I want to take a scattered trip down memory lane today. It is partly
because I saw this article:
There are things that make it more interesting to me now, as Marvel tries
to talk around how attempting to embrace diversity is sinking their profits,
and how Ghost in the Shell is apparently not doing well, though Hidden
Figures did quite well. The really persistent memory came from seeing Tilda
Swinton as the Ancient One again.
It is interesting to me that both Swinton and director Scott Derrickson
referred to Fu Manchu as what they didn't want to do. Fu Manchu was an evil
criminal mastermind. I haven't read a lot of Dr. Strange titles, but I doubt
they make the Ancient One a villain.
More to the point, it kind of seems like they think having this character
be an Asian man makes him a stereotype, but having him be a white woman makes
it charming and quirky. I enjoyed the movie, and the character, but I believe I
could enjoyed James Hong or Clyde Komatsu or Michelle Yeoh as well. Chow
Yun-Fat could have been fantastic.
And yes it is textbook white feminism, especially that part about how
there isn't much that relates to her on the screen. She gets a lot of parts for
not much relating to her.
I had posted an article about the Swinton-Cho situation back at the time
(thought I can't swear that it was this particular article). I got a sincere
question on Tilda's behalf, because it looked like she was trying to do the right
thing, and she requested privacy and did not get it. How can people learn if
this is how they get treated?
My response wasn't terribly critical of Swinton. There is a tendency to
immediate go to people of color with race questions when a little research
would generally answer those questions. To instead put the burden on someone
for whom it is personal, and who is asked for that labor more than you can
imagine, is inconsiderate.
I thought perhaps it was that lack of consideration that made it so easy
for the original requester to get offended with the response. A little
searching and reading of accounts should create a big shift in mindset without
even taking that much work. Without that groundwork, questions can
unconsciously be more of a request for validation. When the honest answer is
not validating, I have seen people get really offended and feel persecuted.
That's not too surprising. Coming to recognize privilege is disconcerting
at best. Even when you are sincerely trying to understand it feels gross, so if
you were just looking for confirmation that you didn't really do a bad thing,
well, you can imagine.
But as far as the memories go, I have done it. I remember it really
clearly. There was an article about an athletic recruit getting hassled for his
color at the Eugene airport.
I hadn't even known there was an airport there. I was not so naive to think
that there was no racism left in the world - I had heard stories from the South
- but outside of that I thought racism was an anomaly that only really bad
people do. Current events caused me to question my assumptions, so I went to my
closest Black friend.
I did not feel like a cliché. In my defense, this happened at a time
before internet research was really a thing.
I remember asking him if he had experienced prejudice, and I remember
this hesitation that has stayed with me. At the time it felt like shame - not
that he had anything to be ashamed about, but that this is a gross thing, and
he was about to disillusion me. If it had been a pause for him to question
whether it was safe and valuable to open up to me, that would have been
understandable too.
As it was, he gave me really good insights into racism, and how it was
experienced in our area, and he was patient with my mistakes. That year I also
learned how the Gulf War could inspire stupid old white men to make stupid
comments about damn Arabs to someone Latino (brown is brown, right?), and a few
years later I would be in a discussion where a student of Asian descent would
talk about being mostly accepted but not quite.
I was very naive in my privilege. The best thing I can say about me is
that when people told me things I listened instead of saying "Are you sure
that's what they meant?"
It is a valuable thing to listen to others' stories, and then to listen
more when your first impulse is to contradict. The internet is full of voices,
and it is also good to listen to the people around you. But don't burden them.
Especially don't ask them to validate you, because if that ends up being
unsatisfactory for you, it is probably your fault.
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