This article, Personal Voices: Facing Up to Race by Carrie Ching on AlterNet has me thinking about all kinds of neat stuff.
I read the following paragraph several times. As a white liberal who often thinks that it's more about class than race in this country, this passage was a cold shower of a wake-up call.
I asked the students why a person whose great-great-grandfather emigrated from China 150 years ago is still called an "Asian-American," while a person whose father emigrated from Germany fifty years ago becomes just a plain old "American" in one generation – not a "German-American" or a "European-American." We're all pretty recent transplants here (unless you're Native American), so why are people of color are still made to feel like visitors in their own home? Because being American is still very much about being white.
And:
One of the most common arguments I hear against race-based affirmative action is this whole theory that the race problem has been solved and that inequality today falls much more along the lines of class.
*snip*
We make these arguments about class so that we won't have to face up to two of the most painful – yet obvious – truths about the society we live in: 1) Our dominant culture is built upon a racist ideology that sustains and promotes injustice and inequality, and 2) by not acknowledging the hierarchy that we all participate in, we help reinforce that racist hegemony every day. What a tangled web of lies we weave.
Now I am not disputing point #1 above, "Our dominant culture is built upon a racist ideology that sustains and promotes injustice and inequality." but I have to confess I don't really know what that means. I would love to dialogue with some folks who may have some insight.
The author goes on to talk about the social realities of our lives admitting that, "attraction isn't colorblind." And:
We want so badly to believe that institutional racism is something that is going on "out there" in the world, when in fact it has tangled roots in our private lives. Whether we want to acknowledge it or not we all have a choice to be either accomplices or everyday revolutionaries. It's time to face the fact that the small, unconscious choices we make in our private lives – like who we feel safe sitting next to on the bus, who we choose to be our colleagues at work, and yes, even who we choose as our intimate friends and lovers – become the blueprints for the shape and color of our society as a whole.
Now this part really intrigues me because the lack of diversity in my personal life has bothered me for years now. And it is a very complicated issue. It's not just an issue for me that all of the people in my life are white, but there is this meta-issue of: how can I talk about this, address it, rectify it without being a racist/participating in racist constructs? I mean, going out of my way to befriend someone because of their culture or skin color [a sort of affirmative action socializing] seems to be intrinsically repulsive and wrong. And yet, when I am really honest with myself I realize that this is what I want. I want to know more people of color more intimately.
Several years ago, when my son was just born and I was one of the lonely crazed new mommies willing to trade phone numbers with any other mom who made friendly eye contact with me at the supermarket or playground, I remember actively wishing I could meet some non-white women to befriend. I actually considered putting up a notice on some community bulletin boards advertising some kind of new moms' connection group for women of color and white women who wanted to connect. But it just seemed so pathetic and wrong. Be my friend please because I want to have friends of color.
And yet the reality is that I do. I do want friends of color. As a Jew who has spent a fair bit of time in Israel, and traveled in Africa, I have an infinity for cultures that are warmer and earthier than the thin white cool air we breathe here. I feel drawn to African-American culture, African cultures, and Middle Eastern cultures in particular. [And - in a somewhat unrelated aside - Queer culture too]. I want to have friends who have authentic connections to cultures essentially different from the Wonderbread mainstream. And I want to be very clear and very honest about this next point: Yes, I want it because it will enrich my life. [Note: I do not want it, however, to achieve some kind of progressive/liberal mystique or level of coolness in my own or anyone else's eyes.] Now I have been on enough radical anti-racism sites/communities/message boards on-line to understand the kind of trouble admitting the above can get me in. While I won't pretend to completely get it, I have an inkling for how this kind of thinking is, in itself, essentially racist. People of color do not exist in order to serve any kind of purpose in anyone else's life. PoC are not here to educate me, or enrich me, or entertain me, or make me feel good about myself. I get that.
But how do we, I get past here? And there I am lost.
8:41:21 PM 
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