A Racist Uncle is my name for a person so racist that even most White Americans will see it and condemn it.
Examples:
- Paula Deen
- Don Sterling
- Dan Snyder
- Dr Laura Schlessinger
- Alexandra Wallace
- David Duke
- Hitler
But not, say:
- George W. Bush
- Madonna
- George Zimmerman
- Stephen Colbert
Grey cases:
- Rush Limbaugh
- Bill O’Reilly
Most Whites seem to think that racism is an all or nothing thing. Calling them “racist” is like calling them a Completely Terrible Person. There seems to be no degrees of racism.
Therefore they think only extreme racists are racist. Which means most White people are not racist at all!
Yet most Whites are racist – and deep down they seem to know it.
It would account for why they come down so swift and so hard on people like Paula Deen or Don Sterling – way before Blacks can get up a proper protest. It is like they are acting from a guilty conscience or something.
Racist Uncles allow them to think racism is there and never here. For some Whites, stuff like the Klan or the South or the 1950s or Fox News functions as a kind of Racist Uncle. “I am not like them. I am not racist.”
That is why people like Madonna, Stephen Colbert or President Bush can never be Racist Uncles. For most Whites, seeing them as racist would mean seeing themselves as racist. That is a step too far. So they get a pass. Madonna for using the N-word. Bush for Katrina. Colbert for anti-Asian humour. Whites rush to their defence, make excuses, play dumb.
When Stephen Colbert made a joke about Dan Snyder hanging onto a racial slur for the name of his football team, it was a Racist Uncle joke where Snyder plays the Racist Uncle. To turn the tables and make Colbert the Racist Uncle, as Suey Park tried to do in #CancelColbert, would defeat the purpose of the joke. In fact, it would defeat the purpose of the show as an extended Racist Uncle joke about Fox News, one that allows White liberals to think, “I am not like them. I am not racist.”
Racist Aunts and Uncles are nearly always brought down by what they say, not what they do.
Don Sterling, for example, can unfairly kick out Blacks from his apartment buildings all he likes – and still remain an owner in good standing in a largely Black basketball league. But let him be heard saying something racist to his girlfriend and – BLAMO!!! – suddenly the league cannot go on with him as an owner. He has to go. Suddenly.
Because to Whites seeming racist is way worse than being racist.
George W. Bush said his worst moment as president came not when people died after Hurricane Katrina because of how he mishandled things, but when Kanye West called him a racist because of how he mishandled things.
See also:
Abagond 
Awesome! First to comment. 🙂 The racist Uncle is like white folks crazy drunk uncle. More like a projection of what they want to say, but don’t have the guts to say themselves.
LikeLike
Maybe that one Colbert episode was all about race – I don’t know, I didn’t see it – but the show itself is not all about race. Also, I’m pretty sure his use of fake Asian speak was supposed to be satirical, like a parody. He was trying to illustrate how ridiculous the current team name is and how half-hearted the charity idea was. His whole show IS a satirical parody, in which he pretends to be an angry conservative Catholic Republican who is racist, homophobic, and generally foolish. He interviews many liberal thinkers and pretends to argue with them but is really making his character look silly and promoting their work. By playing a ridiculous conservative he helps to show how real conservatives can be ridiculous. Even Suey Park admitted that she has a killjoy personality, so why are we adopting her interpretation of something that was meant to be humorous? It’s not like he said “ching chong” in an attempt to mock Asian people – he was mocking a white guy. It’s not like he even used the word ch*nk or something. Maybe I’m just blinded somehow by my own whiteness, but I don’t get why it was such a big deal. I’m not saying he can’t be racist, I just don’t understand why that particular remark was considered racist.
LikeLike
@lifelearner
Exactly! That’s what I was going to say. You beat me to it.lol
LikeLike
lol @ lifelearner @ 1st comment! ^_^
LikeLike
Balkanism is a real in thing this country.. by the media. Everyone has a racist uncle. Most people are racist themselves. I get Donald Sterling is an old boob. In more ways than one. He left his wife for that girl, and bought her like 2 mil or so in gifts. That in itself is reprehensible. But his crime is talking bad against blacks. The people who hate it the most are racists themselves. Case in point.. look up any “black hate crime” and most of the reporting and commentary is done by white racists. I’ll say this sometimes the people who care the most need to clean up their “own backyards” and show some acceptance themselves. Sort of like “those who are without sin cast the first stone”. I know i’m all over the place, but so is this post.
LikeLike
The picture you chose kind of reminds me of fat bastard from those Austin Powers movies
LikeLike
@Sharina, now that was funny.
LikeLike
@Sharina.. looks like fat baasturd eat the ball
LikeLike
“Maybe I’m just blinded somehow by my own whiteness, but I don’t get why it was such a big deal.”
_ _ _
Why, it’s a big deal because Suey Park said it is, and because lots of others have jumped on her bandwagon, that’s why it is a big deal.
LikeLike
Yeah, you know I balked when he said being called racist was his worst moment. I thought he was gonna say 9/11 or something but he “out-racisted” himself,smh
LikeLike
When whites were interviewed just prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, they also said that they do not see what all the fuss is about, why it would be such a big deal. After all, nobody was trying to hold back blacks.
LikeLike
Agabond. Nail. Head. Exactly. Don’t hurt their feelings. They’re precious.
Also, on one of your next posts you should see if you can explain the reason for using the “everyone is racist, racism is biological so we just have to live with it” excuse but then turning around and using the “blacks are the most racist people so they are the wrong ones” excuse in the next sentence. Thanks.
LikeLike
Okay, but the Civil Rights Act ended legal segregation. That’s a concrete objective. Suey Park doesn’t seem to be fighting for any particular goal except creating a scandal and drawing attention to herself… apparently she didn’t even want the show canceled after all.
LikeLike
@ Jefe
I don’t know a lot about US history generally, or Civil Rights history specifically. But, what you say puts me mind of a book by E. Crosbye (I think) about the history of the Civil Rights Movement in the US, when the author talk about the way this Civil Rights history is taught and remembered.
The collective memory of it is manufactured to:
1) undermine certain messages, and,
2) stunt future development.
It’s a well-known phenome, yet there there was a discussion about the “N” word in one section which said something like Real Racism is embodied by the “N” word and burning crosses, all the rest was the rhetoric of “CRAZY negroes”, or “outside agitators”. The idea that black people experienced Real Racism more authentically than all other racialized people in the US (and world?) is part and parcel of the that process of trivialization to uphold white supremacy.
Anyway, this section says to call someone CRAZY is a method to dismiss them.
By doing so, their point (what they are saying) can be trivialized and personalised, like the way Suey Park is all about attention-seeking and stupidity. It’s all in an effort to extinguish what she says by belittling her — the person.
White Southerners would use the term “outside agitators” because “their” negroes were happy folk being infected by sh1t-stirrers with a personal agenda.
It’s an old trick: blacks bringing their problems to public debate were just sick in the head, mentally abnormal, or social aberrations (led by Jews and commies.)
This is the most efficient way accusers:
a) protect THEIR racial interests, and
b) hide other problems of racism behind their own rhetoric.
Therefore: Stokely Carmichael was a provocateur, a “prophet of rage”.
Malcolm X, a “hateful person”.
They were radical, dangerous and practically near-terrorists.
Malcolm’s image has been re-habilitated to a degree, but Stokely Carmichael has not.
MLK, though, is manufactured as a Saint. Passive. Safe for white people.
But it’s forgotten that MLK was once “CRAZY negro” too….talking about a nationl redistribution of wealth. All that intolerable talk!
Much easier to make it “personal” and let national racism off the hook.
The book says it was (and IS) the strategy used to obscure nationwide white supremacy.
It’s an equally useful strategy for self-interested black people, or any white-washed PoC these days, of course.
LikeLike
*phenomenon
LikeLike
@Bulanik,
I think you know a lot more than most Americans. Few could quote off what you just did.
Yep, find a person to pin it on and keep the status quo.
@Paige
You’ve got to be kidding. Or are you just deaf and blind?
First of all, I think it is a bit disingenuous to compare Suey Park’s objective with the entire African-American civil rights movement or even the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (which, by the way, was not focused on ending segregation, but on ending discrimination – legal segregation had already been largely repealed over the prior 10 years). But, she did have stated concrete goals. A few off the top of my head:
1. Have Colbert and his media supporters to explain why Asian-Americans are always perceived as the “go-to” target group for racist epithets. (I actually know the answer to this question, but I also would like to hear Colbert and the media explain it).
2. Ask Colbert and his media supporters to recognize that that combination of racial slurs used crosses the line for *some* people, even in the name of satire.
3. Apologize to those people who might have been offended (This is called a “white” apology, whereby they do not admit they did anything wrong, but admit that it might be offensive to some people.)
If I go back over her stuff, I can find more –
Actually, I feel the example Colbert used actually trivialized the remark by Snyder. By targeting a group that white Americans feel no racist guilt over, to ridicule someone about something they did to another group that white Americans also feel no racist guilt towards really trivializes the original issue about the Washington team mascot.
The more fitting parody probably should have been about Jews, as Snyder professes to identify as Jewish. But that DOES offend the media sensibilities.
LikeLike
Jefe, that book I mentioned is edited by Emilye Crosby.
It’s called “Civil Rights History from the Ground Up”.
The Conclusion is about how this history is taught, and remembered.
Here: http://www.ugapress.org/index.php/books/civil_rights_history/
LikeLike
White Southerners would use the term “outside agitators” because “their” negroes were happy folk being infected by sh1t-stirrers with a personal agenda.
Similar to the Mohawk Valley formula spoken of in the Obama/drone thread; the technique that was used to bust up and discredit Unions and labour organizers, who were so obviously destroying the harmonious relationship that had, of course, existed between workers and management/owners, heretofore.
LikeLike
Similar to the Mohawk Valley formula spoken of in the Obama/drone thread…
but since deleted.
LikeLike
@ Legion: deleted?
I never heard of this formula before.
When I looked it up, it seems to be based on DISCREDITING individuals.
It is an approach that identifies management’s (or white supremacist’s) interests with “Americanism,” whilst activism that goes against the agenda is portrayed as the doings of un-American outsiders.
Workers — or the sensible public in this case— are thus persuaded to turn against the activists and toward management, or Good Sense, to demonstrate their patriotism/groundedness…
“Central to the Mohawk Valley formula is a set of guidelines and actions for strikebreaking based includes:
-discrediting union leaders and labelling them ‘agitators,’
-scaring the public,
-forming puppet groups of ‘loyal workers’ to influence public debate and discredit strikers…”
I imagine managers who most effectively broadcast these messages are backed by the organisation and are first in line for promotion in the structure…
From:http://my.firedoglake.com/iflizwerequeen/tag/mohawk-valley-formula/
LikeLike
Thanks Bulanik,
It (racism) becomes a part of the psyche (wanted or not). All those who benefit from white privilege know this be they are racist or not.They are afraid of guilt by association…And to be honest many know that they are guilty.. the employers, teachers,professors,legislators,commentators,coaches,businessmen,pastors you name it. Racism has been globalized to the point that people of color need to take precautions when vacationing.
LikeLike
Jacque, perhaps as much globalised as internalised….
LikeLike
“Because to Whites seeming racist is way worse than being racist.”
************
This statement is so on point! Especially when examining all these overseers’ (police) killings. White men in a uniform who feared for their lives believing (imagining) that UNARMED black men had a weapon in their possession when in fact they didn’t. We must not forget that (according to them) that it’s illegal (de facto) for blacks to own or have weapons. It THREATENS THEM!
Oh wait! It goes even beyond imagination. A black person can be laying on the ground, handcuffed, subdued in police custody, UNARMED with no threat of a weapon and still get blown away! Just ask Oscar Grant… except you can’t ….
Or, you can get arrested like another black man for trying to get into HIS OWN HOME like Professor Henry Louis (Skip) Gates did when he didn’t kow-tow to the white police sgt properly (fast) enough after he was discovered breaking into his own residence. He was a disorderly black man says the white police officer who President Obama accused of acting stupidly. Black people’s range of “disorder” (is less than everyone else) made him a threat. Because he didn’t remain in his narrow (socially behaved) place, Gates was placed in police custody. After all WHITES said he should have been arrested..! Even Obama was later forced to back-peddle on this incident and made to invite the offensive officer to the WHITE house!!
Then there was the Trayvon Martin killing … Whites rallied around Zimmerman coming up with all sorts of reasons why that killing was justified, and why it wasn’t racist. According to the myth, Zimmerman never had a racist bone in his body. Moreover, it was pointed out by white folks, Zimmerman wasn’t truly white….
My point is that in none of these incidents (and many others) did whites, en mass, see any racism. Why? Because many of them believe we’re in a post-racial period. After all, look how many of us voted for a black president – THEY SAY. They say that black people ARE the racists, now. SMH
Racism simply doesn’t happen, unless THEY SAY it has happened.
Likewise, racists don’t exist, unless whites DEFINE what or who a racist is.
As far as I’m concerned for the sake of MY health and longevity, I believe ALL WHITES ARE RACIST SUSPECTS, until I know otherwise!
Well done Abagond. Their delusions runs deep!
LikeLike
@ jefe
You were the one who compared Suey Park’s objective with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when you wrote, “When whites were interviewed just prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, they also said that they do not see what all the fuss is about, why it would be such a big deal. After all, nobody was trying to hold back blacks.”
Then you say that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 “was not focused on ending segregation, but on ending discrimination.” Wikipedia says that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 “is a landmark piece of civil rights legislation in the United States that outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It ended unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation in schools, at the workplace and by facilities that served the general public (known as ‘public accommodations’).” Sure, it focused on ending discrimination – in large part by ending segregation in schools, at the workplace, and by facilities that served the general public, as stated above.
Why do you assume that White Americans feel “no racist guilt” towards Asians? (I’m not sure that’s entirely true, but “less guilt” might be accurate.) Is it because Asian-Americans as a group have generally been more successful than other non-White groups in the US, because of the brain drain and the voluntary immigration/minority factor and stuff like that?
LikeLike
@ jefe
Also, I never compared Park’s objective with the ENTIRE Black civil rights movement, just the act that you compared it to first.
LikeLike
Paige is pretty much right on about the Colbert mock. You take step back and examine it and he clearly was making an example of how Dan Snyder has his football team remain the “Redskins” yet wanted to have a foundation to support the self-esteem of Native Americans. It just didn’t make sense. He probably went about it wrong but any intelligent person could understand the parody.
LikeLike
Bulanik
Thank you for so eloquently putting to words my very thoughts. While I don’t back suey’s cause, I still remain quite disturbed by the means to shut her up. If what she says is so irrelevant then why not ignore her, no. People call her fat dumb stupid and use any means to discredit.
LikeLike
@ Paige
I used the 1964 Civil Right Act as a time stamp, not as a comparison of the extent of the relative size movements. There were many small little things that individuals and small groups did before (and after) the civil rights act of 1964. I would compare Suey Park’s actions to one of those small scale actions. 1964 is just a time stamp to show what people said and thought during that era.
The 1964 Civil Rights Act did include segregation, but was not quite as much the main focus as discrimination. A large portion of the segregation problems were addressed by actions that occurred before the 1964 civil rights act (eg., Brown v. Board, Boynton, etc.). Some of it occurred afterwards (eg., Loving v. Virginia, Fair Housing Act). The civil rights act was not the main or only piece of legislation, executive orders or SCOTUS decisions that was used to end segregation.
OK, please replace it with “little”. A very small amount. Certainly not enough for them to feel any consequences for their actions.
No, that is not the explanation. It is (partially) because
– There is 430 years of Asian-American history in the USA, predating even the English. It has been largely erased from the historical and cultural narrative of the USA. How much have you learned?
– Americans have amnesia about so many pieces of Asian-American history, eg, the transpacific slave trade, the coolie trade (used as a replacement for black labour), racist immigration legislation from 1790 to 1965, the mass expulsion and genocide of Asian-Americans, the largest public lynching in US history, Wong Kim Ark, Exclusion Acts, Alien land act, Racial profiling (eg., communists, traitors)
– To illustrate the lack of guilt, Congress did not apologize for the Chinese Exclusion act until 2012, 130 years later.
– they whitewashed stuff they know they did wrong (eg, the Japanese American concentration camps and all the legal challenges to it that continued for 50 years)
– Asians made up 30% of the population / 50% of the workforce of Idaho in 1870s, yet 0.2% in 1940s. I have friends who grew up in Idaho and NOTHING was taught to them about the founding of Idaho or what happened to the people that disappeared. Similar argument for California, Montana, Nevada, Wyoming, Oregon, etc.
– Use of the Model Minority Stereotype to cover up racism by trying to distinguishing Asians from blacks. Whites use it to feel better about themselves. There other uses – to disrupt the demand for Affirmative Action (1960s), to promote black stereotypes (1980s), prevent Asian-American to join forces with each other or with other racially profiled groups, esp. in the time period following the Vincent Chin lynching.
– One side effect of the model minority – Asian Americans do not even learn about the 430 year history of Asians in the US, not to mention the key growing
– stuff they did in Asia – all the wars, starting with the US-Philippine wars.
– Centuries of dehumanizing stereotypes, decades of dehumanizing stereotypes in Hollywood and to “g00kify” them in all the 20th century wars so that they can kill them without a conscience.
– denial of continuing problems by bringing up statistics applying to the children of the brain drain groups (just like what you seem to be doing).
(This is only a partial list.)
They do not want to acknowledge it – just forget about it, so there is very little guilt if they have chosen to forget everything. Whites also do not feel very much guilt over what happened to the Native Americans. They basically have erased it from the US historical narrative. It bothered me that nothing was taught about the native inhabitants of the area where I grew up. The disappearance of Native Americans has been attributed to causes that “could not be helped”.
I am not advocating guilt. But I am not advocating amnesia. I am advocating accountability. Accountability means admitting and facing up to the history and the current reality. It does not mean erasure from the memory banks.
I think that America wants to forget about its history of slavery, segregation, black lynching, voter disenfranchisement, etc. too. But through the nationwide efforts of people who fought against that, it probably will never be entirely erased. But many people today think it was magically fixed in 1964, 50 years ago. Or limited today to …. racist uncles.
Individuals handle guilt sometimes by forgetting about what happened. A nation cannot do that.
LikeLike
Many whites hold prejudiced views of blacks. Most of these views are based on confirmation bias and double-standards. And because the power of white people is mostly group power these opinions or attitudes have no more importance than a persons opinion about the weather. So even whites that don’t hold these views aren’t going to call it out because it would create pointless conflict. And frankly, most people hold so many onerous views that we don’t agree with, why start jumping on the racist ones as if those are the worst? Why not the anti-poor, anti-Chinese, anti-democratic, republican, Jesus-freak views? Obviously, prejudiced views of blacks is very important to blacks, because they’re black. But for many whites they rank number 100 on a list of America’s ills right after NO.99 Pot should be legal.
What is an issue for most whites is when possible black/white conflict could effect profits and the peaceful coexistence we’ve worked so hard to create. Recent examples are Paula Dean and Donald Sterling. There are probably far more racist whites than sterling and dean that do support(ed) reprimanding them for their big mouths. Not because of what they said, but because what they said threatens profits and creates conflict.
It’s possible to hold prejudiced views of blacks and even dislike them generally and still not want conflict with them. Making money and living a conflict free life may trump allowing an NBA owner to make anti-black comments. In the cost/benefit analysis, removing Sterling as an NBA owner is better than having the players go on-strike. It’s all about peaceful coexistence which is good for profits. It’s in white self-interest to punish Sterling.
I wonder if only whites heard Donald Sterling’s taped rant, if they would force his resignation as team owner? Or is it mainly because blacks heard it?
LikeLike
@TeddyBearChubs
What makes you believe that the people who are not happy with the media support to Colbert’s response did not fully understand the parody or are, perhaps, otherwise not intelligent?
LikeLike
“Agabond. Nail. Head. Exactly. Don’t hurt their feelings. They’re precious.
Also, on one of your next posts you should see if you can explain the reason for using the “everyone is racist, racism is biological so we just have to live with it” excuse but then turning around and using the “blacks are the most racist people so they are the wrong ones” excuse in the next sentence. Thanks.”
I concur 100% with Anne’s post. She said it better than I ever could.
It’s always a pleasure to read Bulanik’s posts.
LikeLike
Paige, my line here got cut off
– Asian Americans do not even learn about the 430 year history of Asians in the US, not to mention the period before the revamp of the immigration laws (1848-1965).
LikeLike
@BiggieFriez, From a person that has visited and lived for a year and half of time stacked over 2 decades in LA area I can tell you that the telephone conversation isn’t the most glaring aspect but just a novelty racist element of Donald Sterling. His housing and employment discrimination orchestrated the conditions in South and East LA. Go after the housing and employment discrimination in major cities that bring about horrid environments that people have to endure because of their race/ethnicity maybe that could be considered some kind of degree of justice. You know why they don’t want to do that because it would expose the other billionaires that practice this behavior.
LikeLike
TeddyBearChubs
I have to question the intelligence of individuals who keep making the idea “any intelligent person could understand the parody.” The forefront of soneone who did not get the joke. Simply because it is beginning to seem like they are trying to make up or cover their own lacking.
With that being said not everyone sits in front of TV or looks at his show to know the ins and out of this man or his styles. The assumption seems to be that the intelligent couch potatoes get it while those of us not suckling from the nipple of the TV are dumb.
LikeLike
@Sharina & Jefe
It’s more about how people might not have understood the comparison between Snyder’s insulting effort and what Colbert said.
LikeLike
@ Paige
When Colbert is in character he is playing what amounts to a Racist Uncle. That allows White liberals to think they are not racist.
He seems anti-racist because he mocks the racism of Fox News and the Republicans, yet he generally does not mock the racism of White liberals and the mainstream press. He makes it seem like racism is a mostly just a right-wing thing.
His Racist Uncle act does what all Racist Uncles do: make racism seem marginal.
LikeLike
@TeddyBearChubs
I am pretty sure that they understood. That is the point. They understood.
LikeLike
TeddyBearChubs
“It’s more about how people might not have understood the comparison between Snyder’s insulting effort and what Colbert said”—–perhaps but has it dawned on many of the individual making the “not intelligent” remarks that the lack of understanding is that they are not only unaware of colbert’ Or Snyder and it is more a knee jeep reaction.
LikeLike
Correction jerk
LikeLike
Even when white people allow their racism to seep out verbally, there will still be people there to defend them, excuse them and not consider themselves or the people they’re defending to be racist. Sometimes they will try to act as if they don’t know what was said was racist according to them. When you try to explain what it was, they will still try to argue and make you out to be the delusional one.
Such is especially true when the person is famous and/or well loved and admired. To many whites, they can not believe that such a person they looked up to would say such a thing, and they will go out of their way to stand up for them. They will see what they’ve said as a mistake, and want us to move on.
LikeLike
Haven’t read all the up thread comments but Madonna can adopt black kids and have sex with black men and use the N-word in reference to said adopted child. That to me is a racist auntie. This is a very good post Abagond. It’s so full of truth.
LikeLike
Now that the truth is out. The NBA is hypocritical. They always knew this is who Donald Sterling is.
LikeLike
Cut out personalities / the racial affiliation for Colbert and the owner of the Washington Redskins and simply examine the ching chong remark within the context / frame it was made; therein lies the answer.
The truth is you’ll never know Colbert’s actual thoughts in making that remark. All anyone does know is that Stephen Colbert is a white man, and seemingly, it is all some need to know before condemning his remark as being one of a racist.
That Colbert is white does NOT inform one of his thought process; no matter how it’s sliced and diced, it just doesn’t. If an East Asian (or a member of any other so-called “minority”) had made the same satirical statement, I doubt that it would have caused such a stink.
What I do believe, though, is that if abagond or even if I myself, a Black American of mixed descent, had made the very same remark here on this blog, that few, if any, commenters would declare me racist or would declare the statement itself as proof of an anti-Asian bias.
Logically, I (or anyone else) can chant ” ching-chong” (or any other supposedly racist term or phrase) all day long and twice on Sunday, and it still would not constitute proof of an anti-East Asian bias.
If PoC do not want whites to use any seemingly racist terminology, regardless of context, perhaps this is a concept / rule that first needs establishing before anyone goes ballistic when instances do crop up ….
LikeLike
I have a question. …was it something he said on his show or was it tweeted?
As to the remarks of colbert in question. …sorry I just don’t find it funny and more stupid than anything.
LikeLike
Scratch that question as it has been clarified, so basically it would have required one watch the show to know who he was poking fun at?
LikeLike
@Dave
I know I was wrong for that comment but he just looks so much like him in that picture. Lol
LikeLike
It is my opinion that PoC will never even begin to win the battle against white racism / supremacy by making use of the self same disingenuous stunts that racist whites make use of in their expert arsenal of treachery & tricks.
As it is in a game of chess, we will need to be several strategic steps ahead of them to have any chance at all at winning this game.
LikeLike
I myself do not watch Stephen Colbert’s show and still understood the frame of reference of his remark.
LikeLike
My intention here is tell PoC not what we might want to hear, but closer to (IMHO) what we logically might need to hear.
Duplicity and the coddling of tender feelings is NOT going to free us from white racism / supremacy.
LikeLike
Was that because you were aware of the Snyder situation or because it just clicked.
Either way I guess it was just me who had no idea it was in regards to him picking at Snyder and thought it was just a poorly delivered tweet.
LikeLike
I only became aware of this situation through abagond’s first post on the topic. Colbert, in my opinion, was emphasizing the FAIL on the part of Snyder in arranging some sort of Native American awareness / sensitivity program in lieu of ditching the racialist brand name of his sports team.
Colbert’s remark is as necessarily offensive as it needs to be to get its point across (and in a childish gibberish sort of way, one which I’ve heard used to mock not only East Asians, but Arabic-speaking Muslims, Hispanophones, and speakers of some heretofore unnamed West African language [“Ooga-Booga / Unga-Bunga”] as well) but not, IMO, anywhere near being as aggressive in tone as as it could have been (to this end, any phrase can be used to taunt or to terrorize, even a seemingly complimentary one).
LikeLike
Putting it in full context I get where he was going with it, but I think it is best I remain on the fence. I was not offended by his remark but I don’t want to dismiss it when others could or may have been.
LikeLike
To sum it up. It was a poor delivery in my opinion and while I was not offended that does not mean others were not.
LikeLike
I’m white and figure I’m racist by default, because I grew up as part of a racist white society where being white gives one privelege. Now this is not something I like, nor am I proud of, but I also realize I had no control over the culture I was raised in and that simply being raised in a racist, white priveleged society does not make me an inherently bad person. If I hid my head in the sand and chose never to think about it, then yes, I’d say I would be a pretty crappy person. But since I do have control over my life now, I work hard to evolve and grow. This includes reading blogs like yours — thank you!
I do what I can to be as aware as possible of my own white privelege and the institutionalized racism inculcated into me as “normal”, and work to counteract their effects and correct the problem by speaking up about it, usually to the chagrin of other white folks who then go off on a ranting tirade and dismiss me as a “racist” simply because I choose to confront racism head on and point out how they also benefit from white privelege. Go figure, huh? 😉
LikeLike
Mary,
I read in another article that Sterling had a conversation with a potential coach and showed off his racist attitude then. I bet there are numerous examples of his true colors with his powerful friends, but they just pushed it aside for the sake of the business and the image of the overall association.
Everyone else,
Colbert represents, in my opinion, the kind of liberal racism that uses race and racism as entertainment. Today, it’s used as punchlines in their “satire” routines. A perfect example of this is Seth Macfarlane’s animated programming. They don’t use it to show how harmful racism is. They use it to show how hilarious it is to their audiences that there are nonwhite people out there that are “different”
“…Black people are different from you and me, and me I find that hilarious.”
-Peter Griffin
Norman Lear also used racism as a topic in his shows, but not near to the ridiculous level Macfarlane uses it. Still, it was used in a way to show that everyone can be racist, not that white racism is the major problem.
At least, that’s how I observe it.
LikeLike
That you could unashamedly equate Paula Deen to Adolf Hitler, as if saying the word “nigger”, and being responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people are morally equivalent, is absolutely disgusting. I don’t know who you are, but I advise that if you actually believe this, that you kill yourself immediately because the indoctrination in the cult of political correctness has penetrated too deep into your mind for you to properly reason.
LikeLike
@ Need For Speed
The post does not say they are equally racist. It says they are both people that most White Americans condemn as racist.
LikeLike
I did not say that they were represented as equal, I said they were equated to each other. And why one of those people equated is a fascist dictator, it is clear to me that the other person is being smeared, or being operated upon with guilt by association.
LikeLike
@ Bulanik
@ Legion: deleted?
Yes honey. I had quoted some Chomsky lectures and put up links to the audio too. As I read the scroll a little more it seemed from how you were writing that you had not seen those posts, and now of course with my deletion request they are gone.
Yeah, what you looked up is pretty much it. As to why I mentioned it now? There isn’t as much discussion of class as one might think would show up on this blog, so sometimes I like to mention things to do with class. On another level, different types of oppression do sometimes share similar operational dynamics. ( <—–Boy, that was wordy, huh!? 😀 )
LikeLike
@ Kiwi
Yup. That is exactly the thing I am talking about.
I dedicate this post to your racist uncle.
LikeLike
@ Brothawolf
Oh yeah: Norman Lear’s Archie Bunker is another Racist Uncle. Like Colbert’s character he is played for laughs.
LikeLike
@ Kiwi
Not racist! (but DENSE as fuck! lol! 😀 )
LikeLike
@brothawolf
The big thing for me with Sterling is that I am not really surprised. His rant was one of a man who had been having those type of conversations with people regularly. This is why I also can’t give his mistress a pass because I feel that she has been saying the same things or similar.
LikeLike
@ Sharina, I appreciate that. Thank you for taking the time to read through those typo-packed comments!
@ Benjamin G, thank you.
LikeLike
@ Legion
There are some things best not to say here — but I get your point and thank you for that information!
LikeLike
Brothawolf said:
…not to show that white racism is the major problem.
I think you’re right on the money, Brothawolf.
LikeLike
The problem is, if Colbert started mocking White liberals and the mainstream media, he would be seen as an extremist and most White people would stop watching his show. Once again this blog reminds me how easy it is to be a part of a racist system without intending to be, and how hard it would be to completely escape colluding with racism.
Also, Jefe, I did not know about a lot of the things you mentioned. Thanks for the info.
LikeLike
Sometimes I feel like racism is so depressing that I just want to forget about it or not even think about it anymore, but this blog keeps on reminding me…
LikeLike
Paige
I actually do. I go into my sade place and forget about it and not think about it. That is why at times I don’t see certain things as racist that others do. In those cases you will find I won’t comment much on the matter because I am just taking it back in.
LikeLike
Correction safe
LikeLike
@need for speed? You basically put a death threat due to misunderstanding somebody’s analytical.
LikeLike
@Paige,
“Sometimes I feel like racism is so depressing that I just want to forget about it or not even think about it anymore”
Abagond has a really good post about this.
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2009/08/12/growing-up-white/
LikeLike
Just looked up the definition —
equate: to regard, treat, or represent as equal or equivalent:
H-m-m-h — I didn’t understand the explanation. 😛
LikeLike
@ Jefe
Same here.
LikeLike
abagond,
Archie was not only a racist uncle, he was also the ultimate right-winger. He thought women’s rights was silly. He stereotypes nonwhites and whites of European ancestry. He is pro-war. He believes in the system. And he “loves” America to a fault.
The crazy part is his character is what we see 24 hours a day on Fox News. I would go on to say that Rush Limbaugh is Archie Bunker.
Sharina,
Exactly. That’s why this news wasn’t so shocking. I bet he had those conversations with a lot of people in the same social circle but they paid him no mind. And it wasn’t news until TMZ got a hold of the recording, and nowadays, if TMZ reported it, all news outlets apparently have to jump on-board, citing the website.
Bulanik,
Thanks. 🙂
LikeLike
@Brothawolf
It’s funny how these types never uttered a word when it was a white president in office and american war atrocities were being committed left and right. Now that Obama’s in office more often than not they blame Obama and bring up all the atrocities that he (take out the fact that he’s a puppet working with rich white war industries) Obama is committing these crimes and ordering these missile bombings and not America. It’s something I’ve noticed for the past couple years but it was never GW Bush or Clinton or any other A-hole white president that was guilty of these missile and war campaigns killing people abroad.
LikeLike
Years I debated with some others about how Obama would be a perfect scape goat for committing atrocities abroad directly or indirectly. The economy was horrific and it was now starting to affect the elite billionaires. What do they do? They put Obama in office and went on a campaign to sell war abroad.
LikeLike
I think, however, this is understandable to some extent (which is not saying it’s right, just that it can be understood) — racism, after all, is part of, and what gave, and what came from, things like slavery, Jim Crow, lynch mobs, Native American Annihilation/Holocaust, the (Jewish) Holocaust, and so forth — things that were “Completely Terrible” by any sane person’s standards.
So it’s not a surprise to me that a lot of “white people” may want to try and distance themselves as much as possible from racism in their minds, even if they have nevertheless picked up some racist conditioning from the overall racist culture. The really dramatic forms of racism are the ones that imprint themselves on people’s minds the most. That’s just how human psychology works: people tend to remember really dramatic, shocking, or extreme things.
So if someone is told they’re being “racist”, then they think “did they just say I’m a KKK lynch mobber?” and react against that.
In one sense this is good: there is a recognition of the evil of those great historic wrongs. But in another sense it acts as an obstacle to overcoming the racism which continues to exist now, the wrongs going on now, by denying its presence and denying responsibility for what is happening right now and for one’s own actions. And then the racism that goes on now continues to cause problems. Where the history comes in is in seeing the connections between those past wrongs and the ones in the present, that it’s all part of the same pattern, and that the pattern is being continued even if not in so dramatic a fashion as then.
LikeLike
My apologies for being too familiar Bulanik.
LikeLike
I love reading posts like these. As always, Abagond, spot on! And all the great comments — your readers are some of the smartest in the blogosphere. I bow down to…most of you. LOL.
But, Abagond, why are Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly grey cases?
LikeLike
TeddyBearChubs,
I noticed that too. They see Obama as a thug in office who doesn’t belong there. They treat him worse than any white democratic president.
LikeLike
@Paige
I hope that you can get the idea what it feels like to witness 430 years of Asian-American history, esp. the last 170 years be replaced with a simple Model Minority Stereotype just so that we can eliminate at least that segment of white guilt in America.
For Native Americans, the narrative is “it couldn’t be helped”. For blacks it is “That was the past and is over. Now we live in a colour-blind post-racial society.”
Now, let’s just get over it and get back to learning the mythology about Columbus and George Washington, True Heroes.
LikeLike
@Abagond,
Threadjack alert!!! Everybody please go read Ta-Nehisi Coates latest article in The Atlantic entitled “The Case For Reparations” NOW! It’s one of the most important articles written about being Black in America in recent memory. It’s brilliantly written and argued. An absolute MUST READ!!!!!!
LikeLike
@ks: That is a trending topic, I have read it.
LikeLike
@ Mary Burrell,
What did you think? I knew Coates was good but…WOW! So many brilliant things in the article – the way he tied up 400 years of history and tied the issue to living people and government/private policy and absolutely destroyed any complaints from all sides and so on, Amazing work.
LikeLike
Ta-Nehisi Coates latest article in The Atlantic entitled “The Case For Reparations”
The article makes it abundantly clear that Coates has bought the phony story about the black Wall Street of Tulsa.
More important is his complete blind spot to the last 50 years of welfare payments, food stamps, public housing, Medicaid and Affirmative Action — AA at work and in college admissions. The bill has been paid more than once.
Meanwhile, if a huge payment were made to America’s blacks, it would take only a decade before all the money would cycle through the economy and return to those from whom it had been taken.
LikeLike
@ ks @ sb32199 @ Mary, etc
I am doing a post on the Coates article. In the meantime, please take it to the Open Thread.
LikeLike
@abagond,
Will do. Thanks.
LikeLike
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDqP82SQCZc)
Response to Cancel Colbert.
If you guys have ever really watched the Colbert Report, he makes fun of EVERYONE–LIBERALS, CONSERVATIVES, GOD. I can’t believe you guys take what this guy says seriously.
LikeLike
If most whites are racist, then so are blacks, Asians, etc. However, there is a significant difference between being mentally biased against other races or saying dumb shit and actually doing dumb shit.
The argument always runs that blacks don’t have any power so their racism is relatively harmless in comparison to whites who hold all the power. At an institutional level that is probably true. When it is at a personal level blacks attacking whites is just as bad as whites attacking blacks and blacks have just as much power to hurt, maim and kill someone of another race as anyone else.
LikeLike
Yes, but one leads inexorably to the other. It’s like saying that you can continually talk about how dumb and clearly inferior woman are in the workplace but then expect that it doesn’t bias you when it comes time to hire someone for the next open position in your department.
LikeLike
^ Your ability to stop a Black man from getting a job and taking care of his family, or influencing others to do so, is much more serious form of racism than burning a cross on his lawn. Given a choice of the two, I’ll take the cross.
LikeLike
I am not convinced there is systematic discrimination against blacks or women in the work place, at least not in Britain where I live. It will obviously exist, just as I am sure that the feminist lesbian at one of my university interviews rejected me because I was male and, at the time, relatively conservative in my views. I have no proof other her attitude and the fact that I was accepted everywhere else I was interviewed, including much more prestigious institutions which are generally considered harder to get into. However, I believe that was one individual, not the entire department or the university.
LikeLike
Now what if most of the people at the institution were “feminist lesbians”, and the institution after that and the one next in line. How well do you think you’d do? Use your common sense a bit. Yeah, hundreds of years of violence, cruelty and oppression doesn’t shape the people dishing it, right? Those beliefs just disappear. Right?
LikeLike
If I believed that the woman rejected me because she was a woman, a feminist and lesbian and that all women, feminists and lesbians are naturally and universally prejudiced against me then I would be paranoid about any and all institutions who had a large number of the same in roles of power.
However, I don’t believe women, feminists or lesbians are prejudiced against me and even if they were I think the number who would deliberately discriminate would be small, even if their conscious or unconscious prejudice might influence their decision against me.
In this case her hostility was palpable and not to be easily dismissed.
LikeLike
@ Ally
Get real. If most of the top positions in society were held by Black lesbians, would you think a Black lesbian would be a good judge as to whether there was systematic discrimination against Whites or men in the work place?
LikeLike
@ abagond
I doubt if Ally is real at all if he is “not convinced there is systematic discrimination against blacks or women in the work place, at least not in Britain where I live.” Because millions of women, blacks and Asians, have experienced otherwise. Research backs this up:
According to research, when women — which includes Asians and blacks, because we come in 2 sexes — as well as white women were questioned about this subject:
And, if it is by race and ethnicity alone, other research points to:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/more-than-half-of-women-are-discriminated-against-at-work-9029535.html
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2009/oct/18/racism-discrimination-employment-undercover
Research undertaken by the Uk’s trades union, as well employers’ organisation and advisory, conciliation and arbitration services (services designed to improve organisations and working life through better employment relations), don’t contradict such findings either….
LikeLike
If black lesbians were in the majority there is no reason to automatically assume that they would be prejudiced against whites, males and heterosexuals. There may be a bias against those, or there may not. In some cases the black lesbians might deliberately go the other way and favour those other groups to avoid the accusation of cronyism.
I am not arguing that racism or other forms of prejudice don’t exist, merely that one cannot assume they are far reaching or devastating to other groups unless one has hard evidence. Suspicion alone is not proof. My suspicions against the feminist lesbian may be totally wrong and reveal my own latent sexism, homophobia and/or racial prejudice. A heterosexual male of the same race may have been equally aggressive and dismissive of me and I would not have had grounds to assume he was biased based on race, gender or sexuality.
LikeLike
Not sure how to reply to individuals here.
To Ms (?) Bulanik,
Self reporting is not evidence that actual discrimination has taken place. I may think all sorts of people have held me back or insulted me, it doesn’t mean they have. Many narcissists live their entire lives being ‘persecuted’ and ‘dismissed’ by other people.
Those women might think they have suffered prejudice, they may indeed have suffered prejudice and discrimination, but their word alone, their feelings and perceptions do not constitute proof.
Evidence of a pay gap is also very flimsy, nebulous to the point of total disintegration when you analyse the statistics and don’t simply take them at face value.
How a pollster phrases the questions can also manipulate how a woman might talk about any inappropriate male sexual aggression she has suffered at work. Men could possibly be induced to report similar levels of harassment with carefully selected criteria and wording. Many definitions of rape have been carefully worded to exclude any concept of male rape, that is men raped by women, for instance. Mary Koss is the obvious example of that.
All of these things lie in a no man’s land of suspicion and carefully massaged views and figures to get the result a given group wants to promote, be they right or left leaning, the ‘good’ guys or the ‘bad’.
The ‘sting’ operation may point to genuine racial discrimination. It may also point to xenophobia. The UK employers might be prejudiced against any non British sounding name, so that Lenny Henry or Eddie Murphy might do well on an interview and Nicolas Sarkozy or Angela Merkel might get rejected. I am not saying xenophobia is better or worse than racism, but using names as hard evidence of racism is stretching things a little too much.
There may indeed be widespread racism in the workplace in the UK. You have yet to produce concrete evidence of it or prove that is so bad that it necessarily blights the careers of young, gifted blacks and non whites of either sex.
LikeLike
Ally,
Are you white?
LikeLike
I’m afraid that’s a question I’m not prepared to answer. The reason being that if I admit to being black I’m an Uncle Tom/Sambo sell out, white identified and self hating. If I admit I’m white I’m a racist/white supremacist and should check my privilege. If I admit to being Asian I don’t know what it is like to be black due to the unique inheritance of slavery/JIm Crow etc. and should stop throwing my lot in with my white oppressors in the hope of a few scraps from their table.
I prefer my arguments to stand and fall by their merits, or lack of them, and not by my skin colour. They are frequently accused of being racist, either white supremacist or white identified, but I will not make people’s life easier when they want to insult, dismiss and silence me (not that I am implying that is your wish).
I will admit to being English (which you could deduce from my spelling if I had not already made it clear) and male, which of course leaves me open to accusations of sexism for my dislike of much feminist ideology and ‘defender of the patriarchy’, as well not able to fully understand the situation in the US because I am a foreigner.
Many will consider my views on race conservative with far too much in common with reviled ‘rented blacks’ such as Sowell and McWhorter. I personally view my ideas as sceptical and I actually lean more to anarchism than Toryism as it is generally understood or Republicanism in the States.
LikeLike
@ Ally
Just out of interest, what kind of quantification do you trust, because you seem to have a number of rubbishing techniques at hand to “deal with” the ones available don’t you?
It’d be grand if you could post a study that YOU think is reliable, then we can all examine the rationale and detail and tell you what to make of it.
Funny how you dodged that colour question. By “funny” I don’t mean ha-ha.
Most of the Allys I know are Scots. The rest are Asian (South Asian).
Also some English posters aren’t familiar with Jim Crow, either, so you don’t have to skew your writing as if you are talking to black American audience exclusively…
LikeLike
@ Ally
You appear to be saying that you didn’t succeed at interview because the interviewer didn’t take to you:
Yet, when the reports of 1000s of people say they were discriminated against in similar contexts, their:
It may well be the case that other candidates for the job were better suited for it. It may also be the case that you are feeling what a lot of — just for argument’s sake — WHITE men feel in such situations.
The aggrievement and anger they feel is no less simply because of the misplaced sense of sheer entitlement they carry around.
LikeLike
Ally,
Okay…
LikeLike
Ally is not my real name. Being Scottish doesn’t denote racial identity. There are black Scots as well as Asian.
I believe I was discriminated by the feminist lesbian and I think her attitude was not to be lightly dismissed and provides some sort of circumstantial ‘evidence’. However, I have no proof, no real evidence of any kind. I maybe totally mistaken. She may have been aggressive to everyone that day, male and female, gay and straight, white and non white. She may have simply have tried to push me and thought my responses showed a lack of flexibility of mind. Ultimately it may not have been her decision and there may have been a quota system in place.
I would not have to be any particular race or gender to feel put out if I was rejected based on those criteria. That is the central problem most people have with racism, sexism or homophobia, that it discriminates based on arbitrary things, like sex, skin colour and choice of partner. It is not some sort of cosmic justice for blacks, gays and women if whites, straight people or men get badly treated. Their grievance isn’t to be dismissed simply because you believe Western society favours straight, cisgendered people, whites and particularly straight white men. Discrimination is discrimination, whoever suffers from it.
I am not a pollster, statistician or social scientist. I don’t have to provide, devise or even know about studies which prove or disprove the existence of racism. However, I am perfectly at liberty to point out the large holes in the methodology of studies which appear to be hopelessly inadequate or simplistic and come to facile decisions based on flimsy evidence. Such studies don’t aid the cause they are trying to help, they discredit it.
I dodged the race question for the reason I gave before. My being a particular race does not prove or disprove the existence of racism or the degree to which it inhibits black progress.
As to knowing about Jim Crow I have spent some time in the States. I don’t say that to claim any sort of expertise, merely a working knowledge of US history and race relations.
LikeLike
@ Ally, and my real name isn’t Bulanik, either! It’s Turkish: that doesn’t denote my ethnicity and nationality. I merely told that most of the Allys I knew were Scotts.
Your interviewer may not have been “aggressive” at all.
You”re just imagining it.
She might not even be a lesbian. You don’t know that.
I have met many heterosexual women who have a “lesbian” dress sense and demeanour. I have also met feminists who are ultra-feminine and highly heterosexual, and anti-feminists who were not.
And nor am I asking you to pander to anyone by substantiating your rebuttals with any kind of evidence, since all you have is your opinon. Fair enough.
You say:
None of us, to date, are afaik.
And none of us have to, either.
You’re not being singled out, and pressed to be better, or more, than you are.
However if you reject information but proffer your own OPINION as more reliable, then it stands to reason that you can your alleged evidence can be interrogated, or even requested, just as much as anyone else, in all fairness.
We can reason and present arguments. You are not alone.
Further, my mentioning of Jim Crow, wasn’t a test or an expression of surprise at your limited or working knowledge of it. Instead, it was a gentle prod to alert you that all commenters here are black or American.
Some may be as English, and others are just as racially ambiguous as you are.
I am more intrigued by your white male sense of aggrievement, truth be told.
LikeLike
*Scots
LikeLike
Why did you mention my name at all in reference to any group or nationality? Were you looking for clues as to my race? I don’t see the relevance. I made no assumptions about you other than your sex. I do not care what race or nationality you are, it makes no difference to your arguments.
I agree she may not have been a lesbian. I assumed she was by delineating an archetype, some might say a stereotype. from knowing other lesbians and seeing that she was similar. From that I deduced that she was gay. Of course it doesn’t prove she was a lesbian any more than a ‘gay looking’ man is actually gay because someone thinks he fits the model.
She was aggressive in my view, though she may not have thought it came over that way. I could of course be very over sensitive and narcissistic and view any challenge to my views in a very negative way. I don’t think that I am but I agree with you entirely that I could be.
You did ask me, challenge even, to provide evidence of racism, or the lack of it, that I felt was satisfactory to my particular standards. I repeat that I don’t have to provide anything positive to counter anything negative I say about studies and surveys I think are deeply flawed.
I have never said that my opinion about the nature and scope of racism was more valid than anyone else’s. I merely criticised the obvious weakness of a study which relied on people’s thoughts, feeling and perceptions to judge if they have suffered discrimination and which made conclusions about racism and sexism based on those. As we have established with my own example there is no conclusive evidence either way when you judge by perception alone. What I think I have suffered at someone else’s hands is not evidence of anything, other than my own sense of grievance.
And what on earth does my ‘white male sense of grievance’ mean? That you believe I am white and took the sort of check which women and blacks have to deal with all the time and became hysterical because my straight, white, male ego couldn’t cope ? If my assumption about your meaning is correct then you have made a good many assumptions about me based on no evidence and you reveal your own prejudices clearly, that white men don’t ever suffer from any form of discrimination, but if they do they are just cry babies and should suck it up and take it on the chin so they can know just how it feels for everybody else.
If that is the game you want to play I can assure you I can dissect prejudice, interested motives and spurious conclusions as well as anyone. But perhaps I have jumped to the wrong conclusion and that was not what you meant at all.
No doubt you will elaborate.
LikeLike
I’m afraid that’s a question I’m not prepared to answer. The reason being that if I admit to being black I’m an Uncle Tom/Sambo sell out, white identified and self hating. If I admit I’m white I’m a racist/white supremacist and should check my privilege. If I admit to being Asian I don’t know what it is like to be black due to the unique inheritance of slavery/JIm Crow etc. and should stop throwing my lot in with my white oppressors in the hope of a few scraps from their table.
Thanks for clearing that up dear. Maybe you should have asked the lesbian for a date. Maybe she wasn’t a lesbian but was pi$$ed off because you didn’t respond to the phrenomes she was putting out in order to entice you!
But perhaps I have jumped to the wrong conclusion and that was not what you meant at all.
Only the Shadow knows! Goodnight. Are you related to Asplund?
LikeLike
Ally
“Self reporting is not evidence that actual discrimination has taken place. I may think all sorts of people have held me back or insulted me, it doesn’t mean they have. Many narcissists live their entire lives being ‘persecuted’ and ‘dismissed’ by other people.
Those women might think they have suffered prejudice, they may indeed have suffered prejudice and discrimination, but their word alone, their feelings and perceptions do not constitute proof.”
Evidence and proof are not the same thing so I am a bit confused by what exactly you are getting at here. Self reporting can be considered evidence but is not strong enough to hold as proof.
LikeLike
Herneith,
That is a possibility. She wasn’t really my type I’m afraid. And call me old fashioned or a pussy, but I do at least like to get a smile from a woman before I unleash my ‘game’, even if she is twice my age.
Who is Asplund?
LikeLike
Sharina,
I don’t consider self reporting as reliable evidence, hence not proof of anything other than the sense of grievance (in this case) felt by the person in question, which may or may not have a basis in reality.
I’m not sure I can be any clearer than that.
LikeLike
@Kiwi,
I agree that burning a cross on a lawn is a very serious matter. There is always the threat that more serious violence may or will occur (i.e., burning the whole house down next time).
It is a different type of action from refusing someone work for racial reasons. I think this (refusing work) is still actually more common both in the past and in the present, and a burning cross in the lawn could be more psychologically damaging at least.
LikeLike
Ally
“I don’t consider self reporting as reliable evidence, hence not proof of anything other than the sense of grievance (in this case) felt by the person in question, which may or may not have a basis in reality.”—Well it is not a matter of what you believe it is but what it actually is now isn’t it? You may not consider it reliable evidence but it is evidence none the less.
But my issues is not really what you believe or don’t believe at all. My issues is that you confuse the difference between evidence and proof and because of that confusion that makes your statements unclear. Evidence is not proof on a few occasions I have seen you use the two as if they are one in the same.
LikeLike
Furthermore when I get rid of my head ache I will take the time to address other issues in your post as I see fit.
LikeLike
Sharina,
I am not confused at all. Possibly I have not made my position clear enough and I shall do so now. Evidence is not proof and feelings are not evidence.
Elliot Rodger felt he was badly treated by women and was the victim of female cruelty. He held that view in all sincerity and by all accounts he was sincerely wrong. People who think they have been discriminated may have been. Equally they may not. Their feelings, their belief that they have been ill treated, their perceptions of others’ prejudice imposed on them are not evidence of any real prejudice or discrimination. That is why I dismissed the study presented by Bulanik as no proof of anything other than those women’s sense of grievance, which may or may not have had a true foundation in how they were actually treated by whites and men.
I am sorry to hear about your headache and look forward to any other observations and arguments you can offer.
Apparently my small number of contributions constitutes posting ‘too quickly’ and that I need to ‘slow down’, whatever that means. So I may not be able to respond properly as I struggled to get this up. I have never seen a comment ration before, even though censorship of comments is commonplace.
LikeLike
Ally
“Evidence is not proof and feelings are not evidence.”—-I know evidence is not proof which is precisely what I tried to point out to you above. Proof requires much more. Evidence suggests something might be true.
As for the remainder of your post you are jumping the gun in explaining something I have not challenged and have bypassed the need to first correct this idea that self-reporting does not constitute evidence because you see it as unreliable.
It may be unreliable if only 1 or 2 people experienced it. For example if a company seeks to interview 30 females for a position and only 2 felt discriminated against then perhaps it can be dismissed, but if 28 of those females felt discriminated against and only 2 did not then it is reasonable evidence.
LikeLike
Sharina,
If all the women complain it is still no real evidence. It could reflect reality or it could be little more than a reflection of their mental state and a belief system shared among the women.
People think as individuals, they also think in groups and groups can frame how members of that group perceive interactions. If you tell a group A they have been robbed by group B and that group B is still robbing them in ways they don’t know about group A is likely to view everything group B does with enormous suspicion if they believe the allegations. Minor isolated incidents will be interpreted as part of a pattern, which may or not be the case. They will be actively searching for ways in which they have been robbed and they will almost always answer any questions about group B negatively. Any member of group A who doubts the perfidy of group B is likely to be shouted down and seen as a traitor or a fool.
Feminism, for instance, is very good and telling group A, women, that they are being robbed, oppressed, exploited, belittled and cruelly treated by group B, men. A good example would be the pay gap which feminists insist exists despite all logic and evidence to the contrary. Chances are that women who identify as feminists will suspect that they are being systematically paid less than their male counterparts because feminism has ‘proved’ that that is very likely. It does not mean that is actually the case. Hard evidence is still needed to prove that allegation.
Much of the race industry, those ostensibly dedicated to fighting racism, is also very good and telling group A, blacks and non whites, they are being deliberately discriminated by group B, whites. Now that may indeed be the case. That might always be the case, it might usually be the case, it might often be the case, it might sometimes be the case, it might occasionally be the case, or it might never be the case. However, because group A has been told this over and over and over again they are likely to interpret things with that particular mental frame: they believe they are oppressed by group B who are oppressors and that may well colour what ‘evidence’ they give via self reporting. It might make them see things which may not be there or lead them to exaggerate what is there.
I am not denying the existence or racism or sexism. I am trying to show that the model the study uses to search for racism and sexism and the ‘evidence’ it gathers is worthless in trying to prove the existence of racism and sexism.
What this study of Bulanik shows in neither evidence nor proof of racism and sexism. The women’s suspicion that they have been subjected to racism and sexism is not evidence of anything other than the existence of their suspicion itself which may or may not have a basis in reality. If you want to prove what you suspect to be true is actually true you need to find evidence. That suspicion of itself is not evidence, only evidence is evidence and only enough evidence will prove a case or build a theory of strong probability.
LikeLike
@ Allly
Since you do not want to prejudge anything and prize objectivity above all, you will, of course, now dissect the motives of Whites to use the Anything But Racism argument:
LikeLike
Well our views differ rather as to the effects of racism. I don’t pretend that it doesn’t exist or that discrimination isn’t a problem. My argument is that it isn’t as widespread as is often claimed, that it isn’t part of a grand conspiracy of worldwide white supremacy and that it isn’t totally debilitating. I believe it is perfectly possible to succeed with things are as they are and with the level of discrimination that does exist in the West.
If I see any white person (or person of any other colour) who has an obvious motive to discount all forms of prejudice and discrimination for any reason then I will certainly comment on that. If someone can show me concrete proof or at least a large body of evidence of racism, sexism or any other form of discrimination in any given situation then I will be the first to acknowledge the problem. However, we may well disagree to what constitutes reliable evidence.
My general point about Bulanik’s quoted study is that if there is racism/sexism in the places they investigated a study which totally lacks credibility is likely to make matters worse as it is so easy for any racists/sexists (as well as anyone else with less devious intentions) to point out the holes and discredit the findings.
LikeLike
@ Ally
Right, so no dissection of White motives from you. They get a pass for some reason.
LikeLike
You would need to be more specific as to what motives you mean and quite how this fits into the discussion. Possibly I have lost the thread somewhere and you are referring to an earlier post of mine. In general I would say that many people have a possible motive to do a thing, but unless you have some evidence that they have done something in particular it all remains idle conjecture.
You appear to want me to say that I give white people some sort of pass for any racist behaviour they exhibit or that unconsciously I do. If that is so I don’t really see the relevance to the discussion about that study into possible racism and sexism in the UK. I certainly have not stated either way whether or not what those women reported was true.
Generally I do not believe that racism in the UK workplace is so acute that it creates serious problems for black workers across the board. I don’t believe sexism against women to be any sort of serious issue at all. However, I am well aware that there will be plenty of cases of discrimination in the UK for all sorts of factors, race and sex being two of them. However, that isn’t really all that relevant to the topic of Bulanik’s quoted study and how credible I find it.
I was more interested in pointing out what I believe to be the fatally poor methodology of the study and the uselessness of the results obtained by self reporting. Quite what that has to do with anyone’s motives, white or black, male or female, escapes me at the moment.
Perhaps you could elucidate for me.
LikeLike
The definition of the word racist sure has changed from what it used to mean. It is WAY overused. Racism is an inherent condescending attitude of the heart toward those of skin color different than yours. NOWDAYS anybody who simply disagrees with anyone with skin of a different color gets accused of racism. The word “racism” is being used as a weapon to shut people up.
LikeLike
Don Sterling is gross.
LikeLike
How so Leigh???? Are you sure?
lol!
LikeLike
@ King:
He is gross, I tell you. Seriously, who would find that beach ball stomach attractive?
Anyway, if I recall correctly, there is an old quote by actress Zsa Zsa Gabor:
“No rich man is ugly.”
It’s applicable in this case. V. Stiviano has some ‘splainin to do.
LikeLike
@King:
I wish I could find a rich, senile old fcuk like that!
LikeLike
^ Sterling ain’t so senile, he’d probably keep you on your toes. Anna Nicole’s find? Well, he was more, uh, passive.
LikeLike
@ Leigh
Haha!! But even without the obtrusive walrus gut—just look at this guy’s face! It looks like an old catcher’s mitt!
LikeLike
Keep looking Herneith! Some day your rich, and half-dead prince will come!! Lol!!
LikeLike
@King
Ah, yes, worn out and leathery. LOL! Anyway, I’m not naive. I mean, really now. Miss. Stiviano is with him because he’s a great catch? Sure, he is. He has wads of money up the wazoo. You’d have to sell your soul to be involved with someone like that, and a racist one, too.
LikeLike
I think part of the reaction is that racism is considered evil, and so they do not want to think they have an association with it. This consideration that it is evil is a good thing, not a bad one, since it means that the problematic nature of racism is recognized. It’s a start, but not an end. The trick is realizing that even though racism is “evil”, that doesn’t mean “most people” are therefore evil people, just that they have some problems in this area. To be evil as a person, you have to exceed a certain level of problematics. Hitler was evil. The average white guy who ignorantly gets “colorblind” has problems, but is not an evil person, at least not on that basis (if they are an axe murderer, then yeah, they’re evil, but on the basis of the axe murdering). Once one gets over that hurdle and makes the separation, then one can approach it as “this is a problem I can overcome” instead of “OMG I’m a horrific evil person and don’t deserve to live” — which is not going to get anywhere but to make the person not want to change but just deny.
LikeLike
What happened to Kanye since then? Was he kidnapped and sent to the sunken place?
LikeLike
@ jefe
Legitimate question!
Donald Trump seems more racist than George Bush!
But again, these are politicians after all and what they do in public, is, to a large extent, defined by perceived political needs of the moment. For example Trump expressed recently disdain for African countries (“s…hole countries”), or so it seems. But in the last few days he maintained a quite cordial meeting with the head of state of Nigeria and pledged to help this country to recover money illicitly drained from there to US banks or offshore entities, and also to help them to battle the Boko Haram insurgency. Quite a package!
So either that African country is seen as a bad or good thing to relate to! It depends on context!
Politics… and its contortions!
LikeLike
“Was he kidnapped and sent to the sunken place?”
It would seem so. He sank into the loony Kardashian family.
The Independent (UK) ran a story on Kanye’s latest outrageous remarks about Trump and the “choice” of slavery. While the article was informative, the comments were hilarious. This one really made me laugh:
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/kanye-west-slavery-choice-african-americans-us-history-trump-tmz-interview-a8332036.html
The respect I once had for him after the Katrina crisis where he called out George Bush has drained away to the “sunken place”.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Kanye West doesn’t care about black people. There fixed it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ Mary Burrell
LOL! You did fix it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Yet most Whites are racist – and deep down they seem to know it.” Really?Blacks who make such statements are racist themselves and don’t even realize it. Racism isn’t just a “white thing” bro.
LikeLike
@ Wayne
Actually the author does in fact believe black people can be racist:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2009/04/06/i-am-racist/
Racism is on a continuum. No one in U.S. society can avoid being at least a little racist because we grow up surrounded by racial stereotypes, racial bias, and colorblind racism.
Pointing this out is not racist; it is describing the current situation that exists.
LikeLike
afronerdism on Tumblr:
LikeLike
[…] Racist Uncles – most Whites are not as bad as the Klan […]
LikeLike
Racism is a fake word that was invented by Leon Trotsky in 1927.
LikeLike