modernistwitch:

katydidnot:

modernistwitch:

Hm.

My feeling on that is that there’s been such an enormous focus on the girl crying because that’s what happens so often when white people are forced to confront the fact that we benefit from a white supremacist society, and it’s often used as an ‘out’ to escape accountability for privilege & racist actions (whether intentional or not), and that is such an immensely frustrating phenomenon.

And I’ll say it again - yeah, it hurts a lot to realize that you’re the one who benefits from others’ oppression, no matter what you do. But tending to your feelings there is your own bag (I say this as a white person opposed to whiteness!) and it is complicated and most definitely not something that should be characterized as the responsibility of those who are marginalized by privileges you benefit from.

i got the feeling that her crying was mainly just a direct reaction to being yelled at (coming from someone who freaks out nearly-involuntarily when yelled at by authority figures) as opposed to her coming to a larger realization re: privilege, or trying to escape a larger realization re: privilege, thus i figured her crying didn’t have any significance other than “oppression sux”

but like, i’m going only by my experience of freaking out when being yelled at, and i don’t know her reasons behind crying, AND the interpretation of jane elliot in the video is more on the side of your interpretation. 

i think there’s some important stuff too in what i bolded—i don’t think necessarily the girl was doing it intentionally, but yeah crying is still a tool to avoid confrontation. i think the way jane elliot dealt with it in the video was good, definitely—i guess the resulting conversation really depends on whether you interpret her crying as trying to gain sympathy or involuntary?

but yeah basically i agree with everything you are saying.

Rebloggin’ for good points/conversation.

(Source: criticalfeministcorgi)