10:37pm January 27, 2012

➸ A Girl Janitor Tries to Explain Privilege

Just flopping my way out of an episode of burnout. These episodes generally follow a period of higher-than-usual productivity and social stress. Gearing up for an interview with a recruiter for federal internships at mah college, battling a horrible woman whose job was to “help” me with my resume and interview skills, two gargantuan projects for raising diversity/disability awareness at my college, and changing sleeping medications has a tendency to count as “overproductive”.

I spent a large portion of that time (about three weeks of sporadic class attendance, missing appointments, and generally barely catching the ball before it drops) reading feminist, cultural, and racial blogs. It helps me acquire the language necessary to speak more efficiently on topics I’m interested in, and starting discussions I’d like to start.

Speaking of which, about three weeks ago, I was in my “Leadership Studies” class (a capstone honors course), when during a group exercise about coming up with ideas for raising (charity) funds, someone had the idea of “we could just guilt them into it”. Which led immediately to laughter, and a highly unpleasant discussion of how “pictures of poor kids” are the best way to raise funds, and how the more debased, dirty, and pathetic those photos are, the more funds will be raised. The instructor chimed in with how effective videos of children who appeared poor/dirty/starving were for raising funds for Hurricane Katrina Victims. Uncharacteristically, I stood up, put my things away in my bag, and started to leave the classroom. When the professor commented on my leaving, I whirled to face the class and more or less screamed at them that poor people are people, not objects for you to use in order to get a good grade or something like that. Until i came to this college, I never noticed just how blotchy Caucasians can become when they are mortified and/or shocked.

After this “incident”, I received an apologetic email from the professor, offering me the options of either 1. we can open a discussion about it in class, or 2. pretend like it never happened and move on. I chose the first option, since I think it is important to hear other people on such matters, and I’m interested in people’s opinions.

Three weeks later, I still have not been offered an opportunity.

Three weeks later, I tried to pitch the idea of having the Director of the Disability Services Office and another disabled student come into class and speak about diversity and whatnot.

Three weeks later, the professor for my Leadership studies class didn’t show up for my appointment, and when I emailed the idea to her, her response was verbatim “let’s talk about this”.

I asked a group of my friends about this and their response was basically, “It sounds like she was trying to be polite, and never thought you’d actually WANT to start a discussion or take her offer on speaking to the class about it.”

I’m wondering if things were slightly complicated by the email I sent out to everyone in the class two days after the original incident:

Dear Fellow Students,

I wanted to first and foremost apologize for yelling and walking out in a huff last class. Although my reaction had its reasons, it was an overreaction: inarticulate, antagonistic and generally unhelpful. I want to explain something very important, however.

I was born to a single mother with a 9th grade education in Long Beach, California. She had grown up on a farm in rural Pennsylvania. We lived in desperate poverty despite my mom working long hours doing construction cleanup and general maid work, until she took her last sixty dollars to enroll in community college. The effort she put forth as a single mother raising two children, working, and putting herself through the nursing program was the most inspirational thing I have ever witnessed.

I was a skinny, brown child who spoke english, spanish, korean, and vietnamese. I had holes in my clothes and smelled like cat pee, which is why my second grade teacher said I had to do my work in a separate classroom from the other children. Although they were poor, I was the poorest. It took me years to understand why they threw rocks at me and beat me up in the bathrooms.

The anger you witnessed the other day didn’t have a singular source; it was an outburst of the cumulative frustration I have felt since I moved to Syracuse a year and half ago, and especially since I began attending classes at OCC. There are many things I could be “labeled” as that I consider integral part of my identity: multiracial, multicultural, multilingual, non-christian, poor, bisexual, disabled, child of a single mother, and coincidentally, half my family is black, which I have learned is somehow anathema here. These are all essential things about me.

Since I got here, I have constantly heard many people say very terrible things about all of these categories. But what I really want to talk about is something that is both more and less than overt prejudice. I have had people talk about all of these categories in my presence, as if I am NOT THERE. My identity has become invisible. I have had my OWN CULTURE taught to me in a classroom, which makes me feel partially rejected, but mostly just driven home to me I am not part of “us”, I am “them”. I am the one the status quo talks about in a general sort of way, told about what “they” do/say/eat/practice, the one something “needs to be done about”, because after all, there are none of “them” in this classroom, right?

Since I got here, I have had no less than four people tell me(I’m quoting), “You are white”.

Until I got here, I don’t think I actually understood what race was.

I always thought it was a part of me, something that was mine, but I was wrong. It’s something that other people decide when they look at you. There are so very many things that you cannot see when you look at me, just like everyone else. I never understood that it was something that could be taken away.

From my perspective, unimaginable privilege coats their tongues; the power to tell others that they are “other”, the power to expect justification of the fairness of my skin tone or the lowness of my income, the power to assume that everyone in the classroom is exactly like them, and if they’re not, they should be honored to be assumed to be like them.

These are not compliments:

“You seem white to me.”

“You don’t act poor”.

“I never would have guessed you were disabled”.

“You seem so comfortable around black people”.

Here’s the thing: I’m not talking about liberal guilt; I’m not telling anyone to be anything less than proud of being who they are. I’m talking about something more radical: that I am different than many people in Syracuse, and that I also am proud of who I am. I also know that the people in class with me- all of you- are different than each other. It’s not that difficult to keep our differences in mind, and celebrate them. What happened the other day was a roomful of people assuming that no one in an Honors course, the same one as you, could have also been someone who received charity toys as a child. Every person you interact with on a daily basis is a universe of invisible identities; speak with respect to their very immediate presence. What we call “the world” is made up of perceptions we receive through our senses; thus it logically follows that if we change our perceptions, we change the world.

I’m only asking you to change the world.

I’ll even go first.

I’m not really sure how that came off. The professor made a few obscure comments in person to me the following week about “the class may be more diverse than you’re assuming it is” and I responded with, “I’m sure that’s true, which is why I want to open a dialogue”.

Results of this exchange were kinda inconclusive, and devolved to other subjects.

No clue.

I wonder if I should get some sort of cape.