White Women Who Don’t Get Racism
News anchor Katie Couric has made news of her own recently with her analysis of the male-dominated news business (image from here). Couric didn’t stop there, though. She went on to suggest that there is sexism in the news business and beyond in the larger society, but that “sexism is worse than racism.” Here’s the full quote from Couric, via Politico:
“Unfortunately I have found out that many viewers are afraid of change. The glory days of TV news are over, and the media landscape has been dramatically changed. News is available now for everyone, everywhere, all the time, and everybody fights for the last pieces of the shrinking pie. The corporate pressure and the ratings terror are intensifying all the time, and the situation is not simple. I find myself in the last bastion of male dominance, and realizing what Hillary Clinton might have realized not long ago: that sexism in the American society is more common than racism, and certainly more acceptable or forgivable. In any case, I think my post and Hillary’s race are important steps in the right direction.”
With this assessment, Couric joins a long and growing list of white-women-who-don’t-get-it, when it comes to racism, such as Geraldine Ferraro. As Adia Harvey wrote here back in March, “Making the case that sexism is worse than racism or even that it is the primary source of women’s oppression ignores the experiences of minority and working-class women (who simultaneously contend with racism and capitalist exploitation) and ultimately alienates these women from feminism and feminist causes.” Couric, like Ferraro, is no doubt speaking from her own experience in which she certainly encounters sexism but doesn’t encounter racism. Why would she? Given her skin-and-class privilege, it’s almost certainly the case that the only kind of inequality Couric faces in gender inequality. And, she’s right to call it out for what it is. But this doesn’t mean that Couric is right about racism, or about sexism’s significance relative to racism.
Instead, Couric’s comments simply reveal that she’s clueless about the pervasiveness of racism in this society because she’s never encountered it herself.
She’s not alone. Another white woman in the news recently who has revealed her lack of recognition about racism is Elisabeth Hasselbeck, a celebrity co-host on the television show “The View.” In an exchange with Whoopi Goldberg last week about the use of the “N-word” and the fact that racism is pervasive in our society, Goldberg asserted that she and Hasselbeck live in “different societies” at which point Hasselbeck broke down in tears. This isn’t the first time that Whoopi and Elisabeth have gotten into in about racism on the show. Back in March of this year, when Hasselbeck said she was “offended” by the fact that Barack Obama referred to his grandmother a “typical white woman” who would be fearful if she saw a group of African-Americans on the street. Elisabeth explained that she is a “typical white woman” herself and would never be afraid of a group of black kids on the street. Whoopi, however, didn’t buy it, and called her on it. At the end of the exchange, Hasselbeck pleaded with Whoopi for a “rule book on racism,” basically admitting that she didn’t get racism.
I think it’s understandable, really, that the privileged white women like Couric, Ferraro and Hasselbeck don’t get racism given how little analysis of it there is in our society.
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:43 pm
Jessie,
My mentor, Noel Cazenave, has a concept, “RACISM EVASIVENESS” that is outlined in his (2000) Race & Society article on the struggles surrounding the formation of WHITE RACISM course. The concept explains the denial of the existence and significance of white racism as an organized thought system among social scientists but also among non-academics. I find this concept very useful for framing discussions of racism and as a way to directly explain the subtle ways people use to deny systemic racism.
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Tom, I myself will have to take a look at your mentor’s works.
In response to the piece before us, I think the women are making a logical fallacy for comparing what words are permitted on news and opinion shows with words and actions that are permitted in society at large.
Also, they’ve been sensitivised to the big NO-NOs, ie n*, b*, c*. And maybe even they know referring to a middle-aged many running for president as “boy” is bad (if they don’t know why). But to the more subtle instances - referring to Obama as an empty suit, or “all speech and no action.” The accusations that he’s naive. Have Pat Buchanan and Bill Bennet on these programs. Every word that came from Ferrarro’s mouth. Most especially her claims that the Obama campaigned called her a racist when no one from his campaign ever did. It’s all racist, even if it doesn’t register for Couric and Clinton.
Which makes me wonder. Is there a group besides Media Matters that’s working to get folks like Bennet and Buchanan as well as Limbaugh and O’Reilly of the air?
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Oh! And that the media (or it could’ve just been online Clinton supporters) acting as though the Clinton campaign complaint that the Obama campaign was purposely making them seem racist, even the Clintons make that claim is racist. Do they really think that black voters have to be told when people are being racist against su? Are black voters supposedly that sheep-minded?
And, I think this may be as good a place to ask as any. But is McCain running sort of a racist public relations campaign? Would he be challenging Obama about going oversees AND about not agreed on McCain’s terms to the townhall meetings AND cackle that Obama’s “naive.” Maybe it’s because I’m reading . But it seems like he’s free to boss Obama around and chastise him for not doing what Boss said. And the cackle Obama’s “naive” sounds like both always seen adult black men as boys AND blacks as less intelligent and less able to adapt to new information intellectually. Don’t get me wrong. I know some of it’s just politics, but it sure is rubbing me the wrong way.
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:45 pm
I’m reading SLAVERY BY ANOTHER NAME, which could affect how I perceive these situations.
Sorry for the back to back to back comments.
July 23rd, 2008 at 12:24 am
Jessie,
you are so on point with this. OUr society does precious little to help anyone understand racism, and I’d submit, from a Marxist perspective that that is no accident. Racism, sexism, ethnocentrism and all of the other backwards idealogies serve the purpose of dividing the working class against itself. It would seem obvious to me that all public school education would include a section on race which explains in scientific terms that it does not exist, and has only meaning which society has given to it.
A man can dream can’t he?
July 23rd, 2008 at 4:25 am
Tom, excellent point. Must check out that article.
July 23rd, 2008 at 6:27 am
I would not be able to say from personal experience whether or not sexism is any worse than racism or if sexism is more common than racism. My first instinct is to think that they are both prevalent and many times are occurring simultaneously.
Speaking from the point of view as a person of privilege (so if I am wrong about this please correct me), I have the perception that sexism is more acceptable than racism, or at least it does not carry the same stigma if a person is accused of sexism as if they where accused of racism.
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:20 am
Hey there Tom, no1, Kai, GDAWG and Liberaltexan! Nice to see there’s still someone in the blogosphere even in midsummer.
Tom, I’ll definitely take a look at Noel’s article. no1, you raise several points - not sure how to respond to all of them, but there are some other folks working on media issues - more about that in another post. Kai, excellent analysis - and I suspect you are correct, that it’s no accident. Liberaltexan the question you pose about your perception that ’sexism is more acceptable than racism’ still assumes and either/or model (sexism or racism) rather than a both/and model. As Adia mentioned, such a model “ignores the experiences of minority and working-class women (who simultaneously contend with racism and capitalist exploitation)” and sexism.
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:17 am
Disregarding for a moment the experiences of African American women and focusing on the either/or model I can see how frame of reference would bias beliefs concerning which “-ism” is worse. I think for a person in a position of power and influence (like Clinton and Couric) the glass ceiling might seem more impenetrable for white women than for black men. For the vast majority who are not in a position of power, however, racism is a more significant obstacle.
I have no empirical evidence to back this up, but I find it entirely plausible that black men face relatively more systemic hardship at low and middle income levels and white women face a greater barrier to reaching the absolute pinnacle of hierarchies.
So in short, I agree that Couric and Clinton don’t get it. For the vast majority of the population racism is probably worse and the combination of the two is clearly worse. It is only the extremely privileged and powerful woman who will encounter systemic prejudice which might equal or even surpass that of racism.
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:57 pm
I don’t know, mgs. It’s not like there’re a lot of black male CEOs. We have more white women in Congress than black men. We have a female Speaker, and the highest a black man has come is majority whip.
I think these women’s perspective isn’t just scewed by their positions relative other Americans, but also their privilege and white racial frame reference. By that I mean if a white female co-worker doesn’t get a promotion/raise, the red flag may immediately go up. If a black male co-worker doesn’t get a promotion/raise, they may be more ready to accept that he had some flaw. Does that make sense?
July 24th, 2008 at 7:43 am
[...] Racism Review presents a great article on Katie Couric who, despite her social standing, fails to make the connection among oppressions. Amazingly, she even has the audacity to say that sexism is much more prevalent and worse that racism. [...]
July 24th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
I love how white women like Couric and Ferraro, who are not and never will be disadvantaged by racism, can say that it’s less severe than sexism. It is equally frustrating when black men who are never disadvantaged by sexism dismiss feminism as irrelevant and secondary. Narcissism and self-absorption of any color is so not cute. And really, shouldn’t only minority women should get to say whether racism or sexism is worse, since we’re the only ones who encounter both? I’m being sarcastic here–my real point is that minority women’s voices are so overlooked on a topic where we really are the ultimate authorities, because this is our lived experience. If we did take minority women’s lives more seriously, we might learn that in some cases racism is an obvious barrier, in other cases sexism is, and in most cases they both intersect to
structure our daily realities. Privileging one oppression is a useless solution because it leaves the others in place. The only effective stance is to work to eliminate ALL forms of oppression.
July 29th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
One key question to ask when someone tries the foolish question of which is more acceptable than the other, is simply to ask: more acceptable to whom?? One can start by identifying the “whom.” White commentators in the media? or Whom?
August 13th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
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