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Unlearning Racism Part 1: It’s Good to Talk About Racism
Published by vegankid | Filed under 101, Taking Action
I wrestled for about two weeks with where to start this series. And then i picked up my tattered and heavily-bookmarked copy of Paul Kivel’s Uprooting Racism. And i happened to open up to the chapter titled It’s Good to Talk About Racism. So i figured we could start by reading this chapter and discussing why it’s good to talk about racism.
It’s Good to Talk About Racism
excerpted from Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice
by Paul KivelRacism is an everyday influence on our lives which has great power partly because we don’t talk about it. Talking about racism lessens its power, breaks the awful, uncomfortable silence we live within. Talking about it makes it less scary.
Talking about racism is an opportunity to learn about people of color, to reclaim our lives and true histories. We can ask questions, learn and grow in exciting ways that have been denied us.
Racism is a gross injustice which kills people of color, damages democracy and is linked to many of our social problems. Talking about it helps make our society safer for people of color and safer for us as well. Talking about racism keeps us from passing it on to our children. Talking about racism allows us to do something about it. Because it seems scary or confusing to talk about racism, we can forget that there are lots of good sound reasons for doing so. You can probably think of reasons I haven’t mentioned. It is a useful groups exercise to brainstorm the reasons it is good to talk about racism.
We actually talk about race all the time, but we do it in code. Much of our discussions about economics, military issues, neighborhood affairs, public safety and welfare, education, sports and movies is about race. Some of the code words we use are “underclass,” “welfare mothers,” “inner city,” “illegal aliens,” “terrorist,” “politically correct” and “invasion.”
These color-coded words allow white people to speak about race or about people of color, whether in the United States or abroad, without having to admit to doing so. We don’t have to risk being accused of racism; we don’t have to worry about being accountable for what we say. We can count on a mutual (white) understanding of the implications of the words without having to specify that this comment is about race. In order to be allies of people of color, we need to break the code of silence and subterfuge between white people in our talk about racism. Dealing with racism, then, is not just talking about it, but talking about it openly, intentionally, with the goal of ending it. It calls for us to demystify and analyze our coded interactions.
I want to look briefly at the seven words and phrases mentioned above to decipher the meanings they contain, including the ways that class perceptions are intertwined with racial ones. This analysis should help us challenge other white people when thay fall back on racial code words.
“Underclass” generally stands for African Americans who are poor. It suggests they are a seperate group from other poor people, a class by themselves which is “below” the rest of us. It connotes hopelessness, desperation and violence, and implies that this group lives by values which are different from ours and is therefore immune to efforts to change their economic circumstances.
This word operates, like most racially coded words, by labeling a particular group as a group of color and then creating or exaggeratin their characteristics so that we feel completely seperate from them. The negative qualities attributed to this group then become justificiations for our treatment of “them.”
African Americans have no monopoly on poverty in this country. There are over twice as many poor whites as poor blacks. Nor is there a special “culture of poverty” (another racially coded phrase). There are certainly significant negative effects of poverty, but well-paying jobs, access to decent housing and schooling would mitigate most of these effects very quickly.
“Welfare mothers” is another phrase which seems to have a clear definition but actually has several layers of racial meaning. For most white people the word represents African American women and teens who have children without being married. Our image is of a woman with several children who lives rather well for long periods of time on welfare to avoid working for a living. In turn, the expense of providing for welfare mothers is said to be draining our country financially, contributing to the national deficit and providing a disincentive for African American teens to work.
The reality is quite different. The majority of welfare recipients are white. Welfare recipients are primarily women who have, on the average, two children and stay on welfare for less than two years. Only 20 percent of welfare recipients stay on the rolls for five years or more. The percentage of African American women on welfare has actually dropped in the last two decades.
Welfare does not provide more than poverty-level support. The average payment in 1993 for a family of three was $388 per month, or $4,656 per year. If you had two children would you give up a job for this amount of money? With these meager payments, currenly being cut back further, we can see why welfare accounts for less than one percent of the federal budget. Social security, in contrast, accounts for about 20 percent.
Both of the terms examined above come together in the phrase “inner city.” This is supposedly where the underclass, including most welfare mothers, live. The inner city is more a site in our minds than in our cities. For most white people “inner city” means anywhere there are large concentrations of people of color, regardless of their economic status. The central sections of most large metropolitan areas in this country are highly diverse economically and racially. In many cities there are now neighborhoods of upper-income whites in gentrified houses and condos. Communities of color also have much economic diversity because of housing and lending discrimination and family ties, which keep middle income people of color close to where they grew up. Conversely, many poor people of color live in rural or suburban areas. Poor people in general, and wefare mothers in particular, can be found throughout our states, not just in urban areas. There are white communities of people who are poor, such as in Appalachia, which have longer histories, and equally severe impediments to economic recovery than “inner city” areas. All of this racial and economic complexity is concealed and distorted by the phrase “inner city.”
Each of these three terms attempts to create a division between white people and African Americans giving us the illusion they are different than and lower than we are. The facts are distorted to make it seem as if white people and people of color live in different worlds with different cultures and moral values. From this framework it becomes easy to blame them for their poverty and to fail to see the interconnections between their lives and ours.
Following are four other racially coded words in common use.
Illegal aliens
Which immigrants are legal or illegal has always been a function of racially determined immigration policies. Throughout most of our history Europeans have been welcomed, and immigrants from Africa, Latin America and Asia have been exluded or discouraged. Today, discussion about illegal aliens focuses on Mexicans, Central and South Americans and Asians, not on Europeans. Talk of illegal aliens justifies control of Spanish-speaking communities by extending discriminatory policies to legal residents and long-standing citizens who are Spanish-speaking, while claiming that this is a legal and non-racial issue.Terrorist
This has become a code word for Arabs. When using it we can mask anti-Arab statements and policies while ignoring the terrorist acts of white people and European and U.S. governments, such as the bombings of civilian areas in Panama and Iraq.Invasion
Why don’t we say that Europeans invaded North Amercia? Or that settlers invaded the West? Most uses of the word invasion are about “us” - white Americans - being invaded by Japanese investment, illegal aliens, people of color moving to the suburbs or Haitian refugees.We can only develop effective strategies for uprooting racism with a language that reflects reality. Racially coded words make it easier for us to focus on people of color as the problem and avoid taking responsibility for ending racism. In effect, they give us excuses for not being allies to people of color.
What are some reasons that you can think of for why it is good to talk about racism? What are some other color-coded words that you hear or use? How did reading this make you feel?
June 19th, 2006 at 12:45 am Ooo, good post! Looks like a great read too.
June 19th, 2006 at 3:21 pm I think it's good to talk about racism, not because we need to learn about people of color, but because European-Americans often don't even begin to see themselves. Racism was developed by White folks to oppress others. It wasn't even aboutBlack folks (and Brown folks and Yellow folks) except that it was directed at them. It was originally about making it easier to take what others already had or making them produce more to build a rich country for White folks to run. So, in many ways, it could be said that "racism" is only about Europeans and European-Americans and, therefore, something they really need to understand. Yet, most White people don't know this and so they keep imagining that "racism" is somebody else's problem.
June 19th, 2006 at 4:28 pm april - thanks. it is a good read.
cs - thanks for stopping by. i agree with what you are saying, but i still feel it is important for White people to learn about people of color. Otherwise, we continue this cycle of stereotyping and pigeonholing.
June 19th, 2006 at 5:48 pm the color-coded word that drives me crazy is white trash. a long time ago someone pointed out to me that it implies that all people of color are trash, while whites have a specific subset of people who are trash. (of course just the idea of calling people trash is offensive to begin with)
thanks for doing this vegankid, i look forward to reading your series.
June 20th, 2006 at 12:23 am [...] Unlearning Racism Part 1: It?s Good to Talk About Racism A new series of entries by Ally Blog. (tags: race understanding peace racism) [...]
June 20th, 2006 at 10:36 am VK: I guess I'd like to think of it as learning from people of color rather than learning about them, yes? It seems that many European-Americans, even when they approach people of color themselves, do so with a set of perceptions based on a shell of information (often erroneous) they don't even realize they received.
So they will ask a question such as: "Aren't things really getting better?" and then argue with the person of color if they don't like the answer. In other words, they're not really looking to learn anything or to even be exposed to a different perspective. They just want to feel as if they're interacting (when they're not).
People of color have to understand where White folks are coming from in order to survive. White folks, on the other hand, coming from a position of power, don't have to reciprocate. Unfortunately, that means White folks can be walking around with limited knowledge of the world they're really living in. The more I learn, the happier and freer I become. It's a wonderful thing, really.
June 20th, 2006 at 8:05 pm What are some reasons that you can think of for why it is good to talk about racism?
I think it is the first step in ending racism. I think we are living with racism but
from a different perspective than people of color. Racism is harmful. The future for all of us, no matter what our ethnicity is rests on our examination of these issues.
What are some other color-coded words that you hear or use?
Tolerence: equals: i will put up with you. It does nothing to promote respect
and honor.
How did reading this make you feel?
I feel challenged to think more about coded words.
June 21st, 2006 at 10:57 am if you are wondering where your comment went, check here.
June 21st, 2006 at 1:48 pm “How did reading this make you feel?”
like Kathy; I am intrigued by kevel’s idea of ‘coding’ , yet I thirst for evidence to back up his assertions.
I was most intrigued by two of the ‘coded’ words.
“inner city,”
&
“terrorist'
1: 'terrorist'
IF Kivel's theory is correct, I can say that Druze and Christian Arabs are not included in this coded word.
MUSLIM Arabs, epically those of the Shiite variation and those with a strict interpretation of the Koran and the Hadith are the people described by the word 'terrorist'.
2: ‘Inner-City’.
This makes overtures to the 'white flight' that can be witnessed by comparing demographic maps of the US from 1950-2000.
I wanted to see an example of at worst a white person, at best an important white politician using one of these words (perhaps kivel did, later in the text)
I went here:
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/shownomination.php?convid=6
Then I hit ctrl-f and typed in inner-city.
Does Jimmy Carter's usage match the definition given by Kivel?
June 22nd, 2006 at 12:06 pm "MUSLIM Arabs, epically those of the Shiite variation and those with a strict interpretation of the Koran and the Hadith are the people described by the word 'terrorist'."
And non-Arabs aren't included, eg the ETA.
Interestingly, "inner-city" seems not to carry the same connotations in the UK, where "inner-city" does mean poor, although I guess this depends on the city. Non-white people aren't always concentrated in the inner-city, so maybe that's why. Or maybe I too have fallen into this trap.
"Politically correct" may bed the code word that most irritates me, becuase it's so often used to dismiss points about social justice issues. What it really means is "your point isn't important, you're jsut being hypersensitive, and by renaming your issue it looks like we've solved it and it looks like you're talking about a non-issue."
--IP
June 22nd, 2006 at 2:04 pm IP,
'terrorist'
, right, non-Arabs aren’t included, with the exception of Christian identity politics in the USA.
(That of the national alliance, etc) (we would agree that a person who is influenced by the turner diaries is probably a terrorist)
'inner-city', it’s interesting that the term is used in the UK with a different meaning. That would be an interesting topic for a study.
IP said, "Politically correct" may be the code word that most irritates me, because it's so often used to dismiss points about social justice issues. What it really means is "your point isn't important, you're just being hypersensitive, and by renaming your issue it looks like we've solved it and it looks like you're talking about a non-issue."
--IP
Now, I disagree outright, in fact I would take the opposite stance; that the term 'political correctness' was a reactionary term used by rightists to describe a set of vocabulary developed by the leftist intelligentsia, designed to settle issues by defining their terms in an Orwellian fashion.
Here is how the term 'political correctness' is viewed by the right wing:
http://www.academia.org/lectures/lind1.html
I would venture to say that Kivel is embellishing the racial significance of ‘PC’, as the term 'political correctness' has nothing to do with race (in my opinion).
June 22nd, 2006 at 8:56 pm douglass - re: terrorist. sure, we can conceed that acts from folks like McVeigh are terrorist. but when you say the word terrorist, most people don't immediately think of a McVeigh or a Duke or some other White persyn. they picture someone like Ossama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein. and there are plenty of people who seem to have bought in to the idea that while not all White Christians are terrorists, the same cannot be said of Muslims.
it is interesting that inner-city has a different connotation in europe. i know that in france this is largely due to the fact that it is in the inner-city that affluent White people live and in the suburbs where the poor and immigrant populations reside.
you may very well be right about the beginnings of the phrase PC. but i have had it used against me on several occassions. An example would be if i were to imply that i was uncomfortable with something (because of its racist undertones) and someone would respond "oh, you're just being politically correct." i agree that the phrase is not limited to race, but it is used to dismiss discussions about race.
June 23rd, 2006 at 10:13 am I am not absolutely certain about the inner-city thing, but in the UK I've always heard it used to mean simply "poor".
"Now, I disagree outright, in fact I would take the opposite stance; that the term 'political correctness' was a reactionary term used by rightists to describe a set of vocabulary developed by the leftist intelligentsia, designed to settle issues by defining their terms in an Orwellian fashion."
PC isn't specifically to do with race -- it's used for any social justice issue. Like Vegan, I've had it used against me a lot. The problem is when someone talks about a real issue, such as racism, and they're told it's "just politically correct", ie, no more than a matter of vocabulary. That's problematic because it suggests that the problem is only linguistic and there is not a real social problem.
For example, when we talk about language in this thread, we're not suggesting that *language* is the problem (or that code-words per se are the problem). We're saying that language reflects and reinforces racial stereotypes and prejudices, and that's why some words are important. But The Problem in this case is not the words themselves but the prejudices and stereotypes they articulate. Do you see the distinction I am making?
--IP
June 23rd, 2006 at 11:41 am Of course I see that the presuppositions of these phrases line up with phrases that have been abandoned because of antiracist public education that equated the use of such words with backward customs and negative traits.
Now, see why I’m anal about means and ends lining up??
We have the case of a good message (anti-racism in the 20th century) propagated by sinister techniques (equating ‘racist’ political views with unconsciously repugnant stimuli)
What happened is white people avoided the stigma and remained racist as ever.
They gained the ability to go undetected by applying the very techniques of PC to their views; literally 'euphamizing' racial slurs.
Why?
People aren’t slow, and usually object to (pardon my French) being mindf*cked.
They see when a certain set of views is being stigmatized by propaganda and are pretty good at adapting against the ‘teeth’ of the stigma.
What kivel is trying to describe with 'code words' is literally 'politically correct' racism.
He couldn't openly say that without attacking his own PC code words and admitting the full extent of the ‘blowback’ experienced from previous campaigns of antiracist ‘education’.
In short, The 'problem' is that the initial antiracist propaganda campaigns failed and sent racism 'underground', where it is now embedded and camouflaged.
Now, what’s next in terms of Kivel?
July 17th, 2006 at 11:29 am [...] RANT The coded ways people talk about race without appearing to talk about race is the subject of Carmen’s rant today. For more on this topic, check out Ally Work’s post with excerpts from Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice by Paul Kivel. To see the correspondence that sparked this rant, see here, here, here and here. [...]
July 19th, 2006 at 1:03 pm Hmm. Some of it strikes me as semantic-speak, which is to say that they are "inappropriate" or "don't make sense" only if you FIRST agree with the author.
So "terrorist" for example, is not really a code word for Arabs. There are plenty of non-Arab terrorists. Anyone who is using that as a code word simply doesn't know enough about terrorism.
Similarly, our actions in Iraq may be atrocious, but they don't fit the definition of "terrorism."
Your "Illegal aliens" concept also strikes me as strange. Only non-whites? Hello? "No Irish Need Apply" anyone?
The reality is that the meaning of "illegal aliens" has always been defined largely by the group who is illegally immigrating. If we started having droves of illegal Canadians immigrating, then "illegal immigrant" would probably imply "Canadian." If Britain started encouraging and facilitating large numbers of its citizens to come here illegally, we'd be talking about Britain.
This claimed "racism" falls into the trap of "effect implies intent."
Are most of the illegal immigrants currently Latino?
Yup.
Does that mean any modifications in immigration laws will afect more Latinos than, say, Germans?
Yup.
Does that mean it's racist?
No--unless you're trying to convince someone that their position on illegal immagration is wrong by talking about race instead of illegal immigration. It's a side track.
The ironic thing is that I actually agree with what you're trying to say: Communication is crucial. But I think you lose me with your last sentence:
"We can only develop effective strategies for uprooting racism with a language that reflects reality....."
Because you seem to be proposing a use of these words that DOESN'T reflect reality.
"Inner city" doesn't mean "black". It means "poor" or "lives in the bad part of town". Sometimes (though rarely) it actually means "inner city." That, BTW, is why you see qualifiers like "inner city black" or "inner city white."
And "underclass?" Hell, I read a lot of econ stuff. "Underclass" means "poor". Not "black."
Sigh.
This list seems like some straw man that a racist would write so they could mock it. I agree with all the underlying principles but the definitions are very very strange.
And when I read this, I think of a hypothetical that may express my problem:
Bob dislikes illegal immigration/terrorism. How can Bob say that in an approved fashion?
Under this list, he can't. Both terms are unusable without being called a racist. So Bob must invent other language to describe his issue (and such language will soon also be termed "racist" in intent.)
This is unacceptable, because such an interpretation precludes discussion of two very important issues.
Isn't this a problem?
July 22nd, 2006 at 7:43 pm Racism is real, we need children publications with stories and morals that can have an impact on the next generation.
There has been some change but here in Australia we dont talk about racism. The word racism is never used in my work place, many of my black people are the highest in the world to be imprisioned. I dont know what the united nations are doing about it. Maybe they are too busy plus Australia is not a UN member.
There is awhole black community that is under lock and key here down under...
Mickalla
August 5th, 2006 at 12:08 pm [...] RANT The coded ways people talk about race without appearing to talk about race is the subject of Carmen’s rant today. For more on this topic, check out Ally Work’s post with excerpts from Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice by Paul Kivel. To see the correspondence that sparked this rant, see here, here, here and here. [...]
October 11th, 2006 at 6:47 am i like the way u epress u'r things
December 5th, 2006 at 1:03 pm Kivel's book is marvelous.
I suggest another book, Talking Race in the Classroom (Teachers College Press, 2005). I wrote it about how to talk about race in schools, but the ideas can be used anywhere.
Thanks
Jane Bolgatz
December 27th, 2006 at 2:30 pm THis may have started out about people of color but there are other groups that fall into the "racism category".
What about Jews? or for that matter Mormons?
They have both been treated very badly in history and suffered many of the same effects of racism..
Just a thought.
January 4th, 2007 at 5:01 pm Why does color and race affent so many people? Is it out ancestry that judges every man based on the appearance of their skin? Why? Why does it linger with us today after so many years? There are so many questions but people, i think, will never fully get over what they believe. even though poeple dont say it in the others presence there is still that underlying feeling that were different from one another. i could go on...
January 7th, 2007 at 3:37 am thanks, jane. i'll have to check it out.
randall - although Jews have certainly been (and continue to be) the target of systematic violence, i'm of the school of thought that they don't quite fall under the category of a Race. 1) because of the vast racial diversity within the Jewish diaspora, and 2) because so many Jews today do benefit from White privilege. i'd argue that Jews are pretty new to the category of Whiteness (and are still being assimilated), but racism is not an umbrella categorization defined by nazis and the klan. and maybe there is some mormon hatred out there, but i haven't heard of anything systematic. i could be wrong, but i've heard far worse stereotypes and demonization of Catholics than i've heard of Mormons. and last i checked, most Mormons were White. religious zealotry and racism (although certain connections exist) are not the same thing.
i hear ya on the fact that they've "suffered many of the same effects of racism." oppressed people from different groups often experience the same sort of oppressive behaviors (like the forced steriliztion of people with disability and the forced sterilization of wimmin of color). that's one of the many connecting bonds of oppression. but there are still enough dissimilarities that i'd say they are different things. but you're also kinda right in that oppression is oppression is oppression. but here we focus on race. however, if you read kivel's book, he talks about how Jews play in to the scheme of racism (there are several other books, too, but i'm drawing a blank on titles right now).
January 7th, 2007 at 3:44 am oops, forgot to respond to you, nathan. in short, yes. i'd say that racism stems of centuries of divide and conquer tactics. i think it lingers with us because it is so thoroughly ingrained into us that we've carried it on (often subconsciously) from generation to generation.
i'd have to disagree with the 'never' statement. one constant throughout hystory is the use of the phrase "things will never change." yet what has hystory taught us? things always change. there was a time when we said we'd never have a female speaker of the house because wimmin are mentally inferior. yet just this week that 'never' was shattered. i think its best to erase the never mentality. the realm of possibilities is infinite.
January 18th, 2007 at 12:02 pm Fully agree with you.
February 6th, 2007 at 4:10 pm I think its just ignorance schools shouldnt hide from it any more start teaching about the history of racism and lets all start getting on. let start with the kids first, maybe then we can stamp it out for future generations
February 6th, 2007 at 5:55 pm As you may or may not know over here in the UK we just had something called 'celebrity big brother' which hit the headlines for a good few weeks due to what some thought was 'racist bullying' inside the house. In fact it was all people were talking about in the UK while this was going on, and I am sure that racism has never been openly discussed as much in this country, certainly whilst I have been alive. There were many calls to 'axe' the show and I believe this nearly happened, anyway - my point is, having certain comments discussed as being potentially racist IMHO made a lot of people in the UK aware of how seemingly racist they could be, without realising they were causing offence. In fact, for all its damning I really do believe this was one of the best things to happen to race relations in the UK for years. The more we can talk about these issues without fear the better.
March 22nd, 2007 at 6:24 am We'll probably never talk enough about this issue. Issue? Is that the appropriate word? Unfortunately, racism is going to be around for a long long time.
April 25th, 2007 at 4:56 pm Very interesting article, racism has been around a lot longer than we have and I'm afraid it will be around for a lot longer.
June 6th, 2007 at 2:53 pm I've never understand why people can just let each other live their lives however they want. Racism is so stupid
November 2nd, 2007 at 5:31 pm Until the racism issue is solved there will never be peace in this country or the world.
May 14th, 2008 at 1:22 am I found this on google because recently some close friends of mine made some racist comments that greatly offended me (we are all white). I've been looking for advice on how to address this with them (I tried addressing it head on but am looking for subtler approaches). This helped but I am still looking for more guidance.