One bit more on Zimmerman/Martin - what I try to learn

[drwex]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/frame_game/2013/07/trayvon_martin_verdict_racism_hate_crimes_prosecution_and_other_overreactions.html

A decent piece for Slate by William Saletan, who appears to have a lot more patience than I do for listening to trial material. He says some of what I tried to say yesterday: Zimmerman is "guilty, morally if not legally" and he calls Zimmerman a "reckless fool". He agrees that Zimmerman's lawyer is overstating what the jury found - he calls it "complete BS." The jury found that the government had not proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt, not that Zimmerman acted in justified self-defense.

On one point I disagree: Saletan sees "assumption, misperception, and overreaction" as separate from racism whereas I see them as components of racism, and as part of how racism plays out in actions. It's racist of me to make assumptions about a group of people who have physically similar appearances, just because those appearances differ from my own, rather than recognizing they are individuals with all the differences and nuances that implies. It's racist of me to assume that my perceptions of a person's attire or actions are always infallible or always a sufficient basis for drawing conclusions. And it's racist of me to take a past negative interaction I've had with a member of a minority and overgeneralize that to all other situations.

If nothing else, I'm going to try to do what I can to examine my own racist tendencies and see if I can avoid being my own kind of reckless fool.

Comments

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

On confronting one's racism: I made the deliberate effort, a while back, to walk past the nearby house where lots of young (teenaged male PoC, mostly) people hang out on the steps, while they were hanging out, and to nod and say hello, *then* cross the street on my way home, rather than crossing the street earlier and hurrying by without looking at them. I know, it doesn't seem like much, but it was a big step for me in not categorizing people by the "birds of a feather" method.

[drwex]

Good on you. We each have to do what we can, I figure.