I want to talk about a topic that is maybe even more dangerous than politics and religion; I want to talk about race and racism in the right here, right now.
In the year 2012, in the Northeast, it is almost taboo to say that we have a racism problem. New York City especially has an incredibly diverse population. The city is overwhelming liberal and in many ways one of the most "progressive" places in the world.
I grew up in a small town about 20 minutes outside of NYC, where the population was 99% white, but I was convinced that racism was no longer a large scale issue in this country. Sure, there were racists - you can find crazies anywhere. And of course in the South you would find more bigotry then in the rest of the county, but overall, I believed - I was taught - that racism was problem of the past. We celebrated "Black History month" in school, racist slurs were no longer culturally acceptable, black people and white people freely shared all the same facilities, and black people were treated no differently than white people when engaging in the regular functions in our society, for instance, a black person could go to a white teller in a bank, or a white salesperson in a store, and be treated exactly the same as those individuals would treat white people (in most cases, anyway). So what was the problem? When I was a freshman in college I had a Sociology professor that said to our class, "America is a racist country." I was extremely offended by this and argued with her that while certainly there were "racists" in this country, "racist" is not an appropriate adjective to define our country overall - this is the land of the free, home of the brave, I have a dream.... I chalked it up to the fact that I was in California at the time, and Californians were always over the top about these things...
Fast forward 12 years. I'm back home in NY. My job takes me to multiple NYC public schools daily (all in Queens) and I have been struck by what I've seen. It took me a few months to really come to terms with it, but it is impossible now to deny: while not legally, NYC public schools are, in effect, segregated. There are two kinds of schools: white schools and black schools. I had always assumed that one of the great benefits about raising children in an urban environment like NYC was the racial and cultural diversity they experience growing up. But I have realized that despite Queens being the most diverse area in all of the U.S., for the kids growing up here, there is little to no integration with other races. Granted, people here come from all over world, so the white kids probably get more exposure to other cultures (Greek, Russian, Italian, Indian, Asian, Middle Eastern etc.) then they would otherwise, but when it comes to black and white, things haven't actually changed much since the 1960's: the segregation still exists - we're just not supposed talk about it.
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| P.S. 15Q |
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| Trey Whitfield School, Brooklyn, NY |
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| P.S. 124 Flushing,Queens |
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| Forest Hills (Queens) School Chldren |
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| P.S. Q30 - First Grade - 1969 (5 years after segregation in public schools was legally banned) |
There are all kinds of neighborhoods in Queens and I get to see all of them. Yesterday, I was in Forest Hills Gardens, one of the wealthiest places in NY State (the streets are actually private, even though it's not a gated community). The day before that I was in Jamaica aka "the hood". Where I live in Astoria, it's mostly yuppies and old Greek/Italian families and I feel safe walking by myself on the street at 2am. Down the road a few minutes are the projects, and that area has all the stereo-typical issues you would expect. The populations of these not-so-nice areas are predominantly African American. I keep hearing the lyrics from Tupac's "Changes" in my head: "It ain't a secret, don't conceal the fact, the penitentiary's packed, and it's filled with blacks."
The "Merriam-Webster" dictionary defines racism as: (1) a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race (2) racial prejudice or discrimination
I don't think this classical definition is inclusive enough for this millennium. It seems to me there exists now a post-modern or "neo-racism", and it has more to do with assumptions and stereotypes, then judgment on the overall worth of human being. This is the truly insidious racism. It's the racism that infects even the "liberal", "open-minded", and "progressive" people.
This neo-racism is the force behind the idea that because of the color of your skin, you are supposed to act a certain or think a certain way. Think of Carlton Banks from the Fresh Prince of Bellair - Will Smith's character was always teasing him for being a white man trapped in a black man's body - an oreo cookie.
Or what about Eminem? Even though his music was endorsed, promoted, and produced by Dr. Dre, he will still never have the kind of foothold in the African American community that a black hip hop artist might.
There is also a term that I grew up with for when a white person acts like a black person (whatever that means...) - we used to called them "wiggas":
It doesn't take a genius to figure out what two words were merged to create this lovely term.
This is the racism that underlies the assumption that because of cultural differences connected to race in this country (which developed as a result of the jim crow laws, etc.), there are insurmountable divides that prevent bi-racial relationships of any kind (love, friendship, colleagues, adoptive children, etc.) from being the norm. And in this scenario, there are no innocents; we are all complicit (with the exception of a very small minority that is working to promote change in this area).
When I reflect on my personal experience with race, I see the evolution in my own thinking as I assimilated into this culture from childhood to adulthood. From the time I was 3 years old, I had a live-in Jamaican nanny named Beryl, who took care of me while my parents (and after their divorce, my Mom) was at work. She was not educated so she was unable to help me with my homework. She didn't drive. And I was the only one that could understand her accent. With a short break during the 2 years that my Mom and I moved to LA, she was my primary caretaker from the age of 3 to 14, after which she moved out, but would still come one day a week to clean the house. Beryl loved me very much. I was her "lick-ul (little) Jame-james". For my birthday every year she would make sure she got me a card, and gave me $25. (She made $300 a week, most of which she sent back to her family in Jamaica, and the rest of which she used to pay rent in Brooklyn, where she lived on the weekends). As for me, I definitely cared for her, but ask me how many family pictures she's in? Zero. Ask me how many times we invited her out to dinner, or even to sit down with us to eat a meal she made? Zero. Ask me if I ever saw her apartment or even had any idea where in Brooklyn she lived or what she did on the weekends? I didn't. She was a fixture in our household for over 15 years - and as I look back, I am horrified, because that is exactly how we treated her - as a fixture. As...the help. My stomach is turning as I write this...
When I was in the first and second grade at a private school in LA, I became friends with these two black girls, both named Tiffany. I came to believe that black people were much nicer than white people, because most of the white kids in my school were snotty brats who would leave me out of things, while T&T just accepted me as I was made me feel welcome. As I started to get a little bit older, I found that I was more attracted to black boys then white boys. My first boyfriend in the 6th grade was black (he was not from my town, of course). In the 7th grade I also had a huge crush on this older boy, Jareek (one of the only 3 kids black kids at my school).
I continued to be attracted to black guys as I got older, but the playing field started to even between them and the white guys, and slowly I started to find myself less and less attracted to black men. Right after college I worked at a mortgage company (pre-crisis) and I ended up making out with a colleague of mine one day after work who was a big (built like a football player) black man, with dark skin, and very full lips. His name was "Rock".
That was it for me. I remember sitting in his car after we kissed and thinking to myself, "well, there's really nowhere to go from here." It wasn't like we could actually date... The options were push it until we slept together, or walk away now. I knew there was no future there - we lived in two (or 'too') different worlds.
I pretty much ceased to be attracted to black men after that. It's not a physical thing - I still love the contrast between a darker skinned black man's skin and his teeth/white's of his eyes. I still think high cheek bones with a broad nose makes for a strikingly beautiful face. It is not skin color, or any inherent traits that kept me at a distance after Rock - it is the cultural divide. I have been brainwashed. I have drank the kool-aid and bought into the idea that a) a skin color can dictate which part of American culture you "belong to", and b) the cultural differences between 'us' and 'them' are too vast to ever bridge that gap, to ever find enough common ground to build a relationship. And by the way, it is not enough for a white person to say, "but I have a couple black friends..." or visa versa - exceptions do not nullify the rules of the norm.
These things are not easy for me to say - I am embarrassed and ashamed. But they're real, and whether they want to step up and admit it or not, most of people I know, black or white, feel the same way.
It is no longer acceptable to me that white Americans and black Americans should live "separate but equal" lives. It is not acceptable to me that classrooms, offices, churches, movie theaters, non-profit events, etc. that I walk into should be overwhelmingly one race or another. There are three places in NYC where you can find a genuine mix of people - the subway, the bus, and the dmv. This is how those other places I mentioned should look.
Now of course, people have differences - in personality, in culture, in interests, etc. and naturally people will make friends with those they feel they have the most in common with, but this is not an excuse to throw up invisible walls.
So what is my point here? I guess my point is just that we have a real problem here, and we need to stop being afraid to recognize it. As they say in AA, the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. And I'm also saying that this problem is not acceptable, and it will not go away by itself. We need to take steps (after we figure out what those steps are), to create genuine integration and re-write those tapes that play in the heads of the American people, repeating over and over, "We're not like them."
I AM POSTING THIS ON BEHALF OF THE AUTHOR, VIDAL CARRANZA, A GREAT FRIEND OF MINE WHO'S OPINION I VALUE VERY MUCH.
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This article, blog, or whatever the hell it is, is eloquently written and filled with passion, kudos!
Now, as for the overall message, I must admit that I do not agree with some points. However, I think that your message is salient and explicit - a difficult task to accomplish with such a subject.
I think that there are far too many confounds and intricate variables to accurately assess why 'neo-racism' is prevalent, at least in your perspective. As I am sure you know, I prefer to break things down into more parsimonious explanations. For starters, I believe that the politically correct phenomenon is further propagating the problem in which you are addressing. For example, at a meeting with some students and staff I had made a statement along the lines of "Prisons in California have a high percentage of Mexican inmates." Now, as you can guess, this is in fact, a fact, but I was immediately called a 'racist' for saying such a thing (ironically, it was by a female who had a skin tone quite a bit lighter than my own). I had assumed, falsely, that she had come to this conclusion because I said Mexican rather than Hispanic or some other generic term, but it was simply because I had made that statement. So, if we are to address the problems in which you've described in your writing, we must be able to talk about them - in a 'matter of factly' type of way.
Additionally, I think that statements, such as the ones you used in your article, are part of the problem (e.g., Black American and White American). Is there any particular reason as to why they are both not just, you know, American? As a country we generally lack a superordinate identity, which is indicative of in-group strife, and I certainly do not know how to fix said problem. I do, though, think that having a larger portion of the country travel abroad, join the military or some other American agency that goes outside of the U.S. borders, so that a different perspective can emerge. Once you’re outside of the U.S., at least in my personal experiences, there isn’t a foreign national that wouldn’t get confused when someone would say something like “I am an African American.” As far as they are concerned, you’re American and any other label one ascribes to them is relatively meaningless. Your passport says American, not “I’m a transgendered Eskimo-American!” I believe that once a large portion of the population, or at least the voting base, understands that we’re all American, regardless of a socio-economic status, skin color, or any other factor the faster a change can occur. Does any of that make sense?
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ReplyDeleteFurthermore, I think that there is a common trend in attributing, or rather labeling, racial problems as a factor of race, rather than a main effect of culture. As a species we tend to like those similar to us (e.g., mannerisms, speaking habits, physical appearance) and dislike anything that is foreign. There is ample, and I do mean ample, amounts of data to back this up, but I think you can assume that I am not being deceitful. Now, aside from genetic dispositions and displayed phenotypes, we’re all pretty much the same. What is overtly different, though, is culture. Someone from New York sure as fuck is not similar to someone from Montana – and that’s fine. If one happens to be of African ancestry, and one from Asian ancestry, then it’s just a variable of the melting pot of America. I don’t think that the issue is mutually exclusive (e.g., you’re culture and race), but due to how we’re raised we tend to assume such things. If you take someone from Norway and toss them when they are young into whatever ghetto it was that you were mentioning in your writing, you’ll probably get a similar individual to that of a native person born into the ghetto. There will be, obviously, confounds and obscuring factors in the grand scheme of this hypothetical lunacy I brought up, but I think that they are inevitable. Will the Norwegian ghetto transplant be treated different in certain environments and situations? Absolutely. But probably no more or less (statically) than that of a person with a stutter or whom has two different colored eyes – holding all else equal.
Different groups of people will treat other groups differently. It is inherently, more or less, a social attribute of our species. Is it racism? I suppose if you’d like to call it that, but I don’t think that it is, by any means, exclusive to the color of someone’s skin.