Now, here’s the rest of what [a handbook on American customs] for foreign visitors says about how “we” shake hands–is this really how all of us shake hands?
When Americans shake hands, they normally exert a small amount of pressure on each others’ hands, move their clasped hands a bit upwards, then a bit downwards, then release their grip. People from other places where handshaking is customary may hold the other person’s hand more or less firmly than Americans do, sustaining contact for a shorter or a longer time than Americans. One’s character in the U.S. is often assumed by the appropriateness of their handshake.
Obviously, African American men in particular have other ways of putting their hands together, and other racial groups do as well (though I’ll admit, I don’t know what forms the latter take). So this visitor’s handbook may be explaining the “normal” American method, but it’s really the “white” method.
[...]
What’s more interesting, though, about differences in handshaking techniques is that if a white and a non-white person encounter each other in a casual setting and decide to clasp hands, there may be uncertainty about which handshaking method to use–the white one or a non-white one. When there is uncertainty about which to use, the fall-back is usually the standard handshake, that is, the method more likely to be used by the white person than by the non-white one. The non-white person often represses a preferred method of contact, and the white person feels little if any discomfort about being the enforcer of a standard.
(from shake hands our way at Stuff White People Do)
(emphasis mine)
if a white and a non-white person encounter each other in a casual setting and decide to clasp hands, there may be uncertainty about which handshaking method to use–the white one or a non-white one.
This is like saying African Americans who are professionals or find themselves in mixed company “may be” uncertain about whether they should use ethnic slang or so-called “Ebonics.” Like African-American, e.g., have no concept of formal, professional or non-black-ethnic settings where more widely used styles of communicating (so-called ’standard’ English) or handshakes are used. Like African-Americans, e.g., just assumes something they know to be particular to their group is shared by people who are not in their group.
The non-white person often represses a preferred method of contact
Applying the multiple choice test to this is instructive here:
When a Black person (and, again, that’s all you’re aware, by your own assumption/admission) encounters a White person in a casual, everyday, setting is the Black person thinking:
(a) I should give him/her some dap (old school slapping or popping style of hand “clasping”, e.g.);
(b) I feel like giving him/her some dap because that’s what I “prefer” doing when I meet/greet Whites;
(c) This person knows how to give dap
(d) none of the above
The idea that Black people (which Macon wants to stretch into ALL non-white people) are repressing anything is baseless. It’s based on the unfounded idea that Blacks would “prefer” to shake White people’s hands the way they shake Black people’s hands.
It’s like saying someone who is fluent in, in this case, two languages or modes of communication is “repressing” something when they are in settings where their second language is widely used. Like they are uncertain if Spanish is spoken in an English language setting and somehow repressing their Spanish by speaking English in an English language setting.
No. That’s one of those things on the multiple choice test that does not “best describe” what is going on.
Comment by nquest2xl — July 19, 2008 @ 5:25 pm |
if a white and a non-white person encounter each other in a casual setting and decide to clasp hands, there may be uncertainty about which handshaking method to use–the white one or a non-white one.
I’m pretty sure that this is white projection.
Comment by Restructure! — July 19, 2008 @ 5:35 pm |
That’s exactly Macon’s problem in his “express amazement” and “believe others consider them trustworthy” thread. He projects the kind of base response Whites apparently have when it comes to “extending trust” onto Black/non-white people. He took the idea that non-whites have (more of) a reason to not extend trust to Whites, (more of) a reason to DO WHAT WHITES DO and “wait for the [white] person to prove herself better than other [white] people” as non-whites actually doing it.
This is a case of Macon, unwittingly, making Whites the template of human behavior. He felt justified in doing so just on the basis, on the idea that non-whites have (more of) a reason to do to Whites what Whites do to them. PROJECTION BY ANY OTHER NAME.
He just added the little patronizing twist that non-whites know more as a way to justify his sloppy logic. We see elements of this same type of reasoning when he posed this rhetorical question:
what do whites really have to get angry together over, as a racial group?”
So, instead of actually drawing his ideas based on the factual reality, this is all academic to Macon and things don’t occur to him unless he sees a reason for it. When it comes Macon speaking about non-whites and extending trust, Macon’s whole theory revolves around his article of faith/belief that non-whites don’t extend trust to Whites because he believes:
(1) Non-whites have a reason not to extend trust to whites; which he…
(2) Connected to his article of faith/belief that all whites are racist.
That’s why Macon can’t and knows he can’t find support for his stereotyping idea (and it’s a stereotype because Macon’s most direct ‘proof’ was the decontextualized statement of an anonymous Black women who seemed to lend support for what Macon obviously would have said/believed with or without support).
Comment by nquest2xl — July 19, 2008 @ 6:30 pm |
[...] This, of course, is based on Macon D’s assumption that for black people, the fist-bump is always the “preferred metho… [...]
Pingback by “So can I keep my hip-white-boy status? Pleeze?” « Stuff White People Say — July 20, 2008 @ 8:26 pm |
What’s more interesting, though, about differences in handshaking techniques is that if a white and a non-white person encounter each other in a casual setting and decide to clasp hands, there may be uncertainty about which handshaking method to use–the white one or a non-white one.
Macon, sometimes I get the impression that you have a *good idea* and then you prefer to make things up. You again reduce people to skin-color alone, and don’t have any understanding of the greater picture.
Human beings are social living beings, that means people live together in groups and nations. People developed signs, clues, signals, customs and language to communicate with each other. Communication means, that clues, signs, language etc. are understood by all people within eg one nation.
Shaking hands is a commonly understood way in America. It goes back to history, where shaking hands was probably a sign to signal that you don’t have a weapon in your hands.
You talk about a traditional main-stream social signal.
Individual groups/races may develop their own language, signs etc. within the dominant culture. And in many cases this happens as a necessary reaction towards oppression, means, such signs etc. do have particular meanings and extremely rarely the meaning is “hello main-stream”.
Comment by jwbe — July 21, 2008 @ 11:14 am |
[...] I submit that Baldwin’s question is one way for Whites to approach examining Whiteness with a direct focus on Whiteness without the kind of dependency the title line implies and the apparent crutch and built-in focus shift inherent in what seems to be Macon’s idea of “the best way to understand whiteness”, relationally and comparatively to non-whites, as evidence by his problematic practice. [...]
Pingback by “We want to talk about racism, but how can we do that without people of color there?” « Stuff White People Say — July 30, 2008 @ 9:46 am |
[...] justify this feeling with some objective measure. I wonder if I didn’t fall into the trap of assuming too much on behalf of Asians. Obviously, that is the implications of some of the responses to my criticism. [...]
Pingback by the laughing linden branch » Am I being too sensitive? — August 15, 2008 @ 3:31 pm |
[...] African American men don’t shake hands like that at Stuff White People Say [...]
Pingback by White people like writing as ‘experts’ on non-white cultures. « Restructure! — October 27, 2008 @ 11:29 pm |
I guess I am very introverted, but I do not like to shake anyone’s hand unless the situation requires it. Hand shaking is a very odd cutsom that really has no real purpose in the modern world.
Comment by Just Me — December 11, 2008 @ 5:19 am |
After reading all of this……….
This guy says…..WOW! There really isn’t any fixing the things that keep the races apart; not if the comments here are representative of the current race dialogue. I presume this statement should be followed by a thousand page disclaimer in an attempt to avoid offence.
Continue with your assumptions; read aloud from the race conflict handbook.
This thread is weak. ( which should probably be followed by yet another thousand page apologetic disertation to avoid offending someone else.)
Richmond, Va. United States of the Offended
Comment by Kevin — February 26, 2009 @ 2:00 am |