Forums → WEPR → Racism WFT
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my friends dogs are racist, he's hispanic and so am I and they get along with us, but his dogs hate anyone who's white and barks and growls at them.
If we all could just admit
That we are racist, a little bit
Even though we all know that it's wrong
Maybe it would help us get along
-Avenue Q
Point is, we all make judgments based on race. Not just white people, either. And not just black people. EVERYONE. I'm not being racist in my accusation of racism - WE'RE ALL RACIST.
Everyone wants people similar to themselves to be above everyone else or nationalistic were one wants their nation to be better so they target other people diffrence and quote them as bad that basically how rasim starts out.
Is stereo typing wrong? To a point it is, but if someone is going to be wearing a shirt with Hendrix on it, then I would asume that they like rock music. If I see someone with their pants down to their knees and they walk with an evil glare in their eyes, I would asume that they were from the ghetto or are influenced by the ghetto. Now I could be wrong, but chances are... I wouldn't be.
Now lets say that I thought that he was an uneducated idiot, that would be the stereo typing your thinking of. So if what I said in the first paragraph was stereo typing, then it is only wrong at certain times.
If I saw a girl with straight dyed hair and an Abricrombe shirt, I could asume that they were preppy (not necissarily a prep) or they liked to spend a good amount of their time into looking good. That is not wrong.
It would be wrong to say that they were a snobby prep though just by looking at them though.
Stereo Typing is a natural thing, and in fact... stereo typign probally does more good to us humans than harm. People say stereo typing is wrong as if there were no such things as bad people, which sometimes it is with stereo typign that we avoid people we think we would dislike because usually, we would disliek the person.
Many times we find people we stereo type against to be different than what we think, but just as often we find we are right.
The mind is not a dangerous thing to anybody untill someone turns their thoughts into reality. It is what you do when you stereo type that makes it good or bad.
i think people are racist because they are jealous of a race, group ,or person.
It's like little kids. They think they can do anything, and want to prove themselves masculinely dominent over older humane beings, so they break twice as many bones as most adults do. It's just the fact that people are capable of it. If you tell a newborn to not do something, it will do it, just to prove that the newborn is fully capable of it. People these days....
WTF white and black jelly beans are my favourite. And how is the world like jelly beans? Do some people have orange or yellow or pink or green or red skin? no they don't.
NoName: In a way you're right. Profiling is a fundamental cognition (i.e. "way of thinking" and all people will do it- it's a matter of what you do with it.
Thus as Mega says, most likely we all do make judgements based on race. There are a few qualifications that prove to be necessary when considering what 'racism' is.
The negative connotations of racism come from the notion that such profiling is both uncritical and unjustified (the former generally leading to the latter). There are most likely justifiable ways that we can profile between different races, but there are ways to go about it that are more accurate than others, and IMO it's this that should determine whether an example of profiling is appropriate or not.
As I've said before in a separate thread, the things to remember are that "some" is not the same as "all" and there are different domains that different judgements relate to. Here, generalisations may be applied to a community, or they may apply to a culture, or they may apply to an ethnicity. At one point in time, the above three terms may have all been one and the same, but this is largely no longer the case now, so care has to be taken that you don't unduly conflate them.
For example, let's say I live in a place called Cronulla. Let's also say that the rate of hooliganism and crime in this area has skyrocketed, and that there has been a recent influx of Lebanese immigrants.
* Is noting these facts at the same time racist? I certainly hope not.
* Is saying that the rise in crime is due to the Lebanese immigrants racist? If observable, then it'd be silly to deny the facts in the interests of political correctness, so again the answer is not necessarily.
* Is saying that Lebanese culture is to blame for this racist? Likely, as now I'm generalising about Lebanese culture beyond the scope I've observed.
* Is saying that Lebanese people are hooligans racist? Yes, for the same reasons as above.
In fact, this refers to a set of real events that have highlighted that racial tensions are still very prevalent today. In the (Australian) summer of 06-07, the beach suburb of Cronulla was in fact the scene of a series of race riots and fights between the locals (predominantly white) and the Lebanese community. Heated claims about ethnicity, culture and religion all played a part and the tensions were exacerbated due to a failure to observe what really relates to what.
To put it another way, even if it were true that, say (to make up something random): "60% of violent crime is performed by Asiatic males", this doesn't mean that any Asian guy you meet is 60% likely to beat you up.
I think, if anything, we are more classist as a society than racist. Mega mentioned avoiding a man with shabby clothes: well, that preferentially highlights his likely socioeconomic class. If another raced man passed by smiling in a business suit, I doubt anyone would cross the street to get away. Similarly (I imagine) with the Lebanese population in that small town, the influx of new immigrants lead to a congregating of many poor and unemployed people. Isn't that what we stereotype, what we are crossing streets to avoid?
The problem, IMO, is that our fear and hatred is misplaced, from those who live in poverty to those who live in another skin/culture. An example: The first Cuban immigrants to settle in Miami were the wealthy ones; they were mostly mixed race, and yet there was no monumental tension between Americans and these newcomers... might it be related to their higher socioeconomic standing, and their desire to settle in as successfully as possible? Only after the influx of poor Cuban immigrants did tensions start to rise. Now, I suppose sheer numbers play a role in that, but I imagine increased crime rates and cultural invasion were more to blame for racism.
They really just hated getting a huge bolus of unemployed, impoverished people! *Sigh*
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