Racism isn't just "a card" some people "play"

[bcholmes]

Blaming people of color for Prop. 8 passing in California is racist. So cut it the fuck out. Ditto for veiling your racism with "this is because of turnout for Obama" or "you know how conservative those immigrants can be."

sparkymonster states one of those things that I wanted to believe was obvious, but which apparently is not.

Edit: Here's another good response to the "let's blame the brown people" phenomenon.

Edit the second: Here's a statistical analysis of a white election.

Edit the third: Daily Kos has a good analysis, too!

Comments

[cigfran-lwyd.livejournal.com]

ok, let's discuss.

clearly, racism is fully and widely operative. it is even possible that most things that are considered racist (by those with the cultural authority to make the claim) in fact are. the comments noted by the OP and yourself may indeed be racist.

but they are also more than that. and the term "racism" has a tendency, i feel, to collapse all discussion about the things in question into a big black box that is all about itself, and not at all about the things that lead into and out of it. it vastly oversimplifies perspectives, conclusions and consequences.

not to say that it is not often exactly what-it-is. and a continuing awareness of it ought to lead to observations that are less inflammatory and more measured. offering myself as an example, i am constantly self-editing in this regard, being at least as prone to heedless generalizations as anyone else, yet sufficiently well-socialized to have working re-think loops.

i have already agreed that it is inappropriate to "blame" non-whites for the passing of Prop 8. but the accusing finger of racism - which in some instances of that blaming may even be merited - raises a prohibition rather than a question.

thank you for the link pam spaulding's comments on the subject. as usual, i think she puts it all pretty near perfectly.

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

*nod*

I think I have a lot of things I'm inclined to say, here (and am struggling a bit with putting them all into words).

One of the points that leaps immediately to mind is a post that a friend made on Usenet regarding men and feminism. At the point my friend had made her comments, some guys (Sensitive New-Age Guys, to boot) were stating that feminist anger about sexism was the key thing that was turning them off of feminism.

My friend argued (and I agree with her) that withholding their support of feminism until feminism acts according to their terms was a form of power. That making conversations about sexism comfortable for men was, while in some sense productive, essentially an example of how the master's tools are, once again, going to help improve the master's house.

And I think I see this conversation about racism much the same way. I don't claim to have done anywhere near enough anti-racist education, but I have observed how every conversation about racism I've had with white folks has had to spend an inordinate amount of time making white folks comfortable with even the implication that there might be less-than-perfect behaviours around race.

I see many, many people have knee-jerk reactions to words like 'privilege' or 'racism' and then use that as an excuse to not take part in the conversation -- I think that opting-out behaviour exemplifies a form of white privilege that's pretty icky. And pretty invisible to the people who are wielding it.

[cigfran-lwyd.livejournal.com]

all good points.

i'm well familiar with the "you're an angry person so i'm not going to listen to you" thing. it's infantalizing, and further infuriating, which is often the point. it is certainly a standard strategy used against trans people, who are often pretty damned twitchy to begin with, and easy to trigger.