Do you consider yourself a racist?

I was brought up in India for a dew years, between 5 and 9 years old,
at that time, myself and my younger brother, were the only white kids
in the area, so I was just one of the "gang", we all played together and
we all spoke the same languages, this attitude has stayed with me my
whole life, we are all the same shape with the same bits, sometimes
the outer wrapping is a different colour, but we are still human beings.

I am colour blind when it comes to people.

Mike.
 

I appreciate everyone's honesty on this thread.

I was lucky enough to be raised by parents who were not racist and had friends who came to visit from all sorts of cultures, a black man who worked as an artist apprentice with my father would visit with his family and a Jewish man who had tattooed numbers on his wrist from the concentration camps are examples, but my school in West Virginia was entirely white. This was bad as far as exposure to diverse cultures, but good in so far that I never heard any negative remarks from racists because it just didn't come up. My family didn't describe people be race, but by name and so my brothers and I were actually teenagers before we realized what people meant when they described someone as "colored."

It would be impossible to raise children like that now because TV and movies are like the Amtrak man, constantly describing people by race. I'm just grateful that I wasn't taught to be racist by my family or peers, because I think it does have to be taught, no one is born racist.
 
Della said:
I appreciate everyone's honesty on this thread.

I was lucky enough to be raised by parents who were not racist and had friends who came to visit from all sorts of cultures, a black man who worked as an artist apprentice with my father would visit with his family and a Jewish man who had tattooed numbers on his wrist from the concentration camps are examples, but my school in West Virginia was entirely white. This was bad as far as exposure to diverse cultures, but good in so far that I never heard any negative remarks from racists because it just didn't come up. My family didn't describe people be race, but by name and so my brothers and I were actually teenagers before we realized what people meant when they described someone as "colored."

It would be impossible to raise children like that now because TV and movies are like the Amtrak man, constantly describing people by race. I'm just grateful that I wasn't taught to be racist by my family or peers, because I think it does have to be taught, no one is born racist.
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This reminds me of two friends I hung out with in middle school. One was a Sikh and the other was black. Us being sort of outcasts in different ways, we were like a nerdy loser gang. I wish I had kept in touch with them but things were quite chaotic when we were all rushed into the war.
 

We had no non-whites in our school.. or even in our area in the city where I lived. We did get a Chinese girl from Hong Kong come to our school when I was around 14 years old, and she was the same age as us ... her father had a contract in the UK, and she came to us unable to speak a word of English, within 6 months she was as fluent as the rest of us... I remember being utterly amazed! She left after a year.. but she was the only non-white I ever encountered in the west end of the city where I lived

That said... in the East , and south of the city there were a few Asian corner shops.. when we were in those areas ( and we had relatives who lived there , so we'd go often ).. we'd use those shops, and ''Ali and his family'' were never treated any differently by us than anyone else.. it never occurred to us to think of him as being different to us..even tho' we knew they lived a different way to us..and dressed differently.

We also had a HUGE Italian community all across the city..as well as Irish... every second person was Irish, every 3rd was Italian ( and usually owned a restaurant, or chip shop, Ice cream shop or cafe ) ... and we were all the same, not only did we not think of them as being different, we never heard a derogatory word from our parents or friends about them either, ( well yes the Irish, because of the Catholic /Protestant troubles, but not a racial stereotype)... and so it just wouldn't have occurred to me ,and I suspect most people I knew to ever be anything but as respectful to them as we did our own parents

..I didn't know any Black people.. not one.. never met a Black person until I was well into adulthood, we just didn't have any living where I was born and raised, or any that I saw in other parts of the city.
Ultimately when I was around 22 I met the woman who was to become one of my closest friends, her family is from Pakistan.. and very traditional, and despite being here decades can barely speak English , and she's very western.. goes against everything they ever wanted for her.

I've often wondered why it was that we never acted in any kind of racist manner in our tough Scottish city...a city well known for being aggressive to each other... if not to other races... and you know I absolutely think it was because we saw no difference, I mean that these people were no different in our eyes because they spoke like us , acted like us, ( they may have worshipped differently but we as Catholics and protestants did too)... and so I feel that by living as the Romans do when in Rome.. everyone got along with no problems noted, and no offences taken or given...and at no time did anyone point out a race when describing someone... even in the media.. it would be John smith , not Black, yellow, or Brown Jim McDonald .. just Scotsman Jim McDonald, ... or Scottish shopkeeper Ali Patel.. or whatever.. because they were just that to us .., a Scotsman despite the colour of their skin or the country of their birth.

Sadly , these days.. I know that much of those South and Eastern areas of my childhood city.. are completely engulfed with people of every colour and creed.. not sad that they're there but sad that I hear that there's a lot of resentment and prejudice because they don't assimilate into the Scottish culture as their father and grandfathers did, and crime is very high in those areas .. and it causes resentment among many people, and now racism has reared it's ugly head .. ..to me that's something that should never have happened, and it's heartbreaking to know that 45 years after leaving that city.. it stepped backwards with regard to racism,.. when it didn't even need to go forward back in the 60's and 70's , everybody already lived happily side by side..
 
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hollydolly said:
not sad that they're there but sad that I hear that there's a lot of resentment and prejudice because they don't assimilate into the Scottish culture as their father and grandfathers did, and crime is very high in those areas ..
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Why do you think they are not assimilating as "their father and grandfathers did"?

Nice thoughtful post by the way, and a very different set of circumstances that I am used to hearing about.
 
Lavinia said:
You are correct to some extent. There will never be a time when all people are exactly the same. The tribes of Africa each have their physical differences, as do the Europeans. There are racial 'types'...Slavic, etc.
I don't know if this is diverting from the subject, but we hear a lot about 'white supremacy'...yet so many people immigrate to 'white' countries and adopt the lifestyle of white people...and wish to be thought of as belonging to their country. Are they not proving the concept of white supremacy?
When Europeans lived in Africa and India....they kept their own culture, they didn't adopt that of the natives.
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The Colonialists around the world not only didn't adopt Native cultures, they did their best to destroy them. Often the Catholic Church and other missionaries were their best allies in doing so. In North America thousands of Native children were basically kidnapped under the pretext.of giving them an education when the goal was to indoctrinate them with colonial beliefs and undermine, sabotage their own cultures.

They were often abused and many of them died, were buried in unmarked graves and their families not informed. But here are people alive today who are survivors of those 'Boarding Schools', many of them with lasting emotional scars of childhood trauma. So it is not really something of the distant past, a footnote in history.

Many of the immigrants do their best to hold onto their cultural values as long as they can. Some do well enough to garner dubious and often harmful in the long run 'positive' stereotypes that draw.negative feelings from both the domiant culture and other subcultures.

Whites are not the only peoples with enculturated racist notions. Most Asian cultures frown on intermingling with even other Asians. Both China and Japan have ethnic minorities within their borders who are older cultures. In the case of the Ainu in Japan they populated those islands long before those who became modern Japanese and similarities exiat between their treatment and that of tribal people in N.America.

That various peoples have claimed supremacy and used force to subjugate, control others argues the commonality of human nature. Some cultures tend toward inclusion and co-opperation, some towards 'might makes right' (it does not, it merely shapes current physical reality). Just as some individuals are compassionate and kind while others are selfish and willing to do anything to feel they've 'won' at life.

Supremacy is about economics, weaponry and dubious legal power to control others. It is not the same thing as actually being 'superior' as human beings.

.
 
I don't think that we are all born equal. Seems to me that some folks are born "with the proverbial silver spoon" in their mouths. When they grow up they become Prime Ministers, Presidents, CEO of big companies and fly private jets, politicians with big fat pensions and if they are born with a silver spoon in Russia, they buy giant Super yachts that cost millions and millions of dollars.

I know it's not fair but you gotta accept the fact that most of life is not fair.
 
Alligatorob said:
Why do you think they are not assimilating as "their father and grandfathers did"?

Nice thoughtful post by the way, and a very different set of circumstances that I am used to hearing about.
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TBH..I can only surmise it's because they are no longer a minority and haven't been for a couple of decades , so don't feel it necessary to 'fit in''.. or as I said earlier 'When in Rome '' etc... so they live pretty much in areas which were once predominately white but poor , and are now lots of very mixed races... and although when I was young, the Non whites spoke English with a strong Scottish accent as we did, which meant we absolutely took them for one of us and never gave it a thought that they weren't.. that's not the case quite so much today, because I feel that they wish to keep their own Identiies far more than they feel it necessary to become ''one of us'' and quite right too if that's what they wish.. they no longer have to mix with the locals if they prefer not to... sadly it does create a ghetto like atmosphere in some areas, and ultimately racist thoughts and actions ... but all of that is supposition...on my part.
 
Packerjohn said:
I don't think that we are all born equal. Seems to me that some folks are born "with the proverbial silver spoon" in their mouths. When they grow up they become Prime Ministers, Presidents, CEO of big companies and fly private jets, politicians with big fat pensions and if they are born with a silver spoon in Russia, they buy giant Super yachts that cost millions and millions of dollars.

I know it's not fair but you gotta accept the fact that most of life is not fair.
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We may not all be born 'equal' in all things (economic situation, innate intelligence, talents etc) but the any society that wants to call itself a democracy should strive to provide everyone with equal opportunities to achieve what they can and hopefully maximize their potential. Doing so would be more beneficial to a nation in the long run than catering to those with the most $$.

As one of my dearest friends from now defunct site dedicated to seniors often said: Just because life is not fair doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to be fair to each other.
 
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hollydolly said:
We had no non-whites in our school.. or even in our area in the city where I lived. We did get a Chinese girl from Hong Kong come to our school when I was around 14 years old, and she was the same age as us ... her father had a contract in the UK, and she came to us unable to speak a word of English, within 6 months she was as fluent as the rest of us... I remember being utterly amazed! She left after a year.. but she was the only non-white I ever encountered in the west end of the city where I lived

That said... in the East , and south of the city there were a few Asian corner shops.. when we were in those areas ( and we had relatives who lived there , so we'd go often ).. we'd use those shops, and ''Ali and his family'' were never treated any differently by us than anyone else.. it never occurred to us to think of him as being different to us..even tho' we knew they lived a different way to us..and dressed differently.

We also had a HUGE Italian community all across the city..as well as Irish... every second person was Irish, every 3rd was Italian ( and usually owned a restaurant, or chip shop, Ice cream shop or cafe ) ... and we were all the same, not only did we not think of them as being different, we never heard a derogatory word from our parents or friends about them either, ( well yes the Irish, because of the Catholic /Protestant troubles, but not a racial stereotype)... and so it just wouldn't have occurred to me ,and I suspect most people I knew to ever be anything but as respectful to them as we did our own parents

..I didn't know any Black people.. not one.. never met a Black person until I was well into adulthood, we just didn't have any living where I was born and raised, or any that I saw in other parts of the city.
Ultimately when I was around 22 I met the woman who was to become one of my closest friends, her family is from Pakistan.. and very traditional, and despite being here decades can barely speak English , and she's very western.. goes against everything they ever wanted for her.

I've often wondered why it was that we never acted in any kind of racist manner in our tough Scottish city...a city well known for being aggressive to each other... if not to other races... and you know I absolutely think it was because we saw no difference, I mean that these people were no different in our eyes because they spoke like us , acted like us, ( they may have worshipped differently but we as Catholics and protestants did too)... and so I feel that by living as the Romans do when in Rome.. everyone got along with no problems noted, and no offences taken or given...and at no time did anyone point out a race when describing someone... even in the media.. it would be John smith , not Black, yellow, or Brown Jim McDonald .. just Scotsman Jim McDonald, ... or Scottish shopkeeper Ali Patel.. or whatever.. because they were just that to us .., a Scotsman despite the colour of their skin or the country of their birth.

Sadly , these days.. I know that much of those South and Eastern areas of the my childhood city.. are completely engulfed with people of every colour and creed.. not sad that they're there but sad that I hear that there's a lot of resentment and prejudice because they don't assimilate into the Scottish culture as their father and grandfathers did, and crime is very high in those areas .. and it causes resentment among many people, and now racism has reared it's ugly head .. ..to me that's something that should never have happened, and it's heartbreaking to know that 45 years after leaving that city.. it stepped backwards with regard to racism,.. when it didn't even need to go forward back in the 60's and 70's , everybody already lived happily side by side..
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I'm the same age group as you and have lived in various locales. There were a small number of black girls at school but I don't remember us thinking of them as 'different'. They lived and behaved as we did and had Western names. One girl I knew was from South America and she was the one who kept herself apart from the other girls....her choice not ours.
To be honest, I think part of the current problem with racism is from the immigrants themselves, and their attitude towards the whites. There is a lot of bitterness about 'colonialism and slavery' and feel that we 'owe' them something. They need to let go of the past....we are a new generation and so are they.
 
Lavinia said:
I'm the same age group as you and have lived in various locales. There were a small number of black girls at school but I don't remember us thinking of them as 'different'. They lived and behaved as we did and had Western names. One girl I knew was from South America and she was the one who kept herself apart from the other girls....her choice not ours.
To be honest, I think part of the current problem with racism is from the immigrants themselves, and their attitude towards the whites. There is a lot of bitterness about 'colonialism and slavery' and feel that we 'owe' them something. They need to let go of the past....we are a new generation and so are they.
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Was this in the North of England predominately ?
 
Lavinia said:
No, I have lived all over the country....Scotland, Ireland and various parts of England. (Not relevant, but Scotland had the highest level of education).
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yes being Scottish born and raised we were always aware of that growing up, it was never a secret that Scottish Education was superior to many other countries .... but I'm surprised you had black girls in your school in Scotland if indeed it was Scotland..., we never saw any black people at all... and that was both in our Upmarket area where I lived in the west and in the poorer areas where my relatives lived in the South and East as discussed above.. . Indian/Pakistani Asians yes, Black people no..
 
hollydolly said:
yes being Scottish born and raised we were always aware of that growing up, it was never a secret that Scottish Education was superior to many other countries .... but I'm surprised you had black girls in your school in Scotland if indeed it was Scotland..., we never saw any black people at all... and that was both in our Upmarket area where I lived in the west and in the poorer areas where my relatives lived in the South and East as discussed above.. . Indian/Pakistani Asians yes, Black people no..
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I was brought up in a military family...hence all the travelling....there were quite a few servicemen from the West Indies. In fact, there were enough of them to form their own cricket team! Incidently, they all had Scottish names...named after the slave owners who ran the plantations.
 
A bit of anthropology. When Western capitalism became dominant over the last century, displacing tyrants and monarchies, the wealthy and corporations, conspired with university elites to promote a society with endless population and infrastructure growth that in recent decades has been summarized as GDP. To do so given global modern transportation and communication required mixing a wide range of societies, cultures, religions, and peoples with a wide range of physical and social philosophies and physical traits.

Those societies that over millennia had become more urban, naturally on average evolved for example more physically attractive faces while the more rural more outcast, less so, especially indigenous people struggling to survive in harsh environments. Simply put, human urbanization tended to give those with greater wealth, power, and social status the ability to demand most attractive faced mates and in some cases also Bell curves of intelligence more to the right. Another facet would be physical height tended to be greater with more warlike urban people like Caucasians.

The problem in the modern era few are publicly willing to openly mention is such differences between people are a source of friction that elite mixing advocates would prefer not exist given their agenda. In recent decades the aggressive push of those with some social agendas often aggravates against our innate creature tendencies.
 
Geezer Garage said:
Yes, I race here, I race there. Much like the shootist shoots, the racist races, often with black, brown, yellow and gay friends. Long live the racist, and to hell with prejudice.
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I spent more that 40 years directly involved in oval track racing here in Southern Ontario in Canada. In all that time I can't recall a black driver or pit crew member in any class. It just wasn't a hobby that blacks were into, which is strange when you look at how much they like fancy cars. JimB.
 
I grew up in small, upper middle class northeastern US towns in the 50s & 60s where racism, classism, homophobia, antisemitism, and other "isms" were prevalent. Even in my own relatively progressive family there was slight undercurrent of racism- nothing dastardly like the "n" word, but it was there, sure as shooting. Media promoted stereotypes, constantly reinforcing the perception of "other."

There were a couple of Black kids in my school (none in my grade though) and I can't honestly say I knew them or sought them out because I didn't. They were a bit of a curiosity to me, TBH. It wasn't until I was nearly 18 when I moved to Los Angeles that I met, attended college with, and worked with people of every race, color, national origin, sexual preference and religion.

Maybe I remember things in the US differently, but I'm plenty skeptical about stories of Blacks, Whites, Asians and Latinos all hanging around the lunch tables at school being best of buddies after school and getting along like gangbusters back in the 1960s. How many times did your different race friends spend the night at your house and you at theirs? Or have dinner with each other's families? Or go to the movies together? Or double date?

In those days, de facto segregation through school borders was more common than not. Kids in integrated schools tended to segregate themselves.

Howard Stern (famous American radio shock-jock for those abroad) talks about being a tall, skinny Jewish kid attending a nearly all-Black high school in the late 60s & early 70s. By his report he got his ass kicked almost every day. Racial tensions were very high back then so his stories ring true. (Gotta wonder what all those race riots were about if life was all sunshine, lollipops and kumbaya back then. Or now.)

Fast forward to today. I have some Black, Asian, Latino and LGBTQ friends. Not as many as I'd like, but far more than my parents had. Furthering the trend, my children have many friends of every race and my grandchildren attend schools with highly diverse student bodies.

I'd like to say our country has made great progress, but context is everything. Los Angeles is very different than rural areas, even in California never mind the rest of the country.

Just in the past couple of years several US states have passed voting restrictions and increased gerrymandering specifically to marginalize people of color and low income. We may have come a long way, but we've got many miles yet to go.
 
StarSong said:
I grew up in small, upper middle class northeastern US towns in the 50s & 60s where racism, classism, homophobia, antisemitism, and other "isms" were prevalent. Even in my own relatively progressive family there was slight undercurrent of racism- nothing dastardly like the "n" word, but it was there, sure as shooting. Media promoted stereotypes, constantly reinforcing the perception of "other."

There were a couple of Black kids in my school (none in my grade though) and I can't honestly say I knew them or sought them out because I didn't. They were a bit of a curiosity to me, TBH. It wasn't until I was nearly 18 when I moved to Los Angeles that I met, attended college with, and worked with people of every race, color, national origin, sexual preference and religion.

Maybe I remember things in the US differently, but I'm plenty skeptical about stories of Blacks, Whites, Asians and Latinos all hanging around the lunch tables at school being best of buddies after school and getting along like gangbusters back in the 1960s. How many times did your different race friends spend the night at your house and you at theirs? Or have dinner with each other's families? Or go to the movies together? Or double date?

In those days, de facto segregation through school borders was more common than not. Kids in integrated schools tended to segregate themselves.

Howard Stern (famous American radio shock-jock for those abroad) talks about being a tall, skinny Jewish kid attending a nearly all-Black high school in the late 60s & early 70s. By his report he got his ass kicked almost every day. Racial tensions were very high back then so his stories ring true. (Gotta wonder what all those race riots were about if life was all sunshine, lollipops and kumbaya back then. Or now.)

Fast forward to today. I have some Black, Asian, Latino and LGBTQ friends. Not as many as I'd like, but far more than my parents had. Furthering the trend, my children have many friends of every race and my grandchildren attend schools with highly diverse student bodies.

I'd like to say our country has made great progress, but context is everything. Los Angeles is very different than rural areas, even in California never mind the rest of the country.

Just in the past couple of years several US states have passed voting restrictions and increased gerrymandering specifically to marginalize people of color and low income. We may have come a long way, but we've got many miles yet to go.
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WoW...things just couldn't have been any more different than where I was raised... like another time in History reading this tbh...
 
Della said:
I'm just remembering a woman I knew a few years ago. Her white daughter married a black man and she just wasn't happy about it. Then her first grandchild, a beautiful little brown-skinned girl was born and it was love at first sight for grandma, all the last bits of racism left her heart in one magic moment.
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I have had so many friends that had bi-racial Grandkids and all racism left them too.
 
Wow, this is a thought-provoking thread. I will just try to be honest.

I was raised by a mostly racist family. My relatives in the mountains of North Carolina were most definitely racist. My grandfather said some pretty hateful things and my step-grandmother was a homophobe as well. Lots to unpack there. I know my mother (grandfather's daughter) was racist until she passed away last November. When she lived alone and was assigned black caregivers she would turn them away. :(

I could very well have been racist as well because I went to junior high school in the early 70's when busing and integration was the norm in Florida. Black students hated us white kids for being brought into their schools and violence was the norm. But my best friend in junior high was black.

I went to a predominantly all-white, Christian high school. That's pretty much as racist as it gets.

Then I went to college. My first partner was Cuban. His parents were old-school Cuban and were as sweet as they come. We bought a house and they used to show up outside in their station wagon on Saturday morning with his aunt smoking out the car window. I would be in my boxer shorts and a t-shirt and his aunt would come in and just smother me with love.

We split up after 6 years and I spent some time alone. Then I met my current partner of 30+ years, who is Filipino. He has taught me a lot about race and discrimination (even among Asian cultures). I think because I am gay that I understand oppression and have more sympathy for groups that are minimized.

With that said, I cannot honestly say that we do not all harbor some racism that is innate to our upbringing. I can only say that we all need to do the best we can to overcome it and accept everyone equally.
 
ohioboy said:
Here is a PRIME example of racism/racist view. We all remember the Landmark Supreme Court decision of the interracial marriage case of Loving v. Virginia in 1967 where they struck down the VA law. Here is an excerpt from the VA trial Judge's decision upholding the miscegenation law.

"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix."
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Thank you for this post. It's consistent with my memory of how large swaths of the US felt and behaved toward people of other races back in the late 1960s. And in Charlottesville just a few years ago. And in counties and states today who've passed laws to keep POC and poor folks from exercising their right to vote. That's called racism, people. If your state or county has passed those laws and you're not fighting against them, you're complicit.

There's plenty of racism, religious hatred, homophobia, tribalism, marginalization, and hatred going on every day in virtually every country on the planet. Some subtle, some impossible to ignore.

I quote the estimable Maya Angelou: "Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better."

Most people know better. How many of us will go out of our way to do better?
 

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