asking the internets, redux
15 May 2010 12:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaigouOkay, with comments and discussion in mind from the previous post, and trying very hard to get out from under nation-specific or culture-specific labeling systems, how about these series of questions, instead? non-US folks please lend me your eyeballs as well, and let me know if you think your answers would match up with the answers I'm trying to get...
ETA2: first draft is colored in green, and starts here ---->
1 what is your family ethnicity? ==> select all that apply from (OMG MASSIVE) list of ethnicities
for me, I'd be clicking on "scots, irish, french, dutch, and english"...
2 what is your nationality? ==> select one (two?) from list of countries
-------that would be citizenship, as in: the name of the country on your passport
3 were you born & raised where you currently live?
a) yes, always had the same nationality
b) no, immigrated in childhood
c) no, currently seeking new citizenship
d) no, on temporary assignment (less than 2yrs)
e) no, on longterm/open-ended assignment
-------trying to determine whether living in home culture, and if not, whether trying to integrate into new culture (ie citizenship) or only passing through (ie student/work/military)
3b if you were born & raised somewhere else... ==> select one from list of countries
4 are you white? // are you/your family visually similar to 'american white'? [AWK!]
a) yes, definitely white
b) yes, somewhat similar
c) not sure
d) no, not really similar
e) no, definitely not-white
-------is "person of color" an international term? or only a western term? here, trying to measure against the dominant global force of white-culture (US/UK) media/economy/etc... but is "do you look like a white american?" a question that makes sense to non-americans?
[note: yes, I'm aware this next one is VERY problematic for a variety of reasons, just so you know before you go further, and more discussion in post & in comments]
5 do you regularly suffer institutionalized discrimination of any of the following types? check all that apply
--> sex, gender, skin color, disability, size, age, sexuality, religion, ethnicity...
-------the problem is that all I want to be able to do is track whether a respondent's statements are made as a person of privilege, or if they're speaking as someone more dis-privileged... and since I can't measure for everything (or #5 will be here all day), at least in this context I'd prefer to narrow it down to just race/skin-color, because otherwise the variables are overwhelming.
----> first draft ends here & second version starts here ------>
1 same question as #1 above, about ethnicity
2 where do you currently reside? ----> list of countries
3 is this the same as your nationality / do you hold citizenship? ----> yes / no
4 if NO, select one:
a) short-term resident (student, assignment, work, travelling) and don't intend to stay here permanently
b) long-term resident / ex-patriate / not seeking citizenship
c) long-term resident seeking citizenship
that pretty much covers the possibilities for "living outside own nation", right?
5 also if NO, are you or have you attempted to integrate as much as possible into your adopted culture, ie 'going native'? --> yes/no
although it feels to me that 'going native' is an offensive term right there, so need less loaded version that carries same connotation of "fully adopting with intentions to eventually pass as belonging".
... so now we've got ethnicity, residence, and whether the person is native to that culture or not AND whether they have or are trying to become part of a non-native culture.
5 how westernized*/white do you look? // guh. can't I just say: "look, are you racially privileged, or not!?"
a) am white
b) somewhat look white
c) don't look white
* the problem with 'westernized' is that it's class and dress and other stuff, not just skin color -- someone could look completely, say, Cantonese and still be 'westernized' due to wearing Levis and listening to American music, from what I understand, so in this case 'westernized' indicates an attempt to affiliate with global privilege but doesn't indicate whether the person is part of the national privilege
...and there I come to a complete halt. Need more dirt!
-------> second draft ends here & now back to original post -------->
I am too cognizant of the fact that race is not the only way one can be discriminated against, but is it intuitively clear that "institutionalized" means "govt-supported policy" or is that too narrowing? how to best put it so the respondent will be saying, "yes, that sort of discrimination is cultural, transnational, broad, pervasive, govt-supported" -- as opposed to "oh, I got discriminated against because I have a Philly accent and I live in Atlanta" which on paper looks the same but is nowhere near the xenophobic discrimination given as an immigrant... help.
So at this point, I'll know: where the person resides currently, whether zie is citizen, immigrant, or traveller, the person's familial ethnicity (a more roundabout way of determining likeliest racial facets, at least in general), whether the person has enough dominant Anglo/north-Europe ethnicity to match with dominant global paradigm, and whether the person feels to have suffered discrimination.
It's that last one that really really bugs me, because it requires that the person assess, on own, whether or not there's been suffering from discrimination... and any time even in general fandom, you've probably seen the same idiocy I have, where some white guy (like whotshisface in the last hollywood debacle about it) insists that he suffers a type of discrimination because he's not female/PoC/whatever. It's that whole "diversity quotas make life hard for white guys!" thing, which is stupid but also human because we always believe (if only secretly) that we're speshul snowflakes who've gotten it the worst of anyone, cue the oppression olympics. Asking people to self-assess is just opening the door, I suspect, on a whole lot of oppression olympics -- as in a woman who's a size 10 who feels the social pressure of being smaller counts as "discrimination", because she's never known life as a size 20 or greater to realize just what social pressure is really like -- thus would honestly believe she's giving a true answer to say she's experienced sizeism, even if by any external/objective standard she hasn't got a freaking clue.
That kind of self-assessment danger means I really really do NOT want to ask outright, but need to come at it from an angle, to present it via an objective kind of standard. Hmmmm.
Would it make intuitive (that is, not requiring massively long explanation) sense to simply ask whether the respondent has the same skin color as the most privileged members of his/her culture? Or can anyone think of circumstances where the objective answer would be yes, but the cultural logic would prompt a different answer?
Again, I suspect the real meat of the discussion is going to be in the comments, what with you guys around to make sure I don't go whole hog US-centric and make a complete fool of myself. Err, I hope. You did get the checks from my mom, right? So you'll keep being helpful, right? Excellent!
ETA: Hmm, isn't the question really: how can you objectively identify the most privileged group in any given culture? What terms, descriptions, categories are universal for privilege -- as in, "the majority of people with political power" or "the people you see on domestically-produced television" or "the majority of your culture's pop stars and soap opera stars"... What kind of criteria is a universal way to identify the privileged class, such that the followup question then becomes: do you look like that? ...
Of course the drawback is that "no, I don't" could mean "my skin color is different" but it could also be the person's thinking, "no, because I'm a size-something" or "no, because I'm in a wheelchair" -- or even less literally, that if the respondent sees "look like that" to mean inside as well as outside, then I could see someone thinking, "no, because I'm an unmarried female in my thirties and thus am not 'like' all the women my age on television, who are all housewives".
Not to mention gender/sex enters into it, if someone feels their sexuality, frex, is external and part of how they "look" -- so someone transgender might say, "no, I don't look like the members of parliament even if someone else might think I do, because I don't have that extra something to make me appear (truly) male", perhaps? Or even a woman saying, "I don't look like a bunch of men..."
Which just points out the importance of making the language as clear and concise and objective as possible... but is it really right to assume it's a universal thing, in every culture everywhere (or at least the ones with internet access! and that's, uhm, pretty much everywhere by now) that lighter skin = more prized? Because I am really uncomfortable with the assumption hiding in there, that of course generic-you would measure yourself against white-skin (or at least that generic-culture does) and thus grades you as closer or farther from that standard. I don't like the implications of imperialism/dominance, the "well, of course you'd want to be white!" kind of moronic offensive unspoken assumption -- but setting aside whether or not anyone wants to be American-white, would it still be generally true that the majority of cultures do prize paler skin (even if the measure of 'pale' would be equal to PoC against American-white)? Is that a decent objective standard to use, or is there something else anyone can think of, that doesn't require excessive amounts of self-assessment on the part of someone replying?
Y'know, I think now would be a good time to go play in the dirt.
ETA2: first draft is colored in green, and starts here ---->
1 what is your family ethnicity? ==> select all that apply from (OMG MASSIVE) list of ethnicities
for me, I'd be clicking on "scots, irish, french, dutch, and english"...
2 what is your nationality? ==> select one (two?) from list of countries
-------that would be citizenship, as in: the name of the country on your passport
3 were you born & raised where you currently live?
a) yes, always had the same nationality
b) no, immigrated in childhood
c) no, currently seeking new citizenship
d) no, on temporary assignment (less than 2yrs)
e) no, on longterm/open-ended assignment
-------trying to determine whether living in home culture, and if not, whether trying to integrate into new culture (ie citizenship) or only passing through (ie student/work/military)
3b if you were born & raised somewhere else... ==> select one from list of countries
4 are you white? // are you/your family visually similar to 'american white'? [AWK!]
a) yes, definitely white
b) yes, somewhat similar
c) not sure
d) no, not really similar
e) no, definitely not-white
-------is "person of color" an international term? or only a western term? here, trying to measure against the dominant global force of white-culture (US/UK) media/economy/etc... but is "do you look like a white american?" a question that makes sense to non-americans?
[note: yes, I'm aware this next one is VERY problematic for a variety of reasons, just so you know before you go further, and more discussion in post & in comments]
5 do you regularly suffer institutionalized discrimination of any of the following types? check all that apply
--> sex, gender, skin color, disability, size, age, sexuality, religion, ethnicity...
-------the problem is that all I want to be able to do is track whether a respondent's statements are made as a person of privilege, or if they're speaking as someone more dis-privileged... and since I can't measure for everything (or #5 will be here all day), at least in this context I'd prefer to narrow it down to just race/skin-color, because otherwise the variables are overwhelming.
----> first draft ends here & second version starts here ------>
1 same question as #1 above, about ethnicity
2 where do you currently reside? ----> list of countries
3 is this the same as your nationality / do you hold citizenship? ----> yes / no
4 if NO, select one:
a) short-term resident (student, assignment, work, travelling) and don't intend to stay here permanently
b) long-term resident / ex-patriate / not seeking citizenship
c) long-term resident seeking citizenship
that pretty much covers the possibilities for "living outside own nation", right?
5 also if NO, are you or have you attempted to integrate as much as possible into your adopted culture, ie 'going native'? --> yes/no
although it feels to me that 'going native' is an offensive term right there, so need less loaded version that carries same connotation of "fully adopting with intentions to eventually pass as belonging".
... so now we've got ethnicity, residence, and whether the person is native to that culture or not AND whether they have or are trying to become part of a non-native culture.
5 how westernized*/white do you look? // guh. can't I just say: "look, are you racially privileged, or not!?"
a) am white
b) somewhat look white
c) don't look white
* the problem with 'westernized' is that it's class and dress and other stuff, not just skin color -- someone could look completely, say, Cantonese and still be 'westernized' due to wearing Levis and listening to American music, from what I understand, so in this case 'westernized' indicates an attempt to affiliate with global privilege but doesn't indicate whether the person is part of the national privilege
...and there I come to a complete halt. Need more dirt!
-------> second draft ends here & now back to original post -------->
I am too cognizant of the fact that race is not the only way one can be discriminated against, but is it intuitively clear that "institutionalized" means "govt-supported policy" or is that too narrowing? how to best put it so the respondent will be saying, "yes, that sort of discrimination is cultural, transnational, broad, pervasive, govt-supported" -- as opposed to "oh, I got discriminated against because I have a Philly accent and I live in Atlanta" which on paper looks the same but is nowhere near the xenophobic discrimination given as an immigrant... help.
So at this point, I'll know: where the person resides currently, whether zie is citizen, immigrant, or traveller, the person's familial ethnicity (a more roundabout way of determining likeliest racial facets, at least in general), whether the person has enough dominant Anglo/north-Europe ethnicity to match with dominant global paradigm, and whether the person feels to have suffered discrimination.
It's that last one that really really bugs me, because it requires that the person assess, on own, whether or not there's been suffering from discrimination... and any time even in general fandom, you've probably seen the same idiocy I have, where some white guy (like whotshisface in the last hollywood debacle about it) insists that he suffers a type of discrimination because he's not female/PoC/whatever. It's that whole "diversity quotas make life hard for white guys!" thing, which is stupid but also human because we always believe (if only secretly) that we're speshul snowflakes who've gotten it the worst of anyone, cue the oppression olympics. Asking people to self-assess is just opening the door, I suspect, on a whole lot of oppression olympics -- as in a woman who's a size 10 who feels the social pressure of being smaller counts as "discrimination", because she's never known life as a size 20 or greater to realize just what social pressure is really like -- thus would honestly believe she's giving a true answer to say she's experienced sizeism, even if by any external/objective standard she hasn't got a freaking clue.
That kind of self-assessment danger means I really really do NOT want to ask outright, but need to come at it from an angle, to present it via an objective kind of standard. Hmmmm.
Would it make intuitive (that is, not requiring massively long explanation) sense to simply ask whether the respondent has the same skin color as the most privileged members of his/her culture? Or can anyone think of circumstances where the objective answer would be yes, but the cultural logic would prompt a different answer?
Again, I suspect the real meat of the discussion is going to be in the comments, what with you guys around to make sure I don't go whole hog US-centric and make a complete fool of myself. Err, I hope. You did get the checks from my mom, right? So you'll keep being helpful, right? Excellent!
ETA: Hmm, isn't the question really: how can you objectively identify the most privileged group in any given culture? What terms, descriptions, categories are universal for privilege -- as in, "the majority of people with political power" or "the people you see on domestically-produced television" or "the majority of your culture's pop stars and soap opera stars"... What kind of criteria is a universal way to identify the privileged class, such that the followup question then becomes: do you look like that? ...
Of course the drawback is that "no, I don't" could mean "my skin color is different" but it could also be the person's thinking, "no, because I'm a size-something" or "no, because I'm in a wheelchair" -- or even less literally, that if the respondent sees "look like that" to mean inside as well as outside, then I could see someone thinking, "no, because I'm an unmarried female in my thirties and thus am not 'like' all the women my age on television, who are all housewives".
Not to mention gender/sex enters into it, if someone feels their sexuality, frex, is external and part of how they "look" -- so someone transgender might say, "no, I don't look like the members of parliament even if someone else might think I do, because I don't have that extra something to make me appear (truly) male", perhaps? Or even a woman saying, "I don't look like a bunch of men..."
Which just points out the importance of making the language as clear and concise and objective as possible... but is it really right to assume it's a universal thing, in every culture everywhere (or at least the ones with internet access! and that's, uhm, pretty much everywhere by now) that lighter skin = more prized? Because I am really uncomfortable with the assumption hiding in there, that of course generic-you would measure yourself against white-skin (or at least that generic-culture does) and thus grades you as closer or farther from that standard. I don't like the implications of imperialism/dominance, the "well, of course you'd want to be white!" kind of moronic offensive unspoken assumption -- but setting aside whether or not anyone wants to be American-white, would it still be generally true that the majority of cultures do prize paler skin (even if the measure of 'pale' would be equal to PoC against American-white)? Is that a decent objective standard to use, or is there something else anyone can think of, that doesn't require excessive amounts of self-assessment on the part of someone replying?
Y'know, I think now would be a good time to go play in the dirt.
no subject
Date: 21 May 2010 08:29 pm (UTC)b) MRAs and spoiled white boys would answer 'yes'.
c) Desirability is affected by things like perceived safety.
d) Members of the cultural mainstream/ privileged class are likely to be unfamiliar with those phrases or unclear on what they mean.
Questions will need to be a lot more indirect. I would advise Kaigou to remember that many people do not voluntarily spend time thinking about these issues, and their perceptions are different; the surest sign I've found of being a non-activist in the dominant ethnicity is thinking that 'ethnic' means other people. As in, "oh, we're not ethnic; we're just regular folks." You won't get that answer from a 'what ethnicity are you' question with a checklist. ( Or thinking 'ethnicity' is a synonym for 'race'. There was an egregious example in a Nora Roberts book where a character was looking for a polite way to ask if someone else was non-white, and settled on "Does he have an ethnic identity?")
It would also be a lot easier to design a poll for one country at a time; the dominant groups and cultural ideals are not the same everywhere, and even though the West is more or less on top of the heap, there are areas where being of the locally-dominant group is higher status than being a random member of the globally-dominant group.
no subject
Date: 21 May 2010 09:27 pm (UTC)2. The 'answering yes' as indicative of 'gee, I don't have privilege' is something I can see for all the questions, which is one reason I've waffled on how they're asked, whether to ask them, how else to ask. Because I have known plenty of white people who'd seriously argue that so long as some kind of diversity is valued, so long as there exists even a hint of an implication of quota (or even, for some, a hint of trying to give more credit o' doubt to minority applicants instead of always just 'picking the white guy'), that therefore as white people they're seriously discriminated against. The same goes for "places I'd want to go that I can't because of my color" -- I've known people contrary enough and entitled enough that they'd say, "hell, yeah!" because to them, the notion of, say, a nightclub that wouldn't be so welcoming to their white skin is therefore automatically a sign of major and traumatic discrimination. (We'll ignore the violin I hear playing in the background.)
Thing is, on some levels, when I think of people I've known -- the ones more entitled and more privileged are more likely to see slights against themselves (of any kind), because they stand in a cultural zone where, basically, their privilege assumes that such slights are Not Okay. Those less entitled and less privileged operate either under denial (to get along), or sometimes seem to have internalized the racist attitude such that it's not a matter of denial, but that it's just never questioned. So to ask, "did someone tell you not to try for such-and-such a job because of your skin color?", I can think of people who don't see the answer is yes, not because they don't see, but because they never questioned that maybe the answer should be, ideally, NO.
there are areas where being of the locally-dominant group is higher status than being a random member of the globally-dominant group.
Since I don't want to ask questions that are US-ian focused (or even, really, West/North Europe focused + US focused) -- but to allow for a variety of foci (culturally) -- the simple question of "are you white?" answers that basic global comparison. Figuring out a way to ask whether someone is part of their dominant/privileged culture -- outside the "are you white" paradigm -- is the harder thing. Like the Argentinean and Mexican comments on this thread (IIRC), the 'majority' of people are darker-skinned, while the privileged group is lighter-skinned. A reversal of the US, where the apparent majority (by a very slim thread, in terms of numbers) remains white such that 'minority' literally means 'a group that isn't as numerically large'. Outnumbered... and that concept of majority/minority doesn't hold for many (if not most) cultures, where the privileged are almost always a minority of some kind.
As for the final question... I think a lot of people might interpret 'privileged class' to mean 'CLASS' as in "makes a lot of money!" and thereby -- even if otherwise part of the dominant group -- see themselves as having to say "yes" (there'd be an issue) because of acute awareness that their family are factory workers and, obviously, privileged people are Rich Bastards. And it seems to me that even if you clarify in terms of skin color or appearance, that this nuance is easy to miss, and to get caught up in classism since that's a lot easier to quantify ("he makes more money than I do, because he's a doctor and I'm not") than nebulous and often touchy personal subjects like race.
Actually, my current draft (of a larger survey based on this one) uses skin color as the trigger -- which at least cuts out the chance of white guys demanding to see themselves as discriminated against, seeing how being white means you wouldn't even be asked the additional three questions at all.
But I'm also still researching, trying to find an established path to follow when it comes to measuring such things... or more concretely: examples of other peoples' surveys!