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Struggling with visceral racism (self.SRSDiscussion)

submitted by 6letter

I'd like to start off this post by saying I've just begun to learn about social justice/my own privilege/classism/racism, so if anything I say is problematic, I'd really appreciate being called out on it. Anyway, on to the issue:

A couple months back, I was living in a pretty low-income neighborhood in Oakland. About two weeks after moving there, I was robbed at gunpoint. I do my best to educate myself on the relationship of crime, racism, and low-income levels, and feel like I have a general understanding of how systematic racism can force people of color into poverty and keep them in that state. However, ever since being mugged, I feel racist on a much deeper, visceral level. I was robbed by a young black male wearing a hoodie, and while on an intellectual level I understand how problematic it is to stereotype someone based on those traits, if I'm ever walking and see someone that fits that description, I'll feel my heart rate rise like crazy, I'll get uncomfortable/nervous, and feel the urge to speed up/cross the street/avoid that person, which in turn makes me feel like a racist piece of shit. Anyone have any thoughts on this issue? Is it selfish for my reaction to this to be "What can I do to make myself not feel so bad"?

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[–]srsalphaprime 17 ポイント18 ポイント

There's no point blaming yourself for a conditioned fear response, its a natural response by the human psyche to a traumatic event which you have no control over.

Beating yourself up over it will just wind yourself up more and attach more negative emotions to the event. The most important thing you should do is to make yourself feel better about it and stop blaming yourself. If you were living in a low income neighborhood I imagine you probably can't afford proper therapy and you might not want to seek it anyway but it would probably be helpful to talk it out with someone.

[–]6letter[S] 5 ポイント6 ポイント

Thanks for the response! My full situation is that I moved to California while still searching for a job, so I was trying to live as cheaply as possible while unemployed. I've since found a job and moved to a safer area. However, even though I'm better off now, I still can't justify the cost of paying for therapy on my current income, so I figured I'd come here instead to talk it out.

[–]rmc [score hidden]

Fuck USA needs some socialised medicine

[–]gepeg-libre [score hidden]

I used to get jumped by Arab kids all the time when I was a teenager. I still get tense when I see a crowd of teenage Arab males speaking rapid-fire French with designs shaved into their heads and wearing tracksuits and shit. Honestly it's pretty shitty but at the same time when I see some Arab father walking home from the mosque or some computer science student from Lebanon on the metro or whatever I get no reaction, so it's really more of a trigger from traumatic shit that happened to me than pure and simple racism.

Besides when those kids see me, maybe they're threatened too. I'm tall and tattooed and pierced and wear combat boots and leather jackets, for all I know they think I'm a Nazi.

[–]bonemachines 14 ポイント15 ポイント

You are trying to not have that reaction and you understand on an intellectual level that it doesn't make sense to feel that way. Your reaction is more similar to a PTSD trigger than a racist judgment of people you encounter. Had your attacker been, for example, a large white man with tattoos, you might have the same reaction. While I'm not you, the fact that the robber was black seems incidental to your actual problem, which is that you're being reminded of a violent attack when you see people of a certain description.

It's only been a few months since your attack. If you still feel this way after time/therapy/whatever you feel you need to do to be more mentally healthy, you might have a problem. However, I don't think you've "become more racist" or anything, since you acknowledge that your body's involuntary reaction is not fair to young black men wearing hoodies.

Is it selfish for my reaction to this to be "What can I do to make myself not feel so bad"?

As long as everything is happening inside your own head (i.e. you're not viewing/treating young black men in hoodies differently in a way others can perceive), nobody else is being harmed. Trying to improve yourself is pretty much all you can do.

[–]6letter[S] 3 ポイント4 ポイント

Thanks for the response! I guess another issue is that there's also a small nagging voice in the back of my head that says "Statistically, you're more likely to be robbed by a person of color rather than a while person in this area", and while I know that I'm using statistics to back up racism/prejudice and that's fucked up, I have a hard time thinking of a reason why that's not a good reason to cross the street to avoid someone when I'm walking alone. What are some good arguments/counters for that line of thinking?

[–]NorthernPika 5 ポイント6 ポイント

Statistics would seem like a good reason to avoid getting into cars, buses, trains, or airplanes (since if you're not in them, you can't get into a [blank] accident), go swimming in the ocean (not going to get bitten by a shark if you aren't in the ocean!), etc. Those probabilities aren't wrong, but we weigh the statistical risk against the expected fun we'll have by going places we want to go, doing things we want to do.

It's not necessarily wrong to cross the street to avoid someone when you're walking alone, especially at night when it's dark and you can't see well, especially in a neighborhood you know has high crime, etc. etc. But I'm assuming based on your post/comment that you feel like you're doing it / feel inclined to do it to an unreasonable degree, and you don't like doing it. The benefits you'd get by not crossing the street are ... what, for you, exactly? Only you can really answer that, but I'd guess things like: exchanging a pleasant smile and nod with the person as you pass, a feeling of community, personal confidence, not worrying that you're being racist. By always/very often crossing the street, you're missing out on those things, and paying in the form of feeling stressed and isolated from other people.

[–]6letter[S] 3 ポイント4 ポイント

Thanks for the insight! That all makes perfect sense.

[–]SweaterSystemFailure 3 ポイント4 ポイント

I had basically this exact same thing happen to me in the exact same city. It took a few weeks for those feelings to go away, but it was really helpful to remember that I got mugged by a black person and not every black person. At least in my opinion, if you're willing to do the emotional work involved in getting over the trauma, this sort of thing provides a really interesting opportunity to examine your own internalized racism in a better way than would otherwise be available.

[–]captainlavender [score hidden]

It helps me to expose myself to POC viewpoints -- in a serious way, or just a superficial pop culture way like Ebony or Tyler Perry movies. We think of empathy as intuitive but sometimes it's not. Growing up in a predominantly white environment, all I knew was that racism is bad but I don't have to feel guilty because my ancestors never owned slaves, but underneath it I had this suspicion that I might be racially prejudiced (and hence racist) but I had no idea what to do about it. What was most helpful to me was being employed in a predominantly black workplace, but since my current job no longer qualifies as such, I like to try to remind myself. Instead of my reaction growing up "oh no a black person what if I do something racist shit shit-- OH HI LAURA!" Honestly I sometimes do still get a twinge of it, but then I think about how I must have looked growing up and how fucking annoying it must have been for black people to have to interact with me and my paralyzing fearguilt. Like, it must have been seriously tiresome. So now when I find myself smiling too widely and talking too precisely, I think about how I must look to the other person, and how used to it they are by now, and so on. It usually works.

So in your case imagine being a black guy (kid?) in a hoodie and walking by a white person and seeing that absurd deer-in-headlights reaction. Oh nooo, run away white person, I'm gonna get youuuuu! Seriously you know they get that shit all the time. Hoodies = basically murder accessories.

This answer is a bit appropriative, I suspect. If so, I apologize. But it's my quick and dirty mental technique, so, I dunno.