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?

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"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

[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.