(no subject)

[dreamer_easy]

More on writing about races and cultures not one's own: We worry about it too., a terrific posting by Black writer nojojojo about how every writer can fall into the stereotypes. "This stuff gets in all of us. It's like a perpetual infection; we have to constantly watch for the symptoms and repeatedly innoculate ourselves against it, lest it flare up and devour our souls."

I've probably posted this before, but here it is again: an online extract from Cultural Etiquette: A Guide for the Well-Intentioned. I discovered this firm but gentle little book (probably in Lambda Rising) in the nineties, and it was a real eye-opener for me. It's worth tracking down a second-hand copy online.

Comments

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

That cultural etiquette guide has one bit that really bugs me. It says No person of color can be a racist as long as white people maintain power.

So white people in power automatically makes, say, black anti-semitism not racist? Sometimes I think that, with all the good intentions in the world, redefining terminology to better illustrate a political point inevitably makes the issue more, not less, confused.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Lemme grab the whole para:

No person of color can be a racist as long as white people maintain power. This is because racism is "power over." A person of color may have race prejudice, but until most of Congress, state, provincial, and local governments, the Pentagon, the FBI, CIA, all major industries, the Stock Exchange, Fortune 500 members, the educational system, health care system, the International Monetary Fund, the armed forces, and the police force are all operated and controlled by people of color and their cultural values, we do not have the kind of power that it takes to be racist toward anyone. Similarly, "reverse racism," within the context of present society, is a contradiction in terms.

This is a common enough idea in the anti-racist movement - that racial prejudice is not the same as racism - although yeah, it is a bit confusing because it depends on tweaking the terminology. Using those terms, Black anti-Semitism would certainly be racial prejudice - what in ordinary language we'd just call racism. But it's one thing to hate a group of people, and another to have the power to put that hate into action.

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

Which means that the charitable interpretation is that they are redefining a word in a very non-intuitive way in order to to further particular agenda/discourse, to turn a particular straightforward word into a term of art so that they can then argue that uses that do not fit a particular theory are incorrect. I don't buy that as a useful contribution to genuine dialogue, no matter how much sympathy I might feel with the side that is in favour of it.

The non-charitable interpretation is that they are quietly knowingly attempting to ignore or downplay injustice that does not fit in with that particular discourse.

Besides I don't really buy the idea that no one has the power to put hate into action. We all have fists, and they are usually pretty adequate for putting hate into action when it comes down to it.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Would you say that, as a group, Indigenous Australians have just as much power over White Australians as vice versa?

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

Of course not, but I also think that Indigenous issues can not simply be reduced to them not being White. Do you think Indigenous Australians and Australians of South East Asian descent experience the same level of relative discrimination, as a group?

Do you think it is possible for Aboriginal people to experience racism from Arabic Australians?

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

IIUC, we're actually in agreement: you, me, and the activists who identified institutional racism, which happens on the scale of a culture or society, as opposed to racial prejudice, which happens on a personal level.

Never mind quibbling over terminology - it's this distinction which is important. A couple of times when I was at uni, I was hassled by Aboriginal kids, probably because I'm White; that's racial prejudice. The failure of government to provide basic health services to Indigenous people is institutional racism.

As the extract from Cultural Etiquette says, POC are entirely capable of prejudice, but have far less institutional power than White people: elected representatives, influential organisations, control of the media, cash, etc. It's not impossible to imagine a situation where, say, Arabic Australians have some institutional power over Aboriginal Australians, but surely this is going to be very slight in comparison to the power Anglo-Celtic Australians have over both groups.

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

I think we are more or less in agreement with regards to the mechanisms of racism at work, but my actual objection IS to playing games with terminology. I think it is dubious to play the games with meaning where suddenly institutional racism is the same as racism and suddenly plain old racism (by the dictionary meaning of the word) is supposed to not be racism any more. It is a tactical trick that has a purpose behind it (anti-racism campaigners want to focus attention on institutionalised racism, not get caught up in distracting arguments over individual examples of prejudice, especially prejudice committed by POC), but good intentions doesn't automatically grant the right to play humpty dumpty with words -- and playing games with private terminology is a great tactic to control the discourse of the in crowd, but also a good tactic to essentially confuse the general populace and alienate potential allies.

Essentially, the purpose of redefining the word racism seems to me to essentially make unwelcome nuance harder to express, by making one 'discourse of racism' implicit in the definition of the word. I don't like this sort of thing, even when it is my ideological allies trying to pull it off.

It's not impossible to imagine a situation where, say, Arabic Australians have some institutional power over Aboriginal Australians, but surely this is going to be very slight in comparison to the power Anglo-Celtic Australians have over both groups.

In terms of the level of discrimination experienced, I'd say no, the power dichotomy doesn't work like that at all. Anglo-Celtic Australians and Arabic Australians both clearly live in the First World, many many Aboriginal Australians live in the Third World.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

wrt your last point, I agree, but what power does this give Arabic Australians over Aboriginal Australians?

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

On an individual level, exactly as much power as White Australians do. They could come to Central Australia and revel in their power to buy the fruits of Aboriginal labour at knockdown prices, for example. Exploit their superior access to goods and services for economic benefit. Get the cops to shift them on easier, or arrest them for various offences that non-Aboriginal people would be unlikely to be arrested for. Walk on many of their sacred sites in defiance of local Anangu community wishes (Uluru is a popular choice, with people from all over the world).

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

On an individual level, exactly as much power as White Australians do.

And on a group level?

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

And on a group level, no individual ethnic group has that much power over another much in a social democratic state that repudiates racial discrimination as policy, rather the Government has power over all, in a manner formally restricted from distinguishing by ethnicity.

'Power over' isn't the real issue, especially now we legally attempt to restrict discrimination based on race. 'Power to' is the big issue — power to obtain education, wealth, and opportunity, power to enforce their legal rights. In this, Arabic Australians have as much power as any Australian ethnic group with a reasonably high percentage of recent immigrants, which is to say not as much as white Australians, but still vastly more than most Indigenous Australians, particularly those in remote communities.

And if there are different levels of the ability to pursue wealth and other forms of privilege, and in ability to enforce legal rights, soon enough that starts to grant power over, because the rich and powerful always have some level of power over the poor and disempowered.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Sorry if I seem thick, but I'm not following your thinking at all! First you seem to be saying that, given the law, no ethnic/racial group can have much power over another group; then you point out that some groups do have more power and that this translates into power over other groups. You mention the access of individuals to wealth, education, legal resources, etc, but what about institutions, such as politics, the courts, and the media? Are you objecting to the concept itself of "insitutional racism"?

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

(an earlier reply got eaten by a crash, unfortunately, so this shorter but hopefully more succinct one will have to substitute)

I don't have any issue with the concept itself of institutional racism. I am merely saying that in a political environment where racial discrimination per se is de jure forbidden (such as most Australian institutions), institutional racism generally doesn't take the form of straight out acts of discrimination, but instead mostly take the form of amplification and maintenance of privilege. So I think asking 'what power does this ethnic group have other another?' is not as useful a question as 'what advantage does this system give to those it privileges?' -- looking for overt exercise of power by one ethnic group over another will tend to downplay the extent of institutional racism.

Universities, for example, don't grade on race, and it is often explicitly forbidden for race to be considered as a factor -- but it sure is easier to get a good grade if you have a nice middle class secondary education, a shared cultural context with the majority of staff and students, a solid grasp of the (dead white males dominated) Western canon, self-confidence in front of groups of other students, a native speakers fluent grasp of Engish, etc. And thus, the position of the privileged is maintained for another generation (and note, only some of those advantages have any direct correlation to race).. The only power of one group over another that is needed for institutional racism is the power of the privileged to keep grabbing the good stuff for themselves -- and the sneaky part is that privilege is defined in a way that isn't, for the most part, directly dependent on race, but happens to have a very high, and occasionally clearly causal, correlation to it (such as familiarity with the Western canon) (though of course whiteness is not the only privilege, classism etc are also at work).

what about institutions, such as politics, the courts, and the media?
Such institutions make a good illustration of what I am talking about, in that it is possible for a non-white person to make it to the top levels of such institutions, yet it is still far easier for a white person to do so, and privilege is thus amplified and maintained while avoiding actual explicit discrimination. Chinese Australians, for example, have been recently elected to federal Cabinet and to Lord Mayor of a major city, so you would have to say that White Australians do not have the power to deny Chinese Australians high political office -- but yet institutional racism still generally amplifies and maintains white privilege in the political system, and makes it easier to white people to do so.

That was my point -- institutional racism can, and in Australia largely does, exist in an atmosphere in which formal racial discrimination is de jure forbidden.