In grade school we learn that racism is bad and that people who are racist are bad people. The lesson is something like fairy tale. Bad slave owners "from The South" fight the good abolitionists from The North. The slaves are set free when the war ends. Then there isn't any mention of racism until you learn about the Civil Rights Movement in the 60s. People used peaceful protests to fight discrimination. MLK gave a speech, but then the bad racists shot him. It was sad. But, then they passed a law to stop the racism and things are much better now. The end.
The "racists" are the bad guys in these fairy tales. Not much time is spent talking about why people are racist, it's just a character flaw. Like the witch in snow white who wants to kill snow white so she can be the most beautiful in the land. In the context of the fairy-tale version of American history, racism is just some kind of irrational narcissistic preference for people who look like you. It has no purpose beyond self-aggrandizement, and "being mean" it requires malicious intent, a twist of the mustache, if you will, a maniacal laugh. Racism is about not liking people becuase of their physical appearance. Racism is mysterious, no one knows why some people would think such horrible things, just because of skin color.
- Racism doesn't really have any meaningful benefits for anyone so there is no reason why it would persist once you tell people it is bad.
- Racism is just about not liking people based on color, so all forms of racism are identical interchangeable.
- Tossing out the resume's of people with African American names is classist rather than racist since racism was not intended. In any case, African American names sound "low class" so it's not like it is based on having prejudice against skin color is about class prejudice-- totally different.
- In a similar manner, assuming that someone is not very bright because they speak with an African American accent (even with standard English grammar) isn't really racism since it's not about skin color. If the person just sounded more white they would not face the prejudice. Simple.
- If a person has an unconscious 'preference' that can't be racism either. Racism is always malicious.
- Nice people can't be racist since racist people should seem evil.
- Saying Asians are eggheads isn't racist since it's "positive" and racism is supposed to be mean.
- Because racism is just a mysterious flaw in the human condition that arises for for no real purpose we can't have clear understanding of how it became such a powerful for in America.
There are many problems with this simplified way of looking at racism and the history of race relations. The most disturbing to me are the implications these views have for the many "gaps" that we will find when looking at statistics that involve race. There are a lot of depressing racial statistics, gaps in education wealth, income, how long we live. There are gaps in the numbers and gaps between the worlds we inhabit, spacial gaps, segregation, missing faces in the stories we call "important" --even in entertainment. In government there are gaps in representation. There are so many gaps ... so what causes them?
Some say it is the legacy of slavery and years of discrimination. Yet, some of the gaps persist even when controlling for income and other factors-- There seems to be something more at work. The fairy tale version of the history of this country obscures the impact of present-day racism has in creating these gaps so completely one is left with only one conclusion: black people and black culture must be dysfunctional. After all, immigrant groups seem to do a little better than black folks so is it really just about being cultural outsiders? Racism in interchangeable. It not like different kinds of racism take different forms. Why do Asian-Americans make so much more money? Don't they face racism? (Answer is yes, but it's not the same kind of racism) There must be something wrong with what all of these black people are doing that sets them back. It's that "culture of poverty" that they have!
- The culture of black people is violent and immoral. Hip-hop songs describe the kinds of lives young black people try to live. Main-stream Hip-Hop is a good example of black culture. It is somehow more remarkable and destructive than other sensational violent and sexist music that poor people of other races enjoy.
- The primary reason black kids don't do well in school since they goad each other in to hating education through their allegiance to a culture that celebrates ignorance-- this is clear when they chastise each other for "talking white" this anti-learning dynamic is somehow more remarkable and destructive than similar dynamics found in youths of similar social classes of other races.
- The vernacular spoken by African-Americans is lesser language that cannot communicate the same ideas and standard English. It is a stupid person's way of talking and should be eliminated.
- In "black culture" it is not frowned upon when a young women gets pregnant at a young age, and marriage isn't important to women who want to have kids.**
- Black people are not ashamed to be on welfare or live in housing projects, so they just stay there for generations.
- and many more...
None of these things are really correct, but if you are trying to explain the gaps, and if you do not think racism could have caused it, if you rule that out as impossible since you think of racism as the kind of thing found only in fairy tales... these kinds of explanations are fair game. They may be the only game.
The irony of it all is that these explanations are racist caricatures of black people and black culture. I could write pages about each of them, so I won't attempt to explain them all in this one post. But,if you don't know why I say these things are racist try listening to people who study this topic and care about it and you might learn something. I grew up thinking half of these things were true myself. That's how pervasive the fairy tale version of history is in this country. I say that too, so that you know that I'm not likely to think you are sitting there twisting your mustache if you've ever bought in to the notion that there's just something wrong with "black culture" --
**There is also some sexism implicit in all of this, but I need to curb the scope of this post at some point.