My my every single thing thats bad in your life is down to other people being racist.
How can you tell if you’re lazier, or less intelligent, or a poorer communicator, or one of a myriad defficiencies that the rest of us have to face up to when we don’t get the top job, prettiest girl, best exam results ?
I mean you personally, not you, the walking, talking ethnic martyr that the whole of the white race seems intent on oppressing .
It seems to be the case that even in the event of people not liking you as a person has nothing to do with you as a person but because the whole white race in its entirety is racist.
Just how on earth did Obama become POTUS, or doesn’t he count.
Poor little me !
I agree that class is a major thing, but it’s not exclusive. Race and class are deeply intertwined in America. Right now, I am from a poor background in an upper-middle class milieu, and nobody understands my background and what I’ve faced in my life at all. If I wasn’t quite so white, I’m sure I’d make more sense to them. In many ways, my white skin allows me to “pass” among my new friends. Someone from my same background with darker skin would have a much harder time integrating into a higher class.
That said, I’ve spent some time outside the country as a (still privileged) minority, and it is a big deal. rachelellogram did a good job of showing some of the thousands of often subtle ways that your race can make you not belong. A lot of this boils down to making you uncomfortable in your own skin. It’s a sort of extra awareness of how you are being judged, everywhere you go. You never just get on a bus or go to a store- you do everything as “a ____ getting one a bus” or “a ________ going to the store.” It’s easy to say “oh, get over it,” but it wears on you, because it never goes away. It’s everywhere you go. You get used to your skin color being more important than just about any attribute.
That said, not being a minority in America, I don’t know how it operates in America. But my friends tell me they feel it, and I’m inclined to believe people when they talk.
I see the outraged “HOW DARE YOU IMPLY I’M BENEFITING FROM RACISM?!” litany has begun. Which isn’t surprising, considering that even at sites that are whole levels more liberal than the Dope, like Daily Kos, it happens when white/Christian/hetero/male privilege is brought up.
Your list is either out of date or very location specific
I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the food I grew up with, into a hairdresser’s shop and find someone who can deal with my hair
Not here. Plenty of hairdressers ( I assume that people who just do braiding do qualify as hairdressers) who can’t deal with my hair , plenty of shops that don’t sell my music and supermarkets that don’t sell the food I grew up with and I’ve seen more than one black-oriented bookstore/card shop.And I’ve been to plenty of drugstores where the haircare and cosmetics aisles were clearly targeted to non-whites.
I am never asked to speak for all of the people of my racial group.
Happens to me all the time , -probably because
** I can arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.**
is also not true for me nor is
I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk with the “person in charge” I will be facing a person of my race.
I frequently do wonder if negative interactions have racial overtones , and one thing that wasn’t mentioned- when I attend any sort of work- related social event, the menu never includes any food that I grew up eating.
I wonder how many of the things on the list are actually examples of white privilege (some certainly are , if true) and how many are just side effects of being in the minority, any minority in a given situation. Because that’s what I am - a white , non- hispanic who spends most of my time in situations where I am frequently the only non-hispanic white and I am nearly always in the minority.
rachellellogram is certainly right about the black music thing. I mean, I go into music stores now and I can’t find any black music. I can’t find any rap, any R&B, or anything…no Lil’ Wayne, no Usher, no R. Kelly, no Kanye West, nothing. No jazz, no soul, no funk…all they ever have is Porter Waggoner and Rhodesian military marches.
Also, I put a photo of my black friend on the refrigerator and my fucking bigoted racist privileged landlord tore it down.
Is that just a black thing? Because I’m not white, but not black either (of South Asian descent), and I never really think of myself like that. Again, I can’t speak to the black experience, but I rarely if ever think of myself as a minority.
The awareness of race only becomes apparent when you are a minority.
About a month ago, I attended a three-day conference in NC. It was a very productive meeting and I found everyone to be friendly, good people. But yes, it did cross my mind that I was the only black person in the entire group of us (there were about 100 or so participants). There was one Native American dude there, but everyone else was white.
Now I was fortunate because I attended with a co-worker, who happened to be one of the more well known participants at the conference, so I didn’t feel like I stuck out like a sore thumb that much. But I have been to meetings where this was the case. Meetings where I was either ignored or intrusively interrogated (Where did you go to school? What agency do you work for? What are your job duties? Would I know your boss?) I’ve been to meetings where the only people to reach out to me where the few other people of color in the room. I don’t let it keep me from stepping out of my comfort zone…I simply introduce myself to the people I who want to meet and hope that they remember me the next time we attend the same meeting. But when I’m in those situations when I’m introducing myself to strangers, yes, sometimes I do think to myself, “I hope this person doesn’t harbor any bad feelings about black people.” Why wouldn’t I, when I know many people do?
Now, do white people also face isolation when they’re newbies at a conference? Of course they do. But they are less likely to consider that their isolation is caused by their racial appearance. Not because they are more evolved human beings, but because they are simply more likely to outnumber everyone else at the meeting. There’s a presumption that they belong, a presumption that members of stigmatized minority groups do not always get to take advantage of in professional environments.
Do I ever feel like my life is in danger when I’m the “only one?” Hell no. Society has improved enough where we don’t have to be that paranoid. But it does mean I have to think about things sometimes that most white people do not. That’s just life.
As far as hair care products, it is a pet peeve of mine that you’ll see a store aisle simultaneously marked with “hair products” and “ethnic hair products.” First of all, why “ethnic” when it’s obvious they are talking about “black.” And secondly, why not just say “hair products.” It’s not like if you don’t put “ethnic hair products” on the sign, black people won’t know where to get their Dark 'n Lovely and Hot Pink Ultrasilk creme.
How do you tell the difference between when people don’t like you because of your race and just plain don’t like you?
Or, I go to an IT conference and the most outgoing person there is me AND I’m an introvert. I don’t care if you’re black or white, I’m not likely to talk to you either way. Do you get all emo and blame* the color of your skin? Really, how do you tell?
I can understand that point, but it does make the product easier to find in a forty-foot wall of hair care. I’d be real happy if I could walk into a new store and find “middle-aged white men’s hair products that all they want to do is wash their hair with” marked. (That section would contain maybe three different shampoos. )
Okay, let’s. The Tea Party actually worsened the performance of the Republicans in the recent elections: they gained far fewer seats than they would have had it been a more “mainstream”-controlled rebellion against the Democratic party.
Whereas it doesn’t seem that all the Americans who hated Obama for his association with Wright stopped him from getting elected. That’s because it’s only around 20% of the population. There are probably a lot more than 20% of Americans who are fearful of the Teabaggers.
In college I took an African American Lit seminar and was the only white person. It was an eye opening experience.
I was on the board for a Film program and asked by an acquaintance to sponsor a GLBT film series. I did. Again, an eye opening experience. But of a fundamentally different nature.
In the lit class, everyone could see I was the minority. They all had shared experiences of culture and racism that I couldn’t even pretend to comprehend. I could be (in some cases rightfully) dismissed because I visabily seemed to lack the context.
The film series work people simply ASSUMED I was a lesbian and that my opinions were as valid as anyone else’s. It was easy to pass - it was more comfortable for everyone if I did pass. I wasn’t intentionally a closeted straight person, but I didn’t correct people’s assumptions.
White people don’t usually have to ask themselves that question. They can go a lifetime and not have it enter their mind. And when they learn that other people do ask themselves that question from time to time, they have the luxury of acting all self-righteous and accusatory, because it’s such a completely foreign concept to them that someone would not like a person simply because of their race. Your question exemplifies the type of privilege that rachellogram’s post talks about (and without the appropriate citation, I should add).
I remember a few years ago on the board, I relayed a story about how it was always hard for me to find lab partners in chemistry class during college and I would often wonder if my gender and/or race had any role to play with this. A Doper asked me something like, “How do you know it wasn’t because of your bad breath or something else?” Like having bad breath and being of the “wrong” race or gender are things that are even remotely analogous. Or even as likely to occur when choosing lab partners? What is more readily apparent? My skin, gender, or breath?!
Again, I don’t know and that is my point. Are you denying that there are people out there that would not talk to me not just because they’re introverted but because they would feel, consciously or subconsciously, uncomfortable talking to someone who looks “different”? Have you ever hesitated to ask an employee at a store a question because their looks suggest they wouldn’t be able to speak English? I have. Most white people do not have to encounter this bias, nor worry about interactions being sullied by this kind of bias. That makes white people, in general, luckier than the rest of us. Nothing more and nothing less.
And no, I never get emo. If people don’t want to talk to me whether it’s because I’m black or because they just don’t like beautiful, intelligent women, it’s no skin off my nose. I’ve never let the historical reality of societal anti-black prejudice keep me from doing whatever the hell I want, from eating fried chicken in public to wearing my hair wild and natural to entering a profession where I will always be the “only one” in the room. Acknowledging that one group has an advantage over you does not mean that you’re holding yourself back or any other nonsense you want to throw at me.
Maybe we’re thinking of different kinds of signs, but I’m taking about the ones that hang from the ceiling in the middle of the aisle. They don’t actually make finding specific products easier to find. I wouldn’t mind signage that said “Loreil stuff to the right, Bronner Brothers stuff to the left.” That would be actually helpful.
A sign basically saying “Hair Products Here. Ethnic Hair Products Also Here” just makes no kind of sense!
Actually your post sounds like it is your problem to deal with. A whole room of people may not talk to you for any number of reasons, yet you always have in the back of your mind it may be because of race. And there isn’t a damn thing anyone could do about what you are thinking except talk to you. But then it could be the ugly guy talked to me rather than cute guy, or the junior staff member/researcher rather than the boss, etc. All the people who you actually want to talk to you not talking to you because of your color. Sorry, this isn’t white privilege, but your own inhibition.
The thing about privilege is that’s invisible, as said upthread. If you’re white, then you don’t have to worry about (the majority of) people not talking to you because of your race.
But the thing about privilege is that’s invisible. Barring careful statistical analysis, it’s very hard to say if people are talking to you more or less because of your race. If you are predisposed to think in terms of racial privilege, it’s easy to see people of other races being treated differently than you, and jump to the conclusion that it’s because of their race, rather than look for possible confounding factors, outliers, or similar.
Which person(s) were painted as hating America? Compare Fox’s criticism of Rev. Wright to maybe Olbermann/Maddow’s criticism of the Tea Party. What you won’t find is the Tea Party’s patriotism and love of America being questioned. Just the stupidity of their ideas and their motivation(e.g… racism).
Both Rev. Wright and the Tea Party have valid criticisms but one is seen as trying to save America from commie-socialist destruction while the other hates America.
A lot of times you can’t but your radar is pinged. Other times it is quite obvious like the time I went to a career fair in college and one recruiter immediately tensed up when I approached . If I hadn’t greeted him and asked a couple questions, trying to give BOTD, and just left, he wouldn’t have stopped me. I asked what their company did (software for govt.) and I was going to ask a follow up about revenue except I used the word money. He took the opportunity to dismiss me because “if you’re the type of person who only cares about salary we don’t want you working for us.”
How do I know it was race and not bad breath? Body language, past experience, compare and contrast(Gee. All the other white people were friendly and willing to talk to me about their companies) plus I brushed my teeth that day.
I would say most are the side effects of being in the minority, any minority in a given situation. My skin is beige. My eyes are blue. If I bleached my hair blonde and left it uncovered, I could easily pass as one of Hitler’s Aryan poster girls. However I am Rom and most of that list could be applied to me quite easily.
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