///Library--11 Myths About Racism
By Lauren Vork
1. Racism is a problem of the past.
This is probably the most damaging misconception out there, so I'll start with it:
We often get taught in grade school about racism as if it's "all fixed." We're fed a diet of history lessons about the Emancipation Proclamation, voting rights granted to black men, and a handful of Martin Luther King Jr. speeches, and we generally come away with an impression of "Mission Accomplished: Well Done, America!"
I suppose we should be grateful that schools teach what they do. I mean, it is well-intentioned...but it's also rather a lot of wishful thinking.
The realities of racism are more nuanced, more subtle, and more deeply affecting to more people than we are generally led to believe.
2. The word "racism" refers to conscious attitudes of racial hatred and superiority, like those held by members of the KKK.
The word "racism" actually refers to ANY attitude of superiority, hatred, OR essentialism based upon differences in ethnic ancestry, conscious or unconscious. Though most of us are now agreed that racism is a "bad thing," we also have to admit to ourselves that racist attitudes are still deeply woven into the fabric of our society and into the ways our cultures teach us to think about and treat our fellow human beings, whether we agree with them or not.
3. "Racism" means black people.
4. "Black" refers to the skin color of people of African descent.
While this is largely true today, the origin of the term "black" in the context of racism originally (circa the 1800's) referred to a social class of races which included some who are now considered white (such as Irish and Jewish). Likewise, the term "white" sometimes referred to more than just caucasians, and both labels were an indicator of caste. Guess who got to be on top...
5. If we ignore racism, it will go away.
6. The enslavement of African people happened because of racism.
Actually, it was the other way around: the desire for slave labor came first, and racist theories were made up in order to justify the reduction of human beings to property. For more information on this, read this excellent article: Anarchism, Racism and the Class Struggle.
7. Positive racial stereotypes are a good thing.
There are those who firmly believe that if you're saying something "good" in your racial stereotyping, it's okay. But first of all, most "positive" stereotypes are strongly connected to negative ones: the idea of black men as unusually physically strong is tied to the idea of them as having below average intelligence, while the fascination with Asian women as exotically beautiful is tied to a stereotype of sexual submission and nymphomania (just to name a couple).
But even if you can identify a "positive" stereotype that's truly positive, just ask yourself this question: what happens to those who fail to live up to it?
8. While it's not okay to discriminate, racial differences in humans are a fact of nature, like different breeds of dogs.
The belief that human beings come in "breeds" or "species" is, in fact, the very definition of racism. What differences exist can far more logically be attributed to cultural and environmental factors than to biological predestiny. Really, there is no compelling scientific evidence or sociological proof to suggest that a person's ethnic ancestry predetermines his or her behavior or abilities in any significant way. In fact, in spite of differences in appearance, there is more genetic variation between your average two Emperor penguins in a given flock than between any two humans of different races.
9. When studying and addressing the problem of race, one who is white should always defer to the opinion of a person of color.
While it is undoubtedly true that those of us in privileged classes cannot understand the experience of oppression as intimately as the oppressed do, this is no reason to suspend one's ability to think critically. People of color are no more, less or otherwise differently likely to have smart or stupid ideas than white people, and to say otherwise is to deny the reality that we're all essentially the same kind of human.
10. If displays of things like "black pride" are acceptable, "white pride" should be, too.
Okay, time for a little editorial comment, here: people who hold this belief remind me very strongly of a resentful child who's jealous of all the attention their sibling is getting due to being a cancer patient. I would think it should be perfectly obvious why this is inappropriate!
To anyone who holds this opinion, I would encourage you to ask yourself this question: what does it really mean to say that you're "proud to be white"? Now, I don't think there's anything wrong with enjoying our European heritage, but do remember: "white" doesn't actually mean "European," it's a label that means you've been arbitrarily placed in a higher class than your fellow humans. Are you really proud of that?
Also, the idea of "white pride" is generally connected to ridiculous notions that people of color are somehow being given too much privilege every time any measures are taken to try to restore their equality. This idea is grounded in a seriously selfish lack of perspective.
11. I'm not racist.
I'm sorry to say this, but yes, you are. It doesn't really matter how much you hate racism, the culture which has raised and sustained you has pressed it on all of us at every opportunity. While it's very hip to pretend that we're somehow above being products of our social environment, that's simply not true.
This doesn't just refer to white people, either: people of color are taught to be complicit in their own oppression, to accept it, and to perpetuate the oppression of other ethnic groups.
Does this mean we're helpless to end the stranglehold that racism still has on our culture? Of course not, but it's time for us as a society to recognize that as far as we've come, we still have a great deal further to go. Only by addressing the subtle and often subconscious ways that racism still informs our thinking and actions can we repair the damage and continue to move towards full equality.
