A Conversation with a Racist

The BBQ Pit
1

A couple of times a week, I go to a little bar near my house to get some dinner and have a few beers. I usually show up toward the tail end of happy hour, when most of your older crowd, consisting almost entirely of guys escaping their houses for an afternoon, are still there. Most of them are great guys. There is one, however, that has proved himself to be quite possibly the most racist man I’ve ever met. On the surface, he seems OK. A little snippy, maybe, but OK. Then, you get to know him. It turned out that once he gets to know you, he’ll turn any topic you can possibly bring up in conversation into a discussion about how blacks, or Jews, or whoever, are ruining the country and the white man is getting beaten down. It’s gotten to the point that if I see him when I go in, I’ll sit as far away from him as I possibly can. Here’s some examples of how he’s worked race into perfectly innocent conversations. I can’t remember the exact discussions, but I at least remember the relevant comments. I’ll list the topic first, followed by my comment, followed by his racist response.

Topic: Baseball
Me: The Cardinals sure are doing well this year. It’ll be great if they get the pennant.
Him: Just makes me wonder if they would do better if they got rid of all the damn blacks. There are no more white man’s sports, you know.

Topic: Brokers
Me: You know, I really wonder if brokers know what they’re doing or if they’re just guessing like the rest of us. That 60 minutes report a few years ago wasn’t too flattering.
Him: I had a broker once who seemed like the best damn broker I ever had. We always talked over the phone. I made X amount of money on X company, after he told me to invest in it. Believe me, I was floorboarded when he came to my house to have me sign some papers and I found out he was black. I asked him who he was, and he said he was my broker. Sure enough, after I checked his I.D., he was. I signed the papers, but I never dealt with him again. A nigger can only get lucky so many times.

Topic: Starting a small business
Me: I’d like to start a small cabinet making business someday.
Him: There’d be a lot more opportunities out there if the damned Jews weren’t in this country. Think about it. If Hitler hadn’t killed them off, then they all would have come over here and run white men out of business. They would be the head of all the major companies, and we’d be working for the cheap bastards.

My usual response to comments like these was silence, followed by a move to another spot at the bar. I didn’t want to tell him what a racist prick he was, because when I go in there, I want to relax. I’m not about to get worked up over a moron who could never, ever be persuaded that he’s wrong. It would be just as futile as arguing with a religious fundamentalist about the literal truth of Genesis.

There was one significant exception, however. He found out what I do for a living, which is working on promotional tests for cops and firefighters. Immediately after I revealed this, he said, “Oh. So, how many extra points do you give the niggers on their tests?” Now, this conversation captured my interest more than most, so I chose to argue with him. His name, BTW, is Julius (really). This is a more or less accurate transcript of some of the comments:

Me: We don’t add points to the black’s scores, Julius. It’s illegal. It was outlawed by the Civil Rights Act of 1991.
Him: Yeah, right. There’s no way a black could get promoted if you didn’t.
Me: Really? Look up the 1991 Act. It says it’s illegal in plain English.
Him: Well, maybe so, but I know you still do it.
Me: Julius, have you ever seen how the promotional process works first hand?
Him: No, but it doesn’t take a genius to see that those blacks would never have even gotten hired if you people weren’t jacking up their test scores. It’s either that, or you just hire them no matter what their test scores are just to fill your quotas.
Me: Now Julius, let’s think about this. If that’s what we were doing, we would be setting ourselves up for a huge lawsuit. There’s no doubt in my mind that if we didn’t uphold that Act to the letter, somebody in a 700+ member department would find out about it and report us to the Justice Department. At the very least, they would find a local lawyer who would sue under the Civil Rights Acts. The Justice Dept. people or whoever would then come here, get our records through court orders, and find out what we were up to. The case would go to court, and we would lose our asses. In fact, most of us in the Testing Division would probably lose our jobs. The city itself would have such a badly damaged reputation that we may never be able to attract anybody to those jobs again for years, black or white. Do you really, honestly think we would take that risk?
Him: Well, it’s the only way you would ever get blacks hired.
Me: Are you telling me that there are no blacks anywhere that can do that job well? Are you trying to suggest that we just promote them regardless of their ability or qualifications just because they’re black?
Him: That’s what I said, isn’t it?
Me: Julius, you have no idea what you’re talking about. In reality, if you get beaten to a promotion by a black man, it’s because he did better on the test than you did. Even Affirmative Action doesn’t apply in promotional situations.
Him: Sure, his score will always be better after you add the points to it for being black.
Me: OK, Julius, consider this. I catch shit about the promotional process from both sides. Some of the black guys think the system is rigged against them so we can keep them down. On the other hand, some of the white guys think we’re adding points to the black’s scores so we can promote them to fill quotas. The two sides can’t both be right. They’re mutually exclusive. If they were both correct, nobody would ever get hired, would they?
Him: Oh, that’s bullshit. Those blacks know what you’re doing. They’re not worried about anything.
Me: I see. Then how do you explain the fact that we have training classes on how to take a promotional test that was conceived as a way to persuade the candidates that the system isn’t rigged?
Him: See! You’re even coaching the niggers!
Me: But Julius, the training classes are open to everybody, regardless of race.
Him: Oh, bullshit.

The conversation went on like this for some time. No matter what I said, he either dismissed it as a lie or the rantings of an overly idealistic kid (he’s probably 35 years older than I am). He actually accused me of covering the whole thing up, in a manner quite reminiscent of a conspiracy buff accusing the government of hiding aliens (We know you have them in Hangar 18! Just ‘fess up to it!). I left the bar that evening actually feeling a little stupid for ever getting into the argument in the first place. I should have known going into it that there would be no persuading him, no matter how sound my arguments were. It would take nothing less than letting the bigoted prick sit in on the entire test development process in person to convince him that he was wrong. And, my guess is that even then, he would accuse us of doing something just after he left that altered the outcome.

I suppose there’s no real point to this exceedingly long story, other than to relate an experience that reminded me in a dramatic way that these openly racist scumbags are still out there, despite societal changes. Just to justify this post’s placement in the Pit, let me add the following: I loathe, detest, and despise these smarmy, narrow-minded, white-hooded, racist weasels even more than they hate people who aren’t just like they are. Their refusal to admit that their amazingly sweeping generalizations might be wrong clearly shows that they have precious few functional synapses. If there is a hell, then it is my sincere hope their personal version of it consists of black guys beating the living feces out of them for all eternity.

2

“Julius, you are an ignorant bigot. Please, go away and let me drink in peace.”

3

It saddens me to think that people still think like Julius does. :frowning: I think you should call him a goat felching racist pig! or you could be more polite like Spiritus Mundi suggested. :smiley:

4

Never argue with drunks, fools, and little kids :smiley:

Actually, I’ve been through what you have, under different circumstances. It’s just not possible to win an argument with these assholes.

I was talking with an acquaintance one day a few years back and made a comment about the woman who was trying to get into the Citadel at the time. The guy looked at me and said, “Yeah, it’s just as bad as that college fund for niggers. How come white people don’t have the same thing?”

WTF?!?!

Of course, I found out later that he honestly believed the Civil War was about states rights and had nothing at all to do with slavery :rolleyes:

5

You have already spent more time talking to this guy than I would have. Tell him your mother is half jewish, and half nigger, and your father is a hindu zen master. Then tell him your mojo doctor told you never to sit near people with little tiny dicks. Then move over.

Tris

6

He sound like he has a mental problem.
The most important thing in his life is race.
He also sounds like a ‘dissapointed man’ someone who feels he never reached his true station in life and has to blame everyone but himself.

One good point about him is that if he is 35 years older than you then he will be dead before you are.

7

I can’t advise you of what to say to this filthpig srwilkins, but I appreciate your need to vent and your confidence that this is an appropriate place to do it.

picmr

8

And hopefully this piece of shit wrapped in skin didn’t accidently spawn, leaving a kid to be his twisted little racist prodigy.

I keep trying to be optimistic, and hope that idiots like this will eventaully be bred out. It’s a slim hope, I know.

9

You know, everyone has some sort of prejudice against some group. Even if that prejudice is temporary.
But this guy sounds obsessed. Trying to steer every conversation into a specific topic is obsession with the topic, regardless of what the topic is. If he tried to steer every conversation into the topic of sports cars, it would still be an obsession. And that’s not healthy.
And it’s boring. Take away the racism in his conversation and this guy still is wierd. I’d avoid him too.

10

srwilkins, I’m so sorry you had to run into my father in law like that! If it’s any consolation, at least he didn’t bring mother in law with him.

Seriously, my Husband’s parents are the same way. Everything, and I do mean every single freaking thing, is the fault of black people. It’s why FIL has such a crappy job, oh no it’s not because he has no hs diploma and no computer skills, it’s because of black people. Women are raped exclusively by black men. Prices are high because of black people stealing. Schools are crappy because black children want to learn.

And you really can’t reason with people like this. Alas, we do not live in TV land where we could lock the in laws in an elevator with a black man and after an hour of conflict and conversation they emerge, repentant and wiser. No, MIL would scrunch down in the corner, her pants soaked from having pissed them in fear. FIL would be in his separate corner, glaring at the “porch monkey” who probably stole the high paying job as a snout chopper at the slaughterhouse from under his feet.

Grrrr. Trust me, I’ve tried to reason with them, but they won’t listen to me because I’m Asian, and we are unfairly competing with white people because we are smart. Damn us wily Asians!

11

Racists and racist ideas have been with us since the beginning of time and will most likely be here at the very end.

I was taught from a very young age that judging people on the colour of their skin, ethnicity, religion, etc. is wrong. My mother called people like this ignorant and after she explained that ignorant means that people don’t know anything better or different I understood.

My feelings when I meet these kinds of people range from pity to outright anger. Some I would like to educate and others deserve an ass whupping of the highest order IMHO.

I am not ready to rule out all hope that someday things will be different but for now I will reamin pessimistic on this issue.

12

Unfortunately, it is very unlikely he will have non-racist offspring. No doubt his dad, mom, or both were viscious hate mongers.

My 3rd year of college I lived in a dorm suite with 3 other guys all bigoted to the core (one was Asian). I was so naive. I assumed, from my previous 2 years experience in school, that this was an institution of higher learning, a place for intelligent, young, progressive minded people to grow. I just didn’t see racism in my crowds. I really believed racism was a thing of the past, and that the things you hear about in the news were just the rare traces of yesterday’s society. I was wrong. They were all racist scumbags, and all of their friends were too, and through this I discovered there was a whole other half out there in this institution of higher learning that I never knew existed (well, probably not a whole half, at least I hope not. I still believe strongly that this kind of racism was a minority within the school). It was shocking.

I remember once I was driving, all 3 of them in the car, when a Latin American looking guy cut me off dangerously. Immediately all 3 began their hateful slurrs:“Fuckin spic, asshole. Kill all those fuckin spics! spic motherfucker!”
“Yeah” I replied, “bad driver!”

I don’t think they got it.

13

srwilkins said:

So what happened before 1991? Did they add points to black people’s scores? If so, why?

14

Well, why don’t we? I’m not a racist, but it bugs me that United Negro College Fund is acceptable whereas United Fat Old White People College Fund isn’t. It’s a societal stigma that reeks to me.

While the Civil War certainly had to do with Slavery, State’s Rights was by far the largest motivational factor until the very end of the war.

Conclusion:
Racists are stupid and hold prejudicial ideas having nothing to do with reason or historical fact.

Conclusion:
Same thing goes for many anti-racists.

15

Actually, I wasn’t working in the field before 1991, so I can’t say with any certainty. I do know, however, that at least some organizations (and not just government) used a practice called “race norming”. This involved not adding points to a minority member’s score, but rather using a different cutoff for failing the test. The idea was born probably sometime back in the 60s or 70s out of the notion that then, the tests themselves were put together by mostly white males. Given the sub-cultural differences between white males and black males, or black females, or whoever, it seemed logical to them that the test developers were asking questions that dealt with issues known only to their own sub-culture. A member of another sub-culture couldn’t possibly know what they were talking about. To use a petty example, they thought that some of the questions asked on the test would be equivalent to asking a backwoods poor white redneck to comment on the artistic qualities of hip-hop music. Thus, the test itself was said to be biased, and it just seemed logical that members of a different sub-culture should not be held to the same standard as those who grew up in the culture of the test developers.

Once this came out, however, there were tons of research done to figure out how to eliminate the problem. After testing the idea of sub-cultural bias in tests pretty much ad nauseum, it turned out that the whole phenomenon was bogus. The perceived bias didn’t really exist. Yet, some organizations continued to use race norming as a way to satisfy affirmative action efforts, still thinking that the tests really were biased. That’s when Congress got into it and made it illegal in the Civil Rights Act of 1991.

Now that I’ve answered Milroyj’s question, I have one for you, friedo. If the Civil War really was about the matter of state’s rights, then how do you explain the fact that the CSA adopted a constitution identical to that of the US, with the sole exception that it had an explicit guarantee that slavery was legal?

16

The two constitutions were similar, but not identical. If you read some of the political writing of the time, you will see that the issue being focused upon in the majority of cases is the state’s right to govern itself (or choose to abandon union with other states). Slavery is central to this issue, but IS NOT ITSELF THE ISSUE. Take Georgia’s Declaration of the Causes of Secession, which starts off with:

While it’s true that this document discusses slavery, the central theme here is not slavery itself, but the RIGHT of the state to decide whether slavery should be allowed, among other rights (like secession.)

No reputable historian will tell you that slavery was the sole (or major) cause of the Civil War.

Abraham Lincoln didn’t care that much about the slaves, he was a racist. Slavery became a convenient political tool during the war.

From Abe Lincoln:

(bolding mine)

I think it’s a safe bet that Lincoln was not a die-hard abolishonist. He was concerned first with preserving the unity of the nation, not with freeing slaves. (And no, he did not free the slaves, that was Congress).

Also from Lincoln:

Military control of forts and armories was taken by the Confederacy on the justification that:

Many states had notable unionist movements in their conventions. Slavery was rarely a central issue in convention debate:

link

The secessionists at the state conventions largely based their justificaiton in the US Constitution:

link

In conclusion: This war was based on immensely complicated issues that I don’t claim to begin to understand. Slavery was not the only, nor primary, issue.

17

The state right that was at the core of the secession decision was the right to enslave blacks. That was the “right” that the South was concerned about losing. To argue that this somehow minimizes the import of slavery as a cause for the war is disengenuous. Yes, much political writing of the time spoke as much or more of states rights as of slavery. When trumpeting the righteousness of his actions a man will generally stress the point that seems more noble.

I agree that the South found justification for their right to secede in their own reading of the Constitution. That, of course, is irrelevant to their motive in seeking that right.

18

Just smile and say, “You know, Jesus was black?”
Gets 'em every time…

19

What I don’t understand is why you keep giving this guy an audience? As old as he is and with his narrow-mindedness, he’s not going to change regardless of what you say. So why on earth would you keep humoring him? Give him an audience of 0, and see how long he keeps talking.

20

Friedo, I won’t speak about the causes of the civil war, as I haven’t done research on the issue (My history thesis, and the focus of my studies, was on Post WWII diplomatic and military history).

However, I must say that you have chosen a remarkably poor piece of evidence to buttress your contention that slavery was not the primary cause of the CW. The Georgia Declaration that you quoted begins with slavery as the issue:

The complaints are:

  1. The North was for a long time been pissy about slavery;
  2. This pissiness is interfering with our right to have slaves;
  3. In particular, the North won’t let us take slaves into the western Territories; and
  4. It is this “hostile policy” that is our concern.

You try to distinguish between slavery and a state’s right to allow slavery as the cause of the CW. Distinction without a difference, dude. The only “State Right” mentioned was slavery. From your own quotation, Georgia wasn’t concerned that the Feds were going to take the issue away from the state, but that the Feds were going to outlaw slavery.
Sua