On the Disingenuity of Gratitude

I have recently been involved in a number of small gatherings with other queer people of colour, and I am struck by a particular anemia that I have encountered in my recent life, with regard to the politics of Gratitude.

Often, marginalised people are told we/they "have it easy" in our conditions of relative privilege; for example, that I have it easy as a gay man here in Melbourne, Australia, because it would be far worse if I were in Singapore/Afghanistan/etc. Or that I have it easy here as an Asian man because at least I'm now, generationally entitled to the privileges of citizenship (post-the end of the White Australia policy). Or migrants (of colour) are told "If you don't like it, leave!". Or brown children who make our shoes in appalling conditions of wage slavery have it better than ... not having any work at all...

Of course, there is some legitimacy in orienting onesself to the world from a position of gratitude. First of all, it can be a soothing balm from the exhaustive element of constantly identifying with one's marginalisation. Several studies have shown preliminary findings that a regular practice of gratitude (simply acknowledging and appreciating the 'positive' things and relationships we have in our lives) is highly correlated with, if not causative of, one's experience of happiness and well-being.

From a strictly individual-psychological perspective then, it makes sense to count my blessings, to compare the pleasures of my current situation with the horrendous maleficence of previous countries/cities/polities I have known, and so on.

But of course, there is something mind-numbingly myopic about Ending one's political consciousness at the expression of gratitude.

Lia Incognita writes in her essay for Overland journal:
"Earlier this year, Overland published my personal essay ‘The Name and the Face’ as part of the CAL-Connections project. It was a reflection on language loss, racialisation and the myth of cultural authenticity from my perspective as a ‘1.5 generation’ Chinese-Australian. The essay developed out of a brief piece I read earlier in the year at POC THE MIC, an anti-racist performance night organised by and for people of colour in Melbourne, and open for anyone to attend. In a lot of ways I felt the essay wasn’t particularly radical, because all I really demand is to be able to tell my own story about myself. On the other hand, it’s radical, still, to even call white people white in this country, to say that this ‘is not a white country and never has been’. It’s radical, still, for immigrants of colour to talk about this country from any perspective other than sycophantic gratitude, because our citizenship is always considered conditional."

Sycophantic Gratitude

There is a fire in me that has been (re-)ignited since my recent connections with other queer people of colour here in Melbourne, particularly around leadership and social change, and in celebration of Diwali over a picnic in the Carlton Gardens just yesterday.

I sense in me a re-emergence of a sort of collective impatience that sees, in this 'sycophantic gratitude', a disingenuity, and an anemic quietism of false and privileged spirituality.

In his essay "Why I'm Angry" in the blog the Angry Asian Buddhist, the author writes of his interest in connecting with anger, as an Asian American Buddhist.

"for all their self-proclaimed open-mindedness, the high profile American Buddhist publications generally don’t let in that many Asian American authors. Tricycle is the worst culprit. It’s not as though we don’t exist—it’s just they don’t care enough. I make it my job to point this out because, maybe, someday, it might lead to actual change rather than a privileged complacency."

He then adds:

"There are plenty of other reasons that I blog here, but the main reason I maintain this site is because I’m encouraged by my readers. You may not see them leave comments, but I run into them all the time in the community. And, yes, they are angry—not writhing in conniptions, but seriously indignant. They are upset at a perceived injustice by predominantly White Buddhists of ignoring Asian Americans, who are the biggest part of Buddhist America."

In this, I am reminded of a conversation with my brother (who blogs here on PsychonautErotica as manoverbored), who shared with me that one of the problems with the term 'minority' in describing people of colour is that it actually conflates disempowerment with minoritarian status, which can thus effectively bypass serious engagement with issues of power and privilege.

After all, black and brown folks are actually the world's majority, and so, in the historical contexts of post-European-colonial and settler societies, how have people of colour come to be minorities in the first place?

A great meme that has been on my Facebook newsfeed recently:

And of course, the excellent Wanda Sykes, who beautifully uses humour to demonstrate some of white racial fears of impending minoritarian-status in the USA (and the concurrent dwindling of racial privileges that may be associated with this):

"Ain’t it funny the only time your race or gender is questioned, it’s when you’re not a white man? Cause I think white men, they get upset, they get nervous like a minority or another race get a little power, it makes them nervous cause they get scared that race going to do to them what they did to that race. They get nervous. So they start screaming “Reverse racism! This is reverse racism!” I’m like, wait a minute, ain’t reverse racism when a racist is nice to somebody else? That’s reverse racism. What you’re afraid of is called karma."

Out of Privileged Complacency

My gorgeous friend and white ally Tim Mansfield has written to me, in response to some of the differing views on the 'Left' (and Centre-Left) on the re-election of Obama as U.S. President.

"It's interesting to think of [these] two discourses as a polar-pair, I guess: 

A. Look how far everything's come! 

B. Look how much farther there is to go! 

– yet another pair which, when dancing together enliven, enrich and deepen each other but just get mutually annoying when placed in opposition."

A sense for me then, is that there are conditions in life in which we find it infinitely easier to create and circumnavigate communities of gratitude (often, these conditions are associated with material wealth, access, and privilege). There are other conditions, highly correlated with marginalisation, oppression, and systems that perpetuate large gaps between the Haves and HaveNots, which are not conducive to a path of individual psychological healing.

Part of a progressive politics then, means moving out of the extreme of a total commitment to a politics of Gratitude, moving away from the hypnotically alluring idea that the 'goal of life is to be Happy', and it means allowing ourselves to be contextually, relevantly animated by righteous anger. To collectively commit to creating, nurturing, and sustaining the conditons in which gratitude is no longer only contingent on forced, ritualised, utilitarian, authoritarian and individualistic endeavourings, but is something that is liberated as an inevitable consequence of a meditation on justice that has been properly and deservedly enacted.

So this is where I am at too, in consideration of Gratitude, as part of a dynamic cycle of social change. To be animated both by Gratitude ("look how far everything's come!") AND Righteous Anger ("look how much farther there is to go!"). To let neither emotional state monopolise the experience of my political convictions. To be mired by neither extreme in their 'pathological' manifestations (anemia, in the first, and self-destructive, debilitating exhaustion in the second). 

BOTH are spiritual, working in tandem.
Another one of the Yin and Yang of progressive social change.