Well, the problem is that most of the time people of color talk about an action as "racist" and start to discuss privilege, someone will 1) assume that they are being called racist whether they are or not and then 2) turn the entire conversation to how hurt they are by being called racist, which 3) effectively derails the conversation and makes it all about white people. Again. In my book, doing racist things/saying racist things makes someone a racist. I hope, however, that they can change and become an ally with education, though that is not always possible. And it certainly isn't possible if the entire conversation is about "no! don't call me a racist!"I take people at their word. If they say they aren't racists, then at the very least they don't believe themselves to be racists. Which means, presumably, that they don't want to be perceived as racists. Instead of arguing about who is or is not a bigot, I'd rather spend some time teaching people how not to look like bigots.
This is neither a confessional or a courtroom: I'm not here to grant absolution or to declare individuals guilty. Thus, there's no reason to beg forgiveness or to defend yourself. I have no reason to believe that anybody participating in these discussions is a Nazi, Klansman, White Power skinhead or any other flavor of violent racist. (I doubt someone with swastika tattoos and a Hitler poster would find much of value in conversations about being a better ally to people of color... ). So you need not spend time declaring you're not one of Those White People, because nobody here thinks that you are.
The comment James made about "original sin racism" points to a real problem with a lot of anti-racist material: it follows a Christian model of redemption through repentance. Readers are taken to task for their sins and shortcomings. By accepting their failings they hope to be forgiven and to separate themselves from the inherently corrupt society despite their own inescapable taint. And all too often breast-beating becomes a substitute for actually doing something.
Don't get me wrong, I think there's definitely a time and a place for recognition of one's privilege and of the part one plays in upholding an unjust social order. But I think you can make change happen from without just as quickly as from within - and arguably a good deal more effectively. I don't need to challenge all my preconceptions before I can treat people with respect and show concern for their feelings. And once we get past some of the more common pitfalls and establish communication a lot of those prejudices might just take care of themselves.
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1 comment:
I get where you're coming from with this post as a whole but this part concerns me: "Instead of arguing about who is or is not a bigot, I'd rather spend some time teaching people how not to look like bigots." One of the major issues I've personally had with trying to talk with other white people about racism (or with men about sexism, etc.) is a MAJOR preoccupation with how they APPEAR TO OTHERS, instead of paying attention to the actual affect of their actions/words. And this comes up a lot in particular in my neck of the woods (SF Bay Area), where people seem to think the worst thing in the world is that they have been called, or their action has been called, racist. It's like the stain to their reputation or something is worse than the fact that they did something fucked up to someone else, like a whole middle-class/upper-class thing about what counts is the surface/how one is perceived to be and not what's actually going on inside.
I think it'd be obvious what a skewed sense of priorities this is, but these same people often use a lot of social justice language to cover up the fact that they simply have NOT interrogated their Whiteness or their internalized racist attitudes and that because they're aren't part of the Klan and because they can talk some talk about social justice, they believe they haven't internalized ANY white supremacy from the white supremacist world around them.
I've personally found Jay Smooth's whole thing about "talking about the action as racist, instead of the person as racist" as useful in trying to address this but even that has it's limits.
Anyway, in short, I really feel like what we need to be talking about is a) recognizing that the white supremacist world around us has undoubtedly affected us, b) that we want not be racist assholes, c) that because the white supremacist world around us has affected us that we might discover racist attitudes and prejudices lurking inside us despite b) and d) that we can't let that stop us from trying to talk and engage on issues of racial justice, but that we need to do so mindfully, and often that will mean shutting the fuck up and listening to what's being said around us, particularly by POC about their experiences with racism in a racist world. And that said I do really agree with the last part of your post in particular because respect and concern are imo FUNDAMENTAL, but I still felt like it was important to speak to the piece about "looking like bigots."
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