Race and racism anon meme thing

[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!

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Are you not confusing racism (a real problem, where people treat others differently, up to and including attacking them, for perceived differences in somethign that for the sake of argument we can call 'race') with an outdated quasi-Marxist view that sees everything as 'power struggles'?

Does this not firstly obscure the real problem as people focus on these 'power struggles' and 'false consciousnesses' instead of dealing with actual racist acts and people, and secondly lead to bad results such as identity politics and other 'reactions' that simply serve to encourage those who see others as 'different' based on whatever their idea of 'race' happens to be?

That is, does you explicitly dividing your readership up onto 'POCs' and 'non-POCs' not play into the racists' hands by legitimising the idea of some fundamental, essential difference between the 'POC' and the 'non-POC', when the ideal would be for the C-ness of each person to be irrelevant, and them to be treated exactly the same regardless of perceived 'racial' characteristics?

That is -- by you drawing the distinction, you are accepting that a black person is not the same as a white person, in ways that go beyond phenotype. Is this not exactly the idea that racists use and that we should be combatting, not endorsing implicitly or explicitly?

Should we not instead be trying to treat everybody the same?

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Race shouldn't matter. I want to live in a world where race doesn't matter. But I don't.

[thegameiam.livejournal.com]

Isn't the Internet a good place to begin modeling racially agnostic behavior? After all, on the Internet, no one knows you're a dog (http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.html)...

[(Anonymous)]

That doesn't really answer any of the questions, does it?

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

"White" and "non-White" are real categories, with real effects in the real world. But they're arbitrary categories invented by humans. I look forward to a future where it would be meaningless to describe someone as a POC or myself as White.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree.

But that doesn't really answer the main question about the quasi-Marxist ideology that you seem to implicitly accept, and that seems to lead to identity politics and factionalisation?

Why not deal with actual racists and racist prejudices instead of buying into this bogus historicity of 'everything's a power struggle', and jumping at shadows?

We'll never get that future you look forward to if you keep encouraging a politics of 'us and them' confrontation.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

To be honest, you sound hung up on terminology and ideology.