Dear fucking god is there no way to approach this in a good way.
I don't even want to be writing. In fact, I think I'm going to pause here, go to sleep, and see if I still give a shit tomorrow morning. (6:48 AM)
1:15 PM (morning)
I'm not racist. Or, of course I'm racist. According to different people, I'm too blind or entitled to even see how I embody their idea of racism. What's more important than anything is that I don't have the same struggle. In not having to deal with the same issues, daily, at random, I have absolutely nothing to contribute to a conversation about race. My perspective isn't simply not needed, it's disrespectful and disingenuous by default.
What I know regarding any oppressed minority population is that you don't need the language we have in the United States to feel and act in consequential ways. I doubt a single Hutu called a Tutsi a nigger before chopping them with a machete. The “inhuman other” circuity worked just fine without a meditation on the power dynamics that have shaped white and black relations. That situation took a Rush Limbaugh type radio program. In that regard, the language we employ absolutely matters and absolutely can contribute to horrible circumstances.
My problem with discussing race is the same problem I have in discussing nearly anything. People want to have it all ways. The more specific you attempt to be, the less visceral and human they feel and your attempt to find common ground becomes an attack on their identity. In the U.S., whether it's spoken to enough outside of black circles or not, that identity is that of a perpetual victim. It's a skin color that can get you shot for no reason. It's people taking the low hanging fruit in insulting you online. It's being denied equal access and opportunities because of your name.
As it is my habit, I start to lean into the wind of topics that become “hot.” I piss off a black guy, of course I want the next 10 black people's opinion the next day. I'm not particularly surprised by what I found. In fact, every time I seem to approach something I'm not qualified or allowed to discuss, I end up finding fairly quickly a slew of people who seem to understand me. Also, I find a ton of different ways to get told how wrong and backwards I am on something. They generally play out in familiar ways.
Bloomington is a fairly diverse setting. You can start shooting the shit with someone from Ghana or Brazil or Nigeria over a cigarette outside the bar. As such, you can find exceedingly different conceptions of race from black or mixed people who don't even quite understand “the black experience” to the emotional degree of someone who grew up in this country. It's not a secret that they are often the most sympathetic. At the same time, maybe I've just been spoiled by the circles I grew up in, I roll with black people who don't seem to conceive of their lives in flatly race based terms. It's not that they ignore or don't experience racism, it's that they're as happy to make their identity about their work, relationships, hobbies etc as I am.
It's not the hard irony of people who contradict themselves in the same sentence, but I suspect it's a point that is lost on many people when discussing race, everyone is different. Literally every single person is going to give you a different answer about their experience regarding some racist ass shit someone did, racist ass shit they grew up with, or racist ass comments and behaviors they have to navigate in their daily personal and professional lives. There isn't, nor will ever be, a single conception of “white” or “black” that unites everyone you presume to fall under that flag. Black Lives Matter in a relatively short time has managed to get involved in politics and force a conversation this country absolutely needs to have. They've also attracted total nut jobs who've been given oversight and quasi-legislative powers in Canada who make racist hippie claims regarding divinity and the amount of melanin you have.
It's only in specificity and definition do you get anything resembling sense. Bill Maher got into his trouble for calling himself a house nigga in response to a congressman suggesting he'd love to see Bill out in the fields with him. The world gets set ablaze. As someone exceedingly sympathetic to people who make the wrong joke, I understand why someone with what he has to lose would apologize, but I still think it's stupid as shit to think Bill Maher is at the heart of our racism problem.
Here's a fairly often shared sentiment I get from black people. “Well, it all contributes.” In that way, the racist joke is tantamount to redlining, is beckoning the death of another unarmed black male, is the sneers and comments from introducing yourself to a setting where you don't belong. I think this is a slip in reasoning. I think this disavows nuances. In practical terms, I think this actively creates barriers to building coalitions of people who are sympathetic and agree with most everything you'd say regarding race.
People notice differences. I think it's outside of how many approach race to think that some of the most “racist” language or behaviors someone might employ are precisely them treating you equally. Calling you black when you're black isn't racist. I've seen white people get uncomfortable when I say, “I don't know his name, the black guy, you know, the only black guy here so it's obvious and easy for us to recognize what I'm talking about, said he'd meet you on the corner.” It's frequently white people who are uncomfortable or ashamed to even acknowledge color. I think that's a harbinger for the “sly” racism in a way that saying “the black guy over there” is not.
In a further sentiment regarding noticing differences, that's human. That is going to happen, all the time, every day, to absolutely anyone that your internal judgmental machinery has denoted as “the other.” That is a long-standing in-built survival mechanism that I don't believe for a second is going away. Is it terribly helpful when you're trying to have a singular connected conception of people working and living together? Fuck no. Is it something that millions or billions of people in one capacity or another manage to get over in order to remain civil and survive together? Absolutely. Voicing difference isn’t necessarily divisive.
One thing I wish to make clear, I don't presume or pretend to know anyone else's daily bullshit or hardships. My interactions with cops, while too frequent, have gone over exceedingly well. I've never been followed or stalked thinking I'm about to get raped walking home. I'm not an invisible old woman who society doesn't think exists because the mainstream doesn't want to fuck me anymore. I'm not physically or mentally disabled. I don't get routinely called names unless I go out of my way to stick my neck into situations “no one invited me to.”
My night consisted of hours spent talking to complete strangers about the oppressive circumstances they grew up under, the cancer they overcame, the world travels they've experienced, secretive medical work they aren't allowed to talk about, and eventually experiences with race here and abroad. One woman even tried to hook me up with her sister. And I forgot what I discussed with the Oliver Platt looking 21 year old. The sun-raising race conversation ended on the person I was talking to getting heated and loud. Our stumbling point initiated on a difference we had regarding how much credit you should give people. I give them none. He thought something in the vein of “society will figure things out eventually.”
I pretty well forget precisely how it broke down, but I think I was arguing against a violent response to something and found myself saying, “Did Martin Luther King Jr. tell anyone to get violent or fight when they sat at white counters or marched in racist towns?” The black dude walking away turns and screams back, “And what the fuck did that get ANY of us!”
