I was racist, but I unlearned it
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Anonymous
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White privilege starts out from an early age. All our fairy tale princesses are white and mostly blonde. Cinderella is white and blonde. Snow white and the 7 dwarfs are white. Rapunzel is white and blonde. Goldilocks is white and blonde. Little Red Riding Hood is white. Barbie is white and blonde. In fact, when I go to toy sections in stores, most of the dolls or girls pictured are white and blonde. In diverse communities in diverse cities. Why? Are other types of girls not beautiful?
Then there are history classes in school. The Roman Empire, the Renaissance, the classical period, the crusaders, the Enlightenment period, Charlemagne, Leonardo da Vinci, Mozart, Names of English kings and queens, names of French kings and queens such as Louis XIV, Beethoven, Greek gods and goddesses, philosophers, Shakespeare, Hercules, Galileo, Founding Fathers, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Alexander Bell, Thomas Edison, etc. What do all those things have in common? It’s all white history. We can name a white scientist at the top of our head (Einstein, Newton) but can we name a Native American scientist at the top of our heads? It’s not because Native Americans didn’t achieve anything. They did. It’s because our white supremacist society erases their achievements. In 5th grade our teacher taught us Native Americans were backwards, such as they hunted wild animals, had to go to a hollow building to use the bathroom, and they invented tobacco, so that’s why you see an Indian outside delis, as to say they sell tobacco. When I was 12 I told my mom Native Americans were ugly, to which she scolded me. In middle school I began watching the news (primarily ABC and Fox) where they primarily showed black criminals and portrayed black criminals worse than white criminals. So I developed biases that black people were more like to be involved in crime. I labeled all the black kids as disrespectful, though when the teacher was scolding the class the classroom para openly defended a kid saying “X is good” and I labeled him as one of the disrespectful kids. In high school I had many black friends, but I thought all black kids were geto and ganstas more likely involved in crime. I spoke to black kids like “ghetto” and thought AAVE is "cool" talk how “uneducated” people speak. I realize how foolish I was. As a child my grandmother told me that Chinese people cross the street in the middle of cars. I saw my Chinese classmate cross the street in the middle of cars (which I perceived as dangerous) and attributed it to her being Chinese. I thought Asians studied hard. My friend was studying for a math test and I attributed it to her being Asian. Despite me being racist, I was uncomfortable talking about race. I remember one instance I was in the counselors office and a kid and the counselor were playing checkers and the kid said “you know how they say you wanna be black [in checkers] when you’re black” and I became uncomfortable. I asked him why he brought up race and the counselor said let’s talk about race. Why did I get uncomfortable? It’s not like the topic of race was going to poison me. Robin DiAngelo did an interview with Teaching Tolerance. According to her, white people are taught a racist is someone who consciously does not like someone based on race and intentionally seeks to be mean to them. Individual conscious + mal intent. If that's my definition of a racist, and what it takes to be racist, and you tell me "intended or not, what you just said is racially problematic", I'm going to take it as your saying I'm intentionally mean and intended to cause harm, and I'm going to need to defend my moral character. That's why white people get defensive when talking about racism. https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/summer-2019/whats-my-complicity-talking-white-fragility-with-robin-diangelo In order to end racism, we white people have to look for ways we are racist, instead of trying to prove we’re not. That’s why we need to change our definition of racism. There was an experiment where Yale scientists sent out resumes for a lab manager position for a student who intended to go on to graduate school. The resumes were identical except one had a male name and the other had a female name. Half the scientists were given the application with a male name attached, and half were given the exact same application with a female name attached. Results found that the “female” applicants were rated significantly lower than the “males” in competence, hireability, and whether the scientist would be willing to mentor the student. Yet these scientists who are both male and female will of course say their decision was not motivated by sexism, and will get defensive . The bottom line is everyone has prejudices. When these prejudices are held my many people in society and result in disadvantage of a certain group, it’s called racism, sexism, homophobia, or any other -ism or -phobia. We must examine and unlearn our prejudices. Another problematic attitude privileged people have is it’s ok to be racist, homophobic as long as the person “keeps their opinions to themselves”. This is not OK. Even if a person keeps their opinions to themselves, they will be on a jury, they will call the police on a black person for something they won’t call on a white person, as in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_uMIhvB_9c , they will be more likely to hire a white person. Your racism affects others, even if you are not openly racist. Also the “I don’t see color” is problematic. 1. You’re saying you’re above being racist. 2. You I would have never known I was racist or be able to recognized when I’m treating people differently based on race if I “didn’t see color”. |
Anonymous
| Ok. |
Anonymous
| Did you copy this from somewhere? Cite please? |
Anonymous
OP here. No. I wrote all of this myself, except I quoted Robin DiAngelo’s words. |
Anonymous
| Cool story bro |
Anonymous
OP here. I’m female FTR. |
Anonymous
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Interesting thoughts and thank you for sharing. I
think it's important to examine our beliefs. I also think it takes an even stronger person to decide to change those beliefs once they realize their thinking is wrong. So, good on you. |
Anonymous
OP here. Thank you.I appreciate your comment. |
Anonymous
| This is all being discussed in a community I'm a part of lately, and I'm learning so much and noticing white privilege more and trying to change how I interact with the world. It's definitely so important. |
Anonymous
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People are going to make fun of your earnestness, OP, but the casual racism you describe is pervasive and insidious. People with the exact same attitude will deny their racism vehemently and insist they “don’t see color.”
Kudos to you for being able to examine your prejudices and adjust. |
Anonymous
| This is spot on and I wish more people were able to truthfully examine their bias. My parents (Southern, republican, voted for Trump) frequently love to proclaim how they are not racist because they do X, Y and Z but yet they can not engage in conversations about race and privilege without becoming angry and defensive. I am going to bookmark this post and use it as a reference. Thank you for posting this and hopefully it will inspire more people to search within themselves. |
Anonymous
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Plenty of diversity on the toy shelf, but my daughter wants the blonde hair and blue eyes dolls...
The human eye is drawn to certain things. |
Anonymous
| OP, I don’t think you can totally “unlearn” racism, given what we know about implicit bias—but it certainly helps to be aware of it. So I think you’re generally on the right track. |
Anonymous
OP here. I think this preference is taught by society. All of our fairy tale characters, princesses, etc. are white. So kids are taught “white is right” and “white is beautiful”. I believe this is taught. |
Anonymous
OP here. Good point. I am human and no way do I consider myself above being racist. |