You want to explain how you arrived at this conclusion? I’m aware poor white dudes have difficult lives but can you explain how it’s due to their race?
And against the majority race. And instititutional racism can exist against the majority if it’s a specific area where the minority is powerful.
We can all agree that racism and institutional racism by whites against other races is a bigger problem than vice versa, but that’s not going to be true for every person in every place. We can recognize the national problem while still dealing with more local problems, like bullying of Asian children in majority black schools.
Once we start veering into “unintended racism” you might as well join the Berkley kooks who cooked up the “power” contingent 40 years ago.
Sure, it often has happened. But probably not in a way you’re thinking. There are certainly examples in American history of a white minority holding enough power to use institutional racism against a non-white majority.
But the other way around? I can’t think of an example in American history where any non-white group was strong enough to apply institutional racism against white people without fear of repercussions.
I agree we should work on eliminating all forms of racism. And I think we should focus the most effort on eliminating the biggest problems.
Ahh. So in your world, every policeman who ever pulled over a black driver for DWB was a malicious racist (even th black cops) and every program intended to help all people that disproportionately helped whites and harmed others was only the result of vicious racists, even when many of the people in authority were, themselves, not white?
Nah. It is simply easier for some to claim that if one cannot point to the specific racist attitude of a specific person, then no racism existed, allowing one to then draw the conclusion that no person has been harmed by racism. It is easier to avoid addressing an issue when one simply denies that it exists and refuses to consider evidence that it does exist.
Or, more likely, it simply allows some people to claim that any event with disproportionate outcomes based on perceived race was simply “their fault.”
A group declaring some form of moral superiority based on their “race” should rise all sort of red flags.
<Surprising how often I’ve needed to say this in the Dope>
Yes, blacks can be racist against whites. However there is something of an asymmetry in that whites are (for now) the majority, and more importantly historically in positions of power and still largely dominant.
So, say, a joke about white people is just not as big a deal as one about Asian people, say, because people are not going to seriously stereotype the people we all interact with every day, see in most prominent roles in TV and in life etc.
We also couldn’t get away with excluding whites from job opportunities or demeaning them; not because it’s not acceptable but simply it’s not viable in most cases to shut out that group.
Minorities, not so much. Some people might actually believe the stereotypes, might treat every X they meet badly, and might choose never to hire them, say.
Can we have some evidence for this claim. Because very single dictionary i can find disagrees with you. Eg:
society the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community.
A society is a group of people involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations.
And so forth.
Since your entire argument hinges upon this claim that a city is not a society, you really better address it, with cites, or your argument collapses completely. Once we accept that a city is a society and that cities can have their own laws and cultural expectations, then your argument becomes patently false.
So can we please have your evidence that a city is not a society?
And what’s your claim? That American cities are autonomous and the state and federal government can’t intervene in city affairs? That cities have their own independent legal systems?
I won’t cite the constitutions of all fifty states but pick any one of them at random and read it. You’ll find cities derive all their legal authority from their state governments. A city can’t even exist without the permission of the state it’s located in.
So, just to keep this clear: You are totally unable to provide any actual evidence for your claim that cities aren’t societies.
We may move on to whether they are autonomous societies and what that means after we have cleared up this point, the point which underpins your entire argument.
Not independent societies, no.
Can you please stop obfuscating and just answer the question:
Can you provide any evidence whatsoever to support your claim that cities are not societies.
We don’t want to know whether you have evidence that they are not independent.
You never made a claim that they are not independent, so why would we want to know that?
Your argument doesn’t hinge on them being not independent, so why would we want to know that?
Can you just let us know the answer to the question that refers to the claim you did make and the claim that your argument does hinge on? No weaseling. No obfuscation. No Gish Gallop. Just give us the simple answer to the simple question:
Can you provide any evidence whatsoever for your claim that cities are not societies?
I would argue subconscious prejudice is something other than “racism,” and conflating the terms unfairly impugns people.
Plus it’s an excuse to never focus on anything else, since you can never eradicate normal human biases. And what’s with “eradicate” being used so often as a goal against racism? We don’t have that goal for murder, rape, and deadbeat dads.
I would argue that treating subconscious prejudice as not a kind of bigotry or racism makes it easier to accept it rather than take the effort to change it and become a better person.
Okay so we need to eradicate people being assholes. As long as there is one asshole, we need to concentrate huge efforts on finding that asshole and eradicating his negative personality traits.
Anyway, assuming few get my point, at what point do we declare victory? When we use terms like “eradication”, that implies that an end is forseeable. Perhaps we shouldn’t set eradication as a goal, but instead consider the battle won simply when minorities have just as much opportunity as whites?
“Eradication” is hyperbole, and I wouldn’t use it. But subconscious prejudice might be a huge part of disparate treatment by law enforcement, for example, in addition to other factors. Decent people, IMO, should leap at the opportunity to try and identify what subconscious biases and prejudices they might have so that they can improve themselves.
Minorities having just as much opportunity as white people is an extremely worthy goal. I don’t know if it’s enough to “consider the battle won”, but there’s nothing wrong with it as a goal in my mind.
These assertions are simply untrue, and do not reflect reality.
[Actually the real truth is that today, blacks have a lot more institutional power than whites do, and perceived or real instances of blacks being harassed are taken far more seriously than similar against whites. But that’s beyond the scope of my original point here, which is that blacks have considerable institution control in many areas of the US, and your claims to the contrary are baseless.]
It’s not a question of whether they can but of whether they will. The answer is that they won’t.
Unless there’s a perception of some discrimination against blacks (especially if accompanied by a sufficient amount of publicity). That’s when you get the full weight of the federal government bearing down on local authorities (e.g. Ferguson, Baltimore, et al). Otherwise, not really.
Some would say that things like BLM gives them some institutional power.
I think the city of Gary, Indiana, has that potential in large part because it’s 85% black. Black people dominate the government, the police, the fire department, everything in that city by the simple fact there are 8-9 black people living there for every non-black person.
It certainly has the effect that if your address is in Gary you are assumed to be black, which means non-black people living in Gary get to experience the same racial discrimination in things like sending in a job application in hopes of getting a job interview as black people do, or trying to get financing for a car or home or anything of the sort.
(As a non-black person living with a Gary address I’ve been on the receiving end of such inquiries as “You live in Gary? WHY?” and “Why do you live in Gary? Is your husband black?” which, while *nowhere *near as oppressive as what black Americans face on a regular basis is very telling nonetheless.)
Another example - I worked for the US Census. When my group showed up for training there were, if I recall, 22 people there. 19 were black. 2 were white. 1 was Hispanic. Which is actually pretty reflective of the local demographics. One lady immediately started protesting the presence of white people, saying that these jobs were for Gary residents and why were white people here? Which is clearly an example of individual bigotry (the regional director pointed out the demographics at work, ending with “there are, in fact, white people who live in Gary and two of them are in this room”) in a group which is overwhelmingly of one ethnicity enough individuals with such a bias are going to result in an institutional (within the group) bias. Now, a neighborhood or city is not like having an entire nation with institutional bias (for one thing, it’s a LOT easier to move out of neighborhood or city than a country) but it’s nonsense to say it doesn’t exist or doesn’t effect people. No white person is ever going to experience day-in-day-out societal racism as a black person would, but they can and sometimes do experience a version of it.
Now, there are two ways the white person (or other majority type of person, if we’re talking about societies in general) is likely to react. One reaction is to get angry and bitter and adopt an “oppress others before they can oppress you” stance, which only perpetuates these problems and solidifies bigotry. The other way is to think boy, what I just experienced really sucks, it’s wrong, and I’m going to work to eliminate this from my own behavior and society at large.
What we really want to do is encourage the latter reaction rather than the former.
Zimbabwe would be my first example.
So… in answer to the OP… yes, African-Americans are able to be racist against whites, but largely do not have the opportunity to do so due to continuing disparities in numbers and powers. They are not magically immune to bigotry in any form, but due to historical bigotry against them their ability to oppress others is limited under most circumstances.