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]

it's interesting, the shades that the term "racism" apparently takes on in different contexts. as ampersand describes it, the charge may amount to little more than "you've just made an inaccurate and potentially offensive generalization about people of color." which is quite a bit less loaded than i think many understand it.

[sparkymonster.livejournal.com]

Only being able to accept that you did something racist, when someone couches it in the nicest terms possible, is a huge example of white privilege. Also, digging up stats, election maps, and giving a long list of examples explaining why accusing blacks of passing Prop. 8 is showing how people are making an inaccurate and offensive generalization based on race. You know, a racist generalization.

Also, witchqueen went looking for examples of times when someone's use of a nice polite tone was successful here (http://zvi-likes-tv.livejournal.com/429727.html).

"In livejournal mediafandom, no one has observed tone successfully used as a mitigating factor, or they have not so far come forward to admit this."

" First of all, not everyone is going to follow the rational, dispassionate argument, but some people are really good at the emotional logic. When they see that actual people are actually saddened or enraged by something, that’s when the issue achieves importance to them. (Which isn’t to say call such people irrational or unable to follow logic, but that they have either a communication style or a value system where emotion rates higher when they’re deciding what to care about in human relations today.)

Second, just because a person of color opens her mouth about race or racism, that does not mean she’s volunteering to teach for a day. Sometimes, screaming at livejournal is what one does instead of cutting a bitch. Sometimes, she’s calling on other people to go attack some Big Fandom Fail. Sometimes, she’s pulling a fandomwank and inviting people to watch the big mess which is going to occur in 5-4-3-2-1. Whatever it is, it doesn’t have to be class sesson 237 of Racism 101.

Last but not least, people losing their shit perform a valuable service for those of us who are about to pull out the chalkboards and learn ignorant folks. They expand the margins, so that a calm and dispassionate tone looks like a regular person talking, at least in contrast to the crazy, scary person over there."

[cigfran-lwyd.livejournal.com]

ok.

but my point was that ampersand's post appeared to soften the idea of the accusation of racism, as if being told that one has made a racist utterance is of little more consequence than being told that one has farted in a closed room. which is not, i think, how the term is usually received, or meant.

for the record, i am all for people losing their shit. a good rant is often far more instructive and vital than an essay.