The 3 Pillars of Enlightened Racism

Great Debates
1

Enlightened Racism is the thinking man’s racism. It’s the kind of racism I see on this board all the time. The kind that gives a person legs to rest his bigotry on, easing the load on his conscience. These are strong pillars with studies and research to back. They are self-sustaining since the prejudice within each pillar feeds on itself and makes it stronger.

1.Blacks are inherant criminals– If you look at The Department of Justice’s figures it’s not hard to leap to this conclusion. However, it seems blindingly obvious to me that these stats incorporate racism, grow fat with it and then feed some more. I even started a GD thread on this very subject once.

2.Blacks are stupider than whites.–Everybody’s at least heard of The Bell Curve, right? And of course we blacks talk like idiots. Not only that, but we need Afirmative Action to get us into college and steal the slots that rightfully belong to white people. There’s no way that the disparity in test scores could be a result of racism, is it? Nope, that can’t be the reason. It must be because blacks are just not as smart as whites.

  1. Blacks and whites are inherantly different. (Do I have to link to one of the hundreds of race threads here?)-- This one’s the doozy. This pillar is the one that holds everything up. Because there is some sort of biology, a gene of some kind, an event in our pre-history, something deep down on the molecular level that makes blacks and whites fundamentally different from each other. An extra muscle. A different race. A different species.
2

I see nothing enlightened in any of those pillars and wouldn’t call someone a “thinking man” if they ascribed to any of them. I know you were being somewhat facetious, but come on. Are you seriously saying that there is serious research backing up, say, that Blacks are inherently criminal? Inherently?? I can’t imagine a reputable social scientist taking this even remotely seriously.

Biggirl: What specifically do you want to debate here?

And, BTW, the ignorance goes on both sides of the debate. Afro-Centric history/social science has it’s hucksters as well. Whites are dominant in this country numerically, so ignorance and racism coming from that group is more harmful. But it doesn’t change the fact that racism is not an exclusively white phenomenon.

3

Well, she was saying that this “enligtened racism” makes it easy for bigots to have pretensions of rationality in this subject.

Although I, too wonde what the point of her post was.

4

Some people are inherently bad spellers though.

5

I knew it wasn’t my fault. It’s in my genes!:slight_smile:

6

What’s enlightened about any of the racist claptrap in the OP?

I wouldn’t even define those as being modern polite-racism ideas. Those are old, not-the-slightest-but-polite racist ideas.

7

At this point I’m not going to question your assertions, I merely wanted to comment on the spirit of your post.

IMO, a bigot who considers themselves as a “thinking man” might choose to use these statistics in the manner you described. In all honesty, since this is a drive-by post while I’m holding for phone company cust. service, I’ll just say this:

I am a 27yr old mexican male liberal. I am inclined to think that crime has a stronger correlation to poverty than to race, and I think that is where the statistics you quoted lose meaning. I don’t have time now to research the issue further, but I would appreciate it if someone had similar studies bookmarked for quick reference to post here.

Well, as a mexican male, I’ll admit that I’ve only been privvy to one social group of adolescents that were vocally racist (in private) to jews & blacks. Keep in mind that they were hanging out w/ a Mexican. I wonder how much of their dialogue re: races was for show.

Excluding your message about affirmative action (which I believe should bias towards mostly towards the poor but specific races to a smaller degree; lotta generalizing here; i’m assuming under an ideal affirmative action environment, that the bright and poor students would be given scholarships to attent school instead of just acceptance into the school)… Well, excluding that point and focusing on ppl claiming that blacks talk like idiots… My typical argument is…

"How many of you have sat down with a black family for dinner? How many do you know personally? Are you experiences shaped by encounters with a “black bully”? Have you ever been picked on by a white bully? The answer in most cases is that people arguing this position have rarely interacted with blacks in any real way.

My focus with these questions is that while that there are in some cases clear dialects among certain groups, that IN NO WAY results in them being less capable of intelligent conversation.

IMO, someone who argues this line should be excluded from consideration as a “thinking man”. Of course we’re different. IMO biological diversity is the spice of life. There may be some point in the future that one race’s genes may begin to mutate to a point where the other races genes are necessary. It sounds like a science fiction novel, but mass extinction have been known to happen, and there could be any number of causes.

Keep in mind you’re speaking w/ a hippie who believes that autism in children is humanity’s big attempt at the next stage of evolution.

8

Suspiciously narrow too. You’ll note that all those other minority groups have achieved equality according to the OP.

9

That seems to be a bit of an oxymoron to me. Why would any “thinking man” want to practice stupidity? Racism is voluntarily ignoring facts to believe in a non existant superiority over another. If you chose to remain ignorant, thats stupidity. Since there are so much evidence to refute the validity of racial superiority, I guess certain “thinking men” have to make some up or twist some enuf to support their fallacious claim.

POOR people are inherant criminals. Theyre the ones with the most need, the motivation and the desperate nature to commit crimes. Rich criminals are few and mostly psychotic. Since there is a disparity in the number of white poor as opposed to black poor, you will find more black criminals in prison. You will find more white rich folks in prison tho. Racism logic seem to dictate that we should prevent white people from becoming rich to stop them from commiting crime. But then that would be stupid right?

I always thought of racial quotas as a means to equalize economic advantages of better education. I never for a moment thought that we must allow stupid people in just because they were black or any other color. If a white guy gets bumped off the admissions list by a “less qualified” black person, that white guy is pretty much the bottom of the barrel already. If he had better grades and more community service, he would have to worry about the race quota. Hey sucks to be him but you have to consider that the black guy had a sucky educational environment and he still beat the white guy. That sounds pretty fair to me.

inherantly? I dont think so. There is no genetic way to tell if a person is white, black or asian. In scientific terms, there are no races. I would say that blacks and whites are culturally different as are asians, middle easteners, and europeans. get around that and you got world peace.

10

Well, in the threads I linked to in my OP there are many posters who believe blacks are inherantly different and who believe exactly as I’ve stated. I’m sure these posters have never been called racists quite so blatantly before and may not even see themselves in my post.

On this board there is an almost unspoken prohibition against calling someone a racist as wll as a tendancy to explain away racist thinking as rational thought backed by “the numbers”.

Attacking each pillar peicemeal (as was done in the cited threads)seems to me to be a waste of time and hardly ever gets down to the underlying bigotry.

But then again, calling those who I disagree with “enlightened racists” won’t have them running to post in this thread.

11

**

Interesting. So according to you the black guy is what we get once we’ve moved beyond what’s resting on the bottom of the barrel and actually started to scrape. You’ll excuse me if I have my doubts that a C in an inner city high school is equal to a C in a nice suburban high school.

Marc

12

You’ll note that where in the OP?

13

**

It might not be blindingly obvious to the rest of us that these stats incorperate racism. Care to enlighten us?

**

I could see how bias might come in some subjects such as reading comprehension. I remember one of my black co-workers calling someone high yellow and she laughed when I had to ask her what that was. How does racism impact subjects like math and science though?

**

I wouldn’t argue that races are inherently different. I do have to consider that my experience as a white dude may have been vastly different from that of a black dude. The last time I had a close black friend I was in 7th grade. When I went to their place for dinner they ate different food, listened to different music, and all their other guest besides me were black. I’m sure my pal noticed the same difference when he was over at my house for dinner. That said we’re all humans and we should be able to empathize with one another.

Marc

14

I don’t agree with this assertion, particularly the last sentence. I think you’ll have to prove it with a cite, if you can. It reflects a common misperception that I think the OP is trying to combat. Perhaps you’re only talking about “violent” crimes, but even there you’re on shaky ground.

Rich people commit crimes all the time, and I’d wager to say that most of them are about as serious as the ones poor people commit. First point: having money does not decrease the desire for more money. Sure, need is a very powerful motivator. Unfortunately, greed is just as powerful.

The difference is that the poor are more easily arrested, prosecuted and convicted for their crimes… the wealthy are quick to “lawyer up” and are more likely to get off, especially for charges of drug use, vehicular offenses, or petty theft.

Anyway, short of some substantive proof that the wealthy are less likely to commit crimes than the poor (not get prosecuted, mind you, but actually commit the crimes), I don’t buy that assertion on its face. I suspect it is part of what the OP is talking about.

15

You also have to note that a black guy who gets in thru affirmative action isnt high on the grade bell curve either. Hes not the best that the poor black community has to offer therefore your assertions are false. Affirmative action seeks to use qualifications of admission not based solely on grades alone but the effort that was used to get that grade. A C in the inner city is equal to a C in a nice suburban area, but what it took to get that C is what affirmative action looks into.

16

While there may be a bias toward Asian-Americans in the SATs, I doubt that the bias was intentionally placed there so I don’t think that it constitutes racism.

17

Then let me rephrase the last sentence.

“Rich convicted criminals are few and mostly psychotic.”

as for the cite

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-CJSpoor.htm

18

**
As I stated in the linked thread-- Blacks make up 15% of the drug using public but make up 35% of those in prison for drug using offenses. 42% of death row inmates are black when blacks make up just 12% of the populationWhy? The answer to me is blindingly obvious.

19

Do you have any proof that it is genetics causing blacks as a group to have higher crime rates, and not a combination of economic and cultural factors at play. Because there is more genetic deversity within “racial” groups than there is between them; dividing people into racial categories falls apart at a genetic level.

20

Hi Clu,

I’m white. I’ve sat down to dinner with a black family. I know several personally. I’ve been abused by blacks. I’ve been abused by whites.

These are good questions, and one might think that if you sat a racist down and really got him to think about the answers, he wouldn’t be a racist anymore.

Warning: Anecdotal evidence ahead. The following is not offered as proof or evidence for any assertion or hypothesis. You may interpret it as you wish.

I have this relative I’m very close to. He’s kind of racist though. New Year’s Eve he said something like “The cops could avoid any incidents if they just locked up all the niggers for the night.” When he’s watching the news and they’re interviewing a black person, he says “Hey, get a load of this coon! Ooh, ooh! I be on de welfare! I be smokin’ crack!”

One time we were watching a commercial for a (black) political candidate, and there was a scene where he was sitting in a classroom with a bunch of teachers. I think there were like three or four white teachers and two black ones. I’m not shitting you, he said “Look! See what I mean? All black!”

I’m pretty sure the only black people he has ever known are the temps his company sometimes hires. According to him, they’re stupid, lazy, black, incompetent, black, rude black people who make his job so much harder with their black ways.

Meanwhile, although he’s doing pretty well himself, he lives in a filthy, trashy, shithole of a white neighborhood. Some of the homes were abandoned by their (white) residents leaving rats and dogshit all over the place, so the county had to actually come in and condemn them.

His own (white) nephew just knocked up his (white) girlfriend with their second child (he’s 18, she’s 19), and they’re on public assistance and bleeding their families dry, what with spending all their money on cigarettes and a new exotic pet every month that they’re just going to neglect anyway. And yes, the first baby is being raised by his (single) mother and (also single) grandmother.

He’s literally surrounded by squalid, depressing white people.
And he sees no contradiction between racism and reality. Not only that, he offends me when he spews his racist shit. And he knows it. And he doesn’t care.

My point is that if somebody doesn’t want to rethink their attitudes, you can present them with all the anti-racist evidence in the world and they simply will not see it. It’s like a blind spot. You don’t have to be crazy or stupid (maybe you have to be a little stupid), you just have to mentally block out anything you don’t want to see.

And now I’m depressed again.