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I am racist.
Jun. 9th, 2020 03:49 amI remember discovering this about myself. I was thirty. I was having a medical procedure in the hospital, and I was afraid. There were East Indian nurses and Filipino nurses and Chinese nurses – and I later realized that I wanted nurses who looked like my Mom. I didn’t do anything dreadful, but my reaction was a visceral apprehension that really got in the way of rational thought. Fortunately, they gave me anesthesia.
I was horrified to discover this about myself.
This led me to be super careful around people not of my ethnicity because I am worried about (a) out and out giving offense, and (b) feeling safe about a behaviour that I don’t know is culturally obnoxious. But, careful tippy-toeing is also racism.
I mean – we judge people all the time. Plastic fingernails, missing teeth, extra poundage, too tall, too short, too mannered, too rural, too bookish, too avocado toasty. We’ve all heard stories about people ultimately losing a job because their table manners did not match those of the hiring committee. I recently discovered that in some parts of “my culture” it is utterly grotesque to touch your face and hair in public. No rubbing your eye or flicking a hair out of your mouth, or facepalming, or resting your chin on your hand. Other juicier touchings are really viscerally no.
Many cultures have a taboo about leaving visible bite marks in food on the table, so that’s why you break a dinner roll into tidbits on its little plate, and why you shove an entire piece of sushi in your mouth.
Failing to respect cultural norms can feel like failing to respect the person who holds those norms. Once upon a time I worked at the International Corner Store, and the new manager was a younger-than-me Canadian Chinese man. He complained that I treated him like he was white. I didn’t understand at the time, but I think it was that I was failing to treat him like “the boss” – which was true. I wasn’t afraid of him or afraid to challenge him. I behaved toward him as though he were a younger cousin, or a friend’s younger brother. I was failing to give him the extra deference that many cultures give to the person who has the position of boss, regardless of where and what they are boss of. While I have never met a Chinese woman who was afraid of sharing her opinion about how things should be, there is probably a culturally appropriate way to do this respectfully to “the boss”. Suffice to say that I didn’t learn it then, or even realize that my approach was problematic.
So. My point is that I am also racist because I assume anyone that I have come to know is exactly like me; I assume that differences are mostly shallow ignorable differences. I work on this, but I really do think I am as good as anyone else, regardless of lineage or moneyage, and I assume that my customs are close enough to standard to be acceptable to anyone. You can see the problem. And it’s unexpected things that get you. I have been taught that putting my purse on the table is as disgusting as putting a hairbrush on the table. If it won’t fit in your lap, it goes on the floor. Other cultures feel that putting one’s purse on the floor is like putting one’s toothbrush on the floor. Just a world of no.
So. Between worrying that fearful moments will make me exaggerate minor differences, and worrying that calm moments where I feel safe will make me minimize important differences, while I *am* working on my racism, it is mostly in a vibrating impotently in place kind of way. I haven’t really moved beyond my reaction 34 years ago, when I wanted people who looked like my Mom to care for me.
People often use the metaphor of war regarding transforming racist systems and societies. A more useful metaphor for me is gardening. Yes, sometimes you have to go in and tear everything out, replace the soil, add some fertilizers, and get rid of the toxic spill where the old tractor used to sit. After that, though, it is all about weeding and cultivating. Tweaking out weeds as soon as they show up, and training plants up trellises, and pruning unruly plants. The gardening never ends.
I was horrified to discover this about myself.
This led me to be super careful around people not of my ethnicity because I am worried about (a) out and out giving offense, and (b) feeling safe about a behaviour that I don’t know is culturally obnoxious. But, careful tippy-toeing is also racism.
I mean – we judge people all the time. Plastic fingernails, missing teeth, extra poundage, too tall, too short, too mannered, too rural, too bookish, too avocado toasty. We’ve all heard stories about people ultimately losing a job because their table manners did not match those of the hiring committee. I recently discovered that in some parts of “my culture” it is utterly grotesque to touch your face and hair in public. No rubbing your eye or flicking a hair out of your mouth, or facepalming, or resting your chin on your hand. Other juicier touchings are really viscerally no.
Many cultures have a taboo about leaving visible bite marks in food on the table, so that’s why you break a dinner roll into tidbits on its little plate, and why you shove an entire piece of sushi in your mouth.
Failing to respect cultural norms can feel like failing to respect the person who holds those norms. Once upon a time I worked at the International Corner Store, and the new manager was a younger-than-me Canadian Chinese man. He complained that I treated him like he was white. I didn’t understand at the time, but I think it was that I was failing to treat him like “the boss” – which was true. I wasn’t afraid of him or afraid to challenge him. I behaved toward him as though he were a younger cousin, or a friend’s younger brother. I was failing to give him the extra deference that many cultures give to the person who has the position of boss, regardless of where and what they are boss of. While I have never met a Chinese woman who was afraid of sharing her opinion about how things should be, there is probably a culturally appropriate way to do this respectfully to “the boss”. Suffice to say that I didn’t learn it then, or even realize that my approach was problematic.
So. My point is that I am also racist because I assume anyone that I have come to know is exactly like me; I assume that differences are mostly shallow ignorable differences. I work on this, but I really do think I am as good as anyone else, regardless of lineage or moneyage, and I assume that my customs are close enough to standard to be acceptable to anyone. You can see the problem. And it’s unexpected things that get you. I have been taught that putting my purse on the table is as disgusting as putting a hairbrush on the table. If it won’t fit in your lap, it goes on the floor. Other cultures feel that putting one’s purse on the floor is like putting one’s toothbrush on the floor. Just a world of no.
So. Between worrying that fearful moments will make me exaggerate minor differences, and worrying that calm moments where I feel safe will make me minimize important differences, while I *am* working on my racism, it is mostly in a vibrating impotently in place kind of way. I haven’t really moved beyond my reaction 34 years ago, when I wanted people who looked like my Mom to care for me.
People often use the metaphor of war regarding transforming racist systems and societies. A more useful metaphor for me is gardening. Yes, sometimes you have to go in and tear everything out, replace the soil, add some fertilizers, and get rid of the toxic spill where the old tractor used to sit. After that, though, it is all about weeding and cultivating. Tweaking out weeds as soon as they show up, and training plants up trellises, and pruning unruly plants. The gardening never ends.
