What do you think of when you think of racism?
Is it the image of a Klansman burning a cross on the lawn of some innocent black family? Is it the bar owners in Longueuil that refuse service to black people? Is it perhaps your father promising to disown you if you bring home a (fill in the blank)?
Some of the above things still happen to this day, and the perpetrators are the people you know. It is still a reality for most PoC (people of colour) in North America and abroad. But there are many that absolutely insist that racism no longer happens, and if it does, that it's not such a big deal. And with any good virus or aggressive cancer, it changes the more it spreads. With the largely forgotten struggles of the civil rights movement came the awareness that burning crosses and lynching people aren't very nice things to do. And believe me, that is pretty much where the empathy ended for many people. Name calling and discrimination are
not nice. It still isn't really understood that it was far, FAR greater than that, but it is a huge accomplishment, especially when you look at history that goes back a few hundred or thousand years.
Here's an example. My sister is 15 years older than I am. Her experiences in Brockville were FAR different from mine. Where I was occasionally made fun of in Grade 1 for being different than others, and the usual jokes were made about my penis and so forth, she was openly shunned and literally spit on. People would laugh at the very idea of her being of equal status to them. She suffered physical and mental trauma that I did not. It's for this reason that she avoids going back there as much as possible. 15 years later, the younger brothers, sisters, nephews and nieces of her peers largely knew better than that. I was openly treated as an equal, or even as a superior at times because of my good grades. But there was often something more subtle that grated on me. Something that I could only start to express very recently. Something wrong.
With the American election race hoopla happening right now, many bloggers and writers and colour have weighed in on the various aspects of the concept of race and its implications on the lives of PoC. They have put into words and published the very feelings that I thought that I was crazy for even thinking. They are talking about New Racism, or what I like to call Next-Gen Racism.
This type of racism is what is left over when you remove the cross-burnings, forced relocations, Jim Crow laws, race-based internment, and so on. This is the under-the-skin racism that breeds unfair senses of entitlement, that denies that there are problems until they happens to the dominant group and insists that successful members of Other groups are only successful because of political correctness, affirmative action or some such nonsense.
Next-Gen Racism is especially pernicious, because with this brand, although there may possibly be racism, somewhere over there and certainly not here, somehow there are no actual racists to be found. It is so subtle that the offenders have no idea that they are offending, and the offended know that something is up, but cannot express it. This is because 1) it is quite nebulous and hard to define, let alone convey to someone with no concept of it and 2) in the absence of more conventional racism, the offended might feel as though they might be complaining for no reason, even though they KNOW that something is wrong.
But what is wrong, exactly? For one, it's knowing that you are expected to act in a certain way based on the dominant group's cookie-cutter overly-simplistic and stereotypical views of you. When you do not act accordingly, at best causes confusion, and then possibly an ignorant backhanded compliment that describes you as "one of the good ones" or as being "not like the others", because you are like the members of the dominant group. Sometimes it causes disappointment for someone looking for some kind of "authentic experience" ("You aren't as...black as I thought you'd be." I should have responded with, "You are much more of a shallow, ignorant bitch than I thought you were.") At worst, it causes ad hominem attacks, threats and further social stigmatization.
And speaking of being accepted by the dominant group because you are like them, Next Gen Racism allows members of that group both grant and remove the status of that group to non-members. These traits are things such as "whiteness", which I will discuss in another post. When you have not been granted the seal of approval, you are then seen as some kind of oddity, at times fetishized (Asian female submission), at times demonized (black brutes), but in all cases, something to be poked, prodded and used as much as the dominant group wants to.
Next Gen Racism tells minorities that they are not really beautiful unless they are shaped into something that more closely resembles the dominant group, which sets the ultimate standards for beauty that all others need to compare themselves to. Next Gen Racism controls all mass media representations of Others in ways that are palatable to its audience, which is why certain images almost always make it onto the big screen, while others rarely do (Latinas unable to play Latina roles). It tells female members of the dominant group that they should "try black men" at least once in their lives, because everyone knows what they are like in bed. Or that they should never "try" them, because they don't want to be "complètement défoncée". It defines the expectations that young Latinos, Latinas and Blacks should actually live up to if they ever are in the sack with a member of that dominant group.
It should be noted that Next-Gen Racism is anything but new, but rather is a direct result of what happens when one group has historically taken total control of a second group, then created Otherness perceptions of the second group that over time become so ingrained as to be as natural as the air we all breathe. That we ALL breathe. The Otherness perceptions, or perhaps more accurately projections, seep into the bones of the second group over generations. Certain concepts, such as the lack of industriousness, inherent criminality, superior abilities in math and physics, being hypersexual, being hyposexual, being bitchy and contrary, lacking intelligence and on and on, become internalized. What is internalization? (DEFINE THIS) Next-Gen racism has grown organically in places all over the world. It allows one group to conquer an area, then in future generations act as though they have always been there, that everything that group does is normal and good, and that the displaced and disrupted groups are strange, primitive, not as worthy of real respect.
Next-Gen Racism looks for examples of racism directed towards the dominant group, then claims that not only are they not racist, but that everyone else is. That group, or subgroup, claims that there are no benefits from being the first to be hired, the last to be fired, assumed to be more competent, believable or safe, that in fact, those claims aren't even true. Then the group can get on the oppression train and claim that perhaps racism isn't that big of a problem. After all, look at how well we are doing!
Next-Gen Racism allows some people to abuse others because as members of the dominant group, they will be believed. Next-Gen Racism can systematically deny access privileges while denying racism because the numbers say that as a member of a certain ethnicity, they are financial, professional of social risks. It's just the numbers; what are you gonna do? Next-Gen Racism justifies itself for security reasons. Next-Gen Racism cannot stand it when someone not in the dominant group takes what is perceived as rightfully theirs. Next-Gen Racism does not care if a minority child goes missing.
It's my vision that someday, not only will the standard racism disappear (it hasn't, either) but that no one gets to claim that certain things, be it access, class, or whichever, should be theirs by right of being in a particular group. I want no one to take for granted their elevated place in the world. I want to see different groups defining themselves in society on their own terms, and not under the lens of a hegemony that sees them as something else. I want to be seen as myself, and not the Camera's idea of me.
Fighting Next-Gen Racism is about recognizing one's own biases and owning up to them, then challenging them in ourselves, and then in others. I think that this can be done. We've already come so far. 150 years ago some of the most prominent thinkers and policymakers weren't entirely convinced that non-whites were even fully human. The thinking of people has grown far more critical in the last century, and it will continue to grow more critical, especially as more kinds of people make themselves more known and more understood.
The next Dr. King will address issues such as the ones I mentioned, and the world will be that much closer to real harmony than ever.
You've really got me thinking now whether I may be doing this without really thinking about it.
Another recent post by tornwordo got me thinking about it also. He links to a post about jokes about gays and it got me to thinking about how I get annoyed when people make black or ethnic jokes, yet I think that poking fun that other straight guys are gay is funny.
I've got some introspection to do.
How do you know that you're truly being denied though? Let's say you audition for a play and you don't get the part. Maybe it's because they only want to cast white actors, but maybe you just plain suck.
It depends entirely on the situation. In the one that you mention, if the part is for a white character, I wouldn't likely even apply, and that's reasonable. If it were for a Hollywood movie with a non-white principal character, and they decide to whitewash the film, then I might call bullshit on that.
The main point is that the bias is so ever-present that as a person of colour (I know you hate that term) you do not have the privilege of ignoring it as though it doesn't exist, because for you, it might very well exist just based on your ethnicity.
I know very well that there are other things that people are unfairly judged on, and these are all unacceptable. But that's the point; instead of claiming that everyone has it rough, as though it's an even playing field for all (which is false) we should be acknowledging that it's unacceptable and should be fought.
I like this post, and I'm glad I've found your blog. I wish you all the best with your health struggles.
I've heard it said that racism is a "changing same." It doesn't lessen, it just transmogrifies. Racism has become more covert, but it's still there, and our social institutions are rife with it, as I'm sure you know.
CC wrote, How do you know that you're truly being denied though? Let's say you audition for a play and you don't get the part. Maybe it's because they only want to cast white actors, but maybe you just plain suck.
In Working while Black, Michele Williams writes that you often can't know, but if you're black dealing in largely white settings, you live with an 85/15 rule. About 85% of your days feel race-free, but the other 15% consist of incidents in which racism either clearly was, or might have been, a factor.
Racism can be even tougher to deal with than it used to be, because at least back in the day, you knew whether someone was a racist or not.