Sunday, September 19, 2010
Do you think everyone's a little racist?
I had to use my twitter account because I don't use my facebook enough but still only had a few people respond. Like some others, most of the people who responded to my question did not really take it seriously. I had alot of mentions of "yes, especially at BYU, Utah, etc.." I think it was hard for some people to take it seriously because it is uncomfortable to admit that we all have certain notions of different races that may not be entirely true. However, people did feel that they "stereotype" races based on their experiences and that they felt this was different than being racist.
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Another reason I think that people don't take it seriously is because the topic is talked about so much that it is beat into the ground. Racism is something that is talked a lot about but hard to fix in a day. It's a touchy subject with the answer only coming from people looking inside themselves.
I thought it was interesting that most people were not responding seriously until someone else finally did. Once a really comment was made a lot more people started to express their opinions.
I think this trend of Utahns being particularly racist is interesting. Having grown up in Utah, I felt like I was lucky to have a fairly diverse experience. Is Utahn a race? Is this racism?
I am from Oregon and I would say that I have experienced more racist comments here at BYU than I do back home. I think that Utah is a more sheltered state than others when it comes to diversity. The majority of people are white and only have white friends inside of Utah.
I made a comment in my post that the reason people say surprisingly sarcastic things is because they're trying to hide a deeper fact that they really are racist. I think these crude remarks demonstrate racism in and of themselves.
I would say that I have seen more racist comments in Utah than other places because of the lack of exposure. This works both ways though as thoughts have came from people in Utahs situation with the Hispanics and than the situations of not being exposed much to other races.
We are having a hard time drawing a distinction between racism and stereotyping. Is one a subcomponent of the other? Are they separate? I feel stereotyping is less harmful than racism. My definition of racism is treating someone badly based on race, whereas stereotyping can be a negative classification based on race. Sometimes stereotypes can be good though.
Ok, all I have to say is that it's a pain to read all the posts and comment on each one...
It seems like stereotypes is the word of the day. It almost seems that its a throw away term to hide our idea of race, because we stereotype races to try and define them.
i know with twitter, people post stuff that is happening to them right then. like, "i'm smelling roses" or whatever. so, since it was a twitter post, i wonder if people thought something had happened to you that caused you to think people were racist.
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