refer to people as "orientals"

The first time I felt the full force behind the word “Oriental,” I was 13. My music teacher was explaining the phrasing of a difficult passage to my string quartet, and we all nodded. Suddenly he turned to me, the only Asian in the group, and said, “Oh, stop being so Oriental and nodding.” I felt like I’d been slapped in the face.

--Leaya Lee

New York's Governor David Paterson signed legislation last week banning a word that I still hear white people use sometimes. New York's new law forbids the reference in all state documents to any person of Asian or Pacific Islander heritage as an "Oriental." According to National Public Radio, the state of Washington took similar steps in 2002, when that state's governor was Gary Locke, a Chinese American.

Apparently some Asian Americans applaud attempts to banish the term, while others are cynical about the motives driving such efforts (no surprise there, given that Asian Americans obviously don't think with any more of a single, collective mindset than do the members of any other group).

In an NPR interview, SF Chronicle columnist Jeff Yang said he's glad about the news from New York, because the term Oriental "feels freighted with luggage. . . . It's a term which you can't think of without having that smell-of-incense and sound-of-a-gong thing going on in your head."

Yang also cited the term's imprecision -- "Orient" basically means East, which could be any place in that direction, and which "only really applies in a flat world. I mean, you keep on going East, you end up 'West.'"

When asked if the word isn't already dying out anyway, rendering such legislative moves against it a waste of time, Yang said he actually has heard the term applied to himself, and it felt wrong. He added that other Asian Americans also feel uncomfortable with it, "so to have it stricken from the public record just kind of makes sense in some ways. I think people probably feel a little kind of curious as to why it took so long."

In an old Usenet posting, circa 1993, Alan Hu takes a different view on efforts to ban the term. Hu blames such efforts on "exploitation-types," who he says "have realized that saying 'Asian' instead of 'Oriental' is the cool thing to do, without changing any of their stereotypes and misconceptions. (You can force a person to change his/her behavior, but you can't force a change in thought.)"

Hu also writes that the exoticizing usage of "Oriental" has survived a long time,

and it still frequently carries all of the exotic/foreign/inscrutable/mysterious connotations. These connotations happen to coincide with many of the stereotypes held of Asian Americans. Furthermore, by definition, the word "Oriental" is Eurocentric, referring to things east of Europe. For these reasons, some Asian American activist types decided that "Oriental" was a Bad Word, and that "Asian" was more accurate, less Eurocentric, and less loaded with strange connotations. No big deal, right?

Well, a lot of people didn't want to change their language usage. Some people grew up using "Oriental" and saw nothing wrong with the word. Others came from other parts of the world, where hip-activist-American-English-linguistic-evolution hadn't hit. Still others never encountered anyone aware of Asian American politics, so had never heard of this word usage change. Some people were exploiting the exotic mysticism connotations and resisted change. (Very early on, you would see articles about business and trade in Asia, whereas the travel articles would talk about visiting the Exotic Mysterious Orient.) Finally, some people were convinced that this was a typical case of left-wing-politically-correct-thought-police-mind-control (which it was) and decided in typical right-wing-politically-correct-knee-jerk-response that the word usage change was intrinsically evil and had to be resisted at all costs.

Over at Asian American Movement, an anonymous blogger calls New York's new law

largely a symbolic gesture–not unlike the US Government’s recent “apology” for the enslavement of Blacks (over 140 years after the fact), or the state of California’s apology for racist laws against Chinese Americans during the nineteenth century, or Bill Clinton’s apology for America’s illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893.

These actions are ultimately designed to burnish the USA’s propaganda image. The American establishment loves these kinds of meaningless gestures, as they have very little cost politically and are a great public relations exercise.

Indeed, the election of Barack Obama should be considered a prime example of this type of political rebranding on a grand scale.

They don’t call it poli-tricks for nothing.

So what do you think?

Is the explicit and legislative rejection of the term "Oriental" usually a hypocritical PC ploy? Or is it instead a welcome attempt to describe a diverse group of people more accurately?

If you overhear someone describing another person as an "Oriental," do you consider it worthwhile to correct them?


For further discussion, see:

"What's the Matter with Saying 'The Orient'?," Christopher Hill, Japan Society

"Oriental: Rugs or People?," Leaya Lee, NYU Livewire

"What Does It Mean to Be Asian American?," Jeff Yang, San Francisco Chronicle

Orientals: Asian Americans in Popular Culture (book), Robert G. Lee

make classist web sites

This photo is from the latest user-submitted photo blog to go viral, "People of Walmart [sic]." The caption there says, "I have to assume that this guy, in a fit of rage after a monster truck rally or tractor pull, ripped off his sleeves and then went to Wal-Mart to get a few cases of beer to enjoy on the couch on his front porch."

Can you count the classist stereotypes in that sentence? (I came up with six.)

CNN noticed the blog's popularity and posted a story about it, reporting in part:

It's a blog where people post, and make fun of, pictures of out-of-shape, poorly dressed and otherwise awkward people shopping at Wal-Mart.

And, in less than a month, with no marketing to speak of, it's become the toast of the Internet.

"People of Wal-Mart," a gag started by two 20-something brothers and their buddy to share crazy pictures with their friends, has gone viral. Promoted largely on sites like Digg and Funny or Die -- and linked ad nauseam on Facebook and Twitter -- the site picked up enough traffic to crash its servers on Wednesday.

"I'm still baffled -- I really am," said Andrew Kipple, 23, one of the creators of the site, who said his team was frantically working Wednesday to add enough server space to handle the surge in traffic.

Photos on the site, sent in by viewers all over the United States, frequently feature overweight people wearing tight clothes, bizarre hairstyles (with versions of the short-in-front, long-in-back "mullet" leading the pack) and fashion crimes ranging from furry leg warmers to miniskirts that leave absolutely nothing to the imagination.

There's a guy enjoying a can of beer outside a Wal-Mart, a guy dressed as Captain America and another guy with a goat. Yes, a live goat.


Can you believe it? A live goat! Freakin' hilarious, dude!!! [/sarcasm]

I suppose that some people from any social class could laugh at this site's photos of "awkward" people (really, CNN? "awkward"? I doubt that's a word most of the site's fans would use). But when people who occupy higher rungs on the socioeconomic ladder laugh at them, their laughter is derisive, unsympathetic, and condescending. That's because the laughter is mostly triggered by connections that many of the photos make with the unexamined classist stereotypes firmly embedded in their heads.

It seems to me that much of the online CNN report is also largely written from an unidentified middle-class perspective, one that views working-class people from a safe, smug distance, and reduces them to a "crazy," "bizarre" spectacle. Which, despite my best intentions, is not unlike my own perspective at times on working-class people, as in a recent post about a car launch in Turtle Lake, Wisconsin.

Many commenters there pointed out my own classist perspective in that post, and for that I'm grateful. As I noted in a comment of my own, I think another blogger's post about my "car launch" post summed up well, just in its satiric title, the main problem with my post, and also with the "People of Walmart" blog. Jane Van Galen's brief post about my messed-up post is entitled "Those Curious Working Class Folks." I now think that her title is a valid imitation of my post's distanced, classist approach to the Turtle Lake car launch fans.

But then, maybe in labeling the People of Walmart blog "classist" instead of "funny," I'm just demonstrating that I have a PC stick up my posterior?

Or maybe, to put a finer point on it: depending on who's laughing at the people exposed by People of Walmart, some of the laughter it elicits is fine, and some of the laughter is classist (and, for some of the site's photos, racist, sexist, and heterosexist as well).

At any rate, I'm not the only one who finds this photo blog generally despicable. Much to its credit, CNN also reports that "not everyone appreciates the humor," adding that some say "the site goes out of its way to mock poor and rural patrons of the store, reinforcing stereotypes along the way":

"American culture likes to single out people who appear to be different," said Tim Marema, vice president of the Whitesburg, Kentucky-based Center for Rural Strategies. "Whether it's a joke or not, all depends on which side of the camera you're on."

Furthering stereotypes can strengthen the rifts between rural, urban and suburban residents and, in the worst-case scenario, can affect the way some people are treated by government and industry, he said.

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer with more than 4,200 U.S. stores and over $400 billion in annual sales, may be more prominent in rural areas, Marema said, but to use that to stereotype its shoppers doesn't make sense.

"The reality is that everybody shops at Wal-Mart," he said. "If you want to find the guy in the golf shirt and khakis, he's there too."

It's not quite true that "everybody" shops at Wal-Mart, but I do agree with Tim Marema's point that associating it with working-class people, and then mocking those people, furthers damaging stereotypes.

As for the People of Walmart blog, who knows what the future holds? Maybe a blook?

So far, it doesn't seem that the site's creators are listening to their critics. The "About Us" page does suggest that the creators are alert to, and ready to block, ableism: "There is no reason to send us pictures of people that are seriously and unfortunately handicapped so don’t be an asshole."

But classism? Not so much, as evinced by this statement on that page -- again, can you count the classist (and heterosexist) stereotypes here?

It’s not everywhere that you can shop for milk at 10 a.m. next to a 400lb mother of 6 wearing a pink tube top, leopard tights, and hooker heels. Where else can one go to pick up underwear at 3 O’clock in the afternoon and spot the greatest mullet of all time paired with a mustard stained wife beater (which only accents the extreme amount of body hair) and camo pants that were actually used in Vietnam. And if you haven’t run into the 6’2” bull-dyke with a shaved head, rockin a wonder bra, flannel cutoff shirt, and jean shorts at 2 a.m. when you’re there to pick up frozen pizza, chips, and cookies, then you can get the fuck out right now.

How's that for classy?

complain about 'racism' against white people

This is a guest post for swpd by fromthetropics, who writes about herself, "I am mixed cultured, and always feel in-between -- both here and there, but neither fully here nor there."

Cardboard versions of "Mr. James" currently occupy every McDonald's in Japan

McDonald's new mascot in Japan, a geeky white American named Mr. James, who speaks broken, foreign-sounding Japanese, has ruffled the feathers of some foreign-born (white) residents there. They feel that Mr. James is a racist caricature, and that he therefore constitutes another example of Japanese discrimination against people like themselves.




A human rights group in Japan named FRANCA (Foreign Residents and Naturalized Citizens Association) has angrily written to McDonald's,

We wish to bring to your attention a sales campaign launched this month by McDonald’s Japan that we find extremely problematic.

The “Mr. James” character, representing the “Nippon All Stars” hamburger campaign, features a spectacled Caucasian narrating his love for Japan and Japan’s version of McDonald’s’ hamburgers. Our association finds the following things problematic:

* 1) The character speaks broken accented Japanese (using the katakana script, one used for foreign loanwords). The impression given is that Caucasians cannot speak Japanese properly, which is simply not true for the vast numbers of non-native (and Japanese-native) foreigners in Japan.

* 2) The character is called “Mr. James” (again, in katakana), promoting the stereotype that foreigners must be called by their first names only (standard Japanese etiquette demands that adults be called “last name plus -san”), undoing progress we have made for equal treatment under Japanese societal rules.

* 3) The image used, of a clumsy sycophantic “nerd” for this Caucasian customer, is embarrassing to Caucasians who will have to live in Japan under this image.

To illustrate the issue more clearly, would McDonald’s USA (or McDonald’s in any other country, for that matter) choose to promote, for example, a new rice dish with a “ching-chong Chinaman” saying, “Me likee McFlied Lice!”? Of course not.

Likewise, we do not think these attitudes perpetuating stereotypes of ethnic minorities within their respective societies should be promoted anywhere by a multinational corporation with the influence of McDonald’s. We ask that McDonald’s Headquarters review McDonald’s Japan’s “Mr James” Campaign and have it discontinued immediately.


My response, especially to the last point is: "Really?"

I often see ads like that airing in Australia without significant or even noticeable protest. The primary difference is that the stereotypes are about non-whites. And really, since when did Caucasians corner the market on the nerd stereotype? A lot of nerds are also portrayed as Asian Americans, and African Americans. Urkel, anyone? William Hung? Stevie, from Malcolm in the Middle?

I also find the outrage over the McDonald's 'Mr. James' caricature misplaced not only because the rest of us have had to put up with media-generated stereotyping for years and years, but also because most ads in Japan that feature Caucasians usually depict them in a highly positive light, as the central god or goddess-like icon of the commercial. Japanese companies routinely pay large amounts of money to top Hollywood stars for commercial appearances that portray them in very flattering ways. This fact makes the complaints about one such stereotyping a bit...well, petty.

How often do people who look Japanese get depicted in a positive light in U.S. ads? And did any of the foreign-born in Japan protest when a Japanese English school perpetuated the stereotype of native speakers of English as blue-eyed blonds like Cameron Diaz?




What’s that? This is harmless, you say? Tell that to the Asian Americans who speak nothing but English and still get passed over for an English teaching job in Japan because the school preferred, say, a blond German who speaks English as a second or third language.

The problem, you see, is not so much that one negative caricature harms the image in Japan of white people. The real problem is that the media-generated image of white people there, as in most of Asia, is already a stereotype -- an enormously positive one. It's an image of adored perfection, created by a barrage of thousands of ads like this caressing portrayal of Cameron Diaz (who, despite her last name, undoubtedly comes across in Japan as another white goddess).

One portrayal of a geeky white guy named Mr. James is not going to put a dent in the generally positive image of white people created by Japanese media. In fact, I wonder why FRANCA and other white residents of Japan don't complain about the other, seemingly positive images of themselves. Don't those images end up creating an even more unrealistic image of white people, one that is very difficult for most white people to live up to?

These complaints about Mr. James also sound hypocritical when the West is made out to be doing a much better job of not presenting stereotyped images of their migrant population. Whatever. You just don’t notice it when it’s being done to someone else. When Westerners go to Asia and complain about ‘racism’, the implied argument is that the West is more enlightened, civilized, and advanced because ‘it just wouldn’t happen back home’. And Asia is backwards, so we need to ‘educate’ them.

For example, white students who come back to Australia after finishing an exchange program in Japan complain about minor inconveniences there; that leaves me thinking, ‘You’re complaining about that?’ One such student told a Japanese lecturer to go watch Lost in Translation because it oh-so-perfectly describes what it's like living in Japan as a foreigner, as though she had just endured the most difficult thing at the hands of these Japanese beings.

I heard about this. So I went and watched that movie, wondering what in the world the student meant. After watching it, my conclusion was: I don't need to watch this movie to know how that feels -- its portrayal of life as an outsider in a foreign country is the story of my life. And it's a much milder version of the story of many migrant lives.

Obviously, life in a foreign country is hard and everyone deserves to be cared for. But it's hard to sympathize when white residents of Japan frame it as, 'Oh-my-gosh, the Japanese people are sooo [insert negative adjective], and oh-my-gosh, our struggles are oh-so-unique and difficult.' It’s hard to sympathize when they have little understanding of how many more foreigners, migrants, and POCs in their own country go through it too, often in much harder circumstances. Tell me your experience and I’ll empathize, but don’t try to ‘educate’ me about it because I already know.

But of course, over in the West the blame falls on POCs if we fail to assimilate. In Asia, if Westerners don’t feel comfortable, the blame falls on the host society…POCs can never win the argument, it seems.

Then there are the white folks who come back complaining about how the Japanese term 'gaijin' (foreigner) is derogatory. When someone tries to ‘educate’ me on this, it's an automatic give away that they have a superficial understanding of Japan. 'Gaijin' sounds awfully rude in Chinese due to the Chinese characters it uses. It means 'outsider' in Chinese. And the Chinese in Japan do have a hard time in Japan (considering their disadvantaged status in terms of power relations as defined by the current global economic structure), so it’s understandable if they get upset at it.

However, it makes little sense for Westerners to get upset about it. In Japan, 'gaijin' is used as a short form for the more formal 'gaikokujin' (person from a foreign country). And 'gaijin' is often synonymous with ‘white person’ (and all the positive images that come with being white) and is rarely used as a derogatory term in Japan, especially not when referring to white people. It has a completely different meaning from how it sounds in Chinese, even though they use the same characters.

The same goes for the word 'bule' in Indonesian. It means 'faded' and is used to refer to white people. But again, it is rarely used in a derogatory way. 'Bule', or ‘white person’, carries positive connotations, thanks to all the white-worshiping that Asia is so very good at.

I find that some white people who know how power relations work never complain about these things. They know that the general Asian image of them is not derogatory. But as the crocodile tears shed over McDonald's Japan's Mr. James mascot demonstrate, those who don't know how power relations work seem to bite deeply the first chance they get. They do so, in my jaded opinion, because for once they get to be the ones who cry, 'That's racist!'


See also:

Disgracian: "In McDonald's New Japanese Ad Campaign, The Wacky Foreigner Joke's on Americans" (reposted at Racialicious) & "We Don't Care about White People"

(Coco Masters) Time: "Not Everyone Is Lovin' Japan's New McDonald's Mascot"

Japan Probe: "Mr. James: McDonald’s Japan has a gaijin clown"

Jeff Yang (San Francisco Chronicle): "McRacism in Japan"

The official blog of Mr. James

wonder how to define racism

A reader named Pistolina left a question in a comment today that I'd like to bring up front here, because I overheard the exact same issue brought up today in a conversation between a black and a white person, and I'm now wondering about it. Please let us know what you think about this challenge to the definition of racism as prejudice + power.

But first, Pistolina's comment was in response to Robin F.'s excellent guest post here from last week, "Racism 101 for Clueless White People," where Robin offered the following explanation of the definition of "racism" that's commonly used in anti-racism discussions. I've also included Pistolina's comment below -- again, please do let us know your response to Pistolina's sincere query.

Robin F. wrote in part:

The first thing you really need to understand is that the definition of racism that you probably have (which is the colloquial definition: "racism is prejudice against someone based on their skin color or ethnicity") is NOT the definition that's commonly used in anti-racist circles.

The definition used in anti-racist circles is the accepted sociological definition (which is commonly used in academic research, and has been used for more than a decade now): "racism is prejudice plus power". What this means, in easy language:

A. Anyone can hold "racial prejudice" -- that is, they can carry positive or negative stereotypes of others based on racial characteristics. For example, a white person thinking all Asians are smart, or all black people are criminals; or a Chinese person thinking Japanese people are untrustworthy; or what-have-you. ANYONE, of any race, can have racial prejudices.

B. People of any race can commit acts of violence, mistreatment, ostracizing, etc., based on their racial prejudices. A black kid can beat up a white kid because he doesn't like white kids. An Indian person can refuse to associate with Asians. Whatever, you get the idea.

C. However, to be racist (rather than simply prejudiced) requires having institutional power. In North America, white people have the institutional power. In large part we head the corporations; we make up the largest proportion of lawmakers and judges; we have the money; we make the decisions. In short, we control the systems that matter. "White" is presented as normal, the default. Because we have institutional power, when we think differently about people based on their race or act on our racial prejudices, we are being racist. Only white people can be racist, because only white people have institutional power.

D. People of color can be prejudiced, but they cannot be racist, because they don't have the institutional power. (However, some people refer to intra-PoC prejudice as "lateral racism". You may also hear the term "colorism", which refers to lighter-skinned PoC being prejudiced toward darker-skinned PoC.) However, that situation can be different in other countries; for example, a Japanese person in Japan can be racist against others, because the Japanese have the institutional power there. But in North America, Japanese people can't be racist because they don't hold the institutional power.

E. If you're in an area of your city/state/province that is predominantly populated by PoC and, as a white person, you get harassed because of your skin color, it's still not racism, even though you're in a PoC-dominated area. The fact is, even though they're the majority population in that area, they still lack the institutional power. They don't have their own special PoC-dominated police force for that area. They don't have their own special PoC-dominated courts in that area. The state/province and national media are still not dominated by PoC. Even though they have a large population in that particular area, they still lack the institutional power overall.

F. So that's the definition of racism that you're likely to encounter. If you start talking about "reverse racism" you're going to either get insulted or laughed at, because it isn't possible under that definition; PoC don't have the power in North America, so by definition, they can't be racist. Crying "reverse racism!" is like waving a Clueless White Person Badge around.


After thanking Robin for her post, Pistolina wrote in a comment:

I am white, and while I have done a lot of reading and attempted to educate my fellow white people on issues of racism, there was one time that a PoC called me out that I could not figure out the appropriate response for, and did not want to demand that they educate me, so I apologized and stepped out of the conversation. Perhaps you can help?

In describing the definition of racism as prejudice plus power, this person accused me of infantilizing people of color by refusing to allow them to have power. I explained that I did not think that PoC were incapable of wielding power, but that in certain areas, such as North America, white people were in control and thus racism by the sociological definition was practiced by whites, not by blacks, Latinos, Asians, or other groups. I went on to explain that in a place where blacks were the group with institutional power, it would be possible for blacks to be practicing institutional racism. They continued to tell me that they found this definition offensive and that it was insulting to PoC.

Is there a correct way to address situations like this? I learned this definition because I understood that this was the proper definition to use when trying to address race issues, and because I want to be a good ally to PoC. I certainly never meant to insult anyone. The problem is that I don't really know how to engage in a conversation if I have people telling me that my language is perpetuating racist views when I try to use the language that I see anti-racists recommend.


Strangely enough, the conversation that I overheard between a black and a white person today was almost exactly the same -- the white person defined racism this way, and the black person said that was an insulting denial of non-white agency.

What do you think -- does the standard anti-racist definition of racism (prejudice + power) actually end up infantalizing people of color?

If it does, is there a better way to define and understand racism? If it doesn't, is there, as Pistolina asks, a correct or better way for a white anti-racist to say so to a non-white person?

rarely notice their white moments

If you're a person who fits the category of "white," how often do you actually notice that you're white?

I propose the concept of "white moments." These are moments when something happens to a white person -- usually something positive, or good -- that would have happened differently if he or she were not a white person.

These also tend to be moments that the ordinary white person doesn't notice as a white moment. As a moment, that is, in which something happened differently because they were white than it likely would have otherwise.

I also propose a corollary, "non-white moments" (or if you prefer, "people of color moments"). These are moments during interactions with white people when something happens to a non-white person that would have happened differently, or even might have happened differently, if he or she were white. It's also a moment that the non-white person -- as opposed to the white person in a white moment-- is likely to notice as a racial moment.

Non-white people, that is, are more likely than white people to notice how their race affects, or may affect, the things that happen to them. If this is true, then this difference is part of a more general difference: non-white people generally understand racial realities, including their own parts in them, better than white people do.

In Revealing Whiteness: The Unconscious Habits of Racial Privilege, Shannon Sullivan explains how the psychoanalytic concept of "leading ideas" can help to understand common white ways of thinking and being, including this particular mode of white oblivion.

Freud points out that "leaders" of groups are usually thought of as individual people, but that the members of groups also follow big ideas that function like the people who lead groups. Such leading ideas are often conscious, but they can also be unconscious.

Also, a leading idea can be more conscious for one group than it is for another. Generally, the leading idea of "race," especially one's own race, is more of an unconscious leading idea for whites than it is for non-whites. As Sullivan writes,

Because the white supremacist consciously affirms white supremacy as her leading idea, she is consciously aware of her membership in a group of white supremacists. In contrast, it might sound strange to describe a person as unaware of what groups she belongs to, and Freud does not discuss this as a possibility.

But people who are not aware of their leading ideas often are not aware that they belong to a particular group and that the group's attitudes affect the way that they view and interact with the world. This is certainly true of many white people with regard to their membership in whiteness. The seeming naturalness and resulting invisibility of white privilege often prevent it from being recognized as a leading idea.

In contrast, Sullivan adds, members of racial minorities tend to be highly aware of their racial membership, "because it often is forced upon them by a racist world."

Michelle Johnson attempts to quantify the black experience of this phenomenon in her book, Working While Black: The Black Person's Guide to Success in the White Workplace. She calls the overt, relatively frequent black awareness of being perceived as black "the 15 percent difference":

What I think many whites, including (ironically) even liberal whites, don't get, is that even though our experiences as black people can be 85 percent the same as white people, some days that 15 percent difference is the only difference we feel.

Johnson explains that this difference comes about in moments when a black worker in a largely white workplace either knows, suspects, or wonders if what just happened had something to do with his or her race. Johnson is careful to note that not all blacks feel this difference in the same amount, and that different jobs will produce different percentages. "One could say," she writes, "that when you're a leader in the civil rights movement, your 15 percent is actually 100 percent."

Of course, different people of color will also feel this difference differently, and in different percentages. I'd like to hear, for instance, what percentage of time a Korean American feels his or her race in largely white settings, or a Latina, or an Arab American, or an Indian in England, or an Indonesian in Australia.

These will all differ, but the main point here for me as a white American is that when I interact with others in largely white environments, I'm almost never encouraged to know, suspect, or wonder if what just happened had something to do with my race. As a result, my awareness percentage in those terms could well be below one percent. And so, paradoxically, one of the "leading ideas" of whiteness is the false idea that being white has next to nothing to do with who I am and how other people treat me.

One thing that white people are often encouraged to do in anti-racism discussions is take note of their "white privilege," as Peggy McIntosh does in her pioneering article on the topic. I try to do that, and doing so has actually become something of a habit for me. I often pause in the midst of a day's events to think about how much easier the day is going for me, simply because I'm white (I wrote about such a pause here).

One thing that I think even fewer white people do is notice, during ordinary, everyday moments, the dynamic relevance of their whiteness -- aside from white privilege. Notice, that is, that they are white, and that it does affect how many situations play out for them, whether or not those situations clearly involve "privilege."

And yet, when I do think of such moments in my own life, they always do seem to boil down to privilege. At the very least, any moment I can think of in a largely white setting that seemed to play out in a particular way because I'm white also went more smoothly or easily than it would have otherwise. That smooth easiness is a form of white privilege.

For example -- was the following just a "white moment," or a moment of "white privilege"?

I went to a movie the other night with a white friend. As the previews began we found seats, as we always do, in the third row. We like being that close to whatever big fantasy world the filmmakers have put together; also, we can sit in the middle of the screen, and rarely have anyone sitting next to us. Plenty of arm-room that way.

But last night the theater was crowded, so a white woman ended up sitting next to me, along with her white male partner. As she sat down, I removed my arm from the armrest between us.

"Oh, that's okay!" said the blond, thirty-something woman cheerfully. "You can put your arm back. I'm not worried about catching cooties from you!"

My friend and her friend/partner heard this, and all four of us laughed. I've noticed that strangers often use such cheerful, joking comments to put each other at ease. The laughter assures everyone that we're all okay with each other, and with being thrust together like this, into a sort of intimacy that we wouldn't otherwise share.

However, as we all turned to the screen, sitting sort of together now in the dark, I also realized that we could all laugh about her "cooties" comment, and laugh more easily, and more together, because we were all white.

What if, that is, I hadn't been white? Would she have even said that to a black man or woman? Or someone clearly Hispanic, or Asian? "I'm not worried about catching cooties from you"? And if she had said it to someone of another race, what might that have meant, or implied?

She might not have even chosen to sit next to me if I hadn't clearly been white -- there were some other empty seats. Again, if I'd been a member of a clearly different race and she had chosen to sit next to me, she might not have said that. Or, she might not have said that, but still thought it. Or rather, some version of it: I better not sit next to him -- I might catch cooties!

As the movie began, I also thought about how I was probably the only one among us four who thought about what it meant to be white in that moment. I don't mean to pat myself on the back for that. But I do mean that I'm more aware of what it means for me to be white than I used to be.

That awareness makes me understand my own life better, and how it typically goes for me, and how I got to where I am. It helps me understand how my becoming white has meant adopting a distorted and oblivious view of the world, and of my place in it. This better understanding of the daily workings of my whiteness also makes it a little easier to understand how others got to where they are, and to think about them, and react to them and treat them differently, and I hope better, than I would otherwise. It also motivates my social activism, my efforts to reject the complacency encouraged by my whiteness by joining anti-racism efforts.

The movie, by the way, was that muddled racism allegory, District 9. The theater was almost full, and most of the viewers were white. As we watched, I noticed something else that I think a lot of white people there didn't notice.

When the cartoonish villain who was a black guy (a Nigerian gang leader) got his head blown off, most of the audience laughed. Later, when the cartoonishly villainous white guy (a murderous mercenary) was also decapitated, most of the audience was silent.

I think that together, those two moments in time became another white moment.

focus obsessively on one part of black women's bodies

Here's a screenshot from the current Gap campaign for its "1969 Jeans" (you can click on this image for an interactive, 360-view of each woman).

Notice the racial choreography here -- six apparently white women modeling a variety of styles, from "Sexy Boot" to "Always Skinny," and off to the side, one black woman, who's wearing a style named "Curvy."



Is the Gap's shopping demographic really THIS white? Why not also include another black woman here (or for that matter, another non-white one) wearing, say, the "Perfect Boot" style? Do only white women wear boots with their jeans? And would only black women buy "Curvy" jeans?

Aside from the lopsided racial composition of this model lineup (it's odd how that arrangement brings to mind a police lineup . . .), the bigger problem here is the limiting of black women to one, all-too-familiar role and body-type: "Curvy." This label -- especially for a style of jeans depicted alongside a row of white women wearing other types of jeans -- perpetuates a cultural fixation on one part of a black woman's body, a denigrating conception of that part as something that fundamentally differentiates their bodies from other women's bodies.

The collective white imagination has long arranged beauty in a hierarchy, with supposedly common white characteristics at the top, and supposedly common black ones at the bottom. This Gap advertisement perpetuates this racist hierarchy, by limiting the role of black women to a stereotypical representation of, well, their bottoms -- their supposedly big "booties." Nothing else about their bodies gets nearly as much mainstream cultural attention as this part does.

This common white, denigrating fixation is, of course, nothing new, as it evokes the sad eighteenth-century spectacle of Saartje "Sarah" Baartman, who remains better known by her objectifying label, "the Hottentot Venus."

Baartman, an enslaved Khoikhoi woman, was sent to England by her Dutch "owner" in order to display her nude self as a sideshow attraction. As Wikipedia explains, "Baartman was exhibited around Britain, being forced to entertain people by gyrating her nude buttocks and showing to Europeans what were thought of as highly unusual bodily features."

In her insightful analysis of today's white-framed media fixation on this body part of another black woman, Serena Williams, Renee Martin connects contemporary white interest in this topic to the degrading curiosity of Europeans in Baartman's body:

Since the days in which Saartjie “Sarah” Baartman was forced to reveal her buttocks and labia to curious Europeans in a human circus, the bodies of Black women have been scrutinized and uniformly judged as lacking and/or sub-human. While our bodies may no longer be on display, the fixation with the buttocks of Black women reveals that the “The Hottentot Venus” stereotype is still very much a part of social discourse.

Fox News recently ran a story on Serena in which the author, Jason Whitlock, referred to her as an “underachiever” and called her derriere a “back pack.” It would seem that though she is ranked number two in the tennis world, it is acceptable to claim that her athletic frame is little more than “an unsightly layer of thick, muscled blubber,” because her body does not conform to what is understood as the beauty norm.

Those who more readily conform to the beauty norm are white women. This is not, of course, because they are somehow more intrinsically beautiful; it's because white people have been imposing their own beauty standards on others for centuries. And as this toxic, racially clueless Gap jeans campaign suggests -- with its exaggerated and marginalizing reduction of black women to a stereotypical fixation on one part of their bodies -- white people still do that.

Anyway, it's not like a lot of other women, who are white and otherwise non-black, don't also have, and even appreciate, bigger -- excuse me, "curvy," booties.

Just ask Leslie Hall.

[many thanks to swpd reader Jillian]

pine for a "great white hope"

Lynn Jenkins (R-Topeka)
"Republicans are struggling right now to find the great white hope."

So was this a Freudian Slip, or was Lynn Jenkins simply being especially honest about Republican strategy these days?

This phrase -- "great white hope" -- reminds me of a phrase I used to hear when I was a kid: "Say, that's mighty white of you!"

For a long time, I didn't realize that that phrase had anything to do with race. And I think it's possible -- unlikely, but possible -- that some of the adults I heard saying "that's mighty white of you!" didn't realize that either.

Is it possible that, despite the racialized context of her remarks, Lynn Jenkins didn't mean that the whiteness of the hope she says Republicans are looking for has anything at all to do with race?

As the Topeka Capital-Journal reports, Lynn Jenkins now claims, of course, that she wasn't talking about race:

U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins offered encouragement to conservatives at a town hall forum that the Republican Party would embrace a "great white hope" capable of thwarting the political agenda endorsed by Democrats who control Congress and President Barack Obama.

Jenkins, a Topeka Republican in her first term in Congress, shared thoughts about the GOP's political future during an Aug. 19 forum at Fisher Community Center in the northeast Kansas community of Hiawatha.

In response to inquiries by The Topeka Capital-Journal, a Jenkins spokeswoman said Wednesday the congresswoman wanted to apologize for her word choice and to emphasize she had no intention of expressing herself in an offensive manner.

Jenkins told people at the Hiawatha forum the nation could benefit from inspired leadership of a group of "really sharp" young Republicans in the House, particularly Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va. Cantor was mentioned as a possible GOP vice presidential candidate in 2008 and is thought to be interested in seeking the Republican nomination for president in 2012.

"Republicans are struggling right now to find the great white hope," Jenkins said to the crowd. "I suggest to any of you who are concerned about that, who are Republican, there are some great young Republican minds in Washington."

A videotape of the presentation contains footage of Jenkins identifying three members of the U.S. House -- Cantor, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. -- as future movers and shakers in the GOP. All are white, as is Jenkins.

"So don't, you know, lose faith if you are a conservative," Jenkins said in Hiawatha . . .

The Capital-Journal also helpfully explains the term's racist origins:

The phrase "great white hope" is frequently tied to racist attitudes permeating the United States when heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson fought in the early 1900s. Reaction to the first black man to reign as champion was intense enough to build support for a campaign to find a white fighter capable of reclaiming the title from Johnson.

When Lynn Jenkins' use of this phrase raised eyebrows and hackles, she sent out a minion to explain what she really meant:

Mary Geiger, a spokeswoman for Jenkins, said the reference to a great white hope wasn't meant to denote a preference by Jenkins for politicians of a particular "race, creed or any background." Jenkins was expressing faith fellow GOP representatives in the House would be key players in returning Republicans to a leadership role in Washington, Geiger said.

"There may be some misunderstanding there when she talked about the great white hope," Geiger said. "What she meant by it is they have a bright future. They're bright lights within the party."

Jenkins wasn't available to comment personally on her presentation in Hiawatha, Geiger said.

Geiger said she had never previously heard Jenkins use the phrase "great white hope" in a political speech or private conversation.

Yeah, that's it -- by "white" she mean "bright," as in a "blindingly bright, white light."

That works. Doesn't it?

Bright, as in, a "blindingly bright, white political party."

Oh, wait a minute . . .


[thanks to swpd reader AM]


UPDATE (8/28/90): It appears that the phrase "great white hope," and its racist origins, had just recently crossed Jenkins' mind. According to the Ottawa Herald, Jenkins

supported a resolution that included that exact phrase last month when the House approved by unanimous consent a measure urging President Obama to pardon black U.S. boxer Jack Johnson. . . .

Within the resolution passed by the House July 29 was a passage that read, “Whereas the victory by Jack Johnson over Tommy Burns prompted a search for a White boxer who could beat Jack Johnson, a recruitment effort that was dubbed the search for the ‘great white hope.’”

wear their whiteness with humility

Edward Moore Kennedy
(1932 - 2009)

What do you think of The Root's (unsigned) eulogy for Ted Kennedy? The editors applaud how he and the other Kennedys carried their whitened selves: "They didn't wear their whiteness with authority -- they were big on playing the human card and left matters of race and class to be argued by the pundits."


Brother Kennedy: Good White Folk
The Root

For the longest time, besides family, black people would only put three pictures up on the wall: Jesus Christ, Nipsey Russell and John F. Kennedy. The Kennedys, in general, have always had a soft spot in the hearts of many black folks because they have always been, as old timers say, "good white folk." The kind of white person you didn't have to worry about giving you the soul handshake (WTF?), talking black jive to get along or dropping the "N" bomb by accident. They were the kind of white people who are at ease with everyone; white people you could have over to dinner. The Kennedys as Irishmen, knew how it felt to be marginalized and, despite their wealth, this marginalization seemed to inform the politics of the whole family. The passing of Edward "Ted" Kennedy last night doesn't just leave a gap in the Democratic Party. Who will bring his empathy and compassion for the rest of America? Who will take up his causes?

John, Robert and Ted were different men with seemingly the same directive: to make America's dream accessible to everyone. John, Robert and Ted Kennedy seemed not to be just pandering politicians, but officials who people of color could trust to listen and respond, to act in the interest of people struggling to grasp a hold of the American Dream; to acknowledge everyone as stakeholder and not dismiss The Others as irrelevant. The Kennedys seem to value compassion as an essential human virtue and walked the talk in ways uncommon for politicians of any stripe. They didn't wear their whiteness with authority -- they were big on playing the human card and left matters of race and class to be argued by the pundits. Ted Kennedy wanted a more perfect union and was willing to fight for it.

When he cosigned Barack Obama last year, Ted Kennedy helped assuage a lot of fears among white and black Americans: his "ups" signified to many that Obama could be trusted to uphold what was important to this country. Ted Kennedy was not a perfect man by any stretch, but he was the kind of white man you sometimes find at black barbecues and barbershops, enjoying a drink, a plate or a laugh. The only white man at your wedding, the only white person your grandparents ever let in the house because he was at ease. He was at home. He left his burden of privilege at the door. You know who I'm talking about -- Ted Kennedy was that dude.

Brother Kennedy: Good White Folk.

Now that Ted Kennedy has passed, who has the gravitas, the compassion and the credentials to take up his mantle?

I also recommend Nezua's post at The Unapologetic Mexican, which includes a formal statement of appreciation for Senator Kennedy by the United Farm Workers, and a sober assessment by Louis Proyect of some other features of his legislative work at The Unrepentant Marxist.

get caught committing racially disastrous photoshop

I've written before about the efforts of various organizations to alter the racial mix of photos by inserting non-white people who weren't actually there when the photo was taken.

Here's an example of the reverse -- Microsoft has apologized for changing the head of a black man to that of a white man.

It's unclear at this point whether they also apologized for NOT changing the black man's hand to that of a white man.




As the BBC reports,

Software giant Microsoft has apologised for editing a photo to change a black man's head to that of a white man.

The picture, showing employees sitting around a desk, appeared unaltered on the firm's US website.

But on the website of its Polish business unit the black man's head was replaced with a white face, although the colour of his hands was unchanged.

Microsoft said it had pulled the image and would be investigating who made the changes. It apologised for the gaffe.

The altered image, which also featured an Asian man and a white woman, was quickly circulated online.

Bloggers have had a field day with the story, with some suggesting Microsoft was attempting to please all markets by having a man with both a white face and a black hand.

"The white head and black hand actually symbolise interracial harmony. It is supposed to show that a person can be white and black, old and young at the same time," said one blogger on the Photoshop Disasters blog.

Others have suggested the ethnic mix of the Polish population may have played a part in the decision to change the photo.


Other bloggers having a field day: Photoshop Disasters, endgadget, SoftSailor, Rocketboom. (See joejoe.org for another disaster that once appeared on Microsoft's site.)

represent "america" abroad

Via Lisa at Sociological Images, an ad for Miller beer that began running in Vietnam last week.

Note the lyrics: "It's American time, it's Miller time."




As I've noted before, Toni Morrison has summed up what's going on in terms of race here most succinctly: "American means white."

But then, these people aren't just white, are they?

Noting that "the whiteness of the ad is purposeful," Lisa continues, "Miller is selling a specific version of 'America' characterized by white people, urban life, sex-mixed socializing and, also, really bad music."

These are young, apparently professional, urbanized, heterosexual white people. Various other sorts of Americans are just as likely (and in some cases, even more likely?) to drink Miller beer, but they were excluded by this ad's makers from representing America to the Vietnamese.

Are you aware of other ad campaigns that sell something distinctly "American" in other countries? If so, do they also represent American-ness with exclusively white Americans?


Here's a link to a brief feature on the Miller ad at Adweek; it describes the ad, but fails to label the whiteness of these people, who instead get labeled "young urbanites."

Young urbanites . . . are young people of color who live in cities commonly described that way? Or is that term a sort of code or euphemism reserved for young white people who live and/or work in a city?

And finally, speaking of terminology, I put America in quotation marks in this post's title in recognition of the illusory, fantasized "America" that this Miller ad promotes, but also to acknowledge the problems that many have pointed out with referring to the United States as "America." I try to avoid using "American" that way, but I've yet to refer to a person with U.S. citizenship as a "United Statesian."

Back in 1986, Rachel F. Weller declared herself a United Statesian in the pages of the New York Times, because, she wrote, the word American "implies an unbecoming arrogance on the part of one segment of the vast Western Hemisphere." Obviously, her example hasn't caught on in the ensuing decades, but again, given the existence of other Americas, it makes sense that so-called Americans should be calling themselves something else instead.


[Here's one more stark example of common white United Statesian conceptions of white people as the best representatives for "America" in other countries ; it's a 22-second snippet from FOX News -- which I can't figure out how to embed here -- that took place during last summer's Olympics.]

wonder where to start when they join the fight against racism

This is a guest post by Robin F, who lives in Toronto. She writes at Dragon Life, and offers the following in the hopes of helping white anti-racist newbies, and of relieving PoC from the burden of said newbies. Since Robin chooses to write about what she knows and the only countries she's lived in are the United States and Canada, this is written from a North American point of view, but in general, the principles also apply to other countries such as the U.K., Australia, etc. As this guide is a work in progress, she asks that you please offer any suggestions and thoughts you may have. The original post is here and that's the version that will be updated on an ongoing basis.

Racism 101 for Clueless White People, Written by a Slightly Less Clueless White Person

People of Color (PoC) encounter the following on a regular basis: they're online or in real life and suddenly a white person, who barely understands privilege or racism, is demanding that they educate them regarding the topic. The white person says, in essence, "Hi! What can I do to help fix racism?" or "Hi! Can you explain racism to me?" or "Hi! What's this 'privilege' stuff?"

Understandably, the PoC says, "Google. You know how to use it." They say this because they're real people, who have real lives and commitments and other things they need to do, and they weren't born to go around educating white people who want to sit on their ass and have an education handed to them on a silver platter.

And then the white person gets butt-hurt because all they want to do is learn and they're trying to educate themselves and that PoC is being so mean to them! And then they sulk about it and often post about how they're trying to learn and become better people but damn it, PoC are so hostile, all that does is teach whites to shut up and sit down! And the white person fails to understand that the PoC wasn't saying, "You're a moron, shut up and sit down," they were saying, "Look, I don't have time to teach you. It's not my responsibility to give you Racism 101. Go educate yourself, the resources are out there."

(Of course even if a PoC says the latter, the white person often will respond with, "But it's such a big subject! I don't even know where to begin looking!" PoC just can't win in these discussions.)

Anyway, I'm familiar with this scenario because I was once That White Person myself, and I've since come across it repeated over and over and over. So, I have decided to make a Guide to Racism 101 for Clueless White People, written by a Slightly Less Clueless White Person.

1. Put some cream on your butt and get over the hurt. The PoC weren't angry at *you* per se; they're frustrated because you're the thousandth person who has made the same demand on their time. They're tired of being seen as objects that exist for the edification of whites, and even if you didn't realize that's how your question came across, the fact is that that's how your question came across.

2. If you're a LiveJournal user, go join racism_101. Read the articles and posts linked to from within the userinfo and then start reading through the entries. It's an excellent starter-level community. Even if you don't have a LiveJournal account, you can still view all the public entries on the community.


3. Make sure you understand the definitions of the terms that are going to be used. The first thing you really need to understand is that the definition of racism that you probably have (which is the colloquial definition: "racism is prejudice against someone based on their skin color or ethnicity") is NOT the definition that's commonly used in anti-racist circles.

The definition used in anti-racist circles is the accepted sociological definition (which is commonly used in academic research, and has been used for more than a decade now): "racism is prejudice plus power". What this means, in easy language:

A. Anyone can hold "racial prejudice" -- that is, they can carry positive or negative stereotypes of others based on racial characteristics. For example, a white person thinking all Asians are smart, or all black people are criminals; or a Chinese person thinking Japanese people are untrustworthy; or what-have-you. ANYONE, of any race, can have racial prejudices.

B. People of any race can commit acts of violence, mistreatment, ostracizing, etc., based on their racial prejudices. A black kid can beat up a white kid because he doesn't like white kids. An Indian person can refuse to associate with Asians. Whatever, you get the idea.

C. However, to be racist (rather than simply prejudiced) requires having institutional power. In North America, white people have the institutional power. In large part we head the corporations; we make up the largest proportion of lawmakers and judges; we have the money; we make the decisions. In short, we control the systems that matter. "White" is presented as normal, the default. Because we have institutional power, when we think differently about people based on their race or act on our racial prejudices, we are being racist. Only white people can be racist, because only white people have institutional power.

D. People of color can be prejudiced, but they cannot be racist, because they don't have the institutional power. (However, some people refer to intra-PoC prejudice as "lateral racism". You may also hear the term "colorism", which refers to lighter-skinned PoC being prejudiced toward darker-skinned PoC.) However, that situation can be different in other countries; for example, a Japanese person in Japan can be racist against others, because the Japanese have the institutional power there. But in North America, Japanese people can't be racist because they don't hold the institutional power.

E. If you're in an area of your city/state/province that is predominantly populated by PoC and, as a white person, you get harassed because of your skin color, it's still not racism, even though you're in a PoC-dominated area. The fact is, even though they're the majority population in that area, they still lack the institutional power. They don't have their own special PoC-dominated police force for that area. They don't have their own special PoC-dominated courts in that area. The state/province and national media are still not dominated by PoC. Even though they have a large population in that particular area, they still lack the institutional power overall.

F. So that's the definition of racism that you're likely to encounter. If you start talking about "reverse racism" you're going to either get insulted or laughed at, because it isn't possible under that definition; PoC don't have the power in North America, so by definition, they can't be racist. Crying "reverse racism!" is like waving a Clueless White Person Badge around.

G. If you go into an anti-racist discussion and start trying to claim the colloquial definition that "racism is simply viewing or treating others differently based on race", you're going to get a negative reaction. Stick to "racism = prejudice + power". Anti-racists aren't going to take it well if you wander in halfway through the debate and start trying to make them abide by your definition rather than the commonly accepted "prejudice + power". Imagine if everyone in a classroom was chatting about a particular subject and then someone walked in and said, "No! You're all doing it wrong! The REAL definition is ABC and I don't care that all the rest of you think it's XYZ!" -- do you think that would go over well? Of course it wouldn't; the newcomer would be considered rude. (Also, making an appeal to Dictionary.com is not going to work. Pointing out that the colloquial definition is how Webster's Dictionary defines racism is not going to make anti-racists suddenly say, "Wow, you know what? You're right! I never realized it, but now that Webster's has backed you up, I see that you're totally right and racism really is just judging people based on their skin color!" Actually, they may say that, but they'd be saying it sarcastically.)

H. I'm under the impression there are a number of different reasons why anti-racists use the sociological definition as versus the colloquial one, but the major reason I'm aware of is that anti-racists aren't just focusing on individual acts of racism; they're looking at racism as an entrenched system that pervades every layer of our society. The colloquial definition reduces racism to an individual level; the sociological definition focuses on the systemic level. The systemic level is actually more important, because even as individual/obvious acts of racism become less socially acceptable, the systemic effects of institutionalized racism continue to work quietly, efficiently, and powerfully. Think of it like a body; it's easy to find a cancerous lesion on the skin and remove it, and then you'd look like you were cancer-free. But even as you looked fine on the surface, the real cancer would be inside your body, spreading from lymph node to lymph node, and invading your bones and organs. Individual and overt acts of racism are the lesions on the surface; the invisible cancer is the systemic racism. Unless you're addressing the underlying disease, eradicating surface symptoms isn't going to accomplish much. But that's enough about the definition of racism for now; let's continue.

4. Start learning about privilege. You need to understand what it is, and how it works. Read Peggy McIntosh's essay, Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. (If that link is no longer good at some point, just Google it.) Acknowledge that you have privilege, through no fault or worth of your own; it was accorded to you at birth, and there's no way to get rid of it. It just is, under the current system of institutionalized racism.

If you feel like doing so, spend a little time coming up with your own list of the ways that privilege works in your life; this will give you a greater understanding of the disadvantages that PoC face. Understanding your privilege will help you learn how to:

A) use it for good when possible (for example, when I write this I am taking advantage of part of my white privilege, which is that whites tend to listen to other whites and afford them more credibility than they extend to PoC), and

B) not use it to hurt PoC inadvertently (for example, by going into a PoC "safe space" and taking over the conversation).

5. Put down that strawman! Nobody's asking you to feel guilty over having privilege. Guilt doesn't get us anywhere. We just want you to be aware of it. Just acknowledge it and be aware of it and move on, for now.

6. Next, learn about derailing. "Derailing" refers to the many ways that white people take a conversation about racism and privilege and, well, derail it -- make it all about them, rather than the PoC. This is almost always an unconscious act. Learning about how derailing works will help you learn how to avoid making the common derailing mistakes. Derailing for Dummies is a great resource. (Notice that the first two entries in Derailing for Dummies actually address the whole "educate me, PoC!" concept. It's THAT prevalent.) Then go read this post: The Art of Defending Racism. (You will also notice both the article and the post are written with a heavy dose of sarcasm. Sometimes it feels like you have to laugh so you don't cry, and sarcasm is a defense mechanism. Some people find sarcasm to be upsetting, but even if it bothers you, don't allow the tone to keep you from absorbing what's being said. It's important stuff.)

7. Do not make the mistake of believing that because you have a lack of privilege in one or more ways (examples: "I was/am poor", "I'm gay", "I'm female", etc), this means you understand what PoC go through.

A. We're all privileged in some ways and have lack of privilege in other ways. A straight black man has straight privilege and male privilege, but lacks white privilege. A gay white woman has white privilege, and lacks straight privilege and male privilege. (A straight white cisgendered male with no handicaps, born to wealthy parents, has all sorts of privilege.)

B. By saying that "you have white privilege", they're not saying "you don't know what it's like to be oppressed" -- they're saying "you don't know what it's like to experience racial oppression". You will not win points by saying, "But I'm gay/female/handicapped/etc, so I totally know where you're coming from!" Nor will it win you points to say, "But I live in an area of town dominated by [insert PoC group here] and people are always threatening me because I'm white, so I know what it's like to experience racism!" You don't. If that's your situation then you know what it's like to be on the brunt end of racial-based acts of prejudice, but you still don't know what it's like to live in a racist system day in and day out. (If you haven't yet read Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack as linked above, go do it now.)

C. To use an example of how racial privilege and class privilege are different: If you (as a white person) were obviously poor and at a country club, people would assume you’re a server. But if you were obviously rich and at a country club, nobody’s going to assume you’re a server. But if you’re a person of color and you’re at a country club, even if you’re obviously rich and dressed just as well as all the white people there, there’s still going to be some patrons assuming you’re a server and asking where their drinks are. Even if a PoC has ‘class privilege’ -- which means they’re rich or at least upper-middle-class -- that still never erases their lack of white privilege. They will always be seen first and foremost as a PoC. You, on the other hand, get to bypass that; people may judge you on your clothes or other visible markers of wealth, but they’re not going to judge you on the color of your skin en masse. That’s part of your white privilege.

D. To use another class/race example, if you were driving a really nice car, it's highly unlikely you'd get randomly pulled over (unless you were breaking the law, speeding, whatever), even if you're young. On the other hand, if you were black and driving a really nice car, you may well get pulled over just so the cop can check that it's really your car (and not just something you presumably stole).

E. You're going to come across the term "intersectionality". The definition is "intersectionality holds that the classical models of oppression within society, such as those based on race/ethnicity, gender, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, class, species or disability do not act independently of one another; instead, these forms of oppression interrelate, creating a system of oppression that reflects the 'intersection' of multiple forms of discrimination." In easier terms, this means that often different types of discrimination reinforce each other. Trying to tackle one system of oppression without dealing with other systems as well is going to leave some people in the cold. (This is a criticism often leveled at the current feminist movement; it's primarily working on issues that pertain to white women.)

F. For another way of thinking about how privilege works, here's an analogy. Imagine a racetrack with all those little divided aisles for people to run. Have a rich, white, cisgendered, straight male on the farthest aisle, and he has an aisle that only has a few hurdles. Have a rich, white, cisgendered, straight female on the next aisle, and she has a couple more hurdles. Have a rich, cisgendered, straight female of color on the next aisle, and she has a few more hurdles than the rich, cisgendered, straight white female. Keep going down the line, adding more and more hurdles as you add each form of lack of privilege. And if you've got a situation where intersectionality is often at work -- for example, a PoC who lives in poverty -- throw an additional few hurdles into their aisle beyond what they already had.

Now, let everyone run the race. It's likely that straight rich white guy is going to finish first. And as for everyone else -- well, many of them will still make it over their hurdles and get there too, but it's going to take some people a lot more effort than others. And some people have so many hurdles that they're going to be psychologically beaten from the get-go. No, being white didn't get you where you are now -- nobody showed up in a car and drove you to the end of the race simply because you're white. But being white made it easier to finish that race, even though you will have had additional hurdles from the other ways you may lack privilege (being gay, poor, etc). No matter how many hurdles you had, at least you didn't have the additional hurdles that the PoC faced.

Also, what's even more unfair is when that white guy finishes and says, "Well, I got here on my own two feet, so I don't know what you all are whining about! If I can do it, so can you!" That's the nature of privilege, both to discount the ways it helps us and to refuse to see the ways a lack of privilege makes it harder for others.


8. Read. Read read read read read. I suggest starting with these blogs: Angry Black Woman (http://www.theangryblackwoman.com), stuff white people do (http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com/), and Resist Racism (http://resistracism.wordpress.com/). There's a lot of other amazing anti-racist journals too; try checking the blogrolls on those sites for links to other blogs. (If you're a LiveJournal user, there's syndicated feeds for the blogs I recommended: abwoman_feed and whitesdostuff and resist_racism .) Also, go read the public posts on the LiveJournal community debunkingwhite. (If anyone else has good resources to suggest, please do so.)


9. Accept that you will make mistakes and you will show your privileged ass and people will get upset at you about it. It doesn't feel good to have people upset at us; we're social animals and we don't like it when we hurt people and people get angry. But don't get defensive; relax, take a deep breath, and know that however upset you're feeling about being jumped on, the people on the other side of the exchange are probably even more upset about what you said. (If you're feeling very defensive and angry, the best option is not to respond right away; give yourself a little time to cool down and think things through. It's a natural reaction to want to dig our heels in and defend ourselves, but it's not the most productive path to take.) What you need to do now is accept that you screwed up, make a sincere apology, and figure out what you did wrong so you don't do it again. Making mistakes is part of the learning process and it won't kill you, so don't get butt-hurt about it. Just make a sincere apology, figure out your mistake, and keep learning. (If you don't know how to make a sincere apology, it goes like this: "I'm sorry I hurt you by saying XYZ." Statements like "I'm sorry I did XYZ, but [offer excuse here]" or "I'm sorry if I upset you" or "I'm sorry you found my statements offensive" are not sincere apologies and they won't help the situation.)


10. Once you reach a place where you are somewhat less clueless, start reaching out to other white people and trying to educate them about these issues. The weight of educating white people does not and should not rest on the shoulders of PoC; as a white person, you're in a good position to educate other whites. White people generally listen to other white people (who are seen as being "more rational" about the topic of race, but that's a whole other topic), and it's less frustrating/upsetting for us because we're choosing to educate others, rather than it being demanded/expected of us.


11. No, you can't erase your privilege, or dismantle racism. But you can do as much as you can. That's all any of us can do.


So there! Now you know how to start educating yourself on this topic, and the more education you get, the easier it will become for you to find ways to apply it. :)

miss "their" america

These days, a lot of people in the United States are decrying the loss of "their" America. So far, every person that I've seen crying like that is a white person.

I mean, seriously -- how many non-white Americans go around shouting, "I want my America back!"

In other words, just what kind of America is it that these white Americans -- most of whom would never, ever consider themselves capable of a "racist" act -- just what kind of America is it, in racial terms, that they want back?

Jon Stewart and Larry Wilmore
"The Daily Show"

For a more sober analysis of the racism that's been bubbling up during the great health care debate, I highly recommend two recent pieces by Tim Wise, who identifies this racist resurgence as symptomatic of a conservative "movement."

This movement, Wise writes, "is trying desperately to create a groundswell of support behind the notion that white people are the new victims of massive discrimination, the new victims of the Obama era: the ones who don’t get picked first for the Supreme Court, and who can no longer take for granted their hegemonic power."

Wise explains how and why conservatives are reframing socialism as the "new black bogeyman" here, and the bizarre connections they're making between health care, Obama, and Hitler here.

The good old days are gone for good. Of course, they never really were all that good, were they. Why is it so hard for some folks to keep in mind that "Leave It to Beaver" was just a TV show?

"Leave It to Beaver"
(the "Magical Beatnik-jazz Hairdo" episode)

display racist memorabilia in their homes

I had an interesting encounter with racism when I stayed at a "bed & breakfast" recently. It became one of those moments in which I now wish that I'd said more than I did at the time.

I've never stayed at a B & B before, and one thing I liked about this one was that the sole owner, a middle-aged white woman, was friendly and talkative. She lets her guests wander freely about the house, including the kitchen, where she prepares the breakfasts that are part of the lodging deal.

One morning I was in there with her, chatting about what to do in and around her small town, when I noticed a small statue of a woman, about eight inches tall, standing at the base of a door. I saw that it was shaped to look like Aunt Jemima, that old racist stereotype of sturdy, domestic, maternal black comfort. Comfort for whites, that is. Some whites, and less and less of them, I hope.

As I bent over to pick it up, I asked the B & B owner -- I'll call her Jenny -- if it was an antique. She said she wasn't actually sure if it was or not, and then I wondered what else to say about it. It certainly wasn't something I would display anywhere in my own home.

As I've been writing this post, I Googled Aunt Jemima, and I quickly found the exact same item (I guess I'd rather not identify with a link just where it's available for sale online . . .).


"Wow, this thing is heavy!" I said, surprised at its weight.

"Yes," said Jenny. "Makes a perfect doorstop."

"Um, perfect?" I said.

Jenny paused in mid egg-scramble to raise an eyebrow at me.

"Have you had any black guests stay here?" I asked.

"Yes, one. Once. He was a man. Why do you ask?"

"Well, I wonder what a black person would think of such a thing. In a white person's house."

"I don't know," Jenny said. "That one didn't say anything. But then, I'm not sure he saw it."

As I weighed Aunt Jemima back and forth in my hands, Jenny went back to her eggs as she added, "And you know, I hear black people actually collect those things. If they can afford to."

I had noticed before a lot of antique-y things in Jenny's place; I figured she was trying to match that decor with this old-timey item. Even if it wasn't an antique (and I now know that it wasn't), it certainly looked like a relic from another time. A more racist time. A time when many white people who couldn't afford the extensive, daily assistance of a black maid envied those who could. A time when few white people thought or cared about the costs to the lives, and to the family lives, of those countless black maids, who usually exhausted themselves with running the houses of very demanding white people. People who often paid such women a pittance.

All of which is why, I think, that for a white person to display such an item in her home, as if it's just another part of the pleasant, intriguing decor, is itself a racist act. No matter who ends up seeing it.

But something held me back from saying that to Jenny. Everything else about her, and about her B & B/home, had been perfectly accommodating and charming. Still, as I placed Aunt Jemima back on the floor, although I'd already said something, I felt I had to say something more.

"It's kind of appropriate," I said, "that you've got her holding open the back door, isn't it?"

By this point, Jenny was frowning a bit. I think she'd begun to wonder just why I found that simple doorstop thing that interesting.

"Why?" she asked. "Because black servants and such used to have to come to the back door instead of the front?"

"Yes, exactly."

"Hmm. Yeah, I guess that is appropriate, in a way. Anyway. These eggs are done. Are you ready?"

"Sure," I said, and turned toward the dining room, where other guests were already eating, drinking coffee, chatting and laughing. "But, you know . . . "

This had all become awkward.

"I really do wonder what a black guest of yours would think if they saw that thing. Don't you?"

"Well," Jenny said, looking down at her Aunt Jemima. "I don't know what they'd think. Maybe something bad, eh? Who knows!"

I smiled, because she was smiling.

"Yes," I said, "who really knows?"

And I for one did not really know.

But I did have at least some doubt now that Aunt Jemima would be holding back that door much longer.



CODA (8/25/09)

KatinPhilly wrote in with a description of her own amplified experience:

I had your experience magnified by literally 1000 times.

The B&B I stayed at in 1991 outside of Richmond was lovely. The owner invited me and the ex into the kitchen where we were surrounded by over 1000 racist salt and pepper shakers, cookie jars, "dolls", etc. I had never seen such a collection in my life. And they were antiques and museum quality pieces. The only thing missing was a loop of "Oh, Susannah" on the stereo.

We were absolutely speechless, our mouths agape in horror. And we found ourselves staring at two unsmiling, silent black employees sitting amongst this lovingly assembled paean to White Virginia's idealized racist past. They immediately read our reaction; one put their finger up to their lips to shush us before we said anything and maybe cause trouble for them. I kid you not.

It was almost midnight, and we decided to stay (I wish we didn't, but the ex pointed out that could have caused problems for the workers too). We cut our visit short and left the next morning, without breakfast.


See the comments to this post for other stories involving these objects, from both sides of the color line.