At 8:22 PM +0000 6/11/08, Stefano Mori wrote:
>On 2008-Nov-06, at 19:50, Patrick Coskren wrote:
>
>> More accurately, it demonstrates that the attempt to make it about
>> race failed.
>
>With race though, it can also be about culture, and so if I see
>someone behaving in a racist way, I wonder what it is that they are
>actually reacting against.
There are degrees and levels of racism. The plain,
old-fashioned racism, worries about genetics and descent. The
advanced, modern, kind still manages to discriminate against plenty
of people, but does it based on culture and class that just happens
to coincide with race. I saw a blog today that called it racism 1.0
and racism 2.0.
> If Obama actually spoke like a guy from
>Kenya, or if he actually dressed like a Muslim (to go with the name),
>then that would bring out much more resistance. Instead we have a guy
>who can really speak English, and compose his sentences, and is more
>of a Western intellectual than most Americans. I knew a lady from
>Jamaica, and she talked about Jamaicans in a way that, had her words
>been coming out of the mouth of a white person, would have sounded
>very racist. But it was the culture she despised, and she herself was
>black, but essentially British. I really don't see it as a huge
>milestone--it is more symbolic I suppose. Will Smith and Morgan
>Freeman have been model cool wise smart authoritative guys on screen
>for years, and their films have been blockbusters.
Obamas election shows that the US has improved to a lot of
people can get past genetics, racism 1.0, but doesn't show much
evidence of getting past racism 2.0. Obama is as white a black man
as can get, on the basic that Harvard Law School is, while not a
racist organisation, is one of the pinnacles of white culture. Obama
talks, dresses like, and has the achievements of a very successful
man in white culture. Which isn't a criticism of him in any way, or
of those institutions - his achievements, and the virtues of those
institutions, are real.
But racism 2.0 works on associations of culture. It is the
racism that says that a successful person using lower class white
speech patterns is 'folksy' or 'down to earth', but a using black
lower class speech is always 'ghetto'.
Look at how the media, and voters, loved Palins way of
talking. Yeah, I know she got a lot of criticism, but it was for
content, not delivery, if she had managed to talk sense in that
'folksy' way, it would have been regarded as adorable. And contrast
it with the way the Obamas little fist bump became a soruce for
hand-wringing.
It is terrific that the US has got over racism 1.0. But it
has a long way to get over racism 2.0.
I live in Australia, and Australia tends to think of itself
as a not very racist country. And actualy, it isn't too bad. But that
is because Australia ia a bit ahead of the US -- all our racism here,
is racism 2.0. We pretend we aren't racist, because here, we really
don't care much if what colour your skin is, as long as you are able
to crack open a beer and talk about football. In other words, we
think we aren't racism because it is all about acting white, rather
being white.
But act different - ie actually BE a muslim, have different
mores, etc. - and you'll find out just how much racism there is about.
Maybe we need a knew word for racism 2.0, culturalism or
something. But it is pretty much functionally the same as racism most
of the time, and there is a lot of it about, even in people who think
they aren't racist.
Cheers
David
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