Shamanic Seeing: December 2017

If, after reading this article, you need to ask yourself what this has to do with shamanism just remember shadow. Stalk your own stink'n think'n and keep it honest if your goal is to evolve.

I saw an article posted on Facebook that reminded me of an Alcoholic’s Anonymous saying. AA folks have a wonderful concept called “stink’n think’n.” Stink’n think’n means you’re seeing with ego and fooling yourself to suit your own agenda. There is a good deal of stink’n think’n, for example, coming out of Washington these days It surrounds the political and social agendas attached to the people working there. In any case the article I read reminded me of the old AA concept. The piece is called The Real Reason We Can’t Believe All Women and it’s by Dr. GS Potter. You can find it on Medium and I’ll include a link at the end of my analysis.

I’ve read it four times now and I am still shaking my head. It’s psychotically convoluted on so many levels. I choose not to dissect all of them but will focus on its relationship to #Metoo. Her premise mixes apples and oranges and then looks for support from arguments based on self-declaration, not facts. It is #fakenews. Dr. Potter states “we can’t just believe all women” – that is her thesis as headlined by her title – but she tries to tie this to race (black women beware (!) because a particular white woman lied 62 years ago and caused the death of a black man). Say what? Granted, the story she relates is horrible. Horrible but irrelevant to her thesis. It doesn’t prove “we can’t just believe all women” and why go to the trouble of taking it a step further and aim this paranoia at black women and the growing surge of energy supporting all women who are speaking to the abuse they have suffered?

What this position serves to do is inject race relations into a feminist issue, thereby diluting the feminist issue and introducing an adversarial element. It turns women on women. Is a women about to own her power? Yes? Then let’s discredit women. That is a male narrative. The story as she presents it does illustrate how grossly racist the south was and how black people were oppressed and killed at will by individuals who enjoyed immunity from vigilante justice. It does not prove anything about women in general and to say it does only shows ignorance and harms the #metoo movement, which Potter claims to have sympathy for. It is false equivalence passing for logical argumentation and it doesn’t pass the smell test.

Potter claims #Metoo is white led. Fact: Me too was founded by a *black* woman Tarana Burke in the late 90s and morphed into a spontaneous cyberspace movement on Twitter when used by actress Alyssa Milano. It is fair to say some black feminists are irritated because they feel Ms. Burke was not given as much attention as Milano’s tweet brought 20 years - and a different zeitgeist later – but Potter doesn’t bother to acknowledge Burke at all. Maybe she doesn’t know Burke exists.

In fact, Potter is white. She is white and is placing herself in the position of speaking for and about black people. She wants to tell black women what to think – as if she is the intelligent one instructing the little children. White women can and should stand with black women, but white women cannot and should not, define black issues and in doing so Potter coopts black oppression for her own recognition and aggrandizement as a defender of the underdog. This disempowers the stigmatized person and further robs their dignity.

Moreover, to do so is racist and reflects the attitude of superiority (conscious or unconscious) of the person coopting the minority experience for personal academic masturbation. It is racist because it assumes a position of superiority over the issues of a group she doesn’t belong to and presumes to speak for. It is not possible to walk in the shoes of a group we don’t belong to. That shoe won’t fit.

I am also bothered that she has taken the victimization of a man, conveniently perpetrated by a female, and used it against women everywhere to introduce a racial element and paranoia into this growing women’s movement. #Metoo is about women as *culturally accepted chattle* for men to do with as they please. #Metoo is colorless. It is uniquely female. I find Potter using the example of murdering a black male as a reason to question any women’s claim of abuse, to be a misogynic action in and of itself, because again, her example is really about racism not misogyny. Don’t say apples are oranges because they share the same bowl.

Potter could have pointed out #metoo has brought a fresh look and renewed respect for Anita Hill whose bravery in speaking up against a black man about to become a Supreme Court justice was extraordinary. And what hasn’t been talked about in white circles is the flak she likely took from her own community – especially males – for standing up to Clarence Thomas, because she subordinated her blackness to her sex. You get shit for doing that. Dr. Potter could have spoken to that. She didn’t. Twice she failed to acknowledge importance of black women who were avant garde leaders in speaking to the abuse of women. How about #Believeanitahill, would that be OK?

So, in conclusion, what I gather about Dr. Potter (after reading this article and researching her), is that her ‘brand’ appears to be speaking for minorities and nonwhite causes and in doing so she has found a way to make herself a very special white person. I hope she also accomplishes some good, but when self-appointed Saviors appropriate another group’s identity and victimhood, maybe for the sake of a headline, or being the special big fish in a small pond, all I see stink’n think’n.

For a breathtakingly horrifying example of how men harass women in the workplace, see this article that describes how John Hockenberry, “award winning, respected journalist” (otherwise known as an overweight, dingy, married, white, disabled male in a wheelchair), who ran a diversity program for the PBS radio station WNYC, managed to sexually harass, belittle and ultimately deprive women of color of good jobs. He harassed them. He kept his job, they couldn’t. I wonder. Would Dr. Potter still say, “we can’t just believe all women” because the perpetrator was white? Does she think that ingratiates her with minorities? Somewhere around paragraph 19 is a particularly gross power trip carried out by Mr. Hockenberry. Check it out if you can tolerate reading it. Also. Don’t forget to note WYNC managed to find a male to put in charge of their diversity segment. They just had to find one who was disabled so they could justify it. Sexual harassment of women isn’t about color folks, it’s about power. Here’s the link: https://www.thecut.com/2017/12/public-radio-icon-john-hockenberry-accused-of-harassment.html

Bottom line: #Believewomen - without question - just follow the letter of the law in bringing the wrong doer to justice.

Saturday, December 2, 2017