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radfrac_archive_fullOne of the things I valued most about my relationship with the ex-co-conspirator was that we could talk about our experiences as white people trying to grapple with racism. Our experiences are different-- he is more politically active than I am, he's Jewish and I'm part of the Gentile Auxiliary -- but we trusted each other enough to tell the truth. We could talk about the gap between what we knew and how we acted, and how much we hated our own self-consciousness around racism--the personal failings that felt more shameful than outright wrongs. Because we loved each other, and we loved these moments of honesty, we didn't chicken out and use that information to attack each other, to bolster one temporarily at the other's expense against the fear that maybe we weren't really Good People after all. Those talks were a gift.
I also valued his giant collection of political books. I miss it. In Vancouver, I read his copy of bell hooks' Killing Rage. hooks told me something very useful. I am still grateful that she had the generosity to write it down, because it was something I'd very much wanted to know, and it helped move me forward. She wrote about what she felt when she looked at a white person.
Specifically, she wrote that she felt rage and terror. It will sound odd, but it was a relief to have her say that. I felt like I could begin to know where I stood, to see myself in her context. No one wants to be monstrous; but knowing, I had a place to start from.
* * * * * * * *
You know that alarmingly disproportionate anger/panic white people display when (as somebody other than me first said) we feel the vertigo of suddenly not being at the center? I was thinking how some of that is about narrative. The disruption of the personal narrative -- not the big societal one, but an individual's everyday sense of themselves as heroic, as always right and always wronged. Not just my sense of myself as powerful, or safe, but my sense of myself as essentially good.
That word again, good.
* * * * * * * *
On a lesser narrative note.
It's the semi-recent LJ discussion about cultural appropriation and writing that has made me think about narrative. I don't want to reincarnate the conversation, but I did want to mention the mailbox.
There's a scene in Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye where Philip Marlowe confronts the man who claims to know what happened to Marlowe's, well, pretty much boyfriend, Terry Lennox, who is supposed to have killed himself in Mexico over a murder he didn't commit. Marlowe first proves Lennox is innocent, and then he goes on to "prove" Lennox is also alive.
Lots of interesting stuff there. The apotheosis of the hard-boiled detective novel's focus on speech as assertion of reality. Speech, in fact, as magic, logic as action, "proof" as "truth". Marlowe essentially speaks Lennox back to life, conjures him out of the visitor from Mexico who's come to tell him about Lennox' death. That rabbit-from-a-hat reappearance as a fascinating something or other about ethnicity and transformation. The instability of identity. The question of whether or not Chander knew a damn thing about Mexico.
The mailbox, though. I like that mailbox. Let the mailbox contain the unconscious errata that are brought to writing, out of the habits of hegemony, as it were.
They worry me.
{rf}
I also valued his giant collection of political books. I miss it. In Vancouver, I read his copy of bell hooks' Killing Rage. hooks told me something very useful. I am still grateful that she had the generosity to write it down, because it was something I'd very much wanted to know, and it helped move me forward. She wrote about what she felt when she looked at a white person.
Specifically, she wrote that she felt rage and terror. It will sound odd, but it was a relief to have her say that. I felt like I could begin to know where I stood, to see myself in her context. No one wants to be monstrous; but knowing, I had a place to start from.
* * * * * * * *
You know that alarmingly disproportionate anger/panic white people display when (as somebody other than me first said) we feel the vertigo of suddenly not being at the center? I was thinking how some of that is about narrative. The disruption of the personal narrative -- not the big societal one, but an individual's everyday sense of themselves as heroic, as always right and always wronged. Not just my sense of myself as powerful, or safe, but my sense of myself as essentially good.
That word again, good.
* * * * * * * *
On a lesser narrative note.
It's the semi-recent LJ discussion about cultural appropriation and writing that has made me think about narrative. I don't want to reincarnate the conversation, but I did want to mention the mailbox.
There's a scene in Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye where Philip Marlowe confronts the man who claims to know what happened to Marlowe's, well, pretty much boyfriend, Terry Lennox, who is supposed to have killed himself in Mexico over a murder he didn't commit. Marlowe first proves Lennox is innocent, and then he goes on to "prove" Lennox is also alive.
"I had a letter from Terry.... The mailbox bothers me." I said. "Where he said there was a mailbox on the street under his window and the hotel waiter was going to hold his letter up before he mailed it, so Terry could see that it was mailed.... They wouldn't have one in a place like Otatoclan."
Lots of interesting stuff there. The apotheosis of the hard-boiled detective novel's focus on speech as assertion of reality. Speech, in fact, as magic, logic as action, "proof" as "truth". Marlowe essentially speaks Lennox back to life, conjures him out of the visitor from Mexico who's come to tell him about Lennox' death. That rabbit-from-a-hat reappearance as a fascinating something or other about ethnicity and transformation. The instability of identity. The question of whether or not Chander knew a damn thing about Mexico.
The mailbox, though. I like that mailbox. Let the mailbox contain the unconscious errata that are brought to writing, out of the habits of hegemony, as it were.
They worry me.
{rf}
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brain hurts
Date: 2006-07-22 11:36 am (UTC)I'm currently the new boss of an older First Nations woman who happens to be an amazing woman who has lived an amazing life and at many levels scares the shit out of me. In some ways, it is more comfortable for me to believe that some of the tensions that arise between us are because of her understandable negative reaction to the race privilege that is part of my identity. It can feel a bit less personal and less my fault than the possibility that (white, pink or purple) I am just a shitty and/or incompetant boss and/or worker and she sees it and knows it.
Perhaps even scarier is the inevitable reality that she at the very least getting mildly screwed in this situation because of racism flavoured by classism and that my actions to address this are insuffiently brave or skilled and are guaranteed to never be capable of righting the injustice. Race and class locations do play a substantial part in the criteria by which our value (including cash value) is determined, and these cards are not stacked on her side of the table. I am continually waking up to the realization that I have become numb to this dynamic.
What do privileged expectations of niceness mean for you if you live your life with a huge abuse-and-exploit-me-and-expect-to-get-away-with-it bull's eye on your back that puts you in very real danger if you adheres to the niceness demand? What about expectation that it will be possible for you to put your paid work first when you are a matriarch caring for a community where multiple people are consistently experiencing a life altering crisis and you live with the reality that the timeline for doing this work in your personal life is unforgiving and knowing that you must do the work or be virtually guaranteed that it will go undone? What about the million other things that I am completely blind to when looking at your situation?
All of this could mean that she is very angry at me as someone benefiting from and enforcing this unfair world view. I am scared by how angry I would be and how little compassion I would be able to hold for my oppressor. I am humbled by the power of her will, the skill of her choices and her bravery in this situation.
I am shamed by is the pettiness of the scope of my fears and aspirations and my values that they point to. I value being praised and acknowledged, which means playing by the rules set out by whoever happens to be doing the praising and acknowledging. I am usually not brave in being bad in order to pursue justice. I am rarely taking risks for the justice that I say I believe in. I am shamed at the frustration that I experience. Somebody not being able or willing to fit into the order makes things harder and I want them to be easy.
The unspoken benefit that I am ashamed of is the invaluable opportunity to see glimpses of a different world. I often receive profound teachings when I have the opportunity to interact with the margins. Let's face it. I like First Nations culture and people. Many of the ways of thinking that I watch her living are profoundly healing to my soul. When I realize how insignficant my worries are in comparison with many of those that she faces with such bravery and success, it eases my anxiety about my own worries, gives me perspective and gives me hope. I am ashamed to be healed and to want to be healed by the person whose oppression I benefit from and contribute to. I feel that I should want to be punished by her, as this is what my justice would demand.
Even this realization gives me selfish hope. Perhaps this experience is proving our concept of justice inadequate for the work at hand. Perhaps the healing that I am experiencing will help me find the strength to learn the wisdom of a more life-giving justice that will help me contribute to the type of change that I would like to see in my world. Perhaps I can learn some wisdom in this close dance as the oppressor that will help me be brave and useful and healing in my ongoing dance as the oppressor and when dancing with my oppressors.
Re: brain hurts
Date: 2006-07-23 03:42 pm (UTC)But, YOU WERE STILL UP AT 4:30?!?!?!?!
goodness is in the eye of a needle
Date: 2006-07-27 05:57 pm (UTC)I've always been troubled by the concept of 'goodness'. Maybe coz deep down I feel that no matter how hard I try to attain 'goodness' I can't escape my 'original sin', my inherent badness. I blame my Protestant upbringing. ;)
goodness is in the eye of the beholder/storm/newt
Date: 2006-07-27 07:03 pm (UTC)Sometimes I have a sense of myself as generally Good, with occasional mistakes and weaknesses.
Sometimes I have a sense of myself as essentially Bad, and unable to create anything good in the world.
The more I examine myself and my actions, the more this Goodness and Badness break down. This is both frightening and fascinating. I am left with an almost mechanistic view of myself. I act, and my actions have effects; some are good, some are bad, some are bizarre. I can't really be quantified as good or evil, and I think that is the case for most of us. That is not to dismiss the idea of harmful and unharmful actions, but to say that I really couldn't say which I'd done more of, and that it seems fairly unpredictable, in an average person, which kind of action they're going to perform at any given time.
And of course there is the interpretation of the action and its consequences, and long-term versus short-term consequences, and the whole question of intent and whether it "counts".
I've heard your question before; and, yeah, I'm sure they do and did. I'm sure they were the heroes of their own movies. How could they not be? And all the people who made something like the Holocaust possible, through participation, through acquiesence, through inaction: I'm sure they were too. If they thought about victimization, I'm sure it was mostly in terms of feeling sorry for themselves.
And what do you do about this incredible veering from sanity? I don't know.
I heard an interview on the CBC with Chava Rosenfarb (she's an author and Holocaust survivor). She said, "I don't think people are good or evil. I think they are mostly selfish."
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