A different angle on bigotry

Michael Stuart Kelly · August 14, 2010

A different angle on bigotry

We have had a bit of fuss here on OL recently about bigotry. And one thing has bothered me. Some of the people who make wholesale intellectual generalizations about people they don't know are not what I would normally call bigots.

You see, I know bigots. I grew up with hillbillies--or more precisely, people who grew up as hillbillies and left the mountains to seek a better life elsewhere. I have a revulsion of the racism I grew up with that is hard to describe. It's one of the few things I did not accept from grownups when I was a child, simply because my own eyes always told me a different story than what I heard from the grownups. Some of the things were downright silly--that blacks (of course this is not the term they used) like to grease themselves up before swimming, which is why you don't want them swimming in the same pool as you do. Crap like that (and that was not by far the most extravagant claim).

At 4, 5, 6 years old, I would become intensely interested in why people would do stuff like grease themselves up, then when I was at a place where I could check for myself, I never saw blacks do it. So I would ask my parents, "When are they going to do it? I want to see," and they would never give me a straight answer. I was a very gullible child, but I think this was the start of my BS meter.

I went out in life and over the years, actively sought out blacks as friends, as lovers and as work partners. I think I did this because I did not want to believe that the people I loved practiced outright evil. But I could not relate one instance of what my family (not just my parents, but aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, etc.) told me about black people that bore the slightest correspondence to reality. Finally I came to peace with myself, but I still feel a bit of resentment about why grownups would lie to a child like that.

Now here's the real kicker. People in the South have contact with blacks and can check their prejudices for themselves. Yet the people around me as I was growing up persisted in the lie. And they nonstop hated and mocked without mercy. Let me call this here hard bigotry.

I have seen some of this in O-Land regarding Muslims and Jews. It is usually disguised by the bigot stepping back and saying the real problem is "Islam" or the "Israeli lobby" or "Zionist" or things like that, but when you see between the lines as clearly as I do from growing up as I did,. you are quite sensitive to veiled shudders of disgust when you mention the target class of people in other contexts.

Incidentally, I reserve a special place in hell in my mind for people in the west who are antisemitic. Jewish people (who are very lovely and highly productive people) have told their different stories all throughout our culture, and told them beautifully, so antisemitic jerks cannot claim the intellectual mistake of only knowing a little bit about them. They know the Jewish people from all kinds of angles and they hate Jews because it is Jews they hate.

The good news is that there are not too many people like that in our subculture. But the bad news is that there are many people who follow their reasoning and start picking up on those "veiled shudders of disgust." I see it growing at times and it really bothers me.

After all, I put a continent between my family and me over this for over 30 years. And, as of this writing, I am not in regular contact with them, even though I am back in the USA. Guess why? During all that time in Brazil, I thought of the Objectivist subcommunity as a haven where one day I would be able to be around people for whom bigotry would not be an issue. Obviously, that was a disappointment once I got here.

So I become delighted when I watched a video that did reflect what I have observed on TED.

But first a side note. As far TED goes, I find myself being far more attracted to the liberal view of people from other cultures than the view of more conservative people. The liberals get it, at least what they present corresponds to what I have seen with my own eyes. But then they screw it all up by a hardcore case of busybodiness and want the government to regulate what you say and how you think. They have a tattle-tale mentality that is childish and disgusting in its own right.

But they at least look at other stuff. Here is a wonderful video by a Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Watching this made one piece of a long-sought puzzle fall into place for me. The issue is not just hatred. There is also an intellectual problem. Ms. Adichie calls it a "one story" danger, but an Objectivist could easily call it a "one conceptual referent" danger. This is an intellectual trap that is easy to fall into, too. There is just too much information to process in today's world and all of the media outlets hammer fear over and over because it gets audience. The makes the "one story" shorthand quite seductive. Anyway, let Ms. Adichie present the problem. She does a hell of a job.

I do not know this woman's work, but I know exactly what she is talking about. I have lived in other cultures and I know what she says is true.

When I see people talking about Muslims, or "Israeli lobbyists/Zionists" (they rarely say "Jews" anymore in the west when preaching bigotry), or Latin Americans (I remember one case over Venezuela where the "one story" thing got to me), or any other culture in an oversimplified "one story" manner where people are presumed as not living good lives within those cultures (or whatever), it bothers me. It bothers me because I have seen differently.

I cannot know what is in another person's head, but I am as certain as one can be without knowing another personally that if I were ever to become friends with Ms. Adichie, we would once in a while joke about her being black and me being white and it would bear no further importance than joking about having big feet or being tall or short. This is very difficult to explain to someone here in the USA. The atmosphere here is suffocating in this regard. But I am certain of this because I have lived it in Brazil with people who think like she does.

She tickled me when she said that she had a happy childhood, but often thought of making up a painful childhood so that she could be thought of better as a writer. After all, in "one-story" mode, all good writers are supposed to have painful childhoods. And all Nigerians are supposed to grow up around dirt-poor privations.

Now, for those who think Muslims are all one thing, Muslim countries only practice barbarity, yada yada yada, here is another TED video I found that is outstanding. It is by Elif Shafak, a bestselling Turkish author. She has part-time residence in Turkey and she has been very critical of the government. She brings another story that people can look at, especially since she writes about all kinds of people from all parts of the world, not just the female Muslim. In fact, the standardized view of the plight of the female Muslim does not weigh very heavily in her writing, from what I have been able to see. (I don't know her writing either, but I did look around on Google.) She's Sufi, anyway. Some people don't like that because they want to limit her to one story. Yet she tells many. And this is what normal human beings are--many different stories.

None of this is the multiculturalist moral equivalency that we are constantly warned about. Evil is evil, killing is killing, bullying is bullying, etc., in any culture. Ditto for love and happiness. A doctrine or law of the land may impose bad things, but it will not stop many local people from judging it as evil. Certain human experiences are universal and this is one thing these two ladies focus on. They look beneath the surface to see the universal part.

I believe no permanent solution to any of today's bigotry problems will ever get solved until we look at the different stories of the people in different cultures on one end, and butt out of people's private lives on another--even the private lives of bigots. (We should just get away from those last and neutralize their message whenever we come across it. Otherwise let them stew in their own bile.)

The one-story danger is the intellectual root of bigotry. There are other roots we often cannot do anything about (like resentment when one side kills family members of the other side), but we can do something on the intellectual front. We can listen to and tell stories.

Michael

Michael Stuart Kelly · August 14, 2010

This thing started going in the direction of hostility, so I moved the stinky part to the Garbage Pile (see here).

I would appreciate an intellectual discussion of this issue, if possible.

Besides, these two women in the videos are beautiful and talented and successful. I think their words deserve attention. I know their words got mine.

Michael

Philip Coates · August 15, 2010

> I did not want to believe that the people I loved practiced outright evil. But I could not relate one instance of what my family (not just my parents, but aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, etc.) told me about black people that bore the slightest correspondence to reality. Finally I came to peace with myself, but I still feel a bit of resentment about why grownups would lie to a child like that.

Has it occurred to you that they weren't lying, they were just passing on what they had been told and they weren't good enough thinkers to separate 'gossip' and water-cooler wisdom from fact?

> People in the South have contact with blacks and can check their prejudices for themselves. Yet the people around me as I was growing up persisted in the lie.

They probably didn't watch them before swimming and which of the stories are directly verifiable?

> I thought of the Objectivist subcommunity as a haven where one day I would be able to be around people for whom bigotry would not be an issue. Obviously, that was a disappointment once I got here.

You are wrong:

I have a lot more experience with this community than you do and while there are many mistakes, bigotry and racism and anti-semitism are just things you would have to look very far to find in the Oist world.

Michael Stuart Kelly · August 15, 2010

I have a lot more experience with this community than you do and while there are many mistakes, bigotry and racism and anti-semitism are just things you would have to look very far to find in the Oist world.

Phil.

You are wrong and I see you know nothing about the South. But I am happy to leave it at that. If you don't see the crap, you are a happier man than I am.

On a better issue, did you happen to look at the videos? At least to see where I am coming from? Those gals do a hell of a job presenting it.

Michael

Rich Engle · August 15, 2010

Black people greasing themselves. Man, I hear you. My family is all from the South (I was not born there but still got near-100% immersion). I mean Deep South--Mountain View, Arkansas, which is where they built the Ozark Folk Center State Park--literally the ground zero of Ozark-ness.

But the saving grace in all this was that my parents were raised by dirt farmers, sharecroppers--sharecroppers whose fields were right next to black sharecroppers. Ah, economics, the great equalizer. The bottom line was that one of, if not the first thing I was taught was about bigotry. It was not an option, and by that I mean if you got caught once, you might not live.

But back to the greasing. Most myths are based in some kind of something. For instance, black skin being different, different products are used. it's not like they were doing up batches of homegrown SPF 40. Instead, many types of creams, etc. Often, even now, things like cocoa butter are used. So, of course, if you take a dumb hillwhack who can't understand why they would need that (it doesn't work on said hillwhack's skin, therefore it is useless), you can see how it would unfold.

And that is a good enough example as to how all kinds of cultural disconnects elevate. In religious bigotry, it is the same. In all bigotry, it is the same--ignorance fires up hateful thinking, hateful thinking begats hateful action. Let the begatting begin, you know?

Nice essay, MSK. Very similar to many things I read in the Unitarian publications. Perhaps I should attempt to convert you. Do you mind full immersion?

rde

U been HEALED-uh!

Edited August 15, 2010 by Rich Engle

Philip Coates · August 15, 2010

> did you happen to look at the videos?

Michael, I'm a reader not a viewer.

I did look at a sizable part of them and both women are skilled, attractive speakers with good points to make. but I didn't need 40 minutes to learn about the fact that people often oversimplify and accept only one set of facts about such a complex phenomenon as culture and to learn about the values of story-telling, of literature. I learned those things in college in many, many courses. I'd much rather read a great essay on a topic such as these by George Orwell or C.P. Snow or Jacques Barzun than watch it on the boob tube.

anonrobt · August 15, 2010

A different angle on bigotry
We have had a bit of fuss here on OL recently about bigotry. And one thing has bothered me. Some of the people who make wholesale intellectual generalizations about people they don't know are not what I would normally call bigots.
You see, I know bigots. I grew up with hillbillies--or more precisely, people who grew up as hillbillies and left the mountains to seek a better life elsewhere. I have a revulsion of the racism I grew up with that is hard to describe. It's one of the few things I did not accept from grownups when I was a child, simply because my own eyes always told me a different story than what I heard from the grownups. Some of the things were downright silly--that blacks (of course this is not the term they used) like to grease themselves up before swimming, which is why you don't want them swimming in the same pool as you do. Crap like that (and that was not by far the most extravagant claim).
At 4, 5, 6 years old, I would become intensely interested in why people would do stuff like grease themselves up, then when I was at a place where I could check for myself, I never saw blacks do it. So I would ask my parents, "When are they going to do it? I want to see," and they would never give me a straight answer. I was a very gullible child, but I think this was the start of my BS meter.
I went out in life and over the years, actively sought out blacks as friends, as lovers and as work partners. I think I did this because I did not want to believe that the people I loved practiced outright evil. But I could not relate one instance of what my family (not just my parents, but aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, etc.) told me about black people that bore the slightest correspondence to reality. Finally I came to peace with myself, but I still feel a bit of resentment about why grownups would lie to a child like that.
Now here's the real kicker. People in the South have contact with blacks and can check their prejudices for themselves. Yet the people around me as I was growing up persisted in the lie. And they nonstop hated and mocked without mercy. Let me call this here hard bigotry.
I have seen some of this in O-Land regarding Muslims and Jews. It is usually disguised by the bigot stepping back and saying the real problem is "Islam" or the "Israeli lobby" or "Zionist" or things like that, but when you see between the lines as clearly as I do from growing up as I did,. you are quite sensitive to veiled shudders of disgust when you mention the target class of people in other contexts.
Incidentally, I reserve a special place in hell in my mind for people in the west who are antisemitic. Jewish people (who are very lovely and highly productive people) have told their different stories all throughout our culture, and told them beautifully, so antisemitic jerks cannot claim the intellectual mistake of only knowing a little bit about them. They know the Jewish people from all kinds of angles and they hate Jews because it is Jews they hate.
The good news is that there are not too many people like that in our subculture. But the bad news is that there are many people who follow their reasoning and start picking up on those "veiled shudders of disgust." I see it growing at times and it really bothers me.
After all, I put a continent between my family and me over this for over 30 years. And, as of this writing, I am not in regular contact with them, even though I am back in the USA. Guess why? During all that time in Brazil, I thought of the Objectivist subcommunity as a haven where one day I would be able to be around people for whom bigotry would not be an issue. Obviously, that was a disappointment once I got here.
So I become delighted when I watched a video that did reflect what I have observed on TED.
But first a side note. As far TED goes, I find myself being far more attracted to the liberal view of people from other cultures than the view of more conservative people. The liberals get it, at least what they present corresponds to what I have seen with my own eyes. But then they screw it all up by a hardcore case of busybodiness and want the government to regulate what you say and how you think. They have a tattle-tale mentality that is childish and disgusting in its own right.
But they at least look at other stuff. Here is a wonderful video by a Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Watching this made one piece of a long-sought puzzle fall into place for me. The issue is not just hatred. There is also an intellectual problem. Ms. Adichie calls it a "one story" danger, but an Objectivist could easily call it a "one conceptual referent" danger. This is an intellectual trap that is easy to fall into, too. There is just too much information to process in today's world and all of the media outlets hammer fear over and over because it gets audience. The makes the "one story" shorthand quite seductive. Anyway, let Ms. Adichie present the problem. She does a hell of a job.
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I do not know this woman's work, but I know exactly what she is talking about. I have lived in other cultures and I know what she says is true.
When I see people talking about Muslims, or "Israeli lobbyists/Zionists" (they rarely say "Jews" anymore in the west when preaching bigotry), or Latin Americans (I remember one case over Venezuela where the "one story" thing got to me), or any other culture in an oversimplified "one story" manner where people are presumed as not living good lives within those cultures (or whatever), it bothers me. It bothers me because I have seen differently.
I cannot know what is in another person's head, but I am as certain as one can be without knowing another personally that if I were ever to become friends with Ms. Adichie, we would once in a while joke about her being black and me being white and it would bear no further importance than joking about having big feet or being tall or short. This is very difficult to explain to someone here in the USA. The atmosphere here is suffocating in this regard. But I am certain of this because I have lived it in Brazil with people who think like she does.
She tickled me when she said that she had a happy childhood, but often thought of making up a painful childhood so that she could be thought of better as a writer. After all, in "one-story" mode, all good writers are supposed to have painful childhoods. And all Nigerians are supposed to grow up around dirt-poor privations.
Now, for those who think Muslims are all one thing, Muslim countries only practice barbarity, yada yada yada, here is another TED video I found that is outstanding. It is by Elif Shafak, a bestselling Turkish author. She has part-time residence in Turkey and she has been very critical of the government. She brings another story that people can look at, especially since she writes about all kinds of people from all parts of the world, not just the female Muslim. In fact, the standardized view of the plight of the female Muslim does not weigh very heavily in her writing, from what I have been able to see. (I don't know her writing either, but I did look around on Google.) She's Sufi, anyway. Some people don't like that because they want to limit her to one story. Yet she tells many. And this is what normal human beings are--many different stories.
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None of this is the multiculturalist moral equivalency that we are constantly warned about. Evil is evil, killing is killing, bullying is bullying, etc., in any culture. Ditto for love and happiness. A doctrine or law of the land may impose bad things, but it will not stop many local people from judging it as evil. Certain human experiences are universal and this is one thing these two ladies focus on. They look beneath the surface to see the universal part.
I believe no permanent solution to any of today's bigotry problems will ever get solved until we look at the different stories of the people in different cultures on one end, and butt out of people's private lives on another--even the private lives of bigots. (We should just get away from those last and neutralize their message whenever we come across it. Otherwise let them stew in their own bile.)
The one-story danger is the intellectual root of bigotry. There are other roots we often cannot do anything about (like resentment when one side kills family members of the other side), but we can do something on the intellectual front. We can listen to and tell stories.
Michael

Great videos...

BaalChatzaf · August 15, 2010

A different angle on bigotry
I believe no permanent solution to any of today's bigotry problems will ever get solved until we look at the different stories of the people in different cultures on one end, and butt out of people's private lives on another--even the private lives of bigots. (We should just get away from those last and neutralize their message whenever we come across it. Otherwise let them stew in their own bile.)
The one-story danger is the intellectual root of bigotry. There are other roots we often cannot do anything about (like resentment when one side kills family members of the other side), but we can do something on the intellectual front. We can listen to and tell stories.
Michael

I love the standing O that Shafak got. I am surprised the audience did not burst out with a spontaneous rendition of Kumbaya. Whenever I see a TED lecture on niceness I always expect Kumbaya.

I look at the Kumbaya urge as the soft squooshy center of our weakness and inability to deal with our enemies. I hope the planet Earth is never invaded by hostile aliens that look like Teddy Bears.

I save squooshy for my grandchildren. For the rest of the world granite and adamentine rock.

Ba'al Chatzaf (the Hard Heart)

Edited August 15, 2010 by BaalChatzaf

Michael Stuart Kelly · August 15, 2010

Rich,

To be fair, I have not heard anybody in my family currently talk about the greasing up thing and I am sure they don't believe that anymore. This was talk I heard in the 50's and early 60's while I was growing up.

But I came back from Brazil after 32 years and spent some time with my family. And I am no longer around them. I don't want to talk bad about my family, so I will stop there...

Great videos...

Yes they are, aren't they?

Notice that these women have something in common. They grew up in one culture and made professional careers in another. I have done this too. That is why I know exactly what they are talking about.

Michael

Michael Stuart Kelly · August 15, 2010

I love the standing O that Shafak got. I am surprised the audience did not burst out with a spontaneous rendition of Kumbaya. Whenever I see a TED lecture on niceness I always expect Kumbaya.

Bob,

This is part of the "between the lines" stuff I pick up on. I notice that you picked the Muslim woman, although both women had "squooshy" themes.

And you do this without even mentioning her career, which leads me to believe you never even looked at it. If you had, you might have noticed that one of Elif Shafak's bestselling novels is titled. The Bastard of Istambul.

Here is the editorial review from Publishers Weekly on the Amazon site:

In her second novel written in English (The Saint of Incipient Insanities was the first), Turkish novelist Shafak tackles Turkish national identity and the Armenian "question" in her signature style. In a novel that overflows with a kitchen sink's worth of zany characters, women are front and center: Asya Kazanci, an angst-ridden 19-year-old Istanbulite is the bastard of the title; her beautiful, rebellious mother, Zeliha (who intended to have an abortion), has raised Asya among three generations of complicated and colorful female relations (including religious clairvoyant Auntie Banu and bar-brawl widow, Auntie Cevriye). The Kazanci men either die young or take a permanent hike like Mustafa, Zeliha's beloved brother who immigrated to America years ago. Mustafa's Armenian-American stepdaughter, Armanoush, who grew up on her family's stories of the 1915 genocide, shows up in Istanbul looking for her roots and for vindication from her new Turkish family. The Kazanci women lament Armanoush's family's suffering, but have no sense of Turkish responsibility for it; Asya's boho cohorts insist there was no genocide at all. As the debate escalates, Mustafa arrives in Istanbul, and a long-hidden secret connecting the histories of the two families is revealed. Shafak was charged with "public denigration of Turkishness" when the novel was published in Turkey earlier this year (the charges were later dropped). She incorporates a political taboo into an entertaining and insightful ensemble novel, one that posits the universality of family, culture and coincidence.

Nah... You don't have time to notice things like that when you see a Muslim, do you? Even a Sufi Muslim. They are enemies of Jews to you--only that--and need your "granite and adamentine rock" treatment.

Is that a fair assessment?

Michael

Rich Engle · August 15, 2010

To be fair, I have not heard anybody in my family currently talk about the greasing up thing and I am sure they don't believe that anymore. This was talk I heard in the 50's and early 60's while I was growing up.

Oh, that kind of stuff never ends, it just evolves funny. Turn-of-the-century pre-drug law days: "Cocaine-Crazed Negroes!."

Or, entire pockets of little white kids who think it they touch a black person, it will rub off on their hand.

Ignorance knows no boundaries, and water always seeks its own level (assuming a gravitized environment).

There's an interesting article in UU World Magazine (http://www.uuworld.o...rentissue.shtml -you can download a zip file of the whole issue) titled "Let's Take Off the Hair Shirt" by Marilyn Sewell. A quote:

"Racial and cultural integration comes when people actually get to know one another, and the built-in fear of "the other" is dissipated through experience. It will come as it has already, when people are brought together by institutional necessity, as in our armed services, in sports, in integrated shcools where young people learn and play together. In these settings, people find themselves engaged in comon tasks where they encounter more than surface skin color and unfamiliar traditions, settings where they can observe their common humanity."

Now, before any y'all start goin' off, I do not believe for a minute that she is advocating that being forced upon anyone, but is merely observing examples of where it has taken place. And I have found that to be thoroughly true throughout my own experiences; in fact not only so, but bearing unexpected growth and other rewards.

The word "integration" has suffered many affronts. Most people just think of it like, you know, forced bus rides (I went through that with my kids, and the financial/cultural impact that resulted from what I had to do was brutal to my family). I think of integration in the root, purest sense of the word. It is a big word.

Speaking of integration, as far as I'm concerned, bigotry and bullying are to me the most despicable example of a functional integration. They travel together more than they don't.

rde

Edited August 15, 2010 by Rich Engle

BaalChatzaf · August 15, 2010

Is that a fair assessment?
Michael

As fair as life is. And it was the audience I was mocking, not the speaker who is a very bright person. I love the TED audience. When it comes to life or death thinking they are pleasant idiots.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited August 15, 2010 by BaalChatzaf

Brant Gaede · August 15, 2010

If there are no evil thoughts--an official Objectivist position, no?--then how can someone be considered evil because of his thoughts and thus worthy of extermination?

--Brant

Genocide--Not 101

Rich Engle · August 16, 2010

As fair as life is. And it was the audience I was mocking, not the speaker who is a very bright person. I love the TED audience. When it comes to life or death thinking they are pleasant idiots.

My, how attractive the possibility is to discourse with someone who enjoys mocking, who looks for who is bright and who is not, and then, if he still stays, reviews it happily as saying he got to see "pleasant idiots."

Do we get wine and cheese with that?

rde

Getting his party dress ready, not.

Edited August 16, 2010 by Rich Engle

Rich Engle · August 16, 2010

Brant,

If you are right that that standard-O says there are no evil thoughts (well, I call it hateful thinking but whatever), then, uh...ow. But I do believe you might be right, technically.

Not to be confused with like when NB talks about "your thoughts are you thoughts..." (difference being whether you act on them or not).

But I know people have evil thoughts in their heads, I do I do. The real question is where does hateful thinking come from? (bad movies? oh, I know: reading Perigo posts! YES!)

rde

You get the line of thinking.

Edited August 16, 2010 by Rich Engle

A different angle on bigotry

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