[Note: In 2005, this piece was originally entitled “How Not To Be Insane When Accused of Racism”. I changed the title in 2011. The wording of the quote from Prometheus 6, however, isn’t mine and so I haven’t changed it. Also, the URL contains the original wording, and I don’t want to nuke all the links to this post by changing the URL. :-( My sincere apologies to disabled people who object to the wording. –Amp, 2011]
Prometheus 6 wrote something that has stuck in my head ever since:
Not to put too fine a point on it, but “racist” is the only word that makes white people as crazy as “nigger” makes Black people.
It’s true – a lot of white people, hell, most white people turn ten different shades of pissed off and shoot steam out their ears if someone suggests they’ve said something racist. And if you make a point of talking about race and racism, sooner or later someone will accuse you of being racist, fairly or unfairly.
Frankly, I think we whites – especially, we whites who think of ourselves as against racism – have to get over it. So here it is, in honor of “blog against racism day” (okay, it’s now the morning after blog against racism day, so I’m slow):
Amp’s Guide to Not Being a Doofus When Accused of Racism.
1) Breathe. Stay calm. Stay civil. Don’t burn bridges. If someone has just said “I think that sounds a bit racist,” don’t mistake it for them saying “you’re Klu Klux Klan racist scum” (which is a mistake an amazing number of white people make). For the first ten or twenty seconds any response you make will probably come from your defensiveness, not from your brain, so probably you shouldn’t say whatever first comes to your mind.
2) Take the criticism seriously – do not dismiss it without thinking about it. Especially if the criticism comes from a person of color – people of color in our society tend by necessity to be more aware of racism than most Whites are, and pick up on things most Whites overlook. (On the other hand, don’t put the people of color in the room in the position of being your advocate or judge.)
3) Don’t make it about you. Usually the thing to do is apologize for what you said and move on. Especially if you’re in a meeting or something, resist your desire to turn the meeting into a seminar on How Against Racism You Are. The subject of the conversation is probably not “your many close Black friends, and your sincere longstanding and deep abhorrence of racism.”
Think of it as if someone points out that you need to wipe your nose because you’ve got a big glob of snot hanging out. The thing to do is say “oh, excuse me,” wipe your nose, and move on. Insisting that everyone pat you on the back and reassure you that they realize you don’t always have snot hanging from your nose, before the conversation can be allowed to move forward, is not productive.
4) Let Occasional Unfair Accusations Roll Off Your Back. Sometimes, even after you’ve given it serious thought, you’ll come to the conclusion that a criticism was unfair. Great! Now please let it go. Don’t insist that everyone agree with you. Don’t enlist the people of color in the room to certify you as Officially Non-Racist. Don’t bring it up again and again, weeks or months after everyone else has forgotten about the original discussion. In other words, see point #3.
Shorter Ampersand: Don’t make it a whacking huge deal if you say something racist, or something others perceive as racist. Apologize, move on, and consider the criticism seriously so that you can improve your thinking, if need be.
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Of possible interest: http://www.nyu.edu/classes/siva/archives/002475.html
That’s excellent advice. Thank you. :-)
Good advice. Sometimes with the best intentions, I say something that I don’t recognize as racist until it’s pointed out. Sometimes it isn’t racist at all. Either way move on.
Thanks. My first trip to this site but not my last.
Nice post…I think I’ll actually use this along with a couple of other readings in my Race and Ethnicity classes next semester.
Very good.
This advice will help you keep your balance. It does not automatically bring you into agreement with the person and if you pretend it does you will be seen as patronizing.
Let me also say: it is more that possible the Black person is insane-o. In this case, do what I do with insane-o white people: listen until the surge dissipates, but listen. When they’re done, or at least paused, ask them, “is this what you’re trying to say?” and tell them what you understand. Rationality almost always ensues.
What if you’re accused of being racist because the troll you’re disagreeing with over a completely different topic claims that he’s suddenly black. Are you allowed to publicly mock that troll for all time while laughing uncontrollably?
Sorry, I’m trying to think of a time I’ve had bullshit accusations of racism leveled against me, and that’s it. Usually people who claim to be falsely accused of racism say remarkably racist things. Like, “I’m not racist, some of my best friends are black!! I even overlook their obvious gang membership and crack addictions!!”
Anyway – excellent post, Amp.
And P6- indeed, insanity knows no racial boundaries.
Interesting, except for one quibble. I wouldn’t apologize unless I think that I was actually being racist. You are right that it is counterproductive to try to prove that you are not racist, and that one ought to be able to let unfair criticisms roll of their back. However, if I don’t think I am wrong, I would not apologize in anticipation of deciding that I am wrong later.
I wouldn’t apologize unless I think that I was actually being racist.
Actually, being stingy with apologies could possibly be counterproductive. At least say “Gosh, I am sorry that something I said made you feel that I was being racist. Please tell me how what I said sounded to you so I can never make this mistake again.”
Otherwise, you’re potentially making the mistake of putting your pride ahead of communication. You could end up coming off the worse for what would appear to be arrogance.
Just saying.
I am a very fair-skinned white guy with a strong southern accent living in Georgia. I dress kinda redneck because I work outdoors as much as I can. (Fair skin + outside work = good idea to rock the cowboy hat.) Every now and then I say things that startle people for their frankness, especially if they don’t know me and know that I am being sarcastic or glib. (ex.- A friend of my wife was describing his brother’s job, which is in western Illinois. His brother is a person of color, and we were talking about winter up there. He said “Yeah, he was driving there to take the job in January, and when he looked out the car windows, it was white in every direction.” and I said “I wouldn’t assume that quality to be limited to the snow, actually.” Now, Irving didn’t know, COULDN’T have known, that I was speaking from a position of sympathy for his brother’s unfortunate pilgramage into a land where he will be a 1% minority, and that I was somewhat glibly offering the opinion that Western Illinois can be a bit of a cultural wasteland. So he said, “Er, what exactly do you mean?” and I explained. Clamming up and refusing to honor the request for clarification or getting pissy and saying “You know damn well what I mean” would have been, shall we say, fucking stupid.)
Just saying, y’know.
great advice. i know a guy at work i’d like to give this to…
Good post, Amp. I try to remember in such situations that regardless of what I meant, the fact that someone felt the need to call me out on something means that there is something to be examined (for the sake of this post I’m ignoring the possibility that the offended party is insane or just trying to start a fight). Whether what I said was in fact racist or I made an unfortunate choice of phrasing or, like patrick, I failed to convey the sarcastic, ironic or otherwise indirect meaning behind my words, whatever I just said is probably something I don’t want to say again. There is great value in being able to examine what I just said and pick out the offensive bits, especially if I can ask the offended party to help me do so.
I have had many experiences like this, but usually in respect to sexism rather than to racism. I have been lucky in that I tend to surround myself with people who are willing to examine my mistakes with me and work through them to help me become more aware of the effects of my male privilege.
That was awesome, and necessary. Thank you.
Why is this post targeted solely at “white” people? Is it OK for a “non-white” person to respond defensively to an accusation of racism, but not appropriate for a “white” person to do so? I guess I need some clarification of the context of the accusation that the described response is appropriate to. As it stands, this is close to the stupidest thing I’ve read on a blog anywhere (with the exception of about 99.7% of what I’ve read on the right-wing blogosphere, which is, not surprisingly, more stupid)
If the word “sorry” bothers you, try something like, “Ok, that came out wrong…” or “You know Black and white folks hear things differently sometimes, I meant blahblahblah.”
Don’t cap off a rational attitude with stupid pride. But that’s not race relations advice, feel me?
Um, P6, I’m going to go out on a limb here, but isn’t the second of your alternatives to “I’m sorry” going to come across as racist?
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Reasonable advice, but it eschews a real dialogue about race.
Personally I have to commend the innovation of the term “insane-o”.
I use “wack-o” generally for right-wing nutcases, often expanded to “wack-o fund-o” for Intelligent Design advocates, James Dobson clones and the like.
I have felt the need for some time for an additional descriptor to deal with people I occasionally encounter here in Academia and elsewhere; a broader term that can be used for non-reality based communities with markedly different dimensions than Wack-os. A term that recognizes the large class of nutcases whose dilusions are frankly orthogonal to those of fundo-s or wack-os.
Insane-o really does the job nicely.
The advice part of the post is good too.
I am a teacher in a NYC public school. Sometimes kids will call me racist for things like not letting them go to the bathroom or asking them to pay attention to the classwork. I always point blank ask them how I am being racist. I want to know. (and to embarrass them)
That example was silly, but I was in PA and I went to the teachers section of the local Kmart where I found these multicultural stickers of kids faces. When I took them back to nyc, it suddenly dawned on me that there might be a problem. I showed them to the kids who thought they were cute. I said I thought they might be racist. A student said that they weren’t and that I should give black faces to the black kids and White faces to the white kids.
I put them in my drawer and never used them
As a white person who, by virtue of my job, is daily in a position of power over black people (and others), this is excellent advice. As a case manager, I cannot be effective at my job if my clients truly believe I’m not on their side. Being constantly conscious of my language, my body language, my assumptions, and my own prejudices is a vital part of my job.
Saying “I’m sorry” costs nothing and pays huge dividends. It is also essential to be able to let unfair accusations roll off your back, because frankly they’re going to happen. On a couple of occasions, I have been caught in assumptions that were racist, and being called on it was genuinely helpful to me.
As for Matt: This isn’t about dialogue about race. This is about courtesy between human beings. There are many, many situations that don’t allow for dialogue, but which do allow for racism, or perceived racism. Being able to handle those situations in stride (for all involved) is important.
From ken above:
“I am a teacher in a NYC public school. Sometimes kids will call me racist for things like not letting them go to the bathroom or asking them to pay attention to the classwork. I always point blank ask them how I am being racist. I want to know. (and to embarrass them) ”
Maybe I’m taking this wrong, but I really hate it when teachers use their position of power over children to belittle them. Almost every public school teacher I know has various power issues with everyone around them, including the adults.
Your advice also applies to other situations when you’re blindsided–such as the big cheap shot at men: your wife saying you only think of yourself.
ManOnBlog:
To embarrass is not necessarily to belittle. Embarassment can be quite educational.
1.The same can be said for “genderism” or “sexism”. As a woman I am acutely aware of sexist comments made by men, and even by other women. Sometimes I make a stink and sometimes I just let it go.
2.Your comments can be applied to people who hear something they think is racist. Don’t always point it out. Sometimes you just have to let it go.
ManOnBlog – kids say some stupid shit. If you just go around agreeing with them because you don’t want to “use your position of power over the children to belittle them” they are going to end up ignorant assholes. One of the lessons of growing up is learning that just because you’ve heard something from your friends, doesn’t make it true.
I think we are going to find that a great deal of the racial sensitivity training done recently has done a great deal of harm along with the good. The problem I’ve seen is that people can learn one of two lessons from being told that white people cannot get rid of all of the racism in them. 1) It may seem impossible, but I will try. 2) Fuck this shit. In that case, I will arrange my life so that there are no black or brown people in it to be offended by me. The second lesson is the one learned more often than people realize. Racism becomes a little source of smug transgressiveness.
I do think looking at the problem through the lens of politeness is the way to go. My response to perceived racism in fellow whites “I don’t give a fuck who you think is the least of your brethren, I really don’t. But if you consider yourself a Christian, you need to treat them as well as you would treat Jesus.” Usually shuts them up. Haven’t had the same problem with Jewish friends.
Here’s an observation:
Human beings are naturally racist. We are all conscious of skin color, we all tend to draw the circle so as to include people like us and exclude people different than us, and we all seek reasons to justify why certain people are good and certain people are bad. One can find examples of racism from around the world (See Frank DiKotter’s Discourse on Race in Modern China for some jawdropping examples of racism).
So, to *not* be racist is almost inhuman. Angelic, perhaps.
Americans, though, have an extra barrier in overcoming racism. Slavery, the conquest of northern Mexico, and the genocide against the American Indian creates a sense of guilt and fear among many white Americans, especially those who are most openly racist. To overcome racism in the US will require ending its ill effects, so that we can look at one another without wincing over the past, until all the bitterness and death becomes something our children or our children’s children can no longer imagine.
As a practical matter, organizations such as the Hurricane Relief Fund (organized by the Algebra Project), ACORN, Common Ground and others are working to mitigate the disaster in New Orleans. Keeping Katrina survivors in your hearts and on your contribution list not only this year, but for 5 or 10 years to come is a good place to start to begin the healing.
While I don’t think that the old saw “I’m not racist, by best friend is black.” is ever helpful, I don’t think that rolling over and apologizing/moving on is the right advice.
It seems likely to me that most of the people who read this blog are not racist (or are at least trying not to be). If someone in this website’s audience makes a statement that someone interprets as racist, it seems likely that it was a mere slip of the tongue or misunderstanding, and not a genuinely malicious comment. The best action to me seems to be to confront the situation, not gloss over it.
The Case Manager and the linker to sivacracy.net above point in the right direction, I think. Admit that you didn’t mean to offend, by apology if necessary, and then engage a dialogue about what you said and how it was offensive. Work it out. Not with peripheral, defensive statements about how great a person you are, but by engaging the person who was offended.
One really big pitfall to the approach suggested by Ampersand seems to be that if you don’t try to work through this kind of problem immediately, then it will hang over you in the mind of your accuser, if not with everyone else who was around.
Human beings are naturally racist.
No. Really sick of hearing this come up on every thread, because no. We’re not naturally racist any more than we’re natural speakers of a particular language. Capacity to learn language? Yes – but which one depends on what we’re surrounded by. Capacity to categorize people? Yes, but which categories we draw depend on who surround us. The way history has played out means that the vast majority of the world’s population grow up surrounded by people of the same (general) race – but it’s odd, no, I think pathetic, to try to ‘privilege’ racism as a natural instinct. It’s not.
Can’t we at least give human nature the benefit of the doubt on this one, and accept that racism is *our* problem to deal with?
I don’t buy the “humans are inherently racist” argument. Children play with each other regardless of race or language or ableness or class or other barriers. It is only as we get older that we are taught things such as “I don’t want to see you playing with her” or “he doesn’t belong around here”.
Some people are naturally eager to embrace new situations and like people who are more different from themselves, and others prefer situations that are familiar and like people who are more like them. Neither group is necessarily racist. “Same” and “Different” have many, many connotations, and race is only a small piece of it.
Only in certain regions did people grow up with others only of the same race, and even in those regions, people invented differences in order to develop prejudice. An interesting example of this are the Hutu and Tutsi people of Africa. They are both African peoples, from the same region, and until about eighty years ago, they were considered one tribal group. White Europeans came in, however, and started distinguishing between tribal members based on height and skin tone, and gave privileges to those who were taller and paler than other tribal members. These people developed into the Tutsi, and the remainder into the Hutu. Conflict grew, not from racial issues, nor from distinguishing physical characteristics (because these characteristics plainly cannot breed true in a few short generations, and the groups still widely intermarry) but based on power structure. In fact, it’s safe to say that most “racial” divisions are based on power inequalities, not characteristics of a particular group of people.
What might be inherent to humanity is the quest for illegitimate power over others based on easy to identify group traits rather than more legitimate power based on individual abilities. Though that is still up in the air.
Your false dichotomy of agreeing with them or belittling them is not what I meant at all. I was objecting to what I percieved as a bullying attitude, which is cruel (and counterproductive to learning).
I find this post’s barely implicit assumption that white people accused of racism are usually at fault – well, kind of racist. Hope you’ll take this criticism seriously and apologize, then move on and improve your thinking if need be.
I think humans tend to be somewhat xenophobic – partly due to upbringing, partly due to evolution, and who knows what the weighting there is. Some of it can be rationalized to some degree, some can’t, but I think most of us would agree it is a net negative.
I wish that we as a species could grow out of this via societal advancement, but throughout history we seem to keep finding ourselves repeating the same serious mistakes over and over (which causes me no small amount of continual anguish).
That should not be read as a reason to do nothing, but what is the long-term fix here? I can only imagine it is something along the lines of robots replacing us at the top of the food chain, or perhaps some serious genetic engineering to make us inherently more intelligent and thoughtful.
I should come back to this thread more frequently.
The point is, acknowlege the differing perception and clarify your point. I leave the specific language to each of you to determine based on the situation at hand.
I don’t see such an assumption. Check out point four.
We did not always use appearance to determine absolutely who is like us, or use it to identify good and bad people.
Appearance has always been noted, but its significance was purely cosmetic. Before the creation and enforcement of the legal framework that created American chattel slavery, Africans were indentured servants like Europeans, and they rebelled against poor treatment together, ran away together and intermarried from the start.
Yes, by nature we differentiate people. We do not do so by invalid parameters without extensive conditioning.
This is not to say your functional approach is a problem, by the way.
Humans are not naturally cautious much less fearful and racist. While caution is essential to survival, fear is a tool of the patriarchy.
Great advice, Ampersand. Some of the most interesting and informative discussions I’ve ever had about race have come from sticking my foot in my mouth and saying something inappropriate. The trick, like Patrick said and you suggested, is to count to ten and try not to speak from your defensiveness.
For those who claim that it is human nature to be racist: You are probably right, BUT THAT DOESN’T EXCUSE IT. Just because someone is jaywalking doesn’t mean you’re allowed to hit them.
For those who claim that it couldn’t possibly be in human nature: Do you honestly believe anyone accepts that as true? Look at both mankind’s written and evolutionary history and feed me that line again, just for fun.
Last thought: Don’t forget that most of racism stems from economic status. The wealthier the circles you hold, the less you see of it. Its often a crutch for frustration with other issues in life. There are always exceptions, of course.
I’ve only ever been accused of being racist, to my face, once.. At work.
I did my best to ignore it. I may indeed be racist, although spend considerable time evaluating and challanging my own assumptions, I suspect none of us, menaing none of us, is entirely free of racism.
But, in fact, the charge was absurd on its face in the siuation it was leveled. Being entirely confident that was so, I ignored it and continued on with what I was saying and doing.
I didn’t need to understand why the person who made the charge made it, and I didn’t care.
I reccomend that course of action
“Reasonable advice, but it eschews a real dialogue about race.”
Kudos for use of the word “eschews.” And I’m inclined to agree with the sentiment that this is good advice, but it stops short of solving or accomplishing anything. But that raises the question: What is a “real dialogue about race”? I have heard this phrase at least 19 skillion times since the Rodney King verdict and I’ll be damned if I have any idea what it means. And I don’ t think anyone else does either. And what would such a dialogue entail? What would be exchanged? And who WANTS a real dialogue about race? What would be gained? What do people want to accomplish? If I had to predict, you’d have one group of people trying to compel atonement from white people, while another group would be trying to legitimize whites’ use of racial slurs because 50 Cent uses them on his albums, etc etc…
We’re always trying to be high-minded and talk about the need for a dialogue on race. Funny how we haven’t gotten around to actually doing that. Just as well that we pass up providing a forum for opportunistic self-flagellation, or race-baiting in the guise of “open debate,” or being beaten over the head with the Race card, and so forth. The only dialogue required is the civilized dialogue we’re expected to carry on person to person in order to get through the day. Just because that modicum of civility is too much to expect from some people doesn’t mean it’s too much to demand. And it’s far from an oversimplification of the problem. If anything, the problem has been overly complicated, which is much of why it’s a problem — lots of paths end in “you couldn’t possibly understand.”
Do unto others, etc. This isn’t complicated. Difficult, maybe, but not complicated.
It makes most white people uncomfortable to acknowledge that they are racist — mainly because our stereotypical racist is a klansman or a neo-nazi — but those are only the most extreme examples of racists. We live in a racist society that teaches us racist stereotypes from our infancy and to think that we can come through a lifetime of American socialization without being influenced by the racist subtext of our culture is ludicrous. Of course, many of us consciously struggle to overcome our training and act and speak and act in a anti-racist way, but we slip up from time to time. Unfortunately, the majority of us think that so long as we don’t use racist epithets, we have done our part. But how racism works in our society is much more complicated than that.
To give one current example, there’s a fairly obvious form of white supremacy occurring in these comments. It’s not easy for a person of color to tell someone that something they said was racist. In fact, take the snot metaphor a little further. Doesn’t it make you uncomfortable to tell someone (other than close friends and family) that they have a booger or that their slip is showing or that they are unzipped? Don’t you sometimes leave it for someone else — particularly if you don’t know the person that well. When a person of color is telling you that your comment is racist, they are taking a risk — they are giving you a gift. But instead of seeing that way, some of you are saying you have the right to judge how they should feel about what you said — that your white supremacy gives you the right to decide what is and isn’t racist. In essense, you are arguing that you, not the person of color, gets to decide whether or not what you said is offensive to people of color, and more arrogantly, to that person in particular. And maybe the intent was not racist, but the impact was…and that’s what matters.
I would actually like to add to Ampersand’s list of suggestions. Thank the person who told you for taking the risk, for caring enough about you to help you avoid the same mistake again. Sure, if you think they are wrong (and it’s possible they are from time to time) then simply apologize and move on without trying to defend what you said — and never defend it without really, seriously thinking about it for a week or two. But if you get why it was offensive and recognize the fault, then thank the person for pointing it out to you, just as sincerely as you would thank the person who pointed out the booger in your nose.
First of all, there’s no biological basis for race. Period. The concept of race is a rather recent human invention, used mostly to justify slavery.
That said, I believe that humans, like most other animals, are genetically apprehensive. Unless and until a person becomes acclimated to living and working in ethnically diverse environs, they will have an almost uncontrollable ethnocentric reaction to those outside their ethnicity.
Like the mythology of race, the underlying and (if you believe instinct is a physical attribute) the physiological basis for what is called “racism”, along with other social ills, needs a lot more public exposure and discussion.
I was once in a meeting at work where I remarked that I was “Shanghai-ed” the last time I travelled to our head office, since I was supposed to be there for one day and ended up being kept there for a week to help on a project. A colleague who is Asian-American (altho frankly, I had no idea until she told me) became extremely offended and told me that “Shanghai-ed” is a racist term. Of course I responded badly. I immediately asked for an explanation, and then told her she was wrong, because the term derives from a completely non-racist practice of the Royal British Navy impressing British working-class men into service in the Far East by getting them drunk and having them revive when they were already at sea. At no time did I insinuate that she was too sensitive or anything, but my natural inclination to defend myself resulted in quite an argument about it, so I wish I had read your post. At any rate, I still think she was wrong (she claimed it derived from British Imperialist treatment of Asians), but I should have just apologized and moved on, instead of arguing. It still steams me, though, because we never did recover our relationship. Ah well.
Well, you should take every reasonable, well-intentioned criticism of yourself seriously, so we can agree on that. Ben Franklin or somebody says we should cherish our critics because they help us become better people.
But as for bad-intentioned or patently false charges of racism or sexism? Well, it’ll depend on the circumstances…but that’s like calling me a Nazi in my book. Under certain circumstances, those are–literally–fighting words.
I take bigotry very seriously. I naturally have very egalitarian tendencies and have worked to wipe out any vestige of inegalitarian ones that remain. I’m not perfect, but I’m pretty damn fair. I have the natural advantage that genital configuration and skin color have just never mattered very much to me, so I don’t deserve much credit for and of this, incidentally. But given how seriously I take this stuff, asking me to let unfair charges roll off my back would be rather like asking me to let unfair charges of murder or child abuse roll off my back (except for the jail part). Not gonna happen.
It seems unreasonable to me to expect peopel to both (a) understand–really understand–the wrongness of bigotry and (b) not mind that much when they’re unfairly accused of it.
“there’s a fairly obvious form of white supremacy occurring in these comments”
Kija, you’re a racist too. Apology accepted in advance. You’re welcome in advance too if you get why it was offensive – if not, we can discuss this in a week or two after you’ve had a really serious think.
I don’t object to saying “I’m sorry that you were offended.” On personal issues, I don’t mind apologizing even if I am not at fault.
But when it comes to ideology, to apologize for your opinions is to admit that they are wrong, and I won’t pretend that I think Iwas wrong if I don’t.
For example, if I oppose Bush’s amnesty/guest-worker program, and someone accuses me of being racist for not wanting to increase immigration, I am not going to apologize and pretend that I think I was wrong to oppose increasing immigration to the U.S.
Well, it’s always interesting when a post one makes inspires universal disagreement.
I agree with Odanu that children play with one another without regard for skin color. That’s a valid point to make. But children will also play with alligators. Does that prove that human beings lack an innate tendency to protect themselves from predators? As good an argument as Odanu makes, I don’t think it wins the day.
There are many innate tendencies, such as sexuality, which are not fully expressed in children. They mature and express themselves as this amorphous thing called culture. One of those tendencies seems to be defining ingroup and outgroup. Skin color happens to be a convenient marker, but one even sees the phenomenon in one of the most genetically homogeneous populations that exists, Honshu (Japan mainland). The Hutu/Tutsi conflict that Odanu cites seems to have been stimulated by the Belgian colonial occupiers (see http://www.africa.ufl.edu/asq/v5/v5i3a16.htm, which I stumbled across while trying to remember the details), but as Odanu notes, it apparently arose spontaneously on its own. Why, if the tendency is not innate?
Odanu ascribes it to power differences. Maybe so, though I can’t see that in the Honshu case. But even if so, the explanation does not get away from the question is whether it arises from an innate tendency.
Maybe the difference in perspective here is semantic. The tendency to define ingroup/outgroup is (loosely) equivalent to racism. Race is an artificial, culturally-defined concept, as are most definitions of ingroup/outgroup. Power is certainly artificial and culturally defined. The Hutu and Tutsi have defined one another as distinct races despite the absence of any obvious physical differences.
A *lot* depends on how we handle our innate racism. Let me propose an analogy. There are happy drunks, and there are obnoxious drunks. By analogy, happy racists love differences between people and see them as adding to the interest and variety of life. Obnoxious racists, like obnoxious drunks, use differences in skin color to justify hate and violence.
I wish I could continue the debate, but the fact is there many excellent blogs and only so many hours in the day. Please feel welcome to drop by Mercury Rising.
First of all, there’s no biological basis for race. Period. The concept of race is a rather recent human invention, used mostly to justify slavery.
Wrong. A race is an extended family that inbreeds to some degree. Any claim that it is merely a social construct is based purely on postmodernist wishful thinking. If you believe that there is no biological basis for race, you also must believe that there is no essential difference between a St. Bernard and a Chihuahua, since different breeds of dog are the same thing as different races.
Tribes, clans, nationalities are all terms for race at different levels. The only “recent invention” is that we now tend to define race in terms of macro-races (e.g. Caucasians, East Asians, Africans) and do not think as much in microracial terms (e.g. English vs. Irish, Polish vs. German).
What happens is that people get isolated into groups and those groups mostly breed within the group. Over time, the two groups evolve differently, partly by chance, partly by selection (e.g. people living in climates that get more sunlight tend to have darker skin to protect them from UV light, people in climates with thin air tend to have more efficient respiration). The fact that the people in the groups mainly breed with other people in their own group helps to maintain said differences.
Are people naturally racist? Well, yes, people tend to prefer people whom they perceive as their own kind, and people tend to perceive “their own kind” as defined by their family, and as race is an extended version of family, people tend to perceive “their own kind” by race.
Now, people are not necessarily naturally racist in the sense that they are hardwired to define “their own kind” in terms that are based on race; generally it is based on whom they associate with; however, for most of human history people were a lot more segregated by race than they are now, so “their own kind” was determined racially. Moreover, as the preference for “one’s own kind” is related to the biological imperative to spread one’s genes, “nature’s intent” as it were was for the preference to be racial (i.e. to benefit those in the same extended family) and race is probably the easiest category for people to develop the sense of “ones’ own kind” with.
Just look at how many “primitive” tribes’ (i.e. not integrated into modern civilization) names for themselves are “the people”? or “the true people” or something like that.
None of this is to say that racism is a good thing, but it is patently incorrect to say that people didn’t think about race until 200 years ago.
While I think Ampersand makes a good point, it seems to fall apart when extended to the related issue of accusations of anti-semitism.
Anti-semitism remains a serious problem, is far older than American slavery, and has led to the worst genocide in world history. While it may not be racism, it certainly is harmful prejudice, and many believe that the accusation of being an anti-semite is even worse than that of being a racist.
Thus, the logical extension of Ampersand’s argument is that liberals should apologize to David Horowitz or the FrontPageMag crew when they engage in (their frequent) accusations of anti-semitism on the left. They should also apologize when they are called anti-semites for attacking neo-conservatives, because some people (Patrick Buchanan, for example) have used it as a cryptic term for Jewish people.
Yet, as Winston said above, nobody is going to accept that. Nor should they.
In any case, the accusation of racism really is a “whacking huge deal”, Ampersand, because racism is a “whacking huge deal”. I don’t think you can have the one without the other.
And yes, pride does matter- we’re all human beings, and human beings are driven by pride. If individuals start believing that they are doomed to be racist no matter what they do, cognitive dissonance will ensure that they eventually conclude that being a racist is fine. Accepting the structural racism in our society may be necessary, but denying agency entirely will only make progress in ending that structure impossible.
First off, I just wanted to say that it is really interesting to read a discussion on race relations that tries as hard as it can not to be a discussion on race relations. Somebody’s dead mother is stinking up the closet… It is really heartening to be able to witness such a truly progressive back-and-forth as this. Having said that, though not wanting to dilute the reasonable and intelligent line of this thread, i thought i might add an anecdote of my own.
A few months ago or so, a female African-American friend of mine(an artist=completely insane), in a fit of anger, called me a, “racist nigger loving bitch,” then tried to kick me down a flight of stairs. Needless to say I laughed for a good 15 minutes on that one. Of course she didn’t remember the night in question, but the next time I saw her I jokingly reminded her about the happening. She apologized and told me that she was sorry, but that she grew up in a basically all white neighborhood and wasn’t used to being around blacks….
She’s a terrific artist, BTW, but she’s just as racist as, well, as all of you. LOL. Ask her and she’ll tell you so. My opinion is that her bias is actually of a more class conscious nature than race based, since she does hang out with me occasionally, and I’m black. But that’s not really the point is it? She called me a racist and after I dodged a crotch bound sandal I let the comment slide, went back into the bar, had a drink, had a laugh.
“It seems likely to me that most of the people who read this blog are not racist (or are at least trying not to be).”
That equation – between the first part of the sentence and the parenthetical – is I think key to the problem the OP is addressing. People tend to think, when someone says of their statement that “that was racist,” that this is the same thing as saying “you’re a bigot.” It’s not. There are so many racist ideas ingrained in conventional American ways of talking and thinking that pretty much everyone, especially among whites given white privilege, thinks and talks in racist ways occasionally. It’s not a matter of hating or despising non-whites, and it’s *not* a moral failing – it’s counterproductive in the extreme to take unconscious racism as something to judge people by. It *is* something to be careful of, however.
So probably most of the people who read this blog aren’t racists, in the sense that they actively try to avoid being racist, or aren’t consciously racist. But almost certainly most of us are racist, in the sense that some of our ideas inevitably will stem from or play a part in racism. This applies to those of us of all colors, but is something white people need to worry about most.
Which brings me to rilkefan’s sarcasm:
“I find this post’s barely implicit assumption that white people accused of racism are usually at fault – well, kind of racist. Hope you’ll take this criticism seriously and apologize, then move on and improve your thinking if need be.”
This is bullshit, frankly. It’s exactly the kind of mindless defensive reaction the post is trying to get you to avoid, and shows no attempt to think seriously about how racism works in our society.
Racism is *not* a symmetric relation. It’s fundamentally a matter of power, not one of emotional reaction to the other – which is exactly why it’s not part of human nature. In any context of racism, one group is on top, and in the U.S., that’s whites. As part of that, they’ll be racist. ‘Assuming’ this isn’t racist, it’s recognizing the effects of racism. You cannot equate the experience of white people accused of racism – or, say, ‘victimized’ by affirmative action – with the experience of black or brown people subject to racism, unless you’re prepared to argue that there really is no power differential in the U.S. at present or that non-whites are on top. Which requires a peculiar kind of blindness.
There are many innate tendencies, such as sexuality, which are not fully expressed in children.
It’s a good thing nobody clued the ancient Greeks in to the innateness of sexuality, because otherwise they might have engaged in sexual conduct as deemed appropriate to their age and class. Oh, wait…
Odanu ascribes it to power differences. Maybe so, though I can’t see that in the Honshu case.
well, it’s clear you’ve looked very hard at other possibilities.
for most of human history people were a lot more segregated by race than they are now, so “their own kind” was determined racially.
Actually, that sounds like “their own kind” was defined as human, since all of the people in a region would tend to similar phenotypes and they wouldn’t have much comparison with other colors of people. (So to speak) And due to that long segregation by geography, each group would speak a different language. Have different technology. The early mass contact (say tricking in by the hundreds or storming in by the army) between these groups of previously-isolated people would indeed set the tone for the next several generations. Who would, in turn, be maintaining or changing the situation as they saw fit, impacting the next several generations.
Social animals can change slow or fast, but something ignored or taken for granted is far less likely to change than something troubling to the society.
Since some of the naturalists here seem equally fond of the long-term view of history, can’t it be admitted that it’s a little early yet to know anything about how “different” races might/might not be programmed to react to one another?
Glavister-
I’m sorry but you are wrong. Race as a unified scientific concept (5 races defined by skin color etc.) applying to the whole of “mankind” (there’s a whole ‘nother can o’ worms entirely), was first used to justify the European slave trade relatively recently. Many social and cultural groups are suspicious of outsiders, but many are not and welcome visitors from other places with deeply ingrained formal hospitality rituals whether it is convenient or not, ie. Hernan Cortez in Mexico. Your conflation of race, family and ethnicity is part of the decline of definition in modern discourse. The uses of this degradation of meaning are illuminated very well in a book by George Orwell entitled 1984. The idea that there is an ‘English’ race is ridiculous on its face as the population of that country is the result of a somewhat equal mixing of Celts, Danes, Scandanavians, Angles, Saxons, French, Germans, etc., etc. All separate micro races by your very broad definition. This also applies to races like Chinese, Indian, Hispanic, etc. As a concept the idea of ‘race’ does not survive the rigor of logical investigation except as a justification of the ‘natural’ inferiority of the targeted groups of people. For the record I’m a white (Norway, Wales, Scotland, France, Germany…Mom’s side 1621, Dad’s side 1870’s, american) guy with a black stepfather. I have many of my own racist stereotypes ingrained by my culture. I agree with everything that Kija said, using the word supremacy just drives the point home, and it seems like it speaks right to the original comment by Prometheus 6.
“If you believe that there is no biological basis for race, you also must believe that there is no essential difference between a St. Bernard and a Chihuahua, since different breeds of dog are the same thing as different races.”
That doesn’t follow. People who believe there is no biological basis for race (such as myself) are not arguing that it’s somehow logically or physically impossible that there could be human races, which were as different as Chihuahuas and St. Bernards. We argue rather than in fact, humanity is not divided into subspecies like dogs, though theoretically it could be. There are genetic variations within humanity, certainly, and many of them are even geographically distributed. But they are not generally correleted with each other or with skin color in any systematic way (sickle cell anemia is one of the only exceptions), and the vast majority of them – I think the figure is something like %90 – occur within people of African descent who are conventionally lumped together as “black.” Moreover, even the geographically-based variations that existed two or three hundred years ago are rapidly disappearing; not many white people in the US have no (relatively recent) African ancestors, and even fewer blacks have no white ancestors.
Glaivester,
Not to burst your bubble, but your analogy between breeds of dog and race is not a good comparison to make. I work with dogs, and different breeds are different breeds for a reason, not just because of how they look. Dog breeds have distinctive behaviours and different temperaments. Humans, regardless of race, are the same. Asians are no different from caucasians. The only difference between them is their skin colour. Any other differences are result of how individuals are raised and how culture and society affects them – differences that are not biological.
Glaivester:
My understanding (based upon my dim recollections of an article published in a scientific journal some years ago. No, I can’t cite.) is that in humans, the inter-group genetic differences are much smaller than the intra-group differences, in comparison to the intra- and inter-breed differences between dogs, indeed so small that the only reasonable scientific conclusion is that there is only one race of humans.
Tribes, clans, nationalities are all terms for race at different levels. The only “recent invention” is that we now tend to define race in terms of macro-races (e.g. Caucasians, East Asians, Africans) and do not think as much in microracial terms (e.g. English vs. Irish, Polish vs. German).
The second conclusion from that article is that such intra-group that occur do not break along (using your terminology) macro-racial lines. A black tribe in Africa may be more closely related to a white tribe in Europe than to their African neighbours.
To put it another way, macro-race is literally only skin-deep.
And we do still think in microracial terms. We just use the word ‘nationality’ rather than ‘race’.
The differential evolutionary pressures upon skin colour are so great that the white ethnic Europeans living in South Africa will be jet black within a few tens of thousands of years, way to soon for any significant genetic difference to develop.
I agree with the rest of your analysis.
Outstanding post. I liked it so much, I referenced it on my own blog. Here are some comments I made with it:
The first rule of resolving a problem is to agree on what exactly is the problem.
Apply this to the word “racism”: it means different things to different people. So when I hear “racist” the first thing I do is try to understand what the user means by it.
Speaking very broadly, I think white people tend to define “racism” as an intentional act motivated by negative beliefs about a race — such as not hiring someone because you don’t like black people.
I think blacks and other minorities have a much broader definition — such as blacks having trouble getting jobs because most jobs get filled based on factors such as who-you-know and having things in common with the person doing the interview. Nothing intentional against blacks, but the effect is the same.
On the issue of saying “sorry” and moving on… that’s good, if you are the kind of person who gets all bent out of shape about having people point this kind of stuff out to you… and if you are in a seminar, or work environment, or whatever. But if you actually like to talk about this kind of stuff with people, apologizing just because someone critiques something you said as racist can be sort of counterproductive. Sometimes a better approach is to go “Huh? I sort of disagree. Why do you say that?” Then you can have a conversation.
One of the sneaky ways all this racial stuff works is that whites don’t actually feel comfortable talking about it, which has lots of unfortunate effects. Its ok to have an opinion about race that doesn’t mesh with what the person calling your comments racist has; in fact, anti-racism work sort of demands that you get comfortable with the fact that not all black people know what the heck they are talking about when it comes to this topic, and not all white people DON’T know what they are talking about. In fact, sometimes white people have a better understanding of how race works in this country than black people do! Go figure!
So yes, breathe (if you need to)
apologize (if you think it is appropriate)
talk (if you – and they – are up to it)
stay polite (unless you really, really can’t hack it)
and remember – you are more than your skin color. Just like the people you are talking to.
Joe
P.S. – Don’t forget political economy.
to the moderator – I wouldn’t mind if you changed “Nice Post” to my name. Thanks.
You know what I think?
I think the discussion of whether or not race is a real biological thing is a huge digression. The whole animal taxonomy was based on appearance. DNA evidence is only recently starightening that mess out. That being the case, you will always be able to argue for a biological basis for race and convince the unreflecting.
I say the unreflecting because it takes little thought (or even less historical knowlege) to see the American concept of race isn’t about skin color. Old heads like me may remember the phenomenon known as passing. Black folks who passed for white held that secret closely, not even telling spouses most times. No matter how they looked, if it ever got out they were Black, they’d lose everything.
Not, the American concept of race is not about about skin color at all.
I work with dogs, and different breeds are different breeds for a reason, not just because of how they look. Dog breeds have distinctive behaviours and different temperaments. Humans, regardless of race, are the same. Asians are no different from caucasians.
Right. It is only a coincidence that Kenyans dominate the steeplechases in the Olympics.
Your conflation of race, family and ethnicity is part of the decline of definition in modern discourse. The uses of this degradation of meaning are illuminated very well in a book by George Orwell entitled 1984.
No, race, nationality, and family are different applications of essentially the same concept. Ethnic group is something else.
The idea that there is an ‘English’ race is ridiculous on its face as the population of that country is the result of a somewhat equal mixing of Celts, Danes, Scandanavians, Angles, Saxons, French, Germans, etc., etc. All separate micro races by your very broad definition.
You can divide a race into smaller races as long as the rce can be divided into smaller groups that mostly inbreed. The concept of “region” is similarly fuzzy, but no one denies that it is useful to talk about different “regions” just because region can be used to refer to the divisions of a town, of a country, or of a continent.
This also applies to races like Chinese, Indian, Hispanic, etc. As a concept the idea of ‘race’ does not survive the rigor of logical investigation except as a justification of the ‘natural’ inferiority of the targeted groups of people.
Sure. The Chinese can be divided into many sub-races. So can Caucasians, blacks, any group. Moreover, races are dynamic; they can merge, diverge, regroup. If you took 1000 black people and 1000 white people and put 500 on of each on each of two isolated islands, and the people on each island chose a mate randomly (i.e. a black person is as likely to find a white mate as a black mate and vice versa) you would, after several generations, produce two new races; how similar these races were would depend on selection pressures.
My understanding (based upon my dim recollections of an article published in a scientific journal some years ago. No, I can’t cite.) is that in humans, the inter-group genetic differences are much smaller than the intra-group differences,
One might as easily concludethat hurricanes are not that significant, because the motion of individual gas molecules at room temperature is so much faster than the wind speed during a hurricane.
The differential evolutionary pressures upon skin colour are so great that the white ethnic Europeans living in South Africa will be jet black within a few tens of thousands of years, way to soon for any significant genetic difference to develop.
Why is that too soon for any significant genetic difference to develop? Evolutionary pressures are great for a lot of factors other than skin color.
There are genetic variations within humanity, certainly, and many of them are even geographically distributed. But they are not generally correleted with each other or with skin color in any systematic way (sickle cell anemia is one of the only exceptions),
Cystic fibrosis? If you define race as a population that mostly breeds within itself rather than by skin color, then what about Tay-Sachs?
Skin color is a red herring, by the way. Skin color can be a useful marker for race, but it is not the same thing as race.
Also, if it were really true that no significant genetic variations have developed between the races, why were the Native Americans so susceptible to European diseases? Isn’t that a significant difference?
Why were the Native Americans so susceptible to alcoholism whereas Jews and Japanese people are not. unless different selective pressures (specifically, that the Jews and Japanese have had alcohol for millennia, while Native Americans were only recently introduced to it and so selection against people who are susceptible to alcoholism has not had as much time to alter the population).
Why are Asians so much more likely to be lactose intolerant than Caucasians?
In any case, why is it bad to point out racial differences? Isn’t part of celebrating diversity realizing that diversity actually exists?
Why were the Native Americans so susceptible to alcoholism … Why are Asians so much more likely to be lactose intolerant than Caucasians?
Not your intention, I’m sure, but this makes the point against “racial differences” wonderfully. Asians are more likely to be lactose intolerant than Europeans – more likely, not universally. The frequency of biological factors enabling digestion of lactose varies in the respective populations, but members of either population can while other members can’t.
Even at the level of genetics, it’s more useful – health-wise, socially, in every way – to work on a person-by-person basis, because there’s so much variation in any population, and it overlaps inevitably with the variation in other human populations – that race is simply not a useful basis for judgments.
I’ll say one thing about Galvister, he’s a supporter of Darwin and evolution! (My apologies in advance if I have sexed you wrongly.) I would just say again that your definition of race is so broad as to be unusable. Historically race theory, which is where we’ve inherited our particular American racial attitudes from, believes in Asiatic, African, Native American, Caucasian and Inuit/Eskimo as the five races. According to these historical theories all other groupings are sub-categories. As far as the inbreeding thing creating new races quickly goes it just doesn’t hold up to scientific scrutiny. P6 is right in stating the fact that race in America isn’t even really about race, if you catch my drift. The guys that invented the idea of ‘The World’s Races’ did it for a specific economic and social purpose. The needed to be able to justify their actions to the kings and the church. That’s why blacks were counted a 3/5 of a man and women weren’t counted at the beginning of our great experiment. It created a legal and ‘natural’ framework to justify their ‘worth’ as the property of ‘men’. Kind of like laws promoting ID over science in school. Kind of like that Woo guy from Berkeley finding no blood or permanent physical damage equals no torture. Kind of like peace from the muzzle of a gun. Kind of Orwellian. Freedom is Slavery! When you have a cohesive, not necessarily coherent , rationale, it is much easier to get the results you want. Also for all you folks who keep bringing dogs into the discussion, I’m personally offended to be compared to an animal of a lower order! I’m an inveterate specieist! Apologies accepted in advance.
The premise that only minorities are legitimate judges of racism (and only women are legitimate judges of sexism, etc.), and that such accusations should be normatively presumed valid, strikes me as seriously flawed. Can’t we, while recognizing the reality of racism and sexism, also recognize that some minorities and women are going to be paranoid about racism and sexism, both because of their experience and because they’ve been primed by identity-politics ideologues to see racism/sexism even where it isn’t? In my view, the advice to apologize and move on can only merely perpetuate the victim mentality that people like John McWhorter, for instance, have written about.
Furthermore: let’s say that in a college class that includes 10 black people, one of them finds a professor’s remark racist while the other nine do not. Is there any reason to privilege the perception of the one person who sees the remark as racist? Doesn’t that demean the other nine by implying that they are blind to their own oppression?
And what happens when anti-racism and anti-sexism (or anti-homophobia) collide? i.e. when some black activists claimed that it was racist to deplore the acquittal of O.J. Simpson or to applaud the rape conviction of Mike Tyson? When I was a student at Rutgers University in the mid-1980s, we had a so-called civil rights attorney, C. Vernon Mason, speak on our campus and say that black women who are battered by black men and report their abusers to the police are collaborating with the oppressor. When campus feminists (and others) expressed outrage at this, they were accused of racism.
In my view, true respect for people as individuals requires challenging unsubstantiated accusations of racism, sexism, etc.
wow, you people are totally self-obsessed. maybe you should just realize that people of color are more qualified to identify racism than you are. if you are called “racist” by a person of color. stop talking and start listening.
Glaivester:
Hurricane force winds are insignficant to the question of determining the race (state of matter) of a given body of Nitrogen-Oxygen mix. It is as gaseous as the air on a windless day.
However one metric tonne of hurricane force wind is very different, thermally, from a metric tonne of liquid air. Of course, to survivors of a hurricane the differences are significant.
Nowhere have I suggested that genetic differences between the races don’t exist. What I’m saying is that these differences are too insignificant in comparison to other differences justify the claim that the division of humanity into roughly five different races based upon either skin colour or regional ancestry is one justified by science. It isn’t.
And even if it was, it would not justify treating any human being like crap because of that classification.
Can we not also, while recognising the reality of racism and sexism, also recognise that some minorities and women are going to make false or abusive accusations of racism and in order to secure advantage to themselves that they do not deserve.
Can someone explain to me why “person of color” is acceptible, but “colored” is not?
Daran, person of albido.
Scenario 1. A white youth is walking down the street, when he is suddenly confronted by a group of black youths. After a short stand-off, the white youth is attacked and beaten up. Later the white youth expresses views somewhat negative towards blacks.
Scenario 2. A black youth is walking down the street, when he is suddenly confronted by a group of white youths. After a short stand-off, the black youth is attacked and beaten up. Later the black youth expresses views somewhat negative towards whites.
Question 1. What much racism can you identify in the above?
Question 2. Are the interests of racial harmony best served by telling (a) the white youth, or (b) the black youth, to just shut up?
Can someone explain to me why “person of color” is acceptible, but “colored” is not?
Daran, person of albido.
For the same reason “Daran” is an acceptable way to address you and “Dork-on” isn’t–you get to decide for yourself what you wish for others to call you.
This thread is incredibly depressing. I wish I could use some kind of super-elite technology to beam half the people who have commented into a state called perspective. The defensiveness and avoidance being displayed here is truly phenomenal. For all everyone protests that they’re not racist (or at least “not *trying* to be racist,” which is worth about as many good behavior points as me “not *trying* to drive over old people in crosswalks”) the very self-centered nature of these comments gives lie to that claim. “Your people suffered a genocide? Huh too bad. But but today SOMEONE CALLED ME A RACIST OMG I’M MELTING!!!!” “Racism, gosh, that must kinda suck for you. But but but more importantly, racism is only natural! I CAN’T HELP IT!!! Oh and I am not a racist, how dare you???”
And all the crap about chihuahuas and collies makes you sound like a 19th century good ole boy “scientist” giving a presentation on why “negroes” are a step behind on the evolutionary ladder. You can dress your bigotry up in as many scientific or pseudo-scientific terms as you want, and it’s still bigotry. You can justify it with any number of psychological or “evo-bio” terms and jargon and it still stinks just as badly as it would if you put on a white sheet and picked up a torch.
That goes TRIPLE for all the amateurish babbling about Native Americans and alcohol. Read a few actual scholarly papers on the topic, preferably out of a couple different disciplines, as this is hardly a one-dimensional problem. Then get it through your skull somehow that North America is a very large continent and an awful lot of different people have inhabited it. As far as genetics, the average Tlingit person in Alaska has more in common with a person from Japan than she does with a Zuni person in New Mexico. Although, even generalizing to *that* extent is a sloppy and hazardous statement to make. Anyone who has anything approaching an *actual* grasp of anthropology and genetics realizes that, and that’s why you mostly hear this “well Native Americans barbarbarbar alcohol barbarharrumph!” from arrogant and under-educated amateurs.
I suggest that those whose area of expertise is dog breeding confine themselves to commenting on the genetic differences between dogs. And those who are too squeamish to face up to the fact that everyone who lives in a racist society as part of the majority bears some measure of responsibility, however small or large, for the injustices that continue–well perhaps they’d best leave any matter concerning race relations to someone who is more constitutionally fit for the ordeal.
> Can’t we, while recognizing the reality of racism and
> sexism, also recognize that some minorities and
> women are going to be paranoid about racism and sexism,
> both because of their experience and because they’ve
> been primed by identity-politics ideologues to see
> racism/sexism even where it isn’t?
Sure, but I think you’re immediately demonstrating the potential risk of doing so.
It’s only intellectually valuable to recognize that kind of thing if you can retain a strong sense of nuance—the recognition that, while the opinions of a minority are not axiomatically correct, it’s still worth respecting them in the lion’s share of all cases. That most people *aren’t* paranoid, no matter how much or little privilege they have, and that most people worth talking to in the first place *aren’t* helpless pawns of ideologues. That if you’re talking to someone who’s sane about everything else, they’re probably sane about prejudice, too.
Of course Ampersand’s advice is only useful in, I dunno, maybe 80% of all cases; and if I’m wrong and it’s less than 60% or more than 95%, my worldview needs some shaking. ^_^
But . . . well, isn’t it throwing out the baby with the bathwater to prep a list in advance of all the reasons why minorities might not be worth listening to?
Responding now to Daran instead:
> Can we not also, while recognising the reality of racism
> and sexism, also recognise that some minorities and
> women are going to make false or abusive accusations of
> racism and in order to secure advantage to themselves
> that they do not deserve.
Enh. All the above goes double for you. Maybe even triple. ^_^
I mean, can’t we just take people seriously, instead of jumping straight to putting them on the pedestal of “honest 100% of the time” in order to knock them off of it?
I mean, isn’t it a bit of a poison to spend too much time thinking about all the ways in which minorities can be misled, foolish, evil, stupid, or even overly virtuous? Even if you stick to “well, a percentage must exist?”
Rebecca
Glaivester:
Cystic fibrosis? If you define race as a population that mostly breeds within itself rather than by skin color, then what about Tay-Sachs?
So, you’re basically saying ‘race’ means ‘genetic population.’ Yes, humanity can be divided into different populations with different genetic characteristics. The reasons not to call those races are that (1) skin color is not a useful way to so divide (2) they overlap in multiple ways rather than having correlated attributes (3) the ‘science’ of race has a horrific history.
Skin color is a red herring, by the way. Skin color can be a useful marker for race, but it is not the same thing as race.
It’s part of the history of the term race. If you’re just trying to be scientific, why not use a conventional term, like populati0n? Why do you feel the need to preserve or rescue the vocabulary of racism?
Also, if it were really true that no significant genetic variations have developed between the races, why were the Native Americans so susceptible to European diseases? Isn’t that a significant difference?
Yes, it’s a significant difference – though genetically a fairly simple one for most diseases. But note that in other ways Native Americans are often very close to East Asians. This is point against the theory of races.
Why were the Native Americans so susceptible to alcoholism whereas Jews and Japanese people are not.
Is there any evidence that Native Americans are genetically more susceptible to alcohol? It’s certainly a common stereotype…
In any case, why is it bad to point out racial differences? Isn’t part of celebrating diversity realizing that diversity actually exists?
Diversity exists without races; it’s not a genetic term. And while the kind of ‘racial’ differences you’ve cited here have no significant political implications, the notion of genetic differences between ‘races’ has blood on its metaphorical hands. Unless you’re going to defend the unified, appearance-correlated theory of genetic differences between people historically associated with the term ‘race,’ using it only misleads and is likely to offend.
It’s so much easier to be a conservative.
Axiom 1: At heart, everyone is an asshat.
Axiom 2: Everyone has the power within them to act better than their intrinsic nature.
There, you’re done. Someone is acting like an asshat? See Axiom 1. Someone is acting nice? See Axiom 2, and commend them for taking the effort to be nice.
Robert:
Axiom 3: If you are conservative, and something is said which has the remotest chance of changing your world-view, you can switch of your brain by uttering the word ‘liberal’. It’s sort of a self-inflicted Vulcan nerve-pinch.
Black People Love You!
http://www.blackpeopleloveus.com
You can call me “dork-on” if you like.
And I’ll call you “Lillith”. However, if you were to express a wish to be called “Lillith of the Valley”, I might humour you for a while, but it would be back to “Lillith” within a very short period of time.
I commonly use the words “black”, “white”, and “Asian” commonly to the major race groups I have occasion to refer to. (I realise that some people may not fall clearly (or at all) within any one of these groupings.) These terms do not appear to be objectionable, in general, to the people so described. “Coloured” does, and I avoid it for that reason. “Person of colour” makes me feel that I’m being asked to jump through hoops in order to demonstrate something, and I’m not quite sure what it is.
That’s a strawman. In fact, I can’t see anyone getting upset over being called “racist”. My reaction is to yawn.
As Ampersand pointed out, everyone who tries to take part in discussions about race get called a racist sooner or later, (and more likely sooner than later). And that indicates to me that the opperative definition of “racist” is “someone who has a different opinion on race than I have”.
And that is the tragedy of it. It’s not that being called “racist” is offensive. It’s that it makes reasoned discussion impossible. Either I unquestioningly agree with everything you say, or I’m a racist.
Who is “you”? I certainly didn’t say anything remotely like this. What I said about the scientific evidence can be summed up in the following sentence.
There is only one race: the human race.
I can only assume that as soon as the discussion strayed into that area, the clouds gathered across your eyes, and you simply didn’t read what what I said.
Amazingly, that’s almost exactly what I said, except that when I say it, it’s “bigotry”.
I said that too. Incredible!
When there is an eruption of violence, such as happened in, for example, Bradford, England a few years back, when white and Asian gangs battled it out on the streets and attacked homes and businesses of members of the other community, then that is an indicator that something has gone very, very wrong.
These problems didn’t develop overnight, and they don’t have a single cause. Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep. One cause is that the very structure of the urban renewal programs that were supposed to help these comunities actually forced them into conflict. You’re not even reading this, are you? You’ve called me a racist and the white clouds are before your eyes. la, la, la, and doesn’t know where to find them. They had to compete with each other on a “who lives in the worse shithole” basis, for access to resources. That’s a recipe for disaster. The inevitable result is that simmering resentment built up on both sides over years and years.
You don’t solve this problem by pointing the finger of blame at one community or the other. You solve it, to the extent that a solution is possible, by identifying these structural problems, and you do that by listening to people from both comunities, and not silencing the members of one by calling them racist.
Kalkin:
An excellent point which is worth abstracting just to highlight it.
For the same reason, I’ll repeat a point I made earlier:
Daran: and you do that by listening to people from both comunities, and not silencing the members of one by calling them racist.
Suggest you re-read Ampersand’s post that started this thread, Daran. When someone calls you racist, their intent is not to “silence” you – unless you have nothing to say but racist stuff, which I am sure is not true. Read Ampersand’s advice, which strikes me as being pretty good, and learn how not be silenced when someone says you said something racist, but learn from it and move on, hopefully not making that mistake again.
Okay, one thing that annoys me is people who immediately leap to the irrational as excuses for their preferred behavior.
No one has said minorities are the only judge of racism. On the other hand Black people have never been the obstacle to integration. Black people are STILL not the obstacle to integration.
And I want to drop one more bit of info for you to consider…the geneticists someog you cling to so tightly say there are greater differences between individuals within each racial grouping than between racial groups. You know what that means?
It means that even if biological differences are a legitimate means of categorizing humans, you have your categories wrong…otherwise the biological differences of significance would actually align with what we call race.
Oh, one more thing.
This thread has become a serious object lesson. When we discuss white folks particular race problem notice how folks pop up to defend the white race against even the possibility that someone of color might be justified in pointing out a racist action…the rejection of the idea that Black folks are even qualified to make that judgement. Notice the change in topic and sadly, notice how easily the discussion is twisted into something quite useless.
Get real…when a person who looks white to white people suffers social repercussions when it’s discovered they “are black” (don’t take my word, Google Toi Derricott, check her picture and her book) race is not a biological issue.
It’s like you guys never studied homonyms in elementary school…race-the-biological-concept is no more difficult to sort out from race-the-social-issue than a run in you socks from a run in the bottom of the eighth. And if you keep it sorted a lot od silly conversation simply never arises.
You may now return to your silly conversations.
Who was it who said, “If everyone were suddenly turned into the same “color”, there would be a new prejudice by nightfall?”
It’s not about black or white, it’s about having power over another by a constructed view. Male or Female, White or People of Color, Rich or Poor…it’s all the same dismissive view that one is “different” from the constructed “ideal”.
Besides, if you believe in evolution, we all came out of Africa, and therefore, we all have African blood running through our veins.
No. With only several generations the only differences (if any) that might show up would be the result of founder effects, not enough time for any real selection or drift.
You can pick any number of genetic markers and call them “racial”, and you’ll end up with so many “races” that it makes a mockery of the term “race” … which is exactly what Cavalli-Sforza showed (a population geneticist with a thing for historical migrations). The majority of genes do not follow the geographic clines that are refered to as “race”. Science does not support the use of the term “race”.
Human genetics also demonstrates that “racism” is not inherent. Human marriage tends to exogamy, but not extreme exogamy… we like to marry “close, but not too close”. Throughout history there has been “race mixing” whenever there were multiple “races” in the same culture, so our understanding of what constitutes an “outsider” is cultural, not genetic or “racial”.
So let’s put to rest any genetic or evo-psych claims that there is anything “inherent” about “racism”, or anything scientific about the construct of “race”.
Now, is it racist of me to get cheesed off when someone who is pig-ignorant of the language claims that “master/slave”, “niggardly”, “Shang-haied” etc are racist? Because I refuse to not get cheesed off. I also get cheesed off when people forget to use adjectives, so maybe that’s just a product of pedantry.
Are we (generic), as “white” individuals in a “white” society racist? Of course. It’s part of the cultural territory, so ingrained that we don’t notice it. To correct it the culture itself has to be corrected, but we can try to be aware of it and correct it in ourselves. That doesn’t mean that every negative “racial” interaction is racist, we should never encourage stupidity to have a sense of entitlement. Conversely, the OP is correct. If something we say or do is percieved as racist we should spend at least ten seconds trying to understand how and why it is so percieved, with our mouths shut, preferably.
P6 writes:
Great idea. And after you’ve finished putting words in the insane-o Black person’s mouth, calmly but firmly suggest that he/she go take a “time-out.” When he/she and all the other insane-o Black people have left the room in a huff, congratulate yourself on having restored “rationality.” Works every time.
Prometheus 6 writes:
(I’m no longer being sarcastic here.) White people are generally accustomed to being viewed and treated as individuals rather than representatives of a category, and as human beings rather than as “a something-or-other.” What is infuriating about being called “a racist” is not just the accusation itself, but being reduced to a thing or category. This is how it feels to be on the receiving end of a racial epithet.
Oberon writes:
Yes. This is called “institutional racism” or “structural racism.” Unlike individual attitudes, structural discrimination can’t be undone through respectful discussion alone; it requires political action. It’s stunning to me that so many otherwise intelligent people fail to grasp this distinction.
Kalkin writes:
Agreed. In addition, we can admit that there are scientifically verifiable genetic variances among populations of people without having to label these differences “race.” Genetic variances and the visible or invisible traits they result in are real. “Race,” on the other hand, is a fictional idea: the definition of race, and who counts as what race, varies across societies and historical epochs, and is often arbitrarily determined by law (“the one eighth-rule,” for example). Historically, the concept of “race” has had no use other than as a rationale for colonization, enforced servitude, and the like. Unfortunately, the legacy of this history means that we’re now stuck with that term and need to use it occasionally if we want to undo some of those wrongs.
I think some people are missing a very important point–someone can make an unconsciously racist remark without intending to be racist. I am a white person who was raised in the South; I know that, because of the milieu in which I was raised, I do have some racist attitudes that are pretty deeply ingrained. Mississippi is still heavily segregated; I went to a private school that was pretty much all-white (we had one or two black students, but they didn’t stay long). I have tried, and am still trying, to root out my prejudices, but I can’t do that if I refuse to listen to someone who is hurt by something I said.
Well, I didn’t read all the posts, but I have another bit of advice that might help.
When someone confronts you about being racist, you must confront them back. But do it subtly.
One way is to ask the accuser: “Please tell me, what part of what I said do you consider racist.” Then, if they can logically explain how what you said is racist then apologize: “I’m sorry, I guess I didn’t see it that way. I didn’t think I was being racist. Thanks.” If you really didn’t say anything racist, but the accuser is oversensitive or actually racist himself, you then have to just confront them about it (nicely), that is, IF you want to change their mind. If you want them to keep thinking that you are racist and tell others, or if you want them to think that everyone with that thought is racist, then leave them to perpetuate the paranoia.
i don’t see why anyone would hold up amp’s suggestions as poor ones. he basically just said, “if you’re accused of racism, apologize for the perception (not necessarily for the reality), minimize the public-embarassment factor, and discuss it later in grown-up, rational ways.” sounds good to me.
my concern is the unvoiced accusation of racism. i confront that problem much more often in my daily life. my recent example:
a new student in my school (a Black girl) was struggling in my math class. it was clear to me that she was unprepared for the class, and that moving her to a slower class would be better for her mathematically and academically (so she wouldn’t have to spend inordinate hours studying for math to the detriment of her other classes). she didn’t want to be moved, but she had no way to understand how quickly she would fall behind in the faster course. the principal and i decided to move her. of course, in her head (understandably), she thought i advocated moving her for some kind of racist reason (get the Blacks out of my class? Blacks can’t handle my class? something like that). she was very cold to me in the halls. i felt terrible. the fact is that racism probably did figure into that move, but not racism from me–the systemic racism that failed to prepare her for my class in her mostly-Black school of origin. based on her academic progress after she moved, it was clear that i was right about the appropriate course for her.
all turned out okay, and she was much friendlier to me when about 3 weeks later i sent over the next kid to her class–a new White boy. and then 2 months later another White boy who wasn’t new. She’s perfectly nice to me now that she believes my decision wasn’t motivated by race. the point being, she’s not an unreasonable person.
the moral is: i rarely get accused of racism to my face. i get accused in situations like that. or even in situations where i ask a disoriented looking Black person at work if i can help them find something–i’ve gotten the “what, you don’t think i belong here because i’m Black?” look several times for that.
i can’t blame the Black people for instinctively assuming racism. and i don’t think i am impervious to having to be careful about appearing racist. but what’s a person to do? bringing up race in that situation makes it more about race than it was in the first place, IMHO (“i know you think i’m moving you to a different class because you’re Black, but really, i mean it, that’s not why”–not a good way to handle it). there might not be a good answer here…this might just be one more way that systemic racism harms our daily lives.
any thoughts?
Amptoons’ original post has sparked some of the more thoughtful and respectful internet conversations on race that I have ever come across with the exception of a few posters who strove for cleverness over honesty and reflection. I wanted to post to point you to a great resource for those of you who are doing anti-racist classes and workshops in your church or school or who, as individuals, want to work to be a strong anti-racist ally. Where I work, we have put much of our anti-racism curriculum on-line so people can use it in their own organizations. You can download the free anti-racism resources here.
I guess I will have to qualify my characterization of this conversation since I said it was thoughtful and respectful before I had read all the posts…and it has drifted away into what so many conversations about racism on the internet end up being — arguing whether or not race is a legitimate division of humanity. Perhaps those who think that race is genetically determined can explain why the Irish, Eastern Europeans and Scandinavians were not considered white in the United States until after the Civil War.
As to the term people of color, it is non synonymous with Black. People of color is a collective description of folks who are on the receiving end of oppression based on skin color and includes Asians, Latinos, African Americans, Pacific Islanders, African Americans and Native Americans. It is a term used to encourage the recognition that racism is a social strategy to maintain White supremacy.
people of color in our society tend by necessity to be more aware of racism than most Whites are, and pick up on things most Whites overlook.
So basically what you’re saying is “Those People are touchy about that sort of thing.”
J/k. But seriously, one problem with people’s reaction to this advice is that they tend to confuse “seriously consider the criticism” with “take for granted that the criticism is true.” This is a flaw in the listener, of course.
(Just yesterday a friend of my girlfriend’s aunt said “You don’t look Jewish. And you’re very mannerly.” I decided discretion was the better part of Shakespearean cliches.)
amy h.
But white people are both, and to pretend otherwise just marks you as delusional.
Did you actually read the post Amp linked to?
Hershele,
Did you consider that your discretion means that the friend of your girlfriend’s aunt won’t learn to do better? Of course, you are under no obligation as a Jew to point out every single anti-semitic remark that comes your way. You have to choose your battles and decide whether you have the energy to help someone understand how offensive their remarks are.
It’s too bad that some non-Jewish ally was not there to speak up and say, “Ouch, that’s something that could really be offensive to Jews. Jews look all sorts of different ways and speaking of manners, …”
Like I said earlier, folks who speak up when their group is the brunt of an offensive remark are taking a risk. It’s much better when someone who is part of the dominant culture speaks up for several reasons. First, since Jews did not create anti-semitism, it’s not really their job to educate and reform the anti-semites. That job really belongs to the people whose culture and social structure have benefitted from anti-semitism. If your folks build an obstruction, your folks are responsible for tearing it down. Moreover, because anti-semites are conditioned to discount the objections of Jews and are inclined to say “there they go playing the anti-semitism card again,” a non-Jew’s objection will carry more weight and be more effective. No one is going to say their paranoid, neurotic or any of the other stupid things folks like to pull out of their hats to excuse their anti-semitism.
Clearly, race and racism work the same way and anti-racist whites should speak up when someone makes a racist remark…not just to help folks realize their error, but to lift the load for the people of color who are always being asked to educate us about race.
Not to derail the discussion, but I wanted to point out that while this might have been the “Hotel Rwanda” version of the history, it’s not actually the whole truth.
The two groups have existed for much longer, what happened during colonialism was that they were cemented – whereas in the past you could marry out and raise your children as the other ethnicity, what the Belgians did was bring in labeling so that once a Hutu, always a Hutu – which because extremely important since they faboured the Tutsi.