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Jan
29
Colorblindness, Inarticulate Reporters, and Race
Filed Under Black/African American Issues, Media Praises and Critiques, Original Essays and Analysis, Race and Racism, Sociology, Uncategorized by Rachel
No one outlines the contours of contemporary racism better than Eduardo Bonilla-Silva. In his book Racism Without Racists, he discusses in depth the key elements of contemporary racism. However, he goes well beyond beliefs to discuss the rhetorical practices of contemporary colorblind racism. One of the rhetorical styles of contemporary racism he identifies is “rhetorical incoherence.”
Because the new racial ideology in America forbids the open expression of racially based feelings, views, and positions, when whites discuss issues that make them feel uncomfortable, they become almost incomprehensible.
In the interviews used in his study, many people who were otherwise articulate people, had difficulties discussing racial issues. In particular, Bonilla-Silva notes that questions about personal relationships with blacks, intermarriage, and self segregation.
I was reminded of rhetorical incoherence and inarticulateness, this weekend as I listened to reporters discuss the Presidential election. I watched a discussion between 3 white reporters on MSNBC–two white women and one white man. Since this is 24 hour cable news, and they had to provide instantaneous commentary on the South Carolina Democratic primary, I expected them to have a few little stumbles. However, the two women reporters were very inarticulate, especially when the subject turned to whether or not race should/did matter in contest between Clinton and Obama. One reporter kept tripping over her words, and seemed very unsure of herself. She ended several comments with “you know what I mean,” and the other woman reporter would jump in with a yes. Any person familiar with TV and radio commentary knows that a reporter shouldn’t end her commentary with, “you know what I mean?” If a person has to say this repeatedly, then maybe that person isn’t making sense, and of course, one of the rules of being a reporter is “if you make a mistake just go on. ” In all honesty, I didn’t know what this reporter meant. She was vacillated back and forth between the “race doesn’t matter perspective” and the “black voters are turning to Obama perspective,” which is clearly a contradiction. What was clear to me was that this inarticulate reporter, with the help of her colleague, was going on self edit mode. She was trying to please two groups of people-those who say race doesn’t matter and those who say race does matter.
I’ve noticed this phenomenon all over the TV–many otherwise articulate people cannot talk about race in an intelligent manner. Some of it is the general ignorance people have about race. Most people, especially whites, also don’t seem to have clear parameters for discussing race in a true interracial context. Like nearly every reporter I have observed discussing race over the past few weeks, it was clear that the reporter above did not know the distinction between racial identity and racial ideology/issues. Moreover, like most people I hear discuss race, she was unable to make a distinction between “should racial issues/identities matter” and “do racial issues/identities matter.” This is, of course, one of the central problems with colorblindness. Maybe in an ideal world where race was never invented race wouldn’t matter, but we don’t live in that world. If I’m being totally honest, I prefer a forthright, articulate racism over inarticulate, double speak racism. It is often refreshing to know exactly where someone stands on race rather than having to watch an individual’s behaviors to see if words match deeds. I felt this way while watching this reporter. In fact, I was actually happy when she moved on to the next subject and her verbal skills improved. I was tired of trying to figure out what she was saying, and I was tired of watching her embarrass herself.
I don’t want to be too harsh on this lone reporter because I guarantee that, if you are paying close attention, you will see rhetorical incoherence from many people. You’ll notice it in classrooms, in interpersonal discussions, on blogs, and in many different areas where discuss of race occurs. Be prepared to see it often in this Presidential race.
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20 Responses to “Colorblindness, Inarticulate Reporters, and Race”
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I have to say that I first noticed this rambling incoherence almost three decades ago in the early 80’s. But — it’s also observable in centuries old academic journals. These people need therapy - and an island - with no phone, no lights, no motor cars; not a single luxury.
can we get this straight?…”colorblindness” is not a compliment!…to not acknowledge my color/ethnicity is to make me invisible. most whites can’t talk straight about race because they are in denial in regard to their own collective privilege…race is status, race is advantage…to deal with it honestly is to violate their own self-interest…that is, to put their unjust privilege into jeopardy…doublespeak is what we’re gonna get when one is reluctant to deal with this issue head on.
Well, duh.
If Joe White Person is talking about race and says something idiotic or anti-POC, JWP has committed a social foul. A fairly major one, depending on circumstance: the racist brand can be pretty serious. I am fairly certain that folks have been banned from this blog for too many negative _____ are _____ statements, when made against POC.
However, if Joe Black Person, say, is talking about race and says something idiotic or anti-white, JBP may not be considered to have committed a social foul at all. And if it is considered worth of censure, its generally considered to be much more minor.
Although JBP (being human) is probably going to be an idiot with similar frequency as a white, we cant even agree on a word to define what JBP did. Many POC argue that JBP’s speech is simply “speech” that doesn’t deserve any label. To continue with the blog examples, I dont think people almost ever get banned (and Im not even sure they get censured) for negative whites are _____ statements. in fact, here they are pretty damn common.
Different consequences lead to different actions. Different levels of condemnation lead to different levels of conversational freedom.
Bonilla-Silva has to know that. He basically participates in it: he writes in such a way that its obvious he supports said different consequences. So why does he ignore their effects on people?
But your perception of unfairness rests on the false assumption that white and non-white are equal groups on an equal (conceptual) playing field.
Also, people who say idiotic anti-white things are punished all the time. They get pushed out of the mainstream media or else relegated to the status of clown or buffoon. A lot of times, other people of color will also shun them, because they realize that person is about to pay a high social price and don’t want to be associated with them anymore…
In fact, as long as they keep an eye on their audience, a white person who says racist things will get away with it much more than the equivalent POC. In some places, even white people who are antiracist are at a social and economic disadvantage… because other white people in charge bond with each other using racist jokes.
i’m just glad this phenomenon has a handy moniker, now: ‘rhetorical incoherence’ has a nice ring to it. and it’s nicely descriptive - after the initial explanation I knew EXACTLY what the author was talking about.
I’d also suggest that the self-censoring I do periodically [esp. at work] to keep the waters calm, might be a distant relative of this ‘incoherence’. Either way sometimes we’re reduced to talking in code.
First, this was not a complaint about unfairness. It’s an observation about bonilla-silva’s faulty conclusion.
Whether or not the difference in social treatment is considered to be fair or unfair, the different results are going to have an effect on the speech of the individuals.
Next, you may be misreading my statement. Unless, that is, you are claiming that POC cannot make a statement which is derogatory to whites in a manner that is more socially acceptable than the reverse.
This may not be true in the lower classes. But in the upper class, it is. How many well known professors do you know who are racist?
Again, this isn’t a personal complaint about fairness, though the issues you raised are relevant. It’s just reality. For people who want more fairness, it IS true. Anyone who tries to have a modicum of social graces would not openly say racist remakrs if they were white.
Don’t you recall the ‘rules of racism’, whatever they are, on someone’s blog? one of them was the “no, you can’t reverse that” rule, or something like it.
Which you can’t, generally speaking. But the result is an effort to use euphemisms to say what people can’t say openly. That leads to the type of “muddled” statements Bonilla is talking about.
I mean, really. haven’t you heard the reasonably-well-known claim that POC can’t be racist> You don’t think that has anything to do with the freedom that people feel to discuss race?
Sailorman, you aren’t paying attention or are hanging out only at POC and allies blogs instead of general (white) liberal and feminist blogs where POC get eaten alive for noticing racism. How about this from Jerome Armstrong of MyDD: “First, let me just say that anyone who accuses skin color as some part behind the reasoning will find themselves banned–there is zero tolerance for accusations of racism. I don’t even view Obama as black or with racial distinction.”
http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/12/11/13220/987
Not zero tolerance for racism, that’s just fine over there, no there is zero tolerance for =accusations of racism=. Notice the dumb shit about him being colorblind about Obama being black too. You know what that says to us when you say you are colorblind and don’t even notice our race? It says that we’re a credit to our race and almost white! Not like those other POC over there…like our parents and grandparents, sisters and brothers, neighbors and friends…no unlike them, we’re white like you! Wheeeeeeeeee!
If you want to be free to spew ignorant racist garbage wander on over to FireDogLake, Majikthise, Feministing, MyDD, Huffington Post, Daily Kos, etc.
It’s the same in the mainstream media, Don Imus got away with alot of racism before it all came to a head and he was fired. Every day there are racism messages in the news and in all sorts of tv, movies, music, art, etc. You aren’t aware of it because it doesn’t affect you, so you don’t have to care or notice. POC are less likely to blubber like this around white people because we are trained from an early age to watch what we say and how we say it, because whites are everywhere and usually in charge. If we want to do well in school we have to learn to ignore the racism from teachers and administrators or work around it, if we want to get and keep a job the same from the boss(es) and coworkers, etc. Whites don’t know how to deal with POC because they can live in mostly white neighborhoods, and work in mostly white jobs, and go to mostly white schools and only on the rarest occasions come across a non-white person.
I honestly don’t think we live in the same universe, Sailorman. This idea that racist speech is confined to some small minority of “the lower classes” is astounding. I see subtle racism all the time… and I really don’t see much of a correlation to class level. Subtle and blatant racism is all over the internet, too. I don’t hear a lot of blatant racism in real life because a) I’ve worked my whole life to isolate myself from it and b) since I’m not white, white people don’t open up around me when they say the really racist crap… but my white relatives complain to me about stuff they hear ALL THE TIME. For example, the older man who told my mother (white) that he wouldn’t want to live in a certain place because “it was getting too cloudy over there”. Or the wealthy client who told my cousin (white) that any black man seeing a white woman should be shot. I know that a lot of white people hold back things, but when they’re very young, or very old, or drunk, or have what they think is a safe audience, they let it out.
During my time in academia blatant racism was not acceptable but subtle racism was just hunky dory… dismissing concerns of people of color and marginalizing them.
The “reasonably-well-known claim that POC cant be racist” is a total red herring. I don’t happen to agree with that claim, many others don’t either. Arguing over it just devolves to semantics about whether the meaning of racism should be only structural or part structural/part individual.
When people don’t have a good grasp of the fact that racism can be structural as well as individual, any attempt to talk about trends of “reverse racism” is doomed to irrelevance. Yes, I do think reverse racism can happen, it is just much rarer than conservatives believe, as they claim being white gives them some kind of victimization mojo. On the extreme end you have someone like Jonah Goldberg complaining “the white man is the Jew of liberal fascism“!!! I find that a much more horrible misuse of language than a relatively straightforward debate about when to use the term “racism” versus “prejudice”.
“Sailorman, you arent paying attention or are hanging out only at POC and allies blogs”
That could easily be true. I don’t go to the other sites you mentioned other than feministing. So my perceptions might well be skewed. It’s difficult for me to tell.
I also have spent quite a bit of time in academia. In that setting, what i might call “POC action” is much more accepted than the reverse (do you disagree with this?) And as a lawyer, I’m exceedingly aware that most judges would look askance at a “poor me I’m white” claim.
Remember that I’m only talking about conversation, not actions. (which I understand to be the topic.) I am damn well aware that a typical Fortune 500 firm will practice functional discrimination in hiring, to the benefit of whites. I am also aware that the exact same hypothetical firm would be more likely to fire a white person for complaining that the AA program was anti-white, than the reverse. That the HR department will lead one of those meaningless “don’t say X” seminars which affect conversation.
In fact, I think that a similar attitude holds throughout much of the powerful class: open accommodation or speech limits, and hidden discrimination. But the effect of those speech limits remains.
Note that I am NOT suggesting that the effect of the conversation is overriding. Obviously speech issues are secondary to real racism. But in this limited context I think Bonilla’s conclusion is wrong.
“Not zero tolerance for racism, thats just fine over there, no there is zero tolerance for =accusations of racism=.”
This is hella common… I’ve seen scenarios like this time and time again on the Internet.
Person 1 says something racist
Person 2 says that it’s racist
People 3,4,5, and 6 jump on Person 2.
Often, a “Person 2″ isn’t even necessary for this to take place (there are very few real-life Person 2s out there, unfortunately), and an amorphous “PC police” or “liberals” will be burned in effigy for having the unmitigated gall to possibly see Person 1’s statements as racist. If a white person says something racist that’s anything short of the most blatant, venomous, and stereotypically racist rhetoric, many times he/she has a strong safety net of apologists to fall back on… apologists that go largely unmentioned, uncriticized, and unanalyzed. Speech limits rarely “hold up” when among members of the same group. How else does one explain the common experience many white-appearing multiracial people have of “being a racial spy”, overhearing derogatory things said about other races in conversations where it’s assumed that all people present are members of the same racial group? Now the idea that speech limits may impede communication BETWEEN ethnicities has some merit, but power/numerical imbalances impede communication for POC in interracial discussions on race, as well.
Sailorman, I’d like you to clearly deliniate what “social acceptability” means in this context, and what you believe the most common results of a white person’s “social foul” regarding race relations are.
[...] Colorblindness, Innarticulate Reporters, and Race - Rachels Tavern “Ive noticed this phenomenon all over the TVmany otherwise articulate people cannot talk about race in an intelligent manner.” (tags: racism race tv) [...]
Isn’t “rhetorical incoherence” the same as talking out of your ass? I think that’s the old school way of putting things.
Actually, I don’t think it’s quite the same as talking out of your ass because it involves a an underlying insecurity. If you read the Bonilla-Silva book, you see quotes with stuttering, repetition, and contradictions in that section.
I’ve see folks “talk out of their ass” without that level of insecurity. E.g. car salesmen…or many sales people in general.
i find this entire entry pretty damn incoherent. most folks have to get up and go to work and/or raise their kids everyday, not think about race to the point of absurdity.
race matters. to idiots.
Hey Mike, it’s obvious that you DON’T have to face racism each and every day.
I’m not talking about insults on the street (although that happens).
I’m talking about media where it’s hard to find ANYONE who looks like you who isn’t a stereotype. I’m talking about job interviews that suddenly go south before you can open your mouth because your phone voice does not match your skin tone. I’m talking about people asking WHAT you are before they ask WHO you are. I’m talking about schools that are falling apart, and the people who could help don’t, because it’s NIMBY.
Yes. Race DOES matter, still. It’s not as BAD as it was.
But do you really want to see the doctor and have them tell you that HALF your cancer is cured, so what are you complaining about?
I care. Racism affects me and mine. And I’m no idiot.
Mike’s a perfect example of someone on the verge of rhetorical incoherence. He’s already set the stage for a few positions that are chock full of dumb-dumb yum yums. If he sticks around, it could be fun. I can see the “stammering” keyboard clicks now.
“most folks have to get up and go to work and/or raise their kids everyday, not think about race to the point of absurdity.”
Except when widespread perceptions of your racial background threaten to impede your ability to do just that. Then it’s a hell of a big deal, dontcha think?
The problem is that few people tend to think before they speak. They speak out of reaction and in the moment especially on issues like race, and at times can sound like babbling idiots. Perfect example: Kelly Tighlman.
Not to say there isn’t good that comes from passionate, in-the-moment conversation. But, more often than not, you get idiocy. Wise people, no matter the topic, think before they speak.
[...] that the inability to make this [normative versus descriptive] distinction is one of the central problems with colorblindness: Moreover, like most people I hear discuss race, she was unable to make a distinction between [...]
[...] claim “Race doesn’t matter”, when race actually matters in the real world. The truth is that race shouldn’t matter for things like employment and housing, not that it [...]