To:
letters@guardian.co.uk Date: Saturday 14 May 05 |
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Dear Martin,
In response to your response
(see below) to
my email (Confusing
feelings of racial identity
with "racism"):
I agree, the
offensive jeering of the
Spanish spectators is not
acceptable, whatever the
reason, but it is important to
understand that it is not, for
the most part, an expression
of "racism", but in
response to an offended sense
of identity.
I feel it myself, so
I'm pretty sure that I know
what I'm talking about.
The jeering
spectators do not identify
with the black players. That
is why they jeer them. Not
because they think they are
inferior. If anything, black
players of often superior
players. Superficially, it may
seem like racism, but deep
down, it's about IDENTITY.
Your attitude is not
just unhelpful, but positively
harmful, because it serves to
confirm the sense of
inferiority that many black
people have towards Europeans
(understandably, in view of
their achievements over the
past 3 millennia, with the
consequence that we live in
what is very much a white
man's world). There may well
be some feelings of racial and
cultural superiority involved
in the jeering as well, but
that's a human failing that
most of us (perhaps you are an
exception) have in some degree
(a way of compensating for
one's own personal
inadequacies by identifying
with the achievement of
others). You blow up its
importance out of all
proportion and call it
"racism", which is
the modern equivalent of
medieval accusations of heresy
and witchcraft. Now, as then,
I suspect that some of the
nastiest people are among
those making the accusations.
The Nazis criminally
misused people's natural need
for a sense of identity by
creating (and enforcing) an
exclusive and intense
sense of German identity
involving the vilification
of non-Germans. That was racism.
And ugly and vile it was too.
You seem to have no
difficulty understanding
ethnic minorities' need to
maintain and cultivate their
own sense of identity. But when
their European hosts do the
same, you interpret it as
nascent (if not blatant)
racism.
By interpreting
"monkey chanting" as
racism (rather than as
unacceptably bad manners)
you give credibility to the
idea that black people are in
fact inferior. The black
player may look more
like an ape, but it is the
monkey chanters who are behaving
more like one (that is what
should be emphasised). Monkeys
and apes are our closest
relatives in the animal
kingdom and there is, of
course, a striking
resemblance. White people may
appear less ape-like than
those with darker skin and
flatter noses, but our
behaviour betrays us to be
as much ape as anyone else.
We're Earth's
"Greatest Ape". In
fact, I'm developing a theory
of society based on this
observation (makes a lot more
sense than Max's historical
materialism and class
struggle). Christian
fundamentalist are not the
only one's in denial about
man's animal origins. The fact
is that our entire
socio-economic order is deeply
rooted in our primitive animal
nature (Capitalism has
developed and been honed to
take advantage it, which is
why in many respects it works
so well). If it doesn't offend
people's religious beliefs, it
offends their religiously held
views on economics in general,
and on their own way of life
and making a living in
particular. We prefer to
remain in denial than face up
to our own responsibility for
what we are doing to our
planet, i.e. participating in
the plundering of it.
Roger Hicks
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