Racism and Racists

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Pepper said:
Coddling the white people so they won't feel bad. Treating themselves like pampered babies. We're in deep trouble giving into the paranoid delusions of almost half our population. I'm very worried about the increasing insanity.
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As I explained in a previous post, it is no ones fault, but evolution cut us from different cloths. To do well in a modern industrial environment requires a moderately high degree of intelligence -- the more the better. So who has is the highest? Not White Anglo Saxons, but East Asians and Jews of Eastern European descent. Both are heavily invested in well paying employment in the United States. Ashkenazi Jews (of which Einstein was one) take home 20% of the Nobel prizes and East Asians are far more prevalent in our high tech industry than their population would suggest, more successful in college level education, have a greater household income than their White counterparts, and yes, on average are of higher IQ. Does that make them evil? No! Blame Darwin.

Higher intelligence relates to higher paying jobs, greater affluence, and less likelihood of incarceration. Lower intelligence, regardless of race, has just the opposite effect.

"According to the FBI, African-Americans accounted for 55.9% of all homicide offenders in 2019"
"According to the National Crime Victimization Survey in 2002, robberies with white victims and black offenders were more than 12 times more common than the opposite." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_States

It may be racist to post those statistics, but perhaps they have a great deal to do with our perception of racism.
 

ElCastor said:
As I explained in a previous post, it is no ones fault, but evolution cut us from different cloths. To do well in a modern industrial environment requires a moderately high degree of intelligence -- the more the better. So who has is the highest? Not White Anglo Saxons, but East Asians and Jews of Eastern European descent. Both are heavily invested in well paying employment in the United States. Ashkenazi Jews (of which Einstein was one) take home 20% of the Nobel prizes and East Asians are far more prevalent in our high tech industry than their population would suggest, more successful in college level education, have a greater household income than their White counterparts, and yes, on average are of higher IQ. Does that make them evil? No! Blame Darwin.

Higher intelligence relates to higher paying jobs, greater affluence, and less likelihood of incarceration. Lower intelligence, regardless of race, has just the opposite effect.

"According to the FBI, African-Americans accounted for 55.9% of all homicide offenders in 2019"
"According to the National Crime Victimization Survey in 2002, robberies with white victims and black offenders were more than 12 times more common than the opposite." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_States

It may be racist to post those statistics, but perhaps they have a great deal to do with our perception of racism.
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Bunk.
Higher-paying jobs, affluence, and less likelihood of incarceration have more to do with whether or not people have opportunities than their I.Q.
 
Gary O' said:
Racist?

I still don't really know what that is.
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You are fortunate. I grew up in the rural segregated South (US) and saw lots of blatant racism. Things like gas stations with 3 bathrooms, men, women, and colored (usually an outhouse) were common and seemed natural back there and then. Unfortunately that is just one example of all too many.

I knew David Duke (head of KKK) back when I was a student at LSU, believe me he was racist, and sounded a lot more like it then than now. But I doubt any real change there.

I still know folks who harbor pretty open racist views, fortunately they are mostly older, poorer and less educated these days. Not so much the mainstream. Probably others hold not so open views.

So I know what I think is racism, from experience. I will however agree that the way the term is used now it can get muddled.
 

Alligatorob said:
You are fortunate. I grew up in the rural segregated South (US) and saw lots of blatant racism. Things like gas stations with 3 bathrooms, men, women, and colored (usually an outhouse) were common and seemed natural back there and then. Unfortunately that is just one example of all too many.

I knew David Duke (head of KKK) back when I was a student at LSU, believe me he was racist, and sounded a lot more like it then than now. But I doubt any real change there.

I still know folks who harbor pretty open racist views, fortunately they are mostly older, poorer and less educated these days. Not so much the mainstream. Probably others hold not so open views.

So I know what I think is racism, from experience. I will however agree that the way the term is used now it can get muddled.
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that's really interesting, there can't be many people still alive ( no offence) who can say they lived and witnessed racism such as segregation...
 
I have experienced racism, aimed at me, an Englishman in London,
asked me, "why are you here, taking our jobs, why don't you go back
to your own Country"?

This was from a white man, I too am white!

My reply was, "the standard of education in Scotland is so high, I knew
that I stood a better chance of getting a good job in England", that shut
him up.

Another time I had a man from Mombasa, working in my team, I had to
pull him up for doing what he was told not do, working alone on a high
pressure steam line.

He said to me, in front of all the team, "you don't know how to speak to
a person from an ethnic minority", I couldn't believe him, so I said, "look
around you, we are all ethnics here except one man and his parents are
from Greece".

So He didn't realise that I was upset that he could have been badly injured
for doing what he did and he tried to turn it round. He was black.

Mike.
 
Warrigal said:
Things could be worse, Mike.

You could have been born female. :unsure: 😊
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...well I was born female and I had the same racism aimed at me as Scot when I moved to England.. for many years tbh... it was all in the same boring unintelligent vein.. ''get back where you come from''...or deliberately mimicking my accent.. or inferring that they couldn't understand what I was saying so completely ignoring me and commenting in a snide way to someone near me with a '' what did she say ''

I remember vividly being desperately homesick, and in a cafe when 3 workmen clearly on a contract here , entered the cafe and stood in the queue.., and I was so desperate to speak to a fellow Scot, and so pleased to hear the accent, I spoke to them ( Scots are known for striking up conversations with strangers).. so I just mentioned that I was pleased to hear an accent from my home city, because I'd been in London a year now.. and the one guy turned around slowly and hissed... ''F*** off Traitor''..

I've never forgotten it I was barely 20 years old
 
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OneEyedDiva said:
Racism is real in this country, particularly against people of color. The seeds go so deep and is so systemic that it would take a book to detail how so. Racism also ranges from subtle to blatant. Examples of the subtle I've experienced:
~A White co-worker couldn't believe it when I showed her the house my boyfriend lived in while we were in the field. It was in a very nice area..which apparently surprised her.
~Same co-worker said she couldn't believe that "Jennifer Beals is for sure Black" !! I had to inform her that we come in all colors.
~I was talking to another co-worker about my son's then GF (who ultimately became my DIL). I was saying she had 4 sisters, one of whom was a twin, another set of twins and a middle girl. I must've said something about how hard her mom worked. She asked in a judgemental tone "Well where's the father?" as if she expected me to say I didn't know or that he was no longer around. The fact is that he was married to their mother and died of cancer when the children were young. Egg on her face!
Just so happens I liked both of these women and we got along quite well (most of the time...the latter one could be a pain).
Examples of insidious racism I encountered:
~I was surprised to discover when I did a report for college (started college when I was 37) and my research found that teachers were telling Black children that they weren't cut out for college and making them feel they were not intelligent. This was being done, not only in the south, but up here in the north.
~Black people were denied housing, usually via a lie saying the apartments were no longer available. In some cases, the person or couple had a White friend that they sent to inquire about the same apartment and the landlord told them it was available.
~When I wanted to buy an organ from the music store I took lessons at, one of the brothers (an owner) told me that I might not get the loan. He said that merchants were told to code the applications to indicate which customers were Black and those were usually rejected. I had a great rapport with both the brothers who owned the store as well as with the oldest one's wife and children. I got the loan for the instrument...maybe they didn't code the application. :unsure:
~Things we can't do that are every day normal things others do with no problem like "driving while black", looking around in a department store without being followed by security, staying at a nice Air BnB, going to an upscale gym, etc..
Examples of blatant racism:
~Denying Blacks the right to stay at hotels, even ones they were performing in.
~Denying Blacks service in a coffee shop, even men in uniform who had just returned from fighting for this country
~Cross burnings on lawns by the KKK
~Bombing a church thus killing the people in it, including children
~Publishing a newspaper with the headline containing the N word big as day
~Police officers killing innocent Black people and getting away with it for decades!
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Diva, this kind of personal insight is very helpful. I said above that I'm ignorant about the topic. I'm not wrongheaded (at least I hope not) I just don't know much.

One thing I found interesting -- watching a 60 Minutes interview with Trevor Noah -- he talked about how he gets hassled by the police more in the US than he did in South Africa.
 
hollydolly said:
...well I was born female and I had the same racism aimed at me as Scot when I moved to England.. for many years tbh... it was all in the same boring unintelligent vein.. ''get back where you come from''...or deliberately mimicking my accent.. pr inferring that they couldn't understand what I was saying so completely ignoring me and commenting in a snide way to someone near me with a '' what did she say ''

I remember vividly being desperately homesick, and in a cafe when 3 workmen clearly on a contract here , entered the cafe and stood in the queue.., and I was so desperate to speak to a fellow Scot, and so pleased to hear the accent, I spoke to them ( Scots are known for striking up conversations with strangers).. so I just mentioned that I was pleased to hear an accent from my home city, because I'd been in London a year now.. and the one guy turned around slowly and hissed... ''F*** off Traitor''..

I've never forgotten it I was barely 20 years old.
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Wondering if Irish people encounter the same thing in England?
 
hollydolly said:
that's really interesting, there can't be many people still alive ( no offence) who can say they lived and witnessed racism such as segregation...
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Well, I am alive and just about every Baby Boomer would know about segregation. And subsequent generations too. I know you are in the UK but you just have to use Google and you would find out that segregation is alive and well in the US. Not only with schools but also housing.

Not long ago, in the 1970's, the student body at my high school in NYC was mainly Blacks and Puerto Ricans with mostly white teachers. They obviously took the subway from their nice neighborhoods for the day job and a check. In my graduating class there was one white student of Russian decent. Here is the most recent info on NYC schools:

"UCLA's Civil Rights Project made headlines back in 2014 when it said New York had the most segregated schools in the nation. Now, researchers there have released a new report that finds the distinction remains. New York City's schools, in particular, are extremely segregated, and many Black students attend schools that are less diverse now than they were when the first report came out."

https://gothamist.com/news/new-yorks-schools-are-still-the-most-segregated-in-the-nation-report

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/26/nyregion/school-segregation-new-york.html

ETA: By the way, Sunday mornings are maybe the most segregated time in America.
 
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hollydolly said:
that's really interesting, there can't be many people still alive ( no offence) who can say they lived and witnessed racism such as segregation...
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Probably more of us than you might think.

Open enforced segregation began to end in the 50s, but it took up to the early 70s for it to happen in many places. The schools where I lived were only integrated in 1967 as I recall, and that did not go well. Most white parents pulled their kids out and sent them to private schools, leaving the high school I attended almost completely black. And at that point most funding for the schools was pulled. It took a generation for the educational system to even semi-recover. The high school my Aunt and Uncle taught in did not allow a single black person in until 1971.

Lots of people still alive who would remember.
 
Nosy Bee-54 said:
Well, I am alive and just about every Baby Boomer would know about segregation. I know you are in the UK but you just have to use Google and you would find out that segregation is alive and well in the US. Not only with schools but also with housing.

Not long ago, in the 1970's, the student body at my high school in NYC was mainly Blacks and Puerto Ricans with mostly white teachers. They obviously took the subway from their nice neighborhoods for the day job and a check. In my graduating class there was on white student of Russian decent. Here is the most recent info on NYC schools:

"UCLA's Civil Rights Project made headlines back in 2014 when it said New York had the most segregated schools in the nation. Now, researchers there have released a new report that finds the distinction remains. New York City's schools, in particular, are extremely segregated, and many Black students attend schools that are less diverse now than they were when the first report came out."

https://gothamist.com/news/new-yorks-schools-are-still-the-most-segregated-in-the-nation-report

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/26/nyregion/school-segregation-new-york.html
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Are you saying segregation is still ongoing in the USA in school and with housing?.. in what way ?
 
Alligatorob said:
Probably more of us than you might think.

Open enforced segregation began to end in the 50s, but it took up to the early 70s for it to happen in many places. The schools where I lived were only integrated in 1967 as I recall, and that did not go well. Most white parents pulled their kids out and sent them to private schools, leaving the high school I attended almost completely black. And at that point most funding for the schools was pulled. It took a generation for the educational system to even semi-recover. The high school my Aunt and Uncle taught in did not allow a single black person in until 1971.

Lots of people still alive who would remember.
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yes I didn't mean you personally, I meant your generation... It's not something we ever had to deal with when I was growing up.... so I've never witnessed it.. albeit that I've heard anecdotes about No Black and No Irish signs on boarding house doors back in the 40's.. but in my lifetime of 66 years I've never witnessed segregation of any type in the UK

I'm going to Add to this, that there has been segregation between Catholic and Protestants, in Northern Ireland, which of course caused all the terrible irish troubles from the 60's for decades.. but aside from watching it on tv, and having our sons , father, and brothers over there peace keeping, we really weren't aware of what was occurring anmong the segregated religions
 
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hollydolly said:
...well I was born female and I had the same racism aimed at me as Scot when I moved to England..
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It is interesting, I guess people are people. I think we have a kind of instinctive drive to mistrust, dislike, or worse, people who are different from us.

I know I have the instinct, wish I did not. Overcoming it takes some thinking about and effort. One thing I find really helps is getting to know some of those "other" people, much harder to dislike someone you have met and, well liked... At a minimum I do try to be aware of it and do my best not to let the reptilian instinct drive my actions.
 
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Oh how my heart bleeds (not) for all the white people who feel they have been subjected to racism.
When you have seen it cruelly executed as I have during Apartheid in South Africa, then come talk to me.
There are so many stories I could tell you, but it would take forever.
One little incident was I needed to use the toilet in J'burg, so foolish me, and someone who has not a care in the world for what color you are, stepped inside the "Blacks toilet"
Oh boy, the police saw me, they grabbed me and asked me what was a white woman doing in a Blacks Only toilet.
Took me down to the station, let me use their toilet and was told if I went into a Blacks toilet, I will be in jail. Wow
 
"Today, well over half a century since the civil rights movement fought for the principle that separate is inherently unequal, real estate industry practices and local public policies have not been held accountable for making very little progress on integrating our neighborhoods.

After World War II, loans guaranteed by the Federal Housing Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs opened up the possibility of homeownership (and wealth-building) to millions of American households. However, these loan programs were explicitly structured to exclude Black people and to favor particular places: the newly minted suburbs.

Even after decades of growing diversity and spatial mobility, most Americans still live in racially segregated neighborhoods."

https://www.brookings.edu/essay/tre...ning-racial-and-economic-injustice-in-the-us/
 

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