Society: April 2008 Archives

There are some things I don't really talk about much, not because it's insignificant or too painful, but because it hasn't happened all that often; at least not overtly. But when I do think about these things, I just shake my head. I am referring to assumptions made about you by people based on the way you speak, or the name you are given. Please, PLEASE read this blog post by Daisy, if you haven't already. Daisy is a blonde-haired blue-eyed American woman with an African-American name. Some highlights:

And I only got my silly record and book reviews published when I started using a pseudonym. Were they suddenly more readable?

Or even better:

When I did customer service, I worked with mostly black women.
And we were supposed to give our names, like good customer service
robots: "Thank you for calling blabbity blabbity, I'm _____, how may I
help you?"

"WHAT did you say your name was?"

Here it comes.

I always repeated it, obediently. And I often heard lots of illuminating stuff after that. A few:

"Are you a n-gger?"

"Are you black? Give me someone white. I want someone who can find their ass with both hands, no offense."

"Oh, God no."

(to someone else in the room) "Oh guess what, guys? I've got ______ on the phone, and she's gonna -solve- our problem!!!!" (room responds with hoots, hollers, boos, laughter, etc.)

"Give
me someone white, and don't argue with me about it, just do it." (On
these calls, I very much enjoyed getting the black supervisor with the
British accent on the line; we both enjoyed putting one over on them.
But I always made sure to tell the supervisor what was up.)

In other cases, I dug my heels in. Fuck you, I thought.

In
short, on the phone, when assumed to be black, I reacted that way. When
asked point-black if I was black, I wouldn't tell. "Why?" I'd ask.

"Because
I need to get someone who KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE DOING," they'd reply,
screaming. They would wait a half-hour for a supervisor they believed
was white, before they'd let me deal with their situation, as I could
have done in 5 minutes or less.

They made all sorts of
assumptions when I wouldn't tell. "Most white people don't want to be
mistaken for black," said one woman authoritatively, "so I think you're
black, but you don't sound like it." Obviously, she thought this was a high compliment.

Have you ever thought about masculinity? The more I read about it, the weaker it actually seems to me. It makes me think of the Emperor's new clothes; strong, majestic and noble, yet when you look directly at it, ridiculous and with no substance.

The thing about men and masculinity (as opposed to women and masculinity; some women have it, but it doesn't define them), is that although independence is often thought of as being part of masculinity, the truth is that is depends on women and other men to have any meaning at all. It depends on how much you can control and subordinate others, particularly women and female stand-ins. This largely explains why men are so often the perpetrators of violence against women, "lesser" men and children (although women are very often the violent ones, make no mistake). This explains why so many men insist that they have the final word on important decisions, because otherwise, they wouldn't feel as though they had any value in the running of the home. So much happens because men feel as though they have or don't have enough masculinity. It so important, yet can be so easily taken away, whether it be by women or by societal institutions (think: black American men and systemic discrimination, a topic too large to really get into here.).

In short, men can't be men without women to make them feel like men.

It must seem so silly to some women that the notion of appearing to be or feel like a man is so important to some men that they will literally do anything to achieve that masculinity. And I mean, ANYTHING. Some will sexually assault women because they threatened their authority, also known as manhood. (I've always slightly bristled at the term "manhood" in reference to one's penis, as though it is the sum total of a man.). Some will engage in violence for the same reason. Defending one's manhood is a little like defending one's honour. When you read about the things some people will do for it, you shake your head and wonder how it could possibly be that important.

I suppose you could say that femininity depends on others as well. Some women will do anything to be a mother, for example, including kidnapping and murder. It does happen. But in general, it seems more innate and less fluid than masculinity. Of course, this could simply seem that way because of female gender theorists that too easily criticize masculinity, but have little to say on how fragile femininity might be. I would have to do more research on that.

What do you think of when you think of racism?

Is it the image of a Klansman burning a cross on the lawn of some innocent black family? Is it the bar owners in Longueuil that refuse service to black people? Is it perhaps your father promising to disown you if you bring home a (fill in the blank)?

Some of the above things still happen to this day, and the perpetrators are the people you know. It is still a reality for most PoC (people of colour) in North America and abroad. But there are many that absolutely insist that racism no longer happens, and if it does, that it's not such a big deal. And with any good virus or aggressive cancer, it changes the more it spreads. With the largely forgotten struggles of the civil rights movement came the awareness that burning crosses and lynching people aren't very nice things to do. And believe me, that is pretty much where the empathy ended for many people. Name calling and discrimination are
not nice. It still isn't really understood that it was far, FAR greater than that, but it is a huge accomplishment, especially when you look at history that goes back a few hundred or thousand years.

Here's an example. My sister is 15 years older than I am. Her experiences in Brockville were FAR different from mine. Where I was occasionally made fun of in Grade 1 for being different than others, and the usual jokes were made about my penis and so forth, she was openly shunned and literally spit on. People would laugh at the very idea of her being of equal status to them. She suffered physical and mental trauma that I did not. It's for this reason that she avoids going back there as much as possible. 15 years later, the younger brothers, sisters, nephews and nieces of her peers largely knew better than that. I was openly treated as an equal, or even as a superior at times because of my good grades. But there was often something more subtle that grated on me. Something that I could only start to express very recently. Something wrong.

With the American election race hoopla happening right now, many bloggers and writers and colour have weighed in on the various aspects of the concept of race and its implications on the lives of PoC. They have put into words and published the very feelings that I thought that I was crazy for even thinking. They are talking about New Racism, or what I like to call Next-Gen Racism.

And here I thought that studying rhetoric was a waste of time. I now admit my willful ignorance. Read this article about the link being the relative voicelessness of certain people compared to the sound of their voices. Quite eye-opening.