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Racism Questions from a White Chick
Feb. 2nd, 2009 11:38 amThere is a long discussion going on about racism and fandom. It's a good discussion, and my eyes have been opened about many things. Please go read ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sparkymonster and follow her links to the various permutations in the discussion. There's truly nothing I feel I can add to the discussion because most things have already been said better by other people.
sparkymonster's post today included a link to stewardess's essay about how to use white privilege to make racism go away. It's funny and sad. One way she lists is to go off on tangents, and maybe that's what I'm doing here. All I know is that the greater discussion made me think about my mentoring work, and I have questions.
At the center where I tutor there are about a eighty kids and fifteen tutors per night. There are five white kids and two black tutors. The center staff is black. At least half of the tutors are in the US on green cards. How do I get more people interested in working with the program? Is there anything inherently wrong with the fact that the racial mixes are so extreme in both cases?
I have had the kids ask me, "Are you mixed race or are you all American?" How do I answer that? Somehow bringing up my native American heritage is not the right answer, and neither is discussing my black cousins. What I tried saying was that they're "all American" too, but that answer got open scoffing from these kids.
By the way, the kids have pegged me as Jewish for some reason (for those of you who don't know me in person, I was reared WASP and have recently accepted the scientific method into my heart.).
How do I handle a kid who says he avoids the sun because he doesn't want to get darker with its implication that darker skin is a bad thing?
I already thump my friend from high school about her insistence that my neighborhood is dangerous because it's racially mixed. There are so few people in my life from that part of my past that I don't want to lose her and her family from my circle of friends, but I'm also becoming more and more sensitive to the underlying racist assumptions about who lives in "the District" as opposed to the suburbs.
sparkymonster and follow her links to the various permutations in the discussion. There's truly nothing I feel I can add to the discussion because most things have already been said better by other people. sparkymonster's post today included a link to stewardess's essay about how to use white privilege to make racism go away. It's funny and sad. One way she lists is to go off on tangents, and maybe that's what I'm doing here. All I know is that the greater discussion made me think about my mentoring work, and I have questions. At the center where I tutor there are about a eighty kids and fifteen tutors per night. There are five white kids and two black tutors. The center staff is black. At least half of the tutors are in the US on green cards. How do I get more people interested in working with the program? Is there anything inherently wrong with the fact that the racial mixes are so extreme in both cases?
I have had the kids ask me, "Are you mixed race or are you all American?" How do I answer that? Somehow bringing up my native American heritage is not the right answer, and neither is discussing my black cousins. What I tried saying was that they're "all American" too, but that answer got open scoffing from these kids.
By the way, the kids have pegged me as Jewish for some reason (for those of you who don't know me in person, I was reared WASP and have recently accepted the scientific method into my heart.).
How do I handle a kid who says he avoids the sun because he doesn't want to get darker with its implication that darker skin is a bad thing?
I already thump my friend from high school about her insistence that my neighborhood is dangerous because it's racially mixed. There are so few people in my life from that part of my past that I don't want to lose her and her family from my circle of friends, but I'm also becoming more and more sensitive to the underlying racist assumptions about who lives in "the District" as opposed to the suburbs.
