I Am A Racist. Deal With It.

By on January 8, 2012 in News 18

racismSaumya Arya Haas writes at the Good Men Project:

We never think we’re the problem.

When a Kentucky church briefly banned interracial couples, the (sad) punchline was that the church leader who pushed for the ban stated ”I am not racist” .

What? How can you ban interracial couples and not recognize or admit that this is a racist action? What reality does this guy live in?

He lives in the same reality the rest of us do: an internal reality.

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In our own stories, we are beleaguered heroes with complicated histories. We seldom see ourselves as the aggressor or oppressor. When we act against other people, we aren’t able to see it in the context of a greater social issue. Our actions seem reasonable. We are not acting out of racism or sexism. We have our reasons.

Sometimes, we are simply outraged by injustice. Other times, what we are most ashamed of in ourselves is what we find the most intolerable in others. So the church leader’s racism, and obliviousness (or disingenuousness) hits close to home. We’re all guilty. When someone sets themselves up with such offensive, unlikeable behavior as I am not racist after clearly demonstrating they are, it’s a magical moment: such a luscious scapegoat just begs to be chased out to the wilderness.

Public shaming is powerful, and sometimes necessary. I believe that the ban was lifted due to public pressure, and that makes me feel good about our country. But when we all fall in line behind the scapegoat, yelling and waving, it starts look like we’re letting it lead us: the hypocrite parade.

Read more here.

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  • skeptic

    That was awesome, no matter what you think, society forces you to ignore some feelings you may have, i like to think we all have a good idea of right and wrong, but that dosent make it so. we should all just smoke some pot and drop the debt, spend the arms budget on a nuclear fireworks show in space, and then get really really high 

  • Jin (仁)

    only if it’s not greenhouse. i’m so over greenhouse.

  • http://profiles.google.com/nixkuroi Mike Simon

    When we all fall silent and give the racists a pass, oppression continues.  This article asks us to look inside ourselves and understand that everyone is their own hero, but when that “hero” preventing interracial people from being able to choose their own relationships, we might want to take a closer look at the implications of his actions.  It’s my belief that we all have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but those rights end before they impinge on someone else’s rights to do the same.  

    We’re not hypocrites for shaming someone who deserves shaming.  We’re acting in the best interest of ourselves and our society to identify and expose hateful or harmful behavior.  It’s only hypocritical if we ourselves are shaming it, but also doing it ourselves.  That seems to only happen with politicians.

  • Jin (仁)

    my sister (whom is visibly more ‘asian’ than i am) and i used to play a sick game in highschool (when we lived in a 98% white area) where we would address eachother by anti-asian racial epithets in public. nothing like yelling “HEY slanty” in a crowded upscale mall to get people’s attentions….ahh good times good times.

  • Hadrian999

    there is a town near me, Pekin, supposedly named after Peking. The name of their highschool athletics teams used to be the Pekin Chinks, they swear up and down that they aren’t racist

  • Anonymous

    ‘How can I be racist, I’ve got black friends’, is a cliche in the UK that really winds me up :(
    On the subject of internal realities then Jung was fond of pointing out that we never experience matter directly through our senses – it is always transformed into data and then interpreted by the brain. The Zen Buddhists are right – it really all is in the mind :D

  • Anonymous

    ‘How can I be racist, I’ve got black friends’, is a cliche in the UK that really winds me up :(
    On the subject of internal realities then Jung was fond of pointing out that we never experience matter directly through our senses – it is always transformed into data and then interpreted by the brain. The Zen Buddhists are right – it really all is in the mind :D

  • Hadrian999

    that’s a cliche everywhere

  • Nobody

    There are many deep issues that stem from Racisim.  The Jews believed that they were righteous because they where Jews, the decendants of Abraham.  But Ishmael, also was a decendant of Abraham, and techinically, one could argue of the same race.  That should stir them up.

    The fact is, Jesus Christ was a Jew, but there was a reason for that irregardless of race.  It had to do with recieving the Promise handed down by God in that race from the beginning.  Once Jesus recieved the promise, through His death, it has now been freely offered to anyone who would recieve it, regardless of race.  It is handed down through belief in the Gospel.  Actually it was always handed down through belief, even in the Jewish race.  John the Baptist mentions that the Ax was at the root of the tree.  What he was talking about was how the Jews were being “cut off” from the promise.  Of course, any Jew, like any Gentile can recieve the inhereitance of the promise through belief in Christ.  Just as I have said.

    At the end of the day, these people claiming to be “Christians” and rejecting someone due to race are liars.  You are a christian based on you believing the truth, which is Jesus Christ, who is The Teaching.

    If you want to understand the True Gospel, you’re most likely not going to find it in these buildings called “Churches”.  The true church represent the body of True Believers who know, understand and believe the True Gospel.  There is no requirement of attending a church and especially conforming to liars. 

    You can find a True Teacher, called by God, who is doing the work of Elijah in accordance with Malachi 4, preparing the way, at http://www.voiceofelijah.org.  If you’re not interested in the truth, and prepared to listen, then I don’t advise you even checking it out.  Choosing to be a Christian is a free will choice.  No one should guilt you into it, nor can you even choose it unless you are called.  You can only recieve it through belief in the truth.  If you believe a lie, sorry, consider that like having a loosing scratch off ticket.  If you don’t care, then you are no different the Esau who sold his right to obtain the promise for a bowl of soup…and guess what, the Bible states that God hated Esau.  I trust you can connect the dots on how God might feel about you if you think the promise is not worth obtaining.

  • Mysophobe

    “No one can guilt you into it.”

    And then you feebly attempt to do exactly that. Coercing people by exploiting their fear of damnation or want of reward is the oldest trick in the book. As a representative of “the Truth”, you’re supposed to be above all that. God’s love and whatnot doesn’t make the dollars flow like the fear and greed schtick though, eh?

  • Anarchy Pony

    I wish I had friends like that in high school… But no, just boring regular whiteys.

  • Jin (仁)

    white people have a certain exotic mystique i can’t deny:P

  • Anarchy Pony

    I don’t see it.

  • Jin (仁)

    lol. it’s only obvious if you’re multi.

  • Hadrian999

    it’s because we don’t let the occasional failure deter us from our quest for world domination, we also produce the most super-villains per capita

  • Jin (仁)

    i don’t disagree with either point:P

  • Anarchy Pony

    I’ll grant that when you look back into our ancestral histories there is some pretty cool and interesting stuff there, but your basic modern american amalgamated whitey is pretty uninteresting.

  • Jin (仁)

    oh yes that i agree with. same with canuks. what makes living here more tolerable is that us ethnics compose about half of the city.