A new, subconscious form of racism

By Editorial

Let's be clear about the kind of racism Santa Clara was forced to confront last week. It doesn't exist in the exact same shape or form we saw in our history books describing the civil rights movement.

Discrimination for our generation is something that we watch on fuzzy black and white films in the comfort of our classrooms. The flickering reels show Japanese-Americans herded into internment camps and, alternatively, protesters hosed in the streets and sicked by dogs. For us, images of the Los Angeles race riots were some of the most recent signs of racial tensions -- those were even in color -- but most of our current student body was either in elementary school or younger at the time.

For this reason, some of us feel a temporal distance from discrimination. Isn't that why the hippies danced in the streets with protest signs in hand almost 45 years ago? Didn't they kill racism? Now we have legislation that protects our equality. We've employed affirmative action both in schools and in the work force. And a black candidate may have a viable shot at a presidential win in the 2008 election.

With such obvious signs of progress, we have become increasingly comfortable with the idea that discrimination is no longer a frightening threat to democracy; it is simply outmoded, even taboo.

It is this mentality that has allowed racism to change its shape and take hold in us undetected. This new racism has infiltrated our school and arguably our nation in probably its most dangerous form: a subconscious and institutionalized one.

Subconscious racism enables us to excuse bigoted satire with the disclaimer: "As long as your intentions aren't racist, then you're not racist."

Our nation seems to believe that because we have decreased more obvious forms of racism, it is acceptable to exploit degrading stereotypes of minority cultures for the purpose of humor. And since this new form of racism commonly manifests itself in a television culture still in the midst of the '90s' political correctness backlash, and is packaged neatly in the form of commercially viable comedy routines and programs, it is far easier to swallow. In fact, for some, it tastes rather nice. Racist parody is shocking, entertaining and empowering to those who are personally distanced from it.

Because most of this new bigotry disguises itself with humor, we have failed to recognize a familiar historical theme. Although we have seen far fewer physical examples of racism than our parents have, evidence of such racism still exists.

Last week, when pictures of racially themed costumes were taken out of the safety of Facebook's context -- a zone where students posing for photos in tasteless circumstances has become commonplace -- we saw racism's new face.

But even those physical signs of an unconscious racism have not been enough proof for many students: "They weren't intentionally degrading fellow Latino students." "Theme parties happen all the time." "People shouldn't be offended," some said.

And people probably shouldn't have been offended that their own country didn't trust them during WWII, and it was necessary to isolate them in camps for years. They shouldn't have been offended when schools and drinking fountains were made separate or when police used excessive force to detain individuals in everyday traffic stops.

Our school has slipped into an age-old oppression asserted by the majority, where we seem to think that we can tell the minority how to think and feel, simply because they are fewer in number.

Our community needs to come to terms with the fact that a white middle-to-upper class student from the manicured suburbs of somewhere dressing up as "white trash" is no consolation to members of those cultures exploited by FOB parties or "south of the border" parties. Those white students aren't making fun of themselves -- they are making fun of a part of society they are so comfortably removed from that they haven't bothered to consider the offensive nature of the theme.

Before we dismiss backlash to these theme parties as "over-sensitive," we should begin to ask ourselves what subliminal assumptions are made when we satirize others.