(no subject)

[vianegativa]

Fundamentally apparently, everyone is an -ist.

Don't like humping skinny blokes? You're a sizist. Don't feel attracted to African-American folks? You're a racist. Don't have 85 year old folks you are besties with and visit in a rest home? Ageist. Don't have enough female friends? You're sexist.

At least this is what a certain new crop of firebrands saying they represent "social justice" have been shouting from the mountaintops. Apparently, even if you don't hold a prejudice against people because of their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientaion or age you're racist now because you are subconciously reinforcing a societal norm that subtlely keeps racist or prejudiced beliefs in place by not having enough of a certain type of friend or not being attracted to every race, color, or body type equally.

That's right: You've never used the N-Word. Never saw anything other than a person rather than a skin color. You're STILL racist because you haven't overturned society in a flaming wreckage while complaining about "white privlege", loudly, between your gender studies courses at Harvard from your shiny new Mac book.

See what I'm getting at? Assuming someone is a racist because they don't have "enough" black friends is a binary fallacy, and sloppy debate at best. You aren't blond so you must be brunette. Andy Warhol depicted Soup, so he must hate sandwiches. that intellectuals proffering social change use such messy antics in their discussions would be humorous if it wasn't so disgustingly counterproductive.

This post came about because I saw an artist online get lambasted by folks because in his personal pin-ups page he had not drawn men of color. Now mind you, in his webcomic he has people of color, none of whom are parodies and none of whom are anything aside from characters, same as any of his others in the strip. That doesn't matter, nor does the fact he'd dated or had relations with folks of other colors, he was loudly & wildly proclaimed a racist.

Now I've known racism. My husband worked for 19 years on the West Side of Chicago, in an elementary school where there was little opportunity for the children aside from violence. He put blood, sweat & tears into trying to help those children. I've had quaint little Southern ladies tell me horribly racist things in a sweet, grandmotherly tone. I've seen people be small-minded and foolish, glossing over people based solely on appearance.

So having SEEN these things, I'm bewildered when a white intellectual handily tells someone he's racist because he's not attracted to every imaginable race or color of man. I feel it's vainglorious claptrap being spouted by an armchair quaterback who is gleeful in his use of the term "white privelege," all the while enjoying his nifty college education from the comfort of his living room with his bewildering techno toys and absolute lack of contact with what real racism or prejudice.

To me, racism is a cognitive choice. Choosing to step outside the norms of your society is as well. We are all products of our society and influenced in hundreds of subconcious ways by culture and upbringing. If you can step beyond that and see people beyond the learned responses of parents, mentors, friends and society, then you are working to end racism.

Make no mistake, racism exists. White privelege exists. However, taking the Civil Rights movement into the bedroom is arrogant and completely misplaced, and more importantly only demeans people actually trying to create egalitarianism for every race, creed, belief, etc.

I really don't need to see pundits with all the credibility of a Fox News Tea Party Rally coverage jump into the fray on the behalf of racial inequality. Do everyone a favor: educate yourself about real racism and combat that rather that venting wildly about the racial oppression of Strawberry Shortcake. It's true that racism is prevalent when people are not exposed to deifferent races, beliefs, and creeds, so rather than attack individuals for personal tastes, why don't you strive to expose people to different cultures and ways of life?

Or, you could just bitch more about racial inequality from that awesome loft apartment while shopping for cute queercore shoes on Etsy. Your call.

 

Comments

[clintswan.livejournal.com]

suh-NAP!

:o)

[beardarren.livejournal.com]

Um... Yep.

Though I would bring up one slight bit of contention... We all have our own prejudices and biases. It's just kinda part of the human condition. And yes, when you are raised in a racist, sexist, ageist, homophobic society, then those attitudes become part of your world view, regardless of whether its conscious or unconscious. The problem, as I see it, is not calling other people out on subtle racism, sexism, homophobia etc. but rather to admit your own. Anyway, that's just how I view it. And for the people complaining about no men of color in the pin up drawings... fuck you, who cares as long as the men are hot... oops now I'm a lookist...