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to be precise about it, it's really about unlearning bigotry (racism, sexism, homophobia, fatphobia, whatever you can think of)– which is not easy to do, bc it's in the cultural air that we all breathe. those in the crosshairs learn quicker than everybody else bc skin in the game https://t.co/YZEtnrhR4j
one of the frustrating things about mainstream social discourse is how quickly everyone forgets the recent past. afaik, everything & everyone was casually homophobic/transphobic in the 90s. I don't think most ppl intended to be hurtful. they largely didn't see how hurtful it was
i'm not looking to excuse anybody's ignorance and slowness etc. I just personally believe that if I want people to learn, if I want progress to happen, then I must face the reality of the situation and truly understand how/why it's happening so slowly. I can give you an eg
I'm a minority in Singapore. Singapore, while relatively safe, etc, has racism, just like every other country on the planet. Minorities are sensitive to this. Singaporean Chinese (the majority race here) are not. I have lots of Singaporean Chinese friends. They are slow to learn
it's unrealistic for me to expect the average SG chinese person to learn about racism in SG as quickly as minorities do. because of skin in the game. I wish it could happen! but the "physics" of the scenario is what it is. so what do I do? I write: https://t.co/nFZ3stlSL6 https://t.co/Mt9GfhLRPx
This one list has "radicalized" more of my friends than anything else I know of. Most minorities already have a list like this in their heads, because every time they see a news event, it's part of a broader pattern. But if you don't have SITG, it's "another random news event"
I don't mean to disparage or dismiss OP for her joke. It's a good joke, I lol'd too. And I never want to police minorities for whatever coping mechanisms they use to get through the damn day. Nobody is perfect, and we need a diversity of approaches to address bigotry in all forms
But I post this bc I think I would've benefited from seeing it laid out like this, so I'm sure someone else would, too. I figured this out through painful trial and error. I didn't even really wanna be doing this thread, I'm in the middle of nerding out about The Book Of Books...
recap 1. some people are more incentivized than others to really understand a situation 2. if you want to get people to understand something, it generally helps to provide a non-judgemental space for learning 3. (2) is an unfair thing to expect of victims & minorities, and yet
4. some people might actually be mad at me for framing it like this, because it seems to put the burden of progress on the victims of bigotry. and you know, I'm with you on this! I'm mad about this too!! the world is a cruel and unfair place. but all you can do is all you can do
5.if you study how progress has happened, a few victims-turned-heroes seem to always be at the heart of it. representation matters. we don't "owe" anybody anything, absolutely., but if we don't tell our stories then we're stuck with the status quo https://t.co/VvOzXkl6W6
Representation matters. I know some intellectual folks have galaxy-brain takes about how you shouldn't limit the way you see yourself, but this isn't about how you see yourself – this is about how other people see other people. https://t.co/PNKykGEFVP
this is just where I'm at, after years of thinking, debating, arguing, fighting, hurting. I've lost friends en route to trying to figure this stuff out. it's not perfect or complete, it's just me, trying to be real, trying to figure out how to help make the 🌍 better for everyone
@visakanv In particular my thought here is "well, how do you know what you know? Was there a time you learned that racism was bad, or have you always known it from day one?" We have a lot of hate for people who "should" know things by now, and it's hard for the average person to 1/
@visakanv disentangle themselves from their context in which the truth is obvious. I notice that mildly autistic people struggle with this a great deal. "Why don't you know X?" Nobody ever taught me! It's always been something everyone just figures out without noticing how to learn it