Possum Stew, when giving her reasons for not dating white people, says this:
… most people of color (even activists) think that White people are basically benevolently clueless (BTW, that notion is a function of White privilege as well – that White people are always friendly, welcome, and well-meaning. Every time I encounter this idea from a White person who is “not racist” or ”colorblind” I immediately recall Emmett Till and smile grimly to myself. Yes, knowledge has made me jaded.)
I want to give people the benefit of the doubt, but the thing is, clueless innocents do not act the way most white Americans do when faced with their own racism.
Imagine if I am stepping on your foot by accident and do not seem to know it. You tell me. I look down, remove my foot, say “Oh, I am sorry” and feel bad about it.
To review:
- I see my fault.
- I do something about it
- I say I am sorry and mean it.
- I feel bad.
And better yet, I might try to make up for it somehow.
So if a white person is benevolently clueless, unknowingly racist, he would do this:
- Understand how what he said or did is racist.
- Stop doing it or see to it that he does not do it again.
- Say he is sorry and mean it.
- Feel bad about it.
Mostly they do the opposite:
- Refuse to admit they are racist.
- Do not change.
- Do not apologize.
- Get angry.
And worse yet, they might say or do more racist things.
Or sometimes you get the half-baked apology: “If I offended you I am sorry. But I am not a racist. Some of my best friends are black.” Something like that.
These are not the actions of the benevolently clueless. These are the actions of a jerk, of someone who refuses to see or understand the wrong he has done and keeps doing it. And if you do not like it, well screw you already.
Why do white people act this way? Because deep down they know full well they are racist but do not want to face the fact. It is one of the side effects of white guilt.
Most white people will do the right thing when they step on a black person’s foot. But imagine if they handled it like they do racism: they would not remove their foot, they would not even look down, but instead say stuff like this (the extended version):
I am not stepping on your foot. How dare you accuse me of that – and after all the nice things I have done for you! You are just imagining it. You people do nothing but blame others and complain. You just hate white people, that is why you are saying that. Arab traders step on feet, did you know that? It is perfectly natural. But if I am stepping on your foot, then I am truly sorry, but it is not something I would ever do.
Foot still not removed.
See also:
- Possum Stew: Why I Don’t Date White People – the full post
- The r-word
- Bob Dylan: The Death of Emmett Till
- How to argue like a white racist
- What this blog has taught me about white people
- white guilt
- More on what is behind the denials:
- I am not stepping on your foot.
- How dare you accuse me of that
- – and after all the nice things I have done for you!
- You are just imagining it.
- You people do nothing but blame others and complain.
- You just hate white people, that is why are you saying that.
- Arab traders step on feet, did you know that?
- It is perfectly natural.
- But if I am stepping on your foot, then I am truly sorry, but it is not something I would ever do.
- I am not stepping on your foot.
Why do you have a picture of my favorite political commentator in the whole wide world in your post? He’s not clueless!!
I love me some Keith Olbermann!!
Otherwise, great post as usual.
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I would have to argue this – I don’t know what is like in America, but here in Australia the stepping on foot scenario wouldn’t really happen, people have respect for each other. I am not saying that there is no racism, in fact the quite a lot of the racism that I have come across has been towards white people. This is not saying that white people aren’t racist, they definitely are, but who isn’t?
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Most white people in America will do the decent thing if they step on a black person’s foot. In the post the foot thing is an analogy for racism. Sorry I was not clear. I have gone back and tried to make the post clearer.
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I like Keith Olbermann too. He is far from clueless. But I used this picture because he is white and because he is acting clueless in a melodramatic way that can be seen instantly. No doubt he is making fun of someone else’s cluelessness.
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Thanks very much for citing my post! It’s appreciated.
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amen abagond i couldn’t say it better myself…i just had a falling out w/ someone because of something racist they said and i told them that what they said was racist, i did NOT say they were racist, and now this person is lying and accusing ME of being racist because i said what they said was racist, is that crazy or what?? it really pissed me off
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abagond do u hae an email where the public can email you?
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abagond at gmail.
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@ peanut at comment #6: crazy, yes; surprising, no.
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[…] “I’m not stepping on your foot…” By sanabituranima Leave a Comment Categories: Politics, Prejudice and Racism Tags: Bigotry, Ethics, Hypocrisy, Identity, Identity Politics, Illogical Arguments, Irony, Nonsense, PoC, Politics, Prejudice, Privilege, Race, Racial Politics, Racism, Sarcasm, Satire, White People, White Privilege, White Supremacism, Whiteness A tongue-in-cheek response to abagond […]
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A tongue-in-cheek response:
http://sanabituranima.wordpress.com/2009/10/21/im-not-stepping-on-your-foot/
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Cool!
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You’re missing something here that you’ve mentioned previously. White people’s self image doesn’t allow them to see themselves as acting racist, even when they are.
Here’s an example, imagine a person is unknowingly eating soup made of human flesh and you point out the fact to them, and prove it to them by fishing a finger out of the bowl. Everyone is going to deny being a knowing cannibal, but many of the people will also accuse you of lieing to them, not because they love eating human flesh but because their psyche won’t allow them to believe what they’ve done.
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“Everyone is going to deny being a knowing cannibal, but many of the people will also accuse you of lieing to them, not because they love eating human flesh but because their psyche won’t allow them to believe what they’ve done.”
That’s a very good anaology, although it misses a point. For te analogy to fully work, te person would haveto continue eating soup made out of people on a regular basis, and benefit from eating the soup.
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“That’s a very good anaology, although it misses a point. For te analogy to fully work, te person would haveto continue eating soup made out of people on a regular basis, and benefit from eating the soup.”
How broadband are we being?
Every single person in America is guilty of this, kids are eating mud pies in Haiti and it’s our fault. Thai children are taken from their families and sold into sweatshops or prostitution and it’s our fault. Intellectually it troubles me, but in my heart of hearts I don’t really give a damn, as long as my shoes are cheap.
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That is a straw man argument. No one said anything about mud pies or Haiti. This thread is about racism in America.
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It’s different to *you* because you’re on the crap end of “Racism in America”, but the systematic oppression of blacks in america and Haitians eating mud pies are the same to white people.
As in not really real to them. It doesn’t adversely affect them so it doesn’t matter, and if you force them to face the fact that their system of life is harmful to other humans, by and large they do the same thing everybody else does. Get pissed off at the messenger.
Most people are willfully ignorant, and work damn hard at not noticing the finger in the soup.
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“White people have no conscience and they do not care about anyone but themselves.
They are narcisstic sociopaths.”
That’s a really broad blanket statement to make.
As a white person, I have been taught to have a sense of entitlement, and I haven’t always resisted. I’ve said and done things I’m ashamed of because of it. I do not pretend that there is any moral justification for those things. I know that in a white supremacist culture, white people will grow up believing that we have a right to be treated better than PoC. There is no excuse for failing to resist these bigoted assumptions, or failing to apologise & change when they are pointed out.
But there are white people who do resist them. People like Jim Peck, who had his head smashed open for resisting segregation. People like the Black Sash organisation.
Also (and this is more controversial, and probably my privilege/ignorance is showing a little here) is anyone who gives in to prejudice a narcissistic sociopath? Isn’t that a bit of a strong description? So many white people say “I’m not in the KKK/BNP, so I’m not racist,” and that’s not the truth. But there are degrees of racism. KKK violent racism is definitely the behaviour of narcissistic sociopaths. But – to pick a random example from a recent post on this blog – does only listening to DORF black music make someone a sociopath? Yes, it’s racist (unless they also only listen to DORF white music), but is it really enough to class someone as a sociopath?
Ordinary people can do despicable things.
http://merryscloister.blogspot.com/2009/10/genocide-with-morning-coffee.html
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[…] patient and thorough in dissecting it than I can be. He is also dead on accurate. I’m quoting a lengthy excerpt of his post where he discusses clueless white racism. I was awed with the correctness of it. I invite you […]
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There’s nothing more powerful than “white fear”. Let’s face it, fear is the white man’s greatest motivation in doing what we all know him to do.
The “white race” days are numbered and I’m sitting back with a big tub of popcorn. LMAOO
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There’s nothing more powerful than “white fear”.
Uh, capitalism? Hello….?
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I’d rather say greed instead of white fear.
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Like I said, capitalism.
I hate to break it to all the black Americans posting here, but the vast majority of white people are hardly shaking in their boots with fear of a black planet. I mean I’m sure some Tea Party supporters from East Sheepshag Georgia are terrified. And we all know how that’s significant because white trash has oh-so-much power in the world.
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“Here’s an example, imagine a person is unknowingly eating soup made of human flesh and you point out the fact to them, and prove it to them by fishing a finger out of the bowl. Everyone is going to deny being a knowing cannibal, but many of the people will also accuse you of lieing to them, not because they love eating human flesh but because their psyche won’t allow them to believe what they’ve done.”
“”That’s a very good anaology, although it misses a point. For te analogy to fully work, te person would haveto continue eating soup made out of people on a regular basis, and benefit from eating the soup.””
I think it makes perfect sense as an analogy, the reason they can go on eating people-soup is because they grew fond of the soup before realising what was in it. They don’t want to face that their delicious soup is made of body parts or that they are cannibals so when faced with that “finger in the soup” rather than saying “I’m not a cannibal, I better stop eating this” they instead think “I’m not a cannibal, am I? No, so that person must be wrong about the soup I’m enjoying”. They just can’t face it. And because they don’t face it they go back for more. And because they live in a society that creates this soup for them they aren’t often questioned on it, or if they are questioned enough they come up with their list of knee-jerk defenses (“I never *saw* anyone killed to make my soup” or “it only looks like body parts because you’re paranoid”) and over time come to believe them so they never have to stop and never have to question what they’re doing. This goes on long enough and you have people who are given these excuses along with the soup (“this soup is delicious, some might say it’s cannibalism, but it isn’t really for X, Y, Z reasons”) so those people never have to question it because they “heard someone might say something like that and they just want “special treatment”” or such…and when that goes on long enough you get today’s society, some know deep down it’s cannibalism but don’t want to admit it to themselves because they like their soup, some really don’t think it is and know you’re reasons are “silly” because they already have X,Y,Z reasons why it isn’t, then there’s those who haven’t had the fingers pointed out to them yet and those will more than likely take one of the two previous stances…but ever so rarely you find some people who are horrified at what they’ve done…they’ll probably still eat the soup from time to time, society’s offered a lot of flavours but left them ill-equiped in identifying body-parts floating around in there but that they can change once they learn to recognise them and that their numbers will grow is something I hope for (even if humanity leaves me cynical most days).
…..Also, I feel I have just l stretched that soup analogy to its limits, likely a sign I should not be up, sampling seasonal beer, and posting on blogs a 3:00 am….forgive my lunacy, if I ever come back I’ll try to stay sane or at least sober.
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[…] to her. Brian apologizes because he didn’t mean to, it was an accident, he’s just benevelently clueless, honest. Brian most likely actually is, at least in this case, but the idea that most white people […]
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Great post, put clearly. This post is somewhat related, as it deals with subtleties and ambiguity in language perpetuating racism:
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Good article Ben,
Think it would be relevant to some of the other more current threads such as ‘Jay Smooth how to talk about race’ too
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Thanks! I’ll try to link it there.
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This is sooo spot on…
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Benevolently clues no dangerously nieve mabey
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“Most white people will do the right thing when they step on a black person’s foot.”
**********
Not in NYC’s mass transit (crowded) system! They will MOSTLY casually just glimpse down at your foot as if to suggest, “why is your foot in my way” and not apologize.
Neither do I — when I *accidentally* step back on their foot and carry on in an equally blithe/oblivious manner.
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“Why do white people act this way? Because deep down they know full well they are racist but do not want to face the fact. It is one of the side effects of white guilt.”
But wouldn’t facing that entail owning up to and accepting “guilt”?
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(If you do something wrong, and you realize and face up to it, then you should feel guilty, no? Isn’t that what should happen if you have a properly-functioning conscience? To feel guilt, remorse? How would this differ from “white guilt”? I thought “white guilt” was white “guilt about racism”. Wouldn’t that be such a guilt?)
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“Arab traders step on feet, did you know that?”
Lol!
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Are most white people benevolently clueless?
Yes, when they’re sleeping.
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White people can’t claim innocence, when they do all they can to prevent Black people from protecting themselves from being the main ingredient of the Soup whites love so much.
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Benevolently clueless AND managed to convince a whole world for centuries of their supposed superiority. How the hell did they get away with perpetuating the biggest farce ever foisted on the global population for so long?
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