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TurnstileBy Chris Crews After seeing the recent "On the College Green" questionnaire in the Athens News, I can't sit quietly. It still saddens me how pervasive racism is in the United States. One white female said: "Everyone interacts very well and racial relations seem to be very good." Well, of course they will seem good if you interact with just with one or two people of color! Is my safe, privileged, "white" world welcoming to a person of color? Of course not! By racism, I mean the illusion that we live in a racially diverse community that respects racial differences, encourages diversity and provides a safe and welcoming community for people of color. This idea dates back to the days of slavery when we (the "white," owning class) were doing a service to those "savages" in Africa and America by educating them, showing them our religion and trying to erase all traces of their heritage. This presumption of cultural supremacy is also called imperialism. But "white" doesn't exist! There is no such thing as the white race. The "white" concept was created around the time of slavery when there were mass migrations of Europeans, especially Irish citizens, to America. Many of these immigrants seemed like whites already there, but they were bonded slaves. As these bonded immigrants started to create alliances with the black slaves to gain their freedom, the "white majority," especially in the South, felt threatened. Now black slaves and bonded immigrants were both revolting. The solution was to create a "white" race and welcome the immigrants into it. This came with special perks like land and a chance at freedom, something the blacks still couldn't win. It also reinforced the framework for the inherent skin color privilege we (whites) enjoy today. What this amounted to was a split between the black slaves and bonded immigrants, bringing the slave owners and bonded immigrants into the "white" race and crippling a growing movement for slave freedom in one swift stroke. Today the illusion of "white" is so pervasive that it lurks beneath everything "we" see, hear and do. It is so subtle, so elusive, that we often don't see it, but it's there. It's called white supremacy — the ability to think everything is great simply because you don't have to deal with it. This "On the College Green" survey points out this problem perfectly. Four white students and one woman of color were interviewed, and the only one to even mention any potential race problems was the woman of color. Here's a little test: I hid in the first paragraph to illustrate this. In the second paragraph, first sentence, who came to mind when you read "we?" I bet most whites considered themselves part of that "we" but never took into account what that assumption really means. To back up this idea, here are some numbers to consider. The undergraduate enrollment at OU for the Fall Quarter of 1999, broken down racially, looks like this: seven Native Americans, 113 African Americans, 31 Asian Americans, 32 Hispanics (a racist, derogatory term! Latino/a or Chicano/a would be appropriate), 13 international students and 3,253 whites. Wow, just look at the racial diversity at OU! If you want to check out the statistics for Fall Quarter 2000, simply visit OU's Office of Institutional Research Web site at http://www.ohiou.edu/instres/student/admstats/index.html. If we (meaning everyone) ever want to live in a truly diverse and respectful world, the first steps toward progress must come from the "white" race. As members the group that owns resources, makes laws and controls economic and military resources, it is whites' responsibility to take every step to challenge white supremacy, no matter how small it may seem. "Whites" created this terrible mess, and it's up to us to correct it. Perhaps a long, hard look at OU is in place. Do we even have a tenured professor of color at OU? To learn more about the social construct of "white," visit: http://www.postfun.com/racetraitor/index.asp. |