Trying on a Different Juxtaposition with Microaggressions, Just for Size

Back to George Sachs "10 Ways White Liberals Perpetuate Racism," with a different juxtaposition this time. Let's see how this fits.

Sachs drew his list from The Racism Root Kit: Understanding the Insidiousness of White Privilege, written by "Paul Pendler, Psy.D., of the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University Medical School and Phillip Beverly, Ph.D., Department of History, Philosophy, and Political Science at Chicago State University".

Sachs
We [White liberals] are one of the millions of white people willing to make a change for the betterment of our country. We actually live by the words of our Declaration of Independence, that "all men are created equal." 
At times, though, we feel a distance from our black and Latino friends; a noticeable energetic gulf that separates us from a deeper connection with them. We want to be closer to people of color. Yet somehow, some way, we sense a wall between us. We wonder: Is it me or them?

Maybe years of racism have made it hard for people of color to trust White folks--even Atlantic magazine liberals like you and me. 
Or maybe we're saying or doing something racially insensitive--perpetuating racism and white privilege. And we don't even know it.

1984
'What are you in for?' said Winston.
'Thoughtcrime!' said Parsons, almost blubbering. The tone of his voice implied at once a complete admission of his guilt and a sort of incredulous horror that such a word could be applied to himself. He paused opposite Winston and began eagerly appealing to him: 'You don't think they'll shoot me, do you, old chap? They don't shoot you if you haven't actually done anything -- only thoughts, which you can't help? I know they give you a fair hearing. Oh, I trust them for that! They'll know my record, won't they? You know what kind of chap I was. Not a bad chap in my way. Not brainy, of course, but keen. I tried to do my best for the Party, didn't I? I'll get off with five years, don't you think? Or even ten years? A chap like me could make himself pretty useful in a labour-camp. They wouldn't shoot me for going off the rails just once?'  

Sachs

Microinvalidations are momentary acts that serve to invalidate the very people of color we care about. These unconscious interactions perpetuate the hopelessness many African-Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and other people of color, feel in this country.

1984
'Are you guilty?' said Winston.
'Of course I'm guilty!' cried Parsons with a servile glance at the telescreen. 'You don't think the Party would arrest an innocent man, do you?' His frog-like face grew calmer, and even took on a slightly sanctimonious expression. 'Thoughtcrime is a dreadful thing, old man,' he said sententiously. 'It's insidious. It can get hold of you without your even knowing it. Do you know how it got hold of me? In my sleep! Yes, that's a fact. There I was, working away, trying to do my bit -- never knew I had any bad stuff in my mind at all. And then I started talking in my sleep. Do you know what they heard me saying?' He sank his voice, like someone who is obliged for medical reasons to utter an obscenity. "Down with Big Brother!" Yes, I said that! Said it over and over again, it seems. Between you and me, old man, I'm glad they got me before it went any further. Do you know what I'm going to say to them when I go up before the tribunal? "Thank you," I'm going to say, "thank you for saving me before it was too late."

Sachs
We might also say: "I'm hurt that you think of me like that." This further draws the attention back to us, and away from the real issue of pain felt by the person of color. When sympathy transfers to the white person, no awareness or learning occurs. No trust is built.

Try this next time you're confronted with something insensitive: "I hear how my words or actions hurt you. Thank you for pointing that out to me."

1984
The door opened. With a small gesture the officer indicated the skull-faced man.

'Room 101,' he said.

There was a gasp and a flurry at Winston's side. The man had actually flung himself on his knees on the floor, with his hand clasped together.

'Comrade! Officer!' he cried. 'You don't have to take me to that place! Haven't I told you everything already? What else is it you want to know? There's nothing I wouldn't confess, nothing! Just tell me what it is and I'll confess straight off. Write it down and I'll sign it -- anything! Not room 101!'

'Room 101,' said the officer.

The man's face, already very pale, turned a colour Winston would not have believed possible. It was definitely, unmistakably, a shade of green.

'Do anything to me!' he yelled. 'You've been starving me for weeks. Finish it off and let me die. Shoot me. Hang me. Sentence me to twenty-five years. Is there somebody else you want me to give away? Just say who it is and I'll tell you anything you want. I don't care who it is or what you do to them. I've got a wife and three children. The biggest of them isn't six years old. You can take the whole lot of them and cut their throats in front of my eyes, and I'll stand by and watch it. But not Room 101!'
'Room 101,' said the officer.

Sachs
If we as white liberals want to walk the walk, we have to do more. We have to acknowledge the uncomfortable value of political correctness as a change agent.

If we truly want a different world, let's ask ourselves:
  • Is it possible that I might unintentionally say something that might be perceived as invalidating by people of color?
  • Can I take an honest inventory of my unintentional microinvalidations, if the person of color confronts me? What is my go-to defense? Denial? Hurt? Faux Compassion, Pain Game, Intellectualization?
  • Can I engage with people of color without deferring to internal defenses, especially when my unintended microinvalidations and unconscious sense of superiority are confronted?
  • Can I be open to the impact of my words, expressing interest and caring how my actions have been perceived?
  • Can I simply say: "I wasn't aware my words or actions hurt you. Tell me more so I can learn?"
These are tough questions. It hurts to know that my words might have invalidated another, and that I may have contributed subtly to racism. For a 40-something White liberal, I'm acknowledging I have more to learn.

Millennials seem know that in the smallest of words is where the greatest of pain lies.

1984
'Who denounced you?' said Winston.

'It was my little daughter,' said Parsons with a sort of doleful pride. 'She listened at the keyhole. Heard what I was saying, and nipped off to the patrols the very next day. Pretty smart for a nipper of seven, eh? I don't bear her any grudge for it. In fact I'm proud of her. It shows I brought her up in the right spirit, anyway.'  

Sachs
Only through continued growth, awareness and acknowledgement that #wordsmatter can something as ugly as racism be overcome.

It's certainly not a new idea, but I thought putting the language together on the same page was interesting. Obviously, Sach's prescription isn't Room 101, but maybe it makes each and every white mind it's own Room 101, where the white person is both guard and prisoner.

13 comments:

MikeD said...

How exhausting it must be to live like that. The great secret truth of the world is that no one is responsible for how you feel but you. If someone else's words or opinions hurt your feelings, that is actually your fault for letting their words bother you. You are giving power to their speech that they are incapable of giving themselves. So all this talk of "microaggressions" or "microinvalidations" or "microtransgressions" (my money is on that one being the "next big thing" among that crowd), is nothing more than attempting to claim that you have more power over someone else's life than they themselves have. Sure, they try to make it inward pointing (i.e. "You hurt me with your microaggression"), but that's just an attempt to shift the responsibility of their feelings onto someone else. Which is very comforting when you have no will or self-confidence to speak of.

None of this is to say that we should feel free to walk around being rude to each other. That's not polite. But I refuse to censor myself for someone else's comfort. If I honestly believe something, then I reserve the right to say it. And no amount of accusations of "microaggressions" or "microinvalidations" are going to convince me otherwise.

Grim said...

The problem is that there are three powerful institutions lined up at enforcing this stuff. We as individuals can defy it, but the institutions will grind us under as a penalty:

1) Government: While 1A claims protect you in criminal court, civil courts will enforce penalties against you or your employer if your employer doesn't take positive steps to prevent bias against protected groups. If you are self-employed, they'll come after you directly. If you are employed by someone else, they'll try to get your employer to control you by civil suit. Employers have to take steps to control your speech. This extends to off-work conduct that becomes public in a way that can make the company liable. The Department of Education, meanwhile, has made it a priority to force colleges and universities to act on these accusations or face severe penalties.

2) Insurance Companies: Because they are going to end up paying out many of the civil claims, they add weight by refusing to insure those who won't comply. Since insurance is a practical necessity for business, this is a powerful mechanism.

3) Employers: For the reasons described above, they are increasingly prone to monitor your private life as well as your on-the-job conduct to enforce thoughtcrime standards.

We need two things to make this defensible. The first is to realize Charles Murray's idea of a mutual defense fund so that any of us who come under fire will be defended by it -- it's a kind of distributed 'insurance' against thoughtcrime accusations. Presumably this could even be made profitable, like other insurance, so there's potential here.

The second is legislation and judicial appointments to reinforce free-speech and freedom of association claims in civil as well as criminal courts. That will end up protecting some jerks and bigots as well, of course. Still, we end up having to defend them in order to protect the greater interest of defending these freedoms. Otherwise, we're going to lose freedom of speech, as we have already very nearly lost freedom of association.

Eric Blair said...

That article is too dumb for words.

Tom said...

I agree with all of you, but we're only going to see more of it. A lot of millenials have been raised with this, and they're spreading the word like evangelicals.

I've had to deal with minor stuff where I teach, but every new teacher they hire seems more eaten up with it. Maybe I've just been unlucky, but if it keeps going like this, it'll be intolerable in another decade.

Tom said...

Looking at the poor racists, I mean thoughtcriminals, in the waiting room with Winston now, I can see multiple microaggressions they're guilty of:

"I know they give you a fair hearing. Oh, I trust them for that! They'll know my record, won't they? You know what kind of chap I was. Not a bad chap in my way. Not brainy, of course, but keen. I tried to do my best for the Party, didn't I?"

That right there is a Racial Resume! Well, Party Resume, anyway. And Defensiveness!

"'Do anything to me!' he yelled. 'You've been starving me for weeks. Finish it off and let me die. Shoot me. Hang me. Sentence me to twenty-five years. Is there somebody else you want me to give away? Just say who it is and I'll tell you anything you want. I don't care who it is or what you do to them. I've got a wife and three children. The biggest of them isn't six years old. You can take the whole lot of them and cut their throats in front of my eyes, and I'll stand by and watch it. But not Room 101!'"

Shame & Hurt, tsk tsk.

jaed said...

The Racism Root Kit

Strangely enough, this is what I'm most irritated by. Oh, how cute. He thinks he's a geek. Look, he can misuse a technical term whose meaning he doesn't understand! Guy probably follows IFLS on Facebook as well.

It must be tribal, this reaction.

Tom said...

jaed, I wonder if they aren't implying that racism is a rootkit in the white mind. Wikipedia:

"A rootkit is a collection of computer software, typically malicious, designed to enable access to a computer or areas of its software that would not otherwise be allowed (for example, to an unauthorized user) while at the same time masking its existence or the existence of other software."

If they see racism as malicious mental software that is hidden from the "user," it kinda makes sense.

Tom said...

To be fair, when I say that "every new teacher they hire seems more eaten up with it," I haven't tried to figure out how much of this or how deeply they believe it. Once I figure out they sincerely believe in white privilege, I take it that they generally think this way. That may not be fair.

jaed said...

Tom, I went and looked up the original paper. This is what it says:

"Most computer operating systems within a computer can be accessed by what has been
called a “root kit” that operates in the root kernel of the operating system without the operating system being aware of its presence. Thus it exerts a powerful source of control within the hardware structure. A root kit is a set of software tools intended to conceal running processes, files, and system data from the overall operating system. Concealment is essential with the goal to maintain command or control over a situation while being unacknowledged. Famous incidents of computer virus attacks on various information technology systems occur as a result of secret instructions being installed into the root kernel and then “released” into the computer’s operating system. At a simple level, instructions within the root program maintain a significant level of control over a computer’s overall operating system. An essential component of root programs is that it must remain “hidden” from easy detection."


So no, he doesn't understand the terms he's using (and also has some problems with grammar) - but yes, you're right that he's trying to indicate that white people are racist but don't realize it because the racism conceals itself from them.

Tom said...

This is something I'm not that familiar with, either. I've played around with programming for fun, Ruby, HTML, that sort of thing, but hacking is way beyond me. Where are the problems with what they wrote? (The article you're referencing was written by two other guys, not Sachs.)

Okay, so given that I don't fully understand the concept of a root kit, let me turn this around.

My first thought when I saw the title of the book was that, yes, indeed, that book was a root kit. The ideas in it are a set of malicious software that the authors hope to embed in the American psyche in order to exert some control over Americans. It is "hidden" in the sense that it uses doublespeak and doublethink to get the host minds to accept it and internalize it.

jaed said...

The article you're referencing was written by two other guys, not Sachs

You're right - I mean Pendler, and missed Beverly on the title page.

Basically, the problem with their statement is that it's gibberish - a pastiche of poorly-understood terms. A couple of examples:

- "Famous incidents of computer virus attacks on various information technology systems occur as a result of secret instructions being installed into the root kernel [?] and then 'released' into the computer’s operating system." It sounds here as though they are confusing rootkits with viruses, and further confusing a rootkit running with something they've heard about viruses being released into the wild.

- "[O]perates in the root kernel [? again] of the operating system without the operating system being aware of its presence" is not right either - I'm not sure what "operates in the root kernel" is supposed to mean, but the OS is necessarily aware of any program running on it - malicious rootkits conceal themselves from the operator, not the OS.

You get the idea.

A rootkit is a program that allows other programs to obtain root access - that is, the ability to do anything on the computer - when it normally would not be allowed. The root account can access any file, modify or delete any file, run any other program, change log files, etc.

If we take the analogy to a human mind, they seem to be claiming that racist attitudes let you modify or remove any other ideas, and also remove or modify the memory of having done so. Or at least they'd be claiming this if they knew what a rootkit was. I think their claim is only that "people can be racist even when they don't know they're being racist". But the "rootkit" name and the techno-gibberish give the idea a gloss of fashionable geekery.

----

Your formulation in your last paragraph is a lot closer to the technical meaning of the term than their usage, though I would call the ideas in the paper a Trojan Horse, rather than a rootkit. A Trojan horse is a destructive program concealed as something useful in the hope that a user will run the program, having been deceived about what it actually does. This seems analogous: a set of malicious ideas, which the author hopes readers will voluntarily take into their minds because it is concealed as a set of anti-racism techniques, and which can do its damage once admitted to the mind and past the shield of skepticism.

Tom said...

That makes sense. And now that you mention it, I agree that Trojan horse is the better metaphor. Thanks for the explanation.

Ymar Sakar said...

Hah. The slaves once again, think they are free.