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crazyjaneThis has been pinging around in my head for a while, after a few unpleasant events ... and I've finally reached the point of needing to write another Shit List.
Begin rant.
It's this troubling little notion of 'equality', and its unpopular cousin, 'inclusiveness'.
See, there's a school of thought out there that says that equality means that you give everyone exactly the same thing, all the time, and that will fix everything. That saying, 'You're just as good as everyone else' is enough. We don't need special programs, or new laws, or anything like that. In fact, that would be unequal, because that's more money being spent on some people than on others. And that's bad. We shouldn't be punishing the majority because we feel guilty about a minority.
Ugh. Excuse me while I go wash my hands ... and possibly scrub my brain.
Because, yeah ... I have a problem with this. A big problem.
Equality doesn't just happen. We can't just declare that suddenly everyone is equal, and ignore centuries of prejudice, discrimination, violence, hatred, etc., etc. We can't just say that everything's okay while social and legal structures remain that are designed to marginalise and punish people for being other than some artificially created definition of 'normal' or 'acceptable'.
Take, for example, a recent controversy about funding for anti-bullying initiatives here in Victoria. What that boiled down to was one group - the Australian Christian Lobby - espousing the view that there should be no government funds used for anti-bullying programs specifically targeting homophobia, and assisting queer kids who were suffering from being bullied. Their reasoning? That would be unequal. Even worse, it would take money away from 'real' programs and innocent kids would suffer.
At the time, I ranted pretty heavily and sarcastically about this idea - because it's stupid. It's an argument that goes beyond flawed and into the realms of the absurd. But you know what? It's more than absurd. It's dangerous - and doubly so because it creeps in to the thinking of otherwise pretty clued-in people.
Because if even one kid commits suicide because they're no longer able to deal with being persecuted for being queer, we are not equal. Yes, bullying of any sort is horrible and should be prevented at all costs - but what these 'reasonable' people with their 'reasonable' arguments don't seem to grasp is that there is still a culture of acceptance that surrounds homophobia. Parents tell their kids not to go beating up the queer kid, but it's not that simple. Kids are surrounded by homophobic so-called 'comedy', and their parents laugh at it. Kids get told that they shouldn't pick on queer people, 'they can't help it'.
This isn't the kind of teaching that says being queer is a sin, and those who 'practise the gay lifestyle' are at best sinners, at worst pedophiles whose very existence endangers children everywhere. That kind of thinking is easily spotted, and most people these days would repudiate it. No, this is far more insidious. This is the kind of thinking that says, 'hey, I have gay friends, and I don't think there should be laws against them' - but nonetheless think that queer people make a 'fuss' about things that don't really need so much attention. After all, they're equal, aren't they?
WRONG. One hundred per cent, absolutely, utterly, dead wrong.
It's not equal when someone is silenced. Ever.
And if you're sitting there thinking that maybe queer people (or refugees, or women, or indigenous people - insert minority of choice) really should do less complaining and start integrating and be like the rest of us - congratulations. You've just joined the ranks of Christian Fundamentalists.
(And just for the record? If someone calls you on this 'reasonable' attitude, or points out that maybe, just maybe, people are being marginalised, it's not 'silencing'. Being silenced is being told to stop complaining, being told that you have nothing to complain about - being told that you are 'making a fuss' and making it hard for other people.)
Equality isn't something that magically happens. It doesn't just evolve. It's something for which you fight. Without that fighting, there would be no votes for women - hell, there wouldn't be votes at all. 'Sodomy' - more specifically, consensual sex of any kind between men - would still be a crime for which you could be incarcerated, and for longer than your average violent rapist would be in jail. Indigenous people would still be classified under 'flora and fauna'. A woman couldn't testify against the spouse who assaulted her. Et cetera.
Every one of these things was corrected because people fought for it. Sometimes it was in the halls of governments or in the courts. Sometimes it was in the streets. Sometimes people went to jail for it. And sometimes people have died for it.
And yet we are still not equal. And while we are still not equal, we still need to fight. And push. And complain. And make it clear that we won't shut up until we do get that equality. Whether you're someone in a minority or not is irrelevant. When one of us is not equal, none of us are.
What about 'inclusiveness'? This is another happy little world that people like to throw around. We're inclusive, they say. We're colour blind! We're gender blind! Everyone's welcome at our table!
Stop. Stop right there and just think about this for a minute:
Inclusiveness is not the same as invisibility.
It's not inclusive when you say everyone is welcome to participate in some area of society, but do nothing to acknowledge difference. It's not inclusive to 'let' same-sex parents send their kids to your kinder, and continue to speak of 'Mummy and Daddy' as the best - if not the only - possible situation. It's not inclusive to turn away transwomen from a 'women's group'. It's not inclusive to say you represent all religions while intoning a specifically Christian prayer, and referring to our country as 'Judeo-Christian'.
When you say you're 'colour blind', what you're really saying is that there is no difference worth mentioning between your white, heterosexual, middle-class life and heritage and that of an indigenous person who was taken from hir parents, or a queer person who was thrown out of their home and disowned by their parents. You're saying, 'Everyone is just like me'. You're saying, 'That great yawning gulf between us is irrelevant, and shouldn't be mentioned, because then we can't be the same'.
Guess what? You're not the same. And those differences are not irrelevant. Even leaving aside that uncomfortable 'equality' thing there's this: people should be acknowledged for what they are.
Heterosexual people don't get asked not to talk about their relationships. Heterosexual people, white people, privileged people occupy the centre space, and there's a nasty, very real culture there that says it's up to everyone else to conform to that, because it's 'normal'. If other people want to be included, well, they have to shut up and pretend they're 'normal', too. And the literature, the policy, the 'representation', all renders those 'not normal' people invisible.
To make matters worse, those who are standing up and saying, 'Uh, people? I'm not just the same as you, I'm a unique person with experiences and feelings and a personality that deserves just as much recognition as anyone else's,' are either ignored, told to stop grand-standing, told that they're being unfair to white/heterosexual/privileged people or - worst of all, IMNSHO - kindly advised that maybe they have 'issues' that they need to work through rather than 'insist on trying to change everyone'.
In other words? Shut up. Be happy. You're the problem, we're not the problem, and don't you dare criticise us. You should be grateful that we even let you into our groups. Don't ask us to take notice of you as people.
(Again with the hand-washing and brain-bleaching.)
I have a message for all those 'reasonable' people who bleat about 'equality' and 'no special treatment' and 'we're oh-so-inclusive'.
Wake. The fuck. UP.
What you're doing excludes, marginalises and silences the very people you say are your 'friends' ... the ones you have 'compassion' and 'empathy' for, the ones you so graciously let in to your little communities.
What you're doing is as bigoted and shitty as any fundamentalist screaming, 'God hates fags' or 'Black people have to be led'.
What you're doing is trying to disguise your prejudice as fake sympathy and wrapping yourself in a cloak of righteous victimhood. You're not victims. You're not being oppressed because someone who's part of your community asks to be acknowledged and really included, instead of tolerate. You're not being hard done by because someone in your community wants you to see them for who they really are, or because they want you to widen that community space without sacrificing anyone's agency or identity.
You're the problem.
Begin rant.
It's this troubling little notion of 'equality', and its unpopular cousin, 'inclusiveness'.
See, there's a school of thought out there that says that equality means that you give everyone exactly the same thing, all the time, and that will fix everything. That saying, 'You're just as good as everyone else' is enough. We don't need special programs, or new laws, or anything like that. In fact, that would be unequal, because that's more money being spent on some people than on others. And that's bad. We shouldn't be punishing the majority because we feel guilty about a minority.
Ugh. Excuse me while I go wash my hands ... and possibly scrub my brain.
Because, yeah ... I have a problem with this. A big problem.
Equality doesn't just happen. We can't just declare that suddenly everyone is equal, and ignore centuries of prejudice, discrimination, violence, hatred, etc., etc. We can't just say that everything's okay while social and legal structures remain that are designed to marginalise and punish people for being other than some artificially created definition of 'normal' or 'acceptable'.
Take, for example, a recent controversy about funding for anti-bullying initiatives here in Victoria. What that boiled down to was one group - the Australian Christian Lobby - espousing the view that there should be no government funds used for anti-bullying programs specifically targeting homophobia, and assisting queer kids who were suffering from being bullied. Their reasoning? That would be unequal. Even worse, it would take money away from 'real' programs and innocent kids would suffer.
At the time, I ranted pretty heavily and sarcastically about this idea - because it's stupid. It's an argument that goes beyond flawed and into the realms of the absurd. But you know what? It's more than absurd. It's dangerous - and doubly so because it creeps in to the thinking of otherwise pretty clued-in people.
Because if even one kid commits suicide because they're no longer able to deal with being persecuted for being queer, we are not equal. Yes, bullying of any sort is horrible and should be prevented at all costs - but what these 'reasonable' people with their 'reasonable' arguments don't seem to grasp is that there is still a culture of acceptance that surrounds homophobia. Parents tell their kids not to go beating up the queer kid, but it's not that simple. Kids are surrounded by homophobic so-called 'comedy', and their parents laugh at it. Kids get told that they shouldn't pick on queer people, 'they can't help it'.
This isn't the kind of teaching that says being queer is a sin, and those who 'practise the gay lifestyle' are at best sinners, at worst pedophiles whose very existence endangers children everywhere. That kind of thinking is easily spotted, and most people these days would repudiate it. No, this is far more insidious. This is the kind of thinking that says, 'hey, I have gay friends, and I don't think there should be laws against them' - but nonetheless think that queer people make a 'fuss' about things that don't really need so much attention. After all, they're equal, aren't they?
WRONG. One hundred per cent, absolutely, utterly, dead wrong.
It's not equal when someone is silenced. Ever.
And if you're sitting there thinking that maybe queer people (or refugees, or women, or indigenous people - insert minority of choice) really should do less complaining and start integrating and be like the rest of us - congratulations. You've just joined the ranks of Christian Fundamentalists.
(And just for the record? If someone calls you on this 'reasonable' attitude, or points out that maybe, just maybe, people are being marginalised, it's not 'silencing'. Being silenced is being told to stop complaining, being told that you have nothing to complain about - being told that you are 'making a fuss' and making it hard for other people.)
Equality isn't something that magically happens. It doesn't just evolve. It's something for which you fight. Without that fighting, there would be no votes for women - hell, there wouldn't be votes at all. 'Sodomy' - more specifically, consensual sex of any kind between men - would still be a crime for which you could be incarcerated, and for longer than your average violent rapist would be in jail. Indigenous people would still be classified under 'flora and fauna'. A woman couldn't testify against the spouse who assaulted her. Et cetera.
Every one of these things was corrected because people fought for it. Sometimes it was in the halls of governments or in the courts. Sometimes it was in the streets. Sometimes people went to jail for it. And sometimes people have died for it.
And yet we are still not equal. And while we are still not equal, we still need to fight. And push. And complain. And make it clear that we won't shut up until we do get that equality. Whether you're someone in a minority or not is irrelevant. When one of us is not equal, none of us are.
What about 'inclusiveness'? This is another happy little world that people like to throw around. We're inclusive, they say. We're colour blind! We're gender blind! Everyone's welcome at our table!
Stop. Stop right there and just think about this for a minute:
Inclusiveness is not the same as invisibility.
It's not inclusive when you say everyone is welcome to participate in some area of society, but do nothing to acknowledge difference. It's not inclusive to 'let' same-sex parents send their kids to your kinder, and continue to speak of 'Mummy and Daddy' as the best - if not the only - possible situation. It's not inclusive to turn away transwomen from a 'women's group'. It's not inclusive to say you represent all religions while intoning a specifically Christian prayer, and referring to our country as 'Judeo-Christian'.
When you say you're 'colour blind', what you're really saying is that there is no difference worth mentioning between your white, heterosexual, middle-class life and heritage and that of an indigenous person who was taken from hir parents, or a queer person who was thrown out of their home and disowned by their parents. You're saying, 'Everyone is just like me'. You're saying, 'That great yawning gulf between us is irrelevant, and shouldn't be mentioned, because then we can't be the same'.
Guess what? You're not the same. And those differences are not irrelevant. Even leaving aside that uncomfortable 'equality' thing there's this: people should be acknowledged for what they are.
Heterosexual people don't get asked not to talk about their relationships. Heterosexual people, white people, privileged people occupy the centre space, and there's a nasty, very real culture there that says it's up to everyone else to conform to that, because it's 'normal'. If other people want to be included, well, they have to shut up and pretend they're 'normal', too. And the literature, the policy, the 'representation', all renders those 'not normal' people invisible.
To make matters worse, those who are standing up and saying, 'Uh, people? I'm not just the same as you, I'm a unique person with experiences and feelings and a personality that deserves just as much recognition as anyone else's,' are either ignored, told to stop grand-standing, told that they're being unfair to white/heterosexual/privileged people or - worst of all, IMNSHO - kindly advised that maybe they have 'issues' that they need to work through rather than 'insist on trying to change everyone'.
In other words? Shut up. Be happy. You're the problem, we're not the problem, and don't you dare criticise us. You should be grateful that we even let you into our groups. Don't ask us to take notice of you as people.
(Again with the hand-washing and brain-bleaching.)
I have a message for all those 'reasonable' people who bleat about 'equality' and 'no special treatment' and 'we're oh-so-inclusive'.
Wake. The fuck. UP.
What you're doing excludes, marginalises and silences the very people you say are your 'friends' ... the ones you have 'compassion' and 'empathy' for, the ones you so graciously let in to your little communities.
What you're doing is as bigoted and shitty as any fundamentalist screaming, 'God hates fags' or 'Black people have to be led'.
What you're doing is trying to disguise your prejudice as fake sympathy and wrapping yourself in a cloak of righteous victimhood. You're not victims. You're not being oppressed because someone who's part of your community asks to be acknowledged and really included, instead of tolerate. You're not being hard done by because someone in your community wants you to see them for who they really are, or because they want you to widen that community space without sacrificing anyone's agency or identity.
You're the problem.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-17 05:01 am (UTC)