xoros

She’s amazing <3

Just because you aren’t racist, doesn’t mean you never have a racist thought or say something racist.

If you aren’t homophobic, you will still sometimes express a bigoted sentiment.

Even if you are not sexist, sometimes you will say something or believe something that is.

If you don’t fear trans people, it doesn’t mean you don’t have transphobic thoughts.

Hate is not the same as prejudice, although they overlap. We all exist in dominant cultures that are all of these things and so we are all affected by them. The point is to listen when you are called out on something you have said. The point is to not feel comfy in your priviliges and to be prepared to understand when you have absorbed more of the dominant memes than you realise.

Until truely unbiased and fair cultures are achieved we all, no matter how progressive we think we are, need to be aware that we may well be expressing those privileges we do have. It is not an either or thing.

So we were watching this programme on TV this evening, “Help Mijn Man Is Een Klusser”, which roughly translates as “Hey Some Men Do DIY And Some Of Them Don’t Finish It So Some Other Men Will And We Can all Be Sympathetic And Patronising To His Long Suffering Wife While Casting Aspertions On The Guy’s Masculinity”. Roughly! Actually I usually run in fear from the room round about scene two when the pity music comes on in the background (Flemish TV seems to think that if it involves Real People and pity music is not needed, it is probably not worth making). This time though, it was the Dutch version, from the Netherlands no less! Since the second scene came and went without pity music and a lack of horribly sterotyped gender role based humiliation I ended up seeing it all. As I did, several things struck me. In fact lots of things about it struck me, not least that I saw the whole thing, but mostly there were a couple of things that made it an utterly different viewing experience.

Firstly the presenter was black. Imagine that! A black man on television and no sport, crime or documentary on immigrants in sight! He was just a presenter, presenting! Secondly, the couple in question were a gay couple. Imagine that! A gay couple on television and not a glaring sterotype, documentary or news report to be seen! They were just a couple, one of whom was shit at finishing DIY projects! And that was what struck me.

After nearly a year back in Belgium, I have got so accustomed to non factual television being solely the preserve of white, cis, straight, ethnically Flemish people that this was so surprising that it was my main impression of a piece of televisual fluff. I’ve mentioned before how the Flemish have this massive conception gap between how they view their prejudice and how they enact it but seeing it so well highlighted in this manner really brought home how pervasive it is.

Every now and then you come across something that makes you go “Oh wow yes, this” and I did today. It’s the mp3 of an event called “Girl Talk: A Cis & Trans Woman Dialogue” at the National Queer Arts Festival (in the US). You can find an article about it here on Body Impolitic and in there is a link to the mp3. Go listen! Go “Wow!”.