Moments of Permanence - Two noughts add up to a nought...

From: sami Date: May 14th, 2009 12:32 pm (UTC) (Link)

I don't actually subscribe to that definition of racism, really. I see why people use it but I'm not sure, as a definition, it really helps any more than it hinders. Partly because it leaves us lacking in vocabulary with which to address race-based hatred between equals, which - while not the same kind of problem as the racism that includes oppression - is still a problem, and partly because it makes it too easy for racists and quasi-racists to dismiss the discussion.

Let's say we're trying to persuade person P of an anti-racist argument. (For ease of pronoun, P will be male.) If we define racism as "power + prejudice" (which is what I usually see it listed as) or as "power + privilege", then there's a very high risk of a problem. If P does himself feel that he is not possessed of power - P is poor, P is unemployed, P feels that life has treated him harshly and is bitter and miserable. P has been subject to Republican "Southern Strategy" wedge tactics, or P just grew up in a racist society and has internalised a lot of that... P is not going to be convinced that P's actions are racist, and the argument gets derailed by arguments about class and Appalachian oppression.

And the argument gets sketchy for any kind of relevance if you're, say, calling someone racist for perpetuating inaccurate stereotypes about Haitian vodoun (which is a whole huge Thing I have a bee in my bonnet about, but anyway), then if that person lives in Iowa then how do you make a persuasive argument that they have any specific power relative to Haitians?

So to me, racism is about prejudice based on race or ethnicity (since they're not quite the same thing). There are different degrees of racism, with different degrees of hurtfulness, and there are different ways to handle racism once you identify it in yourself. My parents both grew up in South Africa (though my mother spent some time in Scotland as well). South Africa, of course, is renowned for its institutional racism. My parents grew up with that, and of course, it affected them.

However, they knew it, and moved to another country so their children wouldn't grow up in South Africa too, and worked *very* hard throughout my childhood to keep us from internalising racism the way they had. Obviously they weren't able to do it perfectly, but they raised me to think about it, to recognise it, to try and unpack the assumptions as comprehensively as I could - and to think, too, about the likely automatic responses from racists (conscious or un-) to what I do say and think. Hence, I'm reluctant to use arguments or theoretical constructs that I can see being easily dismissed.

(My mother's reaction the first time I told her I was dating a non-white person was kind of hilarious. She looked sort of shocked, and I could see the realisations cross her face: that her immediate reaction was negative, that this was racist, that this was not who she chooses to be, followed by a slightly strained congratulations, after which she faked being okay with it until she actually was.)

Given that those hatreds do still have significant effects and do still sometimes result in wars--Kosovo, for example--I rather think it's up to the Europeans to decide whether they can live with them.

But Kosovo was *not* the ethnic hatreds of roughly-equals who have been going to war with each other for the last thousand years and are now in formal alliance with extensively interwoven national interests. That was a product of decades of violent ethnic repression and intra-national ethnic tensions - a very different kind of thing indeed.

Also, bar the very large question mark over whether Britain is part of Europe, Europe is part of my identity - it's where my ancestors come from and where my family, with the exception of my parents and sister, live. (It's also where I specialise, as a historian, and historians can get notoriously proprietary about Their Areas.) Whether war between European states is a matter of jokes or violence is really quite important to me. And if the choice is between those two - and right now, it very much seems to be - then I'll happily state that anyone who would rather have yet another Anglo-French war than yet another stereotype joke is wrong.

And the thing is, the jokes have been getting less vicious over the years. Compare the ones in Mock the Week to one Rowan Atkinson did (to great hilarity from the audience) years ago, in which he cites a list of road death tolls in European countries, and follows with: "Alarming as [these statistics] are... they are just not enough. There are over sixty million degos in Spain! Four thousand just doesn't register!"

The rest of the piece involves more ethnic slurs, and an exhortation to try and make sure as many Europeans die on the roads as possible if audience members should go to the Continent on holiday or encounter tourists on British roads.

These days, that just wouldn't be acceptable.

Progress.

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From: naraht Date: May 14th, 2009 12:58 pm (UTC) (Link)

Partly because it leaves us lacking in vocabulary with which to address race-based hatred between equals...

Prejudice? Xenophobia?

Let's say we're trying to persuade person P of an anti-racist argument. (For ease of pronoun, P will be male.) If we define racism as "power + prejudice" (which is what I usually see it listed as) or as "power + privilege", then there's a very high risk of a problem. If P does himself feel that he is not possessed of power - P is poor, P is unemployed, P feels that life has treated him harshly and is bitter and miserable. P has been subject to Republican "Southern Strategy" wedge tactics, or P just grew up in a racist society and has internalised a lot of that... P is not going to be convinced that P's actions are racist, and the argument gets derailed by arguments about class and Appalachian oppression.

Yes, but the fact is that P does have power relative to blacks in his society, whether he accepts it or not. There are issues of intersectionality--obviously President Obama has more power than he does--but if you compare P to a poor unemployed black man from Appalachia then the situation is clear. Any anti-racist argument that doesn't point out that fact really isn't complete. Racists and quasi-racists dismiss the discussion because they don't want to hear it, and so simply not telling them is really unhelpful.

But Kosovo was *not* the ethnic hatreds of roughly-equals who have been going to war with each other for the last thousand years and are now in formal alliance with extensively interwoven national interests.

Fair point. It's just that it is European and I wanted to mention it because there's more going on in the continent than relationships between the big powers in Western Europe.

Also, bar the very large question mark over whether Britain is part of Europe, Europe is part of my identity - it's where my ancestors come from and where my family, with the exception of my parents and sister, live. (It's also where I specialise, as a historian, and historians can get notoriously proprietary about Their Areas.)

I don't want to get into one of these discussions where we wave our Europeanist credentials around, because not being European it starts to seem rather pointless. Given that there is still very significant prejudice against Eastern Europeans in Western Europe, for instance (think of the BNP and their attitude towards Poles), I don't feel right about saying "I can live with it." The simple fact is that I don't have to live with it, one way or the other.

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From: sami Date: May 14th, 2009 01:23 pm (UTC) (Link)

Prejudice doesn't really seem quite apt, to me; xenophobia has a very different meaning in my dialect.

Yes, but the fact is that P does have power relative to blacks in his society, whether he accepts it or not. There are issues of intersectionality--obviously President Obama has more power than he does--but if you compare P to a poor unemployed black man from Appalachia then the situation is clear.

I don't disagree at all - but, you see, when you have to start having that argument, you've gone off the tracks and you're going to have trouble getting back to your original point. Whereas if you don't get into that point, you don't have to start arguing hierarchies of hurt. You also don't have to have the argument about "reverse racism" - instead of arguing about whether it's racist for a black person to have a universal dislike of white people, you can say okay, that is racism, but it's not what we're talking about (and also, it's almost certainly a reflection of what it's like for that person to live under systemic racist oppression and offence from just about every white person they encounter, so the problem is still white people, here).

It's just that it is European and I wanted to mention it because there's more going on in the continent than relationships between the big powers in Western Europe.

True. But not what I was talking about. :)

With all due respect and fondness and all that, you're in danger of doing that thing, where someone is all "but how can you talk about THIS when there's this OTHER thing that's SO MUCH WORSE!" Sometimes I want to think about the ramifications of the change in approach to making jokes based on stereotypes between nations on a roughly equal footing, and not have to think about ethnic cleansing. Or the BNP.

These things are things I care about; you don't have to, if you don't want to. It doesn't mean I can't also care about Kosovo, or Eastern Europe, or any of those subjects, just like pondering racism on the scale of jokes about the French on English panel shows doesn't mean I can't care about MammothFail (I suspect it's well-established by now that I do), and caring about MammothFail doesn't mean I can't care about Darfur.

Saying I can live with English-French cattiness doesn't mean I'm saying I'm just as content about the racist bile of the BNP or the Daily Mail - I'm just saying I'm okay with two countries who are now of roughly equal stature, but have spent quite a lot of the last few centuries at war, being catty at each other. No more, no less. I'm not even saying it's an inherently good thing - I'm just saying it's an improvement over all that's come before it.

It's not really about Europeanist credentials, although Europe does matter to me. I'm fully capable of caring quite a lot about things that don't affect me personally. (See: Well, MammothFail.)

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From: naraht Date: May 14th, 2009 01:28 pm (UTC) (Link)

Sometimes I want to think about the ramifications of the change in approach to making jokes based on stereotypes between nations on a roughly equal footing, and not have to think about ethnic cleansing. Or the BNP.

Okay. It sounds like you were talking about the relationship between England and France rather than the European Union as a whole. I agree that it's entirely justifiable to focus on that issue; you just might have made it a bit clearer that this was all you were talking about. Because when I think about white-on-white prejudice in Europe, my mind goes to different places.

As for the definition-of-racism argument, it's probably not a productive one to have here and now...

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From: sami Date: May 14th, 2009 01:40 pm (UTC) (Link)

No. Especially in case trolls come by following MammothFail links. I don't want to suspend all non-Mammothfail posting in my own journal, but I also don't want to provide ammunition for any trolls who hit the other posts. (The one about Bujold, especially, seems to be getting linked disconcertingly widely.)

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From: naraht Date: May 14th, 2009 01:43 pm (UTC) (Link)

Er, I've just edited my last linkspam to take out the link to this post. Because, yeah, now that you point it out, it's not related. I think I've been operating on automatic pilot a bit with the linking. Sorry.

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From: (Anonymous) Date: May 16th, 2009 12:23 am (UTC) (Link)

Partly because it leaves us lacking in vocabulary with which to address race-based hatred between equals...

Ethnocentrism?

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From: sami Date: May 16th, 2009 04:07 am (UTC) (Link)

Not even close. If I assume that, say, everyone must have heard of Rolf Harris because he was really really famous in Australia and Britain, that's ethnocentrism. If I assume that someone is a smelly, sex-obsessed asshole just because they're French... that's racism.

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