mahiwaga

So, apparently the mayor of Los Alamitos wasn’t aware of the racial stereotype of black people supposedly liking watermelon, and found nothing offensive about e-mailing a photoshopped pic of the White House lawn with watermelons on it instead of Easter eggs. This, naturally, became a thread on Friendfeed, and eventually, it turned into a discussion of what racism is exactly.

Of course, it spiraled out of control from there, but that’s what I get for going offline for a couple of hours, I guess.

Still, it’s interesting. In academic circles, there actually is a tighter consensus about what constitutes racism. It’s not just name-calling and bigotry. It’s really a cultural phenomenon, a system. That’s what makes it so insiduous, because it’s not just about the overt incidents.

In general, while there isn’t a single definition, anyone who has taken an ethnic studies class has probably been exposed to a variation of this: racism is a set of values and beliefs that rationalize the continued domination of one subset of the population by another subset of the population. These subsets are defined solely by the superficial characteristic of skin color, although this is sometimes broadened to use other ethnic characteristics.

From this definition arises a couple of characteristics: one, overt action is not necessary, and two, the presence of a power dynamic is an important feature.

In the Friendfeed thread, there is a suggestion that perhaps racial stereotypes are not the same thing as racism. I can’t reconcile this notion with the definition I’m familiar with. It’s a frustrating thing. After all, how is it not oppressive when I feel like I’m being told by the mainstream culture what should and what shouldn’t be offensive to me?

Part of the problem is that the term “racist” immediately provokes the ire of otherwise reasonable people. No one wants to be called a racist, because people wrongly associate the term with only outright bigots. But that’s the whole point, racism goes much deeper than just overt bigotry. If you’re not willing to question the assumptions that the mainstream culture feeds you, then we’re not going to make any progress.