# It's upsetting when other whites reveal their racism to me. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 20, 2012, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-upsetting-when-other-whites-reveal-their-racism-to-me/616307 "2012-03-20T13:41:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2012, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-upsetting-when-other-whites-reveal-their-racism-to-me/616307/221 "2012-03-26T04:09:26Z")
It was a throwaway line during an interview where he was complaining about Black History Month. Freeman presumably didn’t mean it, since he self-funded a movie about a town with [segregated high school proms](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prom_Night_in_Mississippi), and [campaigned to remove the Stars and Bars from the Mississippi state flag](http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-18560_162-1127684.html?pageNum=2&tag=contentMain;contentBody): > [@](#): > > “That flag has always represented, number one, treason and, number two, a separation of white people from Jews, niggers and homosexuals. And you can’t change that. You can’t tell me I’m never going to be able to look at that flag and think, ‘Ah, it’s my heritage, my, you know…’ Never,” says Freeman. ---
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2012, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-upsetting-when-other-whites-reveal-their-racism-to-me/616307/222 "2012-03-26T06:52:00Z")
I hope he didn’t mean it, because it was a horribly stupid thing to say. The only way that statement would be true is if there were no such thing as people who hate other people based on race, only people who pretend to to get a rise out of people. ---
**Author:** ![echoreply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/echoreply/32/3641_2.png) [@echoreply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/echoreply)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-upsetting-when-other-whites-reveal-their-racism-to-me/616307/223 "2012-03-31T16:31:09Z")
> [@holmes](#): > > Sure but let’s say Monstro called herself “White”, would you put her in the “white” groups? Monstro has at least as much European ancestry, if not more than African. So what do you do with her? > > ‘Race’ as a Social Construct i.e. the one drop rule, tells us to put her in with the African-Americans, but ‘Race’ as biology tells us genetically, she may be more European, despite her physical apperance. > > Who decides which value is the most important? From me perspective, which is a researcher looking at a computer database, if she calls herself white, then I’d put her in the white group. I’m just trying to throw in the perspective of “this is how a scientist who has to occasionally deal with these kinds of things handles them,” and that is almost always “we handle it with the information we have available.” For my uses, a one drop rule is stupid. I’m not trying to decide which drinking fountain she can use, but to avoid creating a [stratification effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_stratification) in my data. If the classification of any subject is wrong, or (as is certainly the case) my classification system doesn’t properly take into account all possibilities, then this ends up as “error” in my analysis. Error being a statistical term, and not judgment on whether people have correctly (if there even is such a thing) classified themselves. > [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > That’s the thing though, racism is old. Hating people based on arbitrary differences is very old, as old as civilization I would say. Wars have literally been fought over people wearing different types of clothes, people gesticulating in different ways when they worship a shared god and etc. > > So I don’t think any modern day racists really care about biology in the first place. I know some of them will sometimes cherry pick random things from biology to try and justify racism, or even summon up late 19th century theories about innate inferiority of certain groups of people and try to act as though it is 21st century suppressed science, but that’s just a symptom of an underlying irrational hatred. Explaining the biological stupidity of racism does nothing to really address the root causes of racism. Yes, this is exactly what I was trying to say, and you got right to the point. The racists who “cherry pick random things from biology” annoy me, and so do their detractors who argue that there’s no such thing as race. People are different. People can be grouped based on how similar they are on those differences. If we agree to call those clusters of people “race,” then race exists. Anybody who hates on people because of their membership in a cluster is a fuckwit. (See, I’ve created races of racists and non-racists, and have decided to hate on the racist group, so does that make me a member of that group?) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-upsetting-when-other-whites-reveal-their-racism-to-me/616307/224 "2012-03-31T17:07:46Z")
> [@rogerbox](#): > > This meme that if we just stop acknowleging racism, it will go away suddenly popped up It’s never made any sense to me. Would the world be a better place if Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela had ignored racism? ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-upsetting-when-other-whites-reveal-their-racism-to-me/616307/225 "2012-03-31T17:25:02Z")
It doesn’t make any sense, period. When you don’t express disagreement, people assume you agree, or are at least indifferent. I don’t, and I’m not, and I don’t \*want \*people to get the impression that most people agree with their racism. Never hesitate to express your disapproval. They’re embarrassed? Good. They should be. ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-upsetting-when-other-whites-reveal-their-racism-to-me/616307/226 "2012-03-31T17:44:30Z")
I went out to a restaurant for lunch today (I’m in Baltimore). In the bathroom, the other guy in there asked me if I was looking forward to the basketball game. We got to talking, and it turned out we were both from Texas- I’m from Austin, and he’s originally from San Antonio. He was glad to get out, though, because there were “too many Mexicans. And they steal everything.” :eek: I sputtered a little bit, completely taken off guard. Then I casually mentioned that my mother is Mexican\* and that I don’t recall her ever stealing anything, and he shut up and looked embarrassed. \*She wasn’t; I’m basically as Caucasian as you can get. \*He \*didn’t know that, though. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-upsetting-when-other-whites-reveal-their-racism-to-me/616307/227 "2012-03-31T19:37:34Z")
> [@Lightnin](#): > > I sputtered a little bit, completely taken off guard. Then I casually mentioned that my mother is Mexican\* and that I don’t recall her ever stealing anything, and he shut up and looked embarrassed. > > \*She wasn’t; I’m basically as Caucasian as you can get. \*He \*didn’t know that, though. If I were white, I think that’s how I would handle this kind of shit. It exploits people’s assumptions about whiteness, for one thing, and makes racists realize that they are surrounded by negroes and spics who look as white as themselves. How uncomfortable that idea must be for them. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-upsetting-when-other-whites-reveal-their-racism-to-me/616307/228 "2012-03-31T20:09:46Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > If I were white, I think that’s how I would handle this kind of shit. It exploits people’s assumptions about whiteness, for one thing, and makes racists realize that they are surrounded by negroes and spics who look as white as themselves. How uncomfortable that idea must be for them. Doesn’t seem quite fair, though. I’d rather make a point by telling the truth than a falsehood. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-upsetting-when-other-whites-reveal-their-racism-to-me/616307/229 "2012-03-31T20:48:48Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Doesn’t seem quite fair, though. I’d rather make a point by telling the truth than a falsehood. 🙂 Whatever works best. It isn’t true that Mexicans all steal so it’s fair to fight one lie with another. And making racists feel embarassed about themselves is the real victory. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2012, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-upsetting-when-other-whites-reveal-their-racism-to-me/616307/230 "2012-04-01T00:11:57Z")
> [@rogerbox](#): > > This meme that if we just stop acknowleging racism, it will go away suddenly popped up, I think it gained in popularity after Morgan Freeman was quoted saying it. If one spends more than 2 seconds thinking about it, one would realize it’s possibly the most retarded idea of all time. > > Let’s try that with some other things: Pedophilia, Date rape, Crime, Sexism, Financial Fraud… > > \*\*The person making that outlandish argument has the responsibility to explain what is so freaking special about racism that it will go away as opposed to all the other societal ills we know won’t go away even if we don’t acknowlege it. \*\* Also not acknowleging racism hurts the VICTIMS and lets the assholes get off scott-free. > > It’s insane and bizarre. Sure, no problem. I think you are simply misunderstanding the claim. I do not claim that racism will just go away if we don’t acknowledge it. Rather, I am claiming that many people claim racism at the slightest provocation, which leads to an evironment of people thinking racism is everywhere. Pedophilia occurs when an adult has sex with a child (etc.). Date rape occurs when one person forces another person to perform a sex act when they are on a date. And so on for your other examples–they all have objective criteria for determining if they occurred or not. Racism doesn’t work that way. If someone asks me for something and I decline to give it to them, then I could have many reasons for doing that. If that other person is a different race than me, than the other person could think that the reason I declined was because of their race. But that could have been the furthest thing from my mind. For racism, it takes two to tango. It’s very rare for a situation to happen where it’s absolutely clear that a person is being a racist (as I define the term). Usually someone just thinks that the other person must be a racist. So, I’m just saying that one of the reasons charges of racism will never go away is that some people have a hair trigger for thinking that someone else acted out of a racist impulse. And their belief that they saw racism will influence how the view other events, which will further reinforce their belief. ---
**Author:** ![TelecasterLPGTop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a3d4f5/32.png) [@TelecasterLPGTop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TelecasterLPGTop)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2012, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-upsetting-when-other-whites-reveal-their-racism-to-me/616307/231 "2012-04-01T00:18:46Z")
> [@davidm](#): > > My company hired around a dozen temps from an agency to do some data entry. They showed up this morning. I set up the workstations for them yesterday so I have an interest in how things are going. > > So a few minutes ago I asked the receptionist if the temps had shown up yet, and I got an earful. > > “Ohmigod, you should see them. It’s a good thing the CEOs not here. You should see the one girl. And they’re all black, not that that matters.” The “not that that matters” came after I made some “why would that matter?” sounds. Then she says “I told Sally (not a real name) if they can’t do it send them home”. > > So I wondered down, appearing as if I was doing a last minute double-check of the computers, and i saw Sally talking to a group a perfectly normal women in reasonable business attire. I’m relatively certain the receptionist wouldn’t have given them a second thought if they had been white and dressed the same way. > > I just makes me sad when I see someone I’ve worked with, and who’s seemed like a decent person, show that side of herself. I guess she’s not the “decent” person that you thought she was. I’d sack her otherwise you are complicit in her ignorant attitude. I’m brown skinned and born in a country full of whites,.. I grew up surrounded by racism. Even today I still find idiots who think they are better than me simply because they are white while it’s clear that they are intellectually short changed and are my inferiors in the “brains” department. ---
**Author:** ![pikey\_pete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pikey\_pete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pikey_pete)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2012, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-upsetting-when-other-whites-reveal-their-racism-to-me/616307/232 "2012-04-01T01:00:17Z")
I’m not a racist. Misanthropy is my cup of tea. I understand that racism exists, but seriously, unless its institutionalized racism and not just personal prejudice, it isn’t worth the time or effort to concern yourself. Face it, hating people for their skin color or religion or sexuality or nationality is…well, amateur. face it folks, we are talking about the human race here. If you’re going to hate someone, there are far more creative, and, i might add, personally fulfilling reasons to hate people. ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2012, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-upsetting-when-other-whites-reveal-their-racism-to-me/616307/233 "2012-04-01T01:25:49Z")
> [@pikey\_pete](#): > > I’m not a racist. Misanthropy is my cup of tea. I understand that racism exists, but seriously, unless its institutionalized racism and not just personal prejudice, it isn’t worth the time or effort to concern yourself. Face it, hating people for their skin color or religion or sexuality or nationality is…well, amateur. face it folks, we are talking about the human race here. If you’re going to hate someone, there are far more creative, and, i might add, personally fulfilling reasons to hate people. That’s either beautiful, or deeply depressing, or maybe both. Either way, it has an elegance that I like. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2012, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-upsetting-when-other-whites-reveal-their-racism-to-me/616307/234 "2012-04-01T01:47:36Z")
> [@pikey\_pete](#): > > I understand that racism exists, but seriously, unless its institutionalized racism and not just personal prejudice, it isn’t worth the time or effort to concern yourself. :dubious: Where are you drawing the line between “institutionalized racism” and “personal prejudice”? Are you saying it’s not worth it to concern yourself about racist views unless some institution actually has some official policy in place formally endorsing them? Racial prejudice can have some pretty negative impacts even when it’s not officially endorsed, after all. If you as a white male happen to have the luxury of not concerning yourself with racism because it doesn’t seriously affect you personally, fine. I’m not sure I think it would be the best thing for society if everybody else adopted your lofty attitude, though. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2012, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-upsetting-when-other-whites-reveal-their-racism-to-me/616307/235 "2012-04-01T03:38:17Z")
Institutionalized racism is worse than everyday racism, but that doesn’t mean everyday racism isn’t bad. I mean, most of the things that cause resentment in people isn’t institutionalized racism, but shit like people yelling slurs at you from their car window, clutching their purses when you walk by, ignoring you when you need assistance in a store, or shooting you in the darkness of night. All of it is bad. As far as lying as a shaming mechanism goes, I’m all for it. People need to have their assumptions turned upside down on them. Frequently lying is just the way to do it. And it doesn’t have to be just race. Once, I had lunch with a coworker who kept going on and on about how disgusted he was by seeing this fat woman in a swimming suit. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, but he just wouldn’t stop. So I said, “Hey, I know you didn’t know this, but up till last year I was almost 300 lbs.” The face he made was worth a million dollars. I laughed and said that I was just kidding. Maybe I didn’t change his mind about anything, but I think I gave him a little pause. A lot of learning can happen in a pause. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2012, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-upsetting-when-other-whites-reveal-their-racism-to-me/616307/236 "2012-04-01T11:28:08Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > Sure, no problem. I think you are simply misunderstanding the claim. I do not claim that racism will just go away if we don’t acknowledge it. Rather, I am claiming that many people claim racism at the slightest provocation, which leads to an evironment of people thinking racism is everywhere. > > Pedophilia occurs when an adult has sex with a child (etc.). Date rape occurs when one person forces another person to perform a sex act when they are on a date. And so on for your other examples–they all have objective criteria for determining if they occurred or not. > > Racism doesn’t work that way. If someone asks me for something and I decline to give it to them, then I could have many reasons for doing that. If that other person is a different race than me, than the other person could think that the reason I declined was because of their race. But that could have been the furthest thing from my mind. > > For racism, it takes two to tango. It’s very rare for a situation to happen where it’s absolutely clear that a person is being a racist (as I define the term). Usually someone just thinks that the other person must be a racist. So, I’m just saying that one of the reasons charges of racism will never go away is that some people have a hair trigger for thinking that someone else acted out of a racist impulse. And their belief that they saw racism will influence how the view other events, which will further reinforce their belief. I believe this is a strawman. The number of people who just assume something is racism no matter what is as small as the number of people who are blatant racists. The vast majority of people have reasons for believing something is racism. Do you really regularly encounter black people who call you a racist because you just don’t give them something they want? I admit I grew up in a rather whitewashed town, but I’ve never encountered it. What I encounter are people who look at patterns. They note that, of the people to which you’ve given that item, 95% of them are white. And yet 15% of the people who apply for that item are black. What I encounter is people who use the word “boy” with black people but not with white people. What I encounter are people who act all proper around white folks but are jerks to black ones. What I encounter is that, as recently as the year 2000, the one and only black person at my school had his family run out of town because the father is black and the mother is white. Racism is subjective in a sense, but it’s far less subjective than those with your argument would have us believe. It’s no harder than figuring out when two people who are being civil to each other actually hate each other. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2012, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-upsetting-when-other-whites-reveal-their-racism-to-me/616307/237 "2012-04-01T12:07:03Z")
> [@rogerbox](#): > > I’m a mulatto who doesn’t mind being called black and I don’t find that comment _racist_, just wrong. It’s completely a matter of opinion since “black” is a social convention, if enough people thought like him, then de facto they’d be right since blackness is only what we make of it. I don’t understand your point. All definitions of race are merely social constructs (even the ones that say you are how you self-identify). If I tell you not to call yourself white because you are Hispanic, I’m dealing with a real social construct that Hispanic people aren’t white. But I’m still excluding you from a group I belong to due to your racial and/or ethnic background. I have no right to exclude you, any more than I have the right to call a trans woman he instead of she. I don’t see how the black guy excluding the “mixed” person from his group is any different from racism. Can you enlighten me? ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2012, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-upsetting-when-other-whites-reveal-their-racism-to-me/616307/238 "2012-04-01T13:59:56Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I don’t understand your point. All definitions of race are merely social constructs (even the ones that say you are how you self-identify). If I tell you not to call yourself white because you are Hispanic, I’m dealing with a real social construct that Hispanic people aren’t white. But I’m still excluding you from a group I belong to due to your racial and/or ethnic background. > I have no right to exclude you, any more than I have the right to call a trans woman he instead of she. > > I don’t see how the black guy excluding the “mixed” person from his group is any different from racism. Can you enlighten me? Many Jews do not think people born from gentile mothers are Jewish. Are they anti-Semitic? It is rude to tell someone they shouldn’t identify as something that they feel strongly about. But just because something is a construct doesn’t mean it is totally arbitrary and free-form. If someone who was born and raised in England came to the States for a few years and decided to call themselves an American because they love the country that much, I wouldn’t want to rain on their parade. I’d let them hold on to that self-identification. But I wouldn’t identify that person as an American when referring to them. I wouldn’t perceive them as an American, because they don’t meet the rules for what constitutes an American shared by most Americans. ---
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2012, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-upsetting-when-other-whites-reveal-their-racism-to-me/616307/239 "2012-04-01T20:29:07Z")
There is almost nothing MORE American than immigration. I disagree or would need a cite for the claim that to most Americans, people who move here can never be American except by birth. **BigT** , I’ll have to respond to that when I’m at home and not posting from my phone. ---
**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:** [April 2, 2012, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-upsetting-when-other-whites-reveal-their-racism-to-me/616307/240 "2012-04-02T06:05:53Z")
> [@rogerbox](#): > > There is almost nothing MORE American than immigration. I disagree or would need a cite for the claim that to most Americans, people who move here can never be American except by birth. Are you familiar with Craig Ferguson? Would you, on seeing and hearing him, characterise him as “American” or as “Scottish”? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-upsetting-when-other-whites-reveal-their-racism-to-me/616307.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-upsetting-when-other-whites-reveal-their-racism-to-me/616307.md?page=13)