This quote is exerpted from the article on Facebook/MySpace and its race issues.
"Many of us in this room come from privileged worlds where we want to "help" those who are not well-off. Here is where a privilege-check is necessary. How often do our language and mannerisms reflect a problematic level of condescension? Perhaps we should look at our teens. They are certainly speaking in a manner that reveals distrust and condescension."
Truly, really, how do you know when you are working for good and when you are being a self-righteous jerk?
Having been poor, and worked through college, and now I work with the poor, I see many many posts pretty much saying privileged people should leave the poor alone and not try to "help" them, and I am confused.
Does that mean soup kitchens shouldn't exist? Or libraries? Or if you get a good factory job that means a steady paycheck you should buy a tract house and never go back to the shack your family has?
OK, I'm privileged. I'm average looking, speak good English, went to college and pass for white. Is the ethical solution to stop collecting for the food pantry, stop talking about it, or do it in secret? Is taking in a Fresh Air person a bad thing? I work with teens, many (but not all) impoverished. They work like crazy to be helpful in the community. Some of the posts make me wonder if they should.
Please forgive me if I sound condescending. I really don't know what the thinking thing to do is.
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I might have an example of what the author was talking about.
I went to get my hair done last week. While I was waiting for the hairdresser to call me in, a woman walked in the salon. Everyone said hello and wished her a happy birthday. It was her 34th, I think, and she appeared to have Downs Syndrome. I think she worked there, because she knew everyone who worked in the salon and she walked passed the waiting area to get to the salon/spa area. But the workers certainly didn't act like she worked there. They asked who did her ponytail and if she got the bag that she was holding as a birthday present. As someone with at least an average IQ, nobody ever asked me who did my ponytail (unless I was like 5). And most people I know and don't know who ask about a particular accessory of mine ask me where I bought it, not if I received it as a gift. You know, because I'm a grown-up with a job who can buy her own stuff.
So what I think the author was saying was, if you're going to help the oppressed, check your privilege-ladened language and behavior. Helping someone is about you getting on their level, not trying to make them get on your supposedly superior level.
I'm with BackofBusEleven. I think the idea that is to help someone is to not constantly reinforce the idea that you're somehow better than them.
Soup kitchen and libraries and places which help the disadvantages are wonderful places, but when we use them to co-opt the people who harness them, that's when we run into privilege and the issues that accompany it.
It's not the place itself, but the attitudes of the people helping.
You're being a jerk when you think you know better than the people you're helping about what they need, treat them as if they don't have the brains to run their own lives, or worse, don't even consult them before you "help".
I'm as confused as you are, Frieda. I've heard this before and it seems really odd to me. No one I've ever helped, or offered to help, complained! Maybe it's because I grew up financially disadvantaged, and don't have that 'priviledged attitude.'
Seriously, offer a helping hand with an honest heart; how can that be wrong? If we pathologize kindness because the giver is somehow more advantaged than the reciever, doesn't that defy the whole purpose of paying it forward? Geez...
People who need help don't often complain when they get it, no matter how condescending the person might have been. For example, if a Little Person can't reach a can of vegetables from the shelf at the supermarket, it's not very nice to get it for them and say, "There ya go, cutie!" That is condescending. But because the LP had no choice but to rely on the assistance of a taller person, they're not going to call the person who helped them a jerk. And the person who helped will probably go home and tell everyone what a good deed they did for this poor and helpless Little Person. It's more polite to ask if they would like your help, and only help if they say yes. Or, if they ask for your help, then you can help them.
Generally, when you're helping someone, you have to make sure that you're not giving the impression that the person who needs you depends on you. This is hard, because the helper is usually in a position of authority or has some sort of social privilege (class privilege, ability privilege). But that doesn't mean it's impossible.
The dichotomy you espouse in this post is quite dishonest and very self serving.
Either people don't do any community work at all (close all of the food kitchens, shut down charities) or they must be allowed to say whatever they like whenever they like without criticism or question.
That's simply not true and here's an acceptable solution. Work for what you think is right but accept that you don't know it all and that the people you help are people, not just 'people in need'. They may have their own ideas, beliefs, prejudices, quirks and they deserve to be listened to as much as your opinions do. Accept that you might get it wrong, not because you're an evil person but because you might say the wrong thing or think the wrong thing and not know it. Being an adult and genuinely having a true commitment to social justice is not about getting street kids to applaud you at the end of the day a la dangerous minds or getting your ass kissed on liberal websites.
Look, people are people. Do I know you? Do I know the totality of your life experiences? Do I know your sore spots? The difficulties you've faced in your life? What you want out of life? Of course not. Do you know me? Clearly not. Well, if we met in school, wouldn't you treat me with respect? Wouldn't you take the time to listen without assumption? Wouldn't that be right?
Well just because you 'help' these people, does that make them sub-human? Are they not worthy of the same respect? Just because you have power in that relationship as the giver, in fact especially since you have that power, the onus is on you to make sure that you are treating them with respect and not assuming that you are the giver, know it all.
feministing is just unbelievable sometimes. People are so resistent, so defensive, they will not hear anything that does not cast them as the absolute whiter than white, perfect victim.
Okay, add me to the confused group. Where exactly in frieda's post do you get the idea that frieda thinks disadvantaged people are "sub-human" or "not worthy of the same respect?"
Near the bottom, just to the left of the date.
She has a tendency to read posts how she wants and try to paint the OP as trying to be a victim. She's accused me of co-opting language which I was no co-opting in the past using language out of the Terms of Service.
While she's very much entitled to her opinion on any matter, I wouldn't necessarily take everything she says as a true reflection of the post being commented on. The tint on the glasses is often very heavy.
hahaha
aww, did I hurt your feelings?
So mature to follow me round trying to undermine me. I don't need to criticize the OP as her self serving whining speaks for itself.
As does yours.
No, actually, you didn't. You didn't hurt them because your comment was complete absurd.
If "following" you is commenting on one thing you've commented on since you tried to flame me is that, then I guess you can call me a bloodhound. Otherwise, you can consider this a coincidence since I'd already commented before you on this and came back to check out what was going on.
Thanks for playing, though. It's really nice to be patronized by someone who clearly has failing literacy skills.
Watch out Gular, you left yourself open for the "criticizing pololly's weak grasp on written English makes you racist, classist, and ablist" dodge.
I guess I was too busy getting hurt by a troll to notice the gap. How privileged of me! ;-)
I suppose I would have to counter, since you know, we're discussing it, with the dodge that there are many types of literacy. There's the written word, which I'd addressed, social literacy, personal literacy and many other types, as well. Mental gymnastics is fun! I should do this more often.
Am I supposed to be intimidated by this? Naught and Gular - wow, impressive.
Funny how you couldn't actually deconstruct the argument I made so you went straight to character attacks.
LOL
I think it's an attitude thing. Consider, if you've seen it, Dr Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog, and the characters Penny and Captain Hammer. Both of these characters help people in need, specifically the homeless, but they have very different attitudes about it.
Captain Hammer is very arrogant and pleased with himself. He isn't helping people because they need help, he's helping people to feel self-satisfied, and to impress people. He doesn't really see them as people, just "the homeless", and a means to an end.
Penny, on the other hand, actually cares. They aren't "the homeless" to her, they're people who need help. The fact that they need help doesn't make them any less human, in her eyes, and doesn't make them any less deserving of respect.
To the OP: I wouldn't worry about it too much. If you actually think about stuff like this, odds are you're not coming across as condescending to the people you're helping. Just keep in mind that it's always embarrassing to have to ask for help/charity, and try not to make people feel more guilty about getting help from you.
If you're interested, there's a really great (if slightly outdated) example of overprivileged "helping" in the movie The Color Purple. I think it's about two thirds of the way through, there's a rich white woman character who thinks she's god's gift to Black people. She exclaims about how cute Oprah's character's kids are, which seems nice, but she invades their personal space, touching them and obviously making them uncomfortable- treating them like animals. Oprah gets really pissed off, and then the white woman asks her if she'd like to work as her maid. Oprah gets even MORE pissed off, refuses, and ends up hitting a guy, getting beaten up, and sent to jail. The white woman was horrified that Oprah didn't want to accept her oh-so-charitable offer- which would have given Oprah a job, but assumed that she didn't have the right to choose whether or not she wanted the job, and also would have placed her at the bottom of a strict hierarchy in the household. Later in the movie the white woman ends up screaming "I've always been good to you people!" and really doesn't understand how she's manipulating others with her privilege.
That's a long example, but the short answer is: making yourself available to help anyone who needs it is fine. Telling specific groups of people that you know what they need and strongly implying that they'd better be grateful is not.
I think about this issue a lot because I love working with kids and want to avoid seeing myself as "nice, white lady" like in movies or tv shows where some cool white teachers "saves" a classroom or something.
I may have told this story before, but in one of my first experiences in a classroom, I made an incorrect assumption that really taught me a lesson. A new girl joined the kindergarten class I was volunteering in and the teacher told me the young Latina had just moved here with her family, had been homeless for a while and enrolled in the school after being taken in by some family members.
The class was practicing the concept of patterns and I saw that some of the students found it difficult as I walked around the room. I assumed the new girl, who was quietly working alone might need a hand. Wrong. She had perfectly colored the cubes on her paper into an accurate pattern and her handwriting was better than mine.
I felt like such a jerk, but it's mistakes like this that helped me learn to never make assumptions about students or assume that my presence is some great help to everyone.
I can tell you as somebody who has been on the receiving end of charity many times in my life it's all about attitude.
It's also about educating yourself about the reality of life for some people. If you have never lived in a hotel room, slept in a car with small children or escaped a domestic violence situation....you might want to learn from those who have. Instead of going off about all the things "these people" should do or how you would do things.
If you aren't learning from those you are teaching, you aren't teaching.
Of you aren't helped by those you are helping you are not really helping.
There are at least 8 levels of giving. The highest form is to educate and help someone achieve their most desired purpose in life, the lowest is to just give monetarily.
Do the best you can to not come off as if you are superior in all ways because you are financially superior or because of where you were educated and you'll do fine.
Remember that WE ARE ALL EDUCATED. Learning is part of being alive. We all have riches. I lived a rich life in NOLA and Detroit with little to no money. I'm not the only one who knows how to live a rich life without money. People with money (especially in Malibu and Topanga) have learned from me. Do not assume that what you know is better than what someone else has learned.
Present options, live your life as an example and do your best to help someone achieve a goal of THEIR choosing.
I don't think everyone needs to come down so hard on this person - I understand the question and I think she's trying to question the dichotomy, not uphold it.
For me, it comes down to this: am I expecting to get thanked for what I'm doing? Sure, it feels nice to get recognition, but it's when I expect it or am disappointed when I don't receive it: that's when I realize I'm in it for the wrong reasons and probably carrying a lot of condescension along with me.
You should be aware of your language and attitude, absolutely. But also be aware of how much is about your own ego.
To the OP, if you're helping because deep down in your heart you want to help people, then that sincerity will come across.
It's when you start bragging or helping disadvantaged people to pad your resume, that you have a problem.
If you enjoy helping other people, then keep up the good work!
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