vital functions

[kaberett]

Reading. White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo. Continuing to plod through this. I am needing to take lots of breaks for frustration -- it's got some well-articulated summaries for readers who might be new to these ideas, but it also opens with an anecdote strongly implying that the only reason white workshop attendees might be reluctant to confront a coworker, who is literally pounding his fist on the table and yelling, in a work setting, is "racism", and that is actually (i) personally pretty triggering, and (ii) deeply unhelpful in terms of the book's implied aims. There have also so far (I'm about 20% of the way in) been two paragraphs that I absolutely cannot, even after copying them out and discussing them with other people, make any sense at all of on the simple level of "parsing sentences", which is not exactly a ringing endorsement when it comes to (consistently) accessible writing. I am going to keep slogging away but this will need to really surprise me to have me recommend it a a resource.

Playing. A little bit more of Samarost 3, though we have ended up slightly stuck and mostly sad it isn't more Creaks.

Cooking. More of the blood orange & ricotta cake, which came out with an even better texture this time, probably because I drained less whey off the ricotta, even though I did make a mess of turning it out from the tin such that it was rather less photogenic... I still need to work out how to bake this so as not to wind up with the sugar "topping" leaking everywhere, though.

Another attempt at pizza. I am continuing to improve at the dough, though I am not quite there yet.

To accompany another round of the butternut squash and caramelised onion tart, I had a go at a modified fennel and blood orange salad (plus green beans, minus the lemon and lime). It was perfectly edible but I think we are unlikely to repeat it.

Eating. IT TURNS OUT, we discovered, when we went to try to donate a pile of stuff to a charity shop on Monday, that the charity shop we'd first thought of... has been replaced by a branch of Kokoro UK, a Korean Japanese takeaway... and this branch is doing a takeaway approximation to bibimbap! (It's using sushi rice & served in a takeaway tub not a dolsot, but it exists, which given that I was not previously aware of anywhere in Enfield that was willing to sell me bibimbap, let alone within takeaway distance...) (This is particularly exciting because Korean & Japanese food is generally stuff that remains both palatable and desirable when I am mid-migraine. More Easy Migraine Food is extremely welcome.)

Exploring. A signpost to the Freud Museum...

Making & mending. I helped Adam apply the rotary tool to various bits of cast iron that needed tidying up and reseasoning, though this was mostly a him job, AND I applied it myself to several garden tools that similarly needed cleaning up and oiling. The shears he got me cheap off eBay are hopefully now actually usable for their intended purpose!

Growing. The passionflower now has two Actual true leaves and one in potentia and has not died yet.

Observing. The pair of robins, dithering back and forth between the pot that contains my Chaenomeles japonica/Japanese quince (in riotous bud!) and the hedge, where I can but presume they are Building A Nest.

Comments

[davidgillon]

the rotary tool

I'm tired enough I read this as "the ro_s_ary tool and became very confused.

[kaberett]

HA, no, that is not my fandom.

[hilarita]

the only reason white workshop attendees might be reluctant to confront a coworker, who is literally pounding his fist on the table and yelling, in a work setting, is "racism"

I can see why one would react poorly to that. At the point when someone's worked up like that, surely you'd want to try de-escalation techniques first, and then maybe have a word about the racism, if you thought it was safe.

[kaberett]

I feel really quite strongly that the workshop leader has a lot more responsibility to address that shit than do any of the people who will keep having to work with someone who is clearly willing to behave like that and clearly willing to treat his colleagues terribly, yeah.

[vass]

Firmly agreed. FWIW, I got as far as the first chapter of White Fragility and ended up giving it up as too 101 and too Americentric to be useful to me.

[ofearthandstars]

It's been a long time since I've read that book, but I seem to remember that there was a fair amount of criticism over the fact the author has made a fortune on the book and diversity seminars, and that it seemed like it made more sense to support the voices of other authors, like Ibram X. Kendi, Nikole Hannah-Jones, or Ta-Nehisi Coates.

[kaberett]

To be clear: I'm slowly working my way through books from my local library, to try to get more of a handle on what I usefully can and can't recommend to people looking for resources. I've already read some Ibram X. Kendi and Ta-Nehisi Coates - this was not my starting point. :) Nikole Hannah-Jones I haven't read, but from a quick poke at the internet it looks like her body of work is mostly audio format or print-only in ways that render it pretty hard for me to access, but I'll bear the recommendation in mind!

[ofearthandstars]

Gotcha - I do feel like some of those other sources are probably better than DiAngelo's work, though I think it may be somewhat useful for those people who find it easier to hear coming from "someone like them", if that makes sense.

[indywind]

I think Ijeoma Oluo's _So You Want To Talk About Race_ is a pretty decent 101 for people who can cope with hearing it from a Black woman. I'm not sure about what accessible format options it's available in; I read it in deadtree.

I found Robin DiAngelo a little bit too pandering/coddling /something like that, to the very White Fragility she claims to be combating, and not quite completely clueless but definitely a few clues short on intersectionality, as the example you called out illustrates. But it's probably good for people who are super new to the ideas, relatively privileged on most/all axes, and need a lot of white lady hand-holding to even attempt to look at just racism.

[fyreharper]

:hopeful faces at Not-Dead passionflower:

[kaberett]

QUITE.

[sylvaine]

Aww, shame the game isn't as much fun for you as Creaks was! Hopefully the next game you play will be a more enjoyable one.

Robins! Nesting! Entirely exciting <3

[kaberett]

It might become more fun! We are just a bit "but. goats? :(" at it currently!

[lilysea]

an anecdote strongly implying that the only reason white workshop attendees might be reluctant to confront a coworker, who is literally pounding his fist on the table and yelling, in a work setting, is "racism"

holy shit!

1. PTSD

2. people who experienced violence by adults as a child

3. people who experienced domestic violence

4. fear of workplace repercussions if the angry man is a manager

all come immediately to mind.

I'm a wheelchair user, and I feel very strongly about the rights of wheelchair users, and if someone was ranting about how wheelchair users should have no rights while literally pounding his fist on the table and yelling... I would probably have a panic attack or an Anxiety attack.

That's not a sign that I am not committed to rights for wheelchair users, its a sign that I experienced violence by adults when I was a child; I have PTSD; and I have unusually poor reflexes and an unusually breakable body [chronic pain and more]

[lilysea]

I actually find the idea that *everyone* must be able to verbally confront racism in real time incredibly ableist.

It's like people have never heard of
- selective mutism
- aphasia
- brain fog
- PTSD
- Panic attacks
- Anxiety attacks
- Anxiety

There are times when doctors have done things that have caused me physical pain, or strangers/acquaintances have done things that have caused me physical pain, that I've been rendered tongue-tied by Anxiety or fear.

The more
scared;
outraged;
indignant;
feeling that someone's behaviour is unjust and not okay;
the more likely I am to be rendered literally speechless.

If I can't even reliably stand up for my own rights, how can I be expected to *always* be able to stand up for other people's rights?

Some of us can say "hey, that sounds racist" on social media or by email etc
but not all of us can reliably say words using our mouths in real time.

[kaberett]

I mean, I think she was trying to imply the argument that it's safer for white folk to challenge that kind of behaviour than it is for people of colour, but it's still such a WILDLY INSENSITIVE APPROACH to LITERALLY EVERYTHING that it was only by gritting my teeth that I actually read any further.

[lilysea]

The last time I challenged a stranger about a racist remark in real time was when I caught a wheelchair taxi before COVID

and the white taxi driver made a relatively low-level derogatory remark about how Indian-Australian taxi drivers were terrible at customer service and driving

and I said in a cheerful upbeat voice "actually, in my experience, on average Indian-Australian taxi drivers are the best taxi drivers I've ever had!" (which is true, most of the really bad experiences I've had have been with white taxi drivers)

and he ranted at me about an isolated incident about one Indian-Australian wheelchair taxi driver who had sexually assaulted multiple female wheelchair users [yes, I had seen the case in the news, altho I had assumed when I saw the story (which did not name the driver) that the offending taxi driver was white, as in my experience, the worst taxi drivers are white] and then he asserted that this meant that all Indian-Australian taxi drivers were unsafe to female wheelchair users.

Before I could respond to this, we had reached our destination - a women's health hospital where I had an appointment for vulval pain that I had been waiting 18 months for [and would have to have a physical exam for]

As a direct result of confronting the taxi driver and his subsequent response:
- I was physically shaking with stress; Anxiety; fear; and rage
- I had severe brainfog
- may well have been a bit dissociated
- and I got far less out of my medical appointment than I would have if I had just kept my damned mouth shut

- I was also not able to assert myself with the medical staff and get my medical needs met, because trying to assert myself with the taxi driver and getting extremely forcefully shut down had rendered me unable to assert myself with the medical staff - I had neither the mental/cognitive/executive function resources nor the emotional resources. They bounced me from the vulval clinic without adequately addressing my medical needs, and I strongly feel that if I had kept my mouth shut and not confronted the driver and had to endure his reaction, I could have advocated with the clinic and not gotten bounced.

That was when I decided that I wasn't going to confront white taxi drivers when they made racist remarks because it doesn't discourage them or change their minds, it just spurs them on to new and horrific heights of even worse racist remarks and leaves me wrecked and unable to benefit from the medical appointment they are driving me to.

I did ring the taxi company tho and report the driver's extremely inappropriate remarks and make a formal request that they make a note on my file so that they never, EVER despatched that driver to me again.