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Author Topic: Family: White Privilege is going to give me a heart attack (but not because I'm black)  (Read 3480 times)

Materialist

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After what my relatives have made me deal with this holiday season, I've concluded that white privilege also burdens white people who are anti-racist and do not want these privileges.

To the list of privileges that benefit white people, I would like to add one that has a negative effect:

Being able to pass as white makes people feel comfortable making racist comments and jokes around you, because they believe you "get it" or are "in" on it.

I am so [censored] sick of it. And I don't have any non-white grandparents that I can ask about how to deal with this racist [censored].

On Christmas Eve my grandmother sent my mom an e-mail. Was it about holiday cheer? No, it was asking for donations for a hate group. An actual hate group that the F.B.I. takes notes on.

My parents love watching movies, and I usually watch with them, but my joy at seeing more racially diverse films in their collection was quickly ruined during Maze Runner: Scorch Trials. Why? Because one of the actors was Alexander Flores, a person with brown skin, and my father has suddenly got it into his head, like I don't even wanna know how many other white people, that everyone with brown skin is a citizen of Islamic State.

Of course I asked him why, specifically, he believed Mr. Flores was  a terrorist and he said because the character he was playing committed suicide after being infected with the zombie virus. Of course, when watching the Resident Evil films, he never questions the citizenship of the white or white-passing actors faced with the same fate.

He's even suspicious of an Asian (her specific ethnicity is irrelevant-she's brown) exchange student living next door, making jokes about how she's probably an Islamic State terrorist too. Once again grilling him, he said he based this on that she was "quiet and introverted" around him. When asked if all people who are "quiet and introverted" are terrorists he looked surprised that I would say such a thing and said "of course not!"

As I said, I am so sick of this. Of having to put up with this almost every week. I just want to explode in his [censored] [censored] face. How do I imprint onto his brain that he cannot speak to me like this? That it is sick and evil? Telling him that it's racist [censored] just makes him giggle as if to say "come on, we're white guys, it's what white guys do." He has nephews that can't pass as white, and his side of the family, in general, is not 100% white. But he was raised white (starting in 1947), and I'm starting to think that this is an incurable disease.
« Last Edit: May 07, 2019, 01:16:38 pm by RandallS »

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Quote from: Materialist;184820



 
My biological sire is mixed-race Native who passes for white, and he drank a lot of the white privilege koolaid. I grew up with him being a racist arsewipe to pretty much anyone you could even imagine being racist towards. (I used to hate French-Canadians, simply because he did.)

He was also homophobic (specifically hated lesbians and didn't believe in the existence of bisexuals), misogynistic, ableist...the list goes on. On top of that, he was abusive (which isn't hard to imagine if you realize that his child, me, is queer, disabled, and socially classed as female -- everything he hates).  

My solution was to cut him out of my life. I was tired of every visit degrading into a fight where he just chuckled at my opinion and patted me on the head condescendingly because there was no way I could know anything about any of this stuff because I was just a little girl.

He continues to stalk me and I won't ever feel safe until he's dead and buried (it's a lot easier to banish spirits than it is to get a restraining order against your father, which he will violate anyway), but refusing to have him in my life has done wonders for my mental health. I feel about 1000x better, and that's not an exaggeration. My suicidal impulses have gone down, my eating disorders are easier to manage, I no longer have to prepare for family visits with copious amounts of alcohol and Netflix nor deal with the heart-pounding anxiety that comes with visiting people who probably wish you dead, deep deep down in their heart of hearts.

And I realize that's not always an option. It's just what worked for me, with my bio-sire.

With my Oma, there was no solution. She was racist and intolerant but not particularly abusive, not to me, and while our family was full of dysfunction I couldn't justify cutting her out of my life. We'd been really close when I was young and I adored her. Mom tried to educate her about the changing times; I don't remember her ever changing her stance on hating the Japanese, just being more quiet about it. There were a lot of things from the war* she couldn't let go of and that particular brand of racism was one of them.

*In my family, "the war" refers to WWII, it being the war that shaped a lot of our inherited trauma.

So the tl;dr of my post is this: I honestly don't know if you can imprint on his brain that this is wrong. Some people change their views, work towards uprooting the racist programming that runs through their brains (that runs through everyone's brains). Others seem incapable of it. Reasoned arguments have proven not to work, but blowing up at people might not either (though finally losing it at someone might give you some catharsis).

I don't know. It's really hard and tricky and a really shitty thing to have to put up with. I wish you luck, whatever avenue you choose, and strength in dealing with this kinda BS.
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Quote from: Materialist;184820


 
(our privilege is that our existence isn't being insulted or threatened when we have to hear this, though)

That sucks (and Morag, I have no words).

I'm fairly lucky as far as those things go- I get the feeling my Oma may have been outwardly bigoted (whether racist/homophobic/more/all, I don't know), but I wasn't old enough to hear any of it before she got dementia, and now she just speaks dutch and pretty much just the basics, so I have no idea. The reason I think this is because although thankfully few times, my dad has used slurs in my presence, and once said it was just an old world thing to demand people's nationality* and that it wasn't racist, and implied or outrightly said my Oma would do that (*in the context of a lady doing it on tv in an outrightly racist way and my going 'holy shit that's racist' (malcom in the middle, the lady who broke her arm)).

The shitty thing about having parents who are horrible but apparently less horrible is that I'm picking up on all these weird subtle things, that for the most part I don't think even happened in front of me when I was younger. Outright stuff about me living in an 'Indian area,' and weird comments about people on their trips, and wink wink nudge nudge stuff where they even know they can't make whatever joke they're trying to. Giggling about how they used to call black licorice [babies/dogs/etc] n---- [whatevers] (that isn't subtle, just stupid and not something I heard until I was at least 16).

Since it never was obvious stuff when I was younger, it's weird and disappointing and sort of disorienting.

(and I do talk back about these small things, yes)

Materialist, the way you react sounds like it does something, at least (especially about the 'so introverted=terrorist?' thing). I'd probably be 'why'ing back at him after 'this is what white people do lol.' Like seriously, why, it's not funny and it at the very least makes people uncomfortable, worse can put them in danger.

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Quote from: Materialist;184820
After what my relatives have made me deal with this holiday season, I've concluded that white privilege also burdens white people who are anti-racist and do not want these privileges.

Racism, sexism, homophobia...they aren't good for anyone. Sexism forces men to be more "manly" and racism forces racists to prove their "whiteness." I didn't understand that until I got some family history.

My husband comes from a culturally and racially mixed background. He is Latino and Black. When I told my dad that he was black he said "but then your kids won't be either!" (white or black) When I told him my husband's (Spanish) name he said "but I thought you said he was black!" So...this is something I have experienced with parents and grandparents for a while. My dad and husband get along fine now, btw, but I didn't forget.

As it turns out, on both my mother and father's side there are some African American roots. My great-great-grandmother was listed as "mulatto" on my father's side. I feel like after that, they were more racist than ever to prove their whiteness. The same is true on my mother's side. My grandfather said "you don't see a grey fox mating with a red fox." And yet, it turns out that he was quite bullied in school for having mixed-race step siblings.

While I don't make any excuses for the ignorance that has come out of their mouths, (and believe me, if it EVER came up in front of my kids they wouldn't see grammy and grandpa again) it makes more sense when I look at their perspective. And, to their credit, they have done a 180 and are very accepting of my husband. They are also quite excited about our baby on the way. Not everyone gets that happy ending, tho, and I feel for ya'll.
« Last Edit: January 08, 2016, 10:16:10 am by Darkhawk »
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Quote from: Materialist;184820


 
A technique I've heard works well for dealing with bigoted jokes in specific is to, rather than showing how offensive they are, to respond with, "I'm sorry, I don't understand.  Could you please explain why that's funny?"

And just keep poking at it like that, making them actually verbalise down to the point at which the fact that it's this festering heap of shit there.

It not only denies them the tacit social support of having their "joke" get a pass because it's being a "joke", but means they have to actually face up to the nastiness at the core, eventually.

I suspect there are ways of adapting it to stuff like "it's what white guys do" - maybe some form of "Really?  Why would you say that?" with an underlying, "Maybe it's what you do" if pressed, but basically something that makes the behaviour isolating rather than bonding.

That's what it often is, an attempt to bond, sick as that is.  Engaging with it on a level that allows for any sort of 'we are doing fellow-feelign here' will mean it keeps happening.
as the water grinds the stone
we rise and fall
as our ashes turn to dust
we shine like stars    - Covenant, "Bullet"

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