I was recently talking about similar ideas (more about TV and movies) with my family at the dinner table. We have a friend who is very passionate about the misrepresentation of non-white non-male characters, and one of my family members was feeling a bit weary of our friends zeal for the subject.
So, one the one hand, I feel that it is completely valid to sometimes be annoyed with our loved ones and their passion projects, especially when they are ones we don't feel strongly connected to--but, part of our inability to be passionately connected to this is part of the problem. Being a privileged person means that we have only a small sense of being removed from our media representations of culture, so it can be easy for us to paint those who point these injustices out to us as hysterics. We make them into that indiviudal's problems, not things worth working on together, and that is a loss for us as a human community.
As much as I want every person to feel free to be an individual who needs no label to know themselves, I also realize that human development relies on modeling. That means that we must ensure diverse models for children to observe if we want to reach for a society where groupings do not matter. I want to live in a world where people can be valued as individuals regardless of their group affiliations. However, that is not the world we live in today. The only way we can get there is by continuing these conversations, by not be blinded by privilege to the point of hiding others oppression.
It is not comfortable to confront the fact that society is designed to make some of us comfortable and simultaneously ignoring or misrepresenting the majority. But, I want the value of individual acknowledgement to be extended to every person. And in the end, this will make life better for everyone (including cisgendered, heterosexual, white males) because then we will have the opportunities to flourish and reach for our highest forms of being. Our successes would be our own--not belonging to our "tribe"--and, therefore, open to be shared with all.
Anyways, this is a subject that I want to spend more time reading and thinking about because I know I rest on the tip of the iceberg. I look forward to discovering more voices, removing my own blinders to see the world as it actual is and not just in ways that are easy on me.
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