The Gates Debacle
Professor Henry Gates is still defending himself with the claim that the arrest was a racially motivated one by a "rogue cop", but the local paper is showing that not everyone is falling into line. This article, http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/07/24/some_successful_blacks_find_gatess_episode_all_too_familiar/, on first glance, seems to be vindicating Professor Gates' opinion of the incident until you read further.
Each of those interviewed say that yes, there are slights and slurs that they encounter, but the older ones add that there aren't as many now as there use to be. Our society is changing its ways, it can't happen over-night, but it is happening.
Another article (http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/07/24/residents_deplore_hail_remarks_by_obama/) used the 'man on the street' approach and most people claimed that Boston and Cambridge police are generally responsive and even-handed in their dealings with the public - of all races and creeds.
In my own experience, I know that prejudice exists. It shocked me when I heard one of own aunts, someone I've respected all my life, making racial comments. And just this spring, I was outraged to find that someone had scribbled a racially charged epithet on the shelf in the library where the books on Africa are kept. (Our hs library has two shelves devoted to Africa and specific African tribes. I wish we had something similar for Native American tribes.)
Coincidentally, there was a recent furor on livejournal, a debate about race. During it, I read someone's account of an exercise in college where they wrote down what they felt were things that defined them. The lists were varied but without exception, every African-American in the group wrote "black". I was struck by her observation that to someone of colour, a white person saying, "I don't pay attention to race" is essentially negating their identity.
Do I pay attention to race? Yes, I do.
Like most Americans, I assume that ancestry indicates some specific cultural background. I tell people that I am "Irish" (short-hand for "Irish-American" and meaning that many of my ancestors came from Ireland) and this means something, both to me and to others. "German", "English", "French" - as I write these (again, omitting the -American although it is implied) - I find myself envisioning different sort of people and reactions. Racial profiling.
But wait - those are all European-Americans. What about other ethnicities - Korean, Indian, Native American ... Each comes to mind with a feeling of what to expect, based on what I've learnt of the cultures from which their ancestors came and based on others I have known of that ethnicity. The trick is to accept each person as NOT only who their ancestors might have been, but who they themselves are.
I don't always succeed. I expect English-Americans to be rude, arrogant and unlikeable (I did mention that I'm Irish-American, right?). I don't find Italian-American men attractive (I perceive them as being too obvious).
So what do I think about African-Americans? Angry. I think that they define themselves by race first and foremost and find everyone else on the other side of the color bar. Am I right in this perception? I don't know. I'm not black, I didn't grow up with the insults and slights that my black co-agists received. And they didn't experience the ones that I felt as an Irish(-American) Catholic female.
Each of those interviewed say that yes, there are slights and slurs that they encounter, but the older ones add that there aren't as many now as there use to be. Our society is changing its ways, it can't happen over-night, but it is happening.
Another article (http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/07/24/residents_deplore_hail_remarks_by_obama/) used the 'man on the street' approach and most people claimed that Boston and Cambridge police are generally responsive and even-handed in their dealings with the public - of all races and creeds.
In my own experience, I know that prejudice exists. It shocked me when I heard one of own aunts, someone I've respected all my life, making racial comments. And just this spring, I was outraged to find that someone had scribbled a racially charged epithet on the shelf in the library where the books on Africa are kept. (Our hs library has two shelves devoted to Africa and specific African tribes. I wish we had something similar for Native American tribes.)
Coincidentally, there was a recent furor on livejournal, a debate about race. During it, I read someone's account of an exercise in college where they wrote down what they felt were things that defined them. The lists were varied but without exception, every African-American in the group wrote "black". I was struck by her observation that to someone of colour, a white person saying, "I don't pay attention to race" is essentially negating their identity.
Do I pay attention to race? Yes, I do.
Like most Americans, I assume that ancestry indicates some specific cultural background. I tell people that I am "Irish" (short-hand for "Irish-American" and meaning that many of my ancestors came from Ireland) and this means something, both to me and to others. "German", "English", "French" - as I write these (again, omitting the -American although it is implied) - I find myself envisioning different sort of people and reactions. Racial profiling.
But wait - those are all European-Americans. What about other ethnicities - Korean, Indian, Native American ... Each comes to mind with a feeling of what to expect, based on what I've learnt of the cultures from which their ancestors came and based on others I have known of that ethnicity. The trick is to accept each person as NOT only who their ancestors might have been, but who they themselves are.
I don't always succeed. I expect English-Americans to be rude, arrogant and unlikeable (I did mention that I'm Irish-American, right?). I don't find Italian-American men attractive (I perceive them as being too obvious).
So what do I think about African-Americans? Angry. I think that they define themselves by race first and foremost and find everyone else on the other side of the color bar. Am I right in this perception? I don't know. I'm not black, I didn't grow up with the insults and slights that my black co-agists received. And they didn't experience the ones that I felt as an Irish(-American) Catholic female.