It is difficult to outline bigotry. Mostly if you say to someone you just expewrienced unbridled racism, they will probably respond – “I doubt that”. And when you object because your life has been one experience of racism after another and you feel you know the landscape, they still continue and want you to outline to them how you know and of what did it entail. Our advice is to just ignore that and change the conversation. The first thing about racism and knowing it has just happened to you is the denial from the person with whom you shared that experience.
DECODE IT!
The major purveyors of racism; those keeping it intact so the ones who are declared “better than” under its structure are not inconvenienced by the feelings of “equal to” are not all white, male, North Americans/Northern Europeans.
FOR EXAMPLE: The major institutions – organizational structures – corporate entities who keep the separatism intact are banks/developers/realtors.
Take a look around your neighborhood – your schools – the companies in which you work – your churches, synagogues, temples and what do you see? White – where the money and power are concentrated and brown, yellow, black, red everyplace else.
If you want your life upheaveled, cross one of those barriers and see what a threat you are. Everyone begins to mark you for extinction. Banks are number one. You can get certain kinds of loans, credit cards, and other credit products depending upon where you live. I know, I know – you have heard about needing a good credit rating and all of that – it is quite a lot of baloney.
Making the job of the banks easier with some of the load of responsibility for racism taken off their shoulders are the developers and realtors. They hold an uncrossable line. Every once in a while one of them goes crazy with guilt and starts to violate those non-violatable lines of race, sex, etc. and then everyone’s life is upheaveled for quite some time.
The developers are the new guys on the block, but they are the most skilled and the most insecure in their positions. Could that be because sexism is so stringently enforced in their industry?
Not only is sexism strong, but look at the results of their work!!! You will see the homes that are “redone”, “restored”, “renovated” are all done in the style that is really out of the Scandinavian culture and that includes the furnishings used by realtors to “stage” their houses for sale. Anything else is considered fodder for a new renovation because the other one wasn’t quite North American enough. A strong barrier has been created. That even goes into the television shows which are the “renovation” shows. A house starts looking dilapidated or worse and at the end it is a tribute to the proper culture.l The kitchens are almost all identical. Cabinets are around the room, a counter is in the middle with a table and chairs (not formal enough for a dining room) are on the other side with every one raving about how fantastic this job turned out. Every segment of the economy supports every other segment to maintain the “better than” group with that certain feeling which keeps them above others and their culture the one that supports it all.
In spite of Brown v Board of Education and a whole lot of work by tens of thousands of people over the decades the schools are still hopelessly segregated and there doesn’t seem to be a way outl
All of this takes the onerous off the institutional structures and puts it on the backs of John and Jane Q. Public. Are the individuals the guilty ones or do they simply go along to get along. Busing was undertaken because it was clear there would be no change because of the stringent and strident way neighborhoods were segregated. The best way to kick up a storm is to have an African American move into an upper-class white north/american neighborhood. The bread winner of the family probably soon loses his job; strange things begin to happen around the family which pulls them as far down as possible until they move out shamed, disgraced and more with the blame for such squarely on the backs of the family which took on such a horrendous change in the status quo.
Where do we go from here! It seems to me that the strength and size of the boulder on the backs of those who have undetaken such a lifestyle has and will dictate no change. If anything it will grow exponentially disguised so most can say “I don’t see that”.
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