# How Should We Combat Modern Racism? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 27, 2009, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-we-combat-modern-racism/511736 "2009-09-27T08:37:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-we-combat-modern-racism/511736/61 "2009-10-04T01:38:02Z")
> [@Honesty](#): > > I don’t know. But reparations would be a good start. > > - Honesty The only thing reparations would accomplish would be to create a huge backlash and a whole new generation of racists. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-we-combat-modern-racism/511736/62 "2009-10-04T01:44:18Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#): > > “When a man has emerged from slavery, and, by the aid of beneficent legislation, has shaken off the inseparable concomitants of that state, there must be some stage in the progress of his elevation when he takes the rank of a mere citizen and ceases to be the special favorite of the laws, and when his rights as a citizen or a man are to be protected in the ordinary modes by which other men’s rights are protected.” > > -Supreme Court Justice Joseph Bradley in 1883. > > This is not a new argument, and I don’t think it’s much more useful now than it was then, even if it has begun to pick up a bit of steam again (see for instance the Parents Involved case with the Seattle and Louisville schools). I spoke to Mary Frances Berry once about this particular point – whether or not it was time for the “color blind” society, and what to do about the claim that now it’s the blacks themselves who are keeping blacks in the projects. She told me that Martin Luther King said we should be blind to color, but he didn’t mean that we should be stupid about it. > > Her point was that a true colorblind society is the goal, but that doesn’t mean that the most responsible and just method of achieving that goal is to immediately start pretending different racial groups don’t have different experiences which might need to be addressed by society. When you strip all the rhetorical sheen off of it, the question ultimately boils down to whether one feels that the group “blacks” (to oversimplify) has been given a “fair shake” up to this point in our history. If they’ve been given a fair opportunity to get out of slavery, then it’s time to be colorblind and stop making race-conscious decisions. If they haven’t, well, then, they ought to be. > > My personal feeling is that we didn’t go far enough pre- or during Reconstruction, and that we haven’t made enough progress since then, either. It seems to me that a lot of people really don’t want to consider what the typical black American’s experience was pre-1960, much less pre-1890, and that leads to a pretty severe disconnect when we try to talk about race relations in 2009. On the one hand, some people are just totally _over_ talking about slavery, like what the f, that’s ancient history. On the other hand, what happened right after slavery was pretty terrible, too, and what happened after that wasn’t much better, and so on and so forth until now it’s 2009. We – America – created this problem, and we never fixed it. Until real corrective measures were taken, in my view, it was and remains incredibly egotistical and shortsighted to expect “blacks” to just get in line and stop being angry, and we haven’t taken real corrective measures. You make some good points (and I love that quote), but you last sentence is where the problem is. As long as one thinks of “blacks” to stop being angry" you’re not going to get anywhere. The only thing more destructive than a victim mentality is a group victim mentality. It is time to not worry about “blacks” getting over the anger, etc. It’s time for each black person to get over the anger, etc. Until someone does that, they are allowing themselves to be controlled by racism and be a perpetuant of the problem. (Yeah, new word. I like it.) ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-we-combat-modern-racism/511736/63 "2009-10-04T01:46:01Z")
So people should receive money solely because of their race? Yes, that’s really in the spirit of Martin Luther King. “Content of their character” my ass…none of today’s black race hustlers and hucksters give a tinker’s damn about anything that Martin Luther King said; all they do is ask for handouts and condemn whites as if the latter are some monolithic unified force like the Borg from _Star Trek._ If race really isn’t important, then SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT IT, that’s what I think. I think race is used as a wedge to divide people and stir up controversy, and an excuse to push stupid and self-defeating identity politics. ---
**Author:** ![Honesty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f04885/32.png) [@Honesty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honesty)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-we-combat-modern-racism/511736/64 "2009-10-04T02:07:58Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > So people should receive money solely because of their race? Yes, that’s really in the spirit of Martin Luther King. “Content of their character” my ass…none of today’s black race hustlers and hucksters give a tinker’s damn about anything that Martin Luther King said; all they do is ask for handouts and condemn whites as if the latter are some monolithic unified force like the Borg from _Star Trek._ If race really isn’t important, then SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT IT, that’s what I think. I think race is used as a wedge to divide people and stir up controversy, and an excuse to push stupid and self-defeating identity politics. When I took the ACT and GRE, the question that followed my name was my race. Race is asked of me when I fill out an application for employment, food stamps, and financial aid. In 2010, the government will be prodding blacks to cough up racial identity so the politicians can neatly gerrymander our vote into nothingness. I want to “shut the fuck up about my race” but at roadbend Uncle Sam is bringing it up ad nauseum. And yes, Uncle Sam owes us big time. It’s not about you or your tax dollars; it’s about the United States of America as an entity, a government, and as an institution. - Honesty ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-we-combat-modern-racism/511736/65 "2009-10-04T02:13:40Z")
> [@Honesty](#): > > And yes, Uncle Sam owes us big time. It’s not about you or your tax dollars; it’s about the United States of America as an entity, a government, and as an institution. > > - Honesty No, it isn’t. “Uncle Sam” doesn’t owe you shit. There is no “Uncle Sam,” there’s a shitload of taxpayers whose money you’d be taking for actions they never comitted and were never comitted against you. You were never a slave. Your parents were never slaves, Your grandparents were never slaves. No one in my family ever owned slaves…hell, quite a few died in the war that freed the slaves. I would rather toss every dollar I own into a fire than give it to you for something that never happened to you. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-we-combat-modern-racism/511736/66 "2009-10-04T02:17:17Z")
Why don’t these people who demand reparations ever ask the descendants of the tribal chiefs in Africa who sold their ancestors into slavery to give them money? These race hucksters conveniently forget that their slave ancestors originally wound up in their predicament at the hands of their fellow blacks. So much for the devil whitey being the source of all the problems. And it was the **whites** who outlawed slavery, fighting a whole goddamn civil war over it; the Africans never outlawed slavery and **still** practice it to this very day. ---
**Author:** ![Honesty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f04885/32.png) [@Honesty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honesty)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-we-combat-modern-racism/511736/67 "2009-10-04T02:19:47Z")
> [@RikWriter](#): > > I would rather toss every dollar I own into a fire than give it to you for something that never happened to you. Let me repeat: \*\* It’s not about you or your tax dollars; it’s about the United States of America as an entity, a government, and as an institution. \*\* ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-we-combat-modern-racism/511736/68 "2009-10-04T02:21:32Z")
> [@Honesty](#): > > Let me repeat: \*\* It’s not about you or your tax dollars; it’s about the United States of America as an entity, a government, and as an institution. \*\* You can repeat that lie just as many times as you want. It remains a lie despite your repetition. ---
**Author:** ![Honesty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f04885/32.png) [@Honesty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honesty)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-we-combat-modern-racism/511736/69 "2009-10-04T02:30:49Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > Why don’t these people who demand reparations ever ask the descendants of the tribal chiefs in Africa who sold their ancestors into slavery to give them money? These race hucksters conveniently forget that their slave ancestors originally wound up in their predicament at the hands of their fellow blacks. So much for the devil whitey being the source of all the problems. And it was the **whites** who outlawed slavery, fighting a whole goddamn civil war over it; the Africans never outlawed slavery and **still** practice it to this very day. I don’t blame whites at all. Again, it’s not about any sole individual or ethnicity. It’s about the U.S complacently delegating blacks as second-class citizens even after Reconstruction. THe U.S can’t just pass the Civil Rights Act and say “My Bad. Go Forth and Be Equal.” If the U.S can give the Indians land, give the Japanese money, distribute quartly welfare payments to Middle Eastern countries, they can sure enough give me my forty acres and a Cadillac\* (\*they can keep the mule and will request a GM vehicle in its place). - Honesty ---
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-we-combat-modern-racism/511736/70 "2009-10-04T02:40:32Z")
> [@Honesty](#): > > I don’t blame whites at all. Again, it’s not about any sole individual or ethnicity. It’s about the U.S complacently delegating blacks as second-class citizens even after Reconstruction. THe U.S can’t just pass the Civil Rights Act and say “My Bad. Go Forth and Be Equal.” If the U.S can give the Indians land, give the Japanese money, distribute quartly welfare payments to Middle Eastern countries, they can sure enough give me my forty acres and a Cadillac\* (\*they can keep the mule and will request a GM vehicle in its place). > > - Honesty “give the Indians land”??? ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-we-combat-modern-racism/511736/71 "2009-10-04T03:56:12Z")
> [@Honesty](#): > > I don’t blame whites at all. Again, it’s not about any sole individual or ethnicity. It’s about the U.S complacently delegating blacks as second-class citizens even after Reconstruction. THe U.S can’t just pass the Civil Rights Act and say “My Bad. Go Forth and Be Equal.” If the U.S can give the Indians land, give the Japanese money, distribute quartly welfare payments to Middle Eastern countries, they can sure enough give me my forty acres and a Cadillac\* (\*they can keep the mule and will request a GM vehicle in its place). > > - Honesty Who is “the US” in this little fantasy? Because in case you haven’t noticed, the US government changes every 4-8 years. The people of the US who perpetrated slavery died long, long ago. The people who demonstrated against integration are mostly dead…or Democratic senators from West Virginia. Of course that ignores the fact that the US government has, at various times, thrown billions of dollars at trying to aid minorities. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-we-combat-modern-racism/511736/72 "2009-10-04T03:57:32Z")
> [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](#): > > “give the Indians land”??? Yeah, I had to LOL at that too. I guess he left off the part where the Indians had to give up all their other, better land first. Hey! I’ve got an idea! Reparations in the form of a license to open casinos! ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-we-combat-modern-racism/511736/73 "2009-10-04T04:15:40Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > Why don’t these people who demand reparations ever ask the descendants of the tribal chiefs in Africa who sold their ancestors into slavery to give them money? These race hucksters conveniently forget that their slave ancestors originally wound up in their predicament at the hands of their fellow blacks. So much for the devil whitey being the source of all the problems. And it was the **whites** who outlawed slavery, fighting a whole goddamn civil war over it; the Africans never outlawed slavery and **still** practice it to this very day. This is the worst sort of nonsense. Slavery in Africa, before the coming of the European and the Arab, was not chattel slavery and slavery in Africa, today, as bad as it is, is not chattel slavery. That was invented by the outsiders and the fact that they got other Africans to participate in it or that they eventually decided to outlaw the very practice they had created, does not create some special burden on the surviving Africans–whose lives, cultures, and economies were subsequently destroyed by the invasion of more Europeans as colonists–to provide reparations for the descendants of slaves. There are a number of good reasons to shun reparations and few reasons to embrace them, but this argument is rubbish. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-we-combat-modern-racism/511736/74 "2009-10-04T04:23:16Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > So people should receive money solely because of their race? Yes, that’s really in the spirit of Martin Luther King. “Content of their character” my ass…none of today’s black race hustlers and hucksters give a tinker’s damn about anything that Martin Luther King said; all they do is ask for handouts and condemn whites as if the latter are some monolithic unified force like the Borg from _Star Trek._ If race really isn’t important, then SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT IT, that’s what I think. I think race is used as a wedge to divide people and stir up controversy, and an excuse to push stupid and self-defeating identity politics. Actually,\* this\* is racism. Who are you talking about? Who, specifically, is the “they” who “ask for handouts and condemn whites as if the latter are some unified force like the Borg?” Careful, now. You left a petard somewhere around here. Anyway, no, people shouldn’t receive money because of their race. Have you calmed down now, or is all this anger about something other than that suggestion, which didn’t occur? It’s really this simple sometimes, it seems. Most of the last handful or so posters to this thread don’t think it’s a big deal that slavery took place. Time to get over it. This fantasy that all the racists are dead is a joke. Slavery happened. It fucked shit up. The shit’s still fucked up. There’s not some kind of clean break between “before” and “now.” When was the last day it was appropriate to complain about racism in America? Someone tell me. If your father was a slave, but you weren’t, only you couldn’t find work anywhere and you were arrested for loitering because you didn’t have a job, and then your sentence was 15 years of hard labor on a plantation, was _that_ good enough to earn you the right to call this a fucked up, racist state of affairs? What if that person was your father? Too distant? Well, whenever it was, it sure as fuck happened, right? It doesn’t matter when it was, it just happened sometime. Sometime before you were born, it stopped being your problem that black people in this country were crushed underfoot, right? Bullshit. This country owes a hell of a lot more to these people and their descendants than it’s given, and huffing and puffing about fucking “hucksters” is racism so thinly veiled I can see the yellow-white of its eyes. It happened a long time ago, therefore, it’s not a real fucking thing. Disgusting. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-we-combat-modern-racism/511736/75 "2009-10-04T04:23:28Z")
As far as I’m concerned the native Africans were complicit in the institution of slavery and so they were just as culpable as the American government. Asking for reparations from either is ridiculous. Of course, the American government has “deep pockets” (so deep, in fact, that they’re borrowing other governments’ pockets) and the Africans, by comparison, don’t even have pockets. So it would of course be unlikely for any race hucksters running a racket of self-entitlement to petition any African nation for cash, unless they wanted some banknotes from the former Rhodesia to make a cooking fodder. It may not be legal tender, but it is legal tinder. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-we-combat-modern-racism/511736/76 "2009-10-04T04:25:18Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > You make some good points (and I love that quote), but you last sentence is where the problem is. As long as one thinks of “blacks” to stop being angry" you’re not going to get anywhere. The only thing more destructive than a victim mentality is a group victim mentality. It is time to not worry about “blacks” getting over the anger, etc. It’s time for each black person to get over the anger, etc. Until someone does that, they are allowing themselves to be controlled by racism and be a perpetuant of the problem. I doubt that you really agree with any of the points I was trying to make, then. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-we-combat-modern-racism/511736/77 "2009-10-04T04:26:24Z")
Waaaaaahh, I’m a racist. Waaaaaaaah, I’m a racist. Disgusting, disgusting, disgusting. We should all flagellate ourselves and cry all night long because once upon a time there was slavery. WAAAAAAH! WAAAAAAH! ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-we-combat-modern-racism/511736/78 "2009-10-04T04:26:42Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > So if the goal of the elimination of racism is that we should all treat each other equally and not make distinctions based on race, how is not a stumbling block to that for a sizable number of the minority population to be deliberately adopting lifestyle choices in the manner of dress, speech and criminal behavior that sets it at odds with the white or majority population. Because it is an arbitrary and false claim, to begin with. There are multiple fashions embraced by numerous popuations–ethnic, economic, regional, and class–throughout the country and it is not even a majority of blacks who embrace the fashions you are decrying. Why should only blacks have to change their fashions and why should all blacks be “tarnished” by the actions of a subset of their population just to have you treat them as equal? As long as any person who appears to have Afrcan ancestry is going to suffer the degradation of being watched for signs that he or she might act like a small number of people between the ages of 14 and 30 living in the inner city, it really has nothing to do with whether they “change,” but whether others are seizing on superficial differences of a minority of a minority to make excuses to treat them unfairly. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-we-combat-modern-racism/511736/79 "2009-10-04T04:26:42Z")
**How Should We Combat Modern Racism?** Obviously, we must have a National Dialogue On Race™. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-we-combat-modern-racism/511736/80 "2009-10-04T04:28:47Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > Waaaaaahh, I’m a racist. Waaaaaaaah, I’m a racist. Disgusting, disgusting, disgusting. We should all flagellate ourselves and cry all night long because once upon a time there was slavery. WAAAAAAH! WAAAAAAH! No, we should bury our heads in the sand and pretend we have some kind of a claim to indignation about bare facts. I’m supposed to be afraid to call racism racism because people like you have decided racism barely exists anymore? Type some more As into your next scathing rebuttal, if you would, and by no means should you answer my questions. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-we-combat-modern-racism/511736.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-we-combat-modern-racism/511736.md?page=5)