Comments | pure_doxyk: Can’t anti-racism be color-blind?

pure_doxyk

Can’t anti-racism be color-blind?

Aug 25, 2009 17:54

Maybe it’s the philosopher in me, but I don’t see how any argument against racism that depends on color to make its point is valuable in the long run. If the goal is to end racism, which I hope it is, then shouldn’t we be engaged in activities and rhetoric that de-emphasize skin color (etc.) as a valid reason to make political (and by extension ( Read more... )

poly-ticks, gaveldrop, detroit, better thinking, philosophy, ethics, haven, aesthetica

Comments 27

flamingjune07 August 26 2009, 00:45:01 UTC

I don't really have time to read/respond in detail right now, but I did want to put in a point of defense for some things -- I think the notion at the base of a lot of the "there can't be racism against white people" stuff is an affirmation I do completely agree with, namely that there is *one* determinate way that the world is, or that our society is, and is a situation that emerges out of a long history of devastating oppression against PoC (and women), and that the fact that that is our history and that our situation is this one particular way means that actions that appear to perpetuate that entire history and or even lay claim to some degree of right to it are of an entirely different kind than just the simple isolated notion of people being jerks to you because you're ostensibly not "one of them" (whether this is determined by skin color, or by everyday dress, or some other cultural marker). I think this notion is really really important, and in that sense I absolutely agree that this thing -- this terrible thing that comes ( ... )

flamingjune07 August 26 2009, 00:52:25 UTC

Or, here -- when a white guy gets discriminated against for anything because he's white, yes, that is prejudice based on his race. If you want to define racism simply as "any prejudice based on perceived race" then sure, it's racism. But if that's racism, and you don't have some whole other discourse about what goes on when it takes place in that oppressive historical/social context mentioned above (and it does take place in that context), then you're not only being ignorant, you're choosing a definition of "racism" that happens to benefit white people while playing down the legitimate grievances of, or even the value of understanding, PoC.

flamingjune07 August 26 2009, 00:53:21 UTC

P.P.S. Not a part of any kind of "anti-racist crowd" or whatever, just a thinking person here.

pure_doxyk August 26 2009, 15:06:00 UTC

Good points; I appreciate them and thank you. You're totally right, of course, that in The Society We Actually Live In, there's a whole history of racism against PoCs going back hundreds and hundreds of years, which it simply is not possible for a white person to experience or directly understand the other side of. There is no substitute for actually BEING a member of the oppressed class ( ... )

Thread 11

drkaos August 26 2009, 00:47:52 UTC

Okay, I'm gonna admit I didn't read all your post. TOO LONG. But I'm still going to chime in and agree with what I did read for the most part. I've been utterly sickened by the anti-racist crowd for a while. When it's okay for a PoC to say "every time I go out of the house I see white people and it makes me sick and I have to come home and cry because those goddamn whites are out there!" it makes me furious (get more angry:this person was in this country on a international open hand program fully paid scholarship and all she did was cut class to go apeshit on whitey / the USA at meetings and protests ( ... )

drkaos August 26 2009, 02:57:43 UTC

Add to that the fact that the PC/anti-racist crowd won't even entertain your voice in an online forum until you identify yourself by race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, etc. When another person's perception of your context is necessary for them to judge you and accept or disregard what you say, then you have defeated your own goal of eliminating racism by making all these issues paramount again ( ... )

pure_doxyk August 26 2009, 13:14:53 UTC

It was stupid long, wasn't it? But it was enough work to write that I didn't feel like also editing it into manageability.

I'm generally sympathetic to anti-racists: their stated goals are admirable, and it is incredibly difficult to end a war by refusing to fight it, which is what "the end of racism" would in fact look like. Most people get quickly caught up in the much easier "fight for the other side!" mentality, and so they just flip from being pro-white to anti-white and call that an answer...which I don't. And it does ring as hypocritical to me that people can claim to be "against racism" when they're only, in fact, against some kinds of racism, and perfectly willing to condone others.

Thanks!

a_priori August 26 2009, 02:00:15 UTC

I wonder if the concerns you raise should make us worry about the initial move (which you apparently accept) to define racism as 'prejudice + power ( ... )

flamingjune07 August 26 2009, 05:26:53 UTC

What if the discussion of "institutional power" and such is not posited as merely a stipulative redefinition, but as a description and explanation of some of the more subtle features of the immediate phenomenon? Or, in other words, what if it's not just that the interesting stuff happens at an institutional level, but that it's necessary to view a social act (whatever it is that is being called "racism") within and relative to a broader social context (history, institutional power, etc) in order to better understand that act, and how we should react to it (your "real practical deliberation)?

pure_doxyk August 26 2009, 15:59:10 UTC

I had a great discussion with my husband about this exact thing last night. He makes a rather bold claim that this "sociological usage" has the effect of shielding people from being accused of racism, since under that definition, only an institution or a society (never a person) can be racist. Thus, oddly and creepily, the definition that comes from the "Ivory" tower is one that makes it incredibly easy for bankers, politicians, journalists, teachers, etc. to excuse their own actions as "by definition not racist" -- or if they are racist, as the fault of the institution as a whole and not the individual ( ... )

flamingjune07 August 26 2009, 17:55:57 UTC

He makes a rather bold claim that this "sociological usage" has the effect of shielding people from being accused of racism, since under that definition, only an institution or a society (never a person) can be racist.

Just to be clear, this is not at all what I mean -- I think that "racism" as an immediate phenomenon is something that absolutely does manifest in individual interactions, and thus a person is definitely capable of "being racist" at one time or another, or having a generally racist worldview or attitude, and so forth. I just think that there are some pretty compelling reasons to take the wider societal context into account in order to understand what's going on with these actions and attitudes (and thus know what to do with/about them). I know it's tempting, at the very least because it's a lot "cleaner," to focus only on the isolated individual or only on the broad societal theory, but I don't think either of those narratives make any sense without actively taking each other into account.

Thread 7

Part 1 - White Supremacy and Backlash sanguinity August 26 2009, 17:28:39 UTC

Re the case of a white kid growing up in Detroit and finding his entire local society arrayed against him, including all the local institutions: yeah, that sucks hard, and it leaves nasty, lifelong scars. However, the major reason that we discuss that as a structurally different case from a black kid getting comparable maltreatment in white-run local-level institutions is because the structural causes are different: anti-white bigotry from POC, however abusive or locally entrenched, is typically a backlash against the structural racism that the POC community is experiencing ( ... )

Part 2 - Who Should Best Be Doing What sanguinity August 26 2009, 17:33:56 UTC

Which brings us to the next question: what should an anti-racist do about white kids being picked on in Detroit? It depends on whether you're white or not.

If you'd permit me to go back to the womyn's land example, how well would male criticism, even criticism from feminist males, be received by the caretakers of womyn's land? Would it be heard? Respected? In a community that is actively backlashing against men? No, the criticism must come from other women if it's going to be heard or acted upon. The criticism has gotta come from people who intimately understand that this is a backlash, that the backlash is rooted in very real pain and distress plus some legitimate real-world practicalities. It's gotta come from people who can express genuine "hey, I've been there, too, but however much it may look like it when we're in the thick of it, it is not the individual males who are evil, so you're venting your anger and pain in the wrong places; similarly, while there are some legitimate reasons to keep men off the land, there are better ( ... )

Re: Part 2 - Who Should Best Be Doing What pure_doxyk August 26 2009, 18:46:10 UTC

I was looking forward to your replies; thanks for making them and taking the time to make them good ( ... )

Re: Part 2 - Who Should Best Be Doing What sanguinity August 29 2009, 17:48:14 UTC

:: Is Detroit-the-city helped by refraining from pointing out when its citizens are resorting to racist acts instead of more usefully addressing their city's problems? ::

No, I'm saying that Detroit-the-city is helped best when white anti-racists don't add fuel to the fire, but instead trust black anti-racists to deal with the problems of Detroit's leadership. This is essentially the same position that I had on the prop-8 backlash, except without the exasperated profanity: strategic division of labor so as to leverage existing trust and ties, and cultivating the discipline to not frack up what your compatriots are trying to accomplish.

:: Or are we saying that the whole city is filled with blacks who are too fragile, or too stupid, to be told that it's wrong for them to discriminate just as it's wrong for others? ::

Is that really what you got from what I wrote?

No, my position is that the speaker's context matters. White people don't magically stop being white when they talk, even if they're saying the exact same words that ( ... )