# When did Black people become the REAL racists? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 12, 2012, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-black-people-become-the-real-racists/627977 "2012-07-12T06:46:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2012, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-black-people-become-the-real-racists/627977/61 "2012-07-14T02:03:26Z")
> [@Lochdale](#): > > That’s unlikely to happen. Candidates who are voted in due to the black vote will have to pander to them. That’s what politicians do. No; some politicians are true believers who aren’t pandering, but really believe whatever they are spouting. And IMHO, after decades of the Southern Strategy drawing in racists, the Republican leadership is stuffed with genuine racists. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2012, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-black-people-become-the-real-racists/627977/62 "2012-07-14T02:05:13Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > [Will this thread work?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=623810) Shit, I’m not going to read through an entire thread looking for someone who says that a dislike of Obama is sufficient evidence for an accusation of racism. The first three posts don’t qualify, and then I got bored. Which specific post do you think contains such a claim? Edit: the OP claims other people made such a claim. Insufficient. The citation requested is a specific individual making such a claim. FWIW, it’s such an absurd claim that I can’t believe anyone’s ever made it, and if you find someone, then sure, I’ll point and laugh at them with you, but for the most part it just doesn’t happen. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2012, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-black-people-become-the-real-racists/627977/63 "2012-07-14T03:24:00Z")
I think that if you fail to see in the first few posts where **obbn** was being accused of racist tendencies because of his opposition to Obama, and not because he had displayed any racism, (including the quoted, if unfortunately unlinked [comment that prompted that thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14240727#post14240727)), then we are simply not going to agree on this point and I will back off rather than hijacking this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2012, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-black-people-become-the-real-racists/627977/64 "2012-07-14T03:41:42Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > I think that if you fail to see in the first few posts where **obbn** was being accused of racist tendencies because of his opposition to Obama, and not because he had displayed any racism, (including the quoted, if unfortunately unlinked [comment that prompted that thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14240727#post14240727)), then we are simply not going to agree on this point and I will back off rather than hijacking this thread. Hmm. Lemme rephrase it in a way we can probably both agree on, since again I think there might be some semantic quibbling going on here. Have people jumped to an unsupported conclusion before that racism is the true motive behind someone’s dislike of Obama’s policies? Absolutely. Good enough? ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2012, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-black-people-become-the-real-racists/627977/65 "2012-07-14T05:29:25Z")
> [@enomaj](#): > > So in the Romney/NAACP thread **magellan01** basically calls Black people racist for voting for Obama despite the fact that Blacks overwhelmingly vote Democratic. I think it was more telling that they voted for him over Hillary Clinton in the primaries. That was presumably because he was black. Blacks do generally appear more tribal and racially orientated than whites, who are desperate to avoid acknowledging any group identity. The more damming evidence of racism by blacks is seen in [inter-racial violence](http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=21982) statistics. Some recent examples have been retaliation [beatings of whites](http://dailykenn.blogspot.co.nz/2012/05/justice-for-trayvon-attack-count-7.html) after the Trayvon Martin killing. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2012, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-black-people-become-the-real-racists/627977/66 "2012-07-14T05:49:58Z")
Further to the comment above about group identity, Shelby Steele has written some good pieces discussing [this](http://www.cir-usa.org/articles/156.html): > [@](#): > > The goal of the Baldwin model is to link one’s intellectual reputation to the moral authority–the moral glamour–of an oppressed group’s liberation struggle. In this way one ceases to be a mere individual with a mere point of view and becomes, in effect, the embodiment of a moral imperative. This is rarely done consciously, as a Faustian bargain in which the intellectual knowingly sells his individual soul to the group. Rather the group identity is already a protest-focused identity, and the intellectual simply goes along with it… > > So then here you are, a black American living amidst all this. Every institution you engage–the government, universities, corporations, public and private schools, philanthropies, churches–faces you out of a deficit of moral authority. Your race is needed everywhere. How could you avoid the aggressions, and even the bigotries, of white guilt? What institution could you walk into without having your color tallied up as a credit to the institution? For that matter, what political party or ideological direction could you pursue without your race being plundered by that party or ideology for moral authority? > > Because blacks live amidst such hunger for the moral authority of their race, we embraced protest as a permanent identity in order to capture the fruits of white guilt on an ongoing basis. Again, this was our first fall by our own hand. Still, it is hard to imagine any group of individuals coming out of four centuries of oppression and not angling their identity toward whatever advantage seemed available. White guilt held out the promise of a preferential life in recompense for past injustice, and the protest identity seemed the best way to keep that promise alive. Sorry, can’t find the full WSJ [article](http://www.insomnomaniac.com/?p=709): > [@](#): > > But Howard Dean and all other white candidates–Democrat or Republican–run into a hard limit when they play identity politics. This was the limit that reduced Mr. Dean’s reach for new voters to an occasion for apology. It is quite acceptable for either party to explicitly go after the black, Hispanic, or even the Jewish vote. In fact both parties gain an indispensable moral authority by doing so. But it is absolutely verboten for either party, or any white candidate, to appeal to whites as a racial identity group. Racial identity is simply forbidden to whites in America and across the entire Western world. Black children today are hammered with the idea of racial identity and pride, yet racial pride in whites constitutes a grave evil. Say “I’m white and I’m proud” and you are a Nazi. Steele [again](http://www.amazon.com/White-Guilt-Together-Destroyed-Promise/dp/0060578629): > [@](#): > > “\*\*eyond an identity that apologizes for White supremacy, absolutely no White identity is permissible. In fact, if there is a White racial identity today it would have to be White guilt—a shared, even unifying, lack of racial moral authority.” ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2012, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-black-people-become-the-real-racists/627977/67 "2012-07-14T05:50:08Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Blacks do generally appear more tribal and racially orientated than whites, who are desperate to avoid acknowledging any group identity. Racist bullshit. > [@](#): > > The more damming evidence of racism by blacks is seen in inter-racial violence statistics. Some recent examples have been retaliation beatings of whites after the Trayvon Martin killing. Yes, Frontpage and some right-wing whacko’s blog. Excellent, reliable sources that we can all count on. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2012, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-black-people-become-the-real-racists/627977/68 "2012-07-14T08:05:41Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Racist bullshit. > Yes, Frontpage and some right-wing whacko’s blog. Excellent, reliable sources that we can all count on. Read Shelby Steele’s articles regarding group identity - it provides more context. I’d be interested in your thoughts on his ideas. The article on Frontpage magazine regarding inter-racial violence statistics is written by african-american economist,[Professor Walter Williams](http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/wew/). This is what he found: > [@](#): > > Some of the study’s findings about interracial crime were surprising, so much so that I did an independent verification of the numbers. > > Since 1972, the U.S. Department of Justice has conducted a National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) to determine the frequency of certain crimes. One category is interracial crimes. Its most recent publication (1997), “Criminal Victimization in the U.S.,” reports on data collected in 1994. In that year, there were about 1,700,000 interracial crimes, of which 1,276,030 involved whites and blacks. In 90 percent of the cases, a white was the victim and a black was the perpetrator, while in 10 percent of the cases it was the reverse. > > Another finding of the NCVS report is that of the 2,025,464 violent crimes committed by blacks in 1994, 1,140,670 were against whites - that’s slightly over 56 percent. Whites committed 5,114,692 violent crimes; 135,360, or 2.6 percent were against blacks. > > In 1997, there were 2,336 whites charged with anti-black crimes and 718 blacks charged with anti-white crimes, so-called hate crimes. Although the absolute number of white offenders was larger, the black rate per 100,000 of the population was greater, making blacks twice as likely to commit hate crimes. ---
**Author:** ![Sherry\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Sherry\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherry_Burke)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2012, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-black-people-become-the-real-racists/627977/69 "2012-07-14T09:36:30Z")
Is tat true that some of the racism is genuine success wish. One example I’ve observed of Dark prejudice is in a lot of locations they don’t want their kids relationship white-colored females. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2012, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-black-people-become-the-real-racists/627977/70 "2012-07-14T10:55:27Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > I think it was more telling that they voted for him over Hillary Clinton in the primaries. That was presumably because he was black. If you’re upset about that, prepare to have your mind blown: in the 2004 presidential election, and the 2000 election, and the 1996 and 1992 and 1988 and 1984 and 1980 elections, 100% of white voters chose a white candidate. Tribal sonsabitches, I’m sure you’d agree. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2012, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-black-people-become-the-real-racists/627977/71 "2012-07-14T11:14:04Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Blacks do generally appear more tribal and racially orientated than whites, who are desperate to avoid acknowledging any group identity. Whites don’t “avoid acknowledging” a group identity; they have no “group identity” to acknowledge. This is the sort of nonsense that really does come out of white supremacist rants. When whites arrived in the U.S., they came either from Britain and were simply accepted, or they came from other countries and were seen as “other,” clustering in ethnic communities for two or more generations until they gradually moved into a more assimilated position, at which time they just became “Americans.” Even today, there are numerous ethnic enclaves that survive throughout the country and there is a general feeling, (more pronounced in the Rust Belt where the majority of European immigrants landed, but discernable elsewhere on occasion), that white “tribal” associations look back to the nations from which immigrants came. Blacks were never even permitted to do the same thing. From the time they were imported into the country until the 1960s they were segregated by law and by economic exclusion. This means that they are only now at the stage of a second generation of attempted assimilation. (And a review of the suburbs of most major metropolitan areas will find a lot of blacks moving out away from their ethnic enclaves–still occasionally hampered by threats and vandalism if the neighborhood they choose is “defended” by tribal whites.) Claims of tribalism are based on nothing more than the sort of silly prejudice that is used to taunt Jews. Europeans began ordering Jews to live only in restricted ghettos from the middle of the 16th century and when, after 400 years of creating a specific culture based on that legally imposed restriction, Jews follow those customs, they are then accused of being “clannish.” Blacks were compelled to live in specific segregation for around 300 years and are now accused of being “tribal” for following the culture that developed over that period. > [@Chen019](#): > > The more damming evidence of racism by blacks is seen in [inter-racial violence](http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=21982) statistics. Some recent examples have been retaliation [beatings of whites](http://dailykenn.blogspot.co.nz/2012/05/justice-for-trayvon-attack-count-7.html) after the Trayvon Martin killing. It is funny how claims about how “blacks” have bad traits are always supported by fairly recent “evidence.” To see how “blacks” and “whites” behave as people, we really ought to look at the entire history, but instead, we always start the clock at some point where different societal situations will point out “black” problems and ignore “white” problems. The sort of anecdote you have provided conveniently ignores the many lynchings that occurred for generations, the anti-black riots that occurred from the 1860s through the 1950s, and any number of other factors. I strongly suspect that a better indicator of who might engage in that sort of violence would be an examination of poverty and urban conditions. Up until the 1950s, whites were quite violent against blacks. Beginning in the 1940s, far more whites moved into the middle class and out of urban situations, and poor urban blacks began to adopt the behaviors of the earlier poor rban whites. Now, you pop up with an _ad hoc_ date to study “history” and make a claim about how “blacks” behave, while very carefully excluding any anecdotes (or serious history) that would demonstrate the same behaviors in whites. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2012, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-black-people-become-the-real-racists/627977/72 "2012-07-14T11:32:46Z")
I dunno, **Tom**. There’s this group of folks whose ancestors were enslaved for a few centuries, and whose ancestors were then horribly oppressed for another century plus, and who live disproportionately in the poorest parts of the country, go to the worst schools, face discrimination as children in schools, face discrimination from law enforcement, face discrimination from employers. I cannot think of any reason whatsoever why more folks in such communities would turn to crime. Probably genetics. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2012, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-black-people-become-the-real-racists/627977/73 "2012-07-14T14:41:25Z")
I disagree with the contention that on SD, people are pointing out that racists don’t like Obama. Maybe I should have noted every post since 2008 where this has come up but I’m not talking about a post written by user “Simon Legree” that “I hope we vote that nigger out in 2012.” We’re talking about post where someone objects to an Obama policy or Obama himself and the response is that the position they take is held simply because Obama is Black. Here’s one that I’m sure a concentrated search would find. I am not a birther but there are many in the US who are. They raise the objection that a candidate for the Presidency was born in a foreign country and in misreading the law at the time, claim he is not a natural born citizen. On the face of it, it would be similar to claiming a white person whose parents who couldn’t pass on citizenship (maybe there is evidence that they were naturalized after the birth) was born in Sweden on vacation. And yet on the Dope, very few people assumed that these people were simply objection that the person was ineligible for President and that the system was not equipped to handle such a situation. A couple people drew comparisons to the Chester A. Arthur birth scandle to show it may not be racially motivated but many on this board insisted that the motivation of the Birthers is that Obama is black, thus accusing them of racism with only the evidence of a person objecting to Obama’s NBC status. Thus Opposing Obama = racism. ---
**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:** [July 14, 2012, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-black-people-become-the-real-racists/627977/74 "2012-07-14T15:54:06Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > If you look at history the years the black vote was most competitive were 1956 when Eishenhower received 39 percent of the vote and 1960 when Nixon received 32 percent of the black vote. The years between 1956 and 1964 were when most of the civil rights legislation was passed. It seems like having their votes up for grabs accomplished alot. But black voters today are overwhelmingly Democratic because they give LBJ credit for the Civil and Voting Rights Acts - just as white voters gave him the blame. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2012, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-black-people-become-the-real-racists/627977/75 "2012-07-14T16:43:56Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Whites don’t “avoid acknowledging” a group identity; they have no “group identity” to acknowledge. This is the sort of nonsense that really does come out of white supremacist rants. The amazing thing is that the white supremacists don’t seem to recognize how far even their own views on race have come. “White” has come to mean any vaguely caucasian group. A century or even less ago and their forefathers would be shocked that they allowed “scum” such as Irish, Poles, Slavs (or whatever nationality their particular group had a hate-on against) to be considered as equals. And as far as identifying with a group, given that I am German, French, English, Scots, Irish and Lakota, which one am I to identify with? Identify as “White”??? Sorry, I’d rather identify as “Human” and move on to other topics. Identity Politics may be strong in people who need something to help themselves feel like they matter, but it means nothing to me. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2012, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-black-people-become-the-real-racists/627977/76 "2012-07-14T16:52:41Z")
The “white” test is very simple. If you use the “whites only” drinking fountain in the park, and no one looks at you funny or tries to lynch you, you’re white. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2012, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-black-people-become-the-real-racists/627977/77 "2012-07-14T16:55:26Z")
What’s that wog doing using the ‘whites only’ fountain? ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2012, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-black-people-become-the-real-racists/627977/78 "2012-07-14T16:58:22Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > What’s that wog doing using the ‘whites only’ fountain? There ya go! Even two wogs don’t make a white. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2012, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-black-people-become-the-real-racists/627977/79 "2012-07-14T19:21:48Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > I think it was more telling that they voted for him over Hillary Clinton in the primaries. That was presumably because he was black. > > Blacks do generally appear more tribal and racially orientated than whites, who are desperate to avoid acknowledging any group identity. > > The more damming evidence of racism by blacks is seen in [inter-racial violence](http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=21982) statistics. Some recent examples have been retaliation [beatings of whites](http://dailykenn.blogspot.co.nz/2012/05/justice-for-trayvon-attack-count-7.html) after the Trayvon Martin killing. Wrong. In the New York state primary, Hilary won the majority of the black vote. Black New Yorkers are one of biggest groups of black voters in the US. Obama didn’t start winning the black vote in the primaries until after he started winning the white vote. It was this fact, that Obama was black candidate that was capable of getting majority white support, that caused such a rush of support from black voters. He wasn’t just the black candidate, he was the black candidate that many white people liked. The black political establishement, by contrast, continued to support Clinton until there was no chance of her winning. Overall, black voters support white candidates far more often than whites support black candidates. Wrong again on the question of interracial violence. The significant metric is the frequency that black criminals commit acts of violence against blacks versus the frequency that black criminals commit acts of violence against whites. Since black criminals commit acts of violence against blacks far more often than they do against whites, your argument here is dead on arrival. As usual. ---
**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:** [July 14, 2012, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-black-people-become-the-real-racists/627977/80 "2012-07-14T21:27:11Z")
“White people are racist like this, but Black people are racist like _this_!” Naah, this stand-up act needs some work… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-black-people-become-the-real-racists/627977.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-black-people-become-the-real-racists/627977.md?page=5)