Black and White
Only
Taoism uses black and white imagery properly, because it
knows they're intermingled. One leads to the other, opposites giving
birth to each other.
This
is not the same as everything being a muddle. “Culture wars”,
identitarianism and ideological politics are muddle. What is the
place for instance of gender politics vis-a-vis trans rights? Why is
it okay for men to “appropriate” femaleness by dressing in drag,
but not okay for white people to use black-face for stage makeup in
theatre? Is it playing the roles that's bad, or adopting the visible
signifiers? Can only trans-men use drag, or can anyone? Back in the
19th century when women like Georges Sand dressed in men's
attire, some people said it proved they were evil, possessed by the
devil -- sort of like when someone uses black-face in theatre today.
Does the same apply to Japanese theatre which employs white
face-paint? Or is that allowed because it's “ethnic”?
Definitions
of “ethnic” seem muddled too. Usually, in coffee-shop disputes,
“ethnic” means non-white, which tacitly places white people in
the role of the gold standard against which other groups are
measured. To anyone easily muddled this seems like reinforcing
privilege. Reverse-prioritizing. If anyone gets things wrong
it's whites who must apologize, because they speak from dominance
--which gives them dominance. Theirs is the noblesse oblige of
lavish apology-bestowal. Is this equity then?
Of
course some white people have higher (meaning lower) status than
others in the ethnic hierarchy: in Canada recent white immigrants
from unpleasant, war-torn or poverty-stricken nations need not
apologize as much as “colonial” immigrants who came from places
with democracy and rule of law – the very things with which these
settlers made modern Canada what it is today. And what is it today?
Some international grading systems call it the Number One best place
to live – albeit perhaps a bit muddled about the difference between
black and white.
