One of the most frequent responses you see to any accusation of racism or prejudice addressed to a member of majority by a member of a minority is the proverbial “Yes, but … I’m not like that.” Indeed, among white liberals this is the standard response to any charge that they may carry around a bag of prejudices and racist beliefs with respect to people of color or the LGBT community. Unfortunately, reality teaches us that no matter how often we (i.e., white people in general) claim a pure heart when it comes to issues of race, the ugly truth is that racial attitudes and stereotypes are often found even among the “best people.”
The proof as the say, is in the pudding:
A new study by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and other institutions affiliated with Harvard University provides empirical evidence for the first time that when it comes to heart disease, bias is the central problem — bias so deeply internalized that people are sincerely unaware that they hold it.
Physicians who were more racially biased were less likely to prescribe aggressive heart-attack treatment for black patients than for whites. The study was recently published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. […]
… No conscious bias was apparently present — there was no connection between the explicit racial views of physicians and disparities in their diagnoses. It was only when researchers studied physicians’ implicit attitudes — by measuring how quickly they made positive or negative mental associations with blacks and whites — that they found a mechanism to explain differences in medical judgment.
“Physicians who had higher biases against blacks were less likely to recommend thrombolysis for blacks,” said Alexander R. Green, the study’s chief investigator and a faculty member at the Disparities Solutions Center at Massachusetts General Hospital.
You see, black people aren’t necessarily crazy or paranoid when they accuse liberal whites of prejudice. And the sad fact is that the defensiveness of many whites may simply be the result that they themselves are unaware of the racial attitudes they have imbibed from their upbringing, and from American culture at large, since birth. I’m sure that none of the doctors in this study who were found to hold implicitly racist views towards African Americans thought of themselves as racists. I’m sure they believe they are good, caring, compassionate people who treat all their patients with equal consideration and respect. They all swore an oath, after all. First, do no harm. And yet here they are, prejudicing the outcomes of African Americans with heart disease by treating them differently from white patients. Unconsciously, they allowed the great mass of racist attitudes that society imprints upon all of us to influence their decision making, literally, on matters of life and death.
(cont.)
These physicians thought that they were objective and dispassionate healers. But the truth, as revealed by this study, is that they are not. Just as banks, mortgage companies, realtors and real estate developers have been shown to treat black people differently than whites of similar financial and social status. It doesn’t matter what your profession, or what you believe about your own personal lack of prejudice. The fact is that more than likely you carry around stereotypes in your head that effect how you relate to minorities. And getting defensive about allegations from minority groups that, yes, even good liberal white folks can be biased and bigoted just like their conservative cousins, is not the proper way to establish a dialogue on the issue of race.
All it does is disrespect those members of minority communities who experience the effects of these internalized (and often unrecognized) prejudices, and reinforces their belief that white people are incapable of treating with them as equals. Denial may feel righteous and good (How dare they call me a bigot!?), but it is, in truth, a pathological reaction. Furthermore, it discourages those who publicly speak out about the injustice they face and fosters anger, bitterness and resentment.
I recognize that for many “well meaning” whites, it can be extremely difficult to accept that their behavior may be influenced by racial stereotypes of which they are unaware (or of which they choose to be unaware). It can also make it difficult to recognize prejudice in others. However, in my own personal life, I have often been faced with evidence that I do indeed carry around a hoard of racial stereotypes. My wife, a Japanese American, is constantly explaining to me that attitudes or beliefs I took to be unbiased, and behaviors by others which I saw as harmless and lacking in prejudice, are in truth insulting, demeaning and damaging to non-white people. You could say that our marriage has been a 21 year long effort to re-educate me on matters of racism and prejudice. And it’s still a work in progress!
The first step to any resolution of a problem is the acknowledgment that a problem exists. White liberals/progressives need to put aside their defensiveness and feelings of righteous indignation, and recognize that we are not the best observers of our own actions, attitudes and beliefs. We also need to put into action the ideal of equality (rather than merely playing lip service to it) by accepting allegations of racism by nonwhite members of the progressive movement at face value. Stop assuming that they are generated by delusions, paranoia or some form of weird “reverse” racism. If someone is your equal, you take what they have to say seriously. What you don’t do is dismiss it out of hand.
Because they aren’t crazy, folks. And “good” white people aren’t always pure of heart. Indeed, quite the contrary, as the Massachusetts General Hospital study demonstrates.
Hat tip to Jack and Jill Politics
While it is true “…that we are not the best observers of our own actions, attitudes and beliefs” it is not inherently true that “We also need to …(accept)…allegations of racism by nonwhite members of the progressive movement at face value.” Nor is it acceptable to make this assumption: “Stop assuming that they are generated by delusions, paranoia or some form of weird “reverse” racism.”
When you push this hard you piss people off – people like me. Educate me, challenge me, work with me, but don’t paint me with the big brush. I do my best to live it, not just talk it, and more importantly I try very hard to model it for my children. When you belittle my efforts and marginalize my views you start to lose me – and I’m someone you don’t need to convince that there is an ongoing problem, I’m already convinced. Do I need to keep working on it? You bet. Am I perfect? Absolutely not. But statements like those do nothing for furthering the cause.
Also, don’t assume that it is all one sided. Whether or not you can blame “minorities” for there own attitudes/prejudices or not, they exist – and not acknowledging that makes it worse. I’m not saying don’t challenge people’s beliefs, I’m not saying avoid making them uncomfortable. I’m saying give credit where credit is due, and take a good hard look at how the attitudes on both sides of the fence affect the other. Things are definitely easier for white males (of which I am one) but it ain’t all hot tubs and cocktails, either.
Sorry to piss you off. My experience has been that far more people than not have ingrained racial stereotypes of which they are rarely aware. But the focus of this diary is really directed at the people who have made light of the recent diversity controversy in the progressive blogosphere, such as Matt Stoller at Open Left (see his comments to the diary at Open Left linked above).
I also view this through the lens of my own personal history, in which my own stereotypes and cluelessness about their effect on non-whites has been exposed by my wife. I don’t claim to be without prejudice now, but I do claim to be more aware of my own prejudices and more conscious of not allowing those attitudes to influence my behavior. In all humility, I can’t say I always succeed in that endeavor, but at least I am open to the possibility that what I believe may be innocent of any bias, may in fact be influenced by the prejudices that I carry around with me.
I have a lot of white friends, male and female, and almost to a man/woman they believe they are not prejudiced, whether their political views are conservative, liberal or independent. Hell, I spent the first ten years of my marriage getting defensive about things my wife would gently (and sometimes not so gently) point out to me were prejudicial, before I started to get the picture.
As for racial stereotypes held by minorities, I don’t dispute that. I know of no group, majority or minority, which does not generalize and employ stereotypes about other groups. But, I still contend that far more often than not white people do themselves a disservice by responding to accusations of racism from minorities with defensive, self-righteous anger. If you respect someone, then you respect that what they are saying may be true. You don’t go looking for reasons to ignore or refute what they have to say before even considering their perspective. And that is precisely what I think what many white progressives have done in the recent contretemps over the diversity issue in the Progressive blogosphere. Attack the messenger rather than listen to the message and consider its merits in an open and dispassionate manner.
I think the best evidence is the result of studies on inherent racism in our society like the medical research study described above. I willing to bet the doctors who were told they had allowed implicit racist attitudes to influence their medical decisions were shocked, if not furious when they were informed that this is what the data of the study showed. But a defensive reaction does nothing to eliminate the problem. Only a willingness to accept that we may not be as “good” as we like to believe we are will permit progress on race relations to occur.
you certainly didn’t attack me personally, and being passionate about something is good. I agree with every single thing you just wrote in your response, especially “…far more people than not have ingrained racial stereotypes of which they are rarely aware.” In fact, I’d go it one better, and state all people. I don’t think that we can totally separate stereotyping from what we are – I think it is an inherent condition of humanity. However, striving to understand/acknowledge/address our tendency to stereotype people is of tantamount importance, in my opinion.
in privileging your own “feelings”…in trying to create some “equality of bias” (ie. taking about racism as mere personal prejudice)…you are moving the discussion away from our shared history.
And that’s what discussions of racism are really about, our shared history of racism. We need to talk about the experience and legacy of racism for all Americans.
There is no “equality of bias” in that history. And as Steven D notes, its legacy is alive today.
When someone who’s in a minority is talking about a group of people expressing collectively racist action, they’re often seeing the (probably) unconscious expression of structural racism. We live in a racist society, and without intentional effort to the contrary, members of racist societies tend to replicate the social structures of society at large. A member of that group can decide to feel personally attacked, or they can stop and consider whether or not it applies to them, and whether or not they can proactively try to address the situation.
This is not the same as someone telling you, you personally, that you’ve said or done something racist. If that’s the case, then reactive denial is definitely not your best, first bet.
Yet consider, as I wrote the other day, that even after years of studying the issues and educating myself, have sexist attitudes. I’d consider myself a strongly feminist woman, but I see in myself sometimes attitudes that are dismissive of other women on judgmental foundations that are purely sexist stereotypes, or putting up with behavior in men that originates solely in the dominant culture’s message that they have more latitude to act as they please. It’s the inevitable result of having been raised in a sexist culture. I can’t help it, I can only keep trying to teach myself to act right.
How much of a stretch is it to deduce that I probably have racist attitudes that I don’t know about? Even if I’d rather not. Even if it repulses me. Even if the very idea of it makes me furious. And it doesn’t make it better if every time I find myself manifesting an atrocious attitude, and decide to act better than that, I act like I should get a cookie or a pat on the head.
Because my racist and sexist attitudes are marks of my own opression. They’re the ways in which I’ve been mentally and emotionally crippled by my society so that instead of working with my fellow citizens for us to all have a better world, I end up at odds with them. And people like the Bush and Cheney clans laugh at us all the way to the bank, because we’re too weak to pose a serious challenge to their kleptocracy. When I free myself of racism and sexism, I free myself, and that should be its own reward.
I have the same experiences in my 20 year marriage to a black woman, being white/european myself. Currently I live in a black neighborhood and sometimes get exposed to stark and violent racist expressions from blacks. Don’t be surprised if black physicians treat black patients with the same bias as physicians in general do. It is startling to see how black people buy into white stereotypes. An obvious example is how much time and effort black women put into straitening out their hair, trying to look white, while in fact looking hideous IMO.
One thing that seems to get lost (or at least seems poorly understood) in most discussions about racism, sexism, heterosexism, etc. is the fact that we ALL learn these values.
Racism is not just taught to whites, it’s taught to everyone, and everyone internalizes and externalizes these lessons, even when they are a part of a marginalized group themselves. Likewise, sexism is not just taught to boys, girls get it in equal dose and both internalize and externalize those beliefs when valuing themselves and other females.
Of course I’m racist, sexist, and heterosexist, ageist, ableist, etc., etc. & etc. I wasn’t raised on the moon, or in a perfectly harmonious racially balanced commune with no exposure to the larger culture.
Being resistant to the above – making it personal when someone confronts us either singly or as a group for our institutionalized bias, hatred, etc. – is exactly what we are supposed to do, and why as a society we have made so few real changes.
The only way around this is to do exactly what we are not supposed to do – let go of our own egos and not take it personally.
As a white person, I have committed myself to being actively anti-racist. This does not make me “not-racist”. It does make me aware of my own racism and the need to actively derail it. It also means that I can’t listen to other whites make racist remarks without “calling” them on it. As someone who gets white privilege, whether I want it or not, that’s the very least that I can do.
Beyond that, as Natasha pointed out, hierarchical beliefs, no matter where we fall within them, are shams that severely limit our own ability to be authentically ourselves. Ultimately, I’m not challenging myself because “it’s the right thing to do” or “on behalf of ‘those poor people'”, I’m doing it for me. Which is the best and most consistent motivator I know of.
This also may explain how Hillary Clinton can make a racist joke at a fundraiser in 2004 “…You know Mahatma Ghandi, he ran a gas station down in St. Louis…” The fact that she immediately apologized shows that she knew this was wrong, but it was in a prepared speech. I’m sure her supporters would never consider her to be a bigot, but what would have been the reaction had she told a similar joke about Martin Luther King, Jr.? I guess the Indian American community is too small a voting block to worry about insulting, and taking money from Indian companies trumps sensitivity.