On Apologies and being an Ally

[yeloson]

Like most hetero guys, I grew up with a solid dose of fucked up ideas, and perpetuated them.

Something like 10 years back, one of my closest friends came out as bisexual, and I was at a loss "what to do". I asked some dumb questions, like, "Are you sure?" and freaked out a bit on the inside with my own hetero-ness threatened with equally dumb worries like, "What if he likes -me-?"

Luckily, I didn't do anything too stupid, and instead of going, "Oh, you're one of -them- but you're 'different'", I was able to go, "Oh, I'm the one tripping here. People are people and this really isn't that big a deal, and I need to get the stupid out of my head."

Instead of making him an exception to my heterosupremacist world view, I changed it.

Working through all that, took a few years. But here's the thing... I didn't tell him I was doing this, I didn't tell anyone. It wasn't about making a show or needing approval that I was trying to do the right thing.

It was about me becoming worthy of the friendship and trust he gave me in coming out to me, when he hasn't to so many others..

Really, just like 2 years ago, I came to him and apologized for the stupid questions. It weighed heavy on me for a few years, because as I became more and more aware of what a dickhead I was, I was more and more afraid I had hurt him in my ignorance.

He wasn't even tripping off it, but the fact was for me to even get to making an apology, I had to change myself first, to make sure I wouldn't do the same thing again, so that the apology could have meaning.

I keep watching people do racist, sexist, and heterosexist stuff, and then turn around "Oh, I learned my lesson! I'm sorry!" the next day, as if the years of stupid that you've been indoctrinated with that let you even treat your fellow humans as less than human, could be so easily unlearned. And, those of us on the receiving end know you'll do the same damn thing again, because you've shown no desire or effort towards changing your thinking or your behavior.

Those of us who want to kick the kyriarchy always find ourselves digging out old programming, sadly finding we're not as far as we want to be. But the difference is, we keep fighting to overcome it, because it's worth it.

I struggled 8 years to even be worthy to attempt a single apology.

If you imagine you can learn to overcome a lifetime of programming overnight, you're lying and you're not apologizing- you're insulting people - as much as if you stabbed someone 102 times and then testified at the trial, "It was an accident".

And that's the opposite of being an ally.

Comments

[ciderpress.livejournal.com]

Yes! This is really what I needed to read, as a PoC and as an ally to others, thanks.

[fightingwords.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this. I just got one of those non-apologies a couple of days ago, and, well, I couldn't even explain why it was meaningless, why it didn't mean anything had changed, why there was no future.

It's too hard sometimes for people to understand the weight of their words and actions even as they heap them onto our shoulders to bear.

I find myself more and more often shrugging it all off and walking away.

[yeloson.livejournal.com]

The disconnect is they -think- we're angry because of a few words, therefore, it should only take a few words to fix it, while what we're pissed about is the way of thinking that even made it -seem remotely- ok to say those words in the first place.

[buria-q.livejournal.com]

yes, this. commonly understood by assholes as the pressure to be "pc".

[upstart-crow.livejournal.com]

This is exactly what I think about being an ally to people of color, since I am white. It is a lot of unlearning.

Kyriarchy! What a great word. I had to look that up. ;)

[tgstonebutch.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this.

[glockgal.livejournal.com]

This all rings very true and right. Thank you for this!

[caphe.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this!

[l-the-fangirl.livejournal.com]

Yes, thank you.

(Speaking as someone who's caught myself thinking and/or saying Dumb Things along that line...%Pr

[synecdochic]

Yes. Yes.

Thank you for articulating something that I've been fumbling towards awareness of but never able to put into words this simply, this eloquently.

[zvi-likes-tv.livejournal.com]

I admire you. Both because you spoke a truth that hadn't been put forward in this discussion, and because you did it succinctly.

Thanks.

[yeloson.livejournal.com]

Well, let's hope maybe, someone reading this learns something, instead of just saying, "Sorry" and pulling the same hot mess again.

Or, that someone reading this who didn't understand why sorry doesn't cut it, tells someone else who is doing just that.

[jeffwik.livejournal.com]

I've been quietly following the whole imbroglio, and this is a post that almost perfectly states my own opinions and position.

[deconcentrate.livejournal.com]

Thank you for putting this into words. It's a truth I'd never quite been able to formulate, as a white ally, about why the words "I'm sorry" make me so uncomfortable when I hear them. (Why it's so painful to know I've uttered them in the past. Why it's so important that I don't let myself do it now.)

Because, yes, this. Thanks.

[bellatrys.livejournal.com]

I have been working for years to eradicate the word "kowtow" from my vocabulary, after realizing in the course of a lot of discussions about the inbuilt prejudices that get perpetuated by terms used unthinkingly that this was a classic case of "inappropriation," serving to reinforce both the belief that subservience is innately Asian in some way, and that being subservient is not just bad in itself, but lowering because it is inherently un-English ^h^h^h^h^h non-Western, putting it on a par with "Chinese watertorture," (and the embodiment of this attitude in Andrew Sullivan's anti-torture stance) as if the use of judicial torture hadn't been developed in Europe since the days of the Athenian republic and honed through the Middle Ages and Renaissance all off our own bat! Why not use the old authentic English words, like "truckle" or "bow-and-scrape" or "genuflect", instead of Othering (and thus disavowing) the problematic behavior?

I've thought about posting about this problem with the word, and been afraid that I will only come off as self-congratulatory, "see how enlightened I am!" But maybe that's neither here-nor-there.

PS: your "Disengagement 101" post reads like a DSM-IV symptoms list for "Concern Trollitis" (http://viv.id.au/blog/?page_id=890&postTabs=6) - including the problems of discussion derailment they inevitably create as other posters take them at their words and try to answer them in good faith, for the seven-hundredth time. And Concern Trolls on liberal political blogs are *notorious* for being all about the Civility and the *tone* of respect, pointing out how superior they are because they don't cuss or call their opponents four-letter words - even while they're calling for total warfare against civilians, unlimited search and seizure, MOAR judicial torture, or saying that immigrants are criminals and parasites, non-Christians are immoral, gays are disease-ridden destroyers of society, or that women who have had sex with a man not their legally-wedded husband are sluts who deserve the consequences of their sin - still, perish the thought that anyone say to them "STFU, you jerk!" It's time to bring out the smelling salts!

In short, it's very much typical of the pattern.

[yeloson.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link- concern trolls, yes. It's always interesting how many people are willing to write endlessly and tirelessly how POC/women/whomever might be "scaring people away" with their tone, and yet never seem to have words for those with privilege about their tone, and how it might be hurting people.

I like to call that behavior "Civil Silencing".

Yeah, and it is so much hogwash--

[bellatrys.livejournal.com]

I like to call that behavior "Civil Silencing".

Like they're really going to *listen* if you just didn't offend them? Please! My sarcastic restatement of it is "Blessed are the Nicemakers" because they have driven me nuts in fandom for years, but also IRL. You *can't* grovel (another perfectly adequate Anglo-Saxon word) low enough to avoid threatening (and thus triggering the hackles-raised defensive posturing) someone who's so insecure, not based on my family, at least.

And there's something seriously twisted about the whole premise, anyway: as if someone would be justified in saying "Yes, I would agree with you that napalming villages in the Vietnam War was an atrocity - but you used an uncouth expletive to describe it as an atrocity (and "atrocitiy" is rather a harsh word to begin with, don't you think?) so I just CAN'T agree with you, as any reasonable person would see--"

I mean, if *tone* is more important to a person than content, that says a lot about them and little good, imo - valuing style over substance, or husk over kernel, if I may cite Lao Tzu (who had iirc a lot of uncomplimentary things to say about putting too much value on worldly honors over actually getting things *done* for the common good...including (tho' not limited to) scholarly ones, ironically enough.

and yet never seem to have words for those with privilege about their tone, and how it might be hurting people.

This is something that gets noticed over and over and called out on board after board - that the mods - and teachers, too, when faced with the victims of schoolyard bullies who fight back - so often side with the powerful and insiders against the already-marginalized. Some people have the right to defend themselves, and others don't, is their effective principle of arbitration, and going along with the in-group is following a path of least-resistance.

Re: Yeah, and it is so much hogwash--

[yeloson.livejournal.com]

Well, you know, hurt feefees > burned children.

I see the extreme of this being the new agey cults that declare your universe is what you think and every bad thing that happens to you is a result of you thinking negative.

It's like blame the victim turned into holy writ.

Re: Yeah, and it is so much hogwash--

[bellatrys.livejournal.com]

Well, you know, hurt feefees > burned children.

And some people's feelings are privileged above others', according to the hurt feefees crowd.

I see the extreme of this being the new agey cults that declare your universe is what you think and every bad thing that happens to you is a result of you thinking negative.

It's like blame the victim turned into holy writ.

That's an interesting aspect to it that I hadn't thought of before - and of course, just like "feelings not being hurt is more important than truth!", it is applied entirely hypocritically. "Your hurt feelings are the result of you being an asshole in public" is *never* an acceptable answer.

(There was a New Agey book that someone I used to work with thought was great - it wasn't *technically* a cult product, afaik, but it had rather a cult following, and it had the message that the cause behind diseases of the sexual organs (inc. breast cancer) was due to Puritanism and us having negative thoughts and feelings towards our private parts. All I remember is that it was purple with sparkly silver stars on it, and has (or had) a moderate mainstream popularity about 5-6 years ago.)

[deepad]

Oy. I needed that term: 'civil silencing'--thanks for giving me words I didn't realise I needed.
(And of course, A+ for rest of post.)

[livrelibre.livejournal.com]

Thank you for saying this! It's something I've needed to hear as a PoC and an ally and struggle to remember.

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

Thank you--I appreciate this post more than I can say now.

[secondsilk.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this; thought provoking and eloquent.

And it means I can throw away all the guilt I feel for still being angry at a guy who apologised to me for his privileged behaviour. It was clearly not the result of a real change of heart.

[yeloson.livejournal.com]

And that's also part of it- they have us feeling bad for being angry when we are hurt. How -dare- we feel we should be respected?

[winningatlife.livejournal.com]

I've been reading through many journals over the last 24 hours. I've friended you just now, because you remind me of my grandmother--in the best possible way. I came out to her when I was very young--must have been about 6 years ago now, and she did the Dumb Question Asking Thing as well (will you be the Man? ...OI.) and then we didn't talk about it. This January I went to visit her, and we got to talking, and she apologized to me for asking those kind of questions, and she was joining a Unitarian church, because she refused to be part of an organization that thought her baby was going to Hell for existing. She didn't volunteer that last bit of information. I had to ask her why she was joining this particular church. If I hadn't, she never would have said a thing about it. It meant so much more to me, this way.

...So I guess what I'm trying to say is: this. So much this. And you are an incredibly cool person.

[cadetsandkings.livejournal.com]

I think I got here through DBW, but I'm not sure, but anyway, thank you a lot for this unlocked/open comment post.