veracityb
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Phew, thanks @Ele4phant. I was feeling bad about spending all afternoon arguing about this on DW, but I’m glad I’ve at least made one person think harder about what I’m trying to say rather than responding in an almost knee-jerk reaction off the basis of certain words.
The thing is, race is a rather difficult and emotive subject, and difficult to navigate, but I do feel like the ‘privileged’ classes have been primed to think or feel bad if they even consider anything beyond the standard liberal responses – they’re eager to make up for, and not be labelled as, the (pervasive) all-out haters. I get it, I do, but to refuse to see nuance or admit others’ experiences is not helpful.
And Mim0sa is not even white, y’all (tho her bf is). She is still a minority among other minorities who are dominant in her bf’s area, and her experiences along with the actual social context going on there have exacerbated her discomfort with her bf’s somewhat careless ways.
Well, in all probability the not being street smart thing is the main factor likely to get him in trouble, but combine it with sticking out in a high tension area, that’s really not a great combo. It’s just probably more reason to be street smart as opposed to being the reason in itself.
Guess she’s frustrated cos he can’t see why she’s worried about his non-streetsmartness, but all you can do is just point out to him that these incidents are going on, and he has to try and be in less of a state of drunken obliviousness to any potential trouble.
@Cleopatra Jones – and I guess now she knows.
I’ve actually heard that word a lot recently from being in South Africa in April, where they still openly use the terms like ‘black’ ‘coloured’ and ‘white’ to categorise (ironically in an attempt to reverse Apartheid).
It’s use was normalised in so many ways there, I didn’t necessarily relate it back to the specific US socio-historic context. But yeah, if she is American raised, I guess she should have been aware of that, and been more careful.Edit: forget it. I see what she is trying to say.
No, I haven’t because everyone else was all over it, and said it often enough, ha. Sorry-not-sorry that I didn’t want to pile on.
In any case, I was mainly concerned with the way people seemed to believe that racism could only be experienced in one particular fashion or in one particular direction because of a definition that emphasises greater societal power dynamics. I feel that that stifles and minimizes people’s experiences to stick rigidly to that definition, in addition to hindering a better understanding of the multi-faceted dynamics of the issue, which is what I objected to.
I don’t think just because one person is completely unbothered it doesn’t mean there was no threat whatsoever. He could be completely naïve for all we know. Sure, self-admitted anxiety seems to have elevated her concern levels to seeking advice to try and reign her bf in, but doesn’t necessarily mean the incident did not happen and was not cool.
Actually, after all of that, I guess she probably was just pointing out that she and her bf stick out, which wouldn’t make most people comfortable in a high crime area. I guess you feel more exposed and less able to just stick your head down and avoid trouble if it comes looking for you (for whatever reason).
Yes but we are all reading it from the lens of our own experiences with race-related remarks. I can identify with her discomfort because I have experienced a similar scenario where the intention was meant to cause me to feel like an outsider, which for me, was a hostile move.
You can’t tell from words alone what the situation was, but I am inclined to believe that most people know when a remark is meant to be friendly or made in a less-than friendly manner.
*shrug* It just seems like to me that people are determined to disbelieve/minimise this aspect of her story because they’ve decided that she holds racist views herself (ie. if you’ve exhibited racist behaviours yourself you can’t have experienced it – lol wot). It’s nonsensical, and objectionable. And we will never really know anyhow, because after all, reality is perception.
So, personally I consider the topic of racism as pretty complex, and not something that can be summed up in a pithy definition. If it were that simple there wouldn’t be huge books or study in the area, cos we could simply apply that definition to say “yes, this is racist” and “no, this is not racist”.
As I understand it racism is prejudice plus power – the power to do something about the prejudice. And power isn’t that well understood – it isn’t just top down, there can be personal power dynamics going on that feed into the greater social system, or there can be one off firing of a momentary, personal display of power by threatening to perpetuate violence on others (or making them fear the possibility of it) based on race. And mim0sa is fearing the latter b/c of efforts to “other” her. Would you say if a majority race person was beaten up by a gang of minority races purely based on his race that he hasn’t suffered from racism? Even if those instances are a lot less likely to happen than the other way round? The point is, all prejudice or negative behavior towards someone based on a perceived characteristic they have is shitty. And just because you don’t have the over-arching power of numbers doesn’t make it any less qualified to be called the same thing.
To be clear, my points are to do with her perception of what is happening to her, which people are seeking to minimize. I have not addressed her comments on the area being a “bad neighbourhood” based on race, and would agree that comments like those or the underlying attitudes behind them are problematic too. People are complex, and can be both perpetuators and victims of racially-based negative behavior.
