I’m starting this thread to debate one aspect of racism in the US in 2020. As I posted in the other thread, one of my assumptions that I have about racist people is that they tend to be the type of people who are either authoritarians who want to impose their will on the world (like Eric Cartman from South Park), or white people who feel that society has unjustly left them behind for whatever reason and are bitter about it. In my opinion this was less likely to be the case in the past, but with the progress made in the past several decades I think other types of racism have decreased, leaving behind those with anger issues and authoritarian personalities. In other words, a Venn diagram of racists and assholes from, say, 1950, would probably have had only moderate overlap. Now the vast majority of the circle of racists is likely to be included in the circle of assholes, at least in my opinion. Is this assumption flawed? What do you all think?
IME assholes and political orientation are pretty equally distributed. They may be assholes about different things, but still assholes.
Agree with you both. There are plenty of non-racist assholes. But there are mighty few non-asshole racists.
I think rarely does a group of people fall squarely into two groups.
I don’t know what thread you’re referencing, but I’m curious how you’re defining “racist.” Personally, I think “racists” are folks who feel some kind of way (almost always negatively), consciously or subconsciously, about members of certain racial groups. Others might think that hatred is a requirement to be a real racist, but I dunno about that. A person can think their group is better than another group while not hating that group or anyone else.
So I think lots of people are racists. And not all of them are angry, authoritarian types. A lot are just people who have never left their communities, have never met people who are different from them, and have never had any reason to really question what they were told by parents and grandparents. My parents taught me bullshit. I went to college and unlearned some of it. Afterwards I moved far from home and unlearned even more. I don’t think most racists have had this kind of experience.
If I had to throw anyone into your classification system, it would be overt, unabashed racists. Which is a smaller, more coherent group than “racist”. I can totally buy that overt, unabashed racists see themselves as jackbooted warriors or put-upon victims of “reverse discrimination”. But I don’t think most racists are overt or unabashed. I don’t think the 60-something year-old grandmother who secretly wishes her first grandchild was white instead of mixed falls into this group. I don’t think she’s necessarily an authoritarian and I don’t think she’s necessarily resentful or angry. She’s just been programmed to think that black is inferior to white.
Just like drink, anger is awfully good at showing someone’s true nature.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=897130
What I was getting at is that I think some of the other types of racism that you mention have declined. The grandma who secretly wishes her first grandchild was white is definitely racist. On the other hand I think there are fewer such grandmas in 2020 than there were in 1990, and fewer in 1990 than there were in 1960. The lady who clutches her purse and crosses the street when she sees a black person is probably also less prevalent. But the type of racist who is racist due to anger issues probably haven’t decreased anywhere near as much. I could be wrong, and am willing to learn otherwise, but my opinion is that this is the current situation regarding racism in the US.
This is rather subjective. If you dislike racists to begin with, you will be naturally more inclined to see them as assholes as well.
But - someone who is angry, may be naturally likelier to seek someone to blame as scapegoats, so maybe likelier to blame things on a race.
I would guess – and guessing is all I got – that “passive” racism – the parent who doesn’t want children dating someone of another race, but who isn’t positively malignant about it – who might even have egalitarian ideals but can’t quite shake the stereotypes seen in movies and TV – that’s probably about the same as it was 20 years ago. It’s out there, and sad, but it isn’t marching in White Pride rallies or posting dog-whistle hate texts or even necessarily voting for right wing extremists.
Unfortunately, I believe there is a significant rise in the number of people who are malignant racists, and that they are acting out in dangerous ways. They’ll be voting for Alabama’s Senator, and you can easily guess who they like.
As a generality I think I might agree with this. However I’m guessing our views on just how prevalent “quiet racism” is might differ. I think it is still pretty common and describes the great majority of racists still around today. IMHO angry white supremacist assholes are still a pretty small subset by comparison( remember those numbers have declined as well - the 1960’s were pretty violent and the KKK and the like were much more visible and tolerated in society ).
I am not so sure about this. Trump’s approval rating hovers in the low 40% range pretty consistently.
The voting age population in the US is around 250 million. So, some 100 million people like what Trump is doing right now.
Certainly not all Trump voters are racist but, also certainly, Trump does not lose this support when he does racist shit (as as happened recently with the Minnesota black man being killed by police). I think a lot of these folk plug in to the “quietly racist” crowd you mention and there are a lot of them.
I can not think of how any rational assessment of Trump’s performance could make anyone think he is doing a good job. What metrics do you use to make him look good?
I think fear and ignorance accounts for far more racism than anger.
I disagree. I don’t think both sides are equally distributed.
The left has some arrogant condescending assholes.
But certain personality traits like authoritarianism or social dominance orientation are far higher on the right than on the left. Both of these traits have active mistreatment of out-groups as one of their traits.
Its not the same thing. The left doesn’t have the level of authoritarianism or social dominance orientation that the right does. So the intentional cruelty, hostility to democracy, irrationality, etc aren’t equally distributed. To a meaningful degree the contempt and arrogance of the left is merely a response to the destructive behavior of the right.
How are we defining “non-racist person”? Most people are subject to inherent biases of some kind or other. It takes constant work to police one’s own inherent racism.
“A lot”? Probably. But unflinching support is very significantly a function of simple tribalism. Trump has a shit-ton of evangelical support despite being objectively about the worst example of conservative Christian values you could find. People will gyre and gimble to manufacture excuses to find anything harmless( and do so with 100% sincerity )and I think Trump’s bigotry often falls into the same pattern.
Less “yeah, stick it to those brown-skinned freeloaders!” and more “he wasn’t being racist, you’re the one obsessed with race!” It’s political snow-blindness.
Not all or even most assholery is ideological. The vast majority isn’t, really. I can almost guarantee that douchebag fucking you out of a parking place and the multiple others blithely cutting off/bumping a person on crutches in a Berkeley supermarket are probably not Republicans ;).
Why does it seem “tribalism” almost always means conservatism when it comes to this?
I see “tribalism” with Clinton versus Sanders supporters as they view each other but both crowds would dump Clinton/Sanders in a second if they kneeled on the neck of some guy and slowly strangled him for seven minutes.
Conservatives will tell you why the guy being kneeled on shouldn’t have resisted arrest and I am willing to bet would rush to defend Trump if he did the same.
I’m torn. There are clearly some extra-special angry racist assholes out there, and trump has given them his kiss of love, but having worked in the environmental movement and for many left causes over the years, I would say also that I think the angry comes before the racist. That is, first you are the type of person who looks for a fight, who sees the world as made up of good guys and bad guys, and then you look for a cause to take up. Wherever you end up, it will be extreme, because that’s where the fights are.
I like people who are angry about injustice and the environment more than racist authoritarian assholes.
There is a structural existential problem with rw assholes that goes beyond assholism. It’s in search of domination and not justice in any way or form.
Yes, most outspoken obvious racist are assholes.
Now sure, you dont have to be a asshole to be deceived by rhetoric that "Illegals are going to take your jobs’ or that “many illegals are criminals”. There are people who dont think that they are racists that want to get rid of all illegal aliens- especially the brown ones.
So, you have two main sort of racists- assholes and the deceived , the easily deluded.
Social media and right wing radio demagogues like Rush are turning soft racists into hard, vocal ones.
Well, yeah sure, subconsciously. But most of us higher apes can overcome that with overt mental processes.