I thought this site was going to be a good resource about mixed race, something I care very deeply about that doesn’t get much thoughtful analysis in mainstream media. It turned out that most people here aren’t really interested in careful discussion but would rather just insult anyone who does want a serious discussion. I can’t understand that mindset, but it’s pretty juvenile.

Ph.D. or not, the proof is in “Jeremy Pierce’s” rambling paragraphs. This isn’t even highschool level writing or thinking.

I think this is also for reader’s comments, not a blog section.

If people refuse to read and think carefully and then pretend I said something I didn’t say, I will respond. I will take the length of time it takes to make the proper distinctions and clarifications. It’s pretty lame to throw accusations around without being willing to devote attention to engaging in the careful thought that’s required to evaluate those careless words. But I’ll repeat my main point anyway for those who can’t bother to read the more careful argument: Clarifying and specifying a racial narrative doesn’t amount to denying it. Pretending I did the latter when I did the former is simply immoral. That’s what I contend has been done here, and further discussion is just confirming that you want to keep doing that rather than acknowledge that you misunderstood me.

HC, that’s not a very convincing argument. For one thing, as someone pointed out in that comment thread, there at least two appearances of Asian men in the commercial, and only one did the karate chop. More importantly, this argument can be easily made for obviously false conclusions. The only bald white dude pulling a huge load. Does that evidence a stereotype of bald white men as beasts of burden? There was indeed a stereotype involved with that guy, but it wasn’t as general as “bald man”. It was a whole look about him. I think the same is true of the older, dignifiedly-dressed Asian man. My suggestion (which I wasn’t even endorsing with surety) was that it might be a more specific stereotype than the one you were giving.

But what’s important to me now isn’t that you think the more general stereotype is at work, and I think a more specific one is at work. What’s important to me now is that you insanely resist seeing that that’s all we’re disagreeing about.

So I’ll tell you what I told him. It’s not my job to teach you, so fuck it. But for future reference, a Ph.D. does not an expert make. Great to hear you’re an educated individual. Bully for you. But I don’t see how that makes you any more knowledgeable on this subject.

Saying that a racial narrative is operative with respect to older Asian men who wear business suits but not as much with younger kids does not amount to saying that the narrative doesn’t operate at all. Anyone who can’t see that must be blinded themselves by an ideology that forces them to read (1) any criticism of how someone might describe a racial narratives as (2) an all-out denial of any racial narrative.

Such an ideology is every bit as false as the racial narratives themselves, even if it’s not as immediately harmful. It’s false because people can get a narrative wrong. They can misdescribe something that is going on. When someone comes along and tries to be more precise (even if that person is wrong in the more precise formulation), it’s ridiculous to accuse the person of denying that there’s any racial narrative at work, because the person has already admitted that there’s one by trying to make it more precise. This kind of behavior is harmful because it fosters a spirit of resistance any attempt at being more accurate in describing what’s really going on. It also seems to me to lead to a desire not to recognize when progress is really taking place, because any attempts to observe ways that some people have made some progress (without claiming that racism is gone) are written off as impossible.

As for substance, I think this discussion has an interesting theme. You can be open to “otherness” in one sense without being open to “otherness” in another. I think that’s obviously true, and I think politicians are particularly good at being racially insensitive while pandering to black voters. This has been more common among Democrats, because Democrats have relied on black voters and are losing them very slowly as black voters are realizing exactly the point that Democratic policies aren’t really framed to help overcome racial problems but are rather put together to appear to be doing something. Of course, that’s how many politicians work. It’s not about any party or about race. But I’m well aware of that problem.

What I find deeply ironic is that every comment about me in this thread demonstrates exactly the same general phenomenon. Being sensitive to certain issues within race regarding “otherness” doesn’t make one sensitive to all issues even about race regarding “otherness”. I think many people here simply assume that I have no sensitivity to race issues simply becase I happen to disagree with the majority evaluation of it in this thread.

For the record, I happen to agree with Gatamala’s first comment in this thread fully, except for the insinuation that being a white woman equates to being a racist. I don’t endorse anti-white racism any more than I do anti-black racism. I didn’t have anything to say against the reality of racism among gays because I’m well aware of the potential for someone lower on the social ladder to find someone yet lower in some sense to think of as being worse. That doesn’t mean all white lesbians are racists, but it does allow for the possibility that many and even most white lesbians are very much a part of the structures in society that perpetuate harm along racial lines (which doesn’t amount to being a racist, though I have no doubt that white lesbians can be outright racists as well).

Furthermore, I think colorblind-talk is a way of avoiding dealing with real racial issues. Those who assume I thought otherwise simply demonstrate more about yourself than about me. You don’t need to tell me of this distinction. It’s something I regularly insist on against those who would deny the reality of race. It would take a mere browsing of some of my posts on race to see this, which shows that the anonymous commenter who referred to my blog hasn’t really looked very hard at my blog.

Now as to comments by mtevc and hc, I’m not sure how that’s relevant. I see no evidence that these families aren’t talking about race, just that the documentary’s producers didn’t think to focus on it. I was hypothesizing that it could just as easily be because the interracial element seemed so normal to the families as it could be from some underlying racism at work in the gay community.

I’m not taking the idiotic position that we shouldn’t talk about race. I’m simply recognizing that the producers of a documentary about gay families who happen to have lots of mixed race and black children are not necessarily demonstrating racial insensitivity by not spending much time talking about the racial elements of those families. It may just be that these filmmakers are so used to it that they don’t think as much of it as the ordinary viewer would. In a way, then, they’re ahead of the majority of the population. Isn’t there at least something good about such progress?

To respond that it ignores the real evil that continues just misses the point. It doesn’t ignore the evil. It allows for some progress and allows for something besides racism to explain something involving race. That doesn’t mean racism is gone or that we should never talk about it, just that in this case it might not be the explanation. It doesn’t mean we should never raise the issue of racism on the part of gay people, just that it might not be the primary explanation in this case. It surely doesn’t mean that these parents shouldn’t be talking about race with their children. It doesn’t even mean that the producers of the documentary were ok in not talking about it. They may have missed an important educational opportunity. But that doesn’t mean that the explanation for why they didn’t talk about it was racism. It may have been a moving away from racism. It’s a very small point, and it amazes me that so many people would read it as something completely beyond what I actually said.

Merq, I can’t fathom how you could possibly move from (1) acknowledging that many people have come a long way with respect to racism and have come to recognize mixed race families as normal to (2) pretending that no one would ever be a racist if people of color didn’t talk about racism. That’s just a non sequitur. It’s important to make careful moral distinctions in any moral issue, particularly one as wide-ranging as race. (1) and (2) are not even close. I did (1). Pretending I did (2) is pretty low. In the future, here’s a hint. When you badly misrepresent someone you’re trying to communicate with, it doesn’t help foster discussion. I happen to be used to it from the intensity of debate in a Ph.D. program in philosophy, but most people who might happen to disagree with you would just write you off as someone held by a racial narrative that doesn’t match up with reality. They thus would never hear what you might have to offer that might allow them to make real progress. So please try to represent other people’s views in a fair way, for the sake of progress even if you don’t care about the person themselves.