Let's pretend we're all alike: a white Southerner's story about race

[resonant]

My mother and my teachers and my Sunday School leaders taught me that the way we deal with racial differences is never, ever to talk about them.

My mother and my teachers and my Sunday School leaders were all good, liberal, white Southerners, and in those days, when good, liberal, white Southerners wanted to teach their children that everyone was equal in human dignity, the way they did it was to teach their children to play a game called, "Let's pretend we're all alike."

A certain amount of anxiety was communicated with that lesson. No one ever outright said that if you mention the ways people are different, something awful might happen, but that was the message I got, just the same.



Now, I grew up in North Carolina, and in the late 1960s and early 1970s when I was absorbing these lessons, awful things were happening. Race riots were happening. Hell, lynchings were still happening. I wasn't aware of any of these things, but the adults were afraid of them, and their fear colored the way I learned that lesson.

("Let's pretend we're all alike" was a new approach to race. What my mother had learned from her parents was that there were two kinds of people: real people, regular people, like her, and those other people, who weren't quite people at all. Oh, it was important to show charity to them and not call them by that nasty word, but it wasn't really necessary to consider what they wanted when making a decision, and their children couldn't play with regular children because it just wasn't right. In that context, I have to say that "Let's pretend we're all alike" was an improvement.)

The problem, of course, is that in practice, "Let's pretend we're all alike" means, "Let's pretend everyone is white like me." Or, worse yet, "Let's pretend that the parts of your experience that are different from mine just aren't important, or even real."

And because we got the message imbued with all that unspoken anxiety, white people who play this game will protect the game. We'll try, with increasing nervousness, to move the conversation away from areas of difference, because if we draw attention to ways you're different from me, this is wrong and dangerous and may cause awful things to happen.

I came to the Midwest for college, and the dorm matched me up with an African-American Chicagoan for a roommate. We had a million things in common -- I mean, vampire novels alone could have kept us in conversation for months -- so the "Let's pretend we're all alike" game didn't work out too badly at first. But I still remember the day, about eight months into our first year together, when she made a sly little joke about the difference in our races. It was a revelation to me. We could talk about this! We could joke about this! It wouldn't suddenly make us hate each other! It wouldn't "create tensions" that would eventually (magically, without anyone making a decision to assault anyone) "explode into violence"! Nothing awful would happen at all!

In online discussions of race, when people say, "I'm colorblind. I don't see race," sometimes there's something frantic about it, an underlying fear. And I always wonder whether here, too, is a white person whose good, liberal parents taught them that the only safe thing to do with race was pretend it didn't exist.

Comments

[lyra-wing.livejournal.com]

Oh man. This. I do feel that sometimes claiming colorblindness is a sign that a person is not-quite getting the point. I am a person of color (yay Asians?), and, from my experience, I think there might be two levels of colorblindness. There's having colorblindness in the context of prejudice and snap judgments made based appearance. Which is a good thing. (Hah, if I had a nickel for every time someone has commented: "You speak English so well!")

But then there's that special kind of colorblindness that is - like you said - trying to make everyone white. There's a rich tapestry of heritage, language, family, culture - heck, even pop culture - that shouldn't be dismissed. People are different, and we should be able to acknowledge that without hurting one another.

Sigh.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

There's a rich tapestry of heritage, language, family, culture - heck, even pop culture - that shouldn't be dismissed. People are different, and we should be able to acknowledge that without hurting one another.

Yes! Or making beautiful and profound differences into mere decoration, something like "quaint native costumes."

It just seems hard for people to make the jump that it's good if I don't assume that your skin/eyes/hair tell me something about whether you'd be a good accountant, but it's bad if I don't accept that your skin/eyes/hair may mean your experience has been very different from mine.

[vulgarweed.livejournal.com]

Yes. Oh Lord yes. And add to this very well-meaning good liberal mom who's considered white in her home city but not here, who was a college-student immigrant from a country with a whole different set of racial politics and different codes and different ways racism plays out. She was baffled by it at home, and even more so here. So I got kind of a double-dose of "let's pretend we're all like even though we're obviously not -- I mean, you and I are obviously culturally different for starters-- because you'll hurt someone's feelings somehow if you're not careful."

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's fascinatingly complicated. I'd never thought of that aspect of the immigrant experience -- here, a whole new set of racial complexities to navigate without ever speaking of them!

colorblind

[auroramama]

I read somewhere - it might have been in a pamphlet I picked up in a women's bookstore in Boston - that when white people say, "I don't care what color someone is! I don't care if someone is green or purple or whatever!" we're imagining white people who happen to be dyed green or purple, like Easter eggs. And I realized that this was exactly what I was imagining. Gee, I thought, how generous I am to be OK with these nonexistent people with their complete lack of non-white history or culture. That was probably 20 years ago, and I still remember how stupid I felt.

Re: colorblind

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's interesting! I love that.

I had a similar moment when reading Emma Bull's War For the Oaks when Eddi says something about the fact that her lover sometimes turns into a dog, and her lover adds, "And a man." Hadn't realized until that moment that I was thinking of him as a human more or less wearing a costume, whereas of course he'd think of himself as a person/creature who had two shapes.

[schemingreader.livejournal.com]

Thanks for providing the historical context for the whole colorblindness thing. It chokes me up a little, reading your description of what it meant to be free of that constraint--freer to love someone for who they actually are.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

freer to love someone for who they actually are.

Yes! You caught how meaningful it was to me, even though I don't think I really expressed that part very well. This unspoken and unspeakable thing was putting some distance there that was keeping us from being the true friends we could become. It was such a relief to have it spoken.

[monanotlisa.livejournal.com]

I have nothing insightful to add - no news so far - but thanks for sharing.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[shayheyred.livejournal.com]

I've run into the "colorblindness" issue as a director of theater, where you are urged to do "color blind" casting. Well, that's great if it's a question of really making an effort to have a multi-ethnic cast, but it's lousy if then the director, er, "whitewashes" the cast, without using the actual differences between races and ethnic groups in a positive and creative way, a way that lets the actors not blend into an amorphous pale clump.

I first experienced this when I directed a Shakespeare play, and much to my surprise ended up with a cast of 14 where 6 of the cast were Asian and two were black. Those wonderful actors took the roles so much further than I could have imagined, just by drawing on cultures with which I was not deeply conversant. It was "Winter's Tale," by the way, and the shepherd scenes, set in mythical "Bohemia" had a decidedly Asian flavor. I loved that so much we changed the music to reflect it. I'm not looking for applause; the deeply moving nature of those scenes is entirely due to the actors - I just trimmed here and there and told them where to stand. They did the work, and brought something unexpected to the show. And to think at first I had very specific (very generic white people) ideas for those scenes.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

How very interesting! I'd love to have seen that production.

I did once see a performance of "Pericles" in which the actor in the title role was deaf and signed instead of speaking, and this highlighted and transformed all sorts of references to hearing, speaking, deafness, etc., in the text.

[geeklite.livejournal.com]

My mother's mother spent her early childhood in and around Germany. When she was 7 or 8 she and her mother left for England and left the rest of her family behind. They never heard from them again. They, we, are Romani. Or some sort of Gypsy anyway. I don't know, because my grandmother got indocrinated to behave like she was white. Boring white, English person here, nothing to see! Move along.

My father's family, on the other hand, are the most racist of racist fucks. I have spent many conversations with my Dad hearing about "n***ers", "pakis", "boongs"*, "slant-eyes" etc etc.

I spent the first... I don't even know how long... part of my life under the impression that these were the only two choices.

Which is my rather long winded way of saying, yeah, I kind of know what you mean in a way.

*http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=boong

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Oh, my god, the examples in that Urban Dictionary page made me literally queasy. Anybody who claims the purpose of that kind of slang isn't to dehumanize someone ought to read that page.

[minotaurs.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I grew up in Berzerkeley, liberal/hippie/athiest center of the universe, but I got taught the same lessons.

Here from metafandom

[tacky-tramp.livejournal.com]

That's because Berkeley is full of rich white people who grew up somewhere else.

[jacquez.livejournal.com]

I think it can be very difficult.

I wish I'd spoken more to my grandfather about race when he was alive, because he did not believe in pretending like it didn't matter to how you experienced the world, and he was one of the few people I've known like that.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

There's always this moment, when someone white first begins talking about race, when I cringe in anticipation of some dreadful stereotype. Probably I'm making other people uncomfortable by my own palpable discomfort, not because I still believe race can't be spoken about but because I'm just thinking, "Oh, please, don't say anything that's going to make me wish I weren't your friend."

[akaspeedo.livejournal.com]

I was brought up in Manhattan and yeah, I got the same lessons, too. It took me a long time to see how they erased people. In fact, I admit noticed it originally as it applied to myself as a Jew, surrounded at the time by only nice, liberal, non-religious Christians who could not understand why I refused to celebrate Christmas. Since it's a secular holiday really. An American hallmark holiday to boot. So why did I have to be so difficult and not go along with the party?

And I am white. It did open my eyes to the whole "colorblind" lesson, and to anyone who thinks everyone else should just be like, well, everyone else, when they really mean like *them.*

And thanks again for your original post because I don't spend that much time on lj and would actually have missed this whole discussion without you!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

surrounded at the time by only nice, liberal, non-religious Christians who could not understand why I refused to celebrate Christmas. Since it's a secular holiday really. An American hallmark holiday to boot. So why did I have to be so difficult and not go along with the party?

This makes me both laugh and cringe; I can remember making that argument. So embarrassing in retrospect.

[pir8fancier.livejournal.com]

And I always wonder whether here, too, is a white person whose good, liberal parents taught them that the only safe thing to do with race was pretend it didn't exist

Yes! Thank you.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I'm sure some of the people who say, "I'm colorblind," really mean, "I'm right and you're wrong so shut up," but I do think there are some genuinely well-meaning people doing the wrong thing and not understanding because their anxiety makes it hard for them to listen.

[ilyena_sylph]

Oh good lord yes.

I live with one of those. +sigh+

Thank you. Because yeah. That's where a lot of it comes from. And trying to challenge that "but this is how you're a good person" early training gets... bad reactions. I think we've seen that a ton.

(white, southern, born in the 80s)

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

And trying to challenge that "but this is how you're a good person" early training gets... bad reactions.

Yes -- I think people feel like they're being punished for trying to be good. And when a subject frightens you, it's hard to listen.

[clodia-risa.livejournal.com]

This. Alabama, 80's. That still tempers my discussions even though I think I've made at least two baby steps forward, because even if it's okay to make jokes, it's certainly not okay for me to make the first joke.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Oh, absolutely!

[moondancerdrake.livejournal.com]

That you for this. I think it helps some understand why often whites get panicy in conversations of race, as the conversations threatened the lessons of thier youth, the illusions colorblindness, like removing thier emotion shields or blinders.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

In this round of racefail we've definitely seen some who were just getting panicky because suddenly the conversation wasn't all about me me me -- but I do think there are some people who genuinely mean welll and don't understand that this way of looking at things just erases the experiences of anybody who isn't white.

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

Dunno if you read this (http://vito-excalibur.livejournal.com/206374.html), but I had some semi-similar thoughts on the subject.

I think "let's pretend we're all alike" was totally a good step away from the status quo! A very important step! But then at some point you can go ahead and take a second step. ;)

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I hadn't seen that post! Your thoughts were a lot funnier than mine!

[teckelvik.livejournal.com]

I grew up in Alabama, and got the same messages. Now, I live in the Midwest, and have a non-white daughter. One of the hardest things about that is convincing my nice, loving family that it matters. I try to be upfront about the white privilege I have (and about the fact that she will see more of that than I do, because part of the privilege is being blind to it). My family thinks, vocally, that if I don't bring it up, she'll never notice that she isn't white. Because, after all, WE consider her to be one of us, don't we?

Some days, I don't even know where to start.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Because, after all, WE consider her to be one of us, don't we?

Oh, dear -- that's so hard. Because I'm sure they think this is a good thing. You don't want her to feel like an outsider, do you?

Huh, this suddenly reminded me of some advice I read once about talking to people who've had a death in their family. One person said, "I don't want to bring it up; I don't want to remind her," and the other said, "You don't seriously think she's forgotten, do you?"

[nzraya.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think this was very very widespread as well in places that didn't have much racial diversity or history of racial tensions, in the 1980s. I grew up in New Zealand where, obviously, there is both race and racism -- but the colonial history is *slightly* less fraught than in the places that were colonized earlier, like Australia and America, and there was no history of slavery to further embitter things. I didn't meet a person of African descent until I moved to London at the age of 8, which meant that I'd had time to learn about Black people *theoretically* at a very childish level (i.e. "they're just like me on the inside") before I ever got to know one in practice. Interestingly, it was the West Indian kids at my London primary school who were the first to befriend me (another outsider?) and offer to partner me on walks, etc. The white kids in my class were astonished when I accepted the offer and held hands with Angelina, a very dark-skinned West Indian girl, on the walk to the swimming pool. They literally said to me, "Aren't you worried her colour will come off on you?!" This was so profoundly ridiculous that it just made it impossible to even remotely entertain the notion that they might have any sort of point.

...Umm, seem to have wandered off there a bit, the point being that while overcoming *difference* was a snap, partly because the difference was described so stupidly, overcoming the perception of *similarity* was much trickier and didn't really happen for me, as for you, until college (when it finally became okay to be frank about different experiences and ask each other questions).

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

while overcoming *difference* was a snap, partly because the difference was described so stupidly, overcoming the perception of *similarity* was much trickier

Well put!

[girlguidejones.livejournal.com]

I wrote almost this same post last week. It's a weird sort of comfort to hear a similar experience from someone else. I wasn't born in the south, but we are about the same age, and I experienced much the same when I was growing up (including an eye-opening experience college experience). I suspect there are a lot of us out there.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I'm learning from comments here that this sort of training was a lot more widespread than I'd thought.

[rhosyndu.livejournal.com]

Yes.

Ain't got much to add, but it's an important difference.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[dv8nation.livejournal.com]

You're right, it's fear. The whole of modern American society is built on fear. With the fear that others will realize that we are not what we pretend to be right at the top.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

With the fear that others will realize that we are not what we pretend to be right at the top.

This makes me think of something that hadn't occurred to me, which is that if I admit that someone else's experience has really been different from mine because I'm white and they're not, I'm admitting that I don't know what their experience is like. And that it might appall me if I found out. So it's not just our early training we're clinging to, it's our comfortable ignorance, too.

[sofiaviolet]

It's not just that it's the only "safe" way white people learn to handle race, and we're scared to push any harder.

It's that "colorblindness" is a pat on the back these days - maybe it was a revolutionary concept back in the day, and it's a good first step to get people to think of "others" as human, but it has outlived its usefulness. We have to work harder, come up with something better. We need to aim higher.

And that's hard, because it's hard to come up with a cute catchphrase that sums up the balance between recognizing and appreciating differences between people and cultures, and finding common ground to coexist. And most people will never see or participate in the kinds of discussions that have happened recently, and are continuing.


I see the same general "I'm colorblind" statements in New Orleans and Boston (hometown and current residence), but I'm still feeling out the ways that they're different.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

"colorblindness" is a pat on the back these days - maybe it was a revolutionary concept back in the day, and it's a good first step to get people to think of "others" as human, but it has outlived its usefulness.

It's true! You don't get brownie points for the amazing graciousness of accepting that people who are different from you are actual human beings nay more.

So you're thinking colorblindness is playing out in different ways in South and North?

[oxfordgirl.livejournal.com]

Oh!

My.

(Here from metafandom, via my friendsfriends.)

That... explains so much about how my (Texan) mother raised me, and why she raised me that way. And explains a lot about some of the ingrained habits and mental tics around race and colour that I've been trying to clear up.

This post was an enormous eye-opener for me, and I think the perspective it's given me will be really helpful in future.

Thank you.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Wow, does that ever make me feel good!

[fire-fire-who.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this post.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[gertinator.livejournal.com]

Stumbled across this and it hit a real sensitive spot for me - I don't know if you've heard any of the ways Oakland, CA (where I live) has been making the news lately (search "Oscar Grant" on Youtube, or after last Friday, "Oakland Police funeral" - the the topics aren't related except in that way that they *are* ) but yeah, wow. We are so far beyond the world of "Let's pretend we're all the same." I came from a wealthy, white, Christian, Republican area of the Midwest, and there were about six families in my whole school that weren't white, along with a smattering of adopted Asian kids. College was a revelation.

I had a really awesome teacher in college who likened race in America to the "Small World ride" at Disneyland (never been on it myself, so this is a bit of hearsay): you go through all the rich, vivid, unique, different cultures, and at the end, everybody is *dressed in white* and *singing the same song* in *English.* Metaphorically speaking, that's a pretty powerful image of assimilation.

I'm an artist, and quite frankly, I can't think of anything worse than being colorblind. I teach art to kids, and sometimes we are doing projects where we have donated materials in limited assorted colors and I make then say a pledge with me before I hand out supplies - "I am an artist and I love all colors. I may have a color that is my particular favorite, but as an artist it is important for me to give other colors a chance, too. I promise to enjoy whatever color I get today and give it a chance to be my new favorite." Okay, yeah... maybe I'm a little bit subversive in my teaching. :)

Thanks for speaking up.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I love that "Small World" comparison. The fascinating foreign people in their quaint native costumes! Inside they're just like us!