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It has always amazed me how many people in the US insist on categorizing other people into phenotypical races that we know cannot be justified by genetic resear
by jonathanstrange 3y ago
It has always amazed me how many people in the US insist on categorizing other people into phenotypical races that we know cannot be justified by genetic research and are also incorrect for tracking ethnic origins and self-identity based conceptions. The explanation is that oppressed groups are often forced to take over inadequate and untenable conceptualizations to identify as a group and fight the oppression. However, at some point you would hope they also start revising those concepts. There was a short trend in this direction but it failed.
- gregjor 3y agoHardly a uniquely American thing. Imagining or identifying racial and ethnic groupings based on superficial features, or just differences in language and clothing, seems a universal human tendency across cultures and time. If Americans seem more prone to referring to race (and I don't think that's true) it perhaps comes from both a history of immigration and multiculturalism, and a history of slavery and racial oppression.
- foofie 3y ago> Hardly a uniquely American thing. I don't agree. It's one thing to claim that people are aware of "race", but that's not the issue being discussed here. The issue being discussed is the degree of institutionalization that racism is embedded in US culture, to the point that unwittingly racist news stories are published in mainstream media, and once that's pointed out regular everyday people come at their defense supposedly for being something normal, totally unaware of actually proving and reinforcing the point. For contrast, in some countries the editorial guidelines for mainstream news organizations even discourage referring the nationality of those involved in events, due to concerns those could be abused to further racist beliefs in any way.
- gregjor 3y agoYou would have to give some examples. The Atlantic article about curtains refers to relative wealth and status, not to race. The wealthy white people in Brooklyn Heights, mentioned exactly once to accurately describe the demographics of that neighborhood, are used as examples of people who don't hang curtains on their windows (or don't close their curtains). According to the author that's a status display, nothing to do with race. If you think American mainstream media don't have editorial guidelines that discourage mentioning race or nationality, you might want to look at those editorial guidelines, because American mainstream media -- such as The Atlantic -- most certainly do have guidelines. In fact they follow guidelines so cautious that people from Trump to Musk have accused the mainstream media of censorship and bias and "wokeness" because the media does leave off things like race and nationality and even relative social status, bending over backwards to appear fair.
- foofie 3y ago> The Atlantic article about curtains refers to relative wealth and status, not to race. How come you look at a reference to "wealthy white people" and still proclaim that?
- gregjor 3y agoBecause I read the whole article, and didn't interpret the one usage of "white" as racist. That neighborhood is wealth, 75% white people, with median age 35. So "wealthy, young, white" describes the demographic. Nothing in the article refers to race in any way a reasonable person could construe as racist.
- DeathArrow 3y agoUS just turned "bad" racism into "good" racism. They turned "bad" discrimination into "good" discrimination.
- DeathArrow 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]