I write a lot about race on my blog. A lot. So much so that I’ve gotten many wonderful notes (read: hate mail) from concerned citizens across the globe calling me a "racist" and chiding me for my "racist remarks."
I am a half-Black, half-Filipino woman with issues. Serious ones. I live in a world where my skin color, despite the fact that less than one percent of my genetic makeup determines my skin color, shapes my possible pathways to success, financial opportunities, educational access, etc. This is true for all people. No matter what our "color," we are all affected by this false construct of "race."
Being from the South, where racial differences are less subtle than in other parts of the country, has helped to shape my opinions of the world at large. In a way, I see the whole world as a larger South - a new South, where White owned corporations continue a facsimile of slavery through slave labor conditions and wages for workers in "underdeveloped" nations. I tend to frame everything within the context of Black and White, and I don't know if I would do so if I were White.
White people in America have the privilege of not having to deal with their "race" on an everyday basis in the same way as minorities, so most Whites do not spend much time thinking about the effects of racism.
I, on the other hand, think about race constantly, because my struggle with racism, and how it affects my life and my family’s life, is ongoing. Sometimes I feel like if I could not write about how racism affects me, I might literally go postal. It's a great release. But in my writing, I have never advocated the killing or enslavement of White people or said that Blacks are superior in any way, nor would I ever. And that's why I feel I am not a racist.
Blacks in America — us "angry" ones — like Paul Mooney, Dave Chapelle, Richard Pryor, etc., use and have used writing about race as a sort of therapy; self-medication in a world where the wounds of slavery have been slow to heal.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Dawn
Well...anyone can be racist. All it takes it assuming something negative about someone based solely on their race.
Does that mean that you are racist?
I think only the individual asking that question about themselves knows if they are truly racist.
I would like to think from my perspective that I am not racist. But I know damn well that I am fortunate to be white. Is that racist? I sure hope not. To me that realization is one that comes from seeing the world as it truly is: slanted.
Sure whites have benefitted from their oppression of people of color (and that's all kinds of people and ethnicities.) But as time goes by, whites are going to become outnumbered to the multi-hued in the world and that might be part of the global issue that we will face.
How will whites react, how will our non-white counterparts treat us.
I hope better than we treated them, but we sure wouldn't deserve it from their perspective.
I think and hope that as we blend cultures and races through mixed relationships and children that race and color will become far less important than a person's values and beliefs.
This could take a very long time. Patience is the key.
I would imagine that for every racist person out there, there are at least five open-minded, good-hearted people to drown out that one ignorant voice.
2 - Christopher Rose
Fascinating opening remarks in what I'm sure is going to be quite an interesting ongoing conversation.
The answer to the question posed by your article is undoubtedly yes. I've just finished reading a fascinating and, for me, eye-opening article about slavery in Wikipedia which has a lot of interesting stuff worth knowing...
¡Hola de España!
3 - chantal stone
Cherryl....i'm biracial also (black&white), and its always nice to read the perspective of someone who is somewhat the same.....but i think our experiences are different. maybe it's due to geography (i grew up in CT, live in OH) but most of the racism i have ever encountered has been from other black people. its been my experience that whites are much more open to my blended heritage than are blacks, therefore any bitterness that i may feel tends to lean towards other blacks.
which is not to be confused with self-hate....i love my black heritage, and the culture that goes with it, i just havent met that many that feel the same way about me.
but like you, i'm pretty much consumed with the issue of "race" and how i am perceived.
4 - Dawn
I began watching Crash last night until the DVD itself crashed, so I don't know the end. But I will say that while one hand I identified with "some" of the white characters, I sure didn't feel completely comfortable with the overall depiction.
I think I am mostly the like the Ryan Phillipe cop character - I am not comfortable with racist people, but not sure how much of a wave I am supposed to make say, in the workplace?
Do I tell a co-worker than his or her views are out of line, out of touch, offensive, rude, inappropriate? Do I rat them out if they don't have any real authority over hiring practices and are just ignorant.
Where does a white person show the world that they aren't racist? How do they show it without coming across as patronizing?
I try to impact the world through my kids. One thing I do is NEVER identify a person by their skin color. I go out of my way to do this, despite a child's very innocent way of noticing that people are different, and meaning nothing by it.
I am trying to teach color-blindness, but sometimes it's just impossible. We are all different in one way or another. I just don't know the right way to be a white person that doesn't in some way negatively affect world of non-white people.
Isn't my very whiteness an offense regardless of my actions?
5 - Dave Nalle
My ancestors came here as indentured servants. We were promised nice rivervalley land and got nasty rocky mountain land instead after our 7 years of contractual slavery. I want reparations, dammit!
Dave
6 - Dave Nalle
Wait, wait.
One of my ancestresses was raped by an Algonquin warrior during the French and Indian War. I want reparations from the French government for encouraging it, I want reparations from the British government for not protecting her, and I want a ca$ino in Pennsylvania. Oh, and a bunch of money from the US Government to deal with issues stemming from the 1/64th Algonquin heritage which was involuntarily forced on me.
Dave
7 - David Ben-Ariel
Yes, blacks are just as racist as anybody else - it's racist to assume otherwise!
Here's proof:
Chocolate Continent Awaits the Great Black Return!
Martin Luther King Day?
Race Matters
Those who would deny us the right to freely express our views, our biblical beliefs, are racist. May America face realities about race and go forward.
8 - Michael J. West
Cherryl, you seem to believe that institutional racism is the only viable form of racism. But it's not so. An individual can be racist, too. If a single person makes an assumption or set of assumptions about a person based on his skin color and/or other physical characteristics commonly associated with "race," that person is a racist. It's honestly not more complicated than that.
9 - cherryl
love the comments. my racial education is on-going, like everyone else caught in the quandries of race. i appreciate *all* the opinions. and i do think Whites promised something to come here in indentured servitude only to get the shaft are due what they're "owed" too. Justice is justice. and i do think Blacks should get reparations but that's a whole 'nother article!
10 - Joanie
I had a completely different comment ready to go until I saw yours, Cherryl.
Reparations are ludicrous. It is impossible to calculate the losses over the centuries. And, it's impossible to pinpoint who "deserves" what.
I happen to be friends with several old blues musicians who grew up in the "old" South. Sons and daughters of sharecroppers. Folks who experienced serious prejudice and hardship first hand. Many of them hand't been renumerated for their early recording work that brought fortunes to others until recently, if at all. Asking them what they thought of reparations, they don't understand how anyone can ask for something that wasn't taken directly from them. "If my Gran'daddy ain't around to complain 'bout it and show how he been cheated, how can I ask for somethin' that wasn't stole from me?"
Perhaps it's generational or situational, but there are a good many folks who don't believe they're victims of slights or crimes or losses 100+ years ago, and they don't understand the "entitlement" attitude that others seem to adopt so readily.
I think reparations are another way of creating a larger sense of victimhood within our communities and perpetuating the idea that some folks (regardless of skin color or heritage) are incapable of rising above the need to rely on someone else's history and/or mistakes. And reparations would only create new generations of victims. Who pays reparations? How would companies or families or governments make up for the money they'd pay out? For companies, it comes back to the community via price hikes. For governments, tax increases. For families of those who owned slaves many generations ago, what guarantee is there that they have any money?
And tell me, at what point do reparations end? Which generation? I mean, does anyone with dark skin get money regardless of whether or not their ancestors were slaves? How do you prove that? Where does that money come from? Does someone born in 1970 get the same amount as someone born in 1930? What does the child born the day after payments are made get?
While it sounds like such a great idea, you simply can't calculate reparations in any logical manner.
11 - reggie von woic
If black people are racist, which they certainly are capable of, we all know where it originated from.
Newton's third law.
12 - reggie von woic
I just remembered what my roomate once asked me when we were speaking about racism, "Did you know there was a black KKK?"
13 - zingzing
maybe reparations are deserved. but you (the individual you) aren't owed anything. i'd venture to say that no one reading this deserves any back-payment for once being a slave. i'd say that if any reparation is to be made, it is not to go to the individuals, but towards something that helps the people as a whole... not that i know what that is.
i'm not saying that racism doesn't exist. i'm also not saying that black people in america don't get the worst of it. but i'm not a racist, and i really don't know too many racists... and neither i nor any white person i know owes anyone anything.
of course black people can be racist. some of them are. black on white racism is pretty easy to see if you look in the right spots. ever been a white person in south brooklyn? in watts? it happens. it happens both ways.
i grew up in the south as well. i went to a mostly white elementary school, and then went to a middle school that was predominantly black. it was actually about 60-40. i've never been in a place that was so racially integrated. blacks and whites were friends, sat together at lunch, walked home together, etc. some of my best friends during that time of my life were black. i've moved away from the south since, but have yet to find any sort of integration. i see nothing but white people at the neighborhood parties. i've yet to see a minority that lives in my building. maybe racial issues are more prominantly displayed in the south because, you know, there's some interaction.
oh, and i think dave nalle was mocking you. he's apt to do that.
14 - RedTard
If people really believed all men (and women) were created equal there would be outrage at the fact that blacks are so much less financially and educationally well off than whites. We would solve the problem by transfering payment in the form of reparations, or perhaps balancing out in taxes. (large deductions for oppressed minorities)
I don't see how a logical person can come up with any different conclusion. I see three broad possible reasons for the disparity.
1)Genetics. If you believe this then you blacks are just not capable of performing as well as whites. Whites don't owe them anything for that as they had nothing to do with it, mother nature did. This is the only reasonable case where reparations would not be owed and tellingly, is the course the US is taking now.
2) Racism. The dominant white culture has built up false stereotypes forcing blacks into certain roles. If this is the case then certainly reparations are owed to the victims of oppression.
3) Black Culture. If the problems are cultural then it is the culture that whites forced on them by dragging them from their homeland. Their native culture was completely destroyed in the process and modern culture is the reflective legacy of slavery. In this case whites are again responsible because they forced the culture onto them.
If they aren't held down by genetics, racism, or culture or you have an alternate argument to get out of paying dues for a history of slavery then please enlighten me.
15 - Ruthie
Reparations for people who weren't even alive during slavery....that has always baffled me and seems so ridiculous. Racism is wrong...but profiting from a time when ignorance ruled...so many people were hurt...many poor and unfortunate whites were enslaved too...so who gets paid?...where does the money come from and where does the handouts stop...just giving to blacks wouldn't be fair..and would actually be discrimination...suing because of something that happened to our anceastors...what a frightening precedent to set...where would it end?
16 - Aaman
I want the British Empire to give back the Kohinoor Diamond, but please leave behind the roads, railways, and education systems you bestowed on India, my homeland
17 - troll
so...
[disclaimer - under this hideously trollish exterior I'm just a white guy with maternal Mayflower blood...tainted goods...
any self-respecting reader probably should skip the rest of this comment - apologies in advance to all]
I firmly believe that reparations are due but symbolic rather that financial:
I propose that white males between the ages of 10 and 18 be required to spend the second Sunday of each month wandering the byways in groups bare backed engaged in acts of violent self flagellation
do you think that this would expiate the sins of the past and lessen the Black Madonna's rage - ?
at least it would serve to instill some requisite dose of anger and self-loathing to begin uniting the racial divide...perhaps only those with sufficiently scarred and leathery backs would be permitted to breed
(and we absolutely should ban intra racial marriage)
troll
ps my proposal entails great business opportunities for minorities producing and marketing artsy and utilitarian cat-o-nine-tails...let's do lunch
18 - Howard
The following is supposed to be a quote of Bill Cosby. While I can't verify the accuracy of it, I have listened to the man make similar statements and express similar thoughts. Makes sense to me.
"They're standing on the corner and they can't speak English. I can't
even talk the way these people talk:
"Why you ain't,
Where you is,
What he drive,
Where he stay,
Where he work,
Who you be...
And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. And then I heard the father talk. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of
your mouth. In fact you will never get any kind of job making a decent living.
"People marched and were hit in the face with rocks to get an education, and now we've got these knuckleheads walking around. The lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal.
"These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids. $500 sneakers for what? And they won't spend $200 for Hooked on Phonics. I
am talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit. Where were you when he was 2? Where were you when he was 12? Where were you when he was 18 and how come you didn't know that he had a pistol? And where is the father? Or who is his father?
"People putting their clothes on backward: Isn't that a sign of something gone wrong? People with their hats on backward, pants down around the crack, isn't that a sign of something? Or are you waiting for Jesus to pull his pants up? Isn't it a sign of something when she has her dress all the way up and got all type of needles (piercing) going through her body? What part of Africa did this come from? We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans; they don't know a thing about Africa. With names like Shaniqua, Taliqua and Mohammed and all of that crap, and all of them are in jail.
"Brown or black versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person's problem. We have got to take the neighborhood back. People used to be ashamed. Today a woman has eight children with eight different 'husbands' -- or men or whatever you call them now. We have millionaire football players who cannot read. We have million-dollar basketball players who can't write two paragraphs. We as black folks have to do a better job. Someone working at Wal-Mart with seven kids, you are hurting us. We have to start holding each other to a higher standard. We cannot blame the white people any longer."
19 - Michael J. West
Jeez...RedTard has left me completely uncertain as to which of his three possibilities he believes...but left me deeply concerned as to which one it might be...
20 - Joe kinetic
I do believe that reparations are due to black folks. I don't think that it will ever happen nor do I believe it was ever going to happen. I believe that reparations are due because of the unfair balance of economic status that has been produced from the slave era, the invaluable loss of heritage and culture, the lost of identity and the raping of innovations and intellectual contributions to not only America but the world. Blacks weren't allowed to own land and businesses for a very long time. In the mean time, whites were prospering from generation to generation. Don't you think that if we all started on the same playing field, we would have had at least one black president or many more black-owned insurance companies and banks etc? What I am getting at is that most white folks fail to understand that the economic head start whites have acquired has a lot to do with the fact that so many minorities are still in the lowest end of the food chain. True, there are more opportunities now than they were back then but ask yourself. To whom are you applying to get that good paying job (white folks)? Who are you depending on to make laws that are going to protect you and your family (white folks)? Where are you going to get that loan so that you can start your business (white folks)? Whom must you get permission when you won't to travel abroad (white folks) I can go on and on but I am sure my point is made. I am not racist at all. I love everyone; we just got to be honest about what is really happening in America. If we are going to get pass this racism stuff, we are going to have to get real about what racism really is.
21 - Berry
If what Kinetic Joe says is true, I want reparations! It seems someone forgot to give me my white headstart. To quote a bumper sticker "I was born with nothing and still have most of it left." I also got my home loan from a black banker after my black boss verified my employment.
22 - Baronius
Every race owes every other race reparations, because everyone's ancestors did something terrible to everyone else's. The reason that "reverse" racism is so powerful is that it appeals to injustices, but injustices that can never be resolved. Cherryl could be reimbursed, but it wouldn't change what happened to her ancestors. So the sense of unfairness lingers.
Studies of rich families have shown that levels of wealth equalize after three generations. The average robber baron's fortune is dissipated over time, and his great-grandchildren are likely to have the same level of wealth as the general population. If we apply this idea to slavery reparations, there isn't a descendent of American slaves who should be compensated for their ancestors' condition.
Oh, the Afghanis never did anything to the Vietnamese, or vice versa. So they don't owe each other anything. Everyone else better ante up though, because if we're going to do this, let's do it right.
23 - Dave Nalle
oh, and i think dave nalle was mocking you. he's apt to do that.
Yes I was, and with good reason too.
And BTW, I want reparations for my ancestors who were forced to leave Flanders for England to work as virtual slaves for the government of Edward III in substandard housing, weaving 16 hours a day, all to make the king rich. It's a crime and I should be paid for it...with 650 years of interest!
Dave
24 - MCH
I think it would do Nalle some good to read Cherryl's upcoming book, "Fear of a Black Pussy."
25 - Dave Nalle
I look forward to it, MCH.
Dave