“Me Too!”

I saw this piece at Abagond, which describes how White people will sometimes hear a minority’s story about racism and say, “You know, I experienced something like that too” and then proceed to tell their own story.  An example that Abagond writes is:

Grown Black Woman: White people come up and touch my hair without asking.

White person: My child has beautiful white-blonde hair and people are always touching it!

I probably agree mostly with Abagond, but I wonder if it’s a human condition as well as a racial condition.  Anything related to racism or ethnic prejudice contains a component that most people, minority or non, have felt at some point or another.  Minorities might face racial violence, but White people might also endure violence.  Minorities might face stereotypes for being “a certain way;” but White people from England or the Heartlands or some other different place might face stereotypes too.  It’s natural for people to see commonalities in their experiences.

But I think there are two key differences between racial stereotypes/experiences and the “me too” rejoinder.

First, minorities get it over and over from multiple sources.  A taxi might pass a White guy because he’s dressed poorly on a certain day, but it happens over and over for black people.  A White person might get stereotyped if he has a southern accent, but there are enough images and portrayals in the media and in people’s minds that counterbalance the White stereotypes.

Second, minorities are raised on it.  If you’re a White southerner, there may be bad stereotypes of southerners in the North, but you certainly didn’t have those stereotypes growing up in the South.  When a person is raised in a society that teaches him or her that he is inferior in some way because of race, he or she internalizes that value system.

I was recently reading a novel in which the race of the characters is not explicit, and I defauted to seeing them as White.  However, even after thinking about it deeply, I think the characters ARE white because they operate outside of the stigma of being racial minorities.  When you’re a minority, you almost have to embrace that identity because society places that value on you. 

I wonder how it is for White people in Asian or African countries.  I assume there probably exists some sort of stereotypes too, but most of these stereotypes are probably positive.  I know this was the case in Japan.

So maybe the answer is to create good stereotypes?  It’s at least an idea worth considering.  :)

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