Maybe Gene Hackman actually has enough self awareness to realize he wasn’t the best person to cast in any of those roles. It’s hard to imagine him delivering a better Hannibal Lecter than Anthony Hopkins.
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I think you’ll find that the reason people who aren’t black so often confuse the small numbers of black people they encounter for each other is exactly BECAUSE they encounter a small number of black people. The more you are exposed to similar faces with (relatively) smaller differences the more aware you become of those differences. Take for example the case of identical twins. Upon first meeting you would swear they look exactly the same. However, after being around them for a while you begin to notice the differences between them more acutely. The same phenomenon happens with races different from your own when you first encounter them. Your brain automatically acknowledges the most stark differences from those you’re used to interacting with and ignores the rest. The more you encounter different people of that race the more your brain begins to ignore the larger similarities and focuses on the smaller details.So people that may not be used to being around people of another race will not be able to tell the difference between them as easily as someone who is normally around people of that race. It happens in all aspects of our life, not just interacting with humans, so there is nothing racist in it. Prejudice, yes, since prejudice is the act of basing conclusions or actions on previous, often limited knowledge of the subject. Now I’m not saying that is what happened here since it sounds like more of a misinterpretation between the two. I’m just addressing the point you made.
All well and good, except that you left out the “racism” part.
People who aren’t black wouldn’t see black people AS “black,” and thus as (supposedly) different, and thus hard at first to tell apart, if they hadn’t been trained by the relatively recent sociohistorical phenomenon of racial difference to do so.
The frustration I hear Samuel Jackson expressing with that interviewer is one I often hear black people express with certain white people. That is, the ones who have yet to be untrained, and thus don’t see the individual before, or at least along with, the blackness.
And don’t get me started on people who say, “But I don’t even SEE race. I just treat people as individuals!” Because of course, that’s never true.
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I must be misunderstand you because this sentence “People who aren’t black wouldn’t see black people AS “black,” and thus as (supposedly) different” defies any logic that I’m aware of. You’re saying a white person somehow wouldn’t look at their own skin color and look at a black person’s skin color and not see the difference? How’s that? I knew my red hair was different from people’s brown hair when I was growing up without anyone having to point it out to me. And I still don’t see where the racism, which by definition is the belief that one race is superior to another, plays into this at all. Mistaking someone for someone else is hardly proof that that person believes they’re superior to them because of their race
I find it hard to tell my blonde (female) students apart (college age). I acknowledge that it’s most likely because they belong to a group that I wasn’t part of in high school (cool, popular) and that I unconsciously hold not very positive attributions towards them. I also acknowledge that that constitutes prejudice, and a bad thing, and I try to get to know them as individuals in order to overcome this. I also once confused the names of the two Black women in my class, and was acutely embarrassed about it, for just the reasons you said.
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[quote=“bigomega73, post:65, topic:22519, full:true”]
I must be misunderstand you because this sentence “People who aren’t black wouldn’t see black people AS “black,” and thus as (supposedly) different” defies any logic that I’m aware of. You’re saying a white person somehow wouldn’t look at their own skin color and look at a black person’s skin color and not see the difference? How’s that? [/quote]
Notice I put black in quotation marks. Black people aren’t literally black (especially in the U.S.), no more than supposedly white people are literally white. The unnatural category of “Black” comes along with a lot of connotations and preconceptions, and for non-black people, marks black people as members of a socially significant category that differs from one’s own. As for racism being the belief that one race is superior to another, that’s just part of racism, or rather, one form of it. People who don’t believe that at all, at least not consciously, can still think, feel, and behave in racist ways, often without even realizing they’re doing it.
I knew my red hair was different from people’s brown hair when I was growing up without anyone having to point it out to me.
I’ll find that a worthwhile analogy when white people mistake red-headed people for each other at anywhere near the rate that they tend to do that with black people.
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Bravo. I bet you’re an awesome teacher! It takes a lot of self-reflection, and/or unusual honesty, to see these tendencies within oneself, and in one’s feelings and behavior. And it takes a good heart to try to change them.
I’m not sure what you’re referring to when you say there’s more than “one form” of racism. There is not. I challenge you to provide me with a dictionary that states that racism is anything other than the belief that one race is superior to another. I have a hunch that you, along with most of American popular culture, is getting prejudice and stereotyping mixed up with racism, but they are different. While racism is almost always based on prejudice and stereotypes, prejudice is mostly not racist, and is practiced in almost every aspect of daily life by every animal on the planet. It’s a natural instinct to keep us safe, comfortable, happy, etc… If we once ate something that we didn’t like, we wouldn’t eat the same food again in the future because have a prejudice against it. And if we only interacted with white people with red hair, we would assume that all white people have red hair, because we are “pre-judging” white people based on our past experiences with them. These do not reflect the ideology that one race is superior, simply that one race has the same traits throughout. Racism is a conscious decision, despite your assertations to the contrary. Prejudice is more instinctual and less conscious. Everyone is prejudice. Not everyone is racist (despite what Avenue Q may tell you).
Obviously you have spent a lot of time thinking about the label “black” and comparing it to all the other ways in which the English language uses the word. I’m sorry that you feel that they are somehow related because when I call a person black, it is a simple descriptor and nothing more. I’m not sure if you think that somehow, way back when, someone looked at a person from Africa (who have extremely dark complexions, which someone with a pale complexion might even describe as black in comparison) and decided to call them black because they felt that they were evil rather than as a description of their skin? As for being a socially significant category that differs from one’s own, well, yes, they are aren’t they? And I believe a lot of that is self-imposed is it not? After all we have black TV channels, black movies, black publications, etc., etc… I would say that would signify that black people ARE a socially significant category, in the same way that gay people also have all those things, and latinos have all those things. Those groups did not come about because of a word, but because of social stigmatization, and we are getting way off track from my original post, which was trying to point out to you a different view. I’m assuming that you will see racism whereever you want simply because you are looking for signs that confirm this for you. But calling racism on people that aren’t simply has the effect of lessening the degree of credibility when an actual case of racism does rear its ugly head. The boy that cried wolf syndrome.
Lastly, I would like to point out, and I will put this down to your ignorance of the subject rather that you being racist, you obviously have no idea how often red-haired people get mistaken for one another. The amount of times I’ve been told I look like Opie or Carrot Top (two poplar-opposite looking individuals) are too many to mention.
You write as if there’s no such thing as psychology. Do you honestly think that people don’t do things unconsciously, that is, without knowing why they do them? More specifically, do you honestly think that a person can’t consciously believe they’re not racist, but also commit acts of racism without realizing they’re doing so?
For example, a person can think they’re totally fine with black people, but then turn around and compliment one in a surprised way for being “articulate,” not realizing that their saying so comes across as surprised because at an unconscious level, that person expects black people to be inarticulate. It’s a backhanded, “racist” compliment, delivered by a person who “believes” she’s totally not racist.
If you can see that, then you should be able to see what I mean by “different forms” of racism. One: people who burn crosses; another: people who compliment “articulate” black people, or glom onto a black person so they can say they have a “black friend,” or touch black women’s hair without asking because they think it’s so cool or pretty, or go for Asian women because they’re “exotic,” and on and on and on. Oh, and of course, fail to see black people as individuals because they see race first. Which is, yes, prejudice and stereotyping, but it’s also racism, a form of prejudice and stereotyping.
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See also Bill Murray and the seldom-checked voice mailbox that he has instead of an agent. Speaking of movie star trivia, this gives me the excuse to repeat the Michael Caine story regarding his participation in Jaws: The Revenge. When asked by an interviewer about the movie, he said, “I have not seen it, although by all accounts it is quite awful. I have, however, been to the house that it bought, and it is quite nice.”
Thanks, I did enjoy!
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OMG I’m not the only one. <3
I am actually a bit face-blind, which I only realized once I started teaching. There’s a certain kind of typically-good-looking white girl (brunette or blonde) who all meld together in my mind. The worst was a class of 22, in which I had 9 women whose names all started with “K” (Kristen, Kirsten, Kristi, Kim, etc.), 8 of whom were this same “type.” And yes, I also think that it has to do with me having been friends with the weird/quirky people my whole life, rather than the smoothly-good-looking in-group.
I also get typically handsome, medium-build short-haired brunette white guys mixed up, presumably for similar reasons.
Nope - definitely not the only one! Probably more common that you think…
I’ll accept that challenge!
- Outright says that superiority is in the USUALLY category, not in the always.
2, particularly the ‘etc’ and ‘fostering’ parts (fostering which can be done deliberately or accidentally), seems to include a lot of things other than the belief that one race is superior to another, but also policies, behaviors (if you include them under the etc) that lead to the same ends.
also includes racial prejudice and discrimination, regardless of whether it’s based on a belief in superiority.
One would expect that if you were going to issue a challenge based on what dictionaries say a word means, you look it up yourself in a few first.
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I actually did. But apparently I didn’t look far enough down the list of definitions since those alternatives were near the bottom. So congratulations for winning the challenge and I concede my defeat.
Watch Spaceballs after puberty. I love Mel Brooks but it really doesn’t hold up. Young Frankenstein, OTOH…
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Close Encounters I could see in the Dreyfuss part, Jaws he could have been Quint, SOTL he could have been Lecter, but who would he have been in Raiders? Todt?
Maybe he just doesn’t like Spielberg.
There’s a whole group of blonde Hollywood actors that I have difficulty distinguishing between. Having a touch of nominative aphasia* doesn’t help, as that means that there’s very little to distinguish between them. I know Kirsten Dunst is one, but I can’t bring to my mind’s eye a picture of her that couldn’t be some other blonde actress.
*“How come I can remember the phrase ‘nominative aphasia’ but I can’t remember anyone’s name?”—Geoff Ryman
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