Race

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Racial identification has perplexed me my entire life. I am what people in the United States would call "black." Now, they very rarely identify me as "black" on sight because I am so mixed in reality (I imagine that only 25-35% of my DNA comes from my African ancestors). People tend to think I have a Latino ancestry, or perhaps even Mediterranean or Arabic. I have never identified with a racial group, and to be frank, I do not understand how anyone can feel like they are somehow inherently culturally different because of skin color. I do understand ethnicity, as it is to do with culture (though I do not identify with any ethnicity of which I am aware), but why are people so focused on race? Often, I will be talking with someone for the first time, and they ask me what my "race" is not long after the dialog is initiated. When I tell them I am "white," "black," and Native American mostly, I often get a reply along the lines of "Oh, wow, you are very articulate," as if to say "black" people are intellectually inferior to "white" people by design. From then on, I am "black" to them, exclusively and unquestioningly.

I was in the military for a bit, and I recall on the first day of Basic Training filling-out personal data paperwork, and coming to the "race" block. There was no way to just choose "other" or "decline," which I typically select in order to avoid having to swear allegiance to a "race." I found this to be such a conundrum that I actually asked a Drill Sergeant how to proceed if I had a varied background, and he (of course in a very agitated manner) instructed me to just select whichever "race" made up the largest percentage of my background. I selected "white" rather than "black" or "Native American" for this reason. Now, I do not consider myself to be "white," but I also do not consider myself to be "black" or anything else either! I was RIDICULED in front of everyone, and apparently it was so funny that all of the discipline required of trainees went out the door, and the Drill Sergeant laid into me for "thinking [I am] white," encouraging a chorus of laughter and jabs.

I also often notice people describing other people in sentences by connecting together a slew of negative adjectives and then saying "and she's black" or "and he's Mexican!" and etc. Then there's the famous format of "A big black guy tried to rob me today." When I express my discomfort with all of these types of behaviors, people get pissed-off with me. I make sure to be as objective and clear as possible, but they behave as if it is offensive to observe and sincerely seek to understand their racially-biased behaviors and expressions. The central theme is people making a strong note about someone's race when it has no bearing or relevance whatsoever to the topic, the context, anything. How is this useful? It almost never strikes me as useful to associate someone's race with their behavior.

It seems that "blacks" in America think the same way. I have never understood these rules, or why people demand I affiliate myself with a specific race. Everyone I know seems to have very strong feelings of belonging culturally to a phenotypic expression. How does all this business work, and why? Every time I talk about this issue or ask anyone why this is the way things are, or how to deal with them, or talk about my feelings of alienation they act like I am -CRAZY-, regardless of their own ancestry, experiences.... Is this some NT BS at heart?

Most NT's categorize by groups (including "race") so that they can feel part of a social group.

It's because racial identity is important for many people. You can get discriminated based on your race, and you can have privileges based on your race. Race isn't biological, it's a cultural construct, but it doesn't make it any less real. It shapes a person's experience even if (s)he doesn't want to.

I'm not saying it's how it should be, bud sadly, that's how it is.

Not all people are like this, though. But the society in general... I'm afraid it is.

Yep, this is major NT BS that autistic spectrometers tend to be largely immune to (from what I gather from previous WP threads). Immune in our own comprehension, not immune to the discrimination visited upon us by others.

I was thinking about race a lot on my bike ride an hour ago. I live in a "bad" neighborhood, but everyone I've run into here has been really nice to me. The people I've talked to that think the neighborhood is bad are all white post-collegiate kids. The neighborhood is mostly "black" (although by "black" they mean 20 gradations of tan & brown) and I think that's their only basis for thinking it's a bad neighborhood. I'm a Swedish/German wh***y with just a smidgen of Cree (Native Canadian) DNA.

In general, most all my life, brown people have always been really nice to me, whether they be of african, hispanic, native american or asian descent. Perhaps I simply do not project white privilege and the fear of poor people? Like when I see a person, my mind doesn't start racing, wondering if they're going to take my wallet. People just strike up random conversation with me, and I listen to what they're saying and respond to what they are saying instead of adhering to some preconcieved stereotype about "what those people are like."

Your account of getting chewed out in the army makes me sad. I tend to hate any multiple choice questions for the same reason.

The thing is, your race can shape your experience in the world, such as your gender, or your sexual orientation, your class, or your Asperger's. Again, I'm not saying this is how it should be or that we should just accept it and move on; on the contrary, people should (and do) fight against it. I'm just saying I'm not surprised people "care" about race; it's not a meaningless thing, such as your eye colour: it's something that can shape a person's experience.

But I do think people should fight against racism even if they're not directly affected by it.

You experienced some of the discrimination yourself, in the way people treated you. You weren't even allowed to racially identify how you wanted (to put "other" or "refuse to say" on the forms).

This might be incendiary and off topic, but I feel like class discrimination is the only valid form of discrimination. Everything else, (be it race, religion, gender, body type, sexual preferences,) is just smoke and mirrors perpetuated by those with power and property to distract people from how much they are getting screwed over. Keep the commons hating each other, and they won't turn against their masters.

I'd just like to point out that race isn't just something NTs are guilty for. While people with Autism and Asperger's are generally less prejudiced and pay less attention to race (which is something we should all be proud of), I wouldn't say race is something Aspies don't ever notice. It all depends on the person.

Let's face it: Aspies aren't immune to the "common NT prejudices" such as homophobia, racism, anti-semitism, classism, etc. And like this forum proves very elegantly, many aren't immune to sexism. So let's not turn this into the "it's something evil NTs do".

"Race" to me is a social issue humans are too dumb to get over. And yea, racism is defiantly an experience, though people shouldn’t assume everyone from x race was brought up and experienced the world the same way. People need to get rid of their collective mentalities, because that's what causes racism.

Okay, I was not trying to imply that only NT people are guilty of racial group thought. What I was trying to get at was "Is this something I cannot easily feel or understand for this reason?"

Also, I do not think it is stupid or useless or wrong to be aware of "race" from a scientific point of view (gene pools, really, not race), or a historical one. I just do not understand why people are most comfortable defining themselves by what is often least relevant to a conversation... I do think it is important to understand social realities; I do not, however understand why so many people would find it impossible I can communicate in standard American English.

How is painting the world with such a limited palette of stereotypes not a disorder in this age of technological prowess and scientific understanding?

It's called the language privilege. There's a huge philosophy and semiology behind it, but, basically, there's a school of thought that believes that words shape the way we see the world and that they can be used in the power battle between people. To "own" a word meaning to give it your own meanings. When you have no say to even name yourself or your group, you are the oppressed. It's not really about the word itself, but the meaning and the power behind it. By restricting people outside the group to use a certain word (the "N" word in the black group, for example), the group takes the things into its own hands and takes the power to define and label themselves the way they want, as the opposite of how people outside the group, namely, the oppressors, labeled them.

That's why many people take language privilege seriously.

Important: Please don't think I advocate any of this. I'm just familiar with these issues through my anthropological work. I'm trying to explain here how people think about these things that OP find confusing (the best I can). It doesn't mean I agree with it.

One time I was taking an 'assessment' kind of test at a college. There was a section of the test I was to fill out...it had absolutely nothing to do with the test itself or what purposes the testing results would be used for - and, yes, part of it was a 'choose-your-race' (the rest of it seemed more like a marketing survey than anything else). The test 'administrator' (a barely-out-of-her-teens student worker) was fretting at me, trying to whine me into actually filling out the irrelevant sections. I told her it absolutely wasn't mandatory on my part... she gave in and took the document to her supervisor in a room around the corner, and apparently expected me to continue sitting in the testing room though I'd considered myself finished and ready to go. I gathered my belongings and, in an effort to be polite, stepped around the corner to say 'good-bye' I found the two of them in this room...huddled over my document - FILLING IN THE IRRELEVANT SECTIONS THEMSELVES! That's how determined some folks are, I guess, when it comes to categorizing and recording those categorizations of others. Really just a bit mind-blowing. I told them, "Now be sure you get my race right -- it's not Caucasian, ya know". And boy, did they look worried...cuz what else could a natural blonde with Danish and German features be? Ha!