Hmm, so… I was reading this article, and the statement at the core of it– that the correct way to treat oppressed minorities is summed up by “The first thing you do is to forget that I’m [black/female/disabled/etc.]. Second, you must never forget that I’m [black/female/disabled/etc.]“– is something that I nodded at, but less in agreement and more in “actually, that really sums up what a lot of activist groups seem to want people to do, and you know, it’s really hard.”

As the blogger continues to say, specifically referencing the treatment of non-white people, “They make a seemingly impossible suggestion: that white folks must be aware of the fact that the experiences and cultures of people of color are different, but they must not fixate on those differences to the extent that the behavior becomes tokenizing, or discomforting, or – possibly worst of all – self-aggrandizing.” It’s hard to notice difference, be aware that this difference is meaningful and has made these people the target of abuse and oppression, and not subsequently have your actions stilted or distorted by that heightened awareness. It’s hard to be vigilant while being casual. It’s hard to treat people with special care while at the same time treating them just like everyone else.

I’ve been guilty of feeling uncomfortable when oppressed groups ask for this. If my attention is called to the fact that I should be sensitive towards someone because of their colour, I immediately cannot stop worrying about whether I’m doing it right or wrong, whether I’m doing too much or not enough, whether I’m going to be offensive, etc. This makes me socially anxious, and thus more likely to do stupid things. And I’ll be brutally honest here: I don’t want this to be the case, but it causes me to see the person as a little more threatening and a little less human. Not because I inherently believe anyone deserves to be seen as less human than anyone else, but because I feel thrown off guard by the panic-response of “how should I act? How should I act? Will they hate me if I don’t act right?”, and my response to that is to feel less comfortable and more defensive around the person. It has nothing to do with my believing any of the differences between myself and them make them bad, and has everything to do with the fact that trying to act normal when my attention has been drawn to someone is something I do not do easily.

It’s as simple as noticing them by accident. Oh, I’m looking at them now. Should I be looking? Is that okay? Maybe I should look away. But then they might think I’m purposely trying to ignore them. So maybe I should look. But that’s going to look like I’m staring. It is impossible to act naturally once you start think about how you’re supposed to act.

But at the same time, the more I think about that statement– “The first thing you do is to forget that I’m [black/female/disabled/etc.]. Second, you must never forget that I’m [black/female/disabled/etc.]“– the more something about it does sink in and seem solid. At the core of it, this is what I do with my friends. I acknowledge that they may need to do some things differently from how I need to do them, that they may have special food preferences or social needs or squicks or cultural leanings that I have to respect and work with; but I don’t think of them as a collection of those needs and squicks and leanings, or stereotype them based on those. I just try to be careful of them and to be mindful of when they might arise.

The problem is that it’s trickier with altering the way you relate to someone based on their cultural group as opposed to as an individual, particularly when it’s an oppressed cultural group, because you don’t know their individual preferences, and you have to go on what you know about the culture, and most members of oppressed groups don’t like being stereotyped based on that. And you can always ask, but if you don’t know someone well, asking isn’t always easy, and may be presumptuous and annoying in and of itself. I am sometimes going to be casual with my friends and go, “lol, I suppose you don’t want the [insert food here], then”, because they’re my friends and I know them enough to know when I can do that without offending them, but taking the same tack with someone you don’t know well is likely to be problematic. It’s not easy; but then I suppose social reform never is.