Racism is a form of othering. While institutions that overtly teach racism are rare these days, institutions that overtly teach othering are still pretty common. One might question if one type of othering (religious based) can result in a different type of othering (be it class or race), but quite frankly there's no doubt in my mind of it.
Democracy is the process in which we determine the government that we deserveNo, you ..
Ok, I am trying not to lose my cool.
what I mean to say is that there are actively racist things that politicians have said, such as the one congressman who blamed single mothers and black people for the credit crunch. Then there are people such as the koch brothers, who are actively funding segregation of carolina schools.
By blaming people for trying to actively stifle racism, you are making yourself look like an ignorant white person who is over privileged. it hides the fact that people ARE racist, that it still happens, and it blames black people for white people being racist.
edited 10th Sep '11 10:15:32 AM by Enkufka
Very big Daydream Believer. "That's not knowledge, that's a crapshoot!" -Al Murray "Welcome to QI" -Stephen FryPart of the problem is that segregation was killed in the school system in a rather counter-productive manner.
I think racism is very real today. It has simply become a latent function of society, rather than a manifest function. Which is more than we could say of the US of the '50s.
Is part of Obama's issue the fact that he's black, and so no one really takes him seriously in the racist conservative circles (with racist being a qualifier, not a blanket statement)? Yes. But I think saying that is the biggest problem is actually rather ridiculous...
I am now known as Flyboy.Tom does have a point. It's as bad for us to say that the Tea party movement is completely bad because of the nuts and extremists in it as it is for him to say that there's no racism in America because of people like Al Sharpton and some other assholes in the movement.
"Delenda est." "Furthermore, Carthage must be destroyed." -Common Roman saying at the end of speeches.

And? Do you think I approve of racism in any capacity?