Inside the bubble

A couple of nights ago, my wife and I watched the latest episode in the current series of Doctor Who, "Dot and Bubble."  [Nota bene: this post will contain spoilers -- if you intend to watch it, you should do so first, then come back and read this afterward.]

All I'd heard about it before watching is that it is "really disturbing."  That's putting it mildly.  Mind you, there's no gore; even the monsters are no worse than the usual Doctor Who fare.  But the social commentary it makes puts it up there with episodes like "Midnight," "Cold Blood," and "The Almost People" for leaving you shaken and a little sick inside.

The story focuses on the character of Lindy, brilliantly played by Callie Cooke, who is one of the residents of "Finetime."  Finetime is basically a gated summer camp for spoiled rich kids, where they do some nominal work for two hours a day and spend the rest of the time playing.  Each of the residents is surrounded, just about every waking moment, by a virtual-reality shell showing all their online friends -- the "bubble" of the title -- and the "work" each of them does is mostly to keep their bubbles fully charged so they don't miss anything.

The tension starts to ramp up when the Doctor and his companion, Ruby Sunday, show up unannounced in Lindy's bubble, warning her that people in Finetime are disappearing.  At first she doesn't believe it, but when forced to look people up, she notices an abnormal number of them are offline -- she hadn't noticed because the only ones she sees are the ones who are online, so she wasn't aware how many people in her bubble had vanished.  At first she's dismissive of Ruby and downright rude to the Doctor, but eventually is driven to the realization that there are monsters eating the inhabitants of Finetime one by one.

Reluctantly accepting guidance from the Doctor, she runs for one of the conduits that pass under the city, which will give her a way out of the boundaries into the "Wild Wood," the untamed forests outside the barrier.  Along the way, though, we begin to see that Lindy isn't quite the vapid innocent we took her for at first.  She coldly and unhesitatingly sacrifices the life of a young man who had tried to help her in order to save her own; when she finds out that the monsters had already killed everyone in her home world, including her own mother, she basically shrugs her shoulders, concluding that since they were in a "happier place" it was all just hunky-dory.

It was the end, though, that was a sucker punch I never saw coming.  When she finally meets up with the Doctor and Ruby in person, and the Doctor tells her (and a few other survivors) that they have zero chance of surviving in the Wild Wood without his help, she blithely rejects his offer.

"We can't travel with you," she says, looking at him as if he were subhuman.  "You, sir, are not one of us.  You were kind -- although it was your duty to save me.  Screen-to-screen contact is just about acceptable.  But in person?  That's impossible."

In forty-five minutes, a character who started out seeming simply spoiled, empty-headed, and shallow moved into the territory of "amoral" and finally into outright evil.  That this transformation was so convincing is, once again, due to Callie Cooke's amazing portrayal.

What has stuck with me, though, and the reason I'm writing about it today, is that the morning after I watched it, I took a look at a few online reviews of the episode.  They were pretty uniformly positive (and just about everyone agreed that it was disturbing as hell), but what is fascinating -- and more than a little disturbing in its own right -- is the difference between the reactions of the reviewers who are White and the ones who are Black.

Across the board, the White reviewers thought the take-home message of "Dot and Bubble" is "social media = bad."  Or, at least, social media addiction = bad.  If so, the moral to the story is (to quote Seán Ferrick of the YouTube channel WhoCulture) "as subtle as a brick to the face."  The racism implicit in Lindy's rejection of the Doctor was a shocking twist at the end, adding another layer of yuck to an already awful character.

The Black reviewers?  They were unanimous that the main theme throughout the story is racism (even though race was never once mentioned explicitly by any of the characters).  In the very first scene, it was blatantly obvious to them that every last one of Lindy's online friends is White -- many of them almost stereotypically so.  Unlike the White reviewers, the Black reviewers saw the ending coming from a mile off.  Many of them spoke of having dealt all their lives with sneering, race-based microaggressions -- like Lindy's being willing at least to talk to Ruby (who is White) while rejecting the Doctor (who is Black) out of hand.

When considering "Dot and Bubble," it's easy to stop at it being a rather ham-handed commentary on social media, but really, it's about echo chambers.  Surround yourself for long enough with people who think like you, act like you, and look like you, and you start to believe the people who don't share those characteristics are less than you.

What disturbs me the worst is that I didn't see the obvious clues that writer Russell T. Davies left us, either.  When Lindy listens to Ruby and rejects the Doctor, it honestly didn't occur to me that the reason could be the color of his skin.  I didn't even notice that all Lindy's friends were White.  As a result, the ending completely caught me off guard.  As far as the subtle (and not-so-subtle) racist overtones of the characters in the episode, I wasn't even aware of them except in retrospect.

But that's one of the hallmarks of privilege, isn't it?  You're not aware of it because you don't have to be.  As a White male, there are issues of safety, security, and acceptance I never even have to think about.  So I guess like Lindy and the other residents of Finetime, I also live in my own bubble, surrounded by people who (mostly) think like I do, never having to stretch myself to consider, "What would it be like if I was standing where they are?"

And what makes the character of Lindy so horrific is that even offered the opportunity to do that -- to step outside of her bubble and broaden her mind a little -- she rejects it.  Even if it means losing the aid of the one person who is able to help her, and without whose assistance she is very likely not to survive.

For myself, my initial blindness to what "Dot and Bubble" was saying was a chilling reminder to keep pushing my own boundaries.  In the end, all I can do is what poet Maya Angelou tells us: "Do the best you can until you know better.  Then, when you know better, do better."

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Privilege blindness

It is a mystery to me why some people think that any curtailment of their choice to be as offensive as they want is an infringement of their fundamental rights.

It's this kind of attitude that led to the following, which has been widely posted (often to shouts of acclamation):

The level of "I don't get it" that is embodied in this one image is staggering, even if (as one poster said), "It's satire."  Are you really trying to equate the gay pride flag, a symbol of solidarity in the face of oppression, with the Confederate flag, which to many people represents slavery, prejudice, bigotry, and persecution?  And further, are you actually claiming that Vester Flanagan, the gay African American man who gunned down two reporters while they were on the air, was motivated to do so by his homosexuality to the same extent that Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof was motivated by his race hatred and espousal of white supremacy?

Satire, my ass.  This isn't satire.  This is redneck rah-rah willful ignorance.

And need I add that every person I've seen post this is a heterosexual white man?  Nah, probably didn't need to mention it.  The enculturation of privilege has blinded these people to the possibility that not everyone has the same access to security, acceptance, and safety that they do.  So let me do a little wake-up call for y'all.

You don't know what it's like to be in danger when you walk down the street because of your gender.  You don't know what it's like to be jeered at because of your skin color, and to wonder if those jeers could progress to violence, to consider whether your decision to be in this place at this time might be the last bad decision you'll ever make.  You can hold hands with and kiss the person you love in public without having to worry that you'll (at best) be told you're going to burn for eternity, or (at worst) be the victims of assault.

You don't know what it is to be in a position of powerlessness, every day of every year, because of something you have absolutely no control over.

And if you're saying, "You don't either.  You're a heterosexual white man, too," you're absolutely right.  The difference is, I know I don't know these things.  I am aware that my privileged status in this culture has put me in the position of never being obliged to think about any of this.  You, apparently, are not.

It's the same business as the outcry against Caitlyn Jenner when she won the ESPY Courage Award.  "That's not courage!" people snarled.  "It's not courage to claim you're female when you're not!"

Really?  Are you transgender?  Have you fought with the knowledge that your biological gender, your mind, and your sexual desires simply don't line up the same way they do for the majority?  Do you have any idea what it's like to live with the social stigma of non-cisgender identification?  Have you had to deal with the repercussions from family, friends, the public?

No?

Then shut the fuck up.

I have studiously avoided issues of race, privilege, and prejudice in this blog, for the very good reason that as a member of the most privileged class in the United States, my perspective on those issues would be worthless.  But if I am not knowledgeable about something, I stay silent on the topic, and avoid posting inflammatory rhetoric that demonstrates my ignorance and shallowness to the world.

Which is a reservation that some people evidently lack.

Privilege blindness

I've been slow to realize how blind privilege can make you.  I'm sure a lot of this comes from being a white heterosexual middle-class male; white heterosexual middle-class males in the United States enjoy a tremendous amount of privilege (exceeded only by changing "middle-class" to "wealthy").  The tragic part is that being born to privilege, I haven't had to think about it.  It just comes with the territory.

I haven't had forced upon my consciousness the constant undertow members of other groups feel.  The necessity of having to prove oneself constantly in order to be taken seriously at work.  The fear of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and being under suspicion just because of your skin color or mode of dress.  The demand that you always be able to justify yourself, prove why you have a right to be treated with dignity.  The fact of being unsafe demonstrating affection to the person you love in public.

Being who I am has made it hard not to take those things for granted.  Not that I earned a single one of the privileges I enjoy; coming from the family I did, and receiving the genetics I did, automatically dropped that manna from the sky into my upturned hands.

So the gradual realization that other groups don't have the same automatic entrée into the country club has been painful.  I was also born with a fair share of empathy, so watching the struggles that my African American, Jewish, and LGBT friends go through -- hell, hearing from a female former student that she never puts out of her mind the fear that she might one day be raped -- makes my heart ache.

And it also makes me angry.  Which is why I reacted to an article a friend sent me yesterday with a string of language that I won't print here.

The story, from the site Addicting Info, is called, "Student Group Says Gays Need 'Sensitivity Training' to Be More Tolerant of Bigotry."  In it, we find out about a student group called the Young Americans Foundation at George Washington University, who wants a religious exemption for taking LGBT sensitivity training workshops.

We hear quotes from two spokespeople from YAF, the first one YAF President Emily Jashinsky:

Mandated training is not really being very tolerant of all religious beliefs.  The way that people who are deeply Christian behave is for a reason, and if you’re training them to change that behavior, there’s obviously a problem with that. There's honestly no need for further 'diversity training;' everything here is pretty harmonious.

Which is bad enough, but wait until you hear what the Vice President, Patrick X. Coyle, said:

Why is there not sensitivity training for gay and liberal groups to respect the free speech rights of other groups on campus?  Why has the student association not considered similar training to teach students to respect those who believe in traditional marriage?  The hateful atmosphere that currently exists at The George Washington University will remain as long as the university allows liberal bullies to intimidate and attack students or clubs that dare to express opinions different from their own.

Let me get this straight; you're asking a group whose members can't walk down the street hand in hand with the person they love, who are the subject of legislation targeted specifically at denying them rights that other people enjoy, who are heckled and bullied and subjected to hate speech on a daily basis, to engage in sensitivity training so they can learn how to interact appropriately with wealthy heterosexual white people?

What's next, reinstituting the Jim Crow laws so that people of other races don't get uppity?

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

This represents a level of "I don't get it" that boggles my mind.  But it's the same thing that caused more than one person to comment during February (which was Black History Month) and on March 8 (International Women's Day) how terrible it was that we never have a day to celebrate the accomplishments of white males.

You know why that is, you insensitive clods?  Because every single day of the year, we celebrate the accomplishment of white males.  White males never have to fight to be recognized.  We're never asked, "Wow, how did you manage to become an engineer?"  We never hear people comment about how forward-thinking our society is at having a white male President, Governor, Congressperson, Supreme Court Justice.  We never have to prove our right to be in the running, to justify our position in the world.

Because the biggest privilege of all is not having to think about how privileged you are.

People make a big deal about how we should alter public school textbooks to be inclusive, to make sure that history texts aren't just about Dead White Men, that science textbooks laud the accomplishments of women and minorities.  But the enculturation of privilege still underlies the whole enterprise, doesn't it?  The white men are already there in force; the rest have to be inserted, almost as an afterthought, to give us the nice glow of appearing broad-minded.

I'm not saying that such inclusion is wrong, mind you; only that it's the first step, and we're fooling ourselves to believe that by such actions, we're done, that we've counteracted the damage from centuries of unquestioned hegemony.  The fact that people like Jashinsky and Coyle could even ask the question of why sensitivity training was necessary, and their suggestion that LGBT individuals take sensitivity training so that they'll know their place, are particularly offensive reminders of the fact that we have a long way to go.

So maybe it's good that they revealed their attitudes, that they came right out and said what they did.  Maybe we more empathetic privileged people needed a kick in the ass to remind us that however far we've come in the past hundred years, we've still not won this battle.

Maybe it was time for someone to say, "Hey, don't forget, it's still White Heterosexual Male month."