I cannot take responsibility for your enlightenment (or vice versa)

[redbird]

This was prompted by rmjwell and cakmpls discussing whether it is the job of people in oppressed groups to educate people outside those groups:

One of the things people mean by "it's not my job to educate you about X" is "I've done this already, I've answered these questions a hundred times, I refuse to spend my life doing so because so many people won't pick up a book on the subject, or watch a video."

That's doubly so either when it's a relatively small minority experience--there are a lot more heterosexuals who need to educate themselves about what it's like to be queer than there are articulate, out lesbians, bisexuals, and gay men to do the educating.

It's doubly so when the thing that people need to understand is in itself a major burden--someone mentioned having a child with Asperger's, for example.

It's doubly so when part of the burden is being looked at as an outsider, and the questions are phrased as "tell me about your people" rather than as "you're one of us, I'd like to understand this aspect of your life better."

Comments

[callunav.livejournal.com]

Thank you, yes.

This is something I have periodically gotten very articulate about, over the past 15 years or so - most often not about the ways in which I'm one of the minority (being queer, being pagan, etc.) but about race, where I sometimes feel like I'm the only white person in the room who thought it was /my/ job to read what was already out there. That ticks me off.

Ignorance is not a sin. Opting for continued ignorance may very well be.

(Sometimes I want to put together readers of material that will nicely fill in the basic gaps in common areas of ignorance, and carry them around with me, so that every time someone says, "Well, how am I supposed to know if they won't tell me? It's not my fault I don't know. I mean, I /asked/..." I can put a packet in their hands and say, "Read this. Then we can talk.")

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I'm one of the minority (being queer, being pagan, etc.) but about race, where I sometimes feel like I'm the only white person in the room who thought it was /my/ job to read what was already out there. That ticks me off.

It's not always easy to translate "what's out there" across cultures, though; I've lived in Ireland, Britain and Montreal on scales of years, and in Germany and in North Carolina for several months, and there's so much unspoken stuff there that is wildly at variance among these cultures. As a coarse-scale example, I generally get perceived as "white" in the US, but Irish is very much not "white" in some places in Britain, and I do still sometimes find myself reacting to USAn reactions to me with something that's coming from "but I'm not white, damn it, I'm Irish."

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Oops, that went to soon. I just wanted to add, US perceptions of race are really deeply opaque to me. I do my best to be civil however appears right, but there's a difference between being told how to behave in a new culture as an adult and growing up with it, and I am sometimes very cognisant of growing up without this being a signiificant thing in my environment.

[ckd]

Cue the line from Bend It Like Beckham:

Jess: She called me a Paki. But I guess that's something you wouldn't understand.
Joe: Jess, I'm Irish. Of course I understand what that feels like.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I roared at that line.

[dejaspirit.livejournal.com]

It's also the responsibility of it. As a minority, your experience is still different than many in your group so you always feel like, "I can't possibly speak for everyone."

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

While it is true that I could say, "I've done this already, I've answered these questions a hundred times," particularly regarding adoption (which is certainly a relatively small minority experience) or the disabilities that my kids have (one of which, arthrogryposis, even some medical people have never heard of) or parenting kids with disabilities, I don't. If I think specific people's specific questions can be fully answered by a book or video, I recommend it.

But someone else's experiences, recounted in a book or video, are not mine. Neither am I an exemplar of all adoptive parents, or all parents of kids with disabilities (or all women, or all members of multiracial families, or . . .). I don't agree with the viewpoints of all of those people, either.

So I prefer to go on "educating" the questioners. Other's mileage may, and obviously does, vary, and that's as it should be. I don't say their choice is wrong, and I would appreciate it if they (not you!!!) wouldn't say that mine is wrong.

Re: I cannot take responsibility for your enlightenment

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

*nod*. same here. and while there are times when i am tired of explaining, in general i appreciate people who ask reasonable questions -- because, hey, it's a rarer occasion than encountering people who have no clue and don't care.

furthermore, i think it's a serious undertaking to really educate oneself on the myriad of things out there one didn't suck in with one's baby formula, and i am not offended by people who come to my issues late -- better late than never.

i understand it can be tiring. oh well. i feel better explaining something than i feel moping about having to explain it again. if this happens in a newsgroup, it's a good sign that i need to take a break, and learn something new myself instead.

[redbird]

[Cross-posting my comment from your journal, to try to keep the conversation flowing]

I find that it works better, for me and I hope the other people, when I don't view it as a responsibility, but provide the information because, and to the extent, that I want to.

Much of the time, I like answering questions and explaining things. When, for whatever reason--I'm tired or frustrated, I don't have a good handle on the information, I dislike the asker--I don't want to answer, I also don't do it as well.

I agree with you that someone else's experience--of being a woman, a New Yorker, bisexual, polyamorous, enjoying lifting weights, being fat, anything--is not mine. That also means that they won't get a full view of "what is it like to be an X" by asking any one person. The one exception, "What is it like to be you?" also takes ten or twenty or thirty years--cattitude and roadnotes probably have a good idea, and I suspect Q is getting there--and isn't something that is necessarily everyone's business even if they wanted to know.

Also, whether and how well I (one?) can explain those differences may depend on what similarities exist, and which of those are visible.

[altitudeandwine.livejournal.com]

Whether I take the opportunity/burden to educate depends on my mood and the situation. When I doubt I can get my message across (because I don't have my day or the other party is just to disinclined to listen and hear) I don't try anymore. Because in these circumstances the message I'm transmitting isn't helping in better understanding. And if I'm pissed and cynical I'll only consolidate people in their pre-set negative ideas.

I do try to interweave not-that-well-accepted-things that are close to my heart (bisexuality, polyamority, woman's equality) in my stories, and hope to entice people in thinking about them in a pleasant way, considering them, feeling them from the inside out. I hope to reach more people that way than in everyday life.

Fighting for causes that are 'not my own', such as race discrimination, or the saving of the whales is easier in a strange way because no one can claim that I'm just furthering my own cause.
So, perhaps we should only fight for each other's causes?

Nah. That's simply impossible

Bottomline: I prefer only to fight when I feel I might win someone over (a tiny bit).

[firecat]

And also doubly so if the people I'm trying to educate already have hostile beliefs at odds with what I'm trying to educate them about. (I run into this more with fat-acceptance than with other stuff.)

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I do feel like I have some responsibilities because I'm Jewish, but in most cases, it feels like an opportunity when I get to educate someone about my own experience. (Or if it doesn't, I don't have to do it. I always answer direct questions, and I never let a phrase like "jew him down pass, but I don't have to volunteer information if I'm too tired.)

Where it feels like a duty is in relation to other groups. I do try to call people on it, sometimes subtly, when I catch a major "us/them"ing or in other cases of obvious prejudice. For me, it's all part of "for ye were strangers in a strange land".

[liv]

If this comment hadn't already been here when I saw the post, I would have posted something very like it. Educating people about Judaism and what it's like to be Jewish I see as both a responsibility and an opportunity, one I'm glad of. And of course I make sure to point out that I'm not speaking for all Jews everywhere, duh. My explanation usually starts with mentioning the origin of the expression two Jews, three opinions.

As for other groups, groups I'm not part of, yes, I do very much feel an obligation as a Jewish person to combat prejudice where I can. But calling people on racism (or other -isms) is very different from educating people about what it's like to be a member of $minority. If I start getting questions on the latter I'm much more likely to direct people to resources or preferably someone who actually knows it from personal experience.

Then there are groups that I am perceived externally as being part of, but don't really see as part of my identity. I don't feel like I have anything to say about being bisexual, or being female. Clearly I don't want people to discriminate against bisexuals (or queer people in general), or against women, but that's part of my general desire for people not to be prejudiced rather than something I feel personally.

[(Anonymous)]

I guess it depends on the question. I can certainly talk about what it's like to be a member of *a* minority group - not only as a Jew but as a woman in engineering, for example. But you're right that minority experiences also differ in important ways. I think I may have a little more insight into what it's like being black, for example, than, say, a male WASP, but "a little insight" is a far cry from actually knowing what it's like. And, caveat again, there are certainly some male WASPs who do know more about it than I ever will, for instance someone with a black sibling, cousin, or very close friend.

Being a woman isn't something you see as part of your identity? That's really rare, in a society that still often assigns toys, clothes, and even assumed personality facets by gender. I can't even guss if that would make living in this society simpler or more complicated.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Sorry, previous comment was me. I commented before logging in.

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

"It's doubly so when part of the burden is being looked at as an outsider, and the questions are phrased as 'tell me about your people' rather than as 'you're one of us, I'd like to understand this aspect of your life better.'"

Yes, yes, and yes. Anyone who hasn't been a quaint ethnic outsider (or the equivalent in some other realm) probably doesn't quite get exactly how fucking exasperating it is to be expected to explain. Worse still, perhaps, is when you say, "You know, there's lots of data out there that you could/could have read; I am not obligated to be your one source," and the other person reacts as if I'm committing a major crime in refusing to answer every question and refusing to be The Spokesperson for My Race/Gender/Sexual Orientation.

Gaaaaah

[callunav.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly. It's not that it's always unpleasant to talk about oneself, or one particular piece of one's identity. Sometimes I quite want to. The problem is when there's an implied obligation. It has to be a choice, and people need to acknowledge that the 'educator' has a right to that choice, and that there /are/ alternatives.

(There pretty much always are. I'm sure there are exceptions, but by and large, there's usually something to be read or watched which will fill in anyone who actually wants to understand.)

[elusis.livejournal.com]

Oh hell yeah.

I think this frustration is illustrated beautifully by this snippet of conversation between me and a guy who wants to (date me? get in my pants? I still can't tell) but is a self-described Social Liberal/Fiscal Conservative who votes Republican. We've been through one round of Minority Free University when he pulled the classic "well, if you also like this other girl that I like, we could all three..." and I executed Bisexuals 101 on his ass. But get this shit, when I was talking about why it's hard for me to trust him:

Him: Problem is, I AM conservative politically... and I AM unacquainted with a number of the aspects of your life that you consider essential. So I see no real way for me to ever gain that trust, that it seems would be the first, most important step.
Him: Soooo... I dunno. Guess that may be all she wrote on that particular issue.
Me: so... you'll just throw your hands up?
Him: Unless you have any ideas
Him: I can always just hang with you when the opportunity arises, at parties or wherever... let you just see me and get to know me in a much more casual vein, and try this again in a year or two if we are both still single
Him: Apart from that, I am feeling fairly discouraged at the moment
Me: when you say "a year or two," what do you assume would be different in that time?
Him: Well, I would think that you and I would have run into each other casually a number of times, and perhaps you might have seen enough of me to know and trust that I am neither hurtful, stupid, amoral, or irretrievably racist, sexist, homophobic, or insensitive... that I am, in fact, despite my differing political beliefs and "social capital," quite a nice, decent guy who is worth knowing and fairly trustworthy
Me: OK
Me: and what would be different about you?
Him: Would there need to be anything different about me?
Him: Let's say that hypothetically I would be exactly the same
Me: gee
Me: tell me again how you're not looking for someone to be your teacher
Me: left to your own devices, you'd be... exactly the same?
Me: so all this "tell me about what it's like from the perspective of a queer girl" isn't something that interests you unless there's sex at the end of the rainbow?
Him: Well no, but I can't really predict how I would be different, so the only hypothetical that I can really offer is that I would be more or less the same... anything else would be wild speculation.


Yeah. He's gonna be exactly the same in a year, his fantastic, great, kind self... but 100% as ignorant as he is today (he's already admitted his ignorant) unless I go in and change it for him.

It's a good thing I don't believe in violence.

[redbird]

And the prize, if you change it for him, is that he gets into your pants?

[elusis.livejournal.com]

Yeah, apparently. Isn't that lucky for him?

[(Anonymous)]

Wheterh I want to give The Talk to someone depends on several factors: how positive a mood I am already in, whether I percieve them as genuine, and how much realistic opportunity I judge they'd have had to find out for themselves.

So a friendly rural twenty-year-old will get a better reaction from me than a middle-class middle-aged jerkoff.

Unsurprisingly.

[razorsmile.livejournal.com]

One of the things people mean by "it's not my job to educate you about X" is "I've done this already, I've answered these questions a hundred times, I refuse to spend my life doing so because so many people won't pick up a book on the subject, or watch a video."

Right. And the instant the person mouths any insights they may have derived from doing exactly that, you vengefully pounce on them for being wrong.

This reminds me of Koreans and/or Chinese getting mad when referred to as Asian; after all, we (i.e. non-Asians) should know the difference enough to be precise - somehow. I'm Nigerian, from the Igbo tribe. You do not want me to go into the number of subdivisions within that; think of multiple concentric Venn Diagrams. So if someone refers to me as West African, African or even African-American, I can't really bring myself to give a rats ass.

there are a lot more heterosexuals who need to educate themselves about what it's like to be queer than there are articulate, out lesbians, bisexuals, and gay men to do the educating.

An obvious Catch-22 situation.

[redbird]

No. I do not vengefully pounce on people for being wrong. If they are wrong, I explain that. If, more often, they are over-generalizing--something humans tend to do, it's part of how our brains evolved--I explain that while a lot of women/queers/Americans/etc. are like that, we aren't all, and I'm not.

Fortunately for the people who need to educate themselves, there are such things as bookstores and public libraries, and groups who have taken on that job of educating. If someone comes to me and says "I just found out my $relative is gay, help" I'm going to refer them to PFLAG, which has more information and more resources.

Do you make a point of vengefully pouncing on anyone who refers to you as African instead of Nigerian or Igbo? No. So why do you assume that I, a stranger to you, am waiting to attack?

[razorsmile.livejournal.com]

No. I do not vengefully pounce on people for being wrong. If they are wrong, I explain that. If, more often, they are over-generalizing--something humans tend to do, it's part of how our brains evolved--I explain that while a lot of women/queers/Americans/etc. are like that, we aren't all, and I'm not.

When I said "you", I meant ... ah. It would appear I was over-generalizing. I meant to say that some gays/lesbians/etc. get defensive when queried by the ignorant - presumably due to past provocation. As for the Asian/African example, I was pointing out how absurd it is for someone outside the culture(s) to differentiate between them without extensive research. More to the point, odds are you won't need the knowledge in the first place. If however one does find oneself dealing with the unusual, it becomes advisable to do said research.

Wilful ignorance is more a function of individuals than anything else. Too bad there's so damn many of them.

Do you make a point of vengefully pouncing on anyone who refers to you as African instead of Nigerian or Igbo? No.

Precisely my point. No one else should either.