I said something racist once.
Probably more than once. Once that I know of. Once that I think of all the time. Once in a way that the words were barely out of my mouth and I realized I had said something foolish, meaning to make a joke, succeeding only in persuading everyone within earshot that I was insensitive at best, but possibly a racist hiding under my lefty reporter persona.
It happened almost 30 years ago, but I never remember the incident without my cheeks flaming. I see the face of a good friend, her expression a mix of horror and sympathy. She knew I didn’t mean to be that stupid. And I see the two African-American people at the other end of the table cast their gaze toward each other, then downward, resigned, but not particularly shocked.
I don’t want to say what I said because then people will begin to parse it. Oh, you were really making a joke about someone else’s racism. Or: It seems to me that the real butt of the joke was – No. I said something racist. In public, in front of friends and colleagues. In the continuum of racist things that people have said and regretted, I’d place it right next to saying an African-American writer is allergic to watermelon.
That, of course, is what Daniel Handler said at the National Book Awards Wednesday night. By Thursday, he had offered up one of the most straight-forward apologies of modern times. But he didn’t characterize what he said as racist, just as “ill-conceived.” (Editor’s note: on the morning of Friday, Nov. 21, Handler issued a second, even more straight-forward apology, stating, “My remarks on Wednesday night at #NBAawards were monstrously inappropriate and yes, racist.”) I don’t blame him for his initial reticence to use the word racist. No one, no one, ever admits to being racist. It’s an all-or-nothing thing. You are or you aren’t. My sister, who works for a big corporation, was once at a sensitivity training session where employees were asked to raise their hands if they had ever heard racist sentiments in their extended families. She was the only one who raised her hand. Doesn’t that seem . . . improbable?
In 2002, my eighth novel was making the editing rounds at my long-time publisher. In it, two cops, a man and a woman, both white, talk about interracial couples. The man wants to know if the woman would date a black man. Not someone famous he says – “like that actor they let win the Oscar last year” – but another cop, an ordinary guy. I received an e-mail saying that there was concern about this scene. It seemed unnecessarily rude to Denzel Washington to suggest his Oscar was the result of anything but his performance. Granted, they were two working-class white people, speaking confidentially to one another, long-time co-workers. But some people felt that it indicated I was a racist.
That’s all I needed to hear. I took it out. And regretted it because the scene, as written, was true to what I know about people, even nice ones. They sometimes say stupid shit. The nice people I know are so terrified of being thought of as racist that they insist that they never, ever, ever think about race. Never! Well, that’s a luxury, the cornerstone of white privilege. When I teach and students insist to me that they have transcended all stereotypical thinking, I say: “Have you ever been stuck behind someone on the highway? When you passed the drive and say that he or she was old, did it confirm a hunch? Then you’re a bigot.” (Oh, by the way, one reader once did write to inform me I was an age-ist because I had an older character who couldn’t use modern technology very well.)
The human mind was set up to categorize, generalize. It makes life so much simpler. I want to tell you that I never, ever think in stereotypes, but the more precise truth is that when I catch a stupid thought skittering across the surface of my brain, I send little villagers after it with torches. I check myself constantly, like a mother looking for deer ticks at the end of a camping trip. “What’s that? Is it a speck of dirt or something hateful, something dangerous?” You don’t want these stupid suckers to take root.
I am the mother of a young child going through a terrible phase. Our mornings and nights are filled with battles. Discipline is meted out. (Fair, consistent judicious discipline, OK?) A privilege or a toy may be taken away for a period of time. She begins to sob. “I want to be good now. I promise I’ll be good now. Can I be good now?”
I tell her yes, she can, but that will never change what has already happened.
I said something racist once. Thirty years ago and I think about it at least once a week. I worry that I have slipped, said other insensitive things, and not just about race. But I definitely said something racist once.
Anybody else want to raise a hand?
Tags: laura lippman, racism, the butter, we are all human
*raises hand*
The one that sticks in my mind and causes me the most shame happened about nine years ago. It was an awful justification, saying of course I wasn’t racist, I just didn’t like people who acted “like that.” That if people just acted like me and stuck to my cultural norms, there would be no problems. I’m not perfect, but I’m glad that with every day that gets farther and farther behind me. I can only hope I’ll continue to grow.
when I catch a stupid thought skittering across the surface of my brain, I send little villagers after it with torches
This is a wonderful mental image and one that I will most definitely be using in the future.
Yes, I love that image, too. This is what I wish we taught white kids (and wish I had been taught, as well, though I guess I eventually figured it out myself?) – yes you will probably think racist things because we’re a racist society. What are you doing to do about it?
My future father-in-law and I have an occasionally prickly relationship, mostly because we’re both sometimes-prickly people. But the only time he ever raised his voice to me was when I was saying what (I now realize) was definitely racist nonsense in a conversation about The Help (ugh).
While I’m not sure his reaction was the BEST way he could have handled the conversation, it definitely made me rethink things and it has stayed with me. I definitely still feel stung and ashamed when I think about it, which while not pleasant, has helped me on my life’s journey to do better.
Yep.
I’ve said racist things, transphobic things, ableist. Not maliciously, but out of ignorance – but that doesn’t make it better for the people I hurt. And the lack of malice won’t make it better for them the next time I screw up out of ignorance, either.
I will, however, always thank my parents for their honesty when they talked about race with me – when they said that society had taught them certain racist things that it was hard to strip out of themselves. They said the same thing would likely happen to me and it was my duty to try my best to root it out.
I agree with you, and I feel like there are two different kinds of ignorance here (and I am way guilty of them both). The first kind is a legitimate not knowing, like thinking “transgender” is a verb instead of a noun, or not understanding that “gypsy” is a slur that refers to a real group of people. And then there’s the other kind, the “I’m not -phobic or othering except I just said this -phobic thing.” One of the things I’ve said that I wished I could unsay was “Oh, that’s okay. I’m used to all kinds of people.” That’s the kind of thing that sounds good but so very very isn’t, and the person to whom I said it got appropriately pissed off.
resigned, but not particularly shocked.
It’s awful —worse, of course, for the person who is resigned and not particularly shocked, much worse — but it’s awful to know you’ve unwitting contributed to someone else’s immediate experience of othering or oppression.
I’ve said racist things — and other -ist things, too, but I won’t dilute the conversation by heading into that territory — because I was raised by moderately progressive white people who didn’t think they were racist, which means their racism was subtler and harder to uproot than Handler’s appalling watermelon “joke.” I’m old enough that it’s not proper to blame my parents; I’m responsible for my failings now. But that’s the soil I was grown in, the quiet poison that leached into me and that I’m always trying to refine out.
Like you, I see thoughts in my mind (and in my writing) and examine them hard: Is there implicit racism in this thought? In this word choice? In this construction of the language? If there were, would I see it?
The stereotypes I have programmed into my brain are not on par with Handler’s watermelon remark, but they’re more elusive, less obvious to my critical eye. And I’m sorry I have them: I work to be sure they’re only discredited inward vestiges of an upbringing poisoned with unthinking privilege, not outward expressions or bedrock belief; I work to be sure they don’t influence my words or actions. Because that’s what decency demands.
The concepts of microaggressions and whitesplaining were especially enlightening to me, because that’s where most of my adult racist transgressions have occurred, in that harder-to-parse but still REALLY REALLY RACIST territory of speaking over or speaking down to others. And over the past few years, I’ve been making an effort to be more aware not only of my words and of my presumption that my words are welcome but of my movement through space: who do I yield space to? When is stepping aside or stepping into someone’s space a tacit performance of white privilege and racism? It’s revealing.
Re: Microaggression and white-splaining
One of the hardest things for my self to comprehend and accept is that a lot of the time, “doing it right” ACTUALLY means “shutting the fuck up and letting other people speak.” My whole life, I’ve had so much of my self-conception rooted in “knowing the right thing to do”–i.e. being a know-it-all. Turning off the part of my brain that wants to be the expert is difficult, but I’m not going to stop trying to shut those brainweasels down.
Yes. Yes. The incident that still makes me cringe was a definite white-splaining moment, and I hate that I had the opportunity to help someone and I failed them instead. Working on digging out that impulse to prove that I’m “on the right side” is hard. I know I’d do better now if the same thing happened to me again, but it’s never exactly the same thing.
Man, I clicked into a Twitter conversation recently, then clicked back out before I tapped out any words and retweeted it instead, because my voice is not needed there. But I was uncomfortably close to speaking before I caught myself. It’s an ongoing process, unlearning the idea that your voice is welcome and valuable and not-oppressive.
I do this a lot — not on Twitter, but here, Metafilter, Facebook — and more often about queer/trans issues than race, but it’s the same pattern. It’s hard. I am also trying to get rid of the little thrill of “look at me aren’t I such a good ally, I should tell that person about how good I am for not butting in,” which, UGH.
“doing it right” ACTUALLY means “shutting the fuck up and letting other people speak.”
I was at a demonstration for Mike Brown and there were all these white people getting up to speak and I went up and said “White people need to just sit down for a little while and stop making this all about us and I realize how hypocritical I sound as a white person up here right now, but seriously” and for days afterward I had that horrible re-living of embarrassment sensation where I would literally cringe if I thought about it too much but I felt like somebody had to say it and I always would rather regret the things I’ve done than things I haven’t, so…ugh. Yeah. I feel ya.
*raises hand*
Got two Black students’ names confused, and later two Asian students’ names. (And lots of White students’ names, too.) I have since stepped it up on learning names.
Oof. I confused the names of two asian volunteers who I was supervising once and the look on the face of one of the women was just devastating, she didn’t even correct me, just looked at the ground. I’m sure it wasn’t the first time it had happened to her, which made it all the worse. I try to be more careful now too.
I can’t pull to mind anything specifically racist I’ve said, which I’m quite sure speaks more to my ignorance than my innocence. The homophobic stuff, on the other hand–eegh. agh. nrgh. *buries face in hands*
Daniel Handler is by far one of my favorite authors so yesterday was rough. (I mean, I also spent the day reading about just how anti-Semitic GK Chesterton was, so ouch all around.) I’m glad that Handler acknowledged his racism in his second apology and that he’s contributing towards the We Need Diverse Books campaign. I’m trying to balance that gladness with not letting him off the hook: not letting his actions to make up for what he said erase the fact that he said it.
Agreed on all counts, and seconded on dumbshit hurtful things said and done and apologized for and not erased.
One of the things that bothers me about the situation with Handler is that it was Jackie Woodson’s night, but now we’re talking about what he said instead. I’ve never read her work, so it feels like picking up her books and talking about what SHE has to say as well would be a step in the right direction.
I’m buying her book tonight. while not everyone has to or should do that, it seems like a good move. Not like it’s going to be a sacrifice for me, it’s supposed to be really good!
I can’t pull to mind anything specifically racist I’ve said, which I’m quite sure speaks more to my ignorance than my innocence. The homophobic stuff, on the other hand–eegh. agh. nrgh. *buries face in hands*
This could have come from me, only I probably wouldn’t have said it as eloquently. Thank-you.
On my walk into work this morning, I was actually thinking about a terrible, racist thing I said when I was a freshman in college. I didn’t even realize at the time how racist it was. I can think of two other times I’ve said racist things (and I’m sure there are more, and that I wield my white privilege without even realizing it), and I think of all three incidents frequently and with shame. I want to make amends, but I don’t know how apart from trying to do better.
ETA: I just thought of another! So four. Three of them are mainstream beliefs that I didn’t recognize as racist at the time but have come to recognize as racist (that is not an excuse! I should have known). The fourth is a mainstream belief that I know is racist and that I don’t believe, and I didn’t believe when I said it, and yet I made it come out of my mouth.
I mean, yes, of course. I think the way you deal with it — obfuscating ignorance, self-aware correction, emotion & shock — says just as much, if not more, about those beliefs than anything else.
And yes to this: “the more precise truth is that when I catch a stupid thought skittering across the surface of my brain, I send little villagers after it with torches.” And not just with these insidious racist thoughts, but also cruel thoughts, negative thoughts about my body, anxiety thoughts, constant complaining. It’s the first line of defense.
ETA: PS this piece was really really good and it was the perfect length and I loved it.
I’ve said racist things, though the comments that makes me cringe and want to crawl in a hole is 2 transmisogynist comments from college that were just not acceptable. One was called about by someone who was trans, though I did not know it at the time. They called me out, but I hate that they had to do that.
Also, re: Daniel Handler: he has pledged to donate $10,000 to We Need Diverse Books and is matching up to $100,000, which is a good way to make amends, since that will do more to help writers of color than any apology he could make, https://twitter.com/DanielHandler/status/53577260…
Terrible racist shit has come out of my mouth and the memories are so bad that I’m afraid to speak. At the same time, because I’m not white, I feel an obligation to sometimes join the conversation. (If you ever hear weird gargling coming from a corner, it’s probably me, at war with myself.)
Yup, I have definitely said some racist things, and had racist thoughts. Nothing comes to mind right now, though that is neither here nor there. There are also other-ist things that I have said that I still think about X-number of years later.
Hopefully the list won’t get too much longer as time goes on, though I realise that odds are I’ll fuck up again. I’ll do my best.
I posted about this elsewhere on here before but the most significant moment for me was when I casually made a comment about being a “slave”, and my Black partner stopped me immediately with a “no, no you are not,” and I realized – holy hell that’s racist and I have to pay more attention to the loadedness of the words I use.
(I suspect that “never well” should be “very well”.)
*raises hand*
I said something too-recently on Twitter that wasn’t intended to be racist, but it was – as well as commonplace-clueless – and I was immediately called out for it. And I’m still thankful for that slapdown, even though it stung, because they were absolutely right and I was absolutely an idiot. And it’s not a once-and-fixed moment, but keeping that slap in mind always is part of the process.
Along with saying -ist things, I’ve participated in some appropriative behavior in the past, not quite realizing what I was doing. I cringe when I look back, and try to be hyper-vigilant now about how I treat culture that doesn’t belong to me.
Two incidents in particular always make me cringe. One was because I was young and didn’t know better, but once because I was trying to be well-meaning and ended up being just flat-out awful. And who knows what else I’ve said without realizing it.
1. Hi Laura Lippman! I’m a big fan and from Baltimore! My friend Ira interviewed you for a Baltimore NPR story about the Orioles and I loved what you said!
2. I was six and mad at a kid in the park who was hogging the swing. I yelled at him, “Get off, boy! It’s my turn!” He got very upset and said “Don’t call me boy!” I was confused; I had no idea what I had done. My father pulled me aside and told me the deal. I went back to apologize to the kid but he had left. I still think about it all the time; it was my first experience really being conscious of the pain of racism – I doubt it was his.
Ooh, yeah. I used that term once with a black male friend and am still ashamed of it. I would have said the same thing joking around with a white male friend, but context matters and that’s no excuse.
I was totally of the, ‘but why isn’t there a WHITE Entertainment Television??!?!’ persuasion until I was well into college. I am thankful for the internet for educating me.
I was just cringing about this in the shower this morning! There’s one person at my school that I find myself wanting to seek out in order to be not racist in front of her, to balance past (accidental but oh yikes) wrongs, but that is not how things work.
Haha yes! Oh, compulsion to seek absolution, will you ever go away?
*raises hand*
While on travel abroad, and a friend from [country we were in] IMMEDIATELY called me out. Never been more deservedly ashamed in my life, and still thankful she didn’t let it slide. *cringes again*
(ETA: And no doubt other times, but that’s the moment that sticks in my mind most vividly.)
Hand raised.
As a writer, I worry even more about WRITING racist things, because those will be lurking in books until the things crumble.
I’ll raise a hand. Self-reflection and empathy are skills we need to hone constantly. It doesn’t mean being afraid to speak, it means taking the time to speak without ignorance or flippant entitlement. I come from a blue collar New Jersey background, and thankfully by the early ’80s our industrial neighborhood was pretty mixed ethnically. But I still catch myself. It’s bound to happen, due to the institutional racism we live in. When we are corrected, it’s often an opportunity to be educated.
For me, it was assuming that the Mayans and Incans were “extinct” – a convenient lie that we’re taught in school. No, the Indians are still there, and we still have their continent. When I said it, I was completely ignorant. I’d been taught they were a long lost civilization, easier to forget our atrocities against them that way. I went and learned how wrong I was.
Though really, I thought we were past the time when people needed to learn that watermelon jokes are stupid, racist code, but they make it into the newspaper cartoons as well. (Look up “watermelon toothpaste” if you missed that one).
Though I also regret that you changed that scene- though it does mark the man as a boorish jerk, like some relatives of mine who get angry every time they see a black face on television, because when they grew up in the ’50s, you had to be Rochester if you were going to be on TV, and now “they” have “taken over”. Those people exist, we are allowed to write about them as human beings and not complete monsters who have to die at the end. But their casual racism should have a point to the story, in my opinion. Either they get an epiphany or they don’t. An example I liked was the old dinosaur cop in George Pelecanos’s “What it Was” … it was made evident that his kind were on the way out, and that their judgments impaired their policing, without making him a strawman or even a character we’re supposed to hate.
To me, that scene presents an ambiguity about the character. Does his suggestion that Denzel Washington was “allowed” to win an academy award reflect that the speaker is a racist boor who doesn’t think Black actors deserve the awards they win, or does it reflect that he’s a cynic who thinks that the Hollywood establishment is racist, normally withholds awards from deserving Black actors, and made an exception in DW’s case? As a reader, one can’t know the answer until they’ve gotten to know the character through his other statements.
I study this kind of stuff for a living, and the more I study the more I’m aware that I have said and done awful things. We all do. The only thing I can do is try to be better and to set up systems in place that make it easier for people to be better.
Likewise, I studied global literature and theory to a high level, and everything I read gives me more horrifying and shameful realisations about my past behaviour. But I hope that I say and do racist things less frequently after each text I read as well.
Hand raised, not just for the things I’ve said, but for all the times I didn’t say anything when I had the responsibility to call someone out.
I had this coworker who said the R word in front of me twice and each time I frowned and thought about saying something but didn’t make myself before the moment was over, and also I kept thinking I should talk to her in private instead of making a scene in front of other coworkers, and then she left for a permanent position (she was on contract here) and I never said anything and I feel terrible/relieved.
The hardest part for me is letting go of guilt for things I’ve said. Said is in the past, what I need to do is be in the present and be aware of what’s coming out of my mouth now. Feeling guilty about the past does nothing but make me feel bad in the present, and distracts from the learning and improving I actually want to be doing.
Welp. *raises hand*
I’m glad you didn’t tell us what the comment in question was; that was the right decision.
I might disagree with that. Might, not do, because I’m torn. I suspect that there are a number of reasons beyond the stated one for not giving the comment itself, and that one of them is the knowledge that some of the people who read the comment will not be able to forgive it, regardless of the author’s contrition. That still might make withholding the comment the right choice – if giving it would be hurtful to people – but I think it also detracts a bit from the author’s point, which is that we need to admit and take responsibility for our own past racism. One part of confessing is realizing that people may not feel the same about you afterwards, and when you say, “I said a racist thing but I’m not going to tell you what it was,” you are shielding yourself from direct criticism in a way that I’m not sure is entirely consistent with the kind of open dialogue the author is trying to create.
Almost certainly more than the two or three times I’m sure of, if you count things I don’t remember or didn’t know were. I hope I don’t do it again, but when I speak without thinking first and skate the sentence as it freezes, which is the only way I can get any words out at all, I’m at the mercy of my faults. Internalized entitlement is only one of them.
I live in a neighborhood that’s just bursting with stereotypes, good and bad. I can’t even describe what I mean without sounding racist. I’m sure all kinds of stuff is leaking into my brain and I’m doing my best to be self-aware. Mainly by reading lots.
In other words, /raisehand
Yuuup.
Laura Lippman, you are a treasure.
My faulty memory thinks I have never explicitly said these kinds of things, although more likely I’ve just managed to avoid saying them in the presence of someone with the motivation and fortitude to call me on them. What I do distinctly remember and will everlastingly regret are the things I’ve done that I (now) know quite well were implicitly but strongly racist. In one case, I am awfully lucky to have maintained one of my most important friendships twenty-plus years later.
Aw, jeez, yeah. There’s one particular incident that stands out; I was I think a sophomore or junior in high school, and the second the words came out of my mouth I (and everyone in the room) froze in horror. Another white girl then tried to alleviate the situation and definitely made it worse. Happily, one of the two people directly hurt by my words, who was a good friend, was willing and able to talk about it with me and accept my apology; the other one was always perfectly civil and even friendly to me moving forward, but I have much less of a sense of how she felt about it at the time and how she feels about me now. (I mean, I’m pretty sure she never thinks about me because we were never particularly close and there’s no reason for her to be sitting around pondering my existence, but I hope you know what I mean.)
That was the big one. I can think of one other fairly straightforward occasion and several smaller ones (usually of the overcompensating “LOOK I’M ONE OF THE GOOD WHITE PEOPLE!!!” variety), and I’m constantly trying to find the line in a number of ways, but that one incident is the one I go back to over and over and that I will always feel visceral shame over.
*raises hand* I have no idea when, but I have to assume so – I grew up in a super-white place and I knew I wasn’t supposed to be racist but I thought that meant you could never, ever, speak about race. The rest of my education being spent in redbrick humanities departments/rural areas (UK) hasn’t exactly done much to change that. So now i feel like, although I’ve made a major effort to educate myself, I’ve not actually had that much practice at not being racist. And I mean, you can follow all the right people on twitter and read all the right blogs and even all the right theory, but it’s face-to-face interaction that brings out that shit and I fully understand why people might avoid making white friends in order to avoid being that test case.
I cringe at the memories of inadvertent racist, yet still racist, things I’ve said and also at memories of being with people making blatant racist comments and doing nothing. I like to think that it gets better as I get older but in the end that’s unfortunately because my brain-to-mouth filter is much stronger and I’m not so worried about calling people out now, not because racist notions don’t “skitter” across my brain.
I once had a shameful and racist argument with a friend who is a POC about what her experiences meant to her and I’m so sorry for it (we are still friends so I can only guess she’s forgiven me for being horrible). That’s the worst I can think of, although I’m sure I’ve mindlessly evidenced my white privilege in so many ways I don’t even know about, which is also horrifying.
I said something truly, truly awful in a discussion in a high school English class — I was trying to parse out *what* my assumptions of a certain book had been and own up to having had racist thoughts but expressed myself in a really ham handed way and just ending up saying something that sounded like I embraced those assumptions. I still feel so, so sick about it.
Thank you for asking this question, Laura, and giving us the opportunity to raise our hands.
Becoming conscious of—and consciously unlearning, undoing—the racism that was part of my inheritance as a white American is at times such a shame-drenched process. I think several times a week about a few instances in which I said terrible, terribly casual racist things, things I had been taught were funny, things that I know hurt people I love. And I don’t ever get to take them back.
This kind of conversation helps, I think, to keep all of us working to recover from being racist (in that casual, mainstream white American way) from getting shut down in shame. It’s normal to make mistakes and right to make amends and a struggle to live with our pasts—that’s what growth looks like.
*raises hand*
If I have anything to add, it’s that I am hugely grateful for every instance of the pointing-out of these things.
I uttered two racist phrases in my life without knowing they were racist/what they meant, but I don’t suppose that counts, does it (but let me know if it does). I do remember saying something about “White people problems” on Facebook and a POC friend said “I prefer to call those DINK (double income no kids) problems.” I cringed–and learned a lesson.
“First World Problems” too, and I didn’t understand when that became a thing because we already had the perfectly good “champagne problems” phrase.
I have never heard “champagne problems” before but I’m using it forever now. So much more accurate, so much less racist. (So much more about not taking myself seriously, I hate champagne.)
That One Time, for me, is the time I dropped a Q-bomb while sitting in a bar, across the table from a gay man. It wasn’t directed at him, it was at a roommate, who I was calling gay because that’s what nineteen year old guys do. I immediately stopped and apologized, but man, the look in his eyes cut me. There was that crushing feeling where you find out that you have been an idiot for a very long time.
One reason I like this website is because sometimes I read things on it that cause that feeling to come back, but I don’t need to have had one of those experiences that sometimes keep me up nights. Thanks for writing, Laura.
*raises hand* *applauds your honesty*
Oh yeah. And the sins of *omission* — the times I should have acted to be a decent human and just wasn’t — those wake me up sometimes.
It’s one of the things I find strangely useful in 18th and 19th c. fiction, that so many of the characters assume they’re flawed and have to strenuously examine themselves and work to be better. I can find that imitable even when I disagree almost completely on what counts as better.
Am I the only one who finds these ritualized confessionals of “woe is me, we’re all so racist”, kind of weird, and also, slightly ego-centric? Instead of bemoaning your weaker compulsions, and, MUCH more importantly, allowing the WORLD TO REVOLVE AROUND YOUR SMALL FAULTS AND ANXIETIES, why don’t you go pick up a copy of Frantz Fanon’s ‘Black face, White Mask’, an excellent analysis about real relationships between POCs and whites. It’s fifty years old, but still relevant. It also features extensive quotations of Aimé Cezaire, the poet and political leader of Martinique.
In other words, do you really think the solution to racism is to complain about how politically correct you wish you were? Take that energy and use it to actually educate yourself on the world and the historical processes that have made it what it is today. This is how we will escape the inequalities that still exist.
But are those two things mutually exclusive? I think people can go “Wow, I was horrible,” and simultaneously be working to better themselves. It doesn’t take much energy or time to complain about your own faults.
(Of course, I know I need to be much better about educating myself, so thanks for the resource!)
I have certainly said racist things. I have also (mostly to be an asshole) accused authors of being racist because of things their characters did/said. This was during freshman lit class and I hated all my classmates (who would issue the most tentative questions about how maybe, possibly, it could be interpreted that character X might, somewhat, be racist in this one instance).
Can someone explain the watermelon ‘joke’ to me, please. I am South African and English is not my first language. I grow watermelon in my backyard and give away the excess and am terrified that I may have inadvertently hurt someone.
It’s playing off the racist stereotype that everyone who is black loves watermelon–there was tons of racist pop culture and imagery since (according to Wikipedia) the 19th century in the U.S., and while it’s not as common today, it unfortunately has survived. (Looking it up, I learned from the same Wikipedia article that the Boston Herald just last month “ran an editorial cartoon depicting an intruder asking if Obama has tried watermelon-flavored toothpaste, to much controversy.” If you google “watermelon stereotype,” you can learn more about it. Obviously I can’t speak for other people’s feelings, but I think that offering watermelon from your own backyard would strike your friends and neighbors much differently than you running out and buying some from the grocery store just assuming that they’d love it. (and here I feel myself verging into white-splaining…I hope I haven’t crossed the line.)
Thank you! That makes much more sense than the interpretation (‘watermelon’ as the racist equivalent of the blond joke’s ‘airhead’) I had considered.
Everyone correct me if I'm wrong, but it's a pretty US-specific racist thing. This wikipedia article does a better job than I could of explaining it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watermelon_stereotyp…
YES. First thing I’m reading on The Butter and it lives up and then some.
Sure, but acknowledging that you have racist tendencies is really not that common, and that’s why discussions like these are important. You’re much more likely to hear people get defensive, or say “I’m not racist, but…[racist statement],” which is incredibly backwards and unhelpful. Recognizing your own faults is a really important and difficult part of the process.
Sure, but acknowledging that you have racist tendencies is really not that common, and that's why discussions like these are important. You're much more likely to hear people get defensive, or say "I'm not racist, but…[racist statement]," which is incredibly backwards and unhelpful. Recognizing your own faults is a really important and difficult part of the process.
I can't pull to mind anything specifically racist I've said, which I'm quite sure speaks more to my ignorance than my innocence. The homophobic stuff, on the other hand–eegh. agh. nrgh. *buries face in hands*
This could have come from me, only I probably wouldn't have said it as eloquently. Thank-you.
To me, that scene presents an ambiguity about the character. Does his suggestion that Denzel Washington was "allowed" to win an academy award reflect that the speaker is a racist boor who doesn't think Black actors deserve the awards they win, or does it reflect that he's a cynic who thinks that the Hollywood establishment is racist, normally withholds awards from deserving Black actors, and made an exception in DW's case? As a reader, one can't know the answer until they've gotten to know the character through his other statements.
I have written a poem, with, I don’t know how many revisions, about a stupid, racist interaction/comment I made 10 years ago. I’m just now trying to put it out into the world. If I am brave enough. Thank you a million times over. Raising my hand.
You are not the only one. I also found this article really weird and strangely self-centered. It’s another example of well-meaning white people nevertheless making fighting racism all about themselves. I totally agree with you that people need to get up and educate themselves about racism, and also the actual experiences and suffering of actual people, rather than defeatist whining about the crushing burden of white privilege, and the difficulty of being decent people in the face of human nature and their upbringing.
These kinds of conversations take the spotlight away from the real victims of racism and inflate the discomfort of the perpetrators upon discovering that they may have caused hurt with their unintentional (or intentional) words or actions. This kind of logic prioritizes the intentions, good or bad, of the person who did the deed, other than the hurt or suffering caused. This is also the kind of thinking that gets people thinking that accusations of racism are just as bad as actual racism.
It is, of course, a good thing to acknowledge where you have gone wrong before. But in this article and comment thread, I am seeing several people who seem to be preemptively criticizing themselves in order to avoid criticism from others. For POC, this is weird to read, because its white people who are bringing up the issue of racism, and their own participation, but also completing the narrative, all on their own self analysis while conveniently shutting out the voices of the real victims and abstracting away the hurt and suffering of real people.
This piece is devoid of the perspective of people on the receiving end of racism, which is understandable, given the introspective nature of the piece, but what made me uncomfortable was how this made it easy for Laura to defend each of her own acts of alleged racism, in what appears to be projection of her own thoughts onto readers (“Oh, you were really making a joke about someone else’s racism. Or: It seems to me that the real butt of the joke was..”) and by not seeming to understand fully why the quip about letting a black man win an Oscar can be problematic in the context of a dialogue between fictional characters. The piece may seem more sincere otherwise, but all in all left a bad taste in my mouth.
My comment was meant to be in reply to willi564’s comment, but maybe it does not appear as such.