4 ms·

yikes. Racial blindness is still a form of blindness. If everyone spent more time working on their own shit everyone would be better off. Instead, one side i

yikes. Racial blindness is still a form of blindness. If everyone spent more time working on their own shit everyone would be better off. Instead, one side is scared of and angry at the other side, easily leading to stubborn refusal to grow or down a slippery slope towards hatred or indifference.

skissane 5y ago
> Racial blindness is still a form of blindness I'm Australian, born in the 1980s, spent my whole life here. I can tell you growing up we rarely (if ever) thought about "who is what race". In part it is a cultural thing – in my lifetime, official Australian society (government/media/etc) has discouraged talk of "races", encouraging people to instead identify via finer-grained nationality/ethnicity/culture labels – i.e. "Chinese" or "Indian" or "Vietnamese" not "Asian", "Irish" or "Italian" or "Polish" not "white", etc. The whole "who is what race" thing sounds very American to my ears. I believe that way of thinking is becoming more common here, as Australia becomes more Americanised through social media and other sources, but I'm not inclined to see that as a positive development. That's not to say there is no problem with racism in contemporary Australia. I remember at my high school, there was a significant minority of students of Lebanese ancestry (it was a Catholic high school, so our ethnically Lebanese students were predominantly Maronite Catholics) – and I definitely remember hearing some mildly prejudiced things said about them, even to their faces. But, in all that, I doubt anybody was ever asking themselves "are Lebanese people white?" One of my school friends, who is of partial Italian descent (albeit via Argentina/Uruguay rather than directly), had to put up with dumb jokes at school about his dad being in the Mafia. He told me how when his father first moved to Australia in the 1970s, his coworkers would exploit his poor knowledge of English to trick him into saying offensive things to the boss. What "race" are my friend and his dad? The question seems pointless, irrelevant. At least here in Australia, "racism" is generally defined as prejudice on the basis of "race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin" – so it isn't necessary to categorise a person as belonging to any particular "race" to acknowledge them as a victim of racism. How then does one describe this difference between the US and Australia – between a society which strongly (and maybe even increasingly strongly) focuses on coarse-grained racial categories, and a society which (in recent decades) has had a strong tendency towards avoiding them? Maybe "racial blindness" isn't quite the right term for it, but it seems at least somewhat adjacent.
- ILMostro7 5y ago
  It goes back to the civil war and every step of the way when black people here were actively denied their rights that the civil war was supposed to have guaranteed them. I have lived in multiple countries across different continents. Even if race was not as big of a hot topic issue, eceryone could tell if a person of a different race is standing in front of them. So, to simply say racial blindness is the way to go is ridiculous. The fact that they were usually a very small minority and had no historically brutal ties to the founding of that country is probably the reason why it wasn't considered such a big issue. Nevertheless, ultimately, one can't go through life blaming everything on racism. However, fighting for centuries to be free, to gain rights, only to be systemically rebuffed, ignored and even oppressed and brutalized along the way in different forms, that has to be recognized for what it is. Using a single event to disprove racism and even arguing that some historical things never happened at the very least is willful ignorance. Then, by the same token, reversing certain laws that were meant to safeguard and protect those rights that they finally did end up receiving. Ignoring what that time and history would do to any community to reinforce ones own stereotypical views, as political leaders use it as a way to stir up support from other disenfranchised communities. In the end, the problems only get worse as the next generation kicks the can down the road. The issue could have been, perhaps, resolved a long time ago. At this point, things look even more complicated and the longer it goes on the more difficult it is to overcome or resolve.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > black people here were actively denied their rights that the civil war was supposed to have guaranteed them. The Civil War was not supposed to have guaranteed anyone any rights. Some changes to the Constitution rammed through after the Civil War were, but it's important to separate those from the war, which was about the objective that, even before the rebellion, the notionally-abolitionist Republicans expressly put ahead of treating blacks as humans, the preservation of the unity of the Republic.
    - ILMostro7 5y ago
      Granted.

skissane 5y ago

> Racial blindness is still a form of blindness I'm Australian, born in the 1980s, spent my whole life here. I can tell you growing up we rarely (if ever) thought about "who is what race". In part it is a cultural thing – in my lifetime, official Australian society (government/media/etc) has discouraged talk of "races", encouraging people to instead identify via finer-grained nationality/ethnicity/culture labels – i.e. "Chinese" or "Indian" or "Vietnamese" not "Asian", "Irish" or "Italian" or "Polish" not "white", etc. The whole "who is what race" thing sounds very American to my ears. I believe that way of thinking is becoming more common here, as Australia becomes more Americanised through social media and other sources, but I'm not inclined to see that as a positive development. That's not to say there is no problem with racism in contemporary Australia. I remember at my high school, there was a significant minority of students of Lebanese ancestry (it was a Catholic high school, so our ethnically Lebanese students were predominantly Maronite Catholics) – and I definitely remember hearing some mildly prejudiced things said about them, even to their faces. But, in all that, I doubt anybody was ever asking themselves "are Lebanese people white?" One of my school friends, who is of partial Italian descent (albeit via Argentina/Uruguay rather than directly), had to put up with dumb jokes at school about his dad being in the Mafia. He told me how when his father first moved to Australia in the 1970s, his coworkers would exploit his poor knowledge of English to trick him into saying offensive things to the boss. What "race" are my friend and his dad? The question seems pointless, irrelevant. At least here in Australia, "racism" is generally defined as prejudice on the basis of "race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin" – so it isn't necessary to categorise a person as belonging to any particular "race" to acknowledge them as a victim of racism. How then does one describe this difference between the US and Australia – between a society which strongly (and maybe even increasingly strongly) focuses on coarse-grained racial categories, and a society which (in recent decades) has had a strong tendency towards avoiding them? Maybe "racial blindness" isn't quite the right term for it, but it seems at least somewhat adjacent.

ILMostro7 5y ago
It goes back to the civil war and every step of the way when black people here were actively denied their rights that the civil war was supposed to have guaranteed them. I have lived in multiple countries across different continents. Even if race was not as big of a hot topic issue, eceryone could tell if a person of a different race is standing in front of them. So, to simply say racial blindness is the way to go is ridiculous. The fact that they were usually a very small minority and had no historically brutal ties to the founding of that country is probably the reason why it wasn't considered such a big issue. Nevertheless, ultimately, one can't go through life blaming everything on racism. However, fighting for centuries to be free, to gain rights, only to be systemically rebuffed, ignored and even oppressed and brutalized along the way in different forms, that has to be recognized for what it is. Using a single event to disprove racism and even arguing that some historical things never happened at the very least is willful ignorance. Then, by the same token, reversing certain laws that were meant to safeguard and protect those rights that they finally did end up receiving. Ignoring what that time and history would do to any community to reinforce ones own stereotypical views, as political leaders use it as a way to stir up support from other disenfranchised communities. In the end, the problems only get worse as the next generation kicks the can down the road. The issue could have been, perhaps, resolved a long time ago. At this point, things look even more complicated and the longer it goes on the more difficult it is to overcome or resolve.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > black people here were actively denied their rights that the civil war was supposed to have guaranteed them. The Civil War was not supposed to have guaranteed anyone any rights. Some changes to the Constitution rammed through after the Civil War were, but it's important to separate those from the war, which was about the objective that, even before the rebellion, the notionally-abolitionist Republicans expressly put ahead of treating blacks as humans, the preservation of the unity of the Republic.
  - ILMostro7 5y ago
    Granted.