We have had several interesting conversations on Utterz about the topic of race. Many of these have been in part inspired by the Presidential race and the events that relate to it, both good and bad. I'd like to explore this topic with the goal of showing just how similar we are and as an extension hope to help us start acting like we are really this close!
I was struck by this story about an Obama Delegate that had to resign from the campaign after the following exchange with neighbor children in Chicago.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/…8283.story
-She said the parents were outside, but she intervened because she was concerned about the boys' safety and because the small magnolia tree was being damaged.
-"I went over to the kids and told them to get out of the tree," Ramirez Sliwinski said.
-The father of one of the boys told her it was none of her business, she said, and "I calmly said the tree is not there for them to be climbing in there like monkeys."
She was later ticketed by police $75 for using a comment that could have been racially threatening. Sliwinski has a Hispanic heritage and her neighbors are African American.
Now the word 'monkey' has definitely been utilized over the years as a derogatory word directed at African Americans.
That said, the word monkey unlike other words, is not 'always' a racially derogatory word emotionally charged with hate.
I regularly refer to my kids as monkeys. They are monkeys. In fact genetically, they are about 92% monkey. By calling my kids monkeys, I am not charging them with a racial epithet.
Personally, I consider it a boastful comment when I call them monkeys. I want them to be able to climb around in trees or anything else as part of their evolutionary genetic birth right.
I have many many friends and neighbors of every race that also do and have referred to their own children (and mine) as monkeys as well.
Now, in the story that I refer to (http://www.chicagotribune.com/…8283.story ) It would appear that the lady involved that worked for Obama, probably had a long history of problems with her neighbors. In fact, it sounds like both this lady and her neighbors could probably be categorized as something that knows no boundary of race, ethnicity, religion or sex.
It sounds like all the parties involved are assholes.
So with that obvious caveat out of the way, what do you think?
Do you think of your kids as monkeys? When you were a kid, did you ever feel like a monkey, pretend to be a monkey, play like a monkey or anything like that?
Do you think that the word monkey when used in this situation was racial slur or hate speech?
Would you call a child not your own of a different race a monkey? If the parents of a child of a different race were to refer to their own children as monkeys, would you concur with them or tell them that maybe that is not an appropriate comment.
On that last question, I would add that I am and have been sensitive enough to not refer to children of other races as monkeys, even when their own parents did so. I did not think of them as monkeys for racial reasons, but for the same reason I think of my own kids positively and proudly as monkeys, because they were hanging from and swinging from trees. But due to the extra politically correct environment and country that I have grown up in, I have been conditioned to not use that word in that context.
As I reflect on this story, I have to now wonder if I have been harmed in this conditioning and if I have helped to propagate that harm on others.
I have to wonder if maybe I should have fought to keep the word monkey in my lexicon. I am a very small part African American and a slightly larger part but still relatively small part Cherokee, but I am 92%+ monkey(99% chimp), and you know what so are you!
Should we fight to save our monkey Heritage?
Image: Black-capped Squirrel Monkey (Saimiri boliviensis). Picture taken in Apenheul zoo, Apeldoorn, The Netherlands. Photo by Jens Buurgaard Nielsen Caption by Brett Bumeter
Mobile post sent by brettbum using Utterz.
No comments:
Post a Comment