It was Black History Month in February in the USA. I didn’t post anything about it, but not from lack of effort. I actually have a two-parter about black voting history in the USA (they started as staunch Republicans, but gradually drifted towards the Democrats and have been a solid Democratic voting bloc since the mid 20th century), reasons why I think they’re heavily Democratic today, and why they should vote for the GOP instead. I decided to save that for next February because that’s an election year (total teaser, I know).
Race isn’t something I generally discuss here. It’s also generally not something I think much about beyond comedy (I sometimes enjoy racial humor). I figure it’s not fair to laugh at a crack about somebody else and then take offense when the comedian jokes about you (obviously, it’s ok to be offended when it’s malicious and/or can be reasonably interpreted as such). You have to be able to laugh at yourself. For example, I personify the stereotype that white men can’t dance and lack rhythm. My girlfriend mocks me relentlessly for it and jokes that she’s going to make me do Zumba with her (I hope she’s joking). So, my thoughts in this post exempt comedy and matters where individual traits like race and sex make legitimate statistical differences, such as insurance and profiling.
Black History Month made me think about why race isn’t very predominant in my mind. I think the main reason is the way I think of people. I think of individuals as individuals first rather than members of certain demographics. I see myself, for instance, as Tim, a person with certain (positive and negative) character traits who also happens to be a white male, rather than seeing myself as a white man named Tim who has certain (positive and negative) character traits. In essence, to me, the micro trumps the macro. It’s who the person is as an individual that defines a person in my eyes more than what groups they can be compartmentalized into.
Do things such as race and sex contribute to defining who a person is? Absolutely. But, is it fair to make assumptions about people and stereotype them based solely on these traits? I don’t think so because you don’t know the person yet. It’s that whole, “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” thing. You’ll get burned if you make assumptions about people based on their skin and sex. I thought the whole point of not being a racist was to avoid negatively stereotyping and making assumptions about individual people based on their skin and sex.
Here’s an example. I was called “privileged” simply because I’m a white male and told that it must’ve been nice to have done so well at the expense of everyone else. I’ve recently learned that this term is used in a sociological context, but my first reaction was to interpret it in an individual context, so a big contributing factor was miscommunication and misinterpretation. Still, there’s much more wrong than right about that statement and I found it insulting, responding rather scathingly that I really wouldn’t know.
To me, it implied that because I’m a white male, my family and I didn’t have to work hard and were handed everything. That’s nonsense. My grandparents came to America following World War 2 (he was a Polish soldier and she was an English nurse) and started a dairy farm. My dad had a choice of whether to stay on the farm or not. He couldn’t afford college, so it was either the military or farming. He chose the military, made his way through the Navy’s nuclear program (a program which only the smartest and most determined people survive), and built a career in commercial nuclear power. I went to college for engineering (which is a hard academic path, as demonstrated by the fact that engineering only has about a 33% graduation rate) and that’s my current job. That’s not exactly a “privileged” upbringing, now is it? Methinks not. Then again, what would I know? :-p
In my mind, we’re all humans first. I don’t care what skin color or sex people are. Those traits in and of themselves won’t determine my opinion of a person. That’s what the individual him/herself will do. Likewise, at the end of the day, in American political discussion, we’re all Americans, and that’s why I try not to attack people/groups. I try to attack/defend the idea, not the person/group.
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