capri0mni | Random stuff: what it says on the tin... (Reply)

(I've come back to edit the bullet point about Chuck -- rereading it, I realized I had so many thoughts, I left key bits out of a key sentence)

Okay, so I cut my own hair, Friday night, and was tweaking it through the weekend... which meant I was spending more time than usual looking closely at my face in the mirror. And I noticed something.

You know that the our faces are naturally asymmetrical, right? And that the right side of the brain controls the left side of the face? Here's a Web page that talks about that: Face assymmetry.

...Anyway: after looking at my reflection for the umpteenth time Saturday night, I noticed that my left eyebrow is markedly arched, and my right eyebrow is flatter and tending toward furrowed-ness. It's as if the analytical side of my brain is looking at the world and saying: "Grr! Eedjits!" And the creative side of my brain is looking at the world and saying: "Oh, Really?!"

It struck me as highly lollerous. And yes, I LOL'ed.
I had a meta dream, this morning. I dreamt that I had a weird dream, and I ended up explaining my weird dream to people in my dream, and explaining how I thought my weird dream was giving suggestions for what we should do next (also, one of the characters in my dream was. Oh, and for some strange reason, Danny Rebus (from the new version of The Electric Company) was one of the people I was working with... (Here's His page on the Electric Company Website).
My cat Amanda is being particularly talkative today: walking around the house loudly declaring ...something... to the world at large like a Shakespearean actor doing a soliloquy.
(I almost put this one in things making me happy list from May 31, because I like it when the lightbulb clicks on about something. That 'aha!' moment feels good. ... Except this time, that light also illuminated something unpleasant. So I left it out. And I'm sticking it with "random" instead)

I recently realized something about why I find Chuck so entertaining to watch, and while I will probably miss it when it's gone: For what's not in it: Disability.

Now, I was actually surprised when this notion clarified in my mind (as if floating slowing from the murky depths of a silty pond, until it bobs up on the surface, all shiny like). Normally, I despise the erasure of "my kind of people" from the world, but the lack of disabled people from even the background crowd scenes means that in the entire four season run of the show (So far, I hope this post doesn't jinx this) means I could sit back, relax, and not worry that I'd have to watch any of the following plot points:
1. That someone is going to "fake" a disability, in order to avoid suspicion or notice (which means, in real life, that people with disabilities are always under suspicion).
2. That possible disability is used as a threat for a fate worse than death.
3. That bitterness over having a disability is regarded as a reasonable motivation for wanting to hurt others or seek revenge (in an: "Oh, well. Of course that makes sense," sort of way).
4. That shame over becoming disabled is likewise seen as reasonable excuse for not asking for help, even when going on as if nothing has changed actually results in the death of innocent people.
5. That averting a feared disability, is portrayed as the happiest of happy endings, especially if the person who escaped this terrible fate is pretty. ... as long as you're "Beautiful" and "Whole," your life will be nothing but sunshine and lollipops for ever after.
The fact that I do have to brace myself against those story lines in every other hour-long drama (and a few sitcoms) on television in the last (unspecified number of years) or so, is very, very depressing.
Thanks to trouble for pointing me to a transcript of Jay Smooth's video that I posted, last night:

Race, the final frontier, no matter what channel you watch, no matter what feed you aggregate, it seems like everybody everywhere is talking about race right now. And when everybody everywhere is talking about race, that means sooner or later you're gonna have to tell somebody that they said something that sounded racist. So you need to be ready and have a plan in place for how to approach the inevitable "that sounded racist" conversation, and I'm going to tell you how to do that.

The most important thing that you've got to do is to remember the difference between the "what they did" convesation and the "what they are" conversation.

Those are two totally different converations and you need to make sure you pick the right one. The "what they did" conversation focuses strictly on the person's words and actions and explaining why what they did and what they said was unacceptable. This is also known as the "that thing you said was racist" conversation, and that's the conversation you want to have.

The "what they are" conversation on the other hand takes things one step further and uses what they did and what they said to draw conclusions about what kind of person they are. This is also known as the "I think you are a racist" conversation. This is the conversation you don't want to have, because that conversation takes us away from the facts of what they did and into speculation about their motives and intentions, and those are things you can only guess at, and can't ever prove, and that makes it too easy for them to derail your whole argument. And that is the part that is crucial to understand.

When you say "I think he is a racist" that's not a bad move because you might be wrong, that's a bad move because you might be rigth. Because if that dude is really a racist, you want to make sure you hold him accountable and don't let him off easy. And even thoughintuitively it feels like the hardest way to hit him is just run up on him and say I think his ass is racist, when you handle it that way, you're actually letting him off easy. Because you're setting up a conversation that is way too simple for him to derail and duck out of.

Just think about how this plays out every time a politician or celebrity gets caught out there. It always starts out as a "what they did" conversation. But as soon as the celebrity and their defenders get on camera, they start doing judo flips and switching it into a "what they are" conversation. "I have known this person for years and I know for a fact that they are not a racist. How dare you claim to know what's inside their soul just because they made one little joke about watermelon, tap dancing, and going back to africa."

And then you try to explain that we don't need to see inside their soul to know they shouldn't have said all that about the watermelon. And you try to focus on the facts of the situation, but by then it's too late because the "what they are" conversation is a rhetorical bermuda triangle where everything drowns in a sea of empty posturing until someone just blames it all on hip-hop and we forget the whole thing ever happened. Don't let this happen to you.

When somebody picks my pocket, I'm not gonna be chasing him down so I can figure out whether he feels like he's a thief deep down in his heart. I'm gonna be chasing him down so I can get my wallet back. I don't care what he is, but I need to hold him accountable for what he did. And that's how we need to approach these conversations about race. Treat them like they took your wallet and focus on the part that matters, holding each person accountable for the impact of their words and actions. I don't care what you are. I care about what you did.

Posted by: Greg at April 24, 2010 3:15 PM

One reason why this is making me especially squeeful right now is that I'd just finished reading the bit in Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (Appiah, 2006), where the author makes the point that sharing someone's values isn't really important, and what we should be worrying about instead is agreeing on proper actions.

Philosophical convergence for the win!