Am I a Racist?

[piasharn]

(Yes, this is a long entry. However, I am not going to cut it, because I could really use some responses to it, and I don't want people to just skip over it.)

So I'm online and weaving my way through the World Wide Web, jumping from site to site, just browsing articles and sites and seeing what comes up. In the process, I come across this article and stop my wandering while I try to sort out my reactions to it. Believing that first impressions can be decieving, I bookmark the site for later reference and go on my way, still mulling over it in the back of my mind. I went to sleep last night while pondering the same subject.

So now that I've slept on the subject and reviewed it today, I think I'm ready to say that there is something about that article that disturbs me, and the nature of said disturbance has only made me even more uncomfortable.

I'd like to ask for some honest opinions here. Go to that article and read it. Sit on it for a while, then come back and tell me what you feel.

"White America sees the world through the eyes of the mass murderer and slaveholder. Were it not so, there would not exist the grotesque disconnect between white American public opinion and the opinions of mankind, shared generally by Black America. Bush would not be possible."

See, my impression of it is that it is quite racist. But I can't help but wonder if that feeling is due to some unconscious racism in myself...

I've never considered myself a racist person at all. While the area I live in is certainly not multicultural, I've still managed to befriend people from many different ethnicities, religions, backgrounds and whatnot. I'll drool over an attractive black person as easily as I do a white one.

I know that white priviledge is very much a reality. I've seen it. (Just as I know that we are very much a patriarchal, heterosexist, ethnocentric, Christian country.) However, it's not as if I (or any other person with caucasion heritage) wakes up thinking, "My, what a great day to repress blacks!"

The white priviledge that exists is unconscious, just as the other forms of bigotry are. I'm certainly not going to accuse every male in the country of actively perpetuating the patriarchal nature of our society. Why? Because they don't even know that they are doing it! And you know what, women perpetuate the patriarchal attitudes just as much as their male counterparts do. We are raised with an idea and surrounded by it every second of our lives, thus it creeps into our thoughts, words and actions without us even being aware of it. We don't notice it at all.

This holds true for the racist ideas that are still present. Yet, I gathered from this article that white people are very much aware of what they (we) are doing. It gave me the impression that we are all self-centered pigs, and are not only aware of and comfortable with this fact, but are downright proud of it.

"The white American invents savages and brutes for his own profit and pleasure. It has always been so. Native Americans could surely have destroyed the Plymouth and Jamestown settlements at first landing but, for their own reasons, made no serious attempt before it was too late. The English arrived with criminal intent - and brought wives and children to form new societies predicated on successful plunder. To justify the murderous enterprise, Indians who had initially cooperated with the squatters were transmogrified into "savages" deserving displacement and death. The relentlessly refreshed lie of Indian savagery became a truth in the minds of white Americans, a fact to be acted upon by every succeeding generation of whites. The settlers became a singular people confronting the great "frontier" - a euphemism for centuries of genocidal campaigns against a darker, "savage" people marked for extinction."

And now I'm in a bit of an akward position, since I'm a bit of a mutt... Do I align myself with my Native American heritage? Do I accuse all people of European descent for the destruction of my people and culture? Do I blame all the current problems on them? Should I blame them for all the failures in my life?

But what about the other cultures that are a part of me? After all, no one on my dad's side of the family was in the United States prior to the early 1900s. (And last time I checked, no one owned slaves in this period of history.) My great grandmother came from Poland at the age of 16, not knowing a soul on this continent or a word of English. Her family scraped together the money to get her here in the hopes that she could get a job and pay to bring them over.

Why did she come over here? It certainly wasn't for a change in scenery. Look at what was going on in eastern Europe. The lower classes (Which I am descended from.) did not live happy, easy lives. Just because they were caucasion does not automatically mean that they were responsible for the oppression of blacks or any other ethnic group. They themselves were being oppressed.

I do not come from a line of wealthy, southern plantation owners. I come from blue-collar, working class laborers and farmers. My German ancestors came here in the mid 1800s and settled into Michigan. The French side of my family came over at about the same time, but settled in Canada where they intermingled with the Native Americans. I have seven different nationalities/ethnicities/whatever in me by my current count; which should I stand by?

None of them owned slaves from what documentation I have. Yet, I am still thrown in with those evil whites who owned slaves. I don't quite understand why.

However, even if I did have an anscestor who did practiced slavery, should I be condemned for that person's actions? Is it fair to punish the children for the actions of the parents?

"White people hide facts like drunks conceal bottles. They are known to kill fact-bringers, while elevating racial liars to the highest offices. They want to be told that they are sane and good and kind when all the evidence proves them to be delusional and cruel and grasping - as surely most must suspect, at least every now and then, under life's ceaseless onslaught of recalcitrant facts."

...

"The best that can be said for the white American public is that it is split between those who harbor a depraved indifference to human life, and those who may be decent human beings."

"However, the "decent" white cohort is likely to be half mirage, a masquerade of false innocence and feigned ignorance straining to appear to be decent. As of last week, according to Zogby, white support for the general prospect of war remained at 62 percent, while only 19 percent of African Americans said yes to the general question - down four points from February."

I was always taught that you shouldn't assume things about other people... don't tell them what they think, feel, want and so on, because the only the person him/herself can honestly know what it going on inside his/her heart and mind.

Last time I looked, I didn't support Bush or the war because I did not want to see innocent people killed. Last time I checked, I was a pacifist. Last I knew, I was fully aware that the U.S. has committed attrocities, that the media lies to us... and I sure as hell have never consciously supported it.

Am I wrong?

Am I really that violent, greedy, oppressive person?

Gods know I'm not perfect. I can recount endless stupid, petty, cruel things that I have done throughout my life. You have no idea how I regret them, nor how desperately I try to be a decent human being.

Now I'm once again upset and frustrated and sad and a bit angry, but is it because this article is full of stereotypes and overexaggerations?

Or is it because I just don't like my racist nature being revealed to me?

(Please... I could really use some other views on this issue... Don't be afraid to tell me, "Yes, you are a self-centered, racist pig." I'd rather hear the truth than be coddled by lies. If I really am racist, I want to know. I want to change it. But I can't do so if I don't know what I am doing wrong in the first place. I'm not feigning ignorance here, I know that with utmost certainty.)

Comments

[erythros.livejournal.com]

See, .... I was inclined to write off that article as purest bullshit of the highest caliber Sontag, but perhaps that's just me.

If someone tries to tell me that you, you being one of the most tolerant, open-minded, fiercely-blazingly-fair people I know, are a racist, I will spit in his eye and laugh in his face.

It's bullshit. Don't go tormenting yourself over this just before your birthday; it does not apply to you, and it does not apply to most persons who use a fraction of their brains.

¬

[abraxas1096.livejournal.com]

While I have nothing worth-while to offer, I have to say that you have a beautiful mind.

[citizenjess.livejournal.com]

I agree with Jillie - just as you can't "align" yourself with any particular component of your heritage, other people can't expect to slap a single label on an entire group of people. There's going to be differing viewpoints depending on who you talk to, and it's not like you should be punished for something that you (and it sounds like, from how far you've traced your heritage back) and your family didn't do.

. . . and you know, the last time I checked, "white people" weren't the only race who wasn't perfect.

[forthrysmian.livejournal.com]

.... Last time I checked, there was no such thing as the "white race."

[hiyami.livejournal.com]

Tough question.

To put it simply, I do not think that you are a racist. And I do not think that you should feel aimed by that article. As it is, it's doing the same kind of prejudiced generalization that they'd blame white people for doing.

Uh... It's getting a bit too long for a comment and I think it will cut...

So I'm putting the rest of the response on my LJ.

You personaly?

[dawndancer.livejournal.com]

A much resounding 'Hell no!' I don't know you face to face, but I have known you long enough through e-mail, MB, and this LJ to know you are the nicest, most tolerant person I have the pleasure of knowing (and on I actualy respect for being a pacifist).
The problem with this article is how well written it is. It is worded and phrased to make people think in distressing ways and to destroy self confidence. It makes generalizations that come from a dark seed of fear, anger, bogotry, and hatred. Now don't get me wrong there are some points that are correct to a point but are made false because the author assumes this means all 'white Americans'.

But to give you truth because you asked not be coddled (not that I am going to be mean because hell that would be cruel). Your not racist, nor do I think you harbor an undue hatred for other religions. The only point you and I would likly never agree on is war and it inevitability. But like I said I respect your views because I think you are one of the few people who actually THINKS before you make an opinion or choice.