It seems to me, that people make too much of it. In both high School and college, I was one of few hispanics, yet, I did not feel singled out. Yet, once, I went to a latino student club retreat, and I heard all of these folks talk about how they felt strange and alienated because they were the one of few latinos in their area and are one of few in their colleges. I was rather puzzled at this becasue that was never the case with me. I never felt that way, nor did I feel singled out. My parents brought me up to celebrate and be proud my heritage, but not to be hung up on it, nor to be oversensitive
I wish more people felt like you do. I think the concept is outmoded and eventually must be retired, but I can’t see that time approaching. To answer your question: yes, no doubt about it.
IMHO one main reason it happens is that there are leaders of every minority group who keep stirring the pot insisting on how much discrimination there is etc. That is what they sell and if people would stop buying it they’d be out of a job.
In the meanwhile many people like you just go about their lives and make the best of it and succeed.
It’s not just race though, it’s also gender (and prolly sexual orintation, but I haven’t seen thet seriously used yet)
I got called sexist for interrupting my sister, pretty sexist of me, eh? Then when I told here she was being homophobic, she calimed that she had many gay friends, but my female friends didn’t click into her head when she called me sexist. 
Everyone hides behind whatever they can because they know it’s been working for a long time.
Maybe we should analyze this and see which minorities trump other minorities.
IMHO, I believe people want to feel like they belong to something.A part of something larger than themselves. If only to give themselves a sense of identity.
For some, they feel a bond with those of a similar profession. Others feel a closer bond with those of their own ethnicity. While others join even smaller groups like clubs or message boards.
To reinforce the specialness of whatever group people decide to be a part of, other groups are often belittled or considered lessers.
It’s tragic how people treat one another due to relatively minor differences, but I do think it’s human nature.
How do you get past that? I wish I knew.
- People -do- make too much of a thing about it.
- Self-appointed Minority Leaders would be out of a job if people did not believe them.
- If you can blame <insert favorite slur for another racial group here> for why you <did not get job/live in a crappy neighborhood/have a drinking problem/had your car stolen/have an ugly wife/have a three-legged crosseyed dog that eats out of the litterbox> it’s always feels better than blaming yourself. Just about everyone does it, some people pull out the race card, some just blame their boss.
- The belonging to something greater than one’s self is definately a big reason too. I think that belonging to a group that primarily makes it’s membership decisions based on race is lame, as it has nothing to do with your own merits, other than who your parents were. However, there are many groups that do this. Some are filled with -activists-. I don’t like activists. I don’t care what you are an activist about, or why. It seems to me, that most, if not all, activists are angry about something,(sometimes quite appropriately) and the worst bit is, they often want me to be angry about it too. I have enough anger to deal with, and have enough trouble dealing with it. I don’t want yours.
<end of rant>
<stepping off soapbox>
The short of it is, is that there are more important aspects of who -you- are than who your parents were. Not everyone else will think so, but it is best if you think so, because it is true. I’d rather hang out with a two headed, three armed fun guy than a rather nice looking angry rat bastard, but that’s just me.
<end of rant, part II>
**
Yes, absolutely.
There was an interesting article on this topic this Sunday in the Washington Post that some of you may be interested in reading. It sheds some light on the issue of race at a personal level:
The theory that I believe is one of social dynamic psychology. It breaks down like this. [ul]
[li]Human Beings were, at one time, herd animals. We taveled, hunted and lived in packs.[/li][li]As a herd animal, any other herd is either an threat to your territory or an ally against said threatening herds.[/li][li]The easiest way to define a herd is by race or religion.[/li][li]If someone is not of the same race or religion, they are, in the most primitive psychological terms, either a threat or an ally.[/li][li]Primitive people can’t get past primitive psychological roadblocks. So instead of recognizing that they are threatened by someone who looks differently as a throwback to when we were still eating our hunt raw, they turn that fear into hatred. Presto chango: racism! [/ul][/li]
Of course, racism works all ways. My best friend in high school was (well, she still is…) Cuban, and very dark skinned. Her Cuban and black friends would stop talking when I entered a room. You can’t stop racism on an institutional scale until you abolish it on a personal one, folks.
Not sure what “hung up” might mean in this context. Lets assume it’s something to do with making it an unnecessarily big issue, kind of “why can’t we all just get along”.
The difficulty I have with that way of dealing with race is that it doesn’t address anything - are you saying everything would be fine if everyone stopped making a big deal of it ? – You obviously don’t see it as a problem.
(per 100,000 of the general population in 1995, Bureau of Justice figures)
Whites: 919
Blacks: 6,926
National Averages (again per 100,000 of the general population)
Holland: 51
Germany: 80
UK: 80
Italy: 80
US: 546
Of course, you might argue that Blacks are inherently more likely to commit crime. Or you could say poverty, lack of educational opportunity and/or quality, bad housing, bad health care, inadequate social provision, etc, etc might be contributing to a general sense of disenfranchisement from the mainstream and that, of itself, tends to push people towards criminal activity.
You could even go nuts and take a leap by thinking that crime is a function of poverty as opposed to race.
Thing is, if you don’t make an issue out of it, it won’t go away. History shows us that if you ignore society’s ills they just get progressively worse. At this rate it won’t be long before there are more Blacks in prison that out.
Perhaps most importantly from a minority perspective is that you don’t effect change without it being a reasonably popular political issue. It can’t be popular unless, or until, the voting population is educated about what discrimination is and what it means.
At what point do you think it might be worth society getting “hung up” on it ?
(My country is no racial nirvana either but the OP addressed the US. Stats from http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/en/1998/07/14prison))
I’m not sure of what these numbers represent exactly. Could you please clarify? Regarding the numbers of blacks vs. whites in prison, I suspect it is because of crimes that the individuals committed. I doubt that there is some kind of conspiracy to keep whites a minority in prison, but I may be wrong.
I can only repeat what I wrote i.e “per 100,000 of the general population”. My reasoning on that is:
Take an average 100,000 Americans, divide them into racial groups, what % of those groups within the 100,000 is in prison.
I agree “there’s lie’s, damn lies and staistics” but those numbers seem pretty uncompromising.
I don’t know if we are totally over racism as a society or not, but I do know that if you keep hitting people over the head with a 2x4 every time a injustice, be it real or imagined, people are going to start rebelling. I think people are getting sick of the marches and grand drama that goes along with each and every incident. Why can’t we just talk about it? Would that make people angry?
OK, that has to be wrong. How about:
Take an average 100,00 White American’s, take an average 100,000 Black Americans. How many of each group is in prison. Think it has to be individual people, not crimes committed.
(One or two of those European stats might be 9 or so people out, I misquoted)
So, are you saying that there are more black people (both percentagewise and numerically) in prison because:
a) a larger percentage of blacks commit crime.
or
b) white people are more careful criminals, and don’t get caught.
or
c) only black people in prison are being cloned by the alien overlords, as their DNA is more compatible with thier alien technology, which is being housed in area 52. (that area 51 is just a decoy).
or
d) You are a troll.
London_Calling a troll? Thanks, Wonko. I needed a good chuckle.
You were joking, right?
did you read answer c?
read it again.
I don’t really believe in the alien overlords, but someone seems to believe that there is some kind of reason other than personal behavior that individual people have complete control over may be resulting in an odd statistic. Hey, it’s certainly strange that the statistic LC referred to exists, but I am not going to say that any politician can remedy a situation that results in a statistically uneven number of racial groups in prison. I think that people generally end up in prison because they committed a crime. What’s so odd about that?
<end of rant, waiting for conspiracy theorists>
And no, I am not a libertarian.
Wait, you mean to tell me ‘C’ is not the right answer? I’m lost…
Cool off, Wonko. No one here is trolling and, as far as I can tell, no one is claiming that there is any sort of conscious conspiracy.
London_Calling has posted some data relevant to the OP. That data would seem to indicate that a very high percentage of the black population is in prison. This is an interesting point in this discussion of whether or not people make too much of an issue of race. I would read that data as meaning that, though we no race to be unimportant in theory, there are still some issues that cause a sense of racial division.
You have stated, quite correctly, that the commission of a crime is an individual choice rather than the result of some grand conspiracy. What does this say about the data presented? Does it suggest that individuals of color (see? A good application of a PC term) are more likely to commit crimes? Sadly, yes. Is that because they are black? Of course not. However, it cannot be denied that, historically, black people have been disadvantaged. Until recently, black people could expect to achieve a level of education grossly inferior to that of white people. Although the racist sentiment that caused such a disparity is dead for the most part, the effects of that disparity still exist. The same thing goes for the wages that could be expected by minorities.
The effect of these historical disparities is that a large portion of minority populations is disadvantaged. That’s a simple fact that we cannot deny, no matter how much we want to. A large portion of minority populations is comprised of individuals who are able to decide to commit crimes because the consequences seem less terrible than they might to the average white person. Individuals are willing to take greater chances when they are at the bottom and there is nowhere to go but up. Those same individuals are more likely to have less regard for society because they happen to find themselves on the short end of that stick.
To state that the strangely high percentage of the prison population being black is not the result of racism is to imply that
A) there’s an amazing coincidence that we can’t do anything about,
B) there is a weird conspiracy, but it has to do with aliens and not race,
or, the most disturbing implication,
C) that a higher percentage of black individuals commit crimes not because of a conspiracy, not because of racism in our society, but because of their biology – because they are black.
Answer C is, obviously, a horrifically bigoted and racist statement. It is also the answer that fits most closely with the things that you have posted.
No matter how you view the data that London_Calling has presented, it does have implications with regard to the OP. “Trolling” has a clear, well-established definition. This does not fit in that definition.
I have a spare ‘k’ and ‘w’ here which can be inserted into the second paragraph of my last post surrounding the letters ‘n’ and ‘o’ on order for that paragraph to make a little more sense.