Saturday, Dec. 17, 2005 - 11:18 a.m.

About this race conflict in Australia. I was thinking. How to put this?

So much racism comes from the colonialist mentality...whites were in the position for so long of perceiving themselves to be the ones doing the looking down. Thinking of themselves as the ones with the upper hand and the responsibility for all this...if the whites would just, as individuals or as a group, be nice and treat everyone as equals, then racsim would go away, that would be the end of it. So, it was all the white's fault, and they were also the ones who had the power to see others as equals. A raising imagery. A we're-doing-them-a favor imagery.

Back in Florida, when there would be conflict of any type between people of different races, and the race issue came up, the whites were always so surprised about it. "I didn't go there, why did you?" And an unspoken, "I wasn't going to point out your race, because, see, I make a huge show of pretending not to notice...I'm doing you this huge favor, and then you go and bring it up! But since you mentioned it, you &%$*#..." As if a huge favor was being done, by pretending to not look down on someone (because I think it was almost always pretend). As if whites, (any whites, I'm talking teenagers here, not people with real power), were inherently in a position to do this sort of favor. The ones to decide who gets treated fairly and who doesn't, the ones _allowing_ others to operate on the same level, or not. What a delusion.

Well, the idea of being the ones looked down on, being the recipients of scorn and derision, that's not something that I think whites ever imagined. And I think that's what's going on in Australia, over and above the usual conflict. Not only are there clashes, but suddenly the whites are not the ones in control...it's not, "stop beating up the nice immigrants, be gracious, be kind, be nice." The immigrants are beating up the whites now, and it seems to be a bit of a shock, that the directionality can be reversed in this way. I think they imagine that this isn't how it's supposed to work. "Don't they understand, WE have the power to decide whether this will be a racist society or not, and what that will mean for THEM..."

I guess when I heard how this whole thing got started, I was a little surprised at the behavior of the Lebanese youth who were involved...and then I wondered why I was so surprised-- it didn't fit my mental image of how racist conflicts are supposed to go, my mental schema for race relations. You know, it's the white people who start shit against the innocent Others, and it's white people who have to control themselves and admit that others have a right to exist. Others don't look down on white people, Others don't act from a position of power. Whites are the ones who do the tolerating, Others get tolerated. Ouch! Do I really think like that? Apparently so, and I had no idea till now that I took the power relationship for granted in this way. I only noticed because I found myself surprised when the situation didn't match those ugly assumptions.

Again, I don't know Australia. But I'd be willing to bet that whites there also have this implicit belief that they are/should be the ones with the power in this situation. The Lebanese gangstas aren't buying into it.

I feel like I should say something to summarize or conclude, but I got nothin, and I need to go write my paper.

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