Dear Internet, Racism Exists.

[alexandraerin]

I found myself, in a roundabout way, reading a months-old blog post that had been linked to in a Livejournal post that karnythia linked to.

You can read the posts to see what they're about. If you're not familiar with the topic, there is plenty of material in the Livejournal post and the many posts it links to, breaking down the issues involved. I'm not planning on parsing through them here.

Rather, I'd like to call attention to something happening in the comments of the post I link to at the top of this entry. The post details an encounter that, along with the racial dynamics the author breaks down, involves the use of the epithet "black bitches" being directed at the author of the post.

I'll repeat that for emphasis: "black bitches".

So what's happening in the comments? Surely this will be the one time when everyone can agree that racism actually exists and is in play... right?

Wrong.

Unfortunately, I think we spend so much time and energy as labeling something as racism.

and

Must be terrible to live life with a chip on your shoulder like that. No, I don't get it - and I guess I never will.

and

My problem with this post is that the writer seems to make the incident all about race.

and so on.

Unbelievable.

Comments

[andy9306.livejournal.com]

First, I'd just like to say that Dr. Seuss is a god.

With that out of the way, how can people be so dense? The person who chose the racially oriented epithet made the situation all about race. The blame can't magically transfer onto a person reporting on the situation just because they make you aware of it. It isn't the messenger's fault when the message they carry is offensive, don't shoot them.

The second comment, especially, annoys me because it is the expression of a sentiment which is far too popular. It also seems so close to getting an important point that most people don't seem to consider, but misses it entirely. Yes, you don't get it, it is unlikely that you will ever get it because you don't live with it, you aren't forced to. You have that privilege.

[zathras-ix.livejournal.com]

The problem with racism (and sexism, for that matter) is that's insidious.

Everyone is racist to some degree, just as everyone is xenophobic to some degree, but it takes a certain degree of introspection and self-awareness to recognize one's own racism. Even those who have suffered terribly from racism directed at them can turn around and be racist toward others and never see the nature (and hypocrisy) of their racism.

Some racist attitudes are picked up so early that predate the ability to speak. One hears and remembers things from those with whom they grow up long before the understand the words, much less what they really mean, and later repeats them unthinkingly as received truth.

One of the most shameful episodes of my life occurred when I was a teenager. One of my best friends was Jewish, but no one ever made anything of that fact, it was just part of the background information we all had about one another. One day, the topic of conversation was how students were getting ripped off by a local vendor and another friend said, "Yeah, they really got jewed." My Jewish friend asked mildly, "Don't you mean 'gypped'?" to which my other friend replied, "Well, the guy's a Jew, not a Gypsy." And suddenly, out of nowhere, I found myself saying "And you can't out-Jew a Jew!"

I could've died on the spot. I can't even remember where or when I heard that phrase, but it just popped out like a tape recording when the play button was pressed. I suspect that I heard it from an uncle we visited on a farm in Virgina when I was seven or eight years old, it here I was at sixteen parrotting it on cue to my best friends. It took me a long time to live that down and remembering the incident still makes my cringe.

As I said, it's insidious. You can be consciously and actively against racism in all its forms, but still harbor racist ideas programmed into you along with your ABCs.

Unconscious racism is the most problematic, because those who can't or won't acknowledge their own racist impulses will often never realize that they're indeed expressing or acting upon them.

[calianissene.livejournal.com]

I recently dealt with a similar topic- sexism in video games. One of my favorite magazines ran an article called "The Gender Gap", detailing the problems with sexism and gender diversity in the gaming world, and the backlash was terrible. Men AND women saying things like, "It's entertainment, who cares!", "Women shouldn't be playing video games anyway!", and "This is an inappropriate topic for a gaming magazine. Shouldn't you be focusing on, y'know, GAMES, instead of this PC bullsh*t?"

Sexism, racism, homophobia and transphobia, religious problems... Anything that's "different" causes problems. And many people refuse to see those problems, and tell the people who DO see the problems that they're making mountains out of molehills, so to speak. Until people stop feeling offended when it's pointed out that they're being offensive, we will never get past this. Yes, everyone's a little bit racist, sometimes. Realize that you are too- ACCEPT that sometimes, the things you do and think are offensive. And then try and change yourself so that you're not.

Yeah, I tend to have a bit of a bias against African Americans and Mexican Americans, for several reasons. But I consciously try to silence that bias every time I meet someone new who comes from one of those backgrounds, because it's not fair to them, and it's not fair to me. If I had let my prejudices get in the way this last year, I would have lost out on making a good friend out of my African American roommate. And then where would I be?