Thank you Genevieve for bringing up this topic! It’s one of those things that I think we can all only speak to our own cultures and experiences. But luckily we have a big variety of cultures and experiences so this discussion should be interesting!
I’m gonna start big picture with the stuff that IS universal. It’s universal to “other” a subset in your community, most often in a way to justify disparity and injustice. But the details of how that othering works is never the same. Every community has it’s own rules and prejudices and so on and so forth. These rules and prejudices spread through pop culture, for instance novels/newspapers in America in the 1800s, or films in India today. The wider the discourse spreads, the more universally accepted and “normalized” these stereotypes are.
Okay, now forget the universal! Let’s talk specific! As an American, the Black American community is what we are talking about when we talk about prejudice or racism or stereotypes. That’s not to say there isn’t prejudice and stereotypes against a whole bunch of other communities too, it’s all layers on layers on layers. But the Black community is a very special specific to the US issue. Like, even language! I use “Black” with a capital, but when I was growing up I was told to always use “African-American”, and before that it was “colored” and so on and so forth. And these language rules are a Big Deal. Like, it’s hugely important to use the right word and makes a big statement when you use the wrong word.
What I think sometimes the Black-White issue hides in America is that it’s NOT just black and white. Yes, the most important issue for us as a country is that issue. But there are smaller (meaning, more geographically specific) equally tragic injustices. For instance, I as a midwestern person just learned a few years ago about the unbelievably inhuman massacres of the native communities in California within the past century. But at the same time, probably someone in California wouldn’t know about the complex dynamics of the current human tragedy of the migrant bussing into Chicago.
And there are also the less tragic but universal issues. America absolutely has ethnic prejudices, and class prejudices, and religious prejudices, every flavor of prejudice. Oh, and racial prejudice against non Black communities too. Only, it’s easy to get away with “I’m not racist, I just assume all desis are doctors” because in America that’s the “less bad” racism.
One thing I am particularly aware of is the way pop culture will be banned, ignored, erased for racism against Black people. But American pop culture with issues about any other community tends to get a pass. This has gotten better in recent years, I think, but I also think it’s still focused on very specific kinds of pop culture. A modern streaming TV show has to be ethical in how it treats all people. A big popular action movie can still get away with crazy jokes and stereotypes about Muslims and no one seems to care. Our attention is sooooooooooooo hyper focused, it allows bad stuff to happen on the edges. On the other hand, our attention should be hyper focused because the one thing we are looking at is SO MUCH WORSE.
I guess it’s like if you are treating cancer, you still need to treat pneumonia. But at the same time, your doctors and friends and everyone are gonna be way more concerned about the Cancer because Cancer is just soooooooooooo much worse.
Okay, that’s all I can think of at the moment from my personal experience. Thoughts?
