud. Compliment him in some other way if you want to be nice.
If I was looking up in the sky and flapping my arms, then I would merit being told that I can’t fly, but since I don’t do that, it would be gratuitous and bizarre.
If I was taking lamaze classes and loitering outside obstetricians’ offices, then I would merit being told that I can’t give birth, but since I don’t do that, it would be gratuitous and bizarre.
It’s really as simple as this. Whether it’s warranted or not, doing this hurts my feelings. Assuming that this factor is the only factor that distinguishes one choice from another - assuming it benefits them in no way to pursue this course of action, ie ask me where I’m from - then why shouldn’t I want them not to do it?
I don’t deny the fact that my problems are much smaller than those of others, but the cost of not inflaming them is exactly the same.
Let me give another example. My father, may he enjoy the many sensations of the coldest Naraka for the rest of Kali-yuga, used to call me ‘sweetie’ all the time. I didn’t like it - I felt diminuated, I felt infantilized, and I generally felt bad. I didn’t like being called that. He would often call me that anyway, and plead that he forgot that I didn’t like it, which means that he didn’t really care what I liked to be called.
In the grand scheme of things, this is the smallest possible thing. Oh no, my father calling me an affectionate nickname! How terrible! How agonizing! The copper-slaves of southern Congo weep for me, I’m sure.
But here’s the thing - it genuinely cost him nothing to call me by my actual name (which he gave me, natch), or to ask me what nickname I would like to be called. If it was an imposition to ask him to address me as something other than he did, it was such a microscopic, lilliputian imposition that the only reason to resist it would be a complete disregard for the other person’s esteem.
That’s a microagression. The tininess of the wound it inflicts is matched and superseded by the tininess of the effort required to not inflict that wound.
So, if your father was instead a supervisor or other high up, valuable employee in a massive institution - say a university or a large corporation - an institution that has very deep pockets - would you expect the authorities to give him a stern talking to after you whine to the administration about the microaggression?
Would you expect that a few reports of “microaggressions” would be enough to disqualify him for promotion, letting a lesbian black female who has far less qualifications take the spot instead? (I’m giving the example as “lesbian black female” not to say there is anything against that particular combination, but that that particular combination of traits counts “triple” for diversity statistics)
He doesn’t need it. I don’t need reminding that I am a male. But when I ask someone where the bathroom is and they point to the “Males” door, they remind me I’m a male. Inadvertently. It would be kinda silly to wish they wouldn’t.
He is a non-Chinese speaking the language (apparently well). That’s an OBVIOUS curiosity to people. Acting hurt because of that is kinda silly.
He knows he won’t.
There is a difference. They are “complimenting” you for speaking your native tongue. They are complimenting Scholar Beardpig for speaking a non-native tongue.
Sure. But they still will. It’s not going to stop. You’re not going to educate a billion+ Chinese that someone obviously non-Chinese speaking their language belongs in their society. And you getting hurt from that is only detrimental to you. So don’t.
But you’re a white guy speaking Mandarin well. That may be (and probably is) as amazing and curious and anomalous - to them - as you trying to fly or insisting that as a man you can give birth.
Don’t you think that you thinking that it is “gratuitous and bizarre” of them to express that is a “microaggression” toward them? An unexpressed one
You’re going to have a tough time educating 150 million caucasians that the savages* they brought over in chains, forced to perform farm labor for centuries, then discriminated against on a systematic level for another century after officially freeing them, a group of people who statistically get caught for far more murders and crimes than caucasians…deserve to be treated exactly the same.
Just saying. It’s taking a while to convert everyone over.
*The tribes the slaves were originally caught from probably meet the plain english definition of “savages”. I’m not saying they aren’t worthy of respect, but that they probably lived with limited technology and limited literacy similar to the American Indians that got exterminated.
If he did it consistently and with documentation, then “ideally” and “sure why not.”
What we have here is a basic failure to care about somebody else’s well-being. Cheddar, if somebody can’t do you the basic courtesy of calling you what you want to be called - and I mean calling you by your name - then what possible excuse can they give other than ‘I don’t give a shit?’ And if they don’t give a shit about something so basic as that, Cheddar, then isn’t that indicative of a larger problem?
That’s just the point - it isn’t amazing. There are four million foreigners in greater Shanghai, and about one-and-a-half of them aren’t east-Asian. Of that 1,500,000,000, about 600,000 of us have an HSK2 or higher, or equivalent fluency - meaning that we can handle basic stuff just fine. It is not a strange thing, and even moreso, belief that it’s a strange thing requires a deliberate refusal to think about us as human beings.
