That’s not what I’m proposing or advocating. @Dark_Sponge probably said it better than I did in the OP. I think we can all agree that racism can’t be changed with a flip of policy switch etc. It takes generational change. Human nature, as I said, leads people to categorize people based upon the differences we see. It’s a shame that it has been that way in human history.
It hasn’t always been that way. In the Roman Empire skin color didn’t matter. Racism is learned behavior.
That is fine. And as a part of that, when an individual labels themselves as a member of group “…”, respect their self-identification.
It is more than that. Historically, racist policies did not flow from racists concepts and feeling. Rather, it was the other way around. Europeans wanted slaves and colonies, but their “enlightened” self image precluded that. So they had to convince themselves that African blacks weren’t really human, or at least were a lesser form of human, to make their actions feel justified in accordance with their own ideals.
For those that want to understand this a little better, I highly recommend Ibram X. Kendi’s How to be an Anti-Racist. My wife, my two boys, and I are reading it for a family book club and discussing this every week all summer. If my 11 year old can understand this concept, most adults should be able to get it. Admittedly, my 11 year has a lot of questions, but that is what the discussions are for.
I think it is also important to point out that being mostly race blind on a person level is a good thing. When you are interacting with an individual, treat them as an individual, not representative of a racial group.
The only time I really even think about the race of person I am interacting with for any reason is if I need to take into account lived experience. And that goes for many other characteristics or grouping (gender, age, country of origin). I have always been a bit of a know it all. I have tried as I got older to listen more and consider that no matter what I read or experienced, I have never been pulled over for being black. I have never worried about a date trying to force me to do anything I didn’t want to do. Those are real things, that real people need to worry about and I only have second hand experience with. Ignoring those kinds of things, or assuming my lived experience is the only “real” or “normal” one would make most of the world look like it was full of irrational ciphers or ignorant fools.
The article you cited is titled " Racial Labeling Promotes Racism" and it said “Our penchant for racial labeling, even when well-intentioned, is in and of itself a bias.” And you said you found validity in it. So it appeared your answer to “Does labeling people by race promote racism?” was yes.
Dark Sponge said “I don’t think taking away labels is the solution to racism.” I don’t see how you feel that’s agreement with what you said in the OP.
I feel that making an official policy of not identifying people by race is akin to not testing people for a disease. You can make the number of reported cases of the disease go down by reducing testing. But it will have no effect on the actual number of cases of the disease; the decline in reported cases is balanced by an equivalent increase in unreported cases. And testing should just be a first step in controlling the disease. After you conduct testing and find out where the disease is, you should follow through with treatment of the cases you find. This is the way you reduce the actual number of cases of the disease. But if you’re not doing the testing, you’re not following it with the treatment. So a reduction in testing can give you an apparent decline in the number of cases while causing the actual number of cases to increase.
As I said, I feel this analogy applies to racism. Racism, like disease, would exist in the real world. It would exist even if we were making no effort to look for it. By not identifying people by race, we could stop looking to see if people are treated unequally based on their race. But not looking for cases of racial inequality would not make cases of it disappear. The racism would still exist; we just wouldn’t be looking for it. And if we aren’t looking for cases of racism and working against them when we find them, there would be no reduction in racism. And racism, unlike disease, is performed by conscious actors. Germs don’t know if people are trying to stop them; racists do. Racists seeing no efforts being made to oppose them, would increase the amount of racist acts they carry out.
That’s about as clear and simple an explanation as anyone has ever written. And pretty well unassailable by any honest agent. Thank you.
My Mom was 2nd generation USA but of German / Dutch ancestry growing up in Chicago before & during WWII. When I was a kid in the 1960s she told me a story from her High School years. She told her Mom (b 1890-something) that she was going with friends to eat pizza at a restaurant in the next suburb. Her Mom said disapprovingly, “Pizza? But that’s Italian food. You’re not Italian!” After that Mom learned not to mention going out for exotic food like that.
That would have been roughly 1947, 70+ years ago today. Pizza was weird exotic food ordinary “good, white” Americans just don’t eat. And this was an upper middle class family in one the USA’s largest cities. Imagine how much more backwards the attitudes were out in the sticks!
IMO it’s going to take a lot longer than that to blend the whites and the blacks. We’re at the baby steps now. I figure 5 generations at 25 years each. Barring setbacks such as what’s going on this year.
I hope you’re wrong. My perception is that it is starting to speed up in the US now (bi-racial movie stars abound) but maybe I’m an optimist.
Actually, no they are not. Very rarely does discrimination happen to a group. If it happens, it happens first and foremost to an individual, would you agree to that?
Now, what you are conflating is that it happens individually across the board to a group.
You can decry the individual racism event. Identify , discuss, resolve. You cannot do those things regarding racism towards a group (if it is even a thing) because it doesn’t happen to the entire group. (ever?)
Maybe a large enough sample size of certain individuals that self identify as a group is enough for you, I am not sure it is with me for the simple reason that there are other factors at play. Economic, social, actions. But those things get discarded because it is much (and we have allowed it) easier to cry foul for a simple delineation of skin color to be THE determining factor.
Do you know that for a fact?
To use this analogy. what if what you thought was racism, wasn’t. What if it was classism, but since a whole lot of people of that group were also in a different economic class, what good would it do to treat the racism (that theoretically doesn’t exist), while ignoring the class difference?
It happens because they are a member of a group. That is the nature of the beast. Insisting that the individual can’t be identified as a member of a group means insisting that the discrimination isn’t happening.
Do I know what for a fact?
What if what you thought was purely classism was thoroughly tangled up with racism?
[quote=“Kearsen1, post:30, topic:918338”]since a whole lot of people of that group were also in a different economic class, what good would it do to treat the racism (that theoretically doesn’t exist), while ignoring the class difference?
[/quote]
Why should it be necessary to ignore economic class difference? And why are you assuming that people objecting to racism want to ignore economic issues?
You appear to be theorizing that the fact that black people are overrepresented among poor people in the USA has nothing to do with racism. I’m not accepting that theory.
People may be discriminated against for more than one reason, sure. Happens all the time. That doesn’t mean that only one reason can be addressed.
You italicized words come from a purely belief standpoint though, unless you can identify the actual incident that happened to the individual. You CHOOSE it to be about race, when as I said in my hypothetical, what if was about class?
Why do you choose it to be about race?
Yes, exactly, that’s the point.
You only know if there’s a pattern if you’re looking to see if a pattern exists. If you look at incidents and check the race of the people involved and find there’s no statistical connection, then you can determine that race is not a factor in the incidents. If you then look at the same incidents and check the class of the people involve, you might for a statistical connection there instead. But you won’t find anything if you make a decision not to look.
That’s the reason you should be investigating. If you don’t gather evidence, you can choose to believe anything you want. One person can choose to believe racism exists, one person can choose to believe classism exists, one person can choose to believe sexism exists, and one person can choose to believe eyeism exists. But none of them have any evidence to support their opinion.
That’s what we’re calling for; the gathering of evidence. Quite frankly, the only reason why I can see anyone being opposed to gathering evidence is because they suspect that an opinion they hold won’t be supported by evidence.
I agree with the first part of this statement wholeheartedly, I disagree that people just want to investigate.
In too many cases, people would rather just say racism, across the entire spectrum BEFORE any investigation is done.
And there are plenty of people who want to say it isn’t racism across the entire spectrum.
Evidence is the best response to both groups.
But my experience has been that when people are saying something is a result of racism, they’re often calling for an investigation. These people want the evidence to be gathered. Which to me indicates that they believe their claims are based on facts and an investigation would find evidence to support their claims.
I find that the people who are calling for a halt on investigations are generally in the “racism doesn’t exist” camp. They seem to be the people who don’t want the evidence to be gathered. To me, this indicates they suspect their opinions aren’t substantiated by evidence.
Which is a fine belief of yours to have, but is it founded in truth or evidence?
For example, i could ask for a cite but we both know that finding such cites to prove either side is more guilty of this than the other will result in us posting cites for hours and one of us will give up posting them (likely me)
Or would we rather just agree that we both want to see calls for evidence before we blame racism on whatever the cause de jour is?
Regardless, I want to see both “sides” request evidence.
I didn’t claim it was a fact. I cited it as my personal experience.
So an anecdote! Great, I have those too!
Let’s just agree to want evidence before accusations start a flying, yeah?
If we’re talking about something you made up in your own head, then it’s inapplicable to the actual world.
If we’re talking about something happening in the actual world, then no I am not choosing whether it’s about race or not.
Why are you insisting on choosing, within your own head, that nothing is about race?