christie is racist (part 2)

short recap: i received feedback after the first public reading of 'otherpleasespecify'. the characterisation of christie, was criticised. in particular, she was deemed to be 'the biggest racist of all'. christie - a 33 year old black single parent - is not so dissimilar to me in terms of her views and behaviour.

so... ouch!

however, i find this point of view interesting, because i would like to find out what lies behind this statement: what definition of racism is attached to it. it seems to me, that without a definition or racism, the task of eradicating it is pretty damn impossible.

defining racism is a biggy. i'm following some discussions on blogs, mainly written by 'white allies' - my favourite entries are listed in 'blog posts i like' in the right-hand column (below 'blog archive').

i made a comment on www.rachelstavern.com after reading the post more on racism and racists - i thought i might share what i wrote here:

rachel,

thank you for this fascinating post and sparking this discussion - i’ve found a lot of useful material in it. i wanted to go back a couple of steps where the topic was on institutional racism / white supremacy.
i was particularly interested by the discussion on who can/should be considered racist - everybody? everyone who is white? or just the real mad KKK people who would be proud to carry such a label?

i have been struggling with this question for many years. you will not be surprised to hear that i’m still struggling. in a nutshell: racism for me is a system or a state of being or a framework: it is synonymous with maintaining white supremacy & white privilege. everyone (i mean people of all ethnicities) engages in that to a certain extent. i guess white people in power are those who are in the greatest position to make (peaceful) changes - however i also agree with another commenter (ann?) that this won’t be happening in my lifetime. indeed, i think that before a ‘business case’ is made for dismantling white supremacy, the ‘moral case’ will never quite be strong enough. a wise person once said: “power concedes nothing without a demand. it never did and it never will” (frederick douglass). so i predict there will be an almighty struggle - which will not necessarily be peaceful - where black people & their allies will have to seize control of the future.

what will the outcome be? well ultimately, i hope it will be the creation of a society which has true race equality (i don’t believe this exists anywhere on earth, but i would love to be proved wrong). what will this look like? i honestly don’t know. it’s one of those things - we will know it when we have it, but at this moment it seems like a fairy tale.

i can say it won’t be a simple reversal of the power structure (leading to white oppresion), or a simple numbers game (eg more black leaders = freedom - although i DO believe that this could be a means to an end)

i think it will be something approximate to a society where privilege (currently experienced by white people) just does not exist (for those who may not know what i am talking about, please read: unpacking the invisible knapsack).

before we can get to THAT state we need to convince white people (and come to think of it, some black people too) that this privilege exists.

i’ve tried to write a play to capture what i think racism is and how it affects people. my blog (http://otherpleasespecify.blogspot.com) gives some information about it. if anyone would like to stop by and browse you’d be very welcome. and if anyone would like to read the play (it’s just the first draft! i want to develop it after receiving comments) just email me and let me know (email link from website).