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The real conversation we need about racismSubmitted by sugarfatpie on Tue, 2008/07/22 - 9:36am.
Something struck me the other day at an Obama house party as I heard people going around the room, explaining why they support Barack, and in so doing obeying the culture of his campaign and delicately dancing around the subject of race. The ideal of being color-blind is a joke. No one does it because no one can. You are a racist, and so are the rest of us, black, white, brown, or rainbow colored. In every society I've encountered on this planet, its impossible to NOT take race into account when making judgments about someone. The irony of our conversation on race is that the ultimate insult, to be called a racist, applies to everyone. Often the most up front racists are not white. Why? Because a world in which you face racial discrimination every day makes no sense unless you incorporate race deeply into your outlook. Otherwise you blame yourself for other people's criticism of you. The ideal of color-blindness comes from white folks who can't, or won't, understand their own racism. White folks have the luxury of not incorporating race as deeply into their world-view. They don't have to. The "skin-privilege" of whiteness means they generally do not suffer as a result of racial discrimination. So with race on the back burner in their day to day routine they can pat themselves on the back for not thinking about race, except to fantasize about a color-blind world in which no one takes race into account. Meanwhile what happens when a black man knocks on their door after dinner needing to use the phone? The real question is not "Am I a racist?" The real question is "How am I racist?" What are my assumptions about race doing to the world around me? Are they based on a desire to keep people down? Knock others off their privileged pedestal? Achieve retribution for past abuses? Are they the result of simply trying to navigate through a complex world full of racist assumptions? There are infinite varieties of racism, but the important distinction to make between them is how they constrain human aspiration. The violence, desperation, and hopelessness that our racism creates cannot be reduced by longing for a color-blind fantasy world. We need to get into the nitty-gritty. We need to get used to talking about our racist assumptions and get beyond making ourselves and others feel awful for having them. I'll start the process by admitting to a few of my own. When I see a black teenage boy with his pants riding five inches below his butt crack (though thankfully the boxers are always covering the crack which is more than I can say about some of my white friends), there is a voice that goes off saying something like "this kid probably doesn't give a shit about what I think, so why should I care what he thinks". When I hear Jesse Jackson talking about cutting Obama's nuts off for "talking down to black people" about absent fathers, and then I come to find out that Jackson himself has an "outside child" who he has only recently acknowledged, well...the racial stereotypes that leap to mind are not something I'm proud of. But they are there and I've got to own them. Dig into them. See what they reveal about me. And they pretty much reveal a middle class white guy, who has some issues about emotionally absent fathers, who barely understands the world of African-Americans, who has an annoying tendency to pat himself on the back for broad-mindedness while ignoring his own ignorance and reliance on easy stereotypes. But talking about race is very hard to do, in no small part because we have criminalized racism. It should be a crime to deny someone an opportunity because of their race. But we need safe places to talk about race and our racism. And indeed we have one, right here. I think Knoxviews and blogs like it are a great place for us to talk about race. Anonymity, the absence of physical confrontation, the opportunity to carefully craft a statement, the chance for immediate feedback, the ability to go back and see exactly what was said. We should take this opportunity to dig into racism. The insanity of our present conversation on race shows how badly we need to. Thanks ( categories: )
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You are correct that talking about race is very hard to do. The framing of the concept of race is primary in establishing a civil discussion. Allow me to start the conversation in these threads.
Race is a social construct that has little meaning outside it's original and still active purpose: as a tool to oppress other humans due to optically perceived differences.
Race has no valid scientific basis.
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
Hunter S. Thompson
Good start, but race is real because it has consequences. People, no matter the epistemological strength of race-as-a-thing, make decisions based on race.
True happiness is knowing you are a hypocrite. -- Ivor Cutler
OK, a strong call for conversation about a taboo topic that has to be addressed, that's good.
There's one glaring problem - your use of the word 'racist'. Now, I'd readily acknowledge some of your reasons for imputing racism to everyone. Yes, we live in a society imbued with the consciousness of skin color, and not just in white culture. In that limited and technical sense I suppose we are all racists.
But that's not how the word is commonly used, and using it that broadly shuts off conversation instead of stimulating it. The universal usage also prevents any useful distinctions - if everyone is in the same category as the KKK, it's much harder to talk about race in a useful way at all.
Here's an ironic bit of my experience that educated me: I was a freshman in college in New England, and two guys knocked on my door, a tall black guy and a short East Asian guy. Yes, I noticed.
They were looking for someone or some party, and at least the Asian guy was very drunk, his face flushed red because of the common Asian lack of an enzyme that metabolizes alcohol.
No, not here, I said, in my Southern accent, and the Asian guy immediately accused me of racism.
Was I racist for noticing their physical attributes? I don't think that's a useful use of the word 'racist'.
Did my face betray buried racist disgust? I seriously doubt it. If so, I'm still in denial!
Was the Asian guy a racist? I don't think I could say that on the basis of one mildly bigoted comment.
Nonetheless, this was an aha moment for me. I had been stereotyped. This opened me to other aha moments, when I noticed that my friends thought of me as the good Southerner, when one thought I might harbor racism because I knew how different some of my black public school classmates had been from his (who were all from wealthy, educated backgrounds), when I was expected to represent, answer for, explain, and apologize for the South's racism.
While none of this is the same as living every day in the disparaged minority, it gave me a taste of:
Liberty and justice for all.
My home
Being called a racist probably will turn some people off. That's why I didn't have that in the subect line.
I guess we'll see if it inhibits discussion.
What term would you use?
I know exactly what you are talking about regarding being a southerner in New England. When I told people at college that I was from TN, I might as well have put a klan hat on.
Adding to the confusion was my partial upbringing in the West Indies, where I was part of a teeny tiny white minority. I used to play with kids on the street who would call each other "boy". Had no idea what that meant to an African American until one night at college I said "Pass me that bong boy" to a black kid from NYC. I only got to explain the point days later after the buzz wore off. Our relationship recovered, but damn was that painful. I confirmed everyone's stereotypes and didn't even knowing what I had done. The worst part was that no one wanted to talk about it. They just wanted to condemn.
The point of all this is to get people to talk about the kind of racial discriminations they make, and how this effects their world. Thanks for your contribution.
-Sugarfatpie
"X-Rays are a hoax."-Lord Kelvin
Mr. Neal, first I want to thank you for opening this particular thread. It’s the kind of thing only possible in a progressive forum. A libertarian forum wouldn’t dare touch it, certainly not from such a deeply personal perspective. To begin with, I want to take the liberty of disagreeing with you, but only slightly. “Color blind,” can be interpreted very strictly to mean we don’t really notice a skin color. That is, of course,, patently absurd. We are human beings, and our strongest physical sense is vision. We identify, classify, and make assumptions based upon appearance. To claim I don’t notice a person is black is akin to saying I don’t notice when a person is female or unusually tall or short or thin or heavy or what not. Of course I do. I think, therefore, a truer test of “color blind” is what does the visual observation of skin color trigger in terms of the classifications and assumptions we make? I can say, in all honesty and without hubris, it really doesn’t trigger much in me. That’s not because I’m unique or special or have made some amazing journey of self discovery that’s moved me beyond all that. It’s simply because I’ve grown up in an environment so integrated between white and black that skin color in and of itself no longer provides my brain with enough data to make many classifications or assumptions.
I’ve grown up – literally since birth – in an environment so fully integrated that I know at an instinctive level that there is no monolithic African-American culture. There are many African-American cultures and, like WASP cultures, they vary according to geography, generation, and economic environment among other things. No African-American culture, however, is exactly the same as a WASP culture. I realize on that same instinctive level that there are significant experiential and historical differences between me and an African-American that will make his culture a little different from my own. So color does trigger “different” in me. However, when meeting an African-American for the first time, his skin color is – at best – fourth on the visual cue hierarchy that leads to my initial assumptions about him. Sex, age, and attire would all immediately take precedence over skin color with me. After initial visual contact, speech would quickly gain ascendancy over both color and attire. Example 1: A group of African-American young men hanging out together on a sidewalk wearing sagging pants, heavy chains, hats on backwards, and Raiders jackets. Example 2: A group of white young men hanging out on a sidewalk wearing sagging pants, heavy chains, hats on backwards, and Raiders jackets. Example 3: A group of African-American young men hanging out on a sidewalk wearing sweat pants and tee shirts. Examples 1 & 2 are both going to raise my “alert” instincts. Example 3 would not. “Gang” based Hip Hop culture has bombarded me with enough negative stereotypes beyond my own experience to trigger that response, regardless of race. Athletes don’t trigger that response, again, regardless of race.
But let’s flip your example around to one where I must confess fully to prejudices and falling instinctively into negative stereotypes. I instinctively classify every Muslim Arab (especially one in traditional dress) as a potential threat. My “alert” response is immediate, unthinking, and has to be willfully overcome. In my head, of course, I know the absolutely overwhelming majority of Arabs are not terrorists looking to blow something up or take hostages. However, in my case, I don’t have the experiential background to outweigh all the stereotypes that bombard me on a regular basis. I’m conditioned to respond negatively. So yeah, we’re all “racists” to some extent. It’s not about skin color (Arabs aren’t technically a race) but about our understanding – or more accurately our lack of understanding or distorted understanding – of specific cultures. Once we’ve instinctively assessed an individual’s appearance and classified them, we then react to them – at least initially – based upon our own specific combination of experience and prejudice. Eventually, experience outweighs prejudice, but it takes lots of experiences for that to happen.
First off, I'm not Mr Neal, but I suppose I should be flattered.
Great examples from your own personal experience. Takes a lot of courage to fess up to one's stereotypes. That's what I'd like this discussion to be about.
Excellent point about experience vs prejudice. I find racism in East TN to be shaped less by direct contact with "the other", given how white this area is, and more by ideas absorbed from our own friends,families and the media. Contrast that with the kind of racism you get in big cities with a lot of contact (Atlanta, New Orleans, NYC). I find the later variety of racism to be much more in your face. Like the T-shirt that beanster mentioned in her post earlier today. But then there's the people who manage to overcome the barriers of racism and get married. PS, I've seen a lot more inter-racial marriages in East Knoxville and Oakwood/Lincoln Park than I have in any big city I've lived in. I wonder why?
Thanks again.
-Sugarfatpie
"X-Rays are a hoax."-Lord Kelvin
Sorry I didn't read who started the thread. Another "assumption" I fear.
As for your experiences in larger cities, I think it will take someone with a lot more expertise than I have to answer that question about interracial marriages. What are the time frames involved? One thing I do think is that racism improves or worstens on a generational basis. There seems to be period of development where our prejudices and experiences seem to start to solidify and become very difficult to change over time. Is there any scientific evidence to substantiate that? I don't know. I do know I believe it based on my own observations enough to deliberately involve my seven year old in activities and organizations that will be a lot less white than Farragut Primary.
Excellent posts, Ray and SFP.
"I’ve grown up in an environment so integrated between white and black"
I think this is a key. Those of us who were raised with segregation will always be handicapped and it will take extra effort to overcome. It's interesting - one of my mom's best friends was Hispanic so I didn't tend to think of Hispanic as "other". Sadly, I see that changing these days, because of the language barrier.
____________________________________
"Whoever corrects a mocker invites insult; whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse."
Here's another voice to add to this conversation. (although from a somewhat snarky viewpoint) Link...
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
Hunter S. Thompson
isn't it? I don't think that noticing race is abusive, and our personal prejudices and stereotypes are only dangerous when we ACT on them.
Owing to the overwhelmingly - and appropriately - negative connotations associated with the word "racism," it's probably best we reserve that for overt acts. But if we do that, we need a new word in the English language, one that describes what drives us to feel uncomfortable, unsafe, or on edge just because of a person's skin color.
Skin color isn't a choice. As such, it can say almost nothing about the character of a person. When you react based on that, there's no justification for it. Even if you suppress such feelings immediately, there's something wrong. Even if you never act on those feelings, there's something wrong. Even if the other person is never aware you had that initial reaction, there's something wrong. There's something rather Pavlovian in our initial response to visual cues. Part of it is conditioning. Part of it is experience. Part of it is the instinct to identify and classify. When that Pavlovian response is inappropriate, there's something wrong. I agree "racism" is too strong for that. So what should we call it? Prejudice is probably the most accurate word I can think of, but its connotations aren't much better than racism.
Racism is an ideology. An ideology is a set of ideas, beliefs and an understandings that address a social need. The social need that is served by racism is difference. There is nothing wrong with difference in and of itself, it is just that racism as an ideology is poorly constructed and doesn't work very well to deal with the need to notice, categorize and organize difference.
Also, you make a distinction without a difference between 'conditioning' and 'experience.' I would stay away from any behaviorist explanation of racism. There isn't any there, there.
True happiness is knowing you are a hypocrite. -- Ivor Cutler
If I use the term "racism" within the context of your definition - an ideology - I agree. I actually rather like your definition. It puts "racism" within a very specific context, one that is controlled by conscious thought and action. It's just somewhat different from the term as it was framed within the context of this thread.
Out of curiousity, what flavor of behaviorism did you feel I was trying to employ in my explanation? I wasn't consciously using any, but then my background is a long way from psychology. My use of terms is probably incorrect, but I believe there is an important difference between what I called conditioning and what I call experience. By conditioning, I meant what outside influences have taught or tried to teach me about a person or culture. By experience, I meant my actual interactions with a person or culture. Those would seem to be quite distinct, no?
Prejudices can be positive or negative. If I think Asians are smart, hard-working, good at math - I know that not every one fits my stereotype, but that's not racism. I asked about this at a civil rights workshop once and the minorities at the table cleared it up for me real fast... It's about abuse of power based on race.
The social theorist Homi Babha says that stereotypes are the "sutures that hold society together." Race is about power, but not about knowing. This is why it it doesn't do a good job ordering society.
True happiness is knowing you are a hypocrite. -- Ivor Cutler
If racism is abuse of power, then what is power, and what constitutes abuse of it?
This is an important question, especially given the way racism manifests in a capitalist economy like ours, where "the market" is constantly held up as a determinant of events. If consumption is power, then abuse of power based on race could be very widespread. It would then have to include the subtle, seemingly insignificant acts that some might not want to call racism, preferring to reserve this word for more blatant abuses of power.
Take for example the actor Kal Pen. His real name is Kalpen Suresh Modi. He chose the stage name Kal Penn (from Kalpen Suresh Modi) as a lark: “Almost as a joke to prove friends wrong, and half as an attempt to see if what I was told would work (that anglicized names appeal more to a white-dominated industry), I put ‘Kal Penn’ on my resume and photos." His audition callbacks rose by 50%.
Link...
Its hard to argue that Mr. Modi has not suffered from racism. But where is the power, and where is the abuse of power?
Is it with the casting people? They would argue that they are just responding to "the market", saying that fewer people will come to see a movie with a guy named Kalpen Suresh Modi starring. Is it abuse of power to try to protect an investment from the whims of a racist society?
If you accept their argument then attention turns to that subset of the movie-going public who would be less likely to see a movie if the star's name is Kalpen Suresh Modi than if it is Kal Pen. Does this behavior constitute an abuse of power? Is it an abuse of power to act on a gut reaction that makes you not want to see a movie, or buy a product? Most would probably say no. But the power exercised in these actions is undeniable, especially when you think about the potentially millions of people involved.
The point I'm trying to make is that power can become quite diffuse in a capitalist society, which makes the definition of racism as "abuse of power" a very broad definition indeed. Consumption has to be recognized as power in a capitalist setting. Then the seemingly insignificant actions that guide consumption, like gut repulsion or indifference about a person's or a products name, become very significant.
So, in attempting to narrow the definition of racism to acts that constitute an "abuse of power" we have in fact broadened the definition of racism.
-Sugarfatpie
"X-Rays are a hoax."-Lord Kelvin
My person observation & opinion:
Individuals, as consumers, exercise power in the marketplace and in so doing may be racist, but that is not illegal or abusive.
However, when organizations (defined by some threshold as collections of individuals) exercise power against a protected group, that is illegal and abusive, and that is the kind of racism/sexism/"name your own ism" that society gradually eliminates by law.
And as the laws change, individuals change and each generation becomes less racist. My grandparents would have been shocked by the amount of racial integration, for instance, that exists today; my children expect nothing less!
I was in Atlanta the other day and was reminded how important multi-culturalism is...it improves society and is the best solution to media perpetuated stereotypes. Being of a different race I sometimes feel like I wear the scarlet letter in Knoxville, but when I'm in a multi-cultural environment my attributes become much less sugnificant. Honestly, I've heard about the importance of talking about racism...but we get stuck there. It's time to move on and actually start talking to, eating with, sleeping with people who are of a different skin color. If you are man or woman enough to do these things and not feel like you're noble for doing so, then you are making a substantive difference.
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