UNINTENTIONAL/INTENTIONAL RACISM

This Sue's News article is from 2011:

                                            INTENTIONAL/UNINTENTIONAL RACISM

Years ago I read an article about unintentional racism. An example given in the article was that in the Katrina aftermath, when Barbara Bush and the former President Bush toured the Astrodome, Mrs. Bush commented, "So many people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."

The fact that those poor people had lost loved ones, homes, jobs, pets, and possessions seemed lost on Mrs. Bush.  The author of the article attributed her callous attitude to "unintentional racism" and concluded that she did not realize that her remarks were indeed racist, but just showed her to be out-of-touch and unsympathetic.   I wondered aloud, "I wonder how she would have felt if she'd lost everything and was transported hundreds of miles away to sleep on a cot with no privacy?"   Recalling her remarks about Geraldine Ferraro, I was not inclined to be as tolerant.

Bob, one of my colleagues at Rockwell was a very well-spoken, educated, professional who happened to be African-American. One day, Bob and I were having lunch together, and later, another colleague who had observed us together, commented, "He's the whitest black man I've ever seen." I called him out and told him that remark was offensive and racist;  the guy was obviously surprised and said he'd meant it as a compliment. I said, "Then I'm supposed to infer that you think that only white people USUALLY have his attributes?" He said, "I didn't mean anything by it."