Re: Discussion - 1st ebola case in US (excluding health care worker transfer) Dallas, Texas
Re: Discussion - 1st ebola case in US (excluding health care worker transfer) Dallas, Texas
"UnAmerican" probably is not the best choice of words because it tends to evoke, in some people's minds, the image of rightwing extremism. So let's use the word "evil". Charging someone with racism in an effort to denigrate a point they have made is evil. It is accusing them of holding repugnant beliefs or feelings and of arguing their points purely on the basis of those beliefs or feelings. It completely undercuts what they are trying to say based on an assumption you are making about them, without knowing them at all. Not unlike being branded a "communist" in an earlier time.
I agree with you that discussion of how things play out in different communities is very relevant, and is not racism. To quote one of my favorite historical figures, we must strive to judge people by the content of their character not by the color of their skin. Note that MLK did not say we should not judge people. He said we should use the right criteria for judging them. Race is biological and has nothing to do with character. Culture, on the other hand, does have a hand in shaping character.
Right now this seems so far off topic that maybe it shouldn't be in this thread. BUT if there's an ebola pandemic then sadly we will face hard questions about what constitutes moral behavior. I've thought about this a bit. If my child were to have ebola and the health official came to my door and said "She must go into a quarantine hospital and you must stop all contact with her", what would I do? I could not leave her, so if it came down to stopping all contact so that *I* could survive, or staying with her and probably dying myself, my decision would be unequivocal. Would I go out shopping? Heck no, I'd quarantine myself too. But ... if things get bad then health officials and neighbors and others might feel my choice was not acceptable. Things could get dicey. Let's hope things don't go that far in the U.S. Keeping in mind that only one plane flight away, there are a lot of people for whom things HAVE gone that far.
Well, look, I don't know if this is the best place for the conversation, but it certainly has struck me as a relevant topic repeatedly throughout this entire outbreak. There are people here screaming about the borders (which is usually loaded with meaning about our southern border.) There are assumptions about Africa's ability to deal with this, and assumptions about how much better we will do -- some of that is fair, but some of it strikes me as full of "American exceptionalism." There are tons of people -- not on this board, so much, but on social media in general -- who have expanded this from being about three to _iffily_ four or five countries in West Africa, to being about the entire continent of Africa, and then -- you'll see it if you look, I'm afraid -- to being about Black people generally.
This is a careful topic.
I don't agree with you that it's evil to call out racism when you see it. Please do understand that I am the sort of person who prefers very much to give people absolutely huge amounts of space to clarify their point. But there is also actually racism, and it shouldn't be humored. I personally generally try to ask people clarifying questions, because sometimes, there is an honest point in there that ultimately isn't racist. But please also understand that _sometimes there isn't one_. Sometimes, it actually is just racist.
I agree that it shuts down conversation to call somebody out there, but there are sorts of conversation that do need to be either shut down or guided to whatever the actual little kernel of a point is that might be there.
Whatever the point is, if there is one, it's never actually about race, by the way. There can be community issues or cultural issues that are important to understand to some depth when you're dealing with diseases spreading, just on a practical level. Different groups of people have different gut concerns and different ways of communicating sometimes, that's what diverse communities do. But awareness of that is not the same thing as broad-brushing huge groups of people based on identifiable racial features, or even necessarily based on ethnicity or nation of origin.
If some of us are occasionally really on guard on this front, I suggest you take a look at social media. It's not an unreasonable reaction, there is a lot of flat racism out there. This is a level of conversation that has to be had very carefully and thoughtfully, with a lot of willingness to be criticized. It's hugely important, but if it can't be done carefully, I'd personally rather it go unsaid here -- the damage that can be done in public health through sketchy, questionably-racist things is huge.
Criticism on your framing or phrasing is not the same thing as calling you a terrible human being, either. We all have a lot to learn, when it comes to these intersections.
