Is it racist to be race conscious?
In my Canadian literature class a few weeks ago we were discussing racism and race conscious, and whether or not these terms are synonymous. It was getting to be a heated to debate, but an interesting one. I was of the opinion that they were not synonymous because to be racist implies judgement, whereas to be conscious is merely aware. Since humans are so visually dependant (unless blind) one cannot help but be aware. However one person in my class argued that one cannot observe without evaluating and judging. I'm not sure how I feel about this argument. Can one observe without judging?
posted by Jenevieve @ 10:26 PM
1 Comments:
I think one can observe without judging, but discerning a difference between one thing and another - the very act of being conscious of differences and classifying people unconsciously - is judgemental and discriminatory. I fear we use the same bits of our brain for the neutral kind of discrimination ("Ted had two noses; he's a two-noser") as we do for the bad part ("Bill only has one nose: he'd be useless as a perfume sniffer"). I don't think we can really separate the two.
While I say that, I do try not to apply the bad part of discrimination to the classifications I make internally; I work hard to keep those internalised and look to disprove my negative discriminations, and I don't know for sure if I'm just a closet racist or if that's what non-racists do. For I know that NewJersey people, especially the small-town guys, may sound like Sopranos but I know most of them are not.
Being a visible member of no visible minorities, too, I don't know if what I feel on the issue is my own feelings, or just some reaction to life in a society where the wishes of every minority is elevated to the point where I'm all but insignificant. It's hard to happily live in a society where one has no value, and I'm not sure if that's any better than being a member of a very harshly-stereotyped minority.
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