[lbo-talk] Imus

[bitch at pulpculture.org]

At 03:48 PM 4/11/2007, you wrote:
>Doug wrote:
>
>
>
> >And do racist insults cause no harm? The isolated one, probably not.
> >But how often are racist insults isolated? They're usually part of a
> >pattern of speech that's embedded in a social hierarchy. The speech
> >both reflects and reinforces the hierarchy. That's not harmless.
>
>
>Here's an anecdotal example of how deeply imbedded the power of
>racist insults is here.  A friend of mine is a mental health worker
>in San Francisco.  Once she was with a patient from a group home
>where people were, theoretically anyway, transitioning from
>institutional to semi-independent living.  My friend was on a weekly
>outing with this patient and they were riding on the bus.  As he
>generally did when he was out in public for more than just a little
>while, this guy was getting increasingly agitated.  And, as he also
>often did when out in public, he proceeded to make the situation
>worse by starting to yell "n-word, n-word, n-word" out of
>nowhere.  Long story short, at the next stop my friend is scurrying
>to get this guy off the bus and away from riders who took great
>offense at this outburst.  She wound up shoving the guy into a phone
>booth, throwing her arms across the door and yelling "he's mentally
>ill, he's mentally ill."  That problem solved, the next problem was
>the guy obsessing for the rest of the day about my friend calling him
>mentally ill.

Or a conversation I had a couple of weeks ago, where black co-workers were 
talking about going natural. They'd burn their hair trying to straighten 
and dry it all out trying to make the curls just the right kind of curl. 
All of that is not just to emulate "white" hair, but also to avoid the 
criticism, assumptions, derogatory remarks, etc. It's not just derogatory, 
it's about the racial and class hierarchy involved, where if you don't try 
to look white, then you look black and this is seen as "low class". 
"Project Chick" "project 'ho" "ghetto". These are insults, not just about 
race, but about supposed class status. And it's particularly acute around 
hair becuase, unlike skin, hair is seen as something you can "fix".

And it's not just blacks, but among whites as well. Whenever you want to 
represent a white person as "low class," especially a woman, just make her 
hair "big" or somehow tasteless.

Like my hot pink nail polish, doncha know. Coz I wear it on ALL my 
interviews. ;p

Point it, that we are particularly harsh about the things people can and 
should ostensibly change and aspire to: hair, clothing, etc. And if people 
dn't at least try to do that, they are seen as utter failures for not 
trying to at least appear as something other than low-class. One thing when 
you have skin color that can't be changed, quite another when you have hair 
that you let go 'natural' or, heaven forbid, dare choose outfits or nail 
polish or shoes or fill in the blank that supposedly indicate your failure 
as an upright member of the professional-middle class (or failure to want 
to BE a member).

Similar conversation when a co-worker was upset b/c someone assumed she was 
black. She was Puerto Rican, she said, and dumb white people just don't 
understand that Puerto Ricans have spanish and european heritage. You don't 
get so attached to that sort of thing -- the real or apparent distinction 
-- to mark yourself off from "blacks" and demonstrate some "white" 
(european) background simply because you want to emulate and be like 
others. You also want to avoid the insults and derogatory remarks that go 
with the supposed identity.

Bitch | Lab
http://blog.pulpculture.org (NSFW)