Judy, thanks a lot for responding to my previous posting.
At 10:36 PM 6/21/96 -0400, Judy Diamondstone wrote:
>Eugene wrote:
>
>>Now let me give examples of what I comfortably not consider "tacit racism."
>>When my son was 2.5-year old he encountered about same age black toddler in
>>Moscow (the toddler was from some African embassy that was around place we
>>used to live). My son cried to death when the toddler came up to my son.
>>My son referred to him as "unclean baby boy" ("gryazny mal'chik"). I guess
>>my son was scared not only unfamiliar color of boy's skin, but also by
>>foreign language never experienced before (this boy did not speak Russian)
>>and by unfamiliar motorics of the boy (the boy seemed to be much more
>>energetic than typical Russian male and female children of this age).
>
>I understand your point, Eugene. But what if the atypical Russian
>children were seen as atypical not because they were very
>few in number but because they, a much more numerous they, were
>marginalized, institutionally discriminated against. Then I would
>say your son's reaction to the "difference" would be an effect of
>institutional discrimination of the basis of whatever
>the perceived "difference" (which would then be not only
>a matter of perception but a matter of material effects).
>
>Also, I would say that in either case, what matters is not your
>son's reaction to another child's difference, but your response to
>your son's reaction...
My son had not attended any institutions except my family prior the
incident. So I'm not sure that "institutional discrimination" was the case
any way. But I agree that institutions (both in Russia and elsewhere) often
discriminate against people that it is difficult to manage by the
institutions (i.e., official and unofficial powerful members of the
institutions).
>Eugene wrote:
>>I also do not consider as "tacit racism" people's desires to live in safe
>>neighborhood, or to move away life threatening situations by avoiding young
>>black males on streets or public transportation, or to find good school for
>>their own children and so on.
>
>I think what you don't appreciate, again, is the power and privilege
>you enjoy here as a white male. You may not feel very privileged
>at the moment, but you have flexibility, room to maneuver, that
>others don't have. So what you do with respect to those
>inequities is a matter of conscience, and there are many ways to
>act with a social conscience, but not to admit the inequities
>seems to me not conscientious.
Judy, I might misarticulate my point but what I wanted to say that not every
problem that relate to racial social groups relate to racism. My examples
can be described as "rational discrimination" (using the term of
conservative scholar Dinesh D'Souza): minimizing personal risk by basing
your judgment on statistics and violating presumption of innocence of
unknown individuals. For example, by avoiding dangerous places in a city
(i.e., places where statistically crime rate is much higher than in other
places), people discriminate (and dehumanize) other honest people who live
in these so-called dangerous places (who are often poor and often, but nit
always, minorities). Although I see it as a big problem, I don't see it as
"tacit racism." Given a choice, many residents of such places (poor and
people of color) would escape or avoid these places themselves.
Thus, I respectfully don't understand, Judy, how the fact that I am white
and male (believe me I have 1,000,000+ other features that define me) is
important for you making alternative points. To tell you the truth, I feel
uncomfortable (but not angry) to be defined as any role that I occupy. Let
me bring a quote that I "stole" from Bill Penuel's great ethnography of a
youth organization (I read it as a poem!):
"I do all sort of things OUTSIDE OF THE HILL/
like I go to YOUTHPOWER/ I'm PART of YouthPower/
I go to the PLANNING committee meetings and all that staff/
but at YOUTHPOWER/ they know me because I'm YOUTH/ I'm a YOUTH/
they want to get a YOUTH perspective/
I go to the PEER INSTITUTE/
I was on the PLANNING committee/
the only reason I FELT they felt/ they knew ROBERT/ because Robert was a YOUTH/
they want to get a OBJECTIVE from youth/
that's how they PUT me in that position/
that's how they KNOW me/
that's how they s-/ um s-/
how do I say it/ you know/
um SIGNIFY with me whatever/ what HAVE you/
but when IN the Hill/ it's just like I'm ROBERT/
I'm not Robert from HILL/
I'm not Robert from SANDY Ave/
I'm not Robert from the COMMUNITY Center/
I'm not Robert who's EIGHTEEN years old/
I'm ROBERT/ and that's how they KNOW me/"
Penuel, W.R., (1995, April). Mediation in the life stories of youth:
Resources of identity for participants in youth organizations. Paper
presented at the meetings of AERA, New York.
I think this quote supports of the points about alienated roles that Jay
recently made.
Eugene Matusov
P.S. I'm EUGENE/ and that's how I'd like you to KNOW me/ :-)
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Eugene Matusov
Psychology Department
University of California
Santa Cruz, CA 95064
office (408) 459-5180
fax (415) 493-8917
e-mail: ematusov who-is-at cats.ucsc.edu
http://www2.ucsc.edu/people/ematusov
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