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confronting strangers who say racist thingsSubmitted by Emile on Thu, 04/10/2008 - 4:30pm.
For the record, I'm white, and live in Queens NYC, the area with the highest proportion of immigrants (some white, some not) in the country, yet also heavily populated by long term white residents, who tend to be politely socially conservative at best, and downright bigoted at worst (think Archie Bunker). I hear people saying things I consider unacceptable way too often. I am generally non-confrontational, and try to live my own life as best I can, but lately have come to feel that there are times when not speaking out is wrong. So. At the grocery store this morning, I walked past an Asian-American couple having a conversation in Chinese about a can of soup. The white 60-something woman pushing her cart ahead of me, very loudly said "Ching Chong Chang" in a nasal sing-song voice. The couple looked up at her, and I saw rage and hurt on their faces. A white teen-age girl stocking the shelves also looked up, looking confused. For a moment, I thought she was sharing my dismay, but then she burst out laughing, and then said to the woman "haha, I thought you were really speaking to them!". As I passed the teenager, I said "It's not cool that she's making fun of their language." As I passed the woman I said "It's racist to make fun of their language." And then kept on walking and didn't reply when she said "And that's your business? It's a free country, they haven't taken over yet." I'm not posting this looking for a pat on the back. The incident just got me thinking. I feel like I did the right thing, but I'm also aware that if the shopper ahead of me had been a big burly man, I most likely would have kept my mouth shut. And then I thought, did I really accomplish anything? Nobody is going to change their ways because of being admonished by me, and meanwhile, I'm kind of congratulating myself for speaking out, but the reality is, I don't do anything to fight the underlying problems with race in our society. So I'd be curious to hear how others of you react in this kind of situation. I'm kind of thinking that my obligation to speak out is clear when I'm actually in a conversation with someone, not so much when I overhear something. And I can think of many times in the past when confronting someone would have put my personal safety at risk (and my kids' safety of course, as they're pretty much always with me), and I'm aware this would be even more true were I not white. How do you draw the line? i speak up. i see it and hear it too much and it gets fuckin old. if everyone who was offened by these stupid ass comments cpoke up there'd be a lot less tupid ass comments floatin around out there. Jessica is just good strategy, and doing what you did IS doing something to fight "the underlying problems with race in our society" - you directly challenged a status quo that allows folks to say racist shit with no expectation of social opprobrium resulting. for myself, i try to make similarly strategic choices, though i have been known to mouth off when i shouldn't have and to keep quiet when i should've spoken up. we all have to feel our way along. it's good to be able to check in and see how other folks are doing. and just for the record, to my mind, anyone who uses the word "redneck" as a pejorative, especially if they are not from that class/cultural background, is engaging in classist speech, whether out of laziness, ignorance, bigotry, or some combination thereof. further, as a trash grrl who grew up among rednecks, and now lives among good liberals, i frankly prefer the honesty of the rednecks to the vehemently denied racism of the good liberals. and still further, i am thoroughly sick of said good liberals projecting their vehemently denied racism/classism/homophobia/etfuckincetera onto rednecks as if being poor, white, and rural invariably equates to bearing all the sins of "white" america as the ultimate scapegoats. and finally, this shopper and stock girl were in QUEENS, NYC - for fuck's sake, when did "redneck" become synonymous with any white person anywhere who says stupid shite?! does that make folks who use redneck as a slur rednecks, too?
"if i pass for other than what i am, do you feel safer?" ~ lani ka'ahumanu dragon knows dragon And you're right - that was a classist thing for me to say. For the record, I don't mean "redneck" as poor, white and rural, but I do get that that is generally the definition for the term. I've always considered it to apply more to people who are racist, or hating on people of ethnicities other than Caucasian. I do see, however, that there is an irony in my using the term to correct someone else. Sorry. "Too weird to live. Too rare to die." - Hunter S. Thompson What I was trying to express (and using a poor choice of words) was the idea that the people who say these things are backwards. And that, I think, transcends race or class or ethnicity - the attitude that anything beyond your postage stamp is wrong, or deserves ridicule, or should not be allowed to share your resources. There have been so many waves of immigrants into Queens. When my family moved there from Europe in the 30s and 40s, they were on the receiving end of lots of discrimination. So I always found it messed up that, in their old age, my grandparents turned on the subsequent waves of people who were trying to do the same things they did. In cases like that, especially when a relationship is involved, I definitely think it's worth saying your piece. I agree with the advice to pick your battles when you're out and about and your safety may be threatened. I think it was cool for Emile to say what she said to that woman, though. "Too weird to live. Too rare to die." - Hunter S. Thompson i am just troubled by redneck = backward 'cuz i know that's a dangerous fallacy just like feminist = babykiller is a dangerous fallacy, and i'm glad you got why i was troubled. the whole horizontal hostility/lateral oppression thing has freaked me out in my blood family since i was a kid, and while i understand the underlying motivation, i don't understand why it can't be more frequently recognized and overcome, kwim? the whole waves of immigration and xenophobia is true on a national scale, too, and again, i didn't understand how so many people could fail to see or purposely refuse to recognize that pattern and its hypocrisy and toxicity when they were sitting in the same damn u.s. history class i was. for myself, there are instances in which i have a relationship with someone, and i still choose my battles. i do this in part because i value the relationship and think enough of the person to commit myself to longterm learning within it/with them. i do this in part because i'm still learning myself, and sometimes i'm gonna learn more by keeping my peace than lambasting someone, kwim? and sometimes, i just choose to walk away instead of waste more energy on that particular battle or war. i'm a libra, though, and a survivor of law school, so i'm inclined to have subclauses and exemptions to every rule. still, i agree that emile did rightly to say what she said at the grocery store.
"if i pass for other than what i am, do you feel safer?" ~ lani ka'ahumanu dragon knows dragon You saying I did in fact do something means a lot to me, because you are one of the people here who have helped me to realize that in cases like this to be silent is to be complicit. Also I feel ridiculously glad that you won't necessarily think me a hypocrite for picking my battles in the future! to have been a help and to be affirming here. jessica said it above, too - the more folks speak out, the more the folks they speak out to will realize they can't assume everyone is on the same problematic page they're on, and maybe a few lightbulbs will begin to light up, too. still, yes, we have to choose our battles, i believe, for all the reaons i and others have noted. having the flexibility, self-awareness, and sense of responsibility to do that is better, imho, than adherance to any dogma.
"if i pass for other than what i am, do you feel safer?" ~ lani ka'ahumanu dragon knows dragon i was just telling a friend of mine about your post, and we were discussing the sagacity of picking battles. she reminded me that the most salient aspect of that approach is that if we didn't, if we called all the fucked upness around us immediately and thoroughly when we saw it, we'd drop from exhaustion and frustration and/or go mad. better to be around for the long haul than burn out 'cuz this work will take generations.
"if i pass for other than what i am, do you feel safer?" ~ lani ka'ahumanu dragon knows dragon when i hear it i show my indignation. in that case, i might have tried to say a kind word to the targets, but i have actually never been around the target because in most cases they so bravely wait till the person can't see or hear them. real honorable. honestly, and particularly in queens, i might be afraid that saying something would get my tires slashed or worse. i would, like you, pick my battles but as you know, just because someone is smaller and/or female, doesn't mean they won't hurt you. but when i read this and see you saying what did you do to address the underlying problems of racism i wonder, what else woudl you do? maybe you didn't change anyone's mind, but you took a side. you didn't stand there acting like it's not happening like a lot of people would do. i'm not trying to pat you on the back, i'm seriously wondering what it is that you think you could have done differently, because i can't think of anything. you let these people know that they're accountable for how they treat people in your community, you let the chinese people know that they don't represent your community, you let the racists know that they need to be more selective at who they show their true colors to. what else is there? again, not trying to pat you on the back, just truly asking what else there is.
No, there was nothing I could have done differently at that particular moment. What I was getting at was that since I don't actively fight for social justice (I know that trying to do no harm myself doesn't count) this seemed such a small and futile gesture. I really nerved myself up to say what I did, and afterwards had a deflating feeling that it was scratching the surface of the problem. But like I said, in the past I've been completely non-confrontational, so I guess this is at least a start for me. Oh, and thanks for not patting me on the back! My grandmother used to live in Queens, and while she was a wonderful person in many, many ways, she was pretty damn racist. Which is weird, given that she never learned English herself. I used to remind her that, aside from Native Americans, EVERYONE came here from somewhere else, and that she didn't like it when people made fun of her, so why do it to someone else? What I like to say to rednecks: "A thousand years ago, their ancestors had flushing toilets, while yours were still shitting their pants." Good for you for saying something. "Too weird to live. Too rare to die." - Hunter S. Thompson People here are generally closet racists, but you will get the occasional rednecky idiot who actually says something out loud in a public place (usually this is a stupid teenage boy). Good job saying only that to her. My son will tell you that I'm the queen of embarrassing scenes. I probably would have flipped a lid and made a big 'ol thing of it and embarrassed her, the teenage girl, and any family members unfortunate enough to accompany me. Ain't nothing wrong with speaking your mind. |
We can all only do are part and it sounds like you did yours here. A lot of people, while they may have been appalled by the woman's actions, would not have said anything to her. I'd like to believe that I would but I honestly don't know. So yeah, you should totally be proud of yourself.
The real way to combat these kinds of things on a larger scale is to educate yourself and be aware and pass that awareness on to anyone who will listen. It's a much too commonly held belief nowadays that racism does not exist except among so-called rednecks. Just because people can't admit- even to themselves- that they have racist feelings doesn't mean they don't have them. The lady you described was a blatant racist but I bet the girl who laughed at the mocking would have taken offense if you were to label her a racist. She'd rationalize her response- like that she just thought the way the lady said it was funny or that it was so shocking it was funny- instead of saying, "holy shit- yeah, that's kind of fucked up that I would find that funny".
There's this whole other phenomena where white people seem to feel like it's ok to make racist comments as long as they're not about black people. Asians and hispanics are fair game in their mind. Just the other day a friend of mine pointed out that a bus driver who had almost run us over was Asian- as if that explained his erratic driving. I said, "excuse you?" and her response was, "No! It's the only stereotype that's true- Asian people really can't drive!" and she's not the first person I've heard say that very same thing. I pointed out that the only time we ever stop to notice another person's driving is when they've made a mistake or are driving badly and that it's totally possible that there are plenty of excellent asian drivers and it's just that no one ever stops to take note of good drivers so the only time they pay attention to the way an Asian person is driving is when they're doing it wrong and draw the false conclusion that it's universally true of all people of Asian descent. She just said she didn't know and didn't want to talk about it anymore.
Sarah Silverman (not that she's a model for anti-racism, but hear me out) relays a story of how she was on the Today show or some similar program and the producers cautioned her against using the N word and that she should say "African American" instead so she asked what she should say instead of [racist term for Chinese people] and the producer shrugged and said, "Say [racist term for Chinese people]." Because people tolerate it.