“A company that provides translation services and cultural sensitivity training to other organizations is being accused of sex discrimination and racial insensitivity in its own ranks.”

“To bolster her discrimination complaint with the state, Kelly included photos allegedly showing the company’s top two human resources executives dressed up for the 2005 corporate Halloween party as a black pimp and a white prostitute. The “pimp,” a white woman wearing blackface and sporting a fake gold tooth, won the prize for best costume, the complaint said.”

http://ads.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8PMRCTO0.htm

In checking in with myself about my own internalized racism, sexism, anti-Semitism and homophobia, I find it useful to think in terms of “doing my homework.” It doesn’t threaten my ego (should said ego rear up her head and try to demand extra attention), and it doesn’t assign guilt. It also hooks right into my ingrained Judeo-Protestant work ethic–it’s like I’m a character from the Matrix and “doing my homework” is the secret code that opens the channels in my brain-catheter thingy that pokes out of the back of my neck. (sorry for the nerd tangent). Anyway I just wanted to say that your post got my engine cranking again, scrutinizing some of my internal monologues that reflect a racist culture and a hetero-normative media. So thank you for that–it’s coming at a good time for me in my particular circumstances.
–Mariya

I am glad to know that you raise these questions. How are dialogs about racism possible if we haven’t already been taught what is being said and if we do not have some basic assumption and prejudices about what is being said? What creates space for effective communication?… I am always concerned about how dialogs on racism ends up revealing themselves in spaces of silence and turn into something else that is beyond the discussion on practices of racism. How are we to open up discussions on racism if the political setting of racism is based on extreme form of binary oppositions? Since the construction of racist discourses are based on projected divide among supposedly distinct ethnic groups, how are we to alter our ways of approaching racism if our perceptions of those participating in these discussions are already based on the overt practices of (direct and indirect) racism? How can we approach spaces of tensions within dialogs of racism if we are so ready to directly point the finger at the perpetrators without allowing them to come to term with the racists practices that are being embodied?

My “feelings”(in general since these standpoints are unclear to me, I do not make the distinction between objective and subjective standpoints, or other distinction that are based on mind-body dualism) about the relationship between dialogs of racism and spaces of silence, is that those moments and spaces of silence seems to hint at contradictory impressions about ethnic relations that can be easily denied through the control of language. Yet, how are we to make these visible contradictions surface up given that racism is not something that we can be exempted from despite our serious engagement with anti-racist practices?

“My opinion is that we’ve really got to stop raising children to believe that racism is evil, and that people who do racist things are necessarily bad people. Children who grow up thinking that only bad people participate in racism will become adults who are unable to recognize their own prejudices (that they are bound to have at some point) without having a crippling identity crisis that stops their potential for anti-racist development dead in it’s tracks. And they won’t be able to recognize racism in others constructively, without judgment and blaming, effectively closing the ears of the accused to any potential lesson. This happens again and again. And it’s more than unproductive – it is counterproductive. It is harmful. This system of meaning perpetuates a cycle of silence and misunderstanding.”

First, most topic on education tends to remind me of, Paulo Freire’s the pedagogy of the oppressed. His approach to power relationships are very similar to that of Foucault. Yet, Paulo Freire is very concerned about how education can mis-educate. Within the tradition of American pragmatism, John Dewey writes about mis-education. And since Cornell West is concerned about how democracy matters, I am sure you could find some references on Cornell West’s views on education.

Sometimes, I ask myself, what if the “cycle of silence and misunderstanding” was intentional? Can silence speak? Is the issue about “active” racism or is the issue about “passive” racism?

Sherry Marx, an assistant professor in the Department of Secondary Education at Utah University, wrote a book title, Revealing the invisible.

Her book examines and confronts passive and unconscious racism in the classroom. She talks about confronting racism in teacher education.

However, my teaching experience as well as my field of research allows me to deny any relationship between the unconscious and racism.

Since I view racism as a political rhetoric, I doubt the possibility of the “political unconscious. “Our political unconscious,” is implicitly about the political state of affairs that we prefer not to deal with (a specific research focus of mine). I personally call for us to question our “pre-reflective consciousness.” It is Sartre’s term in “Being and Nothingness” and it is further explored by Fanon’s critique of Freud’s conception of the unconscious (By the way, Fanon was the first one to question the limits of psychoanalysis on black bodies). Although not as well as he should, Robert Gooding-Williams discusses this in “Look, A Negro.” So my question again, sometimes I ask myself, what if the “cycle of silence and misunderstanding” was intentional? In short, I doubt that we can pretend to not be aware of something if they leave traces around. If racism is about affirming prejudices that are based on ethnic differences, then anti-racism ends up being about not not denying racism (the double negative is intentional).

In most event, I prefer to avoid analysis that are based on psycho-analysis. I have observed that psycho-analysis, especially if it is applied to ethnic minorities tends to easily lead into the realization of typified-selves. I do not why I always have to repeat that “our collective experiences of racism” cannot sufficiently account for our specific existence as persons living within specific geo-political spaces. If discourses on race were founded on binary oppositions, I doubt that White and Black would be both granted a conception of the Self. By default “blackness” is supposedly about “non-Self.”

Anti-racism dialogs ultimately amounts to resisting prejudices. I find myself having a greater problem with how specific persons behave more than with what these specific persons are saying? What if specific persons preferred to interpret a dialog on racism to their advantage? Personally, I do believe that the relationship between mis-understanding and understanding are related to one another.

Another person that I find really helpful is Kristen Myers.

Here is the reference:
Myers Kristen , Racetalk (New York: Rowman & Littlefield publishers, Inc, 2005)

Thank you again for the engaging conversation.

PS: I have to admit that personally, I find it socially impolite to just drop academic names and references in conversations. In most cases, I find that academic names dropping kind of shuts down effective and responsible conversations on racism. There are many ways of being engaged in conversations on racism besides validating ourselves with our credentials. Moreover, I cannot assume that you do not know about these references already (this is the reason why I do not name drop academic references). What would that mean? So, please let me know if you do mind.

To me conversation on racism are about attempts to break-away from prejudices on the daily basis and learn how to realistically live with them (unfortunately, I do not make the distinction between practice and ideas). Yet, it can be such a challenge to achieve such a place since our perception is design so that we end up inevitably seeing what we already believe.

Finally, I hope that I am not mis-understanding your post.