Color My World, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise | @MDWorld

October 23, 2016 Victor El-Khouri 1 Comment

In the 1970s, my mother began to refer to herself as “the happy racist.”

By this, she didn’t mean that she thought racism was a good thing, or at least I don’t think so.  She wasn’t saying that racism made her happy.

She died in 1980, so I can’t ask her.  But here’s what I think she meant.

We are all racists.  Some of it, I think, is the result of the way our brains work.  We tend to put things into categories based on our first impressions and past experiences.  If, in the past, red berries were delicious, we might sample other red berries.  If, in the past, red berries made people keel over and vomit or die, we might avoid red berries.

Similarly, we imprint on our parents, so we tend to trust people who look like our parents.  And we tend to believe our parents.  Which means that when they tell us something is good or bad, we believe them.

This is terrific when they tell us things like “Don’t touch the pot handle!  It’s hot!”  or “Say ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you.’”  When they tell us not to talk to strangers, they are trying to protect us.

Unfortunately, when they tell us that certain kinds of people are “bad,” we believe them, too.  And that doesn’t work for us anymore, as a species or as a society.  Science can now tell us which red berries are delicious, and which are poison.

Science also tells us that people of different races, and from different countries, are genetically as close to identical to us as can be measured.  Our survival no longer depends on stereotyping.

If anything, our survival depends on not stereotyping.  We need all the talents and smarts and creativity we can get.

When my mother called herself a “happy racist,” she was acknowledging that she held racist ideas and beliefs, despite her best efforts to the contrary.  She was acknowledging that sometimes, society changed more quickly than she could wrap her head around it, and she was going to make mistakes when she tried to adapt.

Just as people in 12-step programs need to acknowledge that they are powerless over their addictions, my mother was acknowledging that she was powerless against her prejudices.

But that didn’t mean she was going to let her prejudices run her life, nor that she would stop trying to behave better.

This election has been a tremendous challenge for those of us who don’t want to be racists, who want to stand besides people of color (and LGBTQ people and “bad hombres,” and other maligned groups).  People who look like me are running  the most horrific, frightening campaign I can remember (and I remember George Wallace).  I want to apologize.  I want to insist I’m not like that.

But, in some parts of me, I am.  And I have to keep fighting those parts.

Martha Thomases, Media Goddess, is really pleased about all the parts of her that are nasty.