wispfox

I read this blog, and then this post by asim. But I had very little to say.

And then, recently, I gave up even pretending that I'd be able to go back and volunteer for The Network/La Red, due to wrist evil severely limiting my driving distance, and how much writing/typing I am able to do. I'm still not sure that I have much to say. But I want to try.

I originally started trying to volunteer there probably two years ago now. They have an utterly fascinating and informative multi-day training thing for new volunteers, which I ended up attending twice because I did not feel quite up to being on call after the first time through it. I was, in fact, on call for a few months, but unfortunately the second training and the onset of my tendinitis were simultaneous (part of the problem is that I would play online with my Treo during breaks in the training), so the combination of unhappy wrists, needing to write things down to take notes, needing to _get_ to the monthly metings, and that I was already failing to have sufficient cope to be functional and winter was on the way meant that I had to bow out of volunteering.

The training was truly fascinating, in that it addressed the ways in which systematic, institutionalized -isms (classism, racism, sexism, etc) contributed to the toolsets that abusers can use against their partners. I think this was actually the first time that I really understood that, much as it is a side-effect of the way my brain works (and not _just_ that I'm white and grew up middle-class), I really needed to work on being able to tell that people were not white (I have better ability to tell class-based things than race-based, because they are partly body language), so that I could be a bit more aware of whether or not there were underlying things that I could not understand going on. I do somewhat get annoyed that the -isms have different meanings depending on if it's the institutionalized, dominant set that are doing the discrimination or not ("Stop changing the meaning of words!" is approximately the reason for my annoyance), but at the same time I can definitely see the point of _needing_ that to be so visible.

The degree to which I was (and can still be) unaware of race can be demonstrated very easily by pointing out a recent dinner in a restaurant, where the Fresh Prince of Bel Aire (which I watched as a kid) was playing. I happened to look at it, blinked a few times, then commented to my dinner companion that I had only just then noticed that the entire cast was black. I had noticed the class conflict, because that was an overt part of the show, but I had completely missed the more subtle message involved in having an entirely black cast. And, as I was noticing this, variety in how dark people were in different class categories.

But as a demonstration of the fact that those training sessions were useful to me, I do also now sometimes notice if an entire waitstaff is white, but the people bussing tables were of various colors. Depends on how much attention I have available, because I have to use enough energy simply being functional that usually my attention will be on body language, and I will not notice what people look like. But I'm making an effort to notice these things, ever. And I _know_ that there is a lot that I would not have been able to get away with were I not myself white. I sometimes wonder if I would actually be able to be functional were I still myself (Autism spectrum and all), but having grown up non-white. Would that additional level of complication and stress have made the difference between functional and not functional?

I still remember vividly my mother reminding me regularly that, no matter how lost or confused I was (this was the norm; I get lost really easily, and it was much worse as a kid. Getting lost in people's homes was not uncommon, and can still happen), I _HAD_ to walk like I knew where I was going and what I was doing. That was really hard to learn, but I did. And I apparently instinctively make my body language more confident and borderline aggressive if passing by people whose body language is itself worrisome. Especially if I'm alone.

And I remember growing up in a nearly entirely white town in Laconia, NH. With my adopted older brother from Bolivia being treated as if he were black. Or Asian. Or whatever. And people would be surprised that he did not look like the rest of us, and my reply tended to be along the lines of "True, he doesn't. But he's my brother." People who weren't rude about it actually got the adopted from Bolivia explanation.

And my longest term friend, who I met in the folk group in my church (raised Roman Catholic), who also ended up being bi, and poly, and not christian at all, was also treated as if she were black. I don't remember what she is (I'm terrible at this), but she was definitely darker than the rest of the people in town. And I did not notice until much more recent conversations where she was commenting about always feeling more at ease in groups involving people of color, and I was confused about why.

It is startling how much effort has to go into me noticing these things, but at least now I try. Because it _does_ affect things, how one grows up, one's perspective on life. And without that data, I could very easily offend people (mostly, people have not been offended when I've commented that I did not notice their skin color, but it's very definitely one of those Clueless White Person things to say...).

I just ran out of things to say. And I don't really feel like I had anything _new_ to say here. But I also felt like I needed to say something, at all.