What is racism?

[Neser Boha]

racism,, is the card democrats play regularly,, they in turn are the biggest racists on the planet.

Yeah, Willow, why don't you reinforce your own stereotype of being an utter partisan hack.

You can't leave the two parties out of anything, can you?

 

[Neser Boha]

Racism is a misused term mostly these days.

Racism is the belief that a particular race is preferable, priviledged or entitled above others.

White supremacist are racist. They believe white people are the "master" or best race.

Certain segments of Judaism are racist. They believe Jews are the chosen race, above the rest.

I am sure there are other people that believe there race is better or priviledged solely based upon ethnicity.

Much of what get labeled as racist these days is actually discrimination or just poor behavior. The term has been stretched out of shape.

Good definitions. I would only add FEAR of someone who doesn't look or act like you. ("You" being all-inclusive.)

I think that 'fear' is also referred to as 'xenophobia'. Fear of strangers. Xenophobia may lead to racism, but it doesn't equal racism.

 

[Neser Boha]

If you have to ask what racism is, then you must be a racist.

Seriously, I define a racist as a person who practices racial prejudice or discrimination. CharliedumBass is a prime example.

Bingo. Racism is an offshoot of bigotry. Ravi's an expert in bigotry, which is why she doesn't understand racism.

Hmm, Allie, that statement simply doesn't make sense. If you're an expert at A, and B is its offshoot, then it makes more sense that you'd know much more of B than people that are not experts at A.

Just sayin'...

 

[WillowTree]

racism,, is the card democrats play regularly,, they in turn are the biggest racists on the planet.

Yeah, Willow, why don't you reinforce your own stereotype of being an utter partisan hack.

You can't leave the two parties out of anything, can you?

hey! it's pertinent. everybody here watched the race card being plopped down from the primaries, through the election and right up to now,, and guess who is plopping it down? you got it,, it's the democrats,, so I can take being called a partisan hack,, the democrats are the racists,, and unless you can change their behavior they are the biggest racists on the planet!

 

[paperview]

racism,, is the card democrats play regularly,, they in turn are the biggest racists on the planet.

Yeah, Willow, why don't you reinforce your own stereotype of being an utter partisan hack.

You can't leave the two parties out of anything, can you?

hey! it's pertinent. everybody here watched the race card being plopped down from the primaries, through the election and right up to now,, and guess who is plopping it down? you got it,, it's the democrats,, so I can take being called a partisan hack,, the democrats are the racists,, and unless you can change their behavior they are the biggest racists on the planet!

Who are they 'racist' against?

 

[Tommy Lucchese]

I read on another thread that using racial slurs isn't racist. I've also read that if you claim someone is a racist then you yourself are a racist. Both of these statements seem rather silly to me.

To use examples in the news:

Gates implies Crowley is a racist, therefore Gates is a racist.
Obama says the cops acted stupidly, therefore Obama is a racist.
Glenn Beck calls Obama a racist that hates whites, but Glen Beck isn't a racist.


It's really more confusing to me as time goes by.

Can anyone explain racism definitively?

If you'd like, swap the word ethnist for racist, I've just used the term because it is more common. I realize all humans belong to the same race in reality.

Racism is holding steretypical views about a race.

Bigotry is believing your race is superior to another just by virtue of genetic makeup.

These terms are deliberately distorted by conservatives and liberals alike to further their political goals.

 

[MaggieMae]

Why do you fear those who don't look or act like you?

Some of it is a natural thing. Fight or flight automatic brain reaction. Some of it is learned, as I further point out. Two examples: If I were on an elevator all alone with a huge black guy with dreadlocks, I think I would be a little nervous. But I would also be nervous if I were all alone with a white skinhead with tattoos of skulls and bones and hissing snakes. But if I'm taking a class with or working side-by-side with either a black or a white person who isn't trying to make any kind of statement by his dress or demeanor, it wouldn't bother me at all--unless my parents had brainwashed me otherwise.

Stereotype much?

Grow a brain and ABSORB what I said.

 

[Lonestar_logic]

Some of it is a natural thing. Fight or flight automatic brain reaction. Some of it is learned, as I further point out. Two examples: If I were on an elevator all alone with a huge black guy with dreadlocks, I think I would be a little nervous. But I would also be nervous if I were all alone with a white skinhead with tattoos of skulls and bones and hissing snakes. But if I'm taking a class with or working side-by-side with either a black or a white person who isn't trying to make any kind of statement by his dress or demeanor, it wouldn't bother me at all--unless my parents had brainwashed me otherwise.

Stereotype much?

Grow a brain and ABSORB what I said.

Unlike many others on here, I have no problem comprehending what I read. And you used just about every stereotype there is. Now are you really going to try to tell me that you didn't ?

 

[MaggieMae]

Stereotype much?

Grow a brain and ABSORB what I said.

Unlike many others on here, I have no problem comprehending what I read. And you used just about every stereotype there is. Now are you really going to try to tell me that you didn't ?

You comprehend? What part of EXAMPLES didn't you comprehend?

Two examples: If I were on an elevator all alone with a huge black guy with dreadlocks, I think I would be a little nervous. But I would also be nervous if I were all alone with a white skinhead with tattoos of skulls and bones and hissing snakes. But if I'm taking a class with or working side-by-side with either a black or a white person who isn't trying to make any kind of statement by his dress or demeanor, it wouldn't bother me at all--unless my parents had brainwashed me otherwise.

 

[Lonestar_logic]

Grow a brain and ABSORB what I said.

Unlike many others on here, I have no problem comprehending what I read. And you used just about every stereotype there is. Now are you really going to try to tell me that you didn't ?

You comprehend? What part of EXAMPLES didn't you comprehend?

Two examples: If I were on an elevator all alone with a huge black guy with dreadlocks, I think I would be a little nervous. But I would also be nervous if I were all alone with a white skinhead with tattoos of skulls and bones and hissing snakes. But if I'm taking a class with or working side-by-side with either a black or a white person who isn't trying to make any kind of statement by his dress or demeanor, it wouldn't bother me at all--unless my parents had brainwashed me otherwise.

Examples smamples I don't care what you call it, it's still stereotypical. Is it not?

 

[Annie]

Also, racism is something LEARNED. Put a bunch of small children of different ethnicities together on a playground and they will act like children, until their parents decide to separate them out.

Racism or prejudice in general is learned at it's basic level. Some of what is passed on may be a result of a previous generations experiences, thus base upon their 'truths', with no actual malice meant. However, the anecdotal reasons do not create 'reality', but only one person's reality, based upon their place in time, at a certain locale.

Repeated exposure to the 'exception that proves the rule', makes the 'rule' wrong. Thus the real need for the ending of segregation and red lining.

When our country moves beyond the selling of victimhood and fear, concentrates instead on what makes for successful adults, we'll make steps in the right direction. We've come a long ways, but have steps to trod.

 

[Ravi]

What is racism?

Easy-peasy

The propensity to judge people based on their race rather than on themselves.

I read through all the replies on this thread and it appears you've given the proper definition.

It's really difficult, if not impossible, to not judge others on their superficial qualities if they don't share the same superficial qualities of the judger.

The whole us vs. them scenario.

 

[Annie]

What is racism?

Easy-peasy

The propensity to judge people based on their race rather than on themselves.

I read through all the replies on this thread and it appears you've given the proper definition.

It's really difficult, if not impossible, to not judge others on their superficial qualities if they don't share the same superficial qualities of the judger.

The whole us vs. them scenario.

It's settled then, Editec and Ravi agree, everyone else, shut up.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Gates reacted to a well documented bias by police, courts and prisons. It's a fact. Black people are still treated differently than white people by law enforcement and the Judiciary. The only racism Gates was worried about is the 50+ years of it he has endured and he is fucking well fed up with it by now.

Do you still put your teeth under the pillow when they fall out?

And wait up for Santa on Christmas Eve?

What we have here is the total and complete acceptance of mythology by an otherwise intelligent person. The explanation is that it is self-serving.

1. Do minorities commit more of the kinds of traffic violations that police target? This is a taboo question among the racial profiling crowd; to ask it is to reveal one's racism. No one has studied it. But some evidence suggests that it may be the case. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that blacks were 10 percent of drivers nationally, 13 percent of drivers in fatal accidents, and 16 percent of drivers in injury accidents. (Lower rates of seat-belt use may contribute to these numbers.) Random national surveys of drivers on weekend nights in 1973, 1986, and 1996 found that blacks were more likely to fail breathalyzer tests than whites. In Illinois, blacks have a higher motorist fatality rate than whites. Blacks in one New Jersey study were 23 percent of all drivers arrested at the scene of an accident for driving drunk, though only 13.5 percent of highway users. In San Diego, blacks have more accidents than their population figures would predict. Hispanics get in a disproportionate number of accidents nationally.
The Myth of Racial Profiling by Heather Mac Donald, City Journal Spring 2001

2. The black incarceration rate is overwhelmingly a function of black crime.
But in 2005, the black homicide rate was over seven times higher than that of whites and Hispanics combined, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. From 1976 to 2005, blacks committed over 52 percent of all murders in America. In 2006, the black arrest rate for most crimes was two to nearly three times blacks’ representation in the population. Blacks constituted 39.3 percent of all violent-crime arrests, including 56.3 percent of all robbery and 34.5 percent of all aggravated-assault arrests, and 29.4 percent of all property-crime arrests.
Is the Criminal-Justice System Racist? by Heather Mac Donald, City Journal Spring 2008

3. Let’s start with the idea that cops over-arrest blacks and ignore white criminals. In fact, the race of criminals reported by crime victims matches arrest data. As long ago as 1978, a study of robbery and aggravated assault in eight cities found parity between the race of assailants in victim identifications and in arrests—a finding replicated many times since, across a range of crimes. No one has ever come up with a plausible argument as to why crime victims would be biased in their reports.
Is the Criminal-Justice System Racist? by Heather Mac Donald, City Journal Spring 2008

4. .” In 1997, criminologists Robert Sampson and Janet Lauritsen reviewed the massive literature on charging and sentencing. They concluded that “large racial differences in criminal offending,” not racism, explained why more blacks were in prison proportionately than whites and for longer terms. A 1987 analysis of Georgia felony convictions, for example, found that blacks frequently received disproportionately lenient punishment. A 1990 study of 11,000 California cases found that slight racial disparities in sentence length resulted from blacks’ prior records and other legally relevant variables. A 1994 Justice Department survey of felony cases from the country’s 75 largest urban areas discovered that blacks actually had a lower chance of prosecution following a felony than whites did and that they were less likely to be found guilty at trial. Following conviction, blacks were more likely to receive prison sentences, however—an outcome that reflected the gravity of their offenses as well as their criminal records."
Ibid.


The difference between the poster quoted, and that for Gates, the professed (pun intended) belief has resulted in financial and professional gain.

I wonder if S.W. would like to share how the claim has worked for his benefit.

 

[Annie]

PoliticalChic is right on many levels here, though I don't necessarily agree with all the causative factors, when given.

Gates reacted to a well documented bias by police, courts and prisons. It's a fact. Black people are still treated differently than white people by law enforcement and the Judiciary. The only racism Gates was worried about is the 50+ years of it he has endured and he is fucking well fed up with it by now.

Do you still put your teeth under the pillow when they fall out?

And wait up for Santa on Christmas Eve?

What we have here is the total and complete acceptance of mythology by an otherwise intelligent person. The explantion is that it is self-serving.

1. Do minorities commit more of the kinds of traffic violations that police target? This is a taboo question among the racial profiling crowd; to ask it is to reveal one's racism. No one has studied it. But some evidence suggests that it may be the case. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that blacks were 10 percent of drivers nationally, 13 percent of drivers in fatal accidents, and 16 percent of drivers in injury accidents. (Lower rates of seat-belt use may contribute to these numbers.) Random national surveys of drivers on weekend nights in 1973, 1986, and 1996 found that blacks were more likely to fail breathalyzer tests than whites. In Illinois, blacks have a higher motorist fatality rate than whites. Blacks in one New Jersey study were 23 percent of all drivers arrested at the scene of an accident for driving drunk, though only 13.5 percent of highway users. In San Diego, blacks have more accidents than their population figures would predict. Hispanics get in a disproportionate number of accidents nationally.
The Myth of Racial Profiling by Heather Mac Donald, City Journal Spring 2001Actually it's been studied to the nth since at least the 70's. That minorities committ more crimes, given. That the poor do, given. Question is why? That too has been studied to the nth. Well, it makes money. Duh. The real quandary is how to turn those focused on illegal to legal means of making the cash.

2. The black incarceration rate is overwhelmingly a function of black crime.
But in 2005, the black homicide rate was over seven times higher than that of whites and Hispanics combined, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. From 1976 to 2005, blacks committed over 52 percent of all murders in America. In 2006, the black arrest rate for most crimes was two to nearly three times blacks’ representation in the population. Blacks constituted 39.3 percent of all violent-crime arrests, including 56.3 percent of all robbery and 34.5 percent of all aggravated-assault arrests, and 29.4 percent of all property-crime arrests.
Is the Criminal-Justice System Racist? by Heather Mac Donald, City Journal Spring 2008those numbers are and have been changing, with the influx of immigration, legal and illegal. Blacks have no more a predilection towards crime than any other group. Truth is, there must be support for the wave towards success. In a very wealthy suburb there was a contest on 'what it means to be an American.' My brother was one of the catalyst for, serving his community. The winner, got a trip for 6 to DC, meeting with his senators and representative. His essay read into Congressional Record, $20,000 scholarship, (7th grader), and $2000 cash. Granted it was raised by the community, but not unheard of such in poorer communities, as most was from DC or corporations.

3. Let’s start with the idea that cops over-arrest blacks and ignore white criminals. In fact, the race of criminals reported by crime victims matches arrest data. As long ago as 1978, a study of robbery and aggravated assault in eight cities found parity between the race of assailants in victim identifications and in arrests—a finding replicated many times since, across a range of crimes. No one has ever come up with a plausible argument as to why crime victims would be biased in their reports.
Is the Criminal-Justice System Racist? by Heather Mac Donald, City Journal Spring 2008Seems to me that while blacks, long hairs, hispanics, may be stopped more, so are 'red' sports cars and souped up cars. That doesn't translate into arrests, which I think MacDonald has found.

4. .” In 1997, criminologists Robert Sampson and Janet Lauritsen reviewed the massive literature on charging and sentencing. They concluded that “large racial differences in criminal offending,” not racism, explained why more blacks were in prison proportionately than whites and for longer terms. A 1987 analysis of Georgia felony convictions, for example, found that blacks frequently received disproportionately lenient punishment. A 1990 study of 11,000 California cases found that slight racial disparities in sentence length resulted from blacks’ prior records and other legally relevant variables. A 1994 Justice Department survey of felony cases from the country’s 75 largest urban areas discovered that blacks actually had a lower chance of prosecution following a felony than whites did and that they were less likely to be found guilty at trial. Following conviction, blacks were more likely to receive prison sentences, however—an outcome that reflected the gravity of their offenses as well as their criminal records."
Ibid.I'm open to this argument, but my initial take is that much of the actual arrest/conviction stats have to do with the ability to pay for qualified defense lawyers. Public defenders are overworked, underpaid, and inexperienced. The more serious the charge, the more important the economic status of the defendant's family.


The difference between the poster quoted, and that for Gates, the professed (pun intended) belief has resulted in financial and professional gain.

I wonder if S.W. would like to share how the claim has worked for his benefit.

To condemn Gate's untoward example of racism charge, does not mitigate the problem with our system of justice. Indeed, those defending Gates, denigrate the true unfairness to many.

 

[Valerie]

Indeed, those defending Gates, denigrate the true unfairness to many.

Yes, I think in a way Gates made of mockery of the true abuse of power.

 

[Ravi]

What is racism?

Easy-peasy

The propensity to judge people based on their race rather than on themselves.

I read through all the replies on this thread and it appears you've given the proper definition.

It's really difficult, if not impossible, to not judge others on their superficial qualities if they don't share the same superficial qualities of the judger.

The whole us vs. them scenario.

It's settled then, Editec and Ravi agree, everyone else, shut up.

If you disagree with Editec's definition explain why. I posed the question because I really don't know what being racist means. Editec brought me back to reality.

 

[Annie]

Indeed, those defending Gates, denigrate the true unfairness to many.

Yes, I think in a way Gates made of mockery of the true abuse of power.

You and I both. It's like Obama claiming to be 'like other blacks.' He's black, no denying that, but those without privilege, even those with, were not born in Hawaii, attending private schools throughout k-12. Going to Harvard, son of alumni.

 

[Ravi]

Indeed, those defending Gates, denigrate the true unfairness to many.

Yes, I think in a way Gates made of mockery of the true abuse of power.

What is the true abuse of power?

 

[Sky Dancer]

Indeed, those defending Gates, denigrate the true unfairness to many.

Yes, I think in a way Gates made of mockery of the true abuse of power.

You and I both. It's like Obama claiming to be 'like other blacks.' He's black, no denying that, but those without privilege, even those with, were not born in Hawaii, attending private schools throughout k-12. Going to Harvard, son of alumni.

You're statement is a non sequitur. it does not follow that Obama abused power or made a mockery of being black.