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Dismantling Racism Resource Book

televisions, in movies, in educational books, etc., there is reinforcement of the idea that the Norm
is the majority and others either do not exist or do not count. Or when there is false information
and distortion of events through selective presentation or the re-writing of history, we see only
the negative aspects or failures of a particular group. For instance, it has been a major task of the
civil rights movement and the women’s movement to write blacks and women back into history
and to correct the distorted versions of their history that have been presented over centuries.

This distortion and lack of knowledge of the Other expresses itself in stereotyping, that subtle
and effective way of limiting lives. It is through stereotyping that people are denied their
individual characteristics and behavior and are dehumanized. The dehumanizing process is
necessary to feed the oppressor’s sense of being justified and to alleviate the feeling of guilt. If
one stereotypes all gay men as child molesters and gives them the daily humiliations of
pejorative names, such as “faggot” or “cocksucker”, then a school administration can feel
justified, even righteous, in not hiring them, and young heterosexual males can feel self-
righteous when physically attacking them on the streets. In stereotyping, the actions of the few
dictate the classification of the entire group while the norm is rarely stereotyped. Because of the
belief that groups outside the norm think and behave in unified stereotypical ways, people who
hold power will often ask a person of color, “What do your people think about this idea (or
thing)?” When do we ever ask a white man, “What do the white men in his country (or
organization) think about this?” They are expected to have and to express individual judgements
and opinions.

Stereotyping contributes to another common element of oppressions: blaming the victim for the
oppression. In order for oppression to be thoroughly successful, it is necessary to involve the
victim in it. The victim lives in an environment of negative images (stereotypes) and messages,
backed up by violence, victim-hating and blaming, all of which leads to low self-esteem and self-
blame in the victim. The oppression thus becomes internalized. The goal of this environment is
to lead the victim to be complicit with her/his victimization: to think that it is deserved and
should not be resisted.

Some of the best work feminists have done is to change attitudes from blaming the victim to
blaming the abuser-a very slow change that is still incomplete. It is no longer automatically the
norm to blame victims of battering, rape and incest for having somehow been responsible for the
harm done them; instead, people are more inclined to stop supporting male dominance by
protecting the abuser. However, we have yet to examine thoroughly the blame we put on victims
of racism, homophobia and anti-Semitism. People are condemned for being who they are, for
their essence as humans. When we are clear of those oppressions, we will understand that the
issue is not one’s racial, ethnic, religious or sexual identity-one should have the inalienable right
to be who one is-but the problem is racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, and homophobia and the
power they support and protect.

Blaming the victim for their oppression diverts attention from the true abuser or the cause of the
victimization. For example, a commonly held belief is that people are poor because they are
unwilling to work. The belief is supported by the stereotypes that poor people are lazy, abuse
welfare, etc. What goes unnoted is the necessity for poverty in an economic system in which
wealth is held and controlled by the few. If the poor are in poverty because they deserve it, then

Dismantling Racism Project 29 Western States Center