Freon a Bigot?
I couldn't sleep well last night, after deciding to myself at that time that I was a bloody racist, and that there was nothing I could do about it. Now, after having a bit of coffee and my brain's awake, I might sleep easier tonight, but I still shiver at the realization that lack of sleep can make me hate myself to death sometimes.
Let's clarify: I don't discriminate. I have been as open-minded a person as I could be all my life, having lived and worked with all manner of ethnic groups while growing up in Michigan. As a full-blooded filipino born of emigrants to Canada, I've been on the receiving end of racial BS before, and I've grown to believe that any ethnic bias was an unnatural and counterproductive thing. Up until last night I thought it was unnatural, but when I put it to the test in the most harmless way, I shocked myself and now have to ask for input.
Six years ago I worked at a car dealership outside Ann Arbor for a time before moving out of town. Every once in a while I sit back and think about the people who worked with me there since it was generally a very good time in my life. But, as we old people know well, names fade over the years and I was forced to wring my brain to attach names to faces. For a particular trainee of mine, I resorted to marching up and down the alphabet to recall his last name. This has been an old standby of mine for remembering last names, because some strange association usually pops up along the way that homes me in on it. You've done something like it
too, I suppose.
It was a shock to me that, as I worked my way down the alphabet, I couldn't help but make associations with last names that were common to African America, such as Washington, Jackson, and every last name of every black American I could remember, and every black role model in memory. Carver. Marshall. Murphy. Powell. Simpson. Tyson.
Try as I might, I simply could not put down the feeling that my memory, which has served so well all my life, was resorting to what people would regard as racial stereotyping to solve my little riddle.
What is wrong with me? Is some corner of my mind an incurable racist? Will my brain forever refer to differences in skin color as a tag for remembering a specific, separate class of surnames? Where does it end? Do I unwittingly separate people I know into classes by color, simply as a memory aid? I couldn't live with myself if that were true.
Thus, not much sleep last night.
Anyway, I had to come to some hasty conclusions to keep from despising myself all day. I have established as a given that my brain is wired to recall based on distinct imagery, period. There is no way that a dark-skinned person in a crowd of lighter skinned people will escape my attention, as currently wired, and therefore no way to remember such happenings any differently, no matter how liberal my attitude. But the name game still gives me shivers, because I don't think I can rewire myself anytime soon at all.
So much for a smooth id/ego interface. I guess some suppositions are in order, but I can sum it up thus: When I pass someone on the street, whoever that person is, my heart won't care, though I grudgingly accept the psychological fact that I will remember skin color as easily as I remember gender.
Great. Now I'm sexist too. What next?
PS: dammit, I still can't remember his name.
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Let's clarify: I don't discriminate. I have been as open-minded a person as I could be all my life, having lived and worked with all manner of ethnic groups while growing up in Michigan. As a full-blooded filipino born of emigrants to Canada, I've been on the receiving end of racial BS before, and I've grown to believe that any ethnic bias was an unnatural and counterproductive thing. Up until last night I thought it was unnatural, but when I put it to the test in the most harmless way, I shocked myself and now have to ask for input.
Six years ago I worked at a car dealership outside Ann Arbor for a time before moving out of town. Every once in a while I sit back and think about the people who worked with me there since it was generally a very good time in my life. But, as we old people know well, names fade over the years and I was forced to wring my brain to attach names to faces. For a particular trainee of mine, I resorted to marching up and down the alphabet to recall his last name. This has been an old standby of mine for remembering last names, because some strange association usually pops up along the way that homes me in on it. You've done something like it
too, I suppose.
It was a shock to me that, as I worked my way down the alphabet, I couldn't help but make associations with last names that were common to African America, such as Washington, Jackson, and every last name of every black American I could remember, and every black role model in memory. Carver. Marshall. Murphy. Powell. Simpson. Tyson.
Try as I might, I simply could not put down the feeling that my memory, which has served so well all my life, was resorting to what people would regard as racial stereotyping to solve my little riddle.
What is wrong with me? Is some corner of my mind an incurable racist? Will my brain forever refer to differences in skin color as a tag for remembering a specific, separate class of surnames? Where does it end? Do I unwittingly separate people I know into classes by color, simply as a memory aid? I couldn't live with myself if that were true.
Thus, not much sleep last night.
Anyway, I had to come to some hasty conclusions to keep from despising myself all day. I have established as a given that my brain is wired to recall based on distinct imagery, period. There is no way that a dark-skinned person in a crowd of lighter skinned people will escape my attention, as currently wired, and therefore no way to remember such happenings any differently, no matter how liberal my attitude. But the name game still gives me shivers, because I don't think I can rewire myself anytime soon at all.
So much for a smooth id/ego interface. I guess some suppositions are in order, but I can sum it up thus: When I pass someone on the street, whoever that person is, my heart won't care, though I grudgingly accept the psychological fact that I will remember skin color as easily as I remember gender.
Great. Now I'm sexist too. What next?
PS: dammit, I still can't remember his name.
Books by Me | Newsletter | Discussion Group
