- Twenty First Century Citizenship
- On the Defensive: National and Personal Security
- Obama Harnesses Tao and They Call it Empty
- Gay Marriage - a Conservative Cause
- Military Bureaucracy Threatens Security
- The Puzzling Fits of Mao Suit Management
- Our Common Odyssey
- Political Animal Plays God
- Empty Business and the Crystallization of Mind
Racism as a Hall of Mirrors
March 23rd, 2008
One sign in a hall of mirrors and the whole thing repeats itself infinitely. At least that’s how I imagine it, never having actually been in a hall of mirrors. Sometimes I wonder if this is how racism plays itself out in our culture at this stage. Perhaps it is there only because it is there.
There are some social phenomena that only need appear once in order to appear everywhere. Anthropologists tell us the incest taboo is like this. Almost never do we encounter a mother sleeping with her son, yet just the notion of it is enough to create a whole system of social strictures universalized across all cultures. The issue recently arose in our own culture when same sex partners began pushing the limits of legal marriage. Many liberals were humored by the fact that some conservatives began to worry that same sex marriages would open the door to incestuous marriages. After all, it wasn’t as if there was some political action committee for mothers and sons advocating more love in the family. The notion is still laughable to me. But maybe the conservatives were on to something. Perhaps the institution of marriage was integral to a social structure based on primal worries. Perhaps the legally structured institution of marriage was responding to some Oedipal flame lit long ago and ever lighting up the hall of mirrors that is culture.
Now I sometimes wonder if racism is a bit like this. Where does it start after all? The notion that racism began in the metaphorical categories of color has always struck me as ridiculous. Somehow white being associated with goodness and black being associated with badness doesn’t seem powerful enough to start the slave trade. And given that the blackness of night was always dangerous for humans, even after industrialization, targeting these categories seems sort of silly. So, does racism begin in the fear of otherness? Perhaps, but if this is so, why does it continue for so long in some cultures which are comprised of people of so many colors? Maybe white racism toward blacks has something to do with the geographical conditions which made development in Africa so challenging - a landlocked interior, isolation from world developments, low yielding soil, heat born diseases hindering production, a north-south axis unconducive to the spread of draft animals and technology, unnavigable rivers, poor coastal zones, etc - hindered development and thus made the people of these lands appear inferior. Add to this the high level of cultural development, made possible through trade and cultural exchanges in Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East, and the conditions were certainly ripe for a slave trade to develop in which Africans were exploited because they were believed to be lesser beings.
But the African slave trade has not existed for almost 150 years in the United States. And conditions have improved dramatically over the last 40 for African Americans. Still the match of racism ever burns. The hall of mirrors is lit up. And yet, the source is elusive. When black progressives voting in the caucuses didn’t vote for Obama because they thought our electorate was too racist to elect a black person, was this racist? If not, then someone selling their home in the 1940’s when a black person moved into their neighborhood, out of fear that the racist homeowners would sell theirs first and property values would decline before they could get out, wasn’t racist either. Nor was the bank redlining the district so as to keep profits up. After all, in each case, skin color was not the issue for these people. The response of other people to skin color was. We want to say that the black progressive, who didn’t believe our racist culture was ready for a black President wasn’t themselves racist and that the homeowner was. Yet, their logic, as I have laid it out, was the same.
The implication is paradoxical. If we believe there is racism, then there will be. One sign and it will light up the hall of mirrors as everyone and everything organizes around it. But, one may assert, there is racism. It is there in the decaying inner city schools, it is there in the prison system where black crack users are left to rot while white coke users are let off. But this begs the question of where it all began. Did it start with the African Americans who thought it was hopeless to aspire to more? Did it start with the white racists who believed black people couldn’t aspire to more? Or did it start with the color categories or the sense of otherness or poor geography?
The question is not academic. For if we want to end racism - in others and in ourselves - we have to know where it comes from. But when I look within, and when I look without, it has all began to appear as a hall of mirrors in which one original sin reverberates on and on. Growing up in the south, my racist friends looked at the world and found black people who stole more and failed to succeed, just as my black friends saw an unjustifiable world of exploitation in which they could never succeed and because of it stealing was justified. We can’t ignore the ever glaring reflections. But to focus on racism is to give it power.
So how do we exit this hall of mirrors, where racism is perpetuated simply because it is there, and it is there because it has been perpetuated?
March 24th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Maybe this is a case where “acting as if” racism isn’t there could in some cases be useful.
When an individual is stuck in a pattern that seems to repeat no matter what, acting as if situations were different, pretending that something else is happening, can often be a key to making a change.
But of course it would be difficult to convince those that are involved in fighting racism to pretend like it isn’t there! Yet imagining a better world and acting like we live in it may be key to changing our world.
March 25th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Much of your logic eludes me. You find racist the decision of a black progressive not voting for Obama in a primary because of a determination that he is unelectable. But if the black progressive [or any progressive, or anybody] determines that Obama is unelectable [and is right about that, let us suppose], he can be right not to vote for Obama — if his reasoning follows the line that a Clinton presidency, which he deems possible, would aid the march against racism more so than a McCain presidency.
Also, you misunderstand redlining. It was not done by banks and other businesses to further profits — indeed, this is the problem! If was done in detriment to the profit motive, as a direct act of institutional racism; skin color WAS the issue. [see the wikipedia entry on redlining.]
Nonetheless, I think your argument — yet not your prime example — has some merit. Societal norms are difficult to change and the unease and unfamiliarity that a great majority of whites have with blacks continues, greatly unabated, four-plus decades after the great push of the Civil Rights movement.
March 26th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Tom: You seem to ignore the fact that the post here is asking more questions than giving answers. So, of course the logic of any larger argument would allude you. There is no clear argument, only an inquiry with a primary set of examples. The logic of these examples is clear and involves no misunderstanding of redlining. But the logic that ties racism against Obama and redlining together is put into question.
1. While definitions vary, racism could be, and often is, defined as the discrimination against people for the color of their skin.
2. When a mass of indivudals with no inherent racism respond rationally to other people’s potential racism, to the detriment of some racial group, discrimination based on skin color occurs (at least according to the above definition).
3. When someone fails to vote for Obama in a primary out of a concern that others will discriminate against him in the general because of the color of his skin, then he has been discriminated against for the color of his skin (according to above def.). Similarly, when a bank draws a redline around a black disctrict and refuses to loan money to that district because they believe that others will not invest in it, discrimination occurs (according to the abobe def.) and based on the same logic.
Does the bank have to actually be correct in believing that it is more profitable to discriminate against black neighborhoods for them to be only responding to others likely racism? This would be ridiculous to suggest. Businesses regularly make stupid mistakes based on their beliefs about others’ prejudices. Does a black person have to be correct in their belief that our country is so racist that we could never elect a black President for discrimination to occur. This would also seem absurd.
You may want to read other pieces a little more carefully before jumping to criticize.