ebogjonson.com

Wow. I was just stunned that she had nreve (hows that for a non-sexist epithat!) to respond to you as she did! I mean I was literally gobsmacked, particularly at the assertion that there was no relationtionship between white racism and black oppression.

I guess in here Buddhist world the first is an illness (worthy of compassion) and the 2nd a form of attachment (new age code for "victim").

Well, I can fling that kind of lingo around with the best of them and I be willing to speculate that she is a) in major denial and b) an enabler of her racist and sexist friends.

"As an intervention...this comment could be rightly rated as inconclusive to unsuccessful"

That phrase occurs to me quite often when evaluating my own success.

I wrote about the Billmon incident (was even slapped back by the man himself in a subsequent post) and comments at my site devolved along the same lines, almost to a "T" to Maha's logic: Being an Injun and all, I didn't have the "critical thinking skills" necessary to decifer the true "intent" of Billmon. I was even informed I should take lessons or something in order to acquire such "critical thinking skills", as my existence might depend upon it, or some such tripe.

The irony of it all.

You might want to see this thread for some background on maha and race relations - http://www.mahablog.com/2006/09/17/my-cause-is-my-country/

You know, I'm slow on the uptake so I only just learned from Donna's link that Maha is a Buddhist. Among the many amazing things in that Clinton thread, the most amazing was her deployment of Buddhism to shore up her argument. What's telling is that the actual post was on fairly uncontroversial, if not underwhelming racial ground (IMO, at least). It's during the comments that she went all Last Racially Honest Woman, indicating that it's not the ideas but the, like, people that stick in her craw.

That bit about race being a passing thing was great. I know Maha isn't reading this, but our Buddhist expert on digital political discourse should read Being Black by Angel Kyodo Williams, which is a about Buddhism and race.

Kai from Zuky had this to say to me about that:

Donna, I just wanted to chime in on this Buddhist excuse that Maha employed, because as a lifelong Buddhist myself, I see confusing statements like Maha's all the time. Of course there are countless misconceptions about and misappropriations of Buddhism, but one of the most common is blurring the line between relative and absolute wisdom teachings (something which you seem to have intuitively identified). Many Buddhist texts from all the various dharma traditions are quite clear about this distinction.

It's one thing to practice meditating on the absolute teaching that all identity, and indeed all phenomenal existence, is transient and ultimately illusory. It's quite another to misappropriate that meditative practice in the manner that Maha did, for the purpose of dismissing another person's manifest reality and marginalizing their experience and indeed their humanity. Taking an absolute teaching into the relative sphere tends to produce a slippery slope into nihilism, which is one of the misunderstandings of Buddhist mysticism you often see among Westerners who mistake a meditative practice as a philosophical assertion. Indeed, Buddhist masters have long considered this particular problem to be a serious danger, which is exactly why they used to keep many absolute teachings secret, sharing them only with the initiated. Because the uninitiated might take the statement that "all phenomena are unreal and there is no self" and use that as an excuse to, say, rape and pillage, since after all it's all unreal and nothing matters. Not exactly the purpose of the teaching; and not exactly the right way to contextualize an exchange between social progressives explicitly seeking race and gender equality.

I'm not trying to demean Maha's or anyone's spiritual practices or beliefs. I'm only saying that according to the Buddhist teachings I study and practice, every sentient being's manifest reality in the phenomenal world, including their transient physical and psychic identities, is recognized and respected.

Peace.
Kai

In the comments of this thread.

Thanks!

I see you don't allow html in comments! LOL the thread I was refering to is here:
http://elayneriggs.blogspot.com/2006/09/wonkdom-now-that-im-fairly-caught-up.html

I'm still reeling a bit from all the rounds of rationalization I've witnessed from the front-page FDLers and their staunch defenders.

When it comes to sexism, I can justifiably claim first-hand understanding of the damage it causes. When it comes to racism, and racist imagery - not so much. That understanding has been a longer journey. It doesn't solely feel like guilt to me, but there is certainly an ongoing learning process involved. From my own experience, I believe that - except for the most obvious, egregious cases of bigotry - it comes down to common ignorance. And as a white woman, I've had my moments.

Many, many years ago I went to a Halloween party dressed as Peter Tosh, one of my favorite musicians. (The night before I had gone to another party dressed as Ethel Merman.) At the time, it seemed like a marvelous idea, and in fact, the costume was a "hit" - and yes, I wore blackface makeup. The ridiculous quality of it was enhanced by the fact that I'm a blue-eyed blonde, with a very identifiable set of teeth, and everyone knew immediately who I was underneath my costume. Because most people found it comical, and no one objected, I thought nothing of it. In fact, it was somewhat "celebrated" by my theater friends.

A few years later, I planned on going to Halloween party dressed as Dizzy Gillespie, another favorite of mine. I told a good friend my plans. He, a cartoonist and satirist, immediately objected, saying "Only if you want to get into a fist-fight!". "Huh?" I asked. He reminded me that blackface is about the most incendiary thing I could do, no matter that I intended it as an homage to Dizzy. "Have you forgotten what an uproar Ted Danson just caused at the Friars Club? Think about it. Don't do it." After taking about 30 seconds to think about it, I realized he was right. I chose another costume.

I've had a lot of years to think about that near-blow-up I almost caused, and why it would have been a blow-up and why it's not enough to understand the historical/political significance of the blackface image. Just as the "c" word is NEVER acceptable to my ears, (and I don't care to hear any rationalizations on that one) the blackface image is not only a stinging reminder of oppression - it is always a perversity. It doesn't matter that Billmon calls it art. It also doesn't matter that Gilliard can claim the higher ground when he used it, based on the fact that he is a black man. And when the blackface image was put up alongside Hamsher's post at HuffPo, my heart sunk, because once again it was being justified as political art, and I knew the moment I saw it that it would backfire on Lamont. I also knew that it would create a firestorm that would not die down anytime soon. It's now become an icon for FDL's public attitudes regarding women and people of color.

Someone more eloquent than I am wrote on a blog the other day (paraphrasing): the worth of your action can be measured in direct relation to the amount of time and energy you have to spend justifying and defending it.

Ignorance isn't bliss, it's just unwillingness to face up.

However, blackface imagery speaks as much, if not more, about white racism than black oppression.

What? What what? I mean, what? "Speaks as much, if not more, about misogyny than sexism." "Speaks as much, if not more, about homophobia than [er] oppression of gays."

What you said.

And _that_ having been said, what difference does it make in any case? If an image somehow manages to be more representative of vitriolic white racism than, I dunno, its effects, how does that remove the problem of throwing up vitriolic white racism in order to make a completely unrelated point about some different issue?

>Ignorance isn't bliss, it's just unwillingness to face up.

well put. and yeah, it's amazing to see the contortions some people will go through simply to avoid "gee, you might have a point, there, after all."