pensnest: bright-eyed baby me (Default)
pensnest ([personal profile] pensnest) wrote2008-08-11 01:27 pm
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on being colourblind

Back in the dark ages when I was a poor student, I somehow ended up going out for dinner in London with a bunch of other students and some people who worked in a casino. At the end of the dinner, the guy who was somehow in charge divvied up the bill and told us how much everybody owed. It was scary, because I'd ordered what I could afford and didn't have much in my purse at the time. (Student behaviour would have been that eveyone paid for what they'd had.)

I was reminded of this by a year-old comment I found while following a bunch of links this morning.

...your ability (and mine) to say "it shouldn't be that way, so I'll behave as if it isn't" is the *definition* of privilege. Deciding that we'll just treat everyone as if they had privileges *that they don't get* doesn't end in equality, it never does no matter how much we try it. It leads to racism. Foolishly, I didn't note who said this, but she said it very well.

When you have a healthy income, treating income-free students as your exact equals isn't exactly the right way to go. When you have the advantages of being white (and in my case, middle class and well educated and well off too), treating not-white people as exact equals isn't exactly the right way to go. It's an assumption with far too many flaws.

My apologies to any PoCs reading this - the analogy isn't very good, but it makes sense in my head.

[identity profile] puszysty.livejournal.com 2008-08-11 09:48 pm (UTC)(link)
I think the idea you're aiming for is "don't treat everyone as if they were you"?
As in, equality doesn't mean that everyone is just like you, and it's wrong to assume everyone shares your status. Along the color line- don't treat people of color as if they were white. It's just as degrading as stereotyping.

(btw, I'm not a PoC, but I don't think you need to apologise for your analogy)

a few pence o' me own . . .

[identity profile] pieds-joyeux.livejournal.com 2008-08-17 03:45 am (UTC)(link)
interesting comments. maybe i'm miss reading something or it's the difference in culture/nationality, but is the point that people of color are thus not capable of enjoying (or in the position to enjoy) priviledge, e.g., "middle class and well educated and well off"? i'm sure it's just me and i'm not reading it right. in a mixed group of people on an outing, usually the terms are discussed before, such as, "we're all going dutch," or "i'm covering the tab for us all," or, "let's all chip in and i'll cover the difference", right?

regards