Military Racism & the Struggle for Identity

It’s hard for me to speak for America’s armed forces and the racism that occurs within them. I can only assume that atrocities that occurred even within the last twenty years have become less and less frequent. I had always envisioned the military as a place where people would put aside any sort of prejudice that they had as they unite against a common enemy. After reading a few of the plays in Playwrights of Color, clearly that is not the case. It’s a shame that kind of camaraderie doesn’t exist. I suppose that if it did, there might not be a war in the first place.

If I had to worry about racism in the military, I’d worry about prejudice against Muslims and Arab people. Hearing abut stories like Abu Ghraib and it makes you worry about humanity. Now, again I’ve never been in the military and I have no idea what that experience must be like. I assume that you’re scared for your life in a way that can’t be imagined, scared that you’ll never see your family again and scared that you’ll die in battle and become a forgotten statistic. No matter how I think of it, I can’t justify the war crimes that were committed.

I’d hate to get on a high horse, it’s easy to judge people who are putting their lives on the line from a safe and comfortable home, but the things that have been uncovered by the media have shown members of the military to be capable of inhuman actions. It wouldn’t surprise me to see hostility within the ranks. Surely it’s not to the same extent and, like the rest of society, I’m sure that it’s headed in the right direction, but it would be hard to believe that there is not at least some degree of racism in the military.

When it comes to “Black English”, it is certainly frowned upon and usually unnecessarily so. I feel like the dialect is associate with profanity, which is where it gets a poor reputation. If I had to guess why that was, it would probably be because that when Black English is heard in media, it can often be in hip-hop music or often in movies with profanity. Maybe this is a stereotype in my mind, but I know that it at least occurs in some instances in both of these forms of media and that can make a strong impression. Obviously, the use of Black English is related to a sociocultural upbringing and not by use of poor language.

As for the identity crisis the Bibi experienced in the play Letters, I’m sure establishing an individual identity is something that everyone can relate to to some extent, but more so for a person that’s associated with a group that they would like to be separate from. It seems that Bibi manages to find a balance in her identity, being able to maintain her cultural identity while being able to learn from the American lifestyle as well.

I’m sure many people of color who face similar challenges today. I’m sure that there are many people who are white that struggle to strike a balance like Bibi does. Anyone who is part of a religious, sexual, cultural or any other sort of minority probably struggle in a similar way. Hopefully, the people as whole can recognize that identity is something that everyone struggles with and not make rash judgements about others based on groups that they associate with.

Wedding Band

Wedding Band was a tragic play written by Alice Childress about the taboo relationship between a black woman and a white man. Near the end of WWI in South Carolina where anti-miscegenation laws are in full effect. A forbidden love, Herman tries to stabilize himself so that he and his partner, Julia, can move North and legally get married. 

This play gives an intimate look into early twentieth century racism in portions of America. Far from a history buff, I don’t know that I ever realized the severity of legislature in America even within the last century. I mean, in today’s society, it just seems crazy that my grandparents lived in a time where it was illegal for a consenting male and female to be joined together legally in marriage. I had always known that the black civil rights movement was slow to take off, but banning interracial marriage sounds like a pretty feudal concept.

I can’t claim Wedding Band revealing part of a timeline of racist legislature as changing my view of racism in America, that’s more on me and my personal lack of knowledge. I do think it’s worth mentioning though; as sad as it is, I’m probably not the only person. 

The real eye-opening aspect of Wedding Band is the racism that you see, but did not necessarily expect. Wedding Band does an excellent job of removing the filter in its snapshot of early 1900s society. Rather than a simple, snide and pretentious white population that would have made an excellent romantic setting for an interracial relationship, Childress fills every character with a prejudice and that is shown in dialogue and story line throughout the play. Black people throughout the story exhibit racism against not only white people, but Jews, Germans and Asian Americans. 

It seems naive, now that I think about it, but I guess I would have hoped that a group of people that had been on the wrong side of a ridiculous basis for judgement, that the African American population would not have passed judgement on an entire race. Now that I think about it, it makes a whole heck of a lot of sense. Hostility breeds more hostility and if people live in a society where racism is the norm, it is unfair to expect anything less from much of the population. 

Wedding Band opened my eyes to the entirety of racism in a society. How the hatred can permeate every ethnic and socioeconomic group. It’s depressing, disappointing and it isn’t much in terms of a happy read, but if there’s a bright side to this realization, and I sincerely hope that there is; It would be that if the idea of racism can be adopted so fully by civilization, then so can the idea of universal equality. Several positive steps forward have been made in the past century in the civil rights department and hopefully they continue to develop. 

Who knows? Maybe in a few years, people will be writing about how crazy it is that marriage wasn’t acceptable in 2010 and look back at today in disbelief. That’s a whole separate topic, one that I probably won’t delve into this week.

 Certainly something to think about! 

Racism

What is racism? I'm sure everyone can wikipedia that quickly and find a cookie-cutter definition. Racism to me has always been the idea that individual qualities, actual or perceived, are the direct effect of the race of the individual. It sounds pretty diabolical on paper, but racism can present itself in any number of ways. The word 'racism' evokes thoughts of police brutality, discriminatory legislature and struggles for civil rights. We can all agree that these are caused by pure and simple racism, which, in about third grade, we were told is bad and awful concept. 

Then we were told that everyone is the same. 

That's seems like a nice idea, and certainly a step in the right direction, but this notion of racism isn't all black and white (pun intended). In America, we tell a room full of white kids that they should treat people of every nationality in exactly the same way. That means, that if you see someone who has a different ethnic background than yours... ignore it. 

Does this seem wrong to anyone?

Envisioning everyone in the same way causes people to completely ignore another person's culture or heritage that may be different from their own. This 'everyone is the same' attitude is exactly what breeds our hallmark American ignorance. 

When Americans take their 'treat everyone the same' mantra abroad, they find themselves walking into cultures of which they know nothing about. A limited understanding of a language and a lack of knowledge of the differences in cultural social graces can set Americans up to like an ethnocentric group of idiots. 

This argument begs the point that race and ethnicity are, of course, two entirely separate things. I do not encourage anyone to ask their neighbor who looks kind of like an American Indian about their most recent pow-wow or try to speak to their black friend in Swahili. Treating someone differently based on their skin tone or genetic background is racism, which is bad.

Now, if you know that you are hosting a dinner party during which people from India will be present, it might be a good idea to serve an alternative to hot dogs and hamburgers. Approximately 80% of India's population practice Hinduism, a religion in which eating beef is frowned upon. Almost third of the population is vegetarian. This is a judgement made regardless of appearance, skin color or any factor except the cultural qualities of the area in which the grew up and thereby not racist, which is ideal. 

Alright, I get it. This concept is probably too complex to teach to nine-year-olds that are trying to wrestle with the idea that skin color doesn't make a person inherently different, but the notion that everyone is exactly alike is still a terribly polarizing theory to pass onto the next generation. It tells them to ignore thousands of years of beautiful and unique human culture as they remain uninformed about everything outside of their own cultural bubble. 

After that brief tangent, allow me to return to original question. How do we define racism? Something along the lines of making assumption about an individuals traits based off of their genetically defined race. Whenever someone makes a judgement about a person based on their skin color or genetic heritage, that is racism. When someone is unaware of ethnic backgrounds outside of their own, that is cultural ignorance. 

Racism is inhuman, but let us not forget that cultural ignorance still a disgrace for humanity. 

Is it "okay" to laugh?

With all this racism and stereotyping in media, when can you laugh without being racist? A better question is, what do you find funny? 

Is it only funny if nobody is offended? Let me tell you, almost everything offends somebody. If we only laughed at things that offended absolutely no one, we’d only laugh at a select few knock knock jokes and those YouTube videos of babies laughing. In all honesty, someone somewhere is probably offended by those too.

As I watch Day of Absence, I wonder: Should I be laughing? 

I find it extremely funny that there are black people dressed up as white people mimicking the distress that would occur if there were no black people. 

That’s hilarious. 

Then I ask myself: Why are they doing this? 

That’s not so funny. They’re using this type of humor because they’ve seen years upon years of white dominated media showing black people as simple, incompetent saps. 

That’s not so funny. 

Do I laugh? Well all I could manage was an uncomfortable chuckle. It’s comedy, it’s designed to make people laugh, but it’s also designed to make people think. It’s designed to make people realize the racial imbalance in media that resulted in mass stereotyping of several minorities. I can appreciate that, can applaud that, but can I laugh at it? 

Yes. Yes, I can. 

However, if I’m going to laugh at it, I should be able to justify why I’m laughing. I am laughing because of the irony of the situation. I’m laughing because a group is using a tool that other groups people have used to induce prejudice against them to explain how silly that idea is. 

It’s like I arranged the letters in my alphabet soup and explained how messages shouldn’t be sent through types of food. 

A bit of a stretch? Maybe, but Day of Absence used a form of theater to show how ridiculous it is to form stereotypes and judge people based theater and other types of media. If you can laugh at the irony and not the racism or the stereotypes being exhibited, I think you are in the clear. 

If you’re laughing because the black characters are lazy or because white people are incompetent, you might be someone’s racist grandpa (we’ve all been there). 

I think there’s also something to be said for laughing at stereotypes in which you are the butt of the joke. It’s sign of good character if you can laugh at yourself. When I’m watching a black comedian make fun of white people, I have every right to laugh. Provided that the jokes are funny and that there is no genuine hate or prejudice for either side. 

When all else fails, check the punch line and check the joke teller. Is there intolerance? Is there genuine prejudice between the two? Today, the case is typically a resounding ‘No’. When watching television, there is usually no genuine racism prejudice, at least as far as comedy goes. 

Nowadays, humor is screened like no other form of entertainment. It shouldn’t be prejudiced, it shouldn’t be in poor taste. I see a comedian of color on television, my experience has been that it’s usually safe to laugh. Comedians that typically make jokes involving race typically have no genuine hate and no genuine intolerance. 

When it comes to group of friends telling racy jokes, you’ll have to use your best judgement. Does the joke teller seriously disrespect or believe a stereotype of the group of people or ethnicity that the joke is about? If they do, you might want to find a new friends. 

I believe that’s it’s appropriate to laugh as long as you have respect for all of the groups of people involved and as long as the joke-teller shares those feelings. This mean would mean that open-minded and unbiased people have much more to laugh about than people who are racist or intolerant, which I would hope would be the case. 

Stereotypes in Media

Stereotyping has been a part of society for longer than anyone would care to admit. The idea of making a judgement of a person based off their ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion or other characteristic is rooted deep within human society. In the first few chapters of Playwrights of Color, several examples of how mainstream media has maintained and amplified different racial stereotypes are given. It is clear that stereotypes are quick and easy ways to spread ignorance and prejudice, develop discrimination and cause emotional damage and scapegoating. 

Minstrel shows over the last two hundred years not only portrayed African Americans in a negative light, but, in the early 19th century, depicted slavery in a positive light. While slavery was socially accepted in the early 1800’s, clearly mainstream media was not helping the oncoming emancipation. It’s pretty troubling to think that something as harmless as entertainment can help to sustain the degradation and enslavement of an entire group of people. However, it is undeniable that theater in the 19th century perpetuated stereotyping and developed racial profiling as a social norm. 

Two major African American stereotypes were given in Playwrights, both of which contributed to white America’s perception on African Americans. Jim Crow, the first developed stereotype from minstrel theater, portrayed African Americans as smiling, slow and simple people that lived a care-free life on a plantation. Zip Coon, another stereotype, was shown to be either a free African American during slavery or after slavery, an urban black person. Zip Coon retained the lazy and good for nothing tendencies of Jim Crow, but thought of himself an intellectual equal to the white population. 

A step forward for equality? Not quite. 

Zip Coon constantly fell short intellectually and made a fool out of himself, continued to portray black people as less intelligent and proved himself to be useless and inferior when compared to his white counterparts. 

Obviously, stereotypes were not confined to African Americans as Latino people were hit hard as well.  The Mexican Bandito portrayed Mexican people as angry, law-breaking dangerous individuals. Whether it be in hollywood or a simple cartoon advertisement, showing Mexicans as ill-tempered or culturally diminished, the bandito did very little for the credibility of hispanic people in society. The ChaCha Spitfire was a female stereotype which showed Latina women to be promiscuous, impulsive and extremely sexual. 

Native Americans were also heavily stereotyped in media. Stories like Pocahontas portray Native American women as exotic creatures that idolize white males. While these scantily clad, American loving ladies were sure to please the largely white male audience of the theater, they also brought about a disrespect and prejudice about Native Americans. As this theater continued, Native American men were viewed as either animalistic, savage and fierce warriors or frivolous and stupid ‘Tonto’ sidekicks. 

Asian Americans were unable to escape stereotyping as well. The Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu characters embodied much of the Asian American portrayal in media. Charlie Chan was a happy, hard working and quick-witted. Fu Manchu was diabolical and twisted with a hate for white Americans. Fu Manchu helped to establish a concern over the idea that Asian people wanted to take over the world, which lead to prejudice and fear that had many affects, such as the Chinese Exclusion Act. 

Clearly, racial stereotypes have hurt the relationships between many different groups of people. As American media was dominated by white people over the last several hundred years, stereotypes have been targeting several different ethnicities. These stereotypes have fueled racism and discrimination that have dominated American society. While these stereotypes have certainly diminished in recent years, they are still all too present in everyday life. As the population continues to learn more about stereotypes in media, hopefully they can see how this has affected their views on different groups of people. Being more aware of how stereotypes are placed in media can help society to consciously avoid developing opinions about people based off of skin color which, I think we can all agree, would be a good thing.