Prometheus 6

For me, this is an offensive concept because I never consciously think of myself as part of the 'white race'. I'm just an individual person. I relate with other individual humans, who I also don't view as members of a specific race.

White privilege means never having to consciously think about what it means to be white. A white person just takes their race for granted, and can say blithely "I am just an individual person", i.e. normal, acceptable, presumptively good and innocent of any wrongdoing (!). Having to think about whiteness is what irks many whites who claim to be "nonracist."

Part and parcel of white privilege is the belief captured in the statement, "I don't see myself connected in any way with the small-minded people who mistreat others because of the color of their skin." This statement is almost certainly sincere and correct in the sense that KoF does not consciously discriminate against non-white people (or in favor of white people). However, many studies suggest that people's implicit attitudes toward race, sex and age are powerful predictors of their behavior, regardless of what their explicit attitudes are. Our actions always seem reasonable to ourselves, even if they aren't - that's what it means to be biased.

The funny thing is, this is the exact argument Joe Taylor used to call me a racist on the front page of Open Source Politics. And King of Fools the Conservative, came more correct with his position than Joe Taylor the Liberal, in his righteous fury and blind surety.

Both are wrong. But because he makes Black people an exception for his tolerance, I find Taylor obnoxious. King of Fools, him I could talk to for a while.

I guess the real issue I had with the statement I quoted was the responsibility issue.

I'm a responsible person and at the personal level, I choose to be responsible for racism - for any word from my mouth or act of my own hands.

At the race level, I would rather not be held responsible for racist acts performed by those outside my very small realm of influence.

I'm not going to deny racism still exists (either structurally or personally) and I would not expect anyone to act as if it doesn't. But what would happen if you changed how you expect others to behave?

From your words, I discerned that you consider my position on the issue to be something held by only a significant minority - a statistical glitch. I understand your reasons and justification for feeling that way but what do you have to lose by changing your expectation?

If we expect the best from people, it is not going to significantly change their behavior. Occasionally, a situation may turn out slightly changed due to our own attitude change but for the most part, things will turn out pretty much the same.

However, it has the advantage of freeing us from reading our expectations into the actions of those around us.

It allows us to give the benefit of the doubt to the ditzy waitress who first served others who arrived later than us instead of taking an offense which may or may not be there. Plus, we don't have to stew about it for two days and scratch another restaurant off our list.

Example: A year back, two African-American women were on a SW airlines flight. It was time to leave and the stewardess sang a little song to send people to their seats. Both women were offended and filed a lawsuit claiming racism, which was later dismissed.

Did the two women feel like they were treated unfairly? I sincerely believe that they did. Was there any intent on the part of the stewardess? I sincerely believe there wasn't. And I think that a key factor to this offence was the expectation that it was coming.

This kind of expectation change will do nothing to defend you from racist acts. Those will still unfortunately happen. What it does do is filter out all the 'maybe' incidents. It allows one to miss those offences which might be there instead of taking on those offences which might not.

I'm not saying lie down and let people walk all over you. The concept is simply to look for plausible alternative motivations and accept them where (if) you find them.

P6, I know I will never know what it means to be you (nor you me). All I'm offering here is how I see things, and how I try to live my life. It seems that the contrast we are discussing can almost be boiled down to:

White: racism is a minor problem today
Black: racism is the major problem today

(Sheesh...you have driven me right back to something quite close to the original statement I started out by disagreeing with! Oh well, I don't see this as a win or lose kind of discussion anyways...hopefully, we both end up winning as we increase our understanding.)

How about a compromise...we both move toward the middle. I will take a step toward you and work on seeing this as a bigger issue than I have before. You take a step toward me and try to diminish the issue in some way. I'm not talking about meeting in the middle...we just each take a step (small if need be) toward each other and then see where we are at.

And feel free to pick my thoughts completely apart...it is completely expected.

Enjoying the dialogue.

I'm a responsible person and at the personal level, I choose to be responsible for racism - for any word from my mouth or act of my own hands.

At the race level, I would rather not be held responsible for racist acts performed by those outside my very small realm of influence.

Not a lot more could be asked of you. Some, but not a lot. Because your realm of influence may be greater than you think.

But what would happen if you changed how you expect others to behave?

Okay, this particular thread is officially taking a break from The Big Picture. But understand that talking race issues on the personal level is as different from doing it on the social level as quantum mechanics is from ballistics.

I've moved in several different circles in my life, so I've developed several different sets of expectations. What I do with those expectations depends on the situation. The more I deal with you the more I whittle away at the pretty formless block of general expectations we assign first impressions.

Okay, that's a fancy way of describing what we all do. Thing is, sometimes you get folks in the wrong bucket and you've got to be willing to move them where they belong (this is most easily done before the relationship develops roots but you can't always tell a relationship will be significant). And you've got to identify where your categorization went wrong and stop doing that.

I did not say do the opposite.

Because what can happen is, you put someone in a bucket, they do something "unbucketed" and you try to figure out why a guy who belongs in that bucket would do that rather than saying, oh, wrong bucket, or only one foot in the bucket, or he goes in the bucket when he needs to or any of the other likelihoods.

I don't think you want me to change that approach. It's what lets me have conversations like this sanely, why I don't call Thomas Jefferson a racist (though one or two of his descendants…). It's what lets me know you don't mean to be presumptuous by suggesting you have a better way for me to think about my life than I do. It's seen me through several career changes and several life changes.

That's the quantum mechanics.

On the personal level, I have no problems with rapproachments, new friends, any of that. But I'm clear that it's taking aspirin to prevent a heart attack, know what I mean? It keeps the patient alive, but he still needs to stop smoking so damn much.

Your bucket description is very well done. Excellent analogy on how humans relate to other humans, and thanks for putting me into a bucket where my view and heart are read instead of just my potentially offensive words.

I don't disagree regarding the disconnect between the personal level and the social level, but I don't see how this issue can be resolved at the social level except by resolving it at the personal level across all of society. And given the heterogenous composition of society, such a broad reaching resolution into all corners of society (white, black, hispanic and the rest) seems nearly impossible.

There is a huge difference between quantum dynamics and balistics, but balistics relies on quantum mechanics and not the reverse.

Although I see no solution to the overall problem, I am working toward resolving it at the personal level and within my realm of influence - which primarily consists of three kids. These three will never be a part of any issue you face.

Not everyone can be soldiers. Someone has to bake bread. I don't knock the personal approach at all.

There is a huge difference between quantum dynamics and balistics, but balistics relies on quantum mechanics and not the reverse.

Yet you'd no more use Newtonian physics in string theory than you be concerned about Heisenburg uncertainty when shooting varmints.

Point is, the difficulty of seeing, much less implementing, a solution depends on the level you deal with it on. And because I'm not allowed to hold folks to higher standards than myself, all I really ask is that you recognize the problem still exists, and that you keep your eyes open for better solutions.