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Try as I might, I cannot get away from the topic of race right now. Besides the nonstop election coverage forcing us to consider a racial minority in the White House, I find myself working in close proximity all day with a more racially diverse group of people than I have ever spent consistent time with before. This work takes place in the receiving area of the U of A bookstore, where the shipments of books I unpack all day seem to overwhelmingly deal with race.
This last bit has gotten me really upset. Every – no exaggeration here, I really mean the word every – book on race that I have looked at has a title like “The White Man’s Problem” and talks about how white people really suck and are the sole source of the problem when it comes to race. A rant seems in order. So here are a few of my thoughts about race:
- I’m sick and tired of hearing white people tell me how deep down I’m probably a racist. From my experience, I don’t hear minorities complain about racism nearly as much as white people do. Besides Jesse Jackson.
- College-aged Americans like to idealize Europe, but forget that they have a long and distinguished history of racism. Europeans are only recently dealing with the melting pot effect that Americans have always had. And I hate to break it to all those American college students who think Europeans are the cat’s pajamas, but they are often horribly racist. Case in point: this picture the Spanish Olympic basketball team took before going to Beijing:
- John McCain’s Paris Hilton ad was not dealing with race. It just wasn’t. And I lost a lot of respect for the Obama campaign when he said that whole thing about the dollar bill.
- The reason I thought Crash deserved the Oscar a couple years ago was not because it was better produced, written, acted, etc. than the movies it was up against (it really wasn’t), but because it was the only – again, no exaggeration – honest, open-ended take on American race relations I’ve ever seen. It supposed that there was more to the race problem than white people still being scared of people with dark skin. That’s a very rare thing in pop culture.
- My recommendation for easing race relations: lighten up. I’ve made racial jokes to the people I work with and they laugh and make them back because they know it’s in good fun. I often think that people really aren’t as sensitive about race as we’re told they are.
7 comments:
Explain to me how you came to the conclusion about most Europeans being racist. If it's from a few people's comments or this picture of the Spanish team (is that real, btw?) then I need more hard evidence of this deep-seeded racism.
google "racism in europe."
Hehe I love how Howard Dean says that the GOP is the "white party" White is used as a slur so much that if one is "white" automatically they start at a disadvantage, assuming that they are opressors... seems like a good example of prejudice to me.
http://www.breitbart.tv/html/153493.html
I think that “racism” is a vague and ill-defined word. All too often, we desire to define racism as an attitude displayed by an individual. There are a lot of people (well intentioned and not) who still make unfounded assumptions about people because of their ethnicity from all populations, but this is not what racism really is.
I am not a racist (at least I like to think I treat people equally), but I benefit from my position as an affluent, educated, white man, often without knowing it. As an individual, my hands may be clean, but I belong to a nation, and specifically an ethnic group within that nation, whose hands are not clean. Is it fair to me as an individual to have to take that responsibility to right other people’s wrongs? Maybe not, but I am in a unique position to do so.
The issue is not “am I a racist?,” but rather, “am I in a position to clean up this race mess that other people made before me?” If you are like me, an affluent, educated, white man, the answer to the real question is yes. The mess still exists, I have seen it firsthand, and I cannot deny that.
I guess I could sum up my views with this: our moms didn’t make those messes in our diapers when we were babies, but they was in a position to clean them up.
Ignore that grammar mistake at the end there.
Oh, and I agree completely that Europeans have a history of xenophobia which is really coming to the surface now that many people are moving there from other parts of the world.
Well put, Jesse. And I don't think we disagree. One mess (among many) that I am in a position to clean up is this one. Progress won't happen, though, while we are still afraid of pointing out anything about race (e.g. "I don't see people in colors") or while a finger is pointed in a singular, safe direction (e.g. "The White Man's Burden").
It seems that the comfortable position as a white person is to salvage your individual reputation by labeling your whole ethnic group as pigs but distinguishing yourself from that group by ignoring the issue of race altogether.
I might have deep-seeded feelings that come from growing up around almost exclusively white people. But don't call me racist until I decide to act on them.
You're right, Jesse, racism is ill-defined -I believe racism is a choice, not a feeling. I might be preaching to the choir with this revelation, but there are far, far, too many people who don't realize this.
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