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 e94LEp910475; Wed, 4 Oct 2000 17:14:51 -0400 (EDT)
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 17:14:51 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id: <s9db4814.075@epcc.edu>
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: "Andres Muro" <andresm@epcc.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov>
Subject: [NIFL-POVRACELIT:135] Re: questions about defining when we are
X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 5.5.4
Status: O
Content-Length: 3949
Lines: 87
Kate:
You need to reflect on your own position. I don't want you to satisfy me. You need to satisfy yourself. If you feel that you are not being racist, it is between you, yourself, and the people that you interact with. If you feel that you are engaging in praxis to reduce your position of privilege, great. If you don't, it is up to you to decide what you should do. Regarding your efforts to struggle against racism, you should question anything that you feel is racist. If you don't think that you see racist behaviors, then, great. However, if you witness racist behaviors, you should question them if you wish to make our society better.
Regarding images popping in people's minds, it is great that before an image pops into your mind you ask several questions. However, a lot of people don't ask any questions, and make racist assumptions. You should struggle so that people do not make racist assumptions and question them when they do. Specific example: when the Oklahoma building was blown up, a lot of people thought of Arabs. This is clearly a racist assumption. In fact, an Arab engineer was arrested on the grounds that he was carrying bomb materials.
>From your statement, you are probably one of the enlightened people who did not immediately assumed that it was an Arab who did it. Those enlightened individuals like yourself are not absolved of the struggle against racism. You should work to reduce the number of people that make those racist assumptions. How much of that you should do is up to you.
Andres
>>> kate@global2000.net 10/04/00 01:03PM >>>
When I asked:
> what, actually, does a person have to do in order to *not* be a racist?
Andres replied:
> 1. Understand your position of power and privilege over others.
What specific behaviors by me would demonstrate to your satisfaction that I
understood this?
> 2. Engage in praxis to reduce your position of privilege.
What specific behaviors by me would constitute "reducing my position of
privilege"?
> 3. Support efforts to stop oppression of oppressed groups.
What specific behaviors by me would you regard as "supporting efforts"?
Just how many oppressed groups do I need to "support efforts" in behalf
of, before my efforts count as "non-racist behavior"? One oppressed group?
Two? Five? Ten? Fifty? A hundred? A thousand? Five thousand?
Also - if I regard a certain group(s) of people as "oppressed," but you
don't regard that/those particular group(s) as "oppressed," would this make
a difference re whether you counted my efforts re that/those group(s) as
"non-racist behavior"?
And ...
If any moment of any day in my life exists during which I do *not* do
all/any of the three things you listed above, does that make me a racist?
> ... if I say the word Arab, and
> image will pop in your mind. ...
Actually when someone says "Arab" or "black" or "white," NO image pops into
my mind. All that pops into my mind is a question: WHICH particular Arab
person/black person/white person? I need to have that question answered
before I can have an image.
>
> Why do these images pop in our minds? Because the media promotes these images.
.
So why don't the images pop into MY mind?
>when we hear
> the word terrorism, we don't immediately think of Arab,
I don't.
> or when we hear the
> work cocaine we don't associate it with blacks or Colombians.
I don't.
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)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Jan 16 2001 - 14:47:25 EST