at work today, i was talking to a woman of color who told me a story:
back in the 80’s, a man who called himself a case worker came into a women’s clinic and asked for a women’s file. the workers at the clinic handed over the file and then forgot about it.
turns out that the man was an abusive partner of one of the women who went to the clinic. that woman was found less than a week later, murdered by the man who called himself a caseworker.
for women of color centering the lives of women in the worst part of the city–this is what happens when they “fuck up.” the women that need the most help are brutally murdered, and twenty years later, the guilt, the violence, the regret, the horror is still with those who were trying to help. this is learning the hard way what works and what doesn’t. this is learning the hard way what “movement” really means. this is courage, massive huge radical fucking courage: because that clinic didn’t fold under the guilt, the violence, the regret, the horror. Twenty years later, it is still centering women, fighting for women, believing in women with every fiber it has. A whole lot wiser–after a whole fucking world of mistakes.
doesn’t being called “a racist” or being told “that is racist” (or any other thing out there), seem a lot less horrifying now?
it really should.
- Share
June 2nd, 2009 at 3:17 pm #
thank you! no further comment necessary from little me… damn…
June 2nd, 2009 at 3:17 pm #
Indeed.
June 2nd, 2009 at 3:19 pm #
Patient confidentiality is so important! *is all nervous now*
June 2nd, 2009 at 3:28 pm #
shannon, and ppl think i’m just a big bitch when i get all “HIPPA compliance people!” on them… ::shudders::
June 2nd, 2009 at 4:01 pm #
doesn’t being called “a racist” or being told “that is racist” (or any other thing out there), seem a lot less horrifying now?
Yes, indeed.
June 2nd, 2009 at 4:10 pm #
hubby and i both work w/ state services and yes, so many frightening stories. there are laws, protections, but things happen. so often we have to be careful, when *anyone* calls or walks in and asks about this or that information from their final, or whether that person is still there for their interview they “need to pick them up,” or tries to engage in casual conversation to glean whereabouts/schedules/etc. … bad, bad things can happen.
the negative effects of oppression should ALWAYS be held as worse than having someone tell you that you are being oppressive.
and yet, which does greater society police more strictly? which gets people more outraged?
i think the most powerful part of this is that you identify – this tragedy happened, and they keep working, even with the baggage, but without dismissing that baggage… i can’t put it into words.
June 2nd, 2009 at 4:11 pm #
final = file. excuse my sloppy typing.
June 2nd, 2009 at 10:01 pm #
this broke my heart. I work at a domestic violence shelter and crisis hotline. Everyone there is scared and running for their lives. Men call all the time looking for women or just looking to see what we are because they saw the number in their girlfriend’s cellphone history. Its so important to always be on high alert for who everyone is and why they want to know about the other person.
If a man calls the hotline and asks what we are, i say its a doctors office. if someone comes to the door by mistake, i say its a daycare, if someone comes on the property without notice, i call the police.
and we do have child protective services and welfare calling us all the time for client information. Policy is to get their main number and extension and then calling them back to confirm who they are before discussing anyone’s personal business. The fact that this man just walked right in there blows my mind!! I know i am on extra high alert because of where i work, but i can’t believe no one had the thought to question him or not give out confidential files
gah!
June 2nd, 2009 at 11:29 pm #
just, so much yes.
June 3rd, 2009 at 2:39 am #
well, this was back in the 80’s when the clinic first opened–and this clinic is literally the first one of it’s kind anywhere. it isn’t necessarily a domestic violence shelter–although women certainly are experiencing that–it’s a detox center first and foremost–and it was started not as a shelter modeled after other shelters, but as a detox/rehabilitation center that worked exclusively for women (and almost exclusively women of color by defacto–it was set up in the middle of ghetto area)–in other words, it was very very VERY much something that was grassroots and wound up working because of the sheer determination that women running the clinic had as opposed to working because it got funding or hospital/insurance company support, etc.
there wasn’t “policy” back then–and i think it’s important to remember that shelters only developed ‘policy’ because of the same sort of trail and error. Shelters started in the same grassroots sort of way that this clinic did–only succeeding because of the sheer will of the women involved–and actually started out as “sleeping on friends couch until things got better”–and eventually moved into shelter space etc. because of the 501c3 movement that institutionalized domestic violence help. you know?
so in other words—policy is a professional (maybe institutionalized?) word that allows people to think forget that the knowledge of that policy came from trail and error that probably cost women their lives, at the worst, or made women’s lives fucking difficult as hell, at the best. it didn’t just develop out of thin air because people were so smart they knew instinctively what would work, you know?
also on a side note, being as oooooooold as I am (ha!) i remember a time when ID was a hot topic. when people fought “policy” decisions like “we only give out information to people with photo ID”–because it was too big brother-ish and whatever happened to being able to live life without official papers?
so, i think it’s important to remember the context of this situation!
June 3rd, 2009 at 4:31 am #
Yes, that does make being called racist, or even just getting called out for doing a racist thing, a lot less horrifying.
Thank you.
June 3rd, 2009 at 5:31 am #
I didn’t need to read the story to know why I don’t give a fuck about white women’s bullshit guilt and tantrums about racism.
But thank you for sharing it, and I liked how you contextualised it.
June 3rd, 2009 at 6:56 am #
June 3rd, 2009 at 9:01 am #
i guess only getting involved a few years ago, i can’t imagine life without the policies that protect.
just a few days ago, i was having a talk with my executive director who is in her 60’s and started the shelter on her couch. she was proud of what its become. its always good to get it all into perspective.
also, i was thinking about this last night after i closed up the computer.
i would much rather be called out on doing or saying something racist, oppressive, and/or insensitive. how else are we supposed to learn? i think people who are afraid of being called racist are afraid of their pretty little world falling apart and the opinions they hold of themselves not being true anymore.
June 3rd, 2009 at 11:06 am #
So much true.
June 3rd, 2009 at 2:48 pm #
Well they learned their lesson what about those with racist/sexist views who are more concerned with keeping appearances than actually changing?
June 3rd, 2009 at 4:20 pm #
“i think people who are afraid of being called racist are afraid of their pretty little world falling apart and the opinions they hold of themselves not being true anymore.”
Yup. And the pretty little world is one where racist = white robes and burning crosses. You’re either an ultra evil racist with no capacity for change or you’re a good guy and anyone who criticizes you is jealous/crazy/fill in blank…
June 3rd, 2009 at 6:04 pm #
As you all know, some of the time, the stalker’s credentials are real. Everyone knows of instances of law enforcement personnel as batterers – and they tend to get nearly unlimited access to info that can assist them to stalk and terrorize. Skepticism is good.
June 3rd, 2009 at 8:15 pm #
Yes, I hate that this happened, I hate that those who fight for women for POC for low income people have to be that fucking hard, that fucking careful. That the stakes are so devistating high.
June 3rd, 2009 at 8:40 pm #
I think also, there is a difference between “not wanting to fuck up” and “wanting to do the best you can.” the latter is all about you and your record not getting mussed up; the latter is about the other people in the equation. I think it’s one thing to want to avoid fucking up because you are afraid of what it says about YOU and another thing entirely to want to avoid fucking up because yeah, other people will get hurt; in the latter case you do your best and accept that you probably will fuck up and maybe feel awful about it but, you know, you weren’t here for you and you need to keep going, more or less.
June 4th, 2009 at 5:04 am #
GOOD GOD…This is…Oh…I don’t have the words this morning…
June 4th, 2009 at 10:21 am #
Yes, with a minor caveat.
Yes, the story provides amazing perspective into the gravity of missteps, and for those afraid to tread because of a lack of courage, it demonstrates what real courage looks like. Thank you for that.
The caveat is that this fits very well one particular scenario and perhaps, not others. The scenario is the white woman who would like to engage but isn’t sure of how to navigate that in an antiracist way and allows herself to be cowed by fear of “fucking up.”
But there are other examples. A woman of any race may agree and disagree with various elements of a RWOC discussion in ways that don’t have to do with race per se, but with politics or economics. If she is white, even if she is fairly confident that her views are not racist, she may feel they are unwelcome, and especially unwelcome because she is white. So the concern isn’t “fucking up,” per se, but generally that herparticipation isn’t going to be of particular interest.
Not to be nitpicky here, and I think your illustration is quite apt. But just thought it worthwhile to posit that various similar-seeming examples of white woman behavior may not stem from equivalent motivations.
June 4th, 2009 at 4:04 pm #
ah, yes, those poor white women who have to de-center themselves for a moment… us RWOC are just so freakin’ demanding and mean and insular… thanks for reminding us octogalore
June 4th, 2009 at 4:15 pm #
Unresponsive to what I said. Centering oneself would involve an assumption that ones views are interesting and valuable to everybody. The example I gave was someone drawing the conclusion that her views were not that. Your response is a decent example of how that conclusion could be formed.
June 4th, 2009 at 4:25 pm #
no octogalore, what you described is a white women who assumes that her views are “uninteresting” because she thinks her views are the only valid ones and that if RWOC won’t accept her then she is just going to ignore us and refuse to engage with us at all. and that’s pretty damn typical. i don’t give a damn about her views if she thinks that she can’t learn anything from us to the point that she will just withdraw rather than share her disagreement and be called out for the fact that she is, indeed, probably racist, classist, ablist, etc. that’s the REAL reason that she decides that her views aren’t “interesting and valuable” because she has decided that we are mean bitches who won’t accept her at all and would rather keep that opinion of us and go complain about it in the company of her like-minded white friends.
June 4th, 2009 at 4:26 pm #
i.e. – she continues to center herself, to assume that she has any right and reason to be “accepted” by RWOC. boo hoo for her. please.
June 4th, 2009 at 4:40 pm #
WORD.
Seriously, you know someone’s not cognizant of their privilege if they only focus on how hurt their feelings are. It’s as if it’s worse to be called out for your privilege than it is to excerise your privilege at the expense of others. Yeah, I get that many people aren’t aware of their privilege and don’t mean it, but FFS–are WOC supposed to have the energy to pat White women on the head and coo over our hurt fucking fee-fees? Especially when WOC are the ones who get the brunt of the BS over and over again?
June 4th, 2009 at 4:44 pm #
you know, i really don’t care *why* a white woman is scared of being called racist or being told “that is racist” or “feeling unwelcome”–I really don’t. hence, this post. no need for a debate or defense or minor caveats or pointing out that ‘RWOC’ do x, y, or z. This post was not about “RWOC” and people who think it was need to read it again.
to reiterate, i do not care about the whys or hows. I do. not. care.
June 4th, 2009 at 7:04 pm #
Wow. That’s an incredible will to purpose to keep going after something like that. Almost like what they’re doing is more important than their feelings.
June 5th, 2009 at 2:30 am #
The caveat is that this fits very well one particular scenario and perhaps, not others. The scenario is the white woman who would like to engage but isn’t sure of how to navigate that in an antiracist way and allows herself to be cowed by fear of “fucking up.”
But there are other examples. A woman of any race may agree and disagree with various elements of a RWOC discussion in ways that don’t have to do with race per se, but with politics or economics. If she is white, even if she is fairly confident that her views are not racist, she may feel they are unwelcome, and especially unwelcome because she is white. So the concern isn’t “fucking up,” per se, but generally that herparticipation isn’t going to be of particular interest.
Well, in that case she should act like a mature adult human being and make the decision to speak up or shut up. And anyway, the horror of that scenario still pales in comparison to what bfp described above.
All of the reasoning I see around this from white women assumes that one word from them is devastating to women of colour. Similarly, when we talk about “inclusion” this assumes that we’re doing the central, important part of feminism (or whatever else) and everyone’s going to desperately need to be included or at least want to be.
In actual fact, I think Aaminah’s 100% correct and that person you describe (having observed that kind of behaviour in myself) is more likely to be more worried about thinking of herself as a racist than anything else, so it’s basically indentured pride, not a particularly admirable sentiment at all.
In fact I’ve met one or two people with real sincerity and integrity in the feminist movement and they’re precisely the ones who aren’t afraid to fuck up – you learn from fucking up. You deserve people’s trust, it’s not a privilege you’re born with. If they have no reason to trust you or even talk to you then why should they?
Plus, it’s like any kind of work – you go there, you roll up your sleeves, you do the work. There’s no “butbutbut it’s difficult for me, I need to adjust”, the minute that comes out, pow! Get out, come back when you want to do work.
As someone once said, if you don’t want to be a tool, don’t dangle from other people’s limbs.
June 5th, 2009 at 10:43 am #
you know–exactly. and maybe I shouldn’t have made this post only about white women. maybe I was even secretly talking to myself. because god only knows, i have my own paranoid moments (who am I kidding–my own paranoid *days*–*weeks*) of sitting and obsessing over what I said and what Y person *really* means when they say XYZ–I have had to admit to myself over and over again how much it bothers me when people I admire and care about misinterpret me–and how much it bothers me down to my core that a person i know and deeply admire and love snubbed me–whether intentionally or unintentionally, I don’t know–but I haven’t had the guts to talk to that person since, because I don’t want that person to tell me how much they hate me, but at the same time I sit and obsess about everything I’ve said to that person over and over and over–trying to figure out why that person is mad at me.
I am just as guilty as falling into the trap of assuming my feelings are the most precious as anybody else. I am just as scared as making people mad as the next person. But when you put it into context–when you look at the lives of women who *really need feminism*—worrying about my precious feelings is a luxury. and it’s a luxury that allows me to overlook the fact that other women don’t have that luxury, because they are confronting their roles in *murder*–but even more importantly–it allows me to overlook the fact that women are fucking *dying* because I’m too fucking scared to get involved. because I’ve allowed my fear of people hating me to stifle my ability to act.
I would say you go in, *take a huge deep breath* and then roll up your sleeves and do the work. :p
June 5th, 2009 at 11:24 am #
the entire point bfp was making here (so i thought) was that the center of the conversation around oppression should be about the people suffering from that oppression. NOT nitpicking about whether the oppressors are “really” oppressors or are regarded by the oppressed as oppressors or WHATEVER. that’s the point, it takes the conversation away from the work that needs to be done, to make things better and makes it about something other than that work. which means that work will never get done.
really, i thought Isabel nailed it: I think also, there is a difference between “not wanting to fuck up” and “wanting to do the best you can.” the latter is all about you and your record not getting mussed up; the latter is about the other people in the equation.”
that’s it exactly.
OK, as a white woman, i *do* sit here and worry sometimes about “do i call myself feminist” and “do i engage here” those sorts of side questions where really, you (white person) can’t win — because you WILL fuck up somehow, that’s the name of the game, you have a choice between losing this way and losing that way.
but you have to realize, you thinking that It’s Only Fair that you have some way to escape from the no-win game is basically you asserting your privilege.
because, again: the ppl being oppressed don’t get to escape that game. they can’t win the “get someone to hire me so i can feed my children” game or the “one privacy slip-up resulted in a horrific murder” game. and you sit here and think we should be talking about how you deserve to get out of the “someone might think i’m racist” game? you know?
June 5th, 2009 at 12:36 pm #
“OK, as a white woman, i *do* sit here and worry sometimes about “do i call myself feminist” and “do i engage here” those sorts of side questions where really, you (white person) can’t win — because you WILL fuck up somehow, that’s the name of the game, you have a choice between losing this way and losing that way.”
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
this is what i meant. we ALL fuck up. i fuck up all the damn time. ALL THE TIME. but i don’t disengage the issues. i do not have the luxury of walking away from these convos, at least not permanently, because my life, my sisters lives, my loved ones lives, depend on these conversations. when i get it wrong, i can count on these women to tell me so. when i share my pov, i know that it is valid and it’s only my JUDGEMENTS of others that are questionned, and rightfully so. like BFP said, this isn’t about RWOC. this isn’t about “i’m afraid to speak around you” – it’s about, get past the fear, speak, be called out if you’re wrong and learn from it, and let’s GET TO WORK.
June 5th, 2009 at 1:21 pm #
BFP — agree 100% with your 10:43am comment.
There’s no good reason to place personal feelings, from wherever they may stem, above grappling with issues that many don’t have the choice to walk away from.
Where I was going above was: there may, on the other hand, be good reasons to choose to have those conversations in particular online fora, or alternatively, offline activist groups, and not others.
There are no good reasons to avoid dialogue with those who are different from oneself, whether based on race, class, ability level, orientation, etc.
There may be good reasons to have preferences for dialogue with certain people or groups, as long as these are not proportional to race, class, ability level, orientation, etc. That is why, as you correctly point out, my use of RWOC above was inexact. More accurately the example should have been radical left-leaining groups. One may wish to discuss issues such as educational/healthcare access in formats other than Feministe, for example (I have found that various threads there don’t gel for me in terms of examining thse issues) or a RWOC blog or a radical environmental rights blog.
This isn’t, as some may posit, about me, as I spend probably equivalent time on RWOC blogs, Feministe, and more conservative blogs run by people of varying race, eg Booker Rising and Megan McArdle. But I don’t think the folks who hang out at Shay’s or Megan’s place and not the former are necessarily disengaging out of fear.
If one disengages from a conversation, one should certainly ask oneself: is this because of discomfort of fucking up because of racial/gender/class etc. differences? Or, have I disengaged from conversations with people similar to myself in those respects, for similar reasons?
My point here, and sorry it’s so belabored, is that while you’re right on that too much of the time it’s the same old bullshit, sometime it might be more complicated. Is it worth parsing that? I totally understand if you feel it’s not, and apologize if this has derailed things.
June 5th, 2009 at 2:42 pm #
I don’t know–but I haven’t had the guts to talk to that person since, because I don’t want that person to tell me how much they hate me, but at the same time I sit and obsess about everything I’ve said to that person over and over and over–trying to figure out why that person is mad at me.
See, when I want to do that, I just spend time with my family.
I know that your point in all this is not that this Special Whatever angst is important one way or the other, but getting used to sticking around means getting used to talking about it. So, ideally, you’d spend even less time freaking out about what people might be saying and thinking about you. With practice, you’d develop better ways to resolve a confict and move on. Like with any phobia.
June 5th, 2009 at 2:49 pm #
And I don’t–you know, I’ve had thankless discussions before. I’ve had thousands of them. I spent most of my early days on the internet over at an antigay site, arguing with people who believed that pedophilia was the same as homosexuality. I spent some time on the Ms. boards and then there was that whole thing with Blanche. So I know from manipulative, irrational, rageaholic people. I know from bad faith. I know from no-win rhetoric.
I know that nobody here takes those claims at face value anyway, but really: what a bunch of bullshit.
June 6th, 2009 at 9:00 am #
::appreciates original post & hopes this won’t be perceived as drifting off topic::
I have had to admit to myself over and over again how much it bothers me when people I admire and care about misinterpret me–and how much it bothers me down to my core that a person i know and deeply admire and love snubbed me–whether intentionally or unintentionally, I don’t know–but I haven’t had the guts to talk to that person since, because I don’t want that person to tell me how much they hate me, but at the same time I sit and obsess about everything I’ve said to that person over and over and over–trying to figure out why that person is mad at me.
::empathy::
aaaah such a bummer when our human minds go off in that kind of a direction!
not the same thing, but reminds me of the other night after I sent an email and there were lots of ways for it to be “taken wrong” and I didn’t want to check my email just in case there was a crushing reply! (which eventually there wasn’t b.t.w.)
hope you get to discover soon that they don’t hate you and it was just some kind of misunderstanding…
have some ::hugs:: if you want hugs from me (long time lurker very occasional commenter here, in commenty mood today)
June 8th, 2009 at 3:01 am #
when people I admire and care about misinterpret me–and how much it bothers me down to my core that a person i know and deeply admire and love snubbed me–whether intentionally or unintentionally, I don’t know–but I haven’t had the guts to talk to that person since, because I don’t want that person to tell me how much they hate me, but at the same time I sit and obsess about everything I’ve said to that person over and over and over–trying to figure out why that person is mad at me.
Yeah I get that too, but you know, I unintentionally snub people all the time because I’m crap at small talk and, well, a whole bunch of basic communication, which people take as a cold shoulder. And at the end of the day, people are going to have a whole bunch of things they’re thinking about. Maybe they snubbed you cause they have toothache, or cause they’re not in a mood where they can string two words together, or whatever. So I obsess over whether I’ve fucked up too, usually assume I have, but at the end of the day, that probably didn’t even occur to them.
I think it’s natural to worry about it somewhat, on the other hand, if there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s the long, long, looong conversations I’ve seen in the feminist movement about “how can we be nice and racially-inclusive”, “how can I, as a white woman, not fuck up”, because it’s phony bullshit at the end of the day, it’s basically apologising for all the times you do fuck up so you can buy the right not to care about it. And when it’s sincere, well – it’s almost worse, because the main problem with the mainstream feminist movement to start with is that a bunch of privileged women think that them feeling ways about stuff is earth-shatteringly important, when in fact, it’s not – and we’re not going to fight disenfranchisement among women starting from that premise, to start with.
It’s about not wanting to take on responsibility as well – which is what you’re getting at, correct? It’s like the core feminist movement is sitting there going “ooh, this ‘responsibility’ thing is so scary, we’re so good for even caring about it”, meanwhile there are women every day taking on this huge life and death responsibility. They probably do a lot more good by failing to help someone than an entire year’s worth of hand-wringing conversations about ‘how can we avoid fucking up’.
And, I don’t think it’s such a simple binary opposition between “oppressors” and “oppressed” and who gets to do what either, at least I didn’t see that in the original post… well, if it’s possible to continue oversimplifying and compare with the situation of feminist men, when I see these guys walking around in Fawcett Society T-shirts (”yes! I’m a man! and a feminist! your mind equals blown!!!”), I want to bang their heads together and shoot them into the sun and generally think feminist men are a bad idea – specially when I encounter the ones that know sooo much better than most women what’s good for us. Then again, some of my strongest influences in terms of feminism have been men, and at the end of the day, I’d rather have Ian MacKaye on my side than Julie Burchill or any number of feminist-identified life and style columnists who think they’ve saved womankind by having a tattoo on their butts. But you don’t see him in a Fawcett Society T-shirt, and even if you did, there’s no way a stupid shirt could undo all the stuff that matters.
It’s the difference between “performing” and “doing”, I guess – those guys with the T-shirts, they’ve had more of an effect through what they are in social terms than anything they’ve done, because they think what they are is mind-blowing enough for all of us little people. Same with the hand-wringing white feminists. To be honest, I’d rather have them think me a racist (it’s happened), and refuse to join in the hand-wringing, because it really feels like they’ve lined up a row of arses to kiss, and I’m fundamentally against that kind of objectification.
Then again, I don’t like having my arse kissed either, and judging by the reaction of some of them when you fail to kiss theirs…
June 8th, 2009 at 11:55 am #
“but even more importantly–it allows me to overlook the fact that women are fucking *dying* because I’m too fucking scared to get involved. because I’ve allowed my fear of people hating me to stifle my ability to act.”
Oh my god, yes.
So many thoughts in my head about this, but I can’t quite get them out. I know that fear of being hated, and it eats at me because I *know* (for me, anyway) it’s a hold-over from when I was taught that I deserved hatred and that speaking up at all was speaking out of turn. Getting over that –having people in my life who call me on my shit and trust me to get over it, developing the ability to be in conflict with people while still working with and respecting each other– that has been life changing. For myself and others.
Anyway, yes. Yes to this entire thread.
June 10th, 2009 at 10:14 am #
Arriving late, as usual, sorry! Still a bit of a nomad these days. bfp, it’s great to read you again.
Just a couple of thoughts to offer to this heartening thread.
I am awed by the capacity of people, including these people at the clinic, to forgive themselves for their mistakes, and to grow from the lessons.
And I think it is ultimately much healthier for all of us to act from a place of love and compassion (for ourselves and others), rather than guilt or fear.
If a person — white woman or no — says to themselves, “Oh man I just made a mistake, but I’d better get over myself and get to work because people are dying, and what do my feelings matter in comparison to that?”, I don’t see responsibility there, I see guilt and panic.
And if a person says to themselves, “Well there I go making another mistake, but since I can’t escape my fucked-up circumstances, no matter how much I’d like to, my only option is to bite the bullet and keep going,” I don’t see determination there, I see despair. A feeling of choicelessness.
And when guilt or despair motivate our actions, no matter how noble the actions might look from the outside, no matter how many hours we log doing the grunt work, if we are suffering internally from guilt and self-loathing then eventually that negativity will undermine our efforts. Not only that, it’ll seep out and infect everyone else around us. And in the long run, that sickens the movement.
That is why I *do* care about white women’s fear of fucking up — and anyone else’s fear of fucking up, including my own. Because the fearful mental state of an individual weakens the movement as a whole.
And in responding to an individual’s fear, I have to be mindful of nurturing my own mental state, too. What good does it do me to respond to someone’s insecurity with a big, “Fuck you, get over yourself”? That only makes my own mind agitated. Especially when that insecure someone is *me*. And when I become agitated, I spread agitation to those around me. Instead, when I see a fearful mind, in myself or someone else, I can choose to respond with compassion and nurturing. “Hey, I’ve been there. Don’t waste time worrying — just act from your heart, knowing that you are loved, no matter what you do. There’s a lesson to be learned here.”
To me, the struggle against oppression is too vast and too urgent to ignore or dismiss the motivations and mental states with which we engage it — each one of us. External work alone will never be enough; we need internal work, too. We need to forgive ourselves *so that* we can keep the clinic open in a healthy way. Otherwise, we’ll poison the atmosphere.
All my love to you, bfp, and everyone on the thread — would love to hear your thoughts but totally understand if everyone else has moved on…I’m the slow kid.
ps: diggin the new interface, especially the “Speak!” button that I am about to click.
June 11th, 2009 at 5:06 am #
Um, no, kloncke. The white women usually aren’t there to do the work or help, unless we mean self help. They are always there for their own self actualization, “learning”, and giving themselves the warm fuzzies of “caring” and “trying”, so that they can feel progressive. But that “doing” part, not so much. Here’s a good example: Shapely Prose See how they are “learning” about race and intersectionality over there. They “care” about diversity, they swear they do. They are “trying”, just not really hard, and they have all these things called “excuses” for not actually “doing” anything.
I think BFP is used to this sort of thing, like any other woman of color. That’s why she doesn’t give a damn what today’s excuses are…scared of fucking up? Cry me a damn river! There is work to be done so shut up with your excuses and lip service and start doing!
Guilt is a useful emotion, if it spurs you to action, which it did with the clinic. You’re a sociopath if you feel no guilt after something you did caused another person harm. Anyway, they changed things so that it wouldn’t happen again and pushed on with the work. When it isn’t useful is when a person freezes which is what this “scared of fucking up” is the excuse for.
June 11th, 2009 at 12:32 pm #
Guilt and panic? I’m not following. I don’t think anyone’s saying to completely discount one’s personal feelings towards a situation and blindly work through your extreme pain. However, the process of holding oneself accountable (not expecting others to do it, processing one’s own emotions privately) in addition to continuing to work towards something better is beyond guilt and panic. It’s learning. It’s gross, it’s painful, and it can be onerous, yes. But the initial discomfort and upset are as natural as the eventual healing and confidence from continuing to do the work.
I will say this now: if a white woman feels incapacitated by what she’s doing with guilt and panic, or any woman, or any person — to the point that person cannot function or cope or heal — please, please get out of it. Stopping the work doesn’t mean you get an excuse not to learn anything or to teach yourself. But very frequently that’s what happens with some of our paler friends.
In this scenario, the guilt came because someone inadvertently caused a woman to die, and that went against the purpose of their work, why they dedicated themselves to that work day to day. So? They learned vigilance, they took from that mistake a very valuable and painful lesson, and I don’t see how you read that they likely did not do a lot of soul seeking. The fact that someone’s still telling this anecdote twentysomething years later makes me think this wasn’t just a tongue biting situation that got obviated into nothingness with dogged nose-to-grindstone work ethic.
I guess I’m confused about where you’re reading the futility into this. Not everyone has to do the same type of work. The Work is multifaceted. So where is this lack of escape coming from? The analogies don’t really fit for me.
June 12th, 2009 at 6:06 am #
Donna, Sylvia/M, thank you for your thoughts. I’m seeing two different aspects of the issue, so I’ll try to respond to both. I think both might come down to a difference in belief, between us, about the nature of negativity and negative emotions.
One aspect is how ‘we’ respond to the fearful behavior of white women. Whether or not ‘we’ should *care* if ‘white women’ feel fearful is not really an open question here. Obviously we care or we wouldn’t be writing about it!
Ok, so we care. Now we have a choice. We can care in an angry/exasperated/cynical/beset-upon way. It can piss us off, insult us, especially in light of the bravery of ‘other women’ (i.e. the clinic workers) who refuse to succumb to their fear/guilt/anxiety, even in life-or-death situations. This choice is what I heard in the majority of the thread — and in your hypothetical response, Donna, of “Cry me a river” and “shut up.”
Alternatively, we can simply understand and accept that this is (yet) another ‘white woman’ who is suffering from fear. Then we can choose to respond not with anger, but with compassion.
If this suffering incapacitates her, I’m with you, Sylvia/M — she should seek help that gets to the bottom of her guilt complexes. Does it cost ‘us’ anything to encourage her, with compassion, to seek that help, while taking care to maintain our own boundaries (i.e. not allow ourselves to become her personal brown confessional priest)?
If, though, the suffering doesn’t shut her down totally, but instead she shoves it down or ‘learns from it’ (same thing), then that suppressed negativity will only undermine her work. Work that she could and should be doing lovingly, wholeheartedly, guilt-free, and with the understanding that she is not showing up merely to learn fancier, more distinguished ways of voicing her concern for the plight of women of color (a super-common hidden motive, as you know, that may even be concealed from the person herself, and that ultimately leads to even more suffering and guilt for *her*, in addition to leeching the people around her). So there is already a danger that she’ll ‘bite the bullet’ and radiate a negative mentality.
Why should we invite the negativity by responding negatively ourselves? Why not respond instead with simple compassion? Not coddling; not condemning. Just having compassion and moving on. Why should we raise the overall sum of suffering?
So that brings me to the second aspect I’m seeing, which is this question: putting ourselves in the shoes of the clinic workers, what are legit or delegit responses to making a mistake that cost a woman her life?
A spiritual disclaimer: I’m probably not in the majority in believing that it is possible to live a life free of suffering. That a person can learn from mistakes, even severely consequential ones, without remorse or guilt — and not be a sociopath. That, in fact, the best way to honor the woman killed by her partner — a tragedy that occurred despite the clinic workers’ best intentions and efforts to help her — is to *stop* adding to the total suffering, learn from the error, and gain ever greater compassion from the experience. None of this involves negative emotions like guilt or remorse. And I don’t know for sure that I would be able to do it, if I were in that situation, but I believe wholeheartedly that I need to always strive to respond this way to grave mistakes.
In my experience, Donna — while I respect that your experience may be different — guilt can never motivate us in a *lastingly healthy* way. Even if the guilt is brief and acute, then disappears, like jump-starting a car, it still ingrains a corrosive habit of self-deprecation and keeps us identifying with mistakes. And that’s the thing, Sylvia/M, in my experience (and again, I can only speak from my experience), it is possible to “[hold] oneself accountable” for errors (which brings no negativity, no fear) without *identifying* with the errors (which is how guilt and remorse happen).
As for the flip side of the same coin, “futility” (which is a great word to describe what I meant, thanks Sylvia/M!), it is the harder dimension for me to talk about, but the more important one. The example came to my mind from Aaminah’s comment:
I think that many women of color feel that resistance is futile: we can’t “walk away” from these conversations, this work, these circumstances. And in one sense we are right. The bullshit ain’t goin anywhere. We can’t escape the external factors. But I believe that what we can learn to walk away from, eventually, is our own suffering.
I see anger and agitation and suffering in this thread itself. And while I understand it and oftentimes feel it myself, I don’t believe it is inevitable. Bottom line, I do not want women of color to suffer. Ever. I love us. I want peace for us. And a step toward that peace, as I see it, is letting go of our anger at full-of-excuses white women. So they exist. Okay. So there are a lot of them, all the time. Okay. We don’t have to take their suffering on ourselves. We can maintain our peace and happiness and compassion, even if we are rehashing the same solidarity-101 conversations we’ve had a million times. We can do it smiling and laughing. And we can also celebrate, and take inspiration from, courageous clinic workers.
Does this ring true at all? I certainly don’t claim to be able to free myself from negativity all the time. In fact, it’s because I’ve experienced a shitload of both of them — just like most humans on the planet — that I don’t want myself, or you, or anyone else to suffer from them. Ever.
Phew.
Thank you for your patience.
Now that I’ve spilled my heart out in far too many words, here’s Joseph Campbell to say what I said, only beautifully:
I’m happy to keep conversing, or let it rest. If you want me just to listen, tell me, and I will.
With love and gratitude,
katie
June 13th, 2009 at 9:34 am #
And if a person says to themselves, “Well there I go making another mistake, but since I can’t escape my fucked-up circumstances, no matter how much I’d like to, my only option is to bite the bullet and keep going,” I don’t see determination there, I see despair. A feeling of choicelessness.
exactly the opposite. when i tell myself “shit, i fucked up. but it’s not going to help anybody to sit here and rationalize to myself over everything i did right or wrong, there’s still work to be done and i need to get moving” – that isn’t despair.
despair is: “shit, i fucked up. and nothing i can ever do will make it right, and i can never fix everything, and no matter how much good i do or how heartfelt my good intentions are, i will still fuck up and it will still hurt people in real ways. i can never escape this and it’s just going to make me feel shitty, so why should i keep trying if i’m just goingto fuck up and have people yell at me anyway? what am i supposed to doooo? why can’t people give me a break? forget this, i can never do anything right anyway so why bother.”
THAT is despair.
there is a markable difference between the two reactions.
June 13th, 2009 at 9:36 am #
and you do see that latter reaction — a LOT — it’s like when people get within an inch of finally “getting it” and giving up on this whole “i can escape this no-win game if i just Do The Right Things and Say The Right Words” idea, but they stop because they see that they CAN”T escape that game and there is no reward for them — so they just bow out of the struggle altogether.
*that* is despair.