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RaceFail II: The Wrath Of Cohen
Let me speak only for myself to start with.
Over the Recent Race Kerfluffle, where it became abundantly clear that, among other things, things are messy, people have been living with pain unrecognized outside of their communities for their whole lives, and people often don't understand each other, one thing that was brought up was the idea of white people trying to claim non-white status, for whatever reason, and in whatever way.
Speaking for myself: I sat on my hands for that. And now am not.
Because it's totally true that I have White Privilege. And I don't want to diminish the challenges that people who don't have that, who ARE visible minorities, face, challenges that I don't face. I don't want to make it all about MEMEMEMEME!, because it's not. And the things I deal with are very different than people whose skin colors, face shapes, or speech patterns are different than the majority in the area that they live.
I have White Privilege, I consciously USE it, even. But I don't feel "white". I feel like "The Other". I just feel like I hide it.
Other Jews have been posting about things that RaceFail made them consider -- I don't think any of these people are saying, "We have the SAME experience as black people, or Asians, or whatever." In the United States, we're not legally discriminated against. Being Jewish doesn't block us from marrying whom we choose, unlike some other "invisible", or semi-visible, minorities. We're not generally blocked from education, or jobs, or public life.
Here are three of the posts of people poking around at how being Jewish interacts with the topics brought up during RaceFail:
http://rosefox.livejournal.com/1452657.html
http://abyssinia4077.livejournal.com/274444.html
http://fjm.livejournal.com/728228.html
And yet . . . we don't take our lack-of-significant-oppressedness for granted.
These past fifty years or so, in the United States, have been good. Like under Alexander, some of the times under the Roman Empire, a fair portion of the Caliphate.
But I think many of us consider this to be just part of the way the world goes. Right now is good. That doesn't mean that things will always be good. Hamas or other anti-Zionist organizations will, eventually, get enough friends that people will decide that the Jews don't have any right to Israel -- after all, the Jews killed the Canaanites to get the land, the Canaanites are the Phoenicians, and the Phoenicians are the Palestinians, so they get the right to the land, and the Jews should be kicked out. And, when that happens, the worldwide backlash will include more violence against Jews, and that may well happen within my lifetime, which is one of the reasons my wife and I can shoot, do everything we can to maintain friendly relationships with our neighbors, and think about having skills that are portable in case we have to run.
Because we have White Privilege. But privileges can be granted, and can be revoked. And history is NOT a smooth march toward equality. There are better times, and worse times. Worse times will come, and those who have ANY mark of difference must be prepared for them, even if "worse times" are not NOW.
Who is white? In the United States, right now, Jews, Irish, Italians, and Poles are all white.
But Italians are not white in North Linconshire in England right now. Their "whiteness" was revoked. "British jobs for British workers".
I've got people on my friendslist who can testify to just how tenuous the Irish hold on "whiteness" is in England.
I'm white. Right now. But I'm deeply aware that that could change with really no more than a few months' warning. And that affects how I look at the world.
Over the Recent Race Kerfluffle, where it became abundantly clear that, among other things, things are messy, people have been living with pain unrecognized outside of their communities for their whole lives, and people often don't understand each other, one thing that was brought up was the idea of white people trying to claim non-white status, for whatever reason, and in whatever way.
Speaking for myself: I sat on my hands for that. And now am not.
Because it's totally true that I have White Privilege. And I don't want to diminish the challenges that people who don't have that, who ARE visible minorities, face, challenges that I don't face. I don't want to make it all about MEMEMEMEME!, because it's not. And the things I deal with are very different than people whose skin colors, face shapes, or speech patterns are different than the majority in the area that they live.
I have White Privilege, I consciously USE it, even. But I don't feel "white". I feel like "The Other". I just feel like I hide it.
Other Jews have been posting about things that RaceFail made them consider -- I don't think any of these people are saying, "We have the SAME experience as black people, or Asians, or whatever." In the United States, we're not legally discriminated against. Being Jewish doesn't block us from marrying whom we choose, unlike some other "invisible", or semi-visible, minorities. We're not generally blocked from education, or jobs, or public life.
Here are three of the posts of people poking around at how being Jewish interacts with the topics brought up during RaceFail:
http://rosefox.livejournal.com/1452657.html
http://abyssinia4077.livejournal.com/274444.html
http://fjm.livejournal.com/728228.html
And yet . . . we don't take our lack-of-significant-oppressedness for granted.
These past fifty years or so, in the United States, have been good. Like under Alexander, some of the times under the Roman Empire, a fair portion of the Caliphate.
But I think many of us consider this to be just part of the way the world goes. Right now is good. That doesn't mean that things will always be good. Hamas or other anti-Zionist organizations will, eventually, get enough friends that people will decide that the Jews don't have any right to Israel -- after all, the Jews killed the Canaanites to get the land, the Canaanites are the Phoenicians, and the Phoenicians are the Palestinians, so they get the right to the land, and the Jews should be kicked out. And, when that happens, the worldwide backlash will include more violence against Jews, and that may well happen within my lifetime, which is one of the reasons my wife and I can shoot, do everything we can to maintain friendly relationships with our neighbors, and think about having skills that are portable in case we have to run.
Because we have White Privilege. But privileges can be granted, and can be revoked. And history is NOT a smooth march toward equality. There are better times, and worse times. Worse times will come, and those who have ANY mark of difference must be prepared for them, even if "worse times" are not NOW.
Who is white? In the United States, right now, Jews, Irish, Italians, and Poles are all white.
But Italians are not white in North Linconshire in England right now. Their "whiteness" was revoked. "British jobs for British workers".
I've got people on my friendslist who can testify to just how tenuous the Irish hold on "whiteness" is in England.
I'm white. Right now. But I'm deeply aware that that could change with really no more than a few months' warning. And that affects how I look at the world.
(So of course I had to edit a bit.)
*nod* This reminds me of something
We often talk of "White" as if it's a monolithic and immutable classification of people, but it's no more so than "Black" is. That's why I scoffed when I read this by one of the participants in Racefail January '09: "Maybe I'll write something safer, something where all the characters are white... and I don't have to deal with issues of race and culture." I keep being reminded of how real and important and yet how imaginary the concept of 'race' is, and how different countries and societies and time periods define these classifications differently.
Anyway. Enough rambling from me, but I wanted you to know I hear you. (Also, I don't think I'll be reading comments to this post, because if the trends among the posts in the Big January Discussion are anything to go by, eventually someone will say something I'll want to answer with more heat than light, so let me keep from inflicting my temper on your comments section.)
Re: (So of course I had to edit a bit.)
We have entire holidays, and lots of other stories, to remind us of those things. But of course, there are always people who aren't listening (and we have stories about that too!) or who take the holidays purely as "They tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat", or worst of all, as "They hated us so now it's our turn to hate."