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ViperMagnum357 Since: Mar, 2012
#264251: Dec 13th 2018 at 2:01:35 PM

[up]x4: Kinda what Protagonist said-it is not that people are not racist up here, just that the population is skewed so heavily the race baiting misses the mark. When I graduated High School, there were roughly 800 students in the four grades; less than twenty total were non-white.

There is plenty of racism to be had, it just takes different forms, so the strains of dogwhistles used by the GOP right now mostly miss the mark-tiny minority populations, very few immigrants total, and most people are so poor that they sort of back into the stereotype of 'willfully ignorant douchenozzles who vote with their economic anxiety and chuck minorities under the bus in the process.' While that is just a front for most GOP voters in other states, here it is a reality that is no less harmful because of the supposedly moderate Republicans wearing a Mask of Sanity.

Of course, there is plenty of White-on-White racism to fill the void of explicit racism; There is a huge divide in southern Maine amongst the older White population between the French speaking population and the British descended people. Nearly a fifth of my class was reasonably fluent in French because so many of their (old, White, very racist) relatives spoke it, sometimes in lieu of English fluency.

Edited by ViperMagnum357 on Dec 13th 2018 at 5:02:18 AM

Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#264252: Dec 13th 2018 at 2:06:42 PM

Isn't Maine governed by the openly racist Le Page?

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#264253: Dec 13th 2018 at 2:09:29 PM

At least until this January, yes. He won a pair of terms thanks to vote splitting, but now he's thankfully term limited.

CNN is reporting something about Trump's inaugural committee being under criminal investigation. No article yet.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/13/politics/trump-inauguration-spending-investigation/index.html

Looks like a "donations for favors" thing.

Edited by Rationalinsanity on Dec 13th 2018 at 6:16:21 AM

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
CrimsonZephyr Would that it were so simple. from Massachusetts Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
Would that it were so simple.
#264254: Dec 13th 2018 at 2:50:46 PM

Mueller time, all the time.

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
DeMarquis (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#264255: Dec 13th 2018 at 3:14:48 PM

Ultimately, everyone is racist, its just a question of how self-aware one is, and how hard one tries to do better.

I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.
kkhohoho (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
TechPriest90 Servant of the Omnissiah from Collegia Titanica, Mars, Sol System Since: Sep, 2015 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
Servant of the Omnissiah
#264257: Dec 13th 2018 at 3:18:28 PM

[up] For some reason, your profile image is astonishingly appropriate to the question you just asked.

I hold the secrets of the machine.
PushoverMediaCritic I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out. from the Italy of America Since: Jul, 2015 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
#264258: Dec 13th 2018 at 3:23:57 PM

It's true, everyone has some amount of racism in them, no matter how small. Your job as a person is to deny those ideas and be a good person. No-one's free of racism, because we were all raised in a (sometimes subtly) racist culture and environment. Denying that you have some amount of evil in you is denying that you ever need to improve yourself morally as a person, and being critical of one's self and doing self-improvement is important to not being blind to your own faults.

Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#264259: Dec 13th 2018 at 3:27:18 PM

There is a logic to the idea that we all have biases in favour of our own group, be that a racial group, a gender, a sexual orientation, a nationality, ect... said biases are a natural result of self preservation instincts and cultural focus and cultural learning.

We all agree that even the best societies have racial issues, we are all part of our societies as such we pick things up from our society at a basic instinctive level.

What’s important is if you lean into those bad cultural lessons, or try and fight against them, if when you glance back twice at the guy behind you at night you self-assess the possibility that you are in part being extra wary because that person is of a different racial group, ect...

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
RainingMetal (Handed A Sword) Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#264260: Dec 13th 2018 at 3:49:11 PM

Ultimately, everyone is racist, its just a question of how self-aware one is, and how hard one tries to do better.

Actually more like bigots, because I personally can't stand it when people do certain things, but I couldn't give less of a shit about race.

ASAB: All Sponsors Are Bad.
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#264261: Dec 13th 2018 at 4:23:56 PM

I think a better way to phrase that, is both conscious and unconscious bias and "in-group-ism" is an unavoidable part of human nature. The best we can do, is minimize opportunities for that bias to come up, and work to be aware of them to recognize when they be affecting our behavior.

wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#264262: Dec 13th 2018 at 4:28:13 PM

I think pushover has the right of it in this one.

(America focused analysis FYI; absolutely not saying other countries don’t have issues with racism)

American society is deeply racist. Not in that every person runs around spewing slurs, but in that our system itself is racist. Our government, our housing, our schools, all of them were built by racists and reinforce racist outcomes. Passively maintaining these systems is still racism, whether it’s a job interviewer sliding past the resumes with Black or Latinx names, or a state building a new pollution disposal site next to a Native American reservation’s river, or kindergarten teachers penalizing Black and Latino children disproportionately to white children. Racism is a million little things, like almost all major media featuring Arabic roles being focused on either terrorism or mayyybe semi-sympathetic stereotypes. Or how most criminal roles on a lot of tv shows are disproportionately cast as Black and Latino.

A lot of my assumptions about the world when I was in high school were racist. I went to a high school that was 40% Black, 30% white, and the rest mostly Latino. I only took gifted classes, and in each class of 25-30 kids, there was never more than 1-2 black kids, usually kids whose parents were dentists or something like that. I noticed the difference as a teen, but shrugged and figured that black people just happened to be less motivated/smart because of poverty/laziness/ghetto culture.

Which is MASSIVELY racist and super inaccurate. As I’ve grown older I’ve started to learn and interrogate those old assumptions, but it’s still an active task to unlearn bigotry.

HOWEVER. That is not an excuse. I get very twitchy about the assertion that everyone is racist because it’s often used as a lazy argument for giving up/not trying to fix racism. Or people arguing racism is “natural.”

Racism isn’t natural. It’s taught every day via millions of microaggressions in our environment. It’s why even Black cops disproportionately assault/injure Black people, because they've been taught those racist stereotypes too.

LSBK Since: Sep, 2014
#264263: Dec 13th 2018 at 4:34:01 PM

I think it depend on what you mean by natural. Like, any given stereotype is naturally due to exist, but humans seem to natural create stereotypes as short hands.

I don't think "it's natural" is an excuse, even if technically true. A lot of things are "natural", that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to be better. Natural and good are not synonyms.

Edited by LSBK on Dec 13th 2018 at 6:34:18 AM

Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#264264: Dec 13th 2018 at 4:38:47 PM

Well, some amount of in-group bias or wariness of people who are different than you is going to be natural, but the specific kind of racism in the US and many other countries that's centered around white supremacy is something that is taught, more or less.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Dec 13th 2018 at 8:41:18 AM

Friendperson Since: May, 2018
#264265: Dec 13th 2018 at 5:15:00 PM

Are we still living in the 1950s? Did I miss the last more than half century of social progress? I feel like you guys are a little too downcast on this.

Gilphon (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#264266: Dec 13th 2018 at 5:19:08 PM

No, see, you're confusing 'not as a bad as it used to be, because now people are making an active effort to fix things' with 'fixed'. I certainly don't know where you've been for the past 2 years if it's not obvious to you that racism is still a really big problem with American society.

DeMarquis (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#264267: Dec 13th 2018 at 5:22:28 PM

Racism is the in-group bias, expressed in the context of race. It's any preference for members of one racial group over those of any other, for any reason, conscious or not, explicit or not. Most racism is unintentional, but still victimizes members of those communities who have access to fewer resources, connections and opportunities than those of others. So it's fairly broad and all encompassing, yet few people are aware of that, or are yet willing to admit it.

Because lets face it, admitting to and dealing with one's own racism (or prejudice of any sort) is extremely hard. I liken it to a destructive character trait, not unlike greed or jealousy or violent anger. Everyone is aware of the need to control those impulses, in the interest of living and working together and preserving society, but we have not yet achieved the same degree of acceptance of the ubiquity of prejudice.

And it's hard for other reasons. It is extremely difficult for an individual to resist the pressures imposed on one by the institutions of one's own society, even for well-meaning members of the majority group, something that I have myself confessed to here in these forums. White people cannot always easily dispense with the unearned privileges that have been conferred upon them by society. It's also hard because it can feel like a betrayal of one's own group. For people who live in homogenous neighborhoods, and work in homogenous workplaces, and feel a debt to the kind of people who raised them and live around them, it can be hard to free oneself of a natural tribalistic tendency. And it's hard because of the fear of competition for jobs and other resources, and because of the kind of resentment that says "I suffered my entire life and the government didnt give me any assistance, so why should anyone else get any?" It's hard for a lot of reasons.

But people can change. People have been changing, very slowly over the course of generations, but they have. Conditions have improved for people of color in many places around the world, including the US, and conditions will continue to improve, so long as we continue to invest effort into persuading people to support change. The two most important approaches to promoting change are educating the public regarding the facts, and reforming the economy so that people share the burdens and the benefits of globalization more equally. Also it will take leadership to make reducing measurable disparities in health, employment, housing, education and so on into national goals. But it also takes individual commitment from each of us to work on our own cognitive and emotional biases so that we can avoid being the victims of our own fear and anger.

I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#264269: Dec 13th 2018 at 5:50:01 PM

[up][up][up][up]Just because it's no longer illegal for black people to drink at the same water fountains as white people doesn't mean racism in the USA has been fixed. There's still way more that needs to be done.

I also cringe whenever I hear "Everyone is racist", because all too often it's used to downplay racist actions.

Edited by M84 on Dec 13th 2018 at 9:52:13 PM

Disgusted, but not surprised
BearyScary Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: You spin me right round, baby
#264270: Dec 13th 2018 at 6:01:04 PM

"Everyone is racist" is the non-logic that white people sometimes use to excuse their racism towards people of color.

Do not obey in advance.
PushoverMediaCritic I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out. from the Italy of America Since: Jul, 2015 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
#264271: Dec 13th 2018 at 6:06:25 PM

Yeah, it should be noted that there is a major difference between "everyone occasionally has racist thoughts because of the culture they were raised in (and also intrusive thoughts are a thing), and you should stop those thoughts and work to move past them through self-improvement" and "everyone is secretly super racist, they're just afraid to say what everyone else is thinking, you should man up, stop letting yourself be censored by PC culture, and just blurt out every racist thought that enters your head".

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Dec 13th 2018 at 7:07:14 AM

Soban Since: Aug, 2009 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
#264272: Dec 13th 2018 at 6:16:52 PM

The thing I don't like about where we are currently in dealing with racism is that too often the prescription is vauge like 'Don't be racist' rather than something actionable.

KamonTheSkunk The Little Stinker Since: Jul, 2016 Relationship Status: Is that a kind of food?
The Little Stinker
#264273: Dec 13th 2018 at 6:40:24 PM

What can I say? Avenue Q wasn't lying with its song, Everyone's A Little Bit Racist.

Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#264274: Dec 13th 2018 at 6:44:46 PM

That North Carolina election fraud story is getting better. The Republican candidate went out of his way to hire the guy who changed or disappeared all those ballots.

RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#264275: Dec 13th 2018 at 7:04:10 PM

The big question isn't so much whether they'll refuse too seat him and certify the results (this is too blatant to not be rejected) but rather whether there'll be a special election or not.


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