I haven't blogged here in a very long time, and I apologize. The reasons are multiple, and what it all boils down to is that I've been too busy with school and too angry about politics and the degradation of my national culture to sit down and analyze anything for the purposes of writing.
Today, however, I was compelled.
Those of you with a daily knowledge of me are all familiar with my regular indulgence in celebrity gossip. I love looking at the clothes and I really enjoy the schaudenfruede-esque satisfaction I get from watching the ever sought after combination of fame and wealth bring misery more often than happiness. So there you have it.
Anyhoodle, I frequent a particular celeb gossip website, and today they had up an article about a photoshoot with the lovely Jessica Alba. In it, she is wearing all sorts of edgy fashion pieces, and the comments on the website were varied in reaction. One commenter, we'll call her "X," chose to post a comment which made my right eyebrow twitch. The relevant portion is as follows:
"Indeed, Jessica Alba is very and absolutely beautiful. Excellent curves that many white ladies lack..."
The rabid gang-rape tendency of internet communities is no different on that website than anywhere else, and so a long list of other posters came in to annihilate this poster's character and drain her soul of any remaining will to live. A few were actually rational enough to point out the racist quality of her statement before jumping all over her, and still others attempted to make excuses for the poster. The excusers were the most interesting. Some of them examined possible childhood influences on X's racial attitudes while others simply claimed that the comment was true and/or no big deal. Then...the post which prompted me to respond went up. Another poster, who has claimed in past discussions on this site that she is a black American wrote the following:
"Oh good grief. Racism = prejudice + power. It’s pretty prejudiced (and misinformed) to say that white women don’t have curves, that’s patently ridiculous. But please, white women are the greatest beneficiaries of affirmative action, and are hardly talked poorly about (unlike darker skinned women). So, whatever on the claim of racism."
"Whatever," indeed.
I couldn't help myself after that and a flurry of keyboard clicking ensued. My response was as follows (although, I did go through it this morning and edit because it was full of the kind of content, grammar, and punctuation errors that I forgive in social forum posts...but not blogs):
Oh please. That is so tired.
Racism does NOT equal prejudice + power. That’s political psycho babble that activist groups have been spouting to stir up anger in voting pools and keep dissenting opinions out of the national discussion since the 60’s. Let’s be real about it. Stating with any seriousness that "only those in power can be racist" is just crazy ridiculous on several levels. It's denial, and it is a sad, tired crutch used by people who refuse to face their own biases or give up the scapegoats they have taken refuge in holding onto.
In fairness, a lot of people believe this drivel because they’ve been slammed with it over and over and over again in universities. The whole concept is a load of garbage, and any honest study of sociology with historical context proves me out. The reasons that otherwise good and honest people keep using this excuse are all very psych 101 and easy to understand, but it doesn't change the fact that it's decidedly untrue. It also makes the people using it look an awful lot like a big, fat pot pointing frantically across the kitchen at a kettle.
Racism is a persistent belief that one race is superior to another and/or a hatred of persons of a particular race based on race alone.
Prejudice is not racism, and it is not the same emotion from which racism springs. Prejudice is a preconceived expectation, fear, or opinion. Sometimes, prejudice is based on experience. Other times, a person might have no evidence at all for a prejudice and be totally unable to explain why s(he) holds it. Prejudice can apply to any area of life…certainly not just race or even people in general. Most prejudices can be changed or worked totally away through experiences or demonstrated evidence which offer an alternative to the prejudicial concept. Most people make these adjustments on a daily basis without even thinking about it.
Prejudice is something that every human being on earth has in some form or other. It is not evil. It is not hateful. It is normal and natural and unavoidable. Anyone who honestly believes he has no prejudice is seriously good at deluding himself...because he does.
Hatred and prejudice are not the same thing, and hatred of a race of people, with or without the power to oppress that race, is still hatred…and it’s still racism.
There is no neat absolution for those groups who don’t have or believe they don’t have power for indulging in racism. I don’t care which philosophy or PoliSci teacher told you there was. Hatred is ugly no matter who the poor bastard on the business end of it is, and powerlessness is no excuse for perpetuating the ugliest side of humanity.
X's comment was racist because the tenor of it suggests that X not only believes that white women's bodies don't have curves, but also that this lack of curves makes white women inferior in beauty to women of other races.
That’s why it’s a racist rather than a prejudiced comment…and it is racist whether white girls have great salaries and a full complement of civil rights or not.
1 comments:
Anyone who will buy into the definition of racism that requires the perpetrator be in power has never felt the sting of someone accusing you of something you did not and would not do. I have. I have been charged with racism because I gave a D on a research paper to a student who deserved an F. Her mother called me a racist and told me that she had told her daughter not to expect anything better than a C from any white person. I was devastated by the accusation, hurt so badly that today, 25 years later, I can still feel pain at the memory.
No, racism is NOT from the powerful only, but from the peer as well--this woman was a peer, a fellow teacher, whom I had respected and even liked.
So, don't give me the BS about power. I heard that definition 40 years ago, and it was not true then any more than it is now. Hatred and mean spirit come from many directions--too many. We can only get past the "race" issue when no one brings it up anymore.