(no subject)
Jul. 31st, 2009 07:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daibhidcSo I haven't posted anything for "Blog Against Racism" week, because I couldn't think of anything to post. Racism's bad and I'm against it, and I know I don't always recognise it, and beyond that I don't like to say anything, because there's always the risk that I'm being racist[1].
But as an example of how far we have to go, here's something I just read in Ansible:
JUSTINE LARBALESTIER got a traditional whitewash treatment from
Bloomsbury, with the short-haired black protagonist of her novel _Liar_
shown on the cover as long-tressed and white. Er um, said Bloomsbury, the
character's a compulsive liar, might be lying about her appearance, and
(presumably) even deceived the author....
[1] Marcus Brigstocke had a bit on The Now Show last year, which I would quote properly if I could remember it, but which was essentially that there were many different grades of racism: first there were the people who view everyone unjudgementally and have no prejudices, also known as toddlers. Then (I think) there were people who Have A Black Friend. Then there are people who try not to be racist, but get nervous when confronted by groups of people different from them (ISTR Brigstocke himself was in this group). Next come people like the late Jade Goody, Jim Davidson and Prince Philip "They don't have hatred in their hearts, they're just badly educated. Apart from Philip who was quite appallingly educated". And finally there was the actual racists, the BNP and so on.
Even as I write that, I notice Brigstocke is assuming that "people" are white...
But as an example of how far we have to go, here's something I just read in Ansible:
JUSTINE LARBALESTIER got a traditional whitewash treatment from
Bloomsbury, with the short-haired black protagonist of her novel _Liar_
shown on the cover as long-tressed and white. Er um, said Bloomsbury, the
character's a compulsive liar, might be lying about her appearance, and
(presumably) even deceived the author....
[1] Marcus Brigstocke had a bit on The Now Show last year, which I would quote properly if I could remember it, but which was essentially that there were many different grades of racism: first there were the people who view everyone unjudgementally and have no prejudices, also known as toddlers. Then (I think) there were people who Have A Black Friend. Then there are people who try not to be racist, but get nervous when confronted by groups of people different from them (ISTR Brigstocke himself was in this group). Next come people like the late Jade Goody, Jim Davidson and Prince Philip "They don't have hatred in their hearts, they're just badly educated. Apart from Philip who was quite appallingly educated". And finally there was the actual racists, the BNP and so on.
Even as I write that, I notice Brigstocke is assuming that "people" are white...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-07-31 07:07 pm (UTC)That's pretty much where I am too.
I've been reading
no subject
Date: 2009-07-31 07:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-31 07:51 pm (UTC)Nobody can keep up with everything. That way lies head-asplodeyness :-)
(I'm still struggling to get my head around the fact that there's going to be a fourth series of Torchwood after all.)
no subject
Date: 2009-07-31 08:49 pm (UTC)The thing is, you don't get much of anywhere by crouching in your own corner being afraid to put a foot wrong. You just have to try to engage sensitively, and usually people will accept goodwill if you've made some effort to educate yourself first.
The biggest thing of all is (I read) that white people tend to react to the statement "that thing you said was racist" by flinching and saying "I'm not A racist, OMG, you called me a racist, racists are horrible people," when the other party was pointing to an action and not calling down a condemnation of the person's whole character. White people react to the words racist and racism as fighting words, because we don't tend to see it as requests to examine what we just did but the nastiest thing anyone's ever said to us.
So I've been trying to learn to take deep breaths and relax and talk about it without getting so excited.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-01 09:08 am (UTC)Yes. One of the most useful things I learned from my OU courses was that everyone has internal biases, whether or not they're aware of them and it seems logical that these will include a degree of racism. It's not a comfortable thing to think about yourself, but I daresay it has to be faced in order to become less racist.
I think I'm still in the educating myself phase. Trying to, anyway.
That's something I've seen a lot on Usenet - not with racism specifically, but often someone calls another person's ideas into question and they react as if they've been accused of some hideous crime.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-01 09:52 pm (UTC)(OTOH, I recently reacted with what can only be described as hysterical overreaction to the suggestion that someone else's writing was racist...)