I’ve had a few chats with my (17 yr old) co-worker over the last few weeks. Two things I found a bit strange. First, she burst out laughing when there was a newspaper article about Barack Obama’s Irish ancestors then she turned to me and said “Sure how could he have Irish ancestors? He’s black!”
I then had to explain to her that interbreeding between “races” is possible. She didn’t know his mother is white nor that you could have a “white” parent and still be “black”. I put the terms in inverted commas because they are constructs etc.
The second thing, today was more disturbing. She’s a well educated, bright young thing and she came out with the “I hate foreigners, taking all our jobs” spiel. I would have thought kids growing up here in the period where immigration has been commonplace would have better adjusted to things but in fact the comments she made were far less tolerant than many people decades older than her. I know she’s just one individual but it made me worry that perhaps her opinions are common amongst her age group. Of course there are racists, xenophobes here, like anywhere but for the most part comments like this are the preserve of louts and taxi drivers!
Can’t comment on the second, but I decided to do a completely uncontrolled and possibly biased study. I asked an 18-year-old if she thought someone could be of two different races, and she said no. This is the same girl who had never heard of the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and who I believe came from a more or less insular community in Tennessee.
(I also knew a guy who claimed that *Hannibal *was set beforeSilence of the Lambs. I think that was just him.)
I just did my own unscientific study by asking Kiddo the following questions:
Do you think it’s possible for a person to of two different races? Well, yeah. (like I’m crazy for asking)
How? Well, their mom or dad could be one race, and the other parent could be some other race.
Do you think a person with black skin could be Irish? What do you mean by Irish, do you mean just born there, or what?
Just born there. Well, yeah. (again like I’m nuts)
Could a person with black skin have Irish blood in them? Well, sure maybe their grandpa or some other past relative was Irish and the rest were black so their skin is more black. (explains it to me as if I was a small child)
Kiddo is 10 and in fifth grade.
I don’t think it’s an age thing…people have bigoted and uniformed opinions from all ages. I know lots of people my age who do in fact know that people can be more than one race, don’t go on about the foreigners who “took our jerbs!” and so forth.
IMHO that’s the biggest problem with racism (other than racism itself), as generations move away from historical events racism becomes more of a learned behavior and less of an experienced one.
I don’t know how African decendents are viewed culturally in other parts of the world but around here a lot of the bigoted talk I hear is from someone who heard it from someone else who heard it from someone else and so on. Sure, there are a lot of old school racists but they are getting old and will soon be outnumbered by those of us born after 1965, they are probably already outnumbered by us when combined with old school non-racists.
In conclusion, who cares what color a person’s skin is; all that really matters is what’s on the inside. It’s what’s inside a person that counts.
Unfortunately society frowns on randomly slicing open people of different racial backgrounds to compaire.
She didn’t know his mother is white nor that you could have a “white” parent and still be “black”. I put the terms in inverted commas because they are constructs etc.