The Minority Narrative

My husband and I had a friend that he met through graduate school who once told a story about an experience she had in a parking lot. She was walking through the lot with a friend of hers who had a baby that she was pushing in a stroller. As they were making their way through the lot, a woman in a somewhat nice car honked in irritation at them.

Under these circumstances, what would your first conclusion be about the dynamic in play during this encounter? As someone who has been in a car and driving through various parking lots with no small number of pedestrians walking willy-nilly (rather than using crosswalks or speed bumps as crossover points) and often doing so in a very sluggish and seemingly disoriented fashion, my first conclusion was that the woman was damn tired of being blocked by people who felt it was fine to mosey through the lot in the path of vehicles without concern. In fact, when I was in Japan, I thought the pedestrians were bad, but I've found they are worse in the U.S. The sense of entitlement in a country which reinforces the rights of those on foot has created a situation where pedestrians routinely jaywalk, cross highly trafficked areas like parking lots without even looking for oncoming vehicles, and in general seem not to think that they have an obligation to stop, look both ways, and cross when there are no cars - which was what I learned growing up - not that I could meander around anywhere and expect cars to look out for me as seems to be the case in California at present.

The first paragraph is the sum of the actual interaction and the facts of the experience as related. There is no added information. The woman did not say anything else. However, I will add two other facts. The friend and her acquaintance with the child are of Chinese descent. The woman in the car was white.

When this friend told this story, she told so in an impassioned manner in accord with sharing an experience she had which reflected her status as a minority. She spoke emotionally about how the woman may have been jealous because she saw someone with a baby and she might not have been able to have one. She said that it could be the woman hated Asians and was a bigot. Nowhere in her narrative was the possibility that she and her friend were doing what so many pedestrians of every race, creed, and color do and that the woman was annoyed because they were taking up too much space on the way to getting in or out of the parking lot and moving at the pace of snails; the driver may simply have been increasingly impatient.

Why would this be a missing possibility from this friend's narrative? It is, after all, a highly likely explanation. The reason is that it is the only explanation which makes the two Asian women in the story responsible in any way for the unpleasantness that ensued. It would have meant that they would have to recognize that they behaved in a way which was inconsiderate at least, and oblivious at best.

Now, I will change the story to an experience that I had today with my ever aggravating ancient neighbors. I have never mentioned this before, but they are Chinese. My guess is that they were born in China roughly 500 years ago and came here at some point in order to annoy the crap out of me. They speak to each other in Chinese, dry cabbage and pickle vegetables outside of their home, and play extremely loud Chinese programs on their T.V. (programs with booming bass music). I know what they watch since they so carefully insure that I hear it as clearly as possible by pushing the volume up into the stratosphere.

Today, they were pushing the limits and I decided to go down and ask them to turn it down. This turned into a very unpleasant situation as, being as they are deaf and they have already been told twice by the manager to chill out on the noise, I had to shout to even be heard at all. Of course, the deafness wasn't the only reason I had to shout. They wouldn't open the door when I knocked and just tried to talk to me through it. I started out asking them to please turn it down. The male fossil of the couple, who finally opened the door, said that it was not that loud. I said that it was vibrating our floor and, yes, it was loud. He said that just was not happening. Um... OK, but, I said that, yes, it was happening and he couldn't hear how loud the T.V. was because he was deaf.

At this point, things degraded further. He said that I should complain to the manager. I said that I already had and I knew the manager had spoken to them about it. He then switched to saying that it wasn't late at night so they could do what they wanted and then slammed the door in my face after I said he was being very rude.

I'll admit that that was hardly my finest hour. I made mistakes. Part of the cause of those mistakes was based in the need to shout at all. Part of it was my amygdala was all hepped up on adrenaline due to the ongoing aggravation. The straw that snapped the camel's back and made me call him "deaf" (true) and "rude" (also true) was him asserting that I simply was not experiencing the noise as I was. Why on earth would I go down there and complain if nothing was happening? Why on earth would I call the manager repeatedly to try and get the situation dealt with? Well, that is where my story about my friend comes into play.

In this situation, there are several explanations for why I'd complain. No, strike that, I can only think of two. One is that I am actually experiencing the vibrations and noise. Two is that I have a need to harass my neighbors for imaginary problems for some reason. What would that reason be? Well, if my neighbor wants to find the most comfortable narrative, the one that relieves him of all responsibility for creating the issue, he can tell himself that I am prejudiced and therefore making things up to create problems for him. My best guess is that that narrative would either be about age or ethnicity and I'm wagering on the latter since, at 50, I'm hardly a spring chicken myself.

Minorities in America are indoctrinated into a mindset which I've seen with stunning frequency since my return from Japan. That is that they believe any action which they dislike is the result of bigotry. If they don't get a job, it's racism. If they don't get an apartment, it's racism. If they behave in ways that upset others and those folks have the audacity to complain or protest, it's racism. What is more, the white folks in the U.S. are not allowed to challenge their conclusions that everything bad that ever happens to them is the result of historical or present racial inequality. With the talk of "privilege" and the sensitive nature of any interaction between a white person and a person who is not of European descent, we are not allowed to question any conclusion made about the nature of an interaction, even when more cogent and likely explanations are sitting right out there for anyone with half a brain to see.

I know about this minority narrative because I lived as .2% of the Japanese population for 23 years. I also lived in a place which had none of the safeguards (legal, social, or otherwise) that America offers its minorities. I had zero power to challenge things like labor laws being broken at my expense, being questioned by the police without cause, being refused apartments, being turned away at restaurants, etc. (and all of these things happened to me there). After years of this, I constructed a minority narrative. Every time something bad happened to me, it was because I was white in a sea of Japanese people and they knew I was a powerless minority in their culture. I became incredibly hostile in public when I was gawked at, pointed at, laughed at, and people didn't sit next to me on the train (for fear of catching my cooties as a foreigner).

After spending years constructing and living with that narrative, I started to deconstruct it. I got tired of being mad omnidirectionally all of the time. I got tired of the stress. I felt bad about telling my husband that the people who treated me badly were little more than "animals" in their self-awareness and intellectual capacity. I am not a person who naturally belittles others, but my narrative had me doing it nearly every day as a way of coping with the hardships I was enduring.

As part of really looking at that minority narrative, I had to present myself with some cold hard possibilities and facts. One of them was that not everyone treated me badly because I was a foreigner. Sometimes bad stuff happened because bad stuff happened. People are jerks. People are rude. People don't care about anyone but themselves much of the time. Maybe I was the dog they chose to kick because of my whiteness, but if I hadn't been there, they'd have kicked someone else who they also felt was sufficiently lacking in status or power for them to abuse in their hatred and frustration with life. It wasn't about me. It was about them.

Further, I had to consider my responsibility in bringing on some of the actions I hated. I can't say right now what some of those might have been. Part of it may have been a defensive posture, a pushy, and sometimes malevolent look to try and intimidate people so they wouldn't stare, point, laugh, or talk about me. Part of it in terms of my work and interaction with students could also have been feeling that my "American" way of offering opinions as if they were facts may have been more than a little off-putting in their culture and my lack of understanding that they have a way of dealing with each other that is indirect which is in contradiction to American directness.

When I took things apart, I could see at least that some of it was about me and some of it was about them and some of it was, yes, about racism. However, I could not logically conclude that any time something went badly, it was because of my skin color. Being white, I was also constantly challenged in any assertion that I was experiencing racism (other white people in Japan don't hesitate to descend on you like pack of rabid dogs if you suggest the Japanese aren't anything but totally kind and helpful to the .2%).

In America though, I, however, cannot challenge anyone's perception that an interaction was racism and suggest that maybe, just maybe, the issue was that they did something jerk-like to provoke a response or, maybe, just maybe, sometimes you can't always get what you want because the pie in life doesn't have enough slices for everyone and you don't always get served first. I'm not allowed to say any of that because of my skin color. I am muzzled by the concept of "privilege" when such narratives are played for my consideration. That is not to say that sometimes it's not racism or the consequence of the feces pie that minorities have been force fed throughout history (especially African-Americans who have been shafted worst of all), but sometimes, hey, it's not racism!

At any rate, I don't know what will come of the situation with the prehistoric entities living beneath me, but I will never confront them directly again as it is clear that they will not take any responsibility for their actions. I did contact the manager once more (third time) about this and mentioned that, if we were to move, there's a high likelihood that any replacement may also be less than keen on the vibrating floors and bombastic T.V. This was my way of encouraging him to deal with them more aggressively because, if we go away, the problem won't go away. My guess is that he'll tell them, again, to use headphones to deal with their issue and that they, again, won't do anything differently other than cool it on turning it up to "11" for a short time then start limit-testing me again.

They feel entirely entitled to do whatever they want because they don't think they are doing anything wrong and the only reason I'm complaining is that I've got some sort of personal issue with them. The logical explanation that a person with a hearing problem can't tell how loud his T.V. is because he can't hear very well just is one they won't accept because then it's their fault and not mine.

It's not my fault. I am not against them because they are old or Chinese or lacking in basic self-awareness or whatever. I just don't want to feel the earth shaking under my feet while I'm sitting at my desk making whiny blog posts.

Advertising and Privilege

One of my friends once posted a quote by Banksy encouraging people to deface public advertising as a means of protesting the way in which messages are aimed at you that you didn't ask for and that you may not want. Banksy frequently does this in the service of his art. As a graffiti artist, he has built his fame on defacing buildings. It's something that people are happy about when he does it, but it's a crime when others do it.

Setting aside Banksy's inability to comprehend that his message is more likely to get his followers arrested or fined than initiate some sort of awakening in the public about how advertising affects them, I would like to discuss the more core issue of whether or not we determine what is advertised or advertising tells us who we are and what we should want. Do we shape the world or does it shape us? For me, the answer to this question is "both", but others believe the answer falls on one side or the other.

People like my friend seem to regard the rest of the world as being filled with mindless drones who have shiny objects and tasty treats dangled in front of them and that makes them value those things. There is something to that viewpoint. If you see a commercial for a pizza place, you may find yourself wanting to eat pizza. This is "cuing". However, I don't think people who dislike pizza or who have never eaten it would be persuaded to have it as a result of advertising. The seller is showing you something you already like and want and trying to convince you to have it more often, preferably right now. Essentially Pizza Hut isn't teaching you to love pizza. It's reminding you that you already love it. This is not programming you to behave or think in a certain manner, but convincing you to repeat past thinking and actions.

This is the crux of the argument I tried to make with my friend who thinks that we buy into societal messages about beauty, wealth, youth, race, etc. because we're "told" to. I told her that, if you pay attention to advertising and how it works, you will see that advertisers are pandering to and catering to their audience's existing mentality, not telling them what to like. If women's magazines are full of ads about skin cream, it's not because they're telling you to worry about your aging skin. It's because they know you're already worried about it. If men's magazines are full of ads for collectible coins, it's not because they are telling you that you'll enjoy that particular hobby, but they're wanting to sell you on their goods which fit into your existing lifestyle.

Nothing provided stronger evidence that I have a point than a recent ad that I saw in Eating Well magazine. The picture above is a scan of a page from their September/October 2014 issues. The woman in the picture is Gina Belafonte, daughter of famous singer Harry Belafonte. The text that is quoting her talks about social equality and mentions that she's an activist and the headline calls her a "game changer". I had never heard of her before, so I looked her up to figure out what she has to do with social equality. There's not much of an internet track record except that she's commented that people are taken aback when they discover that her father is black. Most of the readily accessible information on her talks about how she's an actress and a producer, but this ad makes it seem like she's all over issues of privilege.

The ad isn't about social awareness or equality. It's selling vitamins. Why are they using talk of her political activism to sell vitamins? They're using it because all of those people who can't help but keep telling people to "check their privilege" are privileged (generally wealthy or upper middle class) people who buy a magazine like Eating Well as it has to do with exotic and nutritious food. The issue that this ad was in focused on Italian food and had a focus on all of the various sorts of olives.

The message of this ad is that, if you're socially aware and have your privileges all in check, you're going to be like this woman, and this woman is endorsing these vitamins, or, if you use these vitamins, you can feel good about yourself as you are part of the tribe that feels strongly that social equality is important. Either way, this ad isn't telling you what to think about social equality. It's pandering to an existing state of mind and a need to be linked through material possessions (in this case, vitamins) to someone with a parent of color.

This ad is using someone's values to sell things. Those values weren't programmed by advertisers. They are exploited. The irony is that my friend who promoted Banksy's "destroy all advertising" message is exactly like this woman. Now that she's part of a group that has defined itself, she is now a demographic to be sold to. These are vitamins for her and others who want to eliminate privilege and they're using a privileged face (famous, successful, thin, attractive, heterosexual, rich)  to sell them. Note that Ms. Belafonte is 53 years old. Pictures of her online look very different than the one in the ad. It has obviously had considerable tweaking in Photoshop to bring her image more in line with what is conventionally appealing. You know, making her look more youthful and attractive (both privileged states of being that one does not earn yet society rewards).

My friend is all over talking about destroying privilege in our society. She thinks that white privilege and the preponderance of white values are programmed into us and that defacing ads will send some sort of message that those ads are keeping down people of color, lesser socioeconomic status, and less conventional beauty. She would not accept that people shown in ads are chosen because they cater to existing desires and preferences. This is despite the fact that her last girlfriend was chosen mainly because she thought she was sexy (and she was conventionally considered appealing and two other people were pursuing her at the time that my friend "won" her over). That relationship crashed and burned rather badly because choosing your partner based on looks tends to not work out so well in many cases. Her actions support the idea that the reason tall, thin, symmetrical people are in ads are used in media is that the majority of people like these "hot" women/men. My friend also wants to have lots of money in the future, wears hipster clothes, and spends her time hanging out with other young people drinking beer. She may not see herself as privileged, but her values elevate people possessing certain characteristics to their privileged state.

The truth is that people have always valued a certain type of beauty (and wealth). There is a famous bust of Nerfertiti which we've all seen because she was clearly gorgeous. Do people know a similar bust of Cleopatra as well as the one of the Egyptian beauty? No, they don't, because the real Cleopatra wasn't gorgeous. We know Elizabeth Taylor made up as Caesar's main squeeze, but she was beautiful.

Back before there was television and advertising, the same type of beauty was valued and the same qualities that are considered unappealing today were not attractive then. Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and stories told in pictures show the vanquished leaders of other tribes as short and fat because those qualities were unappealing even then. Enemies were shown as being ugly whereas the victims were tall, thin, and elegant-looking. It's not about what we're programmed to think by the media. It's about what we already think due to our genes. Media just panders to those existing qualities and enhances our sensibilities in this regard. It confirms our values and encourages us to hold them and build on them, but it doesn't inculcate us with them.

My friend is part of the tribe that talks a big game about things like privilege while she continues to act on the same shallow desires that create a privileged status for those possessing certain qualities (youth, wealth, beauty, thinness). She asked me how I would go about eliminating privilege, but I don't think we can and I think it's Quixotic to try, at least in some cases. As long as people are biologically inclined to prefer certain qualities, they will elevate people possessing those qualities to a higher status in society. You cannot re-write the genetic code and the resulting preferences in every being on the planet, and that is what would be required to eliminate privilege.

Of course, it should be noted that my friend spoke of "privilege" as a concept, but the only privilege she was concerned about was "white privilege" and heterosexual privilege. It's okay to offer people beauty, youth, thin, wealth, status, etc. privilege. The only privilege she really cares about managing is the one which comes along with white skin and sexual preference. Since she is Asian and a lesbian, she's only really focusing on the ones which she feels affect her. The rest don't really matter. So, she wasn't really concerned with eliminating privilege so that we lived in a socially equal society. She was only concerned about elevating her status in society.