Flaws in my education: I never learned that I'm bad at spotting racism

One thing I've learned in recent years is that I'm bad at spotting racism.

 

There are innumerable racist (and antisemitic, and transphobic, and ableist, etc. etc.) tropes and dog-whistles that I've never seen before in my life, or that look benign to me, or that look like nonsense to me.

 

They're obvious to other racists, they're obvious to the targets of the racism, and to me they're completely devoid of connotations, or of any meaning whatsoever.

 

 

It would certainly have been useful if my antiracism education had mentioned this! 

 

Until just a few short years ago, I had no clue that I was bad at spotting racism. I'd see racist things and think "That doesn't look racist to me," and think that this opinion of mine was some how helpful or relevant rather than being ignorant and ill-informed!

It is a bit complicated if you think about it from an educator's perspective. In an ideal world, people would be able to recognize racism rather than merely recognizing that they're bad at recognizing it. (Well, in an ideal ideal world there wouldn't be racism lurking around needing to be recognized...) Obviously, "I don't know, I'm really bad at this sort of thing" is not the desired endpoint of any educational program.

But, at the same time, if you are going to emerge from the educational program really bad at that sort of thing, it's far better to recognize that you're bad at it than to think you're competent!

The irony is they came so very close to informing me that there were forms of racism that I didn't recognize. 

 

One of the examples of prejudice and stereotypes given in our anti-racism unit was the stereotype that Polish people are stupid.

My mother was born in Poland. Half my family is Polish. I identify as Polish myself, and Poland would claim me if I made them aware of my existence.

And I had never before in my life been exposed to the notion that Polish people are stupid. In fact, if you'd asked me to name stereotypes about Polish people, I would never have guessed that people think we're stupid - the Polish branch of my family is by far classier, more intelligent and better educated!

 

So this could have led me to realize that there are stereotypes floating around out there that I can't possibly fathom.

 

Unfortunately, it led me in the opposite direction: it reinforced my internalized notion that racism is a thing of the past, and that any stereotypes that may have existed in the past are no longer doing harm to the people affected. After all, if I, as a member of the targeted group, had never in my life heard of the stereotype used as a go-to example of stereotypes, surely  nothing about this can be affecting actual real-life present-day people!

I don't know what the actual solution is. I don't know whether it would be advisable to actually go around teaching teenagers stereotypes that they've never heard of before. And I don't think that "I'm really bad at this sort of thing and not able to make an informed comment" is an acceptable outcome of an educational curriculum.

And also, if, for whatever reason, students emerge from the curriculum really bad at that sort of thing and unable to make an informed comment, it is imperative that they are able to recognize this! I would be a much better person if I'd been able to recognize this 25 years ago.