When I come down an aisle in a grocery store and someone else is coming down the aisle the other way, at a minimum I'm thinking, "Is this person in my way? Am I in theirs? How do we navigate past each other?"
This guy thinks it's White Genocide to suggest he think anything.
This guy thinks it's White Genocide to suggest he think anything.
Now, a critical race theorist might suggest that as he and I are white, the way we move through space and the moment-by-moment assumptions we make about how we and other people navigate it are shaped by racism.
Who waits? Who moves aside? Who gets out of whose way?
Who waits? Who moves aside? Who gets out of whose way?
Now he might say he's always happy to step aside or he was taught a man should give way for A Lady and he still does it even though feminists have murdered him eleven times for doing so.
Because when the question is raised, he's thinking consciously about how he sees himself.
Because when the question is raised, he's thinking consciously about how he sees himself.
I submit that any system of manners or rules for turn-taking or right of way a person subscribes to falls away in the situation where the person *does not see* the other person or persons involved.
For most people who have a story about a white guy in a suit ignoring a long line of people and walking up to the counter, I'd wager in most cases the guy would never consciously say "Well, none of those people in line count. Not white guys." Most would believe in turn-taking.
And so they're insulted at the idea that they should be thinking about how they interact with people they literally just pass by in the aisle of a store.
But a lot of those people have to think about it.
But a lot of those people have to think about it.
You, sir! As you enjoy replying, some questions!
Person 1 is taught being mindful of others is essential to their safety in public.
Person 2 is centered by a culture that shows them as both normal and important.
Who is more likely to be self-centered?
Person 1 is taught being mindful of others is essential to their safety in public.
Person 2 is centered by a culture that shows them as both normal and important.
Who is more likely to be self-centered?
Question number 2. Irrespective of your answer to question 1, are you able to imagine a dynamic existing in which the question of who is self-centered and whom they overlook has a dynamic that is rooted in social constructs of race and/or gender?
Question number 3.
If you answered "no" to the previous question, could you describe what actual mechanism prevents race or gender from affecting this? Is it magic? Is it a forcefield? Is it the will of the Lord?
3B. How does it work?
If you answered "no" to the previous question, could you describe what actual mechanism prevents race or gender from affecting this? Is it magic? Is it a forcefield? Is it the will of the Lord?
3B. How does it work?
Very clever, sir! You have noticed something that is true but which I did not ask about! In this question, we are imagining two people, one who learned the first thing and the other who learned the second thing.
Your answer, sir?
Your answer, sir?
Another question you didn't actually answer! I perceive my mistake. You are a reply guy, not an answer guy. But we'll let that go.
So is it accurate to say your belief is that every interaction happens in a vacuum and all incidents are isolated?
So is it accurate to say your belief is that every interaction happens in a vacuum and all incidents are isolated?
Is it, sir?
Would you contend that everybody learns both lessons equally to one another? Or do you think it likely different people are exposed to them varyingly?
Now, stretch your prodigious imagination and think about what factors might go into that.
Would you contend that everybody learns both lessons equally to one another? Or do you think it likely different people are exposed to them varyingly?
Now, stretch your prodigious imagination and think about what factors might go into that.
Anyway, having established that my learned correspondent is a reply guy but not, in point of fact, an answer guy, I will let him stew on what he has effectively converted to rhetorical questions and continue with my point.
Which is that it would be rare to find a man who tells you he expects women to step aside for him in a sidewalk or narrow hallway or aisle. That's if anything the opposite of their conscious self-image, as it flies in the face of what we're told is "manners".
But if men stop and consciously observe how they move through a crowd and how the crowd moves around them will find that overwhelmingly, women are getting out of their way.
Women can do a similar experiment by just... not automatically giving way.
Women can do a similar experiment by just... not automatically giving way.
Every once in a while a woman will post on social media about doing this and get deluged with reply guys saying "So you just walk into people on purpose?", ignoring the fact that what is happening is men walk unthinkingly into them.
My point here is not, as my learned correspondent tried to cast it, that self-centeredness is uniquely gendered or racialized.
It's to make the point: whenever you move through a shared space without thinking about other people...
It's to make the point: whenever you move through a shared space without thinking about other people...
...you are forcing the other people around you to work twice as hard, think twice as much, about how they move around you.
And among the many factors that impact this are, obviously, upbringing. I doubt anyone would disagree with that.
And among the many factors that impact this are, obviously, upbringing. I doubt anyone would disagree with that.
And "upbringing" -- which is bigger than parenting -- is affected by gender and race. If anyone thinks it's not, again, I invite them to describe the workings of the magic forcefield they envision preventing it from being so.
That fundie comic about all the work the goodly wife does after saying she's going to bed and then the husband just says he's going to bed and does it... that's really every situation. Privilege means you don't have to think about where you put your foot.
