Racism

[Leo]

Chris Smalls, the guy who led the successful Amazon unionisation campaign, being criticised for going on Fox News to discuss it felt like a pretty striking example of what I'm talking about re: the appearance of progress vs. actual progress.

That guy (along with a bunch of other people) beat Amazon and all some people could talk about was how it was a bad look to go on Fox. The game of appearances seemed to matter more to them than workers managing to stand up to one of the biggest companies on the planet.

Obviously Fox is a shitshow, but you want as many people realising it's possible to stand up to these companies as possible and if even a few Fox viewers gain a more favourable view of unions then that's a positive.

why does anyone care about this sort of nonsense. it's a big news story, makes sense that he'd be interviewed by every type of media outlet. does nitwit progressive twitter think it's "their" story and only "their" media outlets should get the interview? that's ridiculous, why does anyone pay attention to that sort of thinking? actually, a more appropriate question is does anyone outside of nitwit progressive twitter care about it? probably not.

also, fox strives to always be fighting against "biased liberal media", so they tend to hate Jeff Bezos, since he owns the Washington Post. So it actually makes perfect sense that they'd want to give a platform to someone who beat Amazon at anything.

 

[catalog]

I think defining people as a negative would be incredibly unpleasant. I doubt anyone wants to be defined in terms of what they're not.

but do you not think it's also unpleasant to define someone in terms of their colour full stop? like, to me, "person of colour" is just "coloured person" with the centering switched about. So not really much different to the 1970s. Either define the colour (black, brown etc) or define the ethnicity, like the report says. But how that will work in practical terms I dunno.

 

[boxedjoy]

I freely use "LGBT+" to refer to myself and members of my "community" quite broadly, but I am under no illusions that the challenges I face as a gay man in a Western country are the same as those faced by a trans person. I can see why the term BAME needs eradicated - even just from an outsider persepctive it's very obvious to me that, in the UK, the challenges posed by different minority communities take different forms depending on what that background is, and to pretend they are the same does everyone a disservice.

I think it's good that the language changes and evolves as a lot of terms end up co-opted. Thinking in terms of disability: forty years ago you would have used the r-word and the s-word with no unease because they were accepted terms (I've got access to real Gov't documents using these terms from as late as 1989!) but now they are weaponised insults and we don't use them. I think that's the right call by broad society.

In terms of challenging racism and bigotry in the wild: I think it's naively optimistic to believe you would always do it. You have to factor in your personal safety - so for example, are you going to get thrown out a taxi in the middle of nowhere - but also the impact it's going to have. If a friend or someone who I think seems intelligent and thoughtful says something that's not quite right I'm a lot more comfortable saying, "oh you don't really believe that do you?" but I wouldn't get into it with a taxi driver whose worldview is so narrow that they expect every passenger to be complicit with outright racism, because that's not the kind of person you're ever going to have any success with. There's thoughtless forms of racist ignorant thinking, the kind where a bit of perspective and education can make a difference - but that's not what this is: this is active, deliberate racism, and in 2022 if you hold those views you're a lost cause.

 

[boxedjoy]

Sometimes I'm really not sure what I think, in that the polite "politically correct" or woke or whatever you wanna call it society that most of us live in most of the time tend to mask some feelings. I'm not sure that I'm saying this very articulately but what I'm trying to get at is that nagging feeling that I think a lot of us have a lot of time, the one that tells us that although on the surface a lot of lip-service is being paid to anti-racism awareness and Kick It Out and all sorts of other things, it is just that, just on the surface. I think a lot of the comments above in this thread were at least related to that, maybe even taking it for granted, we all know that just cos there is an anti-racism charity in football it doesn't mean that football has dealt with racism, we know that just cos we see some guy deploring racism after the match, it's no guarantee of his real feelings or how he acts when he's drunk with his mates.

That's obvious, so obvious people didn't really even bother to mention it explicitly. So I suppose what I'm trying to say is that societies that have made it socially unacceptable to be openly racist do clearly have their own problems - but one that they don't tend to have is this kind of thing when someone comes out with these horrible and ignorant comments. A taxi driver doesn't tend to say "don't go to the beach with the black people" cos he knows that if he does there is a reasonable chance that someone will report him and he will get in trouble. He may well be thinking that to himself but he won't dare to say it.

I do think there is probably some truth about how if you change language it does tend to change thought. That if people realise that their openly racist comments keep getting them in trouble then they stop saying them and start biting their tongue instead. And then maybe after a while they stop thinking it so much too. Though of course that raises more questions about whether it's ok to bully people into being better like with Alex in Clockwork Orange - in this instance people haven't learned or got nicer or whatever, they have just mended their ways to stay out of a trouble, like a kind of pavlovian reaction... giving someone an electric shock every time they swear will probably stop them swearing....

my theory on trans rights issues in the UK media right now is that people are punching down on these people because it's the last group that it's really considered acceptable to do so with. But the arguments - trans people need to stay out of the toilets because they're all sexual predators - are the same arguments I heard about LGBT+ people growing up 20 years ago and have existed longer than I've been alive. So when I hear people make these arguments, what I'm really hearing is that they also believe that gay people need to stay out of public bathrooms because they're all also a threat of sexual violence - it's just that they aren't allowed to say it because we've decided collectively as a society that the viewpoint isn't publically permissible.

 

[Mr. Tea]

why does anyone care about this sort of nonsense. it's a big news story, makes sense that he'd be interviewed by every type of media outlet. does nitwit progressive twitter think it's "their" story and only "their" media outlets should get the interview? that's ridiculous, why does anyone pay attention to that sort of thinking? actually, a more appropriate question is does anyone outside of nitwit progressive twitter care about it? probably not.

also, fox strives to always be fighting against "biased liberal media", so they tend to hate Jeff Bezos, since he owns the Washington Post. So it actually makes perfect sense that they'd want to give a platform to someone who beat Amazon at anything.

You'd have thought, if anything, that taking the debate to 'the enemy' (vis-a-vis a union organizer going on a notably right-wing news, or "news", network) would be a massive coup, right?

 

[catalog]

In Portugal we still have good old-fashioned overt acism which always catches me by surprise. I saw my friend Renato on Saturday and he told me that he had gone to this club called Incognito and someone came up to him and said "Oh, I see they're letting black people in here now".
Since I have been living here there I have witnessed the following directly or been told of by friends - all things that really kinda surprised me in their blatancy apart from everything else.

- people looking for flats being told by the estate agent "You won't want to live here, there are too many blacks in this area"
- taxi driver saying to us "Don't go to that beach, it's near to a train station and so loads of blacks go there. You want to go to a beach far from a station cos they can't afford cars"
- walking with a friend who wore a headscarf and someone (a black person) made a comment about her. Later a member of our group expressed outrage that "an n-word" could insult a muslim like that.
- numerous incidents that Renato has told me about including the above
- an Asian guy that we know constantly being turned away from Lux without explanation, including the other day when he was on the guest-list

friend of a friend of mine went to berlin with a group and they had a big night out, were walking home in the morning and a guy cycles past and shouts the n word at him, laughing hysterically, then cycles off. everyone very shocked and you do still feel that for all the problems in this country, you would probably not get that sort of thing. there's a big difference between uk and europe in that sense i feel

 

[Mr. Tea]

Rich's story about

a friend who wore a headscarf and someone (a black person) made a comment about her. Later a member of our group expressed outrage that "an n-word" could insult a muslim like that

is especially bizarre, since it shows someone who at least has an inkling that it's not really OK to be shitty to people because of their ethnic, racial or cultural origin... and is then really racist anyway, but in a different direction.

 

[WashYourHands]

doubt humanity will ever transcend race bigotry

 

[catalog]

Funny how all the people that put she/his/they in their twitter bios don't do the same for ethnicity and colour.

 

[version]

but do you not think it's also unpleasant to define someone in terms of their colour full stop? like, to me, "person of colour" is just "coloured person" with the centering switched about. So not really much different to the 1970s. Either define the colour (black, brown etc) or define the ethnicity, like the report says. But how that will work in practical terms I dunno.

Yeah, I agree. I just had a gut reaction to the thought of defining people in opposition to things.

 

[version]

You'd have thought, if anything, that taking the debate to 'the enemy' (vis-a-vis a union organizer going on a notably right-wing news, or "news", network) would be a massive coup, right?

They were complaining it made AOC look bad because Tucker mentioned her bailing on them and they felt Smalls didn't defend her strongly enough because he just steered the conversation back to the union. There were even people claiming he'd undone everything good he'd done simply by going on Fox... These people live in a world of "optics" and gestures.

 

[catalog]

Yeah, I agree. I just had a gut reaction to the thought of defining people in opposition to things.

Defining people by these characteristics is also part of the problem and what makes it inescapable cos if you say you are eg black, white, Indian, whatever, it somehow also reinforces a sense of difference and particularity which in itself is not bad but it does mean you might miss other aspects of a person

 

[version]

Defining people by these characteristics is also part of the problem and what makes it inescapable cos if you say you are eg black, white, Indian, whatever, it somehow also reinforces a sense of difference and particularity which in itself is not bad but it does mean you might miss other aspects of a person

Totally, but telling people what they are is not white or not straight or whatever seems even worse to me.

 

[Mr. Tea]

They were complaining it made AOC look bad because Tucker mentioned her bailing on them and they felt Smalls didn't defend her strongly enough because he just steered the conversation back to the union. There were even people claiming he'd undone everything good he'd done simply by going on Fox... These people live in a world of "optics" and gestures.

You know, a cynic might be tempted to think that for some people, exhibiting the correct level of ideological purity in front of their peer group is far more important than making concrete improvements to the economic conditions for working people.

 

[catalog]

Totally, but telling people what they are is not white or not straight or whatever seems even worse to me.

We'll I would prefer that but that's my own idiosyncracy I suppose

 

[version]

We'll I would prefer that but that's my own idiosyncracy I suppose

Fair enough.

 

[shakahislop]

I'd be interested to know how people would react to some of the above. The one that sticks out to me was the one about the beach. We were in a cab on our way one at the time. It was me and Liza and a friend of mine from school, not actually an especially close one but we are in touch and he was gonna come through Lisbon so we met up - that sort of feels relevant as it may have affected the amount to which we felt we could rely on each other for a united front, I dunno. Anyway it's a bit of a drive, we were kinda half way there, on the motorway and the guy comes out with that.... what would you do?

Predictably enough we basically did nothing. We were in the back and we all sort of looked at each other and there was big awkward silence. I guess we didn't want an argument, we didn't want to get dumped in the middle of nowhere. We didn't know what to do... ultimately, there's not really much more that I can say except admit that we were just pussies. We pretended not to hear and changed the subject. He clearly knew that he had pissed us off cos at the end as he dropped us off he said it again or some variant on it. Which is probably a perfect example of how our weakness and the way we just did nothing even though we all clearly thought it was wrong emboldened him. Thinking back I feel a bit ashamed, I wish that I could tell you that I righteously brow-beat him into an apology but that would be far from the truth. Sorry. I would like to hear what people think that they would have done, honest assessments of course.

The other thing. Kinda from the other side. Renato telling me about that guy deliberately making a racist comment to him and in a way the challenge for him was to not rise to it. In the previous example it was incumbent on us to do something, to make the effort to do the right thing. Here it was the other way round in that it would have been very easy for him to snap but in fact (he told me) that he almost got really annoyed but actually controlled himself and he said that he grabbed the guy's arm and just said to him very clearly and in a manner that was serious and heartfelt "That's not a nice thing to say". I think that was quite well done in the circumstances, he made a real attempt to force the guy to actually think about what he was saying and understand that it was being directed not at some abstract group but at a particular individual and that it was hurtful and cruel etc etc

As it happens, those guys have been going to that club for years, they know the owner and the staff and so on and another member of the group pointed the bloke out and he was thrown straight out. That wasn't down to Renato but I think he would have been well within his rights to do that as well - what I mean is, yeah, he rose above violence or even anger and that's great but there is no reason for him to rise above having that guy booted out. If it had been him who had made that happen I don't think that that would have in any way detracted from his having managed to not get annoyed if you see what I mean.

I find that, well it depends on exactly the circumstance, what your interlocuteur is like, loads of things, but normally there's a way to express your disagreement with that stuff without it becoming too much of a confrontation. Righteous indignation where you're telling someone of generally doesn't work.

 

[sufi]

I find that, well it depends on exactly the circumstance, what your interlocuteur is like, loads of things, but normally there's a way to express your disagreement with that stuff without it becoming too much of a confrontation. Righteous indignation where you're telling someone of generally doesn't work.

also answering @IdleRich's question
was it here or elsewhere that i read that a nice strategy (nicer than righteous indignation) is feigned ignorance, and digging in to the slur; "oh really , what's wrong with going to the beach with the black people then" "oh really and why is that" "oh you think they are what?" etc until the racist has to be explicit or retreat... snide racism deserves a snide response

 

[sufi]

also answering @IdleRich's question
was it here or elsewhere that i read that a nice strategy (nicer than righteous indignation) is feigned ignorance, and digging in to the slur; "oh really , what's wrong with going to the beach with the black people then" "oh really and why is that" "oh you think they are what?" etc until the racist has to be explicit or retreat... snide racism deserves a snide response

that's quite a non-confrontational strategy, but takes patiance and maybe some confidence and determination and cunning

 

[sufi]

actually i thought luke's comments about my and @craner's racisms were erm interesting, no honestly, worth exploring
the ones immediately preceding this post

i'm going to kick his face in