I have observed a strange phenomenon that isn’t new exactly, but it’s more pronounced with social media. This is not a post about social media in general, though I will note that my use has drastically declined. I don’t look at Facebook at all, and I check in with Twitter maybe once a week for a quick second. I tweet roughly once every other week at the most.
This is very unusual for me as I used to be a heavy Twitter user. I just recently closed it out (I used to keep the tab open all the time on one set of tabs) because I never look at it. And, the only reason I keep a Facebook tab open is beacuse of messaging. I can’t remember the last time I actually checked the FB feed itself.
The strange phenomenon is that people want to be considered allies without actually doing the hard work associated with being allies. Again, I don’t think this is new in and of itself. The phrase ‘ally cookes’ (and various iterations thereof) has been around for way before social media became a thing.
Here’s the thing. Everyone wants validation. I have no problem giving it to a certain extent. If someone supports me, I AM appreciative. Especially if it is unbidden and the person doing it is not permative about it at all.
But. Real talk here. It’s exhausting not only to deal with all the isms in day-to-day life, but with allies who want their egos massaged for doing the right thing. Or reassurance that they are not a bad person for doing x, y, ro z. In a way, it’s a microaggression in and of itself because the ally is looking for the minority to make them feel better about themselves.
I was at a feminism as WoC meeting once at my college. It was a bunch of white women (because I live in a very white state) talking earnestly about racism. There were a few other WoC, but it was mostly white women talking about their thoughts on racism. This happens, by the way, when a social justice issue is discussed. Unless it has more people who are part of the minority, the majority dominates–as usual.
One of the white women said very earnestly that she longed to talk about real issues rather than boys and fashion and makeup all the time. She was saying how she got tired of being superficial with her friends. This was her reasoning for attending events for minorities, which wasn’t terrible in and of itself. However, I said that I spent all my life dealing with these isms and sometimes I just wanted to talk about boys and fashion! Well, not those two specific topics, but fluffy stuff in general. Cats and plushies, for example. Mystery novels.
More to the point, it’s not my job to be the racial wisdom dispenser for white women. It’s still centering her experience/comfort rather than mine (as the minority). It’s the thing where the same experience is vastly different to different people. It’s like a microaggression in and of itself. One person mispronouncing my name and asking me where I’m from is a minor irritation. Having it done on the regular is fucking annoying . When I was in college, I got asked a lot where I was from. No, where was I REALLY from? I was born and raised in a suburb of St. Paul, but, no. That wasn’t good enough. Or I was asked if I knew this other random Asian person. Not even Taiwanese, but any old Asian.
Once, when I was at a bar/dance club, a guy asked me what I was. Which, I mean, don’t ask that. It’s rude and gross. I’m a human being! I knew what he mean, of course, but I didn’t want to discuss it with him. He started firing off all the usual suspects–Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and then Filippino. He added Vietnamese, Thai, and a few others. I kept saying no and hoping he’d leave it alone. After the seventh or eighth no, he finally said in exasperation, “Well, what are you, then?” Again, I’m a human being! I finally said Taiwanese, but the whole exchange left a sour taste in my mouth. Nowadays, I would just give him the death stare (which I”m really good at) and walk away.
It’s frustrating because just because someone is a minority in one way, it doesn’t mean they understand that they can be the aggressor in other ways. When I was in the Bay Area for grad school, I lived with mostly other Taiwanese people. One of them was a guy around my age (thirty). He was very traditional and dated only very traditional Asian women. I was saying something about being hit on by guys on the street. He laughed and said he could not imagine any guy asking me out because I was so intimidating. I looked at him and said something like, “Not to real men, I’m not.” It wasn’t Asian men, though–only black and white men who hit on me.
He had no idea why I was so offended by what he said, but on the other hand, he would complain to me when the women he dated turned out to be too passive. He would then get bored, but he could not quite make the connection. I found it weird that he thought I was intimidating. I thought about it for a while before realizing it was because I was not stereotypically feminine. I don’t wear makeup or care about fashion. I have a very deep voice and I don’t giggle. Ever. I don’t do baby-talk, and I don’t cater to the male ego.
Don’t get me wrong. I like to be kind to people, I am not a hardass. I don’t think? I might be wrong. I am warm in my interactions unless I don’t like someone–and then I’m cold and distant. Which, yeah, for someone who tries to hit on me on the streets, I’m going to be a hardass. In general, though, I don’t think I’m that intimidating. In fact, people like to dump all their emotions on me, which they wolud not do if I was intimidating. What he meant, of course, was that HE was intimidated by me because sexism in the Taiwanese culture.
It’s hard to understand why people who are minorities in one way can’t make the connection to being oppressed in other ways, but that’s human nature. That’s what I keep going back to. It’s a shame, but people are always going to center themselves.