Race ain't over.

[alexandraerin]

I 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.

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.

Comments

[stormcaller3801.livejournal.com]

After thinking this through on both sides and looking at the statements of what happened (I know, terrible habit; I keep this up I'll end up in law school) I've come to the conclusion that there's a sort of middle ground which more or less says that it wasn't the kids' fault and the club owners weren't being racist. But that doesn't mean the club owners were right to do what they did.

The entire thing seems to have begun because of the club members. At least one, if not more, complained to the club staff. The club staff likely were unsure what to do here- because you're dealing with paying, long-time members and a group of newly-arrived kids who have a deal to use the club you know nothing about. And so they either made a bad call or they punted it to the owner.

And the owner basically decided that it was a question of being racist or pissing off his main revenue source (club members). Do you anger the group of people you depend on for your livelihood and whom you have to deal with on a regular basis, or the people you barely know, who paid you a relatively small lump sum and you won't have to see again (and who may not even know your face)?

So the club management can reassure themselves they're not racist (they're just looking after their members, in their mind), the staff don't feel their wrong because it wasn't their decision (and I expect the 'complexion' comment originated from a club member and was being used without citation), the club members don't think they're racist because it's their private club... and the kids get screwed over. Because everyone's convinced themselves they're not being racist, due to being more concerned about covering their own asses than the color of anyone's skin. With the exception of the club members, who don't have to own up to it because the club ownership are the ones who're taking the fall. But I expect they're likely rationalizing it to themselves as well.

[alexandraerin.livejournal.com]

I can completely agree with your analysis as being plausible and likely, but where I differ is with the phrase "and the club owners weren't being racist". "Weren't acting on their own overt prejudice", maybe. They were committing an act of institutionalized racism. I can't call that anything other than racist, and I think that using a definition of racism that includes the personal and immediate... well, that's the sort of thinking that ends in people declaring there really isn't that many problems caused by racism any more.

This kind of thing slides by because everybody involved can point to how they're really "not racist, but..." The only way to stop them is to make people realize it's still not acceptable, which I think means calling it what it is and labeling those involved as a bunch of "racist, but"s.

[stormcaller3801.livejournal.com]

Weren't acting on their own overt prejudice sounds very close to what I was intending to say. They didn't say, "We didn't know there'd be black kids," they just had members complaining, likely realized the complaints were racist, but went along with it because of monetary concerns and possibly cowardice.

And I also agree on the 'racist, but' part. I didn't mention it above but it reminded me of the MU scene regarding the campus cops and weapon checks. That sort of 'soft racism' where it's rationalized as not being racist, yet doing things that are racist anyways because you can think up a rationale to justify it to yourself.

[stormcaller3801.livejournal.com]

I actually considered another comparison, but I realized that it would probably elicit cries of 'Godwin's Law,' and I also am not nearly so well informed about the history involved in that comparison, so I could be wrong there.