Rogan: Yeah, I made this essay quite a few years ago, when I was still REALLY uncertain and nervous about a lot of things. Now that I have a better grasp of nonwhite, nonmedical forms of spirited/many-selvedness, and also realized that a lot of what I was taught about racism didn't work or explain my experiences, I should return to this territory!
I feel like, maybe, everyone would benefit from dismantling white supremacist hierarchies, so then nobody needs to feel ousted and ashamed and confused for having Racial Baggage from societal racism without a community to fall back on because You Know Everyone Else Has It Worse?
Couldn't have said it better myself!
And racism isn't only a White Thing!
It sure fucking ain't! Remove the singlets, and plurals will constantly create their own ableist pecking orders. An all-women society won't magically be above misogyny either, as the Lesbian Sex Wars so exhaustively illustrated!
is it just me, or is the System Race Policing almost exclusively a white thing?
I've encountered it from folks of color, but not too many. Most of the time, I haven't been sure of the race or ethnicity of the people spewing the shit, and it seemed to be playing into the bullshit to dig or ask. I've definitely noticed that it looms large in the anxieties of white-vessel systems I've talked to. When white-vessel groups do it, I interpret such behavior as, at best, showing their asses regarding their own feelings of insecurity and self-loathing projected outward. (At worst, it's just bullies discovering an acceptable target, cynically using whatever weapon is at hand.)
every time I've seen people saying "you can't have headmates who aren't your race!" they've been discussing the horror of a white person with a headmate of color. Like, hey, what about us? I'm a person of color, I share my body with another person of color, is that more or less racist? I share my body with a white person, does that make me a race traitor or something? It's not an angle I ever really see discussed! It's always hating a white-bodied system for having a POC in there!
Perversely, it just shows how WHITE-drenched the whole milieu is, that they can't imagine any other scenario! It's never, say, a Japanese-vessel system with a Korean headmate or something. It's always extremely American, steeped in extremely American racial norms, so the Japanese/Korean example would be fine, because they're the same American "race" (even though the ethnicities are totally different and have a violent, upsetting history)! I even remember HAVING a conversation with someone about that as they realized they felt differently about a white-vessel system with a [their ethnicity] headmate, but not a [their ethnicity] system with a [ethnicity their group oppressed] headmate! It felt like a moment of rare clarity where I saw under the hood.
Meanwhile, me and Mori's ethnicity doesn't exist in this world, and we appear racially ambiguous to boot, but that doesn't matter; we're STILL forcibly sorted into a bullshit American racial system; we are not allowed to opt-out, and trying just makes the folks involved madder, because we're trying to "escape" our privilege or some such bullshit. (And then, once we're sorted, we're presumed to be "appropriating" from the box we're sorted into, even though that box is entirely a projection of American cultural norms, not reality.)
Biff STILL doesn't voicebox at front because he has an accent that screams "Southern beige trash" to people and it gets a reaction out of them that he doesn't want to deal with. He calls it being "race-tested."
no subject
I feel like, maybe, everyone would benefit from dismantling white supremacist hierarchies, so then nobody needs to feel ousted and ashamed and confused for having Racial Baggage from societal racism without a community to fall back on because You Know Everyone Else Has It Worse?
Couldn't have said it better myself!
And racism isn't only a White Thing!
It sure fucking ain't! Remove the singlets, and plurals will constantly create their own ableist pecking orders. An all-women society won't magically be above misogyny either, as the Lesbian Sex Wars so exhaustively illustrated!
is it just me, or is the System Race Policing almost exclusively a white thing?
I've encountered it from folks of color, but not too many. Most of the time, I haven't been sure of the race or ethnicity of the people spewing the shit, and it seemed to be playing into the bullshit to dig or ask. I've definitely noticed that it looms large in the anxieties of white-vessel systems I've talked to. When white-vessel groups do it, I interpret such behavior as, at best, showing their asses regarding their own feelings of insecurity and self-loathing projected outward. (At worst, it's just bullies discovering an acceptable target, cynically using whatever weapon is at hand.)
every time I've seen people saying "you can't have headmates who aren't your race!" they've been discussing the horror of a white person with a headmate of color. Like, hey, what about us? I'm a person of color, I share my body with another person of color, is that more or less racist? I share my body with a white person, does that make me a race traitor or something? It's not an angle I ever really see discussed! It's always hating a white-bodied system for having a POC in there!
Perversely, it just shows how WHITE-drenched the whole milieu is, that they can't imagine any other scenario! It's never, say, a Japanese-vessel system with a Korean headmate or something. It's always extremely American, steeped in extremely American racial norms, so the Japanese/Korean example would be fine, because they're the same American "race" (even though the ethnicities are totally different and have a violent, upsetting history)! I even remember HAVING a conversation with someone about that as they realized they felt differently about a white-vessel system with a [their ethnicity] headmate, but not a [their ethnicity] system with a [ethnicity their group oppressed] headmate! It felt like a moment of rare clarity where I saw under the hood.
Meanwhile, me and Mori's ethnicity doesn't exist in this world, and we appear racially ambiguous to boot, but that doesn't matter; we're STILL forcibly sorted into a bullshit American racial system; we are not allowed to opt-out, and trying just makes the folks involved madder, because we're trying to "escape" our privilege or some such bullshit. (And then, once we're sorted, we're presumed to be "appropriating" from the box we're sorted into, even though that box is entirely a projection of American cultural norms, not reality.)
Biff STILL doesn't voicebox at front because he has an accent that screams "Southern beige trash" to people and it gets a reaction out of them that he doesn't want to deal with. He calls it being "race-tested."