RACISM - Hey Hey Racefail

[silverblue]

This is probably going to be a bit confused because I'm fairly confused myself regarding all of this and the surrounding issues. They are hard! Indeed, if removing racism were easy, there's a chance we might be past it a bit more than we are. Anyway, the following is my own opinion, and I don't mean to offend anyone, save possibly for people who

Comments

[xanni_au]

See, this is why I take the time to read your posts. As they say on Slashdot, "+1 Insightful"!

[silverblue]

Hee, thanks :) Though it's rather long, I need a good internal editor.

[thorfinn]

Awesome.

Yes, these issues are complex and confusing.

I think one of the core difficulties with this particular event is that things can be both hilariously funny *and* horribly offensive. They are not exclusive, not at all.

Being funny does not excuse it being offensive.

[silverblue]

I think there's a couple of types of humour as well.

There's laughing at something because it's horrible and you need the laughter as a release valve from the horror - a sort of reclaiming, depending on the joke told.

Then there's laughing at something because it's horrible and you find the horror funny.

[thorfinn]

*nod* Yes, definitely.

And as I said elsewhere too - there's a big difference between sarcastic and horrible jokes made between friends and people who have a long established relationship, and jokes made in public about strangers.

Exactly the same joke and action will get you a chuckle from your friend in one context, and a punch in the nose from a stranger in the other.

[ambitious_wench]

I grew up with white upper class privilege--and to this day I am still trying to ferret out assumptions and attitudes that are racist within my worldview.

"Ignorance is curable. Stupidity isn't. Stupidity is willful persistence in one's ignorance."

learning to identify racism is one of the hardest things I've ever worked on, because assumptions can be so ingrained that you don't even see them.

I'm guilty of some really embarrassing gaffes. We're talking cringe-worthy. But now I can say that I am capable of confronting racism and sexism *as it happens*, something that didn't come easy to me.

Cer, thank you so much for writing this article. your experience growing up is not that far different from mine, and it's nice to see someone younger than me going through this sort of self-examination.

Edie

[silverblue]

I'm always very stressed at having to admit my own racism. Whenever I am confronted by it, I feel embarrassed and want to excuse it as somehow not really related to me. I'm certain I still make a lot of mistakes, and probably never will stop making them!

It is fascinating, too, the whole privilege thing - my parents were highly educated and put a lot of effort into educating me, so we were a middle class family in a lower class environment, and that both afforded privilege (with jobs) and danger (at school).

[ambitious_wench]

The first step is to understand that we all are saturated in racism--individuals within a culture of racism are pretty much all racist to a degree. The next step is to learn to recognize racism--it can be nuanced and subtle. The next is to commit to eradicating it within ourselves. Examine yourself with an open mind.

Sometimes racism is too nuanced for me to see--but I've learned to not immediately deny that something is racist when it's pointed out. For example, I'm still trying to understand why the comment "I don't think of you as $RACIAL_GROUP" is racist; I know it's related to claims of being "colorblind". So for now I take it at face value. Eventually it will be explained to me in a way I can grasp, and in the mean time I avoid making comments like that, even if I feel it's "true".

[thorfinn]

Ah. With that one, the point is that you should be able to think of someone as $RACIAL_GROUP and not have that affect your perceptions negatively.

In Inner Melbourne, that is true of Chinese to the point where John So was Lord Mayor for years. Nobody "didn't think of him as Chinese" - heck, the man had very very accented English, and regularly went on television speaking that way.

[drjon]

Fine post, well expressed.

[kesh]

As an American of white privilege, I can sympathize. I didn't have much racial experience growing up either, living in a somewhat rural area, so I still deal with some knee-jerk thoughts at times. :/

That said, it sounds like some folks on your side of the pond use the term "abo" the way folks used to/still use the word "nigger" over here. It's extremely derogatory.