Racism Fatigue
As a white person, I haven’t been sensitized to covert racism by a lifetime of experiences. Unlike a person of color who has no choice but to see and feel it every day, I actually do have to “go looking for it”; my privilege could otherwise allow me to go through life believing it doesn’t exist. Because I care about being anti-racist, I do go looking, do make an effort to educate myself about patterns of racism I wouldn’t automatically recognize–and to question myself when my kneejerk reaction is, “Oh, come on–I’m supposed to believe that’s racist?”
But because I’m white, I also have the option of not looking any time I don’t feel like it. That’s what privilege is. It’s the option to ignore nasty shit that doesn’t directly affect my own life, my career, my relationships, my bank account, my social standing, my housing situation, etc. And I won’t lie to you–I take that option plenty. I have not publicly flipped out about racism directed at Obama the way I have about sexism directed at Clinton. I had not given all that much conscious thought to making sure people of color feel welcome at my blog or within the movement it partially represents, until it was pointed out to me that many didn’t. I haven’t written jack shit about LGBTQ issues in I don’t know how long, despite being an ally in my own mind. I spend most of my activism energy on feminist issues and fat issues, things that affect me directly.
And you know, I don’t even feel guilty about some of that. Each one of us can only do so much, and I’d wager most of us spend more energy on things that affect us directly than on things that don’t. Even among those things, we pick and choose. I blow off Miss Bimbo. Wesley Morris can’t be arsed to care about King James as King Kong. Charlotte Allen neglects to think about… anything. In the big picture, that’s fine. No one has to save the world single-handedly.
But those of us who care about social justice have no excuse for not being aware of issues that don’t affect us directly, or for not taking people seriously when they tell us something that’s hidden behind the screen of our own privilege really is there. None of us has an excuse for wanting to maintain that privilege regardless of whom it hurts. And for my money, there is no better education in privilege for those who need one–and that includes all of us who have it, no matter how many times we’ve read “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”–than these heated conversations about the more subtle forms of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, sizeism, ableism, what-have-you. Because that’s when it really comes out. That’s when people start making the “I don’t see it, so IT IS NOT THERE” arguments, and the “You people are just looking for things to get pissed about!” arguments. There’s a lot to be learned from those.
I don’t have to go looking for instances of sexism and sizeism to get pissed off about; I’m a fat woman, so they find me. But I do look for instances of other forms of bigotry, because in so many cases, if I don’t look, I won’t see them. And those of us with privilege need to look. So the problem with a Wesley Morris telling us certain instances of racism should be beneath our notice, or a Charlotte Allen telling us pretty much all of sexism should be, is that it gives those who really need to look a handy excuse not to. And it’s a hell of a lot easier to look for excuses not to care than to look at experiences outside our own.
That Vogue cover is bloody well a call-out to King Kong, and Kong himself is bloody well a profoundly racist metaphor. And it bloody well matters, even if there are more important things to think about. Even–especially–if you “just don’t see it.” I can totally understand Morris being too worn out to challenge Anna Wintour, but for fuck’s sake, dude, if the rest of us aren’t? Don’t tell us to shut up about it. Because one thing a lifetime of experience as a white person has taught me is that a whole lot of white people love little more than being let off the hook by a Bona Fide Person of Color. You don’t think I need to care about this? And you’re not white? HALLELUJAH! Hey, I’ve totally got racism fatigue, too, my brother, let me tell you! Nobody’s got it worse than me!
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