Racism
From a comment on an old-ass post:
I particularly like the way you show your racist preferences by refering to caucasions [sic] as crackers after showing a sensitive regard for minority races. NOT!!!
After the cracker referance I can not take anything else about racism from you seriously.
Thank you for ruining your own point with racism.
I’d like to make a point here, but let me establish a bit of ethos first. I’m really white. I’m as white as they come without inbreeding in the previous generations. Some of my friends call me “Russian Ben”, because I’m so Eastern European. I’m just white.
In America, we have a long history of belittling other races with derogatory names: chink, nigger, spic, wop, jap (and nip). Does the list need more entries, or have I made my point?
I’ve come to a personal realization that historically, white people have just been complete jackasses to anyone who’s not white: Japanese internment during WWII, forced relocation of Native Americans for oil companies, the enslavement of Africans before the Civil War. Much like the Portland Underground, white people have an obligation to accept our history. We cannot bury it, and we cannot ignore it. By doing so, we do everyone who’s not white a disgrace. Those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it.
My small, personal contribution to this cause are the words “cracker” and “honky”. I use them whenever I see white people receiving preferential treatment. A honky doesn’t get his car searched, even though he reeks of weed. A cracker got pulled over in a Porsche and got a warning for doing 90 in a 40.
It’s an epithet, but it’s also a powerful rhetorical tool. If I shock you enough, you might just see the problems endemic to our society: the barriers that confront any person of color, the association of blacks with violent imagery in rapid-response testing, every time white people feel uncomfortable because a black man in baggy jeans boards the bus.
Maybe “cracker” is too much for you. Maybe I misjudged my audience. Betsy tells me that every comment-writer represents 10 visitors who feel the same way. If I offended one person enough for them to comment in poorly considered prose, then there are ten out there who might not read this blog because they think there’s a open racist on staff.
Or maybe you’re uncomfortable with my discomfort. I make light of many things that I hold close to heart, and one way I deal with my white guilt is by calling white people “crackers” and “honkies” when they’re treated preferentially. Maybe someone called you a cracker when you were young and you harbored extreme prejudice for the rest of your life. Maybe you just don’t like the word.
Whatever the case, accept my apologies for offending you, but take the time to appreciate that I carefully choose most of the words I use. I don’t use “cracker” lightly. Only after even more careful consideration was I willing to use the epithets I opened this piece with (and that was mostly to guilt the white people into reading to the bottom). My prose is carefully constructed to bring your attention to the relevant point, and I failed by letting a word distract. Maybe I should apologize for that, instead.
Related posts:
Cracker and honky don’t offend me in the least. Either does “white trash” or “white milk” or other things. There is no racial slur about white people that offends me a single iota. No non-white person could ever offend me with a racial epithet directed to me or about me or my race.
I find that much of the sensitivity out there about race and so-called racial slurs, is just people looking for an excuse to get upset about something …. to give the sense of victimization (real or imagined) meaning. Just like some people are quick to sue over fairly small things (i.e. the dog that was recently run over and sued for), some people (whites too) are quick to call foul over supposed racist actions, epithets, etc.
I’m NOT saying that racial things don’t happen, we all know they do. But I live in NE Portland, and take the MAX to work downtown, and many many times over the years have had so-called racial slurs hurled at me by black youth whom I pass by or have to sit near on the MAX. These don’t bother me in the least.
I always find the double-standard that blacks and other minorities have about racial slurs quite ironic, and evidence of my thesis above that some people are always looking for something to get upset about, and use the racial slur card as an easy and guaranteed way to do this. How many times have you heard black youth (or listed to rap music) where the kids call each other “nigger”.
Yet it’s NOT OK for me to use this term, when they use it among themselves? Why the double standard? Can someone please explain this to me — I’ve never heard a rational answer as to why the double standard exists when it comes to these words.
WHy it is OK for black teens to call me slurs when I walk by them at the Lloyd Center MAX station, yet if I responded with the same wiord they call themselves, I’d either get the crap beat out of me, or arrested, or something. Perhaps I ought to start packing my Glock with me (yes I have a permit to carry) and next time I get called a cracker, I respond with a similar term of endearment, and we’ll see where it goes from there….
It’s too bad that you feel guilty for being white. You can’t control your race, so why feel guilty about it?
I certainly don’t feel bad nor beat myself up for being white. I’m damned proud of it, in fact. I don’t wish I was anything BUT white.
I think you need to get a grip on yourself and take more pride in who you are.
– CJ
P.S. I grew up in Mississippi in the late 1960s and very early 1970s. I know racism better than you ever will. Ever see the movie “Mississippi Burning”? The real-life deputy sheriff there (who was portrayed in the movie) lived just a few doors down from us. He was in the federal pen doing time for what happened in the movie, when we lived there. My sister used to play with this guy’s son, and my parents knew his wife.
P.S.S. I’m not a racist. Just proud of who I am and the color of my skin, in the same way that I am proud to be an American. That’s another thing…I don’t feel a whit of guilt for being an American, and when I am overseas, I hold my head high.
White people can’t use the N word because of slavery.
How many hundreds of years after slavery was outlawed will that be an excuse for things?
I’m not saying slavery wasn’t bad, or that the participants weren’t violating human rights in a very bad way, but there is no reason why I as a 29 year old white guy should be worried about offending someone, when I had absolutely nothing at all to do with the act. Implying that a white person today had anything to do with slavery is just as racist as assuming at all Germans are Nazis…
Because we’re still unfairly priviledged hundreds of years after the fact, that’s why. I don’t feel guilty for being white, I feel guilty because the US is stacked against people of color. Not all Germans are Nazis, but all white people enjoy the benefits of being white in America.
I guess that’s the difference between you and I… I don’t feel guilt for something that I didn’t do.
You (and actually I mean everyone reading this) should read “Lies My Teacher Told Me” by James W. Loewen - it discusses just a few aspects of they way that American History is often presented in schools with such a huge white European bias.
Some of it I knew of already, others things I was very surprised to learn. It’s not out to make “white man bad”, but just point out that our entire history is much more complex than most of us ever truly knew because of this bias. And specifically in regards to race relations - very fascinating reading.
I appreciate how your usage of cracker applies to white people getting preferential treatment. I think it is an important distinction that is completely appropriate.
I don’t feel guilty for the slavery. I feel guilt for the benefits I have received all my life and will receive for the rest of my life, just by virtue of being white. It is an unfair world where men are treated differently based on their skin color, and until that dream-day when nobody is denied a job because the hiring manager is a closet white supremacist, I will resent and feel guilty for all the advantages that white people have over all people of color.
Any company in today’s world that has managers that would discriminate on color of skin, in today’s world, is a company that is destined to fail.
I work in the high-tech industry, which may be a bit more progressive than other industries, but I can tell you FOR SURE that the companies I have worked for, which range from 4 people to over 100,000 people, no racism was ever shown nor demonstrated, particularly in hiring practices. At many of the companies minorities are celebrated and even get ahead, same with women. they are elevated quickly, sometimes before they should be or are qualified to be.
On the other hand, if I am qualified for a job as a 38 year old white guy with a certain set of qualifications, why shouldn’t I be the best candidate for the job if I truly am? Certainly I do not apologize for this.
Remember that there is also reverse discrimination in many facets of society, which keeps whites back artificially. So much so that less competent people are elevated to positions where they shouldn’t be.
One question with local relevance: Was Derrick Foxworth promoted through the Portland Police Dept. ranks so quickly because of his race, or because of his competence as a manager and leader, and ability to make good & ethical (not to mention smart/common sense) decisions?
What about Rosie Sizer, as a woman chief? Same thing?
–CJ
Insinuations aren’t welcome in my comments. Make an assertion, support it with credible evidence, or get the fuck out. If you’re going to suggest that Sizer and Foxworth rose to prominence on anything other than their independent qualifications, do so. I won’t allow underhanded rhetoric.
Its clearly easy to see that the biggest mistake the western world ever made was importing slaves.
I dont think i have actually ever met a black or non white who hasnt played the racist card in the UK, it embarrasing and i really feel ashamed for them.
We live in a world were people dont get on, and why should they. I am a married father with 3 boys , all my family have been mugged by blacks in London, numerous friends have been mugged by blacks, i myself have been stabbed by a black man who wanted to take my wallet.
Now to me its not rocket science, if a dog bites you then you are unlucky, if you go back to the dog and it bites you again, then questions should be raised, if you go back again to the dog and it again bites you, then you deserve what you get.
My family and friends have nothing to do with blacks at all, we dont like them and we dont trust them. Now i dont give a flying fuck if some one calls me a racist………….you werent the one with the knife in your chest.
In liverpool they want to change street names to suit blacks, in London they advertise jobs for blacks only and yet the black areas are shitholes, to me the black race are just a bunch of whingers who constantly go on and on and on about the slave days, get over it…….it happened, my relations were kileed by the English in the potatoe famine in Ireland, i myself am English and proud