racism vs sexism: dinosaurs attack

It fascinates me how people invariably preface racist statements with the words, “I’m not a racist or anything, but: [other people are inferior or flawed].”

As they say, you have to ignore everything that comes before the “but.”

The thorough-going unseen privilege of those who feel most entitled to thus pronounce on other people’s worth goes so deep, it seems the accusation of racism is itself the worst taboo. So I can say whatever I like about other people’s inferiority, but for you to call me racist is the one insult that’s unable to be borne. One can bring – I have brought – entire gatherings to a grinding halt by saying, “But, So-and-So, that’s racist.” Everybody shuts up and heads swivel slowly, almost audibly, like locals greeting strangers in a bar. No matter what vile assertions I make about other people’s humanity, eerily they can never be as baselessly awful as the assertion that someone else’s ideas are racist. This to me is the most irrefutable evidence that white people live in a miasma of clouding white fragility and privilege. I have heard plenty of racist shit from all kinds of people’s mouths. But I’ve never, ever, once heard anybody say: “I am a racist. And because I’m racist, I believe [other people are inferior or flawed].”

I even had one former sister-out-law explain to me, with great kindness as I was new in her family, after a revolting discussion of a family friend who had just dropped off a condolence card and who happened to be Aboriginal (“well, if they were all like that… it wouldn’t be a problem”) “Cathoel you don’t get it. He hates his own race as much as I hate his race.”

I said, “But, Veronica – that’s racist.” Shocked gasps all round. She drew a quivering hand to her breastbone. Her voice broke. “Are you calling me A Racist?”

I said, “I think you just called yourself a racist. You hate his race. That’s what racism is. It’s not complicated.” But the outrage that broke following that statement did not still over the next three or four days. We drove home at the end of the visit still carrying it and I never felt comfortable in that family again. Because mine was the real insult.

It also fascinates me that people who feel entitled to preface “this or that racist assumption” with the words “I’m not racist but” will invariably feel compelled to also say, if female, “I’m not a feminist or anything, but [ya know, I just sorta have this feeling maybe women are people too?”] As a society we have learned to feel ashamed of our racism but not yet to uproot and rout it. As a society we have not yet learned to feel ashamed of our hatred of women. There were those few halcyon years in which people started to say, “…I mean, chairperson.” Then the demeaning backlash of “political correctness” descended like a storm on all our heads. Now the labour to have one’s struggle for equality, one’s longing to be recognised as fully human and valid, can be all wiped away with this one sneering, coward’s phrase. “Not to get all politically correct on you or anything, but…. [I believe and know everyone is human. Yup, each of us. No exceptions. That’s just how it is.”]