Category Archives: Race

The Right Language: Talking About Race and Identity

by Same Air

I was recently reading about racial identity formation and the author of the book explicitly rejected the term “non-White.” This is a term I use frequently in previous posts, so I began reconsidering the language I use in race-based discussions. I want to start by saying that I am reflecting my opinions on the language I choose to use. I do not mean to say anything about any large group of people (e.g., all x people like to be called z). What sort of words do we use to identify people? Why does it matter?

Why does it matter?

At the risk of being dismissed as an attempt to be “politically correct,” I will explain that language matters. It is more than political correctness. Language is a window into the brain. This has been well-established. The type of language we use and the way we structure sentences can speak volumes about our thought processes. It only follows that, in order to be critical of a thought process (perhaps even a discriminatory thought process), one can begin by being critical of the language one uses. Going beyond the individual, language sends a message. The way we talk is suggestive of what we find important, valuable, worthwhile, beautiful, as well as what we feel is unimportant, worthless, negative, or somehow less. These messages are then interpreted and, over time, internalized by members of society, creating and perpetuating a cycle of thought.

In short, I believe changing the way people speak is a first step in changing the way people think.

The words we use…

Black

In my experience, this is an acceptable term. It acknowledges a person of a darker skin tone as well as involuntary membership in a subordinate group in U.S. race culture. Although, the danger lurking in this term is that a person with strong ethnic ties may feel a denial of her heritage. For example, a person hailing from the Caribbean with a darker skin tone and a person whose family is from Africa could both fall under this category, thereby affirming neither of their backgrounds. On the other hand, some may prefer the term. The best strategy here is to politely and respectfully ask.

African American

As a White person, my culture tells me that this term is most closely linked to accusations of attempts at “political correctness.” As stated above, this may be an appropriate term for a person whose heritage is traced to other parts of the world. The assumption behind these words is that every person with darker skin comes from Africa. I imagine (but, being White, cannot know) that this would be similar to calling all Asian people Chinese…For those who embrace an African American identity, this term is obviously appropriate. I will try to avoid it, however, as a blanket generalization.

Person of Color

As far as blanket terms go, I feel that person/people of color is an appropriate term. When discussing subordinate/dominant groups, I feel that ‘people of color’ allows a writer to include all those with a darker skin tone without making any assumptions about that group. Further, by affirming a persons humanity before assigning them a label, the term ‘person of color’ acknowledges the reality that we are discussing human beings who are more than the label we seek to assign them.

Non-White

In my recent reading, this term was rejected for reasons I agree with. It has a negative connotation, implying that somehow to be ‘non-whatever’ is to be missing or lacking something. Do we call women non-male? No. While it seems to capture people who do not have a light skin tone without making assumptions, it seems that it is polemical to ‘person of color’. In other words, female is to non-male as person of color is to non-white.

White

If you have read my short essay The United States Created Race, then you will understand the long battle we as a country have fought when it comes to defining who is White. And perhaps it was not about defining who was White as much as it was about defining who was not White. Either way, for purposes of this discussion, White will be regarded as the identification of a lighter skin tone as well as membership in the dominant race group in U.S. race culture. For more on dominant and subordinate groups, see What is White Privilege?

I do not mean this to be an exhaustive list and I apologize for those who I’ve left out. My blog is, once again, becoming too long. I need to cut myself off before this becomes a paper.

Thanks for reading. Comments and criticism encouraged.

[Update] UMD Newspaper Responds to Racist Video

by Same Air

The University of Minnesota Duluth’s school newspaper, the Statesman, has recently published an article regarding the racist incident that occurred on campus in the last couple weeks. Two female UMD students with their faces darkened recorded themselves making a slew of racist slurs. [Watch the full video] The article is displayed below exactly as it was published.

UMDStatesman1

UMDStatesman2

UMD Students Produce Racist Video

by Same Air

[UPDATE - 12/2/12: UMD Newspaper Responds to Racist Video]

A video made by two University of Minnesota Duluth students has added to the already long laundry list of recent racist incidences in the Duluth, Minnesota community. The video has been removed from multiple YouTube channels already. I’ve managed to download a decent copy. I am not sure if this is the entire video or only a segment. Watch for yourself:

The video shows two students whose faces have been darkened. Over the course of about six minutes, the women prod and poke at stereotypes about people of color, including gangs, fried chicken, and slavery. In a statement, one of the women said, “We were doing facials and it happened to have been a brown facial mask…We had to leave it on for 12 minutes. During that 12 minutes, we horribly decided to make a video that we regret and are not happy about.” 1

The administration at UMD has also spoken. In an e-mail from the Chancellor’s Office, UMD condemned the conduct. “We have seen the video; we abhor it. This is unacceptable behavior for anyone, and we at UMD are extremely unhappy to be associated with it in any way.” UMD called the statements in the video, “unfortunate racist content.” View the entire e-mail here.

The content captured in this video is important. You do not need to paint your face and post a video on YouTube to talk like this. This type of language gets brushed off as funny or harmless when, in reality, the underlying thought process betrayed by the language is the little sister of institutionalized discrimination or structural inequality. This is the subversive type of racism that is so difficult to describe, such a challenge to teach and learn about, and still pervasive and influential in our culture. I’ve heard it with my own ears, folks. The harmless “Black joke” about fried chicken or watermelon. Who cares? Nobody will know. This is the lingering legacy of a dirty history, often hidden behind closed doors and shared among friends. Who, then, will stand up and call it out?

Duluth’s Un-Fair Campaign, initiated in recent years, came under fire as racist towards White people. Their slogan, “It’s difficult to see racism if your White,” was seen as particularly destructive.  Community members were challenged to understand the need for a discussion around subversive racism. In the same environment, this video is produced, a doll depicting President Obama is hung from a billboard, and two UMD students share a racist conversation about a student of color via Facebook message. Racism is alive and well in the Northland.

To those who would advocate a post-racial world, I challenge you to take a thorough look around. Reconsider your next criticism of the Un-Fair Campaign or affirmative action. The work has been hard, the hours long, and we are not yet finished.

To those of you who clearly see why these girls were wrong, ask yourself if you’ve participated in discussions like this. I imagine, at one point or another, you have. I have. Do not be so quick to condemn. Instead, ask yourself, “What is the difference?” They put it online and they got caught. That’s it. Before you chew these women apart, eat your own words. Make a difference. This begins and ends with you. Don’t retell that racist joke. Don’t participate. And please, do not stand by as your friends participate. Next time you hear this kind of language, call it out. Jay Smooth has a great video about how to have those discussions. It can be as simple as, “Hey, what you said sounded sort of racist.” By having conversations like that, we slowly begin to change the culture.

1. http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/11/two_minnesota_students_record_a_terribly_racist_rant_in_blackface.html

Paradigms, Puzzles, and Truth

by Same Air

Today I’m going to get a little philosophical on you. Still reading? Great. I will try to be as clear as possible. I find the following concept very interesting. It seems to accurately and rather simply describe how we arrive at what we believe to be ‘truth’. This idea comes largely from Thomas Kuhn’s 1962 publication titled “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.”

What is truth? Truth is truth for now, what we know, and how we know it. Let’s break that apart. First, truth for now. Truth is temporary. Absolute truths are very difficult to discover and even harder to prove. Beyond absolute truth, all of our knowledge is temporary and we are learning how we are wrong all the time (e.g., we used to think the sun revolved around the earth). Second, what we know. Truth has a descriptive quality. Truth delivers information – a piece of fact. Lastly, how we know it. Truth is backed up by some sort of methodology. Each truth has a path carved behind it describing how we arrived at that piece of truth. I want to address that methodology today.

However, I first want to ask a question. How do you put together a jigsaw puzzle? Dig deep and remember your strategy. Some of you likely start with the corners, some with the edges, some perhaps in the middle. Maybe some of you will say you organize similar colors.   Correct?

No. We all begin by studying the picture on the box.

How do we arrive at what we know to be truth?

We start by making assumptions. All of us do. We assume that the puzzle inside will eventually look like the picture on the box. This is the very root of our operating conscious mind. We take certain aspects of the world around us for granted. Those assumptions lump together to form our paradigm. A paradigm is a lens through which you view the world. Paradigms filter the information we see and hear into forms that fit, that we can categorize, process, and understand. In the puzzle analogy, your paradigm likely says you are going to put together a puzzle of a [insert description of picture on box]. Your paradigm determines your hypothesis, which is a statement about how  you think the world is (e.g., If I start with the corner pieces, I can put the puzzle together faster.). From your hypothesis, you generate questions that, once answered, will allow you to prove or disprove your hypothesis (Do the corner pieces actually help?). This determines the data you will accept as an answer to your question (both positively and negatively) as well as any tools you may create to aid in the finding of that data (whether or not the corner pieces lead to success in finishing the puzzle). Once you have data, you examine it and attempt to draw conclusions from it. These conclusions you will label as truth. Science often repeats this process many times before a conclusion is labeled as truth, but eventually it happens. 

In the puzzle analogy, the truth will likely be that an efficient way to put together a jigsaw puzzle is to start with the corner pieces.

Now you have truth. Truth for now, what you know, and how you know it.

Why write about this? It is so fundamental to the way humans process information and make decisions about the world and about other humans. To find new truth, we must examine old assumptions. History seems to say we find it incredibly difficult to examine old assumptions.

What if the picture on the box was wrong? What if the picture on the box was a farm and the puzzle inside was a 1969 Camaro? You would reject it, right? Throw away the puzzle and dismiss it as an error or a fluke. But what if you bought another puzzle and the same thing happened? But this time, it was a picture of a sunset on the box and a 1969 Camaro inside? And this happened ten more times. Your old assumptions may begin to change. You would be forced to question whether or not you can depend on the picture you have.   Also, you would likely have never arrived at the conclusion that corner pieces help you put a puzzle together.

When we are talking about a jigsaw puzzle, this may not seem very significant. Let’s expand it to something like race, though. Lets assume that people are biologically different based on where they geographically originate. Your paradigm will then lay before you all sorts of possibilities. Maybe, rather than simply different, these people are inferior to you. Maybe you can subjugate and exploit them. Well let’s find out. First, lets hypothesize. I bet they are, in fact, inferior. How? Is it the type and shape of their bodies? Could the size of a skull determine ones intelligence? Now we are asking questions. Let’s collect data. I am going to create a tool to measure skull size. Then I find out that African American’s have smaller skulls than other races. From this, I make conclusions that I call truths. African Americans are, in fact, less intelligent. Thus, the career and legacy of criminologist Cesare Lombroso.

Lombroso built a science – and he built truths – around a paradigm that we now know to be flawed. Race is not real. As a result of this conclusion, all of Lombroso’s “truth” simply disintegrates. It falls away, meaningless. If you discover race isn’t real, the tools you create to measure skull size probably do not mean a whole lot.

The message here? Be wary accepting truth. Examine old assumptions. Understand your own paradigm. Know that it, too, is built on assumptions. Most importantly, be cautious of the action your ‘truth’ leads you to take.

Feedback and comments encouraged.

People of Color Hit Harder in Sub-Prime Mortgage Market

by Same Air

Thanks, Washington Post.

I like this graph because it sort of shows cause and effect from left to right. Black and Brown folks ended up with a disproportionate number of high-interest loans. When the bubble burst, those folks lost the most equity in their homes. In turn, their net worth continued to sag below that of Whites. A large share of a families net worth is in their home, making it a particularly important point of comparison. This measure also illustrates the wealth imbalance along race lines. Home ownership is fundamental in passing wealth from one generation to the next as well.