Race isn't something you finish.

[raybear]

I would be pleased as punch if you took the time to answer my poll. Please answer the one that fits best, even if it's not completely accurate. Feel free to leave additional comments if you need to qualify an answer, but don't skip one. If you don't want to answer one question, I'd prefer if you skipped the entire poll.

The questions are geared more towards white people, but anyone is welcome to answer. I'd love to compare and contrast, even if I'm no sociologist and this isn't a perfect sample.

[Poll #55034]

Comments

[geechee.livejournal.com]

your poll made me snicker out loud. ha.

[raybear.livejournal.com]

shhh, don't tell. this is serious business. ahem.

also, i like your userpic!

[supergoat.livejournal.com]

My only "qualifier" is that I've been at my house for less than one month.

It's not really necessary, but hell - I thought I'd toss it out there anyway.

[raybear.livejournal.com]

you can amend it to your "adult home" i.e. all the places you've lived since living on your own -- i didn't mean for the question to be effected for being too techinical!

[supergoat.livejournal.com]

Will do!

[danielray.livejournal.com]

oh! that's a whole other story!

[sharkysmachine.livejournal.com]

i never let those crazy black folks in my house.

[raybear.livejournal.com]

tomorrow's poll will be entitled:

"you're homophobic if you can count the number of gay people you've slept with."

Re:

[sharkysmachine.livejournal.com]

HAHAHAHA. it's not my fault only straight IDing chicks wanna do it with me!!! i think i've only had sex with one queer IDing person.

[bias-cut.livejournal.com]

*grumbling because there were a few questions where none of the answers applied*

otherwise, an interesting poll. i'm keeping my eye on the results! :)


--tara

[raybear.livejournal.com]

yeah, I sometimes limited the answers to make people pick "the best fit", even if it wasn't the most accurate. who am i, an 8th grade social studies teacher?

i'm finding the results so far to be rather fascinating.

p.s. sorry i missed your call last night -- i DID in fact watch american idol, but that was before you called. ;) this week might be crunched for talking. how does your weekend look?

[bias-cut.livejournal.com]

yes, i also find the results to be quite interesting. are you going to be analyzing them in a future post?

...and i just realized that i forgot to answer the last question about "the N word." i didn't do it on purpose, i promise! so for the tabulation of your results, the only time i recall saying it is when reading a passage from a book aloud in one of my classes a couple of semesters ago. otherwise, i don't say it.

finally, my afternoons look pretty good this weekend for chit chatting.

[raybear.livejournal.com]

psst -- don't tell anyone, but you can click on the poll and take it again to answer the last question. or not. but just thought i'd share the info.

[bias-cut.livejournal.com]

yeah, but still none of the answers apply (whine, whine). i've said it before, but not in any of the contexts you gave...so i'll just leave it.

and is it reasonable to expect an email from a certain bear this week? ;)

[poprockgrrl.livejournal.com]

Interesting poll.

[freakysparks.livejournal.com]

Let it be known that I learned most of my rarely-used slang from raybear.

As my mom would say "it's that boy's influence isn't it?"

[freakysparks.livejournal.com]

regarding the where-would-you-sit question:

Are either of them giving me a dirty, what-gender-are-you look? If so I would pick the other one. If both are, I'd remain standing and do the "lean against the pole".

Also, if the choice was between a sullen teenage african-american male reading and a white middle-aged woman, I would pick the african-american male. I almost always read on the train and like to find other people who are reading to sit next to.

This does not excuse that, but I thought I'd mention there are a few more factors. I spend a lot of time on the train!

[raybear.livejournal.com]

I sort of wanted an uneven playing field (hence me adding the adjective "sullen" and having her be reading), because it wasn't so much a test of who a person would gravitate towards unconsciously, but more about the whole "proving a point" aspect of the question. I think it's more of a gauge on measuring presence of "liberal guilt" and also finding out which people aren't even in touch with these types of minor everyday issues.

There's no wrong answer. Unless you're lying. :)

[archanglrobriel.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but there's no right answer either. I don't generally like middle aged women or sullen looking youth of any variety so I think all in all, I'd go up to the sliding doors and choose another car.

[danielray.livejournal.com]

huh.

i tend to vary who i sit with based on how much space they are taking up... and, of course, it would depend if the sullen teenager were cute or not... and, at various times in my life, the male vs. female took precedence over the black vs. white... in my brain, i kind of de-emphasized the "proving a point" part of the question...

[nineinchlovely.livejournal.com]

I do the same space thing. I'm guessing that's because I'm a big bear of a guy...or something.

[crafting-change.livejournal.com]

A really thought provoking poll.. but
on question: A white person is claiming to not own any opinions on race because they're from a town/area with virtually no non-white people. How would you place them as a white person?
You could have added that you don't know how racist they are until they spout some belief. I would have rather chosen something along those lines.


And finally, has "the N-word" ever left your mouth, even if it was just once?
I would have loved an option along the lines of 'only said in discussions of the political/historical nature of the word, or quoting someone else who's racist'.

Incidently, I am the daughter of a bigot. I grew up hearing awful, words phrases and stereotypes, so language along that lines horrifies me. I don't have a ton of friends of color, but I don't get out that much either...

[raybear.livejournal.com]

regarding the first question:
I wanted to gauge more about how people categorize based on experience, not on what the person says. And just because the person never says anything racist that you hear doesn't mean they aren't.
second question:
i wanted to ferret out intentional use of the word, as an epithet or slang, versus just repeating it out of a book or in an academic discussion -- if i had included your answer, i think a lot of people would have chosen that, rather than own up to the possibility of thinking it or saying it in the past (or present).

i don't think there's anything wrong or right about having many friends of color (though my own liberal self-righteous instinct is to be proud of my own little rainbown alliance experiences, i admit!), but i thought it would be interesting to see what answers possibly overlap.

thanks for your thoughts!

Re:

[crafting-change.livejournal.com]

And just because the person never says anything racist that you hear doesn't mean they aren't.
Oh definately. I'm just slow to judge anyone based on where they grew up, their expereinces...etc.
My grandmother grew up in a very rural part of kansas, but worked at integrating the catholic churches where my mother was raised. Her parents thought she was nuts, as I'm sure others did who grew up much closer to 'the city'

I could see your choice selections for each answer...and I love anything that gets me thinking... I just always have to be the squeeky wheel (even if geekgirl47 alluded to issues first.

i don't think there's anything wrong or right about having many friends of color (though my own liberal self-righteous instinct is to be proud of my own little rainbown alliance experiences, i admit!), but i thought it would be interesting to see what answers possibly overlap.
Oh definately.
So much of it though depends on whether you have an outgoing personality.
I've lost touch with a lot of people of various ethnicities, who would have bumped up my numbers, I suppose...but I tend to be shy as friends fade away.

ok.. enough squeeking.

[danielray.livejournal.com]

i've found in my experience that i tend to make and lose touch with a lot of acquaintances, and some of those acquaintances are people of color. i have many fewer long-term friends, and most-if-not-all of those friends are white.

in high school, my closest friend were not all white, but none were black. my college was intensely socially segregated, especially amongst queer folks, and a much higher percentage of my friends were white. since college... hmm... again, my life is highly influenced by the overwhelming whiteness of mainstream queer communities, so it tends to feel like this demographic exception when i have the chance to become close to a person of color... like, i have been acquaintances with, been friends with, flirted with, dated, and loved people of various ethnicities, but i *know* who the people of color were...

[clockwatcher.livejournal.com]

what do your friends of color think of your liberal self-righteous rainbow alliance pride? I know you said this tongue in cheek, but it's an interesting question to me seriously.... on how to be a white ally without being more progressive than thou.



jessie

[raybear.livejournal.com]

my "liberal pride", shall we say for short, is generally kept away from my relationships with people of color and more often than not comes up in my relationships with other white people. it wouldn't really occur to me to say to some random black person "well, my best friend is black" (not that i haven't been guilty of this in the past, it's more that i've worked through that issue so it doesn't come up as much), but it does sometimes pop in my head when talking to other white people, as a way of showing how open, liberal, cool, down, etc. i am.

for me personally, i generally just try to remind myself that i'm not a cured white person who now sees no color or engages in racist behavior -- i'm still operating within the systemic racist institution and dealing with my own cultural conditionings, so i just remind myself constantly that i'm not immune and i have to keep moving forward.

but it's fine line between trying to communicate that your ally without being self-righteous. for the most part i try and let my actions and politics speak for themselves without giving lots of qualifiers and references.

[drood.livejournal.com]

I couldn't answer the last question. There was no "I've never used it as a racial ephithet, but I have used it aloud in discussions of the word" option.

[raybear.livejournal.com]

That answer's too easy, and I suspect an unintentional lie in most cases. I can't believe that never in someone's entire life have they never even thought it.

[drood.livejournal.com]

I think you're right. A lot of people would choose that as their default answer.

But I can't honestly ever think of a time I've used it or thought it as an ephithet. My parents never used it and I never heard it in my (mostly black) schools growing up. It wasn't until I read or saw To Kill a Mockingbird for the first time that I'd ever heard it, and then I had to have it defined to me.

my qualifiers

[friffboy.livejournal.com]

1st question: 1 out of maybe 5 people I have regular contact with that I would call friends (like call them on the phone friends)
2nd question: I've never had anyone over to my house in a social setting recently

oh yeah, and I'm guilty of calling our cats all sorts of racial epitaphs, but those little bastards deserve it.

that's it

Re: my qualifiers

[friffboy.livejournal.com]

and of course that would be epithet and not epitaphs, although, maybe I could inscribe some epithets on their epitaphs

[clockwatcher.livejournal.com]

the sullen black teenager thing says more to me about ageism than racism.

[friffboy.livejournal.com]

I avoid all children like the plague, so chalk one up for the ageist. Although, I don't think ageism applies in instances such as these--more in cases as far as employment, housing, etc. Seems a but hypersensitive to call it out like that, but whatever

[clockwatcher.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I suppose I viewed this survey ray created as more of a way to think about things, not something that determined whether one was ageist or racist or what ageism and racism meant.

[raybear.livejournal.com]

i was going for more of the "young angry black male" stereotype.

[vfc.livejournal.com]

I would rather sit next to anyone on a bus than a teenager, male, female, black or otherwise. Yes, this includes smelly people with Tourette's.

[penpusher.livejournal.com]

I recused myself from the survey... but it was fun taking notes on what everyone else had to say!

[raybear.livejournal.com]

these results are utterly fascinating to me. i'm planning on writing a response to them all tomorrow.

but more importantly, check out that userpic! simply smashing!

[hissyfit.livejournal.com]

i think i harbour a little "liberal guilt" from my hyper-politically-correct, was-an-activist-in-the-civil-rights-movement mom, however i think i'm pretty adept at catching it and keeping it from skewing my though processes.

like sparky, i would probably just stand on the bus.

i DO have non-white friends, but not a LOT of them. i'm not making excuses (it's funny how people say that right before they make excuses), but it's a combination of things, i think... 1) i'm fairly independant (some say anti-social, but whatever) and don't go and "make friends" very often. my friends are mostly people that i met through other friends. 2) interests and activities have a lot to do with who one befriends, and i'm involved in a lot of feminist activism. unfortunately, the feminist movement in america has been fairly exclusionary of women of colour in the past and now they're wary of feminism and feminist programs, especially in smaller towns (i.e. NOT chicago or somewhere similar). 3) i live in a mid-sized town in kansas. yes, it's a college town and there are lots of international students, but they tend to stick to their own groups. i noticed in highschool (there were 8 or 12 black kids, a few hispanics, and an asian or two at my highschool of 1200) that the minority students tended to make cliques within their own race, and not move outside of it, nor let anyone in. this could be a response to racism, or another form of racism itself. i don't really know.

also, i was counting this PARTICULAR apartment, into which i just moved a couple days ago. so that answer is incorrect for me.

i've never used "the N-word" in reference to a particular person, or in a negative way. i've never called someone (or a group of people) that. it's just been while singing along to rap songs (or patty smith's rock n roll n.....!) or in an academic setting. i don't even use it to quote someone who was being racist. i prefer to let those negative, hateful comments die.

[torreycanyon.livejournal.com]

Well this was a tricky one, and not just because it made me think. Being geared towards a North American situation, many of the questions just weren't relevent, but I did my best to translate them. For example, the n-word has no connotations for me, aside from US documentaries and music. I'd never think to use it. On the other hand, I'm sure I've been guilt of using 'abo' for Aboriginal at some time, and teetered uncomfortably around various other racial epithets. With the making a point, I realised I was avoiding asking certain people for the time, and instead casting around for somebody white, but that was more of a lnaguage thing. I made myself stop being silly and judging people's likelihood to understand my request on their appearance, and deliberately ask the first person I saw. If they didn't understand, well, I'd ask somebody else.

And finally, I realised I'm not quite sure who is included under 'people of colour'... I'm familiar with the term, but not sufficiently to filter my house-guests by it.

i'm entertained

[brothernumber3.livejournal.com]

i haven't even actually read all of the comments
and yet, i'm entertained....

qualifying seems to be the action of the day

[nineinchlovely.livejournal.com]

Here are my qualifiers..:

*No one EVER comes over to my house. Hell, I've known MelRo for a while and she's only seen my abode once! muaha.

*A white person is claiming to not own any opinions on race because they're from a town/area with virtually no non-white people. How would you place them as a white person? <~ This used to be ME. I used to not own any opinions with regard to race and racism because well..I was a colourphobe. I got skittish around black folks (and not to mention queers and trannies..) Ain't it funny how things work out? (Coming from a multiculturally minded queer transman..) (I am really surprised I worked out the way I did.)

I'd like to modify my answer to the N - word question. I have quoted it in rap lyrics, but I've never said it to anyone or in reference to anyone and I think when I've referenced it in conversation I tend to censor it either with a beep or a nasal two-syllable noise.

Justification on the basis of fornication.. or.. my white white world.

[ex-fish.livejournal.com]

There once was a pretty? little girl named christy who lived in the lowerclass neighborhood of a mid-sized (175,000) city. But she sucked. So I killed her.

I found your poll to be relatively difficult because I feel I am reasonably in touch with my conditioned racism, then I can't think of any black friends. At all. So I fill out the survey and answer 0-2 and am disappointed with myself. Until I go to comment and then it occurs to me that Friend 1 is black. But that's just one, so I don't change my answer. Then I realize that Friends 2, 3, and 4 are black. But I still don't change my answer because I wouldn't call them "active" friendships. I don't really have a large number of 'active' friendships, so on a percentage basis, I'd say that of about 10 close friends, that is, people who I make reference to on a daily basis, one is black and so that is 10% of my friendships.

I also thought you'd be interested to know that I honestly never thought about her being black except when we were walking down a street together and someone gave us a dirty look that I am assuming had nothing to do with us being very gay because he then referred to us as that boy and girl.

And for the house question, I did mean this house, which only my roommates and some random family have been to... unless you count the two random men from the street that my brother invited in. I don't know what race they were because I was hiding in my room.

For the record, if we were talking about either of my houses growing up, the answer would have been too many to count.

I say "yo" and only "yo" from that list, unless I'm ironically saying "dog" to cass in a fashion like this "What is up my dog?" or if I'm playing Tony Hawk.. then I say fuck. A lot.

I don't own any hip hop albums because I don't own albums period. Aside from while in Chicago, I haven't bought a cd in something like two years. I am a winamp junkie.

I am rarely on public transportation but when I have been in the past, I don't sit next to anyone. I'll stand, thanks. I do, however, make a point to not move away from people in elevators or on the street, because when I was a freshman, we went to a seminar on race and racism and a young black man gave an oration on how we (the white students) wouldn't move away from him if he got in the elevator in a nice tie and shirt but if got in in his street wear, we'd move to the other side of the elevator. So I consciously don't. Though I don't know if I would if I didn't consciously not. Probably not, out of sheer laziness.

I originally said that I'm less racist than the small town kid, but then I got to thinking about how pissed off I get when people justify homophobia with where they grew up or how they grew up and so now I say we're all racist and homophobic. Every one of us. Damn we suck.

I tend to quote Ja Rule verbatim. I should stop that. - that crazy I'm Real singing dyke

Now that I've attempted to justify every one of my answers, I'd also like to say that I originally filled out your poll logged in as Al and am now correcting that, thus this. I'd also like to say that the mixtape you made me has disappeared again and was the only hip hop I actually owned. I'm very upset about the whole affair.