By Gary Paramanathan
So I found myself in Portland, the supposed land of the liberal and free, and definitely not Liberal with a capital L (Australians know what I mean). Portland is where you find hippies and hipsters alike, a place where you can be whoever you want to be, you can wear the most extravagant outfit and walk down Broadway or Burnside, and no one would blink an eye lid, they may even smile. There is one condition though; you kinda have to be white and preferably wealthy. Welcome to the world of new liberals, where ethnic food, energy efficient homes, arcade bars and a general sense of ‘I am better than the rest of the whites’ is what makes the world go around, and when it comes to coloured, it’s best saved for the vintage Pendleton sweaters.
I had arrived in Portland after having visited a number of amazingly diverse, mixed cities across the US. Even conservative Arizona, had a rising liberal serpent that was Phoenix. Memphis was well mixed, New Orleans was gentrifying but there was a strong POC presence, Atlanta had a breathtaking Black middle class. I thought I was ready to say “well it ain’t that bad”, things are getting better in the US of A! Then I hit Austin and Portland and I became quickly disillusioned.
I of course knew America was not post racial yet, that would take a few generations. Remember the people who were beating up the Blacks and Whites riding in the freedom buses in the 60s are still very much alive and well, and their children who saw their parents detest people of colour, may have grown up but childhood socialisation is hard to undo. I was also a lot more grown up about racial issues within the queer community. For there was a time I was naïve enough to see the gay community as a beacon of progress, in my experience I have found Lesbians to be on this platform, but gay men, well I’d argue they are even more gruesome when it comes to race than the straights. I guess for some members of the community who feel so rejected and desperate to belong, anything that is a kink must be ironed out. There has been some great coverage (see end of article) on these issues, even in marriage equality campaigns evidenced by their focus on white middle class than us POCs. There’s also the kind of queer stories that are told, such as Pride where white men are the exclusive leads in the queer movement.
A National Lesbian and Gay Task Force study found that 85% of LGBT Asian Americans had experienced discrimination in the LGBT community. An OKCupid study also found that gay white men (like straight white women) strongly prefer whites to other groups, while white lesbians respond to all racial groups equally. All this discrimination is dished out ever so subtly by the new liberals; afraid to be labelled conservative, but unable to shred their prejudice.
Portland was my perfect example of the subtle yet cutting racism practiced by some white men (and reinforced by some men of colour caught amidst it). I know many people have written about this experience, in fact there is a tumblr set up specifically to express the pains of POC living in Portland, so I felt I had to try something new. Something that only a sole bored tourist could do.
Driven by boredom, well…masked by boredom and driven by a general sense of disenfranchisement. I decided to conduct a little social experiment, I messaged 20 “white hipster” types, which is the common find in Portland, saying a simple “Hey there mister”, if they responded I would continue on with a general conversation and if they didn’t I would send them a follow up message called “Silence of the white lambs”. I had got this idea from my time in Austin where I noticed POC gays were friendly and social online, but whites in general were standoffish or just ignored you. I’d become accustomed to this in the cultural backwaters of Sydney where quite often the opening line is “what natio?” or “are you Indian?” but I did not expect this in the liberal outposts of America.
I also knew focusing on sexual racism, and hook up culture would be a bit repetitious so I wanted to focus on a general sense of community as well, how interested is a white hipster in engaging in conversation with a brown boy. I wrote on my profile that I was looking for friends, people to hang out with, with no expectations, and messaged those with the exact claims.
I wrote silence of the white lambs, because these men/boys were just that; white, young, possibly furry and like lambs copied each other to perfection. Silence of course is because they would not engage anything that did not mirror them.
Of the twenty “silence of the white lambs” messages I sent, 3 wrote back and to this I sent my big block of text:
“Hi, I’m bored and disenfranchised so this is my online protest for the undeniable yet under the radar racism perpetrated by the pervasive whiteness in the Portland gay community. I’m specifically talking about the so called lefty, progressive types, who carbon copy each other and perpetuate ideals of beauty which by default exclude men of colour. Please take a moment to think about the privilege you hold in your community and the responsibilities you may have to those who remain invisible”.
I thought what better way to fight a sense of alienation than to slap these ignoranuses with a big bang of a statement.
Of the three who received this message, one was unable or unwilling to deal with it so he simply blocked me. The second guy genuinely engaged me in conversation on the topic, albeit excusing himself as someone who just doesn’t get out enough to see all this in action. The second guy sent me this
I laughed it off, and then when I was up for it, I continued my experiment more and more, till I left Portland and landed in the much more friendlier Denver.
I’m not sure what if anything my little online protest achieved, but I guess at the height of being ignored, one has to stand up and say something. Silence can often be complicit in reinforcing behaviour. Of course rejection online (and nastiness for that matter) is a common phenomena, and I couldn’t expect everyone to find me interesting or want to talk to me, but when an experience is so pervasive, I think one has to challenge it, and ask that question “is it me, or is it them?”
In this quarry of confusion about whether it is me or them, I began to miss the old days when someone would just spell out on their profiles “no rice or spice”, this kind of overt ‘in your face’ racism hurt, but you knew exactly where you stood. We’ve kind of shamed these people out of existence, but we haven’t taught them anything. What Portland and Austin clarified to me was that, in our attempts to quell racism, we have merely driven it underground, and what was borne was this new liberal racism, the foundation of white utopias (or maybe reestablishment), where you can roam the streets without fear of POC, where you can feel good about being a progressive white person who shares articles on social media and critiques the ignorant smalltown white folk. A place where colour is present in juices, salads and in posters, where cinemas can show films about struggles, but the struggle never entered your own space, so it was never uncomfortable. The ADFs and KKKs of our times will eventually die out, but what may survive far beyond that is this new liberal racism, where you are a concern, not a viable community, where you are street cred, but not bring home friendly, where you are the feel good catalyst to absolving white guilt, but never an equal member of society.
Huffington Post has some great write ups on gay racism:
Open Letter to Grindr Users: I Am Not Rice, He Is Not Curry
Egg, Banana, and Coconut: Are Gays More Racist?
Another article worth checking out: