Excellent POST !!!! :D

.

I’d personally say assuming race exists is a fundamental disconnect with reality.

Judging someone on culture…. now that’s when we start to get somewhere.

Oh? Can you expand on this? What’s the basis on which we should rightfully judge people based on their culture?

Btw, Transgressingengineer and deoridhe, I believe you both said you are “white.” My parents are of Russian heritage and are also Jewish. I’d be interested to know what your more specific heritages/ethnicities are.

I introduce myself as an American. If they ask about my heritage, I’m Scots-Welsh, Scots-Irish, Danish, and German. I’m a full member of my clan and know how to cook several traditional German and Danish dishes. My Yule tree always has paper hearts on it.

I don’t self-identify as “white” but I have white privilege and need to own that.

I would think as well, that “black” people, make distinctions between African-American whose ancestors were forced here or recent immegrants from Africa, or people whose families were in Jamaica for a while, or anywhere else.
The dark skinned Jamaicans and Carribeans were slaves too, by the way.

Non-American dark skinned people who aren’t recent immigrants usually seem to identify either by their country – be it British, Haitian, or Nigerian – or by their tribe, such as the Yoruba or !Tung. Some American dark skinned people are seeking otu different tribal identities based on stories passed down to them; I believe that’s where some of the recent interest in block-printed patterns, traditional dance, and traditional drumming come from (please correct me if I’m wrong).

The descendants of slaves are in a unique and undesirable position compared with both immigrants and historical slaves. Unlike prisoners of war, slaves were deliberately mixed in with different tribes so that they would lose their language and culture. They were deliberately inculturated into the European religion of Christianity in a place as a “child” to the European and USian “adult”. Much like the First Nations tribes, the children were stripped of their heritage quite deliberately, and that enough survived to become Voudoun and Santeria is amazing.

The word “black” is in place and is useful because their connection to the past was deliberately and near-permanently severed but they are refused an equal place at the table in the white-dominated countries they live in.

However, culture can be changed. And culture is learned behaviour among groups.

Who, exactly, should change their culture?

I actually find it difficult to have a meaningful discussion with anyone who is so set in their ways of thinking that they are unwilling to look at things from a different point of view.

I don’t feel anyone who has responded to me has offered me this in return. At all.

Five years ago, I was where you are. I was decrying the necessity of seeing color at all, ignoring how people are systematically discriminated against today, and carried a banner of “why can’t we all just get along.” I even had times when I didn’t “see” that people looked different from me and I have the required “color friendly progressive” story about coloring black people into a park scene when I was a child to show how “open minded” and “liberated” from race I was. Any person Living While White (I like that turn of phrase; I think I’ll keep it) starts off insensitive to anyone who isn’t Living While White; it’s the nature of the game.

Yes, it is very difficult to have a discussion with someone who is so set in their ways that they are unable to see things from a different perspective. I’ve seen this issue from yours, in the past, and from where I am now (which is not as far as I hope to be, someday).

I find it kind of sad that you assume I couldn’t have ever seen things the way you did, then consciously decided to actually listen to the oppressed instead of congratulating myself on not noticing when I walked on them.

I find it even sadder that you claim disagreeing with you is not showing “respect”.

Having listened to many people of color, though, I am not surprised. They experience this often, from many people many times.

“I actually find it difficult to have a meaningful discussion with anyone who is so set in their ways of thinking that they are unwilling to look at things from a different point of view.”

The problem is that your “different point of view” really isn’t all that different from stuff we’ve heard before. You’re essentially spouting variations on the standard responses of people in denial about racism, white privilege, etc. This is why I mentioned Helms’ book — the pattern of your thinking is so common, and its usual process of evolution has been seen so often, that there’s an entire field of study built around it (identity development theory). As you’ll see when you read some of the suggested materials, a whole lot of people have simply been there, done that, read the book, gotten the t-shirt, mailed the postcards, etc.

I actually think people have been very respectful, because they’ve tried to offer you suggestions on ways to educate yourself. Disrespect would’ve meant ridiculing or ignoring you. Instead several people have attempted to point out the fallacies in your thinking and suggest more rational viewpoints, and you’ve essentially ignored them. (Again, a common tactic of those in denial.) Please remember — it is *your* responsibility to educate yourself about racism, not the responsibility of others. To insist that others continue to rehash very old, very common arguments with you is, frankly, a bit selfish.

I think everyone here agrees with your ideal — that racism shouldn’t exist, and that we have to change our thinking to get beyond it. The problem lies in the fact that your suggestions simply don’t acknowledge the current reality of our society. It would be nice if everyone just forgot about race and the hierarchical castelike system of racism that has been built around it. It would also be nice if we could just decide that race and culture have nothing to do with each other (though I’m honestly not sure what difference this would make; we already discriminate against each other based on culture, after all). But unfortunately, none of this is likely to happen unless we all develop species-wide amnesia. So until that science fictiony event occurs, what *else* can we do? This is where the conversation needs to go.

I actually find it difficult to have a meaningful discussion with anyone who is so set in their ways of thinking that they are unwilling to look at things from a different point of view.

Often theraists suggest finding the truth in what someone says so that you can say you have heard them before you go on and put them down.

Its much easier to be a critic than to be a creater and a builder.

As someone who myself is trying to understand others points of view that I have so far disagreed with, I find this shows respect.

I don’t feel anyone who has responded to me has offered me this in return. At all.

White supremacy has nothing to do with white privilege. The former is the belief that whites are superior. The latter has nothing to do with superiority; it’s simply the fact that our society’s social, economic, and other systems are designed to benefit one group more than others. Indeed, it’s because that group *isn’t* superior that such unfair systems become necessary. After all, if the system were fair, then the demographics of those in power would resemble the demographics of society as a whole. That’s just basic statistics, and basic democracy.

But do *you* see, for example, 50% women in charge of the US government? We represent 50% of the population. We’re (speaking as a US woman) ostensibly just as intelligent, and have just as vested in the decision-making that drives our society. But why are there so few of us in the corridors of power? Because our society is configured on a variety of levels both vast and subtle to encourage men to pursue and gain power, while discouraging women from doing the same. This is male privilege.

White privilege works the same way.

And honestly, I agree with transgressing; it’s difficult to have a meaningful discussion when you keep asking for explanations of such basic concepts. This stuff really isn’t difficult to figure out, and quite frankly it’s your responsibility to teach yourself about it, not our responsibility to teach you. I would strongly suggest you read some of those books, then come back. We’ll all have a more interesting discussion when you do. =)

BlueGirl,
You asked how I identify myself to others… I say that I am a white woman, from a middleclass background, heterosexual, married, a soon-to-be mom, an engineer, and a graduate student. In the company of people who ‘get it,’ I also talk about aspects of privilege. I don’t talk about my ethnicities (I differentiate ethncity from race- ethnicity to me is about nationalities) much nor my religion (or absence thereof religion).

But that is how I identify myself to others when they have no idea who I am (e.g. when I am online). In person, I have NEVER had to/ been asked to talk about aspects of my identity or how my identity has made me feel, how I have been treated because of my identity, etc. That, my friend, shows how I benefit from white privilege.

Now, your last comment posting, BlueGirl…. the human race comment made me groan out loud. I often hear that phrase side by side with comments about being colorblind. I don’t know how else to explain to you what folks on this string have been trying to say (racism is not at the individual level- it is a systematic issue involved in laws, policies, etc). But I would like to reopen this line of comments after you have looked at the book suggestions that have been made.