Thursday, March 27, 2008

Hipocrisy is the Greatest Luxury

Last night FoxyJ and I watched Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars, a documentary about a group of refugees from Sierra Leone's brutal civil war of the nineties who started a band, bringing music to refugee camps in Guinea until the war ended in 2002 and they became leaders in bringing the refugees home. The story is meant to be one of hope, showing how these people used music to help them and their fellow refugees recover from the horrors they'd lived through, but as much as I enjoyed the movie and especially the music, I had a hard time getting past the horrors to the hope. It's hard to listen to a man tell how rebel soldiers forced him to beat his child to death and then cut off his hand, to see the fear in his eyes at the prospect of returning to the country he once called home, and not be left with the same sense of despair and helplessness that I've felt after watching every other film I've seen about the atrocities that happen in countries throughout Africa.

Earlier this week we watched In the Heat of the Night, and while I enjoyed the story and the acting--Sidney Poitier is amazing--I felt a similar sense of helplessness, though in this case not so much despair as anger at people whose racism leads them to treat human beings so inhumanely. Toward the beginning of the film the camera rests for a moment on a little statue of the Virgin Mary on a policeman's dashboard, and I was reminded of Crash, another film about racism that combined all those feelings of helplessness, despair, and anger and magnified them. As it turns out, I'm not the only person who has made the connection between the two movies--a review FoxyJ stumbled upon talked about how both movies are meant to make middle-class white people (read: me) feel good about themselves for not being racist.

A couple weeks ago I spent a while digging through the archives of a blog called Stuff White People Like. I laughed quite a bit as I read the satirical observations of white yuppies, as the particular brand of white yuppie parodied here, who loves diversity and gay people and the environment, is very much your typical Seattleite. The more I read, though, the more uncomfortable I became; the parodies started sounding less like parodies and more like accurate descriptions of me. I am the white guy who recycles because it's a way I can save the Earth without actually having to do much. I am the white guy who loves "conscious" hip-hop because it so vitally addresses the problems of a community I don't belong to. I am a living parody of educated, middle-class white people. I'm not very comfortable with this realization.

I'm in the midst of reading Dreams from My Father, Barack Obama's memoir about missing the chance to get to know his father and the resultant disconnect with his Kenyan roots. I feel a connection--and at the same time feel like I have no right to claim such a connection--to the teenaged Obama who felt as much like an outsider among the few other black students at his high school in Hawai'i as among the Asian, Polynesian, and white majority. I had a similar experience when I went to college and related neither to the white students that surrounded me nor to the other students from Hawai'i. In the former case it was my own pride in my island upbringing that prevented me from acknowledging that mainland white culture was not that different from my own; in the latter it was the color of my skin that betrayed me--despite the fact that I'd never lived anywhere but Hawai'i, I felt like an imposter claiming the islands as my home.

I like to think it is my own experience as an outsider--whether for my race or my sexual orientation--that leads me to feel a sense of connection to the victims of racism and to the residents of a continent recovering from centuries of European colonization and American slavery. The fact that I like to think this reveals just how ridiculous I am. I have a nice home, food, and nearly two master's degrees. Technically I believe my family's income is below the poverty line, but that's by choice, not by necessity. I am not a victim of anything. I have never been discriminated against for my race or my orientation. I live in a country where I can reasonably assume that rebels are not going to come to my village and kill or mutilate me. No matter how much hip-hop I listen to or books about racial identity I read or documentaries about Africa I see, I will not know what it is to be oppressed.

What then should I do? Should I stop trying to understand because I will never succeed, because even if I did that wouldn't solve anyone's problems? I don't think so. I can't solve the problems of the world, but I can't ignore them either. I'd like to end here on something pithy like "Perhaps trying to understand is all I can do," but honestly that feels like a cop-out. An excuse for the privileged intellectual elite to feel smug about recognizing that people everywhere are suffering, but not really do anything about it that would require more effort than buying a "Save Darfur" t-shirt.

I remain in the comfort of my perceived helplessness because anything beyond that is overwhelming.

9 comments:

  1. It is hard to meaningfully comment on this. I had similar (but not as intelligent) thoughts after watching 'God Grew Tired of Us' a couple weeks ago. I've determined I don't REALLY know what I want to do with my life yet. And while I can't solve ALL the worlds problems, there have got to be things out there I can do that make a REAL difference. I do believe that small and simple things (like recycling or helping at the homeless shelter), while seemingly insignificant, do make a difference. I'm just thinking out loud here, but maybe that's the only way to make any real difference in the world is through small things? I'm not sure. Because the inequality and injustice in the world has always existed and probably always will, but more so because millions of us do nothing or only small gestures. So I don't know what the answer for me is...

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  2. .

    It's frustrating. I was just reading an article from Duke Law Review that says if white people ignore race, they're white supremacists; if they say they empathize with victims of racism, that's racists. Critical Race Theory won't let us win. It's hard not to throw in the towel with people like Derrick Bell telling us that we cannot not be racist.

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  3. GMA--Yeah, I guess my fear is that I'll become complacent with doing small things when in reality I could do more, but I think it would be much worse to conclude that because I can't do it all I might as well do nothing.

    Th.--I think your comment demonstrates your inner racism.

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  4. The truth is that trying to understand and doing what you can to keep history from repeating itself does help. Recycling helps. Training our children to be kind and empathetic helps.

    I'm guessing most victims of violence don't wish others to experience the things they've felt--they just want those things to stop. If they don't tell their stories the problems continue.

    In spite of your really great costuming ability, you can't save the world, but I'm guessing you'll keep doing your part. Sometimes it will be more apparent than others--that's just how life goes. It isn't complacence, it's circumstance.

    I am unable at this time in my life, to view the types of documentaries and films you speak of because it inspires unwanted flashbacks and nightmares which make it difficult for me to cope with life. That doesn't make me unsympathetic, just knowledgeable of where my personal boundaries lie. In time, I'm sure I'll be able to don my own superhero garb and start working along with you to make the world a better place. :)

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  5. Thanks, Sam. I imagine you make a fabulous Wonder Woman.

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  6. When faced with my own trials years ago, I realized I haven't set my life up in a meaningful way to change the world. I'm not in the peace corps - I don't have the charisma (or funds) to run for public office - I don't have the change to set up an Oprah-style school in Africa.

    I can help kids at my kids' school practice their reading though. I can give money to the firemen for MDA and I can give tons of furniture to the Salvation Army. I can stop when I see someone's home is on fire and I can listen to my friend when she needs to share that her son ran away and she is scared. I can raise globally aware kids who can aid the effort. That's what I can do right now. That's my offering.

    It's nowhere near enough to save the world. Sometimes I bet it only saves my sanity. But while I can't change the world at the moment, it doesn't mean I can't change my corner of it.

    I can pray. Sometimes, that is all I can do. I pray for those people. And like Samantha, I can no longer watch those types of documentaries. I only feel depression - which helps no one.

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  7. You're too hard on yourself. You are doing things to improve the world: You are taking care of yourself and you are taking care of your loved ones. You are not depending on others to do those things for which you have primary responsibility. You are also teaching them to be kind and helpful and responsible. My experience as a teacher has led me to believe that if each of us did only that, then the world would be a vastly better place. Read this book: "The Three Questions" by Muth, based on a Tolstoy tale, and it will confirm to you an important truth. We cannot do everything, but we can do one good thing at a time, and do it well, and that will help the world.

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  8. Wow, what an interesting blog. Obviously coming from the same upbringing as you I share in some similar feelings.

    For me the greatest thing that comes from hearing of those tragedies is that it helps me to humble myself and be more grateful for what I have. I suppose that it is in this gratitude that we are empowered to help others.

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  9. Thanks for your thoughts, Mama, ESM, and Angie.

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