Didn’t Martin Luther King make this same point many years ago?
White people do not think in terms of we. White people have the privilege to interact with the social and political structures of our society as individuals. You are “you,” I am “one of them.” Whites are often not directly affected by racial oppression even in their own community, so what does not affect them locally has little chance of affecting them regionally or nationally. They have no need, nor often any real desire, to think in terms of a group. They are supported by the system, and so are mostly unaffected by it.
What they are affected by are attacks on their own character. To my aunt, the suggestion that “people in The North are racist” is an attack on her as a racist. She is unable to differentiate her participation within a racist system (upwardly mobile, not racially profiled, able to move to White suburbs, etc.) from an accusation that she, individually, is a racist. Without being able to make that differentiation, White people in general decide to vigorously defend their own personal non-racism, or point out that it doesn’t exist because they don’t see it.
You want to know who are some of the worst white people about this? Atheists. Really. We’re so rational. We’ve got the deep understanding of evolution, we see all people as the product of common descent, we’re not racists, we’re all Africans! So no, you can criticize ignorant crackers about it, but you can’t possibly complain about us atheists.
I’ve seen this behavior directly. I was at a meeting where Sikivu Hutchinson spoke fiercely and plainly about the black condition, and an atheist in the audience actually raised his hand and rose up to declare that he was “completely color-blind” and thought she was complaining to the wrong people. Not only did he not have a question (don’t you hate that?), but he was completely oblivious to the actual issues he raised and was instead entirely focused on defending his status as a good, non-racist person.
I cringed so hard I might have crushed one of my thoracic vertebrae.
Here’s what I want to say to you: Racism is so deeply embedded in this country not because of the racist right-wing radicals who practice it openly, it exists because of the silence and hurt feelings of liberal America.
My fellow white people: seek out and listen to the black members of our communities. Really listen. Think about what you can do to reduce the injustice being done, rather than squirming to avoid the taint of racism. We’re swimming in racism everywhere, we are and have been profiting off of it for centuries, and we don’t get to claim that we’re pure and exempt.
When someone goes out of their way to say they’re “completely color-blind” or “don’t see color”, they are usually racist and definitely privileged.
re @1:
I agree, that is usually the case, but…
seems to me a case of arrogance&defensiveness, in that the arrogance is assuming that any generalized statement about a large population is directed specifically at themselves. i.e.
“this person said the whites are racist, I’m white, he’s calling me a racist” which leads to the defensiveness, “why is he calling me, personally, a racist?”
[sorry, just expanding on the blockquote in the OP]
The most vivid example I remember is when JT Eberhard publicly lectured a middle-aged black woman speaker on how to better handle an instance of racism directed at another black woman speaker by a conference attendee. Yes JT, if only black people were more polite, racism could be more effectively addressed. Thank you so much for setting the angry ignorant older black woman straight. I am unaware if he has ever apologized. And he later bragged that his readership numbers did not suffer the slightest because of the incident. (Yep, no racism problem among atheists.)
Re: your last paragraph, we have a wonderful organazition here in south Louisiana, Dialogue on Race. that provides a safe space for all to discuss race and privilege. I’ve been through several of the programs they offer, and it has been eye-opening, to say the least.
Wow, that is a good article. Definitely saving that for later.
@1 I always thought that Stephen Colbert’s satirical claim to be unable to see color was one of the more subversive and brilliant parts of that character.
This Salon piece offers an interesting complement to your final paragraph on why we have such a particularly difficult time owning up to our own privilege.
Well gee, there’s a really simple solution to this problem – stop using the same damned word to describe such different concepts. Of course people get confused, and they are always going to, because let’s face it, most don’t WANT to hear what you are saying, so they are going to gravitate to the first out they can see. “Muah? Participate in a racist system? But I love black people, so you’re full of it.” They are deaf to you from then on. Different concepts need different terms. It’s an uphill climb anyway, no point in making it harder with confusing rhetoric.
Nice armchair generalization there. Could have ended fine if there was some nuance.
I suggest this article might improve somewhat if it’s perspective included low social class white people and middle-class natives in Africa since it seems to be pretending to give a global picture. I wonder if they think in terms of “we” where “we” is defined by skincolor alone.
^ how to spot a racist. There’s one^
^ how to spot a sloppy thinker , there’s one ^
dutchdelight, #9
It’s painfully obvious the article is about racism in the United States. And thus it is obvious it’s talking about white culture and its view on race. There is absolutely no need to talk about “low social class white people”.
And white persons do not think in terms of we when interacting with society. That’s a fact because the group white people hasn’t found itself marginalized by a larger dominant group. So white people have no identity as belonging to a victim group. They wouldn’t need to think in terms of “this is what we have to put up with”, “things are still so bad for us” or “why are we still treated this way”? An American white person’s life experience isn’t negatively effected by their belonging to the class of white people. None of this holds for black people. You can talk about a specific black person’s racist experiences by generalizing it to the whole group of black people. You can’t do that with a specific white person’s experiences because race almost never plays a part in a white person’s bad life experiences.
Saad @12: Beautifully put, thank you.
Yes, Dutch, there are no doubt some white people who do think in terms of “we”(especially, I think, when privilege is being challenged). So what? Just pointing out the generalization does not invalidate the author’s ideas. Playing “spot the logical fallacy” only works when it is actually fallacious. From his perspective, he has had a need to think of himself in terms of race, as many African-Americans have. Thinking what it means as to walk into a store and not be worried about being followed around. About worrying if speaking up about an injustice will get you labelled as troublemaker. About being treated like a criminal when you are the victim.
Yes he uses a generalization, but he does not do so without reason, and not to paint all white Americans as unrepentant bigots.
Well said, Saad.
I thought of this a few mornings ago, when I showed my inamorata the little blurb of US soccer star Megan Rapinoe being asked to write the one word that best describes her, and with a laugh, she turned the board toward the interviewer to show “Gaaaaaay!!!” I thought it was a funny little unexpected three seconds of sports television, but my girlfriend sort of frowned, and said, “yeah, but if I had to pick one word to describe myse4lf, or if you did, I don’t think either of us would write ‘HET!!!’ — we don’t define ourselves by our sexual orientation.”
I thought about it for a sec, then replied: “that’s because we’re not forced to…if we kiss goodbye at a train station, nobody notices, but if gays do, it’s ‘flaunting it’….we’ve never risked jobs or apartments or family trauma by admitting we were het….it’s kinda how I wouldn’t choose ‘white’ as my one word description, because clerks don’t follow me around in department stores and old ladies don’t get nervous when I enter an elevator and co-workers don’t presume I was hired to fill a quota. Same thing if you’re gay — you don’t really have the choice to define yourself by other parameters, since society is so busy doing it for you…..”
There is a difference between being privileged and committing racist behavior. Going shopping for clothes with my mom at the nearest town and having the white saleswomen ignore us until they had served every other white person in the store was a lot worse than going to the next town and having the white male owner serve us in the order we came in, no matter what his privilege was.
@Dutch#9
Good thing it didn’t end there, and the rest of the post explained the nuance. Are you too fucking stupid to read past the headline? Why am I asking? Of course you are.
Perhaps this is off point, but I just don’t see much value in calling people or groups racist in most cases.
Calling out actions, behaviors, statements, policies etc. as racists seems much more productive. Not least because it immediately leads to discussions of substantive ways to change things for the better “Don’t do that, do this. Don’t say that. Let’s change this policy, etc.”
There is some value in getting people to accept that they have benefited from various types and degrees of privileges, but I think even this is an individualized and introspective process, all sorts of class, sex, gender, etc. considerations also come into this examination.
And frankly, calling people racist has become such a blunt force weapon that it’s all too easy for even the most retrograde Southern Senator to claim that he can’t be a racist and how dare you accuse him of that because he’s a nice person who loves his kids and doesn’t kick his dog, as if ‘racist’ just meant ‘bad person’ — because frankly, that’s what it is gradually being reduced to.
That should be “Calling out actions, behaviors, statements, policies etc. as racist” (no s) at the start of my 2nd paragraph. Sorry.
scienceavenger @ 8
Every word of this paragraph is bullshit. It has nothing to fucking do with the word. “Racism” isn’t the only word in the English language which has a technical definition which is different from it’s colloquial usage. The word “theory” springs to mind. But for some reason, I don’t hear anyone insisting we need a different word for when we want to say “explanation which fits the known facts”. We just expect our interlocutors not to equivocate like dishonest shitheads.
I think a lot of this could also be attributed to American culture (specifically, look at the media and look at conservative/libertarian beliefs, all coincidentally dominated by white people). America is considered a highly individualistic culture. There is a lot of pressure to succeed or fail of your own accord, with disdain directed on those that rely on their parents and/or extended family into adulthood. Or, god forbid, the people who need to rely on public money. There are many myths about Bootstrappers, Lone Cowboys, Survivalist Heroes (see: zombie fiction), and the worship of the rich as self-made millionaires. There is underlying belief that the community is not necessary, that we owe no debts to one another, that there is no such a public good, that the nuclear family is the only family that matters and that there should be no help coming from beyond parents, siblings, or sometimes children. Much of American culture is just a cult of the individual, and a sneering contempt for the idea that we actually need groups and cooperation to work as a society. And related to that is a complete denial that even successful people relied on others to get there and did not get their through their rugged individualism, working in a vacuum (see the stunned response to Obama’s “you didn’t build that” comment). All in all, what does it translate into? A cementing of privileges. It provides a very handy framework to make privileged individuals feel even more comfortable and sheltered by their privilege, and it ensures that those without privilege suffer even more than they would in a nation that might have a culture that actually acknowledged that great people fail and shitty people succeed all the time, and that even when great people succeed, they do so with help. If we lived in a country that actually felt responsible for their fellow human beings and noted the importance of community and how they are personally benefiting from that community, from society at large, perhaps white privilege, and other privileges, would not sting so much. But we live in a nation where people aspire to be antisocial hermits surviving on skill and mettle alone, where almost every man and woman imagine themselves John Galt or John Wayne, where it is every man for themselves and where the only response to people dying in the street is for The Heroes to just wince a little, maybe sigh, and then continue on their merry heroic way. Can’t fight the economy, and they would probably just squander any charity anyway. They will figure it out, it’s their problem. It’s what the free market would want.
latveriandiplomat @19
The point isn’t to call all people racist. The point is to make all white people realize that, whether we want to or not, we benefit from a racist system. We all participate in a racist system. Similarly to how men benefit from a patriarchal system, where the system has defined an acceptable ‘default’ setting, and anyone not adhering to that is (or, at the very least, can easily be) somehow penalized.
This doesn’t mean that white people as a rule start off trying to be racist, or that they’re racist in overt ways – but very often policies, and group actions, and social interactions have racist effects (which, I gather, is part of your comment), and those privileged enough not to experience them either (a) ignore them or (b) refuse to believe they are real, despite what those experiencing those effects keep telling them, over and over again. It all gets very subconsciously biased, where we don’t necessarily realize the effects of our choices until they’re pointed out to us – at that point, it’s up to us whether we listen and learn, or not.
And if we choose not to, sorry, but that kind of makes one a racist person. And while yes, black people can help support a racist system, the vast majority of those privileged within that system are white people. And I (as a white person) believe blanket statements about our learned racism quite appropriate, since most of the time, we don’t even realize we hold racist views or act in racist ways or support policies with racist effects. But we do. And that’s our privilege in not noticing.
Well, here’s someone who insists he isn’t a racist immediately after making overtly racist comments:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mayor-calls-barack-obama-monkey-man-and-michelle-obama-gorilla-face-but-says-hes-not-racist/ar-AAd2tq2
There’s the implicit, unconscious racist prejudice. There’s the explicit, conscious racist bigotry. There’s the overt, structural racist discrimination. There’s the covert racist discrimination that could be a function of treatment by prejudiced individuals with power, or as a function of policies that disproportionately restrict or harm racial minority groups. There’s obvious racist language and slurs, there are obvious racist memes and imagery, and then there is more subtle racist language and memes, the dog whistles.
It is all racist. They are all very different things, but I don’t think the fact that all of these things fit under the umbrella of “racism” suddenly means that the word needs to go. Having a more varied and nuanced language for the subject, that simply and directly describes some of the smaller subsets of racism, would be very helpful and convenient. But it isn’t the term “racism”‘s fault that it isn’t that already. Words have multiple definitions. Words can be broad. Words can sometimes cause confusion if not used carefully. Words can be deliberately misinterpreted by those who feel a desire to be dishonest. Welcome to language.
I was raised in a casually racist society here in Victoria B.C. Canada.
First nation women were “squaws”. People from the Indian subcontinent were “hindoos” even though the vast majority of such immegrants here were of the Sikh religion. There were hardly any really dark skinned folks around so I didn’t learn anything much about them, but it was common to refer to a name for people of the Jewish religion when boasting about how well you drove a bargain.
I never realized how racist we were until I started meeting and interacting with people of other origins, religions, and skin hues as a young adult.
Then I discovered that while I had always been a theoretical believer in the equality of “races” I was heavily infected with racist beliefs that had been inculcated into me as a young person by the very language I learned to speak and without even realizing it. I have tried hard to eliminate these biases but I am under no illusion that I have ever gotten rid of them entirely.
I try to discover these largely unconsious false attitudes but they were contained in the very language I learned to speak. I can never claim not to have racist or homophobic or other forms of bias.
All I can say is that I theoretically and intellectually reject such biases while remaining aware that they are nevertheless still hidden away inside my mental conditioning and try to catch them before I offend someone and apologize when I do which is, thankfully, fairly rare these days after 70 years of life.
But I still feel uncomfortable with transgenderdness. I reject intellectually discrimination on this basis, but it’s hard to change feelings that have been around for so long inside me.
So if someone calls my society racist I can only say that they are right and I’m sorry and I’m trying to change it and still working on my own biases and will probably never entirely succeed but that’s no reason not to keep trying.
@Saad #12
Thanks for your interpretation.
Did you rule out other causes why people in general might not think in terms of “we” when interacting with society?
It can be in certain settings, often dramatically. Schools whose few white students end up with much of their peers’ general resentment of white privilege focused on them personally, for instance.
This doesn’t negate the rest of your point, but why throw in statements like the above that are conditionally contrafactual on a straightforward reading?
I’m wondering if there are situations where white people think in terns of ‘we’ erroneously thinking their ‘we’ is ‘people in general’ when in practice it means ‘white people, and maybe non-white people who have completely assimilated in white culture’.
O RLY?
What school, and when did this happen?
I have a personal counter-example: my highschool was a social experiment that had intentionally-higher percentages of underrepresented groups. In at least one light-skinned (i.e., caucasian) person’s case, there was no harassment due to resentment of “white privilege” in society by their darker-skinned schoolmates.
Barring the existence of any actual data, your hypothetical is as valid as the “Ticking Time-Bomb” torture-the-terrorist-scenario; i.e., bullshit wanking.
My own lived experience, and that of one of my partners.
Fuck you for erasing it.
By the way, can we stop lying and pretending that “no one’s saying that nothing bad ever happens to white people” when we have people saying exactly that in, for instance, comment 30?
[Since I predict the next response will be another lie, misrepresenting my comment as “Waaah a black person was mean to me once” rather than the actual point I was making, which is that I was responding to a generalization which is “true” in an emotional sense but oversimplified in a way that I found alienating given my personal experiences, and which could have been rendered “saying what was actually meant” by adding two or three words, let’s just head that off at the pass.]
Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) is a good group for white folks who are interested in doing their part to fight systemic racism. Their Facebook feed has high-quality content.
dutchdelight @ 27 etc:
One wonders whether the superficially adopted air of effortless superiority conveyed by supercilious and indeed passive-aggressive comments betrays a certain lack underneath of the — je ne sais quoi — little grey cells. Was one perhaps under the misapprehension that one was conducting a seminar in which the other participants were in some manner dependent on one for approbation?
Azkyroth @ 28: Fair enough, but surely that’s the exception that proves (in the sense of “tests”) the rule. It’s good to be reminded that generalizations are not the same as natural laws, but rather shorthand for a relevant discussion. Yup, adding two or three words to the original would have been wise, as you suggest, and the aggressive response you got was out of line. Let’s not get too distracted … and sorry about your lived experience, hope you survived OK.
MLK is blind to, or disinterested in, the actual distinctions which operate among white people which, whatever their causes, have got nothing whatsoever to do with ‘interacting with society as individuals’. In my world, membership of specific white groups was/is the defining factor in everyone’s identity. It shaped everything about my life, my sense of identity, my possibilities, so to require that I consider myself part of a ‘white’ collectivity is to dismiss everything that’s important about me and require me to ally myself conceptually with people, many of whom have treated me with open hostility, or with whom ‘my group’ has long-standing ancestral conflicts.
I get the part where this message is saying ‘my need (the black person’s) is so important, and your privilege so great, that I’m entitled to overlook everything about you.’ Well, okay, fine. So let’s just leave out the wild speculations about me altogether and get on with it.
I think the self-professed exceptions are proving the rule in a more direct way than that in which the aphorism is typically meant.
“people in The North are racist” is worded poorly enough that it does look like that exact accusation.
@21 Seven of Mine: Shrieking Feminist Harpy
I do actually think the situation with the word “theory” is pretty bad and unnecessarily confusing. Jargon can be, shall I say, problematic. Communicating clearly and avoiding confusion is a good thing.
As a person of color, please let me make two points. First of all, let’s stop referring to ‘white people’ as if they are some monolithic group. Most of the traits often associated with ‘whiteness’ are in reality traits of a given socioeconomic or religious group. To say white people this, white people that is no less racist than when the mindless right-wing parrots start taking about ‘black culture’ as if it equals condoning drug dealers and street thugs. Likewise, what exactly is the ‘black condition’? I had the dubious opportunity (call it a learning experience on steroids) of growing up mixed race – and homosexual no less – in the Deep South. To compare my experience to that of someone from, say, Ferguson, Missouri or New York City would be to make a massive overgeneralization about what issues each face. Second, the Fox News notion that racism somehow magically evaporated from the American landscape is of course unadulterated bullshit. But to claim that we are ‘swimming in racism’ is no less absurd. Systemic racism (be it related to police forces, educational opportunities, etc) exists in many parts of the country. It is absent in others and somewhere in between in others still. After growing up and moving to a more enlightened part of the south, the difference is beyond night and day. To say that there is no place where individuals of color can go in this country without encountering at least lingering remnants of racism is simply false and bordering on pandering. Let’s recognize and drag to light racism where it occurs but let’s not pretend that it is lurking under every stone either.
Brian Pansky @ 40:
Yes, I think I agree. I know I’ve seen circular, go-nowhere arguments about racism, where one person is using the colloquial meaning of “racism” and the other the more academic meaning. They talk past each other until one of them quits and goes home. “Racism is systemic oppression based on race!” “No, it isn’t! It’s deliberate racial bigotry!” “Someone belonging to a racial or ethnic minority can’t be racist, by definition!” “What?! Of course they can!”
I agree that “racism” is hardly the only word with different meanings (one for everyday, conversational use and one for more academic contexts), but it can result in some unproductive arguments.
The typical white supremacist thinks he is speaking for all white people as he “defends his race” from everyone he believes is undesirable. When did I sign up for the Klan? It makes me sick.
One of my kids goes to a majority black school and race is never an issue for him. Sometimes students kid around about it but no one has ever mistreated him because of his skin color. My employees are generally bigots and fearful of black people. They feel that they are always mistreated and spoken to rudely when they happen to interact with a black person. I have never experienced this. Not once. I go to the same post offices and fast food places and never once has anyone treated me rudely. When I am friendly to others I am generally treated in kind. It baffles me why as white people they feel constantly threatened and offended when encountering blacks. It’s ridiculous and it’s bullshit.
Please tell me this came with a mic drop?
I have enjoyed “White Privilege” my whole life. Anyone who says that it does not exist is an ignoramus. Do I feel guilty about it? No. Should I? I have also had the benefit of going to a college that was also the Alma Mater of a future employer. That was just luck, but I am not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
yes there is racism in the US there is also class-ism . It may not be as rigid as some other places but it is no less real and it effects many lives.
uncle frogy
@ Seven of Mine #21
I feel this is a little harsh. Scienceavenger raises a valid point; a large part of race-privileged people’s inability to accept the continuing existence of racism is precisely because they view any discussion of it as an accusation that they are racially prejudiced. Racism has been used for ages to mean “prejudice against another due to their race, ethnicity, nationality or religion”, and most people are not sociologists, and so have no idea that the other definition even exists. Establishing different words to differentiate between the two would help immensely in building a proper understanding of systemic racism and race privilege, and I feel that this ought to be a far more important goal than hanging on to the word and insisting it’s not our job to translate.
Thumper
Yeah, but judging from reactions to the term ‘male privilege’ or ‘cis-het privilege’ (and here I note most negative reactions have been to the word ‘privilege’), I’m not sure if ‘race privilege’ is the right choice (as much as I like the term).
^ Semi-snark.
+++
Also, I’m finding a lot of the comments in this thread (refusing to be put in a box with all the other white people) very… enlightening. Happens to black people all the time. And besides, we white people can’t expect them to individualize us if we don’t individualize them.
I believe xkcd had that cartoon about boys, girls and math – racially, there’s something similar: white person gets caught with drugs, it’s a mistake, an individual bad choice; black person gets caught with drugs, it’s a culture of crime, a fault in the community. This isn’t to point out that all white people are horribly racist – it’s just that, when a black person looks at us, they have no way to tell. And we better be prepared to admit (which many already do!) that we hold a lot of racial prejudice simply due to our upbringing – and the inadvertent manifestation of that can be indistinguishable from racism (the covert kind, not the overt).
This is related: White Tears, Explained, For White People Who Don’t Get It
And while I’m posting links, here’s one on an opposite effect: where black people are individualized, while white people prefer to be seen as victims of the system. Study: We love a good personal responsibility message — when the audience is black.
For those who wish to educate themselves, here’s a reading list: Curriculum for White Americans to Educate Themselves on Race and Racism–from Ferguson to Charleston. There’s a list of articles written for white people on the subject, which you can read, and be educated.
Plus more goodies at the link, including stuff on classism, poverty, and how racism intersects with those.
Some stuff on parenting racially-conscious children, too.
dutchdelight, #9
I love that one of your criticisms after reading the article was that it didn’t talk about some white people.
Is there a Lewis’ law for racism?
@rq #48
I wasn’t suggesting an alternative to the term, merely stating that I think some differentiation between the two phenomena would be immensely helpful. Racial prejudice and racism are two very different things, but the everyday use of the word “racism” and the technical use of the word “racism” ends up conflating the two to the point where the terms are not particularly useful outside of an academic setting. As a result, any attempt to educate the clueless is doomed to fail, because they understandably assume you are directly accusing them of racial prejudice. We’ve all been in that situation, and we all know it’s incredibly fucking frustrating.
By race-privilege I merely meant what I said. White privilege is the form that matters in the US and UK and most of Europe, but other forms exist. In Saudi Arabia, for example, white privilege definitely exists, but you also need to talk about Arabian-privilege to have any meaningful discussion of systemic racism there. I wasn’t suggesting it be a replacement for “racism” in either sense.
Let’s just scrap this “I’m not racist!” crap altogether. I am racist, you are racist, we are racist. White people are racist, black people are racist*. Folks in the North are racist, folks in the South are racist. People in Europe are racist.
Because racism is the fucking default setting. You cannot simply stop being racist, you can only work hard to be less racist.
Why? Because we swim in it. Because we grow up with media that tels us that beauty and goodness are white. Where people of colour are stereotyped. And we learn those stereotypes and whenever we interact, our brain accesses this information because that’s how brains work. And unless people accept that, they cannot work at becoming better. That’s not some collective guilt or calling you a bad person. That’s just how things are. Have you ever, when learning a language, picked up a wrong form or pronounciation and no fucking matter what you do, you cannot get rid of it? That’s what we’Re talking about, only with everything.
Let me give you an example:
Few weeks ago I brought stuff to the refugee centre. As soon as I arrived and opened my trunk, I was surrounded by children and a few adults. One of the adults asked me if he could have my CD player which is in my trunk because I need it for my language classes. I politely told him that I couldn’t give that away, but to be honest, I was taken aback. Seriously, what did he believe? All the negative stereotypes came up. Greedy. That word was definitely hovering in the back of my mind. Because that’S how they’re being stereotyped.
Later I was thinking: how could he know that I cannot easily give away CD players? He’s in that shitty refugee centre, all he gets is stuff other people give him, he has no money, no way to earn money, no way to get a CD player unless somebody gives him one. And here I come. I have a car. I wear nice clothing. I can give away bags and bags of stuff. How could he know that I am not so rich that I can give away CD players? how can he know that I didn’t spend much money on those bags and bags of donation, only on cosmetics I know they don’t get but which I think are a basic necessities (like toothbrushes for children)?
My instant reaction was racist. I needed to actively think to understand.
*Using the term in the colloquial sense of “harbouring prejudices against people of colour”
@ Saad
Ah, is DutchDelight doing their “Classism is the only vector of oppression that matters” schtick again? It wasn’t that entertaining the first time.
Azkyroth, #28
You’re correct. I made that sentence so general that it excludes cases like you described. I should have explicitly pointed out that I’m leaving out those cases since the topic was systemic racism. It wasn’t my intention to disregard your experience; I apologize.
Much of the criticism in this thread is the incredibly bizarre paradox: “Don’t say white people don’t think in terms of we! I think in terms of we all the time! I’m an individual who thinks in those terms all the time!”
I’m having a lot of trouble wrapping my head around this.
Thumper
Yeah, that was bad snark on my part. Basically, I agree with you. But even with differentiating the terms, I think there would be a lot of pushback from people who consider themselves to be outside of the issue, simply because they don’t believe that they would ever act in a racist manner. Or hold views that might be racist (“It’s just the facts!”).
Perhaps what is needed is less of a differentiating term, and more of general information and education, and a dismantling of the system (or at least working towards that).
How to assuage someone’s hurt ego, how to let them know that it’s not a zero-sum game, that it’s not about them – not sure how to do that, though.
I’ve finished a book by Ian Tattersall. It’s called The Strange Case of the Rickety Cossack.
Without getting into the specifics of the book, I just want to point out that, what I gathered from the book, humans lack diversification. where as other mammalian species do not.
I was wondering why we were, as a species, alone? Is there something innate in ourselves that wishes to snuff out, “the other?”
@ rq
I think we need all of that. Undoubtedly certain more reactionary people will push back against the hypothetical new terminology as well, but those are the sort of people who will push back against any discussion of race and racism. They’re beyond help. But I think there are a lot of people out there who are unreceptive to such discussions because they feel like they are personally being accused of racism. I think that having some tool to more clearly differentiate between living in, and unintentionally contributing to, a racist society and being a racist would help these people to wrap their head around the difference, and thus make them more receptive to such discussions. This in turn would help with the information and education phase of your three-step program, and thus in the long run with dismantling the system.
Thumper
Tool or term? Because the tool here is awareness, as acquired by education (and the best part is that you don’t need a lot of the education part to have the awareness). Just being aware of the system, and the fact that one lives within that system, is usually enough to wake up those who would be receptive to realizing the difference. Not sure about a term (though as I said, I really do like ‘race privilege’).
The other issue would be those people who are aware of the system, but who choose not to do anything about it – and I don’t mean that everyone has to develop projects, join a group, or become a public advocate against racism. But if you’re aware of the system, there’s lots of little things that you can do: support local people of colour or those who support people of colour (artists, authors, restaurants, etc.), sign petitions, point out things to friends and family < where possible, educate yourself even more. (And I know not everyone can do a lot – heavens know I can't – but there's still a difference between doing nothing and doing a tiny little something.)
Oh, and my program would be more than three steps. ;)
Oh, of course he hasn’t. Don’t you know JT is NEVER wrong about ANYTHING? (See also: many other establishment atheists.)
@ rq #58
Term, but the term is a tool to make people more accepting of the necessary education. A simple change in language to help differentiate between the two and enable us to have a conversation about systemic racism without the clueless dope we’re attempting to educate screaming “I AM NOT A RACIST!” rather than actually listening. As distasteful as it is to structure our language around the hurt feelings of the cluelessly priveleged, in the long run it’s going to help with more widespread education of the problem, and I think that’s more important. We can’t change the everyday sense of racism, it’s too well entrenched, but we can introduce a new term to describe the academic use of the word.
Thumper @ 50 and others
Nope. I still think this is abject nonsense. Yes they assume that and they quibble about the word but they are being dishonest and/or derailing. People understand that many, many English words can have different meanings depending on context. As long as you make sure to be clear how you’re using the word, there should be no further complaint. The situations we have involve someone coming in not realizing there’s a more technical definition of “racism”, being informed that yes, in fact, there is and then continuing to equivocate. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve said things to the effect of “The word ‘racism’ is not the point. We’re talking about systemic vs. interpersonal prejudice”. It should come as no surprise that this has never done anything to get the conversation back on the rails. These people have a problem with the concept, not the damn word. Quibbling about the word is just an expedient.
Seven of Mine:
Rings very true to me.
Thinking about it, I have seen this exact same argumentive strategy applied to plenty of similar terms (in order to undermine the concepts behind them):
Homophobia
Islamophobia
Bigotry
Sexism
Misogyny
Rape apologist/rape culture
Patriarchy
Privilege (esp. white and male privilege)
Discrimination
Tolerance/Intolerance
I have not actually seen one about “prejudice” but it isn’t hard to imagine the quibbling for that one either. And I don’t recall a specific debate along these lines about the term “transphobia” but I am almost certain that it has happened but my memory is just fuzzy.
Still, the point is that there is a lot of willful, convoluted misunderstandings of fairly straight-forward words, because basking in a muddle of confusion is more satisfying to some people than the implication that life isn’t fair and they wound up at an advantage because of it.
A second strand to this is disempowerment. What do you do to fight a racist system? I’m in Australia and can’t think of any way to help with the Amercian system. However we have a racist government right here in Australia declaring that aboriginals that want to live according to their cultural traditions on land that we acknowledge is theirs have to go it alone without help from the system. Its a typical white Australia policy style of thing.
So what do I do? There are things I could do that would burn out my finances, my family and my ability to then do more. They wont do. So I network, build funds and lobby. I have recently realised that lobbying government is largely a trap. You have to lobby whole populations. Its hard work and I’m not very good at it, but that’s what I’m doing.
Anyone got better ways to move forward once the decision is made to act? Is there a way to get real journalism happening again?