Racial stereotyping = racism?
06-02-2009, 08:40 AM
By its very nature an equilibrium is delicate. A balance needs only a little added or taken away from one pan of the scale and the whole thing is out of kilter. Over the past couple of decades legislation has been introduced in the UK to outlaw racism. Race-hate crimes are supposed to be pursued with that little extra something. I'm wondering where to draw the line on what racism is.
I've been accused many times of being racist. Never has it been because I have deliberately gone out of my way to perform an act of racism. To the best of my knowledge I never have. However, because I am a member of a racial majority in the country of my birth I am assumed to be racist by some. As a teacher in the seventies I can still hear children saying to me that I was only picking on them because they were black. As it happens I wasn't. I was telling them their behaviour was unacceptable and it was preventing everyone else from learning. Of course they were black (or Asian, or Polish or Italian). I only had six white British children in that particular class.
Years later when working with a dance musician from Birmingham he told me I was racist, even though I have no idea what sparked his outburst. He said it wasn't anything I had said or done. I was white and therefore I was a racist.
Recently I've been made to think about these events again. As I walk through the streets in the nearest town I am aware of my feelings when I hear the sound of other European languages being spoken by those passing by. There seem to be an awful lot of them, particularly Eastern European ones. I feel uncomfortable about what I perceive to be an influx of foreign nationals and uncomfortable about how I respond internally. I am on the other side of that when I'm in France or Switzerland with PA. He loves to speak English and I can often spend almost a whole week there and hardly speak any French at all. I am sure that some people hearing us talk must feel the same as I do, uncomfortable at a perceived influx of the English. I try to speak more French, specially when out and about, but I'm not much good at it.
Maybe I'm taking this too far, but I see some aspects of racism creeping into these discussion groups. What one person sees as humour in a stereotype another perceives as a put-down or a threat. So what if a "great writer" wrote it? It's still racism and has no place here. I was going to let this pass since it's my country that is on the receiving end of the joke in this instance, which may or may not have been justified at the time the quote was written. However, we have also recently seen the sexual objectification and stereotyping based on physical characteristics inherited by certain racial types and it makes me feel really uncomfortable. To me this objectification is a step on the road to dehumanisation. We have too many recent historical examples of where that can lead and I thought it necessary to write something.
Some of you know I do a lot of musical projects with school aged children. There are some great songs out there, some of which I cannot bring myself to sing because they make me feel ill at ease on a racial level, even if I cannot always articulate why. I've recently reintroduced a song into my repertoire because, after about twenty years, I've finally settled on a form of words that doesn't stereotype by race. I'm pleased to have done it and kids have fun singing it. I shall sing it today.
I've been accused many times of being racist. Never has it been because I have deliberately gone out of my way to perform an act of racism. To the best of my knowledge I never have. However, because I am a member of a racial majority in the country of my birth I am assumed to be racist by some. As a teacher in the seventies I can still hear children saying to me that I was only picking on them because they were black. As it happens I wasn't. I was telling them their behaviour was unacceptable and it was preventing everyone else from learning. Of course they were black (or Asian, or Polish or Italian). I only had six white British children in that particular class.
Years later when working with a dance musician from Birmingham he told me I was racist, even though I have no idea what sparked his outburst. He said it wasn't anything I had said or done. I was white and therefore I was a racist.
Recently I've been made to think about these events again. As I walk through the streets in the nearest town I am aware of my feelings when I hear the sound of other European languages being spoken by those passing by. There seem to be an awful lot of them, particularly Eastern European ones. I feel uncomfortable about what I perceive to be an influx of foreign nationals and uncomfortable about how I respond internally. I am on the other side of that when I'm in France or Switzerland with PA. He loves to speak English and I can often spend almost a whole week there and hardly speak any French at all. I am sure that some people hearing us talk must feel the same as I do, uncomfortable at a perceived influx of the English. I try to speak more French, specially when out and about, but I'm not much good at it.
Maybe I'm taking this too far, but I see some aspects of racism creeping into these discussion groups. What one person sees as humour in a stereotype another perceives as a put-down or a threat. So what if a "great writer" wrote it? It's still racism and has no place here. I was going to let this pass since it's my country that is on the receiving end of the joke in this instance, which may or may not have been justified at the time the quote was written. However, we have also recently seen the sexual objectification and stereotyping based on physical characteristics inherited by certain racial types and it makes me feel really uncomfortable. To me this objectification is a step on the road to dehumanisation. We have too many recent historical examples of where that can lead and I thought it necessary to write something.
Some of you know I do a lot of musical projects with school aged children. There are some great songs out there, some of which I cannot bring myself to sing because they make me feel ill at ease on a racial level, even if I cannot always articulate why. I've recently reintroduced a song into my repertoire because, after about twenty years, I've finally settled on a form of words that doesn't stereotype by race. I'm pleased to have done it and kids have fun singing it. I shall sing it today.
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