Beyond White Guilt

I just saw the first disk (three episodes) of The First Australians, a documentary series telling the history of Australia from the point of view of Indigenous Australians.

I found it an incredibly rewarding an eye opening experience. Rather than doing a top-down "overall narrative" history each episode tells the story of a particular important Aboriginal(*) figure, told with a mix of voice over, dramatic readings of their and related people's own words, and different, sometimes contradictory POVs from modern (often but not always Aboriginal) historians and descendants. All the Big Picture history stuff is explained when it comes up as it relates to the individuals involved which makes it all feel much more real.

And despite the fact that's it's not about the white settlers except as they related to Aboriginal Australians I still ended up with a better understanding of the colonist POV and experience than I got from my compulsory history lessons at school.

It's heartbreaking, watching these incredible people creatively and steadfastly combating and adapting to the white settlers and then being crushed by the racist colonialist system, but we are also shown the ways in which Aboriginal society has survived and grown. For example the episode on the woman considered "The Last Aboriginal Tasmanian" has lots of living Aboriginal Tasmanians going "Hello, actually we exist and we are awesome".

If you can't get a hold of the disks you can watch/listen to bits of it on the website.

(*)I don't know if there are any Torres Strait Islanders later on

by elon_james:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qulcqNMHVic&feature=dir

interview with david simon from the wire

I don't even know where to start.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dXk869_H68&NR=1

You guys...feel free to try; it dumbfounded almost everyone on my journal.

I've read Raj Patel's Stuffed and Starved and admired his work against global food injustice. Today I discovered that the most likely largely white members of a white run New Age group have decided that he's their god and have been harassing him though he's said plainly that he's not and doesn't want anything to do with this.

From where I'm standing, this just REEKS of a certain sort of idolizing racism privileged white New Agers engage in. I thought this might be a good place to deconstruct this flavor of racism in general and discuss this particular expression of it. What do you guys think: have you come across whites who assume people of color are supposed to be closer to the earth or more holy and thus dehumanize them? Do you think that's what's going on here?

i didn't see this posted, so i thought i'd share this article on jezebel:
Urban Outfitters Sells Shirt In Color Called "Obama/Black".

Last time, I did a quiz to test for latent racial issues with people who adamantly opposed Spock kissing Uhura in the Star Trek movie.  The results were damned revealing, as you can see here

http://ankhesen-mie.livejournal.com/24009.html

and here, during the follow-up discussion

http://ankhesen-mie.livejournal.com/24071.html

Now I've come up with a quiz for people who actually did support the new movie's decision to make these two a couple, because supporters of this couple also tend to (often unintentionally, of course) reveal some of their issues.

Important Note: These quizzes neither declare nor clear a person of being racist.  They highlight specific issues with which people may have a problem, and grant opportunity for discussion and self-examination--for both whites and POC.  Furthermore, just because a quiz's questions may look "simple" doesn't mean anything.  I've been administering clinical assessments for almost three years now, and the questions are always simple; that's not the point.  How a person responds is the point.

With all that out the way, enjoy:

http://ankhesen-mie.livejournal.com/25054.html

Happy Invasion Day 2010 from Fear of a Brown Planet on Vimeo.

Description(*): A video combining the Qantas "I still call Australia Home" ad (lots of heartwarming white kids singing about freedom and love of country) with images and sound of Australian racism (from politicians and citizens) towards Indigenous Australians, immigrants, refugees, and international students.

(*)From what I can remember. I'm not feeling up to watching it again :(

And this is what happens when white folks think they've achieved Speshul White Person status:

( White members, read carefully and take notes, there will be a quiz later. )

I found this blog post on the subject, and really wanted to share. I've been wanting to say similar things for a while, and been getting really really angry at some of the very ill considered newspaper articles and journal articles I've seen (this is a good example of a particularly painful one. Only click if you're prepared for the most vomit inducing level of White paternalism) and this blog piece just says everything I want to say, and far better.

( Some highlights for the linkphobic )

I'm white. I am steeped in East Asian culture. My grandfather worked for the Rockefeller Foundation in the sixties as a nutritionist in Jordan, briefly, and then in Thailand for a number of years. My Dad went to high school in Thailand, and my uncle went to middle school and high school in Thailand and lived in East Asia for a number of years after. My cousins grew up speaking Japanese, which they no longer remember. I was raised White Buddhist, by which I mean a Buddhism as a white person interprets it without a community. The majority of art I grew up with was East Asian. This wasn't a problem until I started making art that I let other people see. The problem is that I have an inevitable influence from East Asian art and philosophy and I don't know that I can separate that from any art I make. I'm also Irish by descent and have a heavy influence in my art from that. The big thing for me now is wondering how or if I can make the art I want to without having it be cultural expropriation, or exploitation.

This has also made me think more about multi-generational cultural expropriation. White people have obviously expropriated a lot of other cultural arts from other races and I'm not really sure how to deal with this. Obviously, there rock n roll, which came from black americans. I think it would be weird to say that white people shouldn't make music that came from anything that may have been culturally appropriated from other races, but I also think it is problematic.

Any thoughts on this?

At first glance, this new restaurant looks like a great treat.

http://www.geronimobarandgrill.com

But then when you finish reading the text on the first page, you may well get that sinking feeling in your stomach that you've stumbled across a pocket of sniggering racist assholishness.

They joke about the possibility that Prescott Bush and his fellow Skull and Bones soulless bastards spit on Geronimo's final request that his remains be returned to his people, they name the restaurant Geronimo's and they hang a skeleton as decor in their dining area ... and they expect anyone to believe they actually *honor* the memory of Geronimo, or the "Apache and Navajo" people whose name they use?

Please don't go, tell your friends not to go.

Right

IN THE fiercely competitive world of international figure skating, performers will do anything to get an edge. For Russian world champions Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin, the desire to stand out from the crowd has led them to unveil a new "Aboriginal dance" to perform at next month's Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver.

In dark-toned bodysuits, complete with what they claim are authentic Aboriginal paint markings, the pair easily won their national ice dance competition three weeks ago at their first performance of the routine, making them favourites for gold. But while the judges in St Petersburg may have been impressed, many in the Aboriginal community are not.

"I am offended by the performance and so our other councillors," said Bev Manton, chair of the NSW Land Council yesterday. "Aboriginal people for very good reason are sensitive about their cultural objects and icons being co-opted by non-Aboriginal people--whether they are from Australia or Russia.





Lord make it stop

From MSNBC: No question, the two church-goers from New Jersey had the best intentions in the world when they arrived in Port-au-Prince this week to help victims of Haiti’s killer earthquake.

Trouble was, that was all they had in a land where food, water, shelter and transportation are at a desperate premium, said Laura Blank, a disaster communications manager on the ground for World Vision, a Christian humanitarian aid group with long ties to the country.

“They seemed very eager and very passionate about helping the people of Haiti, but they didn’t have a ride to get out of the airport,” said Blank, who had to direct the pair to assistance.

More than a week after a magnitude-7 earthquake devastated the country, disaster organizers say they’re seeing the first signs of a problem that can hinder even the most ambitious recovery efforts: good intentions gone wrong.( Read more... )

xposted to sex_and_race

While this post isn't directly debunking any specific notions of whiteness, I do think it's important to keep in mind that Martin Luther King Jr., whose image has been reduced to a single speech in 1963, was a black radical with a vision that expanded far past the singular issue of race.

Towards this end, I've spent some time today reading MLK speeches, particularly choosing to focus on King's vision of economic justice - an element left out of almost all modern-day mainstream representations of MLK.

Anyways, here's a selection of quotes I've pulled out of my reading today, in no particular order. I've tried to include at least a title of the speech it's from, if not a link, so others can look it up and read the full speech, in their full context. (For really reals, MLK is a great writer)

If you're familiar with this material already, I'd love to be pointed to more! And if you aren't, I'd love to hear your thoughts and reactions. Hell, I'd love to hear your thoughts about this material and MLK in general, either way!

( click for walls of text )

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

      — Letter From Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr.

Letter from Birmingham Jail is a response to "A Call for Unity", an open letter written by eight white Alabama clergymen in which they try to drop the tone argument on Martin Luther King: they approve of Dr. King's goal, they assure everyone, but they disapprove of the methods. They call for Black Alabamans to stop being so impatient and divisive, and to restrict themselves to methods that these eight white clergymen approve of.

The quote above is from Dr. King's response, a response in which he thoroughly debunks the assumptions of the clergymen's so-called call for unity. The entire response is worth reading, but the bit I quoted above seems especially appropriate to debunkingwhite. Please discuss.


And an additional thought: it seems to me that nowadays when white people write their own so-called calls for unity, they tend to salt them with MLKJr quotes. Do keep an ear out for what gets quoted today, and by whom.

So I came up with a quiz which caused quite a stir.  This the follow-up post angry quiz-takers avoided.

 

There were some others, however, who seemed to have a little…trouble…with this quiz.

http://www.witchvox.com/va/dt_va.html?a=ukgb2&c=words&id=13499


( Article for the linkophobic )

Forget about the basic messedupedness of the structure of this "article" for a while basically "humans" are White and therefore developed lighter skin in response to being in Europe. I guess us non-humans retained the icky dark skin we have. Oh and we darkies shouldn't feel bad because we have blonds and redheads in our populations too! It's just that Whites have more. Don't you all feel better now?!

X-posted elsewhere

Louis CK standup act.  I thought this bit was hilarious and right on:

1. Stop the Bill that would Ban Visas for Iranians

The STEP Act would make it illegal for all Iranians to travel to the United States, with few exceptions made after "extensive federal screening," only in cases of medical emergency or political or religious asylum. According to Rep. Barrett, he is reintroducing the STEP Act in response to the Fort Hood shooting, carried out by an American citizen, and the Christmas-day attempt to blow up an airplane over Detroit, attempted by a Nigerian national. The bill, however, targets citizens and residents of Iran, Cuba, Sudan, Yemen, and Syria. The bill originally would have deported all Iranians in the U.S. on student, work, exchange, or tourist visas within 60 days, but that part was removed due to protest. We need to continue to protest this racist and discriminatory bill until it is scrapped altogether. Please take a minute to send an email opposing the bill, and tell everyone you know to do the same. You can also spread the word via this Facebook event.

2. Earthquake hits Haiti, causing destruction to an impoverished nation

There's little "natural" about this disaster; it is man-made, and its impact would have been much less devastating had Haiti not been ravaged and plundered by the colonial powers for over 500 years (not the least of which taking place just in the past couple of decades). Shouldn't the leaders of the powers responsible for Haiti's destitution, especially the U.S. and France, be contributing massively to the relief effort? Unfortunately that's not going to happen, so the aid must also come from ordinary people like us. Here is a list of relief organizations that are accepting donations, but be sure to read this before you decide where to donate money. Médecins Sans Frontières is one organization that is well-established in Haiti and worthy of consideration.

(x-posted here and there)