Why is racism still an issue in a civilized, globalized world?

Norik

Norik

[14] Master
This is a totally serious question. Why is there still so much racism, especially in so called "first world" nations (and most remarkably, on an immigrant nation such as the US)?

I lived in Venezuela for the first fifteen years of my life, and while white people are definitely found more frequently on higher-class families (and the reverse also being true), it is due to historical reasons; racial hatred and discrimination are pretty much nonexistent there. So naturally, I was shocked when I moved to the US and noticed how strongly segregated American society is. I mean, there's very little to no interracial blending in most areas, you have to indicate your race every time you fill out a form (or your "ethnicity," as some moron decided the word race wasn't politically correct), racial humor is popular and widespread, the media treats people differently based on their race (with black people usually portrayed as criminals or idiots), and most people are just very strongly prejudiced based on something as trivial as the color of someone's skin. And it's not just about skin color, apparently. Middle Eastern, Asian, Hispanic, none of these words actually mean anything when you consider how many infinitely different people they represent. I don't even have to elaborate here, anyone who's ever lived here knows exactly what I'm talking about.

I think it's about time we stop judging people based on how they look or where they're from- and start basing our opinions of people on the content of their character.

PS: I know there will be people who argue racism is a thing of the past, but just take a look at how these very similar stories portray black and white people. Pay special attention to the questions asked to the children and the word choice of the reporters.


 
Totally different the way it was treated. Though to be fair the kid in the first vid was an arrogant little jackass. "I wanna hit cars, do hoodrat stuff with my friends..." WHAT THE HELL?!?!?! What kind of kid says those things?
 
RACISM IS DEAD!

Ever since I was born I have never looked at anyone of a different race as inferior, or superior, I simply look at them as just another person.

The fact the social media is trying to riot black people with movies showing 1930's racist baseball players and such is pathetic. Racism is over, people on the internet may say racist things to get people upset, but seriously, it's time for people to stop feeling oppressed, and stop living in a self-induced oppressive society.

If you can't find a job? RACISM!

If you get a failing test? RACISM!

If someone looks at you strange? RACISM!

If someone just doesn't like you? RACISM!

Bury the 150 year old hatchet and let's all just become "people" where what you do personally is an interpretation of what people think of you, not your skin tone.
 
Ishimaru Jinrai said:
Bury the 150 year old hatchet and let's all just become "people" where what you do personally is an interpretation of what people think of you, not your skin tone.
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I agree with your statement and it would be awesome if everyone shared your attitude on the issue, but the reality is that racism is still a thing. Maybe things are different wherever it is that you live, but here in Florida it's still very much alive.
 
Norik said:
I agree with your statement and it would be awesome if everyone shared your attitude on the issue, but the reality is that racism is still a thing. Maybe things are different wherever it is that you live, but here in Florida racism is still a thing.
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Yeah, there are more black people living there. I think where the racism stems from is what the news media tells you, and violence. Black people aren't bad people, they just come from poor impoverished backgrounds. And with poverty comes crime.

I'm white, but if I imagine myself black, and my whole life people tell me that my short-comings are ONLY due to the fact I have dark skin, I'll look at life in a very negative manner. Not holding myself accountable, like if I get fired, it's not because I was a bad employee, it's just because they were racist! Victimization discourages self-productivity.
 
Ishimaru Jinrai said:
The fact the social media is trying to riot black people with movies showing 1930's racist baseball players and such is pathetic. Racism is over, people on the internet may say racist things to get people upset, but seriously, it's time for people to stop feeling oppressed, and stop living in a self-induced oppressive society.
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It's not that simple. Or rather, it'll take as long as it takes for that to be resolved.

Racism has effects, but it's not the cause in and of itself. It's an effect of a world that feels lacking, that feels that we individually and collectively aren't enough, and doesn't know what to do about it.

Power, as we know it, is founded solely on lack. And everyone who seeks power feels the lack, but don't realise that it never leaves when they attain (the current idea of) power. So when we don't have power, we blame our predicament on the ones we perceive who do, and when we do get that power, we seek to never let it go. Because we don't feel lacking again. And anything that challenges that power is therefore seen as a threat to it.

Consequently, what we think of as "equality" isn't equality at all - it's superiority. And superiority needs inferiority for it to exist, and vice versa. Any person or group who wants to be treated as an equal doesn't seek equality - they seek superiority. Because an enemy is needed to maintain their position. That, and they have no point of reference for what equality is. It's what drives every negative "-ism" we have - racism, ageism, sexism, etc.

What we really want is abundance. That's true power - not only is it infinite, but it can be given away freely unconditionally. The need to keep as much power as possible for fear of losing shows the feeling of lack that drives such behaviour.

If we want to end racism, we have to end the concept of "power via lack". But as I'm finding out, how that comes is individualised. It's not something cultures or societies can achieve - cultures and societies are effects of the people who live within them. And it's not something society can take part in either.

And it's fucking hard.
 
BlackDragon37 said:
Consequently, what we think of as "equality" isn't equality at all - it's superiority. And superiority needs inferiority for it to exist, and vice versa. Any person or group who wants to be treated as an equal doesn't seek equality - they seek superiority. Because an enemy is needed to maintain their position. That, and they have no point of reference for what equality is. It's what drives every negative "-ism" we have - racism, ageism, sexism, etc.
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Your post has a lot of great points in it, but this is what I want to point out. =]

Equality is just another term people use for "Hey, they have more than me... I deserve more too!" Equality is basically taught by people who live there life incompetently, and think that because they're unsuccessful it's someone else's fault, and the people at the top some how screwed over other people to get up there.

I hate "Equality", everyone is already equal, everyone has the same chances in life to succeed. Equality is just another word people use for entitlements.

If people in this country want "Equality", then we should go ask them where Africa, or the Middle east's equality has gone. They will quickly not give a crap, because people who live in those 3rd world countries are screwed once they're born... It's easy to look at people with more than you and say "equality!" but tough to look at people with practically nothing and think about sharing with them. xD
 
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"Equality" to most people is currently defined as "everyone speaks the same, dresses the same, believes the same, eats the same, lives the same, etc.".

For one, that's impossible. So I get how jaded you feel about it.

For another, that's not the "equality" we're seeking. The equality everyone wants exists. It's just that the closest we ever same to it was in the form of superiority. And because that's all we know, we mistake equality for superiority.

But the catch for realising true equality is to take a look at everything we're running from. Everything we have suppressed, oppressed, deemed as wrong and/or evil, prevented so as to not feel uncomfortable, etc.

We want equality, so the first thing we're looking at is what is not equality, in this case. For that's what required to transform.

If we call on the Christ, we call on the crisis.
 
I have mixed feelings about this issue. For one thing, educational institutions drilled into my head as a kid how racism is wrong, how we're born equal, etc. History classes seemed to emphasize slavery, the civil war, civil rights, MLK, and the South's segregation laws.

As a white boy, it was drilled into my head that whites are evil and they left me with the impression that WE are responsible for everything wrong in the world. Despite the fact that I wasn't born until 1975, somehow my fellow black classmates were blaming me for their troubles and thought that I owed them something. As a result, black people would bully the whites, steal from them and hurt them because they thought they were getting revenge on the white man.

The ultimate irony is that what resulted was far more racism towards whites than from them. FBI crime statistics show that there is WAY more black-on-white crime than the other way around. To make matters worse, when this kind of thing happens it is rarely labelled as a hate crime, because apparently only whites are capable of hate crimes lol.

During the whole Trevon Martin trial, there was something else that was going on that would make your skin crawl. I don't remember details but this is what I do remember:

A white couple was kidnapped, tortured, and brutally murdered by 2 black men and 1 black woman. The white girl got her tits cut off (I'm not fucking lying!), her private parts cut into little pieces and force-fed down her throat!! The dude got both his ears cut off as well as his tongue. For 3 days they were tortured until eventually they both bled to death!

The 3 suspects got the death penalty I believe, but I could be wrong. The thing that really pisses me off is that the media never touched this case. It was floating around the internet and the only media attention it got was a news paper article in the local news paper. It wasn't even mentioned on TV once! Not only that, it wasn't even considered a hate crime!!

Now, don't get me wrong. I won't for a second deny that there is still racism in the world, especially Murica. But what I will say is that the media exaggerates the extent of it, while at the same time barely acknowledges the fact that all types of people are racist. They want you to believe that only white people are even capable of it!

There is this saying that every stereotype has a nugget of truth in it. When I took psychology in college, I was shocked to find out that average IQ's differ from race to race. I was faced with some cognitive dissonance because my liberal upbringing told me that everyone is the same and equal, but statistics don't lie. I then had to reevaluate my world view on race. As a kid we always made jokes about the nerdy bookworm Asian kid, but never actually believing that they were inherently intellectually superior. Statistics on IQ tests do indeed show that Asians are on average smarter than whites, while Jews are on the very tippy-top.

And don't try to tell me that IQ tests favor white culture. If that were true, then why are Asians beating whites? I've taken a few of them myself, and they seem to target raw abilities, rather than pre-existing knowledge or cultural values. With the exception of the test being in English, I saw no other biases. Perhaps it's possible that older IQ tests weren't as fair, who knows.

Can the opposite be said of black people? The problem with this issue is that it's never that simple. There are always exceptions to the rule. There are countless brilliant black people out there as well as a ton of half-witted Asians.

I think the ultimate solution to this issue is that we drop the notion of race entirely. Stop asking for it on job applications or college enrollment. This also means that we should drop affirmative action entirely: it's purpose was to combat racism, but it creates a new type of racism in it's place where some groups get preferential treatment over others. This is wrong. What this also means is that we, as a culture, need to drop this concept of race entirely. We are a single human species, some are lighter, some are darker, etc. Every person needs to be treated and judged on a individual basis, and not based on what others who look like them act like.

You do all of these things, and you will see racism slowly disappear. Brazil is far more racially diverse than the US, has far more interracial children, and is far less "racist" as a whole. I wish we could be more like them in that way.

As globalization spreads, I see the future as the hybridization of all races into one. This might take 1000 years though.

TLDR: It's a complicated issue that might be solved with a simple solution: Drop the concept of race from our minds entirely, and just see humans as a wide spectrum of features and attributes.

(To be quite honest I also think the concept of breeds in dogs and cats to be equally silly, as evidence shows that trying to maintain "pure" breeds only results in inbreeding and genetic disorders. Mutts in general are far, FAR healthier and more intelligent)
 
Best way to deal with racism is to pay no attention to those with racist mindsets, and to raise your kids right and teach them that skin color doesn't mean a thing. Also, get people to stop listening to the media.
 
@CaptainHook : You make some great points. I have to respond to a couple of them...
CaptainHook said:
Don't try to tell me that IQ tests favor white culture.
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They don't... technically. It's a lot more about upbringing and early education than it is about culture/race (and this, of course, varies from family to family). The one thing most Asian American and Jewish American families have in common is they are -on average- far more demanding towards their children academically speaking than any other group. Having gone to high school in a multicultural city, I can tell you that all the Jewish and Asian kids (along with a few Haitian and Indian kids) were forced by their families into taking all AP classes, even when they were clearly having trouble and hated it. Because of their exposure to these challenges, these kids ended up developing remarkable problem solving, analytic, and time management skills when compared to the rest of the school. And of course, this results in higher IQ scores.

It's also important to note that these are average scores for each ethnicity, and when the majority of people in one group are in poverty, education is compromised (you need to get a job to support your family and can't finish school, you can't afford college, you work all day long so you can't dedicate much time to your children, etc) so of course IQ averages are skewed and favor wealthier groups.

So no, of course IQ scores don't favor certain cultures, but they do favor conditions under which intelligence can better develop (and certain races are born under these conditions more often than others because of historic reasons).

There's also this and, more importantly, this.
To be quite honest I also think the concept of breeds in dogs and cats to be equally silly, as evidence shows that trying to maintain "pure" breeds only results in inbreeding and genetic disorders. Mutts in general are far, FAR healthier and more intelligent.
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It's funny because this -aside from being absolutely true- encapsulates how our perceptions of race have changed over the past couple of centuries. Sure, having different breeds of dogs makes little sense now that they're just pets, but do you know why we have different kinds of dogs? If you look at the domestication of the wolf and the eventual creation of the dog, you can see that certain traits were favored over others, creating a type of evolution called artificial selection (aka: survival of what's most useful to humans). Nowadays these breeds, which were once designed with specific uses in mind, are all treated the same, so suddenly they stop being useful and the problems of inbreeding become more evident. This leads us to the desire to mix races, and eventually, to the loss of all breeds in favor of a "post-racial" dog, which resembles the proto-dogs of human prehistory but come with all the advantages of several centuries of selective breeding (increased intelligence, improved behavior, etc).

I, like you, feel that humanity is headed down this path as well. Traits that were once crucial to our survival (resistance to heat and drought in Africans, body hair in Europeans who lived in colder climates, better stamina in low-oxygen climates in Peruvian mountain Indians, etc) are now rendered meaningless by globalization and the modern way of life. As the more developed countries lose their xenophobic stances and religion continues to decline in importance, I can totally see an amalgamation of races forming over time. This has already been happening in South America for over a century, and North America is next. I'm not too sure about the rest of the world just yet (especially with the way Muslim immigration is reshaping popular European opinion on the topic) but it's bound to happen eventually.
 
It's just the culture of a certain domain in a social setting.

Meaning it isnt how the world totally functioms (null in terms of macrocosm). I mean in socal, especially oxnard, you will see a lot of prejudice toward african americans. As a guy coming from sacramento area in norcal it is very surprising since i was raised around many different cultures and races.

But i will say that socal is has a high majority of homosexuals. I have no idea why. Actually what i mean is santa barbata to oxnard vs sacramento and lincoln
 
Slightly off topic but still interesting:

I just found out the other day that geneticists have conclusively proven that modern whites and Asians have traces of Neanderthal DNA! The conclusion is that there must have been some interbreeding. So, does this mean that Neanderthals were in fact a different race instead of a different species? I don't see any other explanation. Also, Neanderthal DNA is apparently 99.8% percent the same as modern homo-sapiens. Putting this into perspective, Chimpanzee DNA is roughly 98% the same (the closest living relative).

The only race of people with ZERO neanderthal DNA is the African race.

You know, I had suspected this years ago in Anthropology class and actually suggested this to the instructor. He kinda chuckled at me and said it was "completely ridiculous". Looks like I got the last laugh :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_genome_project
 
CaptainHook said:
I just found out the other day that geneticists have conclusively proven that modern whites and Asians have traces of Neanderthal DNA! The conclusion is that there must have been some interbreeding.
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Yeah, my mom is close friends with an anthropologist and he often talks about this stuff, and I find it fascinating. East Asians also have tons of cro-magnon DNA, even more so than Europeans have Neanderthal DNA.
So, does this mean that Neanderthals were in fact a different race instead of a different species? I don't see any other explanation. Also, Neanderthal DNA is apparently 99.8% percent the same as modern homo-sapiens. Putting this into perspective, Chimpanzee DNA is roughly 98% the same (the closest living relative).
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This is actually a somewhat controversial question in the scientific community at this point.

There's tons of misconceptions surrounding human evolution, and one of them is that evolution was just one straight line: from monkey to homo erectus to cro-magnon to neanderthal to homo sapiens... but this couldn't be further from the truth. There were several hominid (human-like) species coexisting in the same areas for a very long time, and we were simply so much smarter and better at sex that we out-competed them all (or in some cases we just had sex with them :3).

Once the early hominids in Africa began to cook their foods, they began migrating north in several waves. The first were the Neanderthals (who moved to Europe) and soon after the Australoids (who moved to India and later to Indonesia and Australia). It actually took a long time for the ancestors of most modern humans to begin leaving Africa, and by the time they did they had become incredibly smart, to the point where they either killed off every other human-like species or integrated them into their gene pool through sex, and as soon as 10,000 years later they sparked the agricultural revolution.

The reason why this is controversial is because the evidence of successful cross-species hominid interbreeding with fertile offspring is so overwhelming that it calls into question the very definition of humanity/the human species. For instance, we think of Neanderthals as a separate species from us, and there certainly are many differences: larger heads, bulkier bones, their inability to digest lactose (which seems to explain why lactose intolerance is so prevalent in white people when compared to other races, but that's just speculation from my side), but we still had fertile offspring with them. Sure, some (or maybe even most) of that offspring might have been infertile, there's no way to know for sure, but the fact that we have their genes says a lot. We also have no way of knowing how advanced they were, other than the fact that they could speak just like we do, they buried their dead, and wore clothes.

This gets even more complicated when you factor in Australian aborigines, the "purest" living decedents of Australoids. They are considered their own race because even though genetically they are very far from the rest of us, they still have the same internals as us and are perfectly capable of mating with other homo sapiens and creating fertile offspring. Does this mean modern human races are simply the result of a speciation process interrupted by the rise of agriculture and civilizations? Could Neanderthals simply be an inferior, genetically isolated race of our own species? It's difficult to answer questions like this, especially when you're labeled a racist the moment you ask them.

FUN FACT#1: Both Neanderthals and modern humans developed genes for light skin, light eyes, and red hair independently as soon as they reached Europe, with a 50,000 year gap in between the two groups. Neanderthals were never blonde though, that mutation came as late as 10,000 years ago.
The only race of people with ZERO neanderthal DNA is the African race.
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FUN FACT #2: Because of this ^, a lot of people are starting to claim blacks are the most evolved and pure of all races (while ignoring that modern humans have barely evolved at all in the last 50,000 years). What is true is that they're the most genetically diverse of all the races, to the point where many are saying we should call South Africans a different race, since they're just as genetically different from the blacks of central and western Africa as Asians and Europeans.

TL;DR: Drawing the line between human and Neanderthal is very difficult, mostly because killing and sex.

EDIT: I can't spell for shit.
 
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It seems logical to assume that Neanderthals were fairly advanced and intelligent, especially considering the fact that they actually had a slightly larger brain case than we do now.

Neanderthals were short, stocky and very powerfully built. This may not necessarily mean that they were more apelike, but rather the harsh and cold living conditions would favor such a build. If you are shorter, your body has less surface area and is less sensitive to wind chill, not to mention the blood doesn't have to pump as far. This means that you can stay much warmer.

Also, the prominent brow ridge is not necessarily indicative of a different species, especially when you look at modern day Australian Aborigines, who also have a very prominent brow ridge. Aborigines also have thinker bones in general.

What I'm saying is that the differences in Neanderthals body shape could very well be within the variances of human beings.

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This is a reconstruction of what a Neanderthal would look like. If I saw this guy walking down the street, I would not think for a second that he wasn't human. A little archaic sure, but definitely human looking.

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On the left is a modern Australian Aborigines and the right is a Caucasian.

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On the right is a Neanderthal. Comparing it to the aborigines, they have some striking similarities. Looking at them all, if aborigines are considered homo sapiens then I see no reason not to include Neanderthals in the mix. At least based on pure morphology (appearance).
 
OK fellas I hate to be a wet blanket but its time to bring this back to earth a bit; I have no interest in getting embroiled in a debate on racism on a fighting game website, but when it comes to paleoanthropology, then I feel obligated to comment.

For starters that "aboriginie" skull as its purported to be is extremely atypical at most and possibly an outright hoax. The so-called Pintubi-1 skull is supposed to be of a man from a traditional group in Australia (the Pintupi) from the nineteenth century, but I can find it only on forums and blogs....I can find no mention of it on a site a I consider credible. Not only that but it is compared side-by-side to an extremely gracile modern European for maximum contrast. Take an average aboriginal and put it next to a half dozen other average skulls for across the globe and there is some variation, sure, but nothing like this image suggests.

Second, there remains debate about whether Neanderthals should be considered a separate species or a subspecies (H. sapiens neandertalensis), which really just means a genetically isolated population that can interbreed with others of the same species, but becomes distinct due to genetic drift. With enough neanderthal DNA floating around Europe in modern people, I think the subspecies idea is probably gaining traction, though genetic studies have in a lot of ways sort of muddied up the whole speciation approach as it has been applied in the past, primarily to fossil remains.

And yes, we could probably clone a neanderthal as last I heard they were closing in on had reported in December 2013 a complete genome sequencing, but since they are human, no ethical scientist would do so.

If you want to read up on these things as a non-specialist here are a couple of webpages, written by professionals in the field but intended for lay readers; if you're actually interested and want a legit story without internet bullshit or sensationalistic page hit fodder, go here:

http://johnhawks.net/
John's a paleoanthrpologist that has been studying the Denisovan neanderthals and also writes a lot about open access scientific publication on the internet, the state of higher education, and a lot of other topics in his blog. Good stuff.

http://archaeology.about.com/
This site I always recommend, as Kris is great at summarizing and making accessible all things anthropological and archaeological. Plus I used to work with her back when I lived in Iowa and she wrote one of my recommendation letters for grad school.
 
Quinion said:
OK fellas I hate to be a wet blanket but its time to bring this back to earth a bit.
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Stupid reality! Always resisting simplicity and sensationalism :(

Sweet links though. How did you get to work with an anthropologist?
 
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