You have to be carefully taught

[muckefuck]

My parents, in spite of their own shortcomings, did a decent job of raising us without any overt racial prejudice, to the point where I couldn't even wrap my mind around some of its cruder manifestations. I'm thinking in particular of the difficulty I had when I was younger comprehending the use of "black" as a slur. To me, race was an essentialist descriptive category, like "blond" or "broad-shouldered". Insinuating that someone was "black" when they looked "white" made as little sense to me as trying to make someone feel bad by calling them "short" when they were taller than you.

One incident which brought this into relief was a brief exchange I once had with a classmate back in junior high. I had given her the classic "Make me!" response to some exhortation or other and she came back with the equally classic "I don't make trash, I burn it!" Seeing as I was at a loss for a retort, she prompted me, "That's when you say, 'So that's why you're so black!'" At the time, I didn't read this as a racially-based insult. It seemed more-or-less equivalent to "You're so full of shit your eyes are brown!" which could be used against anyone, regardless of the actual colour of their eyes.

But in retrospect, it must've been. The girl in question was the most unreservedly racist of any in our school (small, parochial--in both senses--and 100% uniform in its racial compensation until the arrival of two Hispanic students my last year there). The one time I remember discussing "Black people" in class, her contribution to the discussion was "They look like monkeys!" (The teacher's reaction to this remark was to chuckle at it, prompting her to insist even more forcefully.)

A couple years later, in high school, a good friend told me about the "Three Big Lies" which--according to him--were "'Black is beautiful', 'The check is in the mail', and 'I won't come in you mouth'." Despite--or perhaps due to--not having really any context for the first slogan, I couldn't figure out what it was doing there. After all, I knew my friend wasn't a racist (since racists are bad people and my friend was good person, or else why would he have been my friend?) so there must be some other allusion there that I simply didn't get. No, not really.

Comments

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

I imagine she's not as black as you're painting her. And we all look like monkeys, that's why they're charming.

I grew up in a place where the only non-white face I ever saw was my Indian friend (who, on reflection, had probably been born locally and was no more Indian than my children are limeys): the topic simply never came up. In some sense I think that might have been better for my own formation than if I'd grown up in a place where there was discussion of race and racism coupled with a visible, vulnerable minority to focus it on.

I did have some social awkwardness at college, which was the first time I spent much time with anyone who wasn't from my own social background - I was aware that I had no idea how to behave, but not confident enough to behave exactly as I always do. I think I'm mostly over that now.

[pklexton.livejournal.com]

The teacher's reaction to this remark was to chuckle at it

Sad.

[gorkabear.livejournal.com]

I'm from a family that used NOT to be racist and has developed racism in the last years. Mind you, we're inmigrants too, but since they needed no passport change, they don't consider themselves inmigrants. Yet they absolutely hate all kinds of foreign people we have
-Latinamericans because they're liars and lazy people
-Chinese because they're liars and bring more people illegally and of course, they belong all to the mafias.
-Indian/Pakistani (all confused here): They bribe the police so they can open their shops on weekends while honest "Spaniards" can't
-Moroccans: Hoping to reconquer AlAndalus by means of having 50 children per family and living on social benefits. Bringing their mommas to get plastic surgery which you can't get in the public system but they get it because they're foreign and you know that in Spain we give to the "foreign" more than they give us.

It's discouraging.