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ann_leckieSometimes when I'm trying to explain the idea of privilege and saying or doing racist or sexist things without realizing it, and what might be a good way to respond to accusations that one has done or said something racist or sexist, I use an analogy.
Imagine you're walking down the street swinging your umbrella. And suddenly someone shouts, "Ow, dammit, my eye! Watch where you're swinging that umbrella!"
What's your first reaction? Surprise, maybe, because you didn't think you were swinging that wide, or that anyone was behind you. And the first words out of your mouth would probably be something like, "Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't realize! Are you all right?" Because after all, you didn't actually want to hurt anyone, you feel bad that you did.
So, that analogy? That is not meant to encourage people to cut umbrella-swingers slack. It's meant to demonstrate that in most real-world situations where you hurt someone unintentionally, the generally accepted response is to apologize sincerely for having hurt someone, and in most cases to be a bit more mindful with your umbrella in future. So that, in these other situations when someone is likely to say something like, "but the person who got poked was too meany pants in her complaint!" or "They didn't explain exactly how or why having a sharp metal ferrule jabbed in their eye might have been uncomfortable, how am I to know unless they tell me very politely and in great detail?" or "they should have complained quietly off in a corner so I don't have to feel bad about having hurt them!" you can see how obviously wrong and ridiculous those reactions look. If I poked you in the eye with my umbrella and then told you I might listen to you if you didn't use horrible words that make me uncomfortable, you'd think pretty badly of me. And rightly so.
Now imagine bystanders watching someone poke a person in the eye with their umbrella. The recipient of the umbrella-stab reacting "Ow, dammit, my eye! Watch where you're swinging that!" The umbrella wielder reacting at first indignantly, but then after a bit saying, "Gosh, I'm sorry."
And a few bystanders say, "But the person who got poked should have explained how and why they were hurt! Quietly somewhere in a corner so that umbrella-swinging dude didn't have to feel bad about it in front of us! I mean, sure she was mad, but she really ought to have been mad in a way that didn't hurt his feelings!" Imagine that. I mean, really imagine that.
Imagine being the person on the receiving end of that umbrella, and how you would really feel--not how you imagine you ought to feel (but won't when you actually get your eye jabbed).
That is the point of the analogy.
Honestly, some days I want a hammer and a big metal stamp that says CHECK YOUR PRIVILEGE.
Imagine you're walking down the street swinging your umbrella. And suddenly someone shouts, "Ow, dammit, my eye! Watch where you're swinging that umbrella!"
What's your first reaction? Surprise, maybe, because you didn't think you were swinging that wide, or that anyone was behind you. And the first words out of your mouth would probably be something like, "Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't realize! Are you all right?" Because after all, you didn't actually want to hurt anyone, you feel bad that you did.
So, that analogy? That is not meant to encourage people to cut umbrella-swingers slack. It's meant to demonstrate that in most real-world situations where you hurt someone unintentionally, the generally accepted response is to apologize sincerely for having hurt someone, and in most cases to be a bit more mindful with your umbrella in future. So that, in these other situations when someone is likely to say something like, "but the person who got poked was too meany pants in her complaint!" or "They didn't explain exactly how or why having a sharp metal ferrule jabbed in their eye might have been uncomfortable, how am I to know unless they tell me very politely and in great detail?" or "they should have complained quietly off in a corner so I don't have to feel bad about having hurt them!" you can see how obviously wrong and ridiculous those reactions look. If I poked you in the eye with my umbrella and then told you I might listen to you if you didn't use horrible words that make me uncomfortable, you'd think pretty badly of me. And rightly so.
Now imagine bystanders watching someone poke a person in the eye with their umbrella. The recipient of the umbrella-stab reacting "Ow, dammit, my eye! Watch where you're swinging that!" The umbrella wielder reacting at first indignantly, but then after a bit saying, "Gosh, I'm sorry."
And a few bystanders say, "But the person who got poked should have explained how and why they were hurt! Quietly somewhere in a corner so that umbrella-swinging dude didn't have to feel bad about it in front of us! I mean, sure she was mad, but she really ought to have been mad in a way that didn't hurt his feelings!" Imagine that. I mean, really imagine that.
Imagine being the person on the receiving end of that umbrella, and how you would really feel--not how you imagine you ought to feel (but won't when you actually get your eye jabbed).
That is the point of the analogy.
Honestly, some days I want a hammer and a big metal stamp that says CHECK YOUR PRIVILEGE.
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Date: 2012-03-07 03:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-07 03:13 pm (UTC)I have not yet found a way the umbrella analogy doesn't fit, honestly.
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Date: 2012-03-07 03:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-07 03:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-07 03:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-07 04:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-07 03:44 pm (UTC)Very glad you are running for secretary :)
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Date: 2012-03-07 04:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-07 03:44 pm (UTC)Fortunately or otherwise, I'm not an active member and so I'm merely watching from the non-voter sidelines, but now I can discuss the issue more intelligently.
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Date: 2012-03-07 04:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-07 04:35 pm (UTC)And because he's basically just a superfan who joined SFWA to rub elbows with the real pros, according to his own plan to re-order membership requirements.
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Date: 2012-03-07 05:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-07 04:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-07 05:08 pm (UTC)"I could not possibly have poked you in the eye with my umbrella. I'm not even carrying an umbrella!"
That's a tougher one.
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Date: 2012-03-07 05:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-07 06:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-07 06:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-07 07:58 pm (UTC)Insults and hurt feelings are a more complex matter, especially if hurt people sometimes don't realize they've got umbrellas, too.
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Date: 2012-03-07 08:59 pm (UTC)After the non-metaphorical umbrella jab, most people will take the jabbee's expression of pain at face value. In a lot of cases where someone accidentally causes emotional pain--say, an Emma sort of situation--the same thing happens. The accidental offender immediately regrets having caused that pain, recognizes that it's real.
What's different here, with the cases that need the umbrella analogy spelled out, is not that one sort of pain is realer or more measurable than the other, but that this particular pain is supposed to be invisible to a particular set of people. The umbrella-wielder reacts the way she does not because she doesn't believe the pain is real, but because she resents being made aware of it. The response is very, very rarely on the order of "you don't actually have hurt feelings" but instead "you are wrong to have hurt feelings" with a side order of "you are mean and hurting my feelings by telling me this." And generally not in temperate terms. The message is clear--the jabber's feelings matter. The jabbee's feelings, no matter what they are, do not. This is not a matter of feelings being less definable than physical pain.
Insults and hurt feelings are a more complex matter, especially if hurt people sometimes don't realize they've got umbrellas, too.
We all of us have umbrellas, and likely all have poked someone unintentionally. But let me tell you, non-white people? Are hyper-aware of the ways they might distress or anger white men. And, let me be honest, white women. It's a matter of physical safety. And even when the threat isn't physical, there's always going to be a chorus of "mean mean mean, you hurt the white person's feelings!" I strongly doubt there's a non-white person alive, at least in the United States, who is not very distinctly aware of where her umbrellas are when she's dealing with white people.
It dismays me tremendously to see someone get hurt, say they're hurt, and then have people focus on the pain of the person who is suddenly forced to confront the consequences of their actions, while the actual experience of the injured person is minimized or even erased as indefinite. The person who did the jabbing, it's so understandable they would feel hurt and resentful! Oh, those feelings are real! The person actually jabbed? Oh, they should take the high road and shut up. Because they might hurt someone's feelings!
I won't even start on the topic of just how much more damage a metaphorical umbrella actually does in the hands of white cisgendered straight folks, how non-white, non-straight, non-cisgendered folks walk around constantly fending off umbrellas and no one notices, but let one black woman pick up her umbrella to defend herself, and oh, why is she being so mean?
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Date: 2012-03-09 04:03 am (UTC)Eyes may be well defined, but physical pain is not. In fact, the difficulty of nailing down, defining, and grading physical pain is notorious among people who deal with pain professionally.
Oooh, thank you for mentioning this! People so rarely think about it (I wrote a story on pain representation).
ETA: facedesk, I already left you a similar comment previously. Oh well, it bears repeating.
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Date: 2012-03-07 08:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-08 10:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-08 02:20 pm (UTC)People who do and say racist things aren't just innocently existing when suddenly a POC up and slaps them because they've taken inexplicable offense. The umbrella-wielder is actually taking an action, making speech. Because certain things have been invisible to them all their lives, they think that the umbrella-swinging is just a perfectly natural, reasonable thing to do. Look at everyone else around them, swinging their umbrellas! And no one's ever gotten hurt before. Well, not seriously. Not really. When someone's made noises about being hurt, everyone around the umbrella-holder has been sure to explain just how they have a perfect right to swing, the person in the way is just being mean and unreasonable.
And I'm included here, I'm white, straight, cis. I've got privilege coming out my ears. I don't doubt I swing my own umbrella around on occasion, more often than I'd like to think. There was a time I'd have agreed with the perfume analogy.
But I started paying attention to my own experience with umbrellas. The one privilege I don't have is male privilege. And wow, look at some of the things men say and do towards women. Words and actions that dismiss, erase, marginalize, insult. But it's just an innocent statement, you're being too emotional, it's just a joke!
I started noticing situations where men won't back off, won't keep hands to themselves, are explicitly warned to back the hell off, and when the woman defends herself physically the people around her react with sympathy towards the harassers. "Why did you have to be so mean?" Those guys? Were not just innocently existing, and yet bystanders seemed to think they were. I started noticing the same thing was happening when it was only verbal self-defense.
Those guys may think they were just innocently existing and women who defended themselves were just inexplicably going off for no reason. But they're wrong--they threatened, hurt, insulted. They acted. All their lives that action has been presented to them as "the way men ought to be." They've never had to notice the actual harm, because when someone's tried to make them notice everyone around them has been quick to reassure them that no, it's the person they've hurt who's in the wrong, they go on thinking there's no real harm, that the real problem is anyone asking them to stop going around poking people with umbrellas.
I started noticing that. I couldn't un-notice it. And then I started noticing happening between white people and POC. Being a woman doesn't let me understand what it's like to be black, but I can see some similarities in that transaction. And if, when I'm on the receiving end I can clearly see the dismissal, the erasure, the turning of the situation from "he hurt her" into "she's being mean to him" with no addressing of the original action at all...well, when I find myself facing a POC who's mad at me and I want to say "but I didn't mean it and you're reading too much into it and why are you being so mean to me" suddenly I go, "Oh, shit, this looks familiar, but not in a good way." And then I start looking at what I actually said or did. And maybe I don't see it right away, maybe it takes a while. Maybe in the end I don't think what I said or did was that bad--but I know damn good and well what it's like to say "Ow, my eye!" and have the umbrella-holder turn around and thwack me another one, on purpose this time, for being so mean as to complain, and everyone around say "Yeah, she deserved that for being so mean!"
And you know, I don't want to do that. And in my less cynical moments I believe that most people don't want to do that. But it's hard for me not to be cynical some days, when I see someone knocking people over the head left and right with their umbrella and then insisting they aren't doing anything at all, they're just existing, and all these indignant people around them are just being unreasonable. thwack Can't understand what their problem is! thwack I'm completely innocent! thwack Why are they being so inexplicably mean? thwack thwack thwack
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Date: 2012-03-08 07:35 pm (UTC)Everyone knows what umbrellas can do, and knows you have to be a little careful with them. But perfume wasn't the best example either.
If a person says "Do you have any maroon paint?", she's speaking, that's an action. But to be suddenly yelled at by someone who considers 'maroon' to be some sort of racist slur -- is kind of odd.
Must go, bbl.
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Date: 2012-03-08 07:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-09 02:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-09 04:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-08 08:11 pm (UTC)The instructor at this workshop was not white. And she was flat out offended. It was racist, she said. There was a long history of portraying non-white parents as not really caring for their children, not really capable of loving them, part of a long history of portraying indigenous cultures as a bit sub-human.
At the time I was a bit bewildered. I had never seen anything like that implied about native cultures, and I thought maybe she was reading too much into what was really just a minor characterization problem.
Not long after, I was reading some old nonfiction for research. And sure enough, I ran across many examples of the sort of thing the instructor had mentioned. I started seeing it all over the place. Wow, I thought, of course she was offended. The writer in question, I'm sure--certain!--didn't mean to be racist. But it's entirely possible the writer picked up something from cultural assumptions about the peoples they were using to construct their world. And once I saw that, I understood the instructor's offence.
We're living in a time when black citizens have been repeatedly equated with animals, and sometimes even flat-out called sub-human. White citizens can ignore it, or say it's just figurative or just jokes or whatever and go on about our business, because it doesn't affect our lives. Black citizens? Not so much.
In short, the "canine-american" thing was certainly only meant as a joke, but it happened in a context that renders that joke very unfunny to a lot of people. It's an innocent swing of the umbrella--except, when you stop and realize that there are people behind you getting hit, it stops being so innocent.
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Date: 2012-03-08 08:36 pm (UTC)Well, and then observing the writer's behavior later, it became clear there was a pattern of racist assumptions. So by the time assumption #10 came along, everyone was going, "Wait, what?"
When perhaps the first, second, and third times we'd have been like "could be a coincidence..." by 10, it didn't seem that way.
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Date: 2012-03-09 03:46 pm (UTC)*my buddy google will fix that right up
I'm 4X years old and only learned about privilege about a year ago. Still got a ways to go. I'm amazed that no one's ever called me on an umbrella poke and I bet you a millon bucks I've done some poking in my day.
As a female, I've been poked a fair bit myself, and been subject to the additional hurt of someone saying something like, "Why are you so butt-hurt? Do you hate men?" in response to my objections.
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Date: 2012-03-09 03:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-09 04:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-14 07:11 pm (UTC)--Lyn G.