Gloomy day in the Windy City, the palate of Vancouver skies. Perfect opportunity for a blog update.
This pre-dawn morning, I was waiting in the baggage drop line at the Ottawa airport. I obeyed the canvas tape separating me from the line for “First Class Passengers” (Apparently we still call them that? Holy eff!), which herded only a few guys with briefcases. I was snapped out of my pre-coffee daze when the desk attendant looked to the front of the First Class line and called to the brown man (wearing a white collared shirt, brown belt, matching shoes, and a turban), “Sir, this line is for status.” I didn’t catch his reaction because I was behind him. The attendant moved to the side of her desk, away from the customer she was helping and repeated, “Sir, this is the status line.” Still don’t know what look was on his face, but she then asked, “Sir, do you have status?” to which he responded, “Yes, I do.”
I expect some of you might insist that I have overreacted to something because the attendant would have asked this of anyone. I don’t know. I was pretty shocked by the whole situation. I think the attendant’s racist/classist reaction to a visual representation of culture was pretty clear.
As luck would have it, I read Gary Young’s article on ‘multiculturalism’ in the latest Guardian as soon as my cabin baggage was stowed. His commentary provokes lefties to start calling things like we see them instead of feeling paralyzed by both the endless promulgation of (racist) conservative discourses around immigration, torture, etc. (you name it!) and the fear of taking a culturally imperialist stance. We have to stop allowing conservative ploys for “multiculturalism” and “political correctness” to separate race and class struggles. We have to stop pretending that opposing a violent regime is treading on cultural imperialism. The paralyses are surely characteristic of the illustrious space of intellectual health, but as Gary Young says, “Honor killing is murder, forced marriage is kidnapping.” Our lines in the sand are somewhere.
I know, I know, it’s hard to say this. It's even harder not to cringe at the imperialist media depictions of the Middle East these days. “Pre-modern” kingdoms “get a taste” of Western “values.” Muslim women are “submissive no longer.” Rebels resort to terrorizing in an “all-too-familiar” culture of violence. Dramatic unrest in the “Arab world” – a homogenized culture that we can observe from a distance and understand? Photos of women in burqas and young boys in ripped clothing with makeshift weapons abound. I’m sure these aren’t even the worst of the depictions...
All of this to say YES, we have the responsibility to be critical of the ignorance and, especially, the militarist motives of the West for this re-branding and recycling of Orientalist stereotypes. We must be equally critical of the way our discourses are rebranded to paralyze us. Here's my Tuesday morning call for more lefty confidence.
The word "status" is so Orwellian here. Status is not the same as privilege, but here it is used to mean privilege. It wouldn't be interesting except that the word is also used to mean something completely different on Facebook.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting subject of this observation is the airline employee - likely someone moderately-paid at best, who is forced to segregate the world in terms of "status".
Status is a loaded word, especially for Canadians without citizenship. It's interesting that it's blatantly conflated with class (elite, executive, etc.) in airline world.
ReplyDelete