Race ain't over.
Jul. 9th, 2009 11:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandraerinI booted someone off my discussion community (and subsequently blocked a comment they tried to leave on a story) for saying, in a tangential discussion, that the word problems of racism left in the United States are "unscrupulous" minorities who play on white liberal guilt.
I've been told this joker went and whined elsewhere on the internet that I'm such a controlling bitch that anyone who dares to suggest there's been any progress regarding race relations will be subjected to a profanity-laced tirade and then banned. No, dude. Just you. And if you really had just suggested that there's been progress, I would agree. But I'd follow up that agreement with the observation that you don't win a long race by stopping after a really good sprint. In fact, to stretch that metaphor a little further, if you're not in great condition for running in the first place, that sprint can stop you in your tracks. Like when people exercise who aren't used to it, and they make a big show of cranking the treadmill up or putting a lot of weights on the bar and they make one big showy push and then go, "Whoo! That's enough of that." and then limp away, trying to pretend like they accomplished something huge.
The evidence this guy pointed to for the lack of actual, non-unscrupulous-minority-directed racism in America was the election of Barack Obama. Which, yay. Milestone. Achievement. Possibly a turning point, but it's far too early to say how big of one... especially when a lot of the folks who'd need to be turning the corner are actually stopping before they get there, limping towards the locker rooms, and slapping each other on the back while bragging about how darn fast they managed to run for that one little burst.
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karynthia:
A swimming pool kicked out a bunch of kids from a camp that had a contract to use the pool because they "changed the complexion" of the establishment.
The movie Beyond The Sea had a dramatization of Bobby Darin's advocacy on behalf of comedian George Kirby being allowed to perform the coveted opening spot as his warm-up act at the Copacabana Club, the crown jewel of the club scene. My understanding is that the broad strokes of the story are correct, but I can't pretend to know the actual details of any conversation or anyone's motivations, so understand I'm talking about the scene in the movie, not presenting it as real life. It works as metaphor.
The scene goes like this: the owner of the Copa tells Bobby Darin that it's not his policy to doesn't let colored performers perform. Bobby reminds him that Sammy Davis, Jr. just played the Copa. The owner replies, "Sammy's a headliner."
Sammy's a headliner.
A star attraction being allowed to do his thing isn't the same thing as an up-and-comer being given a fair shake, which isn't the same thing as anyone being let in through the door. When somebody achieves something, that doesn't prove that anybody can... it's when even the "nobodies" are treated fairly that we're really getting somewhere.
When "integration" means that a rich, successful man who is a darling of the media and who draws a packed house is tolerated for his ability to make a nightclub owner an awful lot of money, it's not integration. The same country that elected Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. to the highest office in the land... favoring him over the candidate who would have been succeeding an unpopular incumbent, against a candidate whose party as associated with a potentially era-defining economic crisis and a series of unpopular conflicts, against a candidate who ran a badly mismanaged campaign characterized more by a series of ill-considered stunts than anything else... also contains stories like the one linked to above.
And those are the ones that garner enough media attention to be noticed by a white person in the middle states.
I don't know how much it seems like I talk about racism, to you folks. It's not my "thing" in general, because... it doesn't have to be. If I were going to be a dedicated blogger against intolerance and injustice, I could probably think of five issues that affect me more than racism. I don't even have to think to come up with three. Any time one of us (i.e., "white us") hears the words "racial privilege" and says, "What privilege? I come from a poor background. My employer is an equal opportunity employer. I never had any advantages. What privilege?", there's a huge chunk of an answer for you: we don't have to care about this shit.
It doesn't have to matter to us that a bus load of kids can be told they're going on a fun outing and go through the trouble of putting on their swim trunks and their little bathing suits and lotioning up and finding their ear plugs and their nose clips and blowing up their arm floaties and going out into the hot sun... and then told the party's over, they have to go home.
Try telling a kid that America's "post-racial" after they've gone through that.
Of course, some people do...
It's not about race They were simply making people uncomfortable. There have been complaints. It's not that we're racist, no, see, we even hire minorities. But you're making the established clientele nervous. Wait, what? I'm sorry, but there is no need for that sort of insinuation... we're just trying to keep a happy customer base and maintain the atmosphere of our club. Why do you people always insist on making it about race? There are people with real problems in the world, and if all you have to worry about is not being allowed to go in a swimming pool, then I guess you don't have it so bad, do you?
*barf*
Do you remember what it was like to be a kid and get all excited about something and then have it snatched away? Even when there was a good reason. God, I had a fingertip cut off when it got caught in a heavy screen door when I was pre-K. We were going to the playground, which was like two houses down from our house and which we consequently got to go to about every single day, but we were going there and I was excited and my brother was excited and in our mutual excitement we managed to get a door swinging shut on my finger. I got taken to the hospital and I had my first experience with stitches and I came home looking like I was 2% mummy, which was pretty cool... and then I asked my mom, "So now we go to the playground, right?"
I think I was more devastated by being told that no, after enduring that pain and that trauma and ordeal, that it was too late and it was dark and I needed rest. That was like adding insult to injury. I don't remember the names of the people I met Tuesday night but I remember that. Disappointment sticks like nothing else.
Of course, when I got even a little bit older, I could look back and know that my mother was only being sensible. Today, I see it as a kind of a cute kids-say-the-darnedest-things, oh-they're-so-resilient story when viewed from the outside. All that pain and injury, and what I really cared about was getting to play on the jungle gym.
But imagine going through something like that, being all excited about something, and then being told no, you can't... and being crushed with disappointment... and that it's not because of something that makes any sense when you get some perspective from it...
"Not being allowed to swim in a chlorinated and filtered commercial swimming pool" might seem like the epitome of what's called a "first world problem", but the lingering effects of that kind of incredibly pointed discrimination transcend any barriers of class or economic status.
And imagine being the camp counselors who got the kids all pumped up for their outing and then have to deal with the fallout. Gah. I can imagine that, in terms of excitement and disappointment, but that's as far as I can take it.
I thinkkarnythia had said all of this much better than I did, possibly many times, with much fewer words: "post-racial my ass".
But then, she's had a lot more opportunities to refine her message.
I've been told this joker went and whined elsewhere on the internet that I'm such a controlling bitch that anyone who dares to suggest there's been any progress regarding race relations will be subjected to a profanity-laced tirade and then banned. No, dude. Just you. And if you really had just suggested that there's been progress, I would agree. But I'd follow up that agreement with the observation that you don't win a long race by stopping after a really good sprint. In fact, to stretch that metaphor a little further, if you're not in great condition for running in the first place, that sprint can stop you in your tracks. Like when people exercise who aren't used to it, and they make a big show of cranking the treadmill up or putting a lot of weights on the bar and they make one big showy push and then go, "Whoo! That's enough of that." and then limp away, trying to pretend like they accomplished something huge.
The evidence this guy pointed to for the lack of actual, non-unscrupulous-minority-directed racism in America was the election of Barack Obama. Which, yay. Milestone. Achievement. Possibly a turning point, but it's far too early to say how big of one... especially when a lot of the folks who'd need to be turning the corner are actually stopping before they get there, limping towards the locker rooms, and slapping each other on the back while bragging about how darn fast they managed to run for that one little burst.
Found via
karynthia:A swimming pool kicked out a bunch of kids from a camp that had a contract to use the pool because they "changed the complexion" of the establishment.
The movie Beyond The Sea had a dramatization of Bobby Darin's advocacy on behalf of comedian George Kirby being allowed to perform the coveted opening spot as his warm-up act at the Copacabana Club, the crown jewel of the club scene. My understanding is that the broad strokes of the story are correct, but I can't pretend to know the actual details of any conversation or anyone's motivations, so understand I'm talking about the scene in the movie, not presenting it as real life. It works as metaphor.
The scene goes like this: the owner of the Copa tells Bobby Darin that it's not his policy to doesn't let colored performers perform. Bobby reminds him that Sammy Davis, Jr. just played the Copa. The owner replies, "Sammy's a headliner."
Sammy's a headliner.
A star attraction being allowed to do his thing isn't the same thing as an up-and-comer being given a fair shake, which isn't the same thing as anyone being let in through the door. When somebody achieves something, that doesn't prove that anybody can... it's when even the "nobodies" are treated fairly that we're really getting somewhere.
When "integration" means that a rich, successful man who is a darling of the media and who draws a packed house is tolerated for his ability to make a nightclub owner an awful lot of money, it's not integration. The same country that elected Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. to the highest office in the land... favoring him over the candidate who would have been succeeding an unpopular incumbent, against a candidate whose party as associated with a potentially era-defining economic crisis and a series of unpopular conflicts, against a candidate who ran a badly mismanaged campaign characterized more by a series of ill-considered stunts than anything else... also contains stories like the one linked to above.
And those are the ones that garner enough media attention to be noticed by a white person in the middle states.
I don't know how much it seems like I talk about racism, to you folks. It's not my "thing" in general, because... it doesn't have to be. If I were going to be a dedicated blogger against intolerance and injustice, I could probably think of five issues that affect me more than racism. I don't even have to think to come up with three. Any time one of us (i.e., "white us") hears the words "racial privilege" and says, "What privilege? I come from a poor background. My employer is an equal opportunity employer. I never had any advantages. What privilege?", there's a huge chunk of an answer for you: we don't have to care about this shit.
It doesn't have to matter to us that a bus load of kids can be told they're going on a fun outing and go through the trouble of putting on their swim trunks and their little bathing suits and lotioning up and finding their ear plugs and their nose clips and blowing up their arm floaties and going out into the hot sun... and then told the party's over, they have to go home.
Try telling a kid that America's "post-racial" after they've gone through that.
Of course, some people do...
It's not about race They were simply making people uncomfortable. There have been complaints. It's not that we're racist, no, see, we even hire minorities. But you're making the established clientele nervous. Wait, what? I'm sorry, but there is no need for that sort of insinuation... we're just trying to keep a happy customer base and maintain the atmosphere of our club. Why do you people always insist on making it about race? There are people with real problems in the world, and if all you have to worry about is not being allowed to go in a swimming pool, then I guess you don't have it so bad, do you?
*barf*
Do you remember what it was like to be a kid and get all excited about something and then have it snatched away? Even when there was a good reason. God, I had a fingertip cut off when it got caught in a heavy screen door when I was pre-K. We were going to the playground, which was like two houses down from our house and which we consequently got to go to about every single day, but we were going there and I was excited and my brother was excited and in our mutual excitement we managed to get a door swinging shut on my finger. I got taken to the hospital and I had my first experience with stitches and I came home looking like I was 2% mummy, which was pretty cool... and then I asked my mom, "So now we go to the playground, right?"
I think I was more devastated by being told that no, after enduring that pain and that trauma and ordeal, that it was too late and it was dark and I needed rest. That was like adding insult to injury. I don't remember the names of the people I met Tuesday night but I remember that. Disappointment sticks like nothing else.
Of course, when I got even a little bit older, I could look back and know that my mother was only being sensible. Today, I see it as a kind of a cute kids-say-the-darnedest-things, oh-they're-so-resilient story when viewed from the outside. All that pain and injury, and what I really cared about was getting to play on the jungle gym.
But imagine going through something like that, being all excited about something, and then being told no, you can't... and being crushed with disappointment... and that it's not because of something that makes any sense when you get some perspective from it...
"Not being allowed to swim in a chlorinated and filtered commercial swimming pool" might seem like the epitome of what's called a "first world problem", but the lingering effects of that kind of incredibly pointed discrimination transcend any barriers of class or economic status.
And imagine being the camp counselors who got the kids all pumped up for their outing and then have to deal with the fallout. Gah. I can imagine that, in terms of excitement and disappointment, but that's as far as I can take it.
I think
karnythia had said all of this much better than I did, possibly many times, with much fewer words: "post-racial my ass".But then, she's had a lot more opportunities to refine her message.
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No, I won't block you. I'll just give you the response you merit.
on 2009-07-10 08:54 am (UTC)That's pretty much what you're doing here.
You're going, "Man, I keep hearing people talk about this National Forest, and I went out there, and I paid for an entry sticker for my windshield, and DAMN IT if I wasn't ripped off... there was no forest, just a bunch of fucking trees."
Okay. Yes. From a certain point of view, there really is actually no such thing as race. We are not a planet of Vulcans and Elves and Gelflings. We are all members of the human race.
And the thing is, the human race is fucking complicated. We have an organ inside our heads that is more complicated than most life forms. One organ. Each individual one of us is more complicated than some entire species. Six billion of us on a planet... or even three hundred million of us in a country with two centuries of its own history which built on three more centuries of colonial/imperial history are so fucking complicated that the sciences that describe and predict our behavior are called "soft sciences" because we don't have the information or the processing power needed to understand it.
So we have this complicated intersection of class and ethnicity and culture, all these different things that are themselves "noexistent" in the same way as race, in that they are socially contructed concepts that are once arbitrary and at the same time very ill-defined... and they are all inextricably bound together because we never get them in a vacuum, and so in order to be able to deal with this, in order to be able to talk about and experience it on a conscious level, we treat the point where all this stuff of cultural and personal identity crashes together as a singular thing, a concept, and we call it "race".
Because we need a way to talk about it. The same way that we need a way to deal with a whole unit of trees as a forest, the same way it's far more useful to deal with a discrete collection of data as the file it represents than as the raw binary.
And then there's the fact that saying "NO, IT'S NOT RACE, IT'S ETHNICITY AND CLASS" is all too often a convenient way of shutting down conversations that need to happen by challenging the grounds on which they're being held.
And I hate to say it but classism and ethnocentricism have always, and most likely will always, be around.
You're absolutely right. We will never get rid of them.
That's why we must never stop trying to get rid of them.
Because that's the only way things can get better.
And more than that, it's the only way to fight the tendency of things to get worse.
(To be continued)