A Twist of Race
Published August 13, 2004
Nice little twist on racism from Debra Dickerson:
- I'm the only person I know who routinely admits to being a racist. When I redeemed my Mother's Day spa package, I was assigned a lovely young black woman as my aesthetician. As we chatted, I found myself searching for words. Eventually, I realized I was trying to find a way to ask about her credentials. In 20 years of spa trips, I have never had a black aesthetician, and I have never thought, let alone asked, about one's competence, even when they disappoint me. It appears that I, too, think black people are stupid, uninformed, and graceless. Criminal, too--day before yesterday, after finalizing the details of working in a public housing complex, I dreamt that night of herds of rapacious, animalistic blacks robbing, assaulting, and generally terrorizing me there. (Birth of a Nation was more subtle.) So, counting yesterday's incident, which I will recount shortly, that makes twice just this week that I was a racist.
....One reason for bigotry's maddening intractability is that a determination--however knee-jerk, superficial, or unthinkingly made--that something or someone is racist ends the discussion, as happened with my friend. The verdict is "guilty" and the only punishment is forfeiture of the right to consider yourself a decent human being. Better to be a necrophiliac than an admitted bigot. Yet if we are to evolve on the issue of race, the notion that you, or someone else, is racist ought to function as the beginning of the attainment of full humanity, not the proof that you've relinquished it. Realizing with each incident that I was operating from a no-longer-quite-subconscious script about race allowed me to recognize, and then confront, the hateful notions I have internalized about blacks. Worse, it allowed me to see that having experienced racism had helped turn me into one: It turns out that I have a problem with whites, too.
Yesterday, I watched a white man park his truck in my driveway and walk off down the road without even a glance to see if the owners were about so he could ask permission. The sense of entitlement and ownership he exuded pushed every race-, gender- and class-based button a black girl from the inner city has to push. Guys like that have been pushing the world (read: me) around forever.
- A Twist of Race
- Published: August 13, 2004
- Type:
- Section: Politics
- Writer: Eric Olsen
- Eric Olsen's BC Writer page
- Eric Olsen's personal site
- Spread the Word
- Like this article?
- Email this
Save to del.icio.us
Comments on this articleComments
Great minds think alike! I think the best thing we can do is presume good will and go from there in as honest a manner as possible. Thanks JM.
It seems to me that Debra could do with a little more soul-searching.
Reading her account, it's apparant that racism motivated her to force the "sense of entitlement and ownership" exuding "white man" to remove his truck from her "rarely" used secondary drive-way. Not that it wasn't her right to do so. It's just sad that she seemed to acknowledge her racism, yet missed an opportunity to confront and rectify.
no, I think she asked him to move the truck because it was on her property without permission and had been there all morning - I believe get your piece of shit truck off my property was a pretty raceless reaction
Debra's reaction:
"It turns out that I have a problem with whites, too.
Yesterday, I watched a white man park his truck in my driveway and walk off down the road without even a glance to see if the owners were about so he could ask permission. The sense of entitlement and ownership he exuded pushed every race-, gender- and class-based button a black girl from the inner city has to push."
Yea, that's a pretty "raceless reaction".
I think the REAL problem is those who make such a big deal out of "race" to begin with.
Black people who think even a minor slight by a white person is akin to a resurgence of the KKK, white people who think every time they see a black "alleged" criminal's face on TV is proof that blacks are inherently uncivilized, etc.
Treat people like PEOPLE, and this problem doesn't exist.
Sadly, those who earn a good living out of making racial-divisions their own little cottage industry have no incentive to change.
Add your comment, speak your mind
(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/18620)
I just wrote a post about the same subject on my own site (http://iaintscaredtosayit.blogspot.com)that addressed the same issues within myself. You're right. We HAVE to start talking about this. I am personally tired of people acting like racism is a thing of the past. It certainly is not. The racists of the 60s have raised some racist children my age...and I struggle each day to recognize the merits of individual White people rather than lump them all into a category of relentless former slave masters who want nothing more than to stop Blacks and other minorities from succeeding. So, thanks for this...we all needed it.