Me and my friend Sian were once
sitting in a paddling pool in her back garden. We were talking about where we
were from.
“I’m from South Africa” Sian told me solemnly.
“No, you’re not.” I shot back, insulted she thought I would believe
such an obvious lie.
“I am!” She insisted “My mum
told me.”
“But you can’t be.” I sighed, exasperated.
“Why?” She asked, confused.
“Because you’re white” I explained, even though it was obvious “People from Africa are black, everyone
knows that.”
This is without a doubt the most
racist thing I have ever said. The best part? I was four years old.
Whether that excuses me or makes
the exchange even worse is a matter of opinion, but this context is important
to illustrating the point I want this post to make.
My point? These ‘common-sense’
truths about race become naturalized almost immediately into our perception of
the world almost as soon as we enter it. At the age of four I highly doubt I
had any idea what ‘racism’ was, beyond noticing that some people were one
colour and some were another. Yet the image of ‘black’ people was clearly
already fixed; they were the people (I’m assuming) I saw on TV dressed in
tribal costumes that lived in huts in exotic faraway lands of desert and
jungle. The ‘white eye’ of the media issued and positioned for me, and I’m sure
many other kids, a highly one-dimensional stereotype of what it means to be of
another culture. No wonder I was highly troubled in trying to negotiate the
reality behind the highly congealed racial perceptions I had always been
exposed to. Growing up in a middle-class town in rural England where the
population was at least 90% white probably didn’t help.
Obviously (and just to reassure
people) this perception no longer exists. Or at least not in such a homogeneous
manner as we grow up and begin to interact with people from different ethnic
backgrounds in the world beyond the TV or cinema screen. Yet it would be wrong
to say that it leaves no residue behind; we are all guilty of using the ‘us’
and ‘them’ binary when describing different cultures in relation to ourselves
(see, I just did it again without even realizing until I read back over it for
the third time). Mostly this isn’t deliberately racist or even a conscious
expression of dominance and power, but it’s a hard task to undo years and years
of conditioning from the media to view ‘us’ (white people) as a collective
group which still holds itself away and above any other. It has become so
naturalized, and in today’s politically correct society so much less overt,
that we scarcely notice until we are forced to acknowledge that it is still a
problem.
I can remember a co-worker once
saying to me “Asians aren’t worse or
better than us, they’re just different”. The biggest irony of all? This was
actually said in the process of telling off another co-worker for an ‘actual’
racist comment. Obviously such a
statement, although not overt, is not any better in reality. How is ‘different’
any better than the ‘separate but equal’ doctrine which was used to justify the
appalling segregatory practices which existed only 60 years ago? But when statements
like this are so readily called into being, it’s difficult to know how to fight
them or call someone out for it. How can one explain in so many words that the
hegemonic, layered-upon-layered cultural discourses which we have always been
exposed are in reality no less racist than practices which ‘no longer exist’?
We truly are in a period of ‘new
racism’; one which in many ways is more difficult and troubling to fight when
we live in such a multicultural and globalized society, and especially when we
ourselves can be the perpetrators. I think to start with I’ll focus on putting
an end to ‘us’ and ‘them’ and then go on from there.
I think this is SUPER relevant, I hear stuff that makes me cringe all the time. Just little off the cuff comments, that people say (hopefully) without the intention of being racist, yet they still are.
ReplyDeleteI think it's really interesting you started with the conversation from when you were a kid. This is probably obvious, but the dominant ideas and images that we are exposed to when we are younger are what will ultimately determine how we view the world in some ways right. But I think thats where the change is coming from, SLOWLY, but its coming. I think our generation is an example of that, theres definitely exceptions, and perhaps our country/society/ or the people I surround myself with means I have a limited somewhat optimistic view. But I think younger generations now hopefully have much more exposure to the world AS A WHOLE, not the white world that older generations believed existed. Through TV shows, movies, politics, at school, on the streets, and I'm hoping their families are ensuring they see it that way too. Obviously, as we're studying, these industries are not completely absent of racism and they still need to change A LOT, but I think there have been large improvements and hopefully these kids will be growing up with different mind sets and (perhaps ever hopeful) the not so distant future will be a harmoniously diverse and appreciative world to live in!
Casual racism is more relevant in today's time. Of course you got your people who will straight up hate on people for how they look like. But through institutions or PC culture, people end up being racist if you break it down.
ReplyDeleteAn American friend mentioned to me that someone stated: "Hey I've always thought America was pretty backwards when it came to societal views, but when I went there for a holiday it was actually pretty all right". Based on their upbringing and social generalising, people will have pre-conceived notions of what specific people are like.Think about the irony around criticism of American culture. One argument would be-how is it fair that we can judge the US for the TPPA, military invasions of the Middle-East, extreme poltical ideas and base a negative image of what Americans are like without taking in consideration what we like about the country too? Is it double standards to not like Americans but enjoy their music, food and media? The United States as a whole country is extremely diverse in reality, 50 states all with their individual issues and cultures.
With waves of recent mass immigration, past historical issues and lack of exposure, it is very common for people to make comments that seem unnecessary and outright ignorant.I do think however this improves over time, even if if stereotypes surrounding race/nationality will never entirely disappear.
I'm actually very interested in your conversation using "us" and "them". I'm inclined to think that you're right-- we all do tend to use these words without even realizing it. And what does this do, except, as you pointed out, create a divide between the "us" and the "them"? Just using those two words sort of legitimizes that there is a difference between the two groups, and once you have a legitimate difference, it can be easy to go from there and figure that one of the groups has superior practices to the other. At the same time, I can see where this originated from. Since there are obvious differences between different cultures around the world, it is understandable that, in an attempt to organize the world in our minds, that we would create groups in our head, and this would absolutely lead to an "us" and "them" mentality.
ReplyDeleteThis being said, as we grow older, with more understanding and the capability to have more complex thoughts, it seems as though it would be proper for us to begin to outgrow those simple groupings of "us" and "them" and evaluate the world in more complicated ways. Perhaps we do not do this because we have never been asked to closely learn about the peoples around the world, and when one doesn't know very much about other people, one does not see the subtle differences and can lump together a whole group of people under a heading that might be hugely inaccurate.
You point out that this form of racism is imbued in us early on, and it's easy to see how in your short story. Perhaps to battle this, we need to focus on our education systems, and ask that we create a little more understanding about the cultures that are a little more foreign to us. This way we aren't quite so willing to group everyone together, and the "us" and "them" mentality is at least a little more complicated.