Forked from this thread.
Is America really still racist? That there are racist Americans is beyond doubt, but are they a significant minority? Or are they just a visible tiny minority? Is this just fear-mongering by the Democratic establishment? (“Oh, those nasty Republican racists…”)
Let’s not forget discrimination by non-whites against whites and non-whites.
And illegal immigrants are a separate category to be ignored in this thread as white people can be illegal immigrants too.
I would assume the answer to this question depends on who is asked the question. I have been victim of far less racism being a white guy then my adopted sister who is a black woman.
I’m not sure there’s a numbers answer to this question.
There are two ways to look at this: institutional racism and individual racism.
in the first case, America is no worse than any other country, in that we no longer have laws that let you discriminate based on race.
In the second case, really, while America is bad as far as wide-spread individual racism, I don’t think it’s worse than most other countries.
That’s why I put the thread in GD not GQ. 
Really? Is it?
Oh God it is; it’s like The Land That Time Forgot.
The entire criminal justice system would be an embarrassment to a third world nation.
Is that your perception or is there any factual basis behind it?
It’s not exactly news - google any terms around it:
I think that America is just as racist today, the day after it elected Donald Trump to the presidency, as it was on November 4, 2008, the day it elected Barack Obama to the same office.
Which is to say, for the most part, not at all…but for any number of small samples, very much so. It all depends on how you select your cross-section.
Tell me what conclusion you wish to draw, and I’ll find you the statistics to back it up.
“A buttload” seems fair.
It’s more like americans think of others in a stereotypical way more times than not. ⃣⃣⃣⃣⃣⃣⃣⃣⃣⃣⃣⃣⃣⃣⃣⃣⃣⃣⃣⃣America has a pretty solid public opinion of certain groups.
On paper America is not racist at all. As for the people I don’t think we’re worse off than many other nations.
As someone who watches a lot of international soccer games, it seems America is doing alright on outward racism scale
Every person in America is racist, every single individual, even the little babies.
It is not that babies are racist, but rather that they are biased to those of their own race.
racial bias != racism.
because of the way our brains are wired, we are naturally “groupist.” There is a huge difference between an unfortunate unconscious programming and explicit discrimination.
Racism starts when we fail to recognize our inherent prejudices as prejudices and instead act on them as if they were truth.
I know I was really only joking. I don’t believe everyone is racist, I do however believe that all people are biased or prejudiced about something in some way but that it runs the entire gambit: So not everyone will be racist but that same person may be consciously or unconsciously prejudiced, discriminatory, or biased in some way. It may be fat people, weak people, sick or disabled people, people of different religions, rich or poor, tall or short, women vs. men, gay vs. straight, different cultural values, foreign-born vs. natural born, etc. I think it is an impossibility to not be that way because nobody can grow up with the entire human experience.
But if you want to be pedantic I think an argument could be made that if a baby is naturally biased, they will favor certain groups or things over others, this leads to overt or covert discrimination because they prefer certain things or people over others, and this inevitably becomes one -ism or another. Still I think it’s important to not water down these terms into having no meaning. Thinking Asians are good at math is probably a long way from lynching black people, or attempted genocide against Jews.
I am not being pedantic, noticing bias and avoiding attribution errors is needed to avoid being racist.
Bias a is not a moral issue it is a human failing. The reality is that colorblindness and post-racialism will never be a passive reality. By normalizing and acknowledging bias and stoping them before they lead to prejudicial action is important.
My main reason for responding is that while individuals will always be biased for what ever group they associate no matter if it is skin color, sports team or mode of transportation they need to know that the immediate attribution error is an unfortunate reality of being human. But the moral thing is to make a conscious effort to not act on those attribution errors.
But when when people seek justification for bigotry due and discrimination due to that inherent prejudice they will often conflate the two as an internal justification.
I want to live in a world where people feel free to point out my biases in a constructive fashion so that I can take positive steps to change. And I also want to detach the very real social costs of racism from an assumption that is self affirming for those who currently take statements like the post I responded to as validation of their actions.
Please do not think I am making any claim on your stance, I was trying to clarify for readers in general, I was not making any claim about your stance outside of the statements as read in the post.
I just posted this in another “What the Hell Just Happened” thread:
Of my parent’s 4 kids, I am strong left, one is (was - Parkinson’s) an outspoken racist/anti-Semite, etc.
The other 2 just vote (mainly/strongly) GOP - I suspect at least one balked at Trump - just a tad too much…
I sincerely hope that the monster racism I knew as a child will die with my my generation, as it has with the death of my parent’s generation.
I am pretty certain that my nieces and nephews are much more civilized than their parents.
I really, really hope that they are - and that the ugliness given sanction by the GOP retreats back under their rock.
Most people are aware of stereotypes of their race and other races. Some of these are derogatory, some untrue, some misapplied, some fail to distinguish between the complexities of race, some are institutionalized, some are wrongly taken as fact. The consequences are real, pernicious and complex.
Canada has many problems with racial issues but fewer than many places. You can’t easily joke about it. But people are largely open minded and becoming a little more so. When I go to the US, I am sometimes shocked by what I see. That said, plenty of places are probably more racist than the US, which did elect Obama.
The answer (based on things like incarceration rates and statements by your President-elect and his supporters) is “Really, really racist” - but that’s not just an American phenomenon.
Hell, we (South Africa) just had a party leadersay this the other day (my emphasis):
“We are not calling for the slaughter of white people‚ at least for now”
Yeah, I’d say racist shit is pretty universal.
How racist? Bigly.