Can only white people be racist?

[libbeylu]

Hey…why be angry…why waste your energy…it is NOT the fault of the WHITE RACE! In my past, I worked for a small bank that was purely white…one day, a young, black man was hired in my department. He was the most pleasant person I had ever encountered. He came to work every day…dressed professionally and treated everyone with respect…He successfully elevated his career because of his attitude! Please don’t think that you don’t have a chance to succeed…know that you can make a difference…I, being a woman, had similar difficulties in trying to prove myself!

 

[oliver109]

Well that was an example from one small bank, i am pleased to hear the young man succeeded and i am not denying that people who try hard succeed, just that success does not always happen and i have met a lot of people who are in a perilous situation because they failed interviews, maybe had a bad work history that set them apart from other candidates, perhaps could not get themselves on an internship at a company because the manager took a liking for someone else etc And now with the economy at a bad state it is going to be a very big struggle for many young people, especially people of color to get themselves noticed.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

HomeschoolDad:

Funny, in the US, our movies tend to be the other way around.

But they didn’t used to be! Now it seems we’ve gone in the opposite direction, and the bad guys are almost always white.

But back to Indians: One fairly recent trend is to cast Indian actresses (more rarely actors) as generic “people” of no particular ethnic background. An example is Geraldine Indira Viswanathan–an Australian of Indian heritage who starred as “Kayla” (a Valley Girl) in Blockers, 2018. Another good example is Priyanka Chopra, the main star of “Quantico,” where she played the character “Alex Parrish”–a non Indian. But Priyanka has run into problems by promoting skin whiteners. In an interview, she said “she did the endorsements for a year but later realised she didn’t need to do it. ‘I felt really bad about it, that’s why I stopped doing it,’ she said. Priyanka also mentioned how her family and relative would make fun of her dusky skin. “All my cousins are gora-chitta (fair) I was the one who turned out dusky because my dad is dusky. Just for fun, my Punjabi family would call me ‘kaali, kaali, kaali’. At 13, I wanted to use fairness creams and wanted my complexion changed.” Dusky or not, she was Miss World in 2000.

Some Asian Indians, and people of partial Asian Indian heritage, are hardly recognizable as Indians. It is not terribly obvious with half-Indian Ben Kingsley or Merle Oberon — you would have to be told, and expectations being what they were in those times, Miss Oberon felt the need to lie about her origins. Ex-governor and ambassador Nikki Haley, full-blooded Indian, isn’t immediately recognizable as such.

 

[Freddy]

You made the assertion that every single human ever is racist. I’d like to know how you know this and how any scientific study can assert such nonsense.

Take a test, Joe. Let us know how you got on. SBS Language | Racist? There’s a test for that

 

[do_justly_love_mercy]

I am from the US. I have a fair idea what people who use the term “leftism” think it means. It is a term that could have a legitimate usage to mean “the spectrum of left-wing ideologies”, i.e. communism, socialism, social democracy, and other systems ranging from collective ownership to redistribution of wealth. That is not, however, how the term is used in contemporary American discourse. When the term is used in the US today, it seems to mean anybody to the left of the Republican Party, including the Democratic Party, which, anywhere other than the US, would not be considered a left-wing party.

The term “leftism” is also used, as it is on this thread, to include anything liberal or progressive, even though liberalism and progressivism do not necessarily have anything to do with the right or the left. Indeed, in much of the world, liberals and progressives are to be found on the right, e.g. the UK, where the Conservative Party introduced same-sex marriage and supports legal abortion (and, for that matter, the left wing of the Labour Party has long been associated with anti-Semitism).

 

[JoeFreedom]

I’m not taking some crap trap of a test designed to call me racist. Nice try.

 

[Freddy]

I’m not taking some crap trap of a test designed to call me racist. Nice try.

No problem. But asking people to take tests like this shows us how we are all, to some extent, racist. It was the answer to your question. I’m sure people who aren’t racist at all would sail through it easily. Shame we won’t know how you’d have done…

Me? I failed. As I knew I would. Nobody would pick me as being racist (some of my best friends etc). But it’s inherrent in all of us. It becomes a problem if we don’t recognise that fact and adjust our attitudes to allow for it.

 

[JoeFreedom]

But asking people to take tests like this shows us how we are all, to some extent, racist.

And that is exactly my point. The derived foregone conclusion is that we are racist and the test is designed and setup to get that conclusion. Scientific testing at it’s pure best.

Me? I failed. As I knew I would. Nobody would pick me as being racist (some of my best friends etc).

So you knew you would fail, but no one would call you a racist, but yet the test calls you a racist. Are you not seeing the problem here?

 

[Freddy]

So you knew you would fail, but no one would call you a racist, but yet the test calls you a racist. Are you not seeing the problem here?

I’m not what you might describe as a racist. I don’t espouse racist views. Neither I suspect would you. I respect people for who they are not based on their ethnic background. As, I suspect would you. I don’t consciously discriminate against people based on colour. Neither, I suspect would you.

But what you need to realise that bubbling away under our conscious decisions about who we mix with, what our attitudes are to people with different cultures, how we react to people outside the group with whom we associate, is a lot of innate distrust of people who are different. This isn’t a conscious decision and we can’t be held responsible for something that we can’t control. But we need to be aware it is there and to make conscious allowances for it.

You can say that the tests are designed to reach preconceived conclusions. But the results speak for themselves. It simply points out an ‘us v them’ mentality which, again I stress, is inbuilt. Here are some experiments showing how this attitude manifests itself. Check out 1, 13 and 17 (the others are all worth reading as well).

 

[StudentMI]

I think that’s largely true.

In a sense racism is ‘natural’ as sad as that sounds to say. I’m convinced it’s some kind of instinct we have for people who look different than we do. A result of our fallen world.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

But what you need to realise that bubbling away under our conscious decisions about who we mix with, what our attitudes are to people with different cultures, how we react to people outside the group with whom we associate, is a lot of innate distrust of people who are different.

But this isn’t necessarily racism. You’re describing something like implicit bias or some degree of ethnocentric behavior. You’re not describing an “ism”.

 

[ColoradoCatholic]

Usually the people that support that statement: “Only white people can be racist” are the racists themselves by definition. Don’t believe the lies.

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

Take a test, Joe. Let us know how you got on. https://www.sbs.com.au/language/english/racist-there-s-a-test-for-that

I’m not sure how you are supposed to do well since the test relies more on reflexes than anything else.

 

[Freddy]

I think that’s largely true.

In a sense racism is ‘natural’ as sad as that sounds to say. I’m convinced it’s some kind of instinct we have for people who look different than we do.

I’ll give you an example.

Someone my wife knows heard about a child being taken by a croc in the Northern Territories a few weeks back. It’s not a regular thing but it happens. And he naturally thought it was a tragedy. But then my wife was talking to him about it and he realised it was white girl that had been killed. The daughter of a farmer. When he had originally assumed that it was a young Aboriginal girl. And his immediate reaction, uncalled for, unbid, rising up from his unconscious, was that it was then somehow worse. The poor parents!

And his second reaction? It was shame. For thinking that way. And because you feel that shame, it’s not something that you would readily admit to. You might tend to push those thoughts away and ignore them. Convince yourself that it’s not the ‘real you’.

So how do we know what he was thinking? Well, you might have realised that the guy is me. And I will deny any accusation that I am racist with all the strength I can muster. Yet, may God forgive me, my initial reaction was that a white girl’s life was more valuable than a black girl.

Does that make me a racist? I’m afraid it does. Not a sheet wearing white nationalist. Not a guy that will scream ‘Go back to where you came from!’ to any Asian in the street. Not someone who will demand we protect our country from being overrun by people who ‘are not like us’. But someone who will unconsciously value a child who looks a lot like my grandkid over a child who looks a lot different.

The best I can do is simply be aware of those inbuilt feelings, to admit to them and to take them into account when I need to. Or when other people need me to.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

Take a test, Joe. Let us know how you got on. https://www.sbs.com.au/language/english/racist-there-s-a-test-for-that

I’m not sure how you are supposed to do well since the test relies more on reflexes than anything else.

It relies on your subconscious. You don’t get to think. You react without trying to work out what the ‘correct’ answer should be.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

But what you need to realise that bubbling away under our conscious decisions about who we mix with, what our attitudes are to people with different cultures, how we react to people outside the group with whom we associate, is a lot of innate distrust of people who are different.

But this isn’t necessarily racism. You’re describing something like implicit bias or some degree of ethnocentric behavior. You’re not describing an “ism”.

You treat people differently depending on a characteristic that has nothing to do with how you should value them. Different colour and customs? That’s racism.

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

It relies on your subconscious. You don’t get to think. You react without trying to work out what the ‘correct’ answer should be.

A full person has reason and time.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

It relies on your subconscious. You don’t get to think. You react without trying to work out what the ‘correct’ answer should be.

A full person has reason and time.

Yes. And we can convince ourselves as to what we should do as opposed to what we do without thinking. I’d suggest that the vast majority of us would consciously select the correct answer because we don’t consider ourselves to be racist and would like that to be known. To others and to ourselves. But we often have an automatic and unconscious tendency to racism.

We really need to be aware of this and to be honest with ourselves. To know that we have a problem is the first step in solving it.

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

To others and to ourselves . But we often have an automatic and unconscious tendency to racism.

We really need to be aware of this and to be honest with ourselves. To know that we have a problem is the first step in solving it.

Thinking before making a decision should be kind of obvious. I don’t think that has anything to do with more serious instances of racism in the first place though.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

To others and to ourselves . But we often have an automatic and unconscious tendency to racism.

We really need to be aware of this and to be honest with ourselves. To know that we have a problem is the first step in solving it.

Thinking before making a decision should be kind of obvious.

Well, yeah. I’m not sure that needs to be pointed out. But those type of tests show us how we react without thinking. And that can lead to problems. The thoughtless remark. The unconscious action. What we do when we’re not thinking. If you can’t think of any from your own life then you’re some kind of saint, Vanitas.