While justification of racism with “science” is certainly a white thing, there’s no way delusions of racial supremacy are exclusive to white people; I don’t know of any Europeans who taught certain Bantu groups that their Pygmy neighbors were animals to be devoured and enslaved. The dehumanizing evil found here really is no different than the poisonous nationalism found in the Balkans, in Shiro Ishii’s Unit 731, and in the Russification policies, including relocation and extermination, on the bloody hands of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union. I think it would be more accurate to say that this wretched business of racism is a human problem.
I think we can all agree that anybody who honestly believes in this should probably log off forever and go outside.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
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Power, either side of the Atlantic, is white. Power, as far as everyone on this website is concerned, is white. The ruling class of Europe and North America is white. The right is white. Social injustice is white. Unrighteousness is white. The sin of Sodom is white. Global warming is white. [Christianity is white. This site is white]. The exceptions all prove that rule. And it’s worse in America. Voter restriction and The Great Replacement Theory, white supremacy, are worse in America. [Where the Constitution is white].
I’m late to this conversation but I want to chime in, as one of the few (only?) non-white people in this discussion.
Race & ethnicity are two different things. They are not interchangeable. Ethnicity is based on a country or people group that you originated from, and Race has been decided a group that all people from a similar geographic region must have enough similarities in order to group these people together. In reality, it is obviously much more complicated than that.
Let’s take Asia for example. Bangladeshi culture is not the same as Samoan culture is not the same as Chinese culture. But people chose the name “Asian” to include all of those people just because someone somewhere decided arbitrarily to draw continent lines and not split it any further. I’m sure many of those people don’t feel like they have anything in common with anyone from those other regions, even though they are the “same race.” Hopefully you can see how yes, this language is imperfect, and yes, the lines drawn, the classifications made, decided by someone else and not them.
If you are interested in further investigation, I encourage the read of The Making of Asian America. It highlights the history of many different Asian immigrants, how/why they came to the US, and how before they were all considered the same, they were all considered completely separate from each other. People would wear buttons that would specify that they were not the “wrong” Asian based on the ever-changing climates of class based on the newest people to arrive.
there is also the distinction to be made between racism and prejudice. anyone can be prejudiced for unfounded reasons about someone. But current academic definitions of racism all include a power dynamic. That is why there is not “reverse racism.” People who are racist and racist systems are those that seek to keep/retain the power they have at the expense of people of a minority group.
There are tons and tons and tons and tons of books your can read about all of this. I encourage you also to seek information from well-versed experts on this topic and not just a bunch of people on an internet forum.
Jemar Tisby, The Color of Compromise, is a good place to start.
I’m learning here…
So, according to “current academic definitions”, a “bigot” can be “prejudiced” and “a prejudiced person can be a bigot” but neither is a racist unless and until he or she “has some form of power” over another person. Am I right or getting warm?
I wonder if this would be a helpful comparison, Terry - and subject to correction also because I too am always learning.
Think of the label “bully”. Now imagine a scrawny junior high kid in the school hallway alongside the older beefy football player who is not only bigger and stronger, but also not afraid to use his extra power and confidence to make sport of and take advantage of the smaller kid. Unequal power dynamic. Does this mean that the small kid never says mean things, is never a jerk, or is in no way prejudiced against the larger older kid? Of course not. But between those two only the more powerful one can get the label “bully”. So long as the larger one is in no way endangered, intimidated, or victimized by the younger one, the one with much less power would never be called the bully (at least as relates to the larger party). [Note - ‘big’ and ‘small’ are as much metaphorical as literal here - as it is quite possible for physically small kids to wield immense power over physically larger kids in other ways. But it is all about the power.]
Still trying to wrap my head around it, and wondering “why am I having difficulty?” I suspect that part of my problem is that I’ve had the pleasure of being a white male so long that, kind of like a fish in water, I have difficulty imagining what it’s like not being wet.
And yet, I’m not totally clueless: I’m old enough to remember being a child in Oklahoma City and knowing where N-town was and not to go there, yet living in a “declining” neighborhood, with poor whites as redneck as they come, Indian friends who didn’t attend pow-wows, and Mexican classmates who weren’t born in Mexico but were poor, some of whom had to pick cotton in their summers off.
Also, being raised by Deaf parents, I learned early: Hearing people had the power and the Deaf didn’t.
My marriage brought me into a family that immigrated to the U.S. in 1959. My wife and her sister can still remember picking onions with their father and siblings north of L.A.
One of the difficulties that short-circuits my brain are occasional experiences in which I witnessed some “scrawny junior high kids” ready and willing to be a bully if and when given the chance. And I wonder: If racism is “institutionalized”–which seems to be a majority opinion–do institutions make the bullies or do bullies make the institutions, and what’s the cure?
That’s one reason I’m hesitant to jump on the “this is a ‘White’ problem” bandwagon. Sure, I agree, it’s “a White problem” now, but who’s problem will it be tomorrow? And who has to do what now to put an end to the problem?
Just jumping in here without having read all above… An individual can be racist or ‘be afflicted with racism’ without it being institutionalized. (Of course it can be and is propagated within the institution of a family.) So a modifier indicating a group or groups rather than just an individual is still necessary.
(Racism is so stupid – it’s like taking personal credit for the fact that your great or great-great grandmother wasn’t born in West Africa.)
I’ve been a white dude for a long time as well, so here’s my ill informed thoughts.
I think economics plays a large part in our current situation. Generational poverty is a hard cycle to break, and it disproportionally affects minorities. Poverty also comes with unfair treatment in courts compared to wealthier individuals. Someone who steals a $200 car stereo might face a longer sentence than someone who steals 10’s of thousands if they can afford a good lawyer. The classic example is the disproportionate sentencing guidelines for crack and powder cocaine which was a direct result of the popularity of crack cocaine in black neighborhoods.
How does generational poverty get fixed? I don’t know.
I think it’s in there it’s noted the year of jubilee was instituted (but never practiced) as a once per generation social and economic reset so that great disparities of wealth would not accumulate due to personal tragedy or exceptional business acumen (or lack thereof), for instance. Of course that was for an agrarian economy and largely based on family real estate. The closest thing we have to it today is the graduated income tax (and we all know how well that doesn’t work!).
ETA: Taxing businesses is dumb. Businesses don’t pay taxes, people do. A business will just have to raise prices that individuals pay. It’s politically effective, though, and just a hidden tax on the consumer. And without it, CPAs and tax attorneys might have to find something to do that is real and actually adds to the GDP – invent and build cool new widgets, for instance.
I had to look it up, too, Liam, and I live here. The people I know here, who talk about this stuff don’t talk about it with me.
I’m familiar with the stupid idea that brown-skinned Americans are out-breeding whites. Why should I be surprised the conspiracy-mongers have put in more detail? I do expect people to have some shred of reason.
You could handle this from NPR, but I see you have other resources as well.
@Klax, I need to know about this stuff, so thanks, but I hate it.
thought you all were talking about The Great Reset