On the notion of the ghetto pass

[oyceter]

After the great SGA race debates of DOOM, witchqueen had a post on earning a ghetto pass, or "How not to be scared of the FoC-ing cabal." ("FoC-ing cabal" being "fans-of-color cabal," as coined by witchqueen)

I nodded a lot and thought, "Yes! Thank you!"

If anyone's interested, I can tell you what I look at with regard to ghetto passes in discussions of racism, but really, that's just me and I change my mind every other second.

But I think there's something witchqueen didn't explicity state, and something that will often get buried in the list of things that various people look at re: a ghetto passes, which is:

Not only is there no short cut to a ghetto pass, there is also no guarantee of keeping a ghetto pass. There is no checklist, and even if there were, you could do everything on it and still fall flat on your face. In other words, you may be the best ally ever in terms of black-white dynamics, but you can still say stupid things about Asians. Or vice versa. Or multiply for multi-racial people, for people of color outside of the US, for people who can "pass," for women of color, for third culture kids, for so many non-privileged people.

And no matter what your track record is, there is always a chance that the FoC-ing cabal will be mean to you (OMG! Woe and terror!) because the FoC-ing cabal, like all other groups out there, is made of individual people, and people have this funny habit of disagreeing and not being monolithic.

Because of this, the ghetto pass isn't a pass from fear or a pass that you can wave around to do what you want after you get it. And that sucks, I know. To give you my perspective (and I am by no means the expert or the magical minority fairy), every single time I post about race and racism, I am scared that I will be yelled at by people, particularly by people whose anti-racist stance and views and work I respect a lot. I hope that I am a part of the FoC-ing cabal and that I do have a ghetto pass, but I think these are things that are very easy to claim and very difficult to keep.

The point isn't having a ghetto pass; the point is in doing the work that goes into a ghetto pass. And to keep doing it, and to do it even and especially when you're scared out of your mind and certain that you are going to start the next flame war of DOOM by pointing out, "Um. I love this show, but why are all the POC dead?"

And even then, even when you put things on the line, there are no gold stars, no passes, no official designations of "okay-ness." It's just work, work, and more work.

And then you get tired, and you bitch, and you kick this broken world and wish it were fixed already. And you let something slide because you just want to spend time with people and for once, just once, not be the one to call people out on their whiteness or their unthinking assumptions, and you feel guilty because you know what silence means. And you read things and think and Google and think more and then watch your comfort show with problematic racial representation because your head hurts and you want to relax. Some days you throw the remote at it, some days you don't. And you find allies in the least expected of places, and you get kicked in the head when someone you (formerly) deeply respected tells you there is no racism where she lives. You post and people respect you; you post again and get called out on unthinking racism.

And then you go to bed, and you get up the next day, and you do it all over again.

Comments

[oyceter]

Oh man, yes. I was so shocked by getting several comments to the effect of "I think Asians are like whites" last year, largely because ... well, for the first, obvious, part, I don't feel white. And secondly, it feels like a larger version of the "Oh, she's a good Asian" or "She's just like a guy!"

[seajules]

Yes, and it's so frustrating to try to make people understand why that's insulting, most of the time. In an inequal society, why wouldn't you rather be thought of as white than Asian? Why wouldn't you be flattered to be "one of the guys?" It stuns me that so many people don't get that I'm not looking to be absorbed into the privileged group, and yet they don't.