Racism - A Dead Ism

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Re: Racism - A Dead Ism

Post by Dr Starchild »

I'd say racism is "applied prejudice".

Prejudice
You can't really stop from having the instinct to generalize, it's how animals survive in the wild.

"Big tooth roar beast ate my friend Ug. Me stay away from all Big tooth beasts".

Being unable to generalize might mean you narrowly escape a lion to then be eaten by a leopard.

Racial prejudice
It's judging people by some of their physical characteristics, based on previous experiences or just cultural input (what you see on tv).

If a black guy's mugged you once, it's normal to be scared of guys or black people afterwards

Racism

Racism is when you let yourself be swayed by prejudice, when you make decisions on other people based on fear or generalizations. For example not hiring a person of color because of that time some other black guy did mug you.

As humans living in a complex world we've got to acknowledge our primal, caveman instincts to be able to rise above them and function in a vast, crowded, culturally variegated world which we didn't really evolve to handle.

TL:DR, prejudice is instinctual in everyone, but acting racist is a choice, or at least lack of effort to be better than a caveman.
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Re: Racism - A Dead Ism

Post by Fright »

I didn't read this whole thread but just saying @OP you probably shouldn't throw around racial slurs even if it is "for science", it's uncomfortable as hell LOL.

Edit: I'm not black but I am a gay man. If someone made a post like this saying faggot every other line I'd be skeeved out, that's my point.
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Re: Racism - A Dead Ism

Post by vipor »

Personally I think the term racism is overused.

Don't get me wrong. I annoys me that people yell and curse at people because their skin color is differen't of religion.
Which also led to the 'anti-racism' junk. "We are a multi culty business so we are looking for a gay person for this managers position."
That ad showed up once and for weeks people where complaining again. From all groups.

But I think it is better to stop shouting at people to be less rasist and talk to people to find out what is the cause of their racism.
If a white guy is berated for rasist speech against a black person then all that happens is that the white person believes that everybody care about the black person and that everybody hates the white person.
Which in turn makes things worse. White gets further upset, yells worse things. End up yelling at the wrong black person and the cycle goes further and further.

The thing is.
Some people are rasist out of fear or because they feel the other group is treated better than they are.
But a lot of time I also see things that are not meant as rasist but groups will twist it to a point they can feel offended by it.
Not to mention some people are so set in their ways that they can't see a differen't path.
Or they link themself so deep to the past of their ancestors that they feel that everybody sees them as their ancestors had been seen.

People should stop using the far past as a reason to hate other groups.
In my ancestory I had people who where lay down against their will by Scotish people. I don't hate the people living in Scotland for it.
Further back some of my ancestors where abducted and kept as slaves. I don't have any reason to hate the people of those countries.
If I hate all of them for what has been done to my ancestors, then I am only making myself miserable to a point I will make other people miserable.
AKA pointless.
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Re: Racism - A Dead Ism

Post by SwnyTddObsd »

I've been thinking about this thread for a few days now... I remember seeing it go up when it was first published years ago and I didn't have my thoughts put together coherently enough to come up with a response. I skimmed most of the replies here and found that they've got plenty of food for thought.

Spoiler for length. Also, this is mostly about race and racism in the American context, which I come from.

Spoiler
It’s most interesting to me how often people think of racism as just the bad attitude of an individual towards maybe a few other individuals. The Imaginary Racist is a grouch and insults people for being of a certain race, some feelings are hurt, one person is the narrative bad guy who’s vanquished by ignoring them or a witty comeback, and that’s the entire scope of the matter.

When that’s how you see racism, it’s so easy to just start your posts and sentences with that oh-so-familiar “I’m not racist, but…” But being racist isn’t just a status – you don’t get a Not Racist badge until you do something racist and someone comes and takes away the badge. There are lots of subtle ways to act that may be biased, careless words that mean different things to someone of a different racial background, or assumptions and attitudes that everyone around you tells you are okay to have (because they probably hold those too).

Sure, The Imaginary Racist is also A Real Racist, but the scenario doesn’t end when you walk away. You know that person is still racist and willing to act on that. The words linger, and the hatred that motivated those words and actions sits heavy and threatening on your mind and on the shoulders of family tree of people like you that eventually led to you. There’s a fear that someone else is waiting to say this to you, or that someone who thinks these things wants to hurt you. It’s not just verbal exchanges on the personal level. It’s not just some nasty kids with nasty ideas.

Racism, especially in the American context, is way bigger than any of that. :orly:
Those kids got those ideas from somewhere. Those fears of harm are founded in history, incident after incident after incident. The fear of the lack of protection by the law is founded in case after case of bias and power imbalances. Racism is a social issue.

I think that comes from the fact that race is a social construct. (And the worst communities of the Internet have finally latched onto “social construct” as a term of mockery the way they did “triggering,” which was already an established concept with scientific and psychological basis, and that no one uses the way they do. :/) But race really is a category that we humans invented and applied arbitrarily on a societal level.

What is race? Is it skin color? Is it nationality? Is it ethnicity? For all of these little markers that technically decide your race, there’s an arbitrary quantity or quality that puts you in one category or another. Consider the one-drop rule and other forms of arbitrarily creating a legal definition of race for people with mixed racial backgrounds. Skin tones range wildly within defined racial categories. Nationality only refers to one’s country of residence. Ethnicity is associated with a geographic region and cultural markers rather than the broad racial categories (i.e. my race is Asian but my ethnicity is Han Chinese). Consider how children who are adopted by families of a different racial category are still treated by society and people as whatever arbitrary race they’re “supposed” to be based on appearances and ethnicity.

Race was invented as a categorical characteristic into which people are forced arbitrarily one way or another, and thus defies dictionary definitions when you look at it broadly. Race in the American context was certainly cemented early on, when black slaves were determined to Be Black and Not White, and subsequently and literally deemed less than human. Racism based on these working definitions of race thrived on levels of economic and social discrimination that permeates all of society. From labeling the bodies of black slaves as the inhuman property of white slaveowners, to denying freed slaves and other black people the right to own property, to widely held negative stereotypes permeating media and society that have barely changed in the past hundred years, to the legal right for businesses in America in my parents’ lifetime to deny service to someone on the grounds of being black – racism has never been just a bad attitude. It has always been a systemic force of oppression and repression and violence.

The idea of “privilege” is another one that makes people sneer, but I think it’s hard to deny that people who never had to think about race until they were much older or until they moved out of densely white areas really are privileged to have had the luxury of never stopping to consider the effects of race on people who look like them or their ancestors. Similarly, these are often the people who are the most sensitive about being confronted over racial issues (though the sensitive types come from all sorts of backgrounds): “I don’t see color,” they may say, or “I have a [non-white race] friend,” as though these things really address racism. History shaped the present and our own foundations were built on that history of racism. It takes more than colorblindness to undo the systemic inequalities before us.

The history of racism is not “someone said something mean about someone else’s race.” Racism can be present in even the little things. The absence of black characters in high fantasy came up on Ta-Nahisi Coates’ Twitter the other day while I was tweeting out my creatures, and it’s a familiar topic to me because it strikes my interest. But how many white people came out of the woodwork in his comments like this was new and earthshatteringly dangerous to their enjoyment of fantasy? How many people will write essays defending the whiteness of most fantasy worlds but never stop to just admit that the absence of non-stereotypical or just any non-white characters is probably racially motivated? How many people continue to argue that they’ve never made a mistake, whether they’re interested in the Not Racist badge or not, rather than admit there was a mistake made and that we should resolve to do better?

And even when we do better, what happens? We get white fans upset over a movie like Black Panther, mockingly calling it non-diverse for not having enough white characters without a trace of actual irony. They act without shame in public as though the lack of whiteness is an attack on them, rather than a celebration of the underserved and underrepresented communities. We even have people who’ve come so far around that they think confronting racism is worse than the continued existence of racism today. We get people who think racism was over when the Civil Right Movement “ended,” who quote Martin Luther King Jr on peace, but selectively choose only the meager sentences they can find that make it easy to justify their bad faith instead of the papers you can find that condemn their very attitudes decades from the past. History isn’t dead. Racism isn’t dead, not in the sense of being done.

Martin Luther King Jr., [i]A Testament of Hope[/i], 1968 wrote:America is deeply racist and its democracy flawed both economically and socially. All too many Americans believe justice will unfold painlessly or that its absence for black people will be tolerated tranquilly. Justice for black people will not flow into society merely from court decisions nor from fountains of political oratory. Nor will a few token changes quell all the tempestuous yearnings of millions of disadvantaged black people. White America must recognize that justice for black people cannot be achieved without radical changes in the structure of our society. The comfortable, the entrenched, the privileged cannot continue to tremble at the prospect of change in the status quo.

For some context, the oft-misrepresented I Have a Dream speech was delivered in 1963. He was murdered in 1968, and A Testament of Hope was published after his death. He didn't die peacefully, nor did he die for the sins of racists.

But I also definitely agree that discussion is one of the biggest steps forward we can probably take. A popular small step is continuing the push for media that fights back against the incredible prevalence of misrepresentation or lack of it helps not only in a fight for racial equality, but the fight for equality on a lot of fronts that all stand to benefit. Even “majority” groups benefit from increasingly inclusive environments and works, but in some cases, starting from the individual can be the starting point for something bigger to happen. I borrowed the quote above from the comments of this great short opinion piece, but I think an even more important idea needs to be highlighted: the fight for civil rights was never just about the little things you might list; it was about gaining full access to American society, and there has never yet been a law that could or would even attempt to grant that. But society can happen in neighborhoods, in social circles. The power of the individual to make change in their community isn’t one I’d like to underestimate. But it needs to be flexed by an active participant – someone challenging racism instead of letting it slide by.

It just also so happens that sometimes, the individual level doesn’t work for society. And sometimes, a larger social movement needs to be organized and to make waves.

If I’m remembering correctly, the NYT recently re-released the results from a survey done in the 60s about white attitudes towards the Civil Rights Movement. We learn in school and through history books about this movement as unilaterally justice-oriented and good for society today, but just look at the resentment and negativity white people held about the movement while it was happening. How many of those surveyed turned their vapid smiles outwards when the actual protestors and leaders of the movement achieved the change people (children) died for, pretending with their families that they never saw race or color? Did they actually raise their children any differently than how they were raised? How many people will say the exact same things those white people said decades ago, telling non-white people what the right attitudes and behaviors are to get change done?

I say this all as an American-born Chinese kid, and one who’s trying to understand how social change comes about. My feelings are strong because I find that my mother came to the United States and was taught her opinions on race many years ago, and that she is as resistant as anyone else to considering that her opinions could be biased. I feel, to answer my own question in the paragraph above, that there has been some degree of social shift that is increasing awareness and general levels of education on these matters. Despite my mother’s racist ideals, I was exposed to materials and opinions that are available to anyone, the kinds that are especially accessible to people who take advantage of easier access to educational materials and who are interested in investigating or challenging their own ideological foundations from childhood up.

I don’t hold that my opinions are in any way “absolutely right” at all; I’m always trying to read more, listen more, think more about what thoughts I can develop further. My own experiences are limited, and I can’t speak for anyone but myself. But it makes me sad and disappointed (to say the least) when people think that the discussion starts and ends at bad attitudes and saying rude things. Resisting change is resisting change, no matter what you’re motivated by. So-called neutrality is just acceptance of the presence of whatever racism there is right now, isn’t it?

And sure, anger complicates everything, but it’s also the most reasonable response, I think, to all the history and continued prevalence of so many forms of racism around today. Just because one person doesn’t feel angry about it all doesn’t mean they get to speak for everyone else and tell them not to be angry either. That: a) isn’t helpful, and b) is just astoundingly self-centered as an attitude towards something that is, again, bigger than any one or two people. It speaks to the personal nature of racism – that the fight against racism is about how it hurts people who live their lives just as troubled and rich as your own. And the effects of the broad denial to advancement in society hurts their families and has hurt their ancestors. Minority populations are disproportionately affected by poverty and avoidable deaths that come with being poor. Death and sickness and environment are just a few of those complicated factors that will shape an entire family living with and around them while denied access to the resources that could protect them.

Of course there are hurtful actions taken in anger and spitefulness that are objectively hurtful or discriminatory (ie. the actions of TxCat's coworkers, for instance), but I don’t feel that being wrong makes them racist. And I know resolutions are hard to reach in the moment when those things come to pass, but it continues to come down to the differences in attitude of people standing on different sides of history. Not many people at all can truly "choose" their race, not really. Sure, there may be people who may "pass" one way or another, but consider the attitudes that motivate arguments against affirmative action. There's mostly anger that "someone got in because they're not white," and not "black children weren't even allowed to attend the same schools as white children" or "zoning practices that create disproportionately poor and black neighborhoods also create schools that underfunded and understaffed, creating huge disparities in educational opportunities for black children, and the only administrative solution has been just to increase the number of black students instead of addressing this system educational issue that was never resolved". Maybe seeing it that way makes the anger of PoC a little more clear.
(None of this applies to racist anger that’s about hatred and the frustration of wanting to hurt people for racist reasons, of course.)

I agree with Fright, that we shouldn’t use words that are absolutely just discriminatory and racist, even in the context of talking about them. They’ve got as much history as everything else, and language has always played a key role in how these racial boundaries are enforced.

But I guess I do agree with OP that racism certainly has no place here and now. As a Chinese-American lesbian from an extended family of dirt poor farmers in the mountains of China, I’ve got a few strong feelings about the attitudes of classism and such that also shape racist attitudes, but if I was to answer the prompt of the thread, that would be my response. My challenge to anyone who’s already surmounted the challenge of reading this monstrously disorganized rant is whether they’re willing to make any small actions to fight the presence of racism in their lives, even if it’s not directed at them…?

There’s also this weird idea that you can’t criticize something without illogically hating it. This is in particular to GrowlingCupcake’s point about disliking common attitudes and personalities among the Indian people she knows, being Indian herself. I have similar feelings towards certain cultural and traditional attitudes in Chinese culture. But that doesn’t mean I’m racist against Chinese people or that GrowlingCupcake is racist against Indians, because being mean or disliking people isn’t the actual basis being racist. Those attitudes are part of what motivate the larger actions against people of certain race, but they're by no means the extent of the incredibly large scale of racism. Consider the difference between not liking someone and things like the impact of the water crises in Flint and other poor and minority-dense neighborhoods around the US, or the socioeconomic impacts of insidious practices like redlining. Consider the case of how a white woman lying about a young black boy sexually assaulting her led to his torture and death, the exoneration of his murderers, and her confession to lying only after all of their deaths, even though her lie was more fuel on the fire for thousands, if not millions, of people convinced that it was reasonable to think that black people are frightening and subhuman for decades.

This is all failing to even start touching on the fact that racism doesn’t just hurt minorities. It’s a socioeconomic system that hurts poor whites just as much, but that also ends up engendering attitudes that help no one in the communities that hurt the most. It’s just so much bigger than feelings being hurt or not understanding how something was racist once, and I have a lot of feelings and not a lot of person to hold it all in.
I’ve been stuck at 5’3” for years… RIP.

I leave you with this short relevant thread by Ju-Hyun Park on Twitter.

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Love and fury CAN coexist. The fight against racism and other forms of discrimination and injustice is a labor of love. It is a heavy labor, where awareness of the deaths of those who spoke out first are necessary and burdensome memories, where people will purposefully misconstrue events to victimize themselves rather than ever try to help. But the love is there. The love for everyone and the belief that everyone deserves better is better exemplified in no one more than the people who willingly face the scorn of people who will turn face when change finally comes around and pretend they were for the cause all along.

I think the US is certainly in a place now that would have been hard to imagine in 2011 when this thread first opened. But in other ways, it's not all that surprising either. This prevalence of the notion that you can't even talk about race without being racist has long been the insidiously common barrier against discussion and making the topic open to everyone. It made it easy for people who don't have to think about being a minority to forget that some people's everyday lives are shaped by their socially defined identity. But a lot of PoC have never had that luxury - it's just that the people who ignored them might happen to hear their voices once again now. Once you hear them, ignoring them becomes a choice. Will you respond to a call for justice, one way or another? Or will you choose to sit back and claim the individual has no power, or that it's not your fight?

Such a life unexamined truly isn't worth living - not if it means living blind to injustice on purpose. (All of this in my own opinion, of course.) Making yourself uncomfortable and challenging yourself means acknowledging that all is not yet as it should be, and that change needs to happen somehow. So why not start with one's self?

Is it worse to make mistakes and learn how to improve or to never try and think yourself perfect already?
For me, the clear answer is the latter. It's not a depressing thought - it's kind of exciting. We're all imperfect in a lot of ways. At least we've been given this incredibly human ability to get to keep becoming a better version of ourselves.


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Re: Racism - A Dead Ism

Post by Sienna »

Racism(or any kind of -ism) isn't just about hating people. It's about discrimination and giving disadvantages.
If you go back to 17th century America and ask a random slave owner if he/she hates black people, that person would probably say "Why would I? They're awesome workers for my farm"
What about sexism. I guess people would agree a man saying "Women are pretty but stupid" is a sexism. But would he think of himself as a sexist? He might be surprised if you ask him if he hates women and could say something like "What are you talking about? I love women!", "I love my wife and why would I hate women?"
Many discriminations happen without awareness.
I mean, if you hate specific ethnicity then that's a serious one.
If you don't, then that makes you less evil, but you still can be racist or make mistakes.

Speaking of mistakes, I get annoyed by people labeling me 'Asian' or calling someone 'Asian' while other white people are called 'German' 'Irish' 'French' 'Italian'. I'm like, I DO have a nationality and that's definitely not called 'ASIA' I'm Korean.
Of course I know people didn't mean to be rude, it happens a lot and I'm so used to it that I usually don't mind it either, but once at a time I'm upset that people don't even think that's weird.
People wouldn't call this a racism but I was treated differently because of my race wasn't I?
Yeah and when I lived in US for a while I heard ching chang jokes from the distance behind me. (and I'm not even Chinese err...)

So no, I wouldn't say racism is a dead ism.
Plus, I wouldn't confidently say I'm not a racist.
I have prejudices too in my head and I make mistakes time to time.
For example, assuming everyone who looks different are foreigners and can't speak Korean,
automatically labeling someone as a 'black guy' too easily in my head..while a person's color is very small part of his/her identity.
I try to be aware of these kind of stuffs and not to think that way, and I guess telling myself "Welp I'm not a racist" isn't helpful for doing that.
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Re: Racism - A Dead Ism

Post by georgexu94 »

While these discussions are great, I just want a practical side. How to deal with racism? How to react to issues directly affecting your life?

So here's my story.
In Metro Manila, Chinese are usually seen as the elite class. They are seen as the wealthy and well-educated. I'm saying there are discrimination of the Chinese against Filipinos. Anyway, I'm a Chinese who is working at a local organisation owned by Chinese. Well, my fellow Filipino colleagues are expressing their misgivings how Chinese employees are given more attention, trust and higher salary. How do I respond to that? They are the ones suffering from discrimination and I'm enjoying the benefits from the so called elite race. It's making me guilty and it's not even my fault.
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Re: Racism - A Dead Ism

Post by Sanne »

I hate racism, on any side.
Skin color, religion, heritage. It's all just skin deep.
Inside we all want and need the same things. Respect, Love, Family, Happiness. To me that's all that matters.

But I also think that some people take the "political correct" route to far. I believe in equality for all. So when our Dutch council offers housing only for people of "Suriname" descent, because the area is mostly Suriname people. I can't help but think about how people would respond if they offered housing for people only of "Dutch" descent. Racism works both ways.
Any person should be able to get the house they want, the job they want, to walk the streets normally, to shop without being followed, regardless of skin color.

Don't call any dark skinned person a "nigger" and don't call light skinned people "crackers" and I'm good.
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