The problem is that white people see racism as conscious hate

[RainDog]

140. It's about the way systemic racism impacts perceptions of groups

Last edited Thu Jan 9, 2014, 09:21 PM - Edit history (1)

which is the same issue regarding stereotypes about any group, rather than the individual. You're responding as an individual. Racism does have bearing on individuals, of course, and, as the OP notes, that doesn't make someone willfully racist - the reality is that the society has a sort of...feedback loop of racism that we need to interrupt.

That's one reason why Obama's election was important to me because it interrupts that feedback loop by putting a person of color in the highest office of the land. His presidency offers a role model for kids who have external features like his.

Try to imagine that, for all your life, you never saw someone who looked like you as president - looked like you in terms of the color of your skin. But gender features is another valid thought exercise... but just keep it on this topic.

So, every picture of a president of the U.S. on those posters in elementary school is of a white guy.

You learn the history of this nation and find out people who look like you were considered lesser human being, so much so they were denied the right to vote (and, again, you could make this exercise extend to gender, but I'll keep it on this topic.) You also hear people say you have this or that characteristic simply because of physical features.

Imagine you were a kid growing up in the early 20th century and you saw black men working on a chain gang. Nothing but black men. Wow, they must have done something wrong to be on that chain gang. So many of them... all of them are black. Black men... what's their problem? Their problem is that they were arrested for being black (this is well documented, fwiw.)

But, if you're a white kid, you don't know that. You see that your elders don't say anything about this situation. They ignore those men, or else say something about criminals. You, as a kid, see that and think... black men must get into trouble and do bad things, otherwise why would they get arrested? I don't see people who look like me there. My dad is white and the police don't come after him and knock him down for walking down the street and arrest him and put him on a chain gang for walking down the street on the wrong side of the road (this, again, is a documented incident.)

This is how racism is perpetuated again and again.

How many times were black guys the criminals in movies - and, just to talk about this in terms of creating an "enemy" for various reasons... tho some of this has changed now because... how many criminals in movies now are Arabs? How many were Russians during the cold war? What does that say about how our society views someone who is not white American when they are cast as the "bad guy."

How many sorts of movie roles were available for black women for so long? Mammies. A prostitute. A single mother who is the victim of a crime. How many of them were the stars of the show?

White (male) privileged culture extends to culture through simple things like economics, out side of job opportunities. White people, for a long time, wouldn't go see a movie with a black lead or mostly black cast. So big movies were made for as little money as possible based upon the estimated audience size of mostly black people. The movies with black people were mostly shown in neighborhoods with more black people, so even if a white person wanted to see the movie, they might not know it was showing if they didn't live nearby.

This same thing, btw, has been the reality for female movie roles - it was for all of the 20th century. The movies that had female stars generally couldn't get a "big" male to star in them - and take second billing to a female. The opposite didn't happen. The female movies were geared to what are considered traditional female concerns - chick flicks, with romance as the story.

Such stories have what is called "the marriage plot." It came out of novels, and, while men have had a wide range of roles, women are still relegated to stories with a "marriage plot." I pretty much hate those stories, with a few exceptions, even tho I'm a white female. I remember when I was a kid, I loved Pinocchio so much better than the Disney movies with "marriage plots" in them - I could relate to Pinocchio as a kid. I could relate to Cinderella, too, but even as a little kid - I knew other parts of me were being ignored to fit me into a "marriage plot" for life, too.

I use the example of myself as a female because it's one I know but this same holds true for African-American kids - they need stories that let them dream or vicariously know the world, with characters who look like they do.

These are just a few examples.

Maybe you feel the pressure of not being a privileged person in society and, maybe your anger isn't at people here as much as it is the fact that class or bad luck, etc. have not made life as easy for you. That's also the point.