Racisim is really classism

Great Debates
1

“For the poor always ye have with you…” Luke 4:18

“For the poor shall never cease out of the land…” Deuteronomy 15:11

Everywhere in the world there is class: people dividing themselves into lower and higher and dividing the output of society unevenly. Further, in every subunit of a society or culture, whether in a church, corporation, or neighborhood association, one likewise finds rank, class, and caste. There are cliques in every school, and every group knows where it stands on the social scale.

Race, as right-minded people know, is an illusion. Certainly, genetic content can vary by group (whether these are perceived as “racial” groups or not), but ultimately we are the same species and vary as much between two individuals in the same race as between two in different races. Further, race is a constantly shifting thing, as people from different groups interbreed.

But the superficial differences perceived as “racial” are just what the dark side of human nature and human cognition desire as marks by which to determine class and caste. The inferiority of people with readily identified characteristics was extremely useful to enslavers and conquerors. Their economic incentive for doing so was great.

And so it is today. Caste and class are alive and well in the United States, and those in power seek to support those they identify as being like them (“one of us”) and preserve the prerogatives of their group. Race is but one factor in this system: Family name, ethnicity, religion, schools attended, etc. All may serve as shibboleths.

I think this desire to descriminate on the basis of non-essential characteristics is at the heart of racism, and the notion that people of one color dislike or discriminate against those of another ought to be identified as just one subset of the human tendency to keep outsiders out and insiders in.

In other words, it’s nothing personal: it’s the same old self-serving injustice that has always been with us, and always will be.

2

No… historically racism in the US has been quite personal in terms of devaluing the black person as a non fully functional or evolved human. American racism is somewhat unique in this regard. It’s a lot more pernicious than just class prejudice.

3

No real disagreement. But the purpose of such overt prejudice was to sort blacks into the lowest caste and force them to do worse work and accept less rewards. Much like how caste in India worked/works. Ugly and evil.

4

I’m not sure that’s how I’d describe the Indian caste system. I think it’s a lot more complex than that.

5

Both of my “social studies” teachers at Uni were puzzled by the notion Americans have that they are classless! :stuck_out_tongue: :stuck_out_tongue: :stuck_out_tongue:

6

I doubt that there’s any such thing as a classless society. The Australian Media used to drone on about how we were A Classless Society (presumably to distinguish us from Britain, which has an official aristocracy - like, if that’s the only thing separating us from the UK, what have we been doing since Federation?). Now, there’s not a whisper of a mention of it since Mary married Prince Fred, Cate made it onto the Hollywood hot list, and people suddenly remembered Rupert was from Australia. Papers like the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age seem oblivious to the existence of working-class Australians, and Aboriginies are basically treated in the media as though they were disabled. In every country, the worst thing to be is working-class (or underclass) and black.

7

I think that a lot of racism is indeed classism, although from a different perspective than the OP.

For example, here in DC there is a large white population coexisting with a large black population. Speaking in very broad generalities, the large white population is generally not native to DC and came here to take part in the government-fed economy that exists. It’s generally a well-educated and rather sophisticated population. The black population, on the other hand, is native to the area and is poor (of course, there is also a large black middle class that exists in the suburbs, but most whites have little contact with this class).

So well-educated white folks get here and see quite a few black people who are begging for change, drugged out, acting like idiots on the subway, committing crimes, urinating in public, leering at women, etc. These are the images they are presented with day after day. A number of people I talk to tend to associate this type of behavior with blacks, and make generally derogatory statements about blacks based on their everyday observations of this bad behavior.

However, I don’t see the above-described behavior as “black” behavior but as the behavior of the underclass. I come from a very rural area that is full of families that have undergone generations of poverty. The place is basically 100% white. The behaviors I see when I go home are essentially the same behaviors I see here in DC with the black people who live in the ghetto – high drug use, no initiative to find a job, rampant teenage pregnancy, violence, a tendency to blame one’s problems on someone else, a refusal to accept responsibility for bettering oneself, etc.

The problem, as I see it, is that a lot of white people around here come from a middle or upper class background where they don’t encounter many poor people. So when they come to an area like DC, where they encounter a significant underclass, they associate the behaviors of this underclass with blacks.

And even people who come from an area with a large amount of poor whites may also associate blacks with bad behavior simply because the only black people they have contact with exhibit this behavior. They probably know a wide range of white people, so even if they know a lot of “white trash” they also know a lot of well-off whites, so they aren’t going to assume that all whites act a certain way. However, if the only blacks they encounter are drunk or acting like criminals, they are more likely to have a stereotypical view of blacks.

I don’t think that many people think about racism day-to-day. I think they make observations of individuals throughout the day and over time these observations crystalize into certain generalizations. If they only see underclass blacks acting badly, then they are going to generalize blacks as lazy drug dealing criminals. Sure, it’s not rational, but it makes a certain amount of sense. They are actually judging a class of people, not a race, but they assume that all people of a race exhibit the bad behaviors of a certain class.

At least that’s how I see it from observing racial interaction in DC.

8

Racism comes into it in the automatic assignment of people to a certain, and derided, class based only upon some physical characteristic.

And althought those you speak of as being well-educated and in DC for government jobs, they might have a lot of schooling but it seems to me that well-educated people wouldn’t assign people to a category by that method.

9

Yes, but that classification is based on something. Racists do not simply make things up. They have reasons for believing what they believe. Quite often I’ve found that it’s based on numerous negative experiences with people from a different race.

Well, you assume that well-educated people are completely rational, which I’ve never found. Well educated people have a lot of education, but they are also human. They believe irrational things, just like anyone else.

I’m also saying that they don’t really think about it very much. The category of “African American” to them conjures thoughts of crime, rowdy behavior on the subway, teenage girls with numerous kids, and laziness. Sure, that’s a small subset of blacks, but it’s the subset they see day after day. They don’t really reflect upon it, but it’s the picture that comes to mind when they hear the word.

It’s probably similar to what a lot of people think when they hear “evangelical/fundamentalist Christian.” When they hear that I’m sure they think of ignorant bigots who live in trailer parks. It’s simply the stereotype that comes to mind when thinking of a group of people.

10

Well there’s reasons and there’s, ya know, Reasons. Surely you are not suggestiong that there are any good reasons for racism? I mean, I could steal a bunch of money and blow it all on hookers and crank because the Red Sox won the World Series. A reason, but not a very good one.

And David? Nice, elegant, clear definition of racism.

11

Of course not. However, one must recognize that people do not hold opinions without a foundation that makes sense to them. It may not be rational, but it is compelling enough to the one who believes it.

All I’m saying is that if you want to discuss racism, you need to understand the reasons that people hold racist feelings. I think it has a lot to do with the bad behavior of certain classes of people and with others generalizing about the whole race based on the bad behavior of a few. I think it works with whites thinking bad about blacks based on ghetto behavior as well as blacks thinking bad about whites based on Redneck behavior.

12

I think the notion is that an American isn’t inherently, by birth, a member of a particular class. There’s no “nobility,” no hereditary titles. There’s no “if you’re born a peasant, you’ll die a peasant”; anyone can join the upper classes with enough talent, hard work, and/or luck.

That’s the notion, at least. One exception is race, at list in the pre-civil rights era and especially in the era of slavery, when blacks (for example) were second-class citizens (or worse) from birth and there was nothing they could do to change that.

13

I think that this is a case of retroactively rationalizing some people’s racism. I’ve known lots of racists who never encountered the “bad” behavior of the group whom they despised: suburbanites who never ventured into the parts of the city where blacks were allowed to live whose only contact with blacks were the exceedingly hard-working service personnel in menial jobs; people who lived at basically the same level of poverty/wealth in areas sufficiently rural where the stereotypical “bad” behavior of groups could only be seen in individuals of any races. It does not explain why certain ethnic groups (even within the white community) “knew” that the other ethnic groups were dishonest, lazy, grasping, or whatever trait was attributed to them, simply because they were “other.” I’ve met any number of people who “know how Jews are” who were quite disconcerted to discover that this neighbor or that co-worker was Jewish. They had never developed a hatred from seeing any behavior; they simply grew up with that hatred instilled in them from common beliefs carried by their own groups without any evidence.

The notion that there is any rational basis for racism–even seeing “the bad behavior of the few”–is simply not supported by evidence. People tend to be xenophobic and racial or ethnic identities make easy markers to express their xenophobia. It has nothing whatsoever to do with any members of the group being so victimized. This is not to say that someone will not seek out the behavior of members of a hated group to rationalize their own hatred, but that behavior is not what led to the hatred in the first place.

14

tomndebb. Xenophobic or ethnocentric? I think the tendency to embrace the way you were raised as somehow “better” or innately superior is more common to human experience than actual xenophobia, which requires something to be so significantly perceived as “other” as to actually be worth demonizing.

I deeply believe some racism is rationalized by actual, negative experiences one has, which is why you have some racists evoking those experiences as evidence to support their beliefs. The problem is generalizing your specfic experiences and attributing those negative traits with every other member of that race/ethnic group. Inductive thinking is a valuable way of thinking but it can lead to sloppy conclusions if one isn’t careful.

15

As in the song from South Pacific by Rogers and Hammerstein - You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught.

16

Re the debate over whether racism is rational or not, my main point is that it is rational (and evil, no doubt) to be racist if being so advances one’s own perceived group.

17

In World On Fire, Yale scholar Amy Chua examines the way that global capitalism has exaccerbated ethnic hostilities. Different groups succeed at vastly different rates and the success of minority groups breeds resentment and hostililty.

Thomas Sowell, the conservative economist who’s done a lot of work on ethnic differences in economics and politics, has suggested that the success of ethnic minorities inspires self-hatred in people who aren’t doing as well, particularly when the minority groupsare seen as outsiders or aliens.

Examples would be the anti Chinese persecution throughout southeast Asia, anti Semitic persecution throughout Europe, anti Indian hostility in Africa, and to a lesser degree, hostility towards black West Indians in various parts of Latin America.

Historically, the greatest abuse and persecution against black Americans has fit this pattern. The greatest hostility against black Americans has come when they’ve been too successful. The Irish Catholics who looted and burned black neighborhoods in New York during the Civil War draft riots were attacking people who were doing better than they were, though not as well as white Protestants.
The Tulsa race riots also involved white mobs destroying a prosperous black community, out of resentment at that very prosperity. The mobs targeted wealthier homes to steal their clothes, jewelry and other personal possessions.
It was the very success of Philadelphia blacks in the 1830’s and '40’s that prompted anti-black riots and anti-black legislation.

Black Americans were doing too well relative to poor whites, and some of these whites sought to even the score with violence. White controlled governments refinforced the white popular will by establishing laws and policies that severely restricted black avenues for advancement and turning a blind eye to crimes commited against black Americans.

In the past year, the single greatest commercial arson in Maryland state history was commited against a suburban development of half million dollar homes, because the majority of the buyers were black people. The lower class white perpetrators didn’t go down to Southeast DC and burn down housing projects or derelict row houses. They burned down the homes of black people who were by any definition well educated and successful.

So it would be more accurate to say that most white Americans wanted (and some still want) black Americans to occupy the lowest level of American society and would use any means, legal or extra legal to make sure that black Americans were forced into the bottom rung. The long record of intense hostility to black Americans who were well above the bottom rung shows that it was their difference rather than their socio-economic class that was the issue.

18

Again, it’s not that this behavior or attitude can be supported by reason, but that this behavior or attitude makes sense to the person holding it. I guarantee you even the most vicious Klansman thinks that his reasons for hating Blacks and Jews makes sense. It’s going to get us nowhere to simply dismiss racism as irrational. Whether or not it’s objectively rational is not the issue; rather, it’s whether or not racism is rational to the racist. And I would venture that it is.

In some, sure, but they had a reason to become racist in the first place. People just don’t hold views for no reason.

And, to reiterate, I disagree with the premise of your statement that people are simply using the bad behavior of, say, some black people to be racist against all blacks. I know plenty of people who grew up in mono-race areas that had absolutely no trace of racism in them until they moved to areas where there was a mixture of races.

And, Belowjob2.0, don’t forget to include African American racism against Chinese and Jews in your examples of succesful groups being hated by a group that is less succesful.

19

Renob. Koreans, not Chinese. It’s not hate we feel so much as a general distrust and hostility for Korean shopowners in low-income neighborhoods. Also, black people don’t hate Jews. Jesus, Whoopi Goldberg, Sammy Davis, Jr… why, the list is… somewhere between three and infinity.

20

Not comparable. The examples I cited in the US and overseas involved massive violence and large scale persecution. If black Americans in DC, for example, systematically targeted Jewish homes and businesses for arson, and then used their political majority to ban Jewish business ownership and political rights, then it would be comparable.

There’s a huge difference between verbal expressions of resentment on the one hand, and large scale, organized persecution on the other. The whole “blacks are just as racist as whites” argument simply isn’t supported by the facts.

Black hostility to outsiders who do business in their communities isn’t strictly a case of resentment of the more successful. These businessmen have often treated their black customers with hostility and contempt, and refused to hire blacks to work in their operations. That is to say, they want to profit off people they despise, and they have often made little effort to hide their contempt.