What Is the Human Cost of Racism?
by Carmen Van Kerckhove
I’m joining the folks listed above to guest-blog over at Talking Points Memo’s TPMCafe this week about race, politics, and Obama’s speech.
My latest post is titled What Is the Human Cost of Racism? Here’s an excerpt:
We can (and should) talk all day long about employment discrimination, racial disparities in sentencing, redlining, disproportionate healthcare, voter suppression, segregation in public schools, the prison-industrial complex, and more.
But by solely discussing racism in such aggregate and abstract terms, I worry that we will lose sight of the real reason all of this matters. Racism is a problem not merely because it represents some abstract sense of societal injustice. It’s a problem because of the hurt, pain, anger, and suffering it causes to individual human beings.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
johnjihoonchang wrote:
Hi Carmen,
The link to your latest post actually links to your previous post on TMP.
Posted 03 Apr 2008 at 1:08 pm ¶
Carmen Van Kerckhove wrote:
Fixed – thanks!
Posted 03 Apr 2008 at 1:19 pm ¶
The Cruel Secretary wrote:
Carmen–on-point post, as always! I also noticed the foolishness died a little, i.e no one critiquing your using slang. *Eye roll* Perhaps the TPMCafe folks read what we said about them at this here blog?
I read your TPMCafe after I posted my last comment on the thread about your last TPMCafe post. Reading this one, I wonder if an addendum to your idea could be that both people–the person speaking and acting in racist ways and the person on the receiving end of it–suffer, not just the recipient?
Posted 03 Apr 2008 at 3:55 pm ¶
Nonso C. Ugbode wrote:
I thought that waa a succinct observation about personal stories. This is why I believe there needs to be an overhaul of our relationship with public media in this country, I for one think the whole reason for a public media system funded by the government is to provide regular people with these stories, wherever they are, watching TV in their living room or online.
Good one!
Posted 03 Apr 2008 at 8:59 pm ¶
Torontonian wrote:
Interesting post. I wish it wasn’t true.
As you said, we can’t throw facts and statistics out the window, so how do we integrate statistics with personal experiences?
I personally dislike the idea of emphasizing personal experience, but I can’t argue with the psychology experiment, lol. Personal experience is powerful stuff and a double-edged sword. Although you read about the individual experiences of poor people, another person could have read a book about someone who pulled themselves up from their bootstraps, went against the odds, and went from rags to riches. If that 1 person out of 99 pulled themselves out of poverty, the rugged individualist argues, why can’t the other 99 do the same?
Posted 04 Apr 2008 at 7:51 pm ¶
Torontonian wrote:
Oh snap, I just realized that your post, Carmen, did a good job of integrating statistics and personal experience.
Posted 04 Apr 2008 at 8:21 pm ¶
Carmen Van Kerckhove wrote:
> Although you read about the individual experiences of poor people, another person could have read a book about someone who pulled themselves up from their bootstraps, went against the odds, and went from rags to riches.
That’s a really good point, Torontian. Though I guess one could argue the same is true about statistics – you can twist those to serve your purpose as well. Like Disraeli said, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
Posted 05 Apr 2008 at 8:43 am ¶
william shepherd wrote:
The price is poverty, lack of education, little hope, no healthcare, and enclaves filled with generational race-based-pain.
America’s darkest pit of urban squalor rest in America’s entertainment mecca; skid row Los Angeles.
Years in the making, cycles of dispair, and little understanding from the culture that created this mess: http://www.skidrowportrait.aminus3.com
Peace.
william
Posted 06 Apr 2008 at 9:17 pm ¶