I really enjoy reading Spinning Into Butter by Rebecca Gilman. One of the reasons for this is that it relates rather directly to my life. I think all of us can imagine what life at Belmont is like. Other than it being a private school it is pretty much MCLA, though i think we all like to hope that our administrators are better. I think knowing this environment so well made the plot that much easier to focus on. I know I could easily imagine a lot of that stuff happening here.
While of course we like to believe that racism is non-existent it is not. In my life I have known many racist people. Back home I live in a neighborhood full of them. My neighbors have actually threatened to burn another neighbors house down because they were in favor of putting a school nearby that would have "black people" in it. These people also hate my family because we're Jewish. Interestingly enough this took place in Albany, NY, a relatively large and racially diverse city. This is the same city that Simon is supposedly from.
Another thought I had about the play was something that was discussed a little bit in class. Patrick asks Sarah to call minority students "students of color", i think this is unfair. I consider myself to be a minority student. I check other and write in Jewish as my race on every form I fill out. Being Jewish is very important to my identity, as a culture as well as a religion. Many other people feel this way too. There is even a facebook group about it. By referring to minorities as "students of color" i feel left out. What does that make me? I do not consider myself to white, but I am not "colored" either. While Sarah was definitely more in the wrong in this situation Patrick was not perfect either.
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I don't think minority and students of color are equal at all times. I think being called a minority is insulting and unfortunately it has become acceptable. Being in the minority is being seen as powerless and less numbered than other people. I think that is where Patrick was coming from. To have someone tell you, you are a minority is saying that there are more of me than you and that is not approprite especially coming from someone who is undermining who you are.
ReplyDeleteI do agree however that, that statement can be offensive to those who consider themselves minority and not of color. It's okay to be a minority student and in the minority at a job or office because that is just what you might be, but identifying that as a part of who you are is not correct. I think Patrick wanted to be who he saw himself as, not someone else.
And, on top of all of it, the word "minority" is misleading. In the play, Sarah points out that she was a minority at Lancaster. In real life, men are a minority at colleges these days.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is coming up with an umbrella term--which is at once helpful (because it can include a larger group of people) and also the whole problem (in that it lumps together a whole lot of people, robs them of individual and group identity, and marks them all "other").
An example: in the gay community, the term "queer" has come to stand in for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual (etc.). Some people love the inclusiveness of it, others feel the word is offensive (it used to be an insult) and don't like to use it.
I agreed that Patrick's statement seems really unfair. I think that there shouldn't be title at all. If one person is a "minority student" and one person a "student of color" and so on and so forth, that excludes everyone else. Sure, a title can be inclusive and help identify a large group of people, but when you give yourself or your group or anyone else's group a title, you exclude everyone else. It's great to want to help a certain group of people, but to identify yourself as separate from everyone else puts a wall between you and them, and it's bad for both sides.
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