102. Supporting With Empathy: White Supremacy and Othering During Tragedy
Summary
In the wake of yet another mass shooting after the horrific hate crime in Atlanta which impacted the AAPI community, Erica and India confront the disturbing adversarial reactions they’ve seen some white people direct at underserved communities. They also use this opportunity to outline positive steps you can take to champion empathy and understanding within your sphere of influence and support humans in those affected communities.
In this discussion:
The effects of othering on marginalized communities
How accusatory tactics deflect from concentrating on your own work
Performative vs. empathetic action
The (sometimes free) economics of support
The myth of limited resources
Keep The Dialogue Going
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Article
Erica and India convene for a conversation that took place the day after a mass shooting in Boulder, CO, a mere seven days after a similar shooting rampage in the Atlanta area. In both mass murders, the perpetrator was a white man.
These murders have spirits flared up here at POTP, and we need to discuss it.
“I am tired of the mass shootings, and I am very...just, I don't even know what to say,” Erica sighs, “‘cause, literally, a white man decides, you know, March 16th to just go into massage parlors and just shoot people, and six of them were Asian and, unfortunately, the violence against AAPI [Asian American and Pacific Islander] individuals has already been too high, partially because of assholes who have thought that associating them with the coronavirus has been okay. And it is not.”
“And, to yet again have another shooting,” she continues, “I'm just, like, I'm not quite sure what is happening in this moment.” Erica’s also disturbed by the posts and comments she’s seen online, people pointing their fingers at others, asking, what are you doing?! “i.e., some people that are white looking at other minorities, ‘Oh, what are you doing?’ And really just trying to further the divide and to not focus it on the white supremacist structures that they are a part of and actively benefit from.”
“I almost want to just say, like, can you not further try to divide underserved communities, under-recognized communities that do not benefit from white supremacy and keep doing this, please?” she asks. “Especially not right now. Like, can we not have this be a thing, please? And thank you.”
“I think what you're saying is really important,” India says. “And, I also think that you have a level of awareness that other people may not.” That lack of self-knowledge doesn’t excuse what others have done - or continue to do, however. “It's completely gotten underneath my skin,” she says, “especially being somebody that identifies as being an empath and feeling all the feels.”
At the same time, India wonders if people - bluntly, white people - realize that they’re furthering the divide in that moment they decide to turn on someone else, be it another white person or someone who identifies as Black, Brown, or Asian. She asks if they even realize that these confrontations create more energy around chaos and hatred and trauma when they could, instead, shift their focus to coming up with solutions to the problem. “Maybe I'm naive and thinking that way, but I don't know if they have the same level of awareness when they do that. I think that that might be a programmed response from “The Man,” if there’s such a thing, that prevents people from actually taking actions to create change, to dismantle the system that “The Man” created.”
Erica pauses to recognize the tangible measures that the pair have seen online which offset what could be addressed solely as a rant. “There's a part of me that’s hot as a fucking hornet’s nest right now because I am tired. And, so, I don't want to get stuck in that either,” she says. It’s an important note to strike, highlighting these actions that people can take on their own when they see this sort of finger-pointing happening because violence against the AAPI community is absolutely unacceptable. “Sometimes people are only going to speak to or address what impacts them. And so I want to talk about what's being done well to support the AAPI community right now.”
Appearances Don’t Matter In The Moment
“The first thing that's always going to be on my mind,” says India, “and, this is weird to say ‘cause I work in the world of brand visibility; it’s all about public appearances. But that doesn't matter if you haven't paused for a second to check in on the people you actually know, the people who've actually bought services from you, your friends - they're supposed to be fucking friends!” Connecting first with the actual humans in your circle - an overused term India would like replaced with the more empathetic intimate sphere - is far more vital than taking to social media to address an issue. Even asking something as simple as “how are you feeling,” then genuinely listening to their answer is more critical than public appearances. “I see that being done incredibly well,” India continues, “and that's not something that you see happening front-facing because that's happening in private - like it should be.”
Erica agrees. “So, I'm glad that you said that because that was going to be the other thing. This is not something that somebody can quantify and say, ‘what are you doing?’ It's like, you don't need to know the conversations that I'm having with the people that I know, the people that are friends, family, coworkers, neighbors--”
“Exes,” India offers.
“Yeah, that too,” Erica says, adding clients to that list as another connection she has a right to keep private. “It's nobody's fucking business - I said it! They don't have to quantify that to you; no, they do not. And it's not supposed to be because that's not supposed to be something that is for clout. That's human shit. That's human shit.”
“Different humans live by different moral compasses,” India concedes, adding, “I'm going to say that that's empathy. Some people choose to be empathetic and want to understand and want to hold space for the people they care about“But I do see more of a conversation this year in what's happening right now, really being done well and addressing who's right in front of you, who's close to you privately.” Looking back, she notes that this wasn’t being done in the same way even as recently as June 2020.
Who’s Controlling The Narrative?
Erica reinforces the newness of this level of support with a critical observation. “I also think that it is important that at a time like this that from my vantage point as a Black woman, that I think it is important for the narrative to be controlled by the people that it belongs to. And I say that because I don't like when things go wrong, and people like to co-opt what's happening and dilute it through their lens,” she says. “So, I'm not Asian American or Pacific Islander, so, I would never want to take attention away from that community and those that are part of that community and say, ‘no, no, no; you need to listen to me as a Black woman.’ No. That’s not about me.”
The second supportive action that comes to India’s mind is highlighting the personal stories and sharing the information originating in the communities affected. She also encourages folks to amplify the amazing businesses and brands out there that are also part of the community affected. “I say the community affected because I don't think this just applies to what's happening in the world right now; this applies to any situation that's affected a specific demographic of human.”
Here, too, Erica and India are in sync. “I think that there is what happened and there's also now what, what can we do?” Erica says. “And, I do think being able to point to solutions, whether that be, you know, here's businesses that you can support through paying them, here are people that you can pay if you are seeking education or knowledge, here are people that are letting you know about causes that you can donate to. If that is what you're looking to do, here's places to volunteer, here is literature or websites or information that you can read up on so that you feel knowledgeable about things.”
There are caveats to your quest for knowledge and offers of support that require blunt examination: “They [AAPI] do not need to do all the work any more than Black people need to do all the work when we are the ones affected,” Erica says. “I also don't like watching narratives get diluted through the lens of someone else that it doesn't belong to.”
Monetary Measures Aren’t The Only Way
India hones in on an adjacent point: acts of support aren’t exclusively measured by the money thrown at them. “It doesn't cost you a penny,” she says. “If you're listening and you're like, ‘I don't have money to donate to a nonprofit,’ or ‘it doesn't fit our budget right now,’ or ‘we already gave money to this other demographic’ or whatever...that's what people can say to themselves. It doesn't cost you a penny to highlight a business, or an entertainer, or a musician. Right? Spread the word; show how amazing they are. And I see people doing a great job of doing that because the individuals are amazing or the information they're sharing is amazing. And not because they happen to be Asian.”
“Stop with the othering,” Erica says. “Whether it's times where something awful has happened or not’ stop othering people. And I understand what it feels like for me to be othered. And, I can't imagine at a time like this, where we have a global pandemic happening, that some people in positions of power are trying to paint it as something that is attached to an entire group of people. I can't imagine what the othering feels like for them.”
“Right,” says India. “That’s a big thing that I am personally seeing happening that, I'll say from my perspective, but I don't know if somebody else would, which is, people aren't just sharing here's the charity or here's what you need to know about how it's affected this community. They're also sharing places to invest your money into or your business into. They're also sharing awesome newness that is not attached to the trauma.”
Stop Trying To Carve Up The Pie
Number three on the list is the flip side of that generosity: treating equity as you might individual slices of pie. Again, circling back to the previous supportive action, your encouragement and participation don’t have to cost anything. Nor do you have to limit your assistance to a single group or demographic. “And, actually,” India says, “I want to take a moment to say thank you to those that I see holding space for the and. You can support multiple different types of humans that have multiple different types of identity at the same time. Right? Isn't that an interesting concept? And, I see people actually holding space to do that, and it makes my heart so happy because that's not always the case.”
The pie mentality furthers the idea that since you’ve already given to one nonwhite group, you can’t give to others at the same time. “Hashtag fuck-shit,” Erica says. “Don't do that. Don't do that. And, I think that part of what comes up for me is - and I feel like we talk about this consistently, but we definitely talked about it last June in the wake of George Floyd's murder but, there is the front-facing stuff, and then there's the internal things that people don't see, which goes back to number one. And it's just like, you don't know what might be happening.”
Erica continues, “And, so, for those that are kind of coming to the Black community with the, you know, ‘what's happening?’ or ‘what are you doing?’ please understand that you might not see everything ‘cause some of these conversations, and I'm gonna say it out loud - I hate to say it: dear white people, some of these conversations are not for you.”
India agrees. “Some conversations you can't have with, if we're going to be real, the demographic that's created a system that's oppressing everybody involved.”
Check Your Access
If you’re white, you can’t - and shouldn’t - be privy to those discussions. As Erica explains, “You can't be a part of the white supremacist structure, even by default just because of the skin that you're born in, but then you want to be inside the inner circle all at the same time; you can't be in and out of the circle of trust.” Erica drops the movie reference in to illustrate her point, but in all seriousness, she continues, “There's just something about that, that I've kind of been seeing as well. And I have an issue with this place of like, ‘why can't I know what's happening?’ and it's like, you're not supposed to; it's not for you.”
“That’s the downside of what people are doing,” India says, “but I think the positive side of that is I've also seen many different minorities come together, minorities or underrepresented or marginalized groups come together and have conversations with each other. And again, that makes my heart happy because that's not always the norm. Sometimes things happen in one community, and they really don't talk to the other.” She’s seen multiple individuals from the AAPI* community also extend their support to the Black community by asking others to please stop requesting that Black people dismantle the same system that’s oppressing them.
* Erica and India take a moment to voice their discomfort about reducing groups, including BIPOC, down to acronyms before returning to the current discussion.
“If we are both recipients of the shitty outcomes of white supremacist structures,” Erica asks, referring to AAPI and BIPOC communities, “and the things that some white people - all white people - are benefitting from, why are you looking at us? If you actively benefitted, you need to be doing it; you are the one that needs to be putting in the work right now. Don't turn around to the other person who you’re kickin’ and say, ‘Hey, help this other person I just kicked. What the fuck, are you doing?”
“Right,” agrees India, “Like, ‘Hey, we're kicking everybody, but why are the two puppies we kicked not helping each other as well?’”
Erica pauses to offer complete transparency. “I don't think that this is all white people, but I'm going to tell you what, do not get mad. Why did I say that? I said it because I said it, and I meant it, and it does apply to some people. If it don't apply to you, then don't put the jacket on, goddammit!”
“Y’all pissed Erica off; I’m just going to say it--”
“I’m hot!”
“I don't blame you,” India says, “So if you're listening to this and you're not one of those white people, shout out to you. Shout out to the white people who actually take a second to ask themselves, ‘what am I doing?’ before they go and point the finger at another person of color or even another white person to say, ‘what are you doing?’ How about shout out to them?”
“Shout out to the white people who are amplifying the voices of the demographics of people who are being affected by white supremacy,” India continues. “Shout out to the people who are putting their money to the causes that they say that they're supporting. Shout out to the people that are not doing performative posts because they see everybody else doing it and are actually doing the hard work of listening when somebody is telling them how they really feel now and what their experiences are, and offering to support them in any way that they need, even if the way that they need might not be the way that you want to support them. Shout out to you.”
“Facts.” Erica lets the mic drop right there; this conversation stands just as it is.
Here's to hoping we meet next time on a lighter note. Until then, you know what to do: keep the dialogue going, take care of yourselves, and take care of each other.
Quoted
Erica Courdae
“I also don't like watching narratives get diluted through the lens of someone else that it doesn't belong to.”
India Jackson
“You can support multiple different types of humans that have multiple different types of identity at the same time, right? Isn't that an interesting concept!”