{"id":27445,"date":"2009-10-30T16:29:23","date_gmt":"2009-10-30T16:29:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/gregladen\/2009\/10\/30\/the-nature-of-the-racist-conve-1\/"},"modified":"2009-10-30T16:29:23","modified_gmt":"2009-10-30T16:29:23","slug":"the-nature-of-the-racist-conve-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2009\/10\/30\/the-nature-of-the-racist-conve-1\/","title":{"rendered":"The Nature of the Racist Conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This is Melisa Riviere<\/a>. White People sometimes do hip hop. <\/em> <\/center><\/span>I have a reading suggestion for you. First a little background.<\/p>\n

I’ve gotten into a few arguments on race and racism in my time, some on this blog. Racist thinking is all around us. Why just a few hours ago, a neighbor complained that his car had been robbed by the black kids that pass down our street now and then. How did he know it was the black kids? Because the people who robbed his car like hip-hop. How did he know that? Because they didn’t take his rock cds. Oh, did they take his hip hop cd’s? Well no, he doesn’t have hip hop cds. He’s not black. Why would he have hip hop cd’s?<\/p>\n

WTF?
\n<\/p>\n

This is a rewritten repost, part of the celebration of Repost your Political Snark Week (which is an event held every two years offset from the US Congressional Elections). <\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n

I had to laugh, for so many reasons. Never mind the inanity of it all. Just consider the pragmatics. The person that I know best who also is the person I know who is most into hip hop is depicted in the photo. White girl. Its not like I don’t know any African American Musicians. Hey, my nephew<\/a> is an African American Musician. He’s just not into hip hop much. Well, everybody’s into hip hop, right? He just does not produce a lot of it. (Do check out his stuff<\/a>\"\", it is quite good.) Oh, and I have a good friend who is “black” who writes hip hop and studies the role of music and social change. In truth, she is South Asian adopted as in infant into a mixed-race family. I’m not going to say which races. Oh, and the white girl in the picture is Hispanic. So maybe that makes her not white. Maybe it would make sense for her<\/em> to steal the radio out of Bubba’s car, but leave the Rock.<\/p>\n

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Every day I walk or drive by a pickup with a decal like this one. I wonder if this particular neighbor is an anti-Semite, a white supremacist, or just a socially inept ahistorical moron. I’m not taking any bets on this one. <\/em> <\/center><\/span>Me? I’d take the rock and leave the radio. I don’t think the radio from Bubba’s “American” car would fit in my “Foreign” car (the latter made in the USA, 100%). The thing is, I suspect its not rock. I suspect it’s country. Ick. Way too white for this white boy.<\/p>\n

Foreign cars made in America, American cars made in Wherever. People failing to live up to their skin color-determined roles all around us … the whole world turned topsy turvy. What is a good ol’ racist to do these days?<\/p>\n

Well, my friend Stephanie Zvan<\/strong> has written an insightful and interesting post on her blog about what racists actually do when confronted with challenges to their thinking.<\/p>\n

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Almost Diamonds<\/a> <\/em> <\/center><\/span>This is not just about their arguments, but about the process they engage in (unconsciously, I assume). Stephanie writes about things I’ve noticed before, but never formalized as she has. The racist repository of replies to the usual anti-racist arguments is fairly limited, and usually has the same sequence. The same lyrics, the same melody. Nonsensical and out of tune. Here, Stephanie analyzes the process with two or three racist commenters on a recent post that I wrote on the currently traveling Science Museum of Minnesota’s exhibit on race and racism.<\/p>\n

A bunch of white people talking about race. Typical. But Stephanie’s post is well worth a read. Here:<\/p>\n


\nWhat Is Race Good For?<\/a><\/p>\n

\nHuh. Absolutely nothin’ …<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/object><\/p>\n

That makes me laugh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is Melisa Riviere. White People sometimes do hip hop. I have a reading suggestion for you. First a little background. I’ve gotten into a few arguments on race and racism in my time, some on this blog. Racist thinking is all around us. Why just a few hours ago, a neighbor complained that his … Continue reading The Nature of the Racist Conversation<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5020],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5fhV1-78F","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27445"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27445\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}