Well... here's an interesting starting place for this board.

[Imp-Chan]

My sister posted a link to this, and I'm honestly pretty disturbed by it, but I'm even more disturbed by my reaction. Here's the link in question.

See, I don't understand racism at all. Yes, yes, I know, we all classify each other all the time so we're all naturally a little racist, but that's a very different thing from this kind of violent, knee-jerk escalation of hatred. I don't think the two behaviors should even fall under the same term, though perhaps they have the same origin.

I just... do not understand how it is possible to hate people in that way. I truly don't. Hating someone because they've personally done you extraordinarily wrong, maybe I can get. But to hate someone just because, and to let it keep escalating in wider and wider circles of anger? It makes no sense to me, I can't internalize it or empathize with it or even remotely understand it. So, maybe that's why I have such a hard time with stories like this. I can't understand how anyone, let alone a whole parish or someones, could possibly be so angry, so hateful, and so I think to myself that this can't possibly be the whole story, there MUST have been something more going on here, it can't possibly be so simple as just an imbalance of black and white that escalated into violence on both sides, and punishment on only one...

The reality is, of course it can be that simple. It often is. Humans are prone to irrational anger all the time, and racial violence is as old as the genetic variations for the color of our skins. Given the consistency of the reports I've found, it probably even actually IS that simple in this particular case. Still, I just... can't believe it. This cannot be the world we live in, we cannot allow it to be the world that the next generation is raised in, and it especially cannot be a world that we help to create by our own apathy.

So, someone tell me... how do we cure hatred?

-_-'

[BandMan2K]

You're using the wrong term here. What happened wasn't racism. Everyone's a racist because we do acknowledge different races. Hatred and marginalization of someone because of the differences (whatever they may be) is Bigotry.

As for the rationale, there isn't any. That's the whole point: It's not rational. For a long time I was a bigot, mostly due to learned language and actions through my father. He was a nasty bigot. He probably could've been allowed into a Neo-Nazi group save for the fact of him being born & raised Catholic. I mean Hell, 2 of his aunts were/are nuns. His mother was on the verge of taking the vows before she met his dad. It took him a while, especially living the last 6 years in a predominately black area of town to get him off the usage of names like Chinks, Spics, Wops, Dagoes, Towelheads, Abdul-i-abadabs, queers, fags, fairys, and a few others that I don't fully remember. Mind you, I heard these names from the time I could crawl. I didn't know what they really meant until later, especially after my dad left and I would still use the names in my mom's presence. Thankfully, I've gotten through that bit and am not a bigot. Racist, yeah but not a bigot.

As for the article and situation you linked to: There are only 2 outcomes I can see arise from this situation.

1 - Jurors hear the case, find the six black youths innocent or give them slaps on the wrists. The predominatly white community in that Parish will be up in arms and you'll have enflamed racial tensions in the community.

2 - Jurors hear the case, find the six black youths guilty of the charges and have them sent to prison. The black community throughout the US (along with all the Talking Heads on Cable News) will be up in arms and pay lip service to say how wrong it is for this to happen. They'll say it's the Jim Crow era all over again and you'll have enflamed racial tensions in the community and in other black communities around the US.

Best thing for you to do is just avoid this and make sure to duck when the excrement impacts upon the oscillator.

[Neko7]

I'm not sure I understand, or agree with(that should seem logic in the case of a none-understanding), your definition of racism.

For me the problem is not a question of hate, but more a question of several century old notion of superiority of the race (where a race; based on color; is supposely superieur to an other and therfore, have natural/social/legal right on the members of the other supposed race), where the Nazi's Arien race was just one of the late offspring of this old and wrong (at least in my eyes) notion.

Somehow, as a more comics related mater, I have hard time to believe that someone who believe in this notion (superiority of the race) coud desagree with the concept that the elves were the superior and favorite race in the eyes of the gods, without being hypocrite.

[Viking-Sensei]

I had a friend... briefly, at least... she worked with me many years ago over the summer at an amusement park nearby. The park regularly shored up it's massive need for staffing by bussing in individuals from the inner city (located some 20 miles to the south) for any menial labor they could eek out of them. A majority of these inner city employees were black. My friend... well, she was black too, but from the suburbs like I am. The difference in behavior between the two cultures, especially the way that her fellow employees treated her because she looked like them but "wasn't one of them"... it opened my eyes to an entirely different tier of subtext to the whole standing race issue. Since then, I've never really been able to see things as a function of race, but usually instead as a function of classism.

To me, this whole thing is purely an issue of class, specicially class-on-class struggles, with each taking their respective role so snugly that Karl Marx himself would be proud (if not a little ashamed). If you remove the white and black from the story and replace them with rich and poor, the story reads totally differently, albeit with the same amazement and horror at the failure of the system in general. Rich exist within system that automatically oppresses the poor, an incident occurs which causes the poor to organize, rich use their connections to disrupt organization, poor retaliate through capital negation (burning down the high school), rich start making examples of potential leaders for the rebellion brewing, poor fight back and take it too far, rich use their connections to make examples of those who took it too far.

Those responsible must be punished, if only because those not directly involved in the struggle will take their absence of punishment as a get-out-of-whatever-action-free card. This goes both ways... if I was a federal prosecutor, I'd jail them all... DA , principal, and all students included... as a lesson to everyone (including those not involved) that not behaving civilly gets you god-smacked, and that the system doesn't play favorites.

My friend and I, incidentally, both got relieved from our employ almost simultaneously for matters I'd rather not discuss, and I'm fairly certain I caught mono from her... but that's an entirely different story, one best suited for another time.

[Ghost in the Shell]

Ok, first of all I think I should perhaps mention that I am German. I think it's important for me to say this, because it explains how I come to several conclusions about racism and opression of minorities or certain groups of people whatsoever. I am certainly not proud of what my ancestors did, absolutely not. I am still kind of ashamed for it, or at least feel responsible for it and am trying to stay sensibilitized for these topics. In the decades after the war, we Germans, at least in the western metropoles of our country (don't forget that Germany is way smaller than the US) tried and try to do a lot against racism and discrimination. In fact one can say that we were so careful about it that we totally messed up our imigration laws, which lead to some sub-cultures barely integrated in the rest of society (now hopefully not giving rise to new problems of discrinination and bigotery).
I am just mentioning all this to make absolutely sure nobody here thinks I am a racist (a prejiduce Germans are sometimes faced with, which is our own fault of course...) and to give an impression that I have already invested quite some thought to the topic just because of my "heir", so to say.

What first surprised me was that some of you seem to think that we all are "a little" racistic to a degree, because as humans, we make prejiduces on others because of nothing more than their looks. Although I agree with that human characteristic, that does not make us racists. Racism does not just mean that you distinguish races as subcategory of the homo sapiens or make prejiduces. The word racism in itself already includes the "evil" notion of unreasonable hatred, or bigotery, as BandMan2K called it correctly.
So if I for example think about a guy I meet "He's black" as the first thing, or even if I make the prejiduce "Bet he's really good at sports and has a huge pen..." (to avoid unnecessary negative prejiduces, I guess you get the idea) I am not automatically a racist (even if the prejiduce would be a bad one). The problem begins when I start to dislike him just because of his origin and then start to make up bad characteristics of his race afterwards (of course I would not realize that I do it this way round and believe I'd dislike him because of the characteristics). Then it gets even worse and I start to think that I can't have those negative aspects because I am of a "superior" race. All this defines a racist.
What I am trying to explain is: Racism is not some genetically induced "flaw" of human kind. Making prejiduces is (you see the bear, you run; don't first start thinking that it might have just eaten and thus be no danger), but racism is more. Of course human history has shown that we are prone to it (though I think us Europeans started to cultivate it...), but it's more of a negative aspect of our evoluting psyche and not "in our genes" directly. I think it is important to keep this in mind because this keeps you aware of its danger. Otherwise you could simply forget about it or too quickly declare it as "evil, but natural".

That much about racism. As a side note I want to point out that there surely are different races of the homo sapiens (Arien, btw, is not one, that was made up by the nazis) and that talking or aknowledging them does, again, not make you a racist. Unfortunately the word "race" in the context of human kind has a bad conotaion due to the existence of racism, but in my opinion its useless anyways. Oh, and elves would probably be a whole new species (which is why half elves are so interestiung... ^_^).
Technically seen, the fact that white and black people are of different races and not different species disqualifies most stupid nazi and social-darwinism theories: Where it's always possible that one species slowly replaces another that's pretty uncommon for races, since one race can easily merge with another. There was never a biological reasoning for "racial war" (which makes me damn angry btw that people believed this fuck in the first place...).

But I am losing the point.
In the article (btw, what happened to them? The site said one trial or sentence was on July 31st) the happenings were in my opinion clearly a racism problem. Of course viking is right and it these days is almost like a rich-poor problem, but this doesn't relfect the reasons for these classes. The blacks in the settings became poor because there was racism in the past. Does that mean that the racism is now gone and the only problem is that they're poor? No, because now "being poor" is associated with these blacks by racists. In a racists head, they are poor because they are black, it's an indistinguishable characteristic (as opposed to a short form of historical sum-up: "They are poor now, because their ancestors were black and there was racism in the past"). That way, racism fulfils its own axioms, which is why it is so damn difficult to do something against it (believe me, in German schools are so damn many programs that try to counter it, but there are still racists in Germany... in spite of most of us (hopefully) sensibilitized for the topic...).

So what should they have done? Establishing programs. Scientific (and I mean real scientific, not that popular scifi shit) talks and the like. The shit hit the fan way before the guys putting the nooses were supposed to be expelled or not. The point of view then was basically like "THEY did something bad, so we punish them and everything is ok again" on the one and "no, it was just a prank, so there was NOTHING wrong about it and we do NOTHING and everything si ok again". Both too simplistic views. The principal should have investigated whether it was only a prank or not. Not just assume one solution, be open for both. Then establish a long term program that makes as many people as possible understand why such pranks are not ok. That way you make sure that the people doing shit like this can not pretend "it was just a prank" afterwards. To the blacks he should have gone and explain to them in detail why a simple one-time punishment of the current delinquenty would not help them (by er... e.g. drawing out a reasonable scenario like the one that actually happened... ahem, ahem... was all so predictable). Of course the white guys that hang the nooses and made the racistic slurs and so on should be punished nevertheless, but unless you do the sensibilitizing campain as well it brings nothing (in this context expelling them would probably not have been good, because that keeps them away from these campains...).

Ok, so far I guess either no one read up until here or now dislikes me for sounding so tutoring. I am sorry should that be the case and want to point to the fact that I am no native speaker and thus can not always chose the best and politest words to explain my theories. I don't want to lecture anybody (I think I am on the same line with everyone so far anyway, so if you have another impression that's a sign that I fucked up), I just wrote so much because the topic is really important for me (due to above mentioned reasons).

I believe I forgot something, but I'll call it an end for now. ^_^

[Forrest]

Just a little side-note here on the "what is the definition of racism" thread, according to a political science class I took not long ago (which took George Fredrickson's "Racism: A Short History" as its primary text, and the source of this definition), cultural-biological essentialism (the belief that certain groups of people have cultural differences intrinsically and inalterable tied to their biological heritage) is "racialism", but not in and of itself "racism". So if you believe that there is such a thing as "acting white" or "acting black" (in the sense of "the way white people naturally, innately act", as opposed to "the way of acting that happens to be the most commonly observed one amongst predominantly white cultures"), then you are racialist, even if you're not a racist. Only combined with cultural elitism (the belief that one culture is objectively better than another) is this "racism". So only if you believe that people's cultural traits (language, behavior, religion, etc) are biologically fixed and unchangable, AND hold that some sets of such traits are superior to others, are you a racist.

Fredrickson also presents evidence that most of what we would anachronistically call "racism" throughout history (e.g. anti-Semitism) was in fact nothing more than cultural elitism, often more tied to religion or language than race (which isn't to say that it was any less bad), and that only in recent centuries has there even been such a notion of "race" as we now know it. (In my paper for that class I argued that a further distinction need to be made between "culturalism" that holds certain behaviors, traditions, forms of government, etc to be superior to others on objective ethical grounds, and "culturalism" that normatively discriminates between cultures on the grounds of ethically irrelevant cultural artifacts like language, art, food, religious beliefs, etc. In other words, it's OK to say that some culture is bad because of genuinely bad things they do, e.g. condemning some people's practice of slavery, but it's not OK to say that some culture is bad just because they're different in some trivial way. Also note that I reject essentialism, so by saying "some culture is bad" I don't people "the people of that culture are inherently bad", but "something they are doing is bad").

The later portion of the class was dedicated to questioning whether there are forms of racism that escape Fredrickson's definition, as when large numbers of white, purportedly non-racist Democrats vote for the Republican candidate whenever the Democratic candidate is black. The conclusion that I came to on that (there was no "official" answer given, it was an open question that's apparently still being debated) is that in addition to Fredrickson's essentialist notion of racism, there's also an epistemic kind of racism, which is, simply put, prejudice. You can deny essentialist racism, and say "well yeah, there's no 'black culture' per se, black people are fully capable of being and doing anything that white people are, and vice versa", but at the same time say "but still, look at the statistics, more criminals are black per capita, more poor people are black per capita, etc" and on that basis of that pre-judge a black person to be most likely poor, or a criminal, just on the basis of his black, even though you acknowledge that black people aren't by their nature predisposed to be like that. You just think that, incidentally, as a historical accident or whatever, most black people right now are like that, and so this black person is probably like that too... which seems like it should legitimately count as a form of racism, although different from Fredrickson's essentialist racism.

This has been Philosophy Hour with Forrest Cameranesi. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming, already in progress...

[Viking-Sensei]

I'm interrested, Forrest, since I'm not familiar with that source text... did your class cover the issue of classism much? The cultural elitism aspect of his definition of racism sounds to me like he was trying to use class without actually having to say class.

The reason that I'm so curious about class is that in Cincinnati (where I reside, more or less) there is a huge divide between the inner city urban black population and their suburban counterparts. It's an interresting microcosm, because you can see not just the race-on-race struggle, but also class-on-class struggle. Inner city race vs. race is totally different than suburban race vs. race... but what's even weirder to watch (as I alluded to earlier) is inner city vs suburban class-on-class when they're of the same 'color'.

The famous Cincinnati judge-turned-evangelical-minister-turned-judge-again wrote a big book several years ago that got him into a lot of trouble; it was a fairly impartial analysis of the urban populace, it's flaws, and what it needs to do to survive. His best and most memorable comparison was that he likened the city's poor urban dwellers to lobsters, saying that (and I'm paraphrasing here, because I don't have the book in front of me) "Lobsters don't have to be kept in very deep tanks because they don't know how to work together. Two lobsters working together could reach the edge of the tank and pull themselves out... but that doesn't happen. Any lobster who tries to climb out of the tank on the backs of his brothers is immediately pulled back down by those below him." He goes on to point out that during the race riots of the late 90's, almost all the collateral damage and looting that was done during the riots was to black-owned bussinesses.



I'm also in an entirely interresting place when it comes to issues of race... on my father's side of the family, they're all Norwegian and we've only been in this country for two generations max, so when the whole slavery thing was going down here in the US, we were nowhere nearby. We were probably remarking at the beauty of our fjords or wrestling polar bears or some other decidedly norse/norweigan thing.

On my mother's side, I can track my ancestry back to Abner McCorkill, a delightfully eccentric Viking-Turned-Scottsman who, upon hearing that there was a civil war going on in the Americas and a race of enslaved people fighting for their freedom, he packed up the entire clan and sailed (probably not on ships that actually belonged to him, mind you) to the 'free world' to wage war against the South. He served on the North's ironclad battleship (sort of an ancestrial giant robot) and proudly looted the bodies of his enemies for the greater good of the North. After the war ended, he and his clan fled to the mountains due to some questions regarding the legality of their status as US citizens, where they lived for a few generations and did their best to keep the Hatfields and McCoys fighting amongst themselves. Now, going as far back as his side does, there's a lot of non-Scottish ancestory lodged in the gene pool - mostly people who were escaping other people for one reason or another. The only possible white-guilt-ancestor I might have is Thomas Jefferson... however, as an interresting fact, while I am related to Thomas Jefferson, I am NOT related to Mrs. Jefferson, but instead to one of the many slaves that Mr. J had taken a fancy to over the years.

[Forrest]

I'm interrested, Forrest, since I'm not familiar with that source text... did your class cover the issue of classism much? The cultural elitism aspect of his definition of racism sounds to me like he was trying to use class without actually having to say class.

IIRC (and AFAICT), classism is just a subset of Fredrickson's culturalism. Culturalism covers instances of clear social dominance, as in the English imperial presence in India (which was an example used in Fredrickson's book), but also cases where there is no clear dominance, as the hatred between English and French (as carried even outside of strict political conflicts between rival states; witness the Francophone vs Anglophone tension in Canada), between Jews and Muslims, between neighboring tribes in subsaharan Africa, or between rival ethnic gangs within one inner city area. Any time you say "they live differently than us and they're wrong for that", it's culturalism; if the two groups' cultural lineages happen to be separated along lines of wealth rather than language or religion or whatever (and lets face it, wealth is often just as inherited as is language and religion, even though all can be changed), then it's classism rather than lingual or religious discrimination.

And yes, the class/race boundary intersection issues as you describe are quite interesting, and for me serve to emphasize the idea that society isn't divided neatly along any one axis; it's all a big multidimensional spectrum, with a continuous series of points along each axis, be it wealth, race, gender, language, religion, politics, occupation, interests, what have you. Me, I'm more or less a lower-middle-class white anglophone atheist anarchist working odd jobs in the tech field and interested in most things geeky or intellectual. I think of all the cultural barriers between me and people different than me, language is probably the strongest one (if I can't communicate with you I can't very well commune with you), followed by politics and religion (as they rather succinctly sum up a lot about your personality), beyond that occupation and interests are probably next (got to have something to talk about), then wealth (I can't afford fly to Tahiti with you on a whim, and you might not be able to afford to dine out with me on no special occasion, but so long as we're just hanging out here...). Race (whatever's left of it after you strip out all the cultural elements) is way the hell down on the bottom of the stack; I really couldn't give a damn what color your skin is. Same with gender... I don't care what's in your pants (though I probably wouldn't mind a peek either way). So where would that put me in relation to, say, a wealthy female Chinese geek/philosopher who shares my religious and political stances? I'd probably get along with her great... if I could understand a word she said, and if I ever happened to be travelling in such circles as to meet her.

Also, quite interesting to hear about your Scottish heritage and their involvement in the Civil War. I've only recently realized the association of Scotland to libertarian politics and freedom in general; the whole Scottish/English divide always struck me as kind of silly when I was younger. I considered Scottland a part of England (*coughBritaincough*) and wondered why they couldn't all get along; us Californians don't consider ourselves a separate people or nation or country than the Oregonians north of us. It was only in the past couple years, realizing that a lot of my favorite philosophers stemmed from the Scottish Enlightenment, that I read up enough on Scottish history to get what the hell Braveheart was screaming about ("FREEEEEEDOOOOOOOOOOMM!!!!"), and why the Scotts would still hold such national pride even to this day.

Oddly enough, I could just as well see Scotts siding with the South in the Civil War, though. The issue is a tricky dividing point for libertarian-minded people, on the one hand supporting the right of secession and the self-determination of a group of people, their freedom from the domination of another political entity; but on the other hand, those same groups complaining about their rights and demanding freedom denied both to large numbers of their own populace, namely the slaves. Personally I think I'd have sided with your Scottish ancestors if I were alive back then.

[Viking-Sensei]

Well, again, my ancestors were atypical for Scottsmen. The Ancient Clan Gunn resides along the northernmost border of the island, in the really high highlands. Their cultural flashpoint origin points to a place that, by that day's technology, would only be reachable by boat from the ocean... and recent archeological digs have strongly indicated that they weren't really Scottish at all, but instead some very stubborn vikings who'd landed on the wrong landmass and declared it home anyway.

I can picture one of my ancestors, standing atop the high cliffs, telling the surprised and confused highland scotsmen that they were in fact immortals that could not be hurt by anything other than decapitation and challenging them to leap off to prove it... and, of course, his accompliaces at the bottom of the cliff collecting clothing, armor, and weapons for the newly formed 'clan'.

The Clan Gunn is most notable for their long-standing feud with the Clan Keith... it's a long and epic tale that involves stealing sheep, women, and setting things on fire to spite one another. My wife is from the Clan Keith... so I personally think I've gotten an ancestrial 1-up, still managing to steal their women hundreds of years later.

[Forrest]

The Clan Gunn is most notable for their long-standing feud with the Clan Keith... it's a long and epic tale that involves stealing sheep, women, and setting things on fire to spite one another. My wife is from the Clan Keith... so I personally think I've gotten an ancestrial 1-up, still managing to steal their women hundreds of years later.

Or has Clan Keith just started stealing Clan Gunn's men? I guess that really depends on who wears the kilt in your relationship, ifyaknowwhatimean...