# Is racism a psychological disorder? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 2, 2020, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-a-psychological-disorder/854929 "2020-06-02T15:26:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2020, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-a-psychological-disorder/854929/21 "2020-06-02T22:26:20Z")
> [@Chingon](#): > > So we have any evidence that “cavemen” were racist? It’s a convenient just-so story to handwave this away ISTM. The “So” should be “Do”. This makes my post seem like it’s aggressive against the previous one, which it’s not. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2020, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-a-psychological-disorder/854929/22 "2020-06-02T22:41:45Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > When we talk about, say, black violence, we’re bombarded with speculations about how blacks for whatever reasons are just “naturally” more “prone” to violence, along with a bunch of evo-psych spitballing about possible biological causes. When we talk about white racism, all of a sudden the causal issues are broadened into universality: racism is just “natural” “tribalism” and “a natural part of our DNA”, and we fall over ourselves to point out that not only white people espouse it. (Of course, it’s not only black people who espouse violence either, but somehow conversations about black violence never just peter out with similarly universalist reminders that violence is a natural ingrained human trait “the entire world over”.) Or else we try to medicalize racism as a “psychological disorder” that afflicts us involuntarily, rather than our deliberately choosing to endorse it. > Me, I tend to think that white people in the US are comparatively more racist than many other people **because our society has historically and systematically trained racism into us, in order to hold onto the many significant advantages that a systematically racist society provides for white people**. The height of Jim Crow racial discrimination was barely a century ago, and it was a system carefully constructed in order to encourage non-wealthy white people to identify their interests with those of wealthy white people rather than with those of non-wealthy black people, who were their natural socioeconomic allies. Anti-black racism is worse in the US in part because it was engineered to be so. After Bacons rebellion and other 17th century rebellions where multi racial coalitions worked together to fight against the political and business leaders, codes like the virginia slave codes were created designed to dehumanize blacks and encourage whites to identify with the business and political leaders based on skin color and prevent them from identifying with blacks (or indians) based on class. Other forms of tribalism seem to come and go. Anti-irish sentiment came and went. Anti-semitism now is nothing like it was. Anti-gay sentiment has decreased quite a bit in the last few decades. But anti-black attitudes are very strong and long lasting, because they were intentionally engineered into our culture to justify slavery and to keep the poor divided so they wouldn’t unite against the powerful. But fundamentally tribalism is built into our DNA. Racism, as a form of tribalism is a global issue. It isn’t something white people invented, if you believe tribalism is then talk to people in Japan about how they feel about Koreans. Bin Laden got flack when he was in Afghanistan because arabs were viewed with prejudice by the natives there. Or visit Rwanda. Rwanda is another example where the ownership class (in this case the belgians) encouraged a tribalistic division between hutus and tutsis to keep people divided. And violence is a natural human trait the entire world over. Humans have a lot of destructive urges. The goal is to find pro-social outlets for them and penalize those destructive urges. Japan went from a terrifying war machine to a fairly peaceful nation over the course of a few decades, so did Germany. Norway went from viking raiders to one of the best run societies on earth. A lot of sociological factors go into how much we engage in our destructive urges. There is nothing different between north and south korea. North korea could be a peaceful rich society with low crime rather than the society they are now. Sociological factors are huge in how our urges are expressed, and people need to figure out what sociological factors promote unity and cooperation, and discourage tribalism and violence. But violence and tribalism are not something foreign to humans. Rather they are inbuilt urges we have that society needs to figure out how to control and redirect into more productive behaviors. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2020, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-a-psychological-disorder/854929/23 "2020-06-02T23:02:47Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Anti-irish sentiment came and went. Anti-semitism now is nothing like it was. Anti-gay sentiment has decreased quite a bit in the last few decades. But anti-black attitudes are very strong and long lasting, because they were intentionally engineered into our culture Also, black people have the greatest physical outward difference from white people. Anti-Irish and anti-Semetic prejudice was naturally tougher to pull off than anti-black racism because (most) Irish and Jewish people aren’t visibly different than Scots, Germans, Anglos, etc. But black people are/were immediately noticeably different in terms of skin color. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2020, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-a-psychological-disorder/854929/24 "2020-06-03T00:47:28Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Also, black people have the greatest physical outward difference from white people. Anti-Irish and anti-Semetic prejudice was naturally tougher to pull off than anti-black racism because (most) Irish and Jewish people aren’t visibly different than Scots, Germans, Anglos, etc. But black people are/were immediately noticeably different in terms of skin color. This is true, but I feel anti-asian sentiment in the US isn’t nearly as bad as anti-black sentiment and it is easy to spot an asian in a group of white people. My impression is because the anti-black bigotry was built into our culture both to justify slavery as well as to keep the poor divided along racial lines rather than unified among class lines, its a very hard form of prejudice to overcome. Plus I’m sure fear of retaliation is a major factor in maintaining anti-black prejudice. We’ve treated black people like garbage for so long that we’re terrified they’ll rise up and retaliate. I’m sure that is a huge factor in why anti-black prejudice persists. Many other forms of prejudice in America have gotten markedly better. Anti gay prejudice has improved quite a bit I think. ---
**Author:** ![road\_lobo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d78d45/32.png) [@road\_lobo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/road_lobo)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2020, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-a-psychological-disorder/854929/25 "2020-06-03T11:25:50Z")
> [@Ryan\_Liam](#): > > In light of what has been going on recently, I’m convinced that racism is some sort of psychosis used to justify White supremacy and has entrenched itself into the power structures of Western society. > I’m not dismissing racism or trying to take away responsibility or agency from the perpetrators, I’m just saying from my observation from what happened in circumstances such as with George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery the more it got me thinking how racism might be symptomatic of a much larger underlying psychological condition prevalent in White society and the power structures are reinforcing that psychological condition. > > So if this is the case, how does White society overcome this psychosis? An individual person experiences psychosis, not a society. You haven’t made a case, you’ve made a run-on sentence. ---
**Author:** ![Ryan\_Liam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ryan_liam/32/3965_2.png) [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2020, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-a-psychological-disorder/854929/26 "2020-06-03T15:22:21Z")
> [@road\_lobo](#): > > An individual person experiences psychosis, not a society. You haven’t made a case, you’ve made a run-on sentence. No I haven’t, good try on you to frame it that way though. ---
**Author:** ![etasyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9f8e36/32.png) [@etasyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etasyde)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2020, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-a-psychological-disorder/854929/27 "2020-06-03T16:01:22Z")
> [@Ryan\_Liam](#): > > In light of what has been going on recently, I’m convinced that racism is some sort of psychosis used to justify White supremacy and has entrenched itself into the power structures of Western society. No, it is not a disorder. Tribalism is the natural state of humankind. Sorry, but nature is a cruel mistress. A good friend of mine was fond of the saying “Society has changed. Biology has not.” Unfortunately, in most settings, tribalism is a huge advantage - protect and cooperate with your in group and suppress all other outgroups to maximize the ingroup’s advantage. Racism itself is just an immediate outgrowth of this propensity. That’s not to say that it’s an advantage _now_. It’s extremely disadvantageous, because our “tribe” is about 300 _million_ people (in the US - and arguably 8 _billion_ if you’re a globalist/humanist), with every appearance and ethnicity, but the brain can only really handle ~149 people who look like they’re our cousins. However, human nature is not absolute. Behaviors like these can be conditioned out, because it’s not an extremely important impulse like reproductive behavior or survival instincts. The reason racism (and tribalism in general) is so pervasive is because it’s not conditioned out, but reinforced. > [@Ryan\_Liam](#): > > So if this is the case, how does White society overcome this psychosis? Racism is not a White phenomenon, unless you’re using some weird definition that contorts the word to conform to an agenda. So it’s not a “White society” problem. It’s a society problem. An effective solution is to increase the inter-relatedness of communities and decrease segregation. The best way to do that is to solve economic disparities between populations. It’s really hard to hate your neighbor who invites you to barbeques and shares some of your hobbies. It’s really easy to hate “those people” who live “over there” and otherwise have no interaction with you except to serve as a boogeyman. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2020, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-a-psychological-disorder/854929/28 "2020-06-03T20:31:28Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > Is that not a kind of question begging, though, in that it presumes that the broader culture itself, or at least very easily accessed portions of it, is not racist? > > Because I get that certain killers have been shown to have mental health issues or suffer from personality disorders, but all you’re really showing is correlation. And then there’s the asshole who shot up a synagogue in San Diego last year who seemed to be generally stable, apart from the whole “being a white supremacist” and “shooting up a synagogue” thing. > > To claim that racism is a psychological disorder, particularly when the consensus among actual mental health experts is that it isn’t, is kind of troubling for a number of reasons, not least of which as outlined by **Kimstu**. Also, it allows racists who aren’t (like many other racists) suffering from legitimate psychological issues to respond with “I’m not a racist because my therapist says I’m fine,” while further “othering” people with actual mental health issues. It somehow manages to take a problem that is prevalent among the dominant/most privileged class, and shift it onto an already marginalized group (people with mental illness). Kind of like anti-bullying campaigns in which the victims of bullying are cast as “school-shooters to be who we must reach out to before they kill us.” Because god forbid anti-bullying campaigns be leveraged against bullies themselves. No, it’s got to further this idea that the victims of bullying are the real dangers to society and to other children. > > So, to sum up, racism is not only not a psychological disorder, but a psychological disorder is not even necessary to cause racism, even if one is brought up in a household that ostensibly preaches tolerance, particularly as there seems to be good evidence that the broader culture condones racism, and one can easily seek out, even be led into, groups of racists through social networks. Perhaps I should clarify some of my unspoken assumptions in what I posted, which perhaps are not shared by most. First, I believe it is possible for certain beliefs and behaviors to be classifieds both a mental illness and a moral failing. Being an asshole, for example, is, in my view at least, a type of mental disorder, even if it isn’t listed in the DSM 5. At the same time, being an asshole is also a moral failing. Let’s take the asshole who shot up the synagogue that you mention. For someone to do something like that, they have to have some kind of psychological pathology. On the other hand, that doesn’t excuse the behavior. I would classify him as being both legally guilty and psychologically abnormal. As far as the broader culture, yes there is still some racism. IMHO, however, it’s silly to pretend that there hasn’t been substantial progress since the days when MLK was assassinated. I’ll also note I specifically stated in my post that while (some types of) racism = mentally ill, that mentally ill most certainly does not equal racist. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2020, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-a-psychological-disorder/854929/29 "2020-06-03T22:58:41Z")
Your definition of a mental disorder, then, is so muddied as to be meaningless. Which is perhaps another reason racism is not and should not be considered a psychological disorder, a mental disorder, a form of mental illness, or anything like that. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2020, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-a-psychological-disorder/854929/30 "2020-06-06T08:02:34Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Naah, it’s not a psychological condition. It is, in fact, a moral failing. Racists are just plain bad people. It’s not a disorder and it’s only a moral failing in the same way all bad life choices are. If we could harangue people to not have babies out of wedlock, not rob people, not try dangerous drugs, not drink and drive, not quit every job they ever get, not skimp on their studies, not continuously choose bad romantic partners, and not resort to violence when angered, theres’ be no such thing as “social ills”. Racism is a social ill like any other, and like any other, moralizing doesn’t stop it, it just motivates people to hide it, assuming they are aware they have a problem. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-a-psychological-disorder/854929.md?page=1)