First, the vast majority of these situations do not involve a confrontation when insults are hurled. There is rarely some coming to Jesus moment. Second, I am not interested in “developing a connection” with random strangers I feel have insulted me, and who should generally know better that to stereotype people.
I don’t presume serious emotional baggage; I EXPERIENCED prejudice. I don’t care about the deep motivations behind why you think following me around makes sense, just don’t do it.
You sell behavior change everyday, yet you expect random Black people who have already been insulted and demeaned to give it away for free on the off chance the person who insulted them is amenable to persuasion from the very same person they presumed the worst about? Really?
And I never alleged these people were evil. I don’t think most people are. The point is that when you make your ignorance my problem, I don’t think it’s fair to compound the insult by expecting me to edify you as well.
First off, calling someone racist (or at least acting in a racist manner) doesn’t automatically come with the assumption they are acting with “ill intent”. After all, when the police are summoned whenever Gabe exercises, I doubt the person doing the calling is doing so with the intent of making Gabe’s life a living a hell. They think they are getting rid of a criminal. So if you have to conflate racism with ill intent to make your point, this means your point is a weak one.
Secondly, the person who is victimized by racism is often the one whose intentions are being maligned, so why would you put the onus on them to be the rational peace broker? I’m not saying a can of whoop ass needs to be opened, but if someone has a legitimate case for being emotionally frazzled to the point of disengagement, it would the person presumed to be the mentally inferior subhuman criminal.
It is not fair to expect Gabe, who is just minding his business when cops come for him as though he’s seconds away from breaking into the building, to be more concerned about not offending the person who is prejudiced (or the person who sympathizes with the prejudiced person), than speaking his mind and being honest about his perceptions. Something is not right about this equation.
If words had been minced during the Civil Rights movement to prevent feathers from being ruffled, who knows what race relations would look like today. Perhaps more people would be thinking Jim Crow wasn’t all that bad because it wasn’t really racist, just a bit bizarre or some other quaint adjective.
Another problem with Dseid’s proposal is that most acts of bias are unknown to the victim. When someone doesn’t get hired because their name is “Keisha” and the hiring manager is biased against African-American names, how does Keisha ever get to confront that person? Keisha may assume she didn’t get the job because she just wasn’t qualified.
And the incidents that are obviously racial are going to be the ones that are the scariest and most uncomfortable. “Dialoguing” can’t happen in those circumstances.
Then you will understand that it is not necessarily valid to accept any anecdote of racism at face value. Sometimes people claim racism when none exists, and therefore it is unreasonable for anyone to simply accept every complaint of racism.
Would you be automatically skeptical of your friend’s claim? Not a stranger’s claim. Not the claim of a jerkface teenager you don’t even know. But your very close and trusted friend.
If your first instinct is to disbelieve your friend’s account of a situation, then you are’t really his friend.
Since I posted a hypothetical dialogue in my previous post, I wanted to clarify what I meant with it. I’m not saying that it is necessary that minorities have dialogues with people who are racist towards them, whether it’s conscious or unconscious racism. First of all, it’s not the responsibility of any black person to be the “magical black person” like from the movies, who teaches the clueless white person how to live their life better. Second, it would be exhausting, having to constantly deal with it. All the little microaggressions (whether intentional or accidental) are like death from a thousand paper cuts. Third, like **monstro **pointed out, it would be very difficult to have a productive conversation in the heat of the moment.
If black people want to have dialogues after the fact with white people who have been racist, then that’s great, but sadly I don’t think they’ll always be listened to. But maybe when a white person tells another white person “hey man, you might want to stop doing that, it’s not good,” then the white person might be listened to.
Also I was saying a dialogue could be helpful to call out implicit racism, since **DSeid **said that calling it out wouldn’t be productive. Racism should be called out, and I think it can be productive, it just might take different strategies.
For Gabe’s situation, I don’t know if I’d use a dialogue with the security guards, I would update/improve their guidelines. What to look out for, when to go check on things, when to call the police, etc. And I would include in the guidelines that just because someone is black and walking around, that doesn’t mean that the police must be called- that minorities work at the location and we want all the employees to feel safe and secure, and they don’t feel that if they are constantly being harassed.
(Sidenote, it makes me sad that it’s so much harder for minorities to feel safe. The Daily Show from Tuesday night featured a segment on the Michael Dunn trial, and Jessica Williams had advice for black teens on how to stay safe, including never leave the house, never see your friends, and don’t listen to any music. It was funny, since The Daily Show is funny, but also sad because it’s very much based on truth.)
Sam, you make an excellent point about white people also talking about race. It shouldn’t always be a black person launching the conversation or “teaching” the clueless white person. Because as you said, that is tiring.
I don’t know how it is among white people, but black folk have no problems talking about race amongst themselves. We talk about white-on-black racism. We talk about black-on-white racism. And we even talk about black-on-black prejudice (“colorism”). Simply talking about this stuff gets the “stuff” into the forefront of one’s minds–out of the subconscious and into the conscious–so that bias can be checked before it becomes manifest in behavior.
To go back to Gabe, if his white friend shared his story with another white person, then that white person would also have an opportunity to learn.
monstro I had crossposted with your previous post but do want to say that I appreciate what you are saying there, and in this last post. If I am being understood to be saying that every incidence of percieved prejudice be met with 60s style dialoguing then I was unfortunately unclear. Each circumstance is different. Of course the sort of circumstance that you now describe as Gabe’s offers no such opprtunity and neither does the “Keisha” scenario. Still you propose something else -
Yes. That has sort of been my point, which I apparently have been failing to make.
Even that jerkwad, who saw you, an unknown to him Black young woman of slight build mucking with the mud, as potentially scary beause he in the absence of any other information went with conditioning that triggered “Black = Threat” quite possibly has Black friends who he’ll have beers with and joke about sports teams with … best pals maybe not, but friends. He very very likely does not possess any self-awareness that he is profiling and that what he did had horrible racist impact. The odds that jerkwad is the monkey-head racist are likely smallish.
Society, Blacks, Whites, Yellows, Browns, Reds, all of us, would benefit from him having that dialogue with his Black friend. And that is a difficult conversation to have because each of the participants is looking from very different lenses and each is sure that the view through their lens is “truth.” Each is to some degree threatened by the concept that their view might not be 100% accurate. (Perhaps our own struggles here somewhat illustrate how difficult these conversations can be.)
I understand that White Friend needs to have more sensitivity to Black Friend’s experience.* To come closer to your desired listening without judgement. But of course if White Friend was completely able to do that that “teachable moment” would be less needed.
And if that conversation is to be had then Black Friend also needs to do a bit of squelching that visceral response to having their perception questioned and also try to communicate with some sensitivity to hot button words. To the degree that Black Friends dismiss all White Friends when they do not automatically accept the view through thier lens as truth and when White Friend fails recognize that on this subject just speaking his/her mind without preview is a bad idea … those conversations never happen. And Pollyannaish as it may sound I cannot help but believe that those conversations are an important part of addressing the endemic problem. Even jerkwad who yelled at you might might be capable of next time recognizing that unfair subconscious tape of “Black = Threat” is beginning to play and modify behavior next time if that difficult conversation has been navigated. The tape won’t be erased, we need to still work on bigger systemic societal changes to get there, but maybe it can be recognized and thereby consciously controlled a bit better.
Yes brickbacon “my” (presuming to speak for all us White folk) ignorance IS your problem. In fact it is more of a problem for you than for me.
*Please note: this is real world we are referencing. Not GD let alone Pit threads where people come with an expectation of challenging critically any statements made.
monstro I am imagining how this would go - White Friend that needs the teachable moment the most, is completely clueless that any of these tapes ever play at all and who believes that having voted for Obama means that there is no possibility that any prejudice exists within him/her, initiates a conversation: “I hate all this whining about racism when it does not exist anymore. Obama is President for goodness sake. More than half of America voted for him. Don’t you just hate it when jerks play the race card all the time?” Yup that conversation is going to go well!
I understand it is tiring but as you note “black folks” have more practice talking about race and recognizing that they themselves can have prejudicial thoughts and behaviors. “White folk” generally speaking not so much so, especially those who are redeemable, are educable, but who need the conversation the most. The ones who do not understand that there is even a need for the conversation to take place.
First, your anecdote didn’t even ask us to directly weigh in on whether the accusation of racism was valid. Let’s revisit what you actually said:
[QUOTE=Shodan]
Two black kids, in their mid-teens, were riding the same bus as me, sitting a few rows apart. They started shouting to each other, and passing a football back and forth to each other. The bus driver told them to sit down and stop throwing the football. They declined to do so, and the bus driver stopped the bus and ordered them off the bus. They left, and one of them paused at the bottom of the steps and shouted at the driver “Fucking racist!” and ran off.
**brickbacon - do you believe that this happened exactly as I describe? **
[/QUOTE]
You asked whether I believe that the story happened exactly as you described. I responded that I have no reason to doubt you despite my outside opinions about your character, logic, and ability to reason. I stand by that. I believe the EVENTS happened more or less as you describe, and I wouldn’t give you the 3rd degree if you were relaying the story to me later on.
What you did not ask is whether the teens’ accusation was fair or appropriate; both things I and you have no way of evaluating given our positions. You don’t know if that interaction was one of many between the kids and the bus driver. You don’t know if they are neighbors who don’t get along. You don’t know if those kids are just pathological liars. You are just not privy to any of the details and circumstances needed for you to validate or invalidate their actions.
Could it have been an unfair or inappropriate claim to make? Sure, but I think that is pretty obvious. No one is saying every claim made by every person is fair and strictly deserving. What people have said is that they blanket need to give some stranger the benefit of the doubt over someone you know happens far more when claims of racism are made in part because there is a large failure of imagination exhibited by people who have never been subject to such discrimination.
No, it may affect me, but it’s not my problem. There is a big difference because your phrasing connotes responsibility for something I am not responsible for. I should not have to take time out of my day to introduce myself to security guards and let them know I have a reason to be where I am allowed to be. I shouldn’t have to defuse any fears you might have of me just because you were conditioned to fear Black people. I don’t think you realize how burdensome and unfair that expectation is. The fact that you seriously posit that as a means of improving things just shows how out of touch you are. Honestly, it’s really embarrassing. And I don’t say that to say that reasonable people can’t have discussions about race if they want. It’s that you putting the onus on the victim is really fucking stupid and entitled.
At this point brickbacon I can only conclude that you are intentionally trying to misunderstand what I have said and am arguing. Sorry but I have no desire to engage in that sort of dialogue.
I get what you think you are saying. I am just pointing how ineffective and unlikely these opportunities are, and how unfair it is to put that burden in the victim. Do you expect any other people to take on the role of helping someone who wronged them evolve? To act as if that is the missing piece from helping people get over their racial prejudices is an assault on logic and reason.
I do not think those conversations with friends (you do have some White friends, yes?) need to be unlikely and I am more optimistic than you that they can be somewhat effective if done with some appreciation for their perspective as well (the “their” in this case means those who need the conversation the most).
I am not saying that “victim” is an inaccurate word to use or concept to hold. I am however positing that it is a mindset that is less likely to result in an improved circumstance than the concept of recognition that there is a shared problem that is the result of history that negatively impacts all of us (some more than others of course) and that requires all of us (those less impacted more so) to work together to help fix. Blame is at most immaterial at this point; actions that have potential to improve the state of affairs are what is of interest.
You are moving the goalposts here. Yes, my talking to my friends about race, should the opportunity arise, may be productive. But, by and large, they are not racist people. These opportunities don’t arise generally because being my friend, knowing me and my proclivities, trusting me, and valuing my friendship, has far more weight than can be conveyed during some frank discussion of race. It has happened in the past, but many of these people are far more likely to consider me an exception to the rule if they have those prejudices already. This is what I don’t think you get. Like Monstro said, Gabe is probably many of his coworkers’ Black friend. They know this guy, yet many are probably prejudiced towards other Blacks. Yes, talking helps. But anyone who is open-minded and wants to change has several outlets to vent, and opportunities to learn from people who have made this their goal. You don’t need to start asking the Gabe’s of the world to convince all their White friends that skin color doesn’t determine character.
Your “shared history” largely consists of one group of people being subjugated and discriminated against by another. It was one group victimizing another, and creating a culture that exists to this day. Now you claim it’s EVERYONE’S responsibility to rectify the behavior of those who didn’t get the repeated message that discrimination is not okay. Are you fucking kidding?
It’s like if I recklessly hit you with my car, breaking your leg, then ask you when you free to come over to help me fix my windshield. I mean, it doesn’t matter who was at fault or who has been damaged, right? My windshield needs to get fixed, and of course it is our shared history that has led us to this point, right?
Blame is not immaterial. If you don’t understand that, you don’t get what the problem is, nor do you have any idea how to fix it.
Believe it or not, I usually do not broach the topic of racism first because I don’t really like arguing. I can argue with the best of 'em on the internet, but I really don’t do it well in real life. Because when I get emotional, the words don’t come out right. And racism is an emotional thing. It’s not an intellectual exercise for me.
But if someone brings it up, I’ll do my best to “dialogue” with them. My grad school and post-doc days were full of “teachable moments”, and not all of them ended horribly. But they tended to be uncomfortable because of how racist beliefs get exposed during heated discussions. People who seem “cool” suddenly don’t seem that way when they reveal their misconceptions and buried prejudices.
Heated discussions are par for the course in academic environments. If you can’t argue, then you’re not going to do well, at least socially. But for my colleagues, the discourse was theoretical and abstract. Even if they ended up losing the “fight”, they could go home and not give it any more thought. But for me, the lone black person in the room, it wasn’t just another intellectual chest-thumping demo. How do you forget that your “friend” just intimated that you just want to sit on your ass and collect slavery reparations? How do you forget that they believe all black neighborhoods are bad and that they practically called you a liar when you pointed out that your own neighborhood isn’t bad? How do you scrub from your mind that they think black people with “ghetto” names deserve to be discriminated against, when your own family members have those “ghetto” names? How do you forgive them when they call you out as an Affirmative Action “baby”, even though your credentials are just as good as theirs?
A black person talking about racism with a white person long enough is likely going to discover some shit that’s going to leave a bad taste in their mouth. All the friends I had back in grad school? I don’t keep in touch anymore. I guess I remember too many frank conversations and too many hard feelings.
I’m relieved that this conversation hasn’t gone the same way.
I appreciate your points and POV monstro and I hope that you do mine.
One comment to return to is the one about how no one gives a fuck about my unconsciously choosing not to sit near them on the train or bus in conjunction with the comments your, brickbacon, friends are not racist.
Well if having these internal tapes playing that impact our behaviors is racist, then I am racist, and likely so are your friends and so are you. And you should care about that sitting on the bus or train scenario because how well I, the reluctant racist, can (or cannot) become aware of those internal subconscious tapes are there, spills over into the rest of life. Let’s just imagine that one of my partners retires before me and I am part of choosing a new partner for our practice site. Down to two candidates, both fairly equally qualified in credentials. The choice comes down to fit with the rest of us (it’s a bit like a marriage except that we spend more waking hours together) and how we think they will succeed with our patient population. One is named Tyrone, Black, and hails from an urban inner city environment and one is a Michael and from a White middle class suburb. My ability to recognize and control for that tape playing deep in my subconscious matters. Maybe Mike is more personable and more kid friendly. And maybe that assessment is being biased by those tapes. I need to be aware of that yet not overcompensating for it.
I know brickbacon … not your problem. Despite the fact that my people were being murdered and expelled from various towns in Eastern Europe back a century or so ago, my being White and you Black means the problem, the blame, the history, is mine to bear responsibility for. And your friends don’t have those tapes playing at all. Afterall they like you. And you have no biases yourself to be concerned about, no presumption of motives or anything.
