DIVERSITY: TWO COMPLEMENTARY APPROACHES
The essays were not meant to be tied to specific conflicts occurring during the course of their appearance. Specific conflicts will best be solved by the people in them, who have a million times more information than I do about the intricacies of the situation. What I want to do is remove some of the cognitive obstacles to good solutions.(1) I believe that if people start approaching diversity in terms of the model presented, most issues either will go away completely or will be solved elegantly and easily by the people involved.
I also expected to interrupt the sequence of essays periodically to discuss readers' responses and to elaborate, explain, or correct whatever material has been incomplete, confusing, or wrong.
OUTLINE FOR A PROPOSED SERIES OF COLUMNS ON DIVERSITY
1. Introduction
Diversity a good goal, but confusion and conflict over a directions to take.
The goal threatened by conflict, bitterness, reaction, "thought police" vs. "Neanderthals".
This to be a series of columns. It will present a unified, practical approach to the issue in order to give a productive direction to our concern.
Overview of the approach: Diversity is the search for the Other.(2)
Welcome readers' feedback, and will publish replies and corrections periodically (every three columns or so).
Overview of the sequence: What we agree on ("Common ground"); the two perspectives on diversity; implications.
2. Common Ground: We want to live in a world with NO oppressions.
The same conclusion can be reached from a number of directions:
We hurt ourselves when we hurt others. Capable of compassion, what we do to others lodges inside ourselves.
I have found that people are uncomfortable to this formulation. Here are a number of alternative formulations of the same point cast in a self-interest perspective. I believe, however, that they all derive from the above point.
A self-interest argument is, as the common expression goes, "what goes around, comes around."
A self-interest argument is that "no one is free when others are oppressed." Oppression of any can always be used, and is implicitly already being used, as a way to keep others in line.
In an oppressive society, the oppressor role looks attractive, and the competition for the minor advantages of the oppressor role keeps the oppressive system in place. However, the fact is that we ALL - oppressors and oppressed - lose from the maintenance of the oppressive system. Would we want to be in the brutal society of the Mongol Horde, even if we could be Attila the Hun? While understandable, our focus on the minor advantages of being the oppressor distracts us from the terrible consequences of the oppressive system.
Even if we were to forget that an oppressive system oppresses everyone, the fact remains that everyone is, has been, or will be a member of the oppressed, not the oppressors.
3. Common Ground: Everyone is the same, in that we share certain important characteristics
Great intelligence
Love of others
Desire to live in a world with no oppressions, that is, no form of humans hurting humans.
4. Common Ground: Everyone is different in important and interesting ways.
People apply their vast intelligence creatively to develop new (if not necessarily successful) ways of dealing with the situations they encounter.
People organize themselves in cultures, where these ways of dealing with situations (including each other) are shared and regularized.
5. Common Ground: There is a need for better relations among people.
Many problems come from poor relations, not from insufficient wealth. Example: repairing the well in Guinea.
Many problems can ONLY be solved by better relations.
The decline of resources produces social stress, which must be counteracted by closer relations. Skinheads.
The decline of resources produces a "lifeboat ethic", which increases social marginalization and social inequalities, which results in social upheaval (crime) and anomie (drugs). This lifeboat ethic must be counteracted by closer relations.
6. Common Ground: Diversity is the search for the Other
Since all oppressions function by an alienation of one person from another, the search for diversity is important. However, since we are all Other to each other, and since oppression takes many forms,(3) we must understand diversity as the search for the Other generally, not just specific categories. Otherness is not just the differences among specific ethnic groups, genders, social classes, and so on - all the little categories enshrined as "protected classes" in law. Even the most tight-knit family discovers daily how different its members are from each other. We must remove all barriers to each other.
7. Internal and External Alienation
We are alienated from each other through two mechanisms, "internal" and "external". "Internal" alienation refers to the array of psychological problems which hamper our ability to make contact with the Other.
"External" alienation refers to the ways our ordinary social intercourse brings us into contact with only a narrow range of Others. We ordinarily come into contact with people much like us, having similar ethnicity, occupation, social class, education, income, religion, gender, sexual orientation, life experience, and so on. This becomes increasingly true as the nature of our contact gets more intimate: more true of friends than acquaintances, more true of lovers than of friends, and so on. This systematic separation of people from each other is the institutionalized aspect of oppression. Our separation from each other results in our ignorance of each other; oppression depends on this ignorance.
8. Diversity Must Address Both Forms
Both of these forms of alienation serve to separate us from each other, and so diversity must address both of these. An imbalance between the two components creates difficulties.
Exclusive attention to external alienation - i.e., making sure the Other is present - fails to address our internal alienation, so even if the Other is present, we remain unable to make contact.
On the other hand, our commitment to actual liberation implies that we have to have Others present; we can't do it in theory. This is the component addressing institutionalized oppression.
9. UMD Is Focusing Primarily on the External Form
10. The Role of Misinformation and Painful Emotion
Everyone hurt & confused by misinformation and painful experiences. Our hostility to and alienation from each other has been taught and locked in by painful emotion.
11. Implications
* Diversity is important. We can't be human without an orientation to the Other.
* The Other is everywhere, not just in Fond du Lac. We are all alienated from each other, so reconciliation is a broad issue.
* Diversity is everyone's responsibility.
* Impersonal / strategic negotiations (i.e., Stage 5) are o.k. as long as people have roughly equal bargaining power. That assumption is breaking down, becoming more evidently false.
* We have to draw together across all previously respected boundaries.
* We're acquiring a load of distress from our efforts to increase diversity, because (1) blame / guilt used as a motivator, and (2) sheer change / future shock. The process will work if we can discharge.
* We need new institutions and mutual understandings to symbolize and actualize our connections. For example, every department should host ONE exchange with a Twin Cities person (including, of course, having one of our faculty teach in the Twin Cities). I've said in the past that human being inherently love each other. I always recognized, however, that people were also extremely wary of each other, as seen in all the wars & hatreds. I have a perspective which reconciles these positions. It is true that human beings are inherently interested in, fascinated by the Other, which offers richness of life, intellectual stimulation, practical opportunities, etc. At the same time, they recognize the possibility of getting hurt by the Other, not necessarily because the Other is in the grip of some abusive pattern but rather because of clumsiness. In order to manifest the attraction of the Other, therefore, people look for conditions under which approaching the Other is safe. If we can agree on a way to make approaching the Other safe, then the attraction of the Other - our wonderful, primate curiosity - will take its natural place at the fore. Right now, approaching the Other isn't safe, and is getting more dangerous. I believe this is the basic problem people have with "political correctness" - that it represents a way to beat up on each other, not a way to bring people closer together. I want to note that our diversity efforts are structured around a "representation" model, not a "reconciliation" model. This reflects [one aspect of] the "Classical Liberal" philosophy on which the political structure of our government was founded: that we agree to collectively maintain a fair forum for advancing our individual interests, gaining the benefits of collective action but not reconciling ourselves to one another. Anyway, this "representation" model appears in the structure of the Commission on Human Diversity [COHD], which carefully solicits representatives: from each ethnic group, from the Commission on Women, from each of the colleges, from other interested parties. The model also appears in the structure of UMD's curricular offerings, which carefully include a Women's Studies Department, and an American Indian Studies Department, and which may come to include a Black Studies Department and a Gay/Lesbian Studies Department. But it's important to notice that this structure ghettoizes, separates the diverse groups (including dominant groups). The structure has the benefit of collective action, but not of reconciliation.
The following "groundrules" will, I believe, aid our interaction. I propose that we each learn and follow them, so that they become the norm for our interactions with one another at UMD. They are phrased in terms of our relations to a mythical group, "Wygelians". The term stands for any identifiable group: women, men, left-handed Lithuanian pipefitters: whatever. It carries the message that we are all Other to each other in various ways; each of these ways carries both promise and danger; we need to approach each Otherness, therefore, with the same respect.
GROUNDRULES(4)
Since, under present world conditions, everyone either is now, or has been, or will be at some time a target of social oppression, and since everyone is now, or has been, or will be in a non-target group in relation to some other group's oppression, alliance building is for everyone. Everyone of us needs allies, and everyone of us can take the role of an ally for someone else. The following guidelines are based on this premise. They should be equally applicable from the perspective of the target and the non-target group.
ASSUMPTIONS AS WYGELIANS(5)
1. Assume that your group and that you in particular deserve allies.(6)
2. Assume that your liberation issues are justifiably of concern to all people outside your group.(7)
3. Assume that people in other groups are your natural allies; assume that all people outside your group want to be allies for you and that it is in their interest for them to do so.
4. Assume that it is only other people's own oppression and internalized oppression that prevents them (temporarily) from being effective allies to you at all times.
5. Assume that your allies are doing the best they can at the present time, given their own oppression and internalized oppression. Assume that they can and will do better.
6. Assume that you are the expert on your own experience and that you have information which other people need to hear.(8)
7. Speak from your own experience without comparing your oppression to theirs.(9)
8. Assume that your experience is also an experience of victories; be sure to share these - as well as the stories of how things are hard.
9. Expect perfection from your allies; expect them to be able to deal with the "difficult issues" in your struggle. Assume that allies make mistakes; be prepared to be disappointed, and continue to expect the best from them.(10)
10. Assume that you have a perfect right to assist your allies to become more effective for you. Assume that you can choose to do this at any time.(11) Take full pride in your ability to do this.
BEING AN EFFECTIVE ALLY TO WYGELIANS
1. Assume that all people in your own group including yourself want to be allies to people in other groups. Assume that you in particular are good enough and smart enough to be an effective ally.(12) (This does not mean that you have nothing more to learn: see 6, below.)
2. Assume that you have a perfect right to be concerned with other people's liberation issues, and that it is in your own interest to do so and to be an ally.(13)
3. Assume that all people in the target group want members of your group and you in particular as an ally. Assume that they recognize you as such - at least potentially.
4. Assume that any appearances to the contrary (any apparent rejections of you as an ally) are the result of target group people's experience of oppression and internalized oppression.(14)
5. Assume that people in the target group are already communicating to you in the best way they can at the present time. Assume that they can and will do better. Think about how to assist them in this without making your support dependent upon their "improving" in any way. (Hint: think about what has been helpful for you when you were in the target group position.)
6. Assume that target group people are experts on their own experience, and that you have much to learn from them. Use your own intelligence and your own experience as a target group member to think about what the target group people might find useful.
7. Recognize that as a non-target person you are an expert on the experience of having been conditioned to take the oppressor role. This means that you know the content of the lies which target group people have internalized. Don't let timidity or embarrassment force you into pretended ignorance.(15)
8. Assume that target group people are survivors and that they have a long history of resistance. Become an expert on this history and assist target group people to take full pride in it.
9. Become an expert on all the issues which are of concern to people in the target group, especially the issues which are most closely tied in to their internalized oppression. Assume that making mistakes is part of the learning process of being an ever more effective ally. Be prepared for flare-ups of disappointment or criticism. Acknowledge and apologize for mistakes; learn from them, but don't retreat.
10. Recognize that people in the target group can spot "oppressor-role conditioning"; do not bother with trying to "convince" them that this conditioning did not happen to you. Don't attempt to convince target group people that you "are on their side"; just be there.
11. Do not expect "gratitude" from people in the target group; thoughtfully interrupt it if it is offered to you. Remember, being an ally is a matter of your choice. It is not an obligation; it is something you get to do.
12. Be a 100% ally; no deals; no strings attached: "I'll oppose your oppression if you oppose mine." Everyone's oppression needs to be opposed unconditionally.
13. While one is an ally with other groups, dealing with one's own feelings about being an ally generally works best within one's own group. It seems to work best when each group takes responsibility for its own resistance to its conditioning into oppression. This means, for example, that whites who seek to overcome their racist conditioning can generally do so more successfully with other whites than with Blacks. To take another example, it usually works better when women deal with their frustration at men in general or the inadequacies of their male allies in particular - as I say, when these women do so with other women rather than with men.
APPENDIX I:
TOWARDS A PERSPECTIVE ON
ELIMINATING RACISM:
12 WORKING ASSUMPTIONS
xx
The Search For, And Reconciliation With, The Other Should Be the Core of Our Diversity Efforts
I've been thinking about the situation at UMD regarding "diversity". Diversity is an important, complex issue temporarily clouded by strong emotion and confused thought. I primarily intend this essay to orient me in these difficult times - a means for the clarification of my own thought -, but I also hope to use it as a focus for various initiatives (i.e., sending various versions of it to people, newspapers, etc., as the occasion demands).
14. [= 1, n.s.] BASIC PERSPECTIVE
We want to live in a world without oppression. The advantages far exceed the small benefits of being the oppressor in an oppressive world. [And in any case, almost everyone is the oppressed, not the oppressor.]
a. End all oppressions; this is good for all people
We have to remember that "No one is free when anyone is oppressed." This is not just a nice statement but the literal truth, since once any form of oppression is permitted, it can always be turned against anyone else, so the threat is always there. If our respect for others is contingent, then we cannot claim theirs for us as a human right, leaving us vulnerable. The only ultimately defensible position is a commitment to end all forms of humans harming humans.
b. Search for the Other; difference is attractive to all people
Contact has to be based on personal connection. It is in our interest to connect with the Other, but not out of noblesse oblige,(16) or guilt,(17) or a hope for strategic advantage,(18) but just because human connections among people is the state of affairs everyone basically wants. Difference is attractive.
c. Bad arguments for diversity
We need to give people a reason to search for the Other. Craig offers one reason, to wit, that today's graduates are going to have to deal with a diversity of coworkers. This is a tricky point, in my opinion, because it can easily lead to strategic rather than human thinking. Such an argument cuts both ways: it can be used to argue that Others must conform to the system already in place. "I can speak Spanish, so it's an advantage to my employer. When he needs to do business with Spanish speakers, here I am." "I am Jewish, so Jews feel comfortable doing business with me." This argument depends on selling oneself, but if sometimes one has these advantages, in other circumstances these things might be seen as a liability by one's employer; if so, would one support the refusal to hire Spanish heritage or Jewish employees? The basic point is to distinguish human and strategic arguments. Human arguments strike at, subvert, and overturn the logic supporting the existing, oppressive system. Strategic arguments use that logic to achieve an immediate goal. Strategic arguments are thus double-edged; they achieve something immediately, but they support the existing system, confuse one's own supporters, and may ultimately lay one open to the charge of deceit when the same logic is used later against one.
15. TWO COMPONENTS OF DIVERSITY: INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL
The effort to achieve "diversity" has two components. Both are important; both must be pursued. However, since an imbalance between the two creates difficulties, it is important to recognize the distinction between them.
a. Internal
Our own attitudes, ability to make contact. We can't take it for granted, since hostility has been taught and locked in by painful emotion. This is the component addressing internalized oppression.
b. External
Our commitment to actual liberation implies that we have to have Others present; we can't do it in theory. This is the component addressing institutionalized oppression.
16. UMD IS FOCUSING MOSTLY ON THE EXTERNAL COMPONENT
Even though there are two interrelated components, we find most effort going into the External component. Why such an emphasis?
a. The External component is undeniably important
We need diversity so people have the concrete Other to interact with, not just some generalized Other.
We need diversity to remedy what is, in fact, ongoing oppression.
I don't much care which groups we take in. After all, if we're not willing to meet the Other, it won't matter who comes; we won't pay any attention to them anyway. And if we are willing to meet the Other, then all Others are good practice. However, it would seem to make some sense to make particular (but NOT compulsive) efforts to seek: women, with whom our graduates will certainly have to deal; African-Americans and Jewish Americans, with whom our graduates will have to deal in almost any city outside Duluth; Native Americans, who make up such a large portion of our own region; working-class people; possibly Hispanics.
Let me also say that we need to distinguish "seeking the Other" from "remedying past injustice". I don't think it is the University's foremost or particular duty to remedy past injustices but rather, as ever, to invent, test, and model solutions.(19)
b. The External component is easy to address (but we say nothing, note, of solving it)
I believe that administrators find it easier to invent and monitor initiatives in the External than in the Internal component. Certainly much more work has gone into the former than the latter.
c. The External component can be measured objectively
This is obvious. "The law of the hammer": if I have a hammer (i.e., a means of measurement), then everything becomes a nail (i.e., we focus on that which we can measure).
d. The Federal government and other forces are pushing it alone
Administrators undoubtedly need to focus to some extent on the External component because that's how the federal and state governments approach things.
17. CONCENTRATION ON ONE COMPONENT ISN'T ENOUGH
a. Concentration on the External component creates problems
Operating solely from the External perspective creates problems of backlash, hostility, bizarre situations.
i. If we don't operate fundamentally from the second perspective, i.e., if we don't care for each other, don't reach out to each other, don't seek and cherish the other, then the arguments for diversity look like an assault; they are filled with hostility: "I'll get mine. You've shut me out, and now I'm going to force my way in. You've screwed me long enough."
ii. This produces an ever-lengthening list of categories. I recently heard that we could not put in our job advertisements that we encouraged "women and minorities to apply", because the university's legal department said that this excluded those of the 57 varieties who were not mentioned: the disabled, veterans, ... the whole list of protected categories.
iii. We get into Nazi-like definitions in which we define Native Americans in terms of the percentage of their blood heritage. We are treated to the spectacle of someone changing h/her last name to Anaya (or whatever) to qualify for preference, because Hispanic is defined as "having a Hispanic surname". And we get the whole issue of hiring a "correct" percentage of every group (we have to have 10% of our faculty African-American, 3% Jewish, 52% women, 7.3% disabled, and so on).
b. Can produce a situation of mere "repressive tolerance", ghettoization of the Other
An exclusive focus on the External component implies that if we hire the requisite number of people of the requisite diversity, then people can conclude, "Problem solved!" Taken to its logical extreme, an exclusive focus on the External component allows us to wind up in a situation in which we could say, "What do you mean, we're not diverse? We got niggers, cripples, babes, queers, kikes, and blanket-asses galore!" Clearly, the External perspective is missing something of fundamental importance.
If unleavened by the Internal component, the External component slides easily into a ghettoization of minorities (and women), where, for example, Native American students stay in their little room in Cina, and where Hispanic students have their own room, and African-American students have their own room, but there is little outside it. (Or so I assume; I certainly see little of the Native American and African-American students outside those rooms.) Where only women take Women's Studies courses, and only Native Americans the American Indian courses - unless we force Anglo students into these courses through, e.g., diversity requirements.
Anyway, assaults on the ramparts are probably going to generate a massive backlash and hostility. Unless both the Internal and External components are dealt with, neither will be achieved.
c. xx
Overall, the current method is not a process of becoming a diverse community.
18. SUPPORTING THE INTERNAL COMPONENT
a. The Internal component is the key to the diversity puzzle
If we pursue the Internal component, most of the External stuff falls into place automatically. It is impossible for us to oppress each other if we listen to the Other. Also, we could attract faculty of diversity if we truly welcomed them - if the campus became known not just for its powerful commitment to diversity but also for the creative programs to make that commitment real.(20)
b. Can't be coerced; need support, not punishment.
Everyone feels oppressed. This implies that getting people to do things for others on the grounds that these others are more oppressed (or that I am the oppressor) will ultimately be counterproductive. If I am an unemployed white male trying to support a family, the only thing I see about a diversity program is that it means I can't be hired. The only fully satisfactory position is the elimination of all forms of oppression - including, in this instance, the oppression arising from the maintenance of a "surplus labor force".
Craig Grau tells me that students have already had "diversity" crammed down their throat in high school and they (or some of them, anyway) are sick of it.
We shouldn't ever have forums where people rail at others for being insensitive or for being oppressors. The best forum I've seen is the Coming Out Day forum, where people get to tell their stories.
Craig says that minorities and women have to emphasize more that they have something to offer, although to my mind his idea of what they have to offer is just within the existing power framework (e.g., Jim Thorpe being the first football commissioner).
Craig reminds me to remind people that Minnesota has a good track record in this general area - that people are relatively sensitive to and relatively considerate of the difficulties of others. The big problem, I think, is that we don't know how to bridge the gap in a personal way.
And this reminds me of Catherine's stricture that one always has to organize by making connections on a personal level.
We all collude in maintaining the oppressive system to some extent. Almost every person "benefits" from it to some extent. (Just as few people are really at the top of the heap in an oppressive society, so few people have nothing to lose.) We need to remember firmly that it hurts all of us.
c. Just hearing the facts would be good.
What are the lessons we need to communicate? The attached essays by Ricky Sherover-Marcuse ("Toward a Perspective on Eliminating Racism: 12 Working Assumptions", "Working Assumptions and Guidelines for Alliance-Building", and "A Working Perspective on Jewish Liberation") have some good ideas. Just having this rational perspective can be liberating. I note particularly the following: xx
d. Discharging White [and other] Racism workshops
Must be experiential, however, not just theoretical/philosophical. We all bear the marks of growing up in a racist/sexist (etc.) society, and the confusion of our early training can only be undone by reclaiming and discharging the early pain. Memory of the early pain keeps us confused. A lot of work has been done on discharging racism. But this means we need to work with people who are committed to the real effort.
You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink.
It seems to me that the concept of diversity can be extended along two different paths. The better-known path - the "bean-counter" approach - concentrates on identifying categories of people with whom members of the dominant culture have difficulty dealing. They can be oppressed for various reasons (e.g., women). They can have a culture which they wish to preserve (e.g., African-Americans). They can make other people uncomfortable (e.g., the disabled).
Of course these arrangements, clumsy as they are, have a real purpose and value, which I support. Sometimes the reductio ad absurdum (or the slippery slope) argument is raised in order to use the far end of an argument to discredit the near end; that isn't my purpose. It is my purpose, however, to raise these arguments to show that the "57 varieties" approach is not a reliable guide. If the slippery slope precipitates us into something bad, the roots of that badness must already be present; we need to look afresh at them.
There is a second formulation of diversity, however, which I think can redirect our thinking in a more reliable fashion. That formulation concentrates on the appreciation of ourselves and people different from us. The appreciation of difference for its own self, for what it adds to us. I remember at a recent SROP(21) meeting in Urbana, to which I was fortunate enough to be invited, I was surrounded for an entire day by about 300 bright minority (mostly black) students, and I found myself thinking how lucky we whites are to have such a lovely people staying among us. Does that seem sappy or paternalistic to you? I hope not. Such appreciations are certainly partial and shallow, but that is the human condition, it seems to me, and nothing to be ashamed of. The important thing was, that my spirit flowed outward to these people. And where even the tiniest connection is made, everything can follow. I'm reminded of the RC dictum that a distress pattern ultimately cannot survive even the tiniest contradiction. If I can view a person for an instant with love, I can hold that perspective while forging a real connection.
The contrast between the two formulations is between negative and positive directions. The first orients us to the lacks; it puts us in the position of storming the bastions against a dominant foe. The latter orients us to the positive creation of unity, the extension of ourselves into wider and wider domains. An all-purpose sense of unity.
I think I can start to reevaluate the first formulation in light of the second. There is a purpose to having different sorts of people among us: because we need their strengths. Because we need to learn to extend our thinking not just to some "abstract ideal of the Other" (which can only be ourselves, really) but rather to the reality of the Other. Because the only way to live is to live together. But we also need to deal with how to make the connections.
I believe administrators can model the second approach.
Here is an interesting illustration of how we mistake the treatment of specific groups for the search for the Other. The following is taken from the minutes of the Faculty Consultative Committee meeting of April 29, 1993, at which Associate Vice President [for xx] Josie Johnson presented the recommendations of the Task Force on Diversity. "Since 1988 the University has recruited 159 faculty members of color - and lost 59 of them. She is trying to understand the environment and support these faculty members receive. . . . Dr. Johnson, in response to a question, said there are plans to interview some of the 59 minority faculty who left. What is known now is anecdotal. There is a lack of satisfaction among minority faculty with their college or the sense that they were recruited because they could bring diverse experiences to the unit - but that once here, those experiences are not valued as they were during recruitment. She agreed that some of the factors cited could apply to the faculty at large, and should be investigated - some things are simply part of being a stranger to the institution or a junior faculty member. That which is universal needs to be separated from that which is specific to minority faculty."
This implies that it is o.k. to fail to value our junior faculty if we do so to all of them. Of course VP Johnson did not mean this, but we do have to note that her attention was on the experiences of minority faculty. There are good institutional reasons for that - her appointment involves looking out specifically for those people - but that just proves my point: we have set up an institutional structure that is NOT concerned with reconciliation among all faculty.
However, the minutes continue as follows: "Discussion turned to the lack of opportunities for minority faculty, and faculty generally, to come together to talk about issues or activities. These opportunities have disappeared, for various reasons, and have not been replaced. Now individuals get together as interest groups rather than collegially; what should happen because faculty are faculty - and thus members of an academic community with shared values - is now attempted through rules and regulations rather than accomplished through those shared values. A lot of minority faculty leave for the same reason that all faculty leave: They don't like it. That one is a minority, Dr. Johnson observed, simply adds one more factor."
It's not clear to me whether Johnson just said the last sentence or participated in the whole discussion.
Anyway, I guess I agree that minorities have special problems (they are very Other), but we have to look at this as one problem.
1. That is, the obstacles arising from a confused philosophical-political ground.
2. I note here in this regard the following anti-example of this attitude: "I'm also in [the previous writer's] corner on free speech. I prefer to know the enemy rather than send them into hiding" (Letter to the editor of Advocate 1 [4, February 1999], p.12).
3. Including forms we don't yet recognize and forms that do not yet exist.
4. These guidelines are mostly taken from an unpublished essay, "Working Assumptions and Guidelines for Alliance-Building", by the late Ricky Sherover-Marcuse, with occasional emphases, footnotes, and annotations supplied. I don't believe the original essay was copyrighted, and I waive my copyright.
5. Originally titled, "Strategies for Winning Allies".
6. This means you, not someone else. For example, Jews often support other groups' liberation struggles more readily than their own. This tendency is just an example of "internalized oppression" - Wygelians' sense that they are in fact what is said about them, and thus don't deserve allies.
7. See point 1 in Appendix I: "Toward a Perspective on Eliminating Racism: 12 Working Assumptions".
8. People often invalidate their own experience as exceptional, e.g., "I can't speak to the Black experience, because I grew up on military bases instead of Harlem." The Black experience is, by definition, made up of the experiences of Blacks. In any case, remember that we are concerned about the elimination of all oppression, including yours.
9. "Dueling oppressions" is a game no one wins. The only ultimately supportable position is a commitment to end all forms of humans hurting humans.
10. This faith and acceptance is very important to your allies.
11. Be cheerful, forward, and straightforward in providing this assistance.
12. A common, chronic self-oppression is the belief that one can't possibly be significant in others' lives. The truth is, any one of us is enough!
13. This is not a Pollyanna-ish perspective but the unvarnished truth. Any oppression of any of us ultimately hurts all of us, because the oppression of others implicitly acts as a threat to oneself: "behave, or be treated as they are". (See point 2 in the previous list and point 1 in Appendix I: "Toward a Perspective on Eliminating Racism: 12 Working Assumptions".) Thus men who don't fit the culture's current standards of manliness - which includes virtually all men - are oppressed by the terms "sissy", "weak sister", etc., whose weight derives from the threat to treat the offender as a woman, that is, in the same oppressive way women are treated.
14. Regarding oppression: Suspicion of you is a natural consequence of a history of oppressive relations, including a history of people seeking praise from people of color for their "anti-racist" work. Regarding internalized oppression: "Why should anyone want to be an ally to someone as worthless as me? There must be a catch to it."
15. In other words, you are an expert on their internalized oppression. However, before you can bring this expertise effectively to bear, you must discharge your own early conditioning into these lies.
16. I.e., bestowing our wonderfulness on the benighted heathen.
17. I.e., to make up for past injustices.
18. E.g., "because the Third World is becoming more important."
19. Elementary and secondary schools are collapsing under society's demands that they address and make up for all the consequences of society's neglect of its problems.
20. I don't mean to deny the institutional barriers recognized and addressed by the External component. We still need to recognize and move against them. It is true that we cannot oppress each other if we listen to the Other, as the Internal component recognizes, but institutional barriers act to prevent us from having access to the Other.
21. Summer Research Opportunities Program, where minority students from many colleges get to do summer research work with faculty members at (Big Ten, I think) universities.
The University of Minnesota is an equal opportunity educator and employer.
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