If America got rid of all racism . . . how much would really change?

[BrainGlutton]

Lately I've started two GD threads on racism:

"How much racism remains in white America?"
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=243699

and

"Defend white supremacy! I dare you!"
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=244236

Which have elicited a lot of -- to say the least -- interesting participation. (Especially the latter.) But I still wonder whether these discussions are skirting the real problems.

Racism, especially white-against-black racism, has been one of the most horrible and intractable social problems of American history. But suppose we got rid of it? Suppose, by some miracle, the hearts and minds of all Americans were cleansed overnight of all traces of racial prejudice, racial hatred, racial fear and suspicion?

How much would things really change?

Hate crimes would be a thing of the past. Hate groups would disband for lack of interest. Blacks would not longer have to worry about getting pulled over for no good reason. All improvements, no doubt. But what else?

There's no more racism. The semiliterate black kid from the projects, who applies for admisssion to a good college or goes to interview for a good job, now has roughly the same chance as the semiliterate white kid from the trailer park. Very good. But how much of a chance is that?

Racism is still a problem. But it is not the only thing holding back millions of African-Americans from getting ahead in our society, and it is no longer the most important thing. If there's no racism, blacks still have to live the legacy of past racism -- a social system that still forces large numbers of them (not all, of course) into poverty and, even worse, effective isolation from the larger society around them. They grow up in inner-city neighborhoods where there is inadequate funding for schools, no good local jobs, and very few positive role models. That won't change, just because their color no longer counts as a strike against them.

The way I see it:

1. Some persisting problems of African-Americans are unique to their dysfunctional urban culture, and the best way to deal with them is to get them out of those neighborhoods -- get them into other environments, a few families at a time. E.g., subsidized public housing for the poor is not a bad idea. But instead of a few huge projects concentrated in a few neighborhoods, we should have many small ones dispersed all over the metropolitan area. Affluent suburbanites might object to that, out of fear of crime -- but wouldn't this make it much easier to control? A kid in the inner-city projects can snatch a purse and just fade into the background -- but how can he do that in suburbia?

2. Other persisting problems of African-Americans are not unique to them at all, but shared with poor Americans of all races. Lack of affordable health care, lack of access to good jobs and good education and healthy social environments -- poor whites have these problems too. In today's America, class is more important than race. The best way to deal with that is a new class-interest-based politics. To start with, we really need to do away with race-based affirmative action -- not simply do away with it, but replace it with an even more vigorous regime of class-based affirmative action, to give the poor black kid and the poor white kid and the poor Hispanic kid a leg up in our society, all equally.

Of all contemporary American commentators on the interlinked issues of race and class, I think Michael Lind has the best handle on the whole thing. In his book The Next American Nation (Free Press, 1995) -- a book I honestly and confidently expect will one day be ranked in importance with The Federalist Papers -- Lind made the following statements. (I have gone to the trouble to type these passages up at length and have reproduced them in several other threads. Mods, please let me know if I'm going too far. But I am a lawyer and I'm sure all this comes under "fair use" with respect to copyright law.)

To begin with, concerning the concept of "class" generally:

Understanding the white overclass requires revising the most common misconceptions about class. The discussion of social class has been confused for generations by Marxist thinkers, who made the mistake of completely identifying class with economic function. Like the Marxists, old-fashioned American liberal pluralists tend to misunderstand class. What they refer to as class is typically not a social class at all, but a mere occupational or income category, such as service-sector workers or millionaires. Meanwhile, the New Left which came to prominence in the sixties has tended to drop the idea of class altogether, in favor of race and gender. . . . In recent years, conservative ideologues have added further confusion by defining political factions and lifestyle subcultures as classes. . . .

In order to think about class in twenty-first century America, we must first clear our minds of these Marxist, liberal, New Left, and conservative definitions of class, and return to the older notion of class found in classical and European political thought from Aristotle to Montesquieu.

A class is a group of families, united by intermarriage and a common subculture, whose members tend to predominate in certain professions and political offices, generation after generation. Note that the class -- the group of similar families -- has an existence independent of the offices which its members tend to hold. Indeed, we cannot talk intelligently about class unless we make a distinction between a social class and a mere institutional elite. Those who talk about "the political class" or, with C. Wright Mills, about "the power elite," are confusing two very different things. Every modern society, even the most perfectly egalitarian, will have an institutional elite -- top civilian politicians, military officers, judges, diplomats, financial and industrial executives, publishers, editors and leading intellectuals, clerical leaders, and so on. The subject of class is raised only when you examine the social origins of the particular individuals who hold office in the institutional elite or elites. Learning the organization of judicial offices in a country tells you nothing about class. However, if you find out that most of the judges tend to come from old-money families in a particular region of that country, and that most attended one of half a dozen schools, then you have learned something important about that country's class system.

The United States at the end of the twentieth century has both an institutional elite and a dominant social class. The institutional elite is composed of upper-level officials in the federal and state governments, plus executives and professionals in the concentrated private sector and foundation and university executives (low-level government officials and small business owners are not part of the institutional elite). Almost all of the members of the American institutional elite also happen to be members of a single social class: the white overclass. To put it another way, the labor pool from which most elite positions are filled is the white overclass. The overlap is not complete. Though most members of the institutional elite belong to the white overclass, most members of the white overclass are not part of the institutional elite (since the overclass greatly outnumbers the elite); and -- though this is uncommon -- a person can become a high-ranking politician, military officer, judge, CEO, foundation president, or university president in the United States without having been born into the white overclass. It is possible to imagine a United States in which most members of the institutional elite did not have similar class origins. But that is not the country in which we live.

. . . The white overclass is the child of the former Northeastern Protestant establishment, produced by marriage (not only figurative but literal) with the upwardly mobile descendants of turn-of-the-century European immigrants and white Southerners and Westerners. Unlike the Northeastern establishment . . . this relatively new and still evolving political and social oligarchy is not identified with any particular region of the country (though it is concentrated in East and West Coast metropolitan regions). Nor does the white overclass dominate other sections through local, surrogate establishments, as the Northeastern establishment once did. Rather, overclass Americans are found in the higher suburbs of every major metropolitan area, North and South, coastal and inland. Unlike the sectional elites of the past, members of the white overclass are not even identified with the regions in which they happen (temporarily) to live. The white overclass, homogeneous and nomadic, is the first truly national upper class in American history.

The white overclass is the product, not merely of the amalgamation of Anglo- and Euro-Americans, but of the fusion of the rentier and managerial-professional classes. This blurring of the upper and upper-middle strata is a relatively new development in the United States. In earlier generations, there were distinct landowning and rentier classes, with their own lifestyles and institutions -- cotillions, seasons spent in the country, and the like. The elaborate rituals that governed upper-class life, such as dressing for dinner, were designed to conspicuously display wealth, including a wealth of leisure time. That was a long time ago. There is a class, or rather a category, of the celebrity rich, and there are still pockets of old-fashioned rentiers in the U.S. -- in Virginia, there are still planters who do not work and who hunt foxes with hounds -- but these subcultures are detached from the summits of power. Members of the upper class who want to make a mark in the world tend to adopt the style of life and dress and speech of the managerial-professional elite. Even though they do not have to, most members of the small hereditary upper class go to college and get executive or professional jobs, and work, or at least pretend to. Instead of serving as a model for well-to-do executives and lawyers and investment bankers, the hereditary segment of the American overclass conforms to the segment immediately below it, the credentialed upper middle class.

And, concerning race:

The chief danger confronting the twenty-first century United States is not Balkanization [fragmentation of society along ethnic lines] but what might be called Brazilianization. By Brazilianization I mean not the separation of cultures by race, but the separation of races by class. As in Brazil, a common American culture could be indefinitely compatible with a blurry, informal caste system in which most of those at the top of the social hierarchy are white, and most brown and black Americans are on the bottom -- forever. Behind all the boosterish talk about the wonders of the new American rainbow is the reality of enduring racial division by class, something that multicultural education initiatives and racial preference policies do not begin to address.

In the absence of sustained popular pressure from below or concern about America's international status, the white overclass [a term Lind uses to mean the managerial-professional elite, not white Americans generally] has no incentive to combat Brazilianization in the United States. For one thing, any serious effort to reduce racial separation by class would inevitably mean higher taxes on the affluent -- not just the rich, but the politically powerful upper-middle class. What is more, the dominance of the white oligarchy in American politics is strengthened by the emergent dynamics of a polarized society. In a more homogeneous society, the increasing concentration of wealth and power at the top might produce a populist reaction by the majority. But in a society like that of present-day America where a small, homogeneous oligarchy confronts a diverse population that shares a common national culture but remains divided along racial lines, the position of the outnumbered elite can be very secure. This is because the resentments caused by economic decline are likely to be expressed as hostility between the groups at the bottom, rather than as a rebellion against the top. In the Los Angeles riot, black, Hispanic, and white rioters turned on Korean middlemen, rather than march on Beverly Hills.

And on the subject of "race":

The chief danger confronting the twenty-first century United States is not Balkanization [fragmentation of society along ethnic lines] but what might be called Brazilianization. By Brazilianization I mean not the separation of cultures by race, but the separation of races by class. As in Brazil, a common American culture could be indefinitely compatible with a blurry, informal caste system in which most of those at the top of the social hierarchy are white, and most brown and black Americans are on the bottom -- forever. Behind all the boosterish talk about the wonders of the new American rainbow is the reality of enduring racial division by class, something that multicultural education initiatives and racial preference policies do not begin to address.

In the absence of sustained popular pressure from below or concern about America's international status, the white overclass has no incentive to combat Brazilianization in the United States. For one thing, any serious effort to reduce racial separation by class would inevitably mean higher taxes on the affluent -- not just the rich, but the politically powerful upper-middle class. What is more, the dominance of the white oligarchy in American politics is strengthened by the emergent dynamics of a polarized society. In a more homogeneous society, the increasing concentration of wealth and power at the top might produce a populist reaction by the majority. But in a society like that of present-day America where a small, homogeneous oligarchy confronts a diverse population that shares a common national culture but remains divided along racial lines, the position of the outnumbered elite can be very secure. This is because the resentments caused by economic decline are likely to be expressed as hostility between the groups at the bottom, rather than as a rebellion against the top. In the Los Angeles riot, black, Hispanic, and white rioters turned on Korean middlemen, rather than march on Beverly Hills.

And:

Five hundred years of racial preference will not integrate the United States. At most, it will enlarge new black and Hispanic overclasses, dependent on government patronage and wite overclass paternalism, while doing little or nothing for most black and Hispanic Americans. The social mobility of black and Hispanic Americans is impeded by three quite different kinds of obstacles -- active racism, barriers to entry in the economy and politics, and acquired disabilities. No single strategy is appropriate for all three obstacles. Active racism against individuals must be neutralized by rigorous enforcement of antidiscrimination law. Barriers to entry in the economy and politics have to be dismantled by sweeping legislative reforms of how business is done and how elections are carried out in the United States. Acquired disabilities -- by which I mean the very real culture of poverty that equips many children of the ghetto and barrio with attitudes making them unfit for the mainstream, workaday community -- are the most difficulte, because the most subtle, of all obstacles. Nothing less than a program to liberate denizens of the ghettos and barrios from those environments, family by family, is likely to succeed.

To the solution of all these problems, racial preference is irrelevant. Indeed it is dangerous, to the extent that the proliferation of racial preference programs lulls white liberals into the comforting belief that, after all, something serious is being done to alleviate the enduring separation of race by class. Most white conservatives simply do not care.

A serious attempt to integrate American society, then, would consist of coordinated efforts in different spheres -- the judicial (antidiscrimination law), the political (legislative reform of education, the professions, electoral methods, and government structures) and the economic (targeted programs to liberate the hereditary poor, as well as broader programs like universal health care and public education benefiting all wage-earning Americans).

I say all this needs to be done. We need to build an America where everybody starts with a fair chance in life, even if that involves measures some would call "socialism" (they aren't, really); and we need an America where the overclass, if it still exists, is no longer distinctively white, and no longer wields political power out of proportion to its numbers. In the long run these reforms are more important than fighting racism, and in the long run they are the best way to fight racism. What do you say?

[BrainGlutton]

Should've edited that more carefully and not included the same passage twice . . . give me a break, it's 1:25 a.m. Never mind. Let us proceed.

[Really Not All That Bright]

IMHO, if you aren't black and living in a low-income neighborhood, you can't offer definitive solutions for helping people who are black and living in low-income neighborhoods.
That said, your idea of dispersing subsidized housing, rather than concentrating it and effectively creating new low-income neighborhoods, is a good one.

Unfortunately, government on the local, state, and federal levels can't afford to subsidise housing in upper-crust areas. There's no point in subsidising it in lower-class areas, and so it becomes necessarily concentrated in lower-middle class areas, of which there can only be so many.

[Xenologist]

. Some persisting problems of African-Americans are unique to their dysfunctional urban culture, and the best way to deal with them is to get them out of those neighborhoods -- get them into other environments, a few families at a time. E.g., subsidized public housing for the poor is not a bad idea. But instead of a few huge projects concentrated in a few neighborhoods, we should have many small ones dispersed all over the metropolitan area. Affluent suburbanites might object to that, out of fear of crime -- but wouldn't this make it much easier to control? A kid in the inner-city projects can snatch a purse and just fade into the background -- but how can he do that in suburbia?Been there, done that, tried it. Doesn't work. The suburbs become crime-ridden slums.

The dysfunctional urban culture you speak of is a great part of the problems facing blacks. Perhaps we should look at who's selling it to them. Listen to rap much?

I don't think trying to force blacks to adapt to a predominantly White alien society is going to work, anyway. Blacks need to make their own way. If Whites could have done everything for them, we would have by now.

[BrainGlutton]

Been there, done that, tried it. Doesn't work. The suburbs become crime-ridden slums.

Cite?

I don't think trying to force blacks to adapt to a predominantly White alien society is going to work, anyway. Blacks need to make their own way. If Whites could have done everything for them, we would have by now.

This is a red herring, Xenologist. I'm talking about "forcing" blacks to accept anything. The American melting pot doesn't work that way. And black Americans are not living in an "alien" society, they are living in the society where they and their ancestors have lived for 300 years and more, and black and white society have been exerting influences on each other, back and forth, for all that time. (When was the last time you listened to a distinctly American piece of music that was completely free of any black influences?) If blacks have not assimilated to the extent that, say, the more late-coming Irish, Italians and Jews have assimilated, that is because for most of their history they have been artificially excluded from the process, and that only started to change in the mid-'60s.

In his book The New Americans: How the Melting Pot Can Work Again (Regnery Pub., 2001), Michael Barone compares the blacks to the Irish. The Irish who fled to America in the 19th Century were socially dysfunctional. They were desperately poor and their families had broken down completely. Illegitimacy and prostitution were rampant -- Irishmen often abandoned their women, and prostitution was often the only way a girl could survive. (By contrast, there were very few Italian-American prostitutes; it was not necessary -- the Italians mostly crossed the Atlantic with their families intact, and the girls got taken care of). The Irish were also extraordinarily given over to drunkenness and brawling. All these are things people say, with some justification, about contemporary inner-city blacks. But the Irish-Americans did not remain a permanent self-destroying underclass. Gradually they got accepted, they "became white," they built stable family units, they organized themselves politically, they got good educations and good jobs, and now for an American to be Irish is merely something about him or her that is a bit interesting and, well, cute.

Now, in Barone's analysis, the blacks only started to leave their "old country" -- that is, the Old South, land of slavery and Jim Crow -- in the 1960s. And then the barriers which kept them a race of permanent aliens, in the South and in the rest of the country, started to come down. Socially speaking, African-Americans are still new immigrants in America despite having lived here since before Independence. We just need to give the melting pot time to work and stir it as best we can. Perhaps the blacks will never assimilate to the point of all turning into "oreos"; but then, the Jews have assimilated to a pretty solid position in American society, yet they remain distinctly Jewish, with their old religion and some remnants of their old customs. It has been said that 11:00 a.m. on Sunday is the most segregated hour in America. But if that [b]does not change[b] -- if fifty years from now there are still distinct and separate black churches (and black social organizations, and some predominantly black neighborhoods) -- that can still be compatible with blacks achieving full assimilation in countless other ways, just as the Jews and the Irish have.

[BrainGlutton]

Sorry, I meant, "I'm not talking about 'forcing' blacks to accept anything."

[2sense]

Some persisting problems of African-Americans are unique to their dysfunctional urban culture, and the best way to deal with them is to get them out of those neighborhoods -- get them into other environments, a few families at a time.

Why do you think urban culture is dsyfunctional? Has it failed to function? No. Urban blacks haven't just curled up and died. Urban culture remains vibrant. So vibrant, in fact, that it is spilling over into suburban and even rural life. It may seem violent, coarse, and oedipial to you but that doesn't make it inpaired or abnormal. It is a way of life suited to the violent urban environment. You should be more wary of imposing the value judgements of your own culture onto another. Black culture isn't broken. America is broken and black culture has adapted to deal with it.

But just because a way of life is functional doesn't make it desirable. I think we can agree that people shouldn't have to live like that and that breaking up the concentrations of extreme poverty is the way to alleviate that hardship. I think though that your method is the exact opposite of what America needs. We don't need more dispersion. We don't need more sprawl. We have largely abandoned our cities to those unfortunates too poor to move elsewhere. What we need to do is retake our cities. The answer isn't to take the poor out of the cities too but to bring the wealthy back. Then we can shrink our metropolitan areas to a more efficient and managable size.



In today's America, class is more important than race.

Do you have any reason to believe this is true? It seems to me that both remain important. Have you compared the 2 to reach this conclusion?
-

[BrainGlutton]

We don't need more dispersion. We don't need more sprawl. We have largely abandoned our cities to those unfortunates too poor to move elsewhere. What we need to do is retake our cities. The answer isn't to take the poor out of the cities too but to bring the wealthy back. Then we can shrink our metropolitan areas to a more efficient and managable size.

I'm entirely against more suburban sprawl, 2sense, and I'm not talking about building even more suburban developments even further out from the city center. I'm talking who gets to live, or has to live, in the neighborhoods, urban and suburban, that already have been built. I'm also all for shrinking our metro areas to more efficient and manageable sizes -- but that seems to me to be a politically impossible goal. Tens of millions of American families have their entire net worth invested in those goddamned space-devouring shitboxes; I can see no way to sell them on a policy that involves bringing in the bulldozers and turning Maple Acres (Phase II) back into forest or farmland. That is a very challenging problem to discuss -- but in another thread. The point I'm making is that poor people in our society, of whatever race, should be able to live on their meager means without living next door to other poor people, of whatever race. Perhaps Jesus was right (I hope not) that we will always have poor people with us; but I see no reason why we have to have any poor neighborhoods anywhere within our borders. Which I think accords exactly with what you are saying. If the rich and middle-class live near the poor, they have an incentive to work and contribute to keep the neighborhood, with all its public amenities and local school systems, nice and clean and functional and safe for everybody. That would be much better for society than their present settlement trend, which is to retreat into gated, walled, PUD pods where every family's income is within $10k of every other's.

Do you have any reason to believe this is true [that class is more important than race]? It seems to me that both remain important. Have you compared the 2 to reach this conclusion?

It seems obvious to me that for those African-Americans who have escaped from poverty and achieved middle-class status or higher (perhaps a third of the total black population of the U.S. -- no cite, but that's a figure I've often heard quoted), white racism is not really very much of a problem -- a problem in some ways, sure, but certainly not a problem the way it was for their grandparents or even their parents. (If you think I'm wrong on this point, please tell me why.) But class divisions in our society persist, and they cut across racial lines.

[2sense]

I'm entirely against more suburban sprawl, 2sense, and I'm not talking about building even more suburban developments even further out from the city center. I'm talking who gets to live, or has to live, in the neighborhoods, urban and suburban, that already have been built.

I'm glad we are on the same page here.

It seems obvious to me that for those African-Americans who have escaped from poverty and achieved middle-class status or higher (perhaps a third of the total black population of the U.S. -- no cite, but that's a figure I've often heard quoted), white racism is not really very much of a problem -- a problem in some ways, sure, but certainly not a problem the way it was for their grandparents or even their parents. (If you think I'm wrong on this point, please tell me why.) But class divisions in our society persist, and they cut across racial lines.

It is just those "facts" that seem obvious to us that we need to watch out for. Believing in something that happens to fit your worldview is the easiest way to be misled into basing arguments on false presumptions. I'm not sure you are wrong. In fact, the more I think about it the more likely it seems to me that you are right. Comparing the experience of middle and upper class blacks today with their counterparts from thirty or more years ago isn't helpful in this regard. A useful comparison would be the difference between today's middle and upper class blacks with today's middle and upper class whites contrasted with the difference between today's poor and today's middle and upper classes. Looking at it from that perspective I tend to agree with your assumption. The discrimination faced by middle and upper class blacks doesn't seem likely to be as bad as the lack of health care and such that the poor have to deal with. But I am white so I can't pretend to understand the entirety of the discrimination faced by minorities. Even where there is a sign to the contrary I have learned to expect that when I pull up to the pump at night the attendant will flip the switch so I can fill my tank without having to go inside to pay first. Would they do the same for a black man? Even one in a suit? I don't know. What I do know are plenty of regular white folks and if they are any indication then White Middle America doesn't necessarily like you if you are poor but you are still one of them if you are white. They still don't see blacks as "us".

[BrainGlutton]

The discrimination faced by middle and upper class blacks doesn't seem likely to be as bad as the lack of health care and such that the poor have to deal with. But I am white so I can't pretend to understand the entirety of the discrimination faced by minorities.

Good point. Let's hear from some affluent, middle-class African-Americans on this thread. How does white racism affect your life? And if race-based affirmative action were phased out, how much would you miss it?

[Sinungaling]

"Race" never exists by itself, but also exists along with class and gender. No one is simply just "black" or "white," but also middle class, black, and male; or white, poor, and female. Different types of discrimination exist beside each other, and it's never clear whether the middle class black man or the poor white woman experiences more discrimination.

[BrainGlutton]

"Race" never exists by itself, but also exists along with class and gender. No one is simply just "black" or "white," but also middle class, black, and male; or white, poor, and female. Different types of discrimination exist beside each other, and it's never clear whether the middle class black man or the poor white woman experiences more discrimination.

It seems rather obvious to me, Sinungaling -- and this is the essential point of this thread -- that the poor white woman has it worse in America than the middle-class black man, even if she encounters fewer instances of prejudice in her daily life. Do you disagree?

[holmes]

It seems rather obvious to me, Sinungaling -- and this is the essential point of this thread -- that the poor white woman has it worse in America than the middle-class black man, even if she encounters fewer instances of prejudice in her daily life. Do you disagree?

Yes. White skin is still an advantage. That poor white woman doesn't have to stay poor. It washes off. She goes to Goodwill and finds a nice dress and goes shopping, the security guard doesn't follow her. The cops don't pull her over, the bank clerk doesn't doublecheck her id.

She is allowed the benefit of the doubt.

No matter what the black person does, the guard sees a black person and all the suits in world won't help him.

And yes, women get the short end of the stick too, but your question was about has it better. I say white trumps all...but it's getting better.

[BrainGlutton]

Yes. White skin is still an advantage. That poor white woman doesn't have to stay poor. It washes off. She goes to Goodwill and finds a nice dress and goes shopping, the security guard doesn't follow her. The cops don't pull her over, the bank clerk doesn't doublecheck her id.

She is allowed the benefit of the doubt.

No matter what the black person does, the guard sees a black person and all the suits in world won't help him.

And yes, women get the short end of the stick too, but your question was about has it better. I say white trumps all...but it's getting better.

You're missing the point, Holmes. At the end of the day, the poor white (woman or man, let's keep gender out of it for the moment) still has to go home to a trailer or an efficiency apartment, and the middle-class black gets to go home to a nice house in the 'burbs. Isn't that a bit more important than getting suspicious glances from a rent-a-cop now and then?

[pizzabrat]

At the end of the day, the poor white woman knows that no one is going to question the validity of her prescence wherever she goes in America. The black man, despite his social status and prime location, will always be considered a nusiance by his own countryman. I think security and belonging is more important at the end of the day.

[holmes]

You're missing the point, Holmes. At the end of the day, the poor white (woman or man, let's keep gender out of it for the moment) still has to go home to a trailer or an efficiency apartment, and the middle-class black gets to go home to a nice house in the 'burbs. Isn't that a bit more important than getting suspicious glances from a rent-a-cop now and then?

At the end of the day the poor white person has the chance at another day. You're assuming that these poor people want to remain poor...I'm not. I assuming that they want to get a better life and will attempt to do so....that's when being 'white' can be an advantage.

Please don't trivalize the effect of those "glances"....I suggest you read Black Like Me (http://www.shopping.com/xMPR-Black-Like-Me~PD-4587557760~RI-1449823876)

[pizzabrat]

BrainGlutton
You're missing the point, Holmes. At the end of the day, the poor white (woman or man, let's keep gender out of it for the moment) still has to go home to a trailer or an efficiency apartment, and the middle-class black gets to go home to a nice house in the 'burbs. Isn't that a bit more important than getting suspicious glances from a rent-a-cop now and then?

and it's cute how you're trying to trivialize these glances from "rent-a-cops" (try real cops with guns and can and will kill you if they have "probable cause"). Can you imagine what it would be like to be a suspect every where you go, and know that there's no place on Earth for you to escape it, since it's happening in what is supposedly your own country?

[Dogface]

It may seem violent, coarse, and oedipial to you but that doesn't make it inpaired or abnormal.

Violence as a way of life shall never be healthy.

[Sinungaling]

It seems rather obvious to me, Sinungaling -- and this is the essential point of this thread -- that the poor white woman has it worse in America than the middle-class black man, even if she encounters fewer instances of prejudice in her daily life. Do you disagree?

Since we're arguing over the topic then it's obviously not clear who is worse off. If it was readily apparent who was worse off, then there wouldn't be any disagreement in the first place.

And I'm not necessarily saying that one or the other is indisputably worse off, either. I'm just pointing out the complexity of discrimination, where no one is ever just black or white, but black, white, Indian, immigrant, female, working class, etc., all at the same time.

[Sinungaling]

At the end of the day the poor white person has the chance at another day. You're assuming that these poor people want to remain poor...I'm not. I assuming that they want to get a better life and will attempt to do so....that's when being 'white' can be an advantage.


Excellent point. It's possible for a poor person to stop being poor, but it's not possible for a black person to stop being black.

[Dogface]

WAGging along here, I'd say that there would be quite a bit of change, but the majority of people in the USA wouldn't notice it. I've never suffered from racism, because I "pass". My father, on the other hand, has been assaulted, followed, given "the stare", etc., all because his eyes are the "wrong" shape and his skin the "wrong" color as far as some people are concerned. It was worst when the auto plants were getting closed down left and right in the Rust Belt, but it was there before and afterwards.

[monstro]

Let's hear from some affluent, middle-class African-Americans on this thread. How does white racism affect your life?

I'm not affluent, but I'll bite.

I have no idea.

Racism is pretty much a behind-the-scenes dealsky nowadays. I have a list of weird anecdotes that can be attributed to racism (like the time I first visited my undergraduate advisor and he dismissed me as a retard on atheletic scholarship) but nothing that is 100% proof of The Man Holding Me Down.

I had a phone interview for a job just recently, and now the company wants to fly me out to see them in person. Nowhere on my resume is there a reference to my race (for all you anti-Affirmative Action freaks). I'd be lying if I told you I'm not worried about how they'll respond to my appearance. I don't look like your stereotypical ecologist. I'm optimistic and hopeful and all that, but the worry is there. Who will they be expecting to pick up at the airport? And when they see me, what kind of judgements and assumptions will be made?

I'm know white people have to go through that worry too, but to a lesser degree.

I am lucky, if I can say that. I was raised by middle-class parents, educated fairly well, and I am somewhat racially ambiguous, which means I look like every "non-white" ethnicity in the book. I know my experiences would be different if my complexion was just a tad darker, my nose a little less keen, and my hair just smidget nappier. I also know that being a scrawny female helps.

But I don't know to what degree white racism has harmed my life, just like a white person doesn't really know to what degree white priviledge has benefitted theirs. I don't even think my parents--who were called dirty niggers to their faces and have experienced unequivocal instances of racial discrimination--could really quantify the impact.

[dal_timgar]

Very little. Racism is just an extension of classism. Eliminating racism would just mean the racial distribution in each class would become more equal.

What about class and technology?

The technology is so complicated the rich don't know what they are buying.

We may develop new classes. Those that understand tech and those that don't.

Dal Timgar



Lately I've started two GD threads on racism:

"How much racism remains in white America?"
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=243699

and

"Defend white supremacy! I dare you!"
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=244236

Which have elicited a lot of -- to say the least -- interesting participation. (Especially the latter.) But I still wonder whether these discussions are skirting the real problems.

Racism, especially white-against-black racism, has been one of the most horrible and intractable social problems of American history. But suppose we got rid of it? Suppose, by some miracle, the hearts and minds of all Americans were cleansed overnight of all traces of racial prejudice, racial hatred, racial fear and suspicion?

How much would things really change?

Hate crimes would be a thing of the past. Hate groups would disband for lack of interest. Blacks would not longer have to worry about getting pulled over for no good reason. All improvements, no doubt. But what else?

There's no more racism. The semiliterate black kid from the projects, who applies for admisssion to a good college or goes to interview for a good job, now has roughly the same chance as the semiliterate white kid from the trailer park. Very good. But how much of a chance is that?

Racism is still a problem. But it is not the only thing holding back millions of African-Americans from getting ahead in our society, and it is no longer the most important thing. If there's no racism, blacks still have to live the legacy of past racism -- a social system that still forces large numbers of them (not all, of course) into poverty and, even worse, effective isolation from the larger society around them. They grow up in inner-city neighborhoods where there is inadequate funding for schools, no good local jobs, and very few positive role models. That won't change, just because their color no longer counts as a strike against them.

The way I see it:

1. Some persisting problems of African-Americans are unique to their dysfunctional urban culture, and the best way to deal with them is to get them out of those neighborhoods -- get them into other environments, a few families at a time. E.g., subsidized public housing for the poor is not a bad idea. But instead of a few huge projects concentrated in a few neighborhoods, we should have many small ones dispersed all over the metropolitan area. Affluent suburbanites might object to that, out of fear of crime -- but wouldn't this make it much easier to control? A kid in the inner-city projects can snatch a purse and just fade into the background -- but how can he do that in suburbia?

2. Other persisting problems of African-Americans are not unique to them at all, but shared with poor Americans of all races. Lack of affordable health care, lack of access to good jobs and good education and healthy social environments -- poor whites have these problems too. In today's America, class is more important than race. The best way to deal with that is a new class-interest-based politics. To start with, we really need to do away with race-based affirmative action -- not simply do away with it, but replace it with an even more vigorous regime of class-based affirmative action, to give the poor black kid and the poor white kid and the poor Hispanic kid a leg up in our society, all equally.

Of all contemporary American commentators on the interlinked issues of race and class, I think Michael Lind has the best handle on the whole thing. In his book The Next American Nation (Free Press, 1995) -- a book I honestly and confidently expect will one day be ranked in importance with The Federalist Papers -- Lind made the following statements. (I have gone to the trouble to type these passages up at length and have reproduced them in several other threads. Mods, please let me know if I'm going too far. But I am a lawyer and I'm sure all this comes under "fair use" with respect to copyright law.)

To begin with, concerning the concept of "class" generally:



And, concerning race:



And on the subject of "race":



And:



I say all this needs to be done. We need to build an America where everybody starts with a fair chance in life, even if that involves measures some would call "socialism" (they aren't, really); and we need an America where the overclass, if it still exists, is no longer distinctively white, and no longer wields political power out of proportion to its numbers. In the long run these reforms are more important than fighting racism, and in the long run they are the best way to fight racism. What do you say?

[Zagadka]

Very little. Racism is just an extension of classism. Eliminating racism would just mean the racial distribution in each class would become more equal.

...

We may develop new classes. Those that understand tech and those that don't.

I agree here. I think the issue is primarily one of class, and not one of racism. Even if racism were totally abolished with no questions asked, the problem would remain as one of class. Frankly, I think that access to proper education and health care are some of the most important factors. The Los Angeles Unified School District, for example, is an absolute joke. I am one of the lucky ones - my parents worked their asses off so that my sister and I could be raised as middle class, and moved out of the hispanic part of town to the more affuent areas. And the schools there are better. I have no doubt that if my parents hadn't worked so hard (and been so fortunate), I wouldn't be where I am today. Not all are so fortunate - my father's siblings had bad luck such as health disabilities, divorces, etc get in their way.

So no, removing racism would not solve all ills. It would certainly be nice, though. I've been put in enough "uncomfortable" situations as is. Ironically enough, I've been discriminated against for not being hispanic "enough" if that makes any sense at all.

I'm no genius, this is just my experience. I live in a part of town now where more people speak Spanish than English, and it has a frightening effect in alienating people completely. Throw that language barrier in as culture.

So we have instances of culture, education, health care, and finally racism. All of these are difficult to overcome one at a time, but together... Well, lets just say that movements like Affirmative Action effectively patch the statistics and make people feel warm and fuzzy, but they do very little to cause real change where it is needed.

[furt]

But suppose we got rid of it? Suppose, by some miracle, the hearts and minds of all Americans were cleansed overnight of all traces of racial prejudice, racial hatred, racial fear and suspicion?Al Sharpton would be pissed.

And we'd look for new excuses to hate each other.

[mswas]

I don't think racism is a problem at all. It's sheer classism. People don't look down on people because they are black, they look down on them because black people as a percentage are more likely to be uneducated and poor(not stupid and lazy). I don't think more state education is the answer. Throwing more dollars at a situation I think is far from the answer to anything, yet we seem to think it's the answer to everything. Creating more community resources that would bind communities and engender communication would be what I would prefer to see. We have working models in my community that we are experimenting with that grew up out of the communal rave scene where people wnated sound systems and parties, but sound systems and parties were expensive, so people got together and organized them communally. We have taken this ethic a step further and we try to incorporate it into other aspects of our lives. I've lived in predominantly spanish speaking neighborhoods. I kind of understand spanish but I don't speak it, and I don't see it as being THAT much of a hindrance.

It's the "US" and "THEM" approach that causes the problem. Poor white people ARE NOT at more of an advantage than poor black people, and that's a common misconception. Just because they are white doesn't mean anything. If a black man can make it in corporate America, he will. If a white man can't make it in corporate america, he won't, it's that simple. Sometimes you can clean someone up of any color, and put them in a suit, and if their personality doesn't jive with that suit, it's not going to look right.

I say, don't blame on race what is probably caused by much more subtle bigotries in people's interpersonal relationships.

Erek

[BoardMother]

The black national movement of America is not racist. They only wish to preserve their own seperate cultural and ethnic integrity.

[BoardMother]

The black man, despite his social status and prime location, will always be considered a nusiance by his own countryman

In Zimbabwe, the native black man, despite his majority status worries more about starving to death as a result of a dictatorial regime having dispossessed all of the white land owners.

[2sense]

I don't think racism is a problem at all. It's sheer classism. People don't look down on people because they are black, they look down on them because black people as a percentage are more likely to be uneducated and poor(not stupid and lazy).

I wish we lived in Mswasland were there was no racism. Unfortunately we don't. Racism is a problem in America. I know plenty of white people want to pretend otherwise but it matters if you are white. Pay attention to what is going on around you. Every time the cop drives by without pulling you over, it could be because you are white. Every time the cashier takes your credit card without asking to see your ID, it could be because you are white. Every job interview you receive could be because you are white. It is easy for white people to overlook their privilege because not having to overcome potential racial stereotypes with every social interaction is taken it for granted. It is nonwhites denied this luxury that most notice how poorly America lives up to its egalitarian rhetoric.
-


In Zimbabwe, the native black man, despite his majority status worries more about starving to death as a result of a dictatorial regime having dispossessed all of the white land owners.

This has what to do with racism in America, exactly?

[BoardMother]

Racism has little to do with the country in which it occurs or which ethnic groups are involved.

[2sense]

Racism has little to do with the country in which it occurs or which ethnic groups are involved.

I don't agree but so what? What has this to do with the brand of racism minorities face in America?

[astro]

BrainGlutton, you mean well, but you are entirely too credulous re the prospective efficaciousness of the sort of residential re-distribution and relocation schemes you offer up as partial solutions. This is the same sloppy, undergraduate nonsense that has enthralled young, well-meaning people and academics for decades.

Black "disadvantage" in America, however you want to classify it, is quite unique and trying to understand and devise a solution to it using the paradigmatic lens of the Irish, Hispanic, Jewish etc. "experience" is kind of beside the point. Whatever the adjustment difficulties in the US for other immigrants were, the family structure still existed, even if it was only conceptually and at a distance to the struggles in the new land. These immigrants had no problem springing back to the "family" mold as situations improved.

On the other hand, the black family, and the black man, specifically and most importantly, was broken by slavery, and to a large extent he remains broken. For better or worse the majority of family advancement and cultural class enfranchisement in the US has come (and still comes to a large extent) from a male wage earners and fathers with high inter-family cultural status + a supportive female homemaking/child care taking unit. For centuries in the US, this is not the way the majority of black men and black families have functioned for entirely practical reasons given the context of their environments and the requirements for survival.

The only way that American black families are going to become fully class enfranchised is to become like other families. Whether one thinks this is a scouring and dis-respecting of the uniqueness and strength of extant female centered back family structures is irrelevant. Until the black family can somehow (and I have no idea how this is to be accomplished) re-empower the black man, none of this is going to happen. This will have to come from within and probably over a very long period of time, external, well meaning, social engineering attempts to do this are likely to have a poor record of success.

[Dogface]

On the other hand, the black family, and the black man, specifically and most importantly, was broken by slavery, and to a large extent he remains broken.

Just how true is this? How different is an attitude of "broken to the core by slavery" from an attitude of "racially inferior"? The former does find somebody else (bad white people) to blame for the state, but both are ultimately essentialistic statements of core inferiority--although the latter has a "path to redemption" built in (become more like white people).

I just don't see it as the dominant social mode among <<insert term du jour>>. Yes, there are the shiftless, but they aren't the rule. I see far more "hardworking taxpayer" folk among the <<insert term du jour>> than I do "lazy shiftless censored censored censored".

[astro]

Just how true is this? How different is an attitude of "broken to the core by slavery" from an attitude of "racially inferior"? The former does find somebody else (bad white people) to blame for the state, but both are ultimately essentialistic statements of core inferiority--although the latter has a "path to redemption" built in (become more like white people).

I just don't see it as the dominant social mode among <<insert term du jour>>. Yes, there are the shiftless, but they aren't the rule. I see far more "hardworking taxpayer" folk among the <<insert term du jour>> than I do "lazy shiftless censored censored censored".

Since the point I'm trying to make is being missed entirely, and you're busy trying to morph a statement about the historically dysfunctional, post -slavery nature of American black family structures in modernity, into a kinda-sorta notion of "racial inferiority", let me diagram my point more clearly.

In modernity, families that are capable of ascendant cultural class enfranchisement, economic success, and most importantly raising children directed in the same manner, have, until relatively, recently required a high inter-family status working father and a care taking mother. This is not a model that most black children, and more specifically black male children have as the standard model for their world view and ontological toolkit as to how they should make their way in the world.

Cosby's Doc Huxtable aside, for better or worse, black men, are often seen as inherently flawed, transient and sometimes disposable commodities within the standard matriarchal centric black family, by both the mother and children, and ultimately themselves. There are exceptions to this of course, and strong black father role models are not unheard of, but they are the exception not the rule. This is not to entirely blame the aforesaid logic of a black matriarch in a high stress domestic situation, coping with a partner who is neither culturally, behaviorally, or emotionally trained, or able to assume the roles and responsibilities of typical middle class family fatherhood, with it's huge investment of resources and inborn assumptions of what a man/father will do and how he will behave.

The man is this way, because his father was this way etc. etc., up and down the generations. Fathers train sons by behavior and example. If the example is dysfunctional or absent, the training will be dysfunctional. Slavery broke the back of black families over many generations. Matriarchal centered families wasn't "a choice", it was the only choice for survival.

So now here we are in 2004. Black families are still disproportionably mired in poverty, violence and the associated underclass. Economically successful families (not always but most often) need culturally trained, productive fathers willing to make huge investments of time and resources in their families and children. Until the state of the American black male and black families cultural mindset and structure changes to be more like the archetypal white/Jewish/ Cuban/ Jamaican/Asian models, its dysfunctional nature and poverty will continue relative to the demands of modern society.

[EasyPhil]

In modernity, families that are capable of ascendant cultural class enfranchisement, economic success, and most importantly raising children directed in the same manner, have, until relatively, recently required a high inter-family status working father and a care taking mother. This is not a model that most black children, and more specifically black male children have as the standard model for their world view and ontological toolkit as to how they should make their way in the world.

I don't even know whether this is true or not and I would wager that you don't know either. But it does sound good, doesn't it?

Wealth is something that is passed on in families, homes, insurance policies, investements and the like. White people have more wealth because they've historically had more wealth. Take two WWII vetrans one black one white. They both by a home, the black vetran's home by default would not appreciate in value as the white vetran. Why? Simple, racist policies that still exist today insure that a neighborhood with whites will have higher property values than that of black neighborhoods. When the white vetran dies and leaves the home to his kids they're looking at a very good little nest egg, the same can't be said of the children of the black vetran when the home could only be purchased in an area where the property values aren't allowed to rise because of racist policies. White people don't want to move into black neighborhoods and historically it wasn't because of crime it's because the country was segragated that was the law about 50 years ago.

[astro]

I don't even know whether this is true or not and I would wager that you don't know either. But it does sound good, doesn't it?

Wealth is something that is passed on in families, homes, insurance policies, investements and the like. White people have more wealth because they've historically had more wealth. Take two WWII vetrans one black one white. They both by a home, the black vetran's home by default would not appreciate in value as the white vetran. Why? Simple, racist policies that still exist today insure that a neighborhood with whites will have higher property values than that of black neighborhoods. When the white vetran dies and leaves the home to his kids they're looking at a very good little nest egg, the same can't be said of the children of the black vetran when the home could only be purchased in an area where the property values aren't allowed to rise because of racist policies. White people don't want to move into black neighborhoods and historically it wasn't because of crime it's because the country was segragated that was the law about 50 years ago.

The relatively minor "wealth" that may (*and this is by no means a certainity in many cases*) pass to some middle class non-black children in the form of "nest eggs" etc after the death of the parents, is dwarfed in importance and real world impact, by the cognitive "wealth" that child receives in terms of the mindset and training by example, of the attitudes and behavior that are necessary for success in modern, middle class society.

As a side note, life in old age for a large portion of the American middle class is quite expensive. You would be surprised by how many children of middle class and upper middle class professionals were left with essentially nothing but some furniture after the funeral expenses were paid. I'm one of them.

[monstro]

People don't look down on people because they are black, they look down on them because black people as a percentage are more likely to be uneducated and poor(not stupid and lazy).

This is simply not true. There are numerous studies that show that when a black person cleans up just as good as a white person and then tries to get a job or rents an apartment, discrimination occurs. This would not be the case if it was just that blacks are more likely to be targets of classicm.

Would anti-black racism go away if blacks, as a group, were financially better off? I don't know. More than half of black people enjoy a middle-class existence right now, and yet most people (it seems to me) believe that black people are overwhelmingly poor and urban. I have a feeling this perception will remain for some time after the income of blacks come to reflect society at-large. I think the perception is just as much a problem as the reality.

Classism is definitely a problem, and I believes it intersects with racism in the case of black people. A black person may or may not be poor, but they are more likely to be viewed as poor than a white person. So in an encounter with a class-conscious bigot...even one who doesn't believe in "racial inferiority".....,the white person would tend to get a fairer shake. Because a black person is perceived to be poor, he or she may also be perceived to be uneducated, criminal, morally irresponsible, and lazy. In other words, all the stereotypical traits generally applied to black people. Saying people notice class but not race is simply not true. I think people use race as a way to size up class, which sucks if you aren't white or Asian.

The difficulty in teasing apart classism and racism can be illustrated in a little story. Let's say you're at the museum and you see two groups of middle schoolers. One class is all white and one class is all black. I'll be the first to confess: I would assume that the all-black group is from an underachieving, underfunded public school. And then I'd assume that the all-white group was from a highachieving, elite private school. I would come to both assumptions after a cursory glance because race is an easy--though often wrong--way to sum up people and their economic station. My prejudice wouldn't mean much if I were merely a passerby, but it could come into play if I were a manager at the museum's giftshop, or if I were a tour guide responsible for showing the kids around. In the case of the latter, maybe I wouldn't ask the black kids too many tough questions, and I would dumb down my language. Maybe I would take the white kids to see things that are targeted to more intelligent, sophisticated audiences. You could make the case that both racism and classism, but none of these two things alone, explain my behavior.

I think people have to be honest with themselves and constantly question the kinds of assumptions they make. It's the day-to-day encounters we have with each other that will ultimately determine how successful we are at eradicating racism.

[BoardMother]

I don't agree but so what?
Undefined statements of agreement or disagreement are irrelevant.
What has this to do with the brand of racism minorities face in America?Acts of racism are independant of race and country and they are also independant of which group constitutes the majority. This is comparable to the situation in the USA.

[EasyPhil]

The relatively minor "wealth" that may (*and this is by no means a certainity in many cases*) pass to some middle class non-black children in the form of "nest eggs" etc after the death of the parents, is dwarfed in importance and real world impact, by the cognitive "wealth" that child receives in terms of the mindset and training by example, of the attitudes and behavior that are necessary for success in modern, middle class society.

What about the real world impact of the cognitive "theft" by a system of slavery, followed by a system of segregation, followed by continued racist practices? Do you think that for a moment that hundreds of years of policies directed toward keeping blacks at the lowest rungs of society has no effect 50 or so years later? The disparity in real estate values and the resulting wealth that is generated over the years is substantial especially when you're not the beneficiary of it. Keep in mind in most of the country, school funding is driven by property taxes, wealthier communities i.e. those that have higher property values have better schools because they are better funded.



As a side note, life in old age for a large portion of the American middle class is quite expensive. You would be surprised by how many children of middle class and upper middle class professionals were left with essentially nothing but some furniture after the funeral expenses were paid. I'm one of them.

Those middle class and upper middle class professionals still benefited from the wealth that existed that afforded them a good education because of where they lived and because of white priviledge.

[BrainGlutton]

The black national movement of America is not racist. They only wish to preserve their own seperate cultural and ethnic integrity.

The "White Nationalists" of stormfront.org, etc., say exactly the same thing about themselves. What's the difference?

[BrainGlutton]

The only way that American black families are going to become fully class enfranchised is to become like other families. Whether one thinks this is a scouring and dis-respecting of the uniqueness and strength of extant female centered back family structures is irrelevant. Until the black family can somehow (and I have no idea how this is to be accomplished) re-empower the black man, none of this is going to happen. This will have to come from within and probably over a very long period of time, external, well meaning, social engineering attempts to do this are likely to have a poor record of success.

So you're saying that if America got rid of racism, it wouldn't help the blacks significantly? And nothing else government or society could do would help either?

The man is this way, because his father was this way etc. etc., up and down the generations. Fathers train sons by behavior and example. If the example is dysfunctional or absent, the training will be dysfunctional. Slavery broke the back of black families over many generations. Matriarchal centered families wasn't "a choice", it was the only choice for survival.

But why can't black boys use their mothers as role models? Is the psychological gender barrier just too hard to cross?

[furt]

I don't think racism is a problem at all. It's sheer classism. People don't look down on people because they are black, they look down on them because black people as a percentage are more likely to be uneducated and poor(not stupid and lazy).
In response to help-wanted ads in Chicago and Boston newspapers, they sent resumes with either African-American- or white-sounding names and then measured the number of callbacks each resume received for interviews. Thus, they experimentally manipulated perception of race via the name on the resume. Half of the applicants were assigned African-American names that are "remarkably common" in the black population, the other half white sounding names, such as Emily Walsh or Greg Baker. ...

Job applicants with white names needed to send about 10 resumes to get one callback; those with African-American names needed to send around 15 resumes to get one callback. This would suggest either employer prejudice or employer perception that race signals lower productivity.

The 50 percent gap in callback rates is statistically very significant, Bertrand and Mullainathan note in Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination (NBER Working Paper No. 9873). It indicates that a white name yields as many more callbacks as an additional eight years of experience.

http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html

[pizzabrat]

I'm surprised that nobody has pointed out that all of the OP's questions would disappear if rascim were to be universally cured. Blacks would finally enjoy freedom from being a seperate, monolithic community based on what's literally the most superficial thing of all - skin color. Questions about black crime and black poverty wouldn't even make sense; we'd soley be talking about American crime and American poverty. Racial categories would be destroyed along with racism in your hypothetical, as they'd have no reason to exist without it. Therefore, nobody would be able look down upon blacks because of negative statistics; they'd never be compiled, so black people would get the same clean slate whites get (and I'm just humoring you mswas. I'm not really dumb enough believe that you and the people you defend actual walk around repeating statistics about blacks in your heads so that you can prudently avoid them. You're just a run-of-the-mill racist who conjures a bland, text-book excuse post-event to hide your intellectual laziness and cowardice and convince yourself that you're being "rational". Racism is for brain-dead morons who need arbitrary shortcuts because the idea that each person is different is too overwhelming for their weak minds). "Blacks" won't have low test scores, many American students would; and it wouldn't be a "black" problem, it'd either be a national problem or the repsonsibity of the low-scorer's parents. So in a way, all black problems would disappear; they'd just be normal problems, without unnecessary racial slant. Not all blacks would benifit, but I'd certainly be having a better time - and that's the important thing.

[astro]

I'm surprised that nobody has pointed out that all of the OP's questions would disappear if rascim were to be universally cured. Blacks would finally enjoy freedom from being a seperate, monolithic community based on what's literally the most superficial thing of all - skin color. Questions about black crime and black poverty wouldn't even make sense; we'd soley be talking about American crime and American poverty. Racial categories would be destroyed along with racism in your hypothetical, as they'd have no reason to exist without it. Therefore, nobody would be able look down upon blacks because of negative statistics; they'd never be compiled, so black people would get the same clean slate whites get (and I'm just humoring you mswas. I'm not really dumb enough believe that you and the people you defend actual walk around repeating statistics about blacks in your heads so that you can prudently avoid them. You're just a run-of-the-mill racist who conjures a bland, text-book excuse post-event to hide your intellectual laziness and cowardice and convince yourself that you're being "rational". Racism is for brain-dead morons who need arbitrary shortcuts because the idea that each person is different is too overwhelming for their weak minds). "Blacks" won't have low test scores, many American students would; and it wouldn't be a "black" problem, it'd either be a national problem or the repsonsibity of the low-scorer's parents. So in a way, all black problems would disappear; they'd just be normal problems, without unnecessary racial slant. Not all blacks would benifit, but I'd certainly be having a better time - and that's the important thing.

Mswas's hypothesis that the primary source of antipathy toward black Americans is rooted more in the context of economic class than skin color, may be wide open to significant discussion and debate, but your hysterical characterization of him as a not-so-crypto "brain dead" racist for daring to look as the issue as a class based vs a skin color issue, is a lot more indicactive of "intellectual laziness" than his argument is, however flawed you may consider it to be.

[2sense]

Undefined statements of agreement or disagreement are irrelevant.

Irrelevant to what? I was saying there is no point in debating the merits of what I consider to be a silly assertion you have made until the relevancy of that assertion to the topic at hand is demonstrated.

Acts of racism are independant of race and country and they are also independant of which group constitutes the majority. This is comparable to the situation in the USA.

What I am trying to determine is why you felt the need to make a comparison in the first place. No one brought up Zimbabwe but you. What was your purpose in making the remark?
-

[pizzabrat]

astro
Mswas's hypothesis that the primary source of antipathy toward black Americans is rooted more in the context of economic class than skin color, may be wide open to significant discussion and debate, but your hysterical characterization of him as a not-so-crypto "brain dead" racist for daring to look as the issue as a class based vs a skin color issue, is a lot more indicactive of "intellectual laziness" than his argument is, however flawed you may consider it to be.

It may be "open for debate" for you, but I've already decided that I disagree with all of those transparent and moronic semantics. If you assume somebody belongs to an undesirable class because of their race*, how is that not racist? Most people I know dislike whites because too many of them, probably due to societal privileges, are arrogant and oblivious. It's not about not liking them because they're white, it's an attitude thing. They dislike arrogant, clueless black people too, so it's not necessarily a race thing. There, does turning the situation around make the idiocy more obvious?


And before I pressed submit, I just realized that you all may have mistakenly thought that blacks belong to one class. That's the only way the "class not racism" argument would work. I guess I should point out that that's wrong, blacks span all classes. For example, Oprah is black, and she would be considered upper class (or higher than that maybe, I don't know all the class titles). Meanwhile, my black mother would be considered middle-class. The idle men I pass on the way to school are lower class, while the homeless men are the underclass.

[EasyPhil]

Mswas's hypothesis that the primary source of antipathy toward black Americans is rooted more in the context of economic class than skin color, may be wide open to significant discussion and debate, but your hysterical characterization of him as a not-so-crypto "brain dead" racist for daring to look as the issue as a class based vs a skin color issue, is a lot more indicactive of "intellectual laziness" than his argument is, however flawed you may consider it to be.

The roots are based on a system that one group of people are inferior, sub-human because of their skin color. That notion is the cornerstone of race classification. To argue that it, the source of antipathy, is rooted in economic class cleary points out a lack of knowledge of the history and why people act and think the way that they do.

When you believe in the propaganda promoted by racists either actively or passively and shape your attitudes and notions around that propaganda, your thinking is racist.

[astro]

The roots are based on a system that one group of people are inferior, sub-human because of their skin color. That notion is the cornerstone of race classification. To argue that it, the source of antipathy, is rooted in economic class cleary points out a lack of knowledge of the history and why people act and think the way that they do.

When you believe in the propaganda promoted by racists either actively or passively and shape your attitudes and notions around that propaganda, your thinking is racist.


In reading both Pizzabrat's and your characterizations of mswas's post I'm thinking this must be one of the most obvious examples of how people intellectually de-construct someone's statements in order to arrive at a foregone conclusion.

Mswas was making a fairly simplistic, Soc 101 freshmen argument that it's not primarily skin color in and of itself that people make discriminatory judgments on, but rather the underclass behaviors that people disproportionately associate with black people. This basic chicken and egging analysis of the issue is a useful intellectual exercise, and through good faith argument will (IMO) yield the conclusion that insofar as it's extraordinarily difficult for most people to tease these elements apart in real world experience, that an Ur level reactive "racism" based mainly on skin color does indeed exist as a reality for many otherwise middle class (and even liberal in many cases) well meaning non-black people.

Having said this, it is not particularly useful debate wise to start slinging personal aspersions around of "you're a racist, and/or your thinking is racist if you don't believe there's pure, color based racism". It's a lazy and disingenuous way to debate. Mswas's argument may be incorrect or incomplete in its considerations, but that doesn't make mswas a "racist", unless the point being attempted is that we're all racists in some form or fashion if we'd only open out eyes, and if that's the case the term "racist" ceases to be rhetorically useful.

[pizzabrat]

mswas's hypothesis that the primary source of antipathy toward black Americans is rooted more in the context of economic class than skin color, may be wide open to significant discussion and debate, but your hysterical characterization of him as a not-so-crypto "brain dead" racist for daring to look as the issue as a class based vs a skin color issue, is a lot more indicactive of "intellectual laziness" than his argument is, however flawed you may consider it to be.
---------------------------------------------------
Having said this, it is not particularly useful debate wise to start slinging personal aspersions around of "you're a racist, and/or your thinking is racist if you don't believe there's pure, color based racism". It's a lazy and disingenuous way to debate. Mswas's argument may be incorrect or incomplete in its considerations, but that doesn't make mswas a "racist", unless the point being attempted is that we're all racists in some form or fashion if we'd only open out eyes, and if that's the case the term "racist" ceases to be rhetorically useful.

Astro, what you're referring to was a parenthetical aside to mswas based on the semi-coherent things he's said here and in the first of [BBrainGlutton's[/B] trilogy. Why are you harping on it like it was my main argrument? Just forget the label and address the other issue; that the whole "it's classism not racism" argument doesn't make sense. Nobody would ever say they hate people soley because of something superficial like skin color; they always have rational reasons attached. The end result is still that blacks are discriminated against because of their race, there's just an extra step in the syllogism (I hate the poor and undeducated; blacks are poor and undeducated; I hate blacks. WHAT THE HELL IS THE DIFFERENCE!??!).

Also, I said he was a "run-of-the-mill racist". Isn't "run-of-the-mill" the exact opposite of a hysterical characterization?

[EasyPhil]

In reading both Pizzabrat's and your characterizations of mswas's post I'm thinking this must be one of the most obvious examples of how people intellectually de-construct someone's statements in order to arrive at a foregone conclusion.

My attempt is to de-construct the notions presented here that are put forth without looking at what happened in the past. To analyze this issue and not looking at the past is like being clueless as to why a man has one leg because everyone you know has two.


Mswas was making a fairly simplistic, Soc 101 freshmen argument that it's not primarily skin color in and of itself that people make discriminatory judgments on, but rather the underclass behaviors that people disproportionately associate with black people. This basic chicken and egging analysis of the issue is a useful intellectual exercise, and through good faith argument will (IMO) yield the conclusion that insofar as it's extraordinarily difficult for most people to tease these elements apart in real world experience, that an Ur level reactive "racism" based mainly on skin color does indeed exist as a reality for many otherwise middle class (and even liberal in many cases) well meaning non-black people.

Is this site is supposed to be about fighting ignorance or fighting to stay ignorant? :D Fairly simplistic? I read that as clueless. I would go as far to say that your own analysis is short sighted. Why? Your analysis is rooted in the notion that this soceity began the day that you were concious that there was a society. Most of the information and the analysis that you have on the issue comes from sources that are also short sighted. If that wasn't true, believe me, you'd be looking at this in an entirely different way.


Having said this, it is not particularly useful debate wise to start slinging personal aspersions around of "you're a racist, and/or your thinking is racist if you don't believe there's pure, color based racism". It's a lazy and disingenuous way to debate. Mswas's argument may be incorrect or incomplete in its considerations, but that doesn't make mswas a "racist", unless the point being attempted is that we're all racists in some form or fashion if we'd only open out eyes, and if that's the case the term "racist" ceases to be rhetorically useful.

I said it before, if your notion of things is shaped by a racist agenda, then your thinking is in fact racist. Ignorance of the law is no defense! :D If I held certain notions about Jews or Homosexuals, I would be quickly labled anti-semetic or homophobic even if, according to your definition, I was incorrect or my argument incomplete.