I can see how it would come across that way. I like your suggestion better.
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100% pro-choice but thinks that Affirmative Action isn’t fair
Ha, yep. And never mind that white women have been it’s biggest beneficiaries. (Granted, “she” wouldn’t likely even know that.)
“In fact, you calling me a racist is the real racism,” Tanya added.
When satire has trouble being satire because what it’s satirizing is already so over the top.
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It definitely has a “only the names have been changed to protect the guilty” feel about it.
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Another problem with this is that a complete non sequitur after “not racist but” could be covertly racist – in-jokes and codes being a common mode of racist expression.
The trick is to say something that keeps the overt form of racism, but subverts it. So as to craft an obvious charicature of a racist moron, in the audience/reader’s mind.
I’m not racist, but I can’t stand the burgers at The Olive Garden
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Still racist.
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Okay, I’ll try:
I’m not racist, but I think white liberals should learn to appreciate the delicate, subtle bouquet of White Tears.
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Pinot Gringo
(sorry, not sorry)
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If one complain’s about others “playing the race card”, they are not denying or refuting something or someone is racist. One is simply saying they have a thin skin on the subject and are annoyed its being pointed out.
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Yeah… I don’t think there’s any viable way to redeem or nullify the term “I’m not racist but…”
I can’t speak for other POC, but whenever I hear anyone start out a sentence with that particular dubious “disclaimer,” I brace myself for whatever horribly racist shit they’re inevitably about to spew.
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When I finally started seeing institutional racism as its own thing, it cropped up everywhere. And the individual racism stuff is pretty small potatoes once you can finally see the institutional scale violence.
When these racist algorithms are institutionalized, no one has to take responsibility for them. They are just rules of “nature”.
They just seem invisible, and therefore nonexistant, to those who never come in contact.
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It’s ubiquitous.
Two sides of the same coin though, no?
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Baked into the very foundations of our present existence.
Absolutely.
One is not a lesser detriment than the other; both are incredibly corrosive…
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Well, you see, there’s saying it naively, as white people so often do, you see, and then there’s saying it in a clever way, a way that helps naive white people see etc. etc.
Yeah, I’m also not seeing the validity of reiterating racism alarm bells as helpful, no matter how reshaped and well intentioned.
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The only one I can see is one of the baby-steps between “not all white people” and actual understanding. I am not a racist, but I have benefited from racist policies all my life.
The bonus of that is you can keep the phrase in your head, because it’s about you understanding yourself and your position. (Yes, I said it aloud, here, but it’s hard not to when illustrating it).
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Fair (ha) enough. And baby-steps indeed, since, of course, “a racist” is what every one of us is in a fundamentally racist society, unless we work hard enough to counteract it (and depending on one’s definition of “a racist,” etc).
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Yes, but a lot of people need that step. They need to think of themselves as a good person, which a racist is not.
And a baby-step is better than how some might take the leap when told to accept they’re racist. “Fine! You keep telling me I am a racist, I will be a goddamn racist.”
I did not grow up understanding these things. It’s been a long, slow process. I am working on it. But I know a lot of people who need that transitory step. Not everybody can just leap out of the pool when they’re ready to stop swimming. Some do need a ladder.
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True enough, and all hail those who have the fortitude and patience to help other white folks take such steps.
And the opposite of “all hail” to those who expect non-white people to do that kind of work. (Not that I think you were implying they should – just a note to others, I suppose).
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