Talk About Race? Relax, It’s O.K.

[groovedaddy]

THE awkward conversations usually start with something like, “You look like Tiger Woods.”

Or, “Your last name is Rice — are you related to Jerry? Condoleezza?”

In bolder moments, maybe after a few drinks at a cocktail party, a white acquaintance might say to George Rice, 45, who is biracial: “You don’t seem that black. I have no worries with you.”

In what Mr. Rice calls the “everydayness” of race relations, his interactions with whites can be stilted and strained, even when there is no overt racism.

Even Mr. Rice’s wife, Becca Knox, 43, who is white, said that despite being married to a black man for six years, finding a comfortable way to talk about race with people of other races, particularly African-Americans, that is sensitive but not self-conscious, candid but not offensive, is still “a constant, constant struggle and process.”

But over the last few months, both Mr. Rice and Ms. Knox, who live in Washington, have been struck by the slight easing of these examples of what psychologists describe as “interracial anxiety” between blacks and whites. That is because there is a now an omnipresent icebreaker: Barack Obama.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/fashion/15race.html?th&emc=th

[annabanana]

1. more talking more talking more talking...

It's good. I hope everyone goes back now and then to listen to Barack's brilliant speech on race during that Rev White kerfuffle...

[groovedaddy]

3. That speech is what tipped me decidedly for Obama. It demonstrated his ability to not only grapple

with a complex issue in a deeply inteligent manner but also demonstrated his ability to lead.

[emlev]

2. Thanks for posting this.

As a white parent of four kids of color, I often talk about race. It's almost palpable how surprised people of all races seem to be when a white person raises issues of race.

[dmallind]

4. Why are the first two relevant?

Sure the "you're not black enough to worry me" is obviously a sign of racial anxiety, but I'm as white as they come and I get asked about my passing resemblance to celebrities (James Gandolfini in my case, but from the Get Shorty era when he had a beard and more hair rather than Sopranos) and whether I am related to others with the same last name. How could that possibly be a racial anxiety.

I have a colleague at work who looks exactly like Mike Tomlin - right down to the same hairline and beard - but now I suppose it would be racillay insensitive to mention it. Why? It's not exactly likely that a purely white guy will look much like Tomlin or Woods is it?

[Number23]

5. Thanks for this

This part struck me as ironic to the point of humorous:

"Two studies on strategic colorblindness conducted by researchers at Tufts University and the Harvard Business School (the former appeared in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in October, and the latter in Developmental Psychology in September) concluded that whites, including children as young as 10, may attempt to avoid talking about race with blacks, or even acknowledging racial differences, so as not to appear prejudiced.

The studies also found that blacks viewed that tactic as evidence of prejudice."

So the very thing that some people do to avoid looking prejudiced is the thing that makes them look prejudiced to others. :)