I don't 'get' Racism...

[dillinger88]

Well it probably started due to fucking idiots actually believing they were superior because other races weren't the "norm". People would see someone with different coloured skin or accent for the first time and it was strange to them.

It was awful and you'd expect people to realise that now, but unfortunately fucking idiots will continue to be fucking idiots.

 

[Davey Woo]

Hold on a sec, are you saying that before the "white man" found the "uncivilised" black men, racism did not exist?
Is this something which in your opinion is something only "white man" is capable of?
Is it something "white man" invented?
Before the "white man" ventured out of Europe every other civilisation was living in harmony and did not discriminate against other cultures and peoples, it was something they needed to be taught?
Oh the fucking irony!

No I'm not saying racism didn't exist beforehand, I'm saying that white on black racism stems from around that time period.

 

[GigaHz]

Racism will become less relevant over time, thanks in part to the globalization of the internet. Sure, it will remain a mindset of the less intelligent/educated at least until it becomes unfashionable in their circle.

But even still, there will always be some fragment of hatred that people will cling on to. Just because, you know, humans tend to hate things they don't fully understand. Also conditioning has a lot to do with it as well.

My solution is to openly acknowledge a race's specific traits and have fun with it. It's a lot better than the PC garbage the mainstream is shovelling down your throat, which is trying to have you believe that we are all just one big glob of assimilated culture. As ugly as the whole hatred of other cultures and races definitely is, whats worse is glazing over identity and cultural background. It actually seems to distance people from other cultures when heaven forbid they do something that isn't considered 'white wash'.

I'm thinking the next big trend will be Classism: Rich vs. Middle Class vs. Lower Class. Especially with that whole economic mess over the last few years.

 

[Wintermoot]

because some people are big douches it,s just how people work

 

[The_Emperor]

I understand it and practice it and have never encountered anyone who to some degree did not.

then explain it.

me personally I think all people have positive and negative things about them

some cultures engage in things I find morally objectable it doesn't mean I hate them all because of the actions of a minority or even a majority.

Some humans are dicks, other humans aren't dicks, some cultures express their dickishness in the ways that they have learned from the dicks before them, others do not.

It's that simple. Racism is a form of dickishness expressed by all peoples.

My definition of racism is malicious hatred toward another culture or malicious action toward another culture based on prejudice brought about by anything

Making light of social differences is not racist but assuming that members of a certain culture will exhibit a particular behaviour because other members of that culture have done so is illogical.

 

[Stublore]

It all comes from way back when the 'civilised' white man 'found' the 'uncivilised' black man and taught him how to live etc. Since then it's been drilled into SOME peoples heads that white people are superior to black people. (At least that's the case with white on black racism.

Racism in general comes from some people thinking it's necessary to conform, and being different (in any way) obviously doesn't conform, so naturally some people will discriminate against the people who're different.

Hold on a sec, are you saying that before the "white man" found the "uncivilised" black men, racism did nit exist?
Is this something which in your opinion is something only "white man" is capable of?
Is it something "white man" invented?
Before the "white man" ventured out of Europe every other civilisation was living in harmony and did not discriminate against other cultures and peoples, it was something they needed to be taught?
Oh the fucking irony!

Well hes both right and wrong here. Racism probably existed prior to this, but it was the whites that started shipping boat-loads of 'slaves' from Africa, simply because they were 'inferior.' So in that regard whites did kind of enforce a sort of rule of racism.

Now sure the Romans and other civilizations had 'slaves' and 'sacrifices' too but in these cases they were just prisoners of war, regardless of their race. You lose the war, you and your people become the slaves of the victor.

And what was the basis of the African slave trade prior to that?
You are aware that Africa has had a thriving slave trade long before "white man" arrived?
But I guess that was not racially motivated was it, only in the case of the Europeans was it racist??
As for those Romans and others I guess by losing they proved their inferiority and that was what made the Romans superior to them.
Wait, wasn't that how Europeans asserted their superiority, and the Ottomans, and the Japanese, and Chinese, heck pretty much every society ever.

To sum up, if you think racism is solely the preserve of, and was created by the "white man", that's racist, isn't it?

 

[Jegsimmons]

Pretty straight-foward, i just don't understand racism.
Why are people Racist?
What is it about the colour of you're skin that makes you 'better' than others?
I just can't put my finger on it, why is there racism in the world?
To me it doesn't make any logical sense.
So, what are your thoughts on this?

OK, racism is not always ignorance or how your raised, and it doesn't always mean your race is superior.
it can be learned through experience. Example: During middle school i went to an all black and Mexican school for a short time (i'm white...and i mean white) during this stay i saw prejudiced, ignorance, lack of morals, lack of intelligence, and all sorts of uncivilized manners. Most of it directed at ME!

needless to say i developed an uneasiness around certain minorities after that. Wasn't my fault, back at the other schools i went to i had friends who were minorities and i got along fine. yet when i went to this school and became the minority myself, i was put in an environment where i became increasingly uncomfortable day after day.

now i did eventually overcome most of these problems i developed, but it did make me realize that sometimes prejudices are learned from direct experience, as much as people don't like to admit it, a large bit of racism could be traced back to the group in question.

 

[DEAD34345]

It's ignorance, these people aren't racist for any kind of logical reason, but because of a natural fear of things that are different and an unwillingness to actually think about it properly.

wrong... When Spaniards saw Mexicans sacrificing to "false" gods, they immediatly saw themselves better spiritualy, and seeing as how they had more advanced tchnology, they saw themselves better racially and culturally. Now today its like.... A "white" person goes through any ghetto and sees the violence and high level og ignorant thought and says to himself... I am superior to these people..

So... they naturally feared the differences of those cultures, leading them to come to the belief that they are superior (ignorant of the fact that they are just different, and that their culture has nothing to do with their skin colour anyway)?

... Pretty much exactly what I said?

 

[Hagi]

Racism is perfectly logical.

What our brains excel at most is detecting patterns. Even if those patterns aren't actually there.

Just look at how many times you were alone in a dark place and thought a shadow somewhere was actually another person. Your brain detected a vaguely person-like pattern in that shadow and immediately told you PERSON!. Or how often you recognise human faces in various objects. I mean a smiley is only a circle with a few lines in it yet everyone is able to recognise a face in it.

Faces and people are likely hard-coded into our brains and therefore extremely easy to recognize, even if not actually there. But they're not the only patterns our brain recognizes.

If we see one hundred people who all share two qualities and nearly no people who have one of these qualities without the other then that's also a pattern our brains will start to recognize, even if not there.

So the next time you see a person with just one of the qualities your brain is very likely to also recognize the other unless you specifically focus your attention on that other quality.

So if you grow up in a place and the only black people you meet are also poorly educated then after enough exposure to that you'll subtly start seeing every black person as uneducated until you specifically focus your attention on their education. And the other way around, if you hear about someone who is poorly educated you'll assume he's black until you specifically focus your attention on his skill colour. All this simply because your brain has recognized 'black - uneducated' as an existing pattern.

The only way to fix this is to force exposure to a lot of people who have only a single one of these qualities without the other. Thus forcing your brain to recognize that this pattern isn't real.

The problem is that a lot of racist attitudes reinforce themselves. Once such a pattern is established you'll act like it's true and because you're acting that way you won't run into anything forcing you to consider otherwise.

Because someone thinks all black people are uneducated he will visit a white doctor when he needs an educated person for whatever reason and he'll visit a black homeless man when he needs an uneducated person for whatever reason. He has no reason to search out black intellectuals or poorly educated white people.

The black - uneducated pattern is fairly obvious and while it still exists in frightening quantities most smart people are able to reflect on themselves and recognize this pattern as false and thus their brains slowly stop recognizing it when it's not there. But there are a lot more patterns, much more subtle, that are constantly being recognized in our lives even when they're not actually there.

This serves a good reason of causing your brain to only have to do half the work, instead of having to recognize every single thing about a person you can just pick a few qualities and quickly extrapolate from there. Based on your personal history that extrapolation should be more or less right.

But obvious problems occur when coming into contact with people whose like you've rarely met in the past, if at all.

Everyone does this. All of us have some subtle racist sentiments. All of us have some patterns that we recognize even when they're not there, yet we still act on them. And all we can do is be vigilant and double check if we're really reacting on qualities that are actually there or if we're only reacting to shadows of qualities we expect to be there.

 

[Tipsy Giant]

Racism is a natural response in humans, it is our way of staying safe, we see something foreign looking and we assume they are a threat to us. This was born out of necessity thousands of years ago and is slowly leaving our society in much the same way that homophobia is, in the end it all comes down to people being misinformed.

 

[Snowblindblitz]

Because at one point in time racism was a survival instinct. Don't trust things that look different, as they will probably kill you. That is still true, we just play nice because we are "civilized."

Add to that the fact that racism is just a cycle. Ancient man A hated Ancient man B. "Whites" are the most accused group of being racist because nobody cares about being racist towards a white man. You can hate and blame "white" people all you want, and nobody, outside of Hate groups who nobody likes, will stop you. Racism is now in that part of the cycle where Man A can take all the heat cause he cast the first stone. Putting a white title on anything (scholarship, fraternity) is BAD. But other races can do that, with no questions asked. Racism between humans won't end till we find an alien race to enslave and kick the shit out of and outcast them.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Pretty straight-foward, i just don't understand racism.
Why are people Racist?
What is it about the colour of you're skin that makes you 'better' than others?
I just can't put my finger on it, why is there racism in the world?
To me it doesn't make any logical sense.
So, what are your thoughts on this?

It's a natural side effect of several thought processes and basic human tendencies unfortunately.

1. First trying to group everything into categories - Is this a car, or a tree?

2. Making generalisations about things - trees have leaves; Cars have 4 wheels.

-> notice how these generalisations aren't always true? Some trees don't have leaves, some cars have more or less than 3 wheels...

There's a well known tendency to take a specific example of something and infer that everything in a group of similar objects has the same properties...

(That car is red, so all cars must be red. You should be able to figure out what's wrong with a statement like that, as well as what consequences it has for something like racism...)

3. In group & Out group - humans have a natural tendency to break up people into either being part of the 'in' group, or the 'out' group.
This is things like 'friends' vs 'enemies', 'family' vs 'strangers', 'locals' vs 'foreigners', and so on.

And alongside this, you usually find that the group you are part of is one you consider 'better', or 'preferable' to the one which you are not...

So, add up superficial groupings based on very limited differences (eg. skin colour), unwarranted generalisations (eg. This person is stupid, therefore all the people of the same race are too), and in group mentality (this person is different to us, therefore we fear/shun/hate them.), and between them you can typically explain most racism. (as well as most other forms of discrimination too. - Sure there's more to it than that, but essentially, these three things form the basis of it.)

 

[DethVanXan]

The causes of racism vary from place to place. I used to live in Zimbabwe where racism is extremely common and accepted among the white population. The older generation's reason was because they fought a war against the Africans and lost. They fought to protect thier way of life and were defeated by the people who, in thier eyes, did not know how to run a country. They are very bitter about thier defeat and this shows itself in the form of racism (and often alcoholism, but that's something else.
My generation now sees the effects of the previous generation's defeat. Zimbabwe, while it was Rhodesia was a rich and good place to live (white or black, but much better for the whites). Now it is one of the poorest countries on earth.

 

[Ryank1908]

It's ultimately fear or resentment of a culture that someone just doesn't understand and passes it off as alien and evil, or the remaining aftershocks of when all of the races of the world combined. Don't forget your history - we've all done some terrible things to each other, and once upon a time, there were no black people in America, no Asians in Britain, and no white people in Africa. People were shunned and feared because they were from places that previously people from other countries didn't know existed, with different skin tones they'd never seen, different languages they'd never heard. We were stupid and barbaric as a species and as such, that shock became loathing. Some people are still archaic Neanderthals and have carried their foul, ignorant ideals down through the generations, poisoning the minds of their kids as they go. (The above statement is most likely incredibly ignorant of history but you get the picture.)

 

[Vandenberg1]

It's ignorance, these people aren't racist for any kind of logical reason, but because of a natural fear of things that are different and an unwillingness to actually think about it properly.

wrong... When Spaniards saw Mexicans sacrificing to "false" gods, they immediatly saw themselves better spiritualy, and seeing as how they had more advanced tchnology, they saw themselves better racially and culturally. Now today its like.... A "white" person goes through any ghetto and sees the violence and high level og ignorant thought and says to himself... I am superior to these people..

So... they naturally feared the differences of those cultures, leading them to come to the belief that they are superior (ignorant of the fact that they are just different, and that their culture has nothing to do with their skin colour anyway)?

... Pretty much exactly what I said?

FINE, bad example... haha.. Back in the early 19th century the Irish immigrants arrived and were treated with more disgust then African Americans. They were called green Ni**ers. It was popularly said that an Irishmen would do for a nickel what a n**ger would do for a dime. The Italians were looked down upon similarly but not as bad. Maybe its due to them being "un-Germanic" enough Like the English, French etcetc...idk exactly. Wacth Gangs of New York tho for goodexample. Its about the first Irishimmigrants, their struggles and..GANG FIGHTS THAT WOULD MAKE TODAYS DRIVE BYS LOOK PU**YISH!

 

[Korolev]

It's because people like feeling special. Racism is born from the desire to believe that there is something intrinsically "better" about your group than others. Race is an visible distinguishing characteristic that allows people to group themselves. And as well all know, humans like to belong to the "best" group - and even if there isn't a "best" group, they'll find "reasons" to call their group the best group.

And that's where racism comes from. People want to feel pride, and they don't want to have to do anything to earn pride or respect or a sense of community. Rather than work hard to be respected, or bother to find those with similar interests, or take the time to build community relations, lazy people take pride in their race.

I will be brutally honest about it: Being proud of your race is stupid. No matter what that race is. You did nothing to be born the race you are. You had no say in whether or not you were born Caucasian, African, Asian, Pacific Islander, Arab, Persian, Hispanic or Indigenous. You didn't "earn" your race - you were born with it. Likewise, the achievements of others in your race are not your achievements. There's nothing more pathetic than someone deriving their sense of pride and place vicariously through the actions of others.

A white person discovered the laws of electromagnetism. You, even if you are white, did not, and have no right to feel "pride" through it. You can (and should!) respect what Michael Faraday did, but to try to take his achievement and use it to feel good about yourself is stupid. Achievements belong to the individuals who achieved them, and in a way, the society that made it possible.

A Chinese Admiral sailed across the seas and discovered much on his mighty treasure ships. You, even if you are chinese, did not. You have no right to feel pride from Zheng He's feats of exploration. You can respect what Zheng He was able to achieve, but unless it was YOU who sailed around the world on those boats, or unless you helped build those boats, you've got no "right" to feel any sort of pride from what another person accomplished.

An Arab mathematician was the first to discover many of the mathematical laws governing optics. You, even if you are Arab, have no right to feel any sort of "pride" from the works of Alhazen. You respect Alhazen and his enormous contributions to mathematics (and they were considerable). But you yourself did not discover them or help discover them. What right do you have to feel any sort of pride in what another accomplished?

So, I have pretty much demolished any logical reason why anyone would gain pride from race. But people are not logical. People are often very illogical. Deriving one's sense of self-worth from whatever race they are, is easy. It's simple. You don't have to lift a finger. Which is why racism is so popular. Racism allows people to feel special without them having to do a thing to earn it. And it's not enough to glean nonsensical pride from whatever skin colour they have, they've got to put down other races in order to make themselves feel superior.

Now, I've studied my fair share of genetics. I have looked into the genetic differences between races and I have to tell you: going by the best science we have today, the genetic differences between races is so small as to be irrelevant. There exists the same amount of genetic variation between individuals as between races: what I'm saying is that two individuals of the same race will have about the same genetic variation as two individuals of different races. Whites, Blacks, Asians, Arabs - even in supposedly "different" races, many genetic variations are shared. Going by THE BEST evidence we've got, either humanity is all one race or every SINGLE PERSON is their own individual race.

The concept of race itself is fluid and makes little sense. Go back 200 years, and Europeans divided themselves by race in the same way they are quick to divide africans and asians by race. 200 years ago, Irish was seen as a separate race, with the English-Americans looking down on the Irish as "savages", who were all drunks or criminals. Today, they are no longer seen as a "separate" race in the US. In Africa, people will see another group of people as a "different" tribe or race based on the fact that they live on the other side of a mountain, despite the fact that they look the same and are genetically indistinguishable from each other. I can't tell any difference between Chinese and Japanese people, yet all the Chinese and Japanese people I've worked with are adamant that they are two "different" types of people.

It's all nonsense. Genetics and racial mixing PROVE that we are all one species. Skin Colour, facial structure - meaningless, surface differences. I myself am Half-Chinese, Half-Caucasian. I am 100% human. I am just as intelligent, just as humane and just as healthy as anyone else. Yet I am of no one race. I am equal parts Chinese and English, yet I'm no different to any English person or Chinese person that I've met. I can only come to the conclusion that there really are no differences between Chinese and English people. I can donate blood to both of them. I can talk to both of them. Both have the emotions of love, anger, happiness, hate, sadness, longing - both sets of people have the same emotions, the same sorts of lives, and that's because they're of the same species.

But people don't want to acknowledge that. They don't want to feel brotherhood and unity, they want to feel special and superior, so they insist, despite all the scientific evidence we have today, that races are different. Because it allows them (Chinese and English and any other race) to justify atrocities, it allows them to justify their hate and their sense of smugness and why "they" should be the ones to "rule the world".

Also, I should point out, racism isn't a "white" thing. I've lived in many countries and I've talked to many people of all races and there exists racism in every single country under the sun. The Japanese are racist against the Chinese who are racist against the Indians who are racist against the Arabs who are racist against the Persians who are racist against the Arabs as well, and the Russians are racist to the Mongolians who are racist to the Chinese who are racist towards the Indonesians who are racist against Singaporeans who are racist against the Africans, and the Africans have enough racism to go amongst themselves let alone other people, and the Irish are racist against the English who are (somewhat) racist against the Scots. The Germans are racist against the Ukranians who also don't like the Poles who also don't like Italians who are Racist against the Africans. Egyptians are racist against Somalis who are Racist against Ethiopians. The world has so much meaningless, nonsensical racism all due to the fact that people want to feel special and different and superior to each other. A lot of people love the idea that they are better than anyone else, thus deserving of more "rights" and "privileges" than anyone else.

The first instances of racism also came about because people needed a justification to fight and steal from other groups. Skin Colour and Geographical location became that justification. The idea that Blacks were subhuman was invented by whites to justify slavery. The idea that the slavic people's were somehow "subhuman" was invented by Hitler to justify stealing the land. The idea that the Tibetans were "mentally unable to govern themselves" was invented by the Chinese to make them feel better about stealing the Tibetan's land. The idea that some other tribe can be destroyed because they have a different skin colour/language/religion/economic system/clothes is common.

TLR?

HUMANS CAN BE SELFISH JERKS.

 

[kuolonen]

It's ultimately fear or resentment of a culture that someone just doesn't understand and passes it off as alien and evil, or the remaining aftershocks of when all of the races of the world combined. Don't forget your history - we've all done some terrible things to each other, and once upon a time, there were no black people in America, no Asians in Britain, and no white people in Africa. People were shunned and feared because they were from places that previously people from other countries didn't know existed, with different skin tones they'd never seen, different languages they'd never heard. We were stupid and barbaric as a species and as such, that shock became loathing. Some people are still archaic Neanderthals and have carried their foul, ignorant ideals down through the generations, poisoning the minds of their kids as they go. (The above statement is most likely incredibly ignorant of history but you get the picture.)

I get what you are saying but is it racist to fear/hate other cultures? Isnt that more like xenophopia? Since racism is about thinking you are inherently better because of youre skin color, not because of youre social upbringing.

A guy who thinks person of other color is my lesser, even if the other person is raised in exact same way and culture, is racist.
A guy who thinks other person is evil or alien because of his culutural background, is a xenophobe. Skin color is less in play here. ( I think a good example would be egyptian christians and muslims. Lots of tension and hate between those two, yet no difference in skin color.)

Thats how I've always interpetred it. Could be wrong I guess, but I dont see these two automatically as the same thing.

Edit: The above post of TLR rant has so many good points it Burns. Please read it.

 

[Hollock]

I was just sorta thinking about this yesterday. I mean I get that people use others as scapegoats, but I have a hard time holding a grudge on people who really fuck with. I couldn't imagine having one because someone 'likes to eat chicken' or 'is good at math' or 'has sex with corpses ([sub]Canadians[/sub])

 

[hardband]

Your right it makes absolutely no sense when looked at in a logical sense, but there are alot of people in the world who aren't logical and don't see the stupidity behind racism, but such is life.

 

[TheRundownRabbit]

Racial difference is just one of those things that selfish people just took advantage of to declare that they were better, giving their "almighty" ego's a false sense of satisfaction.