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

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Scientifically, there's no such thing as "race". For me, this is a very liberating understanding: all those categories that seemed so natural and obvious just break down and blow away. It's a vision of the future we want, in which race actually is irrelevant.

Sadly, one comes down with a bump into the real world, where the idea of "race" is very much alive. My country lets its Indigenous people go blind for lack of clean drinking water and locks up Middle Eastern refugees indefinitely without charge or trial. My city recently had a race riot when a drunken Anglo mob turned on Lebanese-Australians.

For you and I, these are things that happen to other people - they don't really affect our lives. But obviously, it's no armchair debate if you happen to be Aboriginal or Lebanese-Australian. That's why it's so important for White people not to fall into the "colourblind" trap. We don't live in that ideal world, not yet.

My suggestion is this: don't focus on race per se. Focus on racism. Don't worry overmuch about precise categories or identities, but look at issues like poverty, neglect, vilification, injustice, misrepresentation.

[thegameiam.livejournal.com]

For all of the grief the US gets in a lot of contexts, there don't seem to be the kind of egregious racial issues like the Australian ones you describe.

The bigger issues in the US, to my mind, are poverty-based: even though there's a lot of social mobility, the poorer classes have a bunch of handicaps (eg. overly crummy schools). In Washington DC, the relatively new mayor got a lot of grief over the person he chose to run the school system (after he took it over) because she isn't black. It's unfortunate that people were more interested in the race of his appointees than their competence or fit for the job.

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

Poverty and race are very closely intertwined in the US, though; there are plenty of living people who can remember when segregation was the law, and black people had to live in different neighborhoods and go to different schools than white people. It resulted in a huge socioeconomic and cultural gap. The country is learning to celebrate the cultural differences, but many people are still struggling to get out of the resultant poverty.

[thegameiam.livejournal.com]

It's been nearly two generations since Jim Crow was overturned. Now, we have poor black folks and poor white folks, and both groups have some significant issues. Add to that the poor folks of more recent American vintage, and to me the issue becomes far less about race and far more about ensuring accesss to education and the other tools to do well.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Poverty has more than one cause, but race is clearly an important factor, or the following wouldn't be true: "The Black poverty rate was 23.2 percentage points higher than that for White non-Hispanics in 1993; by 2000 this difference declined to 14.6 percentage points—still substantially higher even while the Black poverty rate was at its historic low." That's from <a href="the file http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/p60-214.pdf>Poverty in the United States</a>, a 2000 report from the US Census Bureau. Glance at the graph on page 4: while Jim Crow is slowly losing his hold, you can see that there's still a long way to go.

[thegameiam.livejournal.com]

In my neck of the woods (i.e. a part of the country where there are tremendously affluent marjority-black neighborhoods), poverty is less a function of what race you are than:

1) were your parents poor?
2) did you have two parents?
3) did you finish high school / take some college?

Now, there are statistical differences between the various demographic groups, but you'll find that poverty tracks those far more than it tracks skin color.

Race is an outmoded concept, which has outlived its shelf-life (it never had any usefulness to outlive) - let's just worry about poverty reduction: if the poor people happen to have dark skin, we'll help them. If they happen to have light skin, we'll help them. What does skin color matter?

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Racism: a Very Short Introduction cites US studies from the sixties, the nineties, and most recently Whitewashing Race (Brown et al, 2003), all of which demonstrate that "... institutional racism continues to blight black lives. Inadequate housing, the product of years discrimination and 'white flight', and poorly resourced schools lead to low educational achievement, lower admissions to colleges, and poor employment prospects."

I'd be very interested to see some of the statistics you mention.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Coincidentally, I just stumbled across an Australian equivalent - the lack of educational opportunities for Indigenous Australians (the uni is running a program to promote science to students.

[jvowles.livejournal.com]

Actually, we've pretty much done the same thing with our indigenous people in this country.

And the less said about DC racial politics, the better. Any group of idiots that KEEPS ELECTING MARION BARRY....

[thegameiam.livejournal.com]

Certainly the settlers' treatment of the native population was pretty appalling - but can you point to issues as bad as Kate mentioned which are still ongoing today? In general, the tribes have their own sovereignty, and the problems they've got are more correlated to multi-generational poverty rather than institutionalized racism.

There are a few politicians in DC who still engage in racial identity politics. Councilman Barry is a good example of one. However, any examination of the Washington Post's coverage of DC politics would show them giving inordinate time to people who want to engage in racial politics.

THAT is something we need to stamp out.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

can you point to issues as bad as Kate mentioned

Possibly not; IIRC, Australia holds the world record for crappy treatment of our Indigenous population. Oh yes, here it is: Australia ranked bottom of wealthy nations on Indigenous health. Indigenous Australians have three times the infant mortality rate of other Australians. (OTOH, Native Americans have almost twice the infant mortality rate of White Americans.)

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

I had a poke around and found this:

"Native Americans have a lower life expectancy than any other racial/ethnic group and higher rates of many diseases, including diabetes, tuberculosis, and alcoholism. Yet, health facilities are frequently inaccessible and medically obsolete, and preventive care and speciality services are not readily available..... The federal government’s failure to avail Native Americans of services and programs available to other Americans violates their civil rights."
- U.S. Commission on Civil Rights report, quoted here