Shawn Maxam discusses the difference between a few volatile words.
It must be remembered that in those great days I was considered to be an “integrationist” – this was never, quite, my own idea of myself – and Malcolm was considered to be a “racist in reverse.” This formulation, in terms of power – and power is the arena in which racism is acted out – means absolutely nothing: it may even be described as a cowardly formulation. The powerless, by definition, can never be “racists,” for they can never make the world pay for what they feel or fear except by the suicidal endeavor which makes them fanatics or revolutionaries, or both.
― James Baldwin, No Name in the Street
Every single time we discuss any ism (race or sex) folks get dismissive or defensive because they don’t “see” it or experience it on an individual level. In 2005 I personally didn’t know anyone with HIV/AIDS but that didn’t many the disease didn’t exist. Granted that is a crappy analogy because in this example “the disease” is the villain not other human beings or the larger society.
In conversations about abstract ideas and socially constructed theories we tend to dismiss the macro generalities in favor of specific micro examples. I live in New Jersey and it’s a part of the United States of America. Without the other forty-nine states America doesn’t exist as we citizens have constructed it. Racism is a similar idea. Prejudice, bigotry and discrimination all happen but it is when they occur together consistently for generations (systemically) to a whole race (a social construct) do we get the magical elixir of racism.
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“As a nation, we began by declaring that ‘all men are created equal.’ We now practically read it ‘all men are created equal, except negroes.’ When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read ‘all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.’ When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”
― Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln Letters
This isn’t about why racism happens. That is another post all together. This is moreso about what racism is and what it is not.
One tree doesn’t make a forest so I won’t be focusing on what individuals do but what societies, communities and groups of people do. This gets murky because these larger systems consists of individuals but just because it’s difficult doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. We send rovers to Mars so our collective intellectual capacity to do this does exist.
Prejudice: (1) : preconceived judgment or opinion (2) :an adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge OR any preconceived opinion or feeling, either favorable or unfavorable
Bigotry: a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance OR stubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one’s own
Discrimination: treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit OR the act, practice, or an instance of discriminating categorically rather than individually
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Racism rests upon and functions as a kind of seesaw: the persecutor rises by debasing and inferiorizing his victim
-Albert Memmi, Racism
Returning to my analogy of one tree doesn’t make a forest or one state doesn’t make America it is the same thing with racism. It isn’t just one type of ”bad” treatment of people that is racism. While I despise individuals engaging in racist behavior, a lone jerk doesn’t create a social problem. Social problems are societal in scope. This is big-picture stuff. Slavery, Jim Crow, Segregation, Inter-generational Urban Poverty and so forth.
Most folks say that racism is over. Well look at police profiling, the War on Drugs and Mass Imprisonment. This dis-proportionally affects people of color. Especially Black and Brown men. Yeah we have successful men i.e. Barack Obama, Colin Powell, Wayne Brady and some guy writing this blog. These men have seemed to avoided the grip of racism but again these individual examples don’t disprove systematic oppression. It gives us hope but it doesn’t mean the ugly reality doesn’t exist.
If you have some system-talk feedback I would love to hear it. Let’s try to avoid the individual talk for one post today. Thanks for reading.
Please share this with friends, enemies and temporary allies alike.
Thanks for reading, sharing and commenting!
R.I.P. SKH
About S. Maxam
“Well look at police profiling, the War on Drugs and Mass Imprisonment. This dis-proportionally affects people of color.”
These things also disproportionally affect men.
Woke up this morning sans “new” aches and nettles, cool. I move to the living room, look outside, check the auspices, rainy with drizzle; this is late Autumn in Portland OR.
Melissa Harris-Perry, fine redbone with braids, sharp sista has a panel on the show; they discuss prison.
As usual with this subject, the tone is one of sympathy for the 1.6 million people incarcerated in America. (Department of Justice statistic for 2010).
I feel the need to weigh in as this subject is center of my wheelhouse.
There are 168 hours in a week. When a guy or girl goes to prison he (Please allow the masculine pronoun to embrace the feminine hereafter) has complete access to all of this, his most precious resource—time. Everything on earth has the same amount of time at the beginning of a day! Rich or poor, incarcerated or free, nobody gets to cheat. Everybody begins with the same 24 units.
Having said all of this, it has been my experience that there are far too many guys in prisons who do nothing! Many spend their most precious years watching BET videos until the MTV videos come the set. It is true that there are classes, and that there are support groups and counseling available at just about every prison. There are books, correspondence courses, and spiritual studies/groups. Even if a dude doesn’t want to be bothered with anyone, he can still go out to the yard and get his body together.
The truth is that prisons are chock full of dudes who haven’t accepted responsibility for their situation, are still telling fibs about the facts, lazy dudes who have taken a vow against any kind of physical labor, telephone pimps who are robbing the very children they left behind with baby mama—by asking her, “Could’ja send me. . .” and child molesters (Cho Moes) and baby killers—crimes that defy explanation. A number of dudes are outright dangerous.
Cold thing is that every one of these cats have a momma, an aunt, or a grandmomma, who love them and will defend them regardless of how rotten the dude has been.
My point is that many convicts use prison as an opportunity while a lot of prisoners, far more in number (again, I’ve observed in my travels) have forgotten that they have actually broken the law, and view themselves as innocent victims of an unfair, racists system, which to me is Mocking The Game.
I don’t see how we can overcome being a racist society until we deal with our past. How can a country bring millions of people to its shores in chains and then tell them to just get over it? Slavery colors everything and everyone, and it does so for generation after generation; it even affects those whose parents or grandparents arrived here long after so-called emancipation. But Americans — the only people I know — never want to talk about the past and how it echoes down the days; they want to keep drowning themselves in stuff.