Color Blindness and Racism

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

Abagond blogs:

On the one hand, to hold on to their unfair position and advantages in society, to their white privilege, and feel right and good about it, whites had to believe racist lies. Like that blacks lacked brains or a willingness to work hard.

And yet, on the other hand, they knew that racism was wrong.

So in the 1970s whites reached a fork in the road: either give up racism and its advantages, in pride, position and wealth, or hang onto racism by becoming blind to it.

Race & Class in Ethical Consumption & Sustainability Movements

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

At the blog Vegans of Color, Johanna quotes a new anthology to be edited by Breeze Harper:

Rarely, if ever, has the status quo of these movements written about how [white] racialized consciousness and class status impact their philosophies and advocacy of animal rights, veganism, fair trade, ecosustainable living, etc., in the USA. Deeper investigations by academic scholars have found that collectively, this “privileged” demographic tends to view their ethics as “colorblind”, thereby passively discouraging reflections on white and class privilege within alternative food movements (Slocum 2006) and animal rights activism (Nagra 2003; Poldervaart 2001). Consequently, academic scholars such as Dr. Rachel Slocum feel that rather than fostering equality, “alternative food practice reproduces white privilege in American society”.

Ad she states:

The discouragement about reflections on white & class privilege has definitely been more than just “passive” from readers of this blog at times, especially lately, although obviously the passive discouragement is a big player as well. As one of my favorite LiveJournal icons says, “White privilege: you’re soaking in it.”

The 22nd Erase Racism Carnival

Cross-posted From Double Consciousness.

As I’ve stated previously I was getting some bad posts e-mailed to me for this months Erase Racism Carnival. So I decided to do some searching of my own to find some posts and, I’m pleased to say, I found some great ones, but not as many as I would have liked. So I please to announce this months (mini) Erase Racism Carnival…(Read More)

Looking into Ward

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

Carmen Van Kerckhove blogs:

The latest issue of Ms. Magazine, which hits newsstands today, has an interesting investigative report on Ward Connerly. It’s definitely worth a read.

(Those of you who have been with this blog since the Mixed Media Watch days may remember a regular feature we used to do called Ward Watch, in which we would affectionately refer to him “Moneybags”.)

Who’s Ward Connerly? Well, he’s a self-identified multiracial man who has made millions over the years by helping right-wing interests dismantle affirmative action.

Only he’s managed to do it by pretending to advance the rights of people of color. Like when he tried to fool multiracial organizations into supporting his initiative to do away with all racial classification (which would, not coincidentally, make it impossible to track racial discrimination).

IQ and Genetics

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

Amardeep Singh blogs:

Malcolm Gladwell’s latest in the New Yorker is a must-read for anyone who’s been stuck arguing with an IQ fetishist at a dinner party (sadly, this has happened to me once too often). Gladwell relies heavily on the work of James Flynn, who has a new book out called What is Intelligence?. Flynn shows that IQ scores, in various parts of the world, tend to rise over time — and delves into the implications of those changes for how we understand IQ scores

Invisibility of Whiteness

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

Carlo Montemayor, a blogger at Double Consciousness and fellow Blog Bullet editor, blogs on the invisibility of whiteness and on some comments that Oprah “transcends” race since most of her audience is white:

What the writer here implies is that Oprah’s personality as well as her show are “race neutral” because most of her viewers are white. Likewise, Obama has opted for a more “universal” (meaning white) appeal. “Transcending race”, according to the writer, means tailoring your image and persona so that it appeals to mostly white people — as if whites do not belong to a racial group. Because both Oprah and Obama are now reaching out to blacks, their actions are viewed as racial.If we are truly aspiring to achieve racial justice then we need to look at racism (and by that I mean a system of ideas embedded into our institutions which gives whites unearned advantages over people of color) as a white problem rather than just a problem that people of color face.

"Language and Racism"

I was actually searching for an SNL skit called Nick Burns: The Company’s computer Guy when I came across this TV show put together by the Salt Lake City Community College. It’s called Up in the Valley, and in this particular episode the host, Nick Burns, and his guest, Dr. Victor Villanueva of Washington State University, discuss how racial inequality today is masked and thus perpetuated through language.

You can view this show in its entirety at the Valley Television website.

The Race Card

There is something I want to bring up due to a conversation I had with someone yesterday. Now when a person, let’s say a Korean, brings up a fact in a conversation about race. Let’s say, about white privilege. And that white person accuses the Korean person of “Bringing up the ‘race card.’” Who, in reality, is actually bringing up the race card?

This is the kind of bullshit the pisses me off. Now if the Korean person brings up a fact about how the way a white person might view race is based on their white privilege (due to the fact that they grew up white) than that person is lifting up a veil and illuminating a situation in a more truthful manner. The white person who denies this and says the that person is using the “race card” is in actuality pulling the sheepskin over all of our eyes and is contributing to the further masking of the racial realities in America.

This white person has no idea what it is like to be a person of color and yet this white person accusses someone of using the “race card.”

Now, in reality, who is actually using the race card?

I would argue that it is the white person who is using the race card by saying she or he is “using the race card.” The white person is actively using race and putting the other person on the spot bu accusing them of something that they are not doing. What the Korean person was bringing up was racial realities in the United States of America. What the white person was doing was masking and/or ignoring those realities which in turn is using race for her or his benefit. Not bringing up race is actually, in effect, benefiting the white person.

Image From:
Buzzle.com

A Response to a Response to a Post About an Opinion Piece

Sean Maher, the subject of a content analysis by me and a blog by Christine Ferrer posted a response on his blog and took issue with my analysis of his opinion piece and with our views.

In it Maher wrote:

Back to the diversity issue: I offered Thomas a chance to continue the public debate by dedicating a page of our special graduation issue to a dialogue between the two of us. I recognized that my column had unfortunately been run without any counterargument, and I thought we’d all look more thoughtful and mature by correcting that. He seemed happy with the suggestion, and while we didn’t end up actually completing that project, I felt like the issue had been settled now that he and I were on happy terms.

Of course, I was wrong about that.

[Que dramatic music here.]

Maher took issue with many things I wrote in my content analysis and stated:

I didn’t expect to run my column without controversy or debate - it’s a galvanizing, inflammatory subject for a lot of people - but whatever the strengths and weaknesses of my arguments, I’m amazed by how quickly and vehemently the reaction involved personal attacks. The rampant assumption (and subsequent condemnation) regarding my personal history, in Stephens’ article especially, is alarming.

Personal attacks? Looking over my article I actually saw very little personal attacks of the ad hominem type. I did open up with this however:

Diversity making a white hetero-sexual male squeamish, hmmm…Well, nothing new there really.

Funny? Maybe. Ad hominem, eh, not really. Of course, there was this:

Yet Maher doesn’t see this, and justifiably so. He doesn’t see this because he is white. His white skin is his shield. As the co-editor of the paper Ian Thomas told Maher in a rage on Thursday. “I don’t mean to insult you buy you are a white heterosexual male!” In society’s eyes that is not an insult but a “complement” and for Maher to not see it as otherwise shows us his complete obliviousness to his white privilege, his male privilege, and his heterosexual privilege.

Pointing out one’s white privilege (that all white people obviously have) in my opinion is not an ad hominem attack but instead pointing out a reality in this racialized country. However Maher sees it (I’m assuming) as an attack on his charecter. This can actually be another example of white privilege since pointing out white privilege is met with cries of “character assassination,” “personal attacks,” and even “reverse racism,” and is never seen as a critical judgement on a harsh reality on is almost never seen as (by the person in question) a call to critical self-reflection.

Let’s see, what else did I write, ah yes, this one:

Maher’s life has been shaped by the fact that he is white. He can say such things as “what defines us…are our thoughts, our feelings, and our actions” and that what diversity is, “is a wealth of individual beliefs” because Maher is a white male.

And:

He’s blind to the fact that the people around him are all white. He’s blind to this not because of any moral superiority to someone who would see all of the white faces around him but instead is blind because he fails to look at his own privilege.

And a little sprinkle of this:

Sadly, with thinking such as his, [X]Press will only continue to contribute to the everyday acceptance of white privilege, white supremacy, and the ignoring of the racial realities of America.

Now (concerning the last quote) that’s an ad hominem attack! All though, not so much of an attack as my harsh conclusion and prediction of Maher’s future tenure if he continues to think the way he does and is only stated at the end of a near 4,000 word analysis.

Maher didn’t say much in his response really (unless he’s planning a much larger one). He went on to say:

I neither regret nor rescind my arguments, nor do I find much in the Double Consciousness critiques that truly, substantively addresses the stance I’ve taken - they’re rife with ad hominem attacks and straw man fallacies, reflecting less that they understood my ideas than that a white man’s thoughts on diversity issues may strike some audiences emotionally before they’re absorbed intellectually.

Ad hominem, according to Webster’s Dictionary, is:

1: Appealing to feelings or prejudices rather than intellect
2: marked by or being an attack on an opponent’s character rather than by an answer to the contentions made.

And Wikipedia:

An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: “argument to the person”, “argument against the man”) consists of replying to an argument or factual claim by attacking or appealing to the person making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument or producing evidence against the claim. It is most commonly used to refer specifically to the ad hominem abusive, or argumentum ad personam, which consists of criticizing or personally attacking an argument’s proponent in an attempt to discredit that argument.

Straw Man fallacies you say?

Webster states:

1: a weak or imaginary opposition (as an argument or adversary) set up only to be easily confuted
2: a person set up to serve as a cover for a usually questionable transaction.

Wikipedia states:

A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent’s position. To “set up a straw man” or “set up a straw-man argument” is to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent. A straw-man argument can be a successful rhetorical technique (that is, it may succeed in persuading people) but it is in fact a misleading fallacy, because the opponent’s actual argument has not been refuted.

Its name is derived from the practice of using straw men in combat training. In such training, a scarecrow is made in the image of the enemy with the single intent of attacking it. It is occasionally called a straw dog fallacy, scarecrow argument, or wooden dummy argument.

In reality, I’d argue, my content analysis actually had very little in ad hominem attacks and straw man arguments. In fact, there a few times I do actually agree Maher to a certain extent:

I agree with Maher on this point. It’s an inexact science to look at photos and guess what someone’s race is. This is the reality of race, race doesn’t exist (see “What Is Race?“), it is not biological, it’s sociological.

…

It’s an encouraging thing that Maher knows that race and culture are two different things. But, at the same time, in America, race and culture are so intertwined it’s impossible to set aside the two in most people’s minds.

I even agree, to a certain extent, with his views on diversity of opinion:

Maher sees diversity as differences in beliefs, perspectives, and behaviors, and not as cultural and racial. Yet one gets different opinions, beliefs, perspectives, and behaviors when one has a culturally and racially diverse social group. Of course, I also accept his argument that if I had friends who were of every different race and gender and all thought the same (such as if I was Bill O’Reilly and my friends were Michelle Malkin, Thomas Sowell, Condaleeza Rice, Ann Coulter, and Alberto Gonzales) I wouldn’t be doing a service to my personal growth.

I even criticize myself and use my self as an example in not realizing one’s privileges.

I also clarify by what I mean by racism:

By racism I don’t mean the classical sense of the word but the contemporary sense of the word. For more detail and discussion see “Racism and White Supremacy.”

My piece is actually quite well thought out and written in a way that tries to backup my arguments with real evidence and not dominated with attacks on Maher’s character. It seems to me that Maher sees my pointing out his whiteness as an attack on his character which actually points out his continued blindness to his white privilege.

Maher writes:

nowhere in my column did I make or imply the blanket argument that Race Does Not Matter Ever, though this stand is attributed to me as the point from which both writers begin their debate.

Actually I never stated that Maher said “Race does not matter ever.” I’ve looked through it and haven’t seen that implied, nor did I mean it to be implied in such a simplistic way. But the cusp of his argument is actually that argument. It’s the thinking behind the words. Maher never specifically said that “race does not matter ever” but the reasons why his opinion piece came about and the actual underlying argument (whether conscious or not) in this society is that very statement. We did a content analysis on race and Maher wrote an opinion piece about diversity of opinions mattering and not diversity of race. Yet that argument lends itself to ignoring the realities of race and the realities of white privilege. Those whom are ignorant of their white privilege, such as Maher (Oh snap! An ad hominem!), tend to use that line of thinking, and that line of thinking ignores the reality of race in America and the overall Western world.

And speaking of ad hominems, Maher wrote:

reflecting less that they understood my ideas than that a white man’s thoughts on diversity issues may strike some audiences emotionally before they’re absorbed intellectually.

I’m being accused at not looking critically at his piece and not “absorbing it intellectually” because, you know, his argument is sooooooo over my head and is sooooo intellectual (oh woe is me). Of course, my entire content analysis was an exercising in analyzing Maher’s words critically and in an intelectual way with very little in ad hominem attacks and with no straw man arguments.

My argument was a critique of a line of thinking and of whiteness and not of Maher’s character (quite the nice guy in my opinion). Numerous times I give histories of whiteness and examples of white privilege and contemporary racist thought and of uncritical thinking. I even link previous blogs in my content analysis in order to further clarify my position.

Maher than quips:

The lesson as I see it from here is not to shy from saying things because people may get pissed: after all, pissed off people can be a lot of fun, and their writing can make working on the paper more engaging and exciting.

I guess people whom are critical of Maher’s point of view are just invitations to have quite a jolly good time instead of looking at the accusation and argument in hand and looking critically at one’s self.

There is much more I would like to say but in reality it was already said in my previous blog on Maher’s opinion piece. I was talking with my friend (and fellow Double Consciousness editor) Carlo Montemayor stating that I was looking forward to Maher’s response but that it would probably have little in the way of true analysis of my piece and in reality wouldn’t actually address any of the issues that I brought up. Sadly my predictions came true (Boo-yah! Chalk up another ad hominem for Jack!) since the cusp of his response was:

I didn’t expect to run my column without controversy or debate - it’s a galvanizing, inflammatory subject for a lot of people - but whatever the strengths and weaknesses of my arguments, I’m amazed by how quickly and vehemently the reaction involved personal attacks. The rampant assumption (and subsequent condemnation) regarding my personal history, in Stephens’ article especially, is alarming.

Diversity is a dense and difficult issue, and I don’t claim to have everything figured out; the debate rages on, as I know it must, and I expect I’ve still much to learn.

But I neither regret nor rescind my arguments, nor do I find much in the Double Consciousness critiques that truly, substantively addresses the stance I’ve taken - they’re rife with ad hominem attacks and straw man fallacies, reflecting less that they understood my ideas than that a white man’s thoughts on diversity issues may strike some audiences emotionally before they’re absorbed intellectually. After all, nowhere in my column did I make or imply the blanket argument that Race Does Not Matter Ever, though this stand is attributed to me as the point from which both writers begin their debate.

Again I end with:

Sadly, with thinking such as his, [X]Press will only continue to contribute to the everyday acceptance of white privilege, white supremacy, and the ignoring of the racial realities of America.

[X]Press Newspaper: An Example of White Privilege and Ignorance: An Analysis

Since Christine gave you guys the background over this sad state of affairs at the newspaper we work for I’m going to be breaking down Maher’s article (It’s not online, only in the paper) word by word to show the utter stupidity, and recklessness, of his (not to mention completely unaware of his own white privilege) argument. The article was called “A note on diversity from next semester’s newspaper editor.” and it appeared in issue 16 of volume 82 of our paper (May 17, 2007).

Maher opens up by saying:

Discussions of diversity always make me squeamish,

Diversity making a white hetero-sexual male squeamish, hmmm…Well, nothing new there really.

chiefly because the discussion is usually based on presumptions that fundamentally reinforce the bigotry such conversation are meant to combat.

This is a classical argument that many whites (and some people of color) make about talks on diversity. We should only judge people by their character and not by the content of their skin. Therefore we should just ignore diversity and view the world in a color-blind way.

Ok, I buy that (sort of), we should judge people based on the content of their character just as Martin Luther King, Jr. told us to do. But talks of diversity have nothing to do with the content of people’s character based on their skin color. What talks and discussions of diversity have to do with are looking at age old biases that are ingrained into our minds and souls. Discussions and talks on diversity are there to challenge our assumptions based on people’s race. In a society that is saturated in white privilege and heterosexual privilege we never encounter real genuine discussions on issues such as race and diversity in the newsroom because we are blind to it. It is ingrained in us to see white as the norm, heterosexuality as the norm, etc. So when there are a bunch of white people in the newsroom and in the paper we don’t question it or see anything wrong with it because that is what we’ve been taught to see as normal growing up (subconsciously and consciously). This is why we need to bring up questions of diversity in the workplace, newsroom, etc. because no one is there to bring them up.

And yet whenever someone tries to bring up questions of diversity there is always some white person, always, stating how this makes her or him “uncomfortable,” or, in Maher’s case, “squeamish. Yet that is why we need to bring up issues of diversity, because people are uncomfortable with it. We need to challenge our assumptions and bring us out of our comfort zone, if we don’t than we remain ignorant to the realities of America and to the realities of our own assumptions and privileges.

Maher than goes on to say about the photo content:

The auditing process seems to be no more sophisitcated than looking at people in the photos and concluding, “That’s a black guy; that’s a Chinese girl,” and so on.

I agree with Maher on this point. It’s an inexact science to look at photos and guess what someone’s race is. This is the reality of race, race doesn’t exist (see “What Is Race?“), it is not biological, it’s sociological. Race, especially the white “race” was constructed through privilege and through sociological presumptions that constantly changed over time. The Irish (an ethnicity) at first were considered Black (a race) and over a period of a few generations were excepted as white (a race based on privilege made up of different ethnic groups). Some light skinned Blacks could pass off as white (especially if they were half-white) to some extent, their ethnicity was African, or Black as it were, but in society’s eyes they could be seen (sort of) as white. Now, when looking at a photo everyone looking at that photo will see, “hmmm, a Asian girl reading a book,” or “Ah, a Black guy walking across the quad.” There is no exact science to it, this is how we’ve been taught by society to look at others, through race. This is why the [X]Press editors decided to do a photo analysis of issues one through fifteen, to see how the paper (through photographs) was portraying SF State’s population. This is how society will percieve the make-up of SF State’s student population (to some extent). Exact? Scientific? No, of course not, but neither is race, yet this is the reality that the auditors had to work with and what they found was quite disturbing.

The demographics of SF State are 36% white, 34% Asian, 16% Latino, 7% Black, 1% Native American, and 6% “All other responses.”

What the auditors found was that Whites were portrayed 47% of the time, a difference of 11%. Black’s 20% of the time (which is positive). But, Latinos were only portrayed 11% of the time, and the second largest racial demographic, Asians, were only portrayed 13% of the time, a negative 21% difference.

To this Maher states:

setting aside even the absurd conclusion that skin color and bone structure are teh defining elements of one’s cultural identity (remember, at the moment we were targeting the importance of representing cultures, not races), I’m astonished we’re accepting this particular definition of diversity with so little scrutiny.

It’s an encouraging thing that Maher knows that race and culture are two different things. But, at the same time, in America, race and culture are so intertwined it’s impossible to set aside the two in most people’s minds. Culture is what race was based upon in the first place. The Irish were culturally different from most Americans and were treated differently because of this. They had weird accents, strange and dangerous Catholic customs, wore cloths that were way out of date for their time, and had rituals that would make most White Anglo-Saxton Protestant U.S. citizens cringe in horror. Yet what happened to the Irish was a shift in their culture. They rejected their culture (for more see How the Irish Became White and my blog post “The Construction of Whiteness“) and accepted a more “white” cultural way of living of the classical WASP variety. Because of their light skin (which has to do with their geographic location in the globe) and because of their changing attitudes they became accepted as white, so much so that John F. Kennedy was elected president just a little over 100 years after the great migration of the Irish to America from their homeland. Their light skin had to do with their geographic location. Their geographic location obviously effected their culture in some way, their culture also had to do with their originally being classified as “Black” by the ruling elite and their culture also had to do with their later becoming white and being accepted by the ruling elite. Their race, i.e. being light skinned, was concrete in America, that is why the ruling class pitted the “white” Irish against the “Black” Africans. While the Irish were being oppressed by the same people who were oppressing Black Americans there was no other ethnic group more racist against Blacks than the Irish.

So, therefore, while race is a sociological construction based on a number of factors (being cultural, legal, and social), race is also, in a sense, concrete. It’s concrete in the way we interact with people, the way we perceive people, the way income is distributed in society, the way economic and ecological decisions can effect races differently. Just look at my home town San Francisco. There was (it was recently shut down) a PG & E power plant spewing toxic shit all over the Black Bay View Hunters-Point, but the white Pacific Heights had a fabulous view of the Golden Gate Bridge and wonderful fresh and clean sea breezes. Here we can see how race is concrete from an ecological standpoint, and an economic.

So, yes, it is absurd to view bone structure (whatever that means) and skin color as concrete examples of culture but it is also absurd to ignore the factors that race plays in America and how culture and race are obviously intertwined.

I’ve always struggled to maintain belief in the idea that what defines us as people are our thoughts, our feelings, and our actions.

Of course our thoughts, feelings, and actions define us as persons. I don’t think the editors who wanted this content analysis think any differently. Yet Maher is also ignoring the harsh reality of America and the Western world. People’s skin color defines who they are in other peoples minds. And the way other people define you, however unjustly this is, also defines, to a lesser or greater extent depending on the person, how you view your self. We only need to look at the bottom of this page to see what DuBois said about defining yourself through the lens of others.

“Always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.”

Yet Maher doesn’t see this, and justifably so. He doesn’t see this because he is white. His white skin is his shield. As the co-editor of the paper Ian Thomas told Maher in a rage on Thursday. “I don’t mean to insult you buy you are a white heterosexual male!” In society’s eyes that is not an insult but a “complement” and for Maher to not see it as otherwise shows us his complete obliviousness to his white privilege, his male privilege, and his heterosexual privilege.

What makes a community meaningfully diverse is a wealth of individual beliefs, perspectives and behavior, not a bunch of different-looking faces.

Again, I agree with what Maher is saying, as anyone would, but I disagree, again, in the context of why he is saying it.

Maher sees diversity as differences in beliefs, perspectives, and behaviors, and not as cultural and racial. Yet one gets different opinions, beliefs, perspectives, and behaviors when one has a culturally and racially diverse social group. Of course, I also accept his argument that if I had friends who were of every different race and gender and all thought the same (such as if I was Bill O’Reilly and my friends were Michelle Malkin, Thomas Sowell, Condaleeza Rice, Ann Coulter, and Alberto Gonzales) I wouldn’t be doing a service to my personal growth. Yet, one has to ask, people such as Rice and Malkin, how much of their “culture” have they given up to be accepted by whites. Will you more likely see a white person with an ultra-conservative person of color as a friend who doesn’t question their white privilege and white supremacy or will you more likely see as white person with a person of color as a friend who challenges their own racist views and white privilege. Chances are the former rather than the latter is more likely. And if this is the case does that mean because that white person who has a person of color as a friend make her or him less racist, nope, not by a long shot. Ah, such are the complexities of our 21st century America. Why can’t it be like the good ol’ days when you could be for Martin Luther King, Jr. and clamor for equal rights and yet still think that Blacks were “kinda lazy?” Well, for one, those days are still here with us right now, only we don’t have laws that help whites keep Blacks and other people of color “in their place.” But, I digress.

When we define diversity primarily in terms of what people look like, we give credence to the idea that a person is defined by those appearances. We accept and assume that societal forces are beyond each individual’s control to absorb and react to in his or her own fasion, and in so doing we demean and discourage individuality and help create the stereotypes we intend to dispel.

Indeed diversity is not solely on what a person “looks like” but the problem is that that argument is used to constantly justify why we shouldn’t be critically looking at race as a factor in our everyday lives and is used to keep people ignorant to the fact that race is a reality to millions of Americans in their everyday lives. Race isn’t a reality because those “crazy people of color” are making it a reality by “playing the race card,” it’s a reality because our society deems one race, the white race, the most important and educated race and the other races as unimportant, lazy, automotrans, illegals, etc. It is because of this reality that race plays an important role in people’s lives and why it plays an important role in how people’s lives our shaped.

Maher’s life has been shaped by the fact that he is white. He can say such things as “what defines us…are our thoughts, our feelings, and our actions” and that what diversity is, “is a wealth of individual beliefs” because Maher is a white male. Race and gender have never been issues for him growing up. The only time race has ever been an issue for him is if someone gives him a mirror and tells him that the reason he is privileged is because of the color of his skin. This makes Maher “squeamish.” To that I say welcome to the world of someone who is not white. This squeamish you feel when someone brings up diversity (how ever often that is for you) is a “squeamishness” that non-whites feel (subconsciously or consciously) every day based on the fact that in American society they are relegated to the fringes of everyday life. A perfect way of looking at this is if a young Asian child were to see the [X]Press everyday, she or he wouldn’t see a whole lot of Asian faces, this child would feel as if she our he was not “normal” when in reality Asians make up the second largest racial demographic at SF State. While this one little example may seem trivial it is not trivial when amplified to every single little thing in the everyday life of being America. (For more see “‘i wanna be white’,” “‘No! I”m Not Black, I’m White!’,” “World White News Coverage” “Psychological False Consciousness“).

Maher is oblivious to this. If he is surrounded by a sea of white faces who think differently and have different opinions on many things than he sees diversity. He’s blind to the fact that the people around him are all white. He’s blind to this not because of any moral superiority to someone who would see all of the white faces around him but instead is blind because he fails to look at his own privilege. The reality is, is that these white faces may have different opinions but including people from different races and cultures also adds to the diversity of the situation because people who come from different backgrounds can see certain things that others can’t, they’ve experienced things that others haven’t, and have different outlooks because of their experiences, gender, and race. Can a room filled with white Sean Maher’s see that racism still exists, and exists strongly, in America today? Of course not, as Maher has pointed out to us in his woefully ignorant opinion piece about diversity. Chances are these white people won’t realize racism still exists because of the simple fact that their whiteness has shielded them from issues of race. They don’t need to look at race because of their race, because their race is the dominant and normal race. And when someone tries to bring up race and diversity in a conversation they shut them down because they couldn’t possibly see how race is important.

Their white privilege blinds them to their own ignorantness in even thinking such a thought that race isn’t important!

Yet, if there was a room filled with whites, Asians, Native Americans, Blacks, Latinos, females, and males than they could point out the many factors that shape this country, such as race, class, gender, because they’ve eperienced it themselves.

A good example comes from my own experience. I was having lunch with one of my good friends who’s Pilipina and White and is a lesbian. She mentioned to me that the Dance Department at SF State has a very gendered view of the world and is very hetero-centric. Now this had never dawned on me. I had seen a few of the performances and noticed that there were a few homo-centric pieces in it and thought, “Oh, that’s nice.” My heterosexuality blinded me to the fact that yet, there were a few pieces that did have homosexual themes in them but the vast majority (probably 90%) had heterosexual themes in them with traditional gender roles. I was blinded by my heterosexual privilege. But my friend, who is a lesbian, could see quite clearly how the Dance Department is dominated by tradition gender roles and heterosexual tendencies. She could see this clearly because of her own experiences. Are you to tell me if I had a vast array of white heterosexual friends that one of them could have told me the same? I think not. While someone who was heterosexual could have seen this more than likely someone who wasn’t heterosexual could see it more plainly because of their status in society.

Likewise, people of different races have different views and opinions of this country will call America. Also, think of the aburdity of the situation. You have a group of people who have different opinions, different ways of seeing the world, and different ways of thinking, and they are all white! Are you to tell me that’s not significant!? All of their views cannot acknowledge the simple and straight up fact that there are a bunch of white people dominating a certain physical space!? That’s the problem here. Maher isn’t acknowledging the fact that while whites make up only 36% of the school’s demographics they make up nearly half of all people pictured in our newspaper. Yet he is telling us that diversity does matter? But diversity in opinion and not racial? Even though race is still important in this country and that race effects the way people are perceived and the way people percieve the world. This is not just wholly ignorant but disgusting as well!

Skin color and gender are often important in determining the experiences that shape our believes and the way we behave around others…At the same time, I must make clear that my first priority will always be to promote a diversity defined by ideas and perspectives, above and beyond the aesthetic differences that have for so long afflicted our efforts to join together.

Again, Maher keeps telling us that diversity of opinions matter, not diversity of race. Yet while people may have different opinions leaving out factors of race leave out a vast more array of opinions than ever. Maher, as I have stated above, seems to be completely blind to his privilege. Think of it this way. If one touts that they respect diversity of opinion and what to challenge traditional beliefs and yet one it comes down to it their actions create a situation were whites dominate those “diversities of opinion” than isn’t this showing us how utterly ignorant this person is of race in America and whiteness? If the content in question is only content that caters to a white audience how diverse are we being really? Are the diverse issues of opinions issues of the Bible being taught in schools, styles of dance, religious beliefs, capitalist vs. socialist? And if so who is representing what side? What if all of the faces representing those sides are white. A white atheist vs. a white Muslim; a white capitalist vs. a white socialist; a white land developer vs. a white environmentalist. Is this diversity, I ask you?

The simple answer is obviously no. It’s not diversity if whites are dominating the discussion. Not only does this ignore the racial history in America were whites have dominated every single discussion about every single issues since the founding of the Jamestown settlement exactly 400 years ago, but it also ignores present day racial realties. The reality is, is that today, in the 21st century, whites still dominate the discussion, whites still hold economic advantages (see “Living on the Other Side of the Color Line“) over people of color by staggering amounts, and that whites are completely unaware, as Maher is, of their own privilege in American society and on the fact that when someone brings up diversity someone will be attacked by a person like Maher, but when someone like Maher makes statements such as “diversity of opinion” matter and not “race” that person is perceived in this society as having the upper hand and when someone attacks the wholly ignorant and racist[1] ideas of someone like Maher than that person will be called out as using the “race card,” as if a person like Maher hasn’t been using the race card since birth.

A person who is Latino, who grew up in East Los Angeles and who experienced racism first hand from the LAPD (I, unlike some, do not dismiss the allegations of abuse just because they are Latino and poor) and from the larger society in general will obviously hold different views than a white person who grew up in a white suburb and who never had to deal with race. Both might be liberal and both might decry certain things in this society, yet one has truly experienced how the “other half” lives in America and the other one might, like Maher, be wholly ignorant to why racial diversity matters in the newsroom, the news pages, and in society at large. With diversity of cultures and with diversity in races obviously comes diversity in opinions, views, and outlooks.

If Maher’s vision rings true and the paper has diverse opinions in it and yet those diverse opinions are being spoken only by whites (and by a majority of times male) who will be there to have the opinion. “Hey you stupid mother fuckers! You’re a bunch of white people spouting issues that mostly effect bougie whites! Where are the opinions and articles that matter to the working class, to Latinos, to Asians, to Blacks, to Native Americans!? Were are those!?”

Sadly, that opinion would not be there, and that opinion is the most important of all because it forces whites to view themselves as they truly are, as privileged people whom have outlooks that are obviously different from other people who aren’t of their racial category. And yes, that opinion will make people like Maher “squeamish,” but their few minutes of “squeamishness” will not amount to the feelings of what many people in this country have gone through, and continue to go through, because of their color. And that “squeamishness” might help people like Maher realize their wrongheaded and ignorant views.

Maher ends his piece with this:

The true power of the press lies in its close communication with the people. With an engaged and scrutinous [sic] audience, I am confident we can build a newspaper of true diversity and integrity.

Sadly, with thinking such as his, [X]Press will only continue to contribute to the everyday acceptance of white privilege, white supremacy, and the ignoring of the racial realities of America.

Notes:

1. By racism I don’t mean the classical sense of the word but the contemporary sense of the word. For more detail and discussion see “Racism and White Supremacy.”

[X]press Newspaper: An Example of White Privilege and Ignorance

Damn, I have never felt so awkward, disheartened, angry, and yet so very proud before in my life. A few days ago while I was sitting in the journalism lab at SF State, talking to the new [X]press newspaper editors for next semester, Ian Thomas, the current head editor, stormed into the room consumed with frustration. He was pissed off at the soon-to-be editor Sean Maher for his column that we published in this week’s current issue called “A Note on Diversity from Next Semester’s Newspaper Editor.” (For content analysis of this article click here) Basically, Maher was inadvertently saying that race doesn’t matter and that we need to be colorblind.

Several weeks ago [X]press had made the decision to put together a race package and with that a content analysis on the demographics of our photos for the last 16 weeks. However, in his column, Maher expressed that “what makes a community meaningfully diverse is a wealth of individual beliefs, perspectives and behavior, not just a bunch of different-looking faces. When we define diversity primarily in terms of what people look like, we give credence to the idea that a person is defined by those appearances.” By saying this, it was if he was undermining the purpose of why we had even decided to do a content analysis on the paper in the first place. [X]press wanted to determine how accurately we were representing our diverse campus community in our news coverage. Like many other mainstream news periodicals, we found that we had not been and now we were asking our readers to please keep us in check.

Thomas flung the paper behind his head in outrage, exclaiming that he was pissed off. He was also upset that the team of editors did not consult him about this editorial because if he would have known, he wouldn’t have allowed it to run. Thomas also didn’t want our readers to get the impression that this represented [X]press’ true beliefs. He told Maher that what he had said was very typical of a white, straight male to say. Ironically, both editors are white, straight male college students. But obviously, one is more conscious of class, racial privilege, while the other remains color-blind, ignorant, and oblivious to his privilege.

I understand what Maher was trying to get at, that we shouldn’t judge people on the basis of the color of their skin but by their ideas and perspectives. However, we can’t deny the fact that we do. He went on to talk about how he strives to see people as individuals and not necessarily as the group they’re part of or associate themselves with. Well, if he wants to be representative of our SF State community, the majority of students agree that race/ethnicity is really important to their identity that helps define who they are on this campus, according to SF State’s Campus Climate survey, explained Jamie Newton, an SF State social psychology who I interviewed for my piece on subtle racism (Apparently, Maher didn’t read my piece on subtle racism that I had written a week before). You can’t disassociate an individual from his or her group(s), especially if a person defines him or herself by that group. The survey also found that a substantial number of minorities –– not more than 50 percent –– said they sometimes or often felt mistreated on campus because of their affiliation with racial, religious, or sexual orientation, etc. groups.

So now tell me that race doesn’t matter.

Not to boast, but I was the one who came onto the [X]press staff as a Filipino American, a person of color, this semester talking about why diversity is important and started the hoopla on it. I pitched my stories that included people of diverse races and backgrounds and then I argued that we didn’t have enough stories on the Black student population on campus and in turn, wrote one. I also found that students do experience subtle racism at SF State on a daily basis (Just because we’re diverse and liberal, doesn’t mean we can’t be racist). Now, if I wasn’t a person of color, would I have wanted to cover these stories? Probably not, because these are stories that aren’t always easy for people who aren’t of color to tackle and comprehend. I’m not saying that every person of color is conscious and that all those who are white aren’t. Don’t get me wrong, I know there are white, conscious people, who aren’t afraid to acknowledge social inequalities ( i.e. my boyfriend, Jack Stephens, the founder of this blog; my editor, Ian Thomas). However, it seems to me, not being affected by the struggle is an excuse used by many white people to not address it.

To some, being color-blind may be a good thing. That race doesn’t matter. But how can we ever be color-blind when race is so ingrained into our minds, daily conversations, thoughts, institutional structures, systems, ideals, how we perceive things, etcetera, etcetera? Honestly, we’ve been colorblind for far too long to the extent that it’s blinded us to the subconscious racism and racial privilege that exists. Instead of confronting these issues, we hasten to overlook and fail to address them along with other societal inequalities that have been detrimental, yet prevalent factors within American society. We’ve been socialized by our institutions, media, society, to not respond to race and yet, it’s one of the first things our subconscious processes when identifying, categorizing, and relating to someone.

I was very disappointed by our race package. By the end, I was the only one working on it. Why? Maybe I was just too late in turning my couple stories, maybe people just got busy focusing on other things– but for whatever reason, it was just another example of how race and its entourage of stereotypes, assumptions, and judgments, are once again shoved onto the back burner and neglected.

I was so proud that Thomas spoke up and that the situation literally brought him to tears– a conscious, privileged male who’s attempted walk in the shoes of “the other” apart from his own. With all do respect, I can’t say the same for Maher (Sidenote: Maher was willing to continue this dialogue and carry it into the next issue to better address diversity).

Is Blogging Just A Game?

Nezua Limón Xolagrafik-Jonez posts an essay (which is making it’s rounds in the blogosphere) about racism in the blogosphere and blogging being an avenue for change, along with many other issues, in his blog The Unapologetic Mexican:

Any black or brown person who becomes political and stands vocally for Brown or Black Pride must become adept at handling the inevitable response. When people’s bedrock views on race and place and culture and national identity are offended, they do not always respond directly. In fact, as we all understand on an intellectual level that it is Wrong to Hate on Minorities for being a Minority (exercising rights that whites expect defaulted to themselves) it is the one motive that is never stated, even when it is involved. I know this because I deal with many of these responses in the course of my writing. To the one dropping the comment—For you, talking about race is a necessity; for us, it is a luxury was a mild but telling one—their words are very cutting and original. But they do not realize how many times we see and hear these familiar hateful shapes dressed loosely in various iterations of transparent garb.

“White” People of Color Bloggers

Donna writes:

I won’t name names, because I am not interested in starting a new flame war. But these white POC bloggers tend to not write about racial issues but say things like, I am glad I can talk about anything, and not race, because my readers are colorblind. Psst, the only reason your readers are colorblind is because you do not talk about race. Or their racial posts boil down to, “Oh my, racism is bad and a problem, what do you (white folks) think?” And then bails from the conversation, does not give any direction or insight, because the white POC has none. They actually sound the same as clueless white liberals who want to start a discussion about race to make themselves sound like they care, but they haven’t done the research, read and/or commented on POC blogs, or have actual relationships with POC in the real world, to know anything because they don’t really care. These white POC don’t care either, they got theirs and that’s all that matters. But they know that their white fans are expecting something and have to throw them a shallow, cursory, post about race that makes everyone feel good and enlightened.

Erase Racism Carnival April 2007 Edition

It’s finally here. The April 2007 edition of the Erase Racism Carnival. It started out promising with some good posts being sent to my e-mail box. But after that it tailed off with no posts (and some pretty bad ones) being sent to me at all. So I sent out a frantic word to all I knew (thanks Yolanda, Carmen, Krish [and Blogbharti], and Belledame222) so I could get some posts sent to me. And it worked. So here now are the posts I have received for this month’s Erase Racism Carnival.

Fighting Oppression Within the Movement:

Cynical Anti-Orientalist:

I think it’s about time that we recognize the levels of oppressions within our communities. If we validate one kind of -ism then why do we subscribe to another? It’s about time that we discuss these sorts of issues in our communities without writing them off as “not the priority” or “not our problem.” Women and LGBTIQs are just as much a part of our community as men and straight people. So why is it that women and LGBTIQs rarely have a voice in our community or bring their identities into our community without being questioned?

The Silence of Our Friends:

In Bewildered Part II, I mentioned the pain of finding out that someone I thought of as a friend was only being my friend as a favor. In the comments of the first Bewildered post BlackAmazon can’t get past the gall of white women saying they expect special commendations for loving their black husbands and mixed race children. There should be no special recognition for doing what should be normal, loving your partner and children no matter what their race! Expectations of unconditional love, gratitude, and undying loyalty no questions asked, are how you might feel about a dog you have rescued from the pound; not a real friend or ally.

Rachel’s Tavern:

I also think that those in the multiracial movement who continuously attack African Americans in the name of asserting their own identity, as if it is completely distinct from the African American experience are joining a racist bandwagon. It should be duly noted that some of the biggest supporters of multiracial categories have been conservative Republicans such as Newt Gingrich (Williams 2006). To me this is a big red light–why would conservative Republicans, who are not generally proponents of racial Civil Rights support such a cause? One possibility it that allowing people to check multiple boxes doesn’t really change the racial order much at all. It doesn’t require a realignment of economic resources; it’s not an affirmative action program that could expand opportunities for groups traditionally left out. Another more sinister theory is that Republicans’ support multiracial activists because they see it as an opportunity to promote the idea that the US is colorblind and racism is over. For some of these Republicans the next logical step is Proposition 54 in California, which would have put an end to all collection of racial data (Prop. 54 did not pass.). This is not likely the end that many multiracial activists want, and it is my sense that multiracial activists are being used by the right in some of the cases to help prove that “racism is over.”

Beautiful, Also, Are the Souls of My Black Sisters:

Never having been in any way a fan of Marx, socialism, nor especially communism (well, afterall, I am a child of the “duck-and-cover era”), I never could reconcile myself with an ideology that said all “We have to do is get rid of capitalism, and everything will be hunky-dory.” Even at a very young age, still trying to understand communism, I still saw nothing but illogical insanity in that line of thinking and the concepts of communism. Besides, white males will never allow for socialism to reign in capitalist-driven America. As long as it means that EVERYONE gets a piece of the pie, as opposed to just white males hogging all of the pie to themselves, this country will go on working overtime to keep white males in power. And there is no way in Hell that white-male run America will give up power and privilege without a bloody to-the-death fight.

ebogjonson:

Give it a rest. This deep-thought, existential, misunderstood-victim act is as put on as Knipp’s’ blackface show (which, for the record, I researched when all this blew up because I was curious as to what the fuss was about.) No one is suggesting that if Shirley Q. Liquor went away the lives of black women would magically improve. What Jasmyne Cannick and other black gays and lesbians are arguing, though, is that the overwhelming embrace (and then defense) of Knipp’s character makes them feel unwelcome among their purported (white) brothers and sisters in the LGBT community. This isn’t about utopia, it’s about deliberate and ongoing betrayal by people who pretend to be your friends and compatriots. It’s exactly Jane Hamsher sitting up on a nationally-recognized, progressive high horse while simultaneously encouraging and abetting yahoo-racism on her website under the cover of fake “punk” rebelliousness. The adamant refusal of Knipp and other white folks to acknowledge the possibility that the character might legitimately insult members of their own community (their refusal aided and abetted by LGBT talking androids, of course) is the root of the problem here, not some insistence on blaming poor, innocent Charles Knipp for the problems of the world.

The Primary Contradiction:

I’m sharing this story with you all not to shame this person nor to start any public battles, but to relate an experience shared by too many people of color in the progressive movement. Anytime we try to hold white allies accountable for their actions, we take a huge risk. Whether that is the loss of a personal relationship, a smeared reputation, or simply the wrath of someone whose ego we have bruised, people of color in all strata of the left have an uphill battle in challenging white supremacy. Good people, you and I have seen and experienced many examples of white ally catastrophe.

Racism, The Subtle Everyday Occurrence:

Cynical Anti-Orientalist:

Throughout my childhood, because we were low-income, my family was always being used in the racist scheme of divide & conquer. Because they worked with other low-income people of color, they always stereotyped and racialized them as being lazy and dumb. I am sure that their white co-workers told them that Chinese immigrants like my parents are really the smart and hard-working ones, as to other immigrants of color. My parents were the “model minority” and they bought into it like many others. My mother would always justify her racism by stating that even though she was once poor, she was able to overcome her class status while other people (mainly Black, Latinos and Southeast Asians according to her) couldn’t overcome their poverty because they were “lazy” and “unmotivated.” For those of you who do not believe/have not heard of model minority imperialism, my parents are a classic example (this is not to put blame on my parents but to point out how people of color, throughout history have been pitted against each other again and again to maintain white supremacist policies and benefits).

Jamila Akil:

The reason for the difference in treatment between nouveau riche blacks and wealthy whites is clear: race. Those who look with disdain upon one and with indifference to the other do so because subconsciously they believe that blacks either don’t legitimately earn money, don’t know how to handle money, and/or don’t deserve their money. A white businessmen who spends millions in opulence is perceived as being worthy of his fortune and thus deserving to spend it in any fashion. Poor black men who may or not have flunked out of high school, may or may not have criminal records, and whose only clearly visible talent is rhyming about cash, diamonds, and sex are seen as foolhardy deviants not deserving of anything.

Fetch me my axe:

Via Vox Aemliae: think the Shaquanda Cotton case was outrageous? Now they’re arresting kindergarteners, no shit:

…

Well, apart from the beatings and emotional blackmail (details at the link, it is upsetting) and the various abuses by -everyone else- who ever had “responsibility” for the thirteen year old and her not having anyplace else to go, no particular reason.

Oh, well, except for this: she’s still subject to arrest by the State. Prostitution is against the law, you know. And no, her age doesn’t make for any more tender treatment.

Zuky:

Putting aside Asshat Imus and his irrelevant defense of his now-infamous epithet, there’s something that’s been bugging me for ages about the manner in which the “Black community” and “Black culture” are often discussed by certain white folks and in the mass media. Having recently observed the discursive efficacy of Venn diagrams, let me put it this way (perhaps somewhat roughly but I think you’ll get the idea)

Racialicious:

Like my friend Field Negro so eloquently alluded to, this Imus business is par for the course for those of us LWB (Living While Black). I don’t like it, I don’t condone it, but do I expect it? Sadly, yes. Because, just in case anybody is late coming to the party, there are a lot of ignorant people in the house. To narrow the group even further, there are a lot of ignorant racists dancing poorly, to their own rhythm. And to whittle it down even one degree further, there are a lot of ignorant racists throwing their hands in the air like they just don’t care, ’cause they really don’t think they’re racists. I’m fairly certain Don Imus is one of those clueless types. The type that thinks that having a couple of black drinking buddies gives them free reign to say whatever and end up getting left at the bar (or in the studio) wondering “Hey…where did everybody go??

The Bipolar View:

I was sorting my mail tonight, and came across a catalog full of cheap tacky stuff. The catalog was clearly aimed at white people. Every model in the catalog appeared to be a nonthreatening middle-class white woman, and besides, who else would buy this stuff besides white people?

There are problems with manufacturing cheap stuff than nobody needs. The production of this garbage harms workers who are exposed to toxic materials and toxic wages, and there are costs to the environment.

But there are other problems. That catalog contained this…

All About Race:

What draws me back to my encounter with Freckles, is not that it’s the most recent time I’ve been called a nigger. It’s happened since, and in Chinese no less. And it’s not that a usually rational adult like me can devolve in a New York minute into a teasing, taunting ten year old. Nor is it even that I have no relationship with my father and have had no contact with him for more than 20 years. Or that, to the best of my knowledge, my father is not now nor has ever been in the auto sales business. What’s interesting is that Freckles not only knew about the “black tax,” but he used it against me as a slur.

Race In The Workplace:

There were so many things wrong with this exchange I couldn’t even wrap my head around it. Did Pat think we were all in on a secret plot to sneak in as many down-low Asians as possible with European last names? And could she have made it any more obvious that to her, “half Chinese” and “all-American” were mutually exclusive categories?

It seems to me that “all-American,” like “inner-city,” is one of those code words that people use when they don’t want to sound racist. But with or without the euphemism, I heard Pat loud and clear.

The Transracial Korean Adoptee Nexus:

Concurrently the 80s and 90s brought about yet another wave of transnational transracial adoption of Asian babies-mostly from Eastern Asia such as Korea and China. This new transracial integer in the racial equation of adoption paired with Newsweek’s growing “Model Minority” image of Asian Americans drove a deep racial and hierarchical wedge between Asians and other racial minorities (primarily Blacks and Latinos). A humanitarian and philanthropically perversed neo-liberalism birthed a massive exportation of Asian babies from the so-called “arms of conflict and poverty” to the warm embrace of safety and American Dream idealism.

The Transracial Korean Adoptee Nexus:

I’ve spoke with some transnational, transracial adoptees who refuse to consider this logic when assessing the immigration debate today. These are questions that need to be asked, and need to be used to address the power structure in this country that allows babies of color who are adopted into white families, not only a full array of class privileges and resources, but more importantly, how immigrant families of color enter this country wanting a better life for themselves and their family (just as our adopted parents are looking to provide us) and are unable to get the jobs, access to social services/resources, insurance, healthcare and much much more which we as adult adoptees now take for granted. While we may have it easy as adoptees who speak perfect English, and who have class privileges and resources to overcome hardships that we may face in our futures, we must take a firm stance on immigration.

A Black Girl:

This whole episode made me think about black women and madness. Madness as anger, and madness as psychological distress. I’m thinking about this with all eyes open, knowing that psychology has certainly over-diagnosed and under-diagnosed black folks for the past century and a half. I’m thinking about that, about how psychology has looked to our brains to pathologize deviance and primitivism. I’m thinking about how serious the affects of racism has caused TRAUMAS within the black community that actually warrant spiritual (not psychological) evaluation. I’m thinking about black folks’ skepticism about psychiatry–how depression as an illness is a white thing. (Although WE invented a whole series of musical genres around depression: blues, hip hop…)

Zuky:

many white critics of gangster culture are actually talking about Black people. And the reason is simple: they’re racist. They look at Tony Soprano or Don Corleone and they think, He’s a good guy who does some bad things. They look at 50 Cent or Snoop Dogg and they think, Black people are dirty thugs.

Team Rainbow:

In a series of repetitive, attempted one-liners, DiCaprio keeps talking about this monolith Africa and how God abandoned this land, and how the natives believe the dirt used to be white but turned red over time with blood (that is absolute fucking export-quality bullshit concentrate no one thinks that unless they’ve been smoking some bad warporn). What annoyed me the most is that his position is actually portrayed with some sympathy in the movie, as if “Africa” did this to him and not vice bloody versa. Look, you started your career with mercenary fighting and ended it with conflict diamonds. You’re hardly in a position to complain that Africa is depressing. Yeah. God did this.

Feline Formal Shorts:

“Colorblind” is one of those terms that makes POC shudder. The message is good, but the practice is often more frustrating than “normal” racism. [1] At least when someone yells at you, they aren’t claiming to be your friend, or insulting your intelligence by pretending that they didn’t say anything wrong.

The North Star:

we are aware that the africa of public imagination is not nuanced. she usually appears as one of abject poverty and misery, devoid of cultural richesse and private/habitual life experiences (ie love, social life) and is, instead, besotted with economic/political trouble. whether that is in fact the case in congo, journalism and esp. photojournalism which has the weighty task of assigning image to language (solidifying our definition of what a place is), should take to specify as much as possible, to avoid leaving assumptions to do the thinking for us.

Whiteness and Other Issues:

Julian Real:

The most powerful group of people in the U.S. are white men with corporate control. An apology from one of their more public employees does not touch the fact that these specific white men are in charge of what’s going on. They call the shots as they fire the guns. Their press-people make the occasional public statement, agreeing with the public that “something bad happened here.” Their staff decide what happens to our mass of emails and letters of protest. (Would you like to wager as guess as to what happens to them?) These white men, not the public, not the courts, dole out the consequences based on how much money they and their shareholders will lose should this get “really ugly.” And the “really ugly” part isn’t what the human rights violating celebrity did, but what the protesters do in response.

No Snow Here:

I honestly don’t think that my friend connected the actual people of color he knew in real life to people of color as defined by racist nazi hatespeech. Or maybe I just hope this? Otherwise, how could he stand to be around us, if he believed in that doctrine? I clashed with him continually on this issue. I felt as if I was debating whether or not I was worth anything. We had been friends for years. And none of our friends backed me up. They all said I needed to allow him his right to an opinion. –Why are we always called upon to “respect” opinions like these? It is like an affirmation of our subordinance; why would anyone ask this of another human being? Hateful!– After venting to a friend about how frustrated I was by the situation, she went straight to our hangout spot and told everyone all the things I had said. I was completely ostracized from the group. Fortunately I had other, non-nazi friends to live out senior year with.

Beautiful, Also, Are the Souls of My Black Sisters:

White men were the ones who started calling black women hos (whores/wenches) during slavery and Jim Crow segregation. And looking at America’s long history of racist hatred of black women by white men, Imus was just saying out loud what many white men already think of black women. Imus is just another white man being a white man: a race of men who have for centuries committed the most brutish, the most perverse and the most depraved abombinations that one group of people (white men) have shown towards another group of people (black women).

Tiny Cat Pants:

The problem is not that black folks are just sitting back quietly accepting whatever vomits forth from the record industry; the problem is that most white people don’t have the thoughts and opinions of their black peers even on their radar. I doubt they even know how to find out what regular black people are thinking and saying about things.

And why would they? Because as much as they grouch about Sharpton and Jackson, Sharpton and Jackson are on their TV screens spouting out opinions. Most white people don’t have to do any work to discover what’s on the minds of Sharpton or Jackson, whereas hearing from actual black people who can’t get on cable takes a little more effort. Far better to triangulate from the appearances of black folks on the news, ESPN, and BET what’s going on in the black community.

Never mind that that’s a little like watching CMT in order to figure out what white Nashvillians think about life.

The Unapologetic Mexican:

Because that was their gift. Not shrinking their hate, but expanding it. Expanding it by thinking of me as non-Mexican or as an Honorary White. In return for the “gift,” (and what true gifts demand reciprocation?) I was expected, then, to let go of any reaction to insult or hate leveled at myself and my kin. This is sometimes also pronounced “a-sim-uh-lay-shun.” Drop the affiliation, the resolute pride, la historia that favors the other side.

Fire On the Mountain:

Many of these areas remain lily white to this day. In fact, when Jaspin completed five years of research by writing a 16 part series for the Cox group, their flagship paper, the Atlanta Journal Constitution wouldn’t publish it. It laid bare the truth about places like suburban Forsyth County, the whitest in Georgia, whose racism the AJC had been prettying up for decades. The debate over the series was covered by Creative Loafing, Atlanta’s alternative weekly.

Overall, though, my impression is that Eliot Jaspin concentrates on the period from the end of Reconstruction through the 20s when a massive wave of ethnic cleansing took place.

diaries of an eccentric nerd athaba hijibiji:

I never thought of myself as a WOC until I came to this country. Similarly “Women of Color feminism” was not a term that existed in my political lingo until I was 22 or so.I came to the writings of US based wocs during a very crucial period of my life. I was feeling extremely frustrated both with the masculinisms of the leftist student groups I was working with and the short-sightedness of some of the more mainstream Western, white feminist texts. The WOC feminist literatures helped me to develop a fresh insight into lots of things during this critical juncture in my life.

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Student Labor Action Coalition

Color-Blindness

Magniloquence writes a three part series on color-blindness, the first part being personal, the second part being more academic, the third part tying it all together, in her blog Feline Formal Shorts:

Part I:

Again. Discussions of privilege and the shameful lack of diversity on our über progressive campus occur. Racism is categorically denied, not just by admissions, but by students at large. Walking down the path to class, I overhear a loudly spoken remark between two girls, vehement: “Well if black people don’t want to come here, we don’t want them here!” Carefully not looking at me, but loud enough that I couldn’t miss it. After all, who wouldn’t want to go there? Our school was wonderful, and if students of color weren’t applying, accepting, or staying, well… that was just because they couldn’t hack it, or weren’t interested in our intellectual culture. It couldn’t possibly be a hostile environment. Nobody said anything about race. “True” diversity is all intellectual, anyway… we shouldn’t be focusing on anything as unimportant (and racist) as race.

Again, and again, and again.

I listened to my friends complain whenever race came up. I listened to my boyfriend gripe about me bringing it up again. Nevermind that I was a sociology student, and it’s kind of a big part of my field. We’d achieved equality. That there were some bad people out there, well.. that sucked, but it didn’t mean we had to keep talking about this race thing. Or that gender thing. We were just being mean to the rich white straight guys. He was being silenced. He was unwelcome. He didn’t see race at all. Why did we have to? Wasn’t that just paving the road for racism?

Part II:

1) It paints “color” as the problem. The problem is coded as race, not that people are racist.

I don’t want to be not black, I want not to be a problem. When you say “I don’t think of you as black,” you are ignoring me, plain and simple. I am black. That’s part of who and what I am. As Nezua (paraphrasing Rafael) said: “if you are COLORBLIND, then you don’t see my struggles.”

It is not my fault that race relations are fucked up. If you cannot simultaneously think about me as being a person of color and a regular person, a friend, a smart person, a potential employee, or what have you, that is your problem and you need to fix it.

2) It doesn’t address the underlying power structures. By pretending everyone is white, it implicitly casts “white” as better than any “race.” It just moves everyone into the same category, without addressing how and why those categories are constructed, or what might be messed up about constructing hierarchies the way they currently are.

3) It relies on the framework of white as the unmarked default. It only really works if you agree that the dominant cultural paradigm here is not a white one, and that white isn’t a racial and cultural framwork at all. Because otherwise, it would be “whitewashing,” and not “colorblindness.” You can only pretend to ignore race as long as you steadfastly deny any racial taint in the system you want everyone to hew to…

Part III:

I would love to see a world where we didn’t have to be blind to anything. Where we weren’t ignoring difference or making it unimportant, but actively celebrating it. Where being brown could be as important to a person as being a dancer or a blogger or a mom, and just as recognized by friends. And yes, as irrelevant to hiring and loan applications and school attendence as being a dancer or a blogger (or a mom, in theory, though we’re not exactly there yet on the motherhood front either). A good thing to be valued and explored, not something to move out of the way so we don’t trip over it. I’d like that.

But we’re not there yet, and I’ll take what I can get. If that’s focusing on individuals to the extent of not caring about race, that’s a start. If that’s pretending that race is as unimportant as eye color, that’s a start. If it helps bring about a world where I don’t have to worry about my children being teased, or held back, or hurt… then it’s a good start.