“I don’t want to speak for Jay, but the feeling at least that I got from the “Black describes a particular culture in history” thing and how I originally heard it was not that black represents one particular and all encompassing monolithic culture (like some stereotyped cliched version of urban black culture you’d see in the media or on TV), but that black, within a U.S. context, has a rich a varied history. And that to compare black with green or purple or blue (which are made up and have no historical legacy to even speak of), works to diminish the validity of that history.”

Thanks Jay for the great vlogs/rant love it!

Peace – MECH

I think Matthews was simply stating that here is a guy who based on his performance that night, you judge him based on his character. Other then that the rest is much ado about nothing.

mc4

Jay, I’ve been saying this for so many years. I don’t believe that being color-blind is any more fair than being culturally blind, sexually blind, etc.. I think that we should strive to be color/racially aware instead of blind. People need to be aware that your race, color, sex, language, income, country of origin, etc. all have fundamental impacts on your personality. To ignore the factors that “can” make us who we are today is just plain ignorant. It denies us the opportunity to identify our own prejudices as well. Don’t enslave me to a stereotype of being black, but never forget that my experience is fundamentally black too.

Thanks for being so enlightening, Jay.

Oh my. I do understand what you are trying to articulate, I am just trying to say that you are not articulating it in a way that moves anyone past color talk.

I agree with you that if anyone has, as you put it, “assimilated into whiteness” (which is really a discussion about PRIVILEGE and, again, NOT SKIN COLOR) they can be blinded by the invisibility of their privilege. I also understand that historically and even today much of the price for that privelege gets paid for by groups with brown skin or black skin (or same sex partners). But at this this point in our history, that sort of invisible privilege we need to talk about also includes lots of colors. There are many black, brown yellow and gay folks benefiting from invisible privilege. So to continue to talk about these issues via color terms is counterproductive to forward progress.

My reluctance to talk about race is in NO WAY tied to my desire to distance myself from any white legacy.

It is tied to the fact that if we don’t get past the polarizing “color talk” and start to focus on ALL people getting fair privilege/rights (including black, white brown, yellow, gay, straight, etc) we will just keep playing the same broken record. This is my fear.

Done with commenting. Thanks for sharing your views.

I don’t want to speak for Jay, but the feeling at least that I got from the “Black describes a particular culture in history” thing and how I originally heard it was not that black represents one particular and all encompassing monolithic culture (like some stereotyped cliched version of urban black culture you’d see in the media or on TV), but that black, within a U.S. context, has a rich a varied history. And that to compare black with green or purple or blue (which are made up and have no historical legacy to even speak of), works to diminish the validity of that history. It diminishes both the great accomplishments that black people have achieved in this country and it diminishes the oppression they had to fight against to reach those achievements.

And so, when I talk about white people, I’m talking about it in a similar sense. No, white people in the U.S. are not all the “same” but we do share a common white history and legacy. And sadly as rich and as varied as it may be, underneath all the great accomplishments and historical moments we learn about in school, a big part of our history involves trying to diminish and sometimes eradicate the histories of people of color (and even more bluntly, to diminish and eradicate the actual people themselves.) And it doesn’t matter if your family came over here with the pilgrims or if you grew up with immigrant parents in Queens. It doesn’t matter if your ancestors never owned slaves. If you’re here, and you’re white or have assimilated into whiteness (like how Irish/German/Italian immigrants did), then you benefit from that legacy.

So when I say that “it’s hard for white people to talk about race”, I’m saying that, for some white people, it’s very difficult to have honest discussions about race, BECAUSE they’re white, not for some other reason, or excuse, or because that one individual has some individual personality defect, or because that one individual “just doesn’t want to talk about ANYTHING honestly”, or whatever other reason might be given. Our reluctance to talking about race is most often tied to our desire to distance ourselves from that white legacy.

Have you ever read the blog “stuff white people do”? (not the ironic tongue-in-cheek “stuff white people like” that got a book deal, this is something else) I don’t know if posting links is allowed in comments here, but you can search for them on blogspot. It’s a blog (by a white dude) trying to explore what he calls “common white tendencies” and trying to deconstruct and talk about invisible white privilege. It might give you a better idea of some of the things I’m trying to articulate here.

I mean that in the same way I meant my first comment, where I sorta called out Jay (whom I love) for saying this: “But statements like “Black describes a particular culture in history”

because black describes many cultures, at many different points in history, not a particular one. And the idea that black is one thing seems to keep cropping up, like brown is one thing or white is one thing.”

If we can find a way to move past colors without trying be colorblind, to move toward actual equality regardless of color, we may make some progress. But as long as the discussion is polarized by colors and not by rights, we ain’t goin’ nowhere.