1920s – "Dr. Farnell, Rector of Exeter College, Oxford University, wrote in the Daily Chronicle: “Nigger music comes from the Devil… our civilisation was threatened by our Americanisms and jazz music. Do not take your music from America or from the niggers, take it from God, the source of all good music.”
I enjoyed cowgirl’s post.
I think the reason why a lot of people can’t see how pervasive racism is due to them only thinking racism is only a “You’re a nigger!”, cross-burning, confederate flag-waving, “We don’t like your kind 'round here” type of phenomenon. Yes, racism is manifested in those ways. But it can manifest is ways a lot less blatant and hateful.
I’m of the belief that racism forms from your typical “us vs them” mindset. Once you view one group of people as fundamentally and inherently different due to factors outside of their control (skin color, hair texture, eye shape, etc.) then you start to exhibit symptoms consistent with --isms. If those factors are associated with race, then that -ism is racism. A basic understanding in psychology is that people tend to view members of the “out group” less like individuals and more as stereotypes. Whether the lines between the “in group” and the “out group” are drawn by race/ethnicity, gender, or class, it’s the same dang thing over and over again.
The more innocuous forms of racist thought is responsible for the white-lady-clutching-her-purse response. The more dangerous forms of racist thought is what gave slavery the legs it stood on for centuries. Although one is a lot less offensive and objectionable than the other doesn’t mean that they aren’t both racist in nature. They follow from the same basic thought process: “us versus them”. They are not like us.
To answer the OP, the reason why so many people can’t see racism is because they are stuck on the notion that racism is always blatant and hateful. Anything less than that, in their eyes, is something else. So when something that you and I may see as being a clear case of racism, they are more opt to call it some other thing that doesn’t sound so bad. I consider it a rationalization of sorts.
**you with the face. ** It may be a rationalzation. Or it may be an accurate summation of what actually constitutes racism. There’s lots of racially biased behaviors that simply aren’t bad enough to be racism, although it mey betray prejudice or bigotry. People conflate meaning all the time and racism is one of the more unfortunate examples of that.
You are 100% correct. To attempt to couch the actions of an old lady clutching her purse as racism strips the word of all ugliness and meaning. Of course, in a clinical sense we can call medical researchers who use race as an avenue to discovery racists. And then we have racists that kill black people (KKK) and racists that save the lives of black people (researchers looking into diseases that disproportionately afflict blacks).
Accurate by whose definition? You use a definition that comes from your own idea of what sounds right, but it differs from mine and American Heritage. So when determining accuracy, we need to agree on a reference point. To date, we have not.
“Bad enough”, eh? This gets us right to my point. Just because something isn’t “bad” doesn’t mean its not racist. And just because something is bad doesn’t mean it is racism.
The problem with making a diagnosis of racism dependent on where something sits on the hierarchy of “badness” is that it is a judgement call based on too much subjectivity. You, for instance, think being called a nigger is offense reasonably punishable with blows. Me, on the other hand, don’t think being called any name should warrant that kind of reaction. Compared to other things, I don’t think its that big of a deal. Some fool calling me nigger is actually the last thing on my mind what I think of the implications of being black in America.
But I wouldn’t argue with you that that epithet is anything but racist. Why? Because my definition of racism doesn’t have to take “badness” into account. It just is what it is. Its racist.
Thank you! The labeling game is counterproductive because all too often we never move pass the labeling and talk about the “so what?” factor. It’s like we feel like unless everyone can reach a consensus on whether any given incident is racism, we can’t talk about why that incident is wrong and signficant. So what if something may be “just” bigotry or “just” prejudice? Does injustice come out of it? Is there harm? Then let’s stop trying to apologize for it with feel-good euphemisms, is all I’m saying. Call a duck a duck and move the fuck on already.
I think you’re right. It’s the sort of rationalization that a lot of kids use when they’re busted for something untoward - “sure, I stole out of some kid’s locker… at least I’m not robbing old ladies!” or “yeah, I smoked some weed - at least I’m not dealing it!”
I think we can agree that robbing the local First National and taking change from your mom’s purse without asking are vastly different levels of the same behavior - stealing. I think one of the points that parents and adults try to drive home is that stealing is wrong and a bad thing. On some level, the severity doesn’t matter. I hear where Askia is coming from, but I see it more this way.
Yes, here comes that canard again.
For my sake, please let me know which of the following examples are racism in action, in your opinion.
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White lady clutches her purse when a black man walks in the room because (irrespective of his dress, demeanor, or other similar cues of his trustworthiness) he “looks” dangerous.
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Whenever a cop sees a black man driving a nice car in a nice neighborhood, his first inclination is to pull the man over and question him, again, irrespective of other factors within the black man’s control (dress, demeanor, etc.). His reasoning? Because they “look” up to no good.
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Store manager tells the security guard to scrutinize black shoppers more than white ones because “black people can not be trusted”.
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Employer rejects resumes with names that sound ethnic because “those people probably won’t get along well here”.
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Two black people in a part of town flooded by a recent hurricane are reported to be looters when seen walking out of a store with food in hand. Two white people doing the same thing are said to have been “finding food”.
Before you answer, notice that all the scenarios presented above have the same thing in common: assumptions based on race that can be traced directly to the notion that race is a determinant of character. If you think one or of the above scenarios do not meet your definition of racism, please come up with a definition that succintly and clearly explains what it means to you. Its clear to me you not using a definition established by any dictionary I know, especially if you can somehow exempt one but not the others.
In terms of common rationalizations, its more like “Sure I got caught smoking weed, but it’s just weed, so that doesn’t really count” when one’s criminal history is being discussed. As if something can’t be relatively mild and unimportant and still be illegal.
Yes, boys and girls, weed is not that big of a deal. But smoking it in the US is still very much illegal. Acknoweldging that does not rob the “impact” and “power” from the word illegal. We all know what “illegal” means, even though everyone of us (with the exception of Bricker maybe) has done something illegal at least once in our lives. Law-breaking is pervasive and yet law-breakers aren’t necessarily evil incarnate.
Why can’t people see that racism is the same way? shrug
Ooo. Can anybody play?
This is prejudice. She pre-judged him by appearance. If she does this with any black man, then it may well be a pretty-well ingrained bigotry. I canot make any assumptions about her being racist on the basis of this action alone, not unless there are other correlating actions that tend to condemn her as racist. This is simply not enough information here to assume racism. It looks pretty bad.
Most kinds of police profiling fall into prejudice. How accurate their actions, how frequently they pull over guilty black drivers using their methodology and how harassing these instances of profiling might be by this particular officer, and by extension, this particular police department, would determine whether I would call this racist or not. If he merely has an inclination and doesn’t (always) act on it, it’s a pretty-well ingrained bigotry. If he acts on it with force and authority, if he makes them lie down on the ground, if his attitude is beligerent, belittling and harassing, frequently involving innocent black drivers, its racist. Frequency and severity count.
This is pretty blanketed bigotry, discrimination and possibly institutionalized racism, depending on how long it’s been going on. This is potentially racist because of the collusion between the security guard and store manager, and the probable element of harassment in the actions of the guard if he carries out the manager’s orders.
Discrimination, possibly institutionalized discrimination, depending on how long its been happening. The employer might legitimately be motivated by rationales other than race/ethnicity. I don’t know. YOU don’t know. It bears looking into.
This was a well-publicized case of racial bias that pointed to racial/socioeconomic bias in the Associated OPress’ coverage of Katrina. This was extremely prejudicial reporting, especially when the two pictures are juxtaposed side by side. It was not quite bigoted nor racist because the AP acknowledged trhe error. Bigots change their minds with great difficulty. Racists don’t change their minds or beliefs ever.
Not every incident of racial bias is actively racist, though. There’s a reason we have other words in our language.
In my use of the words racism and bigotry, they are accompanied by a stated belief in the superiority of one race over all others, often a damning condemnation of one race as being especially inferior or contemptible; language used is hostile, hateful, aggressive and deprecating towards others; tactics by adherants of racism used include economic discrimination and racial coercion, or threat of same; slurs are used to indicate inhumanity, particularly among white supremecists.
Very general rule of theumb for parsing the difference between a racist and a bigot is the use and approval of violence to maintain superiority. Racists embrace violence towards other races they consider inferior in a way a bigot generally does not or won’t.
Many theorists assert that Racism is a manifestation of common traits amongst humans and is, in many cases, inevitable. What they refer to typically is Social Identity Theory. In short, this theory builds off of the many theories relating to the social development of the self. In order to achieve self-consciousness, human beings engage in a pattern of symbolic interactions that allows us to develop and maintain typifications (stereotypical explanations pertaining to the events we experience in life). Humans must take on and realize multiple typifications in order to function in society. In simpler terms, think about the term “parent”. What thoughts come to mind? These are your typifications. They help you organize information and understand the world around you because it is, of course, impossible to know everything. Henceforth, we assume certain things about others, how they act, why they act etc…
Now, how this relates to racism is linked into the normative effect and reference groups. A reference group is something we mirror in order to develop our own sense of self. We receive a “normative effect” when we act in a manner that is consistent with the typifications held by that group.
In general, human beings have a tendency to want to feel good about themselves, i.e self-esteem. Henceforth, since we are raised from birth to relate to groups and incorporate and actualize the typifications of those groups we relate to the most, we receive an increased sense of self-esteem when we feel that we are representing our reference groups.
This socially natural affinity towards group interaction, tends to lead most people to seek out others who support our typifications, thus we look for people who are similar to us. In this process, and in our attempt to increase our self-esteem, we have a tendency to increase the positive nature of the traits that are associated with our reference groups. Vice versa, we have a tendency to diminish, or belittle, the traits of people who are not in our group. This denigration of “out-group” behaviors and beliefs results in conflict in many cases. Studies have shown that by simply telling someone they are part of a “better” group will increase their self-esteem and will actually result in the person thinking poorly of anyone who is not a member of that group.
Now, the fact that race (we actually refer to skin tones most of the time when we refer to race) is something that is extremey difficult to mask (in other words, the group differences are very apparent and noticeable), the natural tendency for others to identify group affiliation increases. When the groups have limited interaction, it results in increased denigration that can, at many times, lead to extreme forms of racism.
This is why most scholars stipulate that the only way to curb racism is to increase the social interaction between the two groups. However, in a society with the history of the United States, a multitude of cultural barriers have been created that prevent, or hinder, the opportunity for cross-racial socialization. Thus, the impact of social identity theory is heightened, and the end result is racism.
Based upon this, even if we somehow bridge the racial gulf that separates people, it is extremely likely that, in large complex societies, identifiable groups will still exist and the same problems that cause racism will manifest themsleves in a different form. In other words, our social interactive processes create and foster racism and other forms of prejudice and discrimination are the inevitable result of the development of the self.
Did you not read the rest of my post, the point of which was the failing of our language to allow distinctions between the little old lady and the KKK? As far as the example with the little old lady, her actions may or may not be race based. It depends on if she is on if she is an area where blacks are responsible for a large part of the crime. Is she in Harlem? Or Scarsdale? And you can’t ignore what the man is wearing. That could say more about the nature of the threat even to a KKKer. Regarding your example about New Orleans, yes I think racial stereotyping was at work there. My point has not been that there isn’t racism that falls way shy of KKKers, but that our language makes it difficult to discuss this because the word has suxh an enormous range of meaning. As I showed in my post.
Just a causual aside regarding how racially based preconceptions are shared by us all:
I live in an middle class integrated community that borders on Chicago’s Black West Side. I am a middle aged White guy who is balding in a patchy way. Most local barbershops are either stylist places, or Italian-run, and neither cut my hair to my satisfaction. So I went into one of the shops that borders on the West Side one day on my way to work. Only White guy in the shop. The conversation went like this:
Barber: Can I uh help you? (puzzled tone)
Me: Yes, I’d like a haircut please.
Barber: OH. (pause) sure have a seat.
The preconception was that I must have been selling something … “Big Walt” was initially nervous, having obviously never had a client with my skin tone before but soon realized that my patchy head and beard would do just fine with the same short cut he gives a lot of middle aged black guys. Best haircut I’ve gotten. I’ve gone there ever since even if some of the kids in the shop give me funny looks. The owner is sometimes a little self-conscious about me though. He picks the videos playing and when he is there and sees me he sometimes turns off the Farakahn sermon, or the Black horror movie and puts on something like Goodfellas. Oy. Walt’s cool though.
Assume that the lady does this with all black men. I fail to see how the lady is being bigot. Bigots are active haters. The lady-purse-clutcher doesn’t hate anyone, she just reacts with fear whenever a man a black gets close.
And yeah, she’s prejudiced. But that doesn’t preclude her from being prejudiced in a racist way. Not mutually exclusive.
Please work within the framework of the hypothetical: white lady reacts fearfully toward black men. She does this even if they are wearing business suits and carrying briefcases. I don’t see what other information you need in order to assess the situation.
And again, it’s not about condemning anything. It’s putting a name to a behavior.
So if he doesn’t make them lie down on the ground but he still pulls them over and treats them like intruders in their own neighborhood, he’s doing the right thing in your eyes? Based on my hypothetical, all of the people he’d be pulling over are innocent if the only reason he’s doing it is being they are black. Regardless if he’s the only one on the force doing it or not, he’s being racist. If only because he is discriminating based on one’s race.
Institutional racism is not necessarily a function of time. So I’m not understanding where you’re coming up with this.
Potentially racist, huh? Store manager makes a blanket assertion that black people can’t be trusted and you somehow find room to doubt that he is racist? No wonder so many people can’t see how pervasive racism is. It could be knocking you right between the eyes and you wouldn’t see it, Askia, because you’d be too busy calling it something else.
Well, I do know since I wrote the hypothetical. Let’s say that by “they won’t get along well here”, he means “we need go-getters in this type of work and those people are not likely to be quick enough”. What does that mean to you?
What? Just because someone after-the-fact says “my bad” doesn’t mean it can’t be racist. “Sorry I called you and your mama nigger. That wasn’t right.” Why would that apology be enough to make you think they aren’t racist?
So was Archie Bunker racist or “just” a bigot, in your view? I never say him advocating violence nor was he especially hateful. But the man had some rather interesting opinions, to say the least.
And did you not read my analogy about weed and illegality? Little old ladies who become fearful of black men for no reason except that they are black is to racism as smoking weed in the privacy of your own house is to illegal.
The beautiful thing about language is you rarely have to rely on just one word to make distinctions between two things. You literally have hundreds of thousands of other words at your disposal.
Hypothetical: white lady becomes fearful of black men in elevators even if those men are wearing business suits and ties. White, asian, and Indian men do not elicit this reaction in her even if they are wearing raggedy sweat pants and five o’clock shadow. She lives in Manhatten, and has lived there all of her life. Has two cats and likes romantic walks on the beach. She doesn’t hate anyone, but black men scare her because she unconsciously thinks they are all threats until proven otherwise.
How is her response anything but racist?
At worst, she is absolutely racist. At best (if in her experience blacks commit crimes at a much higher rate than other groups) she is guilty of racial stereotyping. I don’t know what your beef is here.
Regarding your anaolgy concerning the illegality of weed, I ignored it because I find it inapt. Illegtality is easy to determine. Something is either legal or illegal, just look to the law. Racism certainly is not similar in this regard, unless you include the medical researches I mentioned, which you chose to ingore.
Are you of the opinion that any time anyone takes race into acccount that that is racism? Please answer that, as I thiink it will be helpful to the discussion.
My beef is that people’s hang ups about a word keep them recognizing racism for what it is.
Laymen define racism and illegality using the same means. Definitions established by a higher authority. When it comes to defining “illegal”, we don’t rely on our own personal definitions that come from gut feelings and hunches. We refer to a point of reference, such as a dictionary, and then base our determinations from that.
For some crazy ass reason, people can’t do the same thing with racism. No, they’d rather invent their own definitions because of what their personal guts, hearts, and imaginations tell them. It’s insanity.
No, which is why the medical research you mentioned is not racist, in my view. Due to historical influences, race is correlated with factors that are associated with health risk behaviors, so looking at race when it comes to research is not racist in and of itself. Concluding that race is a determinate without controlling for confounders could be based on racist assumptions, or it could just represent a failure to think. Race shouldn’t be confused with culture, either. A lot of times we use one term when we mean the other.
My definition of racism: thinking that race is a determinate of character, skill, or aptitude AND/OR acting upon those thoughts in a manner than leads to discrimination. Very simple and concise and clear.
My definition of racism is a functional one, but it works for me and I’d be interested in your responses.
I’m starting from this assumption
(emphasis mine)
If you don’t share this assumption, then we have no common point of reference and my definition will be irrelevant to you.
The bolded portion is my definition of racism: racism is whatever factors shuffle the deck in favour of white people and against people of colour.
I have a big problem with other definitions that involve beliefs about people’s attributes, etc. Let’s take the dictionary.com definition again as an example:
Definitions like this are insufficient. They do not include institutional racism, for instance, which does not require anyone to believe that anybody is inferior because of their race. They basically require an identifiable racist and an identifiable “victim” (who exactly is being discriminated against when all the senior executives of a company are white? Any person of colour who applied and was turned down? In that case arguments could - and I guarantee would - be made that that specific person wasn’t right for that specific job in that specific circumstance. No discrimination here, no siree, we’re not racist.)
To suggest that a definition like the ones given in this thread is sufficient is to specifically exclude institutional racism from the definition.
A minor criticism (well, minor for this discussion) is that it is based so strictly on something undefinable (ie “race”) and doesn’t leave nuance for all the ways racism works (eg the racism experienced by black Africans at the hands of black Americans).
It also implies that all the racism that we see (as outlined by the quote by Hippy Hollow reposted above) is due to people who can be defined as “racists” by the definition. I personally don’t know ANYBODY who would admit to being a racist by that definition, and I don’t even know anybody who I would define as a racist by that definition.
Yet I live in a racist society.
How can that be? Either (a) the definition is true, and a small number of marginalized racist people like those infesting Strmfrnt have been very powerful and effective at ensuring that racism persists around the world, or (b) there are lots and lots of people who do believe that race accounts for differences, etc, but they are very good at hiding their racism from me, or © the definition is inadequate.
Such a definition hinders discussion of racism because it presumes that we know how the mechanisms of racism work. We don’t. We clearly don’t. Let us begin with what we know (ie the quote from HH above), discard what we don’t (eg What counts as racist? Who is a racist and who isn’t?), and work from there.
Well stated cowgirl.
I return to my argument about certain “evils” we tend to agree on: the example of theft, for example. Very few people would argue against defining the action of taking an extra paper from the paper machine on the corner as “stealing.” We can disagree on its severity and the societal harm inflicted by this action, but most of us would label this as an act of theft.
Furthermore, I think most adults who care about a young person would dissuade them from engaging in this action. We understand that while stealing a newspaper is hardly a felony offense, not addressing this behavior could lead to more egregious (and harmful) examples of theft.
I think racism is analagous. There are less harmful examples (purse clutching) and more extreme examples (genocide). However, they all stem from the same line of thinking. I’ve heard people tell their children it isn’t the value or importance of what they stole that matters, it’s the fact that they stole that’s the concern. Is it that we want to distance ourselves from the Hitlers of the world? That’s actually the reason why much of the anthropological research on racism (Montagu, Sanjek, Allport, etc.) emerged in the 1930s to 1950s, and why the civil rights movement gained traction - people started to see the link between separate fountains and name calling to lynching and mass murder based on phenotype.
What I see now is a reversal of that trend. Instead of thinking that milder forms of racism (heightened surveillance of people of color, name calling - either in, or out of the presence of people of color) are connected to the extreme examples of genocide, ethnic cleansing, etc., I think a lot of people are distancing those types of behavior from the extremes. I wager if people saw name-calling on the continuum of behaviors that Hitler employed, they’d think long and hard about why they hold such beliefs. (Of course, for a segment of the population, that would actually be quite encouraging!)
The problem is one of language. When the same term is used to describe the little old lady and the KKKer, people sense that your not talking about the same thing and look to acknowledge the difference. This seems normal and reasonable.
I still say that this is a bad analogy. Did he smoke weed? Yes = breaking the law. No = not breaking the law. Did the little old lady exhibit racism? In real life there are often more then one factor coming into play so it’s difficult to say for sure. It may appear racist, and be, in fact be racist, but we usually have no way of knowing for sure. We can’t read minds. And in many cases that is what you would have to do.
Once again, because racism is rarely so easy to determine. Partly because it rarely can be isolated as the only factor. There’s is nsighborhood, dress, the person’s own personal experiences, etc.
Okay. So if I am looking at an issue and considering race, I am not necessarily a racist. The researchers for example. How about the guy who wrote the book (I can’t think of the name of it now) looking into the IQs or intelligence of the different races? Or the guy who wrote the book (Taboo, I think) looking at the differences among the races in different sports? Are they racist? They have been called so numerous times, even on these boards. Yet, they don’t seem to fit your definition, with which I’d agree.
I think it’s a pretty good definition, except for the first sentence. Is it racist to acknowledge skills or aptitudes that might be real? If you look at world class sprinters, marathoners, and competitors in the Strong Man competitions, you’d be hard pressed to say that different races didn’t have different aptitudes for different sports. Is even suggesting that racist?
Institutional racism qualifies for the second part of the cited definition. Discrimination based on race. That’s essentially the only way that institutional racism is manifested. Institutions don’t have thoughts, but they do have actions.
Well, it can be argued that a good ole boy network which encourages the status quo and consequently perpuates the exclusion of blacks from executive position is not racist because it is not the intent of the executives to keep a particular race out as much as it is to keep “my friends and their friends” in.
But it can also be argued that blacks aren’t included in GOB networks because of historical racism. Black folks not going to Ivy Leagues or other networking centers because of disproportionate poverty, poor elementary education, tracking away from college prep courses in high school, social pressures that make them wary of being a stigmatized minority, cultural isolationism that would have never existed had there not been Jim Crow and slavery, etc.
Actually, I think the American Heritage definition is great specifically because it makes no reference to the believer’s race. A black person could presumbably consider himself to be inferior to whites and others. That belief would still be racist. I don’t think its necessary that the definition spell everything out, or else it would no longer be definition and instead become an essay.