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race

Ebonics, and other things.

by Maria on March 15, 2010

Yesterday, I started to comment on my friend Cecily’s post but it ended up being a post in and of itself, so I figured it’d be best to make a post of it here.* She wrote about conversations she had with ladies in her neighborhood, where they planned to school their children, and how the fact that most of the children at the school were African American tied into their decisions. One woman she talked to didn’t want her child to go to their local elementary because she didn’t want him to learn ‘Ebonics’. Immediately after reading, I didn’t even really know what to say, but I wanted to comment. I felt that maybe, being a minority and having children that were mixed, and one child in particular that has been mistaken for fully white, I had a different perspective.

Ebonics is, inherently, a racist term. It implies that black (ie., “ebony”) people speak in a dialect so broken and incomprehensible that it needs to be separated from the rest of the English language and learned. It may not have been coined negatively, but regardless, it is a sweeping generalization that paints black people as uneducated and incapable of understand or speaking as “good as the white folks do.” You don’t have to be a politically correct über-liberal to see how that’s a bad thing.

For her to assume that the children at that school all speak that way is prejudicial, and unless she plans to shield her child from all forms of entertainment, such as hip hop and Quentin Tarantino movies to name some off the top of my head, for the rest of his life, he’s going to learn it, at least some semblances of it, whether she likes it or not. And what’s wrong with that, really?

I’m not dense enough to suggest that many of the black people I know aren’t more likely to say “Y’all niggas done lost yo damn minds, fah real doh” (spoken exactly as I typed it) rather than “you guys are insane, seriously” but so what? As long as these same people know the correct way to say what’s on their minds, and when to use that wonderful, wonderful thing called code-switching, what’s the problem? I don’t speak that way. I used to, when I was younger, but now, I don’t really bother with it, although if you smack me in the middle of a group of black people, such as my cousins on my grandfather’s side, after a while I’ll fall back into it. Just like if I spend too much time with my grandparents or my boyfriend, every little bit of Southern in the way I speak will be exacerbated too. Still, being as I normally don’t talk like that, I find it seriously offensive that if she saw me entering a school, maybe with a little boy or girl that was my skin tone, she’d assume that I did. Just the way that I’m sure people here in the South see my tattoos and piercings and wrongly assume I’m a bitch with a long criminal record. That – the assumption based on appearances – is what’s prejudicial here.

I won’t call her racist, because I’m very big on semantics, and there is an astounding difference between racism (ie., hating someone) and prejudice (ie., generalizing or having preconceived notions and opinions) in my opinion. For a popular example of the difference I consider between the two words, look at Ms. Morello from the show Everybody Hates Chris (an all around brilliant show). She frequently assumes Chris’ mother is a crackhead, his father is absent, he has a dozen brothers and sisters, and that he eats ribs and pig’s feet, but she doesn’t hate Chris or treat him unkindly or unfairly. She’s not racist, she’s prejudiced. I believe that White Privilege allows the average white person to believe things and feel things about other races that implicitly affect their view of the world, whether they are aware or have ill feelings or not.

The lady Cecily was talking with may not have any idea that what she said was offensive, although I strongly doubt that. Why? Because I don’t believe she would have used that term or even brought up the race:school thing in the discussion had Cecily been a bit more brown, but she MAY be sheltered. Which, to me, says something else about her. Cecily lives in Philadelphia, right? There’s no way she could have had so little interaction with black people that she not realize that term was offensive unless she was almost purposefully avoiding it. “It” being interaction with black people.

I worry about how parents like this, and the children who ultimately learn from them, will affect my children. Bella has a slight concept of color, and she calls herself pink and me brown, like Cecily’s daughter Tori does. For a while, she was seriously obsessed with the differences and somewhere along the way she learned that being pink was better than being brown. I don’t profess to be color blind – no one is, and if you are, you’re doing yourself and the world around you a disservice by ignoring the differences between the races – but a child should never get the impression that anyone is less than because of their skin. Which I guarantee you the child of that woman who doesn’t want him to ‘learn Ebonics’ is going to learn, listening to the conversations of his parents. It’s not too much of a stretch to think that eventually (whether coaxed or no) the child will learn to believe that since a school full of black people is inferior to a school full of white people, the same must be true as a rule for the general population. It is very possible for his parents and himself to be almost completely unaware of such a belief, too.

Hence, the perpetuation of white privilege in America, repeatedly passed down, even unknowingly.

I am hoping that no matter how black or white or Hispanic my daughters end up looking, or how gay or straight or bisexual they are, or how Christian or Muslim or Atheist they decide is right for them, that they are always not only tolerant and aware of the differences between them and others, but that they welcome situations that put them outside of their ‘comfort zones’, whatever those may be. How else are they supposed to grow or develop into tolerant individuals? I would hate for anything that I do, or anything that they pick up from other, more close minded people, to inhibit their ability to accept the world around them in a complete way.

*Whoa. This was long. See why it needed to be its own post?!

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Listening to: Toto – Africa

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This is Your Nation on White Privilege

by Maria on September 19, 2008

in News & Politics

By Tim Wise

For those who still can’t grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because “every family has challenges,” even as black and Latino families with similar “challenges” are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

White privilege is when you can call yourself a “fuckin’ redneck,” like Bristol Palin’s boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you’ll “kick their fuckin’ ass,” and talk about how you like to “shoot shit” for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.

White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.

White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don’t all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you’re “unte
sted.”

White privilege is being able to say that you support the words “under God” in the pledge of allegiance because “if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it’s good enough for me,” and not be immediately disqualified from holding office–since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the “under God” part wasn’t added until the 1950s–while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.

White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you.

White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was “Alaska first,” and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you’re black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she’s being disrespectful.

NOTE: When I posted this on MySpace, my friend sent me this message about the above statement:

“…I’m a member of the Alaskan Independent Party. They’re not about wanting to secede. They’re about wanting the OPTION to secede. Big difference.”

White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do- like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor- and people think you’re being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college- you’re somehow being mean, or even sexist.

White privilege is being able to convince white women who don’t even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a “seco
nd look.”

White privilege is being able to fire people who didn’t support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.

White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God’s punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you’re just a good church-going Christian, but if you’re black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you’re an extremist who probably hates America.

White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a “trick question,” while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O’Reilly means you’re dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.

White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it a “light” burden.

And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren’t sure about that whole “change” thing. Ya know, it’s just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain.

White privilege is, in short, the problem.

(Again, this was written by Tim Wise)

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