“Oppression is invisible to white men.”
“The best dialogue is informal”, Professor Taylor told me just before the dialogic session. “Two or three people.” I was stunned by his comment. It left me wondering what he thought he was going to accomplish here.
The session began in a packed room, both of them promised dialogue. I was intrigued by the contradiction.
A man raised his hand and spoke, saying he had been writing a book called “Dear Charles.” He read a passage I found searing. He asked “isn’t it a problem that neither you or Mr. Bouchard is an immigrant? How can you understand what it is to immigrate here?”
Professor Taylor’s response was essentially “we held consultations and immigrants came and told us what is was like.” He also added “we took a lot of taxis.”
I don’t add this as a criticism of Professor Taylor or Cornett – both of whom I admire tremendously. Just to say, perhaps it is a testament to Prof. Taylor’s insight that dialogue didn’t seem to be happening here.
Deflated, the young person, who by the way, was black, seemed to me to be sulking throughout the rest of the session, occasionally raising his hand in vain. He was not called on – and I wish I’d raised my hand just to give him another turn.
“Oppression is invisible to white men.” This is what I’ve always been told and this has been my experience about privilege. Most of society conspires to conceal oppression from white people, especially men, and it has taken me and every white person I know, a tremendous amount of time and effort to learn about the lived experience of racialized people, or women, or anyone LGBTQ, or a different class. First we must decide to learn, then we must dedicate a tremendous amount of time to it. And it is easier at any stage to watch television. The invisibility of oppression to the privileged is part of both privilege and oppression. It is also why, for example, the non-representativeness of our “representative democracy” is a giant problem. And, more to the point, why it’s problematic to have no immigrants on an immigration panel. It takes a lifetime of work to understand privilege – it is never done. I do believe Professor Taylor probably did a better job than I would have done, but the gentleman’s question remains unanswered.
That’s what I took from the young man’s point. And I was far from comforted by Prof. Taylor’s response: “we learned a hell of a lot from the public consultations.” Yes, and that is further evidence of a problem.
All this would have been an interesting dialogue to have, perhaps in private with only two or three people, if that had been possible.
http://haveyouexperienced.wordpress.com/reflections/19-nov-2012-dialogues-%20au-gesu-charles-taylor/
dear charles of james oscar
