# Is racism really that evil? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 4, 2014, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-really-that-evil/703573 "2014-11-04T03:26:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-really-that-evil/703573/41 "2014-11-04T10:54:51Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > When are idiot Republicans going to stop trotting out this statistic as if it’s worth a damn? Seriously, name the last election when black people voted for a Democrat president in numbers less than 90%. When was this? 50 years ago? Sit down with the “Well teh blacks voted for Obama” hysteria. Over 90% of black voters turned out for John Kerry, for crying out loud, and there is nobody on Earth whiter. Hey, the non-idiot Republicans realize that (see my post above)! 🙂 BTW, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with someone’s affinity with a candidate being a factor in his decision. When I was a kid, I can’t tell you how many homes I saw that had 2 pictures hanging up: JFK and the Pope. Catholics were proud of him, and no one I knew was a New England blue blood. We’re all human, but the OP tries to frame that as something sinister. But, yes, people as a rule vote for who serves their interests best. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-really-that-evil/703573/42 "2014-11-04T11:07:00Z")
> [@protoboard](#): > > Black American culture is still very African in a lot of ways. Such as ? :dubious: And yes, racism is evil. Treating people as things is always evil, and that’s what racism does. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-really-that-evil/703573/43 "2014-11-04T12:09:56Z")
> [@protoboard](#): > > We’re humans. Every race is racist as hell. 96% of blacks voted for Obama. While I can understand why they wouldn’t want to vote for a party that is blatantly against their interests, it proves that they are just as ethnocentric as anyone else. Close to the same percentage of black voters voted for Kerry, Gore, and Clinton. Black Democrats supported Hillary over Obama at the beginning of the '08 primaries, and didn’t shift to majority-support of Obama until he won the largely-white state of Iowa. ---
**Author:** ![Ken001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/43a26b/32.png) [@Ken001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ken001)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-really-that-evil/703573/44 "2014-11-04T12:18:37Z")
Racism to give it the full context is “racial prejudice”. That means an automatic negative judgment of a person based upon their physical appearance. The cause traces far back into prehistory when humans lived as clans and tribes. Strangers were dangerous (often for good reason) so tribes treated people who looked “different” as outsiders. Racism also has a underlying context of power by a dominant group over perceived “lesser” people. The dominant group can be quite small as with the white minority in Rhodesia and South Africa but when they hold the guns and the money, that minority has power. It is a sensitive and difficult subject to discuss but in essence racism is unthinking prejudice against a group of humans who suffer consequences because of that prejudice. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-really-that-evil/703573/45 "2014-11-04T12:25:21Z")
> [@protoboard](#): > > This never actually existed; there were Cherokee and even black slave owners and there were white slaves. Are you kidding? Of course it existed. In the 1800s in the US, slaves were black. There was no significant slavery of whites in the US in the 1800s. Laws were written in many states to codify white supremacism. > [@](#): > > Blacks from Africa were imported because the Native Americans refused to work. You’re going to have to cite this extremely offensive claim. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-really-that-evil/703573/46 "2014-11-04T12:27:25Z")
As to the original question, yes racism really is “that evil”. Most of the worst events in human history were caused or aided by racism and other forms of bigotry. And racism has never caused anything good to come about. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-really-that-evil/703573/47 "2014-11-04T12:34:39Z")
> [@protoboard](#): > > Black American culture is still very African in a lot of ways. This is incredibly wrong. Yes, there are vestiges of an African legacy present in black American culture. But black Americans are more much like white Americans than they are “Africans”. And believe it or not, most black Americans would say as much. If you can’t get something as basic as this right, I don’t know why anyone should really care about how you feel about racism. ---
**Author:** ![protoboard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/fbc32d/32.png) [@protoboard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/protoboard)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-really-that-evil/703573/48 "2014-11-04T12:59:03Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > As to the original question, yes racism really is “that evil”. Most of the worst events in human history were caused or aided by racism and other forms of bigotry. And racism has never caused anything good to come about. Most human evil is due to a warped sense of justice and conflict over resources. Racism is just a narrative that’s been used to rationalize this at certain times in history. > [@monstro](#): > > This is incredibly wrong. Yes, there are vestiges of an African legacy present in black American culture. But black Americans are more much like white Americans than they are “Africans”. And believe it or not, most black Americans would say as much. > > If you can’t get something as basic as this right, I don’t know why anyone should really care about how you feel about racism. I would say they are in between. African immigrants to the US actually merge into Black American communities surprisingly well because the cultures are quite similar. But yes black and white Americans are quite similar too, not denying that! ---
**Author:** ![protoboard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/fbc32d/32.png) [@protoboard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/protoboard)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-really-that-evil/703573/49 "2014-11-04T13:01:40Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > You’re going to have to cite this extremely offensive claim. > **[Red, Black, and Jew](https://books.google.com/books?id=ezhLoqWYlrkC&pg=PA96&lpg=PA96&dq=%22native%2Bamericans%2Brefused%2Bto%2Bwork%22&source=bl&ots=_AiEI4jaq1&sig=ZyR_0aOefdmOEWvOMMsfqtpU2zo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Is5YVNv-Kef2iQK5uIGoAQ&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22native%20americans%20refused%20to%20work%22&f=false)** > > Between 1890 and 1924, more than two million Jewish immigrants landed on America's shores. The story of their integration into American society, as they traversed the difficult path between assimilation and retention of a unique cultural identity, is... ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-really-that-evil/703573/50 "2014-11-04T13:04:19Z")
> [@protoboard](#): > > Most human evil is due to a warped sense of justice and conflict over resources. That “warped sense” is very often warped by racism/ bigotry. Slavery in the US wouldn’t have occurred if it wasn’t widely believed that black people were sub-human. The Holocaust had nothing to do with economics or resources – Nazi Germany actually damaged their own economy and war effort by diverting resources to kill Jews. Without these sorts of beliefs, slavery would have been unsupportable and outlawed much earlier than it was, the Holocaust would not have happened, most of the thousands and thousands of racial and religious pogroms in history would not have occurred, the Middle East would be mostly peaceful, the Rwandan genocide would not have occurred, etc. In short, without these sorts of beliefs, _most of the worst things in history would not have occurred._ ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-really-that-evil/703573/51 "2014-11-04T13:10:22Z")
> [@protoboard](#): > > [Red, Black, and Jew: New Frontiers in Hebrew Literature - Stephen Katz - Google Books](http://books.google.com/books?id=ezhLoqWYlrkC&pg=PA96&lpg=PA96&dq=%22native+americans+refused+to+work%22&source=bl&ots=_AiEI4jaq1&sig=ZyR_0aOefdmOEWvOMMsfqtpU2zo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Is5YVNv-Kef2iQK5uIGoAQ&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22native%20americans%20refused%20to%20work%22&f=false) You said the “native Americans refused to work” – the full quote is that they refused to work _as servants_, which is entirely different (not that this is supported inside the text – it’s just stated, and any reference is unavailable in the link). You shouldn’t have left that part out. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-really-that-evil/703573/52 "2014-11-04T13:11:53Z")
> [@protoboard](#): > > I would say they are in between. African immigrants to the US actually merge into Black American communities surprisingly well because the cultures are quite similar. But yes black and white Americans are quite similar too, not denying that! You’re just making unsupported statements. Where do you get all this? How do you have all this knowledge about black and African culture and communities? ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-really-that-evil/703573/53 "2014-11-04T13:12:43Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > When I was a kid, I can’t tell you how many homes I saw that had 2 pictures hanging up: JFK and the Pope. Catholics were proud of him, and no one I knew was a New England blue blood. We’re all human, but the OP tries to frame that as something sinister. But, yes, people as a rule vote for who serves their interests best. No pictures involved but I recall in my youth, years after his assassination, my grandmother and her brother talking about Kennedy’s election as an _Irish Catholic_ was in almost reverent terms. They were old enough to have lived during the period where Irish ancestry was in conversion from being treated as a non-white minority to being lumped in with other whites. They’d been racially discriminated against, although not as overtly as earlier Irish immigrants. Obama’s election and the celebrations about the first black President recalled the emotional display they were still showing years later about the election of an Irish Catholic. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-really-that-evil/703573/54 "2014-11-04T13:19:22Z")
> [@protoboard](#): > > [Red, Black, and Jew: New Frontiers in Hebrew Literature - Stephen Katz - Google Books](http://books.google.com/books?id=ezhLoqWYlrkC&pg=PA96&lpg=PA96&dq=%22native+americans+refused+to+work%22&source=bl&ots=_AiEI4jaq1&sig=ZyR_0aOefdmOEWvOMMsfqtpU2zo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Is5YVNv-Kef2iQK5uIGoAQ&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22native%20americans%20refused%20to%20work%22&f=false) You realize that the quote is from a novel, not from historical research, right? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-really-that-evil/703573/55 "2014-11-04T13:20:31Z")
Racism is evil. It’s evil is often overstated in the West as the greatest evil that has ever existed. And society treats it very strangely. Most of the ways that racism is expressed are perfectly legal, but society often punishes it as if it’s worse than rape or murder. IMO, racism is a vice. It’s like greed, gluttony, envy, etc. It can lead to great evils, but it’s something that to a certain extent is in all of us. And it’s not always limited to “the other”. Heck, we often feel freer to talk shit about the stereotypes of our own people when we encounter them. And apparently that’s allowed, which is a strange rule, because if it’s just to complain about it you shouldn’t have to be a member of the group to do so. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-really-that-evil/703573/56 "2014-11-04T13:22:01Z")
> [@protoboard](#): > > [Red, Black, and Jew: New Frontiers in Hebrew Literature - Stephen Katz - Google Books](http://books.google.com/books?id=ezhLoqWYlrkC&pg=PA96&lpg=PA96&dq=%22native+americans+refused+to+work%22&source=bl&ots=_AiEI4jaq1&sig=ZyR_0aOefdmOEWvOMMsfqtpU2zo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Is5YVNv-Kef2iQK5uIGoAQ&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22native%20americans%20refused%20to%20work%22&f=false) I don’t know that I’d characterize that as “refusing to work.” More like that they had the option of escaping slavery because they were so near their homes/families, whereas African slaves had no alternatives. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-really-that-evil/703573/57 "2014-11-04T13:22:42Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > but society often punishes it as if it’s worse than rape or murder. If this isn’t hyperbole, then how so? Please provide some examples. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-really-that-evil/703573/58 "2014-11-04T13:35:06Z")
Roman Polanski still makes movies. Snoop Dogg has been to the White House. Al Campanis’ career in baseball was ended by one statement. Suge Knight’s rap sheet is so long that in a just world no one would give him any money or work. Mike Tyson was actually convicted of rape and was allowed to continue his boxing career. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-really-that-evil/703573/59 "2014-11-04T13:54:10Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Roman Polanski still makes movies. Not in the US. > [@](#): > > Snoop Dogg has been to the White House. So what? He was acquitted of murder. > [@](#): > > Al Campanis’ career in baseball was ended by one statement. How is this worse than rape or murder? > [@](#): > > Suge Knight’s rap sheet is so long that in a just world no one would give him any money or work. Mike Tyson was actually convicted of rape and was allowed to continue his boxing career. They’ve both been to prison – no one has gone to prison for racist beliefs or statements. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-really-that-evil/703573/60 "2014-11-04T13:55:41Z")
Which is why society punishes it by pretty much ending your career. Unless you can get someone credible to “vouch” for you, which saved Howard Cosell. Quite the ad hoc justice system. Seems like something more out of a mafia movie. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-really-that-evil/703573.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-racism-really-that-evil/703573.md?page=4)