It’s Hard to See Racism When You’re White
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Race exists. It’s more than a box on a survey. It’s a fact of life whether or not one chooses to recognize it. As a cab driver, I stop for anyone waving a hand up or anyone yelling, ‘Taxi!’, regardless of their melanin content. But I know that’s not the case everywhere. I know plenty of people who have a hard time getting a cab and they all check the same box on federal forms. I’ve heard countless stories of being stopped for DWB (Driving While Black) with no probable cause offered as to the real intent of the stop. I’ve seen, first hand, my friends of color singled out of a group of white friends and questioned as if they were the suspect when they were, in fact, the complainants.
I have witnessed a good friend, who happens to be black, being followed, very non-discreetly, and confronted by security in a store when, in fact, he could’ve bought everything in the store four times over and is the son of the police chief of the very large city where this occurred. I’ve heard first hand accounts of a woman and her daughter being stopped while walking their dog in a park and both being subjected to a search and pat down because there were reports of prowlers in the area. Who brings their nine year old and cocker spaniel to case out a joint in the suburbs at 2pm on a Sunday?
To me, these stories are unfathomable. They don’t seem possible, based on my own set of experiences. I can’t think of one time I’ve been treated unfairly based on my skin tone. But I’ve never experienced space flight either. You don’t hear me debating astronauts on the existence of it, though. That would make me look like an idiot. If it’s not in your list of experiences, odds are, you’re not the most qualified person to debate it, much less, deny that it even exists. I know that there are some people out there that use race for everything and there are people out there that refuse to believe that race is a factor in any instance. Those are the extremists. Race exists. Racism exists. Racial bias exists. It is a factor because it is a fact. It is not always the determining factor but it is, nonetheless, a factor.
I was raised to believe that if there’s ever a problem, I should call the police. My mother imparted that to me, not because she personally had a lot of experience with the police, good, bad or indifferent but because that’s what she was told as a child. She was never given a reason not to entrust me with that information. That’s the prevailing attitude in the predominantly white communities where I grew up. Therefore, that’s what I was taught. But I know that not everyone has been raised with such a high regard and respect for law enforcement. And like every other segment of the population, there are good and bad police officers as well. I can’t blame someone for telling their children something different from what I was told based on their experiences and their upbringing. You teach your children how to survive in the world you know. There are communities that do not trust police officers. There are neighborhoods that have generations of families being brought up in a culture of fear and distrust of the ones that are supposed to protect them. And it is not as out of the ordinary as we would like to believe.
I understand the racial divide from my own perspective. I don’t presume to speak for anyone but myself. Which is exactly why I get so agitated when I hear anyone who is in zero danger of being at the business end of racism begin to argue that racism or race is nonexistent. When I hear it, all I end up taking away from the conversation is, “I don’t think people that are routinely treated differently from me, that have a totally different set of life circumstances, and who are in a different social/cultural/financial segment than I, are allowed to bring it up because that’s never happened to me.” How ridiculous is that? I realize that I will never even remotely experience racism to any degree that a ‘minority’ will, if at all, but I’m not pretentious, diluted or self centered enough to believe that everyone is treated fairly and justly and the ones who aren’t either deserved it or are race baiters.
Until we realize the folly in our own actions, we cannot hope to change them.
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I have lived in the South for many years as a child and have witnessed alot of racism. I didn’t understand it than and don’t understand it now. Why can’t we all just get along. God had us all to respect each other and to do his will.
This is a smashing article, although I don’t agree with everything the author says. No matter, it made me think it did. Cheers.
You lost me when you said that “I know there are people out there who use race for everything.”
Really? You spent three paragraphs explaining racism and specifically delineating discriminatory events that have happened to people of color that you know or have talked to personally.
But suddenly when it comes to actually confirming that racism is not a figment of non-white people’s imaginations, you just have to leave some wiggle room. You revert to what what white people believe to be true. You know, the Al Sharpton/ Jesse Jackson/ race pimp/ race hustler excuse. You know, that at some point, people of color in general and black people in particular just always “pull the race card” either to make a point or point a finger of blame at an otherwise innocent white person.
It’s an attempt at “both sides do it type fairness” but it’s completely unfair to state it that way and I wish I could let it slide but I can’t. If you’re going to be ally against racism, then you should be a good one and not equivocate.
It’s insulting to have even the people who are supposedly allies against racism revert to things they have only ever heard regurgitated from the likes of Fox & their racist little friends.
It’s ok to be completely against racism. It’s ok not to placate the butthurt of people who deny racism.
But it’s not ok to backhandedly disparage people of color because you want white people to feel better about their racism just so they can believe that out there, somewhere, somebody made a claim about racism isn’t true, therefore giving all white people room to breathe a little easier about their own prejudice and bigotry.
So my question to you is: Do you really believe the statement that some people “use race for everything?” Because you certainly don’t have an example of it where you did with the actual claims of racism.
‘Some’ people do use ‘the race card’. Most don’t but ‘some’ do. When the few do use it the media tends to feed the frenzy and then all are tarred with the same brush.
Racism exists – and, I suspect, will always exist – because we are human and have thoughts we shouldn’t have and fears we can’t explain.
Josh is making a valid point Debs. ‘Some’ people do use ‘race for everything’. Sadly, they then get the most publicity that then tars all.
Very very wrong but a sad indictment of humanity eh?
Deborah,
I apologize for the confusion. I can understand some of your frustration but I wasn’t expecting to be accused of leaving wiggle room for white people. The line, “Some people use race for everything…” was not referring to people of color, just like the rest of that statement wasn’t. I, in no way, attempted to minimize racism’s effects nor do I have the right to tell anyone that their experiences regarding racism are invalid. For frame of reference, the article was originally titled, “My Perspective” and that’s the only one I can speak from.
I can tell you from personal experience that some people do use the race card, and when they do some administrators quiver in fear and pretty much give them everything they want. The lack of courage some show in the face of “race” is embarrassing.
Great article Josh and I, for one, know you weren’t attempting to minimise racism or it’s effects.
Mind you I’m a white English bloke so what do I know eh? 😉
Well done mate. Well balanced for starters and, let’s face it, there’s a lack of balance right now eh?
By the way. Never apologise. I don’t. (Well, actually I do but I never mean it anyway) 😉
“point a finger of blame at an otherwise innocent white person.”
How often that happens isn’t really the question, but it does. It’s a fear, since racism is still an open sore. It’s not pleasant to be accused of it when opposition to it has been one of the mainstays of one’s life for many years — and it certainly happens. You have to allow that possibility and I certainly have seen it many times. No one likes to be told what he thinks by someone who says he thinks it because of his race. No on can convince me that isn’t racism, not even Sharpton.
I don’t forget Mr. Sharpton’s involvement, for which I don’t think he has ever expressed sorrow, in ruining the lives of innocents in his quest to remind us about racism. One doesn’t reach my advanced age without some cynicism and I’m sorry to say that I don’t see him other than as a profiteer and manipulator with no concern for truth when fiction serves well enough.
The idea that “white people” ( all of them) are denying that there is racism seems to this cynic to be something other than a spontaneous outpouring of sentiment any more than are the things Fox News launches as propaganda that get repeated all over. I feel the same way about the effort to illustrate that black children are being “hunted down” and that it has something to do with self defense laws. I think it’s choreographed, scripted and fed to us the same way as Tea Party propaganda is.
Frankly, living in the deep south I find no shortage of racist sentiment but neither do I find any significant number of people who say it doesn’t exist, particularly in these hysterically anti-Obama latitudes. I’ve been accused of it myself, in a bullying way, for simply for correcting factual errors and for disputing the idea that all white people are irredeemably racist — which, quite obviously is a racist statement. Whose idea is it to fight racism by accusing 300 million people of it?
So when you “fronthandedly” accuse a few hundred million people, even those who have fought hard against racism, of being racists because of their genetics, I feel insulted and so do they. If you re-read your post you’ll have to admit that’s what you’re doing and that, ipso facto, makes you a racist and a racist in denial of her racism. Aren’t we all alike? Gross generalizations, stereotypes, imputing characteristics to people because of their color, religion or national origin? Sorry, that’s what you’re doing and being angry might explain it, but doesn’t justify it.
Excellent article Josh!
In my town I am a minority. White and English. 99% of others who are not white and English treat me with respect and dignity and I do likewise. A small percentage treat me as an evil life form who is not Muslim so, I suppose, I am a victim of racism and, when it happens to you in YOUR country and comes from immigrants to YOUR country it angers you.
Perhaps that gives me a modicum of insight into racism. Racism is based solely on ignorance and hatred and, almost certainly, fear of the unknown.
I find it slightly bizarre that some at MMA think I am racist….or perhaps I am…I fear the unknown as many do.
Slightly different in America of course. Black people are as American as white people – many can trace their American ancestry back as far as most whites.
I hope everyone takes a step or two back regarding Ferguson and thinks where this could all lead. Right now it’s leading somewhere very dangerous for everyone.
I don’t like shitheads, black or white, but in America if you say black you are a racist. Sad state of affairs it is over here.
Chuck,
Nowhere in my article did I ever say white people can’t examine racism. I did say that they wouldn’t be the most qualified to debate it and certainly can’t deny something they’re never going to experience. I encourage debate in the issue and I know that all skin colors must weigh in on the matter before there’s a solution. My post was specifically aimed at people who do not have the fear of racism and its effects and their denial of the fact that racism isn’t just a crutch or excuse for things. You have valid points but they are in response to a perceived argument that I didn’t make.
Yes, well written, but I’ve been hearing an awful lot about how white people are refusing to admit the existence, or at least the persistence of racism. I’m not seeing or hearing that and my opinion on the subject is that plenty still exists but it’s more restrained by far. It’s just not socially acceptable and in many and perhaps most segments it’s in remission.
Do I see it as a white person? Damn straight I do and I’m married to a non-caucasian. I see it more than she does. I’ve yet to burn anything down, for Michael Brown or anyone else however and this great howling in the street is doing more to drive the wedge in deeper than it’s been in a long time.
But I remind myself that we can no longer be jailed for being married or attacked for being seen in public or refused service anywhere and it’s no longer the white people setting fire to black people’s homes.
I see this as a straw man. I know very few who would admit that racism is false. What I do see is a reductionist argument by those claiming racism. It amounts to the fact that if you are white and wish to examine the consequences of racism (e.g. violent crime in minority areas, poverty, educational recidivism), yet want to include in that analysis a margin of accountability for that minority class, you are a racist.
There is too quick of a conclusion to make the sociology of today be an act of nostalgia for the sixties rather than an examination of the problems facing minorities. That analysis needs to include accountability within minority cultures themselves. The overwhelming persecution narrative that seemed appropriate for Jim Crow era America is incomplete in our current age.
It feels like an abdication of my morals as a citizen, to agree that since I am a white man, and haven’t experienced racism first hand, that I can’t examine it with a challenge to minority communities to examine the violence within their communities in equal measure to the heat they apply to the violence from police. I don’t see the former examination taking place.
I hear you Chuck, but I also hear the refrain of barking dogs, fire hoses, and music from Peter, Paul and Mary. Like my friend Mike I was a cop all my life, and once in a while, when dealing with African-Americans who always seemed to be whining about some fucking thing, I would ask myself what it must be like to be black. Then I would think: fuck it. I’m not. Once in a while I wonder if I shouldn’t have taken more time. Great article Josh.
This is an impressive article, and I hope to see more of you Mr. Fielder. As you say until we see the folly of our actions we cannot hope to change them.