unspeakablehorror | Entries tagged with social justice

I think one important idea for interpersonal interaction is having the proper respect for people's understanding of themselves. While it's true that many people are uncertain or unaware of what they want and need, it does not follow that another's own certainty over what they as an individual want or need has any implications for their knowledge of the wants and needs of other individuals. Even in the case where they have domain-specific knowledge (eg a psychologist or even a doctor for physical health) the other person may not know, they need to know how to get information from the other person on what they know about themselves in order to best apply that knowledge. And I think this concept can be extended to issues of social justice as well, but I think there are some insidious ways this overriding of other people's wants and needs for our own creeps in for even the most well-intentioned.

One of these ways is in the context of 'listening' to oppressed people, which I think is a very necessary component of social justice which is often applied in absolutely the wrong way. I think listening is often viewed as a passive activity akin to hearing.

Listening and hearing are not the same. You can hear someone without listening to them, as when your mind wanders off during a lecture or you read a technical document and have no idea what it's trying to say. Listening must be an active activity where you attempt to understand what the other person is saying and integrate it into your worldview. This may or may not involve direct interaction with the person themselves. But even if asking the person themselves is not possible or advisable, you can still think about what they've said, read what other people have to say about that perspective and talk about it with other people. The latter two parts should be done with the goal of getting multiple perspectives and not only ones you already agree with. The end result of listening does not necessarily have to be agreement, but it should result in a greater understanding of the other person's perspective.

One thing that's interesting are the implicit assumptions people make about me. One thing about not telling other people personal information about yourself is that people will try to fill in the blanks. And while I haven't actually yet had people make *explicit* assumptions about my identity, there are things I can infer by the way people treat me, and the way they treat other people of various identities that are known to them.

I think more people in general should really try to think about identities that are marginalized in, hmmm, different ways than they are, and try to think harder about what people of these identities are saying. Not just in a 'my friend is 'X' identity and so their perspective is the right way to think about 'X' always' or 'I'll listen to 'X' identity voices and decide which ones I agree with' or 'I obviously understand because I'm 'Y' identity which is also marginalized' but from a perspective of understanding that...we have to try to get a bigger picture than just what our friends say or what fits into our own limited perspective of the world.

I don't think social justice can be a one-way street where privileged people graciously redress the issues of the oppressed. And I think that more people need to be willing to grapple with the complicated ways that they as an individual can be both oppressed and privileged by the structures of society. And how the understanding they wish to have from others may not be understanding they have been extending to others who may be oppressed differently than they are. Because that kind of unequal expectation will never be justice either, but merely an attempt to adjust which faces the boot comes down hardest on. And the unwillingness to understand the oppression of others is a way in which one helps to solidify the unwillingness of others to understand their own oppression.

While I agree wholeheartedly with the purpose of social justice, I question a lot of the 'community norms' that have grown up around it which I think are often harmful to actually accomplishing the goals in question. One reason I'm often reluctant to speak publicly about a lot of issues, in fact, is because I don't want to perpetuate a lot of those norms, but I think it's a bit much for someone who has such a limited experience with social situations as I do to come up with good replacements in that regard. And yet that's exactly what I need to do, I feel, in a lot of cases. Also, a lot of times, my full response to something would be something along the lines of 'you have a point, but...' and I often don't think that the things after the comma are likely to be well-received. Both because pushback tends to be less well-received in general and because I don't really know...how to present them.

There's some vacuums in social justice that really, truly need to be filled. There are times that I think 'well, maybe I should try to step up and fill some of those' but I also have deep misgivings about my ability to organize anything (look at this blog! do I look like an organized person?!) and I deeply loathe taking on responsibility of any sort. I occasionally discuss political issues on my blog(s), but that's rather less difficult than actually organizing some sort of group, even of the simplest type. With a group there has to be regular engagement or it fizzles out, and I'm not good at regular anything. With my blog posts I just post stuff when I feel ready to post it. Also with a group that's focused on those sorts of issues the problem of burnout becomes even more pronounced as well as the related problem of harassment. I've seen how much truly nasty stuff gets targeted at activists, in addition to being well aware that not all activists themselves are very good people, and that just all looks so exhausting to deal with.

One reason it's important to read what prominent marginalized activists have to say rather than just getting everything from social media is the tendency for ego to play such a large part in social media interactions. There's also the tendency to use one's more marginalized friends to validate their beliefs, which self-selects for less critical introspection. Like, your friends often either a.) are your friends because they already agree with you or b.) in an online space, are very unlikely to feel comfortable criticizing you if they want (or need) to remain your friend. Don't use your marginalized friends as props to validate your beliefs. That previous sentence seems to be a problem I've seen most often when race is involved (eg. 'but I have black friends'), though it's equally obnoxious when applied to other types of marginalized identities. Anyway, one reason it's important to read the works of marginalized activists that one isn't personally friends with is that the distance provided allows for better self-reflection and self-criticism to be applied. A book or essay doesn't feel the need to be planning in realtime how to assauge one's feelings and ego as a friend might, but also feels less threatening than receiving the same criticisms directly in a conversation.

Since whiteness is a social construct and not some quality of individuals themselves (biological or otherwise) it's also completely consistent to understand it as something that is not constant across cultures or time. This doesn't mean that the consequences of it aren't very real, just that what makes a person white isn't some intrinsic quality they possess but something that can only exist within the framework of a society. Whiteness as a concept hasn't always existed at all in human society and perhaps someday it will again no longer exist among humanity. This is because race itself is a social construct not tied to any intrinsic individual quality. Instead it is an imposed categorization.

But just because whiteness and race are not intrinsic qualities does not mean that they don't affect individuals in a fundamental way. We all grow up in a racist society that affects our mindset, our health, and our livelihoods from birth to death. Unlearning racism is not a straightforward project, and individuals recognizing and working against the biases of society doesn't eliminate their effects on people. As long as these ideas are maintained we must work against the societal structures that enforce them. It is these societal structures that must be torn down to truly stop the harm caused to black people, indigenous people, asian people, and other POC in society.

One of the things I collect is dark chocolate bars, which I keep in a large ziploc bag for whenever I am craving chocolate. These things mostly seem to last quite a while. A chocolate bar that I just finished said it was best by Oct 2017, but still tasted excellent. Given how much chocolate I've collected and how infrequently I eat chocolate due to its caffeine content, I don't think I'm in any danger of running out for a while.

Anyway, I was looking at the various packages with their assortment of labels, and was wondering what the different fairtrade labels meant. I found a site that talks about a number of them here:

https://www.fairtradewinds.net/guide-fair-trade-labels/

This appears to be just a company that specializes in selling fairtrade items, so I'd like to find a more neutral sources that talk about the differences between these labels, but I do think it's a good starting point to gather info for additional searches.

One thing I was wondering was what sort of criticisms have been levelled at fairtrade organizations and what are some responses to them: Here's a site that mentions and responds to some of the criticisms of fairtrade:

https://www.lowimpact.org/fair-trade-criticism/

I think there's some valid points made here, though I wouldn't say I agree with all the article's points. Specifically, I would argue that there's a fundamental difference regarding ownership (public vs private) between what happened with enclosure and what's happened with bigger farms buying up the land of smaller farms, but I don't believe the end result of either has been in a positive direction overall, so I can see why such a comparison might be made even if I feel it misses an important distinction.

I thought this was an interesting article:

https://www.citylab.com/environment/2019/01/detroit-tree-planting-programs-white-environmentalism-research/579937/

I think this is a good example of the problems that not stopping to consider social issues when dealing with environmental ones can cause. In this case, the black residents in these neighborhoods turned down free tree plantings because they (very reasonably) didn't trust the city to make decisions in their best interests, not because they hated trees. The background the article gives of the ugly history of the city cutting down trees earlier during its efforts to more easily surveil black residents serve as plenty of justification by itself for them to reject the trees. Why, when they will have to shoulder the burden of caring for the trees, should they accept them when at any time the city might decide to just chop them down again anyway?

But there's more even to it than that, I suspect. The city does not adequately manage its infrastructure. And trees are infrastructure. Even if you ignore raking leaves, they may need pruning, proper planning of locations (and/or additional fortifications) with respect to pipes, sidewalks, roads, etc. or they can cause *considerable destruction of other city infrastructure*. Add this to the fact that many of these residents are probably struggling economically and living in neighborhoods where such necessary planning and maintenance is neglected and I think their response makes complete sense.

I imagine that Detroit would benefit from trees, but they need to involve the residents in the process and not place the majority of the burden of fixing the problems the city has on it's disadvantaged residents. Trees are valuable, but they are also a responsibility, and that needs to be factored in to how society goes about planting them.

When people say they're not racist, homophobic, etc., that immediately sets my hackles on edge because this kind of statement is most frequently used by people who are currently being exactly that.

To clarify:

Fine: A person saying that a specific thing they said or did that actually isn't racist, homophobic, etc... isn't one of those things. Not everything that someone says is bad is actually bad. In order to avoid triggering unpleasant flashbacks in people affected by these issues, it may be a good idea for the accused person to address the issue in a non-defensive way and make it about the behavior, and not about them as an individual.

A Problem: A person claiming that they, categorically and as a whole, are not racist, homophobic, etc. People in general exist on a spectrum. Sure there are a few way out on the extreme edges of that spectrum, but mostly, people say and do some combination of racist things and non-racist things and some combination of homophobic or non-homophobic things. And so on. Also, these things look different when coming from different ideologies, but there is no ideology that makes people completely immune from perpetuating these issues. Self examination is always necessary.

What's even more mind boggling is when people who say they aren't, for example, homophobic, immediately go and prove themselves wrong by then, say, equating the situation of fans making the absolutely boatload of characters who are straight in canon gay in fic with fans making the handful of characters who are gay in canon straight in fic. Like, notwithstanding the question of how much we should focus on fictional representation to begin with and what constitutes 'good' representation, these two situations do not have the same context at all and equating them shows a fundamental lack of understanding of how society works.

And yet this sort of thing is so common it could practically be a copypasta where one could simply sub in the words racist, homophobic, transphobic, etc.

Sometimes I feel like "Listen to X people" just ends up being things like "I'm not X, so I just listen to X people I already agree with" or "I'm not X, so I just listened to the first X perspective I encountered" or "I'm not X, so whenever I want to push a perspective about X people, I find X people who already agree with me, and say 'Listen to X!'" or "I'm not X, so my arguments about how I treat X people or what's beneficial for them don't require any critical thinking--I can just say 'I listen to X!'".

And the thing is, people do need to listen to X people, whenever the context is that they have the capacity to oppress X people, but any and all of the uses of that statement that I listed above are misguided at best and actively malicious at worst, and either way, they can cause immense harm. I feel like this statement too often gets weaponized against the very people it's supposed to help. I think it's important to understand that listening should not be treated like a passive activity. It is an activity that requires critical thought and understanding, and requires one's active mental participation to understand nuance and context.

And yes, that means trying to understand what contexts in which one shouldn't inject their own statements and...avoiding injecting statements in those contexts. But I do not think its appropriate to position listening in contrast to critical thinking. Listening isn't the antithesis of critical thinking; rather, it requires immensely careful thought and reflection.

An interesting article:

Why are we Still Slaughtering the American Bison

Repopulating the bison as one form of reparations to Native Americans and for environmental reasons would seem like an easy choice to make considering the benefits. But I guess the U.S. would rather that space be used for invasive cattle.

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Page Summary

Respect for Others and the Concept of Listening
On Increasing the Scope of Our Understanding
Social Justice
A Social Justice Conundrum
Reading Activists
Whiteness and Race as Social Construct
Chocolate and Fairtrade Musings
Article: Detroit Tree Planting Program Failures
A Criticism of of a Certain Type of Defensiveness
What Does it Mean to Listen?
Environmentalism and Social Justice

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Entries tagged with social justice

Respect for Others and the Concept of Listening

On Increasing the Scope of Our Understanding

Social Justice

A Social Justice Conundrum

Reading Activists

Whiteness and Race as Social Construct

Chocolate and Fairtrade Musings

Article: Detroit Tree Planting Program Failures

A Criticism of of a Certain Type of Defensiveness

What Does it Mean to Listen?

Environmentalism and Social Justice