In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Sometimes, I’m a jerk

Bint Alshamsa

Yeah, that’s right. I can be a big jerk sometimes. I’m not proud of it. I’m just not in denial about it, either. You’re probably a jerk sometimes, too.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that as an insult. I think that there may be a lot of good reasons why you’re a jerk from time to time. I certainly have a few. Sometimes, I was a jerk because I had to start my day without breakfast, caffeine, or pain meds. Having a good attitude is a lot more difficult when I’m fatigued, hungry or hurting. Sometimes, my jerky behavior probably had something to do with the fact that I forgot to take my Lexapro and didn’t realize it until I saw that the dose was still there from the day before. Sometimes, I want to convince someone to go away and I simply don’t care if they think I’m “not a nice person”. Most of the time, though, I don’t even realize that I’m being a jerk.

I appreciate it when one of my loved ones takes the time to tell me how I’m inadvertently being a jerk, but when you’re standing on someone’s neck, it’s not reasonable to expect them to be patient with you. I’ve been in a lot of conversations on the internet where someone was being a jerk, but they still seemed to think that their needs should be catered to. I can’t even count how many times I’ve seen this occur in conversations where a marginalized person is telling someone that they are engaging in extremely privileged behavior.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being ignorant about something you haven’t had the opportunity to learn. I was raised in a very strict family that belonged to what could best be described as a Christian cult, so there were a lot of things I didn’t know about when I decided that I was no longer a “true believer”. I didn’t even know enough to be be aware of how ignorant I was.

When I became convinced that the Creator didn’t care that my partner and I lived together without being married, I thought that made me a flaming liberal. I’m embarrassed to say how many more years it took before I became comfortable with my sexuality and stopped identifying as “pro-life”. Fortunately, I found people (e.g. Kevin from A Slant Truth, Devious Diva from This is Not my Country) who could explain concepts to me in language that I could understand.

Learning the basics about classism, racism, and sexism gave me a foundation that I was able to build on by myself. That, in turn, allowed me to understand more about the impact that my actions had on others. I’d like to believe that it has made me a better person than I was before. I think I contribute more positivity to the universe than I used to, but I still don’t feel like I’m even close to meeting my potential. I can do a lot better.

A few days ago, I wrote a post about being cognizant of how one’s actions may be oppressing others. I was pleasantly surprised to see how many people were willing to speak up in the comment section. Some folks seemed to be able to critically analyze their actions, but others decided to use this an opportunity to talk about why they think their oppressive behavior and bigoted ideas were somehow understandable. As more of the latter group began to comment on the thread, I decided to shut it down because that was nearly the opposite of what I was looking for.

If you think that what you’re doing is justifiable, even though you know it’s oppressing others, then I think it’s time for you to do a little soul-searching. Oppressing others is never justifiable. I’d like to believe that everyone should be able to see that, especially those who consider themselves lefties or liberals or progressive. However, l know that sometimes people aren’t as progressive as they think they are. So where do we go from here?

If you read that post and were able to admit to yourself and others that you have a tendency to engage in certain kinds of harmful or hurtful behavior towards others, I’d like to ask you a few questions. Knowing that it isn’t justifiable, what are you doing to change your oppressive behavior and ideas? How are you trying to educate yourself on those issues and forms of oppression that you might not know very much about?

If you’re reading this, then the odds are pretty high that you have more than enough available information to make ignorance inexcusable. The fact that no one in a particular marginalized community has knocked on your door and told you all about what they experience doesn’t mean that you can blame anyone else for what you don’t know. That means no one has a right to demand that a marginalized person educate them.

Instead of waiting for knowledge and understanding to come to you, the more ethical action would be to go out and find what’s already out there and read. There’s nothing wrong taking the initiative by educating ourselves before we attempt to have conversations about whether the experiences of those within marginalized communities are valid, make sense, should be doubted, et cetera.

Since we all have to start from somewhere, why not start at the beginning? I’ve been looking around the internet for as many sites as I could find that provide introductory information on particular kinds of oppression. There are so many of them out there that I’ve had a difficult time trying to sort through them all. I’ve decided to ask for help.

What sites did you first read that helped you understand the basics of these subjects?
Classism
Ageism
Ableism/ablism
Racism
Sexism
Cis-sexism
Nativism

I’m especially interested in sites with information like Resist Racism’s Racism 101 and the Feminism 101 blog that can be used by someone who may never have explored these issues. I’d like to add them to this post, so that everyone who comes across this thread can find some resources to get them started.

22 thoughts on Sometimes, I’m a jerk

  1. Well, yours for one.

    Can I make an odd suggestion? The Slacktivist. These days he mostly deconstructs the Left Behind series, but he does the occasional amazing posts on poverty and bigotry and such. Maybe not your thing, but if that loving, gentle, generous Jesus I used to believe in did come back, I think he’d be a lot like the Slacktivist.

  4. A privileged and feminist upbringing and education allowed me to recognize oppression in the acts of others, but in terms of taking responsibility for my own blindness and oppressive actions in the list of oppressions above: Womanist Musings, Questioning Transphobia have been particularly and consistently helpful. I’ve often found Feministe to be quite educational when the editors are self-critical.

    One oppression that you don’t mention on there: sizeism or fatphobia. I’ve internalized a lot of hatred in that arena, and Shapely Prose has been helpful there.

  5. A privileged and feminist upbringing and education allowed me to recognize oppression in the acts of others,

    That’s problematic and overstating my range of knowledge pre-engaging in blogs. I know I had a marginally better understanding than many before diving into the feminist blog sphere and interacting, but I wasn’t that smart, and too many blogs to mention have tremendously expanded my understanding of the isms in general.

  7. I really appreciate this post, both for your honesty, and for what you are seeking to accomplish in the discussion.

    A few things I’d recommend (I hope it’s ok to include books as well as sites!)

    – Peggy McIntosh’s Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

    – For Christian feminists, Elizabeth Johnson’s She Who Is is unrivaled as an introduction to feminist theology.

    – Paul Farmer’s Pathologies of Power also was huge for me, in terms of understanding xenophobia and racism, as they function in US cities and at an international level. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in how to develop a more just healthcare system.

  8. The sites that have been most helpful to me are:

    Livejournal’s Feminist Anti-Oppression Forum and Debunking White;

    the blogs Muslimah Media Watch, Angry Black Woman, and WoC Ph.D.;

    recently I’ve been reading Questioning Transphobia, Flipflopping Joy, and Ta-Nehisi Coates.

    I’ve introduced my brother to Racialicious, and he’s starting to understand the dialogue.

  9. Several years ago, a friend’s mother give a quick speech about openmindedness at a wedding. One of the things she said has stuck with me:

    “You can’t be open-minded if you’re not open-hearted.”

    This is what it’s about for me. You can read lots of good information about different oppressions, and it is good to do that, but if that just stays in your head, it doesn’t help anyone. The real question is: Are you ready to open your heart to those who have less than you do?

  10. 1) I think there is a difference between asking and demanding, even if the burden of making that distinction lies with the questor.

    2) For some topics, plz don’t say use google or !research it! or do sarcastic little gifs. That’s making demands on skillsets that some people do not necessarily have (if we aren’t on well-known topics). Sometimes there is just waaaaaaay too much bad data out there that’s more popular than the truthful stuff. For example, I was tremendously helped by this link
    http://www.t-vox.org/index.php?title=Trans_101
    even though it doesn’t come up on Google unless you hit the right combination of words and numbers. I only found it because I was looking up berdache.

  11. This was my introduction to white privilege.

    A feminism 101 that gave me a good start.

    In my own search for education I stopped reading mainstream newspapers and watching mainstream news shows. I now tend to skim through CNN RSS feed, and then google the topics presented. From there I can usually find links to more unbiased reports (like Faux News claims to do) and make my own decisions based on the facts being reported.

    I also collect links from other bloggers (not just activist bloggers, but friends who blog in the more ‘this is my diary’ style). At the end of the day I usually have in excess of 4 hours worth of reading to wade through.

    I only made a conscious decision to educate myself on the various -isms about a month ago, and Feministe was my first stop, on recommendation of another reader. It took me a few pretty intense days to admit that I wasn’t the great leftist thinker I’d always identified myself as. I’m a veritable babe in the woods as far as self-realization goes, but I’m working on it. I find myself thinking a lot more about what I want to say, and how I want to say it: examining my words more than I ever had before, and seeing patterns of things that I used to think were harmless, that I’m coming to realize were actually pretty thoughtless and, in some cases, pretty damned rude and dehumanizing. I’m not perfect, but I’m working on it, and that is in no small part because of the two links I posted up there, and the issues brought forth (and ensuing discussions) by the people on this blog.

  12. I thought Samantha’s post on autism, posted at The Truth (http://tru7hless.livejournal.com/13451.html) and Questioning Transphobia (http://questioningtransphobia.wordpress.com/2009/07/13/autism-inside-out/), was a good 101.

    And, in terms of “what am I actively doing?”, this is a very very small example and very online-specific, but it’s a relevant one–when I first came across the word “neurotypical,” I googled it. (Yes, it really is that simple, often.) Then I followed some links and did some reading, followed some more links and did some more reading. Another thing I did was to stop myself and actively refute one of my initial reactions, which was “But wait, I’ve had depression, and I HATED it! It almost killed me! Not all brain differences are good!”

    But, previous 101 and other such conversations came almost immediately to mind, and I realized I was Making It All About Me. Which it isn’t; nobody’s trying to take away my Lexapro. So I nodded to myself and said, “Right, then, back to the actual issues at hand,” and resumed reading with a less me-focused mindset.

    I still haven’t engaged in any conversations regarding the struggles of people with autism. Even though I’ve got a bit of 101 under my belt, I still have some more reading and research to do–I think it’s probably best to err on the side of too much independent reading versus too little.

  13. In case anyone’s interested in some Disability and Abl(e)ism 101 stuff, I have a series about those topics up at my other blog.

    As for understanding different sorts of -isms and how they intersect, I have a BA in Women & Gender Studies, and mostly learned about the concepts as part of getting my degree. I am still fairly new to this blogging thing. :\

  14. I love this post, although I have to say that most of what I’ve learned about priviledge has either been from more “general” feminist blogs, such as Feministe and Shakesville. While I’ve learned plenty from random blog posts on specific types of priviledge, seeing people call commenters out on their BS by specifically pointing out what’s wrong with their arguments has the biggest way I’ve learned about diverse types of priveledge.

    Unfortunately, this isn’t particularly just– it’s not fair that we expect members of oppressed groups to teach priviledged folks to not be jerks. One way to get around this is for people to speak up in support of (but not for) members of other groups. If I can be an ally for suggesting that somebody might reconsider what I perceive as ableist comments, I can encourage an ignorant person to read and learn, while simultaneously not forcing a differently abled person from having to defend their humanity for the n-th time.

    I really like what just some trans guy said. It’s important to look at things with less of a “me-focused mindset.” In my experience, it can be really difficult, too, especially if you’re used to focusing on ways that you’re personally oppressed, or if you’re generally ignorant. Empathy is key, and I don’t know how work on that aside from reading widely and learning to listen to and value other people’s experiences. Like all things, not being a jerk takes practice.

  15. I think there are a couple of rudimentary things a reader can do when approaching a post on a subject with which she is not familiar.

    As someone Just Some Trans Guy said above, Googling is a good alternative to derailing. When you see something new, introducing yourself to the rudimentary concept through Googling or checking out the related Wikipedia page can help a lot.

    Reading comments and related posts are also helpful. I’m new to disability issues, for instance, so every time I come across a post on disability issues I make a point of reading anything the OP links to and anything people link to in the comments. On a related note, I think there should be an emphasis on just reading, not commenting, if you’re not involved in the issue at hand. I find that not commenting forces me to just listen, not speak, and it allows the voices of the people most connected to the issue at hand to control the discussion.

    I also think it’s important to take what you learn on the internet and apply it to the way you relate to people in real life. I’ve found that if you open yourself up, and make a point to put your biases and privilege aside when choosing who to interact with, your group of friends will naturally become more diverse and that goes a long way to changing your perspective and helping others feel more comfortable in otherwise potentially hostile social circumstances.

    This doesn’t mean you go around preaching and seeking attention, but rather that you take advantage of teachable moments – when someone’s saying something offensive, question it, but be willing to yield the floor to any member of the marginalized group at hand. It’s a fine line, because you don’t want to speak for others, but anyone can say things like “I’d prefer if you don’t use that word – I think it is sexist/racist/homophobic/etc, because _________. Could you say _______ instead?” (if it’s a word that’s the problem) or “Why do you think that?” (if it’s a concept – just asking a series of polite and genuine questions can be an effective way to unpack privilege or challenge stereotypes.)

  16. Also – opening yourself up to a more diverse circle of friends doesn’t mean constantly bugging people to tell you about “the experience of the oppressed” or making friends with marginalized people just because they’re marginalized and you want to know more about them. It just means being friends with people, all types of people. If you’re friends with a person, you’ll have conversations with them, and in some of those conversations issues will come up (because people tell their friends about obnoxious shit they’ve encountered). Listening at those times, and asking appropriate questions, makes a big difference.

  17. This is a great thread! I’ve wanted for a long time to praise some of the people and events that have really really made me think and try to be more accountable–although obviously the point isn’t “but I’m awesome now!”.

    It’s really been not 101 sites as much as sites where discussion is happening that have been the most educational for me.

    I don’t even remember when I first read BrownFemiPower’s blog but I know that was pretty much the starting point, that and the blogs (including yours, Bint) linked in the sidebar. I feel so grateful for the manners-lessons that came from that reading, for one thing–the importance of linking back and giving credit, how to show respect by staying on topic and listening better, how to just sit with difficult ideas for a while before running your mouth. (I still struggle with that one a lot, but at least I know to try now) Also, the force and personalness with which BFP and others talked about global issues like what was going on in Oaxaca. It really made me think more deeply about how people, I don’t know, how people matter, and how terrible and urgent anti-racist struggles are.

    The work of the INCITE! Collective, Make/Shift magazine, A Woman’s Ecdysis…and many more that I’m not thinking of right now.

    I cannot even begin to convey how grateful I am for the opportunity to read all this stuff and to see discussions play out among WOC and allies.

    Here in Minneapolis there are some good folks doing Native solidarity work and some other good folks doing queer and trans activism who have educated me and given me access to events that have been amazingly educational and, er, amazing. I also have a friend who has gone out of her way to discuss class with me openly and honestly and has put up with some dumb stuff that I’ve said on several occasions.

    All the people who have said, “you have to take action and actually do something, not just talk” have also been really important. I often think of blogs I’ve read when I’m trying not to be lazy and trying not to skip out on events that I’m nervous about attending or work that I’m nervous about doing. Again, it’s not like I’m claiming to be all awesome now; it’s just really helpful to have something to tell myself when I’m feeling like I don’t want to write the article or have the conversation.

  18. I want to second Flip Flopping Joy and add the Sanctuary and Taking Steps as great blogs to open peoples’ minds.

  22. The “Colours of Resistance” website is a resource I looked to a lot when I was beginning work as an activist. Two of the pieces that continue to challenge me are “25 ways to tokenize or alienate a non-white person around you” and “Tools for White Guys (who are Working for Social Change and other people socialized in a society based on domination).”

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