childhood

That Whole Privilege Thing

Posted by diana

I realize a middle class white girl talking about privilege can go really, really wrong. I’m hoping that isn’t the case here. Quite frankly, I’m terrified of making an ass of myself. Which is why I’ve said nothing for a long time. Which is actually (heh) pretty privileged of me. I can afford to sit back and say nothing.

This isn’t for people who already know what privilege is and where they stand on that scale. This is for those friends who don’t really get what this “privilege” stuff is all about. The friends who may have heard the word tossed around, but never realized it applied to their lives (hint: it applies to everyone). Or the friends who’ve never heard the word tossed around, and are completely confused about why anyone would need to write about it. Mostly, this is for people who are privileged and don’t know it.

Okay. So. First off, if someone says you’re privileged, don’t get pissed off. Even if they sound angry or you think they’re insulting you, don’t get pissed off. There are a bunch of reasons for this:

  1. You may actually be privileged. That doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. That doesn’t make you evil or awful. That just means you have opportunities others don’t. There’s nothing wrong with appreciating those opportunities. And there’s quite a lot wrong with taking them for granted.
  2. Frustration often sounds like anger, and it often feels personal. Just as you want the chance to vent and be heard, so do other people. Give them the same kind of tolerance you’d want. Understand that they’ve faced challenges you don’t know about. Try listening.
  3. Giving in to anger almost always means you’ve lost your ability to think logically. Anger has a place, just don’t make it your first recourse. Wars, divorces, arguments… a lot of these things happen when they don’t need to because someone went to anger as their first response.

It may not feel like you were privileged, but take another look and really think about it. If you’d asked me 15 years ago if I was privileged, I might have laughed at you. And gotten defensive. And been an ass.

I am privileged. I’m white and middle class. I grew up in California, in an affluent area. My father is a physician. I had access to health care. My mom was a stay-at-home mom. I had access to schools. Fuck, I went to a private college. And I can (and will) point out that I could only afford it because of merit scholarships, because I’m damn proud of the work I did to get them… but the fact I even thought I could go to a college like that indicates a hell of a lot of privilege. And I had time in which to study or pursue extracurriculars so I could get that merit money. That time is a luxury. I never had to take a job to make ends meet when I was a kid or teen. My mom could drive me to debates because she had a car and she had time. She could also work with me on my homework and help me learn. Many things I took for granted when I was a kid were privileges I didn’t appreciate. Not then. Probably not enough now, either.

 

meme-privilege

The First Defense

One of the most common responses I’ve seen to people being told they’re privileged is to list off all the ways in which they aren’t. As if having some hardships means you can’t also have some advantages. It’s a false dichotomy.

It is possible to be both privileged and disadvantaged. All the things I listed above are ways in which I’m privileged. I’m disadvantaged by being female and Jewish. Where I live and grew up, it was more being female that was a disadvantage. The Jewish thing, while it crops up from time to time, hasn’t often been an issue for me.

Just because I know what it’s like to be female in a male dominated society doesn’t mean I know what it’s like to be black. Or Asian. Or intersex. Or trans. Or gay. Or female in a different culture. Or anything other than what I am. Likewise, just because I have friends who are black, asian, intersex, trans, gay… that doesn’t mean I know what it’s like to be them. You can’t know what you haven’t experienced. You can imagine, sure. You can read books about it or listen to someone discuss their experiences. But that’s not the same thing.

The Second Defense

The next thing people do is fake apologize. You know, those apologies that aren’t apologies at all but are instead an attack? Saying, “Do you want me to apologize for being white/male/whatever? Fine. I’ll apologize. I’m sorry I was born white/male/whatever.” And they say it in that way that implies they’re being reasonable and everyone else is unreasonable. And that… is a red herring. It has nothing to do with the issue at hand, and instead escalates conflict and makes it personal.

I’m going to say this repeatedly, because it’s important: No one is asking you to apologize for your birth. No one is asking you to apologize for things out of your control. This isn’t about YOU. 

You are being asked to listen. To acknowledge. You don’t have to do anything other than say, “I hear you.” If you want to say you’re sorry, go ahead. But say it out of sympathy, not because you’re angry or feel like you’re getting blamed. Say, “I’m sorry it was so hard.” Or, “I’m sorry shit like that happens.” And mean it. Don’t follow up with anything beginning with “but”. Lose the word “but” from your vocabulary.

Privilege means having advantages you didn’t earn. Go ahead and make use of your advantages; you don’t need to apologize. You don’t need to waste them. Just don’t be an ass to people without those advantages. Don’t tell them they’ve failed or could do better. Don’t assume you’re better than they are. Don’t judge them using a system that’s rigged in your favor. Don’t sit by while a friend behaves like an ass. I’m not sorry I was born into privilege; I’m really fucking grateful. I got a head start because of it. This, right now, is me trying not to sit by while other people behave like asses. And trying to understand my own privilege, so I’m not an ass.

It’s those of us who are privileged who most need to hear about it. And who are least willing to listen.

 

 

Addendum:

My friend, Ari, made a great comment on the facebook thread that I am including below.

It’s not really that people with relatively more privilege don’t get to have opinions, but that because our opinion is generally more valued and heard in our culture, we need to be mindful about making space for, listening to, and amplifying less privileged voices, and–particularly in spaces belonging to those with less privilege–being quiet unless we are asked to weigh in. I get to talk, as a white person, but I shouldn’t talk over people of color when the subject is the structural oppression they struggle with and their personal experiences with injustice (just using race as an example here).

And that’s hard to be mindful of, because literally everything in our culture is constantly reinforcing the idea that my thoughts, feelings, and ideas are just *worth more*, because I’m white. Having privilege makes it hard to be aware of privilege, and it’s really easy to start feeling devalued and even attacked when that gets called out, or when it’s clear that my voice is not dominant and welcome in the way I’m taught to expect. I just try to remind myself, you know, getting called out and learning to be a better person and to use my systemic advantage for good may be hard, but it’s not as hard as lacking those same systemic advantages.

110 Red Roses for my Grandmother

Posted by diana

My grandmother used to tell me a a story about how Uncle Stan sent her 110 red roses on her 50th birthday and a card saying he hoped she lived to 110 (she made it to 95, so, not bad). She would show me the card, even. And then she would ask me what happened. How did a boy like that go from sending his mother 110 red roses to not talking to her?

She would show me the letter my father sent her–the letter that started it all–and ask me what was she supposed to do? What did they (she and Harry) do that gave my father such a horrible childhood? That letter…

My father didn’t tell her he never wanted to speak with her again. He didn’t tell her he didn’t love her anymore. He didn’t tell her to get out of his life. He *did* tell her if she wanted to be a part of his life, things needed to change. She needed to respect his rules when visiting his home. She needed to treat my mother with respect and refrain from criticizing her. She needed to refrain from criticizing him. He asked her to change, to meet him part way. He could have been a hell of a lot more tactful, but he never told her to get out of his life.

She didn’t see that. To her, it was flat out rejection. She wrote him back, disowning him. Whenever my dad tells me about this, he always notes that she hit the typewriter keys so hard, every “o” cut through the paper, leaving empty circles.

The greatest tragedy of my grandmother’s life wasn’t that her sons stopped speaking to her. It wasn’t that her daughter died young. It was that she could never accept responsibility. For anything. Every story, it was someone else’s fault. It was her mother’s fault, or her brother’s fault, or Harry’s fault, or my dad’s fault, or Uncle Stan’s fault, or my fault.

She would ask me why I hadn’t written to her when I was a child. Why hadn’t I called? Why didn’t I try to write?

The first time she asked that, it flabbergasted me. I had no answer. And ever afterward, it was something she would use to guilt-trip me. Even though I did figure out the answer in time, it still worked on me.

I didn’t write her because I was the child. She was the adult.

I was a child who had been told her grandmother opted out of her life. Which was true. If anyone was to change that, it should have been the adult. It should have been the 65 year old, not the 5 year old. It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t my responsibility. But if it wasn’t her responsibility–which it couldn’t be in her world–it had to belong to someone. So she burdened me with guilt I’d never earned.

She had excuses for why she didn’t try to contact me. “Oh, your father would never have given you the letter.” Except, he would have. And she could have tried, even so.

If she had ever written such a letter during my childhood… I’m fairly certain my father would have tried to reconcile. Because he still wanted to, then. He just needed her to make a gesture. Or she could have given the letter to Kathy, my aunt. Kathy wrote to me. She came to visit. It would have been oh-so-easy for my grandmother to reach out to me through her.

She showed me the telegram Uncle Stan sent her, a few years after my father’s letter. It was only a few lines and, again, it didn’t ask her to get out of his life. Instead it said that he couldn’t talk with her by phone at that time and asked her to write him instead.

She never wrote. Instead she sat back and waited for him to write to her.

You can’t change anything if you never accept responsibility for your own actions. She gave up her sons rather than admit she was responsible for raising them and she’d made mistakes. Lord knows Fang made much worse mistakes in raising her than she did in raising my dad and Uncle Stan. She gave up her sons so she didn’t have to admit the ways she failed them. Was it worth it? Was living the next 40 years of her life without her sons worth being able to throw up her hands and say she didn’t do anything wrong?

My mother told me a story last week, about my uncle and my grandmother. She told me about the time Uncle Stan sent his mother 110 red roses for her birthday. Instead of thanking him for the roses, she complained. She complained that the roses wouldn’t last, they’d all die. She went through all 110 roses picking out the ones that didn’t bloom and went back to the florist, demanding a refund for the unopened buds, so she could get a houseplant.

(More to come)

There is too much. Let me sum up.

Posted by diana

I’ve been working at this place since October.

I moved to this place. In large part because of this:Ragnar and The New Backyard.

I’ve become obsessed with setting up my place. Which means that Apartment Therapy has become my porn.

We’ve been doing a narrative sprint at work for the last week… two weeks? Time blurs. Which has landed me with both a tremendous sense of a relief and a sore throat.

I’m trying to adapt to my new place and get past the sense of isolation I have; which is only natural, moving from an intentional community where people dropped by in the evenings every day. Fortunately, I do know some folks in the area. Unfortunately, planning ahead has not been my strong suit lately. And I’m in nesting mode, which means I want to stay home rather than going out.

A bunch of folks (from completely different parts of my life) have all suddenly started calling me Di. And I’m okay with it. I may even like it, but don’t quote me on that. (As my brother-by-another-mother, Eric Hindes, can attest, I was very strongly opposed to nicknames as a kid).

Jay is dealing with cancer. Again. Which is not my story, but is something I think about every day. (Fair warning, the video on the other end of that link is emotionally devastating. But well worth watching.)

Here. On a cheerful-ish note, this is a picture from a coffee table set I’ve been refinishing (I got it from your mom nearly a decade ago, Eric!)

Unfinished and Refinished
Unfinished and Refinished

The table on the left hasn’t been touched, while the table on the right I refinished (oil finish, no stain). Before, they looked pretty much identical. I believe they’re teak, though they might be walnut.

They say you need to love yourself before you love others… I call BS

Posted by diana

Cubby Selby used to say that the reason cliches exist is because they’re often true. I think, maybe, we’ve learned that cliche = turn your brain off.

They say before you can love anyone else, you first need to love yourself. Which has always struck me as ridiculous. You can love someone else with a desperate ferocity without ever loving yourself: witness my mother’s absolute dedication to both my brother and me. She never, in her entire life, loved herself. I think she’s learning to, now. I think the cancer made her examine herself and what she wants more closely. If not love herself, I think she’s beginning to at least value herself.

I don’t think my father has ever really loved himself, either.  But he loves my mother, my brother, me, Uncle Stan, the dogs. It’s a small group, but he would do almost anything for any one of us. I don’t know if he’s learning to love himself or not. It’s a bit harder to tell. But I think he’s learning to accept himself. He apologized to me for the way he treated me during my childhood. Completely on his own, he apologized to me.

To be able to look back and see that about himself, and then not only realize he wronged me, but to actually make the apology unprompted… That’s pretty amazing.

It’s no secret to those who love me that I’m not particularly fond of myself. Remember that sketch I posted of myself at seven? I picked that particular picture to draw because of how much hatred I felt towards that little girl.

Tonight, walking Ragnar, I was listening to the audio version of Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself (which is a pretty damned awesome book). Something Alda said at the end about knowing your own values struck me. I wish I knew what it was in particular that made it hit home. I’ve certainly heard plenty of variations of essentially the same advice. But something did strike me.

I tried to figure out what I valued. Family? Partnership? Dogs? Writing? Which did I spend the most time doing? Well, I spend the most time worrying about things and trying to come up with absolutely perfect solutions (yay OCD!). I don’t want that to be my value. But I was really startled that I didn’t know the hierarchy of the things I valued. And then it occurred to me, well, I don’t much value myself so why would I have even cared what things mattered to me? Of course I didn’t know. Because it didn’t matter.

No, I’m not saying it doesn’t matter. But that I’ve felt that way. And then that line of thought went even further. Each of those potential values I listed is a partnership: my parents, my boyfriend, my dog, my (possibly entirely imaginary) audience. In each case, I only value half of the equation. So why would I even care what happened to the other half–in this case–me?

The answer is I don’t. Or I didn’t. Gah. All this self actualization language is so imprecise… can I tell you how much I hate using lifecoach-y sounding terms? I hate it. Possibly as much as Gollum hated Samwise. Or maybe it was as much as Samwise hated Gollum…

Imagine you’re making a meal for two people. One, you care deeply about. The other, you don’t. In fact, the other you may even actively dislike. But you put up with that other because, after all, if they hadn’t shown up there wouldn’t be this dinner. Person A happens to love kale, and brownies, and pasta. Person B likes pasta, but isn’t so much into the dark leafy greens and doesn’t like chocolate (blasphemy!). So what do you make? Pasta, kale, brownies. Hey, Person A gets everything they want while Person B at least gets one thing they like!

(BTW, you’re Person B.)

Aside from this making you a bad host… the math is wrong. Person A isn’t getting what they want at all. Person A is here for dinner with Person B. How can Person A be happy if their friend is getting shortchanged?

Now let’s take away the theoretical dinner and go back to those values. If I value my family but I don’t value myself and take care of myself–my family won’t be happy. Same with my partner, or my dog (I would treat myself like shit, which would affect all of them), or my possibly imaginary audience (which, you know, might not be imaginary if I valued myself and therefore dedicated more time and focus to my writing. And, uhm, sent editors stories when they asked me for them…).

Both sides of the equation need to be considered. A + B isn’t equal to A. It’s impossible to have a relationship with someone who isn’t there, or is intermittently there. And it is impossible, as that person who self negates, to build anything lasting and healthy.

You can love someone else while not loving yourself, but you’re not going to do a very good job at it.