Wednesday 20 May 2015

Is it racist to notice that Michael Jordan is Black (because I've never noticed that)?





Last week, I was speaking to someone at work about a girl that I had seen earlier, when that person asked me what she looked like.


I told him that she was short and that she spoke softly, yet he clearly had no idea who I was speaking of. So I then mentioned to him that she was thin, and that she wears glasses.


He still seemed puzzled.


Finally, I remembered that she had spoken to him at the beginning of the day.


After I had mentioned that to him, he said:


"Oh yeah, that's Jessica. She's black right? She's the advertising manager."


After a brief moment, I said "Yeeeaaah, that must be her."


For a few seconds, we were both quiet.


Then, he asked me "why didn't you just say that she's black. I mean, she's the only black person that works here."


Then I asked him "what do you mean "why didn't I say that she's black""?


"How do you even notice stuff like that"?



I told him that I hadn't mentioned to him that she was black, because I don't pay any attention to that stuff.


"Welcome to the 21st century", I told him.


"I'm paying attention to the work that she's doing, and how she treats those around her, unlike some people who seem to spend all of their time obsessing obsessively over what colour her skin might happen to be.


Don't you have a television at home?


Didn't you watch the election coverage in 2008 when Barack Obama got elected?


Everybody on TV said that Obama was post racial, that he transcended race, that he made the whole concept of race outdated, a relic, and a part of history.


After he got elected, all the journalists and anchors on television were saying that racism in America no longer existed, and that racism had finally met its expiry date.


His election had shown it, and even if there was still some racism in America, Barack Obama's election had dispossessed it of its relevance, and would soon permanently deny it its influence.


The day that Obama was elected president was the day that racism died in America, and once Obama became president, you were not even supposed to notice another's person's skin colour anymore.


After Obama's inauguration, somebody's skin colour is not even something that's supposed to register in your mind after meeting a person for the first time. If you speak to a black employee at your local bank branch and, on the way out, you are asked what his skin colour was, you are not supposed to have any recollection of it whatsoever.


To even notice somebody's skin colour, and at the same time, to claim not to be racist is insincere at best.


America will not become a colorblind society until Americans themselves choose to become colorblind as individuals.


Americans, for their part, will not become colorblind as individuals until they understand that to even notice a person's skin colour is itself racist.


In the Obama era, to even notice another person's skin colour is itself an admission of racism.


As for people who remember a person's skin colour several days after meeting the person, they are not only admitting to being racist, they are practically confessing to it."


For many of us, though, Obama's post racialism is no longer enough, it is already passé, it is already outdated, it is already unfashionable, it is even more yesterday than yesterday itself.


Obama's post racialism is so yesterday that it makes yesterday look like the day after tomorrow.


For those who are connected on Facebook, and who eat at Chipotle Mexican Grill, Obama's post racialism is so dated, it is almost an embarrassment.


Today, being post post racial is the new new thing.


Clearly, no one had yet informed my friend at work about what it meant to be post post racial, so I decided that I would assume the responsibility to do so myself.


I explained to him that to be post post racial was to erase all memory of race and to no longer understand it as a concept at all.


I told him "earlier, when you had mentioned to me that Jessica was black, I really had no idea what you were talking about.


What does being black even mean?


You're telling me that's the colour of her skin.


What does that mean?


What does colour mean, and what exactly is skin?


What in the world are you talking about? I'm afraid that we're not understanding each other right now.


If you want to clear up all of this confusion, I think that maybe it would be helpful if you found a translator downtown that can translate everything that you said from your 20th century English into my 21st century dialect.


Then, maybe, possibly, I will have some idea, just a little bit of an idea, of what the hell in the world you are talking about."

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