label things they refuse to understand "insane"

This is a guest post by Ankhesen Mié, who reads and comments at swpd as Moi, and who writes about herself, "I’m an Ambazonian-American author who digs the unusual. I blog a lot about race, I’m allergic to seafood, and I have a weird thing for really old men."


I just had a very interesting evening at a bar with two white guys.  For this post, we'll call them Jay and Tim; Jay in his mid-20s and Tim is in his late forties (at least) -- just FYI.

Our First Topic -- Stack

So we're having drinks and talking about Andrew Joseph Stack and the apparent hesitation to brand him a terrorist (which he was, by the way).  Jay, like most people, doesn't consider Stack's actions terrorism because they weren't on the same scale as 9/11 and didn't incite as much fear.  I argued the media and FBI were deliberately trying to avoid inciting fear, and Tim and I explained to him white denial, etc. in the face of a "white threat" in order to maintain that "us-vs-them" mentality. Tim and I also had to repeatedly explain terrorism, its basic definition, and how Stack's actions fit that definition to a T.

Jay maintained that anyone who would fly a plane into a building was merely crazy and immature, and he didn't see how Stack's actions intimidated anyone.  Jay apparently hasn't been paying attention to the news, because the intimidation is most definitely there...so again, Tim and I had to explain the social and sociological factors which most people ignore in these situations (e.g., Americans regularly joke and criticize the IRS, so there's been no major outcry in its defense, even though 190 innocent people were almost murdered -- regular people just like them.  And yet folks can't seem to link our everyday sense of  IRS "humor" to the creation and maintenance of our insensitivity towards its employees' lives).

Tim and I quickly realized that all this wasn't sinking in for Jay, because Jay was hung up on the scale and aftermath of 9/11; with Stack, he couldn't see the idealogical aspect [read: religion], nor could he see the organizational/brotherhood aspect of McVeigh -- even though we explained repeatedly that a terrorist does not have to belong to an organization.

And so there sat Jay, doing that common white thing -- he stubbornly insisted that both Stack and the 19 men who took out the Twin Towers were simply "crazy and immature."

Our Second Topic -- What Caused 9/11

So I abandoned Stack and went with 9/11.  I asked Jay and Tim to honestly, seriously, tell me the root of terrorism, and why someone would resort to it.  Jay laughingly insisted on mental illness, while Tim solemnly talked about hatred, fear, and the desperate desire to change things.  Jay scoffed out how bringing down the Towers -- full of innocent civilians -- could never solve any problems.  I said the point was not to "solve" a problem -- those 19 men were not delusional.  Terrorists are not actually "crazy": they do what they do for a reason, but Jay couldn't divine it for the life of him.

So I dropped some words: social inequality (both domestic and global), exploitation, subjugation, and colonialism.

"See," Jay rolled his eyes, "this what bugs me about that -- 'imperialism,' ' colonialism' -- who cares?!"

"Bingo!" I pointed at him.  "That right there?  That is what makes America -- civilians especially -- a target for terrorists.

"Victims have long memories.  You 'don't care' because you have no clue what it's like to have nothing.  You may be poor by American standards, but you have no clue what real poverty is -- and neither do I.  You don't know what true, blatant, raw dehumanization is like.  I have African parents, I was born in Austin, TX and have spent most of my life in America.  For the brief period I lived in Cameroon, I had nannies.  I went to a private school.  My family is prominent in our home province.  So while I too could never see myself flying a plane into a building, I could see why my parents or grandparents -- who were born and raised under colonial rule -- would.

"My father sat me down when I was young to explain how such life was for an African child.  He went to a Christian, British-run boarding school, and didn't see his kin for months at a time.  When there, he could not go by his African name; he had to use his English one.  He couldn't speak his native dialect even if some of his classmates were members of the same tribe.  He could not practice any ancestral beliefs, but Catholicism instead.  And most people in America don't know this, but it was -- for a very long time -- colonial educational policy to teach African children that their ancestors who built the pyramids, temples, kingdoms, and palaces whose ruins still stand, and who featured heavily in the recited histories of griots and scholars (yes, Africans have always had their own historians) -- the children were taught these ancestors were white, and that they [the children] had neither history nor legacy."

Now mind you, Jay's face was red through all this; he was not speaking, and he was avoiding eye contact as though his life depended on it.  So I just went on about how colonialism and chattel slavery will never be practiced against Africans again, and not because the Western world has become so evolved, but because Africans will die before they allow it to happen.  Same thing here: if white America decided to displace Native Americans from their reservations right now, Native Americans would not just sit back and let it happen.  What happened before will never be allowed to happen the same way again in this world.

Tim added how America has not evolved; it's young, and doesn't have the extensive the historical lengths of other nations.  It's going through its own attempts at imperialism right now, though it will neither recognize nor admit to it.  I then added that when the conflict between colonialists and Native Americans first became dead serious, the colonialists were no doubt being told, "This is not your country.  These are not your things.  Either deal with us like civilized people or go back to wherever you came from."

"Sound familiar?"  I asked Jay. "No?  Here's another hint."

I explained that Middle East Asians, when talking about their history of mistreatment by Westerners, don't start their story in the last 20-50 years.  They start it with the Crusades.  Since the time of the Crusades, the Mid East has endured cyclical invasions  --but Americans don't know that.  And like most countries today, the modern Middle East has spent years wrangling with arrogant American politicians and "diplomats" who basically show up to dictate how things will be done (even Western European politicians complain of this type of treatment).  The conflict we are witnessing now is no different from America's conflict from centuries ago: the Mid East will not back down.  The war drags on unsuccessfully because our previous administration erroneously assumed these broke, "backward", brown people could be brought to heel, as brown people have been before -- no.  They will die before they let that happen.  Listen to how they react to American presence on their soil: "This is not your country.  These are not your things.  Either deal with us like civilized people, or go back to wherever you came from" -- does this sound familiar now?

Jay could still not see why Arabs would target American civilians.  I explained it's because American civilians have not been listening for decades.  Oh, they know their government does some "exploiting" here and there (Jay actually said things along this line) but they don't know the gory details.

Americans don't understand how it feels to have heavily armed foreigners show up and order them around with slurs and threats.  They don't care to know.  Genocide was going on Rwanda long before America got involved.  Why?  Americans didn't care (once again; Americans have forgotten their initial negligence, but I can assure you Rwandans have not).  Americans put a dim-witted butcher in office and left him there for eight years to the detriment of themselves and the extreme detriment of others, but have already forgotten the "put him there" part and talk as though he just "became" President out of nowhere.  Americans knew he was being a bully to others, but didn't stop him.  He killed their children, disfigured some others, and massacred hundreds of thousands of humans on the other side of the world, and Americans paid him a fat salary all the while.  Americans don't know Arabic history, don't understand or respect Islam, don't pay attention to their crimes against the Middle East, feel entitled to the rewards they reap from beneath Eastern soil, don't care if their president is committing atrocities in their name...and yet Americans have the gall to wonder why 19 Arab men would go directly after them.

Jay, who'd become a lot less humorous and animated, still insisted on the "insanity" defense, causing Tim to shake his head at him.  Tim then used an example I hadn't thought of -- Appalachia itself.  All three of us have spent the bulk of our lives in Appalachia, and Jay is perhaps the most "Appalachian" of us three: he was born here, he's unable to stay away from it for too long, is currently working for the state researching and writing grants to help provide homes and jobs for the homeless population, and like most Appalachians, Jay refuses to leave in the foreseeable future.

Our Third Topic -- Appalachia

FYI, most Americans can't point out West Virginia on a map (don't ask me what they put down as the 50th state whenever they came up one state short in elementary school geography).  West Virginia, in case you're wondering, is the beating heart of Appalachia to some folks.  To "outsiders" who have some knowledge of its existence, West Virginia like a "Third World Country," populated solely by illiterate hicks who are often the stuff of horror films and the butt of incest jokes.  Most Americans don't know WV's history, nor why, how, or even that it separated from Virginia in the first place (it was an anti-slavery state, just so you know).

Appalachians have been poor and neglected for generations -- there has never been a "Golden Age" in this region.  Like Africa and the Mid East, WV is, ironically, brimming with natural resources: vast forests, huge coal mines, abundant natural gas, natural springs, and long rivers.  For generations, outside companies have come in, taken what they've wanted, and then moved on, leaving massive poverty in their wake.  Out of all Appalachians, West Virginians in particular have come to loathe "outsiders" (and in Southern WV, where poverty is severe, political officials and state employees are almost never greeted pleasantly).  And while their distrust continues to hinder their economy and education, it has kept their distinctive identity -- and historical memories -- intact.

'Cause again, kids, victims have long memories.

And...Disappointment

Our talk was finally starting to sink in a little for Jay, and I wasn't shocked that it took the only other white guy in the talk to finally break through to him (however, I was refreshed to see an older white guy schooling a younger one about the need to see things from the "Other Side."  I was also elated when Tim brought up John Brown and how his raid was -- and is still sometimes -- considered an act of terrorism).

Now, Tim and I had been vibing quite well this whole time, smoothly backing each other up with insights and historical tidbits, much to Jay's visible discomfort.  It was late, and the bar was getting too loud for us to keep talking, so I began to say my goodbyes.  Tim and I cheerfully thanked each other for the conversation, but Jay was deeply concerned I might be angry with him.  Needless to say, his worry baffled Tim and me, considering how I had not expressed any anger at all.  Why would I?  Tim demonstrated exemplary supportiveness, global historical knowledge, and astounding insight; our intertwining dialogue had been excellent...and all Jay had to say was he feared I may never speak to him again??!?

Jay uncomfortably insisted he still "just couldn't understand" how anyone would think terrorism was an answer, and that they'd have to be insane to actually fly a plane into a building.  Sighing and giving up, I simply assured him I wasn't angry in the least, but insisted on heading out (I figured Jay might talk to Tim more comfortably if I was absent).  I accepted Jay's hug, and let him walk me to my car.

Hope he and Tim are having a good talk.

look forward to a race-free future, instead of focusing on racism today

 

(the book)

I've been noticing another common white tendency lately. In fact, I've been noticing it so often that I feel compelled to write it down, so I can better see and deal with it.

How do you deal with this one when you hear it?

This common white tendency is to look forward to a supposedly race-free future, instead of focusing on the pervasive racism of today.

I was reminded of this tendency this morning, when I followed a link to "tv tropes." I decided to peruse this site's section on "Race Tropes," but then I got pulled up short by an introductory paragraph:

Ah, race. As much as the endlessly-optimistic sorts like to believe that race is no longer a discriminatory factor any more than eye color is, the fact remains that fiction is not quite "color-blind" yet. We're getting there (slowly but surely), and media today is far more racism-sensitive than in the days of the Ethnic Scrappy, but reflexive stereotypes still linger like a bad fart in a slow elevator.

Hmmm, I thought. Just who's being "endlessly optimistic" here? I mean, if we're slowly but surely approaching a color-blind future, then why bother contributing toward that effort? If it's already and "surely" happening, then I guess us white folks can just relax, right? The future's looking good, thanks to, um, someone's efforts. Or, thanks to something or other. . . but anyway, whew! The job of eradicating racism isn't up to me, because it's already happening.

I think the people at tv tropes do good work in this section of their site, by exposing pervasive and influential modes of media-generated racism. However, any anti-racism efforts that the site's writers might be making seem undercut by that introductory statement, which almost amounts to a disclaimer. It's as if they're saying they don't want to be labeled "race hustlers," the kind of people who go around claiming racism is a big deal, rudely inflicting their concerns on other people like, you know, a "bad fart in a slow elevator." Who needs that, right? Especially when racism is already (somehow) getting better on its own. In fact, if anyone is a "racist" anymore it's them. [/sarcasm]

I obviously do think know that racism is still a big deal, and that it's not going away anytime soon. Which is why, for one thing, I make it a point to discuss racial issues with friends and co-workers. This common white tendency -- to look towards a rosy future, when racism will have finally withered away, as if it just got old and died a natural, inevitable death -- has come up in conversation twice this past week, and probably six, seven or more times in the past couple of months. We'll be talking about, say, John Mayer's loose lips, or those of Chris Matthews, or one time, the way that sportscasters still talk differently sometimes about players of different races.

I don't consider it useful or constructive to discuss racism in merely individual terms -- to label, that is, this or that individual as a "racist." If the person I'm talking to is willing (especially if it's a white person), I always try to work outward from whatever egregious example of racism is at hand. I try to talk about "racism," instead of "racists"; I try to discern whether a common white tendency is at hand; and then, usually later, I also try to see how that tendency resides within myself.

So as I said, lately I've noticed that when I move outward in a conversation like that -- from some supposed "racist" to the racist tendency that he or she displayed or enacted -- the white person or persons I'm talking to often become restless. They sometimes don't want to focus along with me in my effort to generalize the incident into a common white tendency. What they sometimes then say is, I think, another common white tendency itself.

"Okay, but don't you think this is all getting better?" one of my friends recently more or less said. "I mean, what is that they say about 2050 or so, that whites are going to be a minority, right? I mean, you talk about how white power is still with us, and I agree, but isn't it just, kind of, withering away on its own?"

Another example occurred when I was talking to a different white friend, a high school teacher, about whether "terrorism" is a useful term for describing the suicidal assault this week of an IRS office by John Stack. As I made the more general point that white people rarely label other white criminals "terrorists," and that they're much quicker to do that with non-white criminals, this person listened with a deeper and deeper frown, and then she said,

"Well yeah, I can see the racist double standard there. But really, that's going to get better, I think. People aren't going to always be fooled that way. I mean, look, Obama got elected, right? That's a pretty big deal! Because, I was talking to some students about his election, and they were mostly white, but also some of them weren't white. And I was thinking they'd be excited that a black man was finally elected president. But you know what their response was?"

"Um, not as excited as you?"

"Exactly! They were all like, 'meh.' And I think that's hopeful. Because kids aren't seeing race as much anymore, and they're the next generation."

This kind of white talk seems to be happening more than before. I suppose Obama's election has contributed to it. I wonder if it's also a kind of exhaustion, or maybe boredom, that a lot of white people feel with the issue of racism. Talking about that, letting alone working against it is so, like, 1990s. Or even, 1960s.

Are you also encountering this common white tendency? If so, how do you respond?

I think it's a sort of white tactic, and until I thought about it, I found it deflating -- it's a form of derailment. In response, I've now taken to simply asking people why they do that:

"Why did you go there? The future, I mean, when we were talking about right now. I hear that a lot, actually, from white people. What was it that made you go there, instead of staying right here?"

Sometimes this response leads to a useful discussion, and sometimes people look at me like I'm some sort of time-traveling alien. Like I've traveled here from the past, and definitely not from the future.

suddenly show tact when discussing white people who commit possible acts of terrorism

 This is a guest post by Big Man, who blogs at Raving Black Lunatic.


Real quick y'all.

I'm watching the coverage of this plane crash in Austin. The one where a dude flew a plane into the IRS building after burning his house.

And everybody is falling all over themselves not to call this cat a "terrorist."

It's "possible terrorist-related activity" but it's not terrorism and he's not a terrorist. What the hell?

How can you fly a plane into a building out of spite, and have folks call it "suicide by plane?" That's like calling it "suicide by portable chest bomb."

Why are media folks wondering if the FBI needs to be involved since it's a local crime? Really son? Trying to kill federal employees on federal property is just a "local problem" now?

I bet if he had a Muslim surname it would be terrorism. Yep, wouldn't be no question, just like the first thing you heard after the Fort Hood shooting was about how dude should be called a terrorist. But this white dude is heated at the federal government and attacks that same government by targeting innocents and he's not a terrorist?

Oh, hell naw. Just no. Stop it you hypocritical bastards. Just stop.

struggle to find their place in social justice efforts

This is a guest post by IzumiBayani, who blogs at Musings of a 20-some Year Old Multiracial Kid. He describes himself as "100% Japanese, 100% white, 25% deaf, oppressor and oppressed."


This blog does a pretty good job of opening discussions about "the ways of white folks, i mean, some white folks," basically by talking about stupid shit (fairly well-intentioned or not) that white people do in everyday life. That sort of discussion is necessary, but I believe that "some white folks" deserve particular consideration -- those straight, white males who participate in social justice efforts.

I’d like to make one thing very clear to these white people: you should not use swpd and other social justice spaces as a source of self-validation. If you want to participate here, ask yourself why you want to be in a space that should really serve people of color (PoC) and some white women (WW). This is especially not a space to relate your experiences and sob stories about being ignored in these spaces.

I have a very good friend, and for the sake of this post, I'll name him Ecirb. He’s in his upper-thirties, and he self-identifies as a white heterosexual male. How he grew up is important to who he is and his current situation, but that doesn't matter in the context of this discussion because he looks like a white guy. Ecirb is an Ethnic Studies Major and I am glad to say that he’s a social justice advocate (not that I'm the end-all to determining who is and isn't an advocate).

He and I talk about many things, but recently our discussion has been centered on the perception of white people in general social justice spaces. Just a warning, this is a multi-layered, complex situation to deconstruct, but I am going to try. In addition, I'm not saying that Ecirb's situation applies to all white hetero males in social justice, but I think there are very important lessons to be drawn from his experience.

Here’s a small sampling of some of his experiences, as best as I can recall them, and since Ecrib claims that these are “facts,” I will try to be as objective as possible. These experiences should be helpful in clarifying the proper role of white hetero men in social justice efforts:

• Ecrib and I use a lobby area for Ethnic Studies students. With a couch and some public computers, it’s a wonderful space to congregate and talk about social justice issues and our classes. Ecirb tells me that when he is alone with one of his friends (in this case it happens to be a woman of color), she is open and very interested in what he has to say. But when other's walk in, she becomes aloof, almost as if she doesn't know him.

• One time, he walks into the room with a friend of his who appears to be a black hetero male, and the room suddenly goes quiet. Ecrib's friend points to him and says, "He's cool."

• Ecrib feels ignored in class, and when he’s not, most of his comments are met with resistance or quick dismissal.

• He’s very up-front with his opinions. If you’re being a bigot, he’ll say so to your face, because that's how he deals with it.

There is one thing that I make clear to Ecrib every time he complains about these things. No matter who he is, the fact that he appears to be a white male makes it difficult for him to operate in a social justice environment. I constantly tell him that his phenotype conjures up for most PoC an entire lifetime of negative experiences, and that is something he cannot help and must overcome. I think he gets that, but it’s also easy for him to forget the privilege he has to walk around and not have to worry about how his physical appearance itself is enough to incite painful experiences.

The consequence is that he must prove himself. He has to work harder to be taken as legit, and to make friends in this department. Now, Ecrib has no issue with the fact that he has to work harder, and neither do I. This is the consequence of centuries of oppression: that excellent people such as Ecirb must work hard to become basic friends with excellent people such as the PoC in our Ethnic Studies Department.

However, a problem I see is that some PoC and some WW don’t give him a chance to prove himself. I understand that it's safer to assume the worst with white people. It's a safety mechanism, and I do it too. But to shut out people like Ecirb, to suppress/ignore what he has to say because of who he is, is detrimental to everyone.

In fact, not giving Ecrib a chance goes against what we’re fighting for. Ending the isms will take every individual, and it’s counter-productive and ignorant to exclude anyone on the basis of what they look like. Take the hint people! He's majoring in Ethnic Studies in his late 30's. Maybe he knows more about bigotry then you do just from how much longer he's been alive? Maybe so, maybe not, but it’s difficult for me to ignore the wisdom of age.

This situation requires a careful balancing by everyone. It took me a long time to realize that I have to give white people a chance to prove themselves, and white people also have to understand that it’s an uphill battle to prove themselves. And just like some white people aren't worth talking to because they're so stupid and racist, some PoC and WW aren’t worth talking to either. You do not have to prove yourself to these people because there is nothing you could say or do to change their mind.

I don't tell Ecrib this often enough, but he needs to stay humble. No one is asking him to lead us out to the promise land. In fact, he can’t be a dominant leader in a social justice movement because of his identity. This space is for PoC and to some extent WW. He can support, but he can't lead. That invokes the White Savior Complex. White male arrogance can easily ruin his credibility and get him thrown off the boat.

In addition, people like Ecrib need to realize that their real work isn't with a community of PoC; their responsibility is among white people, men, and straight people. He has the advantage in those spaces, so that’s where his privilege of assumed credibility can be used to his/our advantage. These are spaces where he can effectively be a leader.

There is much work to be done by both groups. The social justice movement needs to get its shit together just as much as white people do. We all have room to learn and grow.

Again, I want to emphasize that even though I’m writing about people like Ecrib on swpd, and even though this conversation needs to include everyone involved, this is not a space for white people to tell PoC that they need to be more accepting of white people. A discussion of how dominant identities can better fit into the space of social justice would be more pertinent.

At the same time, what can we as PoC’s and women do to balance staying safe and giving dominant identities a chance?

fail to see wolves in white sheep's clothing

Keith Knight

A reader sent the following email, which includes thoughts on the murderous biology professor, Amy Bishop, that resemble my own. How often do white criminals slip past the detection of other whites, simply by being white? How much are white people in general harming themselves and others that way?


Dear Macon,

Over the last few days, I've been reading about “Amy Bishop” and her shooting rampage at Alabama University. As the press continues to release more information surrounding Bishop’s past, it becomes obvious that this woman had a history of instability. Bishop was responsible for the 1986 shooting death of her brother, and she was also a suspect in an unsuccessful 1993 bombing threat against a Harvard professor.

I cannot help but wonder whether white privilege played a role in allowing Bishop to continuously slip through the cracks without even a mere slap on the wrist. Or whether it was white privilege that groomed Bishop to feel so entitled that her challenged mind deemed it necessary to kill when she felt wronged or denied.

I've always considered circumstances like the Bishop case to be one of the grim realities resulting from white privilege. I do so, because if one would envision Bishop as a black woman while adding on statistics, a separate outcome emerges.

Had Bishop been a woman of color, would she have so easily re-absorbed back into society while having such a history? Or would she be still be imprisoned after the first offense? Was it whiteness that intervened against justice, and took away from Bishop from suffering consequences? Did a pass given due to whiteness cultivate a threat to society, creating a monster?

Now, the tragic reality is that she has left more carnage in her midst. If skin is to remain so powerful that it fails to recognize wolves as long as they're dressed in white-sheepish clothing, then aren't we all victims of this system of white privilege?

subtly pass racism on to the next generation

Robin is a twenty-something white female who spends most of her time writing, and occasionally guest-blogging at swpd and elsewhere; her website: robinwolfe.com. She hopes someday to stop showing her privileged butt on a regular basis, and in the meantime, she continually struggles to accept that she's very much a work in progress.


If being raised as a white person in a racist society means that white parents are inevitably racist, in ways that they may or may not know about, how do they pass that racism on to their children? How can they prevent themselves from passing it on?

I'm sure many of us who read this blog have seen the movie American History X. In a scene that shows the genesis of the young white protagonist's racial hatred, he and his brother, both children, are sitting around the dinner table while their father, a firefighter, rails about minorities: "I'll tell you one more thing. This 'affirmative blaction' shit is driving me up the fucking wall. Firefighters gettin' 99's on their tests while rappers who score a goddamn 62 walk away with the job. . . . we keep givin' niggers everything, there'll be nothing left for us."

And of course we hear about the egregious cases: parents who name their children Adolph Hitler and JoyceLynn Aryan Nation; parents who put swastikas on their children's arms with marker and send them to school; the Stormfront types who proudly talk about hanging swastikas above their baby's cribs; the mother who tried to turn her daughters into white-nationalist pop stars.

Those are the types of parents that most Caucasians will think of when they hear the term "racist parent." But I'm not here to talk about those people, as I believe they're in the minority; I'm here to talk about the many white parents who would back away in horror at the thought of using a racial epithet in front of their children, and yet they nevertheless pass racism on to the next generation.

These are the parents who would never say "those wetbacks," probably not even among themselves with no children in the room; they almost certainly consider themselves non-racist. Yet they will talk about those Mexicans in front of their children. And "those Mexicans" is always said in a voice just above a whisper, leaving no doubt in the children's minds that Mexicans are something so unspeakable, you can't even say their ethnicity in a normal tone of voice (of course, another oft-despised minority group, black people, gets whispered about in similar ways as well). These parents will go on about how those Mexicans keep coming up here and stealing our jobs, using our resources, overcrowding our schools. . .*

These are the parents who will chat with other parents about things minorities (supposedly) do. One that I remember well from growing up was about how Mexicans would get one of their young-adolescent daughters knocked up, sneak up to America just in time for her to give birth, and then the baby would be a U.S. citizen. And of course nobody's going to deport the mother of a U.S. citizen. And if that mother happens to be a young adolescent, of course nobody's going to deport *her* mother! So just for having a baby, now THREE of them get to stay in the U.S.! [/exasperated sarcasm]

Of course nobody ever offers proof to back up this tale. When parents are calmly discussing this tale as if it's fact, why do they need to? The children overhearing it take it as gospel too. (And of course those parents aren't being racist -- after all, it's not like they're making judgments on those Mexicans -- they're just stating "facts" about things that minorities do!)

These are the parents who are appalled by the idea of sending their child to a school where the pupils are predominantly minorities. This is always phrased in terms of "the education there isn't as good" (even though they've done no research and have no idea whether it is or isn't) -- never in terms of "I don't want my child around those children."

These are the parents who, like some of my family members, will be cracking jokes about the supposed incompetence of the Mexican Army (in front of their children) and then snidely follow it up with, "Like that's a surprise, coming from Mexico." Yet these same people would be deeply offended if you said they were racist. They'll trot out their Mexican co-workers, the fact that they're fine with their kids being friends with that Mexican girl down the street... we know all the rationalizations already.

These are the parents who, with the best of intentions, expose their children to other cultures in a way that is profoundly Othering. They take their children to Chinatown and Little India and point out clothing and wares for sale as if they're at a zoo. They'll fawn over their child's new friend of color (often taking this as a sign that they're successfully raising an anti-racist child), leaving no doubt in their child's mind that there's something very different between their white friends and their friend of color. They'll take their children to "ethnic" restaurants and -- well, just see the post (and comments) from a few days ago about Othering in cuisine.

These are the parents who don't challenge racial humor when it's used in front of their children (or worse yet, don't see it as racist at all) ; who stay in all-white neighborhoods and send their kids to all-white schools and socialize with other white families; who raise their white children to believe that everything they accomplish is due solely to their own hard work; who raise their white children to be "colorblind"and "not see race"; who never discuss race with their kids because it's too uncomfortable, or they don't understand why it needs to be discussed; who are proud of themselves for having a token PoC come over to visit, because it's a "positive learning experience" for their children to be "exposed" to PoC (that is, parents who view PoC as a learning tool rather than as people).

These parents don't hang swastikas in their houses, they don't use epithets to refer to minorities, and they certainly don't consider themselves racist. Yet, with the best of intentions and completely unconsciously, and also because of their sheer numerical preponderance, such well-meaning, self-satisfied parents are doing more to keep systemized racism and white privilege alive than any Stormfront member could dream of.

These parents are raising a generation that believes racism is something obvious that has already been pretty much conquered; a generation that believes they themselves are non-racist, and therefore there is no work to be done; and a generation that continues to ignore (and thereby protect) systemized racism and white privilege.

Have you noticed other covert or indirect ways that white parents pass on their racism? 

Do you have memories of things your own parents did in these terms, and how it affected your perception of race? 

Could you suggest links to any good online resources about raising anti-racist children? 

Have you have noticed any successful ways that parents have dealt with racial situations?

* Note: Some of the examples above are specifically Mexican-related. Although the phenomena discussed in this post can be applied to any racial or ethnic minority, I cite racist sentiments toward Mexicans as examples because I grew up in Southern California, where anti-Mexican sentiment is as common as oxygen.

dismiss those who point out racism as "white guilt" mongers

I get mail -- oh boy, do I get mail. About half of the swpd-related emails I get are from readers who like what goes on here, and the other half are from people who very clearly don't. Among the latter, a few accuse me of pretending to be white. A LOT of them accuse the blog of being nothing but "typical white liberal guilt," and me of being such things as (and I quote) a "a purveyor of white guilt," a "white guilt monger," a "hopelessly guilty white liberal," "another guilty 'whitey,'" and "an ironically fascist white-guilt pusher." Another such reader sent me the above cartoon, assuming that I simply must be a "white liberal" who blindly adores Obama because he's black.

"White guilt." Please help me with this -- what is up with that term, anyway? And why does the phrase so often come from opponents of anti-racist efforts? What feelings are they expressing when they say that? And why is it a phrase I almost never hear from people who oppose racism? 

If you get accused of being a white-guilt pusher, how do you respond?

I have some tentative answers about those who use it a lot. Accusing others of "pushing white guilt" is a way of simply dismissing everything they're saying, instead of carefully listening and responding to the points they're making. There's also an assumption behind the use of the phrase that since "racism is in the past" ("we're post-racial now," etc.), whites have nothing to feel wrong or "guilty" about anymore.

Here's one more example to consider -- since it's Friday, some music, Kid Rock's "Amen." This song is apparently Kid Rock's attempt to provide his target demographic with an anthem. His audience is, clearly, very white, a segment, or maybe some segments, of the white population -- a mainstreamed, crossover appeal of "rock" mixed with overtones of "country."

The only time that whiteness is overtly marked in the lyrics and images occurs when, at 45 seconds,  Kid Rock asks, "how can we seek salvation when our nation's race relations got me feeling guilty of being white?"

And the totally implausible image that accompanies this moment? A group of scowling men carrying signs, one of which, carried by a black man at the center of the scene, says, "Race relations." (How's that for an anti-racist rallying cry? "Race Relations! Lemme hear ya now, RACE RELATIONS!") Presumably, these men are supposed to be hanging out on a corner somewhere, holding up vague, guilt-inducing signs, the same kind of people mentioned later in the song who "live off of handouts and favors." Aren't those code words for black people on welfare? (Never mind that the majority of welfare recipients are white.)

If you're not white, are you feeling guilty yet? For being, that is, one of those people who's always trying to make white people feel guilty, just because they're white?

I suppose I shouldn't be sarcastic. Especially on a Friday.

(If this video doesn't work for you, here's another version; transcribed lyrics below.)

"Amen"
by Kid Rock

It's another night in hell
Another child won't live to tell
Can you imagine what it's like to starve to death?

And as we sit free and well
Another soldier has to yell
"Tell my wife and children I love them" in his last breath

C'mon now amen, amen, amen

Habitual offenders, scumbag lawyers with agendas
I'll tell you sometimes people I don't know what's worse
Natural disasters, or these wolves in sheep clothes, pastors
Now Goddamn it I'm scared to send my children to church
And how can we seek salvation when our nation's race relations
Got me feeling guilty of being white?
But faith in human nature, our creator and our savior,
I'm no saint
But I believe in what is right

C'mon now amen, amen
I said amen, amen

Stop pointing fingers and take some blame,
Pull your future away from the flame
Open up your mind and start to live
Stop shortchanging your neighbors
Living off handouts and favors, and maybe
Give a little bit more than you got to give

Simplify, testify, identify, rectify
And if I get high stop being so uptight
It's only human nature
and I am not a stranger
So baby won't you stay with me tonight

When a calls away (?)
to break the sound (?)
I'm fadin down, I need someone
Oh to be someone
They just sinkin down, and holdin back
I hold the dawn and run
They don't save a child
Oh, to save a child

It's a matter of salvation from them
patience up above,
So don't give up so damn easy
on the one you love, one you love
Somewhere you got a brother, sister,
friend, grandmother, niece or nephew
Just dying to be with you
You know there's someone out there
who unconditionally, religiously, loves you
So just hold on 'cause you know it's true
And if you can take the pain
And you can withstand anything,
and one day
Stand hand in hand with the truth

I said amen, I said amen
I said amen, I said amen,

Amen

carelessly exoticize and "other" food

This is a guest post by Johanna, who blogs at Vegans of Color: "This blog was started (by me, Johanna, with the encouragement of some friends) to give a voice to vegans of color. Many vegan spaces seem to be assumed (consciously or not) to be white by default, with the dialogue within often coming from a place of white privilege. We’re not single-issue here. All oppressions are connected."


Vegan Cookbooks: Helping Folks Eat the Other

I’ve written before about exotification in discussions around vegan food, but it’s something I’m always thinking about & that has come up a lot lately. This year I’ve set myself a goal to cook at least one recipe from the many cookbooks I own. Hence I’ve been scouring them more than usual.

Has anyone else noticed that a staple of many a vegan cookbook is a recipe for African Peanut Stew or African Yam Stew or something similar? I’ve also seen (though less frequently) recipes for, say, Asian-Style Tofu or whatever. I cannot recall ever seeing a cookbook featuring anything like European Bean Soup. Is it because to most vegan cookbook authors/food bloggers, it would be preposterous to assume that there is anything universal or overarching about the many countries that make up Europe, or their cuisines? And yet we don’t often see the same distinction granted to countries in Africa.

"African" stew? Is the recipe from Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa? Is that tofu done Chinese-style, Japanese, Filipino? Never mind the many variations even within those categories (just to preclude comments along the lines of “But hey, lots of countries in Africa do that kind of stew / lots of Asian countries use tofu!”).

Another thing I’ve seen not infrequently in vegan cookbooks & food blogs is the following construction:

“[Non-English ingredient or recipe name] must be [non-English language] for ‘delicious’!”

I also spotted this recently at Food Fight, who guess that "Mahalo is Hawaiian for ‘fake Almond Joy."

Oh, how cutesy. How patronizing. We don’t know what those funny foreign languages mean but we sure do love their grub!

The obsession with authenticity is another thing. This, like all the food othering in this post, is not limited to vegans, of course. My white boss (a one-time vegetarian turned omnivore due to happy meat, I might add) once praised my lunchtime curry because it “smelled really authentic.” She then went on to bemoan how she couldn’t manage to cook Indian food “authentically.” I squirmed, & said something about how surely what mattered most was whether she liked what she cooked. This only served to encourage her to rattle on about how important it was to get food “authentic.”

Anyway, there are countless examples of vegan recipes that stress their authentic nature. One I stumbled upon recently was in The Urban Vegan, in a recipe for “Blue Mosque Ayran,” which apparently is a drink you can find “at any cafe or from any street vendor in Istanbul.” I’ve never been to Istanbul, so perhaps I’m missing something in how this drink would be connected specifically to mosques (whose architecture are often held up as images of the exotic & dangerously foreign, I note), much less how the recipe in the cookbook is “so refreshingly good that the imam would definitely approve.” I dunno — has anyone ever seen an Italian recipe touted as being so delicious that the priest would approve?

I did some Googling & found that a common Turkish recipe is Imam Bayildi — which apparently means “The imam fainted” (when he tasted the recipe). I didn’t really see any other references to the imam having a lock on what is authentic Turkish food or not, but if someone knows differently, please let me know. I wonder if the Urban Vegan knew of this particular recipe & made a deliberate reference to it, or if it was just an example of throwing in something seen as “exotic.”

On the same page of that cookbook, by the way, is a recipe for “Political Biscotti.” The recipe notes that cafe culture frequently features both biscotti and political discussion. The biscotti are political because they contain both carob & chocolate, two flavors about which “people tend to be very ‘either/or’”:

They are always considered separately, as two distinctive flavors that were never meant to come together, sort of like Palestine and Israel. … The dates [in the recipe] act as a sort of sticky-sweet peacemaker, a culinary UN if you will.

Yeah. She went there. The bloody oppression of Palestinians reduced to a clever comment about biscotti.

wonder how to combat racist jokes

An swpd reader's email includes the following questions:

Dear macon d,

I have seen on your blog a few posts or links about how to combat particular issues. As karinova says, it is easy for me to talk and learn, but it's meaningless if I don't do anything.

I've tried searching but with limited success at the moment.  Do you happen to have a link to something like a guide to an effective way to deal with the racist jokes my friends often make?  Within these jokes they seem to obtain a great deal of pleasure from using the word ni**er.  Whilst I can find a lot of essays written about it's use, I have not found a statement which I can use that sums up why it should not be used.  I currently say that the word encompasses all of the racial hatred and oppression suffered by millions and that it's use is an acceptance of this, but it seems to fall a little limply on their ears.

Kind regards,


I more or less wrote back the following -- do you have other suggestions for effectively combating racist jokes? Do you even bother to combat them?


Dear _________,

I admire your determination to do something against racism.

I don't think there's a panacea for racist jokes; various strategies work for some joke-tellers, but not for others. I like your method for combating jokes with the n-word, but I can see how it wouldn't work for some people.

I don't have a particular place to send you, but I can suggest methods that I've used with some success against racist jokers. Racist jokes have always bothered me, but I used to let them slide on by. Now I always make a point of saying something, since I recognize the role of such jokes in perpetuating damaging stereotypes. I've also come around to hating the kind of racist white solidarity that such joke tellers expect me join them in. It's like they suddenly think we're in some kind of club, taking potshots together at the other people we've excluded.

As Victoria wrote in a post here last year about racist emails she receives,

I've noticed in these situations that they expect me to give them the old wink and nod -- "I hear ya, buddy" -- tacitly indicating that we're a part of the same special whiteness clique.

So what to do?

Sometimes I simply say something abrupt and shocked, such as, "You know, that is simply disgusting," and then turn around and walk away. Depending on the situation, this method can lead people to really reflect on what they did, and to ask you about it later (though of course, it might not work that way with some people -- no method is going to work with everyone).

I've also tried asking about the joke later, which again lets the person know that I found the offense a serious one. I just ask them to explain the joke, as if I didn't get it. In the course of their doing that, what's wrong with the joke often becomes apparent.

I have also asked how they think a black person (or a Chinese person, or a Jewish person, etc.) would feel hearing such a joke. No matter what the response is, I lead the conversation toward forcing the person to say either that they do or do not consider black (etc.) people lesser than white people. If they really do think that, then I tell them that they're acting and thinking like retrograde racists, and that in the future, I'll be avoiding them.

That may be drastic, but then, I'm serious about racism. I have a better sense then I used to have of just how very damaging it still is for people of color, and I want as little part in inflicting that damage as possible. I also want to actively fight its presence in, and enactment by, other white people.

You said that your words "seem to fall a little limply" on the ears of others; what I guess I'm mostly saying is that what often works is to not be limp yourself -- to demonstrate actively a staunch moral and ethical disgust when faced with any form of racism, in whatever ways one can.

I hope this helps,

macon


As I asked above, do you have other suggestions for this reader? 

Do you even bother to combat racist jokes?

One other question -- I recently heard racist jokes described as "old fashioned." This (teenage white) person claimed they were dying out. Do you think that's true? Or do they seem about as commonplace as ever?

think of "hot" women as white women (take two)

I need to offer a white apology, or actually, a male one. I'll do my best not to offer instead mere apologetics.

Thanks to some patient swpd commenters, I now see that yesterday's post, in which I examined the whiteness of Super Bowl commercials, trivialized our patriarchal culture's sexist depictions of women as objectified targets for male conquest. I took some liberal observers of the "Guyland" depicted in these ads to task for overlooking the whiteness of the sexism they were decrying. However, as several readers took the time to point out in that post's comments, I ended up doing something like the reverse -- I lost sight of the real problem with these ads, by downplaying their rampant and ultimately dangerous sexism. My apologies to those who were offended and insulted by that post.

In the course of trying to focus on the unmarked, "hegemonic" whiteness of sexist Super Bowl ads, I failed to keep an eye on both forms of power at work -- both racism and sexism; both whiteness and masculinity. I especially erred by implying, despite several disclaimers in the post to the contrary, that women of color should be upset that they rarely appear in sexist beer ads, and also by tying that to self-esteem issues struggled with by black women.

fromthetropics offered the most clarifying correction in this comment:

This is an example where the intersection of race and gender is more complicated than it appears.

What we have here is male desire for women. This is obvious. Specifically, white male desire for white women. This is also obvious. But it is not merely a desire, it is a desire to (sexually) conquer and subjugate (white) women (in order to appear masculine). Still obvious.

What is less obvious is that it invites all men to express their masculinity by conquering, so to speak, white women. Conquering WOC is easy. But to conquer white women? – now that’s the pinnacle of masculinity for all men in a white dominated society. The emphasis is on masculinity and men. It is not about women striving to be on top of the food chain, hence it is not about whether or not WOC feel as though their beauty is being (de)valued. It is about the male struggle to be at the top of the food chain, and whether or not their masculinity is being (de)valued.

Hence, all women lose out in such portrayals of ‘beauty’ (read: sexual objectification). So, to emphasize that these ads are dismissive of non-white female beauty, I think, misses the point by far. The emphasis, I repeat, should be on the racism inherent in what is defined as masculine, and not feminine. Otherwise, you’re playing racism against sexism, and we all lose out.

I see now that I should have emphasized objectifying, conquering white masculinity in these ads, instead of pervasive white, and excluded non-white, femininity. The objectification promulgated in "Guyland" trivializes all women, and it helps to endanger them as well, by encouraging men to think of them as sexual targets and conquests. Ironically, my post seems to have done the same, by implying, despite its disclaimers to the contrary, that all women, whether they're white or not, should envy the women depicted in Super Bowl ads, for being thought of as "hot." I didn't set out believing that, but I can see now how I ended up implying it, and how I overlooked as well the more deserving target of critique.

As Rosa wrote in a comment to that post,

By trying to separate sexism from racism here, you're doing neither justice. Trying to take them both on in the way you've done, juxtaposing self-esteem issues of black girls growing up in a racist society with the racism and sexism inherent in Superbowl advertisements, is just wrong-headed.

My thanks again to those who took the time to point out what I was overlooking and what I was egregiously implying, especially fromthetropics, Rosa, and honeybrown1976.

think of "hot" women as white women (take one)

UPDATE: Please see "take two" of this post, in which I address problems I hadn't seen in this one, until some commenters pointed them out.


Here's one way not to get drunk during today's Super Bowl -- take a drink every time one of the "hot" women depicted in a commercial is a woman of color, instead of a white woman. I don't mean to say that more women of color should appear in these leering, sexist ads; I do think, though, that their pervasive whiteness, including that of the presumed, targeted viewers, is worth pointing out.*

I got to thinking about this disparity -- the way that "hot" in Super Bowl advertising mostly means "white hot," and the way that the whole commercial context during the Super Bowl is mostly projected through a white racial frame -- when I read two recent articles on Super Bowl commercials at the liberal web site "Alternet."

Vanessa Richmond's "Half-Naked Hot Chicks and Beer: The Sexist Guyland of the Super Bowl Beer Commercial" spends a couple thousand words on the obvious point that the commercials are sexist, while Robert Lipsyte's "The Commercial Super Bowl: Voyeuristic Horndogs, Hot Babes, Flatulent Slackers, and God's Quarterback Star in the Big Game" reads like a meandering paean to especially bad Super Bowl commercials of the past.** Lipsyte seems to be hoping another especially racist, homophobic or over-the-top crude commercial will air this year, so he can add it to his "so bad they're good!" collection.

Richmond doesn't seem to see any racism in the "Guyland" of Super Bowl commercials (and I'll explain in a moment how I think that itself seems kinda racist), while Lipsyte describes just one racist commercial, which he recalls, again with an odd fondness, this way:

For sheer prescience when it came to American foreign policy, nothing has beaten “Kenyan Runner,” a Super Bowl commercial that ran just before Team W led us to eight losing seasons in Afghanistan, Iraq, and at home.

Imagine a black African runner in a singlet, loping barefoot across an arid plain. White men in a Humvee are hunting him down as if he were wild game. They drug him and, after he collapses, jam running shoes on his feet. When he wakes up, he lurches around screaming, trying to kick off the shoes.

This was 1999, two years before the 9/11 attacks and the invasions that followed. The sponsor was Just For Feet, a retailer with 140 shoe and sportswear super stores that blamed its advertising agency for the spot -- before it collapsed in an accounting fraud and disappeared.

Colonialism anyone? Racism? Forcing our values on developing countries? Mission accomplished.

Yes, that really is a racist commercial. But why is the only commercial racism Lipsyte notices (and again, Vanessa Richmond apparently didn't notice any) such an obvious example? And, why is it such an old example?

A more pervasive mode of racism that I see in this commercialized Guyland is the vaunting of "white beauty" as the default for "beauty." Now, I certainly agree with what I understand as a common white-feminist perspective -- that these idealized Guyland women perpetuate sexist reductions of womanhood to little more than objectified and vulnerable body parts -- and I'm not saying that I think women of color should be clamoring for demographic equity in such ads.

However, I'm not sure how to square that with my realization that these ads nevertheless participate in, and greatly help to perpetuate, mainstream standards of "beauty," of heterosexual feminine desirability. Doesn't the pervasive whiteness of such fantasized women, on such a centralized cultural stage as the Super Bowl, help to detrimentally affect such things as the identities and life-chances of women of color?

Here, for example, is an exploration of the damaging effects that unspoken white beauty standards continue to have on black children and young women, a videotaped experiment (which I've posted before) by Kiri Smith Davis. As Jennifer, a young black woman here, says, "Ever since I was younger, I also considered being lighter as a form of beauty, or you know, more beautiful, than being dark skinned. So, I used to think of myself as being ugly, because I was dark skinned."



Again, I think that liberal critics of the "Guyland" of Super Bowl ads are right to point out how obviously and obnoxiously sexist, obstinately adolescent, homophobic, crude, and violent this fantasyland is. However, the more subtle racism of Guyland's pervasive whiteness deserves critical attention as well.

This photo appears at Alternet with Richmond's article; when I first saw it, my mind immediately registered (among other things), "five white women" -- why didn't Richmond see that as well?

Again, I'm not saying it would be better to recast such a group, and all beer and other Guyland commericialism, with a more racially representative array of women -- I'd rather see the rampant sexism and homophobia itself toned down instead.

But what if Richmond had inserted a few words in her analysis that mark the pervasive whiteness? Below are a few paragraphs from her Alternet piece, with my additions of that sort in capital letters, just to see what difference that would make.

When things are this pervasively white, don't liberal/progressive critics play into the unmarked power of de facto white supremacy when they don't identify and name (let alone analyze) that pervasive whiteness?

After watching dozens of beer ads over the last few days, I can report that the land of beer is a fun and raucous AND VERY WHITE place. It’s a land where THE drunkenness, laughing, burping, irresponsibility, pranks and rule-breaking OF ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY WHITE GUYS reign supreme. There are no awkward silences, no need to speak in words, no need to remember to say or do anything in particular or face the consequences. Heck, there are no consequences. It’s a world where WHITE women have fun entertaining WHITE men. It’s an escape from the tyranny of work and manners, from the ill-fitting harnesses of the digital age on our WHITE GUYS' inner human cave animal. Can’t you just hear the whole nation WHITE POPULATION sighing in relief?

I understand the merits of the golden liquid, with its bubbles on a quest for freedom. But beer ads don’t really bother with that. They sell an escape to fantasy WHITE masculinity. And WHITE? boy, while there might be more WHITE women drinking beer and watching the Super Bowl than ever, and more ads directed to them in some ways, most beer ads -- especially the sexy ones -- are like WHITE masculinity on steroids.

Beer MOST BEER ads have always been about WHITE sex. In the beer ads of my WHITE youth, long-haired WHITE women in skimpy outfits danced to rock music, while WHITE guys stood around holding beers. MOSTLY WHITE Women smiled at MOSTLY WHITE men, and the men grinned at each other. (When I went to my first parties, as a teenager, I actually wondered if I was going to have to behave like that.)

Those ads look pretty tame today. In last year’s Miller Lite Cat Fight, which got over six million views afterward, WHITE women leave a lunch table to rip off their clothes and fight in their undies, mud-wrestle, then make out. “The first beer commercial that starred actual WHITE soft-core porn actresses," is how the TV Munchies blog hailed it. “Bravo Miller Lite! We’ve never been thirstier!” The follow-up Cat Fight ad features a scantily clad Pamela Anderson joining in a pillow fight. 

Again, when liberals/progressives analyze a social or cultural phenomenon that's pervasively white, why play into the invisibility that buttresses white hegemony by not marking and analyzing that whiteness? Why take for granted a system of oppression that gains so much of its power by being widely taken for granted?

And by the way, if you watched the Super Bowl and/or the ads, did you see racism in any other ways?



* I added this paragraph's second sentence in response to comments by Rosa and fromthetropics, beginning here.

** Lipsyte's piece originally appeared at TomDispatch.

think they get to decide what's racist

This is a guest post by Per, who writes of himself, "I'm an able-bodied straight white cismale substitute teacher from Chicago.  I blog at Some Sections of the Middle Class, which is broadly speaking about radicalism and privilege, and might specialize somewhat as it grows up."


I never thought I'd be siding with Sarah Palin against Matt Taibbi, but, well . . .

Here's what she said:

The Obama Administration’s Chief of Staff scolded participants, calling them, “F---ing retarded,” according to several participants, as reported in the Wall Street Journal.

Just as we’d be appalled if any public figure of Rahm’s stature ever used the “N-word” or other such inappropriate language, Rahm’s slur on all God’s children with cognitive and developmental disabilities -- and the people who love them -- is unacceptable, and it’s heartbreaking.

Here's what he said:

[W]e’re going to have to get another soap opera over somebody using a naughty word. 

I think we ought to get it over with once and for all and ask all the people who are interested in banning words to get together and form their inevitable committee on word propriety. I think it would be a great thing if we could just get the list together ahead of time, along with what the committee feels the appropriate sanction is for each word. “Ho” we know is a fireable word, as is "niggardly," but what about “snapper”? How about “curry muncher”? What is the appropriate punishment for a “What’s wrong, do you have sand in your vagina?” joke? I mean there are so many unknowns right now, nobody knows where he or she stands.

One of the first, most obvious problems here is the “naughty-words” argument -- that, since the objections are to use of language, objections to slurs based on race, sexual orientation, disability status, etc., must be the same sort of thing as objections to obscenity. This, of course, denies the cultural context of these words -- they're not objected to on a puritanical basis, but on the basis of their position in a tradition of intimidation and oppression. Hate speech has a performative component, in that it serves to further marginalize oppressed groups.

There's also a weird element where Taibbi seems not to be able to tell the difference between objecting to something and wanting it banned. I obviously can't (and wouldn't want to) speak for Sarah Palin here, but it seems like what she's doing is objecting to someone's use of a word that serves to further the marginalization of disenfranchised communities -- and arguing that we shouldn't give more power to people who use those opportunities to do this. There's all the difference in the world between that and saying that ordinary people should be punished for using such words, or that the machinery of law and order should get involved in such a case.

More fundamentally, though, the “They're just words, people” attitude reflects Taibbi's belief that this isn't really a serious problem -- and implied in this is the belief that he gets to decide whether it's a serious problem. This idea that rich, white, cisgendered, straight, able-bodied men should be able to decide when and how we should worry about classism, racism, sexism and gender oppression, heterosexism, and ableism is, of course, preposterous, but it seems remarkably prevalent.

Look at Chris Matthews. Most aspects of this have been covered well by others. One thing I haven't seen many people talk about, though, is that Chris Matthews implicitly admitted that his primary experience of racism was his inability to listen to a black person talk without constantly thinking about race. But yet, somehow, when he stops getting that “uh-oh, there's a Negro talking” feeling -- even for a moment -- that qualifies him to usher in the post-racial era in American history.

I really shouldn't have to say this, guys. When you're talking about any kind of oppression, the oppressors don't get to decide when it's over.

accuse those who point out white privilege of being anti-american

The following segment of "The O'Reilly Factor" has been around for awhile (since December, that is), but it's been sticking in my craw ever since then. I don't normally pay any attention to Fixed News, but this segment is such a good example of several ways that many white Americans think about racial issues these days.

And it's also kind of funny, to watch these two big, strong men act so cowardly in the presence of big, confusing words.



As I see it, the willful, (literally) appalling ignorance on display here articulates the following common white beliefs:

• attempting to discuss racism and other forms of oppression with any degree of seriousness is "anti-American"
• only the "far left" thinks racism is much of a problem anymore (along with, presumably, race-card-carrying members of racial minority groups who "refuse to stop sucking on the public teat")
• the idea of discussing "white privilege" is so bizarre and repellent that when you use the term, it should fall out of your mouth like pieces of rotten apple 
• public schools in the U.S. are hotbeds of radical left-wing indoctrination (instead of the opposite)
• incorporating discussion of privilege and oppression into school curricula can only result in a long, depressing, unrealistic sob-fest of negativity, all over things that (again) are just not a big deal anymore
• what you should do with unfamiliar multisyllabic words is hold them up for suspicion and ridicule (instead of finding out what they actually mean) 
• using big, confusing words in an educational setting to describe and analyze complex and ongoing modes of oppression is a radical plot to violently shove indoctrination "down the throats" of our nation's prostrate, defenseless youth
• even though I freely admit that I don't know all that much about these things, you should still listen to me as I loudly and confidently tell you what you should think about them
• everyone should be white, heterosexual, aggressive, pugnacious and rich like me, and if they're not then that's their own damn fault, so when in the hell are they ever going to stop whining like that?!

Did I miss anything?


And, if you know people who think like this -- about attempts in educational settings to address oppression, or otherwise -- how do you deal with them?


Finally, if you've been in courses that included material of the sort that Stossel and O'Reilly are so hot and bothered about here, did it work for you?


Transcript:

BILL O'REILLY, HOST: In the "Stossel Matters" segment tonight: an unbelievable situation at the University of Minnesota. Apparently the school's Twin Cities campus has put together a Race, Culture, Class and Gender Task Force that would require education students to accept theories like "white privilege," "institutional racism," and "the myth of meritocracy" in the United States. Here now from New York, Fox News and Business anchor John Stossel, who has been looking into the situation.

Now this isn't in place yet. 2011, they want to put it in place. But this is about as far left as it gets, and education schools are known for this. But this is really over the top. How do you see it?

JOHN STOSSEL, FOX BUSINESS ANCHOR: Yes. Ed schools are known for this. Some of it's ridiculous. This is just a discussion at this point, fortunately. I talked to the dean, one of the faculty members even suggested a course in "heteronormativity," or at least a class in that.

O'REILLY: What is that?

STOSSEL: That means that you discriminate against people who aren't straight. So, you can't do that.

O'REILLY: Heteronormativity?

STOSSEL: Heteronormativity. But look --

O'REILLY: Oh. So if I'm a heteronormative, uh, I'm, uh, homophobic?

STOSSEL: You just assume everybody else is straight, and this might make you a bad teacher if you had a lot of gay kids in your class. I don't know. I don't presume to know. But this isn't as bad as it could be. Some of these ed schools are awful. This is one of the good ones. U.S. News rates it in the top 10 percent. Are you telling me you --


O'REILLY: Then why -- if it's one of the good ones, why do they want to get out into the radical left branch? I mean, look, they want to incorporate into this curriculum "white privilege," "hegemonic masculinity." I guess that means that men have all the power.

STOSSEL: Right.

O'REILLY: You know, "internalized oppression." What is internalized oppression? What is that?

STOSSEL: Are you telling me you don't think there is white privilege in America? I mean, Obama notwithstanding?

O'REILLY: I think there is white privilege in America, and I think it should be discussed. I don't think it should be accepted as the way it was, say 50 years ago. You know, look, if you're going to push "America's a terrible place," which is what this is all about, and you tell your students America is a terrible place, I'm going to oppose you on every front.

STOSSEL: Well, I would, too. But I don't know that they're doing this. It's one of the best ed schools in the country. Are you telling me when you were a teacher, that you or some of your colleagues might not have been helped by a cultural sensitivity course? In some Asian cultures, it's impolite to look an adult in the eye. So if the kid is looking down, the teacher may think he's not paying attention when he's just being polite. That stuff's good to know.

O'REILLY: But what this is, is a continuation -- and this is the extreme -- a continuation of the theory on college campuses that America's a bad place. Look, we got problems in America. You know, the white majority has oppressed minorities, not just African-Americans, but others. Yes. But America is the best country in the world because it affords the most amount of people the biggest opportunity to pursue happiness under the freedom and capitalistic banner. This is a bunch of garbage because it emphasizes the negative. You know, it emphasizes everything bad about America. And that's what I object to. And that's what's being taught on all, you know, all these college campuses in the ed schools. That's what they're getting rammed down their throat.

STOSSEL: They often are. And I agree with you. But what really outrages me is that prospective teachers have to go to these ed schools in the first place, that the government monopoly on K through 12 education demands these degrees, many of which are lousy. Let the schools hire anybody they want. You or I or President Obama would not be allowed to teach in a public school, because of these --

O'REILLY: Well, if you pass this certification and you get in the union, you can teach. It doesn't matter if you have an ed degree or a history degree or an English degree.

STOSSEL: But in many places, you have to take the four to six years of college, spend $100,000 at a private school, $40,000 at a public school. Shouldn't have to.

O'REILLY: Well, I think you have to have a degree to teach, and you have to pass a certification course. But the fact remains is, that there's indoctrination taking place now all across the United States, and it's left-wing indoctrination. And surely as a libertarian, you can't support a left-wing indoctrination taking place. And that's what's going on in America's public schools by and large.

STOSSEL: But 87 percent of the teachers are white. Almost half the kids are not white anymore. Some training wouldn't hurt.

O'REILLY: Training about what?

STOSSEL: Training about how races may be different, how kids from other cultures may learn differently.

O'REILLY: OK, I'll cede you that there can be that kind of a presentation. But that's not what this Minnesota thing's about. This is about America's bad, ram it down your students' throat. And you and I know it, Stossel.

STOSSEL: If that's the case, I'm with you.

O'REILLY: All right. You ought to be. You ought to be with me all the time. John Stossel, everybody.

get too comfortable with their non-white friends

Hi Macon,


I am a BF living in ______, and I'm hoping to get your perspective on an experience I had with a close friend of mine (who is white) recently. I was driving with my gps on, and my friend and I started making goofy comments such as "wouldn't it be funny if the gps said this?". . . that sort of thing. Suddenly my friend says "wouldn't it be funny if the gps had an 'angry black woman' setting and cussed you out?"

A wave of unease and discomfort consumed me, and I deflected, or immediately changed the subject -- anything to take the focus off the discomfort I was feeling. It wasn't until a day or two later that I decided to address the issue. I let my friend know that the comment she made "rubbed me the wrong way" and "hurt my feelings a bit." My friend told me she "didn't mean any malice" and apologized. That was pretty much the end of it.

My issue wasn't entirely the fact that the comment was extremely inappropriate -- it was the fact that my best friend of nearly 10 years said it. I had never ever EVER heard her make any comments even remotely close to that, so I was confused as to why on earth she would have done it then. I had flashbacks of high school and being told that I wasn't "like, y'know, black black," and that I was "like the most non black black person" they'd ever met. I regret not nipping comments like those in the bud at that time, but now I feel I should know how to handle these situations, yet still find myself at a loss.

My question is -- do you find that some white people get a little too comfortable with their friends of color and "forget they're (insert ethnicity here)". . . so comfortable that they make racist and inappropriate comments when they wouldn't with a complete stranger?

Sincerely,

Rufus (my blogger name)

Side note: I've been reading your blog for a while and it's really been helping me out, so keep it up!

---

Thank you for writing, Rufus. I'll try to answer your question, and I’m so glad to hear that the blog has been helping you out. Thanks also for agreeing to make our exchange a blog post -- I hope that other swpd readers will have answers and insights for you, from both sides of the color line, based on similar experiences they've had.

As for my experiences, yes, I certainly have seen white people get too comfortable in this way with their friends of color -- I'm also sure that I’ve done it myself (and I appreciate the opportunity you've provided to remember and reflect on such moments).

Despite what most white people think, society trains us unconsciously to be "white," which means we have some common white habits; we act in some common white ways. We sometimes feel and think in racist ways, even when we’re aware of that tendency within ourselves. And so, inevitably, we’re going to mess up sometimes. On top of that, there's also the way that being in the presence of a close non-white friend can mean "letting our guard down," which makes us less careful in our self-monitoring of our racist feelings and thoughts -- I’m surprised it took ten years for that kind of thing to happen with your white friend!

It's odd, in a way; the very concept of "friendship" usually includes the idea that a friend is someone you can feel totally relaxed and comfortable around. Being "comfortable" doesn't seem to mix well with having to be "careful," and yet, in interracial friendships (and in all good friendships, really), it should. It should for the white person, that is; I have my doubts that the non-white person should feel much responsibility to be "careful" in these terms.

I think that having a friend who isn't white, especially a close friend, can make a white person feel that they're not racist -- having a non-white friend supposedly proves that. Even when white people know how ridiculous and even racist it can be to say, "But my black friend says!", there's still something about having a close non-white friend (especially a black one, it seems) that makes a lot of white people feel exonerated from the possibility that they could ever say or do something "racist."

So, if we're with a non-white friend and we say or do something that is racist, we usually expect the non-white friend to give us a pass, because we "didn't really mean to be racist.” And when it comes to most white minds -- as your friend demonstrated when you mentioned your discomfort later -- good intentions are everything. Instead of what's really more important, that is, racist outcomes and effects.

It seems to me that how you felt at that moment in your car is at least as important as your friend's desire to exonerate herself, which she expressed by saying that she "didn't mean any malice." But isn't your friend basically saying, so far, that her feelings are more important than yours?

I’ve also noticed (as you clearly have as well) that such white people commonly think of a non-white friend as an “exception” -- we might even say, and more often think, something like, "You're not like other black people." Actually, I wonder if that’s one reason you changed the topic when your friend joked about a GPS unit having an “Angry Black Woman” voice -- maybe at some level, you didn’t want your white friend to disappoint you, by saying something inevitable, and inevitably derailing. That is, something like, “Oh come on, I didn’t mean that you’re an angry black bitch. You’re not at all like that!” Which would be beside the point, really -- but not in the white friend’s mind.

And again, in the minds of white friends in interracial relationships, moments arise when it's somehow our feelings and thoughts that count, more so than those of our non-white friends. We live, after all, in a society that still privileges and empowers white people, often in subtle ways. To be blunt, I think your friend's expecting you to simply accept her apology about what she really meant, rather than asking you to explain how you felt, is an example of that. Basically, I think it's probably not a stretch to say that in this area of your friendship, she's been trained to feel that her (white) feelings, and her (white) perspective, are more valid and important than your non-white ones. If that's true, I think it could be why she considers it more important for you to understand that she meant no "malice," than for her to ask, listen, and try to understand why you got upset.

So yes, I do find that some white people get a little too comfortable with their friends of color and "forget they're (insert ethnicity here)." I obviously don't know you or your friend, so my speculations may be groundless, but I hope that they help you sort out your feelings about this incident.

One other thing I’ll say, and I hope it’s not presumptuous of me: I don’t get the sense that this incident, and what it says about your friend, are resolved issues for you. If you’re still feeling unsettled, maybe you should talk more fully with her about how that comment made you feel.

But then, that shouldn’t be your responsibility . . . and, such a talk could be painful.

Still, as they say, what are friends for?


What do you think, dear readers? Have you experienced interracial friendships with white friends who make racist and inappropriate comments that they wouldn't make around complete strangers? 

If so, how do you handle it? And why do you suppose such comments arise with friends when they wouldn't arise with others?

And by the way, can we avoid comments that advise Rufus to just dump this white friend? As we’ve noticed in other posts and comment threads about interracial relationships, that kind of advice is rarely helpful (and sometimes, I think, it's also condescending and disrespectful).

wonder why there's no "white history month"

It's February First, so I can sincerely say -- Happy Black History Month!

I've met a lot of white people who don't ever say that, or if they do, they're not being sincere. Sometimes, I hear white people wonder aloud instead -- or more often, grumble aloud -- "Why do black people get to have their own history month, and white people don't?"

This should be a simple question with a simple answer, but when white people grumble like that, I never seem to have one quick-and-ready response. And then, the responses that I do offer rarely seem to fully address whatever it is that's bothering the grumbler about Black History Month, and about the lack of an annual White History Month.

Sometimes I've replied sarcastically, "Well, it is the shortest month, after all." At other times I've pointed out (paraphrasing Tim Wise), "But white people do have their own history months, lots of them. They just have tricky names, like March, April, May and so on."

If the white grumbler seems more willing to listen, I'll go on to say that I see minority history/heritage months as a way of making up for what's still lacking at all other times in our mainstream cultural, educational, and other societal settings -- that is, a fully integrated and proportionally accurate representation of racial and ethnic minorities. We may be making progress in those terms (and even that's debatable), but we're just not there yet.

These explanations rarely fall on suddenly convinced ears. I can usually tell that something behind those ears is still grumbling, probably something about how "they can do their own separate, special things, and no one calls that racist, but if we want to, then suddenly we're racists. It's reverse racism, a racist double standard!" And so on.

Other forms of this common white complaint about non-white collectivity abound, of course. Here's another example, from a two-minute video that a reader sent me a few weeks ago. This young woman, who identifies herself at YouTube as "futurewhiteoprah," was disturbed enough by the label of a black haircare product to speak out to the world about it:

[UPDATE (2/4/10): As Aiyo notes in a comment below, "The girl removed the video guess she couldn't handle people calling her out on her ignorance cest la vie." The most relevant parts of what futurewhiteoprah said about a black-owned haircare business are transcribed below.]




Here's the most interesting part of futurewhiteoprah's complaint, which she offers after stating that she has no problem with a section in stores labeled "Ethnic Haircare Products":

Well, I'm looking at this little jar, and right here, really little, really hard to see, right there, is a picture of a black lady with black hair, and it says, AMBAI [sic*] member, the Proud Lady, 100% black-owned company, in Atlanta, Georgia. I'm not going to say that Georgia has anything to do with that, because that would be racist.

But how blatantly racist can you be on a bottle of haircare product? "The Proud Lady, a 100% black-owned company." If I made a haircare product, and I said, "The Proud Lady, a 100% white-owned company," I'd be an Aryan, and a supremacist, and a racist, and, I'd be horrible. . . . Do you think that's racist? Cuz I kinda do. It's more racist than "Ethnic Haircare Products." And I'm saying, if I made a haircare product that said "100% white-owned company," I'd be bitched at, a lot. So, let me know what you think.

I find this young white woman's confusion a common one. A lot of white people just don't think it's right or fair that it's widely considered okay for people who aren't white to get together under the name of their race or ethnicity, but it's not considered okay for white people to do that. As with futurewhiteoprah, the main concern of those who complain like this seems to be that they and other white people supposedly can't get together under the banner of whiteness without being labeled "racist"; just why any other groups would want to get together under their own banner is of no concern to them. The grumbling is often less about what "they" do and why they do it, and more about what white people "can't" do.

If such frowning white people would simply ask, "Why? Why do black people and others do some things on their own?" they might stop frowning. A bit of Googling in search of answers might expose them, for instance, to the reasoning of John and Maggie Anderson, an African-American couple in Chicago who just spent an entire year trying to contribute all of their money to black-owned businesses.

As they recently told the Chicago Tribune, that wasn't easy to do, and part of the problem was that they too were faced, "at almost every turn," with "the insistence from some whites that [their] experiment was an exercise in racism." This is a charge that the black-business-supporting Andersons reject:

The Andersons -- he's a financial adviser with degrees from Harvard and Northwestern; she's a business consultant who works from home and has a law degree and MBA from the University of Chicago -- said they came up with the "Empowerment Experiment" to help solve persistent ills surrounding "underserved communities."

They note that African-Americans carry nearly $850 billion in spending power but that very little of that money circulates through those "underserved" communities. Most businesses in those neighborhoods are owned by people of other races who live elsewhere.

Then and now, the Andersons ask critics to look beyond racist implications. In March, they changed the name of their project, originally called the "Ebony Experiment," to "better articulate what's in our heart and what our end game is," Maggie Anderson said.

They contend that robust, black-owned businesses help restore impoverished African-American neighborhoods, which yield less crime, more jobs, less drug abuse, stronger families and better schools.

Indeed, other non-white collective efforts have similarly persuasive -- and decidedly anti-racist -- motives, and results. Again, though, white people who complain about such collectivities rarely seem willing to ask about the reasons for them, so stuck are they on the false idea of a double-standard, and on "not being allowed" to do something that other people are allowed to do.

I've also found that when trying to explain the difference here -- why one form of collectivity is generally okay when the other isn't -- reference to "white supremacy" sometimes helps. Exclusion of non-white people from all-white gatherings smacks of racism because so many examples from the past have been explicitly motivated by just that -- white supremacist desires to separate white people from the supposedly contaminating presence of racial minorities.

On the other hand, such non-white gatherings as history months, black-owned businesses, minority organizations and clubs, and even beauty contests, have often been a response to white supremacy -- a way of reasserting, and even repairing, something about a racial group that white supremacist ideology and practice has long denigrated, and damaged. Throughout the history of the U.S., and of the West more generally, the very concept of whiteness itself has been all about dominance of other people and extraction of their labor and resources. As a result, white people are still the group that's generally on top, which means that there's no corrective reason -- nor a good celebratory one -- for white people to gather together as members of their race.

And one more thing -- unlike racist all-white gatherings (such as that proposed, blockheaded basketball league that's been making the rounds recently), minority racial or ethnic gatherings are rarely exclusive -- from what I've seen, other people are often welcome. Which is not the case, from what I've also seen, when white people get together under the banner of racial whiteness.

So if any white people ever do get a serious effort going to start up a White History Month, I obviously won't be interested in joining them. I would be interested to see, though, if they have any understanding at all of why other racial and ethnic history months and so on exist. Because I'd be willing to be that they don't.



* whitefutureoprah apparently misreads an acronym on the haircare product's jar. AHBAI stands for the American Health and Beauty Aids Institute. As their site explains, "AHBAI is an internationally renowned trade association representing the world's leading Black-owned companies that manufacture ethnic hair care and beauty related products featuring the Proud Lady Symbol. AHBAI members serve Black America by providing jobs and scholarships and by teaching consumers how to recycle their dollars in the Black community."