I'm going to stick up a bit for Sophie here. I'm with you on the idea that you don't have to have personally experienced a particular type of -ism to understand it and be empathetic, but there are some limits. As a woman, I do see in men a general cluelessness, an inability to completely understand how women have to move through society …
I'm going to stick up a bit for Sophie here. I'm with you on the idea that you don't have to have personally experienced a particular type of -ism to understand it and be empathetic, but there are some limits. As a woman, I do see in men a general cluelessness, an inability to completely understand how women have to move through society with more concern for their safety than men do. (Probably) perfectly nice guys can't understand why a woman wouldn't want to just get into a car with some guy she barely knows and are maybe even a little offended by the implication of her resistance. They probably don't think of themself as a potential sexual assaulter but we do, until we know them better. A few times I've gone against my better judgement and gotten into a car with a strange man and at the least I get nagged for a date, and on one occasion I came near to getting sexually assaulted. BTW, I was a crazy headstrong kid of 51 when this happened, which is why I became a radical on Medium writing about how women need to patch the gaps in judgment in their own brains to protect ourselves better, to stop *being* the victim rather than whining about 'blaming the victim', esp when we sometimes make it really really easy to be victimized.
I've experienced all the usual disses and occasional mistreatment women typically get, so I get how black people are unfairly discriminated against on sight. I may not get followed around stores like blacks but I do by horny men. (Still at 58. I'm such a little near-senior hotcha hotcha lol). BUT....that doesn't mean I can't be blind to certain things, just as men are (in many cases involuntarily) blind to that which they've never experienced. I disagree with Sophie thinking that white peoples' opinions should be marginalized (!) because of skin colour; two wrongs don't make a right. An advantaged group (white, male, cis-het, whatever) is often unfairly blanket-maligned, esp by those who value 'feelings' over facts and who think they can mindread (that Karen thought I work in the grocery store because I'm black! No, I thought you worked there because I was in a hurry and your outfit looks a lot like their store uniform).
A *value* that *sincere* people from a dominant group can offer is an alternative view and an insight into what others may be thinking based on their own experience. Like, what it's like to be in a dominant group and what we're really thinking, saying or doing when others feel 'marginalized'.
I think white women and black men share a certain commonality: We're both members of dominant and disadvantaged groups. They don't know what it's like to grow up white, I don't know what it's like to grow up male, and the 'intersectionality' of our identities aside, we can compare notes and apply each other's insights to our own experiences (like, our respective experiences in getting followed by strangers).
"As a woman, I do see in men a general cluelessness, an inability to completely understand how women have to move through society with more concern for their safety than men do."
Oh yeah, absolutely. Jared (from the conversation about trans women in changing rooms) was a shocking recent example of this. I'm definitely not suggesting that we understand the experience of other groups by default, simply because we're all human.
I'm saying that if we truly make an effort, if we're genuinely interested in understanding each other, listening and empathy and careful thought can get us a fair amount of the way there. Again, aren't we're always having to do some version of this with other people? Even people who share certain traits with us? After all, I don't know what it's like to grow up black. I know what it was like for *me* to grow up black. Undoubtedly there's crossover with other black people. But as some of my conversations show, there's also a fair amount of disagreement sometimes.
My view on "blackness" as a concept has been formed far more by listening to other black people than by drawing on my personal experiences.
I'm going to stick up a bit for Sophie here. I'm with you on the idea that you don't have to have personally experienced a particular type of -ism to understand it and be empathetic, but there are some limits. As a woman, I do see in men a general cluelessness, an inability to completely understand how women have to move through society with more concern for their safety than men do. (Probably) perfectly nice guys can't understand why a woman wouldn't want to just get into a car with some guy she barely knows and are maybe even a little offended by the implication of her resistance. They probably don't think of themself as a potential sexual assaulter but we do, until we know them better. A few times I've gone against my better judgement and gotten into a car with a strange man and at the least I get nagged for a date, and on one occasion I came near to getting sexually assaulted. BTW, I was a crazy headstrong kid of 51 when this happened, which is why I became a radical on Medium writing about how women need to patch the gaps in judgment in their own brains to protect ourselves better, to stop *being* the victim rather than whining about 'blaming the victim', esp when we sometimes make it really really easy to be victimized.
I've experienced all the usual disses and occasional mistreatment women typically get, so I get how black people are unfairly discriminated against on sight. I may not get followed around stores like blacks but I do by horny men. (Still at 58. I'm such a little near-senior hotcha hotcha lol). BUT....that doesn't mean I can't be blind to certain things, just as men are (in many cases involuntarily) blind to that which they've never experienced. I disagree with Sophie thinking that white peoples' opinions should be marginalized (!) because of skin colour; two wrongs don't make a right. An advantaged group (white, male, cis-het, whatever) is often unfairly blanket-maligned, esp by those who value 'feelings' over facts and who think they can mindread (that Karen thought I work in the grocery store because I'm black! No, I thought you worked there because I was in a hurry and your outfit looks a lot like their store uniform).
A *value* that *sincere* people from a dominant group can offer is an alternative view and an insight into what others may be thinking based on their own experience. Like, what it's like to be in a dominant group and what we're really thinking, saying or doing when others feel 'marginalized'.
I think white women and black men share a certain commonality: We're both members of dominant and disadvantaged groups. They don't know what it's like to grow up white, I don't know what it's like to grow up male, and the 'intersectionality' of our identities aside, we can compare notes and apply each other's insights to our own experiences (like, our respective experiences in getting followed by strangers).
"As a woman, I do see in men a general cluelessness, an inability to completely understand how women have to move through society with more concern for their safety than men do."
Oh yeah, absolutely. Jared (from the conversation about trans women in changing rooms) was a shocking recent example of this. I'm definitely not suggesting that we understand the experience of other groups by default, simply because we're all human.
I'm saying that if we truly make an effort, if we're genuinely interested in understanding each other, listening and empathy and careful thought can get us a fair amount of the way there. Again, aren't we're always having to do some version of this with other people? Even people who share certain traits with us? After all, I don't know what it's like to grow up black. I know what it was like for *me* to grow up black. Undoubtedly there's crossover with other black people. But as some of my conversations show, there's also a fair amount of disagreement sometimes.
My view on "blackness" as a concept has been formed far more by listening to other black people than by drawing on my personal experiences.