There’s a particular attitude I often see on the internet that goes something like “If you aren’t part of a particular marginalized group, then you could never understand their experience, so don’t pretend to relate.” And while obviously you’re never going to relate to every aspect of that identity unless you are also of that identity, I feel like this attitude really diminishes opportunities for finding kinship and bonding in similar experiences even if those experiences aren’t exactly the same and/or are the result of different identities.
For example, I’m white and neurodivergent, and I was talking to a Black neurotypical friend about masking, and how I feel like I have to change the entire way I present myself in order to not be considered weird in public. She responded with “Oh, some of that sounds kind of like code-switching— how I have to switch away from using AAVE in white-dominated settings in order to be accepted.” And then we bonded over how frustrating and ridiculous it is that AAVE and stimming are both considered unacceptable in “professional” settings.
Another time, a straight Jewish friend was telling me about a book she had just finished reading, which was written by a Jewish author and had a Jewish main character. She was saying that it was really nice to read a book written by a Jewish author, because even when gentile authors do their research and write a pretty accurate Jewish character, they never quite feel Jewish— you can always tell the author was a gentile. And I said “Oh that sounds kind of like when I read queer characters written by straight authors— you can always tell the author was straight even if they do their research and get things fairly right. So even though I’m happy when any book features queer characters, it’s really especially nice to read queer characters written by queer authors.” And we bonded over this similar experience, and we were both excited that the other understood even if we were coming to this experience from different angles, and then we swapped book recommendations. This conversation is also a great example of when that internet attitude DOES apply— when someone outside of a particular group is trying to understand that group’s entire experience well enough to accurately write the world as seen through their eyes. They’re never quite going to get it right, and that’s ok! It just means it’s important to also have Own Voices authors writing those types of stories also.
Sometimes it seems like people who have been in internet circles exhibiting this attitude for too long are afraid to ever try to relate to the experiences of anyone in any groups other than their own for fear of causing offense, which is honestly pretty counterproductive. Understanding each other and bonding across groups should be the goal! Relating to each other is not a bad thing!
i’d add that these points of what COULD be solidarity are also used AGAINST others by malevolent anti-worker racist forces, and you hate to see it. see: some thumbfaced cop yutz whining about how the irish were slaves* but you don’t see THEM complaining, THEY pulled themselves up and never asked for handouts. :( they could instead be going “hey wow we both got screwed over, and we could have banded together as workers, and yet” *they weren’t but they were discriminated against in other ways i guess
They certainly were, and that actually adds to the point of this post-
When the Irish were suffering through the potato famine(the English being a major facet to how badly they suffered), the Choctaw sent what they could to help, $170, because they empathized with their plight.
There is a sculpture in Ireland commemorating this, called Kindred Spirits.
And recently Irish donors cited that gesture as they raised $2 million in aid for the Navajo and Hopi tribes for the fight against COVID.
This post is great because goddamn is this a problem in internet social justice stuff, and I wanted to add one of the best takedowns of it that I’ve encountered. It’s from an anthropology paper from the 80s where the author is working through four “pitfalls” of performing materials from a culture other than your own, mostly with an eye to white anthropologists performing materials from nonwhite cultures. One of the “pitfalls” he lays out is exactly this – the refusal to even try and engage with another culture, because you believe you couldn’t possibly understand or relate and so therefore you shouldn’t bother:
Instead of facing up to and struggling with the ethical tensions and moral ambiguities of performing culturally sensitive materials, the skeptic, with chilling aloofness, flatly declares, “I am neither black nor female: I will not perform from The Colour Purple.”
When this strange coupling of naive empiricism and sociobiology – only blacks can understand and perform black literature, only while males John Cheever’s short stories – is deconstructed to expose the absurdity of the major premise, then the “No Trespassing” disclaimer is unmasked as cowardice or imperialism of the worst kind.
[…]
In my view, the “Skeptic’s Cop-Out is the most morally reprehensible corner of the map because it forecloses dialogue. […] The skeptic, however, shuts down the very idea of entering into conversation with the other before the attempt, however problematic, begins.
[…]
The skeptic, detached and estranged, with no sense of the other, sits alone in an echo chamber of his own making, with only the sound of his own scoffing laughter ringing in his ears.
– Dwight Conquergood, Performance As A Moral Act (1985)
(I would also generally recommend this paper for anyone who’s trying to talk to anxious white liberals, because I think the framework is really useful for people who’ve never had to think about intercultural communication before and are worried about fucking up. Showing them the major ways of fucking up, including that refusing to try is fucking up, means that they can direct that anxiety to looking for whether they’re falling into the pitfalls.)
[ID= sculpture of multiple large metal feathers /end ID]
The thing, though, is a lot of “you wouldn’t understand” gets used as a weapon to silence debate. It’s just another form of the Oppression Olympics where the team that wins the gold gets to control the debate, and the team that wins the silver… is just another villain.
It’s a particular favorite tactic of TERFs where you’ll hear them say shit like “Well, I’m a lesbian, so you shouldn’t be arguing with me about the use of the word ‘butch’”.
You’ll see this sort of thing in the extreme fringes of all sorts of movements, and it’s a wonderful way to get people to insulate themselves from “the enemy”, which is really everyone who’s not specifically of the same identity… and of course, those people of the same identity who are willing to interact with “the enemy”.