Let's talk about Racism

[CoffeeDrinker]

I think any time race is used or talked about it just makes everyone look like a jackass.

Think about it. I am a white kid who sometimes hangs out with black people. Whenever another black person comes up to my friends they always do this slap-up thing and talk about their blackness and how cool it is. But in reality they are just acting like jackasses, and I am a jackass for sitting there watching it happen.

Another thing, I also know some poor white people who are very racist. Normally, these people don't bother me. They are just products of their upbringing and not everyone is very discerning in their beliefs as they should be. Whenever we hang out it's fun, we usually talk about fixing up our cars and shooting or burning things, but whatever. That's just what some poor white people like to talk about, but whenever they talk about race and how they hate black people it annoys the crap out of me. They are being jackasses, and again, I am a jackass for being there in that situation.

Whenever a racist white person hangs out with a black guy clinging to his blackness, the race issue is an unspoken taboo, and hanging out becomes much easier because everyone pretends it doesn't exist, and therefore it doesn't.

Not to mention this whole idea of race is based on unfounded beliefs.
Race makes everyone act like jackasses. That's about the only thing I can say about it.

 

[mihna]

I don't think racism can end until the existing repercussions of our racist policies are reversed. Doing so requires an open, honest debate about the topic.

Even after we fix the socio-economic disadvantages we created we will still have to deal with the prejudices that are in everyones head. Which I think will only happen long after the people who can remember what it was like before non-whites were socioeconomic equals die.

Everyone is a little bit racist. I'm half black and were raised by some of the most tolerant people around and well I still get nervous around some black people.

 

[MistaJeff]

I think a lot of people are racist against white males, it saddens me when people think you can't be racist against whites. A lot of people of color give me odd looks, I've never owned slaves, get over it!

Also I don't think racism can truly end until there is only one ethnicity. I don't see that happening for a long time so I guess we all just have to get used to it.

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

I think a lot of people are racist against white males, it saddens me when people think you can't be racist against whites.

I had a job as a nurse's aide in NYC, where this job is dominated overwhelmingly by middle-aged American Black and Caribbean women. As a young healthy American-born white male, I had a lot to prove to them. Their stereotype of my demographic was privileged, pampered, entitled people who have no fucking idea what hard work, especially physical labor, feels like. So I had no choice but to be the hardest worker on the floor, and my rights to any sort of complaining, bad attitudes, or slacking off was effectively zero. I did ultimately overcome their stereotypes and suspiciousness of me, and win their respect, but it took awhile.

Stereotypes and mistrust of ethnically different people is pervasive among people who aren't close to any people of that ethnicity. The only thing any one of us can do about it is to take care not to fit these stereotypes.

 

[Jabberwocky]

*bumped* for upcoming prune

I'll say in addition that many people I've known to be able to be rational and analytical about most every issue that could come up have often succumbed to extreme emotionality when it comes to race.

Additionally, there is a lot of finger pointing regarding race relations. I suspect many people's fervor about racism is that no one really wants to take some ownership of racial preferences or less than positive feelings about an ethnic group, except for overt racists. This denial or lack of ownership about feeling related to race might be a factor in projection and finger pointing.

 

[L2R]

since this thread i read an interesting piece from georg simmel called "the stranger". he gives an interesting perspective at how one actually benefits from cultural trade from interactions with "others". i ended up writing a criticism about it, but it is interesting nonetheless.

read it here
http://www.infoamerica.org/documentos_pdf/simmel01.pdf

 

[Jamshyd]

^ Thank you! Will definitely give it a read.

Simmel is considered a "classical" Sociologist and, if memory serves, one of the founders of the Symbolic Interactionism paradigm. Much as his name came up in the first couple of years at university, I just realized that I have never read anything by him. Go figure.

 

[ebola?]

since this thread i read an interesting piece from georg simmel called "the stranger". he gives an interesting perspective at how one actually benefits from cultural trade from interactions with "others".

It is an interesting piece, however also demonstrating the pathologies of this particular exchange arising from the still in-process dislocation wrought of modernity.

Simmel is considered a "classical" Sociologist and, if memory serves, one of the founders of the Symbolic Interactionism paradigm.

Pretty close: Simmel was a 19th C. German social theorist, and as such, he provides key conceptual underpinnings that would later be reclaimed by symbolic interactionists in North America. Namely, Simmel does far more to connect macro-structure (for him, quite formalized and geometrized) to the character of micro-level interactions than say Comte or Durkheim, paralleled only by DuBois, who mainstream sociology was busy ignoring during the period.

Much as his name came up in the first couple of years at university, I just realized that I have never read anything by him. Go figure.

Yeah. I didn't encounter Simmel's text until arriving at grad school, although one of our profs throws him at undergrads (it's very difficult prose).

ebola

 

[L2R]

It is an interesting piece, however also demonstrating the pathologies of this particular exchange arising from the still in-process dislocation wrought of modernity.

but was it arising? i took the writing to be more of a naive propaganda piece trying to convince people of the benefits to interactions in modernity. by the time simmel wrote it, modernity had already been here a long time. it goes back to the enlightenment.

 

[ebola?]

Philosophical, economic, socio-political, and literary-artistic modernity all follow different time-courses. He wrote at the tail of the industrial revolution, and there seems to be a near ubiquitous and significant lag between change and our theories of such change.

ebola

 

[L2R]

still, was that interaction he describes actually happening?

 

[ebola?]

No. It was meant as a paradigmatic illustration of a type of interaction that arises within a particular context, which opens up in particular social spaces due to the advent of modernity.

ebola

 

[FrankieBonez]

IMO, so many anti-racists who blatantly ignore racial differences are just as ignorant as open racists. Differences are what make all of us so special but differences are still great tools for distinguishing each other. Racism will never fully disappear (until everyone eventually becomes one race). I can fully appreciate each race and culture but certain races' positive/negative attributes and stereotypes are too obvious to me to not critically analyze.

Everyone preaches racial equality which I'm totally down for but what are we measuring that by? Call me racist or whatever, I'm just observant.

 

[~_Hiss_~]

I don't consider myself racist, as I've had black friends and don't look at them all as bad, but I'm disturbed that blacks have a 700% higher violent crime rate (according to FBI statistics) and overpopulate whites by a significant margin in prisons. I can't be quelled by "its just S-Eco-Status" because it has to be more than that. I expect genetics but could be rap/black culture and extra anger from their historical position. Two things which lean me to genetic cause(s): Black countries in the world are usually 3rd world or very poor. And blacks seem to have a much higher preference to cocaine/crack than whites, in which opiates are more popular.

 

[ebola?]

What about particularly unique conditions of ethnically marked, geographically concentrated poverty coupled with specific conditions of targeted police surveillance?

I expect genetics

Why? What does your training in biology suggest to you?

ebola

 

[~_Hiss_~]

700% is just a huge number. If it was 1/10th that I'd still suspect something beyond poverty and police. Poverty is also bad among whites so I'd expect some evening out of numbers there. Why are so many poor in the first place?

Police could be a small part of the problem, but in black areas there tend to be more black cops. And i'm mentioning violent crime in particular, not drug deals so police surveillance isn't much of an issue.

I'm not against blacks, but there is some hidden anomaly or anomalies going on. They can get into college easier than whites. Some take advantage of this, and some hit the streets and kill. More blacks go to jail than college, a sad fact.

7 x more violent crime... thats like having a group of 50 whites and 8 blacks (the ratio in population), and those 8 hypothetical blacks kill/rape more people.

Or you pass 7 random white guys alone in an alley, but passing only 1 black is just as dangerous...

 

[Jabberwocky]

They can get into college easier than whites. Some take advantage of this, and some hit the streets and kill. More blacks go to jail than college, a sad fact.

Assumes facts not in evidence. Many universities have programs to recruit minority students. There are minority scholarships. Easier? Well that would depend on where the individuals in question grew up, where the went to high school, what sort of family and economic support they have. If you grow up surrounded by violence, desperation, injustice, threats against your safety and well being, etc it might not seem quite so easy.

Income levels, location within inner cities with more lead and pollutants, unequal nutrition medical care, imprisoned and absentee fathers- How would we go about looking for your hidden anomaly when there are so many unhidden and obvious contributing factors to minorities disadvantaged condition.

 

[slimvictor]

Or you pass 7 random white guys alone in an alley, but passing only 1 black is just as dangerous...

The number represents the proportion of each race that were a) caught, and b) successfully prosecuted, not the proportion that engaged in illegal activity.
The racism within the system means that Blacks are more likely to get caught, and more likely to go to jail for the same crime.
Socioeconomic circumstances plus a historical explanation seem to go a long way toward explaining things - I don't see why you would want to bring genetics into the story when you can get that much of an explanation from history plus environment.

 

[L2R]

there was a doco on this exact question of genetics aired recently on sbs. i missed it, but the ads looked interesting
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/race-and-intelligence-sciences-last-taboo

 

[Kenickie]

700% is just a huge number. If it was 1/10th that I'd still suspect something beyond poverty and police. Poverty is also bad among whites so I'd expect some evening out of numbers there. Why are so many poor in the first place?

Police could be a small part of the problem, but in black areas there tend to be more black cops. And i'm mentioning violent crime in particular, not drug deals so police surveillance isn't much of an issue.

I'm not against blacks, but there is some hidden anomaly or anomalies going on. They can get into college easier than whites. Some take advantage of this, and some hit the streets and kill. More blacks go to jail than college, a sad fact.

7 x more violent crime... thats like having a group of 50 whites and 8 blacks (the ratio in population), and those 8 hypothetical blacks kill/rape more people.

Or you pass 7 random white guys alone in an alley, but passing only 1 black is just as dangerous...

sorry, but FUCKEN LOL. 8) "I'm not against blacks, I just don't like them" will continue to issue out of "not racist" people until it becomes the exact same as Muslim, which isn't being racist of course, just sensible. I think I posted in this thread 30 pages ago and would have liked to see it die in the prune, as I would like to see most race discussions die in a prune -- on site and IRL.