There was at least one comment on my last post talking about what A’s pediatrician might have meant when she said princess skin and whether or not she intended anything negative by it. And honestly, did it matter anyway? I’ve been meaning to write about this for some time: I don’t care what the pediatrician (or anyone else, for that matter) intended when she said princess skin. I care that she said it. And it matters a whole hell of a lot.
First, some Jay Smooth.
Transcript follows.
Transcript: [The whole video is shot in black in white, with Jay Smooth facing the camera delivering the following speech. Periodically, small clips of text in yellow font appear on either side of his face to emphasize a point.] Race! The final frontier. No matter what channel you watch, what feed you aggregate, everybody everywhere is talking about race right now. And when everybody everywhere is talking about race, sooner or later you’re going to have to tell somebody that they said something that sounded racist. So you need to be ready and have a plan in place about how to approach the inevitable “That sounded racist,” conversation. I’m going to tell you how to do that.
The most important that you’ve got to do is remember the difference between the “What they did,” conversation and “What they are,” conversation. Those are two totally different conversation and you need to make sure you pick the right one. The “what they did,” conversation focuses specifically on the person’s words and actions in explaining why what they said and what they did was unacceptable. That’s also known as the “that thing you said was racist,” conversation, and that’s the conversation that you want to have. The “what they are,” conversation, on the other hand, goes a step further and uses what they did and what they said to draw conclusions about what kind of person they are. This is also known as the “I think you are a racist,” conversation. This is the conversation you don’t want to have, because that conversation takes us away from the facts of what they did into speculation about their motives and intentions. And those are things you can only guess at and can’t ever prove, and makes it too easy for them to derail your whole argument.
And that is the part that’s crucial to understand. When you say “I think he’s a racist,” that’s not a bad move because you might be wrong, it’s a bad move because you might be right. Because if that dude really is racist you want to make sure you hold him accountable and don’t let him off easy. And even though, intuitively, it seems like the hardest way to hit him is to just run up on him and say “I think your ass is racist,” when you handle it that way, you’re letting him off easy because you’re setting up a conversation that’s way too simple for him to derail and duck out of.
Just think about how this plays out every time a politician or a celebrity gets called out. It always starts out as a “what they did,” conversation, but as soon as the celebrity and their defenders get on camera, they start doing judo flips and switching it into a “what they are,” conversation. [Making a mock serious face] I have known this person for years, and I know for a fact that they are not a racist and how dare you claim to know what’s inside their soul just because they made one little joke about watermelon tap dancing and going back to Africa! And you try to explain that we don’t need to see their soul to know they shouldn’t have said all that shit about the watermelon and focus on the facts of the situation. But by then, it’s too late because the “what they are,” conversation is a rhetorical Bermuda Triangle where everything drowns in a sea of empty posturing until somebody just blames it all on hip-hop and we forget the whole thing ever happened.
Don’t let this happen to you. When somebody picks my pocket, I’m not going to be chasing him down, so I can figure out whether he feels like he’s a thief deep down in his heart. I’m going to be chasing him down so I can get my wallet back. I don’t care what he is, but I need to hold him accountable for what he did. And that’s how we need to approach these conversations about race. Treat them like they took your wallet and focus on the part that matters: holding each person accountable for the impact of their words and actions. I don’t care what you are. I care about what you did.
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I really like this video because it gets right to heart of what’s so problematic about characterizing something/someone as racist. One only need look at the recent Tea Party/Shirley Sherrod/Andrew Brietbart debacle to see how incredibly sensitive people are to the idea that someone might call them racist. It’s as though they have internalized the idea that being called a racist is a terrible, terrible thing. It’s a blight upon one’s soul and deeply hurtful to be called a racist, don’t you understand!? But they haven’t really internalized the idea that having something you said called racist (a) isn’t character assassination or commentary on one’s soul (b) that’s there’s anything to be sorry for. Here’s a great example: I hate Obama, but I’m not a racist even though I draw the President with overly racialized features and invoke a wide variety of racist tropes in my artwork! How dare anyone demand an apology from me!
Of course, you don’t even have to turn to such egregious examples: my story about the pediatrician works just fine, too. I am quite certain that the doctor didn’t mean anything derogatory when she said it. I’m 100% certain that she thought it was either neutral or complimentary. However, princess skin and those comics don’t exist in a vacuum. If the comment thread on my post is anything to go by, the princess narrative (and who gets to be called a princess on the basis of appearance and who doesn’t) was genuinely hurtful to people as they were growing up. Every single time it gets repeated, that narrative reinforces the privilege which underlies it. Little, seemingly inconsequential* remarks matter.
Which is why intent doesn’t count when you’re talking about the harm done and the reinforcing of privilege. It doesn’t matter if the doctor is well-meaning or not. Sure, her intentions might make a difference if I were to go to her and say “Hey, I think saying princess skin was problematic for the following reasons,” in the hopes of a constructive conversation. But it’s not going to make the slightest bit of difference to the people who are hurt by that narrative. Once again, the princesses are white (and pale), blond, and blue-eyed.
Here’s the other thing about intent: I am a white person in a society that privileges whiteness, and that gives me power. My skin makes me per se more authoritative, more visible, and more credible than if society weren’t racist. When I, intentionally, negligently, or thoughtlessly, reinforce stereotypes and racist tropes, it’s yet another drop in the deluge. Even if it’s small, it’s a genuine contribution to systemic racism and the privileging of whiteness. (So, by the way, is inevitable the “but I’m a good person and I’m sorry, can I have absolution and a cookie?”) The doctor, like me, is white. She’s also got access to that increased power. I don’t want to be trite, but with power comes responsibility. You have to be careful with saying things like that, because people really do hear it.
*And let’s be clear here: the ability to see something like that as inconsequential is another manifestation of privilege.