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Racism and Empathy: Some of My Approximating Experiences
Published by rachels | Filed under Ourstory, Safe Spaces, Taking Action, Whiteness
In a previous post, I talked about how most Whites need to develop great empathy for people of color. I also discussed a concept called approximating experiences, which is one way Whites can develop more empathetic orientations. Feagin and Vera say that that approximating experiences help Whites grasp what it is like to be the victim of racial discrimination. Citing a study by Tiffany Hogan and Julie Netzger, they say that approximating experiences most often come from three sources: relying on stories that people of color tell about their experiences, relying on general humanistic values, and relying on aspects of their own oppression. In the last case they note that White women who experienced multiple forms of discrimination (such as being a woman and being lesbian or Jewish) are more likely to develop empathetic orientations toward people of color. I think my personal story is useful at showing how Whites can challenge their own racism through approximating experiences and develop greater empathy.
I had my first approximating experiences in high school. My views started from a humanistic orientation—I grew up around all Whites, and my parents had taught me that everybody should be treated fairly. Although they didn’t say a lot about racism, I remember them repeatedly telling me that you do not treat people bad because they are different from you. I remember repeatedly hearing my classmates make derogatory comments about African Americans. I very specifically remember being bothered by racist comments, and I repeatedly admonishing my classmates not to use the n-word. My outspoken views on racism did not endear me to my classmates. In fact, I was subjected to ridicule and occasional threats of violence. I was routinely called “nigger lover,” so many times that I do not remember most of them. In my art class during my sophomore year one of my classmates Brian, called me “nigger lover” almost everyday. See while we worked on our art projects, we talked social issues and politics. When I challenged my classmates, Brian as the ring leader and on occasion his buddies would say this to me in front of the entire class including the teacher, who had asked him to stop but never enforced any consequences on him. Frankly, I had no idea how to respond to comments like this because people like Brian don’t like common sense arguments. They like bullying. Eventually I came up with the most creative response I could. I would say, “I’m not a nigger lover because I don’t like you.” I was 16 and this was the best response I could muster to shut him up—all of the reasonable arguments about the golden rule, respecting your fellow man, and so on didn’t work. One of the other incidents I remember happened when I was a junior. In this case two or the more popular girls in my school Mindy and Emily were taunting me in class. These girls were your typical means girls (as depicted in the movie LOL!). I have no idea why they were picking on me, but it wasn’t the first time and I was fed up. The teacher of this class was habitually late and played the popularity game, allowing these girls to do what they wanted. I didn’t expect any support from her or any other of my classmates, so I turned to them and yelled, “Bitch you need to shut the fuck up.” They laughed and the rest of the class got quiet. I hoped this would be it, but later that day when I went to my locker I had a note put inside my locker that said, “You’re a niger lover and a horsefucker.” I just looked at the note and truly was scared. I was afraid of what they could have taken from my locker or what may happen to me as I walked down the hall. The whole time my classmates, all of whom were White, were directing racial slurs at me (and of course, all African Americans albeit indirectly). I didn’t tell the principal, my teachers, my parents or anyone. The primary reason I did say much about almost all of these incidents was simple—I knew that they wouldn’t do anything about it. I knew that they were indifferent to racial slurs and that they didn’t understand the severity of it. I knew the Whites who I lived and worked with were not bothered by racial slurs or racism. I did occasionally have people who agreed with me, but it was almost always private support. For me personally, it was these experiences that helped my to feel some empathy towards people of color. I am by no means saying I get everything. I just know what I felt like when these things were directed at me. I knew the fear, the powerlessness, the exasperation, and the anger that racism was creating in me. Because of these experiences (and others), I dedicated myself to fighting racism.
In my later years of high school and in college, my approximating experiences came from listening to my friends and classmates who had personal experiences with racism. I was able to get a better understand of racism from Black professors like my undergraduate mentor Dr. Lewis. I learned about Black nationalism from two friends who were in the Nation of Islam, and I probably learned the most from my friendship with Jennifer. Jennifer and I didn’t go to the same high school, but by getting to know Jennifer and her family I started to see how racism affected a good friend of mine. I had a close Black friend who wasn’t afraid to tell me about the things I didn’t get. This has also been the case as I have gotten older.
I have also been influenced in my anti-racist work by several prominent authors, artists, and academics. I didn’t meet these people, but I read their works. James Baldwin was my early inspiration. Somehow, I got my hands on If Beale Street Could Talk—one of his less popular novels. I loved that book, so I decided to read Go Tell It On The Mountain, Another Country, The Fire Next Time, Just Above My Head, and several other books. I remember reading a June Jordan article in college about the power of anger. The book I mentioned in the previous post—White Racism had a dramatic shift on my understanding of racism. When I read it, I felt like someone else was articulating what I felt about racism. While I do think many people misinterpret literature and art, this can be another was to begin to develop approximating experiences, which can help lead to empathy.
I think my experience is instructive for three reasons. First it shows that there are many pathways developing awareness of racism whether it is through interpersonal relationships, organizational involvement, a general belief in social equality, or accessing at and literature. The second reason it is instructive is that it shows some of the ridicule and difficulty that Whites face if they challenge racism. I don’t want this to scare people, but it is a reality that people who challenge racism face. When we ignore racism, we simply opt out by using our White privilege, but when we challenge racism and White privilege there are consequences. Finally, I think my experience can help others who want to challenge racism know that they are not alone. I felt really alone in high school, and I kept many of these experiences to myself. I think developing anti-racist allies is crucial to maintaining a front against racism. Those allies can be Whites or people of color. They can be role models and/or friends. The battle against racism doesn’t have to occur in isolation. I’m not saying I have all of the answers or that I have completely purged racism from myself. In fact, the more I learn about racism the harder I think it will be to challenge it. I see coming to an anti racist consciousness as a long process. I learn new things every day, and I still have a lot more to learn about racism.
April 14th, 2006 at 8:52 am *edit: i just published this as a seperate post as requested by Rachel.
April 17th, 2006 at 6:18 pm Vegan, sorry dude. I'm late on this. You need to put your response up as its own post. Pretty Please? Sorry I didn't get here sooner--I'm battling White supremacist trolls over at my site, and of course the holiday set me behind too.
April 18th, 2006 at 5:42 pm Thanks for the writing here. Your words very deeply ring true for me. Today, the paragraph about the things that sometimes get hard as a white person battling to end racism means a lot.
The three ways to assist white folks in creating empathy within ourselves and/or awareness to want to end racism (whether the conditioning within ourselves or the acting out of it in the world.) are explained very well.
I think there is a fourth thing and that is releasing tension. It can happen in conjunction with listening to a person of color's story about what it's like to be targeted day after day. Or it can happen while someone is listening to you explain the way you experienced oppression as a female, Jew, GLBTQ, etc.
I focus on this listening tool because I think it is so key to ending racism and is a natural way human beings will try and heal. I think it's key to recovering our full intelligence.
By releasing tension I mean emotional release with a listener who has agreed to encourage the release and not give advice or try and stop the process. I learned it through Re-evaluation Co-counseling which has a central focus on eliminating racism. But it is a natural process that I now teach through Listening For Change and am working to open a center within five years.
That has made a big difference for me because as I became more and more aware of my own cultural biases and subtle yet divisive programming, I began to feel very bad about myself and the ancestors from which I came.
It was upheld to me that I was "good" and it wasn't my "fault" that racism has played out throughout history yet all the while I was crying and raging and shaking and talking about my very first memories of noticing people with skin color other than pink. It was upheld by my peer counselors that although my mind had been infected by racist conditioning, my true nature had never been racist and that I could reclaim that. It's a process as you and vegankid mention. I'm not finished yet but it is so good to see myself move forward and my life change.
As I released these emotions I could let go of the guilt and separation that was keeping me from thinking clearly. Those emotions sort of hold racism in place because while sitting on them it often gets in the way of being close to people.
Closeness, or friendships, like the one you had in high school with the black student, are, I think key in helping us each reclaim our own humanness.
Well, thanks again for all you do. You are so clear and thoughtful, generous and smart.
The part about getting attacked as a white person working to end racism is really rampant. It's an art to learn how to discuss this in public or with other friends who haven't really processed what racism is, how it has affected their thinking as white people etc etc etc.
My child is needing me I need to go now.
My parents also were not overtly racist. My dad was a Quaker minister ... yet, as I continue this work I can more easily see the inherent anti-semitism, for example, within much of the Christian community. I can more clearly see the racism upon which this country has been built ...
One more thing about the listening process in ending racism. There has been an ongoing conversation at women of color blog with poor boy and others. At the onset poor boy (also began at blac(k)ademic site--what I gathered from some of the shifting that is beginning to happen for poorboy is that by having the conversation things shirt. That is why I value the listening projects I've learned to do. I find that just by listening to someone who has, for example, pretty overt racial biases, and asking them to tell me when they first remember thinking this way and so on, that they often (not always, because sometimes it takes more resource than I actually have at the time) but often this is all it takes for a person to unravel the hurts that led them to be so confused about race.
We set up a table at a pow wow in Portland a couple years ago. Native American women set this table up as a listening table and I was an ally there. We created a big poster that said simply, "What are your thoughts on the war?" It was right next to vets booth. The sign wasn't even finished being made when people began coming up wanting to talk.
I see this as a way to process. To be listened to and really get to vent if it's safe to do so, is jsut a step. It creates space in the person being listened to to be able to find that empathy to be able to move on from some of the views that--if you didn't know better you'd think were permanent views. But most of the time they have an old story behind them and if that story is heard the person can "forgive" and move on. Sometimes to a completely different political view.
(My child was sitting on my lap btw,
So, I hope to see more people talking about emotional release (I call it discharge too) and how it is important in ending oppression.
Those, like us, born into an oppressor group can release the pain of being taught (subtley or not) that we are supposedly smarter or better than someone else. We can grieve if we had to miss out on some really great friendships that we didn't develop because we were trained to fear people of color for example. (this is not true for all white people but is common.)As we discharge that, we get to actually get rid of it and move forward in building close relationships, standing up against injustice etc.
And a person born into a targeted group or who is targeted by racism can also often benefit greatly by telling the stories or just by releasing emotion without getting sunk by the story itself. What can happen is the person gets to move out from under believing the lies, the misinformation about themselves. Just like myself as a white person had to discharge the messages that tried to tell m e I was better than someone else, the person targeted by that can discharge the same message that they might have turned in on themselves. Free from that, knowing there is absolutely no truth to one group being superior or smarter than another brings a) more confidence b) rational thinking c) a better life for all.
I'd like to blogroll you or subscribe but if you'd be so kind as to let me know how! I'm still working on becoming techno lit as well as on ending racism (and classism.) take care!
May 10th, 2006 at 4:49 pm Hey Rachel, just curious: my friend Julie Netzer got her PhD here at UF in Sociology. Hernan and Vera are from here too. So I was just curious if the Julie Netzger you mention above is a misspelling of Julie Netzer (who, if this is her, never mentioned this before). If so, wow, what a small world! lol
May 10th, 2006 at 4:55 pm Ok, getting past that little coincidence I have to say thanks for writing this post. I love the whole idea of an "our stories" category.
Maybe if I have time in the next week I'll write something for the new carnival --actually maybe instead of writing this comment, I'll do that now. Thanks for the inspiration!
May 10th, 2006 at 5:54 pm It has to be her....because they say that they are graduate students. And Joe Feagin and Hernan Vera were at UF at that time. I'm going to have to see if this is a typo in the book or by me.
Such as small world. I think sharing your story would be good for the blog carnival. I would look forward to it.
October 31st, 2006 at 2:42 pm [...] This also comes up in their fear that transwomen threaten the safety of ‘real women’ at the Michigan Women’s Music Festibal (MWMF). In spite of a lifetime of what Rachel S (Rachel’s Tavern) has called approximating experiences where transwomen have learned to empathize with ‘real women,’ this doesn’t mean anything against the overwhelming force of being socialized as a male in this society. Thus, there exists the possibility that transwomen will do bodily harm to women at the Festival. [...]