tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993164.post7876564734113009673..comments2023-10-31T08:50:43.614-05:00Comments on ANEKANTAVADA: Race in America: J's Manties in a Bunch, responding to DQhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10444952585830773530noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993164.post-64352612737684519712009-12-30T21:25:57.012-05:002009-12-30T21:25:57.012-05:00Heh. Well, your final point is a good one: "h...Heh. Well, your final point is a good one: "help get our common life experience to that place where we don't have to worry about who's majority and who's minority and why can't someone, somewhere tap into that desire and help me help." I will say, though, that given the locations you've lived, it's not *too* surprising that you haven't found many to help you help, and as far as field, I don't know what the hell is up with that, because your incisive wit and decisive insight is always worth responding to, even (or perhaps especially) when it's something you're still feeling out or not totally sure of (or totally sure of but also somewhat totally in disagreement with me or field over some point ;p<br /><br />But looking for allies on the interblogs is always dicey (cf. your experiences at Pharyngula, a wretched hive of scientific scum and villainy among many of the commenters), and I maintain that the *feeling* that your desire to help isn't appreciated isn't necessarily the *reality* that it isn't. Or at least, not reality in general, though it may be on the blogs and places you frequent and live. Like I said, in my experiences at Michigan (I think I said this), I was a go-between for my black friends from Detroit who had never been in a majority white classroom, and my white friends from everywhere else that hadn't had small group projects with black folks before. Though there was plenty of room for disaster, most of my friends learned a lot and built bridges and all that kumbaya shit. And the white people with further interest in race, in helping out--well, engineers aren't interested in that. But they're plenty welcome in the halls of UM Ecology and SNRE within the groups I moved and shook with.<br /><br />As far as my disappointment, which I will leave to the dustbins of yesterweek, it was precisely because I think/feel/know that you "get" a whole heckuva a lot that I felt "disappointment", because many of the points you raise are, frankly, points that have raised with me by many, many less informed and insightful white folks. As I think I said before, maybe it's unfair to lump the surface similarities together, but nonetheless, there was a disjunction between your complaints and my estimation of your insight and "get"-ingness. So I suspect you're right and there's some misunderstanding, because I'm fully sure you understand quite a bit. The fact that it seemed to me like your points fit into a less enlightened worldview is surely just that miscommunication you referred to, because I also hold you in the highest regard and wish we had "a hundred more like you", or like you at least insofar as they matched your passion, depth, genuineness, and fantastic drollness mixed with fantastic balls-out willingness (eagerness!) to face things head on.<br /><br />I of course also desire somewhere where we don't have to worry about who's majority and who's not, though I suppose I usually wouldn't put it that way because there will always be the history that led us to today, even if/when today=substantively just and equal world, and we should always worry about it in that we learn about it and we maintain the stories and the good elements of the cultures and peoples we came from, even as we forge, mix and match new cultures and new peoples. But that's probably just my normally more wordy way to agree with something someone else said. <br /><br />And yes. 2010: Drink on.Qhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10444952585830773530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993164.post-79534704573423098372009-12-30T19:28:12.890-05:002009-12-30T19:28:12.890-05:00I will agree to leave this one alone in hopes that...I will agree to leave this one alone in hopes that you can I can one day have that long discussion, and do our bitching and moaning over black and tans. However, before I do, I wish to clarify what I feel was a major miscommunication between us in this series of posts. I hope you know that I hold you in the highest regard. (I was telling my mother about you while I was home visiting and I told her that if anyone could help solve world hunger, you were the guy.) So don't be all thinking I take you for granted or don't respect your opinion or any of that other kind of shit. You are among my top three favorite people and if you consider that I'm one of them, I'm not sleeping with you, and we've never met, by cracky that's saying something. So when THAT guy is disappointed in me, I'm sure as shit interested in finding out why. My point being, I think I did not understand in your first response what it was about my comments that disappointed you. I do now. Or at least I think I do. And I will concede that I took the easy way out in that first post (rehashing the Racilicious thing that STILL gets my goat), but I never meant to suggest that the whole (or even most) community of color isn't interested in my thoughts and efforts. I never assumed that you were trying to shut down discourse, and I think therein lies our great miscommunication, although I did misread the tenor of your response.<br /><br />I'm still not sure why my comments elicited SUCH a strong response from you. You are just going to have to chalk it up to my inexperience. I still maintain that nationality is not race. So we disagree. No big whoop. However, I think I "get" a lot more than your disappointment would suggest, and I do occasionally :/ get my panties in a knot when someone tells me that I have to pay for sins that I actually am busting my ass to set right. I am working to understand the issues, working to correct the things I can...just working because it is the right thing to do. It's a learning curve and maybe I was being a total shit, but Hey! Every now and again, I say you get a pass. Look at the alternative. I could shrug my shoulders walk away from the problem. <br /><br />So, in a nutshell, I agree that white opinion shouldn't shape black self-identity--that I have no business REALLY commenting on what people want to be called--I just find it amusing when people do things that don't make sense to me. BUT, when people are talking about black-white relations, I sure as shit DO think that white people should have a voice. When the field makes broad-stroke assumptions about white folks (not just "Rethugs" or "Dumb-o-crats") that are both wrong and offensive, I should have a voice. I should be able to use those opportunities to talk about a white opinion outside the stereotype. You asked if I had commented on his blog and yes I have, but he has never once responded to my points. In fact, his commenters regularly ignore anything I have to say. Either I'm not interesting or I'm actively being ignored or no one gives a shit about the logic I present. Who's to say?<br /> <br />I am disappointed, albeit not as disappointed as you, that you didn't seem to get the point of my follow-up post (or if you did, other points seemed to have taken precedence): that I am anxious to try to help get our common life experience to that place where we don't have to worry about who's majority and who's minority and why can't someone, somewhere tap into that desire and help me help. <br /><br />With that, I lay this series to rest. I look forward to what I hope is my last first date this New Year's Eve and many more provocative, interesting, enjoyable, thought-provoking, and downright fun discussions with you in the new year. <br /><br />#1 on my resolution list is this: I resolve to share that beer with J in 2010.<br /><br />DDaktarihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08291715601733518982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993164.post-82424620189779615142009-12-30T18:44:54.228-05:002009-12-30T18:44:54.228-05:00"Speaking of racism, what's up with the w..."Speaking of racism, what's up with the weird racial undercurrents in Avatar?"<br />Hah. Don't know, B. I've been in a long conversation about this on Facebook.<br /><br />I have heard the problem of some black Americans being not, strictly, African Americans -- including first-generation African immigrants or of Caribbean descent. This is an area that I, too, find myself somewhat off-footed, because, especially in terms of Caribbean Americans, it seems that their racial experience would fit under the general rubric. That is, the Caribbean has suffered from imperialism and discrimination, although on many of those islands, it wasn't from a white majority living on the island itself. And African immigrants in the US don't have the US African American legacy of slavery, so I do see the difference there (which is, I forgot to add, another way in which Caribbean American seems to fit African American-the legacy of slavery), so I see how then the terms and identification gets much more confused. Of course, there will never be a term that perfectly encompasses everyone it "should" and doesn't imply anything about anyone else, rather parallel to the fact that there is no such thing as 100% security, and certainly there isn't without wicked unintended effects.<br /><br />This why perhaps I find it useful to distinguish between African American, which I see as multi-generational black Americans, and blacks, who can be of any national origin. And I don't see what in the world D's problem with calling this "race" is, as race has never made perfect (or sometimes any) biological sense, and its intuitive meaning maps well enough onto these definitions of African American and black as far as I'm concerned. If one wishes to call them oogedy-boogedy, I suppose that's fine, but I don't have a problem with calling it race, and with the author on Racialicious "incorrectly" identifying her race with national origin, which was the point of contention that kind of started this whole thing. Language is anything if not flexible, and the "correct" meanings of things are often not what we think they are (one of the reasons I love <a href="http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll" rel="nofollow">Language Log</a>; often that word does not mean what we think it means). People have used "race" for nationality before and shall again; I can't say if that's historically accurate, but I'm unbothered by its use and in/accuracy in Racialicious really (though I didn't read the original post and may have to retract that).Qhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10444952585830773530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993164.post-87887317564436466232009-12-30T17:57:56.408-05:002009-12-30T17:57:56.408-05:00Can I agree with both of you a little? I think th...Can I agree with both of you a little? I think that changing of terms/monikers/whathaveyou is certainly useful and probably helpful, in the search for a term that both fits and is not offensive. This will always happen, and should, especially so that people get to choose for themselves what they are called.<br />A minor point: There is the problem with the term African American that some black Americans are of Caribbean (or other non-African) descent.<br />However, like D, I think that the majority can feel off-balance when trying to figure out which appellation is now the "right" one, and which will be misconstrued as racist. Certainly, we might be racist, if unconsciously, but we don't mean to be. It's frustrating to feel like we can't ever know what the right term is or "get out from under" the possibility that we are racist. <br />Speaking of racism, what's up with the weird racial undercurrents in Avatar?Bnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993164.post-4754914501806935912009-12-10T21:55:13.425-05:002009-12-10T21:55:13.425-05:00Let's try this again.
For my response, go her...Let's try this again.<br /><br />For my response, go <a href="http://dconstructingd.blogspot.com/2009/12/race-in-america-d-responding-to-j.html" rel="nofollow">here.</a>Daktarihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08291715601733518982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993164.post-75340206371272209222009-12-10T21:38:29.524-05:002009-12-10T21:38:29.524-05:00Dude, quit stealing my traffic. Get my response h...Dude, quit stealing my traffic. Get my response <a href="http://http://dconstructingd.blogspot.com/2009/12/race-in-america-d-responding-to-j.html" rel="nofollow">here.</a>Daktarihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08291715601733518982noreply@blogger.com