3.30.2005

Racist or Just Lucky?

I am racist.

Overtly? Hopefully not. Surreptitiously? Yes.

The difference between Racism and White Privilege is that the former is something I do to other people, the latter is all of the things given to me that I accept - or more accurately: things done for my benefit which I have not earned. This assiduous advantage is exceedingly difficult perceive in ones own life – it takes an accidental epiphany. Like the ship at the beginning of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy; it’s only invisible because you haven’t noticed it yet.

Multiple facets of my life are all converging to illustrate my piss-poor comprehension of my innate advantage in said life. I have started a list of daily ways that I am an unwitting yet willing accomplice in White Privilege. I became aware of some by reading Peggy McIntosh’s article "White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Work in Women's Studies.".

1. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area that I can afford and in which I would want to live.

2. I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.

3. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.

4. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.

5. When I am told about our national heritage or about "civilization", I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.

6. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.

7. If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.

8. I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the staple foods that fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser's shop and find someone who can deal with my hair.

9. Whether I use checks, credit cards, or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability.

10. I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.

11. I can swear, or dress in second-hand clothes or not answer letters without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty, or the illiteracy of my race.

12. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.

13. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.

14. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.

15. I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color, who constitute the worlds' majority, without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.

16. I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider.

17. I can be sure that if I ask to talk to "the person in charge" I will be facing a person of my race.

18. If a traffic cop pulls me over, or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven't been singled out because of my race.

19. I can easily buy posters, postcards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys, and children's magazines featuring people of my race.

20. I can go home from most meetings or organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in rather than isolated, out of place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, or feared.

21. I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having coworkers on the job suspect that I got it because of race.

22. I can choose public accommodations without fearing that people of my race cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen.

23. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help my race will not work against me.

24. If my day, week, or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it has racial overtones.

25. I can chose blemish cover or bandages in "flesh" color that more or less matches my skin.

As someone who wants to be a teacher of kids, it’s important that I become aware of just how omnipresent White Privilege is in our schools. As a coach of Speech, an activity that I love for the confidence it provides kids with, I might just be doing more harm than good. The part of white privilege that may be the most damaging is the advantage I have from acting, talking and thinking white. This is seen in White acceptance of ethnicity ONLY if it is contained within our precogitated character sketch of what that ethnicity can look/sound like. We either soundlessly ask minorities to act “whiter” (“less ethnic”) - or only allow honest ethnicity in forms of novelty and doc/mockumentary. I have told my minority Speech students that the reason that have not performed as well as they hoped is because they are “too big, too loud… some judges want to see things more controlled.” I only now realize that all I’ve been telling them is that “people won’t like you if you’re yourself, i.e. black – but they will like you if you act whiter.” I need to apologize for and correct this, but how to do so and still allow them to win. My blood boils for this.

Through the process of examining my own White Privilege, I have stumbled upon a stinging truth – I think of myself as morally neutral but actually fall well below that line. I’m not talking shades of grey here; definitively - I am not doing enough, or aware enough, to call myself morally neutral. It is not enough to be formally opposed to racial injustice. It is not enough to be a polite advocate of equality in the world. I must find a way to distribute the advantages I have been unjustly given to those who could never imagine getting things “easily.” I understand that a true meritocracy could probably never subsist in a world governed by humans (sea monkeys however…) but that doesn’t mean I can’t shape MY world in that direction. If there really is no such thing as rhadamanthine, then let me get as close as I can.

3.22.2005

The Clarence Greenwood Recordings



Go buy this album...

NO WAIT, DON'T!

CRAP! Now everyone’s gonna like it and I won't have any means by which to go about being cool. Damnit, why did I have to post this then be too lazy to delete said post!?

This album is frighteningly good, I can’t stop listening to it. It’s like the audible version of hot-pockets.

3.13.2005

The apocalypse is nigh… to the X-treme!

Intent on crapping upon the grave of the intellectual property that build the studio; Warner Brothers proudly presents the Looney Tunes for the 21st century!

Bow down before your
anthropomorphic overlords, The...

Yes, the Loonatics©: half homicidal – half adorable! Tailor-made for your generation - the new generation of overweight, under-enthused hipsters, who are either incapable or just straight-up bored with independent thought! Yeah, that’s right, I’m talking to you lamewad! Bugs Bunny was a frickin’ retard, and deserved his fate for wearing that dress too much. Now BUZZ Bunny will screw your girlfriend and steal your car all whilst you’re still checkin’ out his motorcycle and/or 2005 Mustang. This cri-zzazay cri-zitterz don’t take cri-zzap from cri-no body. Elmer Fudd? Shiat… more like Elmer F’ed-up! So “toon” in to watch your childhood, and the grand tradition of animation, get gang-banged by the Loonatics©!

3.07.2005

Snoop, I am not

Spring break returns to my life next week, after a hiatus of almost 10 years. The obligatory caveat of knowing that I won’t be in a Girl Gone Wild video notwithstanding: I’m excited.

However, I have no plans. I want to take a small road-trip, perhaps just a day away. Suggestions? Anyone have any good ideas for something cool (see: cheap) to do for spring break?

I ask you this...

How many people do you know who still look pretty when yawning? I think Haley might be the only one. Freak.

3.01.2005

Old v. The State of New

It's been a bad day, please don't take my picture.

Without going into the details; today is one of those days that either make me wish I never got out of bed - or - that my bed was actually constructed from a chorus of buxom nymphets bestowed with the humbling powers of the Happy Ending. Alas, my bed is from Ikea.

I have been giving quite a lot of thought to Old versus New lately. There are many people who would prefer the things in life that provide them with the comfort of familiarity(i.e. people, relationships, ideals). Certainly there is real value in knowing something/one so well that curiosity can be replaced by understanding. I am not one of those people. The moment I begin to understand something is the same moment I begin to lose interest. I have not yet been able to find the causality for this, and I doubt I ever will. Nonetheless, I keep looking.

In the interim: I want to change. I want to be able to stop shopping at the thrift store of life and start rummaging though my meta-dresser full of well-worn old favorites. I also want better metaphors, but that’s neither here nor there. I owe this to the people who care about me.

Time is a feller that I have always been half fascinated by, half resentful of. Perhaps one day Time and I will go out for lunch and, while it will be full of small-talk and awkward silences, maybe I can will get past my jealously.