Your “enlightened racist” only has issues with blacks. Remarkable.
Biggirl:
If you are suggesting that some bigots use smoke and mirrors to cover themselves, I think that’s pretty obvious.
Or are you saying that it is “enlightened racism” for anyone to suggest that higher crime rates and lower academic achievement among blacks are not 100% due to white bigotry?
In the GQ forum, there are rules against calling anyone names, no? And rightly so. Not to put words in your mouth, but it appears to me that the purpose of this thread is to grant you some dispensation to allow you to call certain posters racist. I don’t think you’ll get anyone to agree to that.
In talking about point number 2 it is brought up that affirmative action type policies seek to adjust for the difference between a suburban and inner city school. Wouldn’t it be more accurate and less racist (thus removing ammo from the racist side) to have these considerations be either purely economic or based upon the quality of the school. For instance rank schools on a 1 to 10 scale and give preferrance to anyone with the same grade from a lower school?
I guess this is a bit of a hijack, I am sure there is an affirmative action thread around here I should use instead…
“Kind of ?”
“Kind of ?”
What would you consider to be just plain ol’ outright racist?
I never said my that enlightened racists only have issues with blacks. I didn’t even imply that racists only have issues with blacks. My OP is about black/white racism because that is what I’m familiar with.
The purpose of this thread is to expose racist thought. I have absolutely no problem calling a person a racist in any forum if that person is acting like a racist-- and I have. Check out the linked threads. No one has a problem if a poster says they weigh 500lbs and someone else call them fat or if they insist that they are George Washington and someone says that they are a liar, do they?
Sometimes the truth hurts.
Anecdotal evidence ahead
As a college graduated, middle middle class asian who likes white people, I heard this a lot from some of my more bigoted friends,
“…you know youre asian, youre ok but those black people, I dont know…”
“…I know youre not white but youre not too bad. Cant say the same about those blacks…”
Lord knows what these people say about asians when I am out of earshot but I generally let them be so long as they dont start stringing people up. Trying to educate a bigot is like trying to paint a leopard pink. It serves no purpose and it just gets the leopard annoyed. The best you can possibley do is to keep them from harming anyone when youre within sight of them.
People who look at numbers need to know how to use them in the right equation. The complex socio-cultural world we live in requires looking at a lot more factors than just percentages of the population.
For instance, take the entire prison population and compare that against how many of these people had shitty role models for parents. But that test is too hard. It’s a lot easier to look at the most obvious factor… skin color. “Enlightened” racism is a lazy person’s argument.
This is not to say I accept “I had a shitty role model” as an excuse for a crime. A robbery is still a robberty, a rape is still a rape, a murder is still a murder. But if we want to understand what factors correllate to behavior, sociology will give us more fruitful answers than biology.
You specifically identified 3 pillars of “enlightened” racism and tied them directly to black white issues. If you had generalized the pillars and provided your specific issues as example I’d have no problem with the OP and likely be on John Mace’s side asking how these are enlightened and not simply bald faced bigotry.
Let’s say I agree with you that the simplistic excuses are being replaced by more “enlightened” excuses. Remember though, it’s like the creationist’s excuses for a 6000 year old earth. Clever, but fundamentally wrong and open to being exposed as such.
Fair enough?
Biggirl:
I think you are correct in spirit, but chose some bad examples or perhaps a bad title (enlightened racism). No doubt that many people hold racist views and still think they are not racist, just “seeing it like is”. They probably have not thought it through to a logical conclusion like you did. “Blacks are prone to crime”, but what does that really mean? Genetically? Of course not, and many of these, what I’ll call passive racists, would not agree to that if pushed. I think you’d easily get them to realize that the source is socio-economic to some degree, and a police force that slants towards arresting blacks to some degree as well. Add to that a justice system that also slants against blacks, and the deck is pretty well stacked.
You seem to be implying a level of scientific (although of the psuedo kind) thought beyond what most “passive racists” have developed. And by “passive racists” I mean someone who would condemn a KKK style lynching, but still thinks Blacks are somehow inferior. They don’t know why, they never really think it through, they just grew up thinking that way.
Understatement is kind of my schtick.
BigGirl,
So your point is that if some one makes an argument that you feel can fit into one of your “pillars” that that person must be a racist and that you are justified in calling them one?
Sorry, I do not buy it.
When you say that someone is a racist you presume to know their motivations. Individuals can have mistaken beliefs without having a neferious motivation. Some may have the beliefs you mention for racist intent. Some may be frustrated that the racism sensitivity makes the question that some biological factor may play any minor role in any outcome measure forbidden to ask … only a racist would ask such a question, everyone else already knows the answer. “Playing the race card” is something to be done very sparingly and only when the conclusion is nearly unavoidable and obvious to most. (I hold a similar place for calling someone an antisemite, even though I know there are lots of them out there and that it likely does underpin many a discussant’s POV.)
I been involved in some of these race threads. (On the side arguing that race is a sociologic construct of little, if any, biologic value.) To me accusing those arguing the other side of racism is most often unfounded. Even though they are wrong.
For a person to be racist they must believe that a person’s race is inherently and inevitably the key determining factor in pretty much anything.
Having said that, enlightened racism is less enlightened and more the result of the failicies of human cognition.
Some things to keep in mind:
People are extremely reluctant to change their beliefs and have many diverse mechanisms for mantaining their beliefs in the face of clear evidence to the contrary.
Among these
People tend to forget evidence that disagrees with their theories.
People tend to seek out evidence that confirms their theories.
People tend to have a lower threshold for evidence that confirms their theories than for evidence that contradicts it.
A good example:
The original post mentioned the book The Bell Curve. I’ve come across several references to it in other works, especially psychological ones and once read a little to see if it was as represented. Basically, the authors didn’t expose their findings to any kind of peer review, published the damn book making a huge media splash, and then saw their findings get torn apart in the established journals. people who agree with the book’s conclusions tend to ignore the last stage (and also numerous math errors, the presentation of correlation as causation, and footnotes that, when checked are shown to be entirely misrepresented.) Therefore a book considered bebunked by the scientific community enjoys high marks on amazon.com.
now back to rasicm in general. it exists. its prevalent. and it is incredibly strong. To make things a bit more interesting, everyone one of you probably has a little, or more than a little of it, in you. I don’t have all of my books with me so i’ll only tell yo about one study. In the wake of the Diallo shooting in NY, stereotype theorists ran a study in which people were asked to identify the object in the hand of an person as either a tool or a knife. the person was either white or black. When the person presented was black, the subject was faster in recognizing a weapon and more likely to mistake a tool for a weapon when put in a time presure situation. The strength of these effects did not correlate strongly with the overt racism of the subject, but rather the subjects knowledge of the stereotype. Similar studies have been done with juries but i don’t recall them very well. We almost need a new name to describe this because its almost entirely subconcious.
Telcontar:
But why? Because “racism” is such a profane word these days? Well it means what it means. Someone doesn’t have to be a willingly malicious lynch-enthusist to be racist. He just has to believe that “race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that one race is superior to another”, whether by purposely cultivating these beliefs or just being passively indoctorinated into them by his culture. If somebody is more likely to mistake a tool for a weapon because the person holding it is black, she’s racist. She has taken the knowledge of that stereotype to heart so that it controls her perception. There’s no reason to sugar-coat it with some other euphemism just because she doesn’t wear sheets, especially since she’s not the one who would be negatively affected by her misconceptions.
Considering that the United States is based on annihilating indians and the theft of a continent how can Blacks be accused of criminal behavior by comparison.
There cannot be a thinking man’s racism. There can only be a deluded rationalizers racism.
And hypocritical since the genocide was done by Christians.
Dal Timgar
To really see “enlightened” racism in action, just start a thread about reparations.
I agree that there’s lots of racism out there. The reality is that the amount of racism in the US, particularly against Blacks, far outweighs the benefits Blacks realize from affirmative action. I say this as someone who is on the front lines. (I’m a labor lawyer. I have represented plaintiffs in many discrimination claims.)
Still, it’s undeniable that there are aggregate differences in conduct between blacks and whites. For example, I don’t see how anyone can seriously deny that American blacks are, on average, more likely to commit violent crimes than American whites. Further, there is room for debate over whether or not these differences are purely cultural in origin.
lucwarm:
I completely deny that with great offense. You’re telling me just because you’ve read some statistic that says blacks are convicted of violent crimes at a higher rate than blacks that you’d be able to point to any random individual black person and say that he’s more likely to commit a violent crime than any random individual white person?
What can I say - the truth is sometimes offensive.
**
I’ve read more than “some statistic.” I suppose that if you push, I’ll try to dig up a cite. But come on.
**
Yep. And for what it’s worth, there is little doubt in my mind that at least part of the above disparity results from past and present mistreatment of Blacks by American society. But pretending that the difference doesn’t exist is, well, silly.