This thread is a real opportunity to live up to the premise of this board and fight some ignorance. I’d like to suggest a couple of realities that would greatly assist the conversation going forward. I’m putting this out there as a person of color who has lived in the US and the UK my whole life, in different states and regions, and has been fairly well educated. I’m not going to act as if my reality is the only reality - but I imagine from the circle of friends and associates I interact with, one that might be considered somewhat representative of a large number of people of color.
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I encounter racism - institutional and personal - on a fairly regular basis. If I choose to leave my house and interact with other human beings, I will encounter instances where I am made to feel inferior and/or where I am physically or mentally threatened.
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This racism is typically subtle. I’ve been called “nigger” maybe five or six times in my life. One time was by an obviously mentally ill person, but it was pretty unpleasant to hear “NIGGER!” yelled at the top of her lungs from across the street. Another time was in elementary school, by a kid who I’m not even sure knew what the word meant. Other times were in a parking lot in Banbury, Oxfordshire, by some NF skinhead types. That time in particular was pretty scary - I thought I was going to get beaten up. But most of the stuff I deal with is really subtle, and conflated with other issues as well. As a Black man I’m stereotyped as being prone to violence (people are visibly intimidated by me at times), being uneducated, likely to steal, to be a service worker, or just ignored. For example, I can go in the local market to shop - with casual clothes on, a baseball cap, and a basket in my hand, and I’ll be asked where certain things in the store are. My community is majority White, so I imagine people assume that a Black person in the store works there and isn’t a customer. I don’t know about you, but for me it’s pretty easy to figure out who works at the store - they wear uniforms!
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I have to expend energy figuring out if a) I’ve truly been treated out of malice; and b) what to do about it. When something like the above happens, I usually say, “I don’t work here, but I think it’s [wherever].” Sometimes I’m a little pissed and I’ll just say, “I don’t work here.” If the person is old I might give them a pass. If the person’s tone is haughty, I start thinking, “Damn, was that racist? Sure felt like it.” And then I have the internal dialogue… “it was…” “It probably wasn’t…” and so on. Sometimes I just go “fuck it, that shit was racist.” Sometimes I go, “fuck it, that person was probably just mistaken/dumb/half blind.” The point is I spend time thinking about it, when I could be thinking about more important, relevant stuff, like how to finish this damn dissertation.
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I’m often told by people who have never experienced what I experience - not on a regular basis, anyway - that I’m making a big deal or overstating the case. When I talk to other African Americans, and typically people of color generally, they can empathize and say, “Yeah, you got shit on by someone because of race, or they stereotyped you.” What’s more amazing about this is the fact that I’m the stereotypical “safe” Black person. I’ve been told I don’t have much of an accent - people often think I’m White over the phone (though I do code switch around friends). I tend to wear t-shirts or sweatshirts and khakis - in other words, I’m not dressed in baggy clothes like a teenager half my age. Currently my hair is cut fairly short (though it’s been bald, locked, cornrows, Afro, you name it). And this stuff still happens, in the supermarket or in fuckin’ Harvard Square with a Harvard sweatshirt on. I should point out that I don’t purposely dress to avoid scrutiny, but I do think about it on occasion.
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I’ve been told - usually in code - that my race has played a role in my successes and/or failures. Nobody ever says “you didn’t get this grant because you’re Black,” or “you were asked to join this committee because you’re Black” (actually, I have been told the latter. But typically it’s by people I know and I knew it anyway). But it can be figured out pretty simply.
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I’m human so I sometimes miss stuff either way. Sometimes it’s so obvious (like when a professor says that they would like to see more people of color on the faculty, but they need to be qualified, not just minority). Sometimes it’s vague, like when several friends and I who conduct research on race proposed courses to teach at my school, and they were all rejected, even though we are among the most published and accomplished students at the school, and the school has a lack of courses in the area - but a White student teaching on a topic that is well covered is accepted. Who knows what the motivations were behind that decision?
That’s just me and my situation. I know for friends I have who are less educated, who have less money, and live in worse neighborhoods, it is often worse. For instance, I’ve never really dealt with police discriminating me - because a lot of the police I encountered as a kid were Latino and from my neighborhood as a teen, and I had limited contact with police in the UK - usually I’d go to a bobby if I was lost and they were very friendly. However, I have been pulled over and been made to “assume the position” simply because I was a minority kid in a place where minority kids “allegedly” committed crimes. Didn’t matter that I was an honor student, clean cut, etc.
But even for the friends I have who have more education and more money they still get shit. I have a friend who has two Harvard degrees and is a consultant - makes a lot of money. He was harassed by a cop near campus, missed an important test - and when he complained to the cop about it, the cop had him held in jail. The cop pulled him over and asked him for proof that the car was his (a fancy BMW), and it escalated from there. The guy was traumatized and dropped out for a semester. On the other hand, I’ve heard stories of friends driving without licenses and just being told to make sure they have it on them next time, etc.
Now, I am certain that some folks that read this are going to find other explanations for these events I’ve shared, and perhaps they’re right. But I think that race, and how people perceive me racially, plays a role in all of these things. I think this is what r4nd0mNumb3rs and others are venting about (and the stuff he was talking about was pretty much unequivocally racist).
There tends to be this mindset among a lot of Whites that when you hear “race” or “racism” that it’s time to go on defense, to excuse or make light of situations that you personally have no knowledge of, to legitimize the motives of people you’ve never met, and so on. I think it’s because a lot of times people think and say, “Hey, I’ve said or done that before, but I’m not racist. Therefore the person who did or said that to you isn’t racist either… because that would make me racist!”
That’s why I don’t say people are racist, I say that they act in a racist manner, or exhibited racist behavior. And we all do it. I fail to see how you can live in this society and not subtly (or greatly) be affected by it. When I consult with groups about working and learning in diverse environments, people often attempt to place me in the role of “expert,” which I reject. I’ve just done some reading and research, but I still stereotype. I still make assumptions. I’m a work in progress and I try to take the approach that I’m here to learn. When you drop the defensive stuff a lot of good stuff can happen!
Oh, and props to Li’l Pluck for the explanation of why the model minority stereotype sucks. A further shitty issue about it is that it prevents poor minority people from working together. Hell, if you came to America, and you were warned to be scared of Black people, why would you question that? Especially when you are told that your people are so hardworking, nice, etc., compared to them. Eventually you learn that you’re getting the same shitty racist treatment, but you’ve always been suspicious of Blacks, and vice-versa.
But I do accept donations. 
