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Rachel, what’s your take on the “White POC” angle in Donna’s post?
I glanced over that post a while back, and returned to really read it after you left this question.
The politics of intra racial identity is a tricky area. I’m not generally one to shy away from controversial racial subjects, but I even have trouble with this one. I have delved into it on my site. One of the hot topics is black on black issues–the differences between Carribeans, African Americans, and so on.
Do I think there are “white oriented” people of color, in other words people of color who see their interests and experiences more aligned with whites. Yes. This is a big issue in racial/ethnic minority communities. In fact, there are terms that emanate from most major racial minority groups in this country that reference the idea that some people are really white on the inside. Ironically, all of the terms are food terms–apple (red on the outside and white on the inside), banana, oreo, coconut.
I think where this gets more tricky is how and when do the lables get applied. I think sometimes they are applied unfairly and sometimes they are not. For example, calling a black child an oreo because he’s a competitive swimmer seems out of line to me. Or saying a person is acting white because they are married to a white person, also generally out of line. Of course, if these same people said something like, I would never marry a person in my own race because they have bad attitudes or I like to do swimming because I prefer to be around whites. Then, people may have more ground to call people out for being white identified.
But these things are very complicated and they reflect intermalized racial stereotypes in many cases, but they also involve people who genuinely have negative attitudes toward their racial group.
I found it interesting, and had some thoughts, mostly questions. But I am *so* not going there. I’m just hoping to see that thread develop more as I lurk.
I realize its not entirely similar, but it is related–the idea of “male identified woman.” Based on my own personal experience, I would apply a similar ruberic to the one rachel oulines above; i’ve never stopped engaging in het reltionships or trying to develop my skills as an abstract thinker, etc, but I did have to make a change in my thinking from being a person who didnt recognize other women as interesting people worthy of my time to becoming someone who did, and realizing that sexism affects me no matter how much I try to play with the boys.
Yeah, curiousgyrl, I think that is a really big problem. And in some ways I think it is worse. Because we tend to grow up in mixed gender environments, I think all women go through that at some point. In fact, how often do you hear women get called out for that, rarely.
On the other hand, most people grow up with people who are of the same race, so the white identified person is more likely to get called out. I guess I’m saying there is a greater awareness of “acting white” or the racial “sell out.” However, I don’t even hear that term used with regard to male identified women.
I was certainly never called out on it directly, and in the instances when I’ve tried to bring it up with other women have tended to be more challenging than I had anticipated…could be that I handled it badly, but my point to other young women in my activist group was “sorry Ive ignored you! that was stupid! I was focused on the men! I hope you arent doing that!” and they took it as a direct comment on interpersonal dynamics I had no idea was going on. That proved to me that the idea can be pretty explosive.
I think you’re right, too, about the differences between “white” POC and male identified women. i have to admit when I read Donna’s post, I didnt read closely enough, so i was confused about what she was talking about and thought iwas about “black” identified white people who were down with the anti-FFF critique. A whole nother kettle of fish!
I think there’s a term evolving in the blogosphere for male-identified women. Exceptionalism?
ooh, its a good word. I like it
Exceptionalism?
But that could be used for race too. I’m thinking of something that is gender specific.
Apologists.
I just remembered the parallel I was thinking about and realized that my confusion stems from autonomy. It seems (though maybe I’m wrong) a bit similar to some of the feminism arguments re, say, porn and abortion: Some positions are felt to be uber-male. So if a woman takes those positions, some folks will suggest that she’s not exercising “true” autonomy, because nobody who really knew things correctly would take that position. i.e. though the position is in fact held by a woman, it’s “not a woman’s position.” It’s the “No True Scotsman” logical fallacy.
That post similarly seems to be saying that “white POC” are those who don’t share the agenda of “true” POC. IOW, I was surprised at it because it seems like an instant marginalization of the views of a category of POC, which (as a non-POC outsider) seemed to go against the general concept that the views of POC are important and should not be marginalized.
Obviously it’s more complex than that and I don’t think I understand it completely yet. But do you think that parallel makes sense?
Have you tried asking Donna your questions?
No. I was afraid of getting my legs blown off or getting crucified.*1
Really, though, I didn’t post there because I don’t think that it’d be appropriate to do so. And because I don’t necessarily think I’d get answers that I could process.
i.e. I’d rather discuss it with rachel (who seems to have made a good niche at explaining things to people like me in words that we can understand) than with Donna (who seems to have made a niche at discussing more advanced things with people who have different knowledge or belief bases than I do)*2
*1 that was sarcasm, hopefully you get the reference.
*2 Yes, I know, there’s the “you don’t need to process, just shut up and listen” camp. Might work for others, doesn’t work for me.