Shocked & Disgusted

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by KSig RC

Yet you continuously provide very erudite critique of terminology - what I'm saying is that you'll have a limited amount of time and effort to put into this, so why waste any of it with semantic arguments, or argument for its own sake?

GCers are a bossy group of people sometimes.

This is one of those instances where those readers who get it just get it and those who don't, most likely won't, even if preciousjeni posts a point-by-point instructional guide for breaking down the racist structure at the micro and macro levels.

I knew exactly what preciousjeni was talking about in her first post and that's because I am educated and experienced in the racism as structure perspective. However, I choose to reserve more in depth discussions on how to break down the racist structure for the face-to-face discussions that I have daily on this topic.

So when I type about it on GC, it will always read cryptic to some people. But since this is the "shocked and disgusted thread," I will get more specific and say that the messages in this thread are ways in which racial groups have perpetuated the racist structure through messages sent during this election. These are examples of how social interaction and dialogue shape the racist structure at the individual-level.

This is in the form of interracial accusations based on conjecture. Examples from whites: Obama was just elected because he is black, now we whites can stop feeling guilty over racism because that's what racism was all about (making whites feel guilty); examples from nonwhites: white people are afraid of a black presidency so we should be suspicious of the words and actions of whites--eventhough a lot of Obama's votes came from whites. Though there are power differentials at play, each side accuses the other side of something based on hasty conclusions or poorly put together facts (some of which are difficult to prove true or false so they pointlessly linger) and this perpetuates an atmosphere of distrust and apprehension. This atmosphere has the potential to cloud the real covert and overt racism that is going on. Diversion tactics make the racist structure "smile" because everyone's too busy being loony and silly over the silly and loony stuff. Similar to people who are preoccupied by looking for racists like they're playing a game of "Where's Waldo." To change it we ALL have to be critical of our language and actions as they contribute to a cycle in different ways. I'm just talking about the individual-level because that's the level that most people can touch and feel so they feel more empowered to change it. That is partially about prejudice and how people defend group position or respond to fear, however the individual-level alone will not break down the racist structure.