CONVERSATION #5
topic: Race vs Class
One of our many messy conversations about race
What's the issue? Kerra says race and A.J. says class.
Find out how A.J. convinces Kerra not to walk away.
A.J.
I think we butt heads over some of this because your experience says that race is the bedrock of all political struggle, and mine says that class is. There's a lot of overlap, but it's not complete, and it forms the fissures over which we fight.
Kerra
Agreed and I am trying to find a way to respond in which I stay true to myself while not offending you.
A.J.
Likewise. That's why I didn't respond the other night
Kerra
In this case, it's quite difficult because if I say what I truly mean, you are going to be angry
A.J.
Well, for what it's worth, I’ve been holding back too ☺ Plus we have a meeting this afternoon
Kerra
Does holding back really serve either of us?
A.J.
I don't know. But I think these are deep and passionately held feelings which neither of us will simply give up and I don't know that we have to be on the same side of this issue
Kerra
Is this the insurmountable obstacle?
A.J.
I don't know. I think it's a difference in perspective/background which only serves as an obstacle when we address it head on I'm not sure we need to or at least not now
Kerra
It's going to come up again.
A.J.
No doubt.
Kerra
And I think that it is a reason many people stay in their silos.
A.J.
Yes, but I thought we were committed to not doing
Kerra
That would mean that both of us would have to give ground on this issue. Are you willing to do that? I'm
finding it difficult.
A.J.
ha. Well, it's not like it's a business negotiation and we can offer concessions. These are fundamental philosophical assumptions
Kerra
Here is what I would have to give up...I would have to truly give up thinking of you as representing all white people and not just Andrew, the person I've come to know. I mean I'd have to really do it and not just give lip service to it.
A.J.
how so? I'm not sure I follow
Kerra
I was choosing a lesser thing that I would have to give up
A.J.
.
Sorry. I'm not grasping what you're saying.
Kerra
I know. Let me try again.
You asked me if I thought you would walk away from race issues. And I thought, 'yes, you could.'
A.J.
You're right. I could. But would I?
Given what you know of my family, for instance. Not black, of course, but I'll never NOT be able to think about race.
Kerra
No, but you could go as before.
In order for me to leave the silo, I would have to do what I have insisted you do and that is to see you as Andrew and not a white person.
A.J.
I'm not sure what 'before' means in this context. But I also don't completely grasp why your sense of my long term engagement with these issues kills the conversation
Oh. Right. I see
Kerra
In order for me to leave the silo, I would have to concede that there are other issues besides race such as class that are equally determinant but in different ways.
I would have to let go of the notion that race is the single, most important factor.
A.J.
Ah. Yes. If only so that you don't think my political life before our conversations was of no value ☺
Kerra
I didn't mean it egotistically in that manner.
A.J.
But I don't even know you have to give that up if it's what you think
And I could see us arguing cheerfully about root causes and still being unified in fighting symptoms
Kerra
And I can't
Because race is the single, most important thing to me.
A.J.
I know
I get that
It may be a productive philosophical disagreement. We don't have to be absolutely on the same page all the time
Kerra
And I feel like giving up any ground to that, in any small way, is a slippery slope to complicity
And because, rightly or wrongly, I vault lived experience over forms of protest.
A.J.
I get that too and, ironically, feel it too but in terms of class rather than race
Kerra
When you say, for example, I'm so weary, I want to say, 'You know what's exhausting, constantly having to defend one's humanity.'
Mother's Day is coming up on Sunday and celebrated today in Mexico and my feelings of loss aside, my first thought went out to the black mothers who send their children to school and don't know if they will make it home safely. That, to me, is exhausting.
A.J.
yeah, no doubt. But that doesn't make my feeling of weary irritation less does it?
Kerra
Yes, to me it does. Because in those other cases, they are conditions that are difficult to change.
And I guess I see class that way too because I'm American and not British, where class is more fixed.
A.J.
Then call it economics
Kerra
I cannot change the color of my skin. But you can move to America and through hard work, determination, study, skill, talent can improve the economics for you and your family.
A.J.
.
I don't dispute that.
Kerra
So it's difficult for me to equate race and class, especially given my predisposition.
A.J.
But why does it have to be a competition? Why if I say something is wearying is your first response 'well I'm wearier.'
Kerra
Because I can't relate to your weariness.
A.J.
That's a problem
Kerra
Why?
A.J.
Because it implies that you don't see me as a fellow human being. You see me as someone who has had it easy and whose life is fundamentally different from even alien to, oppositional to yours.
Kerra
I do see you as a fellow human being.
A.J.
But I can't be tired or annoyed by politics without it underscoring our difference?
Kerra
The very statement underscores it.
This is where the problem is (on both sides) -- 'You see me as someone who has had it easy and whose life is fundamentally different from even alien to, oppositional to yours.'
There is more truth than that than I would care to admit. I wish it weren't true. But that's my prejudice.