Division in America

[AOII Angel]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

IotaGuy, you know better than this. This issue is not about racial slurs. You may never be called a racial slur in your life (to your face). But, systemic oppression does not disappear just because people are smiling at you. Systemic oppression does not require people to be overtly rude or demeaning. That is why social inequalities (all social inequalities, and not just the inequalities that individuals care about when playing the Ranking of Oppressions) will always exist.

The emphasis on slurs, prejudice, the overt, and kumbaya is why "colorblindness" was attempted and the resulting "colorblind racism" is pervasive. The idea was that if we can pretend there is no such thing as race, ethnicity, culture, language, and other things that differentiate groups of people, that means that humans are all robots that look alike, talk alike, live alike, etc.. More accurately, this was the "whiteness of the world" in that white privilege allowed whites (in general) to pretend that they, themselves, do not have a race and ethnicity. Under colorblindness and colorblind racism, whites transferred this into pretending as though "I don't see race." I have heard whites say things like "I don't even notice your race...you're kind of white like me." Uh...no, bitch, do not turn me into a white person to make yourself feel more comfortable and don't equate "race and ethnicity" with "racism". They are not synonymous. Although inequalities are durable as long as there are differences across people, that doesn't mean that we need to be ashamed and afraid of certain differences. These are cultural rather than biological but they are still "real." Things do not stop being "real" just because humans created them in our social world.

Thank you for this. White people are afraid of "culture." In many ways we think we have no culture and traditions, but they are those mainstream traditions foisted on everyone else. Seeing someone with cultural differences is scary to people who have lived in a bubble surrounded by others who practice the same cultural norms as them. Trying to make everyone the same isn't the answer. Embracing the idea that everyone has their own traditions and they still love their children as much you do, love America as much as you do, are as intellectually competent as you are while holding to that culture and tradition is what is needed. At least that is my view from witnessing the insular world of the South for 37 years and the Southwest for 3 years.