On August 30, 2005, there were two pictures on the front page of Yahoo! news that featured a couple in one picture holding some supplies while wading through water, and a young man in the other picture, also shoulder-deep in water, holding a large black garbage bag. Captions under each of the pictures infamously described what was going on: the couple supposedly found some bread and soda at a local grocery store, while the young man supposedly looted a grocery store.
In 2006, the NBA imposed an age limit on potential draftees. The age limit was set at 19 years old and also required high school students to spend a year playing at the collegiate level for the NCAA. Jermaine O’Neal, Forward for the Indiana Pacers and one of the former NBA draftees who made the jump from high school directly to the NBA, said the age limit was racist against black high school students.
Danny Glover, a Northern California native, was unable to hail a cab in New York while visiting his daughter. Oprah was unable to get into an exclusive French handbag shop afterhours, despite her star power. The Asian American community displayed outraged at Rosie O’Donnell’s incredulous imitation of generic Chinese on The View. They also called for the dismissal of Miss Jones and DJ Envy of New York’s Hot97 radio station after the hosts aired a song that parodied the tragedies of the tsunami in southeast Asia.
Most recently, former vice presidential nominee and member of the Hilary Clinton campaign, Geraldine Ferraro, cried ‘reverse racism’ when she claimed that Barack Obama’s success in the primaries up until that point was due to the fact that he was black. Insinuated in this statement was that she and the Clinton campaign were at a disadvantage because they were white.
What do Katrina victims, NBA stars, actors and talk show hosts, former vice presidential candidates, black people, white people, and Asian people all have in common?
All have claimed to be victims of racism.
And much of the outrage is warranted. Perhaps some, not so much. Today, to talk about racism is to denounce that it is absolutely wrong. But it also means that the very people who denounce it claim absolutely no responsibility or intention of perpetuating racism. Let’s face it, when the topic of race comes up, almost everybody that you know personally will most likely preface whatever they may say next with “I’m not a racist”. They say the problem is with those other people, those intolerant bigots. They cannot imagine how we live in the society where people still think like that. In other words, we seem to live in a society today where everybody is a victim of racism, and nobody is a racist. There are fingers being pointing every which direction, but nobody wants to claim responsibility for perpetuating the problem. Do we really live in such a country, where people would disguise their true intentions because it is fashionable and lawful to be accommodating, understanding, and color blind?
The answer is in part, yes. Our values as a society are formed partly by political correctness, and enforced by legislation. It is taboo to be a racist. Discrimination in itself is not illegal, but discrimination based upon race is. So while we may have the tendency to be bigots, because of social norms and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, we need to be careful what we say. However, on the flip side of it, we become better people as reflections of those same social norms and legislation. Children are taught growing up that it is not right to discriminate based upon race. And that is a powerful tool in eliminating the prejudice that leads to racism.
The question still remains, however. Why are there so many people who claim to be victims of racism in a society where the vast majority of people deny being racists? And why do these victims come from all walks of life? Why are they not only black or Asian or Latino, but also white? Why are they not only poor, but privileged?
I think that there are two reason for this, neither of which mandate us to point fingers and further create racial divides. The first has to do with our inability as a society to consistently define ‘racism’. Racism, according to our society, is anything from saying Asians are good at math to the neo-Nazi movement. But the first is not racism. The first is what is called prejudice. Asian are generally known to be good at math, but of course we know that not all Asians are good at it. But that generalization is learned by society, and we approach most of our encounters with Asian Americans with that prejudice. Based upon our understanding of Asian Americans in general, this particular Asian American may also be good at math. That is not racism. That is prejudice, which is something that we cannot escape.
And prejudice, just like discrimination, is not racism. Discrimination becomes wrong when we discriminate based upon race. Much in the same way, if our prejudice leads to a negative judgment on a particular race, then it becomes racism. Prejudice is something that we cannot deny as being a part of human interaction. Avenue Q, the Broadway musical, seems to be of the opinion that “everyone’s a little bit racist”. Perhaps the more accurate description of society is that “everyone’s a little bit prejudiced”. We come to our encounters with people with certain assumptions based upon what we’ve been taught, and our previous experiences. This is simply good social skills that can sometimes lead to bad encounters.
But we as victims may sometimes confuse prejudice with racism. When I was growing up, there was a white kid who lived in my neighborhood, and my brother and I would occasionally play basketball with him. One time, our friend (who is Korean) came over to play with us. The kid from my neighborhood began to make martial art sounds while we were playing basketball. My Korean friend got fed up with it after a while and kneed him in the head. The kid started crying, and my Korean friend began to feign apologizing, pretending that it was an accident. Being probably about ten years old, I couldn’t tell for sure if the white kid was taunting us or if he just happened to be making those noises because he was in the company of Asians. Were we victims of racisms? It’s hard to tell, because I’m not entirely sure if the kid was taunting us. Were we victims of prejudice? Probably. After all, we were Korean, not Bruce Lee’s children, and I quit Taekwondo when I was nine years old.
Still, should we feel hurt or victimized because an ignorant kid didn’t know any better? I don’t use ignorant as an insult. I use it to mean simply, that the kid probably didn’t know. And here’s where all the confusion happens. We are generous with the term ‘racist’ when we are the victims, yet we are stingy when we are accused of being racist. After all, who knows better than me if I am a racist or not? How dare they accuse me of being a racist, when they don’t even know me? I have black friends, you know. I have more Asian friends than you do, so don’t even accuse me of being a racist. When we are the so called perpetrators, we look at things objectively. But when we are the victims, we tend to look at things more subjectively. It’s because when we are the victims, we know what is supposed to offend us, even if there is no rationale behind it. But when we say something or do something that may offend other people, we simply do not have the experience and context to understand why such a thing should be offensive. In effect, when a person is deeply offended and you do not claim to be the offender, you are imposing your will and refusing to admit that you hurt someone. And this is terrible social skill, because there is no dialogue. There is only a soliloquoy.
I believe wholeheartedly that many of our racial confrontations turn sour because we confuse prejudice with racism. Prejudice may be a matter of ignorance and can certainly lead to offense. But we can defeat negative prejudices by being consistent in our use of terms. This is accomplished first through treating others as you would like to be treated and using standards you would apply to yourself in dealing with others. Sometimes, this means that there needs to be benefit of the doubt, and perhaps a measure of grace. Secondly, it comes from dialogue. Prejudice can be fixed with words and dialogue, because words can inform the ignorant. They have that power. But words can also close the door to dialogue, and perpetuate a state of mutual misunderstanding and suspicion. It can lead to generalizations of oversensitivity and bigotry.
The other reason why racism is rampant in a society with fewer and fewer racists has to do with the residue, both social and economic, left by our fathers. Richard Thompson Ford, a law professor at Stanford University and author of The Race Card, says we are eager to identify bigots in a society where individual racism is becoming less common. Rather, there is collective racism, perpetrated communally. And this collective racism is the byproduct of socio-economic factors and the legacy of the separatist generations that have come before us. Kanye West infamously said on national television that George Bush doesn’t care about black people. Yet black people suffered disproportionately in Hurricane Katrina because they were the ones without the resources to evacuate the city. It would be irrational to assume that President Bush doesn’t care about black people because they were at a disadvantage in income and resources. But it would be rational to claim that more black people were not able to evacuate New Orleans because of social, economic, and historic factors. Blacks have been disadvantaged in all three regards. And these issues cannot be fixed by placing the blame upon a single scapegoat. It is structural discrimination that leads to structural racism.
Take another example: Danny Glover is probably among the throngs of minorities who complain about cabdrivers because they discriminate based upon race when choosing their clients. What we fail to take into account in accusations of discrimination based upon race is that it is close in proxy to discrimination based upon socio-economic status. Cabdrivers are not allowed to discriminate against clients based upon their destination. But they tend to, because there are often neighborhoods that pose a danger to them. The people who suffer for this unfortunate fact are usually black. The discrimination is not justifiable, but it should also be treated by taking into account additional factors, particularly the relationship between socio-economic status and race.
My first day of kindergarten I had a hard time understanding what anybody was saying. The teacher had apparently asked a fellow student to help me put my backpack to the side of the room where the other kids had already placed their backpacks. I thought the kid was trying to take my backpack from me. So I resisted at first, but finally relented after I opened my backpack and took out all my belongings. Fast forward to eighth grade: I’ve been in the American Public School System for nine years. For some reason, the school had decided to moniter my English skills that year, and sent me to take an exam on two separate occasions to evaluate my English skills, even though I was proficient at that time. The proctor acknowledged that I probably didn’t need to take this exam, but asked me to do so anyway. While I was probably a victim of discrimination based upon race, in retrospect there was no one person to blame for this. The school administration probably orchestrated this evaluation with good intentions, hoping to moniter the progress of students for which English is not the primary language. I just happened to be someone who became slightly inconvenienced by this.
There are a host of different kinds of social and economic residue which negatively affect people of different races, whether they be as serious as losing livelihoods, homes, and even family members, or having to sit through a pointless test of language aptitude. In either instance, race relations can become constructive if we realize that sometimes, perhaps, the racist that we thought existed is only a figment of our desire for vindication, and the real enemy becomes our prejudice and the race relations arena that we had a hand in creating.
Of the complaints of racism by politicians, professional athletes, celebrities, and people from all races and socio-economic standing, is there a way to tell which of them is warranted? Is there a way to smoke out the real racists? Perhaps the best way to find out the answers to those questions is first to dialogue with one another in full realization that we are responsible for race relations, whether we be bigots or not. Dialogue creates common understanding of words and cultures. We must also realize that perhaps there is a phantom racist we all want to chase, but we’d better use our energies to speak and work towards a more just society.
Hey, baptize my mind.
Hey, baptize my eyes.
Hey, baptize my mind.
For these seeds to give birth to life: first they must die.
