chomiji | The Racist in My Head (for IBARW)

The Scene: An uptown urban street.
The Time: 7:30 p.m. on a hot summer's evening - last night, in fact.
What Happened: A tallish, chunky middle-aged white woman (yours truly) was trudging home from the Metro when a group of half a dozen young African American men appeared across the street, being loud and boisterous. And the Racist in My Head sat up and squawked "Uh oh! Are we in trouble?"

Yes, that is what I thought. Closely followed by "I can't believe I'm doing this during IBARW."

Then I used a crutch I've developed for myself: I imagined what those young guys would look like if they were white. And with that, I then saw that they hadn't noticed me at all, and they hadn't noticed the smaller, cuter, younger woman waiting at the crosswalk for the light, either. They were clearly friends, they were joking with each other and joshing each other, and they were casually but neatly dressed. In fact, they were all dressed about the same: dark slacks and clean white T-shirts. So maybe they had just come from working on some sort of summer job, perhaps even volunteer work. Whatever it was they had been doing, it had made them feel good about themselves, and they were in high spirits.

That's all. Why the hell hadn't I seen that at first?

I still need a lot of work, obviously, before I'm the decent person I aspire to be. Because I'm clearly not colorblind, and my prejudices are still hampering my judgment.

So let's hear it for IBARW, which reminds me how far I have to go and gives me opportunities to educate myself toward that goal.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I loved this post. But you know what? It made me try to see the guys as white. And I wouldn't have felt any safer. White is just as dangerous as black where gangrape or assault is concerned. East Asian, sad to say, might have calmed me a little bit. South Asian, maybe but not if it was in Sri Lanka. It's just the general idea that it's not safe to be around a group of boisterous young men that might decide picking on you is more fun than talking to each other, regardless of race. East Asian only seems safer because I have a harder time seeing them as openly boisterous to the point that they look like they're working themselves up into a gang frame of mind, where hate crimes are okay. South Asians aren't okay because I know Sri Lankan guys get raised to think of women as naturally subservient and I am so NOT a good South Asian girl that I'd be fair prey in their eyes as a punishment for being around on my own, let alone the hair.

I think it's more of a girl-reaction on my part than a cultural one but before you posted this, I didn't think about the fact that I'd have reason to be scared of white guys as a South Asian chick on my own and thus a target for racism.

Uh. The hair is because my hair is currently very short with red streaks in it, since it's growing out from having been a red mohawk. I just realized that I might need to clarify that a little. ^^;;

I think part of my reason for feeling calmer once I tried seeing them as white is that I'm pretty confident in my ability to read people when I'm not having a knee-jerk freakout. Also, I'm old enough to have the weight of seniority but young enough not be thought frail on that account, and I can look pretty intimidating. So once I felt OK about their mood, I was say, 95% certain of my safety. There was just no attitude going on there - they were acting like big puppies, not like macho dudes. And it was still quite light out. But 20 years ago, I probably would have felt more like you do.

(BTW, I will be offline for about the next 10 days.)

The Racist in My Head (for IBARW)

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