Racial Microaggressions

[kelkyag]

Signal boosting: Racial Microaggressions.

I know I'm much more aware of equivalents with respect to gender and religion, and will try to be more attentive to such things in general. By all means call me on it ...

Comments

[countertorque]

I got off at "Microinsults: Verbal, nonverbal, and environmental communications that subtly convey rudeness and insensitivity that demean a person's racial heritage or identity. An example is an employee who asks a co-worker of color how he/she got his/her job, implying he/she may have landed it through an affirmative action or quota system."

I'll remember to never ask any non-white person how they got their job or where they grew up.

[kelkyag]

Tone and wording matter immensely in a question like that, and there are potentially a lot of assumptions in it about networking. I would like to think well enough of you to believe that you would never ask such a question in the sort of accusative or derogatory tone that implies a lack of proper qualifications.

But if you don't trust yourself with that, feel free never to ask any woman how she got her job, either. I've been lucky enough not to run into that sort of nonsense at work, but I ran into "the things girls are doing these days" from male professors a couple of times, and I can't say it made me enthusiastic about taking their classes.

[dcltdw]

This is the crux of privilege, isn't it? We have the privilege of never having anyone wonder if we got our jobs through affirmative action or a quota system. I think it'd be nice if other people had the same privilege.

What makes all of this hard is that there isn't a hard and fast rule that works. It's as kelkyag says: tone and wording matter immensely.

Trying to simplify a complicated system leads to one of two non-working answers: never engage anyone (as you wrote), or label all of this as "too PC" (what I used to think for ages).

[desireearmfeldt]

(Smack me if I'm out of line, but I've always been kind of curious about this...)

In this sort of discussion, you usually seem to identify as white. But you have always had an asian last name, and you're asian-looking enough that I would be surprised if no one ever identifies you as asian. So, I was wondering whether you ever find yourself on the other end of the privilege/racism dynamic?

[dcltdw]

(Smack me if I'm out of line, but I've always been kind of curious about this...)

It's fine by me; I'm more wondering if I'm out-of-line with what mikka wants on her lj. :/

Short answer: yeah, I frequently forget I'm Asian, not White. The only time I've ever been the non-privileged race was when I was working in EMS, where suddenly I felt very Asian and not White.

[kelkyag]

I brought the topic up, and am happy to host civil discussion. I can friends-lock the entry if that would be more comfortable for the people who'd care to discuss.

Racism (or any of a host of other -isms) doesn't come up often closest-circle conversation for me, with the upshot that my opinions are poorly-developed, that I'm pretty thoroughly ignorant of my friends' opinions and attitudes, and that I have little sense of how I come across to them. I'd be interested in anything from philosophy to anecdotes to suggestions for improvement.

[dcltdw]

I already use an RSS reader (Google Reader), so I've found it to be very useful to just add various blogs to that.

[kelkyag]

I've picked up a couple of feminist blogs (which intermittently also cover other -isms) that way, but haven't found one that's focused on racism and down at my racism-101 level. Ideally I'd like to find something that's not 90%+ "things to be outraged about" (also a problem on the feminist side of things). Any suggestions? May I borrow your list of RSS feeds to thumb through?

[remcat]

There is a woman who writes about racism very ... accessibly? Not sure if that's the right word. She and her wife are raising two girls, both adopted and both black, and she also teaches writing. Well-written and well-reasoned.

It took some looking, but here are her blogs (she's moved hosts a couple times):
http://www.waitingfornat.blogspot.com/
http://www.lilysea.blogs.com/
http://peterscrossstation.wordpress.com/

She writes about the kids, being lesbian parents, adoption issues, raising black kids when you're white, and more.

[kelkyag]

Thank you!

[kirisutogomen]

The thing that especially irritated me about the article was that the author(s) assume that all perceptions of racist behavior are accurate. I read all the way to the end hoping to find some acknowledgment of the unfortunate reality of people perceiving racism (and being genuinely hurt by the perceived racism) in cases without any actual racism. Apparently despite a lifetime of suffering actual racism that you would think would prime them for expectation of racism, no person of color ever misperceives innocent behavior. I can only wish I had such magic powers of perfect perception.

[kelkyag]

Words or actions can be hurtful or discouraging along racial lines without being intended as racism. I think this is worth pointing out and trying to avoid.

People who intend -- or claim to intend -- no racism can still have racially linked biases in their selection criteria. There are studies out there that present otherwise identical resumes with names of different presumed ethnicities or genders on them to people/hiring managers, and show decided biases in who they selected. I think this is worth pointing out and trying to avoid.

A behavior need not be intended to harm to cause harm.

[kirisutogomen]

I agree. I also think there's a meaningful difference between innocently asking a co-worker when she's going to quit full-time work to get married and have kids and innocently asking a co-worker how she got her job. Neither is intended to be sexist, but the first one is nonetheless sexist while the second one is not. They both may be hurtful or discouraging, but the fix for the first one is to change the behavior, while the fix for the second one is not to change the behavior, it's to change the interpretation of the behavior.

Not that you didn't know this, but...

[firstfrost]

There's also the question of who you ask and who you don't. If you ask everyone how they got their job then maybe you're weird and nosy, but you're not racist/sexist. If you only ask your black or female co-workers, then that's behavior and not just interpretation, even if asking the question (or not asking the question) is not itself an intrinsically sexist/racist action.

Re: Not that you didn't know this, but...

[kirisutogomen]

by the way, how did you get your job?

[kelkyag]

The tone and phrasing of the question also matter.