Lazy IBARW

[firecat]

Thanks to sparkymonster and altfriday5 for providing me with fodder for Blog Against Racism week.

1. List 5 things which are basic common knowledge in your culture, which people outside are unfamiliar with. This is not about obscurity, but something everyday to you, that others go "bzuh?" at.Hm. First I would have to know what my culture is. I was raised in Michigan as

Comments

[basketcaselady]

I thought it interesting that you say you seek out authors sometimes of different races. I don't think I ever said to myself, my next book will be from a black man or my next book will be an asian woman. I generally don't even know the race of the author whose books I read, unless there's a photo. And to be honest, I look at the photos but don't really pay attention to the race. I see a face, not a race. I read to be entertained. When someone becomes *all about their race*, that ceases being entertaining for me. When that dominates their conversations, topics, writings, when their race becomes an issue for them, that's when it becomes an issue to me. And that's when I shut them out and walk away.

[firecat]

Your comment seems to admit of only two possibilities: all race awareness all the time, or no race awareness whatsoever.

In the US, only white people get to experience the second possibility.

[mjlayman]

I read SF almost exclusively, which leaves me mostly white authors. But I think I've read most of the non-white SF authors as well. There just aren't as many of them.

Like you, I search out ethnic movies, although Netflix has been falling down on getting a lot of them lately.

D'ya think oatmeal is an ethnic dinner?

[firecat]

I definitely haven't read all of the non-white SF authors.

I don't think of oatmeal as ethnic, but I'm really unclear on what ethnic means anyway. If it means "coming from a specific culture," then pretty much every prepared food is ethnic.

[elfwreck]

Ethnic food--

I had the experience of serving "white ethnic food" to a friend of my daughter's last week. The friend, who is Latina, had never had "stew," had no idea what it was. So she got to try a nice traditional Irish stew: lamb, potatoes, onions, carrots, probably too much pepper. (Her reaction was very neutral. But then, any 12-year-old kid's reaction to a friend's parents might be very neutral.)

[mjlayman]

Oh, years ago, I met a Filipino family who'd just come to the US and it was a lot of fun introducing the teenagers not only to "American" food, but Mexican and Italian and Peruvian, etc.