# Why do so many of the people who identify as White have a hard time seeing the racism around them? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 29, 2019, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-of-the-people-who-identify-as-white-have-a-hard-time-seeing-the-racism-around-them/831716 "2019-03-29T17:08:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Darkon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/43a26b/32.png) [@Darkon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darkon)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-of-the-people-who-identify-as-white-have-a-hard-time-seeing-the-racism-around-them/831716/1 "2019-03-29T17:08:43Z")
It seems to me that brazen racism has resurged since Trump was elected, but racism itself, whether blatant or otherwise, has been ubiquitous since the United States was founded. So, what is it that keeps Whites, Caucasians, European-Americans, or whatever it is you call yourself, from acknowledging that it is here, that it is a crippling disease that keeps America from being great, and that it will continue to be here until you do something about it? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-of-the-people-who-identify-as-white-have-a-hard-time-seeing-the-racism-around-them/831716/2 "2019-03-29T17:14:09Z")
IMO and experience as a white person, because they (we) generally aren’t harmed by it, and are sometimes even the beneficiaries of it, even if unwittingly so. I knew racism was bad as a kid, but I didn’t understand how ubiquitous it was until I had friends (and later, family) who were black who explained it to me, and at the same time I started reading in detail about the history of racism, racial policies, and related issues in American history. Further, lots of American white people have racist beliefs, whether or not they recognize that these beliefs are racist. My opinion and understanding, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-of-the-people-who-identify-as-white-have-a-hard-time-seeing-the-racism-around-them/831716/3 "2019-03-29T17:14:45Z")
I personally have a hard time seeing the racism around me because everywhere I look everyone’s either white or seemingly going through life without obvious problems. (Though mostly because Idaho is still pretty damn white.) I simply don’t have interaction with minorities that appear to be having problems because my social circle is so small. (And because Idaho is pretty damn white.) This is not to say that I _disbelieve_ that white people are crushing minorities the country over - I’m vaguely aware of the news. But it doesn’t really hit home for me simply because of my lack of exposure to it. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-of-the-people-who-identify-as-white-have-a-hard-time-seeing-the-racism-around-them/831716/4 "2019-03-29T17:16:44Z")
People naturally have a hard time seeing something that doesn’t apply as much to them. I don’t have bone cancer, and therefore even if I intellectually “know” that bone cancer is painful, I don’t go about my day thinking about how bone cancer hurts. Whereas someone who actually has bone cancer would be much more preoccupied with the constant pain they face. Not just about race. Ditto goes for gender, religion, a hundred other criteria. Of course, there are also minorities who go on and on about racism while blithely exhibiting some racism themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Darkon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/43a26b/32.png) [@Darkon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darkon)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-of-the-people-who-identify-as-white-have-a-hard-time-seeing-the-racism-around-them/831716/5 "2019-03-29T17:27:42Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Of course, there are also minorities who go on and on about racism while blithely exhibiting some racism themselves. Undoubtedly there are racists of all colors, but it seems to me comments like this are not helpful to a dialog and only justify racism’s continuance. People of color are not, and have never been, the oppressors in this society and it seems more helpful to focus on the ones who actually are. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-of-the-people-who-identify-as-white-have-a-hard-time-seeing-the-racism-around-them/831716/6 "2019-03-29T17:33:47Z")
We don’t see it, because… we don’t see it. If it doesn’t happen to us, and it doesn’t happen in our presence, and we don’t have non-white friends or neighbors or co-workers or family members who tell us about it, we don’t realize how much of a problem it is. Even those of us who know intellectually that racism is a major problem in our society often don’t know it viscerally. Plus, racism is more subtle and hidden than it used to be. The days of “whites only” signs, “colored people need not apply” ads, etc. are over. People who _openly_ say and do racist things are (rightly) condemned for it in the culture at large. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-of-the-people-who-identify-as-white-have-a-hard-time-seeing-the-racism-around-them/831716/7 "2019-03-29T19:06:34Z")
Yup. We know that we don’t **mean** to be racist, and don’t consciously endorse racist positions, so we naturally assume that we’re therefore **not** racist, and don’t like to have this assumption challenged. This phenomenon is sometimes described as [white fragility](https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/a-sociologist-examines-the-white-fragility-that-prevents-white-americans-from-confronting-racism): > [@](#): > > In more than twenty years of running diversity-training and cultural-competency workshops for American companies, the academic and educator Robin DiAngelo has noticed that white people are sensationally, histrionically bad at discussing racism. Like waves on sand, their reactions form predictable patterns: they will insist that they “were taught to treat everyone the same,” that they are “color-blind,” that they “don’t care if you are pink, purple, or polka-dotted.” They will point to friends and family members of color, a history of civil-rights activism, or a more “salient” issue, such as class or gender. They will shout and bluster. They will cry. In 2011, DiAngelo coined the term “white fragility” to describe the disbelieving defensiveness that white people exhibit when their ideas about race and racism are challenged—and particularly when they feel implicated in white supremacy. […] > > She argues that our largely segregated society is set up to insulate whites from racial discomfort […] Unused to unpleasantness (more than unused to it—racial hierarchies tell white people that they are entitled to peace and deference), they lack the “racial stamina” to engage in difficult conversations. […] > > DiAngelo, who is white, emphasizes that the stances that make up white fragility are not merely irrational. […] > > […] white people cling to the notion of racial innocence, a form of weaponized denial that positions black people as the “havers” of race and the guardians of racial knowledge. Whiteness, on the other hand, scans as invisible, default, a form of racelessness. […] > > In DiAngelo’s almost epidemiological vision of white racism, our minds and bodies play host to a pathogen that seeks to replicate itself, sickening us in the process. Like a mutating virus, racism shape-shifts in order to stay alive; when its explicit expression becomes taboo, it hides in coded language. Nor does prejudice disappear when people decide that they will no longer tolerate it. It just looks for ways to avoid detection. “The most effective adaptation of racism over time,” DiAngelo claims, “is the idea that racism is conscious bias held by mean people.” ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-of-the-people-who-identify-as-white-have-a-hard-time-seeing-the-racism-around-them/831716/8 "2019-03-29T19:38:01Z")
The evidence against the ubiquity of racism is so good and the evidence for the ubiquity is so poor. One piece of evidence against is the popularity of so many black people, the Rock is the most popular actor, Oprah or Steve Harvey are the most popular TV personalities. Beyonce is the most popular singer, LeBron James is the most popular athlete. Barack Obama was elected president twice despite a paucity of accomplishments. Obama is the most admired man in the country and his wife is the most admired woman. Had he wanted to, Colin Powell could have been president in 2000. Another piece of evidence is the veneration of civil rights figures. There are two people who have their birthdays as holidays, Jesus, and MLK. MLK is one of 5 people to have their own memorial on the national mall. Scores of schools have been named after him, and every big city has an MLK boulevard. Surveys show racism has cratered. 4% of whites would have a problem with a close relative marrying someone of a different race. Less than one third the number of blacks who say that. The US is ranked as one of the most racially tolerant countries in the world with less than 5% of people saying they have a problem living near another race. 93% of voters would have no problem voting for a black candidate and that number has been over 90% for 20 years. These numbers are even better when you understand that around 5% is the lower bound for survey responses. There is virtually no job in America where open racism could not get you fired. The governor of Virginia was pressured to resign because he took a racist photo 35 years before being elected. A prominent news anchor lost her job for saying that kids going as black celebs on halloween is not always wrong. Preferential status for black people is legal in college admissions and government contracting. Historically black colleges get special support from the government, 100 million dollars last year alone. The UNCF raised 179 million in one year. The SPLC which purports to fight racism has a yearly revenue of 133 million dollars and an endowment of almost 500 million dollars. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-of-the-people-who-identify-as-white-have-a-hard-time-seeing-the-racism-around-them/831716/9 "2019-03-29T19:53:44Z")
Partly because we benefit from it and partly because we never see the negative effects. Being white has benefits and status is relative. And even though they’ll never admit it a lot of people want to maintain the relative status of being white, or male or Christian or native born. Web Dubois called it the psychological wage. > **[White privilege](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_privilege)** > > White privilege, or white skin privilege, is the societal privilege that benefits white people over non-white people in some societies, particularly if they are otherwise under the same social, political, or economic circumstances. With roots in European colonialism and imperialism, and the Atlantic slave trade, white privilege has developed in circumstances that have broadly sought to protect white racial privileges, various national citizenships, and other rights or special benef In the stu... > [@](#): > > It must be remembered that the white group of laborers, while they received a low wage, were compensated in part by a sort of public and psychological wage. They were given public deference and titles of courtesy because they were white. They were admitted freely with all classes of white people to public functions, public parks, and the best schools. The police were drawn from their ranks, and the courts, dependent on their votes, treated them with such leniency as to encourage lawlessness. Their vote selected public officials, and while this had small effect upon the economic situation, it had great effect upon their personal treatment and the deference shown them. White schoolhouses were the best in the community, and conspicuously placed, and they cost anywhere from twice to ten times as much per capita as the colored schools. The newspapers specialized on news that flattered the poor whites and almost utterly ignored the Negro except in crime and ridicule. What I personally don’t get are white people who think racism against non whites is not an issue but racism against whites is a major issue. All whites have to deal with is occasional ridicule and losing our perch as the default skin color entrusted with power, legitimacy and responsibility. Which again is what I meant, there are benefits people don’t want to give up. A society where white men are on top is one where white men don’t need to compete with women and non whites for power, income and status. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-of-the-people-who-identify-as-white-have-a-hard-time-seeing-the-racism-around-them/831716/10 "2019-03-29T19:57:16Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > The evidence against the ubiquity of racism is so good and the evidence for the ubiquity is so poor. All your “evidence” merely goes to show that the severity and type of racism in the US has changed over time, not that racism isn’t still a pervasive problem. Namely, your examples reflect the current US consensus that being **consciously and openly** racist is a bad thing (though I’d argue that even conscious and open racism is making a bit of a comeback under Trump in certain quarters). As DiAngelo points out in my above-quoted cite, this represents a **change** in racism—and, non-trivially, a significant reduction in the harm racism causes—but not **elimination** of racism. (And the notion that the popularity of black celebrities somehow indicates absence of racism is nonsense. Black entertainers like Harry Belafonte and Lena Horne were wildly popular in the 1950s, but that doesn’t mean that the US didn’t have a huge racism problem back then.) ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-of-the-people-who-identify-as-white-have-a-hard-time-seeing-the-racism-around-them/831716/11 "2019-03-29T19:57:43Z")
> [@Darkon](#): > > It seems to me that brazen racism has resurged since Trump was elected, but racism itself, whether blatant or otherwise, has been ubiquitous since the United States was founded. Racism has been around a lot longer than the United States. > [@](#): > > So, what is it that keeps Whites, Caucasians, European-Americans, or whatever it is you call yourself, from acknowledging that it is here, that it is a crippling disease that keeps America from being great, and that it will continue to be here until you do something about it? Sure it’s here, but it’s not crippling anyone from being great. Racism has gotten a lot better over the last fifty years in the US, and is not currently a major cause of the problems of the black community. I’ll do what I reasonably can to ensure equality of opportunity, but the rest is not up to me. I can’t raise other people’s children, I can’t force people to stay in school, I don’t believe cherry-picked anecdotes prove the police are racist, and I could hardly care less when BLM or Jussie Smollet or some overpaid professor complains about the plight of blacks in America. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-of-the-people-who-identify-as-white-have-a-hard-time-seeing-the-racism-around-them/831716/12 "2019-03-29T20:04:45Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Partly because we benefit from it… > > Being white has benefits and status is relative. If status is a zero-sum game, then yeah, whatever keeps non-whites down is going to help whites. Maybe I’m naive, or not sufficiently concerned with social standing, or unappreciative of the benefits of having someone to look down on. But I’m not convinced that the average white person in our society is ultimately better off than they would be in a society with zero racism. ---
**Author:** ![Airbeck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/airbeck/32/6574_2.png) [@Airbeck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airbeck)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-of-the-people-who-identify-as-white-have-a-hard-time-seeing-the-racism-around-them/831716/13 "2019-03-29T20:16:03Z")
The average white person in our society is better off going to a convenience store than the average black person. The white person is much less likely to be followed around or watched with suspicion. The average white person in our society is better off when getting sentenced than the average black person. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/11/16/black-men-sentenced-to-more-time-for-committing-the-exact-same-crime-as-a-white-person-study-finds/?utm\_term=.2700e0174d87](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/11/16/black-men-sentenced-to-more-time-for-committing-the-exact-same-crime-as-a-white-person-study-finds/?utm_term=.2700e0174d87) There are many scenarios where the average white person is better off than the average black person in our society. It’s ok to acknowledge that. It doesn’t make us white people bad people simply because we benefit from that, but denying it certainly doesn’t reflect well, and acknowledging it is the first step of trying to fix it. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-of-the-people-who-identify-as-white-have-a-hard-time-seeing-the-racism-around-them/831716/14 "2019-03-29T20:22:02Z")
In another thread, on the subject of LGBT rights, a poster said, “If I did that, I would still be branded a bigot for not wanting to associate with people simply because of their sexual orientation.” Which, I think, is a big part of the problem - the vast majority of people have successfully internalized the idea that “bigotry is wrong,” but it seems that the way a lot of people have handled that is not to stop holding bigoted beliefs, but to redefine whatever beliefs they have as, “not bigotry.” Actively refusing to associate with people of a given class is about as clear cut an example of bigotry as you can ask for, but because this guy genuinely believes bigotry is wrong, he’s decided his own attitudes simply can’t be bigoted. ---
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-of-the-people-who-identify-as-white-have-a-hard-time-seeing-the-racism-around-them/831716/15 "2019-03-29T20:24:43Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > We don’t see it, because… we don’t see it. If it doesn’t happen to us, and it doesn’t happen in our presence, and we don’t have non-white friends or neighbors or co-workers or family members who tell us about it, we don’t realize how much of a problem it is. Even those of us who know intellectually that racism is a major problem in our society often don’t know it viscerally. > > Plus, racism is more subtle and hidden than it used to be. The days of “whites only” signs, “colored people need not apply” ads, etc. are over. People who _openly_ say and do racist things are (rightly) condemned for it in the culture at large. I think this really is it. The county I live in is ~90% white & ~10% Hispanic, according to Wikipedia it’s 0.89% black. The place I’ve lived with the most black people was 8.9% black and it was the blackest place I’ve ever lived by far, no other county comes in over 2%. It is really hard to see racism against blacks because there is no one to be racist to. Everyone generally agrees that black should be treated the same as whites and particularly growing up playing sports it was generally agreed on that our teams would benefit if we had some black guys on the teams. There is much more racism directed at Hispanics but even most of that is directed at new immigrants rather than the families who had racheros here before there was a US so its easy to see it as not racism and more classicism. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-of-the-people-who-identify-as-white-have-a-hard-time-seeing-the-racism-around-them/831716/16 "2019-03-29T20:33:05Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > If status is a zero-sum game, then yeah, whatever keeps non-whites down is going to help whites. > > Maybe I’m naive, or not sufficiently concerned with social standing, or unappreciative of the benefits of having someone to look down on. But I’m not convinced that the average white person in our society is ultimately better off than they would be in a society with zero racism. > [@Airbeck](#): > > The average white person in our society is better off going to a convenience store than the average black person. The white person is much less likely to be followed around or watched with suspicion. > > The average white person in our society is better off when getting sentenced than the average black person. There isn’t a minimum quota of harsh sentences or suspicious-looking people. People who others classify as white are not better of from this than they would be in a society with zero racism. ---
**Author:** ![BeagleJesus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5daacb/32.png) [@BeagleJesus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeagleJesus)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-of-the-people-who-identify-as-white-have-a-hard-time-seeing-the-racism-around-them/831716/17 "2019-03-29T20:48:54Z")
Simple, because the culture the current crop of white people have grown up in goes to extraordinary lengths to disguise racism as something else. It has allowed an ever increasing number of white folks to openly engage in racist practices (and reap the obvious benefits) while maintaining plausible deniability. It not only allows white people to lie to others about their intentions and beliefs, it allows them to lie to themselves as well. I know that I’m not racist therefore nothing I say or do can be considered racist. Add to that the fact that most white folks seem to go out of their way to avoid as many brown people as possible and you have the perfect recipe for an entire culture in denial. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-of-the-people-who-identify-as-white-have-a-hard-time-seeing-the-racism-around-them/831716/18 "2019-03-29T20:53:37Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > People who others classify as white are not better of from this than they would be in a society with zero racism. Huh? Of course they are. When non-white people are viewed as the naturally more suspect “other”, white people benefit by being viewed as the naturally more trustworthy “default”. One of the benefits of white privilege in a racist society, as my previous cite noted, is a sense of “white solidarity”, where white people feel more positively toward one another merely by virtue of their not being non-white. White racism exists and persists ultimately because whites benefit from it. This is why, as we’ve discussed in other threads, [white elites starting in the late 19th century worked so hard to spread white-supremacist and segregationist thinking and institute “Jim Crow” laws.](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/02/segregation-invented/517158/) Interracial working-class cooperation was a political threat to white elite privilege, and was undermined by encouraging non-elite white people to consider themselves intrinsically superior to blacks: > [@](#): > > During a brief window of time between the end of the Civil War and the turn of the 20th century, black and white people lived next to each other in Southern cities, creating what the historian Tom Hanchett describes as a “salt-and-pepper” pattern. […] > > Blacks could also legally vote in most places (disenfranchisement laws did not arrive in earnest until about 1900), and were often allied with poor whites in the voting booth. […] > > This alliance was doomed. White elites, cast out of power and facing policies that threatened their economic hold on the state, launched a campaign that they knew would drive black and whites apart. They called it a campaign of “white supremacy,” and sought to unite whites of all economic backgrounds in hatred of black people. It was this campaign that tried to re-enforce the idea of black people as different, as lesser, and as a race that had to be separate from whites. […] > > In 1894, black Republicans and white Populists joined together to create a “fusion” ticket of candidates to oppose Democrats. They shocked the political establishment and won two-thirds of the legislature. […] > > In 1896, it gained even more seats and elected a Republican as governor of North Carolina after decades of Democratic rule. […] > > Fusion was a ticket of the working class, and the alliance soon began implementing policies that helped its supporters. They capped interest rates, increased public-school funding, and allowed symbols to be put on ballots to enfranchise people who could not read or write. Their policies were designed, in the words of one supporter, to protect “the liberty of the laboring people, both white and black” […] > > The white elite were threatened by these new policies, especially because Fusion had shifted the burden of taxation from individuals to corporations and railroads. Yet they had little connection with poor voters, and so had few ideas about how to address their economic concerns. Instead, they tried to convince poor whites that they should not associate with blacks in any way. Democrats began to talk of blacks as an “other,” warning of the dangers of miscegenation, portraying blacks as rapists who would come after white women. The societally ingrained notion that whites are naturally “better” or more intrinsically fitted for superior status obviously benefits white people at the expense of non-whites, even if it doesn’t benefit all white people equally in all circumstances. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-of-the-people-who-identify-as-white-have-a-hard-time-seeing-the-racism-around-them/831716/19 "2019-03-29T20:55:05Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > There isn’t a minimum quota of harsh sentences or suspicious-looking people. People who others classify as white are not better of from this than they would be in a society with zero racism. What’s the difference between the statements: “Blacks get harsher sentences than whites” and “Whites get lighter sentences than blacks”? If racism is influencing sentencing, then it can be fairly described as “the judge is laxer on people he likes”. Does this mean he lets them off scot free? Not necessarily, but it’s still an observable benefit, due to the fact there’s no such thing as an objective baseline here. If the level of sentencing that whites get is considered ‘normal’, then blacks are being harshly treated. If the level of sentencing that blacks get is considered ‘normal’, then whites are being treated with kid gloves. Given that black people are likely to consider their life experience as normal, it’s not surprising that they announce that whites are privliged even while those white people claim they’re getting no favors - because based on _their_ normal, they’re not. ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-of-the-people-who-identify-as-white-have-a-hard-time-seeing-the-racism-around-them/831716/20 "2019-03-29T21:47:57Z")
For the exact same reason that members of different tribes in Africa think that prejudice is something that white people do. Tris * * * I find people like me . . . annoying. I was going for unique, man. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-of-the-people-who-identify-as-white-have-a-hard-time-seeing-the-racism-around-them/831716.md?page=2)