Exploration into Racism – Social

There are three aspects to racism.

1. Individual – How do I personally interact with individuals from different races and cultures? My personal attitudes are my personal responsibility. I express them. The consequences result from my own actions.

2. Social – What am I a part of? How do collective attitudes affect the experience of members of other communities? To what extent do stereotypes play in the society that I am part of? (Perpetrator, victim, witness, healer).

And what is the interaction of “I” to “we”.

3. Political/institutional – What is institutionalized politically? What attitudes get played out into affecting the decisions of acceptability of say going to war, versus not going to war; or how and whether to introduce a product/service/enterprise globally?

I want to emphasize that there are two+ status’ relative to racism or any social problems in all three spheres.

1. Perpetrator/Victim

2. Healer

In a nutshell, the purpose of inquiry into racism is NOT to justify one’s own prejudice and institutionalization, but to transform it.

“We” contrasts with them. I am part of tribes. I accept that and seek to participate effectively.

In contast there are two universal “we’s”. One is the universal “we” of undifferentiated commercial mush (global economy). The other is of  ideal spiritual humanism, universal citizenship (a potential in attitude, a fantasy objectively. We all associate into families, communities, tribes.)

In a nutshell, I’ve never found a setting where there was an absence of “we”/them.

Socially, I’m part of a few “we’s”. I am Jewish (“we” by my choice as well as external). I am a baby boomer (“we” by common time and context, accepted but not chosen). I’m formerly a hippie, member of the longhair psychelic community (“we” by former choice). I’m originally from the New York area (“we” by circumstance, not of my choosing, comfortable though). I’m college educated, intellectually oriented, prospectively elite (“we” by circumstance also). I’m American (“we” by circumstance). I’m white (“we” by circumstance. Those of color externally often seem to relate to me as “white”.)

The point is that there are some “we”‘s that I chose, and the formation of common attitudes on that basis are our responsibility in origination, continuity and affects on others.

There are some “we’s” that I was just born into, not particularly important to me except by residue. I am responsible for common attitudes in the sense that I don’t attempt to reconstruct them, if harmful to others.

And, there are some “we’s” that I am clearly part of, either by being a beneficiary or accepting, but that are primarily defined by others.

As my black friends are only superficially “black” to me personally (I see their faces, the happiness and/or pain and not their skin color.) I hope that I am only superficially “white” to them (again seeing my face, not my skin color).

I know that my black friends have experienced a stronger weight of how they are seen and how that is institutionalized. They have the same mix of “what is that we are, what is it that we are a part of, what do others project on us?”

I don’t spend much time with those that bear conspicuous prejudices, stereotypes, and have really never learned any of the “blacks are…”, or “Jews are …”, or “Chinese are ….”. I ignored it when I encountered it in family or community, all of my life. I’m both less prejudiced than many, and naive.

One exception is that dress does communicate to me. I see black, white, latinos wearing pants at their knees with a crooked cap, I think “drug dealer” or “gang banger”, certainly someone who doesn’t care and has no serious effort.

So, I do have ageism. I tend to wonder about young people. The cues from my youth aren’t there.

I know that prejudices exist though. In foreign countries, I am wary. Mostly that poor people scare me. Not that they are poor, but that I can’t rely on the affluence to indicate that I am free from violence towards me. I can’t tell who is hateful, from who is predatory (seeing me as a commercial mark), from who is friendly and trustable (and in what way).

I also know that what appears as prejudice doesn’t always originate as prejudice, even some generalizations about others. For some, the identification of a common enemy is what forms a community, as sad as that is. We don’t all possess the mature liberty to actually voluntarily form our relationships and communities.

In other situations, respectful identification of what is valued as important to the other community, devolves into prejudice. For example, among Muslim communities, (and orthodox Jewish) I’ve observed a pattern of family being important, even in urban cosmopolitan areas, and women are protected physically and from emotional intrusion. That has morphed into some contempt, some generalization that Muslim women are only subordinated. (Its true in cases, and not in others.)

Prejudices come out in times of stress. At my shul recently, we were victims of a extended embezzlement by a non-Jewish woman. I expected much prejudice against “goys” to be expressed. There definitely was some, but much less than I anticipated.

Among Jews my age, I do hear comments of fears of Arabs of Muslims. Similar to my fears, I believe that the majority of that is fear of the unknown, and fear of the possibility of hatred and violence. Those of us liberal Jews that have gotten involved in Israel/Palestinian peace efforts, have heard racially violent expression from some dissenters directed towards Jews in general, not only criticisms of policies. We don’t know how widespread the attitudes of contempt for Jews are among Arab and Muslim communities, and we often don’t know how to distinguish a threat from a criticism. (In academic settings, hateful rage is dilluted. The speakers hesitate to yell in deference to the setting, and they are a minority.)

“What do they REALLY think?”

I’ve personally been both harrassed at times, scared horribly, and also amazingly surprised and welcomed. I’ve been in very foreign settings, in the West Bank, Egypt and India, some known to be dangerous. I’ve experienced the dangers exagerated in the West Bank by worried Zionists, and some dangers naively dismissed by liberal ideologs.

Between Jews and Arabs, both think of themselves as victims. My sense is that many Arabs and Muslims are very sensitive to being scapegoated for 911 still, and the general tone and set of associations. It is true that the vast majority of Muslims and Arabs are genuinely just civilians, peaceful individuals and families just trying to live their lives, law-abiding.

It is always the dramatic exceptions that evoke the fears that prejudices are constructed.

I am personally a skeptic. I don’t buy what others tell me. I personally don’t look for cues  how to distinguish “them” from “us”, how to get along. That combined with self-inquiry, seems to be the tool that enables me to belong healthily, to not invest in prejudice in my association in the various “groups” that I participate in.

I wish kind skepticism were more universal. Tests of loyalty in times of stress is more the norm, identification of who is “us” vs who is “them”.

Tomorrow on politics.