Praeteritio

[liv]

It seems that lots of people round these parts are "blogging against racism". I'm really not sure whether I should participate, and here's why.

I should post something because I am against racism. Well, obviously; even BNP spokesmen sometimes claim to be against racism these days. I don't see much merit in giving myself a pat on the back: look at me, I'm such a good person, I posted to LJ saying Racisim is BAD!.

I should post something because I've been reading quite a lot of interesting and thought-provoking stuff because of the meme and other discussions about racism going on in the blogosphere more generally. But one thing I'm picking up very strongly is that a lot of people seem to want white people to "shut up and listen" and not try to take over the discussion. Well, I'm quite happy to shut up and listen, especially in the blog context because lurking when there are interesting discussions to read is a lot more rewarding than being in a conversation where I'm not allowed to speak.

The trouble is that if I don't post that I am against racism, I could be seen as tacitly supporting it, or not making sufficient effort to combat racism. I've seen just as many complaints about white people being unfairly privileged because they don't have to think about racism if they don't want to, or perpetuating racism by not speaking against it, as I have about white people invading the discussion and making it hard for the victims of racism to be heard.

The side-issue to this is whether I am one of the "white people" intended by the rhetoric from either side. I feel odd defining myself as "white", but clearly I have no skin pigmentation at all so I can hardly be anything else. I want to say "non-black", by analogy to the expression "non-white", but that would probably end up offending people. Navel-gazing about what my racial identity is is definitely not the point though. I think part of the problem is that the "racism" in "Blog against racism week" is sometimes being used specifically to mean racism against African-Americans, namely people with dark skin who live in the USA. Obviously, I have absolutely nothing to contribute to any discussion about the experiences of African-Americans. But I'm also not "white" in this context because I'm not a light skinned, WASPy American either! So on that level the whole discussion has nothing to do with me, except that, well, racism is happening and I would like to stop it, which is too obvious to be worth stating.

Oh, and I don't understand Theory. I don't understand gender theory or queer theory despite being gay and female, so I have even less clue about race theory. I can't use the jargon convincingly, I don't understand the ways of arguing that seem to come from Theory-based assumptions. Because the area is emotionally charged, this blind spot means that almost anything I say is likely to offend people. (By the way, if you are already offended by this non-post, please do tell me so.) It's probably better to say nothing at all than to speak against racism in the wrong way and come across as racist. Of course, perhaps the reason I don't understand theory is that I am in fact racist, however much I try not to be. I really hope that any friend who hears me saying something racist or with the potential for racist effects will point out my error to me.

So. I am very much against racism, but I don't think blogging the fact that I am against racism is going to do the cause any good.

Comments

[monanotlisa.livejournal.com]

I know I appear to be your one-woman cheerleader team, but seriously? Don't stop making posts like this: The internet is full of people who pretend to know everything despite an often rather patchy body of knowledge. Honesty is the best policy, really -- and this may very well spawn some interesting and genuine discussion.

[liv]

Awww, thank you so much for the cheerleading! I really appreciate getting kind comments on my posts. And yeah, discussion is really what I'm hoping for here.

[sunflowerinrain.livejournal.com]

Impressive post.

I think most people don't think about what racism means. The current bandwagon seems to be an attempt to discuss/deal with one aspect of a much bigger problem.

I don't think racism is the problem - the problem is any prejudice against any group of people, or against any person. hm. Prejudice is another word which is tossed around without checking.

I'm not as tactful as you, but I shan't rant in your journal :)

[liv]

Thank you for this comment, it's thinky as well as flattering!

I agree that racism is a subset of an absolutely huge problem. But I think it is sometimes worth discussing skin-colour racism qua racism, without necessarily having to mention that antisemitism and prejudice against Irish people and prejudice against disabled people and sexism and homophobia and etc etc etc also exist and are also problems. Also, if this discussion is supposed to be specific to the USA, fair enough; I'm not offended by the fact that some of what's being said isn't really applicable over here.

I'd be quite interested to hear your rant, if you felt like it. I am glad you think I'm being tactful, because I don't feel as if I am, really.

[sunflowerinrain.livejournal.com]

I'm too hot to rant now :)

I think that skin-colour is misdirection. Thre aren't many albinos, and the rest of us are shades of brown; even in USA it isn't necessarily easy to tell exactly whose roots are African or partly-African[1]. Using such labels, without examining what we are actually reacting to, obfuscates the issues. I think it should be extricated from the misconceptions, and until we break out of the confused thinking we won't be able to treat it. We're sticking the plasters on the wrong part.

[1] There was a tv documentary of the less trashy sort in which a young Irishman was interviewed. As far as the family knew, they had no African heritage; with frizzy hair and dark skin in comparison to most of his ginger neighours, he had been assumed to be mixed-race, and was treated to racist comments. He'd decided to accept the image, and joined a black community. Interesting, eh? I think it was the same programme that turned up cases of people who'd discovered they were descended from Africans who moved to UK in the C17 and C18 (and were rather proud of their new exoticness).

[liv]

OK, you're right, the thing that this debate is about is not really skin colour. But I was trying to distinguish that kind of racism from all the other kinds of isms and prejudices out there and that was the clearest term I could manage. It's specifically not about culture or nationality, and indeed the fact that people who are not at all African, even ancestrally, can be subjected to racism, whereas some of the people who actually come from Africa but have light skin experience less of this kind of racism, supports my view that that's not what it's about.

There are lots of different kinds of racism, yes, but there's a subset of them that involves prejudice based on immediately visible characteristics. I think a large part of what's different about that is that no matter how good an actor you are, you can't hide the colour of your skin (whereas you can change your accent and your habits and not mention many other factors that might lead to prejudice). And the other element of it is that specifically black people, as opposed to any other ethnic minority, have a particular history in the US, and that's a factor in the discussion too.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

And the other element of it is that specifically black people, as opposed to any other ethnic minority, have a particular history in the US,

And Japanese. And Hispanic. And First Nations people (or whatever the indigenous North Americans are called now). To my mind it seems to be aimed more at "not white" than at "black", although "not white" can be difficult to define.

Caution, Gross Generalisation Ahead:

People hate what they fear, they fear what they don't understand, and they don't understand anyone who is different to them... so it's not a huge surprise that people who simply look different often bear the brunt of prejudice.

For all that it seems obvious it's no less tragic, though. How can we encourage people to be curious and interested instead of afraid when confronted with someone or something they don't understand?

[liv]

Well, ok. Maybe the reason I feel like a lot of this discussion is something I can observe but not participate in is primarily that it's US-centric, rather than being about people of a particular racial group I'm not a member of. But I have seen some level of debate about whether Japanese and Hispanic / Latino people "count" as white or People of Color. It is clearly the case that Irish and Jewish (and Scandinavian and Slavic) people count as white in this discussion

Otherwise, entirely agreed about prejudice and fear and that describing the problem is nothing like solving it. Thanks for joining in.

[sunflowerinrain.livejournal.com]

Oh, and as far blogging it is concerned, I'm with lisakit. Lovely word, slacktivism.

[sunflowerinrain.livejournal.com]

oops. sorry, typo-ing someone's name, dreadful.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

What monanotlisa said. Also:

I think part of the problem is that the "racism" in "Blog against racism week" is sometimes being used specifically to mean racism against African-Americans, namely people with dark skin who live in the USA.

Possibly, but I'm sure it's not intended to be limited to that strand of racism.

However: I have come to realise I really don't like the phrase "people of colour". Every time I read it I think it sounds patronising--which is ridiculous, because we need some phrase to describe people who are not white, and because I'm white so who the hell am I to say what's patronising? But I can't help thinking that I don't know any "people of colour" who would be comfortable being described in those words.

So. I am very much against racism, but I don't think blogging the fact that I am against racism is going to do the cause any good.

The argument, as I understand it, is that just by having a lot of people say they're against racism you create an environment where people are aware that racism is not ok. Which sounds reasonable, and a good thing, although I do also take your point that it could potentially make those who don't blog look like they're tacitly supporting racism.

I think we need a word. Coming out for something is a more powerful statement than coming out against something--as the "pro-choice" lobby have unfortunately demonstrated, I think. People who are against sexism can say they are feminist (of course, that brings a whole load of other assumptions with it, but hopefully you'll grant the basic point). People who are against racism can say they are ... what? What's the word, other than "anti-racist"?

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

The argument, as I understand it

To clarify: the kickoff posts, if you haven't seen them, are here (http://coffeeandink.livejournal.com/608152.html), here (http://coffeeandink.livejournal.com/607897.html), here (http://rachelmanija.livejournal.com/346616.html) and here (http://oyceter.livejournal.com/460808.html).

[liv]

Thanks. I am gradually working through the whole discussion, and my having read part of it is what prompted this post. But links are good, definitely.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Now all links until the end (http://rilina.livejournal.com/328778.html)!

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

"pro-choice" lobby

Pro-life. Gah. I blame the heat.

[lyssiae.livejournal.com]

Whilst I understand your point in that paragraph, as someone who is pro-life, I consider the very term itself to be "coming out for something", and as such your example to be a poor choice of one. Without wanting to hijack livredor's discussion, both the pro-life and pro-choice camps (as it were) can be said to be rejecting one thing ("abortion"; "people dicatating what women should do with their own bodies") and instead taking up another ("value of life"; "right to choose").

As I understand it, the reason why people do not generally use the "anti" variants of the terms ("anti-choice", "anti-abortion", "anti-life", "anti-child") is precisely because of the language issues involved that you spoke of: portraying either side as anti-something does little that is constructive (if debate on this particular issue could even be considered constructive in the first place). Using "pro" terms at least focuses people - although an exclusive focus probably isn't helpful - on the positive in their viewpoint. The choice is then between two positive things, and an individual must choose which he places a higher value on.

[liv]

Terminology is hard. This whole post is full of evasions so I don't actually have to pick any name for the collective of people-who-are-subjected-to-the-kind-of-racism-under-discussion. Basically, I am happy to use whatever name members of a particular group prefer to use about themselves, but in this case I really can't identify what that name is.

Also true that anti-racist sounds negative and it would be better to be able to talk about what it is that we are pro. However, that's the way the language is right now.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

Pro-equality?

[liv]

Too vague, I think; it doesn't refer specifically to racial equality. And also, I'm not sure equality is what I'm pro. I mean, equality is better than the alternative, but for me a higher aim is justice, it's the value I call tolerance (though some people object to that term because it suggests merely tolerating the minor annoyance that there are people from different races). I want every person to be valued as an individual, and I want lots of cultural diversity but without skin colour and appearance mattering.

[oyceter]

But I can't help thinking that I don't know any "people of colour" who would be comfortable being described in those words.

You know one! (me ^_~) Of course, I can't speak for other people at all. I've been using the term because I've seen it on ap_racism a lot and because I am a shameless copycat of Beverly Tatum. She acknowledges that it is a problematic term, because white people have color too, but that "minority" has the connotation of being, well, minor, and "non-white" has the disadvantage of phrasing identity opposite of whiteness. Which is not to say that the term "people of color" isn't problematic or can't be patronizing, but to just offer another POV.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Yes, I got a bit carried away there, sorry. :) And you're quite right that all the alternatives are equally problematic; but that just makes me want to talk in generalisations as little as possible. I suspect 'minority' could be ok if it could be somehow used in a way that reminds people that who's in a minority is context-dependent. In Japan I'd be the minority, for instance.

[liv]

Oh, hello, I'm most flattered that you're even aware of this post and chose to comment on it! I know you're not the magic POC fairy, but you are still a major figure in this whole issue. Thank you for all the work you've put in; I hope you didn't get the impression from this post that I think the whole thing is a waste of time. On the contrary, I really appreciate the way you're drawing all the different bits of the discussion together, and admire how you are polite and helpful to even the most annoying borderline racist commenters.

I see what you mean, POC is less awful than some of the alternatives. Though chromatic people is cuter! I saw someone getting absolutely piled on for pluralizing it as POCs because the acronym sounds like "pox", which just boggled me. Also, it doesn't help me to refer to the particular subset of people I am looking for a non-offensive term for (as opposed to all the different POC groups), but that's often the way with these language issues and it's my problem not anyone else's.

[oyceter]

Hi! I am friendly, I really am ;).

I liked "chromatic" too, though it started out more as a joke. And I get into weird grammatical backflips when I try to pluralize it: "POCs? POC? Wait, it's still 'people of color.' Woe!"

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Of course, perhaps the reason I don't understand theory is that I am in fact racist

Or it could be that "Theory" is twaddle wrapped up in academic language that serves mainly to allow people to hold onto opinions that are contradicted by evidence. I think one of the hardest things that people with a scientific training have is getting their heads around the notion that "theory" in certain "disciplines" is independent of any evidence base and seen in fact as a priori superior to "facts" the objective existence of which is denied.

[neonchameleon.livejournal.com]

Or it could be that "Theory" is twaddle wrapped up in academic language that serves mainly to allow people to hold onto opinions that are contradicted by evidence. I think one of the hardest things that people with a scientific training have is getting their heads around the notion that "theory" in certain "disciplines" is independent of any evidence base and seen in fact as a priori superior to "facts" the objective existence of which is denied.

I wouldn't go quite that far. The problem with such theory is that there is sometimes good stuff buried underneath all the twaddle - and that no one - not even (or probably particularly not) the proponents can say where the twaddle is and where the good stuff is.

What irritates me is that such theory is theory in the colloquial sense (= an interesting idea someone's come up with) but fromm my observation, we are expected to treat it as an established scientific theory.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

I agree. Clearly, part of the problem is that theory fans tend to write in unneccessarily obscurantist language which makes it even more difficult to sort out the gems from the twaddle.

One of the most interesting insights into "theory" I got was from reading Anthony Beevor and Artemis Cooper's Paris After the Liberation. It's worth looking at how many of the French intellectuals so beloved of today's theorists cut their intellectual teeth packaging the ever changing party line of the PCF.

[liv]

Well, maybe. The thing is, I am a natural scientist (in fact, that's a much bigger part of my self-definition than "I am a woman" or "I am bisexual"), but that doesn't give me the right to assume from the start that every other possible tool for dealing with the world apart from the sacred Empirical Scientific Method is necessarily bunk. I don't understand Theory well enough to be confident that it's twaddle.

It doesn't work for some things; I wouldn't want to be developing medicines or designing space shuttles based on theory. But I don't think making lots of measurements and providing numbers with associated error bars is likely to be a terribly good way of dealing with racism either.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

You misunderstand me. I'm not suggesting that ESM is the one true way. I do think though that any approach to understanding social or historical phenomena that doesn't consider how insights derived from a theoretical framework might be tested against some sort of evidence is flawed and unlikely to be very useful. It doesn't need to be and often can't be quantitative but it is possible to ask "If this theory holds then what sort of phenomena might we expect to oberve and then see if they do". I hold that that can be done for most anything, including ideas about racism. Its a debate that has been constant in historiography and theory of archeology for ages. Empirically, I find fact based analyses informed by theory infinitely more useful than theory divorced from evidence.

[liv]

OK, you're making sense. I still feel I don't have the tools to make a blanket judgement about the Theory-based approach, but your position is much less extreme than the impression I had from your first comment. Thanks for clarifying.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

My personal experience of "theory" lies largely in dealing with trotskyists. They are easier to debunk but the principle is similar. As soon as one hears an argument that x is "objectively" y because theory says it ought to be you know what's coming. I came to the conclusion long ago that a PhD in Imperial Sartorialism wasn't a prerequisite for recognising nakedness.

There's a fun section in Anthony Beevor and Artemis Cooper's Paris after the Liberation which in part deals with the extent to which many of the intellectuals who would go on to be the great gurus of theory cut their rhetorical teeth justifying the ever changing party line of the PCF.

[lisekit.livejournal.com]

"Blog against racism"? First I've heard of it, but it does sound like a nasty case of slacktivism to me. Clearly belongs in the same bag as email petitions and inspirational email forwards. If people would really like to work against racism, I feel they'll have to tear themselves away from the blogosphere to do it. Certainly, no-one has the right to criticise anyone for not making a lazy gesture in the direction of activism from the comfort of their webspace.

*sigh* I swear I have heard of this thing called grammar...

[monanotlisa.livejournal.com]

Slacktivism! That's perfectly *me*.

I beg to differ, though: Email petitions and quote inspirational unquote email forwards are one thing, something done with a lazy click and without much thought, but an essay of the kind seen and read on my flist so far is another.

But of course, I believe it cannot ever hurt to clarify and remind and maybe try a critical approach. Reading and discussing here can help a great deal, probably not directly because this is such a liberal, queer, and female space already, but indirectly because it allows you to find your own point of view then defended against or at least explained to your parents, grandparents, other non-bloggers you're in contact with. I cannot tell you the amount of discussions my little sister and I have had with our parents alone, and small though they may seem, changes in attitude do occur, and truths do sink in.

[liv]

Thank you for this comment, and for the link from your post. Very good point about learning from the discussion in ways that are useful in the wider, non-blogging world. And yeah, I have read and enjoyed and thought about a whole lot of very carefully thought-out posts which are not lazy click and pass it on at all. I guess my point is that I don't feel I have anything useful to add, not that everyone who is participating is wasting their breath.

[monanotlisa.livejournal.com]

I guess my point is that I don't feel I have anything useful to add, not that everyone who is participating is wasting their breath.

Oh yes, and I thought it was a perfectly valid point! I would go as far as to agree with others; lots of people just make a production of themselves, and I can't really say I'm excluded from that lot...but still, I think it's worth trying, thinking, putting it together in your mind if not necessarily in your LJ, if the impulse is there.

& :-)

[liv]

Very, very good point about slacktivism. I think that's a lot of the reason why I'm uncomfortable making a post pointing out something that everyone knows already.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Please see the link in my comment below. The concept of the week arose from a specific set of circumstances, which was that attempts to discuss racism online were attracting a great deal of anger, mockery, and random anti-Semitism. Most people may agree with the statement "racism is bad," but that is no help when people attempting to discuss the subject in more detail than that get shut down with a flood of comments like, "Yeah, well, my ancestors were oppressed by slaves!" The hope is that by using an attention-catching gimmick to foster discussion right now, future discussions will be easier to have.

[liv]

As I said to oyceter, I'm pleased and flattered that you have come to join in the discussion here, thank you.

I do think that some of the nasty comments are just trolling, in the sense that when there is a really obvious consensus about something, some morons like to attract attention or feel like they're being really rebellious by speaking against the consensus. So in that sense, the existence of those kinds of comments is a sign that really everybody with any brain does support the basic premise. But of course it's still hurtful when you get attacked by that kind of troll, please don't think I'm trying to minimize that!

However, there is something more subtle and more scary going on, which is the people who say "racism is bad, but talking about racism is really boring" or "racism is bad but it's racist to accuse white people of being racist" and so on. coffeeandink's satire about suppressing discussions of racism is really germane. And I do hope you're right, that the gimmick will make discussions of race issues more productive in future.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I have not yet seen anyone criticised for not participating, and I hope no one has been.

You might want to read this post, which should shed some light on the purpose of the week, which is anything but slacktivism: http://oyceter.livejournal.com/461559.html

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

This pretty much sums up my views.

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

I think the injunctions to white people to "shut up and listen" and to "participate in the debate" are not necessarily contradictory: the important thing is that they should be done in that order.

The side-issue to this is whether I am one of the "white people" intended by the rhetoric from either side.

An important point, and one that raises a question in my mind: it is clear that Jews still face prejudice and hostility from certain quarters, that is there are a significant number of people who are to some degree anti-Semitic. The stats show that Jews in Britain are more likely than (other?) white people to be victims of racially-motivated attacks (though not to the same extent as blacks and Asians). We've both been on the receiving end of verbal anti-Semitism, and I suspect that's far from uncommon. But what I wonder, and would like to ask your opinion on is, do Jews still face systemic racism and discrimination in society? Does, for example, having an obviously Jewish name or wearing obviously Jewish garb put one at a disadvantage in the job market? How deeply do you see anti-Semitism as running in society?

My turn to shut up and listen! :)

[liv]

Sam, I'm not going to talk about antisemitism here. I appreciate your asking, but this isn't the right discussion for that. I have seen a lot of people who are rightfully upset because they are trying to talk about their experience, but can't do so because they are drowned out by people reminding them that white people have it just as bad, look at the Jews for example! I absolutely don't want to contribute to that bad dynamic.

Anyway, pretty much everything I want to say about this topic is in this post last year.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I was going to muse about the wothwility of such posts, but oyceter's link said a lot, which I couldn't add to.

If you want to join in, but don't have anything to say, you could always try to think of an amusing story on the subject -- I know it happens to be almost automatically[1]. Or post about being a Briton in Scandanavia.

It does make sense that perhaps no-one thinks of themselves as racist, but have assumptions that if no-one challenges ossify, so if everyone expresses their views, enough people might know someone who makes them rethink.

[1] I seem to have been hypersensitised to prejudice, that before many of my natural prejudices form, when seeing an [adjective] person in a film or wherever, a little trigger in my brain pops up saying "are they represented fairly?" so I never do see them naturally. Of course, most of the [race], [sex], or [religion] people I know are middle class intellegent colourblind geeks, like everyone else I know, so my prejudices are about different things. If I lived in a place where black people *were* statistically more likely to rob you, they might be different.

[liv]

Thanks for this comment. I think I may tell a story about racism, actually; I'm still mulling over whether that's a worthwhile contribution.

I won't talk about being a Brit in Sweden or English in Scotland, though; those issues are specifically and explicitly irrelevant. The original complaint that started this was that it's hard for people to talk about being discriminated against on the grounds of their skin colour / race / visible characteristics, and part of what's making it hard is that people keep bringing up irrelevant comparisons of discrimination that white people experience from other white people. I'm not at all saying that those kinds of discrimination don't matter, but they are very much Off Topic in this particular discussion.