You people just don’t understand
According to CNN, “The Boston police officer who sent a mass e-mail referring to Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. as a ‘banana-eating jungle monkey’ has apologized, saying he’s not a racist.”
Of course the poor dear wasn’t being racist, his comments were taken entirely out of context. People who aren’t from around here simply don’t understand. All the officer meant is that, as most Cantabridgians know, academia is a jungle. To be as successful as Skip Gates, one must be nimble and clever as a monkey to climb the ranks of professorship and grab the sweet fruit of tenure. Such work is stressful, of course, so the wise academic will make sure to eat plenty of bananas to protect them from high blood pressure and peptic ulcers. Really. I’ve referred to Steven Pinker and Drew Faust as banana-eating jungle monkeys, oh, I don’t know how many times. And why do you think the Harvard Faculty Club is nicknamed “The Rainforest Cafe”?
Honestly. Some people just want to see racism, they really do.
Hat tip: Kate Harding
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7 Responses to “You people just don’t understand”
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I’m quite sure that some of his best friends are black.
Hah!
“I regret that I used such words,” Barrett told CNN affiliate WCVB-TV. “I have so many friends of every type of culture and race you can name. I am not a racist.”
“I’m not a racist. I just play one at work.”
The more I learn about this cop and his e-mail, the more I’m convinced he’s a right bad apple. That said, in general, I’ve started to think that labeling people with nouns is a seriously bad way of getting them to reconsider their behavior. Okay, you’re not a racist. But you did a racist thing.
Once you stick a noun on someone, they either become extremely defensive, or they go ahead and adopt the identity you’ve labeled them with. Tell a little kid, “You’re sloppy and lazy” and you’re telling them, in essence, that this is their nature and they cannot change. Tell the kid, “You know, I asked you to clean your room but you still have toys all over. That looks kind of sloppy to me. Can you do a better job? I’ll show you how/help you if you want” and this implies room for improvement.
Again, please note I’m not talking about this guy in particular, and I’m not criticizing your comments–they’re perfectly appropriate responses to a very snarky post! I’m just musing …
I agree about reaction to nouns, but I actually think it’s SUCH a strong reaction that sticking to adjectives may not help much. If you tell someone “that was a racist thing you did, because it feeds into/fails to challenge a racist culture, and here’s why,” as often as not they respond with “I’m not a racist” and think that’s the end of it. Witness Lucia Whalen, who seems to think that the fact that she didn’t mention race in her 911 call means that SHE PERSONALLY is not racist — which apparently frees her from having to consider or acknowledge how a racist culture might make her more likely to call the cops on two black guys than two white ones. (NB, I have nothing against Whalen — she’s not at fault here, and she was being a good citizen to call the authorities when she saw something potentially suspicious. But that doesn’t change the fact that it was suspicious in part BECAUSE of racist structures in society — and claiming or even proving that she personally isn’t a racist doesn’t change that, either.)
Speaking of wanting to marry Jay Smooth, I just realized I spent a bunch of words saying what he said way better: http://www.illdoctrine.com/2009/06/allow_me_to_reintroduce_myself.html
I will check this out, FJ, thanks. As a broader issue, I get real flummoxed sometimes on how to get people to think in terms of systems and environments and context instead of perceiving everything as a matter of individual vice or virtue.