Talking about race, and why it's scary

[sarahmichigan]

"Why White People are Afraid"

http://www.alternet.org/story/36892/

excerpt:
A final fear has probably always haunted white people but has become more powerful since the society has formally rejected overt racism: The fear of being seen, and seen-through, by non-white people. Virtually every white person I know, including white people fighting for racial justice and including myself, carries some level of racism in our minds and hearts and bodies. In our heads, we can pretend to eliminate it, but most of us know it is there. And because we are all supposed to be appropriately anti-racist, we carry that lingering racism with a new kind of fear: What if non-white people look at us and can see it? What if they can see through us? What if they can look past our anti-racist vocabulary and sense that we still don't really know how to treat them as equals? What if they know about us what we don't dare know about ourselves? What if they can see what we can't even voice?

--------

"I'm not afraid to talk about race; I'm afraid NOT to talk about race":
http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/essays/talking/

excerpt:
Many whites believe that talking openly and honestly about race and racism will lead to embarrassment and accusations of racial insensitivity, maybe even charges of racism. With these a priori assumptions, the conversations, if they occur, become defensive struggles, emotionally draining, sad attempts to avoid blame.

One more link:
Talking about race in the classroom (but applies to other situations):
http://life.familyeducation.com/race/parenting/36247.html

Comments

[apis-mellifera.livejournal.com]

I can't recommend the Ferris State Jim Crow website highly enough--they've done an incredible job showing the racism inherent in the system by way of cultural artifacts.

"final fear"

[zoe-1418.livejournal.com]

Bingo. This resonates for me!

Thanks for putting this thought-provoking stuff out here.

[guttaperk.livejournal.com]

Excellent articles.

[arkaycee.livejournal.com]

The excerpt you quoted was exactly the feeling I mentioned having in a prior post here, regarding ANYthing where I'm not on the most harmed/most oppressed/"down" "side," but on the "side" that the oppressors come from. I feel that draining need to make sure they know that I personally am not the bigot/rapist/abuser, and that fear that I will be labeled as such, at least by the more reactionary people in the discussion (I'm out of time, so I only read the first story but I'll be back for the other two links as soon as I can).

Or, as mentioned, that I have a bit of (likely unrealized) racism/sexism/whateverism in me, and it will be outed.

I do fear the unknown, and that's a bigger part of it for me that wasn't mentioned -- just plain the fear of inadvertently offending, or saying something that sounds lame in the dialect/culture of the otehr people I'm with. Or conversely, not understanding some slang used back my way. Or too, just not understanding the signals I'm getting from someone of another culture or language (whether it's the two black men silently looking/staring at me as I walk past them in the store aisle, or the Quebecois waiter in Montreal who seems to be looking at me expectantly at odd times).

[arkaycee.livejournal.com]

Oh and I should say that the best cure to the last has been, of course, experience. I'm realizing that I'm unlikely to be shot or knived, or even punched, by someone I'm not getting (I think I was maybe too sheltered as a kid or something, that I had this overblown fear of anyone very different from my prior experiences), and at worst maybe they'll make fun of me behind my back to their buddy for my way of doing things. Or maybe they're as worried about acting stupid in my eyes for all I know. I just try to relax a little more and worry a little less.