I've been re-reading

an essay/article by Dr. Alison Bailey titled: "Despising an Identity They Taught Me to Claim". It's one of the pieces in an edited book: "Whiteness: Feminist Philosophical Reflections".

Dr. Bailey took the title of a book of poems by Michelle Cliff (Claiming an Identity They Taught Me to Despise) and reworked the wording around to reflect the content of her essay. When I looked up Michelle Cliff to find a link for her I learned she was the long-time partner of Adrienne Rich (who is a writer and poet that I've read before...it's a much smaller world than I often think).

In the essay/article, there's a sentence that just jumped at me, it goes:

"These defensive moves are, to use Ruth Frankenberg's (1993) phrase, "power-evasive repertoires" designed to alleviate the white guilt, pain, and self-hatred that almost always accompanies privilege awareness."

 That sentence, especially the part about "guilt, pain, and self-hatred" resonates with me because I've been wrestling with feelings like that (they wax and wane in strength, but never really go away) because of some of my social identities (white, male, human) ever since I first experienced what Victoria Foote-Blackman called "The Fluther Transversion".

My "discomfort" (a euphamism) over my obliviousness to how we humans behave toward our sister/brother Earthlings began almost 10 years ago, then several years ago my "discomfort" received a serious rocket booster of intensity when I started grappling with my whiteness (and maleness) and how we white men have been being giant a**holes regarding race/racism and sexism. There's something bizarre and disorienting about being a white, male, human and being so adamantly opposed to the numerous awfulnesses that originates from those who occupy those same social identities. Jeez.

Dr. Bailey's essay made me think about the fact that her dismay with her white identity is (in some small measure) ameliorated by the fact that (at least here in the U.S.) white women had no formal political power (being able to vote) until 1920. I don't mean that white women necessarily comported themselves with compassion and kindness in reference to race/racism up until that time (they really didn't, at least most didn't)...but...it is the case that they had no voting power from the founding of the nation till then.

They (white women) have been chipping away at their decreased formal responsibility because of their voting behavior ever since and they really blew any claim to that small refuge as a result of the outcome of last year's presidential election where the majority of them (who voted) supported the current occupant of the white house. The delusional destructiveness that underlies such voting behavior is...well...stunning.

It's like they said hey...we (white women) will vote for an openly racist man (even though he's misogynistic) over one of our own. And they did this even though this is the first time ever there was a good chance that they could have placed a woman (white though she is) in the presidential office. 

There's something sort of breath-taking in the degree of whatever it is that supports such anti-compassion and absence of commitment to fairness and equality on the part of white women. (I'm not even mentioning white men, I don't have any words to describe what I think about most of us)

I recently ran across a bit of mind-boggling (to me at least) information which noted that never, since the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Legislation (which was sponsored and signed into law by LBJ), has the majority of white people in this country voted for a democrat for president. What a deplorable and sh*tty statement about us white folks here in the U.S....especially considering some of the demeaning and pitiful white men the repubs have offered as presidential candidates.

I realize I write much more about the ugliness of racism in this blog than I used to, it's not because I'm any less passionate and committed to the notion of not harming our sister/brother Earthlings than I used to be...rather it's (in part) because it seems absurd to think that we're going to behave decently toward them while at the same time upholding white supremacist and misogynistic behaviors and ideals. It could be done, I suppose, but such an imagined situation is too morally deplorable and ridiculous to even be considered (to me, anyway).

Naw, we white folks gotta quit engaging in such ugly harmfulness and we gotta start by working towards treating our sister/brother humans with fairness and equality...that's way way way way overdue. There's nothing says we can't live vegan and also work to oppose and resist racism and sexism.

But...it can't be done just by thinking good thoughts...it's much more difficult and unsettling (see the sentence from Dr. Bailey) than that.

We white folks here in the U.S. (and worldwide for that matter) have devoted much more effort to disguising and obfuscating our recognition of and responsibility for our racism and sexism than we have devoted to disguising our lethalness toward those Earthlings we call "animals".

I am a lot more flim-flammed and confused by my own "whiteness" and "maleness" and all that entails than I am by my "humanness". That's mostly because my culture works really really hard to convince me that being a "good guy" doesn't take much effort (it says that I just gotta have "good intentions") but it's a hell of a lot more complicated and hard to grapple with than our dominant cultural narratives would sucker you (me) into believing.

I'm appalled at thinking and living according to choices made by people who lived before me and who I think were really morally deficient, ya know? (of course I've been the goofy one who swallowed their ugly harmfulness without deeply thinking about it)

It's much more demanding (for me, anyway) to figure out how to identify and comprehend and work toward trying to interrupt racism and sexism (and additional "isms") than it is to figure out that we gotta quit hurting our sister/brother Earthlings. If you think living vegan is tough...if you're white...just start getting serious about studying race/racism here in the U.S. and you'll find out what tough really means. 

Does that make sense to you? It seems to hold together to me...but...I wouldn't be surprised if I were missing somethings.

Lewis Thomas

was the author of a book of essays titled: Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony. The first essay had that name and I remember reading it not too long after it came out in the mid 1980s. In that essay, which you can read here, there was a sentence that struck me as one of the most meaningful and powerful ever written.

If I were 16 or 17 years old and had to listen to that, or read things like that, I would want to give up listening and reading. I would begin thinking up new kinds of sounds, different from any music heard before, and I would be twisting and turning to rid myself of human language.

In the essay he was referencing the reading and listening to things that were being spouted by Reagan and his administration wherein they were quite seriously wanting to engage in a nuclear war with Russia so they could destroy the "Evil Empire".

That sentence returned, stunningly so, when the disconnecting and invisibling of the viciousness and violence of the behavior of humans toward our sister/brother Earthlings finally diminished enough that I finally began to see and feel and comprehend what we were doing. The sentence haunted me because the more I became aware of what I had done, of what we all were doing, the more I eventually starting wishing I didn't think or feel or speak human. How does a Nazi feel when they realize they are a Nazi and all that such a realization means?

That sentence has never really left me since then and yesterday it came crashing back and the feelings were stronger than ever. We took a day trip to visit the Chickasaw Cultural Center about 60 miles south of here. It's a really beautiful place and has to be seen and experienced to fully appreciate that fact.

Kochcha' Aabiniili' Amphitheater

This is one photo of many that are available on the website they've created. The name of the amphitheater means "a place for sitting outside".

When we were walking onto the grounds I found my self pulling inward, I was looking forward to visiting the center and was puzzled by my reaction. I kept listening and waiting to see what was going on with me and as I did I felt heavy and then even more heavy and finally sadness and sorrow started welling up inside me. Tears started falling as I realized that I was visiting a place the ancestors of the survivors of a genocide (a past genocide as well as an ongoing slow-motion current debacle) had created to try to keep their ways of being. And I was one of the ancestors of the perpetrators and I am one of the members of the group who drive the current manifestations of subjugation.

I felt such a deep sense of shame and desolation, similar to that which I feel when I see a small torn and smashed fur-person lying beside a roadway or when I see cows or horses behind barbed wire. The cause of all this violence and death and theft of lives and freedom and land and water is the group I was born into. That pain and suffering was caused by us. We caused that harm.

And they were the victims and they experienced the loss and the misery. And we blithely lollygag along, la ti da, la ti da. We don't think we're bad people, we don't think we oppress others...we're the home of the brave and the land of the free (especially if you're white and male) with liberty and justice for all (?). Hooray.

We should be the ones suffering and grieving, we should be wailing and be covered in sackcloth. We're the bad guys and unless and until we take onto ourselves awareness of this and begin feeling the harm and horror we've inflicted on others (and continue to do), we're going to keep right on harming...and singing la ti da, la ti da. The pain and suffering they experienced belongs to the perpetrator, not to the victims. Just as the pain and suffering we inflict on our sister/brother Earthlings who aren't human belongs to us, the perpetrators, not the victims.

But...it's the victims who are forced to feel the terror, the horror, the misery...not us. We try to hide their bodies from ourselves...in the case our animal victims...and in the case of our human victims we just pretend nothing is wrong...or we try to hide them too.

And...if the human victims get upset...well...they're just "too sensitive"...or they misunderstood...or we tell ourselves (not outloud, that's not nice) that they're not like us. If the animal victims resist or scream or try to escape, well, they're "just" animals. We pack the animal victims into "factory" farms, we cram the Native Americans into reservations, we squash the poor black victims into ghettos or "inner-city" neighborhoods or move away if they buy houses in areas where we live. It's all too awful to comprehend.

What if it is the case that if we're going to get to a place where we quit harming that we have to take back some of that pain we've been inflicting on others? What if we have to feel miserable (no way could we feel all of what we've done...there's way too much of it). But what if we have to feel some of it? What if, in order to break out of the viciousness, we have to feel some of the horridly devastating awfulness?

Every one of you who lives vegan has probably had the experience of someone getting upset with you when you tried to tell them about the suffering of the animal victims, of their excuses, their rejection of their own culpability. It's only bad, mean people who hurt animals, not them...even though they eat them. They're not being mean, they're not cruel. Bad people are cruel. Trying to tell white european humans about their racist tyranny and cruelty toward other peoples elicits dismay, rejection, denial and...just as when you try to convey the vegan message...the likelihood is high that they'll turn on the messenger.

 Many vegan activists use graphics similar to this to promote their message. Choose compassion, quit harming animals, go vegan. But...what about the other two, racism and sexism? We vegans tend to compare our efforts to those struggles that are ongoing against those other two "isms"...but have we done the work of feeling the pain and misery that are products of racism and sexism? If we're vegan we've probably felt some of the pain and upset associated with hurting our sister/brother Earthlings who aren't human but what about our sister/brother Earthlings who are humans?

What about their pain and suffering and misery? Have we felt any turmoil and pain and dismay about those victims? Or is it just talk? Are we comparing ourselves to movements that are driven by the same sorts of resistance to oppression and injustice that we are fighting against without having done the hard and gut-wrenching and mind-blowing work of "getting it" regarding what those movements fight against?

Six months ago I would have said "of course I get it"...now...I'm not so sure. Now I think that it was the case that I was kidding myself six months ago. I wrote this post back in December about the racially offensive exploitation of African Americans ostensibly to promote veganism and/or to make money. The words are pretty much there...but...I wasn't feeling it. I knew the words to the song but I wasn't hearing the music. Now, I think (notice that I say think) that I'm starting to hear the music...and it's a dirge...it's sad music full of pain and misery and hard feelings to bear. There aren't any words for it. I wasn't where this young woman obviously is. My denial was operating then...I think it's a little less powerful now. I hope it is.

Watch the video of the young woman expressing her pain and upset over the mocking of African American culture and language...it's about 12 minutes or so. See if the experience of hearing and seeing her expressing herself doesn't impact you. We can promote veganism without hurting others but...that wasn't done in this case. Some objected, Breeze Harper, Pattrice Jones and others, but not all vegans objected....some defended it. Some championed it and pooh poohed those who were upset.

We have a lot further to go than I thought...and I include me in that. I think the most unconscionable thing of all is that it's all so unnecessary. We have a lot of pain to feel and process and suffer through in order to legitimately use comparison graphics like the one I stuck in this post. Shame on me for not realizing that sooner. I feel awful and I know my feelings are as nothing when compared to the misery and suffering and horror inflicted on the innocent by speciesism and racism and all the numerous systems that maintain domination and oppression.

Grandpa's racism?

I came into young adulthood during the civil rights era in the U.S. Legal segregation seemed to be the single most significant obstacle to racial justice in the U.S. The photo below is of a classroom at the University of Oklahoma (where I did my undergraduate work).

The kind of reality distorting thinking by white people that created the appalling and absurd situation depicted in the photograph hasn't just evaporated. White people had to have been profoundly cognitively warped to create such a classroom configuration. It is nice to believe that such bizarre thinking can be abolished by laws. But such powerful and widespread delusional thinking doesn't just evaporate simply because of changing legalities.

I ran across an article written by Roger Wilkins that did a good job of summing up what many black citizens thought during that era.

In our naivete, we believed that the power to segregate was the greatest power that had been wielded against us. It turned out that our expectations were quite wrong. The greatest power turned out to be what it had always been: the power to define reality where blacks are concerned and to manage perceptions and therefore arrange politics and culture to reinforce those definitions. When we were segregated, we hadn’t ground into our considerations the nation’s long history of racial subordination. From the dark and cramped box of segregation, the rest of the country out there looked bright and shiny. We thought the only thing it lacked was us. We didn’t understand then how normal a part of national life racism had become.

I admit to being besotted with that same naivete he writes about. Hey...legal segregation is forbidden...things will work themselves out now...right?

Nope...they didn't. Read Jonathan Kozol's The Shame of the Nation or read this article. The problem wasn't just, as noted above, segregation...it was the power of being able to define reality by white people for people of color. It was the power of white people being able to deceive themselves, via an epistemology of ignorance, that there was no race "problem" now that civil rights legislation had been enacted.

If you believe there's no problem...you might want to read this article detailing a study that showed that white men with a criminal record were more likely to be selected for employment than a black man with no criminal record...even when job qualifications were the same.

Here in the U.S. we have a race "problem"...and...that problem is created, conceived and enacted by white people. I'm one of those white people and we victimize both the targets of our denial based delusions as well as ourselves. We corrupt our own abilities to accurately perceive and understand ourselves and reality.

I came to young adulthood in a U.S. that was devoted to (the white people anyway...and they controlled (and still do) all the major institutions that publicly define 'reality' like the media, the school systems, etc) a type of racism that's called Jim Crow racism. That's what I mean by Grandpa's racism.

Currently the most prevalent type of racism is sometimes called color-blind racism (an ablest term...my apologies) or aversive racism or symbolic racism.

Jim Crow racism, in part, is/was characterized by burning crosses, white hoods, lynchings, the common use of racial slurs and legal segregation. Other horrors were "normal".

Symbolic racism is characterized by notions like the idea that blacks no longer face much prejudice or discrimination and that any problems associated with being black have to do with the failings of blacks themselves. This stuff is closely aligned with the thinking that says: "I don't see color". Joe Feagin, a sociology professor, suggests that white racist attitudes haven't changed all that much it just that whites have learned to behave and talk one way in public and differently in private. In other words...instead of changing our ways we just became more overtly dishonest as well as more self-deceptive.

The belief that racism virtually disappeared is really sort of magical when you think about it. Establishing and enforcing a white supremacist regime for centuries and somehow making it all disappear and become not a problem as the result of changing of a few laws in the 1960s? That sounds almost like a joke...one that isn't funny.

The fact is, as noted here by Ta-Nehisi Coates, that: "white supremacy is not an invention of white people; white people are an invention of white supremacy."

Centuries of crafting attitudes and beliefs about people of color and about white people that supported and sustained unspeakable atrocities and human enslavement and zip zoop...we wiped all that out just like that?

For about 80% of the time the U.S. has existed it has been a white supremacist nation...enforced by law...but somehow we've made all that be unimportant and irrelevant to how things are now for people of color. And...we managed to do all that without formally apologizing...without any system of reconciliation and...best of all...without any compensation or reparations to the descendents of those who were subjected to slavery.

It's simply ridiculous and yet...like many of you...I didn't think about the bizarre absurdity of thinking we could recalibrate our racial mindset with the passage of a few laws...I just believed it.

What does human enslavement and racism and white supremacy have to do with veganism? Go read Syl Ko's writings. Or go watch Aph Ko's video for some insights into the mutually reinforcing aspects of these superficially unrelated ways of oppressing.

If you are just beginning your journey toward comprehending/interrupting the absurdities of racism...it might be helpful for you to read this.

Grandpa's racism was just one version of white supremacy. As soon as it became unacceptable and not "normal" it morphed. It didn't disappear...it only became more adept at hiding itself in plain sight.

Outsiders (like the United Nations working group referenced in an earlier post) easily comprehend it...many who are victims understand it but those of us who are immersed in it and are beneficiaries of it...well...that's a different story. Maybe the biggest obstacle for we who are raced as white is overcoming the falsehood that we think we know or understand this stuff. The first step to learning about something is to know that you don't know.

Most white people think they "know" all they need to know about race and racism. Last year I took the risk of trying to talk to my younger sister about what I was learning and coming to understand about racism. She listened (or appeared to) and said she would read the resources I had provided her and think about it. Some weeks later she emailed and said that while she appreciated what I was presenting to her that she just didn't think it was true and then she went on to allow as to how that all that "stuff" was in the past and that she thought President Obama was just making it worse by even mentioning it.

I had not entertained much hope that she would be able to hear/understand me...but I felt the obligation to try...she is my sister after all. I did wish, that even though she was adverse to admitting ignorance, she would have avoided the remark about President Obama. It was equivalent to hearing someone say that the victim of an unwarranted attack had made the assault "worse" because they said something about what had happened. Her mindset of denial and victim blaming, sadly, exemplifies aspects of the current version of white supremacist worldview.

When we believe absurdities...we are going to make absurd remarks. I love my sister...and she's probably what would be considered to be a "good" white person...but she is effectively clueless about race and is firmly convinced she knows all that is necessary. She wouldn't wear a white hood...but she is a firm pillar in terms of obliviously supporting the white supremacist mindset via denial of its existence.

And that firm conviction of hers is a strong and enduring aspect of why racism is a white people's problem. And that firm conviction of hers is an aspect of white obliviousness. And that firm conviction of hers is part of why this nation...and all of us in it...are in deep doo doo. I say all of us because while people of color aren't the creators of or the maintainers of this mess...they are the targets of it hence the deep derangement of we who are white people harms everyone.

This stuff is heavy and hard and depressing...but...like many delusional horrors...it is so divorced from reality that it becomes almost zany at times. Go read Abagond's post about the "Barbara Bush Award for Deluded Whiteness" and then you can read Chris Rock's article about racism...both provide a little (in a sad way) levity about a really really unfunny thing.

If you're designated as being 'white' and you believe in fairness, if you believe in justice, if you believe in equality then you are obligated to put in the effort and the time and the study to learn about race and racism. If you think you can get by through just being a "good" white person who lives vegan and avoids overt racist acts...you can't. The system is so pervasive and so entrenched that unless you are pushing back against it...knowledgeably...then you are...whether you want to or not...upholding and being complicit in it. It's a mess and it's a pain in the kabooka...but...it's a mess we white people created and it is our job...our obligation...to eradicate the whole unconscionable thing.

My parents and my grandparents and my great grandparents and for generations further back all helped uphold and maintain this ugly and awful system of white supremacy. And so did yours...if you're white. And what they made...we must unmake.

Just thinking.

A recent exchange made me think about the different behaviors that we human animals exhibit towards our sister/brother Earthlings. These behaviors seem to fit into some rather easily discerned groupings. Here are five categories (and there would be some shading toward greater or lesser degrees in any category).

More thinking needs to be done, obviously the names of the groupings could easily be changed but I wanted to throw this out and see if anyone else has thought along these lines and/or your thoughts about such a grouping of behaviors. Or maybe you have some snazzier names for the groups. No research or anything has been done so there might be all sorts of stuff that's missing or redundant.

It would be fairly easy to shorthand the groups to initials (RA, N, E a or p R, EP, EA)...I'll keep thinking about names but I sort of like the exploit - restore thingee. For instance, someone who kills for "fun" (a hunter) who also supports the Sierra Club would probably be designated EaR...hmmm...an ear. I don't much think I would want to lend them mine though. The Sierra Club itself would be EpR I think and Catskill Animal Sanctuary would be RA.

The groupings are specific to behaviors only, humans obviously change their behaviors and someone could modify their behaviors say from active exploiter to active restorer...like Howard Lyman for instance. I just wanted to see if I could come up with some general groupings to help me think about how someone (or some organization) typically behaves in relation to the other Earthlings.

By the way, just to think about what percentage of U.S. citizens might fit into each of these categories, a check into charitable deductions as reported on income tax returns for recent years provides a dismal picture. Charity write-off amounts indicate that only about 2 to 3% of all charity deductions are assigned to contributions to environmental/animal welfare groups (they lump them together). Pretty sad.

Restorer – Active: Vegans who also engage in advocacy against animal use or rescue/assistance activities for animals or the environment.

Neutral: Vegans (avoidance of the deliberate use/exploitation of animals for food or any other purpose).

Exploiter (active or passive) – Restorer: Consumers of animal products who also engage in rescue or welfare or restorative activities on behalf of animals or the environment. This would include those who limit or purposely decrease their use of animals or animal products (but who continue their use in limited amounts) and individuals or organizations who seek to prevent or ameliorate environmental destruction.

Exploiter - Passive: Consumers of animals or animal products who do not engage in activities directly harming Earthlings or the environment beyond common types of use or consumption.

Exploiter - Active: Consumers of animals who are also hunters, ranchers, slaughter-house employees, animal farmers or ranchers or employees of companies exploiting animals. This includes any environmental or Earthling damaging activity or business or promotion of such activity.

If you aren't at least Neutral (vegan), move there as quick as you can...and if you're neutral (vegan) ...think about become an active restorer. Your sister/brother Earthlings not only need us to stop harming them, they need our help too.

Death

I initially wrote what I'm putting in this post as a comment on a friend's facebook post about the impending death of a dog who has lived with her for years. She (my facebook friend) was expressing her grief and pain.

I wrote what I wrote and then decided that it wasn't ok for me to respond to her in that way...but...I did want to share the thoughts I had somewhere...so...here they are.

"Experiencing the loss of beings I have loved because of the differences between our lifespans has resulted in me being aware that having intense/close different sorts of beings (different than "human" I mean) entails almost guaranteed suffering. When their "natural" lifespan is 15 years (for example) and mine is 70+ years (again for example) then I'm guaranteed to suffer the grief and pain of their death.

I'm not asserting a position, just sharing my thoughts. I have come to have a lot more appreciation for a "live and let live" approach to relationships with beings who don't have the same expected lifespan as myself than I did at one time.

All those beings we call "pets" were forced by we humans into relating to us. "Domestication" is a euphemism for captivity and forced breeding and maybe the suffering I experience when someone dies of old age because their "natural" lifespan is much briefer than mine...well...maybe that's some sort of weird karma because at some point in time we humans arrogated to ourselves the power over the lives of those beings we call "pets" and they suffered terribly....they lost their freedom to live their lives how they wanted...and I'm certain that caused misery.

It's a characteristic of human societies that are organized around oppressive practices that history be erased...and when I remember the history of how "pets" came to be "pets" and all the imprisonment and loss of freedom and liberty for the ancestors of those who are "pets" and the suffering they endured...well...maybe it's a balancing of the scales of hurt that I, as a human, have to suffer and grieve the death of their offspring.

I wonder whether if in some future/other (imaginary) human society whether wisdom wouldn't mean no "pets"...only Earthlings who look different than me who maybe I know...maybe only casually or maybe even closely...but for sure they aren't dependent on me and, if they chose, they could live quite well on mother Earth without me. I dunno.

I think I wish for a future where it is the case that my sister/brother Earthlings can live their lives without risk of harm by humans and also that they can live without humans if they so desire.

That's not true now and it is my duty and obligation (and pleasure) to provide what care and protection I can for those Earthlings who we call "pets"...but I do suspect there would be less suffering (and more freedom) had we humans never ever done the "domestication" thing.

It hurts to love someone and to endure their loss. That's a truth.

It's horribly wrenching for fur people (or any other sort of Earthling) we love to die...and...I am suspicious (distrustful even) about human beings who don't acknowledge and/or understand that. I feel for you, and I regret your pain. Love is love and loss and grief are loss and grief...and how someone looks and/or acts and/or thinks doesn't matter one bit if they were someone we loved and they die." 

That's what I wrote and decided to not post on facebook.

I think "domestication" is one of the greater crimes that we humans have ever inflicted on our sister/brother Earthlings and I sometimes think that the suffering we humans who are living now experience when a loved "pet" dies is some sort of balancing of misery (albeit a pretty clunky and imprecise balancing).

That suffering really should have been experienced by the arrogant human harmers who did "domesticating" in the first place. And that suffering should have signaled to them to stop doing what they were doing.

But...they didn't listen to (or even have?) their feelings then...so now those of us who care about Earthlings are stuck in a situation they made and we have to do the suffering of the misery they ignored.

Maybe the lesson here is when other humans do bad stuff, not only do their victims suffer...but any human who has feelings and is in touch with those feelings suffers also. And...that suffering continues from generation to generation...until the harming is rectified.

Maybe we really are in this all together and what we do (or don't do) impacts everyone. The longer I live, the more that seems to be true.

If aging offers the opportunity to gain awareness or wisdom...whatever pluses there are in those achievements(?) are offset fully by the simultaneous recognition that the human society I live in has very little wisdom about suffering and harm in terms of how it operates.

Ouch.   

We Earthlings...

are much more complex and varied in our behaviors than we human animals comprehend.

This graphic illustrates quite well something that I was lucky enough to learn about my sister/brother Earthlings a long time ago. The fact is though, that many human type Earthlings do not know this. Well, for those who didn't know...here ya go.

Remember...we human animals have a strong tendency to oversimplify...so...the next time you run across some human spouting nonsense about homosexuality being "unnatural"...it might be instructive, for everyone, if you can engage them in a dialogue about the meaning of the word "unnatural".

Always remember...our ignorance inevitably exceeds our knowings and forgetting that usually doesn't work out well...for anyone. I wrote earlier about the fact that most "knowledge" is socially constructed...in other words...some human(s) somewhere made it up. In the graphic there are three terms (homosexual, homophobia and unnatural) that are easily identified as socially constructed notions. I would urge you to always be cautious when fiddling around with socially constructed stuff. It's tricky.

Here's another FYI...we mammalian Earthlings are also much more peaceful than many of us realize. Of all animals classified as mammals, this source estimates that only about 5% are considered to be carnivores. I've seen other estimates that were a little larger, but not much larger. In other words, most (95%) of our sister/brother mammals manage to live (when we humans leave them alone) quite well without routinely hurting one another.

We human mammals could probably live that way too, if we put forth more effort in that direction. 

Am I my brother's keeper?

When God asked Cain where Abel was, Cain replied, angrily, with another question: 'Am I my brother's keeper?'. The greatest ethical philosopher of our century, Emmanuel Levinas, commented: from that angry Cain's question all immorality began. Of course I am my brother's keeper; and I am and remain a moral person as long as I do not ask for a special reason to be one. Whether I admit it or not, I am my brother's keeper because my brother's well-being depends on what I do or refrain from doing. And I am a moral person because I recognize that dependence and accept the responsibility that follows. The moment I question that dependence, and demand as Cain did to be given reasons why I should care, I renounce my responsibility and am no longer a moral self. My brother's dependence is what makes me an ethical being. Dependence and ethics stand together and fall together.    p.72, Zygmunt Bauman, The Individualized Society.

I was struck by this paragraph when reading because it brought to mind a post I recently made about something quite similar to what this author was saying. The word "brother" (excuse the sexist term, sexism...like a bad smell, takes a long time to dissipate) here is a substitute for those whom I mean when I use the words sister/brother Earthlings. Their well being depends on what we do...or refrain from doing. What makes any of us an ethical being is acceptance of that dependence. If you have to ask why you should care...well...

I only recently discovered the writings of Zygmunt Bauman and I've already ran across a number of exquisite thinkings from him. I'm also reading a book by him called Modernity and the Holocaust that is so very evocative and stimulating. Jeez, you just never know what you're going to stumble across.

As far as I can see...accepting the dependence of all sister/brother Earthlings means living vegan...so do so if you aren't...and if you are...thank you.

Skin and what's under...

that layer of your body is something to consider. Skin serves simultaneously as a barrier to the world outside you, as a container for the body that is you and as a more or less permeable membrane that takes in elements from this world in which you live. Interestingly, were you able to wear or be encased in the skin of another...then you would be, appearance wise at least, them.

This week a movie was released on DVD titled "Under The Skin". I had read a blurb about the movie and wanted to see it. I presumed it would be a bit off-beat but was stunned by some of the powerful scenes presented. I laughed out loud at a fairly intense sex scene that occurred toward the end of it. The movie is a dark and quirky work. It relies heavily on imagery and sound for expression...that sort of stuff often irritates me but...if you watch on dvd you can fast forward through any of it that you want.

I'll have to see it a few more times to decide how much I like it. But, having said all that, it is absolutely a must see for anyone who is a vegan. And...it is a terrific way to introduce a non-vegan to some ways of seeing human behavior that are absolutely not supported by the dominant cultural narratives that shape the thinking/perceiving of so many. I think, maybe, it could be an excellent teaching tool to bring someone to view human behavior from a different (vegan) perspective. My wife complained that it was too "obscure"...my thinking is that it would never ever have attained commercial release if it wasn't "obscure".

I'm rather astounded that the vegan community has not been all over this movie. It is a sort of a gussied up and de-violenced version of Meet Your Meat except guess what...the meat you're meeting is you. The movie is scarey and spooky and (for me) laugh out loud funny at times. It shows humans at some of their best and some of their worst.

It is a "weird" movie. Don't think for a moment it isn't...at least that's what my wife told me. She didn't like it at all. It is scary...in many ways...the scene at the beach with the human baby was about as scary as any I've ever seen. I wrote on facebook:

I would urge you to watch it just for the scene that occurs on a rocky beach involving a human baby/very small child. Watch that scene and then think about how many times daily something akin to the behavior of the Scarlett Johansson character is inflicted on our sister/brother Earthlings by human animals. Consider what you think of the Scarlett Johansson character in that scene and, if you're not vegan, realize that you pay people to do things exactly like that...day in and day out whenever you eat anything from or use anything from an animal. What we do, or cause to be done, to others...that is in truth what we are asking to be done to ourselves. Watch this movie and see...

I don't want to write more because...well...because. I would really like to hear your impressions of the movie. I want to let it percolate and settle with me then see it again after a while. I suppose why we haven't heard much about it is that there are a number of scenes in the movie that are sexually charged involving human near nudity and nudity and I'm guessing (from some of the reviews I've read) that naked and near naked people throw culturally indoctrinated human animals off their game so much that that's what they focus on. Aside from the (to me) funny as hell penetration attempt scene I didn't get much caught up in all that...but I think many viewers did and as a result maybe missed the full import of the story.

I'm just amazed that there's been such an absence of talk about this movie. Maybe you have to be a vegan to be able to wrap your mind around what you're seeing...certainly my wife was apparently oblivious to the incredible re-creation of human behavior toward our sister/brother Earthlings that was so well presented in the beach scene. It may be too big a leap for many/most to take in. This reviewer was sort of all over the place about the movie...but we agree....this is a powerful and very very important movie.

If you can watch the movie and not "get it" then it may be because you aren't living vegan. The more I think about this movie, the more impressed and excited I get about it.

Who's got the power?

I remember a song that had a chorus wherein the line "Who's got the power?" was repeated several times. When I searched...hmmm....multiple songs use the word power in their title. There's "Who's Got the Power" (here) and there's also "You've Got the Power" (here) and "The Power Lyrics" (here). I think the song I remember is the one associated with that first link. I don't recognize anything about the song lyrics from that last link...but...they seem to be associated with how I've been writing about social power.

Have Gone Vegan wrote a comment on the previous post about power that almost made smoke come out of my ears because it tripped off so much associating and so much cohering of pieces of information I had which were/are floating around in my head that it left me sort of reeling. And, I trust the sense of excitement I felt because that coherence sort of dissipated but when I focus on it again then some of that sense of excitement about some things beginning to make sense that didn't previously (make sense) begins to return. I've learned to trust that sort of experience because it sometimes suggests I'm onto something that's both powerful and meaningful.

HGV's comment included a quote from Professor Marilyn Frye's book: The Politics of Reality. If you don't have this book of essays and are struggling to understand aspects of the dynamics of oppression then...get it. You can find it for 99 cents plus the cost of shipping online.

In May of this year I wrote a post about narratives that referenced parts of this book. One essays works to explain how our position or positionality (our lived life experiences) profoundly determines that which we're able to comprehend or grasp. She uses the analogy of vision to elaborate about this by writing about our "seeing" (understandings, comprehensions) being influenced strongly by our particular positions (viewpoints, social locations, "identities").

HGV's comment included this quote from the book:

"One of the privileges of being normal and ordinary is a certain unconsciousness. When one is that which is taken as the norm in one's social environment, one does not have to think about it. Often, in discussions about prejudice and discrimination I hear statements like these: 'I don't think of myself as heterosexual'; 'I don't think of myself as white; 'I don't think of myself as a man'; 'I'm just a person, I just think of myself as a person.' If one is the norm, one does not have to know what one is. If one is marginal, one does not have the privilege of not noticing what one is." p147

In this passage, Dr. Frye points out to us that in addition to our knowing and comprehending being influenced by our social position (what we can "see") it also happens that if we are members of the dominant group then part of what we "know" are actually knowings/understandings that are transmitted to us (by our culture/society) but are out of our awareness (unconscious).

This means these "knowings" influence our comprehending/thinking/acting...but...we can't examine them or check them for accuracy or truthfulness or desirability.

It's critical to remember that what our culture presents to us as ways of thinking and/or understanding comes from people who lived before us and who decided (for various reasons, including self-interested ones) that this is how the "world" is or that such ways of thinking or understanding are just "common sense". Hmmm...

We "know" these things (meaning that they influence our behavior and understanding) but we don't consciously (or within our awareness) "know" that we know them. And that comes in seriously handy when we engage in or enact harmful/dominating behaviors toward subordinated group members but all the while simultaneously needing/wanting to cling to and experiencing ourselves as being "innocent".

Remember, in 1962, while the racist practices and laws of Jim Crow were in full effect in the U.S., 82% of white people believed educational opportunities were equal for everyone. An telling illustration of behaving horribly but maintaining innocence.

Being unconsciously influenced in how we behave and think is sort of magical really...because it can result in our doing shitty and hurtful things to our sister/brother humans (or sister/brother Earthlings) and simultaneously being unaware of the awfulness of what we're doing and thereby maintaining that very desirable sense of being "innocent".

It's often (not always, but often) suggestive of unconscious stuff going on when someone does something harmful to someone else and they are called out on it and their response includes howls of outrage and wounded innocence and denial of doing any such terrible thing or denial of harmful intent.

(I say often but not always because this is not a hard and fast formulaic thing, one way to try to confirm such goings on is to look for a pattern of repeated instances of harmful behavior and outraged denial. That's often a useful clue that unconscious factors are in play (either that or the person is just consciously lying). This sort of stuff is part of what makes learning to be an effective psychotherapist fairly demanding. Also this is why the average person usually isn't very skilled at being a competent psychotherapist. It's damned tricky to learn to recognize when unconscious factors are involved and you'll screw up often before you get to be half-way skilled. In other words, kids...don't try this at home...or if you do be prepared to screw up royally...and often.)

It's the outrage and wounded stuff that can serve as a clue that some "knowing" while not "knowing" (unconscious) process is in play because the outrage and woundedness is (usually, but not always) out of proportion to the situation and also sort of weird.

Think about it...if I accidentally or inadvertently harm another and they point it out to me...and I genuinely (no unconscious stuff going on) made a mistake...then I can take in the feedback I get, feel regret and remorse or whatever, and learn to avoid making that same mistake in the future. No need for wounded outrage. I mistakenly did a hurtful thing...I did not desire to cause hurt...I feel bad for doing the harm and...I'm responsible for learning more about what causes hurt so I can modify my behavior to avoid such harming in the future.

All well and good. Uncomfortable, heck yeah, but not some occasion for explosions of outrage and wounded innocence.

Or...maybe I did mean to cause harm...and I got caught...time to fess up and take my lumps. Either way...not an occasion for some sort of outrage type stuff.

But...if I harm another and that harming was based on unconscious stuff and I get feedback that I hurt someone...oops...my unconscious stuff got outed...I got caught doing a shitty thing that i (unconsciously) intended to do. How to keep unconscious the fact that somewhere I wanted to do what I did? In other words...how to do something harmful but also to influence others (and myself) to see myself as innocent? (and...to complicate it further...all this maneuvering is going on out of my awareness...it's unconscious)

Pitching a fit about my lack of culpability, accompanied by shrieks of outrage and expressions of wounded innocence is one way to (clumsily) cover up the bad stuff going on with me.  (stuff that I'm unaware of...know that that which is unconscious resists...powerfully...being brought into consciousness).

Notice that suddenly...even though I harmed someone else...I magically become the victim, all pristine and shiny and draped in wounded innocence. I get to act shitty without taking any responsibility for acting shitty and if anyone calls me out on my shitty behavior...zip zoop...they're the shitty one because I'm innocent and pure and devoid of bad intent and they've insulted me and called into dispute my my "good intentions" and innocence. It's sort of childish appearing when written out like this (and it is pretty crude and unsophisticated) but when it happens in real life it often discombobulates anyone witnessing it or that it is directed toward.

If you want to observe a human being who often screeches outrage about his innocence and exhibits defensive attacking anger and woundedness...go watch the Bill O'Reilly show on television. He's either seriously influenced by unconscious processes or he's a really scary and malevolent liar...either way he most excellently illustrates the kind of stuff we're grappling with. Denial accompanied by attempts to intimidate and bully others scripts many of his interactions with others. 

You might recognize this psychic maneuver by a phrase that's come into rather common usage. It's called: "Blaming the victim". You might remember it from your own childhood if you or someone else ever trotted on the phrase "she (or he or they) made me do it".

One historical example (there are tons of them)...think about how the Nazi regime viewed people they identified as Jewish. The Nazis maintained that their murderous campaign against millions of innocent victims was...here's the magic of the unconscious...an act of "self-defense". The Nazis maintained that the Jewish people were evil and bad and and and (even though there was zero evidence of this assertion)...and the atrocities that were carried out in death camps were because the victims were threatening the very survival of Germany. In other words the Nazis maintained their sense of "innocence" all the while engaging in unjustified and unprovoked harm to a subordinated group of people. Blame the victim....see how it works?

Some examples closer to home if you're an American? Think about the "savage" Indians your history books referenced, think about the notion of a "happy" enslaved African American. Think about "reverse racism". Unconscious processes offer human beings a distorted and terrible way to justify enacting atrocities while simultaneously retaining a sense of innocence. It's deeply seductive and insidious and destructive stuff.

We often see these kinds of contortions (wounded innocence suggestive of unconscious stuff) when members of dominant groups are engaging in harmful/dominating behaviors toward subordinated group members. That way dominant group members can enact horrid behaviors and maintain their sense of virtue. 

If you want to see it in action in person and you're white, pay attention to other white people and when you hear them say something that's racist in nature or do some racist act...call them out on it (do it in a way that's gentle because they're likely to focus on how you pointed out their bad behavior: "the tone argument") and pay attention to how they react.

If they made a mistake without unconscious harmful intent being in play, they may struggle with comprehending but...there's not likely to be wounded outrage.

If the unconscious factors are present...you might get to see quite a show...and you're also quite likely to be attacked for being a mean person for daring to impugn their incredible innocence (think Bill O'Reilly). Welcome to the world of the unconscious influencing of behavior. By the way, it's usually not fun when you encounter it.

Now, go reread the quote from Marilyn Frye above.

What a wonderful thing being "the norm" offers. If we are members of a dominant group, we get to be harmful toward members of a subordinated group and...and...we get to retain our sense of being innocent all through the magic of the unconscious.

Go (re) read my post on power (the one with the thoughtful comment from HGV) and notice the examples of all the "good" (innocent) people enacting heinous atrocities in various societies and...all the while...maintaining (to themselves anyway) their sense of pristine innocence.

Struggling to comprehend aspects of the "isms" of oppression is complex. Especially when you're a member of a dominant group...part of how this stuff just keeps rolling on is that one of the components (usually, but not always) of being a dominant group member is being unconscious (unaware) of behaving monstrously.

That ability to behave harmfully while believing oneself to be "innocent" may be why a woman (who's postioned as  a person of color) that I have great esteem and respect for said that until she was 20 years old or so she just thought white people were "crazy".  She had never met, or even read about, any white person who had any sense of the horridness of their behavior toward people of color or even that white people had the ability to comprehend that their behavior and attitudes were disgusting and deplorable and that there was something terribly wrong with them (white people) for having such attitudes/behaviors.

Robin DiAngelo writes about aspects of this sort of innocence that's based on the operation of unconscious processes masking attitudes of negativity when she wrote about what often occurs when trying to engage white people in talk about race and racism: "Our socialization renders us racially illiterate. When you add a lack of humility to that illiteracy (because we don’t know what we don’t know), you get the break-down we so often see when trying to engage white people in meaningful conversations about race."

She's not using the term unconscious...but it is in the very stuff she's referencing when she writes about racial illiteracy and an absence of humility and our not knowing what we don't know. What she calls a "breakdown" is what I've referred to as explosions of outrage and wounded innocence in this post.

And...what's really tough about all this is that it's even more complex than I've touched on here. Sigmund Freud spent a professional lifetime thinking and writing about the operations of the unconscious...as have many other humans.

In summary...what we know is strongly influenced by what we can comprehend ("see") because of our social positioning (whether we're situated in dominant groups or subordinated groups...or both) and also what we can comprehend ("see") is complicated by the operating of unconscious processes that usually (almost always) go along with being members of a dominant group.

Look...if you're a member of a targeted group (subordinated) then you damn well know that members of the dominating group are doing shitty things to you (usually...but not always) whereas if you're a member of a dominating group you may be doing shitty things to subordinated group members but...you're often hiding that from yourself (you're unconscious of it) and hence you feel all innocent and such. When you exhibit that false innocence to a member (who's aware of what's going on) of the subordinated or targeted group...they may see you as being either deranged or lying.

And...to make it even more convoluted, since positionality influences (determines) what we're able to comprehend ("see"), if I belong to one group (dominant or subordinate) I have to really work hard at trying to grasp what the other group members are comprehending and/or experiencing because I don't have their lived life experiences. But...if I belong to a targeted group and I'm being harmed by the actions of dominant group members and structures of society that they control...it's often not difficult to be aware of my being injured.

Dominant group members have two strong factors that interfere with their being coherent. One is that their positionality limits what they're able to comprehend or "see" and the second is the likely operation of unconscious processes...which means they're not in good contact with reality (they don't "know" what they know).

Whereas subordinate group members often only have one factor against their coherence and that's that their positionality limits what they're able to comprehend or "see". (this may be complicated by their unwitting acceptance of the dominant ideology and viewing themselves as "inferior" and deserving of the harms directed at them...that if only they "tried harder" all this bad stuff wouldn't happen to them)

Those last two paragraphs maybe explain why there's so much truth to the notion that members of subordinate groups generally have better or more accurate knowledge about what's going on in the operation of dominant/subordinate group interactions than do members of dominating groups. And...subordinated group members tend to understand and know more about dominant group members than vice versa.

(Note: there is, in no way, any comparison between being targeted for harmful behaviors and enacting harmful behaviors, do not confuse these two very different experiences...getting hit in the face is not comparable to hitting someone in the face...ok? In this post I'm just trying to tease out some of the factors that influence comprehension of this stuff. )

Want more? Well, my understandings are evolving which means I have to spend more time reading and thinking, in the meantime you can read some really good writing about this over on Dr. David Shih's blog.

And you thought resisting oppression was easy peasy, right?

Think about it this way, if oppressive actions and behaviors were fully transparent and comprehensible to us...do you really think they would be as persistent and widespread as they are?

Most human beings aren't shitheels (I don't think) and if it was easy to identify and recognize oppressive behaviors and social structures (don't get me wrong...in many ways it is easy...but in other ways it is extremely difficult and complex to comprehend) then the crap would probably have stopped a long time ago.

We (by "we" I'm primarily referencing those of us who are positioned as dominant group members...in the U.S. that means white or male or both. Also remember that humans are the dominant group in regard to other Earthlings) have much work to do.

Any comments and/or criticisms about this post you might offer will be appreciated. (No howls of outrage or wounded innocence, I promise. I'm getting a lot of practice at grappling with gaps and deficiencies in my comprehension.)