The 5th Carnival Against Racism and the 1st to be held in the African blogosphere. It hasn’t been as simple as I had thought largely because some of the American terminology and names are unfamiliar nonetheless it is always refreshing to read blogs not generally in one’s own backyard blogosphere so to spea.k The submissions are a mixed bag with posts on racial profiling of Muslims, white privilege, slavery & colonialism, the politics of skin colour and racist stereotypes.

I begin with two posts that reflect a discussion that has been taking place in the African blogosphere over the past 10 days around an African blogging conference in South Africa. White Privilege is the subject of The Angry Black Woman’s post “Things You Need to Understand”.

White Privilege exists whether you know it, acknowledge it, or understand it. Any attempts to convince me that you, a white person, don’t have White Privilege will result in laughter, mockery, and possibly a beat down.

She goes on to explain that she is not talking about economic privilege, which is one kind of privilege, but privilege that comes with being born white..

What they don’t realize is that economic privilege is only one kind of privilege. When I speak of White Privilege, I am not speaking of economics (though they may come into play based on the individual), I am speaking of unearned advantages one has because one is born White. That’s not the only kind of Privilege there is, of course. Another I’m very familiar with is Heterosexual Privilege.

The second post from Women of Color Blog confronts a trend in the blogosphere which “reflects a passionate racism within the blogosphere that is quite disturbing“. This sounds very familiar

the low down: bill clinton had a bunch of white bloggers over for lunch. the blogosphere is now in a ruckus over boobs and “minorities” and spelling………seems a gay white man got a little offended that a black woman (liza at culture kitchen) questioned/challenged why there weren’t any poc bloggers at the luncheon. a sample of the love:

She concludes that the liberal minority blogosphere do not want to read what women and people of colour have to say

because then, as a commentor somewhere (i think feministe) said, liberals would have to confront the fact that their political agenda is not just problematic, but wrong on far too many levels to count. and that’s an ugly reality to wake up to–even if you’re a “minority.”………….but the white liberal blogosphere will have to wake up to that reality someday–or risk being what they so claim to hate: the lesser of two evils.

A disillusioned Naija girl’s is sick of white people’s reactions to accusations of racism which is to retort “But blacks sold their fellow blacks too”. She responds in a post “Why I resent white people”. Naija Girl starts with the reason for her post and then goes on to discuss the slavery in traditional African society and the impact the European invasion had on African life.

that whenever we, as black people, open our mouths to talk about racism, they are quick to stifle us by bringing up the ‘But blacks sold their fellow blacks too’ card. I am sick of this attempt at a cop-out, and will now address this……..First of all, yes. Blacks did indeed sell blacks. I can hear the self-congratulatory cheers and back-slaps being passed around the white crowd now…….. What was prevalent practice in Africa was having servants (domestic slavery). Slaves were employed by kings, chiefs, and wealthy people in their houses as domestic servants. The number of slaves a man had usually determined his social status. Usually many of the slaves were captives of war. Enter the white man with goods like iron, whiskey, linen, gin, cotton and wool, offering them in exchange for slaves.

Continuing through history, Autobiography of a Face ’s post “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Jew Boys When the Negroes Ain’t Enough” deals with another legacy of slavery and colonialism, the politics of skin colour. Being “bi-racial” or “mixed race” is the new “exotic” in Hollywood with the stars such as Haile Berry and Alicia Keys. In fact being bi-racial is so advantageous that people are claiming a mixed heritage which gives a whole new meaning to the word “passing”.

The New Face of America”featuring a woman who is a composite of varying races. The racial categories of the census have also come under scrutiny for their limited racial categorizations. Prominent celebrities such as Kanye West (in a recent Rolling Stone cover story) have expressed their preference for women of mixed race. And the list goes on and on. It is indeed a multiracial millenium in America, a place where racial categorizations have been so stringently enforced for so long.

Media Watch adds her own commentary and insight into the subject in her post “When mixed race identity is used to further racism“.

As I said in the comment I left in response to this post, we mixed folks like to talk about the ways in which we are oppressed: how our authenticity/legitimacy is always called into question, how we are often called upon to declare our loyalty to one community over another, etc. Of course, these are all important issues that we need to discuss. However, what I don’t hear us talk about is the privilege that often comes along with being mixed — especially if you’re part white

Sotho writes a letter to Mr & Mrs Racist and although he believes everyone “harbours discriminatory thoughts” this does not mean that change cannot take place

the question isn’t whether or not to harbour such thoughts (all humans do, whether they like it or not), but how to overcome them. You’re walking down the street and you see this Latino spitting. How could you not think or say, “Dirty Spic,” like so many would? How could you be told by a black person that you smell bad and not think or say, “Fucking nigger. Needs to be put in his place,” like so many would? How could you hear, “We don’t serve your kind here, boy” and not think that “honkies” are all the same “fucking racists?” It’s hard, yet humans need to see other humans as just that: humans — and not as colour or as belonging to a group. People will always be outwardly different, which unfortunately puts other-feature humans in their vicinity on guard. With practice, this habit could go away, white ladies could stop switching their purse to the other side when approaching a black man.

Listics reminds us that the Nazis are still around. In this case a rather pathetic bunch appearing on the steps of Madison Capitol building,. A couple of dozen of them, 300 police and about 1000 anti-nazis demonstrators.

There they were, red flags with black swastikas flying, US flags flying, new banners — oddly beautiful in a dark fantastic kind of way — banners hybridizing the black, the red, the red-white-and-blue, and of course the good old blue and gray stars and bars of a racist unrepentant South. The Nazis came to Madison today. They had a permit. They had police protection and ten foot tall chain-link steel barricades to protect them. More importantly, they had the US Constitution to protect them.

Blaxplanation questions the whole exploitative system of sports franchise and asks why the African American community continue to collude with the use of racist naming such as Washington “Redskins”, by the franchises, players and club supporters.

I wonder if any current football or baseball teams would be named the Atlanta Tarskins or the Carolina Nigger Feet if the American South had either successfully maintained its’ “right” to own slaves or peacefully seceded from the Union.

I submit to you that neither of these names is any more offensive than the Washington Redskins.

What she finds even more confusing is the insistence of the African American community to ignore the use of offensive names like Injun and Redskin. On the contrary they defend the names.

I’ve often asked myself what we have to gain from the continued marginalization of Native Americans. Historically, African-Americans and Native Americans have had both a cooperative relationship and a common enemy. Indeed, many black folks will be the first ones to let you know that they have some Native American ancestry. Why then don’t black folks in DC see the larger picture?

In “Black men get prison. White men get museum trips“, Pinko Feminist Hellcat points out the racism of the US justice system.

After being found guilty of beating two Black teenage girls with a metal baton, a rich White supremacist in Boston got community service and an order to visit the Holocaust memorial in DC and the African Meeting House in Boston. He’ll also have to remove his Nazi tatoos…………The Suffolk County DA, Daniel Connelly, called the judge’s decision “wise” and “thoughtful.” One wonders if those are code words for: “Appropriate punishment for a White guy since after all the victims were just Black bitches.”

Wa Salaam: A Muslim American Journal questions the proposals being discussed in the Western media suggesting the profiling of Muslims.

Muslims, are nearing the conditions in the US and other Western countries that inspired the kind of prejudice of the 1950’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, that of anti-communism. Muslim leadership fails to gain leverage with the political systems of the West and as a result, the only thing that is protecting Muslims from real oppression are the inherent laws concerning Human Rights.

After recent events in Britain the question of profiling has been discussed without end. Ideas suggesting to discard a certain degree of Human Rights to preserve innocent lives from an imminent threat, this is the argument backing racial profiling. My greatest fear is that the poor Muslims who live in small tight-knit communities will be the target of this profiling and its focus on the young Muslim-Male

Hurricane Katrina is the subject of Ask this Black Woman who finds that watching Spike Lee’s documentary “When the Levees Broke” she is no longer so concerned about her inability to grasp the complexity of what took place. For her one of the most shocking aspects of the aftermath was the response by Condoleezza Rice

I am, however, shocked by Condoleeza Rice’s behavior as depicted in the documentary. I know, I know, I shouldn’t be. I guess I didn’t realize just how evil she really was. According to the documentary, the day after Hurricane Katrina hit and with no response from the Federal government, Condoleeza Rice was spotted in NYC shoe shopping at Ferragamo. A fellow customer (a white woman) approached her and shamed her for shopping while such a huge tragedy had occurred. Later that same day, Condi was spotted at “Spamalot”, the Broadway musical. The lights were shown on Condi and the audience booed her. The next day Condi was spotted playing tennis with Monica Selles. The following day Condi arrived in New Orleans to make a statement that she was in fact African-American and from the South, but that this tragedy and the response and neglect from the Federal government had nothing to do with race. There are plenty of “uncle Toms” out there, but the callousness of this woman goes beyond that.

UARIDI uses the example of a group of young boys, “Africans, Asians and Europeans”, on her local estate happily playing together on their bikes to illustrate how racism is “bred and nurtured in the home”

Just as children learn values, life and beliefs from their parents, so too will a racist learn to hate someone because of their skin colour. It might not be direct name calling or hatred, it can be implied; for instant the constant moaning and complaining about “those people”, and eventually, a beautiful trusting soul is turned into a racist by the very people who should teach him/her to love”

“How sad to reflect that in a few years time, these boys will not play together any more because they will have learnt that what separates them is not flashier bikes, or trendier outfits, but race – the difference in their skin colour

Why Am I Not Surprised calls on the European American community to stopping acting as “helpers” of people of colour and become allies instead. The difference being that

“being an ally is not about saving somebody else. It’s about saving myself (I closed with this point in Part 1, but it was not always caught). I see my liberation as indelibly bound with that of every other human on the face of this planet.

Another new fashion being adopted by Hollywood (other than exoticising bi-racial people) is the appropriation of Africa and Africans. Mshairi’s post “We are all African” comments on the latest save African children campaign fronted by Gwyneth Paltrow which has a poster with Ms Paltrow and the words “I Am African” written across the front. Mshairi writes.

I am mightily tired of Hollywood actors and actresses who evidently do not have enough to do with their lives adopting one African cause or the other because they want to either
a) to give a lift to flagging careers
b) to feel good about themselves
c) to look like caring people,
d) to fill a spiritual need.
e) what Professor William Easterly, author of “The White Man’s Burden: How the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good,” says about “Africa as filling a sort of existential vacuum for Americans struggling in a post-Sept. 11 world”. In other words, people like Americans like Gwyneth Paltrow, Madonna, etc just want to be loved.

There is something rather obscene about these rich, overpaid and over-indulged people championing poor people as one cannot help but feel that what they are doing is for publicity’s sake and the current fashionable thing to do, reasons f) and g).

I end with a post from VeganKid over at Taking Place on a topic that I think many of us are familiar with in the blogosphere and no doubt in our non-cyber worlds - the idea that there is a hierarchicy in oppressions.

Essentially, we are a collection of our experiences. And to simply look at one’s own life without attempting to feel compassion or empathy beyond the confines of that narrative experience, would lead one to believe that what they know as the most horrible experience is the most horrible experience that anyone can feel. And for that persyn (and those who share similar life experiences), it is the most horrible thing. I’m not here to discredit that claim. I don’t wish to discredit or marginalize one’s life experiences. All i’m asking is that others do the same.

For oppression to end, we need to understand that our issues are important, but our experiences are not everyone’s experiences. We must actively engage in empathy and compassion and open our hearts, minds, and ears to the experiences of others. To do so will not only help us to build alliances, but it will also help us to understand the context of our experiences. And to understand the context of larger groupings of experiences is to gain insight into strategies for justice.

The 6th Erase Racism Carnival will be over at Taking Place - Ideas for the Masses on the 20th October.