Godheval

The Senate Homeland and Governmental Affairs Committee – one of many sub-committees within the U.S. Senate that most people have never heard of, and even less of which know its purpose – conducted a hearing to address rising concerns over homegrown terrorism.  This time the high-risk group, according to the panel, is Somali-Americans.

According to the various testimonies, the threat comes from Somali immigrants who have been making the U.S. their home since 1992, after fleeing their country’s civil war.  Apparently, unlike other immigrants, the Somalis have had some difficulty assimilating, torn between their own tribal traditions and the markedly different American culture that surrounds them.  This difficulty has made some Somalians – particularly those young and male – more susceptible to what the panel calls “radicalization”, that is, indoctrination in the ways of militancy and terrorism.  They highlighted the case of Shirwa Ahmed, a 27-year old Somali-American who went missing in October, and was later implicated in a series of suicide bombings in the Somali towns of Hargeisa and Bosaso.

The Senate committee was careful – at least rhetorically – not to target the entire Somali-American community as a high-risk group for terrorist activity.  They claimed that the community itself was being victimized by radical clusters.  Still, this is where the story becomes troublesome, because chances are that for any Americans living in close proximity to a sizeable Somali population, fear of this homegrown terrorism will not limit itself to the knowledge that the threat comes only from a radical few.

Much like the events of September 11th, 2001 caused most Americans to red flag anyone Arab or Muslim (these two terms often falsely considered synonymous) or even wrongfully perceived to be members of either group, this kind of report is likely to generate similar prejudices towards Somali-Americans.

I’ve heard it argued that hardly a case is ever made for instances of racism against “whites” by non-whites, including those ever-present situations of exclusivity such as a magazine devoted only to Asian interests, or “Black History Month”. People will say that if there was a “White Entertainment Television (WET)” or a “White History Month”, that there would be an outcry amongst American minorities. The thing that these people fail to recognize is that the “default” race, media focus, and historical context – amongst other things – is a “white” one.

The default impression of the “American” is unquestionably an American of European descent, but due to cultural hegemony and obscurity and the institution of race, this Euro-American becomes simply “white”. Say what you will about American diversity, but the majority of people in this country are still “white”, a disproportionate number of seats of power in public office and industry are held by Euro-Americans, and the most popular media icons are mostly – you guessed it – white.

Part 1 of the Black Dilemma Series

It should be understood from the start that I am writing as an American and I am talking exclusively about the experience of the African Diaspora in the United States. How the terms mentioned apply globally to various other groups of people is beyond the scope of this essay.

Blackness does not exist in a vacuum. It exists only as a reflection of whiteness. It represents both how peoples of the African Diaspora have been regarded and treated by white people – racism, discrimination, subjugation, and annihilation, both physical and cultural. It also represents how the Diaspora has responded to these conditions – submission, acceptance, and resistance.

Blackness also further validates whiteness, existing as a point of reference. White people can claim “We are not that” – that being the exotic or inhuman “other”.

At some point, American society determined that the word “nigger” was inappropriate in the public sphere. That which was a commonly accepted term to describe so-called “black people” – here defined as enslaved Africans and their descendants – became unacceptable only because of its direct association with slavery, or the slave-holding south. That it became taboo has nothing to do with any sudden revelation on the part of white people that slavery, subjugation, or inequality was wrong, and thereby the terms that imply those processes should be abolished.

It became taboo as white society scrambled to erase the stains of the past from its consciousness – a feat that has been mostly achieved in contemporary society. The word “nigger” is one of those beacons that penetrate the veil of delusion, that remind “black people” as well as “white people” that the legacy is not dead, that it has merely transformed. Those who use the word in a racist context are considerably more genuine than their apologetic brethren, as they do not suffer under any pretenses of equality. They acknowledge and celebrate it – abhorrent for certain – but that at least makes them conscious of it.

The etymology of the word “nigger” has to do with a mispronunciation or warping of “negro” or similar words which in the European languages of the slave-holding Europeans meant “black”. It is not that the word “nigger” itself, as some unique linguistic phenomenon, confers lesser inhuman status upon darker people. It is that in meaning “black”, an exaggeration of darker skin tones, it also came to mean “inferior” due to its association with those darker skinned people. In other words, the less-than-human status was conferred first, and then all things associated with them as such, came to refer to inferiority. In this way, “black” – is just as fundamentally racist as “nigger”. This becomes even clearer when you hear people use the term “blacks” instead of “black people” – again a removal of the human element. Of course those same people also probably say “whites”, but there is no dehumanizing dimension to whiteness, and therefore it does not carry the same connotation.

Categorization is an everyday practice in every human society. We facilitate our understanding of a multitude of phenomena by trying to group them by their common traits. This is true of everything – objects, animals, ideas, and people. “Black” is used to categorize people who are perceived to have common traits. However, these traits are numerous. They are not exclusively biological, as there are as many differences within that group as there are similarities, just as there are between “black” people and any other perceived group. The biological differences between human beings are fluid in how they pervade the entire species, and do not create such distinct separations. The traits are not merely visual, as the spectrum of so-called “black people” incorporates incomparable diversity.

This is not to say that there are not identifiable biological differences between human groups, or that all systems of group classification are invalid. However, those differences do not at all correspond to how those groups are identified in America – our conception of race. Furthermore, genetic differences are really only relevant within the context of medicine, and even doctors are careful not to attribute the prevalence of disorders within perceived groups to biology alone. They realize that those disorders may have as much to do with bad practices transmitted through culture, such as diet.

Within the medical context, to whatever extent racial classifications are helpful in identifying high risk conditions, and in fostering a culture of illness prevention, then they should be examined further. But there is little need for these classifications to be transmitted into American culture, as they have proven only to be divisive.

The differences between people aren’t merely social either, as “black people” also exist at nearly all levels of the socioeconomic spectrum, albeit with a clearly uneven distribution. They are not intellectual or emotional, because no one can claim to know the minds of an entire group of people, what they think or how they feel.

Then on what grounds do we even classify certain people as “black”? So-called black people themselves, here in America, may see the term as synonymous with “African-American”, and claim that a certain group of people share in the experience and history of subjugation, discrimination, hatred, and oppression. Indeed there is a group of people with this shared experience, but even the degree to which they experience it exists along a spectrum, with some able to blissfully ignore it, while others feel that they suffer under its influences on a daily basis.

It is not merely that generalizations are made about “black people”. Blackness itself is the generalization. Blackness purports that all people of visible African descent have the same experience without exception, and denies any claims to individuality.

If black, then, is defined as a group of people with this shared experience, then it reaffirms my earlier claim that it exists only in response to whiteness. The aforementioned experience was created and is maintained by so-called white people, who continue to need some justification for the sense that they exist in opposition to, or at least distinct from, a darker skinned “other”. Many so-called black people themselves cling to this identity for the same reason, accepting their place as a minority “other”, although now in some way resisting the experience rather than succumbing to it. But they still only exist as a response, rather than due to anything inherent to their being or character. Of course, for all my pedantics here, I realize that most people use “black” to describe themselves simply out of tradition. “It’s not that deep”, someone might say. Until it is. And, really, it has been since the beginning, but it’s been so co-opted into “black identity” that it’s been taken for granted.

The cultural phenomenon known as “black pride” is a paradox. On the one hand proponents acknowledge their perceived differences from others – while somehow ignoring the reasons for those perceptions and their basis in demonization – while espousing a pride within that identity. How can an individual take pride in the characteristics ascribed to a entire spectrum of people?  How can one be proud to be considered inferior? Now of course no so-called black person would consider themselves inferior, but in accepting the term “black”, they are validating that exact perception of their being.

The so-called “black experience” is a fact of many people’s lives. Its effects cannot be underestimated or ignored, and certainly should never be forgotten. However, this does not mean that it must be used as a basis for people’s identity. Our lives are certainly affected by many natural and cultural phenomena, such as thunderstorms and earthquakes, the loss of a job or the loss of a loved one. We do not then become Thunderstormians or Unemployedians. There is clearly a sense of identity that exists before and supersedes those events. In the same way, so-called black people possess a fundamental character and identity that exists apart from, albeit influenced by, the “black experience”.

This identity is dichotomous, because on the one hand each person has a uniqueness that prevents them from being totally submerged within any system of classification. Yet on the other hand they have so much in common with every other one of their fellow human beings as to under certain circumstances ignore their differences altogether. As a hypothetical scenario, were a hostile alien race to suddenly set upon the earth, they would become the exotic and reviled “other” and the whole of humanity most likely would unite against them.

A distinction must be made here, between the “black experience” and identity as “African-American” – a term I begrudgingly tolerate. It is not merely a matter of word choice. If the word black is understood as fundamentally racist, then the “black experience” is only the shared experience of being subjugated and defeated by racism. On the other hand, there are many things – cultural phenomena – which have been transmitted through generations of people from Africa. Art, religion, music, food, kinship systems – in fact, practically all aspects of African-American culture have been influenced in shades by an African heritage.

The problem is that Africa is a giant continent, not some small country, and a continent with such immense diversity that even the demarcation of nations there does not represent the distribution of biological and cultural variation. This is to say that there is no homogeneous “African” culture, and therefore no single culture to which American members of the Diaspora can trace their identity or customs. There is also the fact that many so-called African-Americans do not even know from which region in Africa their ancestors came. Therefore, more than any of the cultural practices that stem from the African continent, the central current of African-American identity is also the “black experience”, that is, the shared legacy of slavery.

The United States is one of the only places in the world with such strong cultural distinctions between its members. A place like Indonesia may have 2,000 ethnic groups and 500 languages (those numbers are arbitrary – the point is to say that there are a lot) but the differences between them probably exist along a spectrum rather than in a large number of discrete and seemingly irreconcilable groups as exist here. This being the case, even the “American” identity is subject to question. If there is anything distinctly American, it is that the American cannot be defined as any one thing.

At least that is the reality of the situation, but in practice, those things which have been deemed “American” are those ideologies and practices of “white people”. Everything and everyone else is so distinctly un-American that they require an additional prefix. There are Asian-Americans, Arab-Americans, and of course African-Americans, but those who subscribe to the white identity are simply “American”. These include Spanish, Italians, Dutch, Irish, Polish – and in some cases Jewish people – except where these groups retain their cultural differences and identify as whatever particular kind of American. And this is what has to change. We who consider ourselves American need to stake our claim upon that identity and see it become more adequately representative of our diversity.

After all, if American-ness is something that can only be fully claimed by “white people” and African-ness is diluted, unidentifiable, then where does that leave so-called African-Americans in identifying themselves? With the “black experience”. Again we have a situation where a group of people are almost forced to identify themselves through the atrocities and grievous injustices once committed (and still being committed) against them. Again their identification is based on the actions and perceptions of another group of people – a group of people who have chosen to regard them as less than human.

If your rosy picture of reality leads you to think that this is not still the case, that there is no legacy to slavery, that “black people need to get over it”, or that we live in anything sort of “color-blind” society, then you are delusional. It was only eleven years ago that American “scholarship” produced a book that presented “scientific evidence” that so-called black people – something they even had trouble defining – were on the whole less intelligent than so-called white people. The ease with which the views of that book and similar “scholarship” were accepted into the mainstream, and continue to color people’s perceptions of group differences only reminds us of the strength of slavery’s legacy.

The perception of certain people as inferior on the basis of their “blackness” – buried as it may be beneath pretenses of tolerance and misguided “diversification” initiatives – is still an undercurrent to American society. Why should anyone be complicit in this demonization by routinely accepting the label of inferiority? Blackness has nothing to do with African-ness, except by chance. Had the colonialist Europeans decided to take most of their slaves from China, then the Chinese would be “black” – in terms of status, as obviously a different term would’ve emerged. Instead, blackness has everything to do with whiteness. If whiteness itself is a fallacy, and black identity only exists as a reflection of it, then it is equally inauthentic, and equally representative of the most ill-conceived stratification of humanity to ever exist in all of history.

Blackness, as I’ve said, is not a characteristic of anyone. It is something that was and continues to be inflicted upon a perceived group of people. In other words, no one is born black, but rather they are “blackened” by society. Just as different peoples of European descent “bleached” themselves in taking on a white identity in order to benefit from the corollary status advantages.

Now the word “inflicted” carries a negative connotation, and indeed blackness is a negative attribution. For proof of this, all anyone needs to do is consider in what context they use the term. “Black people”…what? Invariably what follows is something negative, either a racist generalization on one end or a claim to victimization on the other. Either way, blackness refers not to the people in question but to the status conferred upon them.

Identity is a fluid concept. It is constantly changing and must be highly adaptable to changes in the surrounding environment. For this reason, and because of its foundation, and because of its self-renewing and detrimental effects, the so-called “black” identity needs to be eliminated. This does not mean forgetting the legacy of slavery, subjugation, and oppression. That can never happen. This does not mean being oblivious to the ways in which people classify others, and how those perceptions shape our culture. That would be blissful ignorance. The acknowledgment of the institution of race is as much a necessity as dressing properly for bad weather. This does not mean that we have to let it define us as human beings, or define the relationships we share with other human beings.

To be a “black person” is to play right into the hands of those who seek to retain you as so necessarily different and so unacceptably “other”. So-called “black people” need to get on with the business of being human again – humans with a unique history and plight for certain – but still humans who need not be defined by it.

So for all of this, what am I really saying here? That self-identifying “black people” need to start identifying themselves in a way that is truly representative of the great diversity and uniqueness that makes up the rich spectrum of humanity within that perceived group, rather than falling into this self-limiting stigma of “blackness”. I would say one ideal would be – as I mentioned earlier – to fully claim American-ness, to wrest it from white exclusivity.

This means claiming it through our language, through our self-estimation, through our actions, such as being more active in the socio-political process. This is especially important when we consider the nation’s diminishing reputation throughout the world, and how this reflects upon us as people. So-called “Black people” and “African-Americans”, their history notwithstanding, need to play a more significant role in defining what it means to just be American.

There are problems with claiming “American-ness”, however, inherent in the fact that there is a prevailing disconnect between African-Americans and the mainstream society, one sustained by institutional inequality.  It is difficult to find identity within a country that rejects or dismisses your contributions, and rejects you bodily, linguistically, and culturally, and a country where the demographic majority dismisses your particular hardships as a thing of the past or the result of “hyper-sensitivity”, and refuses to discuss how history continues to echo into the present.

And history is important to identity; roots are important, if only for suggesting a foundation that belongs to an individual or a group of people, rather than identity being formed in opposition to the mainstream, or defined by the perceptions of outside groups.  People whose cultures have been anchored firmly in the soil of history tend to be more resilient in the face of adversity, their core identity sustaining itself against attempts to destroy or assimilate it.  There have been many attempts in the academic sphere and through smaller cultural movements to tie African-Americans back to continental Africa, to reunite the Diaspora with the motherland.  This would be an alternative to claiming American-ness, but like that, comes with its own difficulties.

As already mentioned, Africa is a continent, one with as much cultural and ethnic diversity as virtually the entire rest of the world.  African-Americans have very little in common with Ethiopians or even Nigerians, who for their place in West Africa might be closer related ethnically and culturally.  However, amongst peoples from Africa who migrate to the West, especially the United States, there is a certain sense of African unity, of Africans being one people at least as strangers within this country.  There seems to be no inherent paradox between individual identity as Ethiopian or Nigerian for example, and also identifying more holistically as “African”.

However, this unity does not, by default, extend to African-Americans, who exist in a strange limbo between their very present American identity and their distant African identity.  It becomes a question of whether or not it is possible or even practical, for African-Americans to enfold themselves within that continental identity, as opposed to American identity.  For the cultural, geographical, and historical distance, it seems difficult and even awkward, especially where African-Americans know so little about the continent of Africa itself, a result, invariably, of the “dark continent” paradigm in the West, where very little time is spent investigating the rich history and cultural diversity of an entire continent, leaving countless people viewed through persisting stereotypes, exotification, and definitions imposed by European colonialism, including those that emerge from racism.

The dilemma of African-American identity is one that has remained since enslaved Africans set foot on this soil, and one that is not likely to be solved in one essay or one discussion.  In the meantime, I personally have found some solace from such psychic dissonance in the increasingly popular classification “people of color”, which while it also defines itself in opposition to whiteness, is one that has been willfully taken on by people who are not white, rather than being imposed on them by white people.

In that way, more than blackness, it exists as a statement of defiance to the mainstream U.S. culture, and suggests solidarity rather than group subjugation, amongst those for whom the mere existence of whiteness as a construct has determined their ability to integrate themselves into this “American” culture.  It, like the idea of unity amongst continental Africans and the Diaspora, suggests a global connection, rather than merely a local one.

More than anything this essay is a call to all progressive-minded people to make a change in their language to remove the persisting blight of racism. If you find yourself struggling with how to categorize someone, ask yourself if they even need be categorized within the context of your dialogue. Is he a “black doctor” or just a doctor? In these situations, also have the courage to recognize what your language says about your perceptions of others.

“I don’t like white people.”

I claim the above statement to be true for me. Does it shock you and offend your sensibilities?

Well it should, because alone there – in bold print – without context, without further elaboration, it stands merely as a declaration of powerful contempt of a certain perceived group of people. That view, contingent upon one of the greatest delusions of human history, is not one that I hold. Therefore, the purpose of this article, is to qualify my initial statement by articulating a new definition of “whiteness”.

Before I begin I have to make an important request of my readers. As you read, do not be quick to compare my position to that of anyone else you’ve spoken to about race, because chances are that my point of view is entirely different. I don’t dislike “white people” because I feel some particular affinity towards so-called “black people“. I am not some Afrocentric who espouses “black pride” and also condemns “white people”.

My stance? To hell with white people, and to hell with black pride. In its modern manifestation, racial identity only serves to keeps people divided. I personally have renounced my race as an inadequate representation of who I am as an individual, and how I fit within the continuum of all humanity.

People who identify on the basis of race in general – whether themselves or others – annoy me on some level because race is a stupid concept. Racial whiteness in particular only exists as the “standard” by which all else is an “other”, and implicitly inferior. Everyone who is not “white” is a “person of color”, and therefore is subject to discrimination. “White” only exists to distinguish one perceived group of people from everyone else. In other words, “white” ceases to exist where there are only members of that group present – physically or as the subjects of internal discussions.

Race is an excuse for people in power to maintain that power, or for people once without power to claim that power, on the basis of common physical features. As a result, it also becomes an excuse for those without power to regard themselves as necessarily different than those with power, and often to resent them.

In reality, “whiteness” and “blackness” do not exist. Only by certain people’s perceptions do they exist. So in talking about those people’s perceptions, I use their terms. “White” by “their” definition – those who subscribe to race, racism, and all this other nonsense – is a physical quality – some kind of inherent superiority written in people’s genetic code. That is the fallacy.

White people, by my definition, are those people who subscribe to that concept, but who also happen to bear certain physical characteristics that allow them to claim so-called racial “whiteness”. Therefore, not all people who share those “characteristics” are “white” by my definition. The abolitionist John Brown. Noel Ignatiev and the other “Race Traitors”. The rappers Eminem and Manifest. White by the racial definition, but NOT white by my definition.

There is a seeming contradiction here that I must clarify. I am saying that my definition of whiteness is not based on physical characteristics, as is the standard biological definition, yet in order to qualify for whiteness by my definition, one must fit and subscribe to that biological definition. An analogy would be that all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. All “white people” by my definition also fit the biological definition, but not all people who fit the biological definition automatically fit my definition.

So to reiterate, I am discussing two separate definitions of whiteness. One is the more commonly known – which is based on physical characteristics and – misrepresentationally – genetics. The other (my definition), has nothing to do with genetics, but with a frame of mind.

“White people” then, by my definition, are those who identify themselves as “white”, because they’ve disregarded their own uniqueness, that of others, and use it as license for discrimination. “Whiteness” to me, is an attitude. Packaged within this attitude are things like delusions of superiority, cultural ignorance, willful obliviousness, self-importance, racism, and failure to acknowledge reality – such as the reality that race truly does not exist. These are character traits that seem to rise necessarily out of privilege – a special brand of privilege known as the “wages of whiteness”.

White people are also those who cannot divorce other people’s identities as individuals from their “membership” in one “race” or another. For example, the “black doctor’s” occupation, and perhaps his merits as such, are immediately filtered through his so-called race, when really one thing has nothing to do with the other. Conversely, there is no such thing as a “white doctor”, for he or she is just a doctor, and qualitatively superior to those other lesser doctors.

The subjectivity and circumstantial variance of “whiteness” has seen many people of diverse backgrounds be, at turns, both the subjects and the perpetrators of such discrimination. Italians, Jews, and Irish people – to name three groups – have shared a similar experience in coming to the United States as members of their respective ethnic groups only to be mistreated and abused for their differences.

However, when they were able, and features definitively “non-African” or “non-Indian” qualified them for “whiteness” and many of the benefits that came with it, such as naturalization as U.S. citizens, which was denied those who simply could not claim a white identity. It is at the heights of irony that we find third or forth generation Europeans – now unequivocally “white” – adopting the same racist attitudes that were levied against their own families years earlier.

Once it became convenient to become this thing called “white” – and it only exists in opposition to all things “color” – then people stopped even acknowledging their own cultures. So “white people” are those who sustain the illusion of superiority by not acknowledging the uniqueness of individuals, and the oneness of all humanity. “Black people”, in turn, are those who let the fallacy of whiteness spread to them, because surely it was not their idea to be classified as less than human and subjugated and disenfranchised.

As an aside, it should be noted that Chinese people don’t call themselves “yellow”. Yellow, like black, is a “white” term. Chinese are Chinese, Japanese are Japanese, Koreans are Korean. Yet in America we group them all under “Asian”. Well, guess what? Asia’s a big continent and includes Indians, Russians, Slavs, Poles, Arabs, Persians, and many others. Those people call themselves by their ethnicities or nationalities, not “Asian”. Why must be so quick to shuffle different people into one category or another? If we must be divided along any lines, then let it be by our individuality. Otherwise, let us all be grouped and united as human beings.

I have met people who consider themselves “bi-racial”. To those people I say that you are not half black and half white. You are you. Period. By my definition, a person can’t be “half-white”. There is no one else like you, and you don’t fit into any damned category. To hell with categories. Your ancestry does not define you.

People claim race because that’s what they’ve been taught to do – either directly, or by discrimination. So-called bi-racial people have undoubtedly caught flack from both “sides”, and are sometimes stuck in a strange place. Because of the so-called “one drop rule”, they cannot claim racial whiteness exclusively. It’s like mixing paint. If you mix white paint and black paint, you’re not left with half-black half-white paint. You’re left with gray paint, and gray paint is “colored” paint, meaning it is non-white.

So-called bi-racial people face the added dilemma of not being able to fully claim “blackness”, because of their “light skin”, and therefore may be ostracized – insults such as “high yellow” thrown at them. If they disavow race entirely, however, that problem – at least in terms of its internal aspects – disappears. For those individuals, I encourage you to forget white people. Forget black people. Be you. An individual who transcends categories.

I am not so misguided as not to recognize the fact that the majority of people throughout the world believe in race, but it doesn’t mean we have to subscribe to it as well. We’ve been indoctrinated with racism, and use race as a shortcut where we simply don’t know another person’s ethnicity, nationality, or – more importantly – those traits that define him or her as an individual.

Now that I have given a new definition for “whiteness”, my original statement takes on a new tone. Being Irish, Italian, Slavic, Polish, Jewish, or any other ethnicity will not earn anyone any ill will. Simply claiming a white identity will not either – at least not automatically – because I recognize that my point of view is somewhat radical, and many simply have not been exposed to or been given the chance to acknowledge the fallacy of their own perspectives. However, in our new climate of mass information, there is little excuse to remain so ignorant.

Those who simply don’t care, who cannot be bothered to consider or discuss or learn such things, who are gleefully complacent within their “whiteness”, are the ones that I speak of with disdain. Those who harbor any preconceptions about people on the basis of misconceptions of biology or culture, those unwilling to acknowledge the benefits conferred upon them due to those misconceptions, and those who are conservative, unchanging, non-progressive, narrow-minded, and shallow, are the subjects of my contempt. So indeed, with respect to my definition, I do not like white people. Yet at the same time, I feel that no one is beyond redemption, that with a mere shift of paradigm, a “white person” can once again become simply human.

I am someone who has played both sides of the line – that line being calling racism on one side and downplaying it on the other. I have often called other “black” people on crying racism, thinking perhaps they were just looking for it. However, the recent hubbub surrounding both the possible blackface caricature in the video game Loco Roco, and the controversial line of Playstation Portable ads running in Holland has brought something very important to my attention. It is that racism has become so subversive, so interwoven into the fabric of modern society, that it often goes unnoticed, ignored, or patently dismissed. Worse yet, you have people using others’ claims of racism as a platform to reverse the criticism, and to accuse the aggrieved of being “too sensitive” or some kind of “reactionary”. It is my opinion that no white person has any right to even comment on what non-whites perceive to be racism.

Three of the antagonists from the game Loco Roco

In the case of Loco Roco, perhaps I could just ignore the matter and say that people are overreacting, if it weren’t for Japan’s notoriety in using blackface. The Pokemon Jynx, Oilman from Megaman, and Mr. Popo from Dragonball Z are some examples. It is true that in Japan there aren’t so many “black” people, so it’s not really a big issue there. However, that doesn’t make it any more acceptable. Just because a whole bunch of racists live in a town with no black people, does it mean that’s it’s fine and dandy for them to walk around saying nigger this, nigger that, espousing their disgusting opinions, just because no one’s around to be offended? So then are we to say that racism is okay sometimes? Wrong. It is never okay.

Now, do I think that the Japanese developers of this game personally feel any malice towards black people, or have designed their characters to be offensive to black people? No, probably not. Neither does the white person who says “Now that’s one smart black man!”. Well-intentioned, perhaps, but underlined by the implication that the person’s intelligence is in some way connected to their blackness. Is he only smart when compared to other black people? Or is it that although he’s smart, let’s not forget he’s also black? Something like this would go right over the heads of people who haven’t experienced racism.

One image shows a “white” woman conceivably dominating a “black” woman

As for the PSP ads, I don’t think that Sony intended the racist message these images appear to invoke, but they were indeed irresponsible for not recognizing the implications and people’s inevitable reactions. In the Netherlands, where the ad was posted, the “black” population is negligible and so there’s hardly anyone around to be offended. However, that doesn’t make it appropriate.

A second image shows the power roles reversed – most likely to deflect inevitable accusations of racism

Regardless of which woman “wins” the little ad-battle representing PSPs, there’s a question of why is fight imagery being used in the first place? It appeals to this notion that there has to be some kind of battle or power struggle between black and white. Why?

These two consoles are not competing with one another – they are both from the same company. So why not have an image of the black “inviting” the white onto the scene, e.g. having the two holding hands or something of that nature? The two PSPs then become like “sisters”, rather than combatants, which more accurately reflects the relationship. Not only would you eliminate the accusations of racism, but you’d be making a powerful statement outside the context of selling PSPs – that black and white can coexist and share the same space – in this case, the market.

Sounds good to me. Surely someone had to have considered something like this, but for some reason thought that a battle between black and white would sell better. So is this an issue of bad marketing, or a question of what kind of values appeal to US as a society? In any case, the ad campaign was successful in that it caused a lot of discussion, and the images spread far outside the target audience in Holland. Whether or not it was Sony’s intention to offend anyone, it can be said for certain that they are playing off of the strength of racism in the global consciousness to draw attention to their product. Even in discussing the matter here, I am supporting them. But then that doesn’t really matter, because the point I am trying to make here has little to do with Loco Roco or the PSP ads themselves, but with the larger issue which they have brought to light.

What the nay-sayers (i.e. against accusations of racism) in both cases fail to acknowledge is the idea of institutionalized racism. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, let me give you a basic explanation. It is when racism is so thoroughly integrated into a society, such an inexorable theme indoctrinated upon every citizen, that sometimes we fail to even notice it because it no longer stands out. That is the state of things in America – as evidenced by all of the people so quick to deny the mere possibility that this Japanese game is using a racist concept. As evidenced by the few black people who dismissed the suggestion out of hand – institutionalized racism often goes unnoticed. For people who have never experienced racism, it’s even more difficult to see.

It is really easy for such people to say that the aggrieved are overreacting. One of the more common responses to these claims of racism was that we don’t see white people complaining about white stereotypes, or the general acceptance of “racism” towards whites by certain minorities, such as comedians. Well, what exactly IS a white stereotype? Is there even such a thing? And if it is, does it have any real history? Does it offend ANY white person? And who, more often than not, are the creators of these images? Most likely white people themselves. There is hardly an instance of a white stereotype being used, and where they are, why WOULD any non-white person comment on it? Like white people in any instance of racism against black people or Asian people or whoever else – it would probably go over their head, because it is not their experience.

If anything, white stereotypes are a study in the celebration of whiteness. It is not only integrated into the image of power or prominence, but also in the American standard of beauty. And in that the same is true of games coming out of Japan – the creators not even representing their OWN people in their games – shows just how celebrated whiteness is everywhere. But if you still feel so personally slighted by these so-called white stereotypes, then perhaps we should start a petition against every media that’s ever used that iconic white stereotype. How DARE they cast white people in lead roles, or in positions of power, which obviously has no basis in reality! How offensive! How dare they misrepresent white people like that!

In the same vein, people mentioned the stereotypes against so-called “rednecks”. Redneck was a term invented by white people to stigmatize the sharecroppers who worked the fields alongside the slaves, which put them in the lowest possible status bracket. Their necks were “red” from working in the sun for hours. Redneck is actually an extension of the racism against black people, because it was due to their occupational association with the slaves that they were seen as low-class and inferior. People can’t cry racist about “redneck”, because it came from within. Not to mention that it is pretty much ONLY white people who continue to popularize the term – comedians like Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy who flaunt their “redneckness” to make money. It’s never been an issue because nobody gives a damn.

Now of course white people experience racism. The difference is that racism against whites is virtually meaningless. It holds no power. “Oh no! That black guy called me a honkey!” Yeah, I’m sure they’re so busted up about it. Because it carries such a long history of discrimination and degradation. If you can’t tell, my tongue is firmly lodged into my cheek. There has been racism against particular ethnic groups who have adopted a “white” identity, such as Italians, Poles, Slavs, Jews, and Greeks, which is usually the whole reason behind adopting that identity. However, in these cases, it is more often than not other so-called “white” people who perpetrate the discrimination. Other minorities, especially those who cannot qualify for whiteness, have internalized racism, and should know better than to turn it upon others.

Racism itself is bad enough, certainly, and I don’t in anyway justify it against anyone – including white people – but as white people as a “whole” have never been in a disenfranchised subjugated position – such as 500+ years of slavery and discrimination or having virtually your whole population wiped out, the remnants shoved onto a reservation. Again, that kind of racism has no power. It won’t affect them from getting a job, from marrying someone, from being able to be a member of Club X. Even the aforementioned racism against certain “white” ethnic groups did not prevent immigrants from being naturalized in the United States, unlike African Americans, Mexicans, and Native Americans, who remained second-class citizens even in the aftermath of slavery. Racism against “whites” won’t get them stopped by a cop for daring to have a nice car. It won’t continue to get their language and culture pigeon-holed as inferior.

A second popular argument was that minorities are always just looking for racism, and so it’s easy for them to find it in anything. This is an argument of perception which those unaffected by racism just can’t make. Hatred and discrimination have marked the history of “black” people and other non-white minorities in this country. It is something that has followed them for hundreds of years. In the present day, the techniques generally are not as blatant as hood-wearers and cross-burners (although those things certainly still exist in degenerate pockets of the country), but rather more subversive. Things like BET which fetishizes those aspects of “black culture” seen as marketable. Worse yet, in the case of black people, their own stigmas are sold to them through commercialized hip-hop culture. In what amounts to supreme irony, hip-hop originated as a statement against racism. That right there shows just what institutionalized means – that racism is so thoroughly ingrained in our society, that we’re used to it, and sometimes don’t even notice. This also includes the people who create racist imagery – sometimes not even recognizing the undertones themselves.

If you were never a victim of racism, then of course you won’t notice. Disenfranchised or otherwise aggrieved minorities don’t have to look for anything. To those who have experienced it, racism is as obvious and real as the sun. We’d have to be blind NOT to see it. And so many of us are blind – as even I have been for most of my life. It takes a personal experience with racism to become more alert and aware of it.

In cases of perceived racism, minorities must strike a precarious balance between calling it out, and avoiding the soapbox, because of the inevitable “cry wolf” scenario that ensues. Ignorant, privileged, and invariably white people then feel justified in calling minorities hyper-sensitive. So by picking and choosing the right battles, I think we take away that defense. At the same time, we should red flag cases like Loco Roco and White PSP, and perhaps use them collectively in an argument against subtle and institutionalized racism.