There have been few occasions where I have felt so mad at myself for biting my tongue as two separate occasions where comments I would deem racist have been uttered and I remained silent.
These events occurred over the past year or so and I think they are always a bit of a difficult issue. Even more so in a country, which proclaims its colour-blindness and refuses to acknowledge race as an issue, or when it does simply claims " Things are better here than in the United States" rather than dealing with the substance of the issue. I think the best description of this is in the book Black Berry Sweet Juice by Lawrence Hill. Though there were some parts I couldn't relate to, the experience he tells, of being a mixed-race person, half-black half white, like I am in Canada resonates with me.
In each situation, I was the only non-white person in the room, and the person's comments clearly made me feel uncomfortable. How do you reproach someone for such comments though? It isn't easy, especially in a social situation, where there are others around, and raising your voice and yelling and screaming at someone clearly isn't appropriate. How do you even broach the topic without making everyone involved feel uncomfortable.
Now there are those who claim that making the person uncomfortable is the point, and that such comments need to be held up to scrutiny and shouldn't be allowed to pass unchallenged, and while that's easy in theory in practice it's much more difficult.
I will try to be more assertive in the future. After the second of these situations, and how angry it made me, I hope I can rise to the challenge, of confronting these kind of racist statements.
2 comments:
I sure hope that I wasn't one of the individuals who said something that offended you, being the radical right-winger that I am!
On a serious note though, as a white person who, quite frankly, never had a non-white friend until I met you (living in a uni-cultural city like Sarnia does that to you), the best advice I would have is to pull the person aside and mention it to them in private. I believe that reasonable and respectable adults can be told the honest truth about how comments they make may affect other people. Arguing with them in public and in front of others would embarass them and perhaps yourself.
Furthermore, I believe that often times the person making the comment is honestly unaware of how other people interpret those comments. While a few people may be deliberate in their malace, others just simply don't know any better.
That's my two cents worth.
I can relate somewhat to this as a female working in a male-dominated environment. They often make comments that are a bit sexist and I usually let it go because I sense there is not real malice behind it. But, every once in a while someone crosses the line and says something quite offensive and gives me the feeling that the speaker has real anger/hate issues toward women. Then I'll call them on it - in public. Since everyone heard the remark, everyone should hear that remarks like that shouldn't be tolerated. I pick my battles though, which I think helps make my point.
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