Racism Vs. Prejudice

Warning: I expect to stray from the central thesis a lot in this article.

A while back, I was obliged to explain the difference between racism and prejudice, after a fairly disturbed friend (not mentally, she was just upset) reported that she was called a racist during a casual dinner out with her husband and his raucous Coast Guard buddies. Although the explanation can easily be summed up in one or two sentences, I’m going to flesh it out a bit because it's way slow at work and I forgot to bring my Kindle with me.

We’ll start with the official definitions. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “Prejudice” as: 1. an opinion that is not based on reason or experience; 2. dislike or unfair behavior based on such opinions. “Racism” is defined as: 1. the belief that each race has certain qualities or abilities, giving rise to the belief that certain races are better than others; 2. discrimination or hostility against other races.

Back to my friend.

Picture it: Benihana at sundown, eight drunk people seated around the hibachi table. My friend (we'll call her 'C' because I'm too lazy to ask permission to use her name) is the odd one out in this particular scenario. She has met these people before, but she doesn’t really know any of them and they’re all talking shop, so she felt a little out of place. What does C do when she feels a little out of place in a social situation? Same thing that Rachel does – she has a couple of drinks (hey, everyone was doing it). What happens to C after she’s had a couple of drinks? Same as what tends to happen to Rachel – she gets a little confused. (And there we have an unintended example of how alcohol bridges the gap between ethnicities.)

C and her husband have a Cuban friend, who is from Hialeah, FL. One of the gentleman who was seated at the table, is a Colombian man from Miami. In an attempt to make casual conversation, she confused the two when she asked the latter “you’re Cuban, right?” He looked away from her and mumbled “fucking racist.” So, now, she was really uncomfortable, in addition to being embarrassed and remorseful. Such a thing would make me want to crawl into a hole, cry and vow to never show my face among civilized people again. C is just as sensitive as I am, but she’s not nearly as shy. Her response: “is there something you would like to share with the rest of the table?” (I guess he didn’t because there was no elaboration.)

C was practically shaking when she relayed the story to me. No one had ever called her a racist before and it hurt. She didn’t mean to be offensive, she had simply made a mistake. And here I sit, unsure of how that can even be taken offensively. I can’t visually tell the difference between Colombians and Cubans. I can’t visually tell the difference between Koreans and Chinese people. I can’t even visually tell the difference between Sephardim and Ashkenazim, and I’m one of them. I don’t see how this can be construed as racist or prejudiced. Ignorance? Not sure. I think the technical term is “oops.” Is “oops” offensive? If it is, I have a few words for people who assume that I’m Italian or Greek, instead of recognizing me as the Austro-Hungarian Jew Goddess that I am.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, C was questioning her existence.

She chose to ask me, of all people, if she had made a racist comment. I told her no, it was not racist; it wasn’t even prejudiced. She asked what the difference was. I was so glad she asked me this, because it gave me the opportunity to offer a personal anecdote and I just love talking about myself.

Several years ago, I had a friend who led a housecleaning crew that was made up entirely of Cubans. Many Cubans in Florida, at least at that time, were coasting on the now-defunct “Wet-Foot/Dry-Foot” policy, which allowed Cuban refugees to board a fast track to U.S. citizenship, without a visa, provided that they set foot on dry land before the Coast Guard can bust them. Once they reached dry land, they had X amount of time to find employment. (There’s this really awesome museum in Key West that has homemade rafts, or “chugs”, on display. Cool to look at, but also creepy and sad because the fact that they are there means the passengers aboard didn’t make it. Anyway.) This friend of mine hated working with the crew because they were extremely lazy. She complained about them constantly, but checked herself the first time she put the words “Cuban” and “lazy” in the same sentence. She felt utterly mortified and asked me, of all people, if what she had just said was racist. “No, honey,” I said, “that’s not racist, that’s prejudiced. If you had said ‘all Hispanic people are lazy,’ that would be racist.” (It also wouldn’t have made any sense coming from her, since her husband is a Puerto Rican war vet, who routinely puts in 12-hour workdays. Psst! not lazy.) This bit of insight didn’t make her feel any better, but I felt great because it was a light bulb moment and, if there’s anything I love more than talking about myself, it’s light bulb moments.

As per usual, I digress.

C felt a bit better, I think, for having had this particular conversation with a Jew, because we’re often targets of ugliness. Also, she’s a Judeophile (those folks crack me up). I consider that to be an ironically charming form of prejudice. “Jews are awesome!” Are we? I beg your pardon, friend, I have it on good authority that we can be right arseholes, just like anybody else. We can be dicks, we can be poor, we can be rotten cooks, we can be great athletes, we can be uneducated, we can be good dancers, pork-loving, meat-and-dairy-mixing, well-hung, dark-complexioned, blond-haired, blue-eyed, button-nosed, we can even be card-carrying Atheists. (Seriously, I have business cards that say “Rachel Beam, BFA, LMT, Atheist.”) No, we don’t have horns (they are typically removed at birth).

I’m going to cut myself off at the “horns” comment, because I’m now on the verge of telling the story about my mother’s first college roommate, a very sheltered and ignorant girl from Alabama, who got all wide-eyed when she found out she was rooming with a Jewish person and, P.S., she asked to see my mom’s horns. This girl meant no offense and none was taken. On the contrary, 50+ years later, everyone is still laughing. Okay, it looks like I just told the story.

Anyways, joke’s on the kid from Miami: C is half Colombian; he couldn’t tell the difference either.