[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: assumptions of race

[Ebony Elizabeth Thomas]

Amy wrote:

>-Put that together with "black" connoting "lower class," as it does to
>middle-class U.S. whites, and you get a jarring effect when you
>imagine black people with British accents.  Black voices are deemed
>inferior to ours (I blush, and when I blush I really turn red, to say
>it, but it's true); English voices are deemed superior.

I think this just may be it... and it's not just to "middle class American 
whites" to which black English connotes lower socioeconomic status.  Many 
middle-to-upper class blacks despise black English... I don't.  If I did, I 
think my family would disown me.  So I'd say the majority of blacks learn to 
be bidialectal.  I am, much to my mother's chagrin--please don't think I 
sound like my posts all the time in RL.  ;-)

The only black character with a British accent I can remember is the butler 
in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

Amy:
>-In most British TV we see, the cast is pretty homogenously white.
>Mystery, Masterpiece Theatre, Monty Python, All Creatures Great and
>Small, all those sitcoms (Are You Being Served, Good Neighbors, To the
>Manor Born, Yes, Minister, Vicar of Dibley, Fawlty Towers, etc. etc.).
>  I'm several years out of the loop, so maybe British TV (or the bits
>of it that come west) has gotten more diverse, but when I was a kid
>watching all that stuff on TV, it was pretty close to lily white.

This is it again for me, Amy... thanks!  I always knew that there are 
nonwhites in Europe--I have relatives who have lived in Germany for nearly 
my entire life.  However, I never thought of people of color (another 
generic term for any nonwhite ethnic group) as being as integrated into 
European culture in any real sense.  Certainly not integrated enough to 
qualify for inclusion in JKR's Harry Potter books.  Perhaps this was due to 
my stereotyping, but I always thought of them as being much more 
marginalized than we are here.

Amy:

>I've had the same experience going to Israel, where it seemed so
>amazing to me that the Jews weren't all white, as we almost all are in
>the U.S., the only exceptions I knew as a child being a couple of
>African-American and Pakistani kids adopted by a white Jewish woman.
>I knew already, intellectually, that this was because most American
>Jews are European, and that Israel is different, but it was still
>startling--and gratifying in a way that would take another long post
>to explain--to see Jews of all colors and ethnicities.

Ooh, another long post, whenever you get the time someday.  :-)  Or e-mail 
me offlist.  Theoretically I believed this, but in actuality my PoV about 
Jews in Israel is similiar to yours, Amy.

Me:
> >  When we did Census 2000 lessons,
> > and it was mentioned that black Americans are no longer the
> > "majority-minority", one of my kids whispered to me, "Do you think
>they want
> > us to all disappear?"
> >
> > I said, "Let's hope not..." and moved on.  For I honestly didn't
>know what
> > to say.

Amy:
>This is very sad.  Your students are lucky to have you, Ebony.  I
>don't think there's any way to answer that question, because the
>honest answer is "Some of them do."  I don't know at what age one can
>possibly absorb that ugly truth.

Even sadder is the fact that they already *know*.  I didn't realize until I 
got home and thought about it that the question was rhetorical.  ;-)

But then again, there's always someone who wants some group that's not like 
them to just go away.  What a sad way to live life, don't you think?

Amy:
>I suspect this is one of the reasons whites have trouble
>distinguishing among Asians, e.g.--when one depends so heavily on hair
>color and texture and eye color to describe people, one loses one's
>eye for other details.

You know, while I don't think that blacks have that much trouble 
distinguishing whites, many blacks do have difficulty distinguishing Asians 
as well.  Because of the attention most of us pay to skin tone, texture and 
color, the fact that many Asians have similar coloring makes this just as 
difficult for us.

And again, whites aren't the only racists on the planet.  The most racist 
people I have *ever* met in real life have been certain upper-class 
blacks... they became the model for Angelina's family in my fic.  ;-)  Now, 
I don't believe they have a cornerstone on racism, but...

Amy:
>You've opened my eyes with your explanation that African-Americans
>tend to describe each other by shades of brown (and how
>lovely--cinnamon, coffee . . .).  I have read this in fiction and been
>made very uncomfortable by it--somehow it's part of my
>white-person-trying-not-to-be-racist mostly-unconscious training to
>not describe people by skin color.  It does make total sense to do so.

Well, the poetic among us use the pretty names.  The masses use "light", 
"dark", "brown"... but you do hear average folks using "cocoa", "caramel", 
and "chocolate".  ;-)

And then there are the ugly slurs, the ugliest of all which the middle to 
lower classes uses as a term of endearment or derision... the word that 
starts with "n" and rhymes with figure, which I never use even when speaking 
nothing but black English.  My lifelong crusade is to get my people to 
understand that for us to say it's all right if *we* use it, but *they* 
can't is the height of hypocrisy... not to mention dead confusing.  I get 
teased a lot, but I don't care.  I hate that word.  :-)

About not wanting to offend:  I've always told my white friends not to try 
so hard... when in doubt, just ask.  I'm just as lost in a roomful of 
Vietnamese or Arabic-speakers, so whenever I meet people, I ask questions.  
(I get this from my mother, who is absolutely *fascinated* by anyone who is 
not a black Detroiter and who will stop strangers in public to interrogate 
them about their country, their background, everything...)  When people are 
asking questions, they are admitting that they don't know everything and do 
not wish to assume.  Believe me, I'll ask you about stuff I want to know 
about *your* culture...

I tell my black friends, on the other hand, to lighten up and recognize when 
a person is trying.  <g>

Thanks for responding, Amy!  Although we come from very different contexts, 
it seems we think a lot alike.  Or perhaps I flatter myself... your posts 
are always so good.  ;-)

--Ebony AKA AngieJ
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