The Stink of Passive Racism

That extremely thin layer of racism… It kinda floats in the air like a fart in the elevator.

A great example of it is when I go bar-hopping in Pacific Beach (or at least when I used to). If you’re brown or black, you may feel a very subtle hint of “something’s not quite right.” It doesn’t always punch you right in the face like a backwards-hat wearing bro at 2am in front of a bar on Garnet. It’s [usually] not that blunt. But it is a primal human instinct; that “spidey-sense."


I can’t lay out evidence of it for you nor am I speaking on behalf of all brown and black people. But the amusing experience that I’ve had, when trying to explain that sensation to my white friends, is often a response of defensiveness or total denial. As if I’m questioning their own potential racism? Is it bringing up something that makes them uncomfortable?


But that’s how privilege works, isn’t it? I’m a 6'5 man with a master command of the English language. I’m privileged AF. I am statistically more likely to be seen as intelligent, more likely to get promotions and have a wider range of options for romantic partners. When a friend, who is not a heterosexual male, tells me about hardships they’ve faced that may have been attributed to their gender or orientation, I don’t question them. I trust that they’ve had a very different experience navigating reality than I’ve had.


Are we feeding that energy or looking for it? Sure. Is that the only reason it’s happening? No.


We do attract energies. If we’re shifty or nervous, a police officer may be more likely to get suspicious. The officer may not be taking into account that we’re being shifty or nervous because we have darker skin and may have a more engrained fear of law enforcement. The officer is probably not taking into account that, in the country-of-origin that we grew up in, a fear of authority was a fact of daily life. The officer may not be thinking about all these things; they may be singularly focused on averting potential danger in order to get home to their kids. We get shifty, officer gets suspicious, one thing leads to another… Some of us don’t walk away from that exchange. Those of us that do often internalize that feeling of helplessness. An emotional gut-punch from the experience of being slammed into the hood of a Crown Vic reinforces fears we’ve had since childhood. And that’s how trauma works.


A police car just happens to pull up behind you in traffic and you feel this twinge of fear in the pit of your stomach. If you’ve never felt that feeling, congrats: You’ve got yourself some privilege.


Dating apps usually pull your Facebook data so you can’t make up a fake name. I’d always had the suspicion that my very Middle-eastern sounding name is affecting my match results but didn’t really quite care enough to test it by creating a fake profile. I don’t really stress about this stuff. It’s just life and it doesn’t serve any higher purpose to dwell. But I finally got the opportunity to test this out when I joined Plenty of Fish recently. I started my account with a nickname that doesn’t hint at my background. I had multiple women messaging me totally out of the blue and had a higher response rate when I initiated. At first I thought that may have been due to my being new to the app.


"You don’t look white lol,” was a message I received from a woman who’d initiated contact. I must’ve missed that field so I updated it to “Middle Eastern.” What followed was seven days of radio silence on Plenty of Fish. No one messaging me and people reading my profile and not responding to my messages. I switched it to “other ethnicity” the other day. I’ve had two cold contacts and more responses when I initiate contact since the switch. Conclusive? Of course not. But interesting…


I do pretty well with women in person at a bar. This is due to many many factors and is totally anecdotal, of course, but I imagine a contributing factor is not knowing my name and not having yet attached any preconceptions as a result. That’s the feeling I get, anyway. It’s pretty difficult to explain those feelings in passing conversations when you’re watching people you love starting to squirm at the subject. And I’m not angry about this. Anger isn’t the solution. And I’m not particularly interested in dating the type of person who would shy away from someone with a Middle-eastern name anyway so I appreciate them filtering themselves out.

But it does chip at you a little bit.


If you’re not putting daily effort into awareness, growth and gratitude, I’m sure it chips away enough to make the most passive person burn with rage.


I’m good with me. I don’t get nervous around police officers. I kick ass at job interviews. I’m charismatic and articulate. If anything, this may be the universe’s way of keeping my inflating ego in check. In which case… Thanks?


“She said her friend doesn’t date black guys,” I said to Jamahl. And we laughed heartily about it. He shrugged that it’s not something he dwells on. Our life ambitions are too high, and the love in our lives too abundant, to waste time dwelling on the thoughts of every single soul stumbling their way through this planet. There is a reason we’re such close friends. “Think about this though,” I ask him, “have you ever heard a girl say about her friend: ‘she doesn’t date Middle-eastern guys?’ You’re at least a part of that conversation!” And we shared a silence.


Looks like this is my floor. That fart smell was uncomfortable, I’ll admit, but I’ve got an important meeting to get to. By tomorrow I’ll have totally forgotten about it.