Racism is the single most critical barrier to building effective coalitions for social change. Racism has been consciously and systematically erected, and it can be undone only if people understand what it is, where it comes from, how it functions, and why it is perpetuated.
[The People’s Institute]
Amidst my own, recurrent, dealings with it in this blog (in both theoretical and practical terms), a number of recent episodes conjuring up the ‘R’ word in the blogsphere prompted me to raise this question here and now. Starting from the, by all accounts, most startling:
1. A couple of days ago, blogger Kym Platt issues a post about a video game entitled “Resident Evil”, now in its fifth series, intending to denounce “the depiction of Black people as inhuman savages, the killing of Black people by a white man in military clothing, and the fact that this video game is marketed to children and young adults”, in both her own blog, “
Ask This Black Woman”, and “
Black Looks”. This prompted the most appalling chorus of abuse thrown at her and what I suspect is an absolute record number of comments on one single post in the shortest time span around the blogosphere – and there’s no doubt they’d been much more if comments hadn’t been disabled in the blogs where the “insulting” post originally appeared…
To be fair, being a total ignoramus myself as far as video games are concerned, I can see a point in some of the arguments put forward by commentators who claim that, in previous series of “Resident Evil”, the said “white man in military clothing” had dispensed the same treatment to “zombies” of all races and nationalities and that Kym “hadn’t properly done her research.” Yet, I still fail to understand the amount and viciousness of racial and sexist abuse the absolute majority of them has chosen to throw at her.
2. Curiously enough, the same blogger who is now being so overwhelmingly attacked for allegedly “mindlessly using the race card”, had written this just a couple of days before: “This is not a matter of race or racial injustice. I, a person of African descent, cannot stand with those Black supporters of Vick and claim that this is unfair treatment based on the color of Vick’s skin. It’s a shame that many in the Black community are unable to look beyond their own history of racial injustice to see and understand that dogfighting is a tragic and inhumane activity that causes unbelievable pain and suffering and even death of innocent animals all for the amusement and financial profit of humans.” This statement related to another controversial issue involving, rightly or wrongly, the ‘R’ word in the US (see two different points of view on this story
here and
here).
Then, there were the good news:
3. About a couple of weeks ago, blogger “
African American Political Pundit” wrote this to Unicef: “I am concerned about the "racial overtones" of the recent campaign of placing white children in black face. As a long time UNICEF supporter, I'm concerned that UNICEF and it's German National Committee for UNICEF are involved in racial hatred with this Ad campaign.” To which UNICEF responded: “Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We agree -- these advertisements are not appropriate and run against UNICEF's mission. They have been dropped from the UNICEF German National Committee's website and there are no plans to use them in the future. We apologize for any offence caused.”
4. More recently, blogger
Behailu Damte wrote that “Intel should apologize for the racist & stereotypical Ad” portraying, as he described it, “Six black men crouching and bowing down for a white guy. A racist portrayal of one race being worth less than another. A stereotypical imagery showing the black men being good only for their muscles & manual labor (and apparently more than ready to provide their services.) Where is Intel’s sense of responsibility and sensitivity?”, to which he got this answer from the Head of Advertising at Intel: “First of all, I was responsible for the ad and apologize that our ad upset you and many others. This was absolutely not our intention. Not to make excuses, but we did pull the ad back in June as soon as we realized that our approach was wrong. Unfortunately, it was run again by mistake. We are committed to preventing any similar issues in the future and I am personally taking responsibility for driving improvements necessary to avoid this type of mistake.” This statement was backed-up by a formal public apology from
Intel’s Director of Global Marketing.
Did I call these the “good news”? Just follow-up the comments in the
Intel blog to see how some, among black and white, object to the sort of apologies offered by Unicef and Intel…
So, I ask: isn’t it high time we people of all “races” revise and rethink our concepts of racism?!
I would suggest the
attached set of definitions as a possible starting point for that exercise.
Racism is the single most critical barrier to building effective coalitions for social change. Racism has been consciously and systematically erected, and it can be undone only if people understand what it is, where it comes from, how it functions, and why it is perpetuated.
[The People’s Institute]
Amidst my own, recurrent, dealings with it in this blog (in both theoretical and practical terms), a number of recent episodes conjuring up the ‘R’ word in the blogsphere prompted me to raise this question here and now. Starting from the, by all accounts, most startling:
1. A couple of days ago, blogger Kym Platt issues a post about a video game entitled “Resident Evil”, now in its fifth series, intending to denounce “the depiction of Black people as inhuman savages, the killing of Black people by a white man in military clothing, and the fact that this video game is marketed to children and young adults”, in both her own blog, “
Ask This Black Woman”, and “
Black Looks”. This prompted the most appalling chorus of abuse thrown at her and what I suspect is an absolute record number of comments on one single post in the shortest time span around the blogosphere – and there’s no doubt they’d been much more if comments hadn’t been disabled in the blogs where the “insulting” post originally appeared…
To be fair, being a total ignoramus myself as far as video games are concerned, I can see a point in some of the arguments put forward by commentators who claim that, in previous series of “Resident Evil”, the said “white man in military clothing” had dispensed the same treatment to “zombies” of all races and nationalities and that Kym “hadn’t properly done her research.” Yet, I still fail to understand the amount and viciousness of racial and sexist abuse the absolute majority of them has chosen to throw at her.
2. Curiously enough, the same blogger who is now being so overwhelmingly attacked for allegedly “mindlessly using the race card”, had written this just a couple of days before: “This is not a matter of race or racial injustice. I, a person of African descent, cannot stand with those Black supporters of Vick and claim that this is unfair treatment based on the color of Vick’s skin. It’s a shame that many in the Black community are unable to look beyond their own history of racial injustice to see and understand that dogfighting is a tragic and inhumane activity that causes unbelievable pain and suffering and even death of innocent animals all for the amusement and financial profit of humans.” This statement related to another controversial issue involving, rightly or wrongly, the ‘R’ word in the US (see two different points of view on this story
here and
here).
Then, there were the good news:
3. About a couple of weeks ago, blogger “
African American Political Pundit” wrote this to Unicef: “I am concerned about the "racial overtones" of the recent campaign of placing white children in black face. As a long time UNICEF supporter, I'm concerned that UNICEF and it's German National Committee for UNICEF are involved in racial hatred with this Ad campaign.” To which UNICEF responded: “Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We agree -- these advertisements are not appropriate and run against UNICEF's mission. They have been dropped from the UNICEF German National Committee's website and there are no plans to use them in the future. We apologize for any offence caused.”
4. More recently, blogger
Behailu Damte wrote that “Intel should apologize for the racist & stereotypical Ad” portraying, as he described it, “Six black men crouching and bowing down for a white guy. A racist portrayal of one race being worth less than another. A stereotypical imagery showing the black men being good only for their muscles & manual labor (and apparently more than ready to provide their services.) Where is Intel’s sense of responsibility and sensitivity?”, to which he got this answer from the Head of Advertising at Intel: “First of all, I was responsible for the ad and apologize that our ad upset you and many others. This was absolutely not our intention. Not to make excuses, but we did pull the ad back in June as soon as we realized that our approach was wrong. Unfortunately, it was run again by mistake. We are committed to preventing any similar issues in the future and I am personally taking responsibility for driving improvements necessary to avoid this type of mistake.” This statement was backed-up by a formal public apology from
Intel’s Director of Global Marketing.
Did I call these the “good news”? Just follow-up the comments in the
Intel blog to see how some, among black and white, object to the sort of apologies offered by Unicef and Intel…
So, I ask: isn’t it high time we people of all “races” revise and rethink our concepts of racism?!
I would suggest the
attached set of definitions as a possible starting point for that exercise.
