Status and social cohesion. I think humans naturally divide themselves along various lines (racial, religious, ethnic, national, philosophical, political, etc).
Take the white men in Mississippi in 1940. They could have sex with white women or black women. Black men can’t have sex with white women. White men can take advantage of black people (rob them, rape them, dominate them) without any fear of legal repercussions. The opposite wasn’t true. If you wanted a good job you didn’t have to compete with women or black people in the labor force. Even though it is unethical, there are concrete benefits to racism and sexism for those at the top. You can exploit those below you w/o fear of them exploiting you back, and you didn’t have to compete with them for positions of power, status and wealth.
The jobs with the most status were almost all held by white men. Police officer, judge, politician, media personality, business magnate, professional athlete, doctor, lawyer, etc. Being 30% of the population, white men made up 90%+ of all important positions in the legal, business and social system. There is a psychological benefit to seeing yourself as the true citizens and everyone else as irresponsible or defective.
It’s also worth mentioning that white privilege isn’t just in white-majority nations; indeed, it seems to be even more pronounced in many other nations where white people are the tiny minority. In many places in Asia, white people are accorded privileges by the locals that the locals don’t give each other. They get preferential treatment, etc. Sure, there is anti-white sentiment there but in many instances, white people are treated far better in many brown-skinned nations than brown-skinned people are treated in white-skinned nations.
It’s hard to imagine something you haven’t experienced or to see what you’re completely used to.
You’ll note, for example, that women were being sold purposely to serve as subordinates for procreation (e.g. sexual use), by their families, in immensely greater numbers, and for a longer period of time than slavery persisted. Women gained the right to vote after black (men); they got into Congress later; there still hasn’t been a female President. Outside of an example or two, sexism has lasted longer than racism by almost any metric, and where we talk about how people whipped slaves, for a few centuries (though, really, that was probably a practice dating back to the invention of cordage), there’s nary a mention of all of the same beatings and rapes that were completely legal and far more common, through our society and most others against women and wives. And the reason for that is because it’s easier to be nice to the black people over there, who are a simple minority of the populace who you (in many parts of the country) go without regular interaction with on a fairly regular basis. Women are right there all the time, in your house, at work, in the stores, etc. Stopping sexism actually affects your day. It’s hard to see the things closest to you or recognize them for what they are. Society has built too many rationalizations into the culture and your mind wants to accept them.
And, as said, if it’s not something you’ve ever experienced yourself, then it’s just that much harder to recognize.
All assuming that you’re the sort of person to have a recognition that there might be parallels between the things that happen to you and what you do to others. If someone is mean to you, they’re an asshole. If you’re mean to someone else, it’s clearly because they deserved it. Most people don’t have the presence of mind to see the world through another person’s eyes, even given the exposure that would allow them to make those parallels.
The US is, in my experience, better at dealing with racism than most other countries. The fact that it’s a thing that antagonizes and frustrates us and brings us to raise the topic occasionally is the very evidence.
In American society, Jewish people are slowly turning pinker and blonder. These are the same people who stayed looking vaguely middle-eastern for 2000 years, milling around the cities of Europe. The US is one of the few countries that not only celebrates multi-culturalism, but actually pulls it off to some extent.
This is exactly the point, really, and I think you should say it again and more pointedly.
Everyone in the world (I might exempt the Dalai Lama, maybe) is bigoted against some group(s) of people for some non-rational reason. The question is who has the power to oppress those groups based on that bigotry. In the US, the answer is that white European-Americans do. And, as many have said so far in this thread, being white in the US means that you are probably not aware of that oppressive bigotry because it is not directed at you and it mostly does not affect you.
What we should be talking about is successfully oppressive bigotry, which is both a larger and a different issue than racism.
Which is not to say that each and every individual white European-American has the power to oppress anybody, even if they chose to. Most us us whiteys just passively benefit from the lack of oppression we get relative to everybody else, without us doing anything on our part to cause either the oppression or our exemption from it.
And I’m bigoted against tax accountants. Dirty bastards.
Racism and other forms of aggressive assholeness in general has been much more open since Trump has been president as I have experienced.
Actually that is the reason I believe God allowed trump to be elected, for us to realize these people exist and need help. Trump exposes much hatred and bitterness in our society.
Yes such discrimination used to go unnoticed but now emboldened it is hard not to see.
Some have never grappled with this kind of conflict much firsthand. It may have seldom entered their consciousness while they were growing up. Of these types, the less apathetic ones are profoundly delicate and must be handled as such if their defense mechanisms will ever lower for them to attain a deeper understanding.
Since racism has changed some of the ways it’s being defined have become convoluted. It is usually a challenge to attribute something to it in its less explicit forms because we often are not good at guessing what others’ motivations are. Certain indicators of holistic problems have not gone away by having schools with mostly black administration and staff or law enforcement with mostly black officers in mostly black neighborhoods; and I am not at all comfortable with the inferences of racism in non-explicit manifestation that I see all the time when the same shoe is on the other foot. In this sense, it can be seen clearly for the supernatural force it is, and we cannot expect people to discuss what properties of the supernatural are doing whether they believe in it or not.
Has it ever occurred to the OP that that their really is not a problem with racism among whites? I mean arent you looking for a problem that isnt really there?
I have a real problem when I see people pointing fingers demanding any person with white skin admit they are racist!
Part of the problem is, if you start noticing/admitting to the racism that’s around you, you have to admit that a lot of the people you know - family and friends included - are racist. And you also have to admit how ridiculous that racism is.
And when I say “ridiculous”, I don’t just mean in the virtuous “My, how silly it is to judge someone by the color of their skin!” kind of ridiculousness. I’m talking about the “BBQing while Black” kind of ridiculousness. The kind of stories that, if you heard about it from Some Guy at the Bar, you’d figure he was just making things up.
But then you see a story like this, “Florida police accused of racial profiling after stopping man 258 times, charging him with trespassing at work”, and you just have to admit that a whole like of white folk are just completely fucking ridiculous.
Well in my opinion all people: white, black, Asian, Indian, etc. are racist or bigoted. I’ve met many people from different ethnicities, races whatever that are tribal, and have negative views of the “other”.
I view it more as seeking power be it political, economic, legal, or anything you can maintain control over. All groups of people in a general sense seek to increase their power and influence. The thing is it will never be equal because it’s impossible as demographics are not static, I guess there is a theory that maybe we will all fuck each other till we’re all one color but that doesn’t stop tribalism or genocide in Africa. If we all became the same color overnight it would shift away from race, to religion, or politics, or something else, and there’s always something else when it comes to power. It will turn into which side of your bread you put the butter on.
Race is an incidental element, a distraction, the real answer is power.
what makes you think there are many Caucasians who identify as white? I’ve never met a Caucasian who identified as white. As such, I’ve never heard of someone being told they don’t act white enough which I would expect given your premise of racial identity. If you’re referring to groups like the KKK they are a small minority and are universally despised by the vast majority of people.
We loosely call ourselves Americans. No hyphen involved. The crippling disease keeping America from becoming greater is a willful disregard for scholastic achievement. There are social/cultural components to the problem. That’s the disease that currently lacks a cure.
A large number of white people are more than happy to acknowledge that racism exists and is a large issue which needs to be worked on. As for the many of the rest, it’s a lot easier to get rid of affirmative action, diversity programs, voting rights protections, profiling restrictions, etc., if you pretend that racism isn’t a problem any more.
Uhh, because they don’t feel the effects of it on themselves, they tend to ignore it or ignore its importance. Perfectly understandable. Its the way most people feel about CO2 build ip. Having a BBQ this summer?
if I hadn’t spent 3 years with an elderly African American(he was a ww2 vet )family in the mid 80s and heard their experiences first hand I wouldn’t of known about segregation and racism ….
I think White people see racism, just like everyone else. But we don’t experience it in the same way, because White culture in the US has always been the dominant culture.
Also, America is changing. It’s not just black and white anymore. There are more Asians and Hispanics (some of whom are black or white). It’s a different mix of people and culture. And younger Americans are more comfortable with inter-marrying between races. I see marriages of all types around me, and I live in the South.
Even though Trump has courted White racists in his political life, I think the trajectory on race is getting better in the US. More and more, I think people are getting along better than in the old days.
I think a lot of white actually do encounter racism, but they downgrade it.
Like, they’ve got a friend or family member who is constantly ragging on “the blacks” or “the Mexicans”. But they’ll tell themselves that person isn’t really racist, because lookit, they’ve got black friends! Or they’re just blowing off steam and don’t mean anything by it. Or everyone does it, so it’s cool.
In their minds, racism is the KKK. It’s lynching and other acts of violence. It’s discriminating against people in hiring. It’s not some edgelord ranting about the “Canadians” who didn’t tip him after delivering their pizza. That’s just off-color humor, but not racism. It’s free speech, bro!
What I don’t get is why these people can’t see the direct line between these low-level offenses and the “real” racism they claim to care about. It is like in their minds, Edgelord the Pizza Guy, the guy who isn’t shy about talking shit about black people around friends and family, will always remain the delivery guy and never become a manager who discriminates against black employees. It is like we’re supposed to believe the frat boys who get expelled from their organizations for racist antics never go on to positions of power where they can implement their racist beliefs in truly harmful ways. No, we’re actually supposed to feel sorry for those frat boys because getting expelled from a fraternity will “ruin their life”.
People who identify as ‘white’ don’t see or care about racism around them because they are racists. They see people who look or act differently from themselves as being inherently different because of their ‘race’. The ones who don’t hate the ‘other races’ don’t see themselves as racists at all.
It’s not like everybody has that much empathy for anyone but themselves and those closest to them, people run up and down the scale in that regard, but it’s weighted heavily toward the selfish side, and it takes leadership to have society cooperate sufficiently just to survive. That is the basic nature of people, but even where people can work together as long as they see some people as belonging to a different ‘race’ they aren’t going to act fairly or care about unfairness.
Despite all the progress made to tear down the overt blatant racism of the past we have not traveled very far toward the actual goal of eliminating the artificial concept of ‘race’ as a way of identifying and separating people. For many people that goal has been forgotten altogether, they actually want to revert to a Jim Crow “separate but equal” society and merely enforce the “equal” part, as if that could realistically happen or solve the problem.