The person I replied to surmised someone of Dutch decent was offended (I assume conservative Mennonite or Amish type - which IIRC are also lumped in as dutch.)
Fun fact - my grandpa was called Dutch, though that was because he mumbled and people couldn’t understand him.
Are you sure it’s not because he was an OG?
No, I asked one time. IIRC his dad gave him that name because it sounded like he was speaking Dutch and it stuck.
Fun fact, family lore is that a notorious gangster stayed a day with my grandmas family when she was a child in the 30s. IIRC it was Dillinger, but maybe not. He did some chores and they fed him supper and he left in the morning as he was on the run. Though this is probably a mix of myth and misrememberings.
Possibly of Dutch decent, but I’m pretty sure what he meant was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church.
Thanks for clearing that up.
That was a hilarious episode! I recall the live audience going nuts when Cleese did that ‘silly walk’.
Yeah, I’m kind of an idiot …
Obviously.
The small town I grew up in had more than am average number of racists, who loved to tell me and other members of my family that we were “white, but not white enough”, because we were European but not English. That’s not a gloss, by the way – what I put in quotes is what I was actually told a few times. Apparently it was a catchphrase with them.
If you’re a modern British sort it might be hard to understand how stuck in the 18th and 19th centuries the colonies can be over some things.
Sure and it’s great that you can admit that. It’s hard for human beings to admit that our own experiences might not be everyone elses. None of us are great at it, and we live a culture that doesn’t really encourage us to empathize with others, too.
But doesn’t that go without saying? Whenever racism as an institutional structure and how invisible it is comes up, that doesn’t mean that there are no white people who aren’t aware of racism or can’t understand it or empathize with people who are the target of it, it just means that we often don’t see those invisible structures or feel them as a force on our daily lives.
As you talk about with that neighbor, I’d bet that although you noticed the racism when half the little league team disappeared, the neighbor experienced that kind of thing pretty much all his life.
I’m just not sure it’s helpful to immediately discount racism out of hand in cases like this, where it might not have been a primary motivation, but it probably contributed to the decision making the people who got the young lady kicked out of the mall.
The UK has just had a similar incident: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4606984/Mother-kicked-Range-breaking-dress-code.html.
To the “we can’t know for sure it was racism” crowd:
The making a racism into an absolute evil and the “racist” into an irredeemable monster serves racism. People of colour are constantly treated differently because of the colour of their skin. We can talk about that without ignoring the humanity of the people who participate in it. If every time someone says race was a factor they are required to prove to court-of-law standards that someone else deserves to be banished from society, then racism will persist.
I think you’re misinterpreting caution for denial of racism? Or maybe i’m misreading, either way i feel like I don’t know all the facts about what happened. It would be irresponsible for me to automatically say, without knowing more, that racism was at play in this girl’s case. A few on here seems more sure about it than i do, i don’t have a problem with that view.
No, I’m not misinterpreting caution for denial.
People believe racism to be monstrously bad. Therefore they don’t want to accuse someone or racism without having a very high standard of proof, just like you wouldn’t call someone a child abuser or a murderer unless you were really sure. Because of that, they don’t recognize the obvious fact that people of colour are treated differently than white people every day.
To say that race was likely a factor in this is not to say the person who kicked her out of the mall was a member of the KKK.
I’ll use the example of “carding” (or non-investigative public/police interactions where personal information is collected, as my police would prefer I call it). The rate at which it targets black over white people is staggering. That’s a situation where police are making a snap decision about whether a person is suspicious based on how they look, and where I live it’s about three times as likely to happen to you if you are black (I get the sense it’s a lot higher in other places). It also makes up a lot more police/public interactions than arrests for murder do. So if a black person is stopped by police, without knowing anything about the circumstances, I should assume that race was a factor because that is more likely than it not being a factor. That’s different than saying that every cop should lose their job.
So I’m not mistaking caution for denial. Undue caution is denial. It’s not denial of racism in that particular incident (where racism may or may not have occurred) but it’s a denial of the prevalence of race-based judgments in society, which is a denial of the experience of people of colour in favour of the theories of white people.
I think i understand a bit more what you mean. Thank you for taking the time to discuss it. I know conversations about these kinds of things can be frustrating.
cc @Grey_Devil
I believe racism to be abhorrent. I also want to fervently call it out when it happens and do not ever deny it exists both consciously and subconsciously.
I can only speak for my own perspective in that while I do not need a “court of law” type definitive “it was racism” proof…I also don’t want to assume something without any indication. In short I don’t want to be this guy:
I think too many folks read the headline, see the photo, and jump to “RACISM!” claim…ignoring some of the details. I was then called out specifically for “ignoring the other thing she said” which was that “other women were dressed similarly and not asked to leave”. Those were this young woman’s words and she left out any indication of race. We talk about how “no one can know what it means to be black unless you are black” and yet we don’t allow this woman the intelligence and self-awareness to have pointed out it was racism if she felt it was? The additional details from her are that she was standing with her sister, and says “I was asked to leave”…not “we”. So only she was targeted to leave but not her sister who is also presumably black? That doesn’t seem to be overt racism to me, does it to you?
I stand by the perspective that racism could be in play. I cannot stand by the perspective that it is undoubtedly in play or even likely. I do not have enough information to even formulate a percentage beyond 50/50…it is or isn’t. Her words, her tone, her story as told by her…doesn’t lead me to believe she felt racism was involved. If she doesn’t feel it was, who am I to second guess that?
As @Grey_Devil stated above “frustrating” is absolutely the word. Accusations and assumptions never help as far as I can see, and stories like this lead to a forum conversation that becomes littered with them.
You say “accusations and assumptions” I say, “taking a moment to remember that people of colour are treated differently than white people and that’s true whether or not it played into this particular situation.”
I don’t know for sure, 100% if my Black female avatar getting me a “bitch” pm on PlayStation Home was due to racism. After all, there’s a small possibility that it was because the outfit I chose was not skanky enough. But I wouldn’t bet on it.
Why do you assume that she would say that she thought racism was involved if she thought it was? Many people are quite tired of the reactions they get when they point out the racism that happens in their lives.
I don’t think anybody here is saying that it is necessarily overt racism. In fact, i think most people here are suspecting systemic racism, in which the subtle symbols of bygone beliefs burrow into our minds through cultural repetition. I.e., the reason the person that reported her was likely not because they were a member of the klan, but because the hyper-sexualization of black women made her, in their mind, more of a moral threat than similarly dressed white women. And even overt racism would allow reporting one black woman and not her sister, because even overt racists realize that not everyone is an overt racist (or even ‘strongly’ racist) and so they need an excuse to give to security that may not have been relevant to the sister.
