在她最近出版的书中, 萨米拉·梅塔提供了一个鲜为人知的见解, 但还是很伤人, 种族主义的类型 

现在是2016年，宾夕法尼亚州 萨米拉梅塔, who would later become an associate professor of women and gender studies and director of the Program in 犹太研究 at the 博彩平台推荐, 和老朋友共进晚餐吗.

他询问了她在选举中的经历, 当他, 像很多人一样, has become worried about the xenophobia stirred up by the Trump campaign. 她过得怎么样? 

简短的回答是:不太好. 

The daughter of a white mother from Illinois and a father from India, 梅塔 has twice been spat on at her local grocery store and told to “go home.” (首页, by the way, is Connecticut, 在哪里 梅塔 was born and reared.) 

然而，尽管如此明目张胆的种族主义行为令人恐惧, 梅塔告诉她的朋友, 他们并不是那种真正伤害她的种族主义. The kind that really hurts her, she says, is “the racism of people who love me.” 

现在梅塔出版了一本探讨这个话题的书， The Racism of People Who Love You: Essays on Mixed Race Belonging, which takes a first-hand look at the challenges of mixedness and encourages discussion of a kind of racism that is sometimes overlooked, 被低估或误解.  

Usually, when we think about racism, 梅塔说, we think about big historical moments. We think about the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia; about Los Angeles police officers brutally attacking Rodney King; about Rosa Parks being told to give up her seat on the Montgomery, 阿拉巴马州, bus; about John Lewis being beaten on the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, 阿拉巴马州. 

“What’s much harder to talk about and think about are moments of racism that you encounter in relationships 在哪里 you love the other person and they love you,梅塔说。. 

爱你的人的种族歧视是很微妙的, 更难以捉摸的种族主义形式, 梅塔解释说, and one that can be especially challenging for mixed-race individuals. 梅塔自己也在很多场合忍受过.

One example concerns the very friend she was having dinner with in 2016. 

年前, 她要飞去看他, 她回忆说, “我被运输安全管理局非常严厉地搜查了, 它是侵入性的. I got pulled out of the line and had to take off clothes, and I was worried. 我的朋友说, ‘If, 通过搜索长得像你的人, 他们保证每个人的安全, 这只是个麻烦.’”

另一个例子涉及梅塔的姨妈. 在家庭聚会上, 梅塔穿着印度服装, 于是她的姨妈决定问问她, “So, 你现在是超级种族主义者了吗?” 

Neither 梅塔’s friend nor her aunt was deliberately being racist. In fact, they’re the kind of people who’d vehemently disavow racism. “这些人是自由主义者, 或者甚至是进步, 真的是他们身份的核心吗,梅塔说. 

Yet it’s precisely this tension between who the person is and what the person says that can make the racism of people who love you so difficult to address. 

“It’s really hard to talk to people about these things, because to them they’re one-offs; to them they’re little things,梅塔说。. “They don’t necessarily recognize what they’re saying or doing as indicative of a larger power structure.” 

+, 梅塔说, “没有人想把自己看作种族主义者,” especially when that person is someone close—an old friend, 例如, 或者是家庭成员——尤其是现在, 当种族主义的指控被认为事关重大时.   

“We’ve got a sort of one-drop rule of racism in the United States, 在哪里, 如果你做了一件种族歧视的事, the distance between you and someone who would burn a cross on someone’s front lawn collapses. It’s the worst thing you could say to somebody,梅塔说。.

This then creates a Catch-22 for those suffering from the racism of people who love them: “If you don’t say anything, you lose the friendship because you let them go off and be racist. 如果你说了什么, you run the risk of losing the friendship because you just called your friend a racist.”

Put bluntly, either lose the friendship or lose the friendship. 

但 梅塔 has a way around this dilemma, one she drew from the work of 洛雷塔罗斯, 一个女权主义者, activist and educator known for her work in women’s rights, 生殖正义和反种族主义, 也是 SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective. 

Ross distinguishes between two modes of confronting racism: 呼出又呼进. 

大声呼喊, 罗斯说, “你认为有人做错了什么, 你认为他们应该为此负责, 你认为他们应该为此受到惩罚.” 

罗斯说，大声喊出来是一个羞辱的机会. 这是出于愤怒. 因此，她认为这是无效的. “通过这种方法，你可以保证一件事. 带着责备和羞辱, you just invited [the person accused of racism] to a fight, 不是对话.”

Calling in, however, is basically the same as calling out, but “done with love,” says Ross. It is not an opportunity to shame but an invitation to change. 它促进对话，而不是争吵. 

It’s the difference between volubly condemning someone at the Thanksgiving table and asking them to a private chat on a walk after dinner. 

当涉及到爱你的人的种族歧视时, 梅塔说, 它在召唤, 不大声喊叫, 这是该做的事. 

And that is one thing she hopes her book helps readers do. She hopes it helps those who’ve experienced racism from the people who love them, 还有那些犯下种族主义罪行的人, 找到一种健康的方式来讨论种族主义. 

但 梅塔 is also quick to admit that these conversations don’t always create the desired outcome, 这不禁让人怀疑, 就像她的听众在她的新书演讲中经常做的那样, when to forgive a person for his or her racism and when to cut that person off? 

“How you make that judgment call is really individual,梅塔说. “这取决于你生活中发生了什么. 这取决于你有多需要那个人. I do not think it’s a good idea to cancel the people you love for things that they do that hurt you, but I also don’t think you should be a doormat who is willing to be hurt forever.” 

换句话说，博彩平台推荐需要找到一种平衡. 要小心. 

但, 最终, 梅塔相信人有能力做得更好, 只要他们有机会. 

“如果你取消人们，他们永远不会成长和改变. 但 they can grow and change when you call them in and offer them love.”

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