This will be my last post in regard to the cultural
appropriation issue. I’m 60 years old and tired with a great deal of work to do.
I have really bad arthritis in my hands which has made all the keyboard
clacking of last 5 days literally painful on another level.
I wish someone who reads this to convey to Emily Ito that
the strategy of not acknowledging, delete and block will be a real winner for
her future as an advocate for feminism and BIPOC rights.
HONKY BITCH FINALLY GETS IT TO SHUT THE FUCK UP
But because I’m old senior feminist hag who has practiced
resistance for so long that its hard to stop the knee from jerking….I just can’t
resist giving Emily several last pieces of advice….
I am genuinely hurt she has refused to engage with me. Perhaps if I
hadn’t taken the approach of challenging her we could have been friends. I admire her, I wholly expect we have way
more in common than our differences. But Emily has this theory about how you
need to set limits and boundaries on who you interact with. She wouldn’t view
that as only making herself available on her own terms, so she won’t talk to me and has
actively blocked all social media routes through which I’ve tried to contact
her….
I followed Emily Itos Instagram feed this morning. The first
(and only) post I read was a long and heartfelt rationale why she chooses to
block communications with particular people. It was a beautiful piece of
several paragraphs, well thought out, emotional and compelling.
She had 24 replies from friends commending her for her
courage and leadership.
Bigmouth that we all know I am, this was my comment….
“While setting “boundaries” may seem an act of valor, it
should be applied with intelligent discretion, least it become limiting,
censoring and walling yourself off from the vast experience of others. All the
best Emily, as I expect you will soon block me as a person not worthy to talk
to”
Just like a witch sitting at the pot chanting “hubble,
bubble, toil and trouble, eye of newt, tongue of toad” and predicting the
future my forecast came true in a half hour and Emily Ito despatched my
annoying person and voice to outside her safe boundaries.
This is the remainder of what the witch sees in the mists of
the crystal ball….
If you set yourself up as advocate for BIPOC issues it is
respectful to engage with those who question you. At present you might be able
to comfort yourself by dismissing me as just a troll you’ve fended off. Hugging
up your woundedness and sense of victimisation like a badge of honour and
walling yourself off from divergent views will mean you likely end up in an
echo chamber surrounded by people who only affirm that everything you do and
think is wonderful. You’ll know you’re in the process of building a padded cell
for yourself when you start to contract your world by making it smaller.
Limits, boundaries, censorship, blocking, imagining enemies and threats because
your view is challenged. If you hope to be an effective advocate for disempowered women humility and openness
to diversity are great qualities to have
I operate from the point of view that globalisation can be a
wonderful thing for all humanity. As much as some people fear it, it is simply
inevitable so I think the best attitude to take is work with it intelligently. Of
all the nations humans have created on our planet the people of Japan
have a unique culture in many ways. As an island nation they were able to
police their borders to keep out people of other nationalities very effectively
for thousands of years, the result being Japan hasn’t been invaded by another
culture for millennia. The modern day government of Japan has practically no
immigration program for people of other nationalities, so people of other
cultures have virtually no opportunity to settle and become citizens. This protectiveness
has led to a great insularity. Japanese people have a great fear of their
culture and genetics being diluted. One of the reasons Emperor Hirohito felt
comfortable with making an alliance with Nazi Germany is that he could relate
very well to the concept of the superior master race and applying the theory of
eugenic cleansing to keep racial bloodlines nominally “pure”. Regrettably we
all know how Nazi Germany moved beyond eugenic theory to murdering people of
disability and those designated of inferior race.
I have experienced the loneliness and alienation that comes
from immigrating to live in another country. In fact I live a kind of double
whammy in many ways because most of my ancestors arrived in New Zealand between
1880s to 1900 coming from such diverse countries such as Britain, Scotland,
Germany, Wales and India. Their children and grandchildren went on to marry
other New Zealanders with multi ethnic backgrounds such as Pacific Islanders
and Maori. In 1986 I left New Zealand permanently with my 6 year old son and
settled in Australia.
For some time I’ve been deeply reluctant to diverge into
measuring and weighing what mine or any other womans racial or ethnic backgrounds
are. It seems to have become more a calculation to display what your
oppression credentials are. On an intellectual level I accept that the idea of “races”
is a human construct. We are one species - the Homo Sapiens, who triumphed over
all the other offshoots of the Homo genus. Through regional interbreeding over
millenia we developed distinctive physical characteristics such as dark or
lighter melanin in our skin tone, etc, etc…
I have a concern that sometimes the BIPOC community seems to
segue into its own high minded version of eugenic science. There is a great deal
of emphasis placed on your skin colour and ancestral culture. There is no
denying that there is a large proportion of people in the world who think that
is the most significant and only thing that is important; that a persons skin
colour, race, culture or ethnicity is the only information they need to
instantly stereotype that person. They can then regard that as sufficient knowledge
to understand the most important things about that individual. I think it’s also
a wilful obfuscation to think that only those designated “white” are racists. There
are also many, many, many of us “white” people that work hard to make amends,
that don’t judge people by those categories, and are people who want equality
for all….Some of those people have the time and resources to do that work with
big gestures and then others just live quietly – perhaps with unacknowledged gestures
like welcoming the Indian family that moves in next door and inviting their
kids over to play with yours.
What an irony when BIPOC people operate in the world making
assumptions that all white people are racist and actively obstructing their
desire for equality. I guess what goes around has come around….
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