(no subject)

[jhameia]

Well, another hot unproductive day. I slept at 1am, but then woke up at 5am, which is pretty horrific. Was too sleepy to function, so I napped after lunch for like three hours.

I did write a poem, though. Not sure where to send it.

A new friend from WisCon was free at 6pm for a writing session, so we did a couple of rounds, which was great, I am two paragraphs up.

I'm re-reading Ruth Frankenberg's White Women, Race Matters which was a seminal work in whiteness studies back in '93, for a definition of whiteness. Out of curiousity, I googled her, and found this obituary of her. She died in 2007, aged 49, which seems a huge loss. I'm thinking to buy a copy of this book, because I think it'll be good for future reference.

Had a schmoopy conversation today. I am allowed schmoopy things.

Comments

[kn0tme]

Have you read Waking Up White by Debby Irving or White Like Me by Tim Wise? I haven't read White Women, Race Matters. I'll add it to my reading list.

49. Damn, that is far too young.

[jhameia]

I've read a bit of Tim Wise but he's never interested me enough to read his book, which is more for white people. Whiteness studies is a weird field, because there's a lot of performance of awareness of whiteness. I find it very useful for antiracism, but it's still a weird field.

[kn0tme]

The perspective was interesting. As is Wise, I am also Jewish, but my perceptions of Black-America were completely different from his (I grew up in the american Northeast). I know saying people are colorblind to race is taboo and thought to be disingenuous, but I can honestly say I am colorblind to it. I think nothing of skin color. I rate everyone on the same criteria, friendliness, neatness, honesty, integrity, loyalty. I know we all have different backgrounds, and I take that into consideration. The other book I mentioned was laughable (if not embarrassing) to me. You don't have to apologize to anyone because of an honest mistake. If someone says something offensive to me about Judaism because they didn't understand, that's fine .. it's up to me to correct them. If they DO IT AGAIN, then there's an issue. It's all part of education and diversity. I don't care to homogenize this world.

[jhameia]

Most people with privilege can genuinely say they're blind to colour because they are genuinely unaffected by it in any negative way, so skin colour is immaterial. But ultimately racism isn't much about how specific individuals approach other individuals but how systems oppress whole communities. Have you read Eduard Bonilla-Silva's Racism Without Racists?

[kn0tme]

Oh, I wasn't commenting on how I'm treated and didn't mean to imply racism and privilege don't exist. I'm just saying, for me it does not. If you're implying I'm privileged because of my whiteness, then I think you're missing a complete dynamic of racism. My group of close friends looks like a McDonald's commercial. As a "white skinned" person, I've seen and experienced plenty of racism. My children are of mixed race. And as a Jew, I've experienced a great deal of anti-semitism, having lived in the deep south and right here in Massachusetts with very privileged, very Anglo, very xtian people.

No, I haven't read that book... yet.

[jhameia]

I recognize that Jewishness has its own set of conditions for recognition and misrecognition (I recently published an essay on whiteness and Jewishness, which was fascinating) (there's an entire discourse on Tumblr on Jewishness and race and writing that's really fascinating). It's that the more I study racism, the less comfortable I am with statements of how these issues do or don't affect one's own standpoint. I don't think I could say that of myself, because it feels like not allowing my interlocutor's identity be part of my interaction with them. So, I think it's a sign of comfort to be able to say that identitarian issues don't factor at all in how one treats others.

Also I am fascinated that you used a MacDonald's ad as a point of reference for multiraciality... I feel outdated because I use Benetton XD