"Equality Fetish"

This is one of those blog posts where I've started writing, not knowing quite what I want to say or how to say it. I guess the general topic I have floating around my head is that I really appreciate how accepting and diverse meetings are and that it still frustrates me when I'm confronted with a world that doesn't feel the same way--especially if those intolerant attitudes come from people who claim to be tolerant.

The disease is no respecter of divisions. It doesn't care if you are a man or a woman; it doesn't care if you're rich or poor; if you're red, black, brown, yellow, or white; it doesn't care if you are gay or straight; and it really doesn't care if you're smart or if you're stupid. If you're human, you can have this disease; even if you don't have the disease, you can still be affected by it. There's something about being in 12-step rooms and seeing that born out. It's one of the things that helps us to increase our compassion for our fellow human beings. We look around the rooms, see many different people, and we realize that we do all have something in common. In a strange way, the disease can be a powerful unifier.

I don't have any black sponsees, but I haven't been asked by a black man to sponsor him. I do have an Hispanic sponsee, but the difference in our heritages doesn't change the way to work the program. I do adhere to the rule that men need to stick with men and women with women for sponsorship, but that's because I think it's absolutely appropriate and essential to someone's Recovery. How many women would feel comfortable talking to a man about being raped or molested? How many men would feel comfortable talking with a woman about their masturbation activities or how many prostitutes they've been to? But I digress.

My point is that 12-step rooms can be an amazingly accepting place. Not always, but most of the time. And certainly, I feel, more so than the world at large. It doesn't matter who you are, where you're from, or what you've been through: you're welcome here. If you go to a meeting where you aren't welcome, then find one where you are.

Right now I'm taking an 'Issues Of Diverse Populations' class for school. It's frustrating for me. Not because I'm a straight white male, and not because I don't have my own biases, because I do; we all do. But because of the overall air, the attitude that prevails in the classroom. My opinion isn't valued, it's questioned. So much so that I've taken to just keeping my mouth shut. Every once in awhile I speak up, get shouted down, and then go back to being quiet. I have to remind myself that the other students, the professor, they don't know anything about me. They don't know who my friends are, what my life has been like, or how I conduct myself.

But I find it... ironic... that in a class that's supposed to be about not judging people on the basis of assumptions and stereotypes, I find myself being judged by assumptions and stereotypes. It reminds me of a conversation I had once with a friend of mine. She would talk about how awful men have been to women over the centuries. I agreed with her, of course, but then she went on to say how what we really needed to do was let the women be in charge. I laughed in her face. Here she was, railing against prejudice and oppression and her solution was to let the oppressed group become the oppressors. I told her, "Ah, I see. You don't really want to stop discrimination, you just want revenge."

Where I live, there are a lot of bumper stickers that read, "equality fetish". I like them. I feel the same way, but instead of putting up a sticker on my car or in my apartment window, my solution has always been to, instead, live that ideal. It's about walking the walk, not just talking the talk. In terms of working the Program, it means that I conduct myself with Integrity. I don't need to put a bumper sticker on my car; I show that I believe in that idea through my actions.

I went to a slam poetry session once. One of the poets was a black man who started talking about the mistreatment of women in our culture. An audience member--a woman--got very irate and started heckling him. Things got so heated, I thought the two would come to blows. She told him that he had no right to talk about the oppression of women because he wasn't one. She told him, "you're black, talk about black issues" and to leave the talking about women's issues to her and other women. I watched with heightened interest until things calmed down and the show continued.

Because here's the truth, my friends, it is people in the oppressing groups who need to change. And when we see folks who are in the dominant place in our culture, who are on our side and are working towards that goal of understanding and respect, who are working to reduce prejudice and discrimination, we need to join them and make partners with them, not tear them down because we think they don't have anything to offer.

If we truly believe in tearing down stereotypes, then we have to avoid judging EVERYONE. Prejudice cuts all ways, my friends. If you're asking me to not hold someone accountable for stereotypes against their group, to judge them based on who they are and not what group they appear to belong to, then you have to do the same for me. If we accuse those in the dominant culture of all being the same, we're visiting the same evil on them that they visit on us.

Or hey, maybe I'm just flapping my gums here. Maybe my Issues of Diverse Populations class isn't about reaching a common understanding. Maybe the point is that we all stereotype, that we all have biases, and we're condemned to act those out. People who are oppressed aren't really interested in stopping oppression, just punishing the oppressors. There are some pessimists out there who might think I'm just upset because my 'privilege' isn't being respected in the classroom. Maybe that's true. Or maybe what I've written here is true, that I'm someone who has observed prejudice, cares deeply about ending it, and has spent his life understanding it and working to make sure I do my part--that I change my own behavior--to end this vicious cycle of better-than and less-than.