Comments on: “Why isn’t it racist?”

By: kw237335

kw237335 — Wed, 02 May 2012 23:01:24 +0000

I agree with Dan, you shouldn’t be disappointed. You took the chance and tried to explain the concepts to your friends mom. And, as Nashalys said, you have to pick your battles. And even the simple fact that you tried to explain to your friends mom may be helpful. She may have seemed disinterested but she may think of what you said sometime in the future. You made a good attempt to share your knowledge and educate someone else even though it may have been uncomfortable.

By: Daniel.Greenfield90

Daniel.Greenfield90 — Wed, 02 May 2012 17:09:43 +0000

I wouldn’t feel disappointed. So your friends mom didn’t totally get it or may not have cared to try to get it. She still heard what you said…even if she wasn’t trying to listen.

I’m sure none of us understood these issues right away. I know in multicultural psych it took weeks for me to truly understand, and, even with this class the most important thing I’ve learned is that I may not understand everything about racial injustices right away, but, the most important thing to do is to learn.

Alex’s mom might not think she learned anything, but just by understanding that someone has an understanding that this blackface incident is atrocious, she may have learned more than you think.

By: nashkrod

nashkrod — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 07:30:51 +0000

Sometimes we have to pick our battles, and it seems that in your situation you did the best you could to explain what was problematic about black face. I think that sometimes it’s difficult to remember how to have these sorts of conversations with people who don’t always have these conversations. We talk about race in our class at least twice a week, and on a more personal note, you and I have discussion on social injustices all the time. When we move the conversation outside of the people who already “get it,” I think sometimes we have to take a few steps back and realize that there’s only so much that they might be willing to hear. Racism is a HUGE thing, and it’s really complicated. Part of its complexity is that as a culture we try to make it so black and white (no pun intended, seriously). People get defensive when we talk about race, because they don’t want to seem racist. So if Tracy Morgan had ancestors that owned slaves too, then that somehow displaces the blame and now no one’s a racist (but most importantly, they aren’t racist).

Short of carrying all of our readings on our person all the time, how can we decide what aspect of racism is most appropriate to address in those uncomfortable situations? In Michela’s example, there were a lot of issues that could be addressed. How do we decide which issue(s) it’d be most beneficial to address?