A World of Cheese, For your Pleasure

Oooh, "But you aren't like them" - wow, that goes way back. When I was a kid (in the seventies) I read an old introduction to anti-racism book written to help white kids deal with school desegregation post Brown (so written in the late fifties or early sixties). One of the first dialogues and discussions was based on "But you aren't like them." I think there's a similar phrase in the New Testament regarding samaritans, and I'm sure it goes back much further.

I'd say something along the lines of "How do you know? Are you friends with any of 'them'?"

Or, "How do you feel when people say 'But you aren't like other jews' or 'T'es un bon anglais, t'es pas comme les autres'?"

Or, "You're right, I'm not nearly as brilliant as Colin Powell or Kofi Annan."

When my father was in China he was getting fed up with the ease that his chinese students (doing an equivalent of a master's degree) expressed racism towards chinese minorities and towards black americans. So when he saw a black american teacher on the escalator he ran after her and asked her to present something to his class, which she was quite prepared to do. Afterwards his students said, "But she isn't like most black americans, she's an exception." His answer then was "That's right, she's a professor of economics. That's exceptional for all americans. Are you like most chinese people? Aren't you exceptions?"

I did a google search on "But you aren't like them" expecting to turn up an exposition of the racism and fallacies in the phrase, but what I turned up instead was a series of blog entries by a white woman using a black avatar, a mexican, a southern italian and a lebanese. All with the same complaint and mixture of anger and confusion: What does that mean?

Didn't they used to call Colin Powell "well-spoken," implying somehow that a black man is supposed to be less articulate, even if he's a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of State?

He asks if you were raised by whites?!? The fuck?

In a weird way, I kind of feel bad for that commenter. Is this how he spends his life: measuring his superiority or inferiority to other ethnic groups? Does he not, I dunno, go out in the world and meet people from different backgrounds? I'd like to just write him off as an idiot but I just feel bad for him. But rest assured, as he points out, he's not gay. ;)

Barack Obama must blow this guy's mind.

Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)

URL:
Remember me? YesNo

Comments: