I am ANGRY. I read a perfectly good post over on Apricot Tea and then watched as the entire thing was shat on by people who have more academics in their head than brains.
People called Ev’yan naiive and narrow minded to say that race isn’t an issue in her relationship. Why should it be? The comments disintegrated into attacks on peoples’ characters.
My response was this: ”
I look pretty white, so I’m probably fodder for being lambasted here, and if you believe that’s the case, you’re wrong. My family is Salish and I’ve gotten funny looks for acknowledging that and being pale and freckled. I’m perfect fodder because I believe that you can be “color blind” in your personal experience, and that’s not necessarily the evil that article says it is.
In response to this idea that color blindness is bad… the article cited says:
“The pretense by some White Americans of not seeing color is motivated by the need to appear free of bias and prejudice, fears that what they say or do many appear racist, or an attempt to cover up hidden biases. To be color blind not only denies the central importance of racial differences in the psychological experience of minorities (racism and discrimination), but also allows the White person to deny how his or her whiteness intrudes upon the person of color.”I am not “whites” (I just said, half my family is Native American) and I don’t live in a world where someone is less than me because they are ANYTHING – I don’t believe the pigment of your skin can intrude on ANYBODY. Color, creed, gender, whatever. I’ve had friends of African American descent and you know what? Just like Jonathan and Ev’yan, I didn’t see them as a certain color. I had a Colombian lover once. He was just like me, except he had boy parts and big muscles. That didn’t change the fact that we had a love and respect for each other. The idea of colorblindness as a problem seems to stem from generations that came before us. Many of the younger (Younger than 30?? We’ll go with that for now) generations I’ve observed don’t see color/creed/sex/gender/preference as ways to discriminate people. So go ahead and tell me I’m wrong. I live in a world where crimes against people aren’t crimes against a certain color or race. They’re injustices against people. That’s it. Fair and square.”
Readers after me proceeded to attack my personal credo – calling me narrow minded. erin said:
i’m glad it’s so clear cut for you. you should write a book that changes the entire tide of race studies – cornel west’s mind will be BLOWN.
all kidding aside, it is very narrow minded to only look at your own – apparently perfectly un-racist – experience.
injustices against people that occur BECAUSE of race are just that, BECAUSE of race. but that is a side point and not directly related to this topic, nor is your own experience and self proclaimed color blindness.
i will point out that your response, however, is typical, very typical, for the privileged class. obviously, you feel no guilt, and you probably shouldn’t, for the transgressions of your elders – however, it is unfair and most certainly untrue to say it’s an issue of the past – because it’s an issue of the NOW, and pretending that it’s not won’t help anyone. it will only secure a status quo where the disparity between whites and blacks is still giant and destructive.
racism still exists. pretending racial differences don’t exist & don’t matter in our society wont help anyone or solve any problems. of course, you should do what you like! what does academia know anyway right? YOU probably have it ALL figured out (hell, i used to before i went to college, i knew everything). so, carry on as you like.
LISTEN, SISTER. I’m fairly educated. My family is LA based – I spent a part of my childhood there. We moved after that, and as a child, studying Montana history, I learned early about the ways people of native descent (including people like my family) were discriminated against. I read about how they were taken from their hoimes, beaten down, and put in quarantine – I’ve seen the site of Custer’s last stand. I know that I will teach my children these things I’ve learned and hope that they are better for it – that they treat all people with respect. You belittle me for my “white privilege” but I bet you’d have a hard time doing that same thing if I hadn’t come right out and said that I look white – appearances are deceiving. Obviously you skipped past the part where I mentioned that half my family is indigenous people – and I’m sure you know the plight of most indigenous tribes in our society:
My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are – perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my Chiefs! I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.
When I lived in Damn-Near-White-Center (In Seattle, that’s “kind of a scary neighborhood”), I understood what ghetto life was like – more about economics than the pigment in your skin. We were stuffed into tiny, rotting apartments, and it wasn’t a stretch to hear gunshots, or find heroin needles on the kids’ playground. If you’re at all educated you probably know that ghetto life isn’t just something that only people of color experience. Irish immigrants experienced it… Italian immigrants experienced it. A lot of people today experience it – despite their cultural heritage. We were all in that situation together – I’d help the neighbor next door carry her groceries in because she had a lovely little baby to wrangle. Her boyfriend would walk me in from my car because I’d been followed home a few times by strange vehicles. It didn’t matter that their family didn’t have the same skin pigmentation as my own. I grew up learning to treat everyone with respect. You call this “white privilege”? I call it common decency. The fact that we lived in the ghetto was what separated us from everyone else. Not our skin tones – we were relegated to our situation because of class more than color. People pronounce that we’re not truly on a class system, but ghetto life taught me otherwise. Equal distribution of resources should matter more than the race of the people the resources are being given to. Further discussion of the racial divide won’t solve problems. Many of these “race discrimination” problems could be cured with a little more attention to economics.
Calling me uneducated (and all the while, furiously pounding out your sassy retort in less-than-perfect grammar) shows your own ignorance. Erin didn’t fully read my comment – or she wouldn’t have been able to call me privileged with a clear conscience. She doesn’t know me from someone else, so who is she to make value judgments on my personal credo. Her insistence that I’m so naiive sounds like a little “White guilt” – “based in self-focused beliefs in racial inequality.”
Today it is perseveration to the point of tragedy.
Here is a brief litany of obvious truths that have been resisted in the public discourse of black America over the last thirty years: a group is no stronger than its individuals; when individuals transform themselves they transform the group; the freer the individual, the stronger the group; social responsibility begins in individual responsibility. Add to this an indisputable fact that has also been unmentionable: that American greatness has a lot to do with a culturally ingrained individualism, with the respect and freedom historically granted individuals to pursue their happiness–this despite many egregious lapses and an outright commitment to the oppression of black individuals for centuries. And there is one last obvious but unassimilated fact: ethnic groups that have asked a lot from their individuals have done exceptionally well in America even while enduring discrimination.
Now consider what this Harvard student is called upon by his racial identity to argue in the year 2002. All that is creative and imaginative in him must be rallied to argue the essential weakness of his own people. Only their weakness justifies the racial preferences they receive decades after any trace of anti-black racism in college admissions. The young man must not show faith in the power of his people to overcome against any odds; he must show faith in their inability to overcome without help. As Mr. Connerly points to far less racism and far more freedom and opportunity for blacks, the young man must find a way, against all the mounting facts, to argue that black Americans simply cannot compete without preferences. If his own forebears seized freedom in a long and arduous struggle for civil rights, he must argue that his own generation is unable to compete on paper-and-pencil standardized tests.
It doesn’t help that he locates the cause of black weakness in things like “structural racism” and “uneven playing fields,” because there has been so little correlation between the remedies for such problems and actual black improvement. Blacks from families that make $100,1300 a year or more perform worse on the SAT than whites from families that make $10,000 a year or less. After decades of racial preferences blacks remain the lowest performing student group in American higher education. And once they are out of college and in professions, their own children also underperform in relation to their white and Asian peers. Thus, this young man must also nurture the idea of a black psychological woundedness that is baroque in its capacity to stifle black aspiration. And all his faith, his proud belief, must be in the truth of this woundedness and the injustice that caused it, because this is his only avenue to racial pride. He is a figure of pathos because his faith in racial victimization is his only release from racial shame.
Right after the sixties’ civil-rights victories came what I believe to be the greatest miscalculation in black American history. Others had oppressed us, but this was to be the first “fall” to come by our own hand. We allowed ourselves to see a greater power in America’s liability for our oppression than we saw in ourselves. Thus, we were faithless with ourselves just when we had given ourselves reason to have such faith. We couldn’t have made a worse mistake. We have not been the same since.
To go after America’s liability we had to locate real transformative power outside ourselves. Worse, we had to see our fate as contingent on America’s paying off that liability. We have been a contingent people ever since, arguing our weakness and white racism in order to ignite the engine of white liability. And this has mired us in a protest-group identity that mistrusts individualism because free individuals might jeopardize the group’s effort to activate this liability.
Today I would be encouraged to squeeze my little childhood experience of individuality into a narrow group framework that would not endanger the group’s bid for white intervention. I would be urged to embrace a pattern of reform that represses our best hope for advancement–our individuals–simply to keep whites “on the hook.”
Another commenter, Airn pointed out:
“I am not “whites” and I don’t live in a world where someone is less than me because they are ANYTHING. Color, creed, gender, whatever.”
If you live in America, you do live in that world.
I recommend that you and Ev read this article: http://bit.ly/1P7DyP
Airn missed the point about it being my personal world-view – and it’s interesting that she notes that America is that world of racist discrimination. I’m reminded of the plight of French Muslims or the battle between Palestine and Israel. How about the fact that our country is THE biggest melting pot in the world. Everybody who is here is descended from some other country and most of them were discriminated against when they first arrived. The fact that we can have this discussion and that we show signs of looking past race, shows the obvious racial blocks we’ve conquered. Drawing simplistic lines in the sand does nothing to overcome the covert racism that stems from people of all backgrounds – often, even the victims perpetrate their own fate.
A smart guy said, in a conversation about MLK day:
“Personally I feel that “Martin Luther King Day” is just as racist as saying, “the n word” simply because nothing closes on Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. There’s no John F. Kennedy day. Yet I can’t go to the bank on MLK day?!
If we were to honor Martin Luther King on “civil rights day” as well as all the other people who were similarly minded and similarly oppressed, and change the name of organizations such as the NAACP and the negro college fund whose very names contain racial epithets, maybe then there will be ACTUAL progress. Perhaps by building us up we’re tearing us down as well. Nobody addresses this though. Just focusing on black people versus white people and not having a Harvey Milk day fixes nothing.
“Martin Luther King” means “black”. Why does Martin Luther King Blvd goes through predominately black neighborhoods? “Black History Month” is effectively “Martin Luther King History Month” in schools. I’m just saying that the dividing lines between black and white are further enforced by the things that are supposedly there to advance us. The correlation is there.
I have no problem acknowledging that I live in a liberal part of the country where the lines are drawn thinner between our differences. Nonetheless, I do not believe that focusing on things that delineate those lines does anything other than widen those margins in areas which are not (i.e. red states) as liberal.
I’m not saying that we should IGNORE any given organization or not celebrate certain holidays. What I’m saying is that these organizations and holidays do not do much to emphasize the struggles put forth by any of the people they are designed to recognize. By simply drawing the line in the sand and saying this is where you begin and where we end does nothing but enforce the so called, “covert racism” ingrained in our society.
We’ve come a long way and we have many more bridges to build. But we, as a human race, seem much more apt to build walls. Because they’re easier. Perhaps it’s a generational divide at this point. Regardless the fact remains that for the majority of the general population these days, the term/name, “Martin Luther King Jr” conjures images of a black man. Not the movement behind the man himself. The intention has been lost.
Positive solutions to negativity cannot and will not exist until we can realistically look at solutions to problems. Not from an ideological point of view. “The Ghetto” isn’t the problem. It’s the attitude of the people regardless of their demographic which seems to draw negative connotations.
Regardless there are other “us versus them” mentalities which make it easier to justify the placement of these not so invisible lines.
Sometimes “struggle” is synonymous with “growth”
What is easier for everyone? Walk up to the kids on 2nd ave and have a conversation? Bridge. Judge them and say nothing as you walk by? Wall. Which one is easier?
The line between tolerance and acceptance is sometimes wider than you think.
I will never know the black experience. Acknowledged. The same is true the other direction.
Judge not lest ye be judged. So forth and so on. The fact of the matter remains that if I walk through a predominantly black neighborhood, or through a group of black kids on the street, I’m a former slave owning racist “punk ass white boy” so it is certainly NOT “white of me” to be indignant by any means.
As I stated before. The “majority” is not the only group which has the ability to perpetuate marginalization.
God forbid that people should realize the “I Have a Dream” speech went both ways. It’s not just the plight of people of African American descent – it’s an entire civil rights movement whether you’re black, white, purple, boy, girl, transgendered, queer, gay, robot or otherwise. As if other people don’t have their own struggles; as if WE ALL don’t sometimes ignore the struggles of other people.
As my friend Alicia said, “People want to pick and choose what to be offended at and they always are on the wrong end of it.”
All this needs is a rousing applause.
The internet gives people too much courage and the feeling that they can comment and judge without knowing a damn thing.
I love you girlie. Nevermind an “academic” telling you who you are. Pshhhhhhhhhhhhh.
.-= Alicia´s last blog ..…blanc et noir… =-.
I’m with Alicia…the Internet truly makes people uninhibited and gives them the courage to say anything and everything that pops into their mind – regardless of how rude it may or may not be!! :/
.-= Cafe Fashionista´s last blog ..Why Don’t You…? =-.
I am mostly of European decent, but I am also 25% Brazilian.
I am not now, nor will I ever be a racist.
I love your post, and the things you have to say. But I feel the need just to say this as someone who’s mother witnessed the Detroit riots, and who’s grandmother felt quite strongly on the race issue if only because of how she was raised and taught to think. I also say this as someone who has seen first hand the effects of Kwame Kilpatrick and others like him in Detroit.
I judge people based on what they show me, how they personally behave not on what they look like. My mother has an inherent distrust of most black people, unless they prove to be a person of value. I understand her position completely. She has told me countless stories of her childhood during the integration of Detriot public schools, of being chased home by black children threatening to beat her, or steal her things. She saw the tragedy that was the Detroit Race Riots first hand, after fleeing to what little saftey her home held, she could see what was going on from her upstairs window. Her father was a civil engineer for the city, meaning that they had to live within city limits, even during what they called “the white flight”. She saw the horrors that occured in the city under Coleman Young, the biggest difference between Coleman and Kwame is that Coleman was smart- he didn’t get caught officially. Now that she has watched the further decline of Detroit and the corruption that has occurred under Kwame Kilpatrick, what would you expect her to think? The fact is that Ev’yan and Alicia both of who’s blogs I read are not the norm. all over the country. I do know several extremely intelligent black people here, they are my friends, and I’m greatful to have them. They keep me balanced, and remind me that my mother’s views are the results of a specific experience. However, there are so many in Detroit who are uneducated, and add to the stereotype. I truly envy all of you who live in communities where race is not an issue, and in all acutality, in my direct community race is not really and issue. Though we are predominantly white, we are very accepting of those who are not. Sadly, I cannot say this is true for the surrounding neighborhoods.
I guess in conclusion, even if it is not my personal experience, I wanted to put out there what some see. My mother can’t help what she’s seen and lived through, and in her mid-fifties, she’s become too rooted in her ways to consider a change. While there are so many around us that do not live up to the standards that Ev’Yan, Alicia, and all of my non-white friends have set in my mind, it’s hard for her to see why she should have faith. Now, this isn’t to say that she believes all black people are evil, horrible people, just that she makes sure to have her gaurd up. And I’m sorry because I wish I could say that my family would love to see me with anyone regardless of color as long as they treated me well and made me happy, but I can’t. I don’t know yet whether this would deter me from marrying someone of a different race, because there would surely be some issues, but I really don’t think so.
I hope that you don’t think I was trying to be rude, or trying to argue, or anything of that caliber, I simply felt the need to relay this bit of information. I’m not claiming to be an expert, I’m not claiming to “know and damn thing”, I’m just saying that this is what happened, and this is why she feels the way she does about the issue.
all hail birdie.
i love internet thugs. people are pounding out their so-called educated opinions based on, as alicia so eloquently put it, the 3 books they read in sociology class, or their own damn restricted experiences. i’m black. i’m also jamaican. and having come to this country as a black person, raised in a segregated city (yes, even NOW, it’s segregated, i don’t care WTF those ppl say) and then moving to new york where people of all races, colors and creeds mill about amongst one another, only to be hired as the other black person in my place of employment and then seemingly discriminated against not because of COLOR, but because of CLASS, i had a hard time admitting racial differences myself.
most of the kids i grew up with were black. and yet, even in a country where the majority of the populace is dark-skinned, there was racism, or colorism, being treated differently all due to the tone of your skin. the academic analysis of all of these things, while quite interesting and maybe even well-written, does not DENY the fact that all these things happen, still happen, and to dismiss someone’s experience because you decide to have a damn opinion about THEIR life is just infuriating. so thank you for writing (all) this. ignorance, man. ignorance.
.-= pennerad´s last blog ..1st day of school =-.
@Simone, thank you so much for sharing your story with us. I understand that there are still some really scary parts of this country, and your statement that people base their perceptions on their experience is ABSOLUTELY true. It’s not an argument, it’s the way it is. Even Seattle has a few really frightening neighborhoods (on MLK way, ironically) – but in my experience, a lot of the problem is economically (class) based, not race based. I’m lucky to live where I do, and to have grown up where I did (and we still saw hate crimes against same-sex preference).
I think what you’re saying about not knowing how your family would handle it if you decided to be with someone of a different race – With any boyfriend/girlfriend/lover/life partner, they do spend the time proving themselves worthy of trust and your love. I think that in your situation, your family is on guard, but it sounds like if it was a good match and your partner was a good person, you’d be able to bridge the gap – and that is reason enough to hope.
@pennerad There was a really excellent quote by Als Simmons…
“Many issues, topics and theories that are accepted in the acedemic world do not go hand in hand in the real world.”
Anybody who’s been in any college class knows that often what we learn is different than what we see.
Even my predominantly white hometown was segregated by class, not race (and people think MT is full of hicks! HA).
What a hot mess.
Here’s the thing. All skin color IS is a reflection of melatonin levels…that’s it! All the extra stuff we add to that is completely cultural. All that means is that a bunch of people agree to a specific interpretation but that means that it is SUBJECTIVE.
The objective truth is that skin color only has as much meaning as we decide to give it.
I personally don’t ‘see’ color most of the time. I grew up in Miami and didn’t really start to notice it until I moved to North Carolina.
Birdie, I think you’ve made some excellent points here.
@Hayden Tompkins, YESSSS! “The objective truth is that skin color only has as much meaning as we decide to give it.” That so bears repeating.
Wow. So, I hate to respond to this because I know you won’t get it but maybe some of the few readers you have left will. First of all, if you were at all able to read then you wouldn’t have given the response to the article in question because you would have realized that it made absolutely no sense. Second, I’m from Seattle and have lived all over the country and the world and anyone who has ever been outside of Seattle and Montana would laugh at your claiming to know ghetto life because you lived in White Center. Please. Third, you clearly have a lot of issues and responded the way you did because you haven’t come to terms with who you are. I suggest counseling and serious inner reflection, as well as a few volumes from Cornel West and Henry Louis Gates Jr., before you continue to embarrass yourself like this.
Just a few suggestions. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I am a very over-educated Black woman.
k
@kitty Oh Kitty, your response is so… irrelevant? First of all: My arguments made enough sense to the REST of the people who read this – do you care to elaborate or are you just going to make giant sweeping generalizations in an effort to sound as “over-educated” as possible? What are you trying to prove?
Second? What makes you think that my entire life was relegated to 2 places – that I haven’t experienced a varied worldview? You don’t know me. You don’t know the economic or racial circumstance I’ve been in – and OBVIOUSLY you didn’t read most of this post which explains some of that. The “ghetto” situation I experienced was purely a byproduct of economics – which it is in MOST ghetto situations in this country (shit, the world?).
Third – Issues? Which issues are these? Counseling? That’s a mighty strong recommendation coming from someone who’s doesn’t seem professionally qualified to make those sort of clinical recommendations. Maybe you’d like to clarify exactly what sort of problems you believe I’ve got? Or are you just hiding, again, behind sweeping generalizations and belittlement?
You don’t have to come here and you don’t have to read it (and as far as I’m concerned you can f*ck right off if you don’t like it – this is MY webspace)
I’ve just proved that it’s a subject worth talking about and maybe you need to reread this quote:
“Thus, this young man must also nurture the idea of a black psychological woundedness that is baroque in its capacity to stifle black aspiration. And all his faith, his proud belief, must be in the truth of this woundedness and the injustice that caused it, because this is his only avenue to racial pride. He is a figure of pathos because his faith in racial victimization is his only release from racial shame.”
So I’m not trying to attack you at all, I do want to start with that. And I think that some people got very heated in their responses to you, which doesn’t shine a great light on what they were saying.
However, many of the responses to you had some valid points. “Ghetto life” is not always about economics; maybe at first glance it is, but that is because economics itself is greatly effected by many other factors, one of the major ones being race. It’s kind of a chicken or the egg argument: does race effect socio-economic status, or does socio-economic status come to be seen as just “race” (i.e. many people automatically thinking of a black person when thinking about poverty or a ghetto/projects area).
Racism, or any -ism, doesn’t exist alone — every person’s lived experience is a result of all of their identity factors at the same time, and I think that’s left out of a lot of these discussions. Some people get offended if you say “I don’t see you as black,” because, well, they ARE black. No matter what. Just like some people are gay, no matter what, and wouldn’t want you to say, “I don’t see you as gay.” There are ways to see race in a good way, instead of saying you don’t see race at all which basically infers that race in general is a bad or negative thing.
But to keep this briefer than a novel, I will say this. If we started ignoring color on a large-scale level, we would just see a bunch of data about things like poverty, lack of public services, graduation rates, average salary, etc, etc, as just random figures. It’s only when you start to break these figures down into categories such as race that you start to see disparities and you realize that things like discrimination and unequal opportunities, availability & access to services still exist. But that just reinforces those categories, I know. It’s a catch 22 really.
It’s important to acknowledge the lived experience of different people because of their race (as well as their gender, sexuality, and a myriad of other identity factors), because if we start saying everyone is exactly the same, we will no longer see the problems I mentioned above as larger-level problems, but only as individual problems. We’ll start to say, “Well, that person could’ve just worked harder,” or “that person probably did something wrong and deserved to be fired,” instead of seeing things like the fact that an all black public school is doing worse than any other in its district, or that a manager has only fired latinos in the past 5 years.
Ok, so I haven’t been able to keep this as brief as I wanted, but my short & sweet answer is this:
If you really want to be “colorblind” with those very close to you, with whom you acknowledge their experiences even if you don’t want to label them as occurring because of an identity factor, than that’s probably ok. You know them, are close to them, and you both probably understand how each of you sees the other.
But in general, I am against the idea of colorblindness, especially because of the consequences it has for larger systems and ways of thinking, as well as the fact that it infers that race in general is bad or negative.
And that’s my opinion on the topic, not of you. Hopefully you don’t see it as an attack, because it was not meant to be in any way.
@Kristy Thank you SOMUCH for your well thought and well put response. I’m glad someone put thought into a response on the opposite side of the fence, because without thoughtful discussion, we’re never going to solve anything.
On the “colorblind with those very close to you” thought – that is where my idea of colorblindness comes into play. I also extend that sort of thought to my neighbors and my immediate community because I feel like in my community, I’m no different than the next person aside from pigment, sex or preference.
I think that when people hear talk of “colorblindness” they automatically think that is discounting the experience of a myriad of people who’ve “fought the fight”. It’s like being “colorblind” denies them the pride they have in being able to overcome adversity. I did note that MANY groups experience racism and discrimination – not just people of African American descent. The term “colorblindness” gives rise to the idea that a person’s racial heritage should be glossed over because pointing out race is bad. What I tried to explain was more the idea of being able to overlook the fact that someone looks different because of pigmentation, and see what’s inside that person, see how their community is interesting, and just extend human decency to people – no matter who they are. I made sure, I feel, to point out that a sovereign peoples’ struggles are important, but that focusing on a racial division also does create divides. I think the idea of “white-guilt” is a very victimized mindset to adopt and continues to create rifts instead of looking to mend wounds. I’m not some of my ancestors – and maybe I would have acted different in their shoes. I don’t see how I should be held accountable for that. I also don’t see how someone of a different race holding me at knifepoint over what people did before my time is going to solve our differences. What I can do is acknowledge your heritage, and then – as no part of that – extend my goodwill, respect, love and courtesy to you and everyone else around me. (Unless you come and flame me on my internet space in which I will defend my turf)
I think that economics can be *very* closely tied to the race factor, but when you come down to it, not all ghettos are made up of just one type of people. Race has a lot to do with economics – so your point about “consequences for larger-level issues” is completely valid.
Thank you again, Kristy for fostering great discussion on this topic. xo!
@Birdie
I agree with a lot of what you said, but I think it’s important that we realize that everyone IS different from the person next to them, and that this just may be because of something they’ve experienced because of pigmentation, sex, or preference.
These conversations are always so interesting, because I feel like I come away torn between breaking down categories/binaries on a micro level, and still needing them in the world for the larger macro-level. So complex.
One of the only things we can do is talk like this about it and get closer to a solution! Haha.
@Kristy
SO TRUE!! Things don’t usually work the same way on a micro level as they do a macro level. The base theories are still there and functioning, but in a macro level there’s so many more variables at work.