General racial relations: 70s compared to present

Sawfish said:
So then we may conclude that racial relations are better as judged by reproductive results?
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Family acceptance and love of those results and the couple that produced them. Family acceptance includes both races in the South because neither for the most part welcomed a significant other of the other race into the family for some years post integration.
 

The American Anthropological Association says this about "race."
In the United States both scholars and the general public have been conditioned to viewing human races as natural and separate divisions within the human species based on visible physical differences. With the vast expansion of scientific knowledge in this century, however, it has become clear that human populations are not unambiguous, clearly demarcated, biologically distinct groups. Evidence from the analysis of genetics (e.g., DNA) indicates that most physical variation, about 94%, lies within so-called racial groups. Conventional geographic "racial" groupings differ from one another only in about 6% of their genes. This means that there is greater variation within "racial" groups than between them. In neighboring populations there is much overlapping of genes and their phenotypic (physical) expressions. Throughout history whenever different groups have come into contact, they have interbred. The continued sharing of genetic materials has maintained all of humankind as a single species.
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That's what it all comes down to for me. Humankind is a single species.

Yes, there are ignorant people who will discriminate against others based on skin color. There are white people who hate black people and more and more these days there are people of color who hate white people. There are also people who hate fat people, people who think disabled people are stupid, people who hate Catholics, people who won't hire people who aren't good looking -- it goes on and on, nothing is fair. I can't go to church without noticing how the pastor favors the good singers.

All this unfairness exists, but we get nowhere by hating each other. Hate based on race is one of the dumbest forms there is because there really is no such thing as race. We all came from Africa, some moved north and lost pigment, some didn't. Maybe if we quit looking for racism and seeing race in everything, it would fade away.

I dislike woke culture because it encourages looking for racism in everything. The term "woke," started by black people, is defined as
" being conscious of racial discrimination in society and other forms of oppression and injustice." That doesn't seem helpful to me as we try to go forward.

I think that if we accept that humankind is a single species, then it's time to quit defining and separating ourselves by race.
 

Della said:
The American Anthropological Association says this about "race."


That's what it all comes down to for me. Humankind is a single species.

Yes, there are ignorant people who will discriminate against others based on skin color. There are white people who hate black people and more and more these days there are people of color who hate white people. There are also people who hate fat people, people who think disabled people are stupid, people who hate Catholics, people who won't hire people who aren't good looking -- it goes on and on, nothing is fair. I can't go to church without noticing how the pastor favors the good singers.

All this unfairness exists, but we get nowhere by hating each other. Hate based on race is one of the dumbest forms there is because there really is no such thing as race. We all came from Africa, some moved north and lost pigment, some didn't. Maybe if we quit looking for racism and seeing race in everything, it would fade away.

I dislike woke culture because it encourages looking for racism in everything. The term "woke," started by black people, is defined as
" being conscious of racial discrimination in society and other forms of oppression and injustice." That doesn't seem helpful to me as we try to go forward.

I think that if we accept that humankind is a single species, then it's time to quit defining and separating ourselves by race.
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I wish I could give you more than one 'like' for that post!!!!
 
Alligatorob said:
In the South where I grew up the races have always been mixed physically, in the sense of living close together and knowing each other. When I was a kid I knew lots of black people, but never saw them in school, a restaurant (except as waitstaff), or at the movies. The big change now is that we are seeing more intermarriage and mixed race families, as I said still not the norm, but gaining both in frequency and acceptance. It was illegal when I was growing up.
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I can agree with this. My husband and I are both white and grew up in the south. As a child I went to a black dentist. My husband went to a black physician.
The Laws, the systems, agencies, etc were racist. Individual relations between races were less so. I entered high school when integration began and I remember very little problems In our area of SC. But I wonder if I was just naive and unaware of them.

But to answer the question- I think things are are better than they were in the 70’s but always room for improvement. No one really bats an eye much anymore at interracial families. The rural area I currently live in is very integrated.

What I think is much worse than in the 70’s is black on black violence. And more children of all races being raised in a single parent household.

I think the biggest problem is not that we see skin color but that we assign value to skin color.
 
My Daughter in law 39 years of age [black] has a different perspective than I do about how society views race.

My wife 78 years of age[hispanic] has a different perspective than I do about race.

Me [white] 81 years of age IMO race relations will be experiencing on going changes.

My reasoning is due to popular TV programming. These were considered
Boundary-Breaking Black TV Shows.
https://www.history.com/news/black-... as a spinoff,Black cast, spanning 11 seasons. These shows helped broaden the range of African American experiences portrayed on television.

Fast forward to 2022

13 Must-See Black TV Shows Coming This Winter
THE NEXT FEW MONTHS ARE FILLED WITH BINGE-WORTHY CONTENT, AS WELL AS THE RETURN OF POPULAR PROGRAMS SUCH AS ‘GROWN-ISH’ AND ‘BEL-AIR.’

https://www.essence.com/entertainment/13-must-see-black-tv-shows-coming-this-winter/

Greys Anatomy, The Chicago series of Chicago Fire, Chicago Med & Chicago PD
have all & still deal with how African American's are treated differently than white.

TV & Social media have given extensive coverage to the death of blacks. IMO that is different than the 70's.

America still has to improve in racial equality but unlike the 70's exposer to the ills still happening are being exposed routinely.
 
Sawfish said:
Much of the time it depends on what the racial mixture is.

My daughter has told me that at college, in class discussions, she would sometimes be counted as a "person of color", and at other times as "white".

Definitely she has some east Asian physical characteristics (hair, eyes, eye color), but probably no east Asian would think of her as Asian, while many whites might think of her as white.

The whole thing is somehow amusing to me, I don't know why...
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Well, it's not amusing to all of us..

But your post reminded me of a book I read that was about all the reasons eyewitness testimony is the least reliable form of testimony..
One thing the book said is most people find it easier to recognize and to identify individuals who are the same race as themselves, and harder to recognize and to identify individuals who are different races than themselves. I'm wondering if that's the reason mixed individuals find it very difficult if not impossible?
 
JaniceM said:
Well, it's not amusing to all of us..

But your post reminded me of a book I read that was about all the reasons eyewitness testimony is the least reliable form of testimony..
One thing the book said is most people find it easier to recognize and to identify individuals who are the same race as themselves, and harder to recognize and to identify individuals who are different races than themselves. I'm wondering if that's the reason mixed individuals find it very difficult if not impossible?
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If we're talking about finding acceptance among peers, *that* aspect has improved here on the mainland. For one thing, there are really quite a lot of mixed race kids, as others have noted. And there are very many Eurasian kids, at least in urban-type environments.

My wife is from Hawaii. That's been an actual, not figurative, racial melting pot. There are different terms for racial mixes; e.g., our daughter is "hapa", which sounds like "half" (and maybe it was a pidgin rendering of "half"), and it now typically means either Asian/Caucasian, Asian/Hawaiian, or Caucasian/Hawaiian mix of some recognizable type.

If the mix is indeterminate, it is "calabash". But a mixed breed dog is a "poi dog".

Every other race/ethnicity has a local slang equivalent, often either pidgin or native Hawaiian derivation.

All of this is completely out on the table there.
 
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Sawfish said:
If we're talking about finding acceptance among peers, *that* aspect has improved here on the mainland. For one thing, there are really quite a lot of mixed race kids, as others have noted. And there are very many Eurasian kids, at least in urban-type environments.

My wife is from Hawaii. That's been an actual, not figurative, racial melting pot. There are different terms for racial mixes; e.g., our daughter is "hapa", which sounds like "half" (and maybe it was a pidgin rendering of "half"), and it now typically means either Asian/Caucasian, Asian/Hawaiian, or Caucasian/Hawaiian mix of some recognizable type.

If the mix is indeterminate, it is "calabash". But a mixed breed dog is a "poi dog".

Every other race/ethnicity has a local slang equivalent, often either pidgin or native Hawaiian derivation.

All of this is completely out on the table there.
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It's good to hear there are improvements in your area.

To your original question/topic: I'd ask 'which part of the 1970s?' as I'd had 3 different environments during the decade..
They didn't have a lot in common with each other, but what they DID have in common is the 'People are People' approach, meaning I never experienced/heard/witnessed any racism whatsoever.
 
Catballou said:
And isn't this type of racial profiling the essence of the "Black Lives Matter" movement? It's just sad that in the 21st Century, Blacks are still being treated differently...and often horribly...just because of their skin colour. Nothing infuriates me more when I hear a white person say, "Well, white lives matter, too." They just don't get it. I just wanna punch them in the forehead. And I'm white! White people like me don't have a clue what it's like to worry that our children and grandchildren will fall victim to racism. And, sadly, some don't care. I'm one of the ones who do care. You're right...it's important that these discussions continue. I hope that future generations of white folks will do better.
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You wrote: "Nothing infuriates me more when I hear a white person say, "Well, white lives matter, too." They just don't get it." You're absolutely right Cat! I wish more people understood like you do. The purpose of Black Lives Matter isn't to diminish the value of other races but to keep people aware that we have value too and that our mistreatment, innocents being murdered by police (or people with minor offenses), our missing children not searched for with the same zeal as White children..because.....These things are happening on a daily basis and awareness needs to be brought to the forefront. That is the purpose of Black Lives Matter. Unfortunately bad actors have stepped in and done some things to tarnish the movement.
 
I would say things are worse than the seventies. Back then we were able to laugh about race relations as many popular tv shows touched upon the subject and taught us bigotry was backward thinking. Now you can't easily watch these Tv shows anymore. We are never allowed to laugh at ourselves and our own bigotry which is a negative step, to my mind. Why do we have to be so serious and upset all the time over everything? Why can't we get along like we did back then? Being raised in the North, bigotry was less obvious than in the South where there was still segregation even in my lifetime. Up here different races seemed to cope a little better. I don't really notice the color of a person's skin or have issues with anyone because of it and never have done, but this may be because of the part of the country in which I was raised.
 
OneEyedDiva said:
You wrote: "Nothing infuriates me more when I hear a white person say, "Well, white lives matter, too." They just don't get it." You're absolutely right Cat! I wish more people understood like you do. The purpose of Black Lives Matter isn't to diminish the value of other races but to keep people aware that we have value too and that our mistreatment, innocents being murdered by police (or people with minor offenses), our missing children not searched for with the same zeal as White children..because.....These things are happening on a daily basis and awareness needs to be brought to the forefront. That is the purpose of Black Lives Matter. Unfortunately bad actors have stepped in and done some things to tarnish the movement.
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Thank you so much! I was hoping you'd offer your perspective on this, and I'm glad you did. While I can't fully understand what it's like to live as a person of colour, I do try to be empathetic to the challenges they face on a daily basis.
 
I grew up in the South in the 60's, and I think race relations are certainly better today but they still aren't nearly where they need to be. We used to have riots in my junior high school. Teachers locked themselves in their rooms. My best friend in school was Black and he used to warn me when the fights were about to start so we could disappear. You don't see that in schools these days (although they've been replaced with shootings). Still, so much of what we see on video footage these days indicates we have a long way to go.
 
Catballou said:
Thank you so much! I was hoping you'd offer your perspective on this, and I'm glad you did. While I can't fully understand what it's like to live as a person of colour, I do try to be empathetic to the challenges they face on a daily basis.
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You're welcome of course. I think your perspective was also a valuable addition to this thread.
 
I think there is a sizable population, who would love to see the Jim Crow Laws re-established, and would use the word, "hate" when discussing other races. Otherwise, race relations are a 'perception' problem rather than "hate" one. Each race perceives others to hold detrimental theories about the others, and probably do. Blacks are stupid criminals, Whites are racists, Indians are drunks, etc.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
I think there is a sizable population, who would love to see the Jim Crow Laws re-established, and would use the word, "hate" when discussing other races. Otherwise, race relations are a 'perception' problem rather than "hate" one. Each race perceives others to hold detrimental theories about the others, and probably do. Blacks are stupid criminals, Whites are racists, Indians are drunks, etc.
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Ghandi was a lush?

NOOOO!!!!
 
fuzzybuddy said:
I think there is a sizable population, who would love to see the Jim Crow Laws re-established, and would use the word, "hate" when discussing other races. Otherwise, race relations are a 'perception' problem rather than "hate" one. Each race perceives others to hold detrimental theories about the others, and probably do. Blacks are stupid criminals, Whites are racists, Indians are drunks, etc.
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Seriously, I think you are onto a major topic, and I agree that this is likely how races see each other, at least initially. Prolonged exposure attenuates this, in my experience, and so therefore the 50s attempts at integration correctly foresaw this, but failed to understand that just because the end was noble, the means to get there (forced association) did as much harm as good.

I suspect that this "racial mistrust" is hardwired from early mankind. Encountering strangers was a fearful experience. At the very minimum it would mean that resources would be stretched thinner, and at the worst, you and your family/clan/tribe might be exterminated.

Now, this xenophbia worked even within racial phenotypes--Northern European bands might mistrust and compete with other Northern European bands, etc. So the ready perception of racial differences only made the automatic mistrust quicker.

So right now, mankind is working past that reflexive response, and to a degree I think it's getting better. But it's still fragile and subject to partial reversal. Part of the problem right now is that political leadership finds that by cultivating mistrust and grievances they can present a "threat" and that by voting for them, they'll save you from it, or get revenge.

This is inexcusable BS. As individuals, we can do better than that.

(dismounts soapbox)
 
Nemo2 said:
That line's been around the block....numerous times:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/She-novel-by-Haggard
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Yes, that was why they used it in the series, I figured...it carried a load with it. Not only was it funny on the surface (my wife is real bossy) but then falsely elevated her to the level of a glamourous immortal being.

The overstatement is pretty comic...
 

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