Archive for January 18th, 2007

Not to rehash an old discussion, but there are some questions that bear repeating every once in a while.  Specifically, the question I raised at the end of my racism post on whether it’s racist for somebody to say “I don’t think of you as being Black.”  Personally, I think this is an interesting question for a couple of reasons.  One, more than anything, it’s a linguistic question.  The phrasing lends itself to multiple interpretations because it’s actually a very imprecise way of sending whatever message the speaker wishes to convey.  The other reason is that it gets at part of the philosophical basis on which race is done.  In other words, it gets past the scientific, medicinal, genotypical part of race, to the more potent sociological part.  So let’s dance the dance a little bit.

Now, if we’re talking about my own real-life experience, I don’t think anybody’s said to me, “I don’t think of you as being Black” in quite some time.  Most of the non-Black people who know me well enough to say something like that, know better than to say something like that to me.  As everybody who commented in the previous post noted, it’s as much a question of how it’s interpreted as how it’s sent, because I don’t think there’s any question that it’s intended to be a compliment.  However, as a bridge to the sociological element, we’ll ask a couple refining questions to tease out the real linguistic meaning. 

If somebody did say that to me, I would probably have three questions for them:  1) Well, what do you see me as being?  2) Who do you see as being Black?  What do you see Black people as being?  See, that right there would get down to the nitty-gritty on exactly what they mean, but I think it would also help get at the thinking behind what they mean. 

What  I mean is this:  as you can see in reading this, I capitalize the word “black” when referring to race.  I do that partially to differentiate between race and color (e.g., in a Yo Mama joke, it would be “Yo mama so black,” not “Yo mama so Black…), but mostly because I feel that Black rates a capital letter.  I know the arguments pro and con, and I’m a capitalist, so to speak.  So needless to say, being Black is a major part of my self-identification.  Which means that somebody who’s saying he doesn’t see me as being Black is attempting to divorce me from the very thing I call myself.  That’s serious business.   Fellas, regardless of your race, would you take it as a compliment of any kind if somebody told you, “I don’t think of you as a man?”

So again, to take it from the physical to the sociological, look at my picture right there.  Look at it.  You can’t look at it and say, “I don’t think of you as being Black.”  (Or black.)  It’s just not possible.  So obviously, that statement isn’t about a physical presence, it’s about some type of social standing.  Now, I accept the fact that it could be argued that “I don’t think of you…” is a positive statement about me as an individual, but if it is, in fact, completely positive, it’s about as slew-footed a compliment as there could possibly be. 

See, I understand that In a sense, the speaker would be trying to not-see race, but I don’t think that’s necessary.  In other words, I don’t have to not-see race in order for a person to be a good friend.  The white friends I have, they’re white.  I don’t forget.  But I also don’t forget that they’re my friends first.  Again, I menatlly comprehend that what “I don’t think of you…” is trying to say is “I see you as an individual, not as a member of a group,” but first of all, why is that necessary?  Of course I’m an individual.  And I’m a member of a group.  It’s not an either/or.  It’s like when I was wrestling: my opponent wasn’t going against my whole team, he was going against me.  Nevertheless, he couldn’t not-know that I was a member of my team.

I think that at its root, this phrasing kinda leads into the question of sameness versus equality. By saying “I don’t think of you…” what the speaker is really doing is declassifying in order to confer sameness status.  In other words, “Even if you are like them, I see you the same as I see myself.”  But sameness and equality are not the same thing, and depending on the situation, aren’t prerequisites for each other, either.  I shouldn’t have to be the same as anybody else to get their full respect.  That’s what it essentially boils down to.