anyways, i figured i might share with you why i missed my post last night (though I had the best of intentions).
i'm auditing a class at the law school i work at and fell asleep at my computer trying to complete the reading in time for class. it's definitely been a challenge to keep up with class work when work-work takes precedence, followed by me time. i'm working on doing better. the class is an interdisciplinary look at Color Blindness; each week we tackle a different discipline and examine their approach, thoughts and contributions to Color Blind ideology. and, yes, it's as amazing as it sounds.
so instead of thinking about race, gender and identity for you all last night, i was thinking about race, gender and identity in the context of my class. i want to share with you all one of my observations.
we were assigned to read Pride, Prejudice and Ambivalence: Toward a Unified Theory of Race and Ethnicity by Hazel Rose Markus of Stanford University (published in 2008), this in the context or radical theorists like Prof. Charles Lawrence III of Georgetown who confronts the salient-nature of white supremacy and his worry that current research and theory places the focus back onto the individual (the theory of racism as within the individual expressed through prejudicial thinking) at the same time as normalizing racial bias in a way that creates a "everyone's a little bit racist" -- so what? sort of attitude.
brief avenue q interlude which is silly (but true - especially in terms of its tongue in cheek lyrics - though i know some people don't get the tongue in cheek-ness):
anyways, Markus's article was quite a departure from more radical readings that confronted race, racism and white dominance head on, instead of coding things in euphemisms. it was odd because although she confronted her whiteness to a certain extent,
I was surprised to hear myself called a White person. After all these years studying race and ethnicity, I had somehow failed to realize that I "have" race, too. Moreover my observation that things were getting better for American Indi¬ans was experienced as reflecting this White perspective.it's not enough to acknowledge whiteness, if you don't also acknowledge the power, privilege and dominance that go along with it. moreover, even if you acknowledge whiteness but continue to engage in thinking, research and theory that comes from the desire to prove racial hierarchy, you discredit yourself. this, unfortunately, is what Markus has done.
instead of engaging with race in a meaningful way, she seemed to write this article to assuage white readers that their racism was okay. that they shouldn't feel bad about being "a little bit racist." she uses euphemisms: instead of saying white she says European, and instead of problemitizing white supremacy, she points to abstract things like "Independent Self" (code for white middle-class American values?) and the intricacies and unpacking of race vs. ethnicity. when she is not using euphemisms, she understates the signifance of white supremacy in the beginnings of psychology. psychology was developed as a way to prove racial hierarchy; its methods, tools and processes all came out of this goal. instead of pointing out the ugly truth, she says that although the field is so great, blah blah blah, there are a few "unsavory" parts of it.
even while she pointed out that middle-class whiteness is used as a standard against which everything else is abnormal, she simultaneously reinforced racial hierarchy. she does what Lawrence fears: shifts the focus back on the individual and normatizes racial bias. i do want to consider what she does do: appeal to white audiences. this Lawrence does not do so well. i wonder if is it important to construct arguments and theories that will not produce defensiveness in whites, or is that yet another act of subordination? how do we get whites on board? or even harder, how do we get white knight liberals to see that they're racist too?
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