Epilogue: Confronting my own racism (original) (raw)
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Finally this week, I want to talk about the hardest kind of racism to fight: my own.
In my personal philosophy of what it means to be a good person, confronting one's own prejudices is one of the hardest things for any conscientious person to do--and one of the most important. Hard, because if you are a conscientious person, it hurts. If you want to be a good person, you do not like to look at yourself and find prejudice. It makes you profoundly uncomfortable. It makes you squirm. It's usually easier and less painful just to ignore it as best you can. But it's also one of the most important things to do, because it's all too easy to fight the big, obvious injustices that we see in the world, all the while allowing old attitudes and prejudices to flourish on a more subtle level. It's amazing how many people here think that because we've gotten rid of slavery and segregated water fountains, because women have the right to vote and we might even have a woman as president, because TV shows and movies with gay characters exist--racism, sexism and homophobia1 are no longer big issues in this country. They're no longer problems that the majority of us have to be concerned with; it's just a few redneck whackjobs who are stuck in the past who still have those issues. Right? Right?
Wrong, wrong, WRONG; three pints of wrong and a chaser of NUH-UH.
Being prejudiced does not make you a bad person. We all have prejudices. I don't think anyone can entirely escape societal conditioning, and I don't think it's possible to ever completely rid oneself of the effects of that conditioning. A lot of people fool themselves into thinking they're without prejudice, and that's a very dangerous way of thinking. To my mind, the only thing a moral person can do is to acknowledge one's prejudice--acknowledge that even if you can't see it, it's there--and then to continually strive to be more aware of it, to learn to recognize it, and to try one's hardest to face it honestly. And I don't mean to preach at people here, but to tell them, earnestly--this is from my own experience, this is how I feel and what I try to do to be a better person, and it's not easy. Please don't give up on it because it isn't easy.
I don't really know what to say about my own racism. It's not like I have a lot of handy examples I can point to and say, "Wow, I can't believe I did/said something so overtly racist." It's just- I used to have some racist ideas, that of course I didn't identify as racist at the time, which I now recognize as such and can no longer embrace. It's not as simple as saying, "I used to think x about [black/brown/yellow/red] people", because much of the time racism doesn't actually manifest that way, as active, directed thoughts; but rather as passivity, as lack of thought--as failure to recognize injustice or acknowledge inequality.
I used to be pretty highly prejudiced against a lot of aspects of African American culture. I disapproved of Black English, I disapproved of most rap music and the culture surrounding it, I was just...uncomfortable with much of black culture in the US, without really understanding why. Now I look back and realize to what an extent I was pretty much blaming black culture for existing and having certain negative aspects without taking into account the historical context. You cannot look at the condition of African American people today and separate it from the condition of the very first Africans who were brought to the colonies to be used as slaves. African American history is an unbroken line, stretching back centuries to its origins in slavery. And yet we look at the socioeconomic status of blacks today and act as if it's their fault, as if--since we've removed the biggest legal hurdles--they could "get there" if they just tried a little harder; if they stopped dropping out of school and committing crimes and accumulating bling. How hard could it be? Go on: full legal, social, political, economic, and educational equality is right there in front of you. What are you waiting for?
A year ago, I could not have made the posts I did this week. I probably couldn't have done it six months ago. I welcomed the opportunity to participate in IBARW because I'm very much in the process of learning about myself and figuring things out, not because I know it all already. If I sound especially passionate about combating a certain stereotype, or especially angry about a certain kind of injustice, there's a good chance it's because I've recognized myself buying into that stereotype or perpetuating that injustice. I don't blog against racism to tell people what I think they need to know; I do it to tell people what I wish I had known sooner.
Thank you and good night.
1This is true of homophobia to an admittedly lesser extent; a lot of people are aware that it's a problem and it's pretty hip now to be seen as fighting it; but already we can see the same process happening, whereby some of us are still concerned and actively fighting but at the same time a lot of people are already falling into that mindset of, "Things aren't as bad as they used to be, therefore things must be good." Which, no.