I haven’t the time, energy or motivation to make this pit worthy, so here it is in mild format.
Casually making mention of the colour of a person’s skin is not, in and of itself, a racist attack.
On Saturday, my son (9) got punched really hard by a boy a couple of years older than him for saying “your skin is a lot browner than mine”. I think it was an absolutely innocent comment, but the boy insisted it was a racist attack.
I tried to point out that actually, it’s just a fact. If he’d said “You’re stupid because your skin is browner than mine”, or “I don’t like people with browner skin than mine”, that would be racist, but just casually commenting that the boy’s skin is more brown than his own, when it truly is more brown, is just a plain factual observation.
This argument did not prevail, so apparently now I too am a racist bully.
I hear ya. I think it’s totally ridiculous that some people think that we must, at all cost, not mention the color of someone’s skin. We can talk about how tall/short they are, what color hair or eyes they have, or what they’re wearing. But heaven forbid we should assign any skin color to a description of them. :rolleyes:
What your son said is innocent. The “browner” kid, OTOH, seems like a bully.
If this isn’t the end of the matter, defend your son by saying that it can’t be a racist remark, as he and his attacker have exactly the same shade of skin. Then, as soon as you hear this denied… I think you see where I’m going with this.
I’m sure your son’s comment was on a par with my young son pointing out a staff member at the local railway station and in his excitement loudly calling out, “Look Daddy it’s The Fat Controller.”
However I remember former Australian cricket captain Ian Chappell, a noted ruthless hardcase, told his team when they were touring the West Indies, “You can call them bastards, you can call them arseholes, you can call them cunts but I don’t want to hear anything with the word black in it.”
It does seem to be a ridiculous taboo. I remember when I had just started a new job and had to go and talk to someone in a different department whom I had not met before. I asked a colleague which one Ben (or whoever) was. He pointed into a far corner of the office.
Him: “Over there, the tall bloke… no… in the white shirt… um, next to him…”
Me: “You mean the black guy?” (of which there was only one in the office!)
Him (Taken aback) : “Oh. Er. Yeah…”
What is the problem with using skin colour as a handy identifier? Would this person have had a problem saying “The women with red hair” or “The guy with a beard”?
I think it’s that people perceive as problematic the fact that we will say “the black guy in the polo shirt” but we usually don’t say “the white woman in the twin-set.”
If the colour of her skin was a feature that conveniently distinguished her from most of the surrounding people, I could easily imagine myself saying that. Obviously by the same token, saying “the black guy over there” in a room crowded with other black guys would be pointless.
And, on their SDMB, their weight. Witness the inevitable trainwrecks that come with pittings of some random “inconsiderate fat woman”.
“We?” Who does that include? I often hear black people use such descriptions for white people, even in settings where most of the people in a crowd are white. Is it okay for blacks to use skin color in describing someone, but not whites?
Gotta admit, though, I cringe when I see it in print, outside of a bulletin describing a criminal at large. I also reel when I hear an older person say “that colored guy there.”
Wow. I would definitely be pushing to have the other boy suspended. You didn’t give details, and the comment does sound like there had to be some kind of context, but still…WOW. I cannot imagine my son getting punched for something like that without me having a very, very long talk with the other kid’s parents. That is just insane.
Growing up, I knew 2 girls (same age/same grade) with the same name – Melissa Smith** – one was black, one was white. Whenever someone would mention the name, it was always followed with “the white one” or “the black one” for obvious reasons. Well, until the white one murdered her brother, then it was “the murderer” or “the black one.” We also had 2 girls (same age/same grade) with the same name of Jessica Thomas** – one was brunette, one blonde. Whenever referencing one of them, it was followed by “lampshade” (because the blonde was about as bright as a lampshade) or “the gay one.” It wasn’t a homophobic thing, just widely known that one was gay and the other a moron…
When my son was in Kindergarten last year, he had several “brown friends” he always referred to them as such, not out of any racist tendencies, but because that’s how they referred to themselves.
I’ve often said that there are no victims, only volunteers. Tolerance is a 2-way street – one cannot expect others to be tolerant while teaching their own children to physically abuse others that they perceive as intolerant…
**names changed to avoid whatever…
It happened in the street outside the back of my house - a few boys were playing football in the cul-de-sac and the child in question was playing in goal - my son wanted to play with them (but some of the other kids had come up with lame excuses why he couldn’t) so he was just standing nearby chatting with the goalie. I don’t know where he lives and to be honest, I don’t fancy a confrontation with the parents.
But, as I said, he was the only black guy in the room! Now, what’s the easiest way to identify that individual quickly, from a distance? I really don’t see that it’s a problem. But then I’m not American, and race is not such a hot potato of an issue over here, so maybe I lack the requisite hypersensitivity…
I just wanted to add that this extreme avoidance (in many but not all contexts) of mentioning the color of someone’s skin – or their approximate weight – is a particular (though not unique) trait of U.S. culture, of the past thirty years or so.
In many parts of the world, people are cheerfully labeled by their community based on some physical trait (often, skin color), and that label often becomes their nickname, used more often than their real name. (Of course, each culture has other sensitivities the U.S. doesn’t have as much).
I’m not saying that one way of doing things is better than another – just pointing out the regional specificity of the phenomenon the O.P. mentioned.
Just trying to explain the thought process I think obtains in this situation. I don’t think it’s impolite when it’s being used strictly to help identify the person (it could get that way if the person were repeatedly described as “Jeff-the-black-guy” as if that were his only feature or people were incapable of just using his name). I think it may also be out of fear of embarrassment (so you’re looking for Jeff, the black guy, and you say, “Excuse me, are you Jeff?” and he isn’t.) Or something.
There are about 200+ guys in my immediate area of work and I see them rarely and hence don’t always know their names. Actually I don’t think ANYBODY knows everyone’s names. So descriptions such as ‘That black guy that’s really surly…no not him, he’s about normal height but really broad shoulders…never talks…yeah him’ are a fairly common occurrence. Just add in your race and other physical characteristics of choice. Hard to see how it’s racist to describe somebody or comment on their skin tone. Hell just the other day I was discussing the relative merits of different sunscreens with a black colleague and skin tone HAS to come up in that kind of conversation. (He was friendly one with the long dreads that has been seen to dance when bored but only when he thinks nobody is watching if you’re interested).