IBAWR - a couple of links

[helenic]

Tomorrow is the end of International Blog Against Racism Week, which I haven't participated in. I don't know enough to say anything without putting my foot in it, so I've been trying to listen/learn rather than talk. Here's a couple of things from people I know:

Skin Coloured is intended to be a collaborative, visual exploration of what it is to be non-white in a white culture. Make-up, plasters and tights - even when they’re marked “flesh-coloured” - are not the colour of skin that isn’t white. And whilst white women may have trouble matching these items to their skin, for women who don’t class themselves as white, this inconvenience is symptomatic of a wider problem. To help illustrate this problem, therefore, Skin Coloured is looking for submissions. Send us photographs that illustrate the inadequacy of provisions for non-white people, and we’ll post them on the blog, and hopefully both those submitting, and those who’re here to learn, will gain something from it. Further information can be found here. Please help us by reposting this.

The Cake Theory of Being an Ally

Some general resources on race and racism

Feel free to add your own favourite links from this week in the comments. I'll come back to this later; I'm not well-slept enough yet to add incisive commentary (even if I felt confident doing so) but I wanted to make sure I posted these at least.

Comments

[devalmont.livejournal.com]

I may be hopelessly naive on this one, but in the terminology section of Skin Colour web page they comment on not using the phrase 'People of Colour'. They then refer to people who are not caucasian as 'non-whites'.
I haven't really got any position to judge this in any real sense as I am caucasian and have never been in a racial minority, but surely being called 'non-white' is pretty insulting, as if being of African or Indian descent is somehow one step removed from the ideal.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

I'm not very well versed on the political ramifications of particular terminology either, but I wouldn't presume to tell them they were wrong, since the authors are part of the group defined by that umbrella term, and I'm not.

[forthwritten.livejournal.com]

Speaking as one half of the pair who set that up, I am very aware that "non-white" is not ideal.

People/Women of Color is really, really closely connected to US discussions of race, and as British Asians, we don't feel like the term describes our experience or, indeed, the history and current nature of race politics in the UK.

The terms I'd use to describe myself are pretty specialised, recognising my Scheduled Tribe background. I sometimes describe myself as Indian or British Asian, but these are one step removed from how I'd choose to identify. It's like being Scottish and having to say you're from the UK.

The problem is that people who aren't white aren't a single, homogeneous mass. There isn't a good way of describing us because of that. My collaborator and I thought about how we wanted to describe this extremely diverse group without being even more offensive - things like "ethnic minority" for example were not alright, because whether you're a minority or not depends on context and if I was walking around Southall or parts of Leicester I would probably not be a minority. In the city in my home state, I am of the majority ethnic group and pretty unremarkable when it comes to colour. I get mistaken for being Chinese, Japanese, Malay, Filipina, Nepali and Turkish (among other groups); there are quite a lot of countries where I could travel and my appearance would be utterly unremarkable.

So yes, "non-white" is problematic, but at the same time I think it works with the blog's aim. This blog aims to show how white people are catered for (probably fairly unconsciously) so in a way, defining myself in opposition to that makes sense.

Incidentally, "Caucasian" has a pretty unpleasant history and doesn't describe being white European - some Indian and African ethnic groups are also described as Caucasian.

[devalmont.livejournal.com]

Thank you for explaining that so well. As I said, I have little experience directly of racism, and can't apply personal experience to it. My feeling is that often the people deciding what is and isn't politically correct often have less experience than even me. I am surprised that Caucasian is problematic though, I thought it was a biological grouping and therefore immune to political change.

I had a very similar experience when I was on the phone to Cambridge Advocacy to the Deaf recently, to get some advice on how best to assist a client. I started with a tentative 'Hearing impaired' and they seemed to use 'non-hearing' and even referred to myself as a 'hearer'. To me that's reall defining the deaf by what they can't do.

I think that despite my usual conservative leanings I'm actually one of those pinko liberals. :-)

[forthwritten.livejournal.com]

Glad it helped. I agree - the people who are actually involved should decide how they want to be described. After all, imposing your own definitions on someone is denying them the ability to define themselves and on some level, denies them autonomy.
I suspect the issue with Caucasian is that it got hijacked to mean "white European".

Disability terminology is a minefield, isn't it. I think that by establishing dichotomies (blind vs sighted, deaf/non-hearing vs hearing), it's easy to ignore graduations of impairment and easy to assume that because someone wears glasses or a hearing aid, their sight and hearing must be completely corrected.
And then, of course, it makes it harder for people with some degree of impairment to get the sort of help they need. One of my teachers seemed to take particular delight in teaching in a way I couldn't follow - I had to point this out every lesson, and he alternated being taking the piss out of me and ignoring me.

Nothing wrong with being a pinko liberal :)