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How Not To Be A Racist
Kazaka
Registered User
Registered User
I don't really know how to preface this effectively. NOTE: I do not consider myself a racist. I do not hate, judge, or entertain preconceptions about anyone based on race (or gender or religion). I myself am 1/2 Cuban, 1/2 Cajun but I was, throughout my childhood, raised as white. I don't speak Spanish or otherwise identify strongly with my Cuban side.
However, I was browsing D&D like two days back and there was a whole thread discussing privilege. I started reading through it but found I could not stomach it and quit. No, the post weren't horrible or anything. I actually became physically sick contemplating race/gender privilege.
The week got worse. It was a one-two punch: guess what we're on in my Cultural Anthropology class? Yeah, race and racism. Awesome. Once again I got an upset stomach.
I don't know what to do. I'm experiencing a major crisis. If my whole culture has this white dominance "habitus" about it, am I somehow racist, even though I try extremely hard to behave in a post-racial manner? Furthermore, I feel like there's nothing I can do to change a whole culture's worth of attitudes of normatives - white, male, heterosexual, etc. And privilege. How do I forsake what I didn't even realize I was receiving? Do I receive privilege, or am I labeled Hispanic? I hate the idea of it, but I can do nothing to abolish it.
Plus there's an issue of perception of behaviors as white or non-white. I love rap. Is that some sort of cultural appropriation? Am I automatically a stupid white kid high-fiveing his bros to Li'l Wayne? What about the way I greet people. I greet everyone with an enthused " 'Sup dog?!" and a knuckle bump. When I do it to a black person, do they perceive it as racist? Should I instead say "Hello" and shake hands, or isn't that perpetuating a white public space, a white-as-normal one?
What the fuck?
(Also yes my stomach hurts even now.)
However, I was browsing D&D like two days back and there was a whole thread discussing privilege. I started reading through it but found I could not stomach it and quit. No, the post weren't horrible or anything. I actually became physically sick contemplating race/gender privilege.
The week got worse. It was a one-two punch: guess what we're on in my Cultural Anthropology class? Yeah, race and racism. Awesome. Once again I got an upset stomach.
I don't know what to do. I'm experiencing a major crisis. If my whole culture has this white dominance "habitus" about it, am I somehow racist, even though I try extremely hard to behave in a post-racial manner? Furthermore, I feel like there's nothing I can do to change a whole culture's worth of attitudes of normatives - white, male, heterosexual, etc. And privilege. How do I forsake what I didn't even realize I was receiving? Do I receive privilege, or am I labeled Hispanic? I hate the idea of it, but I can do nothing to abolish it.
Plus there's an issue of perception of behaviors as white or non-white. I love rap. Is that some sort of cultural appropriation? Am I automatically a stupid white kid high-fiveing his bros to Li'l Wayne? What about the way I greet people. I greet everyone with an enthused " 'Sup dog?!" and a knuckle bump. When I do it to a black person, do they perceive it as racist? Should I instead say "Hello" and shake hands, or isn't that perpetuating a white public space, a white-as-normal one?
What the fuck?
(Also yes my stomach hurts even now.)
Kazaka on
Sarksus (on QC's future) wrote: »... They ate, slept and worked. Some of them found uninteresting partners at work who they married and came home to. Sometimes they would half-heartededly thrust into each other and children were made. They lived a middle class existence until their deaths to heart disease and cancer.
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If it makes you feel better, do some research, find an organization that promotes equality in a way you agree with, help any way you feel you can (NAACP is an example of such a group). Stand up for minorities, if you go back to D&D there's a variety of legislation stalled in the Senate in this vein that you could call your Senators/Representative about.
As for the stereotypical behaviors, do what you want to do. If you prefer to knuckle bump, do it. You're your own person. Just because it's more common for (insert ethnic stereotype here) doesn't mean you're not allowed to do it or you're racist for doing it. Everything else is pretty much out of your control. Like workplaces, salaries, how crazy racist people see other people not of their race, etc.
You cannot control ingrained racism (or sexism) therefore it does not directly reflect on your character.
What reflects on your character are the actions you take and the words you speak. So if you endeavor to try to limit the effect of racism on your behavior, then you are doing what you can to be a good person in this way.
Furthermore, understand that racism is a result of 'heuristics' - heuristics are ways that the human mind comes to quick judgments about people based on limited information. "I see a person in a wheelchair. That person probably can't walk" is an example of a heuristic. So is "I see a bunch of black guys in hoodies standing around a liquor store. They're probably about to rob it." Heuristics are convenient, quick, usually beneficial, sometimes nonbeneficial, sometimes correct, and often wrong. But we can't function without them, because we have to make most of our daily judgments in a limited timeframe based on limited information.
So the important thing is that if you find yourself acting based on a heuristic, you should ask yourself, "is this heuristic valid? Are there possible factors that make your heuristic inaccurate? Are you willing to abandon that heuristic in the face of conflicting evidence? And are you using that heuristic only to the minimum extent of its usefulness?
Entertaining heuristics past their shelf-life is what gets most people in trouble.
The fact that you're having this kind of reaction is a pretty strong indicator of not racism. I think everyone else has pretty much said everything that needs to be said.
IOS Game Center ID: Isotope-X
I suppose it was kind of a reactionary freak out - my parents don't exactly share my stance so I've seen overt displays of racism as well as more subtle ones.
I'll just try to do my thing, and acknowledge that society is what it is.
Good for you for making the conscious decision to not be like that. That's all anyone can ask for. Also don't over-react to words. They're just words. If someone says or writes something that affects you negatively, walk away or stop reading it. Just my 2 cents.
You don't need to feel bad.
If a person can think of any reason to hate to, for example, hate black people but love whites, its only because they aren't looking hard enough for things to hate about whites.
When you get your head around this concept its hard to give a shit strongly one way or the other about any race or culture.
You could also always join the Americorps, you'd meet all kinds of people from all walks of life there, do some good for these communities, and you'd get to see first hand that you're really no different from anyone else. But that's a bit on the extreme end of solutions. I wouldn't recommend it unless its something you actually want to do.
-Current W.I.P.
No?
You aren't racist.
The end.
Alternatively, you could not be a total misanthrope, and instead take Feral's excellent advice.
For what it's worth, in the same class the TA asserted, straight-faced, that missiles were shaped like penises because they were made by men and not, for example, because of aerodynamics.
The idea isn't to not have biases, it's to identify them and account for them.
edit: also, I think it's interesting that you seem to primarily be putting stock in the label "racist," as opposed to whether or not your behavior is actually objectionable.
my unofficial autobio will be accompanied with tips on how to smile
cause I've found that when they don't see you frown, they never know that you're a threat
and they don't sweat you when you came around
At least, this is what I'm trying to do.
I like and agree with this a lot.
Wow. I thought that was an urban legend.
Everybody has already said their things, but I am baffled by the idea of "cultural appropriation" for music being a terrible thing, even if crossover music is insipid. Do some people really think that because I am a suburban American I can't listen to rap or ethnic folk music or incorporate it into my shitty music if I want to?
you like what you like
everything else is just wanking
So did I. Then I was there, sitting in a room, watching this happen firsthand. It was a little surrealistic. The school I went to did not have any sort of reputation as being one of these schools where such opinions are widely held, and it was not Port Chester University. I was taking mostly CS classes and did not spend a lot of time in the Social Sciences, so I don't know if this was an isolated incident or what.
Some of the guys who didn't immediately realize that they were in a hopeless situation protested (I'm paraphrasing here, it's been about 10-15 years):
"Wait, so you are actually saying that missiles are shaped the way they are because they were made by men in the image of their penises, and not because that shape is aerodynamic." "You think there aren't a million other shapes they could have used that are equally aerodynamic?" "Uh, no, I don't." "Well that goes to show what you've been taught."
"So you're saying if women made missiles they'd be shaped like...vaginas?" "No, women would never make missiles. That's not how they solve problems."
Additional fun in the same class: one of the professors wanted to compare dark-skinned people who lived in Africa and who had ancestors from Africa to dark-skinned people who lived in the Caribbean with ancestors that did not come from Africa, but the Caribbean. I suppose all our ancestors came from Africa if you go back far enough, but she wasn't talking about going that far back. She stated:
"So there were two independent groups, the, uh, African African-Americans and the Caribbean African-Americans." The fact that the latter group had roots in neither Africa or America and had likely never been to either place did not present a problem of cognitive dissonance for her as it did for me.
which I think would lend that air of credibilty your telling needs
My basic advice from the OP is not to give debate and discourse alot of thought. People use extreme examples and hold radical positions there as a matter of course.
Don't forget about the ideas and issues though, just keep thinking about them and what you can do. The key is not to stress too much over it and just try and live your life one day at a time being aware of these things.
Yeah because time and again people in general prove themselves to be just so wonderful!
That wasn't my point anyway.
My point is that everyone is a little racist to some extent. Everyone has a preference for what they know to be normal, what they grow up with, you'll find the cultures of others to be strange and discomforting. This is pretty normal I think.
Now on the other hand there's being a supremacist, and when you hit this stage is where you have a problem. My original advice addressed this problem. If you look hard enough for the flaws you'll see that no one culture is really any less shitty than another. I suppose I'm talking more about xenophobia here though.
If the problem we're discussing here is actually straight up racism, i.e. hating someone just because they're black, white, brown, yellow or whatever and for no other reason. Then I'm stumped. I can't fathom that kinda stupidity.
This is pretty much Hachface's point, too - this is a pretty lousy way to look at things. I'd call it disingenuous at best, since it's one of the classic apologies for thinly veiled contempt, it was used very heavily at one point along with others like "I don't hate ALL black people" and "There's good ones and bad ones." Note I'm not saying this is what you're doing, or what most people who make the statement these days are doing, but it's a tainted argument from the outset.
You're basically saying all people are people, that makes them racist. The reason he said to take Feral's example is this (this is not from Feral's post, but it's shorter and more to the point):
Having biases doesn't make you racist. It's literally the same thing as saying all scientists are crackpots because they have bias, but most of them are ok crackpots because they're careful not to let their bias influence their research.
Because i cannot say it better myself, and because it bears repeating and emphasizing again, and again, and again.
Actually that's exactly what I'm doing, but with every race and culture, my own included.
Preferring what you were brought up with is human nature. Don't feel ashamed about the life you were born into.
If you can't think of numerous reasons to hate all people, then you aren't looking hard enough.
and lord don't take one of those iat things. they're terrible.