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An attempt to Understand Racism: It's not just about black and white
Whenever I fill out an application for employment or a market research poll, I am asked my gender and race. The choices are usually:
Black or African-American
Latino or Hispanic
Asian
Other
Caucasian, White or Northern European
No response or prefer not to disclose
I often sit and stare at the categories for a bit and wonder, am I white or Caucasian, what an odd word. I wouldn’t define myself in this way. And why does it matter? There’s an odd resistance to being categorized. Labeled and put away in a small box. As I get older, I become less and less comfortable with the boxes, yet ironically find myself resorting to them more and more.
This is a round-about way of discussing racism, a hot-button topic that for me at least has always been present in my life. Odd, I know, since I am white. You would think being “white” that I would not be affected by it. But what is white exactly? What is black for that matter? People aren’t really white or black if you think about it – their skin color is shades of brown. Mine is olive brown for example. White is a very light almost pale shade of brown, beige, but not pure white unless of course the person is an albino and bleached of color. Black is a very dark shade of brown, no one is really pure black, with a few exceptions. Most of us are either light brown, yellowish brown, reddish brown or dark brown.
But racism isn’t based on just color alone. It’s not that simple. If it were, it would be easier to understand, to catalog, and to eradicate. It’s not a matter of being black or white or in reality, different shades of brown. Nor is racism limited to the color of one’s skin. You can be racist and have black skin, and you can be racist and have white skin.
When I looked it up in two different dictionaries – Webster’s and American Heritage – the definition was the same: “The belief that some races are inherently superior to others.”
Superior.
That’s the one word that stands out for me in that definition. Why? Why is it so important for someone, anyone, to be better than someone else? One tribe, one culture, one country, one person, one family, one group, one species, one animal, one planet, one spec of dust, one book, one painting, one movie, one play, one song, one piece of land, one body, one gender – the list goes on.
When I was watching TV this week, I lost count of the number of times people were competing for a person, a thing, an item or an award. Stating they were “the best” or “superior” in some way.
Why do we compare everything and everyone to one another – placing people and things in slots based on the comparison? As opposed to appreciating people and things for what they can do and who and what they are on their own? As individuals, separate from the group or category?
I’m tired of doing it. I wish I could stop doing it. Comparing and contrasting. Ranking. Rating. Competing. It is making me miserable. If I could just find a way to turn off that part of myself for just a little while.
Racism. I’ve been trying my whole life to understand it. In myself, in those around me, in the world. I don’t know anyone who isn’t racist and by the same token I don’t know anyone who hasn’t been a victim of it.
A few years back, at a book club of all places, one of the ladies turned to me in blatant surprise, and said: “You’re IRISH? And CATHOLIC?” She looked shocked. “I was convinced you were a WASP.” The woman stating this was Irish/Italian and Catholic. I remember being taken aback by the statement. Then I turned to the woman and said, “What made you think I was a WASP?” She was a bit flustered, and then stated after a moment, “You look like one.” I remember smiling and stating, “It’s probably the German blood in me that you are reacting to and still, not Waspish. I’m not Anglo, not Saxon, not Protestant, and not rich. I’m part German, Irish, Belgium, Welsh, and Scotch-Irish, mostly Celt.” The fact I took it as an insult surprised me a little, one of my closest friends is part WASP.
It reminded me a little of one of the experiences my friend, CW, related to me. She’d been talking on the phone with a couple of people at work, who had never seen her in person. Then one day they met her. One of them said, and I quote: “You don’t look anything like how you sound on the phone.” Pause. “I thought you were white.”
CW is a large black woman of African, Irish, and Caribbean descent.
Another odd experience – also subtle was when a friend of mine told me that I had to change the name of a couple of characters in a story I’d written. Their names were Shannon and Veronica. According to my friend those names were black names not white names and could potentially confuse the reader. I mentioned this to my Grandmother, who scoffed. “ Well,” she said, “your friend is from Texas.”
And more recently, after my former boss, a Jamaican, announced his resignation, stating that he did not get along with his current boss, a Jewish man and the company is run and owned by Israelies - one of my co-workers, a forty-something African-American, stated, “I know this sounds racist, but Jews they only like to hire Jews in positions of power. Because Jews only trust fellow Jews.” While another co-worker, a Puerto-Rican, asserted – “The Israelies like conflict, they thrive on it. They like to push back. And fight. That’s their personality. While Russians like to be told what to do and not figure things out on their own.”
A friend of mine complained recently about getting on the subway – “the big black women keep pushing at me and telling me that I’m a spoiled white chick and don’t need to worry about anything. I’m sorry, but I have a right to get on the train too. To have a seat. I didn’t do anything to them.”
Then there was my uncle, now deceased, who commented on more than one occasion on how dark my sister in law was and that maybe my brother shouldn’t marry her, because of her Cherokee heritage, a heritage that my immediate family, my brother, parents, and I were proud of and wanted to include in our family. He’d said something along the lines of – “they can have incredibly dark kids, you know”.
And then there is me, who feels safer and more comfortable with black men than white men, possibly because two black boys were kind to me when I moved to a new school – showing me more kindness than anyone else had at that time – it was for a half year and in the fifth grade. I changed schools twice that year.
I don’t understand Racism. I don’t know if it is taught to us when we are very young or bred in us over time. I don’t know how to get rid of it, except by constantly questioning every racist thought that enters my skull. Seeing the exceptions to the rule, realizing what those exceptions mean.
Anger doesn’t help. It tends to just eat away at the person who feels the anger. Is racism about fear? Or about our constant need to be better than everyone else? That whole competition thing? My race, my culture, my society, my background, my views, my…fill in the blank is better than your fill in the blank. Like two little kids having a perpetual pissing contest?
Racism scares me. It justifies hate. And I learned long ago how destructive hate truly is. It breeds contempt. And war. And poverty. And pain. For both the victim and the perpetuator. No one wins. And in a way, both are victims here – the racist and the minority or person being discriminated against. I don’t see any winners except perhaps as an illusion in their own minds?
Racism is often discussed as one might discuss a contest. I’ve been victimized more than you have, or I’m a minority and you aren’t. We’ll all victims of it, I think. It is not unlike a virus – the carrier and the one inflicted with and dying of the disease. A virus is a good term for it – for it spreads through people. A racist act can in fact create or breed another racist. A person who fears someone based on their racial heritage.
The odd thing about racism though…is we assume we can tell by looking at someone what that heritage is, what race they are. As if the color of their skin, the shape of their nose, the slant of their eyes, or the shade of their hair announces it - much like the woman who accused me of being a WASP and was shocked that I wasn’t not to mention a tad embarrassed. You can’t tell what race someone is by looking at them. I know, I’ve made that mistake, assuming someone was Italian when they were Egyptian. People, no matter how much we try, cannot be put into neatly labeled boxes and filed away. But it would be easier wouldn’t it? If we could decide who to like who to dislike, who to avoid, and who to seek out based on what they look like. If we didn’t have to get to know them first and risk getting hurt in the process…If only the flame would show itself before we got burned.
Racism…I wish I understood it better. I wish I understood people better. Then, maybe I could find a more effective way of combating it in myself and others.
Black or African-American
Latino or Hispanic
Asian
Other
Caucasian, White or Northern European
No response or prefer not to disclose
I often sit and stare at the categories for a bit and wonder, am I white or Caucasian, what an odd word. I wouldn’t define myself in this way. And why does it matter? There’s an odd resistance to being categorized. Labeled and put away in a small box. As I get older, I become less and less comfortable with the boxes, yet ironically find myself resorting to them more and more.
This is a round-about way of discussing racism, a hot-button topic that for me at least has always been present in my life. Odd, I know, since I am white. You would think being “white” that I would not be affected by it. But what is white exactly? What is black for that matter? People aren’t really white or black if you think about it – their skin color is shades of brown. Mine is olive brown for example. White is a very light almost pale shade of brown, beige, but not pure white unless of course the person is an albino and bleached of color. Black is a very dark shade of brown, no one is really pure black, with a few exceptions. Most of us are either light brown, yellowish brown, reddish brown or dark brown.
But racism isn’t based on just color alone. It’s not that simple. If it were, it would be easier to understand, to catalog, and to eradicate. It’s not a matter of being black or white or in reality, different shades of brown. Nor is racism limited to the color of one’s skin. You can be racist and have black skin, and you can be racist and have white skin.
When I looked it up in two different dictionaries – Webster’s and American Heritage – the definition was the same: “The belief that some races are inherently superior to others.”
Superior.
That’s the one word that stands out for me in that definition. Why? Why is it so important for someone, anyone, to be better than someone else? One tribe, one culture, one country, one person, one family, one group, one species, one animal, one planet, one spec of dust, one book, one painting, one movie, one play, one song, one piece of land, one body, one gender – the list goes on.
When I was watching TV this week, I lost count of the number of times people were competing for a person, a thing, an item or an award. Stating they were “the best” or “superior” in some way.
Why do we compare everything and everyone to one another – placing people and things in slots based on the comparison? As opposed to appreciating people and things for what they can do and who and what they are on their own? As individuals, separate from the group or category?
I’m tired of doing it. I wish I could stop doing it. Comparing and contrasting. Ranking. Rating. Competing. It is making me miserable. If I could just find a way to turn off that part of myself for just a little while.
Racism. I’ve been trying my whole life to understand it. In myself, in those around me, in the world. I don’t know anyone who isn’t racist and by the same token I don’t know anyone who hasn’t been a victim of it.
A few years back, at a book club of all places, one of the ladies turned to me in blatant surprise, and said: “You’re IRISH? And CATHOLIC?” She looked shocked. “I was convinced you were a WASP.” The woman stating this was Irish/Italian and Catholic. I remember being taken aback by the statement. Then I turned to the woman and said, “What made you think I was a WASP?” She was a bit flustered, and then stated after a moment, “You look like one.” I remember smiling and stating, “It’s probably the German blood in me that you are reacting to and still, not Waspish. I’m not Anglo, not Saxon, not Protestant, and not rich. I’m part German, Irish, Belgium, Welsh, and Scotch-Irish, mostly Celt.” The fact I took it as an insult surprised me a little, one of my closest friends is part WASP.
It reminded me a little of one of the experiences my friend, CW, related to me. She’d been talking on the phone with a couple of people at work, who had never seen her in person. Then one day they met her. One of them said, and I quote: “You don’t look anything like how you sound on the phone.” Pause. “I thought you were white.”
CW is a large black woman of African, Irish, and Caribbean descent.
Another odd experience – also subtle was when a friend of mine told me that I had to change the name of a couple of characters in a story I’d written. Their names were Shannon and Veronica. According to my friend those names were black names not white names and could potentially confuse the reader. I mentioned this to my Grandmother, who scoffed. “ Well,” she said, “your friend is from Texas.”
And more recently, after my former boss, a Jamaican, announced his resignation, stating that he did not get along with his current boss, a Jewish man and the company is run and owned by Israelies - one of my co-workers, a forty-something African-American, stated, “I know this sounds racist, but Jews they only like to hire Jews in positions of power. Because Jews only trust fellow Jews.” While another co-worker, a Puerto-Rican, asserted – “The Israelies like conflict, they thrive on it. They like to push back. And fight. That’s their personality. While Russians like to be told what to do and not figure things out on their own.”
A friend of mine complained recently about getting on the subway – “the big black women keep pushing at me and telling me that I’m a spoiled white chick and don’t need to worry about anything. I’m sorry, but I have a right to get on the train too. To have a seat. I didn’t do anything to them.”
Then there was my uncle, now deceased, who commented on more than one occasion on how dark my sister in law was and that maybe my brother shouldn’t marry her, because of her Cherokee heritage, a heritage that my immediate family, my brother, parents, and I were proud of and wanted to include in our family. He’d said something along the lines of – “they can have incredibly dark kids, you know”.
And then there is me, who feels safer and more comfortable with black men than white men, possibly because two black boys were kind to me when I moved to a new school – showing me more kindness than anyone else had at that time – it was for a half year and in the fifth grade. I changed schools twice that year.
I don’t understand Racism. I don’t know if it is taught to us when we are very young or bred in us over time. I don’t know how to get rid of it, except by constantly questioning every racist thought that enters my skull. Seeing the exceptions to the rule, realizing what those exceptions mean.
Anger doesn’t help. It tends to just eat away at the person who feels the anger. Is racism about fear? Or about our constant need to be better than everyone else? That whole competition thing? My race, my culture, my society, my background, my views, my…fill in the blank is better than your fill in the blank. Like two little kids having a perpetual pissing contest?
Racism scares me. It justifies hate. And I learned long ago how destructive hate truly is. It breeds contempt. And war. And poverty. And pain. For both the victim and the perpetuator. No one wins. And in a way, both are victims here – the racist and the minority or person being discriminated against. I don’t see any winners except perhaps as an illusion in their own minds?
Racism is often discussed as one might discuss a contest. I’ve been victimized more than you have, or I’m a minority and you aren’t. We’ll all victims of it, I think. It is not unlike a virus – the carrier and the one inflicted with and dying of the disease. A virus is a good term for it – for it spreads through people. A racist act can in fact create or breed another racist. A person who fears someone based on their racial heritage.
The odd thing about racism though…is we assume we can tell by looking at someone what that heritage is, what race they are. As if the color of their skin, the shape of their nose, the slant of their eyes, or the shade of their hair announces it - much like the woman who accused me of being a WASP and was shocked that I wasn’t not to mention a tad embarrassed. You can’t tell what race someone is by looking at them. I know, I’ve made that mistake, assuming someone was Italian when they were Egyptian. People, no matter how much we try, cannot be put into neatly labeled boxes and filed away. But it would be easier wouldn’t it? If we could decide who to like who to dislike, who to avoid, and who to seek out based on what they look like. If we didn’t have to get to know them first and risk getting hurt in the process…If only the flame would show itself before we got burned.
Racism…I wish I understood it better. I wish I understood people better. Then, maybe I could find a more effective way of combating it in myself and others.
no subject
The only Shannon I have every known was Irish, and the only Veronica I ever knew of was in the Archie comics, until Veronica Mars came along that is.
Racism and all prejudice does seems mystifying because people seem to seek it out, when I was in England I had people ask me if I was Protestant or Catholic, because they wanted to categorize me. There was a joke I heard later about an American in Pub who was asked if he was Catholic or Protestant and he said 'I'm Jewish' and the questioner brushed this off and said:
"Yes, but are you a CATHOLIC Jew or a PROTESTANT Jew."
It is like people want to exercise their prejudices....
My parents were very liberal and open minded, but they liked to classify people by how much education they had, but it has been my experience that that isn't a very reliable measure of intelligence, much less worth as a person. Since amazingly dumb and apparently worthless people can have advanced degrees and some incredible saints with real understanding of human nature, and practical knowledge of the world can be uneducated.
In other words I have nothing really to add to your understanding of racism because like all intolerance it all seems unfathomable. I have been pushed around and sworn at by Black people on crowded buses in Washington, DC, but I noticed it was only on hot uncomfortable evenings when everyone was tired after work, for the most part (in my experience) no one was more likely to stop and help a stranger than a Black person. When I was in Italy I found that in Rome there was an attitude that all Americans are rude and arrogant, BUT if I got in the habit of starting every sentence with 'par favore' (please) they would assume that I was the exception and would suddenly treat me much better. You just had to get past the generalization and be seen as an individual.
no subject
"Yes, but are you a CATHOLIC Jew or a PROTESTANT Jew."
That joke I have always encountered (sometimes it's other religious or belief groups - I think I've heard it even for 'atheist') as very specific to Northern Ireland, where the Catholic/Protestant divide is enormously significant, rather than the whole of the UK.
no subject
no subject
As for religions? When I was there, they were more focused on politics - Liberal or Conservative. I was impossible to be moderate - because that meant you were wishy washy. Religion I didn't notice as much, but it was a long time ago and I was pretty much not practicing at that point.
Which brings up an interesting point - are we more aware of prejudicial and racial acts when they are directed at something relevant to our own experience or pet peeve? Like would someone who is Catholic be more aware of prejudice against Catholics, than someone who isn't?
no subject
Size.
Even on lj - I see it, this constant positioning - who has the most friends, the most posts, the best entries, the best fanfic, the best essays, has read the most or best books, seen the best movies...it's hidden between the lines.
I was thinking about it this morning. How this need to compete, to be superior is an odd double-edged sword. It's a heavy theme in the Harry Potter novel I'm reading which has a villian who is so focused on being the best and most superior wizard that he has literally broken off portions of himself to accomplish it. Nothing else matters to him. HE must be the best.
At the struggle to be the best does push us forward - it is how we got to the moon, how ipods and i-macs and cell phones and tvs were created. Competition, the struggle to survive, is a necessary bit of evolution.
Without it - we are bit like the poor souls on that planet in the film Serenity, who go to sleep and die.
But, at the same time it can cripple us. It can be incredibly destructive.
It's not wrong to want to improve oneself, to want to be the best at one's endeavors - but to do it at the price of someone else's life or happiness...then it becomes wrong.
Balance. To be the greatest but not at the expense of someone else. And to realize that no matter what you do there will always be someone out there who is better than you are or for that matter worse.
Hitler always fascinated me. He was part Jew - on his mother's side - which I think makes him Jewish. Often described as Dark haired. Short. A moustach. Flabby. The complete opposite of the master race that he proposed - Blue eyed, blond haired, tall, Clean shaven, and muscular. The polar opposite of himself. Did he hate himself that much? Was his racism an act of self revulsion? Or an act of hatred towards his roots, which he believed kept him from becoming what he wanted to become?
We spend a lot of time in discussing racism on the victims of it, but not much time trying to understand the perpetutators, I think. Writing them off loosely as nothing more than demons. But they aren't, they are us. Sometimes we rise above the generalization and are able to see the person as an individual, and other times, not so much.
Thanks for responding. Very interesting.