You!
There is an ongoing discussion between a fellow-student and a teacher about biases and prejudices. This fellow-student takes offense whenever the teacher refers to something – like being black – and then proceeds to look or point at the black person in the room. Or when the teacher is talking about a feminist, he looks or points at the offended student. Whenever he talks about gays or gay rights he glances in the gay’s direction. The teacher also said the word “Blackish” once, when referring to the color of someone’s skin. This has now turned into a running gag, and we call people either “Blackish” or “Whitish”.
Now, I’m wondering why this would be offensive. I think it is pretty human to point to or look at the closest referent of the referred. This doesn’t mean anything. In my opinion, if you make a big deal out of it, it only shows your own insecurities. If you’re a feminist, for example, why would it be wrong for others to point to you when talking about one? Does it maybe have anything to do with implicitly ascribing certain characteristics to a person who belongs to a certain group that has these characteristics even when this is not necessarily right?
Maybe it’s easy for me to say, because I’m not a person who’s readily pointed or looked at when referring to a certain group; especially not a group about which a lot of prejudices run rampant.
Something else that I found really interesting was the positioning of yourself in a certain group. My teacher, for example, is French. He told us that when he talks to other French people about Dutch habits, he readily says, “We always eat at six.” Whereas when he would be talking to other Dutch people, he would never say that. Two other students, one English and one Antillean, could both confirm this. So the person talking can shift groups depending on who he or she is talking to. Interesting, right?
