There was thread over in Tilted Sexuality this morning wherein a guy asked about the feelings people have about inter-racial couples. Pretty much everyone, myself included, were pretty hard on the guy. Basically he wasn't saying is was wrong, but it just FELT wrong.
This got me thinking about my own racial attitudes. I would never class myself as a racist, but I think that some other people would, let me tell you a little about me.
I was raised in a small (pure white) town in Saskatchewan (its in Canada
), and most of my major influences when growning up were a little intollerant. I'm not saying they were cross-burning red necks, but I was constantly exposed to the more passive forms of racisim. Y'know, things like innocuous statments like:
"sit at the table and eat like a whiteman"
"they were charging $200 but I jewed 'em down to $175"
Just to illustrate a few examples. I could go on and on, but maybe more on that later. All of this lead to me having slightly prejudiced views on other races be they black, native, jewish asian...whatever. Now to repeat myself, none of this was "overtly racist" just vauge (probably intended to be funny) put downs.
In time I grew up and left that small backward town in Saskatchewan and was exposed to the outside world. Where I met and got to know people where were black, asian... etc etc. Suddenly when I went home to visit my friends and family their attitudes and comments about other races seemed glarringly bigotted to me. IE: because I was living in Banff at the time my friends would ask me about "all the Japs."
Anyway to make a long story slightly shorter, I eventually grew out of my passive racisim and today it's not much of an issue to me. I was in a meeting yesterday at work and I realized I'm the only white guy in my department,and that's fine with me. Where as the 1991 version of me would have been very uncomfortable.
So what's my point?
To be honest I have kinda lost my way here in my rambling. I guess if anything it's that I (like the guy in the sexuality forum) have similar feelings towards certain racial situations. For example if I get cut off in traffic by a Sikh cab driver I might instictivly think: "stupid turban should learn to drive."
I then instantly admonish myself for racial profiling. By the same token however, when I get cut off in traffic by a white guy in an over-sized pickup truck I instinctivly think, "fuckin' moron redneck should go back to Saskatchewan."
So I submit to you my fellow TFP'ers. Are we all closet racists or am I the only one who still compartamentalizes people based on their race?