One of the hard parts for me to understand about articles like this is the addition of race into a social calculation that may not have included race. If I see somebody I'm hiring has a clean car (one of the examples in the article), I'm not thinking "Great, a black person acting white by having a clean car, I'm hiring her", I'm thinking "Great, a tidy person with a clean car". I see this a lot. Obviously there are people who think the first way and I'd wager almost every person of color deals with these people every day so it's probably hard not to do that. But putting assumptions like that on every social interaction seems problematic to me. But as a white man I of course have absolutely no real sense (outside of reading and friends) of how it is to live as a person of color so what do I know. Just thinking out loud.
Please understand I am just trying to explain a viewpoint, not necessarily state my personal beliefs.
I think the argument is that you won't notice when a white male is tidy. You notice a black person with a clean car because subconsciously you don't expect it. So even a positive thought or comment (a tidy person with a clean car) becomes racial because it would never have come up with a white male.
I know some people think that way, and racialize everything.
I admit that I just don't get this point of view. I really don’t. I aim, and generally succeed, at being as color blind as possible.
To me a person with a clean car and nice clothes is a person with a clean car and tidy clothes. I don't get surprised when that person turns out to be a black female or a white man.
Same thing with a person at the opposite end of the spectrum - i.e. a nasty car and dirty clothes. While one could stereotype blacks in this situation (“ghetto”), or whites (“hillbilly”), why would you do that?
It can still be about race even if you aren't thinking about race when you make that kind of judgment. If you are black and poor, you may not realize that having a clean car is something you will be judged on, and the lack of knowledge might be due to racism. You have to be socialized into middle class culture in order to understand the somewhat arbitrary class signifiers that white people with more power than you care about. Due to poverty, segregation and poor education, you might not get socialized. And if you've spent time around genuine bigots, you might not want to ingratiate yourself to a white culture that you believe hates you just to get a job.
Some of these standards are reasonable on their own. They can become unfair and racist, not because individuals are necessarily bigoted, but due social policies that disadvantage minorities and the poor.
That is one of the most poisonous memes spread by haters who want to drag their peers down to their level, that a black person is "acting white" or a woman "acts like a man", when all they're doing is, in a completely race- and gender-neutral way, working hard and improving themselves.
