3 ms·

> This particular commenter? I think they were 14 and just really stupid. So maybe not racist. But having spent enough time talking to adults who also talk like

by badpun 8y ago

> This particular commenter? I think they were 14 and just really stupid. So maybe not racist. But having spent enough time talking to adults who also talk like this, if you talk long enough the racist undertones become overtones. It's baked into our society, so though it's completely unacceptable to reveal these racist attitudes, the classist attitudes are slightly more acceptable. I'm not from America, and my own country is 99.9% white, so this is all foreign and very interesting for me. I'm wondering to what degree racism is about the actual race (physical traits) and to what degree about the socioeconomic traits that correlate with race. For example, I wonder if a typical white racist person would stil prefer a white drug addict or criminal as a neighbor over say someone like president Obama.

epistasis 8y ago
In my experience, with something that extreme %99.999 of people prefer Obama over the white drug addict. But racism is on a spectrum, it's not a yes/no thing. Most of the existing racism is far more subtle, like fears over foreigners, or the different and the new. The full-on give-me-white-drug-addict-over Obama is usually only constrained to the super rare neo-Nazi breed of racism. Different cultures are also quite shocking. So even if that new family that moved in makes just as much money, has just as much education, but cooks different foods that smell funny to you, or talks in different ways, or puts on different displays, that can greatly impact acceptance. I mean, I can't say that I don't have some racist attitudes, because over my life time I've discovered that some things that I thought were perfectly reasonable non-racial preferences end up getting really intertwined. Especially because I grew up in a very white area, with almost no history of the racial prejudices that affect parts of the US, I didn't understand how racism played out until I was in an area with more diversity, and it was a learning process to even spot it, or figure out what was insulting or derogatory, since I had so little experience with it. But because so much of the racism is not the neo-Nazi type, is more subtle and probably less conscious, it's important to not be too moralizing about it, because moralizing just entrenches it. Instead of beating someone up over it, it's far better to show how the attitude has negative effects, and how there can be positive effects from not having that attitude. Of course, when people are speaking in codes, like they do in these meetings about "preserving neighborhood character," all that goes out the window. The article goes through lots of great examples of how even in the past, the racism was perpetuated with the cover of other excuses.
toasterlovin 8y ago
IMO it's mostly about class, but it seems like it's mostly about race because there is a correlation between class and race (at least, if you count Asians as white, which is nonsensical, but what many people seem to want to do these days). The neighborhood I live in is right next to an extremely poor neighborhood (both are mixed race, but majority white). Most of my neighbors are a lot more comfortable with the middle class black/asian/latino people in our neighborhood than they are with the poor white people in the neighborhood next door.
gh02t 8y ago
It's difficult to quantify, because it's hard to distinguish between what someone claims as justification and their actual motivations. Having grown up in a part of the US where racism has a long and strong history (South Carolina, where the American Civil War began), my own experience is that racism has changed its face. Old-fashioned overt, visible racism is less prevalent due to a wider shift in culture. Overt racism is publicly condemned and considered an embarrassment, but that doesn't mean it has gone away and it lurks just beneath the surface. I know and grew up with tons of people who are without a doubt strongly racist, but they find other justifications to present in public. It's somewhat of a secret language, where certain phrases sound ok on the surface but have racist connotations. For example, "urban" or "inner city" is often a code word for "black". I have a rather racist uncle for example, he often rails about how the Democratic party has a strong grip on the "urban" vote, while the real America is the "rural" population, who are of course all true patriots and thus Republicans. Of course he is perfectly aware that political lines are not so neatly divided by population density, but that's because what he actually means is "urban" == "black" and "rural" == "white". Intentions are obscured, so everything gets fuzzy. Going back to the Cupertino city council meeting, it makes it really hard to know what they really mean for sure. This is all based on my own experience, but I've seen enough cloak and dagger racism to know it's definitely a possibility. I think they would absolutely prefer an affluent black person over a poor white drug dealer, but on the other hand I would bet that for a significant number of the residents if you say "poor", the image that pops into their head is a black person. It's also worth mentioning that this is a political issue, given that there is a pretty strong racial gap between political parties. I think that's where a lot of this doublespeak lingo came from, as a way to discuss race in politics (which, practically speaking is important) without sounding racist. All that said, I think that the prevalence of sincere racism has definitely decreased significantly, so it's not all bad. Edit: I should also add, this is not universal on the American right, I know plenty of conservatives who aren't racists, nor is it only white Republicans who are racists.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  I don't think your rural/urban example is a good one. A lot of the time people mean exactly what they say. Many rural folk would be happy to see city folk pushed off a cliff. The race thing is just an unfortunate correlation. I also think that a lot of rural racists only have beef with city people but they're unable to properly articulate that so race just becomes a proxy they direct their hate at instead.
rayiner 8y ago
Many of the traits that distinguish African Americans and Hispanics in the U.S., and which people react to, are not correlated with socio-economic circumstance but rather race and culture. I grew up in the D.C. suburbs in the 1990s (when people were less guarded about this stuff) in a Virginia town that was at the time almost entirely white. I remember hearing how PG County (a majority African american county just east of DC) was the "ghetto" and "scary." How did you know? Well there were "youths" with "baggy pants" listening to "gangster rap" and speaking in "ebonics." It was only a couple of decades later when I moved nearby that I realized how racist that view was. PG County is, in fact, solidly middle class county that happens to be 2/3 African American. Yes, the teenagers speak in African American vernacular (at least to each other) and dress in a certain style, which is different than how white teenagers of the same socio-economic class would speak and dress, but odds are that their parents work for the federal government or one of the nearby hospitals. Nonetheless, my classmates thought that the area was "ghetto" based on those outward traits. That's why the Trayvon Martin shooting was such a big deal in the U.S. Martin was solidly middle class, the son of a white collar government worker and a truck driver. There's tons of kids in PG County who look just like him, who have parents that make $80,000 household income. But lots of people find those kids "scary" and "ghetto." Not because of their socio-economic status, but because of their race and their cultural expression.
pcwalton 8y ago
There are studies that show that when Americans are shown pictures of white people and black people doing the same act, they perceive the black person as more threatening [1]. [1]: http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1977-21139-001 http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1977-21139-001
- masonic 8y ago
  That's one study... from 42 years ago.

by badpun 8y ago

epistasis 8y ago

In my experience, with something that extreme %99.999 of people prefer Obama over the white drug addict. But racism is on a spectrum, it's not a yes/no thing. Most of the existing racism is far more subtle, like fears over foreigners, or the different and the new. The full-on give-me-white-drug-addict-over Obama is usually only constrained to the super rare neo-Nazi breed of racism. Different cultures are also quite shocking. So even if that new family that moved in makes just as much money, has just as much education, but cooks different foods that smell funny to you, or talks in different ways, or puts on different displays, that can greatly impact acceptance. I mean, I can't say that I don't have some racist attitudes, because over my life time I've discovered that some things that I thought were perfectly reasonable non-racial preferences end up getting really intertwined. Especially because I grew up in a very white area, with almost no history of the racial prejudices that affect parts of the US, I didn't understand how racism played out until I was in an area with more diversity, and it was a learning process to even spot it, or figure out what was insulting or derogatory, since I had so little experience with it. But because so much of the racism is not the neo-Nazi type, is more subtle and probably less conscious, it's important to not be too moralizing about it, because moralizing just entrenches it. Instead of beating someone up over it, it's far better to show how the attitude has negative effects, and how there can be positive effects from not having that attitude. Of course, when people are speaking in codes, like they do in these meetings about "preserving neighborhood character," all that goes out the window. The article goes through lots of great examples of how even in the past, the racism was perpetuated with the cover of other excuses.

toasterlovin 8y ago

IMO it's mostly about class, but it seems like it's mostly about race because there is a correlation between class and race (at least, if you count Asians as white, which is nonsensical, but what many people seem to want to do these days). The neighborhood I live in is right next to an extremely poor neighborhood (both are mixed race, but majority white). Most of my neighbors are a lot more comfortable with the middle class black/asian/latino people in our neighborhood than they are with the poor white people in the neighborhood next door.

gh02t 8y ago

It's difficult to quantify, because it's hard to distinguish between what someone claims as justification and their actual motivations. Having grown up in a part of the US where racism has a long and strong history (South Carolina, where the American Civil War began), my own experience is that racism has changed its face. Old-fashioned overt, visible racism is less prevalent due to a wider shift in culture. Overt racism is publicly condemned and considered an embarrassment, but that doesn't mean it has gone away and it lurks just beneath the surface. I know and grew up with tons of people who are without a doubt strongly racist, but they find other justifications to present in public. It's somewhat of a secret language, where certain phrases sound ok on the surface but have racist connotations. For example, "urban" or "inner city" is often a code word for "black". I have a rather racist uncle for example, he often rails about how the Democratic party has a strong grip on the "urban" vote, while the real America is the "rural" population, who are of course all true patriots and thus Republicans. Of course he is perfectly aware that political lines are not so neatly divided by population density, but that's because what he actually means is "urban" == "black" and "rural" == "white". Intentions are obscured, so everything gets fuzzy. Going back to the Cupertino city council meeting, it makes it really hard to know what they really mean for sure. This is all based on my own experience, but I've seen enough cloak and dagger racism to know it's definitely a possibility. I think they would absolutely prefer an affluent black person over a poor white drug dealer, but on the other hand I would bet that for a significant number of the residents if you say "poor", the image that pops into their head is a black person. It's also worth mentioning that this is a political issue, given that there is a pretty strong racial gap between political parties. I think that's where a lot of this doublespeak lingo came from, as a way to discuss race in politics (which, practically speaking is important) without sounding racist. All that said, I think that the prevalence of sincere racism has definitely decreased significantly, so it's not all bad. Edit: I should also add, this is not universal on the American right, I know plenty of conservatives who aren't racists, nor is it only white Republicans who are racists.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
I don't think your rural/urban example is a good one. A lot of the time people mean exactly what they say. Many rural folk would be happy to see city folk pushed off a cliff. The race thing is just an unfortunate correlation. I also think that a lot of rural racists only have beef with city people but they're unable to properly articulate that so race just becomes a proxy they direct their hate at instead.

rayiner 8y ago

Many of the traits that distinguish African Americans and Hispanics in the U.S., and which people react to, are not correlated with socio-economic circumstance but rather race and culture. I grew up in the D.C. suburbs in the 1990s (when people were less guarded about this stuff) in a Virginia town that was at the time almost entirely white. I remember hearing how PG County (a majority African american county just east of DC) was the "ghetto" and "scary." How did you know? Well there were "youths" with "baggy pants" listening to "gangster rap" and speaking in "ebonics." It was only a couple of decades later when I moved nearby that I realized how racist that view was. PG County is, in fact, solidly middle class county that happens to be 2/3 African American. Yes, the teenagers speak in African American vernacular (at least to each other) and dress in a certain style, which is different than how white teenagers of the same socio-economic class would speak and dress, but odds are that their parents work for the federal government or one of the nearby hospitals. Nonetheless, my classmates thought that the area was "ghetto" based on those outward traits. That's why the Trayvon Martin shooting was such a big deal in the U.S. Martin was solidly middle class, the son of a white collar government worker and a truck driver. There's tons of kids in PG County who look just like him, who have parents that make $80,000 household income. But lots of people find those kids "scary" and "ghetto." Not because of their socio-economic status, but because of their race and their cultural expression.

pcwalton 8y ago

There are studies that show that when Americans are shown pictures of white people and black people doing the same act, they perceive the black person as more threatening [1]. [1]: http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1977-21139-001 http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1977-21139-001

masonic 8y ago
That's one study... from 42 years ago.