Surprised by Racism

[polimicks]

Every once in a while, chilling in ultra-liberal Seattle, something just floors me, utterly and completely.

I ran into an old co-worker on the bus this morning. She was my first boss at the University. And we were chatting about what was going on in our lives, and how we dodged a bullet by getting out of having to transfer to Children's Hospital when our old department went. We had been laughing about the coporate blame culture that permeated all of our interactions with Children's staff when we had to deal with them, and all of a sudden she said something that just completely floored me.

"I couldn't work somewhere where all the signs are in Spanish and English. That's disgusting. This is America."

I faltered, but said, that since Children's is a charity hospital, that they were pretty obviously trying to make themselves more friendly to the largest immigrant population in the area, the people most likely to need their services. Her follow up response kind of took me aback as well.

"It's not like those people who come up here can read."

*head meet desk*

You know, I'd like to say I jumped up and read her the riot act. But I didn't. I pretty much just sat there in dumb amazement. I mean, she is older, but still...

I just don't understand when otherwise intelligent, rational people evince such amazingly irrational, stupid thought processes. Do you know what I mean? It's like a decent, relatively well-mannered person, who came in behaving very nicely, suddenly dropped trou and took a shit on your coffee table.

And I realize that my viewing racism like this is a luxury I have because of my super, pale honkey-ness. But still... I expected this shit in Eastern Washington (and was frequently surprised when it didn't happen), but in Seattle?

I've never understood racism, as in, I've never understood how anyone could fall into that mindset. It's just so... dumb. I mean, I do understand the underlying pathologies intellectually, but practically...? Maybe my folks did a better job with us than I usually give them credit for.

Comments

[cochese.livejournal.com]

nakedvillainy ran into this a lot when working with the elderly. Some of her clients were very progressive and open minded, and then would lose their shit over something that seemed trivial. Like having a black man doing contracting work in their bathroom unsupervised.

I think some of it is just what you're surrounded and conditioned by. I catch myself reacting to things sometimes that speaks more of being raised first by my grandparents and then in middle-class suburban Kent than any progressive ideals that I believe in.

[garpu.livejournal.com]

I think the clincher is "It's not like those people who come up here can read."

*sigh* Shame she couldn't have met the electrician at CalArts...guy was a published poet back home.

[qweerdo.livejournal.com]

God that shit pisses me off.

I've never understood how anyone could fall into that mindset.
I'm gonna try and get something out here, but, I'm not sure I'll explain it well.
It is my belief that it is almost impossible to be white in America and not be racist. Now, I don't mean "calling all black people the 'n' word" racist. But, just the kind of clueless "I grew up white with white people and I don't know any/many POC" kind of racist.
And, maybe racist is too strong a word. Or, maybe people just think it's too strong a word. I don't mean that many of these people are racist with any kind of malice. I mean people like myself who have never experienced what it's like to be a POC and even though we try to stay aware we still get caught being/thinking like a someone without a clue.

So, in this way I consider myself to be kinda racist. I am often clueless and as much as I try to learn, I am mostly learning when to keep my mouth shut and listen.

[dangerous-beans.livejournal.com]

I can't tell, quite, if it's racism, bigotry or statement of fact when people say things about the Native population here in Northern Alberta.

Is saying something disparaging about an entire people racism if it's mostly true? If they provide a caveat that it's "most" and not necessarily "all" that they're make snide remarks about?

I'll provide examples when the Boy gets home since I can't think of anything off the top of my head.

[loree.livejournal.com]

I've had similar, albeit milder, episodes of racism crop up with my mother from time to time, which is especially disturbing because she sure as fuck didn't raise me to be like that. I've had to get in her face about it on more than one occasion, which is doubly disturbing -- she's not even 60, and yet I have to act like the parent.

people will catch you off guard...

[euterpe35.livejournal.com]

Oy. good on you for keeping your cool. I don't think getting in her face about it would have changed anything for her. sheesh.

And: color me surprised as f*ck when:

My dad, who supervised African-American troops as a US Army Sergeant Major, who had actual card-playing, go-fishing-and/or-drinking Black friends, who once talked a suicidal Black private down from a ledge then *brought him over for supper*... Beat the living shit out of me at age 15 when he found out I had kissed a Black kid. I mean *beat*. I mean *bloody* I mean "NO Daughter of MINE is going to date a N*word!!"

I was so surprised by that that I almost didn't feel the pain.

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

I too wonder where racism and other forms of prejudice come from. I've always presumed that it's a matter of rejecting the other in favor of the self and the like.

Also, have you ever noticed how many people are prejudiced against poor people and how many people excuse it? Because, after all, poor people are OBVIOUSLY POOR BECAUSE OF THEIR OWN LAZY FAULT.

[oldviking.livejournal.com]

The thread i picked up in the comments,is it really isn't about race at the deep core..It is the economic threat.Fear of loss of econo
mic/social status that has manifested it self against the wave of immigrants of the moment. Be they Irish black or brown or whatever.And seems to last for a century or more.

When one is struggling to keep in on the good side of the man you sure don't want to have your daughter marry a whatever.. I live on a racially mixed block( black,white, Alaska Native,Latino,Polynesian) and there is near unanimous negative neighbor chatter about "those Russians" who are moving into the hood.

[lisatheriveter.livejournal.com]

A few years back in Chicago, I was on Michigan Ave hailing a cab in the middle of the afternoon. I'm a little white girl, and if I recall correctly was probably wearing jeans and a t-shirt that day. Standing on the same corner, also trying to hail a cab, was a businessman in a suit. He was black.

After I watched three cabs flagrantly pass him by, I got pissed. So I finished my cigarette, hailed the next cab, held the door for him to get in, and wished him a nice day.

Not three days later, I left a nightclub and flagged a cab. I get in, he pulls out, and I tell him my neighborhood. He promptly stops the damn car and refuses to take me, claiming that my neighborhood was too dangerous to drive to.

No good deed goes unpunished, I guess.