For those of you still saying "All Lives Matter" - do you go to March of Dimes events chanting "All Babies Matter?" Do you demand food from food banks because "All people get hungry?" Do you harass charities helping homeless veterans, demanding to know why they only help the homeless and/or veterans?
Of course you don't. You know these groups - Premature babies, people with food insecurity, homeless veterans- you know they are having a tough time, and could really benefit from support.
Now ask yourself why you had this reaction *only* after hearing "Black Lives Matter." Really think about it.
After years of being in these kinds of arguments I thought I would make a list of myths and how to quickly defeat them. Do not copy-paste, though without credit. Give it back to this blog--Eclectic Creative on tumblr. (I'm sick of my words being stolen as it is and then people making money off of it when I give this for free.) Also, don't go taking the whole thing wholesale to make money. That'll also piss me off.
Talking racism is racist.
I got taught this one. That's stupid. If you want to dismantle a system, you need to understand how and why it works, which means you need to talk about it. You need to know the history and impact of it. You need to be bold, be wrong, and get corrected about race. That's what Ethnic Studies is for.
But Race is a Social construct...so [racism] it’s not real
So is money, the need to wear clothes, birthdays, holidays, gender, divisions of sex, religion, government, language, and so on--sure some of them do have biological imperatives attached, but so does race. Just because it's a social construct doesn't mean it's not real. You can't go and parade in front of a police station butt naked scream that the government is not real because it's a social construct, steal someone's money and scream it's a social construct and expect there to be no consequences.
Anthropologists can tell about 80% of the time from bones what race a person is. (In European definition of race as supposed to Brazilian, etc).
It's more insulting to call someone out for their racism than it is for them to be racist.
It's more insulting to call someone out for their accidental hatred than it is to turn your back and ignore them while they spread that hatred.
It’s more insulting to call someone a murderer than it is to point out the systems that allowed them to murder.
It’s more insulting to call someone a murderer than it is to allow them to murder again.
You can't be accidentally racist.
White people can't get over this one fast, usually. It's called implicit bias. You were programmed by your society to think and act in a certain way, bombarded by those images over and over and then taught to hush up on race. Of course you have no choice but to uphold those ideals.
If the person has issues with this idea, have them go to any grocery store or book shop and count up the PoCs. Where are they? How are they represented?
The other test is to ask them to randomly list 5 favorite authors, actors, etc. How many of them are white straight, CIS male? You can be actively against an ideology and still have issues with it.
Ethnicism and racism are the same thing!
They aren't. Ethnicism can be same race to same race. Say someone Han hates on someone Zhuang. That's Ethnicism. The dynamics also change. Say someone black American is hating on someone white and say that all whites are gun loving... but that's a very different dynamic if they've seen white people killing their relatives and have a history of slavery and being followed.
It's also a different dynamic when it's PoC to PoC, because inherently, there usually is white framer language in there. Such as say, the greedy rich Asian stereotype which may have contributed to the LA riots. In that case it's internalization. Same for Koreans hating on blacks because they watched some American movies... it's a different dynamic because it's not direct history of oppression, as in racism.
Xenophobia is a kind of racism.
Racism can play a role, but not always. Xenophobia is a hatred of foreigners. So if someone hates on Canadians coming to the US, and sees a white Canadian and a white USian, that's plain xenophobia. Racism can play a role, where someone says Mexicans, for example, are "lazy" "take people's jobs" but Canadians are productive. It gets trickier then. It's a cross between the two.
Racism is only individual.
Nope. This is because of imperialism. The rape of native people had a real impact especially in Latin Americas. (plural intentional). The opium Wars had an impact. The fact that the British Museum is all taken from other countries (mostly), is a sign of that imperialism. The fact that the jikji resides in France is also a sign of that. Repatriotize those goods, give PoCs equal pay and opportunity for work, stop killing black and brown peoples in gun violence, stop sexualizing WoCs and desexualizing MoCs, and all of the other things that are built into our system, then we can talk about how it's individual.
White Privilege... but I'm poor and I'm white, what privilege do I have?
Being poor and brown and poor and black has different consequences often. There are other privileges involved. The original essay was by Peggy Mcintosh, a white woman. Privilege is the act of inheriting rights given to you. Everyone living has privileges they can exercise at a given moment, otherwise you'd be dead. You were given privileges as a white person, such as mirrors on television, being called the default, etc. What her work asks you to do is to pay attention and be able to give those privileges to other people who don't have them.
If I give my privileges to someone else, they will be taken away from me.
No, you'll have time and space to give them the same rights you have. Civil rights is not a pie. Like love is not a pie. It's not divided up like there is a limited amount.
Racism is only a US thing.
Nope, it's a UK, Australian, etc thing too. Happens everywhere because of colonization and imperialism. It's ubiquitous. You can see this in the given that English is a Lingua Franca.
You can, too, be racist against whites.
Definition of racism is, "Racism involves the subordination of people of color by white people." This is a definition made by Ethnic Studies and well documented. These particular words come from Paula Rothenberg, a white woman. So no, it's not racist.
But Japan Imperialized why can't we talk about them?
Japanese imperialism was mostly concentrated in the Pacific and Asia. It was horrific. But it didn't dominate the world and the time period was not 500+ years of domination, slavery, and cultural erasure. (Most of the horrors were located in Korea--and I say this as a Korean). You can't be racist against your own race. Racism defines an insider/outsider status.
But if I went to China I would get hate as a white person...
Opium Wars. The destruction of China through the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion. White powers also didn't give a damn about Rape of Nanking... don't you think the hatred would be justified? And why are you using China anyway? Are you paranoid about China's economy? You know it's the US that exports the raw materials to China.
White fragility, white privilege, white woman's tears talking imperialism and colonialism is racist... against whites.
All terms invented by whites to describe the phenomena of racism. So nope, not racist. It's language and terms. If you refuse to use the terms invented by white people as a white person to describe social phenomena, then you are practicing what Robin DiAngelo would call White fragility--because it's easier to flinch.
I did this great thing yesterday for race, so I can't be racist.
Fighting in any social justice is an everyday process. You aren't allowed to quit until all people have equal rights and say so as that vast majority of PoCs. As that has not happened, you don't get a badge. Jay Smooth said this in a Ted Talk, (paraphrasing) People think fighting racism is like taking out an appendix... but it's more like brushing your teeth.
Please don't badge. Fighting racism is not a scout badge that magically appears.
A black president? Racism is "post racial".
And the percentage of black people killed by cops is higher than any other ethnic group, and that also ignores the other struggles with racism.
But I'm colorblind!
If you don't have achromatism, no you aren't. Racism is a system. As a system, it means it's real and racism is still happening around you no matter how much you try to ignore it. Also see implicit bias.
There is no such thing as cultural appropriation...
... because look brown and black people use English
This comes from 2 Empires (UK and US) of domination and often erasure on the rest of the world. It's called imperialism. And it wasn't pretty.
Whether it was the rape of Indigenious people of North, Central, Australians, NZ, and South America... the wars waged against Asia, including forcing Opium on a government that said no, or the total shaming of India's gender diversity, there is a lot to answer for. English is the language of imperialism. (As is Spanish, Portuguese and French, though less so.)
... because look, PoCs wear Western clothes.
Again, imperialism. Pretty much the second paragraph from above.
... But I'm doing cultural sharing/appreciation--how dare you as an insider say I'm appropriating!
You as an outsider might not know you are doing so. But you also don't know the deeper cultural significance, because often appropriation comes from the end of culture. What I mean is that in order to build a culture, and get cultural artifacts, you need things that you DON'T see. This includes belief systems, which may or may not be religious. You don't get taught the detailed history. You don't know the history of oppression if there is any. You don't know the political set up and may not even care. When someone is calling you out for appropriation, usually it's saying you're getting it wrong. And you should respect the culture you're taking from to correct yourself. To understand WHY it's wrong and stop saying things like, "Well, I'm only watching dramas not to learn anything." Or saying, "I'm just having fun." It's not fun to watch someone that means a lot to you, say your childhood toy, then toss it around and then watch someone say they are appreciating it--especially if that toy was from a relative and is very fragile because it's gotten beaten up so many times. Don't do that to culture.
BTW, Cultural Sharing is where you are INVITED IN and act HUMBLE when you are corrected, not double down. APPRECIATION is hands off--you do not use the cultural item at all, and you *look* at it, but don't touch. I used this analogy before--you appreciate by looking at art in a museum, you do not take it down from the wall take it home and say you painted it. That's theft.
Once you don't take corrections about your behavior, you are stealing and often times compounding previous wounds that the culture experienced before, in which case it's rude. It's like knowing someone got stabbed and then deciding, yep, let's stab them again because your ego is more important than the people within that culture. And is your ego bigger than an entire culture, its history and everyone in it?
But my [fill in ethnicity/race] friend doesn't mind.
Sometimes people are afraid to correct you or don't think you care enough and if you double down and use them as a badge like this, without them present, then yeah, they probably won't feel this way. Why are you talking over a person present, who has the lived experience on what does or doesn't hurt to them. Does it matter to you at all that they feel hurt? Are you going to run away from that? You are also taking away agency from the other person. Let them talk for themselves and BE there to answer. It's called respect and respecting boundaries.
If you are white and doing this, it's double disrespect because you, as a white person shouldn't be talking for a PoC since there is a huge history of that. If you want to make that argument, then tag them into the conversation, or wait until they are there, or talk general facts where you can, or tell the people to go and ask that person directly and ask for an honest answer. Usually this is enough to shut them down.
But my white voice matters in PoC discussions about receiving racism.
If you are talking *for* what it is like to be say, an Asian woman who gets sexualized, then nope. What you need to do is sit, shut up and listen. If facts contradict, see if you can find a reason why in each of the stories. Ask respectful questions. Lived experience comes first. You wouldn't listen to a person who said they heard that this other person, might have this opinion. That's hearsay, so why are you doing it? You didn't live it.
Again, you as a white person don't receive racism. You don't have a right to talk over voices that have experienced it.
Racism: Racism can be defined simply as any policy, belief, attitude, action or inaction, which subordinates individuals or groups based on their race. What this definition leaves out, however, is the specific historical formation of racism as an institution and an ideology over the last several hundred years. Taking into consideration the social and historical perspective, Paula Rothenberg
offers this more pointed—and useful--definition of racism:
"Racism involves the subordination of people of color by white people. While individual persons of color may well discriminate against a white person or another person of color because of their race, this does not qualify as racism according to our definition because that person of color cannot depend upon all the institutions of society to enforce or extend his or her personal dislike. Nor can he or she call upon the force of history to reflect and enforce that prejudice. . . . History provides us with a long record of white people holding and using power and privilege over people of color to subordinate them, not the reverse."
(Paula Rothenberg. Defining Racism and Sexism)
Note: Paula Rothenberg is white. I can dig up the same definition from black and brown peoples, but I think it has less value to white people who say that this definition is “racist” and try to redefine what racism is. I should note that for some white minorities that bought into the “white”ness later in history, this can go either way, depending on when you’re talking in history. (For example Italians have their “white” card as a white minority, but were once classed as “black” and thus fought with black people for civil rights--something they often don’t cover in history class.)
Also going to note, “White fragility” “white privilege” “White man’s burden” “Imperialism” and “Colonialism” are all made by white people, but often other white people forget this fact and call those terms “racist” (The first 2 are by CIS white females, BTW)
Let us start with the confused white person question:
“I understand police brutality is bad. But don’t police kill people of all races? Why are these protests about race?”
This person has no context. How could they? They are in a rural white area. They likely never thought to do the research because they didn’t even consider it a problem. Yes, Google exists. But so does the whole SubReddit “Explain Like I’m Five.” People can just Google those things, too, but results can be overwhelming. Same premise applies. I always go into this assuming the asker is open minded and willing to learn. [Sometimes that is not the case, and I assure you, I can shut down a troll with the best of them. Fuck them.]
My response:
You’re partially right. The police absolutely do kill people of all races. The use of excessive force, choke holds, and the like is a common concern. No one wants violence in their neighborhood, especially from police. No one wants excessive force used.
However, the majority of people that are affected by police brutality are black. Black men are 2.5 times more likely to be killed by a cop than white men. According to this LA Times article, a black man is more likely to be killed by a cop than die of diabetes or pneumonia. Yikes.
So yes, this is why people of color, more than anyone else, are fed up. They have watched so many members of their community die. George Floyd was not an anomaly, his death was part of a pattern.
Today I am going to talk about a common argument I hear from well-meaning yet new to the game white people. The below quote is a paraphrase of a question I got on social media, so I apologize in advance:
“I get the desire for equality, I really do, but if black people want to be treated like everyone else, then why do they always separate themselves? Black people pride, etc... but when white people do it, it’s racism?”
Okay. So. Yeah. First reaction is a sigh.
But! If you have the mental energy to do the work (looking at you other white people) you can address this. There is an inherent desire to learn here. This person would not have asked the question, and would not have felt the need to add the “I get it, but” modifier if she wasn’t already at least a little aware that her question was awkward.
This is how I answered:
Hi [name!] Thanks for this question. I’ve seen that one a lot. So what is interesting is that there is a TON of "white people" stuff out there. We hear it on an everyday basis and engage with it regularly! However, it looks a little different. You would be familiar as hearing it said in terms of ancestry: Italian/British/Ukranian/French/ etc.
Unfortunately, many African Americans cannot trace their ancestry to a specific country like how our family can, or even non-white people from Cuba/Mexico/China etc can. African Americans have no family records other than knowing at some point, their great great great grandparents were brought over as slaves from the vast expanse of land that is Africa. This is why "Black" has become a catchall term in the way other nationalities and races have not. Historically, they have been forced to create their own cultural identity after their nationalities/heritage were taken from them.
Race 101: What Young People Think About Race Relations
Race 101: What Young People Think About Race Relations
Hosted by 1010 WINS’ Larry MullinsProduced for 1010 WINS by Sharon Barnes-Waters For the final week of Black History month, we bring you a one-hour special called Race 101: What Young People Think About Race Relations. Larry Mullins hosts and moderates a panel made up of students from area universities and colleges, along with Reverend Calvin Butts. (Credit: 1010 WINS) Dr. Butts is a native New…
