Monday review: racism is not comfortable
27 July 2010
Kenya was decolonized in the early 1960s. Visiting there in 1987, I could see vestiges of British rule but recognize that this was clearly a country run by Africans – and why not? This was Africa. But I was a white girl from New York City, and while I’d had a black roommate (who became a good friend) and been given ample opportunity in the urban sprawl of the tri-state area to feel integration, the truth was I felt more comfortable among a group of white people than any other crowd. In ’87, when I piled into a matatu in the rural village of Voi where my friend was doing work for the Peace Corps, one of only two white people among twelve speaking Swahili to one another, for the first time in my life I felt how awkward it was to represent the minority. That evening, after reaching the sprawling ranch of a white farmer, I felt strangely at ease speaking MY language with MY people. Am I a racist? Of course not.
In San Diego this weekend, the largest annual gathering of nerds descended upon Comic-Con. Once simply a convention for comic book lovers, it now includes movie studios hawking their wares and any other media outlet even tangentially connected with super heroes, science fiction or animation. I was there, free loading on my husband’s business trip and able to observe the crowd. There wasn’t a chiseled hunk nor a blonde cheerleader sort among them. No, these were happy, self-admitted pocket protector types, standing in line to be the first to see a clip from “Tron” or listen to a panel and bathe in the cool light of Harrison Ford, Sigourney Weaver and Robert Downey Jr. The convention sells out in about five seconds because it’s one giant opportunity for one oddball to be among many. Why? Because they’re more comfortable around their own kind. Is that wrong? Of course it isn’t.
What happened last week regarding Shirley Sherrod and what is imminent (Thursday) in Arizona with SB 1070, is wrong. It is racism. Andrew Breitbart will tell you that he was simply responding to the NAACP’s accusation that the Tea Party movement tolerates racists. So he dug deep inside his nasty soul to portray a black woman, speaking at an NAACP function, as a racist herself. By now, we all know, Sherrod was actually illuminating her growth as a human being by telling a story of how she was able to rise above race and see a man who was in need rather than a man who was white. Did Sherrod then suddenly begin to hang with honkies? Probably not. I don’t know. Integration isn’t the point. Tolerance and openness is.
In Arizona, a majority of voters support the coming law that requires police, during the course of lawful contact, to check the immigration status of anyone they suspect may be in the country illegally. Many of these voters are frustrated over the tax revenue those crossing the border fail to provide. Others are concerned that too many jobs are being lost to illegal Latinos who will work for less. Both of these are valid concerns. But a percentage of the Arizona economy, like it or not, relies on just this group as consumers and laborers. Still other Arizonans claim, or have been brainwashed to believe, that with Latinos comes crime. Not only do the facts not support this, but police believe SB 1070 will drive an immigrant population underground whom they rely upon for information regarding drug trafficking, corruption and other felonious acts.
Cutting to the chase, this law will only be enforced by first observing the color of a person’s skin. After some type of infraction, even one simply perceived, if the individual has dark skin, hair and eyes, their citizenship will be questioned. If their last name ends in Z, they better have papers. I’m not being hysterical. It’s not my style. But SB 1070 involves not “attrition through enforcement” but attrition through racism. There are thousands upon thousands of legal Latinos living in Arizona. Many are citizens, born in the U.S., second generation Americans like me. And yet thousands upon thousands of Irish illegal immigrants live and work in this country and fear little. Why? Because they’re white and speak English (albeit with a heavy brogue). Tommy O’Callaghan in New York has no more right to be here than Jose Sanchez in Arizona, but Tommy’s feeling good and Jose is not. It’s racism.
I mention my time in Africa in ’87 and at Comic-Con this past weekend to suggest that being more comfortable around one’s own breed has no prejudicial aspect to it. The impulse is human, even animalistic. Familiarity may indeed breed contempt, but is also provides a sense of “okay-ness”. I know these people, they know me, I feel okay. But it’s not a feeling achieved at the expense of another’s exclusion. When I arrived at the Kenyan plantation owned by the white man, my stress level went down, not because I was happy to be away from the black villagers in the matatu, but because I was more comfortable to be with my own kind. Honestly, the almost two-hundred thousand who attended Comic-Con appeared to be the happiest people on the planet. Not because all the really cool people were somewhere else, but because the attendees all had a common interest, one they felt passionate about, one that defined many of them, one that made them feel comfortable.
Shirley Sherrod wasn’t denying her initial prejudicial sentiments. They were rooted in experience. But she realized that just because she was more comfortable helping out the black farmers, it could not come at the expense of the white farmer. She looked beyond race. Andrew Breitbart and Fox News looked right into the kettle of racism and tried to stir it into a delicious stew. Shame on everyone (Tom Vilsack, the White House, the NAACP) for adding salt before tasting.
In Arizona, a lot of white people are fed up. They’re more comfortable being with each other than they are being with Latinos, many whom they believe to be in the country illegally (many are). A bunch of them assumed things would be better if they could just do something and so SB 1070 was born. But Arizona, in coming up with its own law regarding a federal matter, infringes on the most basic concept in our federal judicial system: a man is innocent until proven guilty. Mistakenly arresting and detaining just one legal U.S. citizen of Latin descent in the name of attrition through enforcement is not worth correctly deporting hundreds of others. It just isn’t.
My apologies to Arizona friends who think SB 1070 should not be law. And to those I call nerds from Comic-Con, I’ve been given permission by friends who attend every year. I love nerds. And to my black friends, I know you get it. It’s just me, getting comfortable.
Kenya was decolonized in the early 1960s. Visiting there in 1987, I could see vestiges of British rule but recognize that this was clearly a country run by Africans – and why not? This was Africa. But I was a white girl from New York City, and while I’d had a black roommate (who became a good friend) and been given ample opportunity in the urban sprawl of the tri-state area to feel integration, the truth was I felt more comfortable among a group of white people than any other crowd. In ’87, when I piled into a matatu in the rural village of Voi where my friend was doing work for the Peace Corps, one of only two white people among twelve speaking Swahili to one another, for the first time in my life I felt how awkward it was to represent the minority. That evening, after reaching the sprawling ranch of a white farmer, I felt strangely at ease speaking MY language with MY people. Am I a racist? Of course not.
In San Diego this weekend, the largest annual gathering of nerds descended upon Comic-Con. Once simply a convention for comic book lovers, it now includes movie studios hawking their wares and any other media outlet even tangentially connected with super heroes, science fiction or animation. I was there, free loading on my husband’s business trip and able to observe the crowd. There wasn’t a chiseled hunk nor a blonde cheerleader sort among them. No, these were happy, self-admitted pocket protector types, standing in line to be the first to see a clip from “Tron” or listen to a panel and bathe in the cool light of Harrison Ford, Sigourney Weaver and Robert Downey Jr. The convention sells out in about five seconds because it’s one giant opportunity for one oddball to be among many. Why? Because they’re more comfortable around their own kind. Is that wrong? Of course it isn’t.
What happened last week regarding Shirley Sherrod and what is imminent (Thursday) in Arizona with SB 1070, is wrong. It is racism. Andrew Breitbart will tell you that he was simply responding to the NAACP’s accusation that the Tea Party movement tolerates racists. So he dug deep inside his nasty soul to portray a black woman, speaking at an NAACP function, as a racist herself. By now, we all know, Sherrod was actually illuminating her growth as a human being by telling a story of how she was able to rise above race and see a man who was in need rather than a man who was white. Did Sherrod then suddenly begin to hang with honkies? Probably not. I don’t know. Integration isn’t the point. Tolerance and openness is.
In Arizona, a majority of voters support the coming law that requires police, during the course of lawful contact, to check the immigration status of anyone they suspect may be in the country illegally. Many of these voters are frustrated over the tax revenue those crossing the border fail to provide. Others are concerned that too many jobs are being lost to illegal Latinos who will work for less. Both of these are valid concerns. But a percentage of the Arizona economy, like it or not, relies on just this group as consumers and laborers. Still other Arizonans claim, or have been brainwashed to believe, that with Latinos comes crime. Not only do the facts not support this, but police believe SB 1070 will drive an immigrant population underground whom they rely upon for information regarding drug trafficking, corruption and other felonious acts.
Cutting to the chase, this law will only be enforced by first observing the color of a person’s skin. After some type of infraction, even one simply perceived, if the individual has dark skin, hair and eyes, their citizenship will be questioned. If their last name ends in Z, they better have papers. I’m not being hysterical. It’s not my style. But SB 1070 involves not “attrition through enforcement” but attrition through racism. There are thousands upon thousands of legal Latinos living in Arizona. Many are citizens, born in the U.S., second generation Americans like me. And yet thousands upon thousands of Irish illegal immigrants live and work in this country and fear little. Why? Because they’re white and speak English (albeit with a heavy brogue). Tommy O’Callaghan in New York has no more right to be here than Jose Sanchez in Arizona, but Tommy’s feeling good and Jose is not. It’s racism.
I mention my time in Africa in ’87 and at Comic-Con this past weekend to suggest that being more comfortable around one’s own breed has no prejudicial aspect to it. The impulse is human, even animalistic. Familiarity may indeed breed contempt, but is also provides a sense of “okay-ness”. I know these people, they know me, I feel okay. But it’s not a feeling achieved at the expense of another’s exclusion. When I arrived at the Kenyan plantation owned by the white man, my stress level went down, not because I was happy to be away from the black villagers in the matatu, but because I was more comfortable to be with my own kind. Honestly, the almost two-hundred thousand who attended Comic-Con appeared to be the happiest people on the planet. Not because all the really cool people were somewhere else, but because the attendees all had a common interest, one they felt passionate about, one that defined many of them, one that made them feel comfortable.
Shirley Sherrod wasn’t denying her initial prejudicial sentiments. They were rooted in experience. But she realized that just because she was more comfortable helping out the black farmers, it could not come at the expense of the white farmer. She looked beyond race. Andrew Breitbart and Fox News looked right into the kettle of racism and tried to stir it into a delicious stew. Shame on everyone (Tom Vilsack, the White House, the NAACP) for adding salt before tasting.
In Arizona, a lot of white people are fed up. They’re more comfortable being with each other than they are being with Latinos, many whom they believe to be in the country illegally (many are). A bunch of them assumed things would be better if they could just do something and so SB 1070 was born. But Arizona, in coming up with its own law regarding a federal matter, infringes on the most basic concept in our federal judicial system: a man is innocent until proven guilty. Mistakenly arresting and detaining just one legal U.S. citizen of Latin descent in the name of attrition through enforcement is not worth correctly deporting hundreds of others. It just isn’t.
My apologies to Arizona friends who think SB 1070 should not be law. And to those I call nerds from Comic-Con, I’ve been given permission by friends who attend every year. I love nerds. And to my black friends, I know you get it. It’s just me, getting comfortable.
Comfortable – that is what I was experiencing when I hung with the Irish girls at my all girls South Bronx H.S. but most of the girls were Spanish and yes I am 50% Spanish, my father is 100% Puerto Rican. But I did not grow up around my Spanish mates due to growing up in a mostly Irish, some Italian parish, as we called it (Inwood at the tip of Manhattan). When I mentioned to a Spanish classmate (her locker next to mine) that my dad was P.R. she called me a traitor for hanging out with the Irish girls – that back in 1973 and boy was I ever un-comfortable for the next 2 years left of H.S. Growing up in NYC, one side of Broadway was comfortable the other not so much proving with my recent visit back that unfortunately times have not changed much. Thanks for making me feel comfortable!
Thank you for this piece, Joann. So well written.