Comments on: Being Racist, Being Angerist

By: Stephen

Stephen — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 21:00:25 +0000

Ashley, I still call plenty of people “sir” or “ma’am”, courtesy of my upbringing. And glad you enjoyed LOLTrek!

By: Ashley

Ashley — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 08:22:55 +0000

When at work I call all men sir and all women ma’am. In person I usually default to older men and women but not always. I’m whiter than ultra-violet dyed raw cotton.

PS: You LOLTrek was very nice.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 17:24:04 +0000

I’m glad you found it useful. When I started thinking of my racism in the same way I thought of my anger, I became less reluctant to admit my racist tendencies and to address them.

By: jesse the k

jesse the k — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 16:47:35 +0000

The “angerist” metaphor is exceptionally helpful in distinguishing between racist ideas as something we can change, vs racist “identities” about which we’re powerless.

The former model, of course, enables us to grow; the latter doesn’t.

THANKS.

By: On Racism @ GFMorris.com

On Racism @ GFMorris.com — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 03:08:45 +0000

[...] Stephen wrote eloquently about racism earlier this week in support of International Blog Against Racism Week, and the further I get away from my comment in reply, the more self-frustrated I get. I still think my best experience in life when it comes to race relations was living on a white-minority hall at MSMS for a year. I did a lot of listening that year. [...]

By: Jeff

Jeff — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 18:03:10 +0000

Thank you for sharing this with us, Stephen. Know that you are not alone. Especially in places like the American South where racism was so integral to society for so long, it seems to me that making things better happens a step or two each generation. Due in no small part to my mother, I grew up being taught just how blatantly horrible statements about the inherent inferiority of other races are.

I was able to take that and grow a step further on by deciding for myself at a young age that well-meaning statements about exactly how “they” are “different” (not worse, but still different) are just as bad (if not worse, because those statements often come in the disguise of reason and thought).

Racism is subtle, though, and it creeps into your picture of your world when you aren’t looking, though. I think the point I realized that I was still racist to some extent was during summer orientation before college. I was wandering around the dorm where the University was keeping us. I walked into a common room and suddenly became VERY uncomfortable, because I realized almost all the other people in the room were black. I left quickly. It wasn’t until later that I began to more fully digest the implications of that situation. I had felt justified in my discomfort, but had you told me before then that a single black person walking into a room of white people might feel similarly uncomfortable… I think I would have been surprised by that statement. I realized how unfair… how racist that attitude was, an I was ashamed.

I still struggle. With me, where I stumble is usually with the first unreasoned reaction to a situation. Given a moment to think about it, I usually come around to the right direction eventually, but the programming is still there. I suspect it always will be to a certain extent.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 15:15:18 +0000

C’mon, Limax. It’s not like the white heterosexual male outlook isn’t already well disseminated through movies, TV, news organizations, and more. If you want to hear about white history or white concerns in the US, it’s easy to find those points of view. It’s harder to find non-white points of view.

By: Limax

Limax — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 01:51:03 +0000

It’s funny… we just had a ‘diversity’ fair at work yesterday, and there were a lot of different organizations around campus for sharing your diversity, but nowhere did I find a booth for white heterosexual males.

By: nex0s

nex0s — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 23:59:20 +0000

As an interracial person - THANK YOU Everyone has tendencies and bad impulses and accidental ignorance. Everyone clings to stereotypes sometimes. Everyone talks about “them” at some point or another. Once you know a thing about yourself though, you can *work* on it, change it for the next time, prevent it from happening again. You can take responsibility for your action, and work to fix it.

It’s a process. Thanks for being willing to engage.

By: Kilted Eric

Kilted Eric — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 23:53:56 +0000

Yep, same here. Grew up in a small town in Minnesota, where it was just normal for people to be that way.

I was 25, working in a kitchen, I kept calling the Mexicans the Spanish guys. My best friend there told me “what are you doing, your insulting them. Their from Mexico, not Spain.”

At that moment I realized that I was brought up to see Mexicans as bad, dirty, theives. And these folks, my co-workers were great people. I could not call them Mexicans for in my brain, they were good not bad.

A real wake up that day. I keep trying and learning, that is all I can do.