Yesterday, I read a New York Times Op-Ed entitled "The Good, Racist People." Wonderfully written by Ta-Nehisi Coates, who regularly contributes to The Atlantic, this piece comments upon a recent incident involving Forest Whitaker and a paranoid delicatessen employee. In summary, Forest Whitaker entered a well known and respected Manhattan Deli (close to Columbia), where, after presumably perusing the aisles for a tasty lunch, the Deli-Man (this is how I will refer to him in the rest of this post) proceeded to accuse him of stealing. (Strange, given that Forest Whitaker has appeared in several highly successful films and probably has the $ 7.25 to cover a hoagie, but, alright Mr.-Deli-Man-Sir, Whitaker could be a kleptomaniac. I wouldn't want to deprive him of that freedom.) After the accusation, the man proceeded to publicly interrogate Whitaker and then Whitaker's pockets. Finding nothing, he let Whitaker go, but, at least for many people, the story did not end there. Clearly, for most, this incident symbolizes the oft forgotten reality that America remains racist (forgotten by the privileged that is, code for whitey). Rhetorically, the anecdote carries quite a bit of emotional weight, but, without the statistics Coates quotes, the whole ordeal might seem a little blown out of proportion. After all, one incident, one crazed shop-keeper, who, by the way, may have just "innocently" thought Whitaker was stealing, does not necessarily suggest in and of itself that America has somehow (a) forgotten its racist tendencies, (b) is totally inhospitable to all African-Americans, even those with a tremendous amount of cultural capital, or (c) that this shop keeper should be burnt at the stake. Coates argues that it would have been inconceivable to substitute a famous white movie star in for Forest Whitaker, which I'm not necessarily willing to grant. The movie stars he names are Sean Penn and Nicholas Cage, which are not necessarily good examples to choose. Although Forest Whitaker is an Oscar winner, his films are for the most part lesser known, and he is not nearly as prolific as either Sean Penn or Nicholas Cage. The latter of which will sign on to project, no matter how bad. I only comment on this point because Coates puts so much emphasis on the shake down being worse because Whitaker is so well known. From this, we must ask ourselves, "what made this shopkeeper think that Whitaker was stealing?" Given that he was not in fact stealing, we can safely assume that there was some kind of conscious or unconscious racial (which may have been associated with class) bias playing into his assessment, grounded upon projection as opposed to actual observation. In the comments section of the page, many people weighed in with their opinions, some giving anecdotes of their own about mistreatment. One of which I have to take issue with concerns basically the same situation with the subject being around the age of thirteen. The father of this kid was outraged that his son could be accused of stealing, noting that the shopkeeper, after the incident, felt incredibly ashamed about his actions--an admission of guilt which may give credence to the man's case; however, without that indirect admission of racism, what is so unlikely about a teenage boy or girl, no matter what race, being tagged for shop lifting. Kids sometimes steal. When I was young, I was accused a couple a times a year of steeling, unjustly I should note, but that was just kind of par for the course. I obviously looked sketchy; I was young and had pockets. I'm not necessarily willing to make the leap that this gentlemen was willing to make. I, of course, sympathize with Whitaker and the author, who loved the Deli in question and can no longer can stomach going in there, I have to wonder about the way in which the author disseminates his larger point about how good people--while claiming to be non-racists--are the very ones benefiting from and supporting the system of racism they claim to be against.I am just a little bit confused about America. If we live in a racist society, that necessarily mean that every act is racist? Can there not be just assholes? Or, perhaps, a good deed done too? Perhaps this post is a little too opaque. If so, I apologize. If nothing else, I truly hope everyone takes a second to read this Op-Ed. I think it is thought provoking and compelling stuff.
This is a tough one. There's really not enough clear information to determine whether the shopkeeper was being racist here, or what really happened exactly. There's a potential for racism, but there's also a potential that maybe he was thinking about stealing. Who knows. I think the only way to determine this, is if this person had been known to be racist frequently, has made comments about black people stealing, or frequently accuses black people of stealing with little to no evidence.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to say. I also don't think every act is intentionally racist, however there is a lot of covert racism and racist behavior that happened unconsciously. Eg. People calling memphis memfrika. It really bothers me, because it is 100% derogatory and racist, but people still say it all the time with no second thought about it. 95% of the time, not even meaning to be racist. So right there is the root of a lot of racism, it's not "intentional racism" but subconscious, learned, racism that rational people don't even recognize themselves. And yes. Some people are just assholes. haha
I agree that there is definitely not enough information here to be able to judge if this act was an intentional or even unintentional/subconscious act of racism. In my social psychology class, we have discussed the various ways in which people construe/interpret behaviors exhibited by others. Often times, we tend to exhibit what is known as the fundamental attribution error or the correspondence bias. We tend to over emphasize the role of the individual by attributing his/her actions as a reflection of his/her personality. We fail to fully account for the role of the environment on shaping those behaviors. Even we seek to become aware and take context into consideration, we often still fall short of the mark and look more at the individual than the environment. One of the major reasons for this type of bias is that we often simply cannot know all of the environmental factors affecting/influencing a particular situation. Our knowledge is not complete. Maybe the shopkeeper in this situation actually thought he saw something being stolen, maybe something had been stolen a couple of days ago and he was already on edge, maybe other customers were looking at Whitaker because they recognized him but the shopkeeper misconstrued the reason for their glances, etc. In all likelihood, unless the shopkeeper is openly racist we will never know. The majority of our thought process actually occur subconsciously in areas of our brain that we cannot consciously recognize. Therefore, maybe he himself does not even really know why he acted the way he did...
ReplyDeleteI do not think that because we live in a racist society this means that all acts are inherently racist. Just because it is more likely than not that most individual living in a racist society are (to some degree) racist, this does not mean that all of our acts are reflections of racism - especially for individual who are actively seeking to challenge the existence and perpetuation of racism within our society. Good deeds as well as cruel actions can be done both separately and in tandem with racism. I think this can most readily be recognized when we look at the ways in which other groups and individuals are oppressed (and though not as frequently, empowered) due to stigmas unrelated to race - the other "isms" such as agism and sexism, etc.
I agree as well that this is a tough situation to judge. However, even if we had more information, we probably would still struggle to come to a conclusion. Katie made a really great point that the majority of our thought process is subconscious. We aren't privy to the private thoughts of others. For all we know, there are people who consistently think in a racist way but do not express these thoughts and people who don't think that way at all but sometimes act in ways that may be perceived as racist. Due to our country's history, situations like these are always sticky because we are still grappling with how to acknowledge our history while continuing to move forward. Stories like this seem to stunt our progression because they take us back to reviewing our past tendencies and actions. Perhaps this is me just being optimistic, but I do not think that every act is racist because we live in a racist society. This brings me back to thinking about Fanon's point concerning the logic of being a racist in a society that is in fact racist.
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