Musings on race, gender
and queer identities.

su-real.com

29th December 2009

Quote with 58 notes

When I teach about racism the first thing I say to my students is that racism is not ignorance. Racism is knowledge. Racism in some ways is a very complicated system of knowledge, where science, religion, philosophy, are used to justify inequality and hierarchy. That is foundational. Racism is not simply a kind of visceral feeling you have when you see someone who is different from you.

Because in fact if you look at the history of the world there are many people who look different who are seen as both attractive and unattractive. It is not about how you look, it is about how people assign meaning to how you look. And that is learned behavior, you see.

And that is why you can’t think of racism as simply ‘not knowing.’ That is not the case at all - on the contrary.

— from an ‘INTERVIEW WITH ROBIN D.G. KELLEY’

Tagged: racism

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