Expert Witness
As a bisexual woman of African and Cherokee descent, from a working class background, I am an expert on my oppression. There are others in this room who may be experts on the various facets of racism. I will share my personal insights and strategies. During talk back, other experts on racism will have an opportunity to share their insights as well. At times our statements will appear to be contradictory. Our challenge as allies is to find the common within the dis-similar, the pearl of truth within the contradictions. To be an ally is surely not an easy role, you must learn to trust the eyes, ears and heart of another person. A person with whom you may have nothing in common or just about everything in common save one aspect. You must believe what you can not see, hear, touch, taste or feel. It is a lot like faith. This is surely the reason why we are gathered in this sacred space.
Prejudice versus Oppression
I need to make a distinction between prejudice and oppression. We all have prejudices. We usually understand and accept differences amongst people like ourselves, and for convenience sake categorized the other into easily remember stereotypes. Tall people play basketball, blonds are dumb, fat people are jolly, women are weak, men are strong, Asians are smart, Blacks are dumb, Southerners are slow, Jews are good in business, the Irish drink too much, and bisexuals are promiscuous. But if you are from a family of tall people you will probably know at least one tall person lousy at basketball. Most Swedes will attest to the wide range of ability amongst blondes. I know plenty of depressed fat people, strong women, weak men, Asians with average SAT scores, blacks with doctorates, and innovative southerners. Jews fail in business sometimes, not all Irish people drink and I as a bisexual wish I could be promiscuous. A prejudice, no matter how foul on its own is not enough to be called oppression.
No oppression, requires something more. It requires the state apparatus or its equivalent. When your personal prejudices are backed up by the military, the legislative and judicial branches of government, as well as industry, academia and religion it becomes more than just being impolite or ignorant or rude or displaying poor taste. It is oppression. When entire classes of individuals are denied access to areas of life routinely allowed for others, it is oppression. When elaborate justifications are offered to explain a simple denial of rights, you are on the road to oppression. Oppression is more than just having a bad day, a personality conflict or a simple misunderstanding. When oppression becomes symptomatic of an entire system, entire countries, entire cultures it warps the whole structure to serve its own end. Oppression has its own logic, rhythm and laws. If you are oppressed it is for your own good, you deserve to be treated badly because you brought it on yourself, the opportunity is denied because the oppressed person is incapable of handling the access.
Oppression is systemic discrimination, prejudice, hatred and devaluation of a class of individuals. The system breeds it, supports it, nurtures it, transfer it, enforces it and rewards it. Oppression is a denial of humanity, a denial of selfhood, denial of self determination, a denial of freedom, culture, history, language, self definition and self love.
Working Definition for racism: Oppression based on race, in the US it is historically rooted in the genocidal attacks on native americans for land acquisition and the slave trade. It has been expanded to include all people of color and the 2/3 world.
But what is everyday racism? Everyday racism consist of the daily manifestation of racist oppression. It is something people of color encounter on a daily basis. It can be interpersonal, internal, institutional, or in any combination. These manifestations serve as a reminder, in case we forget, that our very lives are perpetually in danger. It is a survival issue. I contend that it is the silent killer, the leading cause of stress amongst black people. Because of racism, we are denied access to proper health care, given poor care when get any, and die from preventable diseases. We receive too little care to late, have a shorten life expectancy as a result. Infant mortality rates for blacks in some areas rival that of our brethren across the seas. We are incarcerated for crimes for which whites are given verbal warnings. We are charged higher rates to receive substandard goods and services. Our unemployment rates are higher, and our college retention rates are lower. And every day of our lives we suffer untold indignities at the hands of individuals representing the system. One could argue that all racism is everyday racism.
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Wish I could be there. Very well spoken.
Katrina,
I wish you all the blessings and power you need on your journey. Thank you for these words. It is good to remember that returning to work (and thus returning to grace) bring a chance for us all to rest and have joy.
Wishing you joy in the Work.
David
Dear Katrina- Thorn reposted your blog and happy am I. Your passion, always so immense, comes blowing out in these words. So akin to my own heart and soul that it makes me have a bittersweet smile.
The Storm is only now coming to the edges of our universe and yet it will sweep and consume all that is. In the end, our beautiful universe will be so much...more? Different? Complete? Who knows?
All I do know is my soul came here to witness and be part in this period. I cannot shrink from the work. I am here with you, fae sister!
Thought-provoking piece, Katrina. Thanks.
I don't know what to call myself either. In Pagandom, I've taken to referring to myself as a Witch at Large. In the interfaith world where I'm active, I call myself a Pagan. Sometimes I call myself an uppity woman or a Second Wave Feminist. I've never really thought to publicly identify myself by my sexuality, het woman, which is very "white bread" and old-fashioned. Not only het, but serially monogamous for the most part. It seems almost a liability these days to say you're het, but I am proudly and happily so. I tend towards intellectualism but only have a BA, which doesn't carry much weight, at least in public and professional worlds, no matter how much you've studied, trained, and can articulate, even teach.
My biological heritage is Irish, Dutch, French Huguenot, Euro-mongrel. My social heritage is Roman Catholic on one side and conservative Methodist, temperance-crusading, women's rights and education on the other, with distinct East Coast sensibilities, now mellowed by more than half a century living on the Left Coast. My maternal political heritage is conservative Republican (altho what my relatives might think of current trends in the GOP I cannot imagine, since they did have brains and they did think and they did have a social conscience), yet I am much farther left in my outlook than any elected official I know. My paternal political heritage is blue collar Democratic, except that my dad broke with his family on politics and allied with my mother's family's conservatism.
I'm a former hippie, a home-birth advocate, a home death and green burial advocate, an opponent of capital punishment and resorting to warfare to resolve humankind's differences. I support the right to conscious self-deliverance. I rejoice in any and all consensual expressions of love and eros. I'm a lover and a mom.
I have never missed voting in an election and I disrespect those who don't avail themselves of this hard-won right. (I have ancestors who fought the Brits in the American Revolution.) I support workers' rights. I recognize our interdependence on this planet, so could be called a greenie. I'm a committed environmentalist in my day-to-day life (in terms of eating locally grown food, expanding public transit, recycling, preserving open space and wildlife, opposing exploitation of natural resources [strip mining, oil-drilling, nuclear facilities, agribusiness, monocultures, clear-cutting timber, overuse of pesticides, genetic modification, etc.]) I want to make the city streets "safe for dancing," as my old friend Tony Serra said when he ran for mayor of SF on the Platypus Party ticket.
Well, you got me going there, my friend. Thought-provoking read, as I said. ;-)
xo,
Macha
Lovely azaleas!
[cough][gag][snort][sneeze]
Just lovely...
I know what you mean.
I feel you. There is too much bs- particularly when people decide that their temperament is tantamount to truthful and ignore everyone else.
I get irked by immature extroverts or closet introverts who ignore you REPEATEDLY and then pretend you're out of line for being upset by the time they can't pretend you didn't say anything anymore. I find that the same people will ignore you if you blow up right away, too, and that it's because they just don't think that honoring what you value is important to maintaining a relationship, or even worse: that you don't know what you value at all and that it's all a mind game for their pleasure or annoyance. Then they call you passive-aggressive, aggressive, moody, touchy and temperamental. I call them "not listening".