no thats being male.
and that's being a bit ungenerous - he 'fessed up to what he thought was a bad thing. The question is whether he then changed. (Another PK = Good Kid thread, I think, on balance.)
This sounds more like racial prejudice. The Indian Removal Act of 1830, for example, is racist. I agree that the distinction is subtle, but it is important.
I'll have to remember this when it comes time for my talk with the lil one.
I hope to hear about PK throughout the years. He is a character, in a very cute way.
Every day when I read your blog, I come away with at least one of the following:
a) Great links supplemented with insightful comments.
b) Inspiration to pursue my Ph.D. so I can become a rad bitch like you some day.
c) Very excellent parenting advice that I employ often with my own 5-yr.-old version of P.K.
I seem to recall having a conversation with my mother when I was about PK's age that was very similar to the latter part of this one. My mother warned me not to be a "prig" and then made me look it up in the dictionary so I'd know what it meant. Valuable lesson!
no thats being male.
Bygraves
No, that's being a young child. I've seen playground yelling matches where children this age of both genders and all ethnic/racial mixtures are yelling "no I'M the most IMPORTANT person in the WHOLE WORLD" at each other.
Yeah, PK is a bit arrogant--he's a perfectionist and pretty competitive, as well as quite smart, and he can be shockingly impatient when he is crossed. We're working on the idea that trying to be the best at something is great, but wanting other people not to be good is not so great....
I boycotted that movie at the tender age of 6 after it was added to my Disney collection. Cute post.
The recent live action Peter Pan was actually not bad, If I recall...it might be interesting to show PK a different version of the story, if he's interested.
We have both live action & Disney--he prefers the "green Peter Pan," i.e. Disney, b/c it's animated. Sigh.
Sometimes these talks can misfire.
My six-year-old read a book on Rosa Parks a while ago. A couple of months later, he looked up at dinner and said "does it go in the paper when someone dies?"
Wow, I'm thinking, smart kid, and I tell him yes, Rosa Parks was very old. And we both recalled how she stayed in her seat on the bus.
So then the kid says "__ in my class is black, and she rides the bus, just like Rosa Parks." At which point I had to explain that many African-Americans do drive cars.
Heh, whereas I would have gone with, "good for her! Maybe we should ride the bus more often," and then gone into the environmental issue....
This sounds more like racial prejudice. The Indian Removal Act of 1830, for example, is racist.
"Racist" = "something other, very bad people are, but not us."
These conversations with PK are going to become a book, right? 
As animals, we tend to be as savage as the next species, I think,(though our savagery is hardly color-coded) or even moreso when we consider war or acts of terrorism, which are savagery on a grand scale other animals never consider. We just have ways of deceptively distancing ourselves from what we do and wrapping our deeds in glory on the battlefield or cellophane at the meat counter or rhetorical hocus pocus in our political speeches. Among the animals, I'm sure we've wiped out more species than any other creature has done, and killed more of our own kind.
But maybe PK can enjoy a few more years of innocence before he figures all this out. In the meantime, as a citizen of a nation responsible for a senseless war, for Abu Graib, for the neglect of a city and its poor in the wake of a hurricane for which it failed to prepare - how long does this list have to go on? - I have to confess that my species and my nation must own up to their own measure of savagery, too.
I know that this is not where you were headed at all, but your remark about the word "savage" being for animals snagged me and wouldn't let me go.
An individual may be "savage," but to call a class or group of people by that word is most certainly racist. It is a word with a great deal of historical weight behind it, and I think BPhd's explanation to PK was a very effective way of handling the issue with a kid.
correction to above comment: an individual may behave in a "savage" manner . . .
Isn't racism just group arrogance?
No.
Racism is the combination of regular ol' group prejudice with legal and social rules that create entrenched inferiority. Prejudice + power, basically.
Racism is the combination of regular ol' group prejudice with legal and social rules that create entrenched inferiority. Prejudice + power, basically.
I think that's an apropos definition for the US - which is where PK lives, of course, so I'm not exactly quibbling.
I'm not sure it entirely holds elsewhere. Think of the Balkans, for instance, where ethnicities might have roughly the same amount of political power, and control over territory, and one can nonetheless witness bitter ethnic hatred there. Perhaps that's best called something other than racism, but I'm not sure what.
Or let's say progressive democrats make startling grassroots political gains - remaking the entirety of not only their party but the culture of the US. In 2028, due to an impressive and far-reaching suite of legislation, African-Americans enjoy privileges and rights the equal of those of Americans of any other ethnicity. The Senate is 30 percent Black (and 51 percent female) and even the die-hard militant racial justice activists start saying they've won.
In 2035, I meet some bitter white guy in a bus station. He's ragging on the Blacks for taking away his career. Is he racist?
um... yes.
It's racist to assign negative characteristics (such as JOB STEALING) to a whole group of people based on their skin color.
Hmm...without power, I think it's just being an asshole. Like it'd be mean of me to call a white person who annoyed me a cracker ass cracker, but seriously, he or she will be able to compensate for that in so many ways it almost doesn't matter...
Powerless people can be racists, too. If some impoverished African-American thinks "all white people are scum" that's still a racist belief.
Racism is the combination of regular ol' group prejudice with legal and social rules that create entrenched inferiority. Prejudice + power, basically.
So holding bigoted beliefs about a group that's not subjected to "legal and social rules that create entrenched inferiority" isn't racist? That can't be right. Jews in the United States these days aren't subjected to "legal and social rules that create entrenched inferiority." Many people nonetheless have racist views about them. (My understanding is that Jews consider themselves both a race and members of a religion.)
We just need to distinguish between institutional racism, of which laws creating entrenched inferiority among a particular racial group would be one example, and individual or psychological racism, of which a black person's belief that white people are all crazy crackers would be an example.
And go easy on PK's ego. A man (and a woman) needs a strong resilient ego in this cold, cold world.
The topic of native "savagery" came up tangentially over at my place today: Oklahoma's Dead Indian Creek is in the news.
Including both power and prejudice is necessary and useful.
Because it is important to differentiate between someone who holds messed-up views but does not have the weight of power in society on their side, and someone who holds views AND has the power of society on their side.
It's important to differentiate that because the effects of powerless people holding prejudiced views is different than people who (even if they are not powerful) support the power structure by having those views.
When people discount the importance of power in holding racist views, it always sounds like people are trying to say "a black person prejudiced against whites is *just as bad* as a white person prejudiced against blacks"
- but the point isn't who is more or less of a bad person - it's what effect does it have on the society we live in. And as far as how our society as a whole works, you need to pay attention to power.
In one local community, where a recent influx of southeast asians has changed the demographics in a short few years, there have been some issues with police officers of color dishing it out to the new faces. Predjudice? Yep. Power? yep.
I'm clearly taking far too many breaks, but I think the question of what we mean by "racism" is more a semantic/linguistic one. By the standard of how we commonly use the word, the position of a person in society is irrelevant to the question of whether they can be racist, or ascribe to racist beliefs.
Is power important? Sure. Does that mean it's a part of our definition of "racist?" No. Should it be? No. Adding a requirement of power not only obscures and complicates the meaning of the word, but it also leaves us without a convenient label for racially-prejudiced-individuals-in-positions-of-
inferior-social-or-political-power.
"Racist" is a nice, briskly negative appellation for anyone who presumes to judge another human being by the color of her skin. Degrading it to the level of sociological jargon isn't necessary or useful, imho.
It's not a degradation at all, Andrew, and in fact racism is commonly understood as meaning not only individual prejudice, but also broader systems of enforced inferiority.
And that understanding is both necessary *and* useful. Because it helps us understand how people can say, "I'm not racist," meaning "I am not consciously prejudiced," but can still benefit from the privileges of white skin--one of which includes the belief that not holding conscious prejudice means not being racist. The problem with that belief is that it allows people to say, "very few people nowadays are racist in the way they used to be"--which is, broadly speaking, true: we don't think that the song in the Disney movie is okay. But if that's the case, then racism is no longer a problem?
No. Because the system that enforces inferiority--things like government management of land privately held by Indians--is still largely in place.
I'm so glad I don't have kids right now --
I LOVE that kid.
And by the way, he needs the book the Boy got for Halloween: "Kat Kong".
I agree that it is useful to pay attention to the ways in which racism can be institutionalized. But we have a term for that, i.e. institutional racism.
I don't think it is useful, and indeed I think it is obfuscatory, to alter the meaning of the term "racism" or its cognates such that we cannot say a minority individual is racist when he holds racially prejudicial beliefs. To do so ignores the essential moral similarity between the racist beliefs of a minority individual and the racist beliefs of a majority individual.
Moreover, such a use is simply at odds with how we actually use the term.
Great job explaining racism to the Kid.
Unfortunately, my kid learned about racism in a harder manner. Since she is black, it is something we deal with everyday.
If we all educate our kids about racism, maybe my (long, long) future grandchildren will not go through what my child did.
While I agree that power dynamics are an unavoidable factor in racism it is manifestly not true that racism exists as a function only of prejudice, among those with power, and especially only in relation to legal and social rules. If this was so, then logically there would have been no racism prior to the establishment of these social and legal 'rules'. Anyone want to claim that was the case? Rather, societies such as ours introduce ideas of legally and socially legitimated racism in order to reinforce, as well as to establish, power structures. Prejudice, a function of fear and ignorance, comes first. It doesn't need the legal system or social mores to be in place before it can be called racist.
Power plays a part in all cases, though, as racism may emerge not merely among those with power, but among those who seek it (but don't feel they have it), or those who fear losing what little they feel they have. This accounts for racism among poor whites who may believe they are 'losing their jobs' to people whose skin is a slightly different colour from theirs, however much this is to ignore complex economic and social factors that work against them, and also among blacks who assume superiority over whites, perhaps because they fear that the racism among some whites is a constant among them all, and is a danger they seek to diffuse. Or whatever. They either want to hold on to what power they have, or to claw back a little more. Because power is always in flux, and takes forms well beyond simple statutory reinforcement, it is a factor. Statutory reinforcement of that power is not a prerequisite.
I don't really see either how "racism = prejudice + power, basically" avoids a conclusion that "I'm not racist" because "I am not consciously prejudiced". Doesn't it rather enable one to conclude that "I have power" (being white, educated, etc), "but I am not, as far as I'm concerned, prejudiced - therefore, even though I benefit from being white, I am not racist for enjoying those advantages." Or is it the case instead that having power by being white one is ipso facto racist (by not having power, one is not)? If so, this is insoluble. I don't myself think that is the case.
I think Chris Clarke's Balkans example is very important here. It is easy enough for entrenched liberals to say that blacks or other people without power aren't racist because they don't have the structure of society on their side. But it is simply myopic to define racism solely in terms of the racial dynamic in the US. What do you call it when ethnic groups of equal power despise each other, as in the Balkans, or numerous North African countries where black christians face off against tan-ish muslims. Isn't the conflict between India and Pakistan as much about ethnicity as religion?
Brilliant dialogue, as usual. I love seeing models of these sorts of conversations. This one in particular, I'll probably need to have a similar conversation soon, so thanks.
Ok, this is awesome. Thanks for making me laugh out loud before I have to go and give a final (which will probably make me laugh too, but in the "one has to laugh or one will cry" sort of a way).
good for you. I am often not so clever at explaining things to M. Anyway she gets really upset and takes it to heart. Example, the kids story of Ruby Bridges made her cry and then she never wanted to read it again. Sad! I wish I was as quick a thinker as you are.....
oh god the song in that movie is paaiiinfulll...it's so rough that i actually find it darkly amusing, and must stifle horrified chuckles when i watch peter pan with my daughter - i don't want her to think it's genuinely funny.
i also told her that the movie's portrayal of the indians is racist - but at least the indians and the lost boys are friends, which was kind of a step up for the times.
Flea had a cute story along similar lines a while back:
http://buggydoo.blogspot.com/
200...evelations.html
haha! I think racism is prevalent in this country, and we are all affected by it...its like breathing in pollution--we can't miss it. But we can buy purifiers....
Nice differentiating between Michael "being" racist and Michael as a Racist. I think even my father -- who, having grown up in segregated VA, has trouble dealing with modern sociological definitions of racism that implicate us all -- could deal with that. (And talking to parents about this stuff can be as hard as talking to children, paradoxically.)
It's not just institutional racism that's a concern, though.
Institutional vs. individual makes it sound like individuals are or can be separate from institutions.
That doesn't get at the way personally held beliefs feed into and construct those institutions.
I would say it degrades the term racist to use it in a power-blind manner. We already have a term for that - racial prejudice (or ethnic prejudice).
I do think it's important to recognize the way prejudice works internationally and not fixate on the american situation. But it makes no sense to equate ethnic and religious prejudices that sift out on different power lines.
How is it helpful to ignore that the conflict between India and Pakistan has very different factors (not only ethnicity, because remember the wide variety of castes and local ethnic groups involved, many of whom see each other as vastly more different than they are the same) than conflicts between blacks and whites in America?
Or what's happened in the Balkans IS different - for precisely that reason, that no one group has a monopoly on the power and social institutions in the region. I don't think it makes sense to elide the difference between that and places where one group DOES have a monopoly on the power.
I'm not so sure about the 'moral similarity' between a prejudiced person of color in the US and a racist white person in the US. If I hate you because you killed my babies and raped my mama, it's a bit different than me hating you because you wear your hat backwards.
Agreed. Racism on the part of the oppressed person is a lot more understandable/justifiable than racism by the oppressor. (B, I gather, would say that the former isn't racism at all.)
Institutional vs. individual makes it sound like individuals are or can be separate from institutions.
That doesn't get at the way personally held beliefs feed into and construct those institutions.
But, as Dr. B pointed out above, it's important to note the separation. Judging by the polls, the United States has experienced a decline in individual/psychological racism---but institutions may nonetheless perpetuate the effects of that previously widespread individual racism.
I'm not so sure about the 'moral similarity' between a prejudiced person of color in the US and a racist white person in the US. If I hate you because you killed my babies and raped my mama, it's a bit different than me hating you because you wear your hat backwards.
If you hate someone because she killed your babies and raped your mom, then you're not racist; you're rightfully pissed. If you hate someone because her skin color is the same hue as the person who killed your babies and raped your mom, then you ARE racist.
If you hate someone because her skin color is the same hue as the person who killed your babies and raped your mom, then you ARE racist.
I agree. But if enough people of that hue have done horrible things to you and/or if people of that hue systematically oppress people of your hue, it's going to be hard not to hate everyone of that hue. If, say, a black person who lived under apartheid in the old South Africa hated all white South Africans, I'm not sure if that would really be racism. Some of those whites directly do horrible things to that person, and the rest of the whites may be personally OK, but still participate and benefit from the system that oppresses the person. Under those circumstances, one could be "rightfully pissed," as you put it, at all white South Africans. If the person hated all whites in the world, including those who were fighting to end apartheid, I would agree that is racism.
Frederick-
Your South Africa example doesn't track. The "personally OK, but still participate and benefit from the system" people should be disliked precisely because they participate in the immoral system of aparteid, NOT because they share the same skin color of the oppressors. The defining characteristic should be support of the system, not skin color. If it's skin color, then it's racism.
If, say, a black person who lived under apartheid in the old South Africa hated all white South Africans, I'm not sure if that would really be racism. [...] Under those circumstances, one could be "rightfully pissed," as you put it, at all white South Africans.
I think it would be understandable for a black South African to hate all white South Africans, and so the black South African's racial hatred would be morally excusable, i.e. we could say that the black South African has committed a moral error, but ought not be condemned for it given his circumstances.
But though his racial hatred might be excused, I do not think it is justified. Our anger at another person for a particular harm we experience is justified only insofar as the other person is responsible for that harm. Blaming a poor white South African for the system of apartheid may make some sense if, or instance, we know that he voted for a pro-apartheid candidate, or joined the security forces to keep the system in place, and so forth. But absent some knowledge indicating responsibility, I do not think it justified to be angry at a person because they were fortunate enough to benefit from the injustices of a system and we were not.
These blogs are truly terrible for those avoiding work, by the way.
These blogs are truly terrible for those avoiding work, by the way.
Tell me about it. :P
Surely any attempt to define "racism" which includes an exclusion clause for one group to be prejudiced, however strongly or lightly, towards another on grounds of race, is stillborn. It may be attempting to account for other factors, and that may be laudible, but it becomes something else in the process. It doesn't result in a useful definition of racism.
I am suspicious of attempts to mollify historically oppressed groups by saying that when they do back what was done to them, it's okay, and it's different, because it's been hard for them. At one level this is just routinely patronizing, which should be annoying enough to all concerned. But at another it disguises the fact that (returning to the subject at hand) the opportunity to be racist back without condemnation or criticism is presented as some sort of concession, something whites can't have. Jack shit, in other words. Any blacks out there rather have equality of opportunity in education, the job market, the courts or healthcare, or (let's say you can't have both) the chance to say something offensive about whites without being criticized? It is not beyond the bounds of reason that the condition of categorizing "different" qualities of racism under the guise of elevating the status of blacks, while doing nothing of the kind, is another kind of institutional racism. The academy is one place we need to be looking out for such possibilities.
Surely any attempt to define "racism" which includes an exclusion clause for one group to be prejudiced, however strongly or lightly, towards another on grounds of race, is stillborn.
You're probably right. I suppose that, as Andrew said, if you hate people because of their skin color or ethnicity, it's still racism, even if it's understandable that you feel that way. I could certainly understand it if a Native American hated all of us not-Native Americans for what our ancestors did to her people, but I suppose it's still racism.
Actually, it's unquestionably still racism. Hating people for what their ancestors did or countrymen do is a classic example of racism.
B says her computer has been taken over by a kindergartener who wants to play video games. :-(
i think it's wonderful that PK wants to be best at things. he's a kid. "most important" has a different meaning to him than to adults, and can be guided to "getting really good at stuff".
thanks for sharing. i think the first movie inspiring me to think about these things was some Shirley Temple film on a Saturday morning. "mommy, why does Lollipop get to tell that grownup what to do???" .... "well honey......"
I think that's very well put Toxic Doc.
Geez Frederick... if she lets that kid play video-games all the time, he's going to grow up thinking of the computer as a neat device for avoiding work and entertaining oneself...
Geez Frederick... if she lets that kid play video-games all the time, he's going to grow up thinking of the computer as a neat device for avoiding work and entertaining oneself...
And we certainly wouldn't want to see that happen!
I helped raise my daughter, with my ex wife, to be smart, strong, independent, secure and confident. When she was in fifth grade, she was the best player on her soccer team and she was always put in pressure situations in shootouts and the like. She didn't like it. When I told her it was because she was the best player, she burst into tears and said "I don't want to be the best. I want to be the prettiest."
I will be goddamned all to hell if I ever figure out why, during her middle and high school years, she was so desperate for affection from the boys she had crushes on. Over and over I'd tell her she was a wonderful, intelligent, beautiful human being and yet she always suffered when the current boy of her dreams would not give her the time of day or treated her poorly. Through her childhood she had art lessons. I taught her to play the drums. I coached her to play baseball, my sport, and soccer, not my sport. Her mother spent endless hours talking with her and enduring the abuse that usually comes from individuation between mothers and daughters. I sat and cried with her when she was fired from her first job. I gave her everything I could, and I know she loves me, to the point that she once said that she wanted me to sing a duet with her at her wedding if she ever got married.
When her fancy for an aloof christian boy in high school became more obsession than fancy, she confided in me about her struggles, and sought my insights about his aloofness. A year and a half later, she came home one night with grass and dirt all over her clothes. She and her boy spent several hours at the best makeout spot in the city, overlooking the Olympics and Puget Sound, and he told her he could never be serious with a girl who did not put Jesus Christ before everything else in her life. She wouldn't cry with me, but later she sobbed all night long with a woman I'd dated, with whom she was very close.
When she went to college, she gave me the link to her livejournal blog, and I was *cough* blessed to have permissions to read everything she wrote. One day she posted innocuously about her favorite sports, and I (anonymously) posted that she was wrong, baseball was her favorite sport. She knew it was me.
Months later, she posted about how much she loved sex. I wanted so much to post again, anonymously, that no, baseball was her favorite sport. Regrettably, a friend persuaded me not to.
She complained in her first year of college that no straight guys were available to date because the brooded in their rooms 24/7. This year, I helped her brainstorm to write a screen play, and she mentioned that she was conflicted about a relationship she was in because he was rebounding from somebody who lived in his dorm. I asked whether this other person had also moved on and she said that she believed that her "um . . . encounter" with the guy in question occurred before Brand X girl started up her relationship.
My daughter is smart, strong, and will someday be BitchPhD somewhere else. But the main reason I am rambling on about this is because when you try to teach a child about such concepts as racism, or egalitarianism, or socialism, or ismism, you can never forget that almost every child is pathologically insecure in his or her place in the world. That security is priority one.
An experiential basis for racism, rather than an ideologically conditioned one, can be borne out of sharp, but memorable (possibly traumatic) experiences, which condition one towards re-experiencing a sense of discrimination via an emotional interpretation of similar postures, tones of voice, sequences of words and attitudinal stances. One then generalises from one's particular (traumatic) experiences to see a danger in whole racial groups. A natural reaction, to a large degree.
PK sounds like a truly great kid. In fact, in the general class of "not my own kids", he sounds like one of the best. Of course, mine are superior to all other kids in every way ;p
The whole "I want to be the best" attitude is a tough issue. I try to teach the Unknown Son and the Unknown Daughter to play to win, but to always be both good losers AND good winners.
IMHO, the "want to be the best" attitude is pretty important to their development, but the trick is to have it without either letting it crush you when the inevitable failure comes or being a pain in the butt when you win.
I've noticed the "want to be the best" attitude is a lot more prevalent in my friends than in the gang than hangs with the Unknown Wife, so Bygraves' comment about it being a guy thing might be right.
Keep up the PK reports - they always bring a smile.
All this talk about Power igores that there are MANY forms of power and they are constantly changing in importance.
When a friend of mine got assaulted, in Cleveland, by 5 black guys with bats I seriously doubt that he took comfort in the fact that white people control the Senate. The power os the people in this face had a lot more bearing on hislife and safety than the power of people, who happen to have his skin color, in DC.
The "racism = prejudice + power" formula really means "racism = prejudice + only those forms of power that fit my agenda".
Oh gawd, now we've got the "when some black guys attacked my friend" argument. Next it'll be the "reverse racism" canard.
No one is defending assault, and no one is saying that people of all ethnicities can't be prejudiced or bigoted.
And obviously when one is being assaulted, in the moment of the assault the power is with the person weilding the weapon. But when it comes to news coverage, investigation, prosecution and punishment, you bet that the power of the white guys in D C makes a difference. Pretending that it doesn't is disingenous, to use a mild word for it.
"But when it comes to news coverage, investigation, prosecution and punishment, you bet that the power of the white guys in D C makes a difference."
It does. I never said it didn't.
"Oh gawd, now we've got the "when some black guys attacked my friend" argument. Next it'll be the "reverse racism" canard."
Burning a strawman on this one. I lived for 4 years in Cleveland. A handful of my friends were assaulted - the fact that one assault did happen to be a racially motivated assault by 5 local gang members does not make me a skinhead.
What I learned today:
1) Subjectivity rules! Moral blameworthiness stems from the subjective repugnance of our thoughts, rather than the objective consequences of thoughts made real through action.
2) As a result, 5-9 Indians on a reservation hatin' on white people are every bit as morally blameworthy as 5-9 racists on the Supreme Court who continually make racist policy decisions that negatively impact all Indians in this country.
3) Even though racial categories and race-based institutions in this country were formed by whites, with no consent or input from minorities, minorities who now exist within the system are equally responsible for its negative consequences. Think happy thoughts, dark people!
4) Bad Things (tm) done by whites to Indians are all in the past, and have no bearing on current injustice manifest through white privilege and Indian social problems. Thus resentment of whites by Indians is racism by Indians against whites, and a stubborn refusal to get over the past (see also number three).
5) Even though the system was established by whites to exclude minorities specifically on the basis of race, minorites who now resent whites specifically rather than "those who participate in the system" in general are racist (see also nos. three and four).
As a sidebar: animals are not wild, an animal always acts predictably, in accordance with its nature (unless sick or injured). The only truly wild animal is man. Or as Mark Twain put it, "[i]f you pick up a dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a man and a dog."
Mimbreno,
While admiring the forest of strawmen you've built that no one here ever asserted, the following thoughts occurred to me:
1) Yes, being a racist is a consequence of one's beliefs and attitudes towards individuals of a particular racial background, and in that sense is wholly subjective;
2) Deliberately making racist policy is an ACT that might result from 1) having power and 2) being a racist, and is morally blameworthy over and beyond the failures of one's beliefs and attitudes;
3) Attempts to redefine "racism" so that minorities cannot be racist are at best ill-conceived attempts to focus society (and, more specifically, college students who are the primary recipients of the attempt) on institutional racism as evidence mounts that individual racism is in decline, and are at worst attempts to score PC points by adopting a mostly indefensible albeit politically attractive modification to our ordinary language.
4) R4D20 might have done a better job communicating the intent behind his telling of the story, but given the intent as he's clarified it, I agree. He's not excusing racism in anyone, but noting that racism in ANY community can lead to acts of incredibly vicious violence and victimization. Anyone who does not realize this, or is not fully sensitive to this, has never lived in American cities, imho. And those who are sensitive to this are likely to greet the suggestion that we alter the meaning of "racism" so that persons of minority racial backgrounds cannot be called or considered racist with particularly vehement rejection.
Anyway, all snarkiness aside, I think we all mostly agree. But a little linguistic tangling never hurt anyone.
Okay, that last comment was from me. Clearly I need more coffee.
Andrew, re. (2) the point is that you keep talking only about "deliberate" acts of racist policy. When in fact, for the most part, racist policy and racist acts aren't at all deiberate.
Re. (3), ridiculous. Again, you're hung up on the intentional fallacy. Thinking about racism as a nexus of political and social institutions, rather than as people's subjective conscious feelings of prejudice, is an attempt to help people "get" that the causes and effects of racism are complex, not simple. Racism is a complicated problem; reducing it to whether or not so-and-so actively dislikes the Chinese, say, simplifies it to the point of ignorance.
4) Everyone knows that prejudice can lead to violence. As I said in my initial response to R4D20, no one is denying that. But as I'm saying in (3) above (and as Mimbreno is saying), saying that prejudice-related violence is all equal oversimplifies racism and completely fails to address the real problem, which is ongoing inequality and discrimination on a *broad* level. That's what the problem with "I know this white guy who was attacked by black guys." It brings it down to the individual level--"my sob story is as bad as your sob story" and completely ignores the larger structures.
""my sob story is as bad as your sob story" and completely ignores the larger structures."
Pardon. I used a personal story, rather than a hypothetical, to make it clear that such things actually happen and are not simply thought excerises. It had nothing to do with a competition over whose been most victmised.
Racism is a complicated problem; reducing it to whether or not so-and-so actively dislikes the Chinese, say, simplifies it to the point of ignorance.
No one here has argued that racism ONLY occurs on an individual level, or that racism conjoined with power, or the embedded effects of racism, are not deeply problematic or undeserving of attention and study. But we can speak of institutional racism AND can speak of individual racism without artificially and uselessly restricting our usage of the term "racism."
What sparked debate was the notion that we should restrict our appellation of "racist" to instances where racism IS conjoined with broad political power. This leaves us with the odd result that groups with racially prejudiced beliefs and attitudes, but without broad political power, cannot be described as racist.
Let me add that while institutional racism is of course deeply important, we should not underestimate the accumulation of the day-to-day effects of individual racism, nor, for that matter, the corrosive effect on the individual of such racist beliefs. Nor should we underestimate the degree to which the achievement and sustainability of policy solutions to institutional racism DEPEND on an awareness and hostility to individual racism.
Let me give an example.
I forget the name of the case, but some time ago the Supreme Court considered a custody dispute between an interracial couple and the natural father of the child. The natural father had argued in the lower courts that the child would grow up disadvantaged and ostracized as a result of her interracial parents, and that therefore, for the child's own welfare, the child ought be placed in his custody.
The lower courts agreed with the natural father, writing that while they deplored the widespread racism of this society, they nonetheless had to take such racism into account when making their custody decision.
Pausing for a moment, we can notice how the accumulation of individually racist attitudes resulted, essentially, in the institutional adoption of the EFFECTS of those attitudes (institutional racism), even while the institution explicitly condemned the racist attitude itself.
The Supreme Court, incidentally, overturned the lower courts, writing that it was impermissible for the courts to take such factors into account when making such decisions. And the rationale, clearly, was to guard against the transmission of individual racism into institutional racism.
Of course, defining "institutional racism" presents it's own set of difficulties. I've found usually each person had their own subtly unique definition, which makes confusion easy.
Dear Andrew,
I apologize for commenting on the forest when the discussion was clearly focused on the nature and character of bark.
Both public and private "institutions" concerned with race in this country were formed by whites with the goal of circumscribing other racial groups for the express purpose of exclusion. A good example of a public institution would be the BIA's tribal rolls and the institution of the blood quantum and CDIB. Modern attempts to counter the active focus (exclusion) of these institutions have been to legislate against that specific purpose, while leaving the institutions and underlying social issues largely unchallenged.
These structures have been imposed by whites, I'm sorry if this little truth hurts anyone's feelings. Given that inconvenient detail, assigning equal moral value to both parties is similar to saying the hatred a victim feels is as morally blameworthy as the hatred of the attacker. Two important differences are that one is trying to deprive the other of a right, and one is a direct consequence of the other.
Similarly, it's very easy to subjectively state that a dark person hating a white person is as blameworthy as a white person hating a dark person. But there is an important difference, racist expression in the dominant group inevitably concludes with the goal of depriving the minority of voting rights, citizenship, education, opportunity, access to the legal system, property ownership, and so on.
Racism on the part of minorities may very well end up with the deprivation of rights, but on a personal level, rather than an institutional level. And much of it can be attributed to the racial hostility which is a consequence of the system which minorities had no part in constructing. Discussing individuals without a larger social context is tunnel vision at its worst, although I sympathize with the need for personal insulation from ickiness. Hope that helps.
I apologize for commenting on the forest when the discussion was clearly focused on the nature and character of bark.
That was nice.
These structures have been imposed by whites, I'm sorry if this little truth hurts anyone's feelings.
You know, I've yet to see anyone here deny the importance of institutional racism. Do you see that lump of dead grass over there? That's what remains of the strawman you've been beating the crap out of.
Given that inconvenient detail, assigning equal moral value to both parties is similar to saying the hatred a victim feels is as morally blameworthy as the hatred of the attacker. Two important differences are that one is trying to deprive the other of a right, and one is a direct consequence of the other.
Conflations abound. First, racism on the part of a member of minority is just as unjustified as racism on the part of a member of the majority, as the minority individual, instead of being justifiably angry at those who are racist towards him, or angry generally at an undeserved extra burden, is angry at everyone with a particular skin tone, very few of whom have anything to do with institutional history or current structure.
Second, you're conflating the moral worth of beliefs/attitudes with the moral worth of whatever actions might follow. We can speak perfectly coherently of racist beliefs/attitudes without talking about their effects. We can condemn them regardless of where we find them. AND we can speak perfectly coherently about institutional racism without talking about beliefs/attitudes. Isn't that neat?
I just think it needs to be clarified--and perhaps said that people are not what we worry about when it comes to racism....to simplify it a little bit. Racism harbored by people against someone because of their color, ethnicity, whatever....is bigotry...pure and simple....and there is nothing there that we need be concerned about....accept physical or emotional harm that is caused by interaction with it. It is Instituttional Racism that we must fight and abhor with a complete and utter passion. When I am breathing in pollution because of the neighborhood I live in....then it is time for someone to be castrated and power structured to be destroyed....when someone denies me employment, housing, healthcare,education--the right to live and breathe freely and as I choose to--then it is time for something to be done. I frankly dont give a damn whether you like me or not. But respect me you will.
Exactly what Brandon said. And that's the problem with making "racism" just apply to individual prejudice, in a nutshell. Individual prejudice isn't the problem--feel free to dislike everyone else in the world, no one cares. It's power, and discrimination as a result of power--whether that discrimination is consciously deliberate or not--that's the problem.
And that's the problem with making "racism" just apply to individual prejudice, in a nutshell. Individual prejudice isn't the problem--feel free to dislike everyone else in the world, no one cares. It's power, and discrimination as a result of power--whether that discrimination is consciously deliberate or not--that's the problem.
1. No one has claimed that we should restrict the meaning of racism to individual racism.
2. Individual racism, if widespread, and especially in a democratic society, can massively impact efforts to remedy institutional racism, and indeed can result in institutional racism. We can speak about structure until our mouths grow scaffolding; the rubber hits the road at the point of the individual. For Brandon to believe that we can address institutional racism while not addressing individual racism is politically naive at best, and ignores the fact that culture and life in a society is about more than the political distribution of resources.
3. Human beings live among one another. The attitudes of the individual towards a group of people, especially if widespread, can be immensely important to the quality of life within any given society, and can deeply effect, and can result in deeply negative effects upon the self-conceptions and general sense of worth within a minority group. A society in which one group harbors feelings of individual racism will inevitably be a less just society, and less flourishing society, than one which lacks such individual racism, all else being equal.
4. Education is directed not simply towards the end of producing citizens who vote correctly and support appropriate policies, but also towards the end of producing persons who lead more reflective and in some deep sense better lives. To ignore the importance of educating persons as to the evils of racism, the political/justice values described above aside, is to ignore the importance of the individual life.
When I talk to my kids about racism, one of the main points I want them to understand is scapegoating, because that is both the outlet for individual racist ideas and also is a way that people are manipulated politically by politicians. I think that this eventually can lead to a lot of political insight and illustrates how people can have valid grievances but "take it out on" the wrong people.
Scapegoating is also a verb not a state of being like "being racist" and is therefore a lot more straightforward for kids to understand. For parents who want their kids to understand American history and what's going on now, understanding scapegoating is an important thing to teach.
Also, kids can start to naturally understand the role that individual prejudice plays in scapegoating. Makes a person way more susceptible to political grandstanding, for example.
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