by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Dawn Friedman
Before I had my kids I worked for a feminist organization that had the elimination of racism written into their institutional purpose. The YWCA’s mission statement ends with this line:
The YWCA will thrust its collective power toward the elimination of racism, wherever it exists, and by any means necessary.
I worked at the Portland, OR YWCA as the family program coordinator – working with children and their moms who were living in our short-term shelter.
The “elimination of racism” in practice meant that we had trainings about race, that we had an affirmative action hiring policy, (which didn’t do as much in reality as we hoped it would), and that we talked about issues of race as a matter of course. Working at the YWCA did a lot to form my activist sensibilities.
One of the most important things I learned there was that it’s impossible to extract a single –ism from a host of –isms. In other words, it’s impossible to talk about racism without acknowledging sexism, classism, heterosexism, etc..
I thought of this again in light of the comments on naming. As Meera said, “[R]ace and class are substituted for one another in this society.”
As an anti-racist parent, all -isms concern me. The default person in our culture is white, straight, Christian and middle-class with a gender defined by context. (Curing a child’s fever? Female. Digging in the medicine cabinet, blindly searching for the right medication? Male.) The minute a person is outside of that default, he or she is at risk of being made a target.
The struggle of any anti-ism movement, as illustrated by the name discussion, are the -isms within that movement. Can we be antiracist when we’re adhering to classist values? Can we be antisexist if we’re heterosexist? How do we promote one group if to do so we have to step on another group? If we’re fighting for the greater good, does it matter that we have to leave some people behind?
I don’t have answers to these questions – I’m feeling it out as I go. But I remember within our activist feminist community that there was certainly a strong undercurrent of classism in our anti-racism. While we embraced Sweet Honey in the Rock and Alice Walker, we were far less likely to celebrate a real-life African American client with a bright red weave and airbrushed acrylic nails. I sense this same dichotomy in our discussions around names and hair.
I struggle with this as an activist, as a parent and as a transcultural adoptive parent. I struggle to recognize the limitations of my activism, my unpacked privilege, and my knee-jerk assumptions.
Dawn Friedman is a writer and mother to two children. Her articles have appeared in Salon.com, Yoga Journal, Brain Child and the Greater Good and she is the op-ed editor at Literary Mama. She is also the founder of OpenAdoptionSupport.com and since the adoption of her daughter in 2004 has become passionate about the need for adoption reform. She blogs at this woman’s work.
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!
All -isms are problematic and potentially oppressive. It’s hypocritical to think that only one is important – it values your own personal issue over anyone elses, essentially saying that the needs and concerns of others are not equally valid and deserving of society’s attention.
Of course we all have our own priorities. For some people, sexism affects their lives more than racism, and vice versa. Or someone may have personal issues with human sexual orientation that limit their ability to see hetereosexism at work. BUT the core of any anti-”ism” HAS to be the right of another human being to be treated as a valid and equal human being, simply for being human, in whatever form that takes, whether you agree or can empathize with them or not. That trumps any personal thoughts, opinions, or experiences, and it forces us to take nothing in society for granted.
The intersection of racism, sexism, and heterosexism is a big deal (along with ablism, etc.). People get turned off by rejection by one group, which justifies for them rejecting the group right back. There was a Inky Sunday article about the blackface drag act Shirley Q. Liquor. The performer came across in the article as genuinely clueless about race and his own white privilege and why people might be offended instead of seeing his show as a parody. He really feels that his work is a loving parody of stereotypes that is supposed to challenge them. But he seemed to feel no responsibility if the audience was laughing AT him instead of WITH him. But a black drag queen in the audience spelled it out, essentially saying, “the black community rejected me, so I don’t care about them.”
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Oh yes, and yes. To your list of -isms, I would add able-ism. We are a culture that ignores (or worse) people who look different than the norm, or learn differently. It crosses genders, ethnicity, class. It’s hidden, too…we accept it when people speak of “them” and “they” in referring to others with physical differences or learning differences, and by accepting this terminology, we effectively remove them from our human condition.
Sigh. Change is a long, rocky road.
Oooh. Wanted to ask you something, Dawn, about this very subject, but didn’t want to harp on it. You’ve addressed some things. I’ll let it go.
Jennifergg: Yes. When my seven year old recently referred to another student as “[Student X-], a Special Ed”- I had my husband stop the car and addressed what I had shockingly and disappointingly (from my sensitive, aware children) heard as school-community-concensus on reducing students who are identified as ‘developmentally challenged,’ ‘learning-differently,’ or ‘mainstreamed’ as the sum of the difference.
I told my child that neither she nor my other kids should ever speak that way of another student, but must understand that the student 1) has a name, 2)is a person who is-/with- [insert challenge here], 3) is their classmate/schoomate.
Having been allowed to attend school early, for one special day, with my older, developmentally challenged, Godbrother thirty-five years ago, my sensibilities and sensitivities in that regard were honed early on. Still, it is always necessary to have the conversation, form the language, and be willing to look at the ways in which my own understanding can be strengthened.
“Can we be antiracist when we’re adhering to classist values?”
I think that depends on the race of the antiracist. I’m working on acknowledging my own classism (there, I said it), but as a black woman with a decolonized perspective, racism plays no part in that. I’m not sure how those -isms would collide/intersect/overlap for people of other backgrounds.
Great post and some great thoughts. As a black queer mother, I see the intersection of these “isms” in my everyday life.
Also, today (June 1st) is blogging for LGBT families day and I wondered if Anti-Racist Parent would have anything to contribute. Part of my own politics as an anti-racist parent is to challenge the pervasive heteronormativity of parenting (and even anti-racist parenting) and to realize that family exists in many forms.
Hey Kwynne, thanks for letting us know! I’m going to submit Dawn’s post.
Meera, I’d love to understand more about what you’ve said here: “as a black woman with a decolonized perspective, racism plays no part in that.”
I don’t remember when I first learned that the Mexican-chocolate shade of my father’s skin made him an “other/outsider,” pero yo recuerdo at age 5, preferring his warm brown over my Mom’s white (and when cold, quasi-blue) complexion (harsh, cruel? I was only 5! I obviously hadn’t learned about about racialized beauty standards yet.). I also remember at age 12, experiencing great fear, confusion and anger when Dad came out, because by then, I’d learned that LGBT folks are harassed and beaten in the US. I remember being somewhat aware of the risk at that age since I’d already begun to closet my own emerging queeriosity. I also remember being furious in my twenties when he was in the hospital preparing for surgery and I had to find a witness to sign for his partner’s ability to make medical decisions for him in the event of an emergency- which meant that in addition to explaining the circumstances of their relationship I also had to worry about potential racial prejudice and homophobia among strangers I approached for signatures.
My fears about my father’s (and thus my own) safety at the intersections of race and sexual orientation in Amerikkka came to life one day in an empty bank parking lot. Not more than 14 years old, I sat frozen in the family van as I watched a rowdy group of skin heads approach my father, standing alone at the ATM. I’ll always remember wondering if these young white thugs were going to attack him first because he’s brown or because he’s gay (after all, thousands of Mexicans were lynched throughout California and the US within the last two generations and Mexicano/Chicano youth and adults were beaten and raped by U.S. military personnel in the streets and movie theaters of San Diego in the Zoot Suit Riots of the 1940’s). Gracias a La Virgencita, there was no violence that day at the bank, a veritable miracle given the disproportionate rates of bashings and murders of LGBT people of color in this country.
With the media’s limited attention on queer hate crimes focused almost exclusively on white gay and lesbian victims its easy to miss the double danger of having both melanin and same-gender loving attraction (well, easy to miss maybe if you’re white or a person of color who’s privileged or self-hating enough to believe that racism no longer exists in this country). It even seems that the only LGBT organizations discussing the increased risk of violence against LGBT people of color are transgender organizations and LGBT organizations of color. Mira, the racism in LGBT communities colludes with and confounds bigotry against nosotros y nuestras familias from straight society. That said, special recognition should also be made to transgender ally-organizations who are doing the work that others have yet to begin.
While it shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that queer people of color are at highest risk of bias-related violence in the US, our government is not trying very hard to get the full picture or address the situation. The Uniform Crime Reporting Program’s most recently published Hate Crimes Statistics (2005) do not include racial breakdowns of hate crime victims based on sexual orientation, in fact they’re so bad they don’t even include a category of crimes motivated by transphobia! Que, que? The failure to document hate crimes based on gender identity is particularly appalling given the fact that transgender people of color suffer the most from queer-based hate crimes. Special mention should also be made of the striking irony that transgender women of color were at the very forefront of the revolt against the police at Stonewall, it was from their beer bottles and clenched manicured fists that the U.S. LGBT Movement was born (how grateful we should be to these sisters!).
Thinking, I mean really thinking about hate crimes is horrific in and of itself, but having to think about it as the child of an LGBT parent can have significant impacts on mental health (kids of color living in areas where racism is lethal also understand the impact of fearing for their parents’ safety such as in Latino communities currently being terrorized by immigration raids). Unfortunately, there are very few resources specifically targeting the unique effects of homophobia on children of LGBT parents not just in terms of fearing for our parent’s safety, but also when we become the targets of homophobia (regardless of our own sexual orientation). Whether its taunting kids on the playground or journalists and researchers who scrutinize and dissect us to then represent us as psychologically or sexually damaged progeny of immoral unions (rest in peace Jerry Falwell), kids of queer parents like LGBT people of color, are caught in the middle of society’s own psychosis of homophobia, heterosexism, transphobia and racism. Digame Tio Sam, quien esta el enfermo?/Tell me Uncle Sam, who’s the sick one? And if you really want to get real about it, 5 minutes spent with veterans who’ve seen combat or people who’ve survived serious prison time will confirm that anyone who experiences extreme trauma and extended periods of stress from threat of trauma, will likely suffer some effect to their mental health….so of course in situations of violent homophobia, biphobia, transphobia and/or racism some, but not all children of LGBT parents will experience mental health issues like depression or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. What is also demonstrated by research but not widely discussed is that kids of LGBT parents are no more likely to suffer from mental health issues, be gay or lead an immoral life style than children raised by heterosexual parents, however we do tend be more resilient, open minded and politically liberal to radical (hmmm…not so bad in my book).
In participation with the first National LGBT Family Blogging Day, I am writing this piece for COLAGE’s (Children of Lesbian and Gays Everywhere) 2007 Speak Out Campaign. While there are few resources addressing homophobia as it affects children of LGBT families, COLAGE is the only organization providing leadership development, social space and media skills building specifically for kids of queer parents. As a member of the COLAGE community, I have benefitted immensely from the empowerment and transformation that happens when Queer Spawn gather together in play, community organizing and advocacy for social and familial equity. I hope this piece helps other children of LGBT families find their way home to us, where they will learn they are not alone and develop new skills to survive and flourish in a society based/built/maintained on prejudice, oppression and violence. The invitation is always open to join us in our work to realize the promise of the American Dream for all of our families and at the very least, the ability to live without fear of violence (is that really “special treatment” or so much to ask?). Children of LGBT families who are new to COLAGE find us to be a thriving and vibrant community with a great history of and current projects and programs dedicated to social change (well when you really stop to think about it, what else would you expect from the kids of politicized queer folk?).
p.s. the opinions in this piece may or may not reflect COLAGE, COLAGErs or anyone else on the planet, however I gladly take sole responsibility for its content and do not intend to represent anyone but myself
Hi Dawn,
I mean that I feel it’s entirely possible for a person to be antiracist while struggling with classist notions (I wouldn’t call them values). I am antiracist, but while I value all types of people who make up the fabric of America, I struggle with the fact that I sometimes prejudge others – black, white, other – based on class. It’s not really a “have or have not” thing as much as it is based on a person’s behavior. Often times I expect (and frown upon) certain behavior from people who aren’t well-educated (self-taught or otherwise), whatever race they may be. That is how I’m classist. To me, that’s not entirely race related. I know better than that because being discriminated against based on the fact that I’m black has taught me a thing or two about how *not* to be towards others. It just doesn’t mean I don’t have other “-isms” to deal with.
Oh, my self-coined term “decolonized” just means that I fully appreciate my own heritage and don’t look down on other blacks for being black.
Dawn,
I forgot to ask about something you mentioned in regards to your feminists group:
“While we embraced Sweet Honey in the Rock and Alice Walker, we were far less likely to celebrate a real-life African American client with a bright red weave and airbrushed acrylic nails.”
How are Bernice Johnson Reagon (of Sweet Honey) or Alice Walker any less “real life” African Americans than the other woman mentioned? Were your saying that some members of your group thought that the only “real life African American” women are the ones with the dyed hair and nail decals?
Retraction: I did not coin the term “decolonized” or “decolonized perspective”. If I actually had, I’d totally be missing my true calling…
Dawn, What I meant was that my multitude of experiences on the receiving end of racist intentions has taught me not to judge others based on race or skin color (in addition to my parents drilling it into my head since I was born). To be honest, I can’t say the same when it comes to the issue of class.
“Often times I expect (and frown upon) certain behavior from people who aren’t well-educated (self-taught or otherwise), whatever race they may be. ”
Question: is there then a shift in the bedrock of your notions, one you can allow to exist as it presents itself, when someone confounds your class-based expectations?
Further, does decolonized then mean that one does not manifest an unspoken (and perhaps unacknowledged) loathing when encountering others who seem to be of the same ethnic/racial background, though the particulars of the socioeconomics may, apparently, differ? (I’d never heard the way used in this way.)
Kim,
If I’m understanding you correctly, yes, a shift takes place. I’ve made many a knee-jerk assumption and been confounded many a time.
All I meant by my usage of the term decolonized (though maybe I could have chosen my words differently), was that I love my heritage, my black self and the people who share my ethnic background — of *all* socioeconomic backgrounds. I’m proud of who you and I are, our struggle and don’t, by any stretch of the imagination, think that my upbringing or education makes me better than anyone else. I’m as comfortable at a hair salon in the ‘hood as I am at my alma mater. My bias isn’t against poor people, it’s against ignorant people. So maybe it’s not classism, maybe it’s called something else.
When Dawn asked “Can we be antiracist when we’re adhering to classist values?” I felt something stir deep inside of me because I don’t adhere to the values that *most people* now associate with African American culture (Dawn’s example of a “real life” African American woman would be an example of that). I had that reaction because while I am antiracist, I don’t feel that rejecting values such as “don’t snitch”, the romanticization of “thug life” (glamorized by hip hop culture and the record industry) means rejecting my own culture. Yet I don’t know what these feelings can be called other than classism, because it definitely isn’t racism.
Meera: “I don’t adhere to the values that *most people* now associate with African American culture” *snip* “Dawn’s example of a “real life” African American woman would be an example of that
Woah-wait just a sec….
I think *most people* means “the low-brow end of pop culture” – i.e. the people who support, by creation or viewership, the minstrelsy of Flavor of Love, MTV Cribs, etc. That does NOT mean lower socioeconomic class. In fact, likely the producers and definitely the owners of the production studios are NOT African-American. I know you know this, but it bugs that what is popularly said to be BLACK “street” culture is not supported by ANYONE I know who’s black, blood relative or not. There is no one monolithic AA culture, and all ethnic group traits in this country, barring recent immigrants, are under/affected by the dominant “American” culture.
What you’re talking about is not class or ethnicity, but a parody of American sub-cultural elements. “Don’t snitch” is directly benefiting the criminal underclass, as is the “thug” concept (hell, if everyone in a neighborhood looks like a dealer, then the real dealers can quietly go about their business). So don’t feel “classist” for not embracing the lowest-common-denominator. Feel biased against criminals and feel OK about it.
What unfortunately some Americans associate with “black” culture is ultimately a lack of real wealth, power, and social education. Attributing them mostly to African-Americans is racism, and it’s as old as Jim Crow minstrelsy (so, early 1800s).
Someone with a weave or artificial nails is not necessarily poor, or even “street.” (if so, i know of a lot of middle class white women with fake nails and extensions who would be considered so). It MAY be tied to socioeconomic class, but then you have to look at the reasons behind it.
Fake nails = working jobs where you don’t get the chance to grow healthy natural nails. Could also be tied to nutrition and genetics.
Hair = well, there’s TONS out there about the politics of AA hair, especially for women. But “I am not my hair,” so moving on…
Other things attributed solely to African-American “culture”: I’m assuming people picture “loud” colors, gold jewelry, etc. Jewelry in US culture is a stand-in for real wealth (as opposed to developing nations where it can represent real net worth, dowry, etc.). It’s not that the truly wealthy don’t have jewelry, but it’s not the way they gain wealth (outside of the global jewelry trade) – that’s what the stock market and trust funds are for.
Think of flashy jewelry as a cultural short-cut, of poorer folk imitating (sometimes badly) an image of the upper class. Old as time and not a black thing. I’m sure ancient Assyrians wore gilded wooden pendants in imitation of their betters.
Clothes: some of it could be attributed to reclamation of African (percieved or real) traditions, and/or rejection of the conservative American (read as WHITE) form of dress. Otherwise, though, we’re talking social education, not ethnicity.
“I know you know this, but it bugs that what is popularly said to be BLACK “street” culture is not supported by ANYONE I know who’s black, blood relative or not.”
Me neither. What’s “popularly said” (hence my term *most people*) to be BLACK culture isn’t supported by anyone I know EITHER. I appreciate your break down (really, I do because people need to know these things), but I don’t need to be schooled on the roots of all of this. I’m fully aware of the origins and where these symbols of material wealth and glamorization of the “lowest-common-denominator” lifestyle actually originate (really good break down, though. I truly mean that).
To be honest, I’m just tired of these values gaining such widespread acceptance and endorsement in the black community. That comes out of love, not elitism. I’m also really tired of the fact that these are the stereotypes that most non-blacks associate with black culture. I wasn’t saying it IS black culture.
Which goes back to why I said (and Dawn quoted) “race and class are substituted for one another in this society”. Not always, but from my perspective far too often. We *are” talking about social education — not ethnicity — but how come more people can’t see that?
The phrase you stopped me on was in reference to how I just can’t get past how, to *most people* Bernice Johnson Reagon and Alice Walker were considered any less “real life” African American than the sister with the nails. In my world, BJR and AW are about as real (and regular, actually) as you can get.
I needed clarification from Dawn as to who said those things, why they felt that way and what, in this particular case “real life African American” meant.
Meera, Kim, Lyonside & Dawn –
I’ve been following you’re conversation here with great interest. This issue of “real African American” = thug = flash = low class/ghetto = uneducated is a daily issue for me. I watch my sons absorb and try on the “street life” identity, and I’m fighting mightily against the straight jacket they’re being asked to wear.
I understand what Dawn meant by the white progressives who idolize Bernice Reagon, but look straight down their noses at the red-braided, neck-poppin’, finger snappin’ mama loudly corralling her kids on the street corner. They are willing to accept and embrace some kinds of blackness, but their racism and class biases are completely unexamined when it comes to other kinds of black folk.
I also know that that mama on the corner has had whoever she really is erased and replaced by the “nappy-headed ho” of popular culture, just like her man has been replaced by the grill-wearing, red-tipped-dred-sportin’ thug. Being a poor black person has been openly and unapologetically equated with being immoral and devoid of ordinary human values.
Meera, when you express discomfort at the predominant view of black folk, I hear you. We are living in the modern minstrel age — our culture has been eviscerated, stuffed and repackaged to the world as “ghetto life”. We are parodied at college campus parties, in the media at large, and in what now stands in for hip hop culture. And it is damned hard to separate it neatly into “white people see this” and “black people see that”. We’re all swimming in the same cultural cesspool. I know what my sons hear on the radio and see in the media. I don’t let that stuff into my home if I can help it, but it doesn’t matter. I still have conversations with my seven year old along the lines of “No, honey, I won’t buy you a grill.” “No, honey, all black people aren’t mean.” “No, honey, a gangsta isn’t a good thing to be.”
We are all — even accomplished college athletes — seen as low class and uneducated. And for me, the class issue here is that we not turn tail and run from poor folk to distance ourselves from the nonsense that media culture dishes out. Instead, we have got to figure out how to get our culture — diverse, rich, layered, complex African American culture — away from the money machine (which both black and white folks are operating, Lyonside) that’s chewing it up and vomiting it back to us.
Meera, Vera said it for me better than I could have said myself! I’ll repeat it here: ” understand what Dawn meant by the white progressives who idolize Bernice Reagon, but look straight down their noses at the red-braided, neck-poppin’, finger snappin’ mama loudly corralling her kids on the street corner. They are willing to accept and embrace some kinds of blackness, but their racism and class biases are completely unexamined when it comes to other kinds of black folk.”
This is an interesting discussion and I’m learning a lot from reading the comments.
Vera, you nailed it. Thank you.;)
Wow! What a great discussion! This is sort of a tangent, but as a white person who came from what I guess most would consider a working or lower class upbringing (trailer parks, underemployment, public assistance, etc) I have found that using our history of poverty has been an effective way to talk to my family about racism and even their own racist comments. It is sort of a passive way for me to point out the racism in what they said. I am not sure if that makes sense, so here is an example:
N makes a comment about how a black woman in the neighborhood can afford fake nails and new clothes but she is “on welfare”. I remind her that T always dressed pretty wild and wore fake nails too (she worked in a battery factory and her hands always looked terrible) but she was a good mom.
It sounds simple, but I usually hear dead silence afterwards or something along the lines of “well, I didn’t think of it that way”.
Anyway, I thought it interesting to note that the classism inherent in racism can sometimes be used to one’s advantage.
“the classism inherent in racism can sometimes be used to one’s advantage”
hmm… I am thinking I should have phrased that differently…it is more the twisting of the two rather than classism being an “inherent” part of racism. That was the wrong word.
“Instead, we have got to figure out how to get our culture — diverse, rich, layered, complex African American culture — away from the money machine (which both black and white folks are operating, Lyonside) that’s chewing it up and vomiting it back to us.”
The first time I heard the word ‘machine’ used thusly was about fourteen years ago, by a most insightful, prolific, smart-as-you-wanna-be, humble sistafriend named Letta (Neely; poet), and everything just fell into place for me by her usage.
Thanks for that reminder, Vera. Thanks for the iteration, because for me that is where many of the ills begin.
Lyonside…will let you know about those ancient Assyrian pendants.
(Hey Meera. I’m clear-thanks. Hey, Dawn…great post as always.)
Vera,
I am so glad to know that I am not the only mom who has had there 7, 8, 9 year old son ask if I could buy him a grill!
As a Caucasian mom of my adopted A/A siblings, I struggle with my feelings about this subject every day! I am constantly trying to decide if my feelings about this or that are based in some sort of underlying racism, or classism, or perhaps even, are my feelings totally justified?. I can generally sort out my feelings by putting someone else of another race in the place of the person I am judging, and asking myself if I would feel the same about whatever situation I have encountered.
My son came home the other day asking about “snitching”. I was so lucky that I had just seen an article on some news report regarding this subject, so I had already had given some thought to this subject. I thank Lyonside for the statement “Feel biased against criminals and feel OK about it.”
Everyone’s comments are so valuable to me. I learn something new every time I log on to this blog!
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