Racism

by Jane Gassner

we shall overcomeThis is not about BlogHer’09; that post will come later this week.  This is about something that happened on the way to BlogHer’09, and it is something that continues to reverberate for me even today, a week later.  It is something I don’t understand, and because I don’t understand it, I’m frightened it will happen again.  It is something that has served to silence me on Twitter.

The backstory is this:  D drove me to the airport and dropped me off at curbside check-in.  I trundled my bag up to the line at the SkyCap station.  The familiar faces, that I’ve seen all my life at airports, the middle-aged Black men in their retro uniforms who earned a hard living humping other people’s bags, were gone.  In their place were a group of young men wearing shorts and cargo shirts.  I got confused.  Were these TSA people?  Or some fraternity fundraiser?  I turned to the businessman behind me and asked, “Are we supposed to tip these guys?”  “Yeah,” he said.  “A couple of bucks.”  One took my bag, accepted my couple of bucks, and off I went into the airport.  But I was still confused.  What had happened to the SkyCaps?  Did they fall victim to some corporate shenanigans?  How were they earning a living now?  And how could I find out?

The backstory goes further back:  I went to college in the ‘60s.  I belong to that generation of white kids who marched, picketed, and sat-in all in the name of the Civil Rights movement.  I’m not saying ‘some of my best friends are black.’  I’m saying that when it comes to race relations, my bona fides are impeccable.  Which is probably why I did what I did next with impunity.  I tweeted the following:  “At airport.  Confused.  When SkyCaps were Black, knew what to tip.  Now they’re college boys, not so sure.”

Then I got on the plane and flew to Chicago.  My iPhone was off until I had landed, gotten my bag and got into the airport van that would take me to the Sheraton.  Then I turned the phone on, and then the shit, as it were, hit the fan.  I, who get ReTweeted rarely, was suddenly that beneficiary of seemingly endless RTs, of which I’m posting a few.

enderFPhow can anyone NOT see that @MidLifeBloggers comment about black skyhops vs college students is a racist, stupid comment????1:41 PM Jul 23rd from web

 

FloLUM@midlifebloggers I would love to hear a detailed explanation of what it is you were “trying” to say (as opposed to what u actually said)1:37 PM Jul 23rd from web

enderFP@MidLifeBloggers “At airport. Confused. When skyhops were black, knew what to tip. Now they’re college boys, not so clear.” =racist tweet1:36 PM Jul 23rd from TwitterFox

xphaqtor@MidLifeBloggers Well…you don’t have to “intend” for something to be racist, in order for it to be racist.You can unintentionally offend.1:36 PM Jul 23rd from TweetDeck

FloLUM@midlifebloggers really? you don’t see anything racist here: “At airport. Confused. When skyhops were black, knew what to tip.”1:36 PM Jul 23rd from web

Maria0305Well, @midlifebloggers, that was unacceptable.1:32 PM Jul 23rd from Twittelator

 

luvsickPure ignorance- RT @MidLifeBloggers At airport. Confused. When skyhops were black, knew what to tip. Now they’re college boys, not so clear.3:55 PM Jul 22nd from web

LesbianDad@Maria0305 I mug a skycap for his outfit & then follow @midlifebloggers around offering to carry her bags. For a big, fat, edumacated tip.3:32 PM Jul 22nd from web in reply to Maria0305

Maria0305And since I’m @ BlogHer too, @midlifebloggers – please feel free to do it in person. My black ass would love to hear it.3:20 PM Jul 22nd from web

Maria0305No seriously @midlifebloggers WTF? I’m trying to figure out who in their right mind would tweet something like that and WHY. Enlighten me.3:19 PM Jul 22nd from web

Maria0305What the FUCK? RT @midlifebloggers At airport. Confused. When skyhops were black, knew what to tip. Now they’re college boys, not so clear.3:17 PM Jul 22nd from web

enderFP@MidLifeBloggers god i hope you’re just bad at comedy for that comment (re: skyhops)2:41 PM Jul 22nd from web in reply to MidLifeBloggers

I was, to say the least, shocked.  How the hell could my comment be interpreted as racist?  I asked the van driver, who was a Black man, to explain it to me.  He was at a loss as well.  When I got to the hotel, I asked every friend I saw to explain it to me.  Here’s what they said:

  • Oooooh, I saw that and I wouldn’t touch it.
  • What difference does it make what color the SkyCaps are.
  • People should be paid according to the work they do.
  • Oooooh, I saw that and I wouldn’t touch it.
  • You can’t use the word Black anymore.
  • Just don’t say anything about African-Americans anymore.
  • That’s what happens when there are only 140 characters.
  • Oooooh, I saw that I wouldn’t touch it.

If I pride myself on anything, it’s my relationships with people, and this, this stabs my heart.

Of course, it has to be said, that my Tweet came smack in the middle of the Henry Louis Gates-James Crowley controversy.  I imagine I was the beneficiary of some of the anger that was percolating last week about that.  And since I knew none of the people who Tweeted me, that assuaged my pain a bit.  Until someone I do know, someone who knows me, stopped me in the hall at BlogHer’09 to tell me how upset she was at what I said.   I explained what I had meant and apologized for hurting her.  Perhaps that was cleared up for her, since she had told me how she felt, but for me, it was just pouring salt on the wound.

How could someone who knows me just assume a comment I’d made was racist?  And then it occurred to me that everyone ReTweeting me on Twitter was assuming I was white.  And that makes something I say about African-Americans racist?  Isn’t that also the basest racism there is?

A friend of mine suggested that I turn this into a teachable moment about Twitter and the potential for misunderstanding when one is working with just 140 characters (I might have said African-American in my Tweet, but that would have taken up 16 characters as opposed to the 6 of Black).  I, for my part, will rethink my Tweets lest they offend where I don’t mean it.  But the ReTweeters—you might want to think how quickly you assumed an innocent comment was racist—and how nasty you got about it.

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  • Angie

    Hey, I’m sorry to weigh in so late on this, but I can’t help but comment. The word ‘black’ is not the offensive word in your tweet. It is in comparing black people to college students, implying that the black people couldn’t possibly be college students as well. When provide the context, that the black sky caps are middle aged, then it’s obvious what you meant, but in leaving out that little detail, all hell broke loose.

    That could be blamed on twitter’s 140 characters. I can see your problem is a context/language issue, not a racist one. We must be very careful with our choice of words, however.

    • Jane

      Gee, Angie, two years later and you think it necessary to analyze my blog post about a tweet and then scold me about not being careful with my words. Frankly, I’m offended by your words. Your analysis is, as critiques usually are, more a function of your own prejudices than mine. Sorry to be so harsh but even after two years, the willful misunderstanding and rush to judgment that created this brouhaha in the first place still pisses me off.

  • http://www.sasstown.com the Mayor

    Jane, sorry you got such flack for mincing your words in a way that were not understood by some. When you are our age and you arrive at a bustling airport to find things have changed…it’s confusing and we are all so caught up in all the hoopla of anxiety about getting where we need to be, getting through security without losing our expensive moisturizer. I understood your train of thought completely.

    I wouldn’t expect that to offend.

  • http://societeamore.blogspot.com Rowe

    It’s interesting Jane, I live in Australia so have little idea about the Skycaps and non-white people/racist issue surrounding what your tweet was supposed to have meant. I do not use Twitter, and this probably highlights the potential for huge misunderstandings when people are summarising thoughts that perhaps need fuller explanation, in other words when 140 characters is not enough to say what you are really thinking or wanting to convey to others.

  • Florencia

    Jane, I see this conversation is taking us nowhere, and that makes me sad. I 100% agree with Liz’s analysis and her words are the perfect response from me to you: “My guess is that it was not the fact that you used Black vs. African American that rubbed people the wrong way, it’s that the way you constructed your tweet put Black and College Kids into two different categories – two categories that seem to be mutually exclusive, though it seems from what you wrote in the comments that that is not what you meant. But if it’s not what you meant, why didn’t you say middle-aged and college kids instead of Black and college kids? It looks like you are saying someone who is black isn’t likely to be in college, and that a college kid can’t be black.” Yes, yes, and yes.

    I think it is very difficult to accept that we may not be as open-minded or progressive as we would like, but it is a part of growing up and gives us the opportunity to change for the better.

    • http://midlifebloggers.com byjane

      Florencia: don’t know if you’ll get it, but I answered your comment offline. I’m closing down comments on this post. I think we’ve all had our say…

  • http://inventingliz.blogspot.com Liz@Inventing My Life

    Hi Jane – I didn’t see any of this on Twitter, but now I understand your “who can I offend now” status on FB the other day!

    I don’t think I would have understood what you meant by that tweet if I had seen it, and I’m still not sure I understand it after reading your explanation. My guess is that it was not the fact that you used Black vs. African American that rubbed people the wrong way, it’s that the way you constructed your tweet put Black and College Kids into two different categories – two categories that seem to be mutually exclusive, though it seems from what you wrote in the comments that that is not what you meant. But if it’s not what you meant, why didn’t you say middle-aged and college kids instead of Black and college kids? It looks like you are saying someone who is black isn’t likely to be in college, and that a college kid can’t be black.

    I used to think that I was pretty open-minded and not at all prejudiced, but the more I learn about race and racism to prepare for raising a black child, the more I realize that I really had no clue. I can recommend some really good blogs for further reading if you’re interested!

  • Motherssuperior

    Unfortunately,in our day of instant texting and global twittering there is little room for real communication. 140 characters doesn’t invite a dialog …just a reaction.

    • http://midlifebloggers.com byjane

      Motherssuperior Well said. Not to mention true.

  • http://www.not-what-it-seems.blogspot.com Denise

    Jane,
    I saw the twitter on Facebook and admit I was taken aback. I truly did not even know how to respond to it. I wanted to tell you to figure out a way to erase it! I knew without a doubt you were “in for it”. If I ignore the black skycap portion, I could just have said, as long as an employee of the airport takes your bag, you tip accordingly, regardless of who they are. Then I wondered how long it had been since you had flown anywhere.
    Perhaps more than racist, it seemed an archaic notion regarding who provides certain services.
    I can understand how people responded the way they did. It was jarring even to me who has read you for a long time. This is one of the ongoing issues with instant, written internet communication.

    Denise

    • http://midlifebloggers.com byjane

      Denise: It has been a year since I took a plane from Sacramento Airport, so you may be correct that that is the issue. I appreciate your concern for me, but even if you had been able to get that Erase It message to me, I wouldn’t have done it. I think that people’s responses to my comment are like a Rorschach of where they are on the issue of race.

  • Florencia

    Hi Jane,
    I am @floLUM on Twitter. I still don’t understand what you were trying to say. This post pretty much leaves me with the same questions. Was it truly just a poor choice of words? Seems to me you are not clear on this point yourself.

    • http://midlifebloggers.com byjane

      Florencia: Which words were a poor choice? Black? Would you have been less offended if I had said African-American? I’m very clear on what I meant, and here’s what I said to another commenter that puts it in a nutshell: I just looked up racism on our favorite source, Wikipedia, and here’s what they say: “Racism is the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.” Given that as a working definition, I still don’t get how was my comment was racist? I wasn’t saying that the ability to be a SkyCap is a function of race. In fact, I wasn’t saying anything at all about the race of the “college” boys. They could all have been Black for as much as I noticed. What I was noting was that an entire genre of workers seemed to have been replaced by another genre. Perhaps your definition of racist is more broad: a noticing of the races, rather than a value judgment about them. That’s the only case in which I can see how people could interpret my comment as racist.

  • http://thursdaydrive.com Jennifer H

    Jane, I respect and admire you. But I saw that Tweet, too, and I did have the same reaction as the others (though I’m not on Twitter much and didn’t see the backlash).

    I’m afraid I still don’t understand, even after reading this post, what you meant by that comment.

    Isn’t the standard rate $1 or $2 a bag, if someone helps you? (And honestly, if it’s just one bag, and all I’ve got is a $5 bill, they’re getting the $5 bill…) Why does anything else matter, besides the number of bags?

    If it wasn’t racism, then was it ageism? From you, I wouldn’t think that, either…which leaves me confused again. Does a college boy deserve a smaller tip than someone who’s older? Vice versa?

    Not trying to be dense here, at all…but I am trying to understand and feel you deserve as many chances to explain as you feel like you need.

    • http://midlifebloggers.com byjane

      Jennifer H: You’ve got it–it was, if anything, ageism. It was fostered, I think, by my experience in the Civil Rights Movement. I’m just more empathetic to working class Black men than I am to middle class college kids. So it was classism as well. The money had nothing to do with it, and I tipped the college kid exactly what I would have tipped the SkyCaps of yore. But my concern is with what has happened to those SkyCaps. Why have they been replaced, and how are they earning a living now.

  • http://twilightsoul.com Alan McBee

    Hi!

    Welcome to the Internet! Apparently this is your first day here, so I’d like to take this opportunity to give you an overview of what to expect. (end of sarcasm)

    You already know by now that this is the place where people take out their frustrations and get their daily dose of drama by dishing out disdain and denunciation with impunity.

    You happened to be an easy target with that one tweet, and then the power of mob rule took over.

    Was it racist? Yes. I say that without judgment, but merely as a logical conclusion. You mentioned race as a factor in your confusion. Good or bad, it was an issue for you.

    Now, was it biased against blacks? That’s not as clear. Here’s one possible interpretation. Imagine if, instead of you making that tweet, you happened to know it was from an nice, intelligent yet ignorant person from the South who had grown up with black servants, segregation, and all that. Suddenly, your innocent tweet looks a lot more as if you had said something like, “I sure liked it better when blacks knew their place in the world. This progressive equality thing scares me.”

    I’d bet there are a lot of do-gooder-anti-racial-activists (not even sure how one would do that, exactly) who knee-jerk reacted to your comment as though it was submitted by a person ignorant of their own racism.

    I don’t agree with them. I don’t believe you intended for the comment to be biased. But you should know better than to be surprised by the reaction at all. Surprised at the volume and quantity, sure — it is the Internet, and the Internet is prone to sudden surges. But even though your tweet wasn’t meant to be biased, it was racist, and that alone is often all it takes to get an outcry.

    Especially when we’re all training ourselves to stop reading into things after 140 characters, and just react impulsively. Now that’s a trend that scares the willies out of me!

    • http://midlifebloggers.com byjane

      Hi back, Alan–and thanks for the welcome wagon. I just looked up racism on our favorite source, Wikipedia, and here’s what they say: “Racism is the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.” Given that as a working definition, I still don’t get how was my comment was racist? I wasn’t saying that the ability to be a SkyCap is a function of race. In fact, I wasn’t saying anything at all about the race of the “college” boys. They could all have been Black for as much as I noticed. What I was noting was that an entire genre of workers seemed to have been replaced by another genre. Perhaps your definition of racist is more broad: a noticing of the races, rather than a value judgment about them. That’s the only case in which I can see how people could interpret my comment as racist.

  • http://gracedavis.typepad.com Grace Davis

    Hey Jane, thanks for writing this.

    I keep going back to what our mutual friend said, that your Tweet hurt her –

    “I explained what I had meant and apologized for hurting her. Perhaps that was cleared up for her, since she had told me how she felt, but for me, it was just pouring salt on the wound.”

    I say to you, try your best to hold the salt. There has to be a moment where the hurt and emotion has to be put in check. If you can, find that moment, take a second to honor the hurt (the hurt on both sides), put it aside and continue. That’s the only way we can talk with one another rationally and respectfully – taking the charge out of the conversation. And, we have no choice but to start with ourselves.

    The high road, it can suck a lot. But, it has a much better view of the world.

    • http://midlifebloggers.com byjane

      Grace D: I had to write this to start my own healing. Now I’ve said what I needed to, and I’m ready to move on. Thanks for being there for me, friend.

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