Everyone's racist

[Ruby]

As I interpret it, "everyone's racist" is just supposed to be shorthand for: "what someone looks like will always affect your reaction to them."

 

[Butterfree]

I think Tailsy's point is interesting. I too live in a society that is nearly exclusively white. A group needs to have a significant presence in a society in order to be significantly stereotyped. I've heard about American stereotypes, but they're a distant sort of thing. Meanwhile, my unconscious assumption is always that Icelandic criminals or nerds or whatever are white, not because they're criminals or nerds but because they're Icelandic.

On the other hand, people of other races are unusual. You don't look at them and make any particular assumptions, but you definitely notice they're not white and that fact is probably floating through your head as you talk to them, and that in turn probably affects the way you treat them one way or another. An Asian kid isn't a nerd; he's Asian. That's at least a rather different kind of racism, I think, than the kind that involves concrete assumptions and stereotypes.

 

[shy ♡]

I figured this is relevant and unlike the Avenue Q song it isn't brought up in every single conversation that has to do with racism (in fact I can't even find the studio version on the youtubes).

... yep that's all.

 

[Teh Ebil Snorlax]

Race and racism are, I think, two massively complicated concepts that have been hugely simplified by the media, and people in this thread are using them in different ways.

I think maybe a better thread title would be "Everyone does racist things" or even "We exist inside a racist society, and as a result many of our actions, whether intentional or not, are racist".

The intentionality of racism is a very important point. Very few people mean to do racist things, but the truth is, people in a privileged position within society (for the purposes of this discussion, white people) benefit from the racist structure of society every day. Every time you get on a train and don't have to worry that people think you're a terrorist. Every time you walk down a street and don't have people crossing the road to avoid you because they think you'll mug them. Every time you go to the shops and don't have people asking you where things are because they assume you work there.

When you're a white person, people see and treat you as a person. When you're a black person, people see and treat you as a black person. This is especially obvious if you look at the labelling of people in the US - terms like "African-American", "Asian-American" and even "Native American" are commonplace, but "European-American" is almost never used because, if you're white, you're seen as "American-American".

Being white gives you the freedom to be whoever or whatever you want (obviously within the confines of other societal classifications like gender, class and so on), but if you're not white, you're constantly forced to be a representative of your entire race, whether you like it or not.

This is a very simplified, exaggerated version of the forces at work behind white privelige, but the point is how people don't realize they're benefiting from - and thusly reinforcing - a massively racist system:

Passively and ignorantly benefiting from a racist system doesn't make you racist though, it just makes you ignorant. Also, I don't get the reinforcing bit. I can understand it if someone was actively trying to maintain the racist system but a person who isn't one way or the other about it isn't reinforcing it, since they do nothing to help support it while its being eroded by equality movements and the like.

Also, as Butterfree said, in a ridiculously white country like Iceland or Ireland, we don't really have racial stereotypes. Even with the large amount of immigration into Ireland, there still aren't any racial stereotypes going around, even though there is certainly racism, especially in the working class.

 

[Lucas₇₅₅]

When you're a white person, people see and treat you as a person. When you're a black person, people see and treat you as a black person. This is especially obvious if you look at the labelling of people in the US - terms like "African-American", "Asian-American" and even "Native American" are commonplace, but "European-American" is almost never used because, if you're white, you're seen as "American-American".

That's not true. I've definitely heard terms like "Italian-American" and "German-American." They're not as popular, though, because there aren't many people you can apply them to, like you can with black people.

 

[Dannichu]

@Snorlax - Again, it depends on what you're defining 'racism' as. According to Wellman, "A position is racist when it defends, protects or enhances social organization based on racial advantage”, which sort of goes back to what your teachers said about sitting back and allowing someone to bully others makes you as bad as the bully yourself - being passively ignorant of the advantages handed to you at the expense of others is racist.

@Lucas - Yes, I know the terms are used, but it's very uncommon. White people in the US can (the vast majority of the time) claim ancestry, like Irish-Americans celebrating St Patrick's Day parades and so on, but they're self-defining, which gives them power. African-Americans don't get to choose how they're defined, and therein lies inequality.

 

[Teh Ebil Snorlax]

@Snorlax - Again, it depends on what you're defining 'racism' as. According to Wellman, "A position is racist when it defends, protects or enhances social organization based on racial advantage”, which sort of goes back to what your teachers said about sitting back and allowing someone to bully others makes you as bad as the bully yourself - being passively ignorant of the advantages handed to you at the expense of others is racist.

Passively ignorant =/= passively and ignorantly

What I mean is that if someone is benefiting from a racist system and doesn't know they are, then that's not racist.

To put it in terms of your bullying allegory, if someone knows there's bullying going on and doesn't try to help in any way, then they are culpable for the damage caused by the bullying due to their inaction. But if someone doesn't know there's bullying going on, then obviously they can't help the victim, so they can't be held accountable for the damage caused by the bullying due to their action.

 

[Dannichu]

But how can someone possibly be unaware that institutionalised racism happens?

 

[Pwnemon]

You'd be surprised how stupid people can be.

27% of americans don't even know from whom we gained independence.

 

[ultraviolet]

But how can someone possibly be unaware that institutionalised racism happens?

well, lots of people are happy to go about life never questioning the institutions around them, aren't they? :(

 

[Teh Ebil Snorlax]

But how can someone possibly be unaware that institutionalised racism happens?

I didn't say that they were unaware that institutionalised racism happens, I simply said they could be ignorant that they are benefiting from it, which is perfectly true, and is, in fact, illustrated by your comic.