*Sigh*

[silverthorne]

Okay. Tolerance is a good thing. Cultural diversity is a good thing. Letting people keep their traditions is a good thing.

...I just received a 200-page-thick workbook for the nurses in post partum.

It is pages and pages of how to deal with people from different cultures. Everything except how to deal with white people.

Thing is, most of it? Is common sense and general ettiquette that even the dreaded 'white people' know. Or at least it was at some point. Lord knows I was raised that way, because most of what I read was 'no shit, I knew that already'. The rest of it, if you listen to your patient in the first place and work with them (and the patient communicates and just doesn't get all closed-mouthed), should come easy enough.

The nurses though will have to go to classes for this. Memorize it all. Take tests. Get certificates for it or do it all over again.

Just so someone's toes don't get stepped on.

I'm all for being polite and meeting people in the social middle.

But this? Shit like this, when it's required reading because if we don't do it, some numbnut somewhere will take exception to the way you bow your head to them or something else which should be pretty damned trivial in the face of trying to take care of a sick patient, will sue the crap out of the hospital for racial discrimination.

The fact that we even need books like this just make me want to hide from everyone on the fucking planet until they remove cranial mass from rectum area.

This is when I start losing faith and losing willingess to listen to 'white people are horrible' things. This right here.

Everyone has got to bend a little, or we will all break.

Comments

[derek-bliss.livejournal.com]

Then I guess I have nothing more to say.

[chiss.livejournal.com]

And I'm sorry about that.

[silverthorne.livejournal.com]

Why be sorry? If you have the evidence, then my point is moot. My own fault for 1) Not knowing what you know and 2) Bringing it up in the first place when really my own common sense should have won out yet again and I should have just kept my mouth shut.

And likewise the result of this discussion. It's no big deal. Difference of opinion, and who knows, I just might end up agreeing with you at some point. I don't right now, but then I'm just now getting into all of this, despite having experienced the above for over a decade, so...we'll see.

[chiss.livejournal.com]

Why should you have kept your mouth shut? People never learn if they never disagree and never ask questions, and this is a pretty important topic.

And really, I'd hazard to be presumptuous and say I know how this barrage of information feels. I've been there before -- "I'm white, but I've had a pretty shitty-to-normal lot in life, have had to endure rough times like everyone else, and now some college-educated hippy bastard is sashaying in and telling me I've been handed everything on a goddamned platter like the Duke of Earl? What the fuck?"

And people's experiences do vary, for certain. It's doubly-hard to understand or swallow if all you've known in your adult life is the opposite of what we're trying to tell you. And like I said -- while it's not true everywhere, it's important to know about this kind of stuff because the only way we'll be able to fight this shit and make it a thing of the past is to know it exists, and from there, decide what to do as a people to make it extinct.

But knowledge, as always, is the first step.

(I still <3 u btw)

[silverthorne.livejournal.com]

I think that the problem is that I understand that what you are talking about is perpetuated--by a limited priviledge few. And yes, they are white for the most part.

And yeah, whites HAVE been dominant for a long time.

But even mere 'pockets' are an indication that that's changing. And they're very angry pockets a lot of times, which have the potential of repeating our mistakes.

And the problem that I see is that it seems it gets laid solidly at white peoples fight to 'fix it', when it's everyone's problem. And again, I get that yeah, whites are most recent and most widespread (at least in recent history), but again, where's the meeting from the other side?

That's the flaw I see. And part of what set me off, because although I know things need to change, I don't believe that dumping it all at the most recent maurader's doorstep to sort out by themselves is the answer. Which seems to be the expectation.

(No worries, I know you do. Or you'd quit talking to me.)

[chiss.livejournal.com]

what you are talking about is perpetuated--by a limited priviledge few

The privilege I'm speaking of is in no way confined to what I'm guessing you're referring to as (economically) privileged white people. Every white person in America has a social leg-up compared to any other person of non-white heritage you can claim, at least when in the company of other whites. And considering white people are the ones whom are still firmly in positions of power and most often promoted to them due to those racial prejudices, and that will not change until that white privilege is deconstructed.

I totally disagree that the "pockets" are an indication of change in the direction of widespread minority-on-white prejudice. They're an indication of people being righteously and completely validly angry that there are other people in the country getting special treatment by nothing other than the luck of the draw of getting the right skin color, no matter if they've been a bane or a boon to that society or country. They have every right to be pissed off which is probably where most of this prejudice is coming from, though their racist conduct is no more pardonable than any white person's you can name. However, it's important to realize it may be coming from a different place.

And the problem that I see is that it seems it gets laid solidly at white peoples fight to 'fix it', when it's everyone's problem. And again, I get that yeah, whites are most recent and most widespread (at least in recent history), but again, where's the meeting from the other side?

That's something of an ethical SNAFU, to be honest. We as a people lay our prejudices, racism, fears, and all other brands of fuckery you can name on the backs of people for years just because of the color of their skin, then expect them to help us clean up the mess we made when it's done nothing but negatively affect them and their quality of life? I can completely agree it's everyone's problem, but white people -- even if we don't consciously consider ourselves racist -- take part every day in a racist system that directly benefits us. We by nature of the history of absolutely despicable race relations, largely because of white people, in our country have the obligation to at least take the lion's share in helping clean up the mess. And the first step in that, as I said, is recognizing the privilege exists even if we have been socialized to not "see" it in our day to day lives.