I heard a story today- The Moth is a wonderful hour if you can listen now and again. It's refreshingly devoid of political affiliation, so you can take a break from the dumpster fire that is our current political hellscape. It's about people and their stories and the things that shaped them. Better yet, this is people in their own words and voices.
Birth of A Nation - A coming of age story in a new African state as white domination recedes into the past.
The whole story is beautiful, but there was a part that was especially relevant to me as I've been interacting with more people about racism and sexism in the age of our Nectarine Nightmare (not my term). Certain things are ok because it's tradition (a racist school song, see Birth of a Nation above) or that's just the way boys talk (calling girls whores or rating them) or it was a successful cartoon, why should we think critically about this a decade later?
Petina Gappah found herself in a majority white school just after Zimbabwe won its independence. There is a painful irony in that as a kid who liked to sing loved the point in the day when they sang the school song because she wasn't being bullied or teased, she could just belt out this song she loved to sing. It turns out that the subject matter of the song was the colonization of her land, the takeover and theft and subjugation of her people and ends with the hope that they can do this again. So this is not a comfortable situation.
The teacher was confronted about the song and she had a very familiar reaction. She was indignant and adamant that she isn't a racist, she teaches black children after all. The song means nothing, it's only tradition, was her reply. You can use this logic on any racist or sexist statement. I've heard it. When 45 said "grab 'em by the pussy" he was defended because that's just locker room talk. Boys will be boys. It means nothing. Well, now. It means nothing if you're in the group who has the power and you're dishing out hate and not on the receiving end. No one should be the recipient of hate, but it has more sinister implications in furthering inequality when directed against the group who already has no power.
Just because something's been that way a long time, doesn't mean we can't re-examine it in light of our own growth and understanding and push for change that makes life better for everyone collectively.
Birth of A Nation - A coming of age story in a new African state as white domination recedes into the past.
The whole story is beautiful, but there was a part that was especially relevant to me as I've been interacting with more people about racism and sexism in the age of our Nectarine Nightmare (not my term). Certain things are ok because it's tradition (a racist school song, see Birth of a Nation above) or that's just the way boys talk (calling girls whores or rating them) or it was a successful cartoon, why should we think critically about this a decade later?
Petina Gappah found herself in a majority white school just after Zimbabwe won its independence. There is a painful irony in that as a kid who liked to sing loved the point in the day when they sang the school song because she wasn't being bullied or teased, she could just belt out this song she loved to sing. It turns out that the subject matter of the song was the colonization of her land, the takeover and theft and subjugation of her people and ends with the hope that they can do this again. So this is not a comfortable situation.
The teacher was confronted about the song and she had a very familiar reaction. She was indignant and adamant that she isn't a racist, she teaches black children after all. The song means nothing, it's only tradition, was her reply. You can use this logic on any racist or sexist statement. I've heard it. When 45 said "grab 'em by the pussy" he was defended because that's just locker room talk. Boys will be boys. It means nothing. Well, now. It means nothing if you're in the group who has the power and you're dishing out hate and not on the receiving end. No one should be the recipient of hate, but it has more sinister implications in furthering inequality when directed against the group who already has no power.
Just because something's been that way a long time, doesn't mean we can't re-examine it in light of our own growth and understanding and push for change that makes life better for everyone collectively.
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