On Learned Helplessness and Privilege
Jan. 14th, 2009 11:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mari4212Context is the comments being made in this post: http://matociquala.livejournal.com/1544999.html
I've probably spent about two years now, paying active attention to issues of racism, homophobia, sexism, and other assorted isms in fandom, and trying (with varied success) to apply that out into the real world. I still consider myself a novice at a lot of this, and I probably make a lot more mistakes than I realize now.
But I've been paying attention long enough to get thoroughly used to, and sick of, a lot of the comments that come in whenever someone points out an instance or pattern of racism, homophobia, sexism, et cet. There's the denials, the 'you're overreacting's, the 'well, it's justified because of this's, the 'insert oppressed group of people does it back to the people in power, so it's fair for us to do this' arguments, and the 'my friend is insert oppressed group, and she's just fine with it, so there's nothing wrong' arguments.
And all of those arguments can and will make me froth at the mouth and rant to the nearest available person around me.
But the one that keeps driving me up a wall, and which is leading me to ranting now, is this learned helplessness argument that people keep making. It tends to go along the lines of: 'Everything I do you say is wrong, so you need to sit there and coach me through the basics of writing a character of insert oppressed group right now, and if you don't help me now, then I'm going totake my toys and leave just give up and write only white males from now on.
It ends up coming across as a form of blaming the victims. That it's their fault that a writer doesn't take the time to do research on their own before they write a character or set up a fictional world. Or that it's their fault that when they call someone out for perpetuating a negative stereotype, they're too upset to want to sit there and walk them through how to write a character or situation that doesn't hit five different hotspots at once.
You know, I really do get the confusion that hits when you first start confronting aspects of your own privilege. I know I freaked out about trying not to inadvertently cause offense or hurt someone after I started dealing with the fact that I grew up with a metric ton of unconscious privileges. I'm still freaking out about it as I write this, because yeah, I'm pretty sure I don't get it all right. But the way to respond is not to immediately demand that the person who has been hurt drop everything to teach you what to do. (There's been a lot of great posts on this topic already from a bunch of FOC, and they've covered it a lot more comprehensively than I am, with a lot more background on it than I've got.)
So what do you do? That is, if you actually do want to figure out how to do a better job in the future, and you're not just looking for an excuse to give up and not deal with the issue. Because a lot of the time, it's really obvious that people complaining about not knowing what to do don't want to learn any better, they just want to not have to deal with any of it anymore.
Well, for starters, you find resources. Multiple resources, and without focusing on the people who you have already hurt and are frustrating the hell out of. You read books written by people from within that context, you talk to people you know about their own experiences of being a part of that group. You don't let one person's views stand for the entire group, and you don't expect the entire group to be exactly the same on issues, any more than you yourself would want someone to assume that you were exactly like everyone else who is of your gender, or racial group, or religion. You read and analyze, or watch and analyze, the media and genre you're working in, and pay attention to the repeated tropes and figure out why someone might find them offensive. And you listen to what people say when they yell about something, and that gives you a lot of the negative space of what is wrong to avoid.
And then you drop your excuses and write your characters as people, and you figure out how their being a member of an oppressed group would shape them, without making everything about their character be about them being that oppressed group. And yeah, it's not easy, and yeah, I'm definitely far from perfect in my own right, but you do have to try. And if you fail, you keep on trying, with more information.
Comments and critique more than welcome, and here's hoping I didn't just put my foot halfway down my esophagus at some point in here.
I've probably spent about two years now, paying active attention to issues of racism, homophobia, sexism, and other assorted isms in fandom, and trying (with varied success) to apply that out into the real world. I still consider myself a novice at a lot of this, and I probably make a lot more mistakes than I realize now.
But I've been paying attention long enough to get thoroughly used to, and sick of, a lot of the comments that come in whenever someone points out an instance or pattern of racism, homophobia, sexism, et cet. There's the denials, the 'you're overreacting's, the 'well, it's justified because of this's, the 'insert oppressed group of people does it back to the people in power, so it's fair for us to do this' arguments, and the 'my friend is insert oppressed group, and she's just fine with it, so there's nothing wrong' arguments.
And all of those arguments can and will make me froth at the mouth and rant to the nearest available person around me.
But the one that keeps driving me up a wall, and which is leading me to ranting now, is this learned helplessness argument that people keep making. It tends to go along the lines of: 'Everything I do you say is wrong, so you need to sit there and coach me through the basics of writing a character of insert oppressed group right now, and if you don't help me now, then I'm going to
It ends up coming across as a form of blaming the victims. That it's their fault that a writer doesn't take the time to do research on their own before they write a character or set up a fictional world. Or that it's their fault that when they call someone out for perpetuating a negative stereotype, they're too upset to want to sit there and walk them through how to write a character or situation that doesn't hit five different hotspots at once.
You know, I really do get the confusion that hits when you first start confronting aspects of your own privilege. I know I freaked out about trying not to inadvertently cause offense or hurt someone after I started dealing with the fact that I grew up with a metric ton of unconscious privileges. I'm still freaking out about it as I write this, because yeah, I'm pretty sure I don't get it all right. But the way to respond is not to immediately demand that the person who has been hurt drop everything to teach you what to do. (There's been a lot of great posts on this topic already from a bunch of FOC, and they've covered it a lot more comprehensively than I am, with a lot more background on it than I've got.)
So what do you do? That is, if you actually do want to figure out how to do a better job in the future, and you're not just looking for an excuse to give up and not deal with the issue. Because a lot of the time, it's really obvious that people complaining about not knowing what to do don't want to learn any better, they just want to not have to deal with any of it anymore.
Well, for starters, you find resources. Multiple resources, and without focusing on the people who you have already hurt and are frustrating the hell out of. You read books written by people from within that context, you talk to people you know about their own experiences of being a part of that group. You don't let one person's views stand for the entire group, and you don't expect the entire group to be exactly the same on issues, any more than you yourself would want someone to assume that you were exactly like everyone else who is of your gender, or racial group, or religion. You read and analyze, or watch and analyze, the media and genre you're working in, and pay attention to the repeated tropes and figure out why someone might find them offensive. And you listen to what people say when they yell about something, and that gives you a lot of the negative space of what is wrong to avoid.
And then you drop your excuses and write your characters as people, and you figure out how their being a member of an oppressed group would shape them, without making everything about their character be about them being that oppressed group. And yeah, it's not easy, and yeah, I'm definitely far from perfect in my own right, but you do have to try. And if you fail, you keep on trying, with more information.
Comments and critique more than welcome, and here's hoping I didn't just put my foot halfway down my esophagus at some point in here.
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no subject
Date: 2009-01-15 05:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-15 06:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-15 07:30 am (UTC)'Everything I do you say is wrong, so you need to sit there and coach me through the basics of writing a character of insert oppressed group right now, and if you don't help me now, then I'm going to take my toys and leave just give up and write only white males from now on.
Yeah, that was the vibe I was getting from a number of the comments, especially the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" ones.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-15 02:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-15 02:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-15 10:01 am (UTC)That said, VERY YES.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-15 07:54 pm (UTC)Good writers are people with life experience. In terms of the "damned if you do, damned if you don't argument," I don't agree. I think authors need to accept that at times, a story might not be in their life experience to write. It's unfortunate, because everyone has stories to tell. You CAN'T tell someone else's story. You can only tell your own. I love that I know people who can tell stories about talking animals and magical heroes and heroines. If it's in their imaginations, terrific. If it's not, no biggie. I hear lots of books lack magic and fantasy and they're still pretty good.
Writing, fortunately, is not limited to the present. Tolkein started Lord of the Rings in the trenches in WWI. He finished quite a bit after that. People need to accept that a story could take time. Life experience is important, and there's no substitute. And if your story is that important, I think you'll take the time.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-17 04:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-20 04:06 am (UTC)I read someone who was writing a comment saying, "This is me, with my arms spread wide, saying 'teach me what I need to know.'"
DO YOU KNOW HOW TO GOOGLE? Good. Go forth and use Google and read things your own damn self.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-20 04:44 am (UTC)Go forth and use Google and read things your own damn self.
Yes, this exactly.
I find it so annoying that the same people who are demanding that others do the very basic research for them on this issue, would think nothing of spending three weeks researching medieval sword-fighting techniques for the sake of getting one scene right in a fantasy novel.