Return-Path: <nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id e92GaO916820; Mon, 2 Oct 2000 12:36:24 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 12:36:24 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <002901c02c8f$304445a0$54eeffd1@cbking> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: "Catherine King" <cbking@flash.net> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-POVRACELIT:88] Re: Defining Our Own Racism--Individual and Corporate X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; Status: O Content-Length: 9779 Lines: 224 To Kate Gladstone, Kate asks: "What, actually, does a person have to do in order to *not* be a racist?" >From having addressed racism, sexism, etc., in a college classroom, and from reading a good bit on the issue-- from both feminists and many black and Asian writers-- here are a few insights I gleaned from the experience: (1) In the United States, if we are white, and unless we were born into a family of extremely open and aware people who spoke openly about "in the air" attitudes in the general culture, we are probably harboring some sort of bias--in this country, most especially against black people. (2) We can be and often are biased without knowing it. That is, it is like wearing "colored" glasses and not knowing that we are looking out of them but thinking everything really is that color. Racism, gender bias, age bias, etc. are a part of the intellectual and emotional air we breath. (This applies to all people generally.) Racism and all forms of bias come (1) as a combination of a child's view of things who equates surface realities (gender, color, handicaps, etc.) with a total reality, and (2) passed-down subtleties from the people around us who unwittingly or not "give" them to us and make them a part of the mental makeup we, in turn, interpret reality with before we even become able to self-reflect and become critical of this inheritance. It is insidious in this regard. (3) The first "door" to self-understanding our own bias-inheritance is the insight that many **never** get: That is, that "I may be biased and don't know it." It is a matter of horizon, and double ignorance--that is, first, we think our horizon is the only one and that everyone else "sees" things like we do; and second, we don't know that we don't know, and further, we rest in the assumption that we do know. No new insights can be had unless and until something "breaks through" this mental position. (3A) The above becomes calcified around a series of thoughts and acts that, if new insights are to be had, must come under scrutiny. In other words, we now have some way of life to protect. In order to have new insights, we will have to admit to ourselves that we were wrong in some thought patterns or acts before. (Consider the person who has killed someone.) This is a necessity of consciousness--because consciousness seeks integrity, and the disjunct between the new insights that might come and the old acts sets us up for internal conflict--hence the worst violence usually comes right before the light of new change. This kind of change is extremely painful, but must be done if bias is to be purged. Denouncing one's own family, relatives, friends, group, town, etc., adds to the pain of it. (You might watch movies like "Mississippi Burning" to see how "set in" racism can be on a community level). But we "deny" the coming of new insights and the old "dies hard." This internal scene is usually played out in semi-conscious fashion. It takes an extremely self-effacing and self-reflective person to get through it without going out and killing something. Most people in my experience are just "too busy" to think about it and my guess is that on some level they are "aware" of the explosive territory that lies behind that little door. (4) In reading allot of literature by black writers, and in my own journey out of my own inheritance, one important thing I found out that I did not know, and that most of my white students were ignorant of also: That black people and white people have a radically different historical view of things. I wrote a paper on it and used it in my class to help the insights emerge in my students. Briefly, deTocqueville talks about how America has at its political beginnings three different stories, unlike most countries who have but one--we have "Indians," Europeans, and Africans--all who have their own "beginning stories." He said we would suffer from this split beginning for a long time. Needless to say, we still are suffering from it. White people in this generation and my own assume everyone shares the same stories of Columbus, etc., coming to flee oppression. For us, the civil war and slavery don't really come into it. But for Native- and African-Americans their story is one that begins with white people as the oppressors and their journey is one long open, unashamed, struggle towards freedom. In short, black people in this country are usually extremely conscious of white bias and attitudes--it is and has been a daily issue in much of their dialogue among themselves-- since before black people were ever seen on TV--they have nothing to be ashamed of as **corporate**; whereas, white people tend to brush over **our** corporate involvement with slavery where "we" as white people are defined de facto by being white and as part of the group that enslaved black people. White defensiveness is well-known. Under normal circumstances, if some group has been oppressed, we jump to their aid; but with black people, we often become defensive. This happened again and again my classes. Though none of us is responsible for what happened before l863, still white people are both inheritors and carriers of the racism that was "driven under," from then on, as well as being well-aware--on a very deep level--that "we" as white people were corporately involved in the whole project of slavery. Unfortunately historically we are defined and identified with the oppressors--and we don't like it. As a child, looking at the history books, we immediately know we are not identified with the black people seen in the fields working as slaves. Rather, we immediately identify with the whites who are the slave owners. This is a historical identity, not one based in any qualified difference. Black children, on the other hand, are equally aware. They, nor we, can identify in principle with the other when the other is historically identified merely by their race. It takes a good teacher to work through, and to keep conscious, the experience and bring it forward creatively. Out of our ignorance, and possibly out of our own bias itself, white parents and teachers have failed in this educational phenomenon. I would like to think I am wrong in this judgment. But though black and white people are the same under law and have no qualified differences related to color, black and white people are radically different historically in the USA because black and white history is not only different, but also contains an historical opposition. Black people's history here is one of having struggled against the oppression by whites; whereas white people here share a semi- conscious problem (different for different people) of historical identity with the oppressor. It is uncomfortable for us. I do believe we often have trouble looking black people in the eye over it, and the defensiveness came through again and again in my classes. My white students never understood how black people view history nor how aware of white attitudes they are. I asked my black students to share their experience, and it came out over and over again. Their history is heroic, ours is shameful--as corporate. I make a distinction between degrees of racism and white discomfort. There are many white people who whole- heartedly want to unify, but are afraid of being viewed as racist if the issue is raised. People are extremely sensitive on both sides to the whole thing--and the whole thing is still huge. We don't know where we stand with each other, and it causes a terrible disjunct in the social fabric. And I don't think historically we can say we are "blind." I think we need to own up to our history and only then can we get past it to become socially unified. DeToqueville was right--our history matters. It is my view we need a national catharsis of some kind. But it has to be done together. To your question, what do we do to not be a racist, my own experience is that to get ready for a long journey, work on it every time it comes up, read, read, read black authors, read history as told by black people (and women, Asians, etc.), discuss it in forums such as these. Understand the radical elements in any real change as temporary. Though this particular bias is culturally related to the USA in this particular form, bias is a human condition--anyone can be biased and usually is in some form, even against one's own self. Self-reflection is the only way out. Or as Socrates said, "An unexamined life is not worth living." He is implying that it's not really ours until we know it. I hope this has been some help to you, Best to all, Catherine King ----- Original Message ----- From: Kate Gladstone & Andrew S. Haber <kate@global2000.net> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov> Sent: Friday, September 29, 2000 1:32 PM Subject: [NIFL-POVRACELIT:81] questions about defining when we are or are not acting in a > Discussions so far on this listserv lead me to want to know: > what, actually, does a person have to do in order to *not* be a racist? > (Please be as specific as possible.) > > > Yours for better letters, > Kate Gladstone - Handwriting Repair > kate@global2000.net, kate@WriteMe.com > http://www.global2000.net/handwritingrepair > 325 South Manning Boulevard > Albany, NY 12208-1731 > 518/482-6763 *or* (for toll-free dialing in the USA/Canada) > ENTER ACCESS CODE 04 at my new 800 number, 800/394-9482 (800/EX-HW-ITAlic), > access code 04 > (remember: > EX for EXcellent, HW for HandWriting, ITA for ITAlic ... then, access > code 04) > AND REMEMBER ... you can order books through my site! (Amazon.com link - I > get a 5% - 15% commission on each book sold) > > > > > >
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