Contemplating privelage and race = tired

A forum that I visit regularily posted a link to an blog post at http://www.racialicious.com by Kate Harding on Racism Fatigue. That in turn reminded me of an incident I had at work last week.

Backstory: My office has issues. Folks are WADING through what Kate calls the luxury of not seeing the subtle shit. lt has caused problems in the past, and it will in the future. And of course, I am — to quote the the communications department when I inquired about their public consultation inclusion processes — “squeaky”. An incident occurred in front of ALL my co-workers with two supervisors present. I took a few hours and then went to the committer of the act and confronted them. I then went to EACH office and told my colleagues, behind the safety (for them) of a closed door, that I held them complicit. One of my colleagues, an older white man, raged at me, threw me out of his office, and SLAMMED the door. The whole things was humiliating and horrible and poisonous.

Yes. There is more to the story and I’ve left a lot out. Suffice to say that time has passed and we are collegial again.

Fast forward to last week: My supervisor leaves a HUGE bag of red licorice on a bookcase outside my office. Folks come by and snack. This man keeps returning to the bag. Again and again and again. I made a comment about grabbing a handful. I was being friendly. He was too. He perched himself on the edge of my desk and we chatted about the licorice. How much there was, how people kept returning, etc. He made a comment that red licorice wasn’t licorice but candy. I commented back that I loved it and that I hated black licorice.

He looked me square in the eye.

How could I say that he inquired. Did I not have any “loyalty”?

He was serious.

I know I seriously cut my eyes at him and declared that I was not having a conversation with him about it. I was was plain and simple. And I really was not prepared to take this man on. My day was challenging me on too many other fronts. I sat silent. There was air between us for several hour-long seconds. At which point a penny (probably not THE penny) dropped and he asked wide-eyed whether he had just gotten himself in trouble again.

He was serious. Seriously.

This was on my mind as I read Kate’s article today. I hadn’t thought about Peggy McIntosh’s piece on white privilege, Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack for quite sometime. The link supplied didn’t work and I went hunting. I found a link to what is likely the same or similar version.

Reading it again I was reminded of something that happened yesterday:

I people watch a lot. I wonder where people are going. Who loves them. What kind of music is on their iPod. Whether they have dishes in their sink. What are they hiding. What are they willing to reveal or to display. I look at people and I think about what I am “supposed” to think about them. Like young Asian women. Or tall brawny men. Or people who displace others so their walker/stroller, wheelchair can be accommodated. Or people who are speaking to each other in another language.

A man got on the bus. He snuck on through the back doors. He was dressed in dirty, need of repair clothing. He stunk of body and … homelessness. He was drinking out of a bottle wrapped in paper. He was intoxicated. He had a HUGE smile. He got up to give the elderly white woman who had struggled through the standing crowd to the back a seat – which she seemed both horrified and grateful for. She tried not to touch him. the bus was crowded. He appeared to be native.

I observed this and people watched him as I do others. A thought strayed through my mind:

the embodiment of socialized racist stereotypes

It wasn’t a judgement or even a comment. It was on the heels of my thinking about what I was supposed to think and assume about him, and about what others might be thinking about him. It was a commentary on the answers to those questions. I had a SERIOUS moment of checking myself around what I was seeing and why I was having my response. I can hear you yelling now: class! internalized predjudice! ETC.

I got his attention as I passed to get off the bus. “Your food looks like it is falling.” He looked at me and checked his pockets with alarm. “Thanks. That’s my dinner. I don’t have money for anymore pizza.” I smiled and nodded. He smiled back. It was a pretty human moment. And I could FEEL the eyes around me declaring that I had fucked up their blindness by recognizing him and not heaping similar scorn or disdain.

It’s been on my mind ever since. Trying to unpack my actions and thoughts and the people around me leaves me foggy feeling and tired. I can’t get the clarity I feel is almost within my grasp. That’s not always the case though.

The incident reminded me of numerous loooong conversations/debates/arguments I have had with a former partner of mine about the native foster children she takes in. About the odd comment from a current intimate about her former partner (who is native) and her family which I have been feeble in addressing. Comments and statements and stories which have “they are like…” attached. People who are socially minded with lefty politics. And white.

Human beings, generally, are hierarchal and will do what they can to climb over the other lobsters in the pot or to be picked last when the choice of being seen is bad. And we can be awfully petty about it sometimes too. Woman on woman. Brown on brown. Who gets the funding for the wheelchair lift. We all have a patch of privilege and status that we stand on or clutch to our being.

It can be hard to see that there are also briars in our shoes if the thing that is in focus is the stone. And once that stone is removed, the ghosting of its former presence can still occupy us into not addressing the rest of the issues. Or being too tired to really think clearly about all the kinds of pain we feel.

I find the intersections hard. And I know that my knowledge and ability to be articulate is beyond fledgling but intermediate at best in an advanced world. I get tired of speaking up about what I know or think I know. I get tired sometimes of the search for and understanding the intersections.

But, thank gawd, it eventually passes. Except for when it doesn’t.