Kerfluffle!

[sapote]

Maybe it's being, you know, a Southern white girl descended from a slave owners (feel free to defriend me!), but I've never understood what's so traumatizing about people accusing you of racism. When someone accuses me of being racist I usually go, "Huh. Really? Oops!" and then say "Let me think about that and get back to you! I'm quite sorry!" and try to be less racist next time. None of us can claim to be a) raised outside of society or b) raised in a perfect society, so really, can't you be expected to pick up some mental detritus now and then?

Is it racist of me to say that finding out you're being a little racist is not the end of the world? I don't even think it's that much of a reflection on your character as long as you consistently try to improve your level of treating-everyone-as-well-as-possible.

I'm not trying to open the whole can of worms again, incidentally, it's just that every time there's a discussion on fannish ethics, all those worms seem to get out anyway, and I decided to take it to my own lj instead of getting it all over someone else's.

Comments

[synecdochic]

I think it's a personal thing, honestly. I grew up in a Very Very White suburb, and the PoC I interacted with in high school were mostly Asian (or Southeast Asian); my experience in school, for instance, was very White-culture-oriented and we didn't talk much about racism. At the same time, though, we did get an emphasis on diversity in history and literature, so ... I dunno what message we were supposed to take away from it. Most of my experience with my own personal invisible knapsack came from my family owning a business in the predominantly-Hispanic town one town over, and interacting with our customers there...

One thing I have noticed, in my various travels, enough to comment on it at least, is that in the northeast, people hate everyone equally; it's a generalized misanthropy that comes from too many people crammed into too small a space. In the South, man, if they hate or disapprove of you, they hate you, personally. Exhausting.

(And let us not talk about Nebraska.)

[sapote3.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah, because if you're in in the South, you're in. If you've had time to build a reputation as Good People, assuming you're not in a community that's too ridiculously rigid, you're in forever, but otherwise, especially in Southern Appalachia, their grandparents have to have been on good terms with your grandparents. My mother has the curse of a Yankee family, and when we were really living in a cove no one ever let her forget it.

I haven't been north of the Mason-Dixon for more than a week since I was in elementary school, but other people tell me they find the constant misanthropy exhausting when they go there - because they keep trying to do the kind of thing that establishes you as Good People in the South, and keep getting rebuffed, and it would take a long time to learn not to do it. The South can also be so passive-aggressive - six feet of marshmallow with a steel wall behind it.

But then, NC is dominated by a couple of big university towns and a banking capitol full of Yankees, so I've probably had a lighter dose of it then I'd get in, say, Georgia.

[synecdochic]

Yeah. Whereas in the North, the way to establish as Good People is not the Southern idea of slow relationship-building (conversation, chitchat, etc, etc) but the Northern courtesy of "get in, get out, get out of my way". This was brought home to me when I was dating a Texan who'd moved up north for college: she would keep trying to chat up the counter person, with this looooong line of people behind her at the Dunkin Donuts or wherever, and every single one of them would be giving her the death glare ...

Whereas when I would go down to visit her family with her, and we'd go for lunch at the Whataburger (mmm, Whataburger), I'd be at the front of the line and I'd be trying to give my order and get the fuck on with it and the counter person would want to know alllll about our travel itinerary and I'd be like, hello, can we just get me my damn food already?

[sapote3.livejournal.com]

Hah, The counter person was SO OFFENDED OMG, I have had people do this to me and it's this moment of WHY ARE YOU SO RUDE? followed by being molasses-slow getting them their fries.

And then I get all sad when I go north and the dime-store clerk won't even tell me how his day was.