M is for the million things she gave me...

So, I was going to come here and write a post about my mom anyways. But then I realized, hey it's almost Mother's Day! I can make a Mother's Day tie-in somehow! So anyone googling race and inequality mother's day... Boom! My blog.

I was talking to my mom on the phone and she was reading this post that I wrote a couple of weeks ago. Everything was going fine, she was laughing at all the appropriate funny places and then all of a sudden she said something like, "Ooooh. Uh oh."

I was like, "What?" Cause as far as I could remember, there wasn't really anything to "Ooooh. uh oh." about.

Then she read me back this line:

But it would be somewhat ridiculous to say that I don't care at all what the white people think, because they're the ones that do all the racism andiftheydon'tstopdoingtheracismthenwhyamIwritingthisdernthing? [emphasis added]

My mom is black and was born in the 1950's, and she had a problem with me saying this. So that made me think that perhaps I should take the opportunity to clarify what I meant.

First, I know that the words racism and racist are very charged words, and not things that most white people are interested in being associated with in any way. The United States has a horrible history when it comes to racism, and it is understandable that people who live today would want to distance themselves from these words as much as possible. Plus, because strides have been made since the Civil Rights movement, a lot of what happens today in terms of race and inequality probably isn't best described as racist.

This is why I made up the word racish. If you haven't been reading this blog for very long and have no idea what I am talking about, please click on the link, where I explain in detail what the word racish means.

I want to highlight here a part of the definition that I wrote back then...

This is not a term that only applies to white people--doesn't that make you happy, white people? I thought it would (:

So when I came up with this word, implicit in the definition was the idea that people of color could be racish, but they could not be racist . And that idea is what made my mom say uh-oh. As far as my mom is/was concerned people of color can be just as racist as white people. She then went on to give me some examples.

My mom is not alone. Chris Rock, in one of his more famous standup bits, says that the most racist people he knows are old black men. He then pretends to be an old black man who is nice to a white guy, but as soon as the white guy walks away, he starts mumbling angrily, "Cracker ass cracker."

The thinking being that because this old black man has lived through the Civil Rights movement (and the time before the movement,) he basically hates white people and doesn't really want to have anything to do with them. I'm not doing the bit justice here, it's funnier if you watch it.

So both my mom and Chris Rock have this idea that racism = hating/disliking people of a different race than you, because of the color of their skin. If this is the definition that we're using then yes, in our current society all people are capable of committing acts of racism.

But is not how I would define the word racism, and it is not the definition that I was thinking of when I wrote what my mom uh-oh'd about.

To me, racism has to include some element of quantifiable disadvantage. It could be economic, educational, professional or the like--just something that is significant and has a negative impact on a person's life. So a black man calling a white man a cracker behind his back wouldn't apply, because it doesn't have any negative consequence for the white man--especially because the white man didn't even hear it. And even if he had heard it, it is questionable how much of a negative psychological impact something like that would have. My white friends: If a person of color called you a cracker right now, what would your reaction be? Would you cry? Laugh? Not know what the hell they were talking about? Have your whole day ruined? I'm curious to know.

Here are some things that I would consider racism:

A person being less likely to be called in for an interview because they have a black sounding name.

People of color being given higher interest rates on mortgages than white people,even though they have similar credit scores.

How even though white people and black people use illegal drugs at similar rates, a black person is six times more likely to go to prison on a drug charge than a white person.

The things that I just highlighted are much more significant to me than someone giving someone else a dirty look, calling them a name, or cutting in front of them in line. And I often think that it is things like that that people are referring to when they talk about people of color being racist. The examples that I gave above could be defined as institutional racism, and those are the things that really chap my hide.

One example that I am willing to concede that might be considered racism is a white kid who lived in a neighborhood that was predominantly kids of color and the white kid got beat up by the kids of color. This is because the kids of color are using their physical power to put the white kid at a significant disadvantage. But I will say the claim of racism would be strengthened, if for example, the white kid went to the Latino principal for help and was told that he just needed to suck it up. Because that would be an example of the Latino principal using his power as the principal to thwart the goals of the white kid.

But the reality of the situation is that there are way more white principals than Latino principals, way more white judges than black judges, way more white people calling in applicants for interviews than Asian people making the calls. In short: way more white people with power than people of color with power. And that is what I meant when I said white people are doing all of the racism.

Like I said a couple of blog posts back, it's not about white people being evil and people of color being good, it's about power and how people choose to behave in relationship to that power. And the sad reality is that we live in a society that has us all working to perpetuate the problems, unless we make conscious decisions to perpetuate the solutions.

So mom, thanks for reading my blog and for giving me your honest feedback on it. I probably would not even be writing this thing if you hadn't raised me to be a person who was confident in my abilities, and shown me (through your own example,) how to be a woman who is not afraid to speak her mind. I love you (:

And if any of you other readers have honest feedback you would like to give, I am all ears.