A New Breed of Colorblindness
IF WE WANT TO UNITE, it cannot be by overlooking differences that stab at people and stick in their throats and veins and bellies. This unity must come about by connecting ourselves through struggle; by working together to fight the iniquities that pit most of us against each other, and all so that one or two types of persons can ascend, unfettered, to the top of the heap.
IF GEORGE W BUSH hadn’t destroyed the notion with his lurid and violent brand of hypocrisy, Obama might be running on being a “Uniter and not a Divider.” Sometimes I call George W. Bush the Great Divider. He did nothing so well as entrench the divisions between poor and rich, elite and peasantry, Red and Blue, Us and Them. He is ALL about division. He just wants to think he’s a nice guy so…wait. We’re done ranting about Bush, I forgot. We’re happy happy in a Post-Racial World (wait, do I hear a Material Girl spoof in my head?)
But let me get on with it. Obama really is a uniter. He really does erase lines of separation. He does not live by those hard lines, or at least does not espouse them, nor behave as if he is guided by them. This “grayness” in both his ethnic makeup as well as his ideology is disturbing to many. We like our divisions, our containments, our separations. They are comforting. They let us know who is in the “Us” and who is of the “Them.” Of course taken too far these divisions and delineations lead us to…war.
I get the grayness. I am there. I’ve long been there. I feel I understand a bit of this. Perhaps it is because we both have lived between worlds. We are both “mutts” as Obama said, in a way. (Or maybe it’s not that entirely, but I bet it has a little to do with it.) And in this new Era Obama, everyone wants to get in on the mutt train. We all wanna be Post Racial. We wanna be like him, He Who Seeth No Race. We shiver away from the Dire and Dim Bush Days and hope to enter a sunny land of unpartisan-skin and we got us our Black Prez statuette on the dashboard to guide the way. But I don’t like how some of this discussion is muttying lines.
The press conference is already being called the “mutts like me” press conference. Some are praising his comfort in talking about race.
So yes, he was trying to be light-hearted about the dogs and inserted that little self-deprecating comment about his race to heighten the effect. After his prepared remarks, he appeared a bit on edge, perhaps a little nervous, during the question and answer session with reporters. He seemed to be laboring to hit the right tone – serious but not somber, concerned but confident – and his gaffe about Nancy Reagan seemed to be a product of jitters, more than anything else. But the inquiry about the dog and his daughters was an opening for him to shake it out, if you will.
And so he threw it out there, it was nothing, just three little words. Right?
I’ve heard mixed-race people use that term to describe themselves before, usually in the same ha-ha way Obama did. I’ve also heard it thrown around as an insult, a pejorative, a slur. I’ve felt the slap of that word across my face and it is not a word I can “reclaim.” My fear, however, is that Obama, as the first mixed-race president, will shape the way most Americans view people of mixed race for at least a generation. And will Obama calling himself a “mutt” – with humor, as if the word is nothing, nothing at all – make it socially acceptable for people to start calling me a mutt? My kids?
Because not only does the word have a history as a slur, but there are reasons that that word makes such an easy slur. It allows people to rhetorically reduce us to animals – people “bred” like dogs are bred. For all our “mutts are better!” talk (it is, as Obama knows, better to adopt a dog from a shelter, right? Rejected, but nonetheless in need of love), it still comes from a place where “purebreds” are better. It stinks of eugenics and generally just makes me queezy.
Mutts, like me, we may not be as desirable as purebreds but we can be lovable despite our unfortunate mix.
—Mutt Like Me, Kimchi Mamas
And then you dig into the comment threads on a page where the Kimchi Mamas (Burn Your Tongue!) blog was picked up, such as Political Intelligence (boston.com) and you begin to see how our bright shiny Post-Racial Nation is being embraced by some:
135. Oh, get over it. We are way to wrapped up in race in America.
I chuckled when Obama said that, that’s what I call my self, so what I am too.
The Black, White,Asian, Latino thing is getting soooo tiring, let’s start acting like the brothers and sisters that we really are. The constant racial harang is only a mechanism to divide and destroy.
Posted by Evelyn B November 10, 08 02:32 PM
So tiring, the “Black, White, Asian, Latino” thing.
I’m not sure what to do when I come across comments like this. I point it out because it is indicative of a growing trend, not because I have found the only comment that takes this stance.
It is far too tempting for many in this nation to want to get past all that “Tiring” stuff. I don’t blame you. I can’t tell you how tired I am of peering into mirrors or hoping I never hear a racist comment again, or crying over beaten or killed immigrants, or children in rooms without sun, or of fearing conversations that pop up because I don’t know how I’ll react when mi gente or mi familia or myself are insulted, or worse.
But how do I react? Do I point them to Kai’s landmark post on the idea of Political Correctness?
Or do I post something like this:
In case you cannot see or don’t have time, that’s a video on the killing of Marcelo Lucero, a man who has been living in the USA and working in the USA for 16 years. He is a migrant from Ecuador. He was working to support his family down south. He was not “way too wrapped up in race.” He was working and living a life. On one of those nights, he went out to catch a movie at a friend’s house but never made it past the driveway. He was killed by seven young men who were out with the express purpose of looking for “some Mexicans to fuck up.” Marcelo was not Mexican, but they fucked him up all right. They stabbed him in the heart. I can’t even type this out without crying again. (Don’t get me wrong. I’ll cry with one hand tight around a baseball bat, so if you want to come looking for Mexicans to Fuck Up in my part of town, keep it in mind.)
Others are rejoicing after hearing Obama’s “Mutt” reference, too. One man is “Hecky Powell,” who used to serve on the District 65 School Board in Evanston, Illinois. During a “discussion of how District 65 School Board statistically reports multiracial students” Powell used the term “Mutt.”
Critics took off on his mention of the remark [...] as insensitive of the feelings of African-Americans and multiracial children.
Powell eventually issued an apology. He drew more criticism later, however, when in answer to his critics, he added a “Mutt Special” to the menu at his restaurant, Hecky’s Barbecue. [...]
Ever since Barack Obama’s first press conference as president-elect, Evanston restaurateur Hecky Powell said calls have been pouring in. “It just feels like Obama gave me a pardon,” a not unhappy Powell said Tuesday. [...]
Guess what? He’s renaming the dish after perhaps the most successful self-described mutt in history, calling it the “Obama Mutt.”
The title of that post is so telling. The idea that people who have been called out for using speech that hurts members of society not in the dominant demographic now are “pardoned” from any transgression against any person or persons by one joke from one man who happens to be President is lunacy. But it is a lunacy that will sell to the Colorblind crowd. Worse than simply being happy with his past boundary-steppin’ being pardoned, it seems Mr. Powell (and we know he is not alone) feels empowered to move forward with gusto and conviction.
But you’ll notice one thing. Mister Obama called himself a Mutt. He did not call another person a name. And yet Hecky Powell did. Children! Even disregarding the intelligent thoughts that Mama Kimchis put out there, there is a huge difference between calling yourself a name, and calling another person a name. (Ask Kramer about this one.)
To commenters like Evelyn B, whom I quoted above, who are so “tired” of the “Black, White, Asian, Latino” thing, I would ask, is it cool if a man calls you a “bitch”? Seriously. Plenty of women have reclaimed the term “Bitch” and there is even a “Bitch” magazine. Does not the success of that magazine pardon me? Anyway, it seems dog references are okay now. Right?
No—I’ll answer for you because I have access to writing this post and you do not. It is not okay. Even if the word “bitch” is in songs and on magazine covers and even if women call themselves it. It is still not okay for men to call you a Bitch. Even if many men are “tired” of that whole “feminist” thing. Because no, we cannot “start acting like the brothers and sisters that we really are” by ignoring our brothers and sisters’ voices when they say “that hurts me.” One magazine cover cannot give men permission to use a word on any woman they meet (who had no part in making that magazine), women who may have been hurt badly or seen others hurt in connection with the same hatred that birthed that slur and who may feel that word is simply another bone in the same violent beast that spits the word “Bitch.”
And one last thing. White folks: You don’t get to step over this whole sticky issue of race and power and oppression in this nation by claiming you, too, are a mutt. Not when your muttiness is composed of Russian, Scottish, German, and Irish. Not today, not now, not here. Because the lines have been drawn, and the power flows in certain directions and we benefit or suffer according to that power flow. And Obama is the type of multiracial person who is seen as brown or black. Period. Those who are of European mix do not get to step next to Obama and claim the same path. You don’t even get to claim my path, and mine is not his, either.
I was reading Womanist Musings yesterday, and a post called Why We Need To Talk About Whiteness and Privilege. In that post, she ends on the thought of those of us who are “bi-racial.” In that post, Renee recenters some of the discussion away from the White Lens and frames it in a way she feels is more useful. One that doesnt focus on the “Raced” parties (the Brown™ as I call us non-whites and non-white blends) but on Whiteness. And of course Whiteness does not like to see itself. Whiteness is the Universal Standard in this nation. Whiteness gets uncomfortable seeing itself, and would rather center itself and see all others from that viewpoint. Whiteness doesn’t mind talking about the poor folks in the ghetto or working in the fields, if it comes to that. But Whiteness does not want to talk about how it benefits from these situations. PortlyDyke, a commenter on Renee’s post, muses that she will soon begin conversations with white people “So, how often do you realize you are white?” as a way of pointing toward an empathy of what non-whites live.
Those white people/Euro people who want to hop on the Post-Racial Mutt-tastic bandwagon might consider this question. How often does your “muttness,” then, confuse you? How many hours do you spend a year looking at reflections and trying to see the separate “halves” of yourself? How often does your “Muttness” make you feel shame? Make you fear for your life? How often does the USA introduce the idea through so much media that you are gross and unworthy? Show images of your people that paint them as oversexed filthy criminals? Lock your people up in vastly disproportionate amounts, in detention centers? Hunt for you? How much does all this eat at you every day?
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We may howl at the same moon, and that is a beautiful thing. But we still running in different packs. And most of all, I aint ya pet.
Finally, Mister Obama? I know you have to be careful up there. I know this groundbreaking move you are doing requires you to be one hella skillful navigator of deadly currents all about you. Right Wing/Religious weirdos are now mainstreaming burning crosses and lots of people are pretty sore over losing the land their forefathers stole for them. I know part of us moving forward is, indeed, breaking down the idea of Otherness and I’m sure the Mutt joke came from that urge. Why not hand so many people at once an opportunity to feel joined in a struggle? Why not soften those lines of separation? It fits in with all you do, and seem to believe in. I can understand this.
Cuidado. In your attempts to soften and blur those lines, you can easily erase people and their struggles. I know you stand for change. But some change has to be earned. If not, it is not only not believable, but actually harmful.
IF WE WANT TO UNITE, it cannot be by overlooking differences that stab at people and stick in their throats and veins and bellies. This unity must come about by connecting ourselves through struggle; by working together to fight the iniquities that pit brown against black against gay against indigenous against secular against Trans against Asian against Disabled (and so on) and all so that one or two types of persons can ascend unfettered, to the top of the heap (of riches and power and bodies and lives and lost chances). We must band together and abdicate those hateful systems already in place (and there are more than I can link), and we must fight against those who would work to keep them in place.
Anything else is just a joke.
Tags: AFA, Barack Obama, Colorblind, Feminism, George W. Bush, hate, Hecky Powell, Kai Chang, Mutt, Otherness, Post-Racial, Power to the People, Racism
Posted in African Americans/blacks, Borders, Cultura, Democratic Party, Gender, Human Rights, Immigration, Latinos, Misogyny, Peoples, Politics, Raza, White Supremacy
Well said.
“I know you stand for change. But some change has to be earned. If not, it is not only not believable, but actually harmful.”
Yes. This. And it’s true not only for Obama, but for all of us. But you knew that already.
absolutely. i guess i’m using obama as a symbol when i talk at moments. because i dont actually think he’s reading this, and his campaign is ChangeLand, so thats where I address some of my statements. the tourists crowding the doors of ChangeLand.
your point is a good one. we all must earn it, and i guess that’s part of what i mean by fighting together against oppressive systems, even the ones we’ve absorbed and maintain…
“So, how often do you realize you are white?”
Every time I read this blog.
Seriously though, I can see the logic in the viewpoint that racism can be made worse by turning everything into a race issue, just as I can see the wisdom in the viewpoint that we must talk about the problem to fix it. Or maybe “discuss” is a better word than “talk”, as I think part of the issue is that so many people are just talking at each other rather than working together toward a solution.
The whole PC argument annoys me; both the people who get oversensitive about non-offensive things, and the people who say that racism is just “not being PC”. I think we should eliminate the term politically correct. Then we can go back to calling oversensitive people thin-skinned and calling people who use racial slurs assholes.
Oh dear, now your blog accuses me of using “Wite Magik”. How non-PC.
the thing is, how easy is it for you to not read the blog? very easy. whereas with others…not so easy to stop realizing how they are slotted/seen in the culture.
I can see the logic in the viewpoint that racism can be made worse by turning everything into a race issue
but this is hyperbole i never offered. who wants to turn “everything” into a “race issue”? not me. i just dont want shit glossed over or people pretending we’ve made progress we have not.
and the trouble with declaring anyone “oversensitive” is…who is judging? whites? i gave a week on my blog over to my african american homies to talk about this historical moment for a reason. because sometimes some people are better off stepping back and letting others frame things for once. and i think its time for white people to stop using the word “oversensitive” when talking about how the Brown™ perceives racial slights/insults/injustices. way past time for that. not their call.
i agree on the term Politically Correct and i think kai murdered and buried that notion with his post, which i linked. i consider his post an epitaph on the silly idea. done.
you are an old friend, and i’m glad you feel comfortable speaking up here on these touchy things. good to see you.
(regarding the last sentence in your comment: to others who dont know, certain terms are auto-linked on my blog, like Oversensitive
Thank you, Nezua, for this piece…I’ve posted it on my blog using the tool you provided…
Abrazos…
Gracias, Nomi. And also cool to see that the ShareThis thingie works! Good to see you.
Abrazos, Nezua
Kevin, your words got me thinking about why I pointed some of my words to Obama and here is what it is and what I didnt articulate in my post (it was long and I kept fleshing parts out that were in my mind, this part got left behind so thank you).
People are looking for Obama to guide this discussion on race, as he began with his amazing speech. Now I’m not saying right or wrong, but thus, when he does talk about race, it seems he is an authority, or an expected one. I think now how silly that is! It’s not up to him. But damn if in our eagerness to make the world better after Bush, and in my eagerness to accept he can lead the way on that, I find I am making him the pointman for too much. You are right. I tried to draw a distinction by pointing out that he was talking about himself, but I could have sketched it out to note that people should not extrapolate too much, as Hecky Powell seems to have done. If the town and school board felt Mr. Powell was out of line and disrespectful to the children with his words, why does one self-deprecating joke by Obama change that? It’s not as if Obama can’t make self-deprecating jokes! And it’s not his fault if Hecky is proud of his menu item while community members feel it celebrates an insult to their children.
But I think Obama is in an odd position. I guess I might have framed it more usefully by saying “I worry that in his efforts to make race a non-issue, too many will follow Obama there and not in the right way. Because collapsing all the distinctions is not the right way. Nor are presumed blanket pardons for insensitive comments made to others.”
maybe that’s better.
“but this is hyperbole i never offered. who wants to turn “everything” into a “race issue”? not me. i just dont want shit glossed over or people pretending we’ve made progress we have not.”
You don’t, but that doesn’t mean no one else does. If a Brown™ and a non-Brown™ fight over the outcome of a sports game, it’s not a race issue. But it will sure as hell be portrayed as one on the news, with talking heads galore arguing over which person was the racist. My point isn’t that racism isn’t an issue, but rather that making it the issue when it’s not does substantial harm. The harm done may even rival the harm of saying an issue isn’t racial, when it is.
“and the trouble with declaring anyone “oversensitive” is…who is judging?”
The individual. And you mistake me if you think I see it as a problem with people of a certain color; stupidity comes in all colors. (And yes, white is a color. I’m using “color” in the sense of the spectrum, not of race.)
“you are an old friend, and i’m glad you feel comfortable speaking up here on these touchy things. good to see you.”
Well, not entirely comfortable. But I’ve never been great at avoiding touchy subjects, either. I’m glad to take part in the discussion.
People who watch the talking heads regularly have other issues! Like being in the wrong place to get truth, or insight into race and culture. I mean, that’s my thought. Can’t fashion our conversations on what the News Talking Heads might do with it!
Yes, the “individual” is judging who is “oversensitive,” but it certainly goes in one direction as a pattern and your thinking on if stupidity is tethered to (a skin) color is irrelevant to the larger systems in motion. Yanno?
“My point isn’t that racism isn’t an issue, but rather that making it the issue when it’s not does substantial harm.”
Oh, but it is an issue. Always. So far in my life, always. Since my early days of childhood to today. So…I’m really not afraid of making it an issue when it isn’t. Not until it is no more. And we are nowhere close to that.
thank you.
i work with youth in a very revolutionary program that gets them into science technology engineering and math and onto college. every year, foundations ask me to put my youth into so-called racial categories and give percentages. these categories i hate. the youth of color who are in our program are splendidly diverse and they don’t even fit the categories.
so, for the past three years, i ask the youth (this year about 40 teenagers) to write me about what they want me to tell foundations about them when i get asked to describe their race/ethnicity/culture. the results are very interesting. and i write them up and submit them.
this past august, tho, for the first time, the majority of them want me to say they are bi-racial or multicultural or at least want to communicate some kind of hybridity within them. they use the family roots in countries for the most part. this was especially true for the youth with cultural roots in caribbean, central american and south american countries. it was important that they name their genealogy, their ancestors was how i saw it.
one curious thing that i had never seen before was that several of the youth described themselves as “bi-racial latino.” they did not tell the countries of islands of their family roots but mentioned that one parent was “white latino” and the other was “black latino.” i was curious about this because more than one youth reported this (it was an online survey kind of thing, so they did not communicate with one another about answers.
what’s great about having their answers is that i don’t have to understand them, i can just report their words and know that they have had some choice in how they want to be represented. but still, their choices made me want to ask a lot of questions. they seem to be more inclined to be specific about the multiplicity of their roots. the different parts of their ancestors seem to matter and call out to be named.
thanks for sharing that, susan. yeah. “i dont have to understand them…i can just report..and know they had some choice in how they wanted to be repped” yeah i like that a lot.
Why do I get the feeling it’s only white, or completely able to pass for white, folks who trot out this “I’m soooo tired of all this race stuff”? Because only when you’re privileged can you dismiss issues like that.
Because, as you point out, it sure as hell isn’t “tiresome” to be beaten to death for being the wrong color.
Well when the President-Elect says it, it can be cute. I think “loveable” when I hear mutt, so it has an endearing quality.
But I do think no one else should call somoene that. Mostly due to politeness and manners. Even the sentence you mentioned about looking in the mirror trying to find the different halves of yourself. Obama has written in his books about that, it was a long journey for him to come to the acceptance of identity he has now. It was a physical journey as he actually travelled to Kenya and Kansas, and a mental journey, too. There probably were days when someone calling him a mutt would’ve made him angry, even though he’s cool with it now.
Secondly, like I said I thought it was “cute.” Not everyone wants to be seen as “cute.” Not me, a really short woman, I try hard to be seen as more than just “cute.” The president-elect of the third largest nation in the world, a tall, pysically able, handsome man at that, can get away with a cute joke here or there without anyone thinking less seriously about him, and he’s all ready had plenty of time in the spotlight to explain who he is in a less joking manner. A “cute” joke, while not downright nasty, is still bad enough for someone struggling to be taken seriously – you’re still made the butt of a joke, no matter how tame the joke maker thinks it is.
BEG, I get that it’s tiring, and to all of us. The difference is, when some of us get tired, we can turn away and imagine we are no longer affected. Some of us cannot do that.
Malicia, good points. Thank you.
You and I have talk about this subject in length, Nez. To think that I once thought myself colorblind, when I was merely blind. I understand the “Gosh, I am a really good person, I don’t mean nothing by it” kind of feeling the word brings to once consciousness. Race is such a ugly subject that people who don’t know what it is to live on the other side of the color line will grab on to any soothing balm to chase away the moral itch. But like an opiate, it is not a cure, far from it. It only masks the pain, chases away the nightmares and gives temporary relief.
Remember though that those who consider themselves colorblind are not (mostly, I know I was not) hateful or stupid, just trying to deal with a subject they really would like to ignore. It is like switching the channel when you see an image of a African child face covered in flies. You know it is true, but your mind is repulsed by it and seeks escapes somewhere else, like on who made it to the semi-finals in Dancing with the Stars. No challenge to the status quo, no commitment to larger purpose, no struggle against the inevitable, nothing that screams “What the fuck are you doing about this!”
So guide them gently to the light, don’t push them. Too much light, to soon can also blind, painfully.
I hear you bro.
What happens is that after each attack on Latinos or immigrants (the Teargas parades last year or so, the stabbings and beatings of Latinos or perceived Mexicans/immigrants) I generally start shoving. I’m not sure I can help it. I’m trying to ride out this crazy time and honestly, I’m as gentle as I can be with my feelings. People can go away or go away mad or refuse to think about it or why I might be angered or whatever…that’s their option. Others, like you (and me, it’s not as if I don’t get my feelings hurt by seeking awareness and growth) can choose to think about why the pain is there and if others might have pain, too, and how they can work, do good work, change things. If they want.
I know “colorblind” folks mean well. I’m not really worried about those who mean well. I’m worried more about those who mean well and are stabbed in the heart while heading to a friends, or ripped out of their home and parent’s arms so they can be shoved into a detention center where so many well-meaning people wont know or care to change it.
Then let us hope, nay, pray, that the twain shall meet. By hook or crook if necessary.
word.
[...] some of the incidents being reported: (h/t to jobsanger, James of The Mahatma X Files, and Nez of The Unapologetic Mexican) * Four North Carolina State University students admitted writing anti-Obama comments in a tunnel [...]
I’m wondering if you’re going to right a piece entirely devoted to the evils of calling women “bitch, whore, slut.” Calling out the men who put it in rap lyrics or in “comedy” routines. Calling out the men who tell us that we’re just lacking a “sense of humor” when they call us whores. I’m thinking not. Kind of like Obama–the man all about “change”–has no problem bringing a man into his inner circle who has called women genetically inferior. No, it’s not “fun” to be beaten because of your race. It’s also not “fun” to be beaten, raped, and killed because of your gender. Somehow, men on the “left” are always willing to take up the cause of race, but trivialize the cause of gender. Kind of like you did in this post.
i don’t think you’ve read much of my writing. but i appreciate your spirit.