In discussing the topic of race and racism, Storey brings up the idea of whiteness. It is considered to be the norm, despite white people not necessarily making up a majority of the world population. He explains that white exists outside of the idea of race and that only non-white people are considered to have a race, which is politically, not biologically determined. To further explain this idea, Storey suggests that if a white author writes a book, he/she will be described as an author; however, if a black author writes a book, he/she will be described as a black author, not just an author. When speaking, people of various races are thought to be speaking on behalf of their race, not just themselves as a white person would.
For the most part, I can agree with Storey’s viewpoint; however, it is clear that he is coming from a western background. In the west, we do tend to consider race in the way he describes, but this is not necessarily the case if we travel to the west. His idea that a person of an outside race tends to be considered speaking on behalf of that entire race is quite true. Where he is wrong, is that the eastern hemisphere does not necessarily consider white to be the norm as he suggests is a global phenomenon.
Traveling to Japan, I became very aware of this. As one of two Americans at my university, when asked a question about my opinion, I was considered to be speaking on behalf of all Americans. This became quite troubling because there were many times I knew that my opinion might not have been in the majority back at home. Just as we may often ask others what they think, I was asked what Americans think on various topics.
Not to downplay the issue of race, I think we do need to reconsider the idea that white people are without race or that his issues with the western world are not applied differently in other parts. I would say that it depends upon the country in which you are in. Certainly in the melting pot of America, we create a norm of something that should not be. However, that same norm cannot be applied to Japan, where the norm (and majority) is certainly those of the Japanese decent.
Going back to the issue that one person is speaking on behalf of their race, this creates a problem, which I believe is also what Storey is suggesting. Just because all people classified into the same race, does not mean they are likely to share the same opinion. Just as all females or democrats or teenagers may not agree on the same issues. We cannot consider one person’s view to speak for the whole. This is one of the greatest problems with classification, which was also brought up as a part of feminism and queer theory and applies to any time in which we try to broadly describe a group.
0 comments:
Post a Comment