That view feels overly romanticised to me, tbh; the idea that the way to stop racism is to just not acknowledge it. That not drawing attention to things will just make it go away.
There’s a lot of institutionalised racism in many countries, either due to racism itself or as a knock on effect from other failed systems.
And, of course, there’s just plain bigotry that is passed patent to child and from social group to social group. That’s not going to stop by just censoring media.
The message of this comic is, basically, “here’s some unconscious biases you could be making”. Reading it as “this is how you’re supposed to talk to black people” is… Well, if that’s the reading you make, then whether the comic exists or not isn’t going to change anything.
It feels like this sort of thing makes people feel uncomfortable and they try to justify the removal of the media rather than grappling with the concept of privilege (which, tbf, is hard for people to do).
I mean as a soon to be 29 year old that grew up kind of sheltered for the longest time I had a minimal knowledge of racial stereotypes. It wasn’t until I started seeing stuff like this post that I even knew that a lot of people (as an example) assumed black girls holding babies were holding their own kids.
I would’ve had to come up with that stereotype all on my own … and honestly I don’t think I ever would have.
If someone had proposed the idea of putting on black face to dress up as Obama for Halloween, in another life I could’ve seen myself going for it because I’ve liked Obama ever since he was running for office back in 08 and I had no idea about the “black face” connotations until the last few years. It wouldn’t have been any more controversial (to my innocent mind) than putting on a red wig to be the joker.
Surely I can’t be the only one that … had no idea about this stuff and no way to perpetuate it in any malicious way because of that.
Like… I agree with you, but also I do feel like there’s something to this point. Teaching racial stereotypes and framing conversations in terms of race definitely keeps race in the spotlight in some circumstances when other factors might be better focal points.
I was also someone that grew up in Appalachia… and let me tell you, it’s interesting that black people and appalachian people are on opposite sides, the poverty, the bigotry against the appalachian subculture, the warm feelings about the law breaking moonshine running “good old boys” from some folks, etc, there’s a lot of rhymes in the circumstances.
I think that’s part of what some rural people get so offended about. Like the dude that works at Walmart and lives in a crap trailer with undrinkable well water … walking up to that guy and telling him about his “white privilege” also feels, wrong.
It was weird to me when I went to college (first in my family to go to a 4 year school) and there were people just casually talking about vacations featuring airplanes and international travel. Like, the people that did “fancy” big vacations that I remember from my home town were going to Myrtle Beach not Greece.
I feel like a lot of people are talking past each other … and to be clear I’m not discounting that race is still an issue in the US that’s systemic and needs addressed, but it does feel like there’s some nuance that’s been lost in the broader conversation.
Perhaps with a different approach/tone some more people could find common ground. It’s a hard problem.
I tend to agree. It would work if you could simultaneously adjust everyone in the culture, but that’s really only possible if the population is small. In large populations it’s more effective to shame people who are being racist.
That view feels overly romanticised to me, tbh; the idea that the way to stop racism is to just not acknowledge it. That not drawing attention to things will just make it go away.
There’s a lot of institutionalised racism in many countries, either due to racism itself or as a knock on effect from other failed systems.
And, of course, there’s just plain bigotry that is passed patent to child and from social group to social group. That’s not going to stop by just censoring media.
The message of this comic is, basically, “here’s some unconscious biases you could be making”. Reading it as “this is how you’re supposed to talk to black people” is… Well, if that’s the reading you make, then whether the comic exists or not isn’t going to change anything.
It feels like this sort of thing makes people feel uncomfortable and they try to justify the removal of the media rather than grappling with the concept of privilege (which, tbf, is hard for people to do).
I mean as a soon to be 29 year old that grew up kind of sheltered for the longest time I had a minimal knowledge of racial stereotypes. It wasn’t until I started seeing stuff like this post that I even knew that a lot of people (as an example) assumed black girls holding babies were holding their own kids.
I would’ve had to come up with that stereotype all on my own … and honestly I don’t think I ever would have.
If someone had proposed the idea of putting on black face to dress up as Obama for Halloween, in another life I could’ve seen myself going for it because I’ve liked Obama ever since he was running for office back in 08 and I had no idea about the “black face” connotations until the last few years. It wouldn’t have been any more controversial (to my innocent mind) than putting on a red wig to be the joker.
Surely I can’t be the only one that … had no idea about this stuff and no way to perpetuate it in any malicious way because of that.
Like… I agree with you, but also I do feel like there’s something to this point. Teaching racial stereotypes and framing conversations in terms of race definitely keeps race in the spotlight in some circumstances when other factors might be better focal points.
I was also someone that grew up in Appalachia… and let me tell you, it’s interesting that black people and appalachian people are on opposite sides, the poverty, the bigotry against the appalachian subculture, the warm feelings about the law breaking moonshine running “good old boys” from some folks, etc, there’s a lot of rhymes in the circumstances.
I think that’s part of what some rural people get so offended about. Like the dude that works at Walmart and lives in a crap trailer with undrinkable well water … walking up to that guy and telling him about his “white privilege” also feels, wrong.
It was weird to me when I went to college (first in my family to go to a 4 year school) and there were people just casually talking about vacations featuring airplanes and international travel. Like, the people that did “fancy” big vacations that I remember from my home town were going to Myrtle Beach not Greece.
I feel like a lot of people are talking past each other … and to be clear I’m not discounting that race is still an issue in the US that’s systemic and needs addressed, but it does feel like there’s some nuance that’s been lost in the broader conversation.
Perhaps with a different approach/tone some more people could find common ground. It’s a hard problem.
I tend to agree. It would work if you could simultaneously adjust everyone in the culture, but that’s really only possible if the population is small. In large populations it’s more effective to shame people who are being racist.