Obama and Myths of Racial Democracy
by Guest Contributor Marisol LeBron, originally published at NACLA (North American Congress on Latin America)
Political pundits have celebrated president-elect Barack Obama’s sweeping and historic victory as evidence that the United States has taken an initial step toward a “post-racial” or “colorblind” society.
In a recent Los Angeles Times Op-Ed, Shelby Steele provocatively asked, “Doesn’t a black in the Oval Office put the lie to both black inferiority and white racism? Doesn’t it imply a ‘post-racial’ America?” Analysts on both sides of the political spectrum have answered yes. Phillip Morris of the Cleveland Plains Dealer declared, “America has completed its evolution into a racial meritocracy.” While Jonathan Kay of Canada’s National Post wrote, “Electing a black president won’t instantly cure ‘the ugly racial wound left by America’s history’ (as The Economist put it in its Obama endorsement). But it will at least prove that America has finally become a fundamentally post-racial society—a place where tribal loyalties are based on ideology, not skin color.” Meanwhile, another conservative columnist, Laura Hollis of Townhall.com, flatly claimed, “Racism is dead.”
Most interesting, and perhaps troubling, is the way Latin America is being used by observers to symbolize what a “post-racial” future will look like for the United States. In a syndicated report for McClatchy Newspapers, Tyler Bridges remarked, “This year’s election presents intriguing story lines for Latin Americans. Race is a less important issue here than it is the United States, but many dark-skinned Latin Americans are quietly cheering for Obama.”
U.S. commentators most often point to the concept of mestizaje as an example of Latin America’s seamless racial integration. Mestizaje, or racial mixing, is often seen as diametrically different to historical U.S. legal sanctions against miscegenation—the so-called “one-drop” rule. Mestizaje is cited as a prime example of how Latin Americans have been able to move beyond race. Although mestizaje has different historical roots and trajectories within different Latin American countries, there has been a rhetorical emphasis across the board on a kind harmonious racial exceptionalism at work in Latin America.
The everyday practices and lived experiences of many Latin Americans, however, paint a different picture. Writing for NACLA, Marisol de la Cadena notes, “One of the most puzzling, disconcerting phenomena that the non-native visitor confronts while traveling in Latin America is the relative ease with which pervasive and very visible discriminatory practices coexist with the denial of racism.”
It was that sense of disconcerting confusion that bloggers and journalists felt when Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez repeatedly referred to Obama not by his name, but as simply “el negro,” during a press conference in March. One part from Chávez’s speech was particularly telling. Roughly translated, he told reporters, “For a Black man to become President of the United States is no small thing… We are not asking him to be a revolutionary or a socialist. No, [we ask] only that this Black man who is about to become President of the United States realize the circumstances that this world is living in. From right here and right now we who are Indian, Black, Caribbean and South American are sending positive energy to el hombre negro.”
Although Chávez was clearly expressing excitement—even solidarity—over the prospect of an African-American holding the highest position in U.S. government, the fact that Obama remained basically nameless and was only referred to by his race throughout the press conference is a telling example of the seemingly innocuous discriminatory practices and racism that permeate everyday life in Latin America.
Chávez’s statements were so shocking to many people precisely because he was so open about referring to Obama only in terms of his race in an international and public setting, disrupting the idea of Latin America as a kind of “post-racial” utopia. Some might dismiss Chávez’s comment as a linguistic misfire attributable to Latin America’s unique racial lexicon. But such a dismissal is a missed opportunity to poke holes in the underlying myth of racial democracy that is clearly at work.
As one blogger quipped, “We know some might find it tempting to dismiss Chávez’s statements as a product of cultural difference in talking about race, but this is a man who is in charge of a nation – not your uncle Tito watching Sabado Gigante.” It was not the first time a Latin American national leader has made offensive remarks about race on the world stage. Recall President Vicente Fox’s statement about Mexicans doing jobs in the United States that “even blacks don’t want.” Or when Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso publicly claimed to have some African ancestry by explaining he had “one foot in the kitchen.” Moments like these lift the thin veil of racial democracy in Latin America and exposes the long road ahead on issues of race and social justice in the region.
The promotion of mestizaje and racial democracy in Latin America has often existed alongside, and as part of, the suppression of populations of African and indigenous descent. National identities based on mestizaje served the dual purpose of “uniting” fractious nations under one banner while at the same time promoting the mass marginalization of racial and ethnic groups by denying their discrimination.
Several scholars have helped dispel the myth of racial democracy in Latin America by documenting what is often referred to as blanqueamiento (whitening), or mejorando la raza (improving the race). In one example, blanqueamiento is actively sought out by marrying a lighter-skinned person, thereby producing lighter, racially mixed offspring. Sociologist Ginetta E. B. Candelario has traced the many ways blanqueamiento is promoted in Dominican society. As evidence, she points to the range of skin creams and hair products marketed to produce a whiter-looking phenotype among Dominican women.
Any observer scratching the least bit below the surface would realize Latin America is far from a racial democracy. Statistical indicators consistently show indigenous and African populations in Latin American countries at the very bottom of the social and economic ladder. Proposing Latin America as model for U.S. racial harmony is absurd, and doing so negates the current climate of colorblind racism still operating in the United States.
Sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva writes about how rhetoric of a color-blind society functions to perpetuate racial inequality without appearing or sounding deliberately racist. Color-blind racism, or the idea that race is no longer a significant issue deserving of our efforts or attention, works to justify the continued marginalization and disenfranchisement of people of color in the United States.
As Moya Bailey, an activist academic, points out in a recent blog post: “Structural racism depends on the exceptions (Obama, Oprah, etc.) to hide the rule that is inequity…. So I pledge to stay vigilant, critical and skeptical. I pledge also to be active, visible, and hopeful for the world I wish to see. It will take more than one man’s rise to power to undo centuries old structural oppressions built along the axes of race, gender, sexuality, ability and age. The struggle continues.”
Racial hierarchies are still at work in the United States and Latin America, and this injustice will continue until these hierarchies are actively deconstructed.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
CVT wrote:
The most dangerous people - in regards to keeping systemic racism in place - are those naive folks on top who claim “race is dead” or that we’re all “color-blind” now. Because then they take that as an excuse to pack up and stop doing anything or thinking consciously about race - leaving the remaining racism (which is still SO strong) right where it is: everywhere.
Posted 19 Nov 2008 at 10:57 am ¶
nonogirl wrote:
Thank you for this eloquent and insightful post. I have done a fair amount of traveling in South and Central America and I can attest to the fact that the people and environments in these countries is far from racially blind. So many blatantly discriminatory and violent things have happened to me and my travel companions, from Mexico, to Peru to Brazil. I am a professional of Asian decent , American born and raised and have traveled with people of Asian and black decent. I always carry myself with pride, I am always polite/respectful and observe the social norms of the host society. In turn, I have been harassed with calls of “China, china” (nevermind that I’m not of Chinese decent) and rude gesturing both men, women and children pulling the slanty-eyed thing, men grabbing their crotches. My friends and I have been robbed repeatedly (I was even told by a Bolivian-American on a train ride that many South Americans target visitors of Asian decent). I have been spit on, after being called various slurs, on the street. I have had my American passport confiscated in Peru while the airport officials played games with me, asking how a “China” could have a US passport, poking and joking with each other. I have had an Indigenous Indian man, in his early twenties, ask me where I was really from since in his words, “Americans have blue eyes and blonde hair. They are white. You are not white.” I have had numerous experiences with people of Latin American decent right here in NYC do many of the same things, from calling me names, to following me down the street “staring me down,” to a Puerto Rican woman on a subway look down at me (literally) while I’m in a suit coming home from work and the Asian American CHILD next to me, unrelated, and say to her companion loudly in heavily accented English “Let’s move to the other end of the care. I don’t wanna be around all these chinks.” Let’s get real people. Latin culture is most definitely NOT colorblind. Just a FEW of my experiences as an Asian American here and abroad.
Posted 19 Nov 2008 at 11:07 am ¶
atlasien wrote:
Great analysis in this article. I think it’s simply impossible to say that the racism is either better or worse in Latin America. It’s a mixed bag… mostly it’s just different.
A few general differences:
- overlapping but different standards of physical characteristics for racial terms
- talking about race in terms of physical characteristics is more acceptable and less negatively charged
- whiteness is visible, not an invisible standard, like in the U.S.
- greater tolerance for interracial relationships
- hyperdescent instead of hypodescent
- racial hierarchy more visible
- racial hierarchy more strongly tied to class
I wrote a short post last year about Benito Juarez, a 19th century Mexican President who overcame much more in order to rise to the top than Obama did today… he was 100% indigenous and didn’t even learn to speak Spanish until he was 12. To summarize my post, it was an amazing achievement and he did a lot of good as President, but his election did not result in anything even resembling full equality and justice for indigenous Mexicans.
Posted 19 Nov 2008 at 11:07 am ¶
atlasien wrote:
Just read nonogirl’s comment… I’ve been to Mexico, Peru and Puerto Rico, and have stayed in Mexico for long periods of time. My experience is similar in a lot of ways, including endless calls of “china, china” and disbelief that I’m really an American.
However, my experiences aren’t quite as negative. That I could tell, no one was ever outright hostile to me because of my race. One positive thing about Latin America is that there didn’t seem to be an undercurrent of antipathy towards Asians that you get in the United States. That is, a lot of negative historical associations — WWII, Vietnam War, “Chinese stealing jobs”, “Japanese buying up American” — just didn’t exist in Latin America. The stereotypes of Asians were more shallow.
I read an African-American expat in Korea blog where she describes the same phenomenon in Korea… stereotypes of black people are prevalent in Korea, but they lack the historical weight and depth that they have in America. They’re more shocking on the surface, but are easier to fight against once they’re engaged.
Posted 19 Nov 2008 at 11:55 am ¶
shoepins wrote:
I agree with the other Asians that have traveled in Latin America. People there are totally racist towards Asians and Blacks. I am originally from Nicaragua, but of Chinese descent and I experienced a lot of name calling, the infamous pulling of the eyes gesture, and the “ching chong” chants. In Nicaragua is perfectly acceptable to call someone an Indian (as in Native American) as an insult. It’s synonymous with stupid and lazy. People in general are more overtly racist than covertly like in the US.
This mestizaje that you refer to occurred mainly because of the lack of Spanish women in the colonies and also as a means to Christianize the native population. The Conquistadores had a racial hierarchy where the Spaniards from Spain were on top, their descendants born in the colonies second, mestizos (half Native America, half Spanish) third, Native Americans after, and a whole slew of mixtures. But that hierarchy still exists today. Their shows all use white or light skinned actors. If they show a Native American or Black is usually a maid or some type of help. The magazines all use white models. Almost all models coming out of Brazil are white. There’s is no color blind society in Latin America. Sure, it’s more racially mixed, but their still plenty of racism.
Posted 19 Nov 2008 at 1:03 pm ¶
Chicanaskies wrote:
I have to side more with atlasien on this one. It’s just different, and it’s difficult for a United Statesian to understand. I am Mexican American and while I grew up in California, we often went to Mexico to visit family.
It’s just different. There are not really racial “identities” the way there are here. It’s more about physical characteristics. If you say someone is “blanco”, you are saying they have light skin, not neccesarily that they have this “white” identity. Ditto for “negro”. A term like “indio” doesn’t neccessarily apply to all indigenous pple, only to those who retain indigenous culture. There are plenty of indigenous (”racially”) pple who are part of mainstream Mexican culture and wouldn’t qualify as “indio”. makes sense? There are many people of mixed-african descent in mexico too, but they are not considered “black” neccesarily if they are part of mainstream mexican culture. Your eyes just kind of gloss over that…
Now that I have learned about Afro-Mexicans, I think back to Latino people I know, and I bet some of them have African descent, just based on physical characteristics. But I spent the first 24 years of my life not realizing this because, I think, as you say, there is this “color-blindness” in Latin American countries. Racial identities just don’t really exist or as emphasized as much as here in the US, especially because of the degree of racial intermixing. I don’t this is better or worse, just different.
Posted 19 Nov 2008 at 1:04 pm ¶
drispe wrote:
[Seriously, the “posting comments too fast” glitch is on my last nerve. I practically typed an essay that got erased!!]
As usual, exceptions to the rule are being exploited. Oprah and the president-elect were helped along by heaping doses of cynicism. America had to be halfway down the drain before Obama was elected. Since he’ll have more political trash to clean up than any other president in decades, sure let the Black man get a turn! The popular vote was still miraculously close, given the downfall that John McCain was intent on continuing. Media pundits have a vested interest in declaring the end of racism, so we skip a step and stop analyzing or combating the inequality that benefits their industry. Have you ever seen an agenda so blatant? Their complicity in hastening our ignorance is alarming, if they’ll label a meritocracy that doesn’t exist BEFORE he even takes office. Nothing has changed, and it will be quite a while if it ever does. Not that this election should only appeal to the hearts of white Americans. The hoodlums in my area aren’t suddenly saints because it’s a new day for people who look like them. David Dinkins was the first African American mayor of NYC in 1989. Guess how much that helped his people. Better yet, cue the laugh track.
Oprah was a jovial, sexually unthreatening, overweight and dark skinned Black woman when her show debuted. Along with Nell Carter, she inspired plenty of lingering Mammy fantasies in the 1980s. Had she been fair, svelte and cerebral, we wouldn’t know her today. Not as someone trusted with an entry into America’s homes 5 days a week, anyway. If she was so progressive, we wouldn’t need to get excited about Obama. Someone else would have brought the change he represents by now. November 4th will always denote a historic moment, but the moment is OVER. The campaign was a fight to win an election. Done. Now the president has to preside. Honestly, there’s already too much on the man’s agenda to make him responsible for racial harmony too, like it’s even on his mind. On 60 Minutes this past Sunday, he started in on the significance of his achievement - to his mother-in-law’s generation! If he can’t even acknowledge that people born after the civil rights movement are just as disillusioned, what good is he? These people aren’t even good enough exceptions to the rule that you’re genuinely fooled. They still operate within parameters of a lily white comfort zone.
Perhaps the Latin American leaders have no use for euphemisms, but at least you know what they’re thinking. Sarah Palin’s thinly veiled rhetoric was a joke. If we’re supposedly headed for a racial climate like that of the continent below us, aren’t we already there? Lying on the outside but corrupt on the inside. The future is now.
Posted 19 Nov 2008 at 2:39 pm ¶
Paz wrote:
I was in disbelief when I read in this post that people think that Latin America is a post-racial democracy. Yeah right!
I think racism (and classism for that matter) is much more openly expressed than in the US. Race is also socially constructed, even more so than in the US. One Brazilian told me about someone he knew who when she was born, she was listed as Black. When she graduated high school, she was listed as Mulatta. When she graduated university, she was listed as White.
BTW, the “one foot in the kitchen” comment is a very common expression in Brazil.
One interesting thing I want to point out is there is a common saying in Mexico “to work like a Black” which means to work very hard (or I guess work like a slave). I think Fox’s comment referred to how traditionally Blacks have done the menial labor and now Mexicans are doing work that is even lower than that.
Obviously I don’t have to point out that the post-racism myth is a lie, but one clear example is the number of hate crimes that have erupted since Obama’s election. Also the myth assumes that there are only black-white relations in this country. And I think everyone here knows that racism is much more complex and can be expressed more subtly than just “I won’t vote for a Black man.” A dark-skinned Black man with a do-rag and grills is going to be treated differently than a light-skinned “articulate” Black man in a suit.
Posted 19 Nov 2008 at 3:08 pm ¶
jvansteppes wrote:
The phrase ‘racial barrier falls’ has me wondering if The New York Times thinks of racism like the Berlin Wall. It gives me the image of racism as a concrete physical structure being zapped by Obama’s sci-fi super powers. Nevermind that these pundits are probably in favor of the other racialized physical barrier being constructed at the southern border.
Posted 19 Nov 2008 at 4:35 pm ¶
ieishah wrote:
most people find it absolutely crazy when i tell them i had never ever in my life been called a ‘nigger’ til i did my study abroad in limon, costa rica during my junior year of uni. and i had heard before going that latinos weren’t racist, cause race didn’t exist.
one of my travel mates was dominican, very dark skinned with curly hair. though her skin was much darker than mine, i am black. but she called herself something like ‘dark, dark indio’. when i suggested she was kind of black, like most of the limonense population (yes, latino and costa rican, but the descendents of trinidadians and jamaicans and, well, black, too), she would vehemently reject the idea. telling me that the d.r. had really no black population.
fast forward to a group interview we conducted later that year with a distinguished citizen of limon. the woman (who identified as afro-american0) started talking about ‘blanqueamiento’ in costa rica, and how people are subtly and not so subtly encouraged to have mixed babies. because according to the ‘raza cosmica’ logic put forth by one jose vasconsuelos in 1925, the race problem would disappear when race disappeared.
anyway, in the middle of her exposition the woman looked at my dark indio friend and said, ‘you,*como negrita*, would have to marry a white man’. my friend was shocked. i was shocked. we were all shocked. the woman didn’t point me out, the only black identified person in the room, and by vasconsuelos’ standards, a problem. she pointed out my friend, who before that moment, would never have identified as black.
so yeah, the race issue is alive and kickin’ in latin america. even if it calls itself by some other name. like the dark, dark indio problem or whatever.
Posted 19 Nov 2008 at 4:59 pm ¶
Ric Reyes wrote:
I gotta agrre with atlasien, I’m mexican and I won’t deny there’s racism at work here and at other countries in Latin America, but I don’t think that people get as tagged about their race than in the U.S.
When I read these kind of articles what I can see somehow, along with many other points that are very valid is americans fear of mixing, maybe because of their own particular prejudices or maybe because of an honest fear that each cultural identity would get lost in the mix. like “Mestizaje is no solution! We could still end racism without getting mixed with each other” Isn’t that… racist?. Mestizaje is not “the” solution, but you’ll agree that if everyone had a cousin that belongs to another religion/ethnicity/class it’d lead to better understanding as white kids growing up under a country that has a black president does.
@ Paz: it’s all really about the money!
Posted 19 Nov 2008 at 5:12 pm ¶
truth on all levels wrote:
I really appreciate this article and those comments thus far. Racism IS NOT dead. It’s funny how it seem to be white people who say such things.
But I do have to add one thing about this beautifully written piece and your recent one. I found it very interesting in your choice of words. You said that Busta Rhymes has racists (so reverse racism exists now?) statements in his newest song(which is beyond disgusting and extremely disrespectful and ignorant) but seem to say Hugu Chavez’s comments about our President elect as offensive.
Though different they are both offensive-not racist-statements made by both Busta Rhymes and Hugo Chavez (damn…who would have thunk those two to be in a sentence any day?. ha)
I’m just commenting on your choice of words. I respect you and this blog. But felt extremely indifferent to your words of choice in your recent post.
Mod Note - This is a group blog. All the pieces have different authors. - LDP
Posted 19 Nov 2008 at 5:57 pm ¶
J wrote:
slightly off topic, but i do love that many of the people now proclaiming racism to be over are those who are least likely to experience it, and so wouldn’t much notice whether it was there or not.
Posted 19 Nov 2008 at 6:16 pm ¶
Paz wrote:
@ieishah:
your comment reminded me of a documentary I saw about how apparently there was some conflict between haiti and the DR, and so Dominicans call Haitians black pejoratively, while the Dominican President even went so far as to remove Black from the census. One Dominican who moved to NY complained that there, the Americans treated him like a black person.
There are so many words in Spanish and Portuguese (and I’m guessing in French and Creole?) for different skin colors, often I think to avoid the ultimate Black.
I personally despise when other people tell me or anyone else what race or ethnicity they are or that they’re not ___ enough, but what is wrong is placing a value on certain skin colors or features.
Posted 19 Nov 2008 at 8:06 pm ¶
Elton wrote:
For an Asian-American and native Arkansan who supported Obama in an environment rife with racially charged myths about everything from the man’s middle name to his pastor, who voted for the first time because he thought his opinion mattered even (or especially) in a solidly red state, the media’s obsession with the “first black president” come November 5th came as a slap in the face.
All along, I believed in Barack Obama because, for so many reasons, I identified with him and hoped he would be the first president to represent who I was and where I came from. I got so involved in online battles I alienated even Obama-voting Republican friends. I got into vicious arguments with my parents trying to get them to vote–they’ve been citizens for decades yet never felt their vote mattered.
Although I am still fueled by the hope that Obama will change the status quo, I look at the mainstream media’s oversimplification of Obama’s victory into an overnight revolution of racial justice as the privileged speaking from a place of privilege (and therefore ignorance), as they always do and always will. Racism is far from over; this just gives them another excuse.
On the morning of November 4, 2008, I voted across the street from where I work. This is my first job out of college–one that requires a college degree, and one that my parents have sacrificed so long and so hard to give me the chance to have. But I haven’t forgotten my roots, and I came home that afternoon to my parents’ restaurant, to help out and to try for one last shot at getting my parents to vote. (I had, after a lengthy and emotional argument, registered them to vote the month before.)
My efforts were in vain. My parents are fluent in English and fascinated by American politics, but ultimately felt too alienated, marginalized, and powerless to believe their vote mattered. They believe quite strongly that their non-participation in elections is the best way to demonstrate their perception that no matter who the president is, they won’t help us in our time of need or ever be concerned with our concerns.
Although I obviously disagree with their decision not to vote, I think my parents make a valid argument–the American president and Americans in general don’t care about working class immigrants, whether they be Asian or Latino. We form the backbone of America, doing the hard manual labor of cooking, cleaning, building, farming, truck driving, etc., as generations of laborers have done before us. My parents don’t get days off. They don’t get vacations, sick leave, or other benefits. As they are self-employed, they don’t make minimum wage. They don’t work set hours, but it’s something in the neighborhood of 14-16 every day. This is real work I’m talking about–not the kind that’s done in a suit in an office. They barely get to sit down. They didn’t even get to see their children graduate from college because they were too busy working to pay for it. Do you know how horrible that makes me feel?
Chinese restaurants like the one my family has run for 27 years are a ubiquitous symbol of American culture–with their enormous buffets, unbeatable variety, and painfully low prices, they are the manifestation of self-destructive competition among immigrants trying desperately to get a piece of the American dream by catering to American greed. And still Americans complain. Still they ignore. Still they hate the people who sacrifice so much to ensure that USA is #1.
Obama has achieved something awesome. But I don’t feel like my people have achieved that yet.
Posted 20 Nov 2008 at 4:11 am ¶
BrownLady wrote:
What a thought out post–I’m glad I read this. Just pushing the conversation in another direction, I wonder if these ‘fallen’ racial barriers are going to be hammered back up the first time President Obama makes a mistake, whatever that may be. Will his punishment be harsher than what other US Presidents have gotten? I think of cases where people of color are hired and expected to perform under more intense scrutiny than their white colleagues.
Also, in terms of Latinos in the US, what is the read on Obama? I know there was better turn out than the pollsters expected, but is there cultural ownership over him? The new wave of race discourse post-election seems to be a communal ownership over his identity–that he is black, Muslim, and even Italian (because he loves this Italian restaurant in Chicago. Anyone see that NYT article?)… Is that a similar process of communal identity with Obama for Latinos in the US, or are the racial lines more distinct?
Posted 20 Nov 2008 at 8:31 am ¶
Jess wrote:
I have to say, I don’t know anyone with even a cursory knowledge of Latin America who thought race and racism weren’t issues. Seeing Bolton up there on the BBC clip discussing it is like having me go up and discussing organic chemistry. The guy has demonstrated that he knows nothing about the wider world.
I didn’t even notice discussions of Latin America as a way to get to a post-racial society, not in the election coverage I was watching, but maybe I was missing something. It just doesn’t strike me as something that made much of an impact on the American consciousness. It may be a meme for pundits, but it wasn’t something I saw a lot of.
That said, I’d have to agree with those that noted that the racial dynamic is rather different in Latin America, and varies a lot from country ot country.
I always thought the weirdest dynamic was in places like Paraguay, where what, half the population? speaks an indigenous language, even “white” people you’d think were Irish or something. At the same time, the treatment of indigenous people in Paraguay ranked among the worst on the continent in the modern period under Stroessner. And even though a large chunk of people spoke Guarani with their friends, when the idea of using it as a Parliamentary/official language came up (in the 30s I think?) people laughed, saying only peasants would do that or something. Talk about complex class/race dynamics.
Mestizaje — someone correct me if I am wrong — seems to be something that as a concept developed mostly in Mexico, and falls off some the further south you go (I don’t think it’s accidental necessarily — Chile and Argentina are more European in outlook, I think, than Mexico or Nicaragua, and that would dovetail with their colonial and immigration histories).
Posted 20 Nov 2008 at 9:02 am ¶
DivergentDana wrote:
“Because then they take that as an excuse to pack up and stop doing anything or thinking consciously about race - leaving the remaining racism (which is still SO strong) right where it is: everywhere.”
Granted, the people you mention probably weren’t doing much of anything about it in the first place — the same people who were loath to claim that it was ever a real problem within the last 60 years are the ones who would invariably claim that it’s dead today. Luckily — or not — there’s a phenomenon that isn’t as widely touted as the aforementioned one, but notable still: white people, often from younger generations, getting clued in to the anti-black sentiment that does exist as a direct result of the election… people are seeing their relatives, co-workers and friends lose their marbles and say things that they’d never have thought they’d say, things that they thought were relegated to the past, things they may have previously thought that POCs were exaggerating about or “blowing out of proportion,” sentiments that we as POCs sense, but are rarely so brazenly expressed in our presence (with the exception of those of us who are “less visibly” POC). Through the ignorance, allies are emerging, a more thoroughly informed population is emerging — people who are “discovering” that racism is alive, and not just in the hearts and minds of stereotypical poor, Southern, uneducated scapegoats, “professional racism-fighters,” or some secret cabal of powerful POCs practicing “reverse racism” against… the very people whose widespread approval and support they’d need to acquire and sustain any semblance of real power in America.
“You said that Busta Rhymes has racists (so reverse racism exists now?) statements in his newest song(which is beyond disgusting and extremely disrespectful and ignorant) but seem to say Hugu Chavez’s comments about our President elect as offensive. ”
POC on POC racism isn’t “reverse racism.” Furthermore, I don’t see how simultaneously holding the two aforementioned positions is in any way contradictory. Positive stereotypes, whether it’s “Arabs are incredibly rich and know how to live” or “blacks understand and are particularly sensitive to the plight of the third world,” are limiting both to those who project them and those unto whom they’re projected. Believing that a certain race that isn’t one’s own has inherently positive characteristics, to a person, solely based on their racial background? That’s still racist… it’s pretty old-fashioned racism, too. Ever heard of the “noble savage” myth? Stereotypes usually taketh away when they giveth… sometimes it’s a little, and sometimes it’s a whole lot — as in the case of the “noble savage,” the “jovial, spiritual negro” — because the flip side was that we were “half-devil, half-child”, too dumb to properly utilize the resources beneath our feet as we saw fit, too dumb to live free and too damn wild to live.
Posted 20 Nov 2008 at 10:45 am ¶
CVT wrote:
And another thing -
I’m so tired of these claims that racial mixing is going to “end racism” and we’ll just all be the “same color” in the end. I’ve written extensively about why that’s not the case here:
http://choptensils.blogspot.com/2008/07/on-being-bridge.html
and here:
http://choptensils.blogspot.com/2008/11/on-interracial-math.html
Posted 20 Nov 2008 at 11:09 am ¶
cvalda wrote:
“blacks understand and are particularly sensitive to the plight of the third world,”
I’m not sure that’s quite what he was going for, I got “victims of Manifest Destiny have something in common.” Pan-American solidarity is a big point in Latin American anti-imperialism. It was a bad choice of words, but I think we should put it in context; it’s about the history of the US.
To give greater lie to Latin America as racial utopia (whuh?) both Chavez and his close ally Morales have faced open racism in their own countries.
Posted 20 Nov 2008 at 7:18 pm ¶
RChoudh wrote:
Thank you for this informative post. I learned something new today with regard to Latin American perceptions on race and social hierarchy.
I also believe that unless people fundamentally learn to respect one another and treat each other fairly despite our racial/cultural differences, then racism will not go away. It doesn’t matter how often people intermarry and have mixed kids. Pretty often the same racial discriminations and hierarchies existing within the larger society get transplanted into individual family units. So then you have family members judging and sizing up each other’s worth based on how “ethnic” they may or may not look. And you have the more “ethnic” members of the family having to work harder just to gain their own family’s approval. As if having to work extra hard to gain societal approval wasn’t pressure enough for those poor kids!
Posted 20 Nov 2008 at 10:07 pm ¶
RChoudh wrote:
@ CVT
I liked your blog posts and am in complete agreement with everything you said.
Posted 20 Nov 2008 at 10:08 pm ¶
lxy wrote:
In a recent Los Angeles Times Op-Ed, Shelby Steele provocatively asked, “Doesn’t a black in the Oval Office put the lie to both black inferiority and white racism? Doesn’t it imply a ‘post-racial’ America?” Analysts on both sides of the political spectrum have answered yes. Phillip Morris of the Cleveland Plains Dealer declared, “America has completed its evolution into a racial meritocracy.” While Jonathan Kay of Canada’s National Post wrote, “Electing a black president won’t instantly cure ‘the ugly racial wound left by America’s history’ (as The Economist put it in its Obama endorsement). But it will at least prove that America has finally become a fundamentally post-racial society—a place where tribal loyalties are based on ideology, not skin color.” Meanwhile, another conservative columnist, Laura Hollis of Townhall.com, flatly claimed, “Racism is dead.”
One always has to be suspicious when America’s self-styled Free Press is promoting a propaganda meme so insistently like, in this case, the idea of Post-Racialism.
The question to ask is: what’s the real political agenda behind this latest US disinformation campaign?
Celebration of the end of racism and America’s White supremacist system? (snicker)
The agenda is–as many have suggested–to downplay and minimize the continuing reality of (White) racism and dominance with copious lies about a post-racial society.
The very idea of “post-racialism” is cynical, self-serving, and politically sinister.
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s concept of Colorblind Racism mentioned in the article is spot on: The idea of colorblindness today serves to minimize, cloak, and thus defend the same old White racist hierarchy that is an enduring American tradition.
Don’t drink the post-racial Kool-Aid. It’s poison.
Posted 21 Nov 2008 at 3:32 am ¶
Reiter wrote:
I hate the term “reverse racism” - listen, anyone can be racist; whether you’re black, white, yellow, brown, etc. It’s not just a black and white thing. That POCs can be racist shouldn’t be news to anyone, though the media certainly tries to paint the whole issue as just being black and white.
Post-racialism; gimme a break. Just because Barack Obama is president-elect doesn’t mean that racial tensions and systemic racism have suddenly gone away the night he won over McCain. There’s still a lot of work ahead of us, and Obama certainly has his cut out for him.
Pundits will try to argue that because America has elected a half-white/half-black man as president, that there will be no more racism and use this flawed logic to shut down any more progressive talk about racial divides and quietly reinforce the status quo of white dominance by throwing POCs a bone once in a while. To their thinking, if they give POCs a few scraps off the table, that”ll be enough to distract or placate us while they point and say, “See? Now you can’t say we’re racist since one of your own was elected president!” Of course, POCs and their allies everywhere can’t and shouldn’t stand for this BS.
Racism is dead? Tell that to the Maine storeowners and elsewhere who are holding raffles to guess when (not if, when) Obama might be assassinated.
On the issue of Latin American racism; that doesn’t surprise me at all. Didn’t the Argentinian Olympic soccer team get called out for doing the same stupid chink-eye gesture as Spain’s basketball team? I’m aware that there Asian communities in Latin America, particularly Cuba and Brazil, but I wonder if racial awareness is as prominent there as it is in the States.
Posted 21 Nov 2008 at 4:28 pm ¶
JP wrote:
It is silly to insist that Latin America is a post-racial society. It’s always been the case that even in the countries with the most diverse populations and largest indigenous or Afro-latin populations, it is the White or lighter skinned people who run the show. Even in Haiti, you see this dynamic. However, I’d like to point out that racism exists everywhere in this world. There are (hopefully) increasingly more tolerant and enlightened people, but by and large almost every country has its racism. If you go to Asia you will see lots of racism against other darker-skinned Asians as well as the gaijin (in JApan) those who are foreign. In China, Blacks from any country (called black demons 黑鬼) are seen as quite low on the totem pole and there has been traditionally a class system that pitted the lighter Chinese from the darker skin Chinese. From Europe to Africa to the tribes of Papua New Guinea, there has always been a tendency to stereotype and label people based on their appearance. No one culture is innocent of racism.
Racism is a subset of humankind’s natural mechanism of defense against the “other.” Humans seek patterns and when encountering people who are unlike themselves, tend to base their perceptions of those people on whatever misguided cultural or personal experiences they may have had. Next time you’re in public. Look around at all the strangers and imagine what their lives are like. You will find yourself inevitably going down the road of stereotypes based on outward appearances. It may not always be racism per se, but these are fruits from the same tree.
That being said, humans are and can be intelligent and learn to override this desire to simplify and label. I feel the US has come a long way, but the progress is far from consistent. There are large groups who have progressed beyond the blatant racism and stereotyping of people, but there are still groups of people who live in the past. Electing a black president does say a lot about how far we’ve come, but it doesn’t signal a shift to a post-racial anything. We need to bring a lot more people along into this new world before we can even start to talk about that.
Posted 23 Nov 2008 at 12:23 am ¶
Reiter wrote:
Japan right now is going through something similar to what’s happening in the United States with Mexicans, and Europe with Muslims.
With the slowing economy and low birth rate, Japan’s population and thus its work force is shrinking as its current work force is aging. To replace these workers, particularly unskilled laborers, they’ve had to import Korean and Chinese workers to do labor that has been experiencing shortages, especially farming/harvesting.
This situation is starting to cause tensions in Japan, though nothing quite as divisive as it is in the States or Europe, at least, not yet. The bottom line is that workers are needed to perform these services, and local nationals aren’t up to the task, same with the U.S. and the Mexican immigration debate.
When I was in Okinawa, I’ve had the local people walk up to me in restaurants and other public places and mistake me for Japanese (I’m Chinese, and military) and start talking in their language. A simple misunderstanding, and no major incidents or gaffes, even with my limited knowledge of the Japanese (I did take a few classes). The people there were always very friendly and courteous, at least to me.
I realize that Okinawa is quite different from the mainland (sadly, I’ve never traveled there extensively) since Okinawa has traditionally had a good mix of many cultures, and developed independently from mainland Japan until recently, especially with America’s military presence there after WWII. It was just interesting to see that mistaken identity can happen to anyone, even to those who claim they can tell Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, etc. apart at first glance.
Posted 23 Nov 2008 at 3:44 pm ¶
lxy wrote:
One of the more disturbing things about America’s reaction to Obama’s election was the smug self-congratulations that Whites engaged in about “how far we’ve come” or even that the USA was magically less racist because of this election.
American rhetoric about post-racialism is merely a symptom of this smug arrogance.
It’s essentially another manifestation of American exceptionalism. That is, the delusion that the USA is morally superior to the rest of the world–in this case, in terms of racism.
But taking a closer look at WHY mainstream America supported Obama in the first place, the picture isn’t so pretty.
“The Obama ‘08 Phenomenon: What Have We Learned? ”
http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=873&Itemid=1
Posted 25 Nov 2008 at 5:08 am ¶