And, as the Freakonomics authors pointed out, those studies weren’t all they were cracked up to be. Do people have a bias against weird-sounding names? Probably so. Is that racist? I doubt it. Does that account for the inequalities between the races? Nope.
What earlier example? I can’t find it.
That would probably depend on whether the firm was located in the south or elsewhere. 
While I certainly agree that racism and classism are closely linked, the fact of the matter is that blacks are more likely to be poor, so even if what we’re seeing is 100% classism, it’s going to affect blacks more than whites. And of course we can be pretty damn sure that it isn’t 100% classism.
But I think the point is that is it the sum of all of these small ways in which race affects opportunity.
My other post referenced stereotype threat, a phenomenon raised by another poster. It is a well-document social psychological phenomenon that results from the way that society–especially the media–portrays minorities (exhibit A: Katrina).
What evidence makes this clear? I must have missed where you cited this.
One individual act multiplied by several hundred thousand, repeatedly over time, can result in large scale consequences. It’s easy to scoff at the notion of racism when we don’t think in big picture terms. Much like the thief who thinks it’s no big deal to pocket one bag of cheetos without considering what would happen if everyone stole, it helps people feel better to think of racism as only being one person doing one bad thing to one other person.
So yeah, I do think a lot of whites are in denial about racism. Many seem to rationalize away what they see because it’s reassuring to believe its either no big deal or the product of oversensitive imaginations. I think those who take this stance are actually more mired in guilt than those who don’t, because their attitude comes off as a coping mechanism. People don’t use coping mechanisms unless they are dealing with some type of psychological stress. The most obvious one would be guilt.
Certainly. But that only means that you have to find out if bigotry exists; not simply assume it and say that anyone who questions your assumption is in denial.
Another problem is “rational racism”, where assumptions about individuals based on their group membership are sometimes justified. Jesse Jackson mentioned this, when he talked about how he felt hearing a group of younger men coming up behind him, and then feeling relief when he saw that they were white. Blacks are disproportionately over-represented amongst subjects of the criminal justice system in the US at every level. And everyone knows about how black cab drivers are just as reluctant to pick up black fares as anyone else.
Most blacks aren’t criminals, but that doesn’t help very much. If the opportunity costs of treating different groups as if they were the same is too high, the tendency is going to be selected against. The assumption “that random white stranger means me no harm” pays off a lot more than the assumption “that random black stranger means the same”. IYSWIM.
Regards,
Shodan
The difficulty with this is that there are issues other than pure racial rejudice which could explain why employers would be reluctant to hire people with particular names (all things on the resume being equal). Often, very small differences on resumes make huge differences in acceptance; a name could be a marker for social class, or simply “jar on the ear” so to speak.
An obvious follow-up study would be to have canadates include pictures with their resumes, or go to interviews, or otherwise have the employers know who is what race. Would the study show any difference if everyone submitting resumes was in fact Black - only some had the non-standard names, and others did not? What about if the WHITE canadates had the non-standard names, and the Black had the more “mainstream” names?
They were fighting in the Union Army, running the Underground Railroad, etc. during Slavery.
During Jim Crow they were ignoring the laws, or simply lived elsewhere. They were also marching to end the era, or supporting politicians who tried to make change.
Some where also just working to feed their family. Don’t expect poor whites to jump on the bandwagon, when they are trying to just make the rent. They might find the system to be bad, but they are also a bit distracted with their own problems.
What many disadvantaged whites see as “The Suits” manipulating things in society and the economy against “Us”( poor folks and former upper-middle / mid-middle income people down graded to lower-middle by outsourcings, “right-sizings”, “asset optimizations”, etc.) many disadvantaged blacks see as whites oppressing blacks.
Why do many blacks seem to think ALL white people are self-absorbed and undeservedly rich ?
The Suits love this! They don’t have to actively divide and conquer the rest of us. Racism among us does it for them.
White guy here.
Someone, I can’t remember who, said (and I’m paraphrasing) that if you’re white you don’t have to think about racism if you don’t want to, but if you’re black you can’t avoid thinking about racism. The point being that whites don’t see racism as having any effect on them so they feel free not to think about it. And blacks see the effects of racism throughout their lives and so can’t avoid it.
I think the first notion, whites’ ignorance of racism largely still holds true, and that it varies by individual.
I hope that things have improved enough for blacks that they aren’t confronted with racism in every facet of their lives. I suspect that blacks on the lower economic rungs experience racism more than middle-class or upper-class blacks do.
Well, of course. I’m thinking of Isaiah Washington claiming he was fired because he was black-rather than because he was a homophobic asshole who allegedly had assaulted his coworkers.
So being a member of a minority that has suffered bigotry doesn’t prevent someone from being a bigot against another group.
I’ve said it before, but I long for the day when “faggot” is considered the same as “nigger”. 
I don’t want to derail things but I think it basically is considered the same nowadays. The guys who say faggot are the same kind of guys who say nigger, basically uncultured bigots. In polite society, I imagine you’d get in as much trouble for faggot as for nigger.
I think the big difference between the two terms is that one carries connotations of hypermasculine brutality and the other of weak femininity. The drunken frat guys bellowing “fag!” aren’t afraid of some big bear blindsiding them, generally, but the big black bouncer by the door would prevent them from saying “nigger” any louder than a whisper. Never mind that the big black bouncer might be gay himself - in the mind of a bigot there’s nothing to fear in the way of physical punishment for an antigay slur.
Just Curious- To the black members of the board:
No offense is intended here. I am honestly curious.
The reason I ask is, well; I just don’t see a lot of it. I guess I understand the white/black couple in commercials (which I think I saw one not too long ago- can’t remember what it was for), but it wouldn’t be in the advertisers interest. They want to market to the largest group possible, so wouldn’t they go for male/female same race couples?
Perhaps I need to start looking harder.
Or “Fundie” the same as “Homo”, huh?
*
If only people would practice the preferred brand of bigotry!*
And the difference would be what? Hate based on difference. Same old, same old. Until it ends it will go on. Day after day, death after death. Until we all can live together. Each individual taking that first step to STOP IT!
Sorry, you’d asked for a cite here and I was a little busy. The results of the elections in Alabama for the year 2000 are here. To save you the trouble of looking it up, here is the text of the amendment:
Proposed Statewide Amendment Number 2
Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of Alabama of 1901, to abolish the prohibition of interracial marriages. (Proposed by Act No. 1999-321)
Yes
No
The election results were 801,725 for the amendment, and 545,933 against. 40.5% of the voters were in favor of keeping the ban on interracial marriage in the constitution. 25 of the 67 counties voted to keep the ban. It was largely a rural phenomena, the largest 13 counties voted for the amendment, while 6 out of the smallest 13 counties voted for it. Smallest here refers to population size, not area.
Thanks for the FYI Hon, but nothing I said implied that it wasn’t a problem in other places, just that it was in the US. I’ve seen it with my own eyes in more countries than you would believe, so don’t be so quick to patronise. I had new pages added to my last passport twice, and still had to renew early because I was out of room, but on the bright side I beat the rush at the beginning of 2007.
I just encountered this article by Robert Jensen, a professor at the University of Texas: http://www.alternet.org/story/56837/
For the folks in this thread, I hope you take the time to read it. It gets at the issues that the OP raised previously.
Spit, I’ll answer your questions with the caveat that I am an n of 1. I also consider myself insulated from a lot of the impact of racism by virtue of my education and where I live - a fairly liberal, highly-educated, somewhat affluent community. Of course in the Boston area that can change as you venture block to block.
Even by sharing this, I fully expect someone to sweep in and say “How did you know she was being a racist, she’s old, you’re reading into this, etc.” Which is annoying, but I expect it. It’s par for the course. For me, progress for me would be us discussing the event and perhaps even the degree to which racist intent played into the interaction, rather than if racist intent played a role or not. (I hope to avoid the “what’s racism” discussion - use the word “stereotyping” if it makes you feel better.)
I would say something happens that makes me say “hmmm…” about once a month or so. Sometimes the events are more “out there” and sometimes they’re less. But I also operate in the world of academic research, and I regularly hear colleagues having their work devalued or dismissed because of the focus on race. One of the more familiar ones is being questioned on one’s ability to be objective on a topic connected to race because one is a person of color, but White students aren’t asked the same questions - because the assumption is that people of color are working an agenda and White researchers are not. I often hear complaints from colleagues and students about stereotypes voiced by instructors and class participants that are unaddressed, or the absence of diverse perspectives when presenting a research dilemma.
That’s a very broad question and I will give a broad response. Yes and no. Some media outlets succumb to excessive focus on negative portrayals of people of color, and conversely others gloss them over. I feel the media did a fantastic job of exposing classism and racism during Katrina - Joe Scarborough and Anderson Cooper, to name two, explicitly raised these issues in their reporting. Issues of representation - positive representation - are of concern as well. For a kid watching TV, how often does she or he see an image of a person of color as a news anchor? A presenter on a documentary, and so on. I hope that Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson is still the host of NOVA Science Now when my kid is watching TV, because I can’t think of another Black man who serves as an authority figure on a media broadcast (excepting the occasional host of Dateline or something or other).
I’m not understanding why you would consider that progress. Honestly, in that example I have no way of knowing one way or the other if asking you the price of something was based on race. If I don’t know one way or the other then how can I begin to figure out to what degree racist intent played in the interaction? You’re asking me to bring you a bucket of water when all I have is a butterfly net.
But I can see the problem. Did that waitress give you bad service because of her racist ideas or was she just a bad waitress? It’s a question I won’t have to ask myself very often and I bet it can get frustrating after a while.
I read an article written by a Classicist who teaches and is black. He made a point that he had been asked multiple times whether or not he could read Ancient Greek and they always seem surprised when he says yes. His white colleagues generally don’t have to answer these kinds of questions but apparantly black Classical scholars are as rare as hens teeth.
In Little Rock, every night. I’ve heard David Keith do voice over work for a few documentaries, but other than black history month I don’t see all that many black hosts.
Marc
It would be progress because we’d be at least discussing what took place, rather than “was it racism or not?” This requires a little bit of empathy. I think what’s happened with some people is that because the microaggressive situations are so readily dismissed by Whites, that some people of color exacerbate every interaction and mine it for racist intent. The reality is, if White people want to hear less of people of color complaining about racism, it might be a good idea to try to empathize with the microaggressive situations that people of color encounter. You’ve hit the exact right approach - I don’t know myself if the woman is a Klan member or just a ditzy old lady. She’s probably something in-between. But you acknowledge that yes, that’s annoying, and frustrating, which is what I suspect most of us would like in this situation. My personality type is such that these things don’t weigh on me terribly, but I know it is more difficult for some.
We haven’t even broached issues like discrimination in housing, job searching, and the like, which obviously requires a greater degree of empathy and involvement from White allies to remedy.
Absolutely. In my research, I interviewed a Black scholar in an obscure field and he made the same statement. People were jarred by him being in the field, and even more critical of his attempts to analyze issues through the filter of race. He’s quite established now and it bothers him very little, but he spoke of a great deal of insecurity and fear when he first started sharing his work with colleagues in the field. He made the direct comparison to White colleagues who simply were accepted because of their Ph.Ds in the field.
That’s great, and I am continually encouraged by the fact that there are a number of anchors and documentarians - I even know a few. But I also miss seeing Bernard Shaw and Ed Bradley having the nation’s attention when they were at the top of the respective careers. I also miss seeing Connie Chung. But you’re right, there are a number of people of color gaining a foothold in the media.
I think anyone who denies that there is a lot of anti black prjudice in the general populace is kidding themselves.
Yes some blacks may be overly sensitive but they have many years of history to justify their wariness.
What justifaction do white deniers/ignorers have for their position?
I was a teenager during the civil rights movement, and I remember applauding the fiery speeches of the Black Panther Minister of Information, H. Rap Brown. I also remember clearly the rampant racism of the time. In particular, the racism of the white southern cops was beyond belief.
In 2000, H. Rap Brown was in a shootout in Fulton County, Georgia during which he shot two deputies, both of whom were black. I remember seeing a newspaper photo of the police chiefs of Fulton County and of Atlanta, who were commenting on his arrest. Both of them were black … and female.
Clearly, the US has come a long way since I was a kid … but unfortunately, racism is still alive and well.
I lived for about 15 years in countries with overwhelming black majorities, and I can only echo what Hippy Hollow has said above. It is a pain in the ass to try to figure out if someone is responding to me, or to my melanin-deficient skin. Much of the time, there is no clear answer, but I’m left with a bad feeling when it happens …
However, I’m moving soon back to a black country. Part of the reason is that I don’t like the level of racism I still see in the US. Yes, it is infinitely better than when I watched the Selma Alabama Sheriff Bull Connor on TV, setting the dogs on the demonstrators, we have made huge progress … but you better believe it’s still there.
I’d say that whites tend to underestimate the amount of racism in the US, and blacks tend to overestimate it … but in the middle of the two, wherever the truth lies, there’s still lots of it, too much for this white country boy … I prefer living in a country where DWB is never a crime.
w.