So it crosses my mind, after a bit of searching to find out if there's a new Finder trade either out or in the works, to put the question to some of the comics professionals who tend to lurk hereabouts. Or the more informed fans. I'm flexible.
And haven't read Mystery Date yet, which link goes to a glowing review at artbomb.net. They also have a bio of Carla Speed McNeil, if you're wondering what I'm on about.
And the blog has a brief mention of the upcoming Persepolis 2 and Birth of a Nation books, if those are more your tastes.
I mentioned this not being a comics blog, yes?
I can do politics. Sort of. I mean, reading In Iraq, the Job Opportunity of a Lifetime reminded me of why enthusiastic young white conservatives shouldn't be allowed to leave the U.S. without adult supervision, let alone being put in charge of rebuilding a country.
The next day, wearing flak jackets and helmets, Ledeen and Greco went to visit Raghad in the hospital. As they moved to embrace Raghad -- who was covered with cuts and bruises and had lost hearing in one ear -- the mother of another injured woman told them to leave, saying they should have never come, that it wasn't safe."It's okay," Ledeen told her.
"It's not okay, little girl," the woman snapped back. It was only then that Ledeen understood the mother wasn't worried about her safety. She was concerned about the Iraqi women who, as workers for the CPA, were seen by insurgents as collaborators.
It is good to see that sometimes smacking 'em like that has the desired effect -- making them realize that they are not, in fact, the center of/only thing of value in the Universe. Never works when I do it, but I might be smacking too hard. . . That article was linked at Eschaton, by the way. And there's probably lots to say about the Presidential Material? entry at A Small Victory that doesn't include charges of blatant hypocricy, but I admit to blanking.
Apparently, when news of Bush's bike spill made its way to Kerry yesterday, he said to reporters "Did the training wheels fall off?"You want this petty, childish man as your president?
Wait, got it. *Ahem* "Which petty, childish man were you talking about, dear?"
No, that's no good. . .
Update: Oh, fine.
Been thinking about white skin privilege and how it totally fucks with how you see the world ever since that little disagreement with Gray several months back. Well, actually longer, but that was when it went from background speculation to overt, effnic, "Bitch, you seriously needs to back the fuck off right the fuck now" pissiness. Think part of the problem is that even white people willing to grant that such exists -- which most likely excludes the conservative children in Iraq -- generally take great pains to immediately point out how it certainly doesn't apply to them, they're down with the brown people, et fucking cetera.
There's no effective way to explain to someone, calmly, slowly, and using very small words, that yeah, it kind'a does. Well you can, God knows I've tried, but it doesn't work. Does succeed in bringing their internalized racism up to the surface, but since they're also not willing to admit that that's what it is. . .
Fuckit.
And this is why I avoid the politics more often than not these days.
One of the things that you get out of a progressive/liberal/whatever uprbringing in Texas is a real understanding that you do, in fact, benefit from white privilege. I may be "down with brown people" and live in their neighborhood, but it's not the same thing. For one thing, watching how the cops treat you and how they treat your neighbors can be quite educational.
I don't know how anybody who's heard how GW Bush talked about Karla Faye Tucker can say anything about petty and childish. In keeping with my policy of life being too short to drink bad beer, I am not following that link to find out.
Also in pursuit of that policy, I am currently Not Having a conversation with someone about how a bigot is a bigot is a bigot, whether their target is black or gay or somebody it's Politically Approved by the K3wl Kidz on the left side of the aisle to hate. $DEITY, at least my Jim-Crow raised 80-year-old relatives have the grace to look ashamed when you catch them talking that kind of talk. This week I am quite down with your talk of plagues on everybody's house.
Ginger, I just read a section on het privilege in Abigail's book.
It ain't helping my mood.
Food for thought, and probably healthy in the long run, but in the short run. . . blech.
How's that Not Having a conversation thing working for you? I usually end up having them in a different guise later on.
I'm having a separate conversation with a friend whose judgement I trust about the fact that the conversation I am Not Having would be futile if I had it. Don't try to teach the pig to sing, etc.
I keep telling myself that it isn't my fault that some people only gargle when they get to the fountain of wisdom, but it doesn't make it any nicer to deal with the ramifications of what they spit up sometimes. (sigh)
It's interesting to think about the connections you're drawing between het privilege and white privilege. Personally, it made it a lot easier for me to understand white privilege and start to recognize it because as a feminist I had gotten used to the idea of male privilege, which was easier to see since I didn't have it. Het privilege too, though it's kind of tied up with male privilege in some ways that made it a little easier to see too. I wonder if it's more of a cognitive leap if you are a rich white straight able-bodied male...but then, some people seem to see privilege that excludes them but can't make the leap to that which they benefit from. It's always a difficult process to force yourself to be more aware.
I don't know about other people, but I have never been tempted to claim I'm so down with the brown people as to be an exception, because I'm confronted with my internalized racism all the danged time. Sometimes it's like a little annoying voice in my head that I just have to shrug off. Which is better than the times when it's my own voice and it's hard to distinguish from the rest of me. Trying to weed out those thoughts and assumptions is so taxing sometimes that it really makes me resent people who don't think they need to do the work because they are already "down" when they obviously have some more thinking (and probably reading and discussing) to do. Not that I am even Miss Perfect myself, but at least I can admit that.
One of the more discomfiting realizations I had in the last decade was that I was emphatically a beneficiary of white het privilege, despite not actually being white. Having white adopted parents, however, counts.
Amen to what Ginger said about the cops. I cannot the disrespect with which a cop treated an Arab man during a routine traffic accident report, despite the fact that I was the one who'd rear-ended the poor guy's car. Not nice.
I think there are very few people who aren't both privileged in one way and unprivileged in another. For instance, het white woman, het black male, gay white male, etc. Even overall privilege can be overturned in certain situations (why yes, I have been the white outsider here and there; it's not the same, but it gives me some insights into how it might feel to be not white among whites).
The question becomes, can you empathize/comprehend/generalize out of that situation even if you don't get it on your own? How hard does the slap have to be to make you Get The Point? And how hard do you hit someone to make that point, and when do you stop hitting them and say, "they don't get it" and walk away?
Or maybe that's that discussion I'm Not Having again.
Susan, the het privilege/white privilege thing is all Abigail; I'm just not clever enough to have worked that out on my own.
Awareness of this helps. Well, it doesn't help, but it helps. If that makes sense. And if it does, could you explain it to me, please?
Karin, if it helps, maybe you were treated better due to sexism, or not having an accent.
Maybe I should stop using this word help. I do not think it means what I think it means.
Ginger, I'd say some people are worth hitting more and more often in an attempt, but that doesn't sound right for some reason either.
I shut up now.
Kate Bornstein has this great graphic in My Gender Workbook of a big pyramid with white upper-class able-bodied heterosexual manly men at the top. I haven't seen it in a while so I can't remember exactly who is on top of who on the way down, which could get problematic...Anyway, it was sort of illustrating this idea that the top of the pyramid is the ideal and everyone else gets punished for being "less than" or something other than that ideal. It seems like an obvious statement, but it's sort of different in an important way. Instead of saying "this person is discriminated against for being black" you're saying "this person is being discriminated against for not being white" (and the same goes for gay/not straight, famale/not male, etc.). And it forces you to think about privilege and the way white/male/straight/etc. as the "default" continues to perpetuate privilege even when we are discussing the existence of racism/sexism/heterosexism/etc. Don't know if I'm explaining this...Anyway, I keep thinking about that idea and the pyramid as I read over these comments. It's true that most of us are not in the top section, but most of us are also not on the bottom.
Also thinking about Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis books. The whole thing about the "Human Contradiction" of intelligence coupled with hierarchical behavior, which the occupying aliens view as the cause of all our trouble. Hm.
I think my problem is the person I want to hit will think I'm just hitting him, and not that I'm trying to break open his thick skull to let daylight in. But that's another story.
Some people deserve more of an effort, but there's a time-effort issue and a "if he ain't gonna listen to me, I'm gonna stop talking about it" effect.
I like the pyramid; it really gets at what I was thinking about.
I'm just sick and tired of dealing with the white privilege race card. It doesn't matter if your straight or gay. White lesbians especially use this card to puff themselves up. This country (usa)has a history of sweeping serious mental problems of whites under the global rug and blaming others for their ascinine intrinsically immature reactions to not getting what they want. Personally I believe whites are discribed in the bible "...they come to steal, kill, and destroy." In biology your taught about natural selection and genes being passed from the stronger surviving organism. It's not that these people are strong but weak in spirit and heart. I'm perplexed how these people can go to church talk about love let alone sleep at night with a clear conscience! Of course whites are "down with brown" there are always overt or covertly hidden motives behind it...the foundation being sucking somebody elses life force or essence. There's a look I've observed I call the good ole boy looke... Let's say you have a lesbian bulldagger tweeker, a white male molester, and a black female going to school and working at the same job interview. The bulldagger looks around the room "scanning" for a familiar. The molester's eyes lock with her's in understanding of a shared history, and both make a sideways subtle glance towards the working student. Neither of them agree with the others views and neither will tell their girlfriends guess who's coming to dinner? It' a rapidly growing cancer in this society. It's sad that no one has the courage to force this issue which is probably because white folks kill whatever is contray to their self image. One day it'll have to happen.
Has anyone here bumped into Emi Koyama? I recently read The Transfeminist Manifesto (pdf), where Koyama talks some about male privilege from a trans viewpoint. And white middle-class lesbian privilege. Also covered in Whose Feminism is it Anyway (also pdf). And I enjoyed it when Koyama says
in A New Fat-Positive Feminism: Why the Fat-Positive Feminism (Often) Sucks and How to Reinvent It. YMMV. Any road up, regardless of what EK says, I love the way EK writes.