A few weeks ago Micheal started a thread asking the rest of us to think (and post) about our definitions of racism and how race functions in U.S. society. Since his post is especially pertinent to this week's topics, I encourage you to scroll down to it, read the comments that have already been made, and add one of your own. Further, you might think/write about how racism/white privilege/the culture of power have impacted the development of cities (the Hilfiker piece, "Building the Ghetto," should be of help), and how they continue to affect kids and teachers in urban schools.
7 comments:
I felt the article was a smack in the face. I really never thought to much in depth about racism, and how much it is still around to this day. I was thinking in class tonight when everyone was talking about how we grow up being exposed to this racism. This is very true. I to this day am exposed to racist comments from my own family. I have come to realize how racist my uncles are, just this past Christmas. I don’t think they even know they are being racist when they are talking. In the past, when my uncles say things like that I have not done anything, or said anything, to them about why they shouldn’t speak like that for a reason. That reason being is because I would be scared too. I would not know how to. I feel no matter what I say, they are to head strong to take from it. What do you do in a situation like that? Do I keep my mouth shut? Or do I take my chances with telling them to stop using such harsh words, and have them not talk to me for a few years.
Erika
I wanted to share a definition of structural racism that I came across this summer and has stayed with me. I think it covers a lot of what we have been talking about.
Structural racism is the silent opportunity killer. It is the blind interaction between institutions, policies and practices which inevitably perpetuates barriers to opportunities and racial disparities. Conscious and unconscious racism continue to exist in our society. But structural racism feeds on the unconscious. Public and private institutions and actors each build a wall. They do not necessarily build the wall to hurt people of color. But one wall is joined by another until they construct a labyrinth from which few can escape. They have walled in whole communities.
A government agency decides that low income housing must be built, which will house low-income Blacks and Latinos. It fails to look for locations near jobs and important infrastructure, like working schools, decent public transportation and other services. In fact, it is built in a poor, mostly Black and Latino part of town. When the housing is built, the school district, already under-funded, has new residents too poor to contribute to its tax base. The local government spends its limited resources on transportation to connect largely white, well-to-do suburban commuters to their downtown jobs. The public housing residents are left isolated, in under-funded schools, with no transportation to job centers. Whole communities of people of color lose opportunities for a good education, quality housing, living wage jobs, services and support-systems.
In this example, no one individual stands in front of the doorway to a better life and says, “No Blacks/Latinos/Native Americans/Asians allowed.” Race, however, is the unspoken motivator behind a series of actions which lead to decisions about where to place the walls. Often times the government locates the housing where it will have the least opposition. White neighborhoods tend to oppose public and affordable housing. Resource expenditures, whether public or private, often follow whites who flee urban problems for white suburbs.
The structural arrangements produced by the walling off of resources and opportunities produces the racial disparities we see today -- like higher poverty rates, greater infant deaths and lower high school graduation rates in communities of color. Racial disparities are the symptoms of our collective illness -- structural racism. Whether its education reform, the environment, the workplace, urban planning and development, affordable housing or health care, we must make the role of race visible and understand the structures our institutions construct so that we may rebuild them to create opportunities for us all.
http://www.centerforsocialinclusion.org
Tatum’s definition (racism as a “system of advantage based on race”) is authentic and thought-provoking, but I fear it is exclusive to only those who are pursuing answers to questions like the title of this thread (“What is racism/racist?”). I believe everyone should be doing so, but we have talked about how white people are practically socialized NOT to pursue these questions. Greg brought up a great point that white people are afforded the privilege of not thinking about race.
So here is my question: if we want to have a national dialogue about the issue of race (which, I feel, is something we need to be actively pursuing), how can we invoke Tatum’s definition without causing confusion? I believe Micheal talked about this a bit in class. A new word, instead of a changed definition, could provide more clarity.
To some extent, I can understand why some students may be offended by what Tatum said, but there is truth to what Tatum said. There are privaleges associated with being White. Like Scott mentioned, White people are affored the opportunity to not think about race. When White people enter stores like CVS or Walgreens, there are whole isles filled with hair care products that are suited for your needs. But there isn't even half an isle for Black hair care products. We have to chose between 2 or 3 different Hair care lines, while you have mutltitudes. When you go to the magazine isle there are tons of magazines with White people on the covers and maybe about 4 with Black people on the cover. Personally, I think that if you have never felt privileged for being White that is because you have never been reminded that you are White.
We are all college students, and theoretically we all have an equal chance of passing this class and succeeding in college. That is not the case. From what I heard during our class discussions many of you come from White Middle class communities. I can only speak for myself and I think that I'm probably the only person in the class who comes from a low income family. You have been exposed to many of the opportunities that I was not. You probably have never worried about your parents paying the rent and about having enough food to eat. But I have. Some of you may have parents who paid for your education. But coming from a poor Black neighborhood, I have had to worry about things that have never crossed your minds. Being a college student you probably don't have to worry about helping your parents with bills. That is my reality. You don't have to fear that your younger brother might be pressured to join a gang, but I do.
I am not trying to offend anybody or ask for sympothy. My goal for saying what I said is to open people's eyes to the fact that there are privileges to being White.
I don't think that Tatum was being racist at all; she was just being real.
The concept of racism, as we discussed in class and have continued on this blog, is a conversation I am glad is happening. A conversation gets thoughts and feelings out and sets in place action.
I learned a lot in class on Thursday night, listening to everyone's opinions and experiences.
One of the points that was brought up on the blog was that white people are privileged in the very fact that white people do not have to think about race everyday. Ironically, I had never thought about that before. Like Tanika pointed out, I can walk into a Walgreens and become overwhelmed by the varieties of hair products. I can look through magazines with models who look like me. I can flip through the TV and see people who have the same color skin as me. I never thought about what it would be like to NOT be able to find hair care products, or see models or other actors like me.
I do not want to beat a dead horse, but I think if a discussion starts in classrooms and moves to the community and continues to move people could open up their eyes and minds to racism.
I believe the next step is taking action. What can we do in our future classrooms about racism? What can we do in our everyday lives about racism?
As i stated in class i can understand toa certain extent where most of the offened people are coming from with the disapponitment from this article. However, i saw this article as an eye opener to those and not just whites who do not notice the racism in oy=ur society.Even students in Tatums class asked her does that still exsits was a slap in my face becase that to me shows how uneducated some people really are and im sure that some of these students were black. That to me just shows how this society has the eyes of our youth blinded with nonsense. Students do not realize what is going on around them they just think that they are supposed to be underprivilged or poor just because the people before them were. When students are held back because of resources they do not have that is a form of racism because think about why they do not have them. Probably because some one else has them and there isn't enough for the underprivledged after the privledged gets what ever they want. Like Greg said somebody has to have the priveldges that the underpriledged do not have. And who is it usually.... whites that is the point i feel the article was trying to make. People do not realize what is going on around them and if more people did what would come out of it since there are so many bystanders who say nad do nothing about it. There is also the point that there is more than one definition to racism and people do not realize this. It is eveident that this is true becasue of the responds we received in class and it further proves the points that the author was trying to make. I hope i did not offende anyone with my comments but i felt as if my opinion mattered with that eing said everyone has an opinion including the author and that is why i feel she wrote this article to get it out there and see what other saw or felt so i guess i would just say i was really open minded when i read this article and if more people were they might get more out of it.
I might end up mentioning this story in class as well, but I feel that it is a lovely example of how racism is codified into white people. For that reason, I am going to post it here.
I spent my spring break in Richmond at Varina High School observing classes, teaching a few theatre classes and working with their competition choirs. While Varina isn't a stereotypical extreme urban school, it does meet quite a few typical characteristics of them. It is horribly overcrowded (1600 students in a school for 800), racially isolated (almost entirely black), etc.
On Thursday, I went to a choir competition with a small group of students. The competition took place at one of those newly built schools that is so disgustingly overloaded with money that it makes me vomit. The students, though having seen well-funded schools before, were shocked with the school when they first entered. Back to the story...Their choir director went to register and the students (9 black students, one white student and a white teacher [me]) walked into the cafeteria to sit down and wait for the choir director to come back. Not moments after we entered the cafeteria we were approached by an older white teacher/administrator ready to enforce the school rules. She went around the table and told each of the black students (except the one in the wheelchair) what they needed to stop doing. The students all quickly obliged, and as she left their faces were stuck in a combination between laughing and shock.
I then took it upon myself to make note of the various white students in the otherwise all-white cafeteria who were breaking the same rules as my students and I let the teacher/administrator know of their offenses. She was less than pleased.
Like I said before, my point in telling this story is to explain the level of ingrained racism in white people (obviously some more than other). The school we were in was almost entirely white and rich, the teacher saw black students (whose style even suggested a kind of poverty/lower status in our society) and immediately felt threatened or infiltrated in some way. Her actions were not to subjugate the students. They weren't being told they couldn't sit in the (literally, i checked) all-white cafeteria. They were being forced to conform to the white expectation of action or behaviour.
The teacher was only doing what she was trained to do by our society. Not an overtly-racist act, but a covert one. She was cleansing the world of impurities, fighting off the otherness. The goal was to make the black students palatable to white people.
So I now suggest a more insidious kind of racism. One that includes not only a system of advantages based on race, but also a system to destruct otherness and force conformity to the white culture of power.
For example, "you are welcome to join our reindeer games, but first put mud on your shiny red nose." Expand this to race and I think the connection to our society's need to subject others to conformity is articulated.
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