accidental_racist on Xanga

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Saturday, 18 April 2009

yeah, I know it's Friday night but . . .

do you think you could stop blasting your stereo? You are four houses down on the other side of the street listening to your noise with words like "ho" and "nigger" and most of all this booming noise that I can hear over the sound of my own radio inside my house with all the windows closed.

hey, if I go up and knock on your car door and ask you to shut the hell up, what would you do? apologize for your rudeness or shoot me in the face?

Tuesday, 14 April 2009

Racism as mental illness?

An interesting Washington Post article from a couple of years ago I just came across discusses the question:

"When I see someone who won't see a physician because they're Jewish, or who can't sit in a restaurant because there are Asians, or feels threatened by homosexuals in the workplace, the party line in mental health says, 'This is not our problem,' " the psychologist said. "If it's not our problem, whose problem is it?"
Opponents say making pathological bias a diagnosis raises the specter of social engineering -- brainwashing individuals who do not fit society's norms. But Dunbar and others say patients with disabling levels of prejudice should be treated for the same reason as are patients with any other disorder: They would feel, live and function better."

Some think that we shouldn't treat it as a mental illness because it would let racists off the hook. But seriously, are we going to ignore a mental health problem in order to satisfy past grievances?

Then there's this startling reply:

"I don't think racism is a mental illness, and that's because 100 percent of people are racist," said Paul J. Fink, a former president of the American Psychiatric Association. "If you have a diagnostic category that fits 100 percent of people, it's not a diagnostic category."

Everyone a racist? Well, maybe to some degree. But there's certainly a wide difference in degree at least.

Seriously, this Fink was APA president and can't tell the difference?

Monday, 13 April 2009

what's the deal with equality?

I see people in my neighborhood who dress like thugs
other people who are obnoxiously loud
people who litter or act like they are drunk

and I'm supposed to believe that these people are equal to everyone else, just as good as myself and the people I love and respect.

okay, I'd love to believe this - but how?

Sunday, 05 April 2009

41 years ago: the day after King died.

I've been thinking about the assassination of MLK (which happened on April 4, 1968) , and all the violence in reaction to the killing of this man of peace. Here's one person's recollection:

My little town was a community where black people all seemed to live below a certain street, white people all seemed to live above another street, and there was a racially and culturally mixed area between the two dividing lines where children of all colors lived and played together without giving our skin colors, or at times differing languages, any thought. This was my neighborhood, and these kids were my close friends.

On Friday morning, the day after the death of Martin Luther King, I called my close friend, like I did every morning, to see if this girl and her brother were ready to walk to school with me yet. I was shocked and hurt when she called me a name instead of giving me her normal cheery good morning banter. During the lunch recess I tried to talk to her to find out what I had done that made her act like she hated me. She threw a rock. I cried. I didn't want my long-time friend to hate me.
After school, as I was walking the short trip home, I heard people behind me and looked back. It was just some of the black kids from my neighborhood walking with their big brothers; I waved and continued walking while thinking hard about what I might have done to make my friend so mad. My thoughts were just turning to the possibility of asking Mom is she'd take the two of us somewhere fun the next morning so that we'd be friends again, when I was jumped by the group of adult-sized kids behind me.

While on the ground, with this big brother that I knew hitting me, I looked over to see my friend crying a short distance away from where I was laying. Through her tears, she was yelling at these people to kill me. I woke up in the hospital with a concussion. I was confused, afraid and totally crushed.

You can the rest here.

After King's assassination, there were riots across the country. Washington DC especially was devastated, business targeted, people fleeing - perhaps still feeling the effects even to this day (read here and here).

Robert F. Kennedy spoke to those at a campaign event:
. . . Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. For those of you who are black -- considering the evidence evidently is that there were white people who were responsible -- you can be filled with bitterness, and with hatred, and a desire for revenge.

We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization -- black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand, and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion, and love. . .
So many cast aside this call to nonviolence and reconciliation. It might have been just a small minority of blacks who acted out in destruction, but it was devastating nonetheless to Americans of all races.

These people who acted out - did it matter at all what King had accomplished, and what he stood for? They seemed to care so much that he died, but didn't seem to recognize the importance that he had lived.

I can't help but wonder what would happen today if President Obama were assassinated. Although I disagree strongly with his politics, his death in itself would be absolutely tragic.
But how much tragedy would be added to that tragedy by those who put so much *hope* in this one man, those who might be tempted to forget that he was elected President all of Americans, not only of one race?

Friday, 03 April 2009

Must racism lead to violence?

Do attitudes inconsistent with full racial equality inevitably lead to violence?

When we think of atrocities - from lynchings to slavery to genocide - we tend to think that racism can account for these acts. But is racism really a sufficient explanation for these horrors?

Let's say for example, that there is a white person who prefers to associate with people of his own race, and maybe even thinks blacks and others are for the most part inferior - perhaps believing they have lower on average inborn intelligence.

That type of racism alone should not be enough to carry out or condone an act of violence on the basis of racial difference.

Imagine we were able to resurrect Homo erectus or some other link in the evolution between ape and man. He might not be considered fully human, but that in itself would make it right to brutalize him.

Is racism really enough to explain racial violence, or must there be something else - some sort of resentment and fear?

i am trying to get at the real psychology of racism and its implications.

Monday, 30 March 2009

I do not believe in racial superiority or inferiority.
But at some level, I feel racism has grabbed me.
Am I racist?
I didn't want to be.

You can condemn my racist feelings, but it won't do either of us any good.
If you want to engage my thoughts, give an understanding ear or prove me wrong, I will appreciate your input.