Racism. Still happening today. No joke.

[thorfinn]

Hi.

Some people are a little confused about why the Hey Hey "blackface" skit is being viewed as quite offensive, and why the controversy hasn't just blown over.

If you're a White Australian, and especially male, you probably don't understand the context. Women maybe understand it more - they have more direct experience of similar things.

So let's have a little story to illustrate the context.


Think of half a dozen or more direct insults that might be used if someone was seriously trying to pick a fight with you. As in, really really pick a fight, not the joking friendly kind of insult that Australians are famous for. I'm not going to list any here - but if you can't think of any, then you're not trying hard enough. And if you really can't think of any, I'll supply you with some, in person, if you like. I guarantee you I can find something that will offend you.


Now, imagine that every single day, you get at least one, if not several, random idiots come up to you, and yell one of those insults at you, actually trying to pick a fight with you.

Not people you know, of course. Random strangers, different ones every time, come up to you whilst you're walking along the street and yell something horribly insulting, and probably not even relevant to you at all, and try to pick a fight.

That's life every single day as a non-white person in Australia. Really.


That experience is what I grew up with, every single day of my school life in the 1980s in Sydney Australia, and most every day at University through the early 1990s. It happened a little less often once I got into the workforce in Sydney, and doesn't happen much now I live in inner city Melbourne, where people are sufficiently alright with Asians that we had John So as Mayor for years, and he barely speaks English. That said, even today, when I visit Geelong, the second largest Victorian city, I still get looked at as if I'm a freak show when walking down the street holding my wife's hand.

And as an Asian, I got it easy. Mostly people yelled from across the street, because the same kind of idiot has watched Kung Fu movies, so they didn't usually yell in actual kicking range.


For Indigenous Australians, Africans and other black skinned folks in Australia? That kind of thing happens up close and personal, and happens every day, even to adults. And often that includes physical assault, not merely verbal assault. Today. Not "in the past". Today.


So don't be surprised when people are a just a touch angry at a "joke", when the "joke" in question reinforces the idea of an entire group of actual people as being non-human idiots, and therefore reinforces the idea that you are allowed to yell at them and beat them up.

A couple of links to other relevant places:

• Artbroken: Yet another take on Hey Hey It's Racism (good explanation of "accidental" vs "deliberate" racism, and why the former is still a problem)
  
• Gadge: The gift of fear (similar issue in regards to women and rape)
  
• Eurasian-sensation: Message from Black Man on Blackface
  

Before you respond, read:

Karnythia: The Do's and Don'ts of Being a Good Ally

1. Don't derail a discussion. Even if it makes you personally uncomfortable to discuss X issue...it's really not about you or your comfort. It's about X issue, and you are absolutely free to not engage rather than try to keep other people from continuing their conversation.

2. Do read links/books referenced in discussions. Again, even if the things being said make you uncomfortable, part of being a good ally is not looking for someone to provide a 101 class midstream. Do your own heavy lifting.

3. Don't expect your feelings to be a priority in a discussion about X issue. Oftentimes people get off onto the tone argument because their feelings are hurt by the way a message was delivered. If you stand on someone's foot and they tell you to get off? The correct response is not "Ask nicely" when you were in the wrong in the first place.

4. Do shut up and listen. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of listening to the people actually living X experience. There is nothing more obnoxious than someone (however well intentioned) coming into the spaces of a marginalized group and insisting that they absolutely have the solution even though they've never had X experience. You can certainly make suggestions, but don't be surprised if those ideas aren't well received because you've got the wrong end of the stick somewhere.

5. Don't play Oppresion Olympics. Really, if you're in the middle of a conversation about racism? Now is not the time to talk about how hard it is to be a white woman and deal with sexism. Being oppressed in one area does not mean you have no privilege in another area. Terms like intersectionality and kyriarchy exist for a reason. Also...that's derailing. Stop it.

6. Do check your privilege. It's hard and often unpleasant, but it's really necessary. And you're going to get things wrong. Because no one is perfect. But part of being an ally is being willing to hear that you're doing it wrong.

7. Don't expect a pass into safe spaces because you call yourself an ally. You're not entitled to access as a result of not being an asshole. Sometimes it just isn't going to be about you or what you think you should happen. Your privilege didn't fall away when you became an ally, and there are intra-community conversations that need to take place away from the gaze of the privileged.

8. Do be willing to stand up to bigots. Even if all you do is tell a friend that the thing they just said about X marginalized group is unacceptable, you're doing some of the actual work of being an ally.

9. Don't treat people like accessories or game tokens. Really, you get no cool points for having a diverse group of friends. Especially when you try to use that as license to act like an asshole.

10. Do keep trying. Fighting bigotry is a war, not a battle and it's generational. So, keep your goals realistic, your spirits up (taking a break to recoup emotional, financial, physical reserves is a-okay), and your heart in the right place. Eventually we'll get it right.

Comments

[qamar]

Nice. I can barely imagine what it must have been like for you growing up. But, I do see M. get racially profiled *every* time we're in an airport, whilst I skip through without a second's glance. There is so much mistrust and bigotry every single day for anyone who is non-white.

I'm linking to this discussion for anyone reading this who might want further thoughts.

[kowari]

I couldn't help but smile at that entire thing... knowing the OP as I do. So white privilege, I know I used to think like that. It took a lot of reading and understanding to get that I was wrong. But, that is kind of the point of any privilege. You dont know you have it most of the time - and even when you are aware of it, you still spout off stuff that you dont know you are doing.

[thorfinn]

Yeah, he looks a little bit Middle Eastern, so he must be a terrorist. :-/

[paula_rizzuto]

Thanks

[thorfinn]

:-) No worries.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not familiar with the blackface "joke" you're talking about, but that's not material. I think this is a really good post and a reminder that racism is still alive and well. There's plenty of it here in America, too, in varying degrees and toward various different racial groups in various parts of the country.

One additional "do" I would include is "Do talk about it. Do be willing to ask questions about things you don't understand, even if you're afraid it will make you sound dumb." I worked a lot on news articles related to educational inequalities among different ethnic groups in public schools, and that required asking a lot of questions most people would be scared to ask because they either sound uninformed or racist -- because some people are scared that mentioning race AT ALL is racist. It's not. And people still need to talk about this stuff, a lot. They need to get comfortable with the topic, and get comfortable with learning more about what they don't already understand.

Having the first black president has been interesting because it makes a lot of people uncomfortable to even acknowledge his African ancestry. Being uncomfortable with discussions of race only makes fear and misunderstanding worse. I'm glad that the table has been set for dialogue, but sorry to see that so few people are willing to actually have the dialogue.

-- Beth

EEEK be careful...

[kowari]

With that "do" you have to be careful where you ask those questions. There are many places where people get upset if you look to be educated or ask why or dont come into the conversation already running. Personally, I don't agree with that stance I am very much for educating people at every opportunity, but I understand it is out there. It is exhausting having to explain the same things over and over again.

[thorfinn]

Beth: The incident in question is that some "entertainers" got up on a television "talent" show called "Hey Hey It's Saturday" and did a "black and white minstrel" act, complete with bootpolish blackface and acting like monkeys. Harry Connick Jr was there as a guest judge, gave the act 0/10, and said "If you did that in America, it'd be Hey Hey there's no more show".

He got a very grudging apology from the television station, no apology was made to Africans and people of African descent, and quite a lot of Australians have been commenting all over the place about how it can't possibly be a problem, surely it's just a storm in a teacup.

[bunnikins.livejournal.com]

Also, racism is not just a Thing White People Do. I'm not trying to downplay the white role in the problem at all, but the Chinese people I've met/observed here are incredibly racist. Moreso the tourists than the locals, but not just the tourists.

However, if I mention that in a discussion with white people, I get uncomfortable fidgets and a change of subject. Even better, I've been told that since I'm white myself, making this observation is me being racist towards the Chinese. Eh?

Ps: I hate commenting via OpenID, Thorf. Stop being interesting on Dreamwidth at once! ;)

[damned_colonial]

Easily fixed: would you like a DW invite code so you can have a real account here for commenting (or more)?

[thorfinn]

Heh. I'm very happy to stand up and say that a lot of Chinese are incredibly racist. :-)

I didnt see it, but...

[kowari]

It was clearly offensive the first time, and doing it again does not lessen the impact of the racism because you are "reliving the past". There are plenty of people wandering around within my earshot saying "What are we? America? Can't we take a joke anymore?" Well, actually, we can when it isn't so offensive that the funny is lost. I try to point that out to them whenever I can. I get my message mixed up in my white privilege sometimes too and screw it up and bring in feminist issues (which is wrong wrong wrong, similar but wrong). But I am out there and trying (very trying as some might say :P)

Intent is also important to factor into things like this. But ALWAYS offense is in the eye of the beholder, no matter the intent. That said, it pays not to be too precious and to chose your fights. I think this is a good fight.

Re: I didnt see it, but...

[thorfinn]

I think you're allowed to bring in your own issues if it's useful to the discussion and potentially helps people understand the similarities.

Where it's not okay is when people play the "poor me I am worse off" game, which isn't actually useful discussion. :-)

You're right about the choosing your fights though. It's easier to just ignore the idiots that to acknowledge them at all... The difficulty is that totally ignoring the problem doesn't make the problem go away. And when you see friends ignore the problem, that feels really bad.

[teknohippi.livejournal.com]

Working with indigenous communities I hear/see many of the issues that you are talking about. Racism is here, there are many people who are subjected to institutional and direct racism every day in that community from the thoughtless comments of "All Native Tasmanians where killed" to "Black C*nt" and worse.
I see the bad health, the lack of resources, the fact that now in Victoria Indigenous Communities under the new heritage Act are the only Stautory organisations in the state who do not get direct and ongoing government funding.

That is what I see and why I agree with you totally and remeber how I was as an unthinking heartless child using words like "Abo" as an insult without even knowing why.

[thorfinn]

*nod* It's taken me a while to understand quite how badly done by the indigenous community in Australia is, and still is.

I have personally mostly stopped experiencing racism on a daily basis, because I'm lucky to live in a place where it mostly doesn't happen to Asians any more.

I didn't realise it still happened to black skinned people, until a visiting African American lady mentioned that she'd had some really bad experiences just walking down the street. :-/

And the recent troubles with Indian students and Somali immigrants remind me that this problem is real, and still present today, and cannot just be ignored.

[khrister]

Pardon me if I'm missing something, but what is racist about the statement "All Native Tasmanians where killed"? Without context, that seems to me to be a statement of fact (at least according to Wikipedia).

The fact that this happened is horrible in itself, but I don't get how the statement is racist in general.

Of course, as a Swedish white male, I might be missing something obvious...

[tangent_woman]

I grew up in dazzlingly white Irish settled rural Australia, and despite the mashed-potato homogeneity of the culture there, I know there is persistent racism in Australia. As a white person in conversations with white people, the stream of casual racist epithets, assumptions, stereotypes and slurs was an ugly and (to me) upsetting part of the cultural landscape. I got out of that life (made easier by never having fit in) and grew a clue (caution: clue growing still in progress).

I know that I have marinated in a racist culture, and I have to correct for the influence of that bias all the time. I know that the influence of racism here on me personally is about as minimal as it gets. So given that I can't know what it is to be anything but of plainly Caucasian appearance, I look at how it has distorted my world view in a million tiny, subtle, harmful ways and try to extrapolate from that how many orders of magnitude more impact it has to have on people who are non-white.

I can understand why the Australian directors/producers of Hey Hey it's History (or whatever it was called) didn't foresee that the black face sketch would be a problem. It is because we don't have as high a level of awareness, acknowledgment and contrition for the atrocities of the past that people in the USA do.

I commented in an LJ on the topic of whether black-face is inherently offensive, stating that I believed that the USA has a highly developed taboo around this particular artifact of parody of black people, and Australia does not. My broader point was that the USA is regularly astounded to find that not every country in the world shares their cultural mores, and that Australia not having this taboo to as high a degree is an example of this. Which is not to say that Australia is superior because of it.

And having considered your post, I am increasingly convinced that the "ha ha black-face" meme indicates a pervasive insensitivity to racism, or perhaps an obliviousness? I've long suspected mashed-potato Australia of cultivating a state of dissociation from the atrocities that were perpetrated against the Aboriginal people. It'd be par for the course if a similar set of victim-blaming, claim-denying, we're-not-as-bad-as-the-other-guys rationalisation is going on with regard to expressions of racism.

I honestly wonder whether I (who did not watch the show in question) would even have heard about it if there had not been a US celebrity there to call them on it and make it "news". And given the attitudes I overhear from the white side of things, I suspect it will take a lot of time and education to reach a point where racial slurs are recognised up front as being not funny by Australian TV show producers and their audiences.

[thorfinn]

Yep. Australians also have a long tradition of pretending that anything that's put as a joke is inherently okay.

No questions asked "joke" = "funny" and therefore cannot possibly be anything else.

As I said somewhere else, racism can certainly be funny. Generally being offensive can be damn funny too. That doesn't make it acceptable... Yet it certainly is viewed as such.

[gths]

What gets me is the blanket denial that we don't have a problem with racism, and if one tries to bring it up the "political correctness" crap gets brought up, as if treating everyone equally without relying on prejudice is some kind of weakness.

I mean, as you said, it's very easy for white males such as myself* to think everything's fine because, for instance, I'm not a target, I don't have to cop abuse on a daily basis. And of course white males tend to dominate public discussion so if they say "oh we don't have a problem with racism", that's apparently how it is. Which is bull. If someone's dishing it out and thinking it's a bit of a laugh of course they're going to be oblivious to how much of jerk they've being.

A lot of it comes down to parental and peer influence, I think. One of the things I picked up from my father was that he'd take people on face value. He was a fairly gregarious person (to a fault, almost) who'd tend to take people under his wing, and I don't think I ever heard him say a bad word about anyone. Mum's from a more farming background which is more conservative (my grandparents on her side were fairly racist - and a bit sectarian!) but she's moderated a bit. What she did try to teach me was manners, though.

Along with everything else, casual racism strikes me as being extremely discourteous. That might sound like I'm putting it mildly, but I mean, Kamahl was interviewed about the blackface debacle after his name was being mentioned during the broadcast, and as he often says, he reiterated "why do people have to be so unkind?".

I don't really know why some people demean those who they feel don't fit into their small world. This might sound a bit patronising but at least curiosity about their background or whatever has to be a better response than hostility.

And the way how we treat aboriginals just makes me sad. I just feel the "intervention" is just repeating a lot of mistakes and is basically being done for the wrong reasons and for the most cynical of intentions. Maybe it's better than the "old" days but it's still not good enough.

[thorfinn]

I'm with you on the discourteous thing. Discourtesy is not mild - discourtesy is the sort of thing that people used to fight duels to the death about. We don't do that any more because it's a stupid waste, but that doesn't mean that being rude is somehow magically okay.

And yes, I'm a little troubled about the "intervention" too. :-/ I think there's far too little listening going on, and much too much "this should be better because we say so."

[eleanorjane]

Yeah, I've been really sad to see the "but it was all meant in fun"/"what, can't we take a joke any more?"/"well piss off to America then" cards being played by people who I expected to know better. Australia has a serious, if non-obvious*, racism problem, but you'd be hard-pressed to get the vast majority of Aussies to understand (let alone admit) that.

* non-obvious to Privileged White People, that is.

[thorfinn]

*nod* A lot of it is simple lack of understanding - really feel free to pass a link to this post around if you think they'll bother to read it.

Essentially, the difficulty is that something can be a joke, funny, and still horrendously offensive and inappropriate.

These things overlap, and the overlap isn't necessarily good.

[lil-brown-bat.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of once when I was in Germany on business and had a weekend to explore. I went to Koln to photograph the cathedral and lucked into the first day of Carnival. There were groups of people wandering around in costume, groups of friends who were dressed alike, so you'd get a bunch of people all dressed as animals, for example. Anyway, I came on a group of people -- white people, Germans -- dressed as "Africans": grass skirts, hoky-looking bead necklaces, and blackface.

I had never in my life seen a white person in blackface before, but coming from the United States I had grown up with the legacy of what blackface means. I think that I'm the kind of white person who doesn't have the automatic "not my problem so I don't see it" reaction to racism, and there's no chance that I would have ever seen white people in blackface as harmless fun; even so, I was really startled at the strength of my emotional reaction. I've been trying and trying to find an analogy, and I can't find one that just hits it. It was sort of like watching someone take a crap in a funeral urn, believing it was a chamberpot. It was sort of like watching a man wearing a t-shirt saying, "I FUCKED YOUR MOTHER", thinking it's a great joke (if somewhat crass), and vaguely aware that rape does happen...as he walks past a rape crisis center. Neither of those entirely fits, but they're close. "Horrified disbelief" probably sums it up best, as in...oh my god, I can't believe that someone actually did that.

If you're not from the United Stares, you probably won't really understand the extent to which blackface is Just Not Done here (which is not to say it never happens, but it's never done with anything like innocent intent).

[thorfinn]

Ow, yes. I suspect that's exactly the reaction that Harry Connick Jr was having. Stunned "I can't believe some people just did that, in front of me, on a National Television Show." Major props to him for taking on the issue, rather than ignoring it.

[tcpip]

So don't be surprised when people are a just a touch angry at a "joke", when the "joke" in question reinforces the idea of an entire group of actual people as being non-human idiots, and therefore reinforces the idea that you are allowed to yell at them and beat them up.

What you said.

[(Anonymous)]

I can relate to your experiences of racism. I was born in Australia but have an Asian appearance. My sister and I were teased in primary school for looking different (we were the only Asian-looking children in the school - this was in the 70s...
I have walked down the street and been told: "Go back to your own country". Words could not begin to describe how bad I felt about that, given that I consider Australia my country.
As you said, it has been better in recent years as it is now very common to see Asian people walking around. In some ways though, racism is now less overt...which is worse in many respects.
-Aline
PS I'd like a Dreamwidth code please :)

[thorfinn]

Yeah, I wasn't born here, but I've been a citizen for quite a long time now, so those comments hurt similarly. :-/

Err, need an email address to send you a code... I can't seem to remember what your LJ id is, or I'd go digging. :-)