During a recent discussion, a classmate mentioned an opinion piece published last week in the Voice. “Racism: A sinister instrument that cuts both ways” was cited as an example of people who claim “reverse racism,” the idea that marginalized groups can commit racist acts against the majority group. It was rejected as uninformed and laughable.
Admittedly, I probably shouldn’t have read the piece. I’ve been down this road before, and I knew well in advance of reading it that it would upset me. (What can I say—I must be a glutton for punishment.) As I expected, the piece expressed ideas that have been thoroughly debunked and discredited time and time (and time and time) again thanks to the legions of social justice bloggers on the internet. Concepts like institutionalized racism, racism as the intersection of power, and reverse racism have been addressed across the realms of academia and the blogosphere. I cannot address the problems in Pagni’s piece better than thousands have done before me. What I can do is talk very seriously about my feelings.
Right now, I feel drained. Anxiety is pulsing through my chest. In deciding whether to write a response, I deliberated over the possible consequences. I worried about the potential for backlash. What if white people read this article, feel attacked like Pagni, and lash out? What if black people read this and feel I have misrepresented their sentiments? I am only one voice; but in entering a public forum, I run the risk of being seen as speaking for my entire race. How do I balance this concern with the desire to express feelings that I believe are relevant to minority students’ experiences?
I could move on, leaving another unaddressed emotional landmine for students to fall upon. Or I can lay my feelings out in the open. I am anxious that any effort to address concerns about racial ignorance will be distorted and used to justify whatever problematic views a reader might already hold. I worry that this piece will reinforce barriers instead of breaking them down. I am tired of being hurt, but I do not want to make things worse.
It is this predicament that I will write about. I often find myself caught between the choice to speak up or stay silent. It is hurtful to experience microaggressions and to read ignorant articles in university publications. When I do speak out, however, the internal stress tends to evolve into something even more traumatic. Rarely are my feelings respected as legitimate. If someone says something so painful that I cannot simultaneously express that I have a problem and moderate my tone, the typical response is that I am overreacting and I misunderstood.
While I am feeling upset, the person (usually a friend) who hurt me will deploy a cold, calm tone to explain to me that I am being irrational. Their words were not the problem, my reaction was. My words are dismissed because of my emotional tone. If I am able to moderate my tone and explain my disappointment in a calm voice and neutral language, the response flips entirely.
Somehow, my placid demeanor comes across as an attack. Rather than being seen as trying help them understanding how their words were hurtful, I am seen as an accuser. Their fear of being seen as racist almost always trumps consideration for the pain they caused me, pain which I am struggling to suppress in favor of coherence. Not all of my conversations about race have been horrible. In some instances, friends have respected my feelings with nothing more unpleasant than a bit of awkwardness. If I’m lucky, a few days of awkwardness won’t turn into no longer speaking.
While I personally find it stressful and exhausting to engage in conversations about race, I do not want to minimize the trauma of remaining silent. When my friends hurt me, I often choose silence because I value their friendship. I have learned that expressing my feelings usually means losing a friend. Watching a once-great friendship die aches more than suppressing the ineffable sensation produced by racial affronts; choosing to stay friends after someone has hurt you poses its own set of concerns. I find myself wondering if my friends truly value me and recognize my humanity. Am I a friend or a black friend? If future slights occur, do I continue on with my silent suffering and doubts, or do I express my pain?
The strongest emotion I feel in writing this is fear. Prior experience tells me that my feelings are at great risk of being dismissed as illegitimate or overdramatized. To share my feelings and be dismissed by the people who engender them creates an entirely new trauma, wherein my pain is trivialized. If pain makes you human, then denying my greatest pain is denying my humanity. To experience this incomparable emotion and to have it dismissed is degrading.
It is terrifying to admit that it always hurts. It still shocks me when people feel free to pet my hair like I’m a creature. It can take hours to calm down after pleading with someone to respect my humanity, despite the adrenaline in my veins telling me to get away. Hearing a friend drop the n-word will always ache in the pit of my stomach. I do not want to empower anyone to hurt me, but why hide it if I already get hurt all the time? Now it’s all out there. Please try to stop hurting me.
This piece is drivel. The idea that members of a minority group cannot be racist is utterly ridiculous.
This piece’s argument: Pagni’s opinion is wrong because I found four links on the internet that say it’s wrong.
This article is intellectual laziness at its finest.
Aww, poor commenters. It must be so hard to be personally victimized by reverse racism. All the brown people robbing you of your college acceptances and jobs. So tough. So unfair! Reverse racism is 100% real. Definitely nothing to do with denial of personal mediocrity.
This piece has little to no content. The author basically makes this point “Reverse racism isn’t real. It makes me feel bad that people say it’s real. I will now write the rest of the article about how hard it was to write this article, except I didn’t make any substantial case at any point.” I’m surprised that this piece even managed to make it to print, not even due to it’s underdeveloped thesis, but the complete lack of explanation or substance for the opening claim. Except from the tone of the article, I’m sure the Voice saw that anything less than publishing the piece would draw an accusation of “institutional racism,” and there’s not much an organization can do to defend itself when somebody that feels no problem with pulling the “racist” card gets angry, even if said person is just whiny and has no ground to make an argument. The fact that this piece was published at all shows that reverse racism, this time manifested in the form of fearing unfounded accusations of discrimination, is very, very, real. Shame on the author.