I confess a certain initial cynicism when I heard about Blog Against Racism week. Sure, it could be accused of tokenism. I mean, a week? And then what? Next week we get to relax back into our comfortable old racism again? Plus, you know, here in cyberspace we're pretty much all educated enough to read and write, right? We're all near enough to middle-class to have access to computers and the internet. Are we just preaching to the converted, shouting aphorisms to an audience already amen-ing our advances?

But I couldn't ignore it, & I didn't think it was a *bad* idea. After all, "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem" and "you do what you can with what you have, where you are". I believe that stuff. I believe "none of us is free until all of us are free". I believe not only in fighting for my principles, but in living up to them. So I pushed up my virtual sleeves and joined the fray. After all, I decided, if it makes ONE person think ONCE about racism, then it's better than what this blog was doing about racism before -- which was not much at all.

I don't want to talk about racism, really. That's because I don't want racism to exist. I'm lazy that way. If it doesn't exist, I don't have to deal with uncomfortable attitudes from people I meet or know, I don't have to examine my own attitudes and behaviours (man, I get so sick of that), I don't have to stand up and be counted. I read Black Like Me when I was 13, accidentally. It stayed with me because I didn't understand it. If I read it again now, I reckon I still wouldn't understand it.

I was lucky enough to study Political Economics at uni. I got to learn theories of racism & classism & spent an entire semester studying feminism. For me, that was great. I like structured education, I like to add it to the narrative of my life. I'm relatively au fait with the theories, and I reckon I lead a pretty multi-cultural life. But I slip up often, I forget or neglect to stay vigilant. So it is I stay curious about the world, I listen with interest to wiser heads, I give space to those with less space than me because it is their right not because I am so very benevolent and deserving of gratitude. Oh, please. Seriously.

I am the first to admit I'm a screw-up, a white girl, part of a privileged class, unable to stomach that note of condescension some white people get when trying to approach racism, saddened by my own frequent hypocrisy. I just keep standing up, trying again, coming to terms, working it out. That's it, that's all I'm doing.

And get this, the thoroughly unpredicted result of Blog Against Racism? That one person who was fated to think once more about racism? That one person was -- she said, with a hint of resignation -- of course, it was me.

Via Justine Larbalestier.

When I was a kid, a grown-up was telling a joke. It was a long, complicated joke, involving a motor bike and a car crash and it was, at heart, racist. Various sound effects for the joke were riffs on racial slurs. Like, the sound of the motorbike starting up was the phrase, 'Niggerniggerniggernigger....'

That joke, it was kinda creative, you know? In an ugly way. It was probably even kinda funny. I can't remember it clearly. All I remember is a sense of isolation creeping out from its core. And I'm white. I've got that wacky surname, sure, but I'm white, & I grew up with kids who had wacky surnames. I grew up with my kind, in other words, and other kinds of kids, too. I'm a relatively privileged person, favoured by a whole bunch of social institutions until somebody notices I'm a woman. But I remember that joke, that joke made me sad.

Like I said, I was a kid, & it's one of the earliest lessons I learned, & not a month goes by that I don't reflect on that lesson again: people will turn the best of their talents to the worst of their causes.