Do We Live in a Racist Society?

In Ireland, a lot of foreigners have come over here and gotten some pretty good jobs, doctors being one of the big ones.

What annoys me however is the minority of people here who have that 'They took 'er jobs!' mentality. They go on about how all the immigrants are taking all the jobs, yet during the financial boom there was a lot of jobs opportunities, but these people wouldn't take the initiative and go out and actually take them, now they are on the dole and blaming foreign nationals who actually took the initiative and work hard for their own failings.

 

I think 'racism' is just a word that whiners use when they don't get their way. We certainly live in a stupid an overly-sensitive society.

 

Some people do do that, yes. However I don't think racism can be brushed off as a non-issue so easily nor should it.


I can't speak for other parts of the country because the U.S. is pretty damn big and one coast is almost a world apart from another, so I'll tell my perspective from the NorthEast.


I live in a town that has been referred to numerous times as a "white ghetto." We're a small town, it's kinda redneck but mostly middle class. Anyway, I grew up not ever once having met a black, Hispanic or Asian person. I think there was one black kid in our highschool, that was about it. The only time I ever saw an Asian person was at a Chinese restaurant and I only ever remember seeing Hispanics working landscaping jobs, construction or other forms of labor.

I grew up hearing all manner of racial slurs, homophobic slurs....all manner of derogatory speech aimed at minorities, gays and anyone who wasn't a white, American loving country boy, pretty much. I now work in a blue-collar industry and it is the same thing. Every day I hear the N word and for every situation, every news story we read, my co workers ALWAYS blame the minority. Kids can't get funding for college? It's the blacks fault. Economy bad? It's because of all these Mexicans. Country not being run the way you want it to? It's because all those dumb N*****s elected that other dumb N***** and their dumb N***** ideas are ruining the world.

I'm not a fan of Obama either but c'mon, when he was about to get elected the first time EVERYONE in my neighborhood was wishing, hoping he would get assassinated shortly after he took office. Because he's black and having a black president is unacceptable.


Oh yeah, and there is a Klan chapter in our area that likes to burn small crosses on minorities lawns, things like that. So...are we a racist society? Well I can't speak for the whole country but from what I've known, hate runs deep in this country, whether people put voice to it or not.

I absolutely live in a racist society.

- - Auto Merge - -

I haven't been on facebook for awhile, but I just logged in and saw this. Good example of what people in my town are like. They're both white rednecks, btw.



I also only met this chick twice about a year ago, and I don't really like stupidity so she won't be on my friends list after today.

 

I'm... not quite sure where this thread is going at this point... but yeah, we obviously live in a racist society. Anyone who thinks differently is either in denial, or more likely, is supporting that racism intentionally. I know what it's like to be a religious minority, what it's like to be politically different from most of my peers, and I've known first hand the bullying that comes with being gay; but nothing, none of these compare to what I see being done to racial minorities. I had the good fortune of being born white, so I have no agenda here to gain anything personally by speaking out against this, it's just a horrible system and it's unacceptable. I guess if white folk have anything to lose here, it's by not acting. The more we put people down, the more we rob our society of potential. We need to be giving everyone a fair shot to succeed and when they do, it helps all of us and makes our world better.

 

We might be so used to the situation that we're currently in that it's the new normal. After all, isn't that what defines normal to begin with? I took a class on normalcy rhetoric and disability studies last semester; I'm confident in saying that "normal" is just a perceived notion. Without the willingness to gain extra perspective and challenge the way that we understand the world, we box ourselves into a comfort zone where we spend most of our time rationalizing the familiar. I wouldn't say our whole society is inherently racist in that manner, but parts of it certainly are.

I guess complacency is the mother of discrimination.

 

I would say it stems more from one race hating on another. It also stems from someone liking a different race from their own, and worshipping it in an insane fashion(Wapaneses are a fine example of this). I haven't experienced racism first hand, and granted, I HOPE that I don't have to, but I have heard about it enough to the point that it makes me sick. Best example I can give that doesn't involve blacks is The Trail of Tears and what led up to that.

 

You're welcome Saikyo.

 

This sounds a lot like a vast majority of the United States.

 

That usually goes for any lazy person. They point the blame on someone else so they don't feel bad for themselves. That scares me a little because I know many hard working naturalized citizens who would be subjected into harsh words like being called a stiff or gay(True story, as my favorite teacher was called gay because he's Japanese).

 

Japanese = Gay ?

lolwut
I don't even...

 

Yeah, and that was coming from freshmens as well to boot. Sensei is the most awesome teacher ever. *Goes in a tirade of explaining how much I respect sensei*

 

Since my first post here didn't directly answer the question, I will add this to the discussion:

We don't live in an inherently racist society; our society has racist people in it.

Beyond that, I wonder what sort of response to our (sometimes overlooked) discriminatory ways is warranted.

 

I think I understand the point you are trying to make, but I maybe question the semantics a little.

For instance, what the phrase "racist society" means to me is that the dominant institutions in our society in addition to and aided by the racist individuals and bystanders are in fact inherently racist because thats how they were designed. Oftentimes even institutions that appear to be innocent simply have a superficial band-aid over deep racially problematic roots. It is very rare to come across anything that is truly both innocent and harmless when it comes to these issues.

For example; we have legally given people of color the right to vote, yet are systematically making sure that they are intimidated by or have no access to polling locations. And, even if they make it to the voting both, it doesn't matter anyway because their community has been gerrymandered out of it's fair share of representation regardless of how many people do vote there.

Hollywood has only recently given a select few people of color legitimate chances at success and often times fights these actors every step of the way making sure they are put into stereotypical roles or cast as secondary characters to a white protagonist. Same goes for television, video games, and even advertising. (The fact for example that a Cheerios ad is considered controversial and groundbreaking just by hinting for 30 seconds that interracial couple exist completely illustrates a huge social problem)

Story after story about white unemployment vs black unemployment, rates of firing for little or no cause, being denied access to higher education, if they even have lower education at all because of the ghettoization of neighborhoods with any number of people of color in them. Banks intentionally foreclosing upon or taking advantage of these people at a much higher rate then they do whites (Yes banks are terrible to everyone, but not equally).

So given unending lists of grievances occurring right now - not 100 years ago, not "back in the day"... right now, and in some places it's getting worse not better, I think given all these things there does seem to be a systematic problem with our institutions, government, corporate culture, all colluding against a fair shot for families of non-white background.

 

I think you're mixing up "society" and "government." I would say that government is a part of society but does not encompass it entirely. There are traits of a society - how we learn to treat people of different genders, for instance - that are not governed. I would also say that nobody designed our society and therefore it cannot be inherently anything. Futhermore, our government does have a system of checks and balances that is designed to be able to edit itself when the need arises.

I disagree that our entire governmental system is to blame for those troubles for more than one reason, though I don't think that you're very far off. The people in those institutions are the ones who perpetuate racist and sexist attitudes (and discrimination towards all other minority groups, if you catch my meaning). That they use the existing rules to assist them in their quest for inequality is definitely proof that the rules are flawed, but not, I think, proof that it is the rules that are inherently wrong. Specific racism is taught, not an inherent trait of the human race. I'm not saying humans don't create conflict naturally, but the kind of discrimination we're talking about stems from conviction that can only be learned.

I don't know what can be done about that except to teach young people differently than their parents were taught.

 

I am not only talking about government; I did mention other non governmental institutions and corporations as equally contributing to this problem. I can list more of them though if it would help to explain what I meant.

One head of a one company that decides to not hire or have a higher bar for employees of color is a singular racist, yes. When the vast majority of all companies in the entire marketplace all have a higher bar for people of color than they do for hiring whites, and so discrimination becomes a matter of standard procedure, that is an example of institutionalized racism.

When the fashion industry only chooses white models, when the movie industry (as i said in the last post) only chooses or preferences white actors, when the video game industry has predominantly white characters, when books, TV, and commercials are all white people promoting a white way of life with white privileges in a white-dominant society. THAT is incredibly powerful institutionalized racism... that in some ways is even more powerful and damaging to the psyche of people of color, and destroys their self worth from the inside out, seriously crippling their view of themselves while simultaneously reinforcing white people's entitlement to power and privilege by convincing them that there is no other way of living and just driving in that message all the time everywhere we go.

A challenge: how many black actors can you name, relative to white ones; how many get to be the main character of their own movie relative to white ones. I'll bet you anything that proportion is much less than the number of people of color who are trying to get into the movie business or even less so representative of their proportion of the total population. This same challenge works for every form of media, industry, school enrollment, higher income brackets, positions of power (in government and in the private sector).

People contribute to the design of society all the time; that is fundamentally how "society" works. Government is the primary tool by which we "design" society, but that is by no means the only way. It is all of these institutions; collective policies by schools, professional groups and guilds, corporate alliances, nonprofit groups, charity organizations, political action groups, and yes written laws and judicial interpretation. There is no one designer, but there is a design. It's a collaborative effort.

 

I think with that challenge you're getting a bit off track. I agree with what you believe, just not why you believe it.

I understand that your statement was meant to blanket government with other institutions but since you did not say so I felt forced to point that out. Also, that does not negate my point. I maintain that "institutionalized racism" is created by the people in the institution in question, and is not a random, inevitable by-product of the system itself.

Of course people contribute to society! I don't contest that. But they do not consciously pull its strings. Even if one group of people wanted to do that, it would be out of their hands. You said so yourself. If it is a "collaborative effort", and it is quite impossible to get all the people to agree on everything all the time, there is not one design but rather a mixed bag of ideas. We're not so much "collaborating" with our ideas as we are crashing them into each other haphazardly.

Please allow me to restate: there is no one intentional design. Our society is like all others in that its state is transient. Trying to label it as inherently racist or discriminatory is a gesture doomed to failure since our society is ever-changing. Perhaps that is the one quality that I would say our society does inherently possess. Change is the law of life. Perhaps we do live in a racist society, but that has nothing to do with our society's inherent ephemeral quality. There is a difference, and since that is so it means we are able to change.

 

I think we are working with two different definitions of "inherent".

When a system is codified to be a certain way that is racist, that means it is inherently racist if the letter of the law is upheld perfectly, in case of government institutions, and when the private sector is rigged so that it is impossible for or substantially less likely for a non white person to succeed. Just because it can be changed to a future state where it is not racist doesn't excuse the fact that the current one is, and is inherently so, and I will stick to the phrase "by design". When people make these rules, the rule is what is oppressing others not the author of the rule. If the author dies, that rule continues to oppress through law enforcement, through HR departments, though college applications processing, etc.

For example, to not be inherently racist, an institution would have to cause hardship to people of color only accidentally, and not be purposefully be designed to privilege white people or oppress non-white people. Yes we are slowly correcting the system, but the system was designed over the course of history by people who didn't want it to result in full equality and so made sure that there are levers in place, behind the scenes working on racial distinctions.

 

I would say that a system which is racist but not inherently so could still have people in it that cause intentional racism. I just can't say in good conscience that what you're stating is accurate; cannot a racist action be performed by a person running the system yet still be independent of the system's rules and functions? If our society is indeed inherently racist, then why is it capable (as we have seen through various small steps we have taken towards equality) of accomplishing goals that thwart racism? That may be a small question but it cannot be neglected. I have no doubt you will be able to answer it easily. However, I don't think that there is any proof that racism is inherent in our society, because regardless of whether it is or isn't the effects we see could still possibly be the same (regardless of whether the racism is inherent or not, we are assuming for the purposes of this argument that there is still racism), and thus the query itself is not testable through mere thought experiments such as this conversation.

You say the system is inherently racist, yet if a trait is inherent in the system that means that it cannot be changed unless we forgo the system entirely. Following your very logic, our entire society will always be racist and there is nothing we can do about it. Therefore, time maybe (or possibly won't!) tell us the answer. There's is definitely a certain inevitability evoked by the word "inherent", whose dictionary definition is "a permanent, essential or characteristic attribute." Do you see what I have a problem with your use of that particular word here? It might seem like semantics but I believe it to be the cornerstone of an important truth.

Source(s): http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/inherent?q=inherent