From: trs4742@sigma.tamu.edu (SEBESTA, TIMOTHY RICHARD)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
Subject: Re: How whites can experience racism
Date: 22 Jul 92 23:44:00 GMT
Article-I.D.: sigma.22JUL199218443041
Organization: Texas A&M University, Academic Computing Services
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <1992Jul19.221446.237@mtechca.maintech.com>, foster@mtechca.maintech.com writes...
>John Kawakami writes:
> 
>> I think that it would be a good thing for whites to feel 
>> the pain of racism every once in awhile.
> 
>I know a cheap and easy way for most white college students to
>experience racism. And it's the real article, too, as defined
>by nonwhite intellectuals: prejudice combined with power. 
> 
>(For the purpose of this exercise, all mainland Asian students 
>count as white. Latino students who speak English at home with 
>their English-speaking middle-class parents and grandparents 
>also count as white. So do all Persians, Israelis and Arabs. 
>Filipinos and Pacific Islanders count as non-white. Assume that
>English is your mother tongue, so there is no prejudice against
>your communication skills.)
> 
>(If you are independently wealthy, or Daddy is paying your way 
>to college, or for some other reason you don't ~need~ a job, 
>this exercise will not work.)
> 
>(Begin exercise.)
> 
>All you have to do is read the ads for on-campus jobs. Look for
>positions in the fields of Housing, High School Outreach, Tutoring, 
>Undergraduate Peer Advisors, Non-Traditional Student Counseling; 
>pretty much anything that has a touchy-feely job description and 
>the letters AA in the bottom corner. Don't worry about what AA might 
>mean; it's probably just some tracking code the job office uses for 
>its records. Go interview for the job.
> 
>You will be the only white person in the room. The other four people 
>are those who will interview you and will decide whether or not to 
>hire you. Of the interviewers, one will not look at you or talk to 
>you at all, another will glare at you with hatred the whole time,
>the third will hurry through the list of questions and not listen to
>your answers. The leader will sprinkle the interview with statements 
>like these: "Did you know this is an Affirmative Action job? This 
>~is~ an Affirmative Action job, you know. We will base our decision 
>on the principles of Affirmative Action." 
> 
>Do you wonder why the lead interviewer kept stressing the fact that 
>the position is an Affirmative Action job? Isn't that the same as 
>saying it's an equal opportunity position, right? And why should she 
>stress it? All University jobs are open to everyone, aren't they? Go 
>look up the definitions of the terms Affirmative Action and Equal 
>Employment Opportunity. Surprise! They are ~not~ synonyms like your 
>naive self thought they were. 
> 
>It will not matter how qualified you are for the position, how many 
>years of experience you have in similar work, how poor and backward 
>your family is, how well you speak Spanish, how many years you lived 
>in Bed-Stuy, how much racism you may have experienced in your life 
>already as 
>	a Northern-Irish Catholic,
>	an Egyptian Christian,
>	a Soviet Jew,
>	a Japanese of Korean descent,
>	a Spanish Basque,
>	a British Pakistani,
>	a Romanian of Hungarian descent,
>you will not be called back for a second interview. Your application 
>was thrown into the trash as soon as you left the room.
> 
>If your University doesn't require you to, enroll in a Chicano or
>Black Studies course (not History of Jazz though). You will alone
>in the room, surrounded by Blacks or Chicanos. The other students 
>who do not pointedly ignore you will look at you with surprise, 
>suspicion, loathing or any one of a number of unpleasant attitudes.
>Don't expect acceptance or even indifference. Stick it out the whole
>semester; remember, non-white students in classrooms full of whites 
>do not have the luxury of dropping out of every class in which they 
>feel the pain of racism - they would never finish their educations.
>Don't worry if the professor ignores you, or grades you more harshly
>than everyone else, or dismisses your contributions to the discussion
>as irrelevant: "What do you know about it? You aren't a member of 
>the culture we are discussing."
> 
>If you aren't a college student, or if you are and you haven't had
>enough yet, you could do the following experiment. It won't show you
>RealRacism (tm), but it will show you nonstop prejudice. In the cases
>that follow, it doesn't matter if the people you deal with are really
>prejudiced or not. Assume that they are, and are hiding it well, and 
>will revert to open bigotry at any time. They might not ever do so, 
>but you want to experience the constant anxiety that nonwhites feel.
> 
>For several days running, go to the black part of town. At the black-
>owned bookstore (it's the one with the Malcolm X display in the window),
>ask for help finding _Mein Kampf_ or a history of the Civil War that 
>champions the Confederacy. Get your hair cut at a black-owned barber 
>or beauty shop. Visit several barbecue, Louisiana fried fish and other 
>'soul food' restaurants; order your food to eat on the premises. Do not 
>go to any chain restaurants, only to mom-and-pop places. After dinner, 
>dress to impress and try to get into several different nightclubs. 
> 
>Consider the attitudes of the waiters, bouncers and clerks. Some will 
>be openly hostile, and this is part of what you were after - an overt 
>show of racism. What about the others - are they really being helpful? 
>or are they just hoping to get you out of the store quickly before the 
>locals see a white person in there? Is the club ~really~ already up to 
>its seating capacity and the owners don't want trouble from the Fire 
>Marshal? Are you ~really~ underdressed? Is there ~really~ an unposted 
>ten dollar cover charge that you just did not notice the other patrons 
>paying as they went in? Why would there be a cover charge on a night 
>when there was no band? Remember the stories you've heard about what
>Negro waiters used to do to white customers' food back in the 1940s - 
>di someone in the kitchen spit into the catfish you've just been served? 
> 
>You can't know, and you'll never know. All of a sudden you understand 
>the meaning of that 1960s song: "Sometimes smiling faces tell lies, 
>they don't tell the truth."
> 
>While you are in that part of town, walk cockily and swing your arms,
>taking up lots of pavement. Make eye contact, smile and say "How ya 
>doin'?" at everyone you pass on the street. Do this even if, like many
>Euro-Americans, it is not normally part of your cultural background to 
>greet strangers in public. Some people will return your greeting with 
>sincerity, but a fair number will not. Look for reactions of fear, 
>horror and surprise. See if mothers pull their children away from you. 
>See if people move to avoid you. 
> 
>Become bitter. Treat with suspicion all the African-Americans, Chicanos 
>and South Pacific Islanders you meet, even those whom you thought were 
>your friends. Now analyze everything a non-white person says to you: 
><Was that a racist comment? Did he just insult me? Does that sentence
>have a double meaning?> Don't voice your suspicions, though, because 
>you were brought up to believe that all people are good at heart, and 
>anyway, it sounds ridiculous to complain about these small slights. 
>They are all easily explained, anyway: 
> 
>	"The person we hired had more experience." 
> 
>	"You misheard what I said." 
> 
>	"I didn't mean ~you~ when I said that whites are all racists." 
> 
>	"'Whitewash' and 'white feather' are just figures of speech." 
> 
>	"Don't mind him when he says 'whitemotherfucker' all as one 
>	 word, it's just how he was brought up."
> 
>	"'Gabacho' and 'guero' aren't derogatory words, they just mean 
>	 the same as 'gringo'."
> 
>	"The singer doesn't really want to kill all white people, he's
>	 just speaking as an imaginary character."
> 
>	"Professor Smith doesn't really think white people are inferior,
>	 he just says that to provoke discussion."
> 
>Continue to swallow your indignation, even if it makes you sick. There's
>no point in protesting, since no one will take you seriously. Protests
>will brand you as as oversensitive and touchy.
> 
>(End of exercise. The word 'white' reverts to its usual meaning.)
> 
>There you have it - a small taste of what non-whites in this our
>WhiteRacistSociety have to go through every day. 
> 

>Jeff "been most of there, done most of that" Foster



Thanks for the waste of space with stereotypes of whites and african-americans.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american