Given the society I'm from, it'd be extremely strange if I weren't racist/sexist/classist. (Particularly since, for example, I benefit from sexism just by being male. And I can't seriously un-benefit from it, since I accumulated male privileges growing up.)
So, if someone says I'm racist because of a remark I make... well, maybe, let's tease out any racist aspects of what I said and we'll learn.
All the best,
Tj
On Sun, Oct 9, 2011 at 9:08 PM, <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "SA" <s11131978 at gmail.com>
>
> I'd say this essay is a pretty good example of Wise-ism. A histrionic
> account of how personally wrenching and painful it was for this grad
> student to have an argument in the park over how to phrase a
> one-sentence characterization of racism with some friendly guys who
> agreed with her approach after a few minutes of conversation. Getting
> this poorly phrased sentence changed: a further step in the great
> historical chain of struggles - from the abolition of slavery, to the
> decolonization of Africa, to the smashing of Jim Crow, to the great
> working-group victory of 2011. A luta continua.
> ___________________________________
>
> I don't think so. Both Ralph Ellison and Richard Wright had problems with the CP's "we are all one race" tack. They lived long before Tim Wise. If consciousness, relationships, and communication is what is being rebuilt on OWS, then awareness of racism must be part of that. Racism is part of what we live with every bit as much as toxic chemicals in the water and air. And let me say it again: racism is not what the white man thinks about the brown man; it's what we all think about ourselves and one another after five hundred years of unrelenting horror.
>
> Joanna
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