Race and neurosis

I'm beginning to worry these days that racism has become a kind of psychological crutch for some people. While watching the plays of Lydia R. Diamond, for instance, I've twice felt that I was listening to a profoundly neurotic personality, but one that had found a kind of camouflage for its neurosis in complaints about racism. Meanwhile the blogs 99 seats and Parabasis have morphed into an orbiting system of obsessional dialogue about race. And now 99 seats has approvingly quoted an even more pathetically obsessed race-blog, from RVCBard (a pseudonym, of course), who meditates thusly:

. . . my experiences with White people have been confusing, uncomfortable, frustrating, and exhausting in this regard. I can't quite put my finger on why, but I always feel a kind of pressure to perform around White people. It's like I have to prove I'm worthy of their presence. It's proven very difficult to get a White person's attention, especially a White man's. It's even harder to maintain it for more than about 15 minutes. And if you're White, and you met me in person, I'm probably talking about you.

Whoa. Honey - you feel like you have to "prove you're worthy of white people's presence"??? I'm not sure I've ever heard anything more racist in my life.

This is perhaps another sign that we're tipping toward a form of sensitivity that is actually becoming a support system for prejudice. Sorry to go back to Emily Glassberg Sands, but people still don't seem to have internalized the one lesson you could justifiably draw from her work - sexism is now being perpetuated in the theatre by women who believe in sexism. Their lack of ability to believe that the landscape has changed is actually resulting in their own oppression. It's a weird form of Stockholm Syndrome, a kind of internalized-prejudice-by-proxy.

I can sense a similar dynamic beginning to operate around race in the blogosphere: as real power becomes accessible to African-Americans, I'm sure it's tempting for some writers to shrink from these somewhat-frightening opportunities into the comfortingly familiar space of oppression and its related resentments. Psychological issues - or delusions of artistic grandeur - find their justification in the rhetoric of racism. These folks toy with the idea of self-producing, but reject it; for them, a major step is founding a writer's group! It's like they yearn to leave the plantation but can't really bring themselves to.

Which isn't to say the racial landscape has changed completely. It never will. There will always be racists, just as there will always be anti-Semites and homophobes.

But we are in a situation in which we have our first mixed-race President. Whom I voted for and gave money to. I nearly cried when he was inaugurated, in fact, even though I couldn't really feel my feet, it was so cold on the Washington Mall (where I'd been standing since 4 AM). My state has an African-American governor; I voted for him, too. White women across the country worship Oprah, and honey so do I. And in the theatrical world, more and more opportunities are opening up for actors and playwrights of color.

And whenever I ponder my own position as a gay man in this society, I'm struck by the difference between my own attitudes and those of the likes of 99 seats and RVCBard. I would never, ever, not in a million years, write that I felt I was unworthy of the presence of straight people! And yet my civil rights are much more on the line than RVCBard's - indeed, "Blacks" (to use her icky nationalistic capitalization) are on the front lines of oppressing the "Fags"! In a word, her people are my oppressors. But am I about to internalize that? Hell, no.

So yes, RVCBard, organize that "Black" playwriting group - don't wait for the white people to organize it for you, for chrissakes - they won't! (And I'm afraid that doesn't make them racists.) But please, try to skip the temptation to continue the "ongoing dialogue." Let's not "dialogue" anymore - let's just bring city services to Roxbury instead, okay? Let's just pass national healthcare. Let's improve education. Let's move forward.

(P.S. 99 Seats responds as I thought he would. I think what bothers him most is that I refuse to internalize the attitudes of homophobes - which is kind of my whole point! Or is it that he thinks white homophobes "count" more than black homophobes? Oh, well, anyway - Isaac? Over to you!)

(P.P.S. - And be sure to read the comments, they're a hoot!)

(P.P.S.S. - Yes!! The blogosphere's favorite ethically-limber careerist sides with the neurotics here.)