The Wrong Kind vs. Your Kind

by phil on Thursday Dec 10, 2009 12:41 AM
off-front

There's a certain type of racial posture that is very common, though not well-defined, yet was popularized by Chris Rock's "Niggas vs. Black People." And I think it can be generalized to other races.

The people with Chris Rock's attitude tend to divide their race up into downers vs. boosters; to them, there are those in their race who are lifting it up, and there are those who are bringing it down. This isn't just about "Niggas vs. Black People." It's about "The Wrong Kind vs. Your Kind."

I know this because I have the same mentality. I divide my race(s) up that way too. I'm always hard on Indians (even though I'm only half), and I'm very hard on Filipinos as well. "They should know better," is my expression when I see Indian men dressed like thugs. And I feel the same way toward Filipinos who behave unnecessarily subservient and live with low ambitions.

My attitude toward other, more distant races, is decidedly ambivalent. My attitude toward whites and blacks is that they're too far away for me to care. If I see them screw up, I just write it off. If I see a crotchety old white man unnecessarily snarling at me for breaking some nonexistent rule, I shrug it off, "it's a white thing." If I see a rambunctious, black youth with baggy pants down to his ankles, I let it go, "it's a black thing."

So what does this make me? Of course I'm technically racist in that my snap judgments are biased by race, but I'm not really a racist in the pejorative sense. Or am I? Am I really into the self-improvement of my ethnic tribe(s), but not the improvement of other ones? Or does that spare me the racist label because I'm critical of my own?