Macaca
yesterday we had a post-work dinner at a pretty nice (by alphacrappa standards) steak house. half the sales force is in for a workshop that we've been putting together for a few months and our coo and cmo took us out for a nice celebration.
i park my car (i'm cheap and opt not to use the valet) and walk towards the door. joe suburb, having just finished a scrumptious meal, pops out the door, looks at me and hands me his valet ticket.
i look at him like why the fuck are you handing this to me? could it be because when you see a young person of color you figure he is here either to park your car, wash your car, or fix your car?
he quickly looks away and mumbles something. i keep trucking.
now, there's probably a good explanation for this. i was wearing a collared polo shirt, which valet guys are known to wear (and indeed, they were wearing them at this restaurant). and i'm kind of young (from joe suburb's perspective), and (i've been told) look even younger than i am. oh, and i'm not white. and there's not a lot of non-whites up alphacrappa. so in this particular instance, maybe joe suburb just made a mistake. maybe two seconds before i walked up, there was a valet guy who looked like me standing there.
however, when this stuff happens repeatedly, it makes me wonder. when the ticket attendent at the your high school's soccer stadium makes me pay to get in, even though i'm on the team, and then says 'you don't look like the soccer players' after my coach has to tell him to let me in, i had to wonder: is it b/c i'm indian? or b/c of my haircut? or what? and when people ask me if i was in latin club (which i was), is it because they think all indians are nerds who join latin club, or did they actually know that i enjoy roman history and the study of latin? and if someone guesses that i'm good with math and financial models (which i am), is it because they think all indians are good at the stuff, or do they actually i know that i went to the big h and learned it like the other 900 people in my class?
and you know, the thing is, i'll never know. i think that ambiguity is what frustrates a lot folks when they run into behavior like this. it's not overtly racist. i've done it myself--at target a few weeks ago, i walked up to a black person wearing a red polo shirt and almost asked her where the picture frame aisle was. i'll bet she went through the same process. and i don't consider myself a racist, and try to be pretty open about confronting my own prejudices. so maybe i should give joe suburb the benefit of the doubt.
this same "but i'll never know" sentiment has come up recently on a (almost) national scale with george allen, the virginia (incumbent) senatorial candidate. a lot of hub hub has come out over whether he really meant to use a racial slur when he picked an indian college student out of the crowd and called him a macaca (an obscure word meaning 'monkey,' it's not clear allen knew what it meant). however, besides the fact that it shows incredible lack of judgement on his part (the kid was holding a video camera and was from alllen's opponent's campaign, for fuck's sake!), it's disturbing on two levels:
the 'wecome to america and virigina' comments is ironic, in that the student was actually born and raised in virginia, unlike george allen (who was born in los angeles county, california according to the biographical directory of the united states congress).
it would be easy to call allen a racist, or an asshole, or a rusty trombone. this conversation gets us nowhere. it falls on deaf ears for those who disagree and preaches to the choir for those who do. so in the spirit of understanding, i'll offer purely how it makes me feel. i don't speak for all people of color, or immigrants, or indians. just me.
when a person of power, particular a white male, uses that power to single out someone, make a joke at their expense, and turn an entire group against that one person, it is an act of derision, plain and simple. it may be good humored. it may even be something that those two people would say in private, or that one indian person could say to another indian person. but at the end of the day, context matters. you can choose to ignore this fact, and claim that you're sick of 'political correctness.' you can claim that (choose any group) is playing the 'race card.' you may be right some of the time. but your actions have made that person feel less of a person. we have all had that feeling on the playground. it's not a good one.
so do whatever feels right to you.
but in this particular situation, i would ask george allen, or anyone that feels this his actions were 'no big deal' or not rooted in some kind of prejudice: if the tables were reversed, if you were the only white guy, 20 years old, in a room with 100 indian people, and the leader of those people singled you out, particularly in a way that is linked to your appearance, and those 100 people laughed at you, how would you feel? and how would you feel about that person's leadership ability?
i park my car (i'm cheap and opt not to use the valet) and walk towards the door. joe suburb, having just finished a scrumptious meal, pops out the door, looks at me and hands me his valet ticket.
i look at him like why the fuck are you handing this to me? could it be because when you see a young person of color you figure he is here either to park your car, wash your car, or fix your car?
he quickly looks away and mumbles something. i keep trucking.
now, there's probably a good explanation for this. i was wearing a collared polo shirt, which valet guys are known to wear (and indeed, they were wearing them at this restaurant). and i'm kind of young (from joe suburb's perspective), and (i've been told) look even younger than i am. oh, and i'm not white. and there's not a lot of non-whites up alphacrappa. so in this particular instance, maybe joe suburb just made a mistake. maybe two seconds before i walked up, there was a valet guy who looked like me standing there.
however, when this stuff happens repeatedly, it makes me wonder. when the ticket attendent at the your high school's soccer stadium makes me pay to get in, even though i'm on the team, and then says 'you don't look like the soccer players' after my coach has to tell him to let me in, i had to wonder: is it b/c i'm indian? or b/c of my haircut? or what? and when people ask me if i was in latin club (which i was), is it because they think all indians are nerds who join latin club, or did they actually know that i enjoy roman history and the study of latin? and if someone guesses that i'm good with math and financial models (which i am), is it because they think all indians are good at the stuff, or do they actually i know that i went to the big h and learned it like the other 900 people in my class?
and you know, the thing is, i'll never know. i think that ambiguity is what frustrates a lot folks when they run into behavior like this. it's not overtly racist. i've done it myself--at target a few weeks ago, i walked up to a black person wearing a red polo shirt and almost asked her where the picture frame aisle was. i'll bet she went through the same process. and i don't consider myself a racist, and try to be pretty open about confronting my own prejudices. so maybe i should give joe suburb the benefit of the doubt.
this same "but i'll never know" sentiment has come up recently on a (almost) national scale with george allen, the virginia (incumbent) senatorial candidate. a lot of hub hub has come out over whether he really meant to use a racial slur when he picked an indian college student out of the crowd and called him a macaca (an obscure word meaning 'monkey,' it's not clear allen knew what it meant). however, besides the fact that it shows incredible lack of judgement on his part (the kid was holding a video camera and was from alllen's opponent's campaign, for fuck's sake!), it's disturbing on two levels:
- we'll never really know if he meant to use some kind of racial slur (but he definitely meant to say macaca, because he said it very clearly. twice.)
- he clearly meant to isolate and humiliate the one person of color in a large crowd
the 'wecome to america and virigina' comments is ironic, in that the student was actually born and raised in virginia, unlike george allen (who was born in los angeles county, california according to the biographical directory of the united states congress).
it would be easy to call allen a racist, or an asshole, or a rusty trombone. this conversation gets us nowhere. it falls on deaf ears for those who disagree and preaches to the choir for those who do. so in the spirit of understanding, i'll offer purely how it makes me feel. i don't speak for all people of color, or immigrants, or indians. just me.
when a person of power, particular a white male, uses that power to single out someone, make a joke at their expense, and turn an entire group against that one person, it is an act of derision, plain and simple. it may be good humored. it may even be something that those two people would say in private, or that one indian person could say to another indian person. but at the end of the day, context matters. you can choose to ignore this fact, and claim that you're sick of 'political correctness.' you can claim that (choose any group) is playing the 'race card.' you may be right some of the time. but your actions have made that person feel less of a person. we have all had that feeling on the playground. it's not a good one.
so do whatever feels right to you.
but in this particular situation, i would ask george allen, or anyone that feels this his actions were 'no big deal' or not rooted in some kind of prejudice: if the tables were reversed, if you were the only white guy, 20 years old, in a room with 100 indian people, and the leader of those people singled you out, particularly in a way that is linked to your appearance, and those 100 people laughed at you, how would you feel? and how would you feel about that person's leadership ability?
posted by Wintermute at 10:47 PM
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