subtle racism

[ismusa]

You know, a racist person may not even know he/she is a racist.

[ismusa]

A good example of this is a place I was sent to work with 3 other workers sent from the same agency.  All of 3 of them got a handshake and a pleasure to meet you with a smile except for me, she looked at me and said "and who are you sir?".  This was a data entry temporary position, I was sitting close to all 3 of the temps so I don't see why she didn't shake my hand or greet me with a smile.  Then a week later into the data entry position she smiles and compliments how well I did.  I never saw a black person working at the place and I wonder if she had something against me or if she thought I would make errors because of the way I look before she got to know how well I performed??

I forgot to mention that time I went to the blood donation place and after I was told to have a seat for a snack time of 15 minutes this lady came by and chatted with another guy for a few moments then came to me and when I said hello her whole facial expression changed and she said your snack time is over.
people leave on their own and she doesn't tell that to other's.  I saw the evil face on her, evil isn't easy to hide. I wrote a letter to the manager explaining what she did and when I came back to get something i forgot he was still reading it and the black lady that works with the evil white woman had her eyes dialated she knew the other lady was in trouble.

[Stillwater]

Racism is an odd thing....

There are times when it is so apparent and striking, yet no one does anything about it; there are other times when a person is so accustomed to seeing it, they begin to see it everyplace, even when it doesn't exist. These people have good intentions, as they are trying to point out the descrepancies they think exist, but they unfortuantely hurt the greater cause, as now others think that whenever someone brings up racism, they are a hypochondriac of sorts.

It is much like the "Boy who cried wolf" case.

There is so much confusion about the issue, it is difficult to determine when it is occuring and when the appearance of racism is just a correlation, or a person looking for attention- which is sad, as survey data, in my opinion, clearly shows it is occuring, at least in the States.

I am sorry about what happened to you, I can easily believe the story, unfortunately.

[ismusa]

I think part of the problem with the first story i told you was that the ladies at the company i was sent to work were concerned about theft because we were data entering credit card info and I think they stereotyped me but didn't openly admit it but it was obvious by their first encounter with me.  If they knew the kind of computer knowledge I have they'd be surprised.  If a person really wanted to steal from them they could install a trojan but I don't think everyone is a criminal and I don't think people want a felony and 12 years behind prison.

[Astir]

Overt racism is far less common these days. Unfortunately there are many different kinds of racism (symbolic, structural, etc),  and as a whole it is just as pervasive as it ever was. It has just changed -- evolved actually -- to fit in better with society today. It is simply more ellusive...so much to the point that most of the time racists have no idea they are racists.

[ismusa]

Astir you are so right, if a person knew he/she is a racist then chances are they would change.  If I take a walk down mall of america walkways I would notice a lot of subtle racism like women crossing over to the otherside of the walkways.  Let me explain what happened to me on a few occassions.  The first time was when I was walking down a walkway and as I got close to a mother and her teenage daughter they jumped to the jewelry booth and the mother started showing her a necklace and as I was walking down wondering why they jumped so suddenly the girl looked back with an evil face.  I was close enough to the girl and her mother to see exactly her facial feature.  The other time this other mother and her daughter were walking towards us and she stepped to the side of a T-bone like walkway bridge until my sister and I passed by them and then they resumed walking exactly after we passed.  The most amazing experience was with this lady and her husband after encountering my somali beautiful dressed sister and her son and I.  The lady made an evil face and as her husband was smiling at my sisters son she jerked his arm so hard I was surprised.  In Afghanistan women are more humble because they know men will beat them if they do anything wrong.  That face she made was unforgetable, she had innner guilts and after seeing us she became very angry.  You can see peopl's inner guilts around black people these days, such as frequent smiling.  I've noticed some women who smile frequently at me, I wander if they do that to be more friendly because they noticed in themselves that they had hate in the past or something.

There was this other interesting experience, and I had to react to this one in order to change her behavior so she can behave better in the future but it also happened in the mall of america.  A girl and her boyfriend were walking towards me when they started crossing over to the other side and I didn't see them looking at any stores when they were crossing so I started crossing along with them too and after she saw my disappointed look she ran (yes ran) to old navy and her boyfriend kept walking past me while I nodded my head back and forth in a (no no ) type of manner.  I've noticed she turned red before she ran.  And I said that should teach her to do something like this next time. 

[Selski]

It's quite an interesting subject.  We used to discuss it in the pub.  Our scenario was as follows:

You get on a bus.  The downstairs seats are all taken so you go upstairs.  There are two free seats.  One is next to a white person, the other to a black person (or other nationality etc etc, whatever the particular type of racism/potential prejudice).  Please excuse me if I've used the word "black" and it's no longer ethical to use that word - I don't know the correct word to use - the media keep on changing it.

What do you do?  If you choose to sit next to the white person, the black person could accuse you of being racist.  If you choose to sit next to the black person, they could also accuse you of being racist due to the fact that you are obviously trying to be non-racist, but deep down you would rather sit next to the white person.

It's a bit of a no-win situation.  Whatever you do could be construed as racist.  Even if you choose to sit next to the black person, the white person could accuse you of being racist against whites (even if you yourself are white).

Personally, the whole thing, especially in this country (England) is so over the top, we don't even know which words are acceptable to use.

And what would I do in the above bus scenario?  I'd go downstairs and stand!! 

Sarah

ismusa - if the above scenario applied to you and you had the choice to sit next to a black or white person, what would you do?  Would you be concerned as to what others would think of your choice?

[ismusa]

Thats a very interesting situation and it's a tough one to deal with if it applied to me.  To me it doesn't matter what I am called, black whatever even negro, the mexicans use it as the color black (negro).  You can call me anything as long as it's not threatening.  I think I would sit with the black person because we are the minority in the country of the majority and so therefore the white man knows that we can't be a racist in a nation where we are greatly outnumbered so no one will care if I sat with a black or not.  Arabs are the greatest racists of all, they are far worser than many nations.  They unjustly execute people rather than jailing them as they did with those 6 somali teens that they accused of armed robbery.  In reality they were not armed but someone threw in a story about a knife and according to islamic law armed robbery is punishable by death. 

Racists will always look for execuses to justify their racism.  Thats why they don't know they are racist, it's because they actually believe that they are in the right.

Deep down there is hate of a poor person for being poor as if they are low and are loosers.  Little do people know that poor people actually have a higher status in the eyes of god.  Things will be turned upside down in the afterlife, the rich will become miserable and the poor will have every desire satisfied.

[Astir]

In any situation, just remember to smile at everyone...it makes a negative assumption more difficult to process. There are simple things you can do that naturally disarm people.