IBARW [At the end of the day, the racial iguana is white]
So I'd been thinking of writing a post about how imperisalism, nationalism, classism, and racism all mix together in one big mess, especially 'cause it sort of fits with an interesting conversation last night (worth both exploring further and sharing) about the distinction or lack thereof by people observing Tisha B'Av between mourning the destruction of the ancient Israelite military force and using it as inspiration or validation for ethnoreligiously-based expansionism (whether or not it violates international law, and whether or not other important elements of Jewish traditions say that it's immoral). But frankly, there's a lot of academic theorists who discuss those intersections, besides which a good chunk of what I've posted in the past year about Israeli policy touch on those issues even if not explicitly. So for my final IBARW3 post, y'all get some navel-gazing.
I am (to the extent that Ashkenazi Jews in the U.S. are racialized as such) white. Pretty much anyone, passing me on the street, is going to read me as such, and I've never had to deal with being followed in a store (except when with black friends), or not being able to find "flesh-coloured" items that roughly match my skin tone, or any of the other myriad of things in the racial "invisible knapsack". I sometimes get mistaken for Latina, but generally only by POC and not by white people. Despite having been born and raised in the DC area, I apparently have some sort of foreign-sounding accent that's led to all sorts of guesses about my origins. But when all is said and done, I'm read as white.
To the extent that well-meaning-liberal-parents can raise "color-blind" children, that's what mine did. I distinctly remember, when the newspapers were interviewing the president-elect of our synagogue because he's black (and black synagogue presidents aren't exactly a dime a dozen in the States), not understanding what all the fuss was about and furthermore being rather affronted on his behalf that they'd be taking his time when his second child had just been born (and I presumed he wanted to spend time with his wife, newborn baby, and older child). Of course, it was awfully presumptuous of me to assume that he wouldn't want people to celebrate his success at being accepted into the predominately-Ashkenazi Jewish world, but that type of presumption rather comes with the territory when you're thirteen and raised to be "colorblind".
I have to give my middle school props for recognizing and celebrating the diversity among its students. They had dessert nights where families were encouraged to bring in food from their culture-of-origin (which, given that the a third of the students were born in 63 countries outside the U.S. was a pretty impressive range) and a jazz band as a higher-level alternative for those who did well in the general band, I remember the school play one year being variations on the Cinderella story from a variety of cultures from China to native American, and in sixth grade I learned the difference between the melting-pot and salad-bowl models of integration. It certainly wasn't perfect - the "gifted and talented" classes were disproportionately white, the art teacher (who happened to be African-American) didn't attempt to hid his dislike for his students of Asian origin, and no doubt there were other issues of which I was blissfully unaware [in my privilege]. But, for all that middle school was a pretty miserable experience for me (as is the case for many students - it's just a rather unfortunate age), looking back, I think that going to such a diverse school was an important formative experience.
So fast forward to college. I'm at a step show put on by one (of the two) campus black sororities, and with me is a friend who's black but grew up on the other side of our county in a much whiter area. As we waited for the show to start, she commented, "I don't know if I've ever been around this many black people! Look at you - you look so comfortable." And to be honest, I wasn't all that comfortable, I was quite aware of being visibly the minority in a crowd with one clear majority group. Since then, I've noticed that I don't start feeling uncomfortable when I'm in the racial minority but rather when there's a strong majority, whether it's white, black, Latino, Korean, etc. But regardless of whether I feel comfortable or not, I try to be aware that the discomfort is my problem, not that of the people I'm around. When living in Chicago my work was partly in the poverty-stricken, and majority-black, south suburbs. I wasn't comfortable, but I was also aware that the work needed to be done, so went ahead and did it. And a (black) co-worker working with me made a comment rather similar to the one from my friend in college the year before.
None of that has stopped me from acting on my, arguably racist and classist, discomfort in certain neighborhoods in my free time. For all that I made a point of exploring many of Chicago's neighborhoods, at one point I literally did a 180 degree turn when I got to the bottom of the El station stairs and got a glimpse of the area. At another point, I thought that my destination was west of the station instead of east and quickly entered what was clearly a poor and predominately black area. Based on the theory that if kids are playing outside accompanied only by a lone woman that the neighborhood can't be that unsafe, I wasn't too uncomfortable. But then a nice, elderly black man, with concern in his voice, told me to be careful in this neighborhood. And it was a reminder - even if I tell myself that my discomfort in situations where I'm the the racial minority is my problem and not that of the majority, I am still, in the racialized U.S. society, white. And only a white person would be telling hirself that instead of being uncomfortable out of fear that if ze's attacked (white) society-at-large won't really care.
Comments/thoughts welcome!
I am (to the extent that Ashkenazi Jews in the U.S. are racialized as such) white. Pretty much anyone, passing me on the street, is going to read me as such, and I've never had to deal with being followed in a store (except when with black friends), or not being able to find "flesh-coloured" items that roughly match my skin tone, or any of the other myriad of things in the racial "invisible knapsack". I sometimes get mistaken for Latina, but generally only by POC and not by white people. Despite having been born and raised in the DC area, I apparently have some sort of foreign-sounding accent that's led to all sorts of guesses about my origins. But when all is said and done, I'm read as white.
To the extent that well-meaning-liberal-parents can raise "color-blind" children, that's what mine did. I distinctly remember, when the newspapers were interviewing the president-elect of our synagogue because he's black (and black synagogue presidents aren't exactly a dime a dozen in the States), not understanding what all the fuss was about and furthermore being rather affronted on his behalf that they'd be taking his time when his second child had just been born (and I presumed he wanted to spend time with his wife, newborn baby, and older child). Of course, it was awfully presumptuous of me to assume that he wouldn't want people to celebrate his success at being accepted into the predominately-Ashkenazi Jewish world, but that type of presumption rather comes with the territory when you're thirteen and raised to be "colorblind".
I have to give my middle school props for recognizing and celebrating the diversity among its students. They had dessert nights where families were encouraged to bring in food from their culture-of-origin (which, given that the a third of the students were born in 63 countries outside the U.S. was a pretty impressive range) and a jazz band as a higher-level alternative for those who did well in the general band, I remember the school play one year being variations on the Cinderella story from a variety of cultures from China to native American, and in sixth grade I learned the difference between the melting-pot and salad-bowl models of integration. It certainly wasn't perfect - the "gifted and talented" classes were disproportionately white, the art teacher (who happened to be African-American) didn't attempt to hid his dislike for his students of Asian origin, and no doubt there were other issues of which I was blissfully unaware [in my privilege]. But, for all that middle school was a pretty miserable experience for me (as is the case for many students - it's just a rather unfortunate age), looking back, I think that going to such a diverse school was an important formative experience.
So fast forward to college. I'm at a step show put on by one (of the two) campus black sororities, and with me is a friend who's black but grew up on the other side of our county in a much whiter area. As we waited for the show to start, she commented, "I don't know if I've ever been around this many black people! Look at you - you look so comfortable." And to be honest, I wasn't all that comfortable, I was quite aware of being visibly the minority in a crowd with one clear majority group. Since then, I've noticed that I don't start feeling uncomfortable when I'm in the racial minority but rather when there's a strong majority, whether it's white, black, Latino, Korean, etc. But regardless of whether I feel comfortable or not, I try to be aware that the discomfort is my problem, not that of the people I'm around. When living in Chicago my work was partly in the poverty-stricken, and majority-black, south suburbs. I wasn't comfortable, but I was also aware that the work needed to be done, so went ahead and did it. And a (black) co-worker working with me made a comment rather similar to the one from my friend in college the year before.
None of that has stopped me from acting on my, arguably racist and classist, discomfort in certain neighborhoods in my free time. For all that I made a point of exploring many of Chicago's neighborhoods, at one point I literally did a 180 degree turn when I got to the bottom of the El station stairs and got a glimpse of the area. At another point, I thought that my destination was west of the station instead of east and quickly entered what was clearly a poor and predominately black area. Based on the theory that if kids are playing outside accompanied only by a lone woman that the neighborhood can't be that unsafe, I wasn't too uncomfortable. But then a nice, elderly black man, with concern in his voice, told me to be careful in this neighborhood. And it was a reminder - even if I tell myself that my discomfort in situations where I'm the the racial minority is my problem and not that of the majority, I am still, in the racialized U.S. society, white. And only a white person would be telling hirself that instead of being uncomfortable out of fear that if ze's attacked (white) society-at-large won't really care.
Comments/thoughts welcome!