FIRST Experiences as a Person of Color

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

I'm not sure what some of you are responding to, but it doesn't seem to be relevant to what Samuel said about isolation contributing to racism. He notes that people from places without a lot of diversity tend to show racist attitudes, and the objections to his comment seem to say "I have experience with muticultural neighborhoods all over the place and the people there are not racist." That's not a contradiction. If anything, it lends support to his observation.

I see the same thing he does. The most strongly racist people I know grew up in a highly homogenous environment, where everyone looked like they did and came from where they came from and went to the same church they went to. A lifetime of experience with a "they aren't like us" mindset is not easy to overcome.

I myself struggle with prejudice against people who speak using a variety of English that I can't easily understand. Although equating intelligibility with intelligence might not be appropriate, it's something I find myself ready to do if I'm not careful. But I'm pretty confident that my upbringing hasn't given me a tendency to look differently at people based on their skin color, or eye color, or hair color, or body shape, or any such superficial quality.

The difference between what you are saying and what Samuel is saying is that one is a valid statement, the other is no different than racist remark.

When you say "people with no experience with other groups have to rely on stereotypes" I can't argue, that's completely true. When he makes broad sweeping generalizations about entire geographic regions I have to object because it's no better than making sweeping generalizations about entire creeds, colors, genders, or sexual orientations.