dreamer_easy: (Chevalier de Saint-Georges)
[personal profile] dreamer_easy
International Blog Against Racism Week begins tomorrow, 6 August. Before the week officially starts, I'd like to try something a bit dodgy.

For the next twenty-four hours, you can leave an anonymous message here with any questions you have about race or racism. IP logging is off and there are no LJ Toys or other IP-capturing stuff to worry about.

I know many people are afraid to say or ask things about these subjects, for fear of looking stupid or causing offence. I'll delete anything that's obviously just supposed to be abusive, and anything that uses insulting words, but otherwise, anything goes. POC, please be warned: that means there may be annoying, frustrating, or offensive material - you may prefer not to read the comments left here.

I can't guarantee answers to questions that are posted, but I will try to respond if I can. I won't judge or lecture anyone for honest curiosity or confusion. (Keep in mind I'm just a well-meaning White middle-class liberal, and no expert on racial issues.)

The twenty-four hours is up, folks! You can still post anonymously, but IP logging is back on. Thanks for your comments!

Date: 2007-08-05 02:06 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] antikythera.livejournal.com
I suspect that it goes in all directions... if you grow up in a community consisting exclusively of X, and you're a member of X, you may very well subconsciously inherit some unfair assumptions/beliefs about other groups.

I suspect that it's worse when X is a majority group, but X could also be an isolated minority and the same thing would probably happen.

Date: 2007-08-05 10:11 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] thegameiam.livejournal.com
I've met a substantial number of sincerely religious people who just could not conceive of another religious person not being a Christian. Why not? They hadn't ever met one, and all of their assumptions and understandings about religion came from their upbringings, which didn't happen to include being around religious non-Christians.

Those folks weren't malevolent or anything - and by and large, they were quite open to being educated. They just hadn't been exposed to situations which brought their assumptions to light yet.

This clearly wouldn't be "racism" per se - it's a function of inexperience - but I think that having unrealized assumptions is pretty common: if all of our beliefs and assumptions were always right, it'd be a boring world.

In the words of Yakko Warner,
It's a great big universe
And we're all really puny
We're just tiny little specks
About the size of Mickey Rooney.
It's big and black and inky
And we are small and dinky
It's a big universe and we're not.

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