Defining Racism

[autisticdragonkin]

Do you have a source for more info on this? I don't hear this argument often and I'd like to read more about it.

https://fee.org/articles/how-affirmative-action-can-backfire/
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB118792252575507571
http://ideas.time.com/2012/02/28/how-affirmative-action-backfires/
http://www.theatlantic.com/national...ainful-truth-about-affirmative-action/263122/
http://asianam.org/affirmative-action-backfires/

 

[*Asterisk*]

That's not really a good example, since the descendants of American freedmen were the privileged class in Liberia's social hierarchy.

That's not what they were saying when they were slaving the non-Americos out to Equitorial Guinea among other atrocities.

Bottom line: people are experts at finding moral outs for themselves and not others, and that's what happens every time an out like this comes along. The Americas saw themselves as oppressed by whites, and thus absolve themselves of their own racism. The Christian Right in Europe did this with Jewish bankers. The Chinese are doing this with the Japanese.

And this'll only get worse the more people buy into this nonsense.

 

[I-chi]

Just because some groups try to derail the meaning of the word does not make the word any less relevant. Judging people solely on account of their selected physical characteristics (skin colour, nose shape, etc.) is wrong and stupid and it doesn't matter who does it, it's still racism.

That was basically my point, and no, it isn't 'some' groups; it's all groups. Everybody wants to be on the oppression train these days, if not collectively, than the loudest voices are screaming about it because it wouldn't be profitable if such a consistency stopped. PREJUDICE, stereotyping, and discrimination based on preconceptions about a group is still there, but Racism as a catch all term for it no longer means as it should.

 

[Jaimas]

Nobody wants actual equality anymore, they want their 15 minutes of catharsis.

To acknowledge that all individuals are equal would, on some deeper and unconscious level, be to reason that racism is wrong, that everybody is more or less on the same starting line, and that nobody regardless of past mistakes, prejudices, thoughts, and actions should continue to be held accountable to the burdens of those stigmas on them, because the people who committed them are long dead and gone from this world, and that it's completely reasonable to move on as a unified humanity to more important things.

Racism is a silly, accusatory word that; as you stated in the very beginning, has more or less become a tool used by people who feel disenfranchised to knock another group down a peg that they feel offends them on some level just by lieu of being in a better or more privileged situation. It's like a see-saw, one group goes down, and the other goes up in its place where it can ventilate its own prejudices as "vengeance" while justifying it with the accusation of racism. Then the counter group will use this same accusation to continue to push back up and continue cycle of aggression and nothing actually progressive gets done.

Black Racism, Hispanic Racism, etc; it was "okay" for a good while for this kind of racism to exist because only Whitey was the one who got to be on the top of the seesaw for the longest time. When we live in a world, as we do now, than can at least acknowledge that it's still racist for somebody colored to discriminate and hate on somebody else different from them for difference's sake; it doesn't do anything but to acknowledge a problem because nobody wants to work on fixing it, it merely self perpetuates.

I get what you mean, but it's not quite that myopic yet.

There's no "seesaw" effect - people are people, and some are good, some are pricks, and some will look at any reason that exists to hate someone else and if they can't find one, then they'll invent one. Yes, there is a cyclic effect where one person is racist, causing another to be racist, which causes another to be racist, but this is fucking rare and inevitably, common humanity wins out.

Fact is, racism dies on the altar of public debate. Contrary to what Tumblr says, the KKK and Neo-Nazis, whilst they exist, are not some all-encompassing racial-supremacy superpower with infinite resources and threat level, it's a tiny shred of people with backwards-ass ideas who would be minimized if people learned to not give a damn about what they say, let them speak their peace, and let the coins fall where they may. Likewise, the Tumblrinas have never been, and moreover, will never be a majority anywhere.

What you're picking up on is the simple truism that racist groups, by accident or design, feed on one another. Let's look at the resurgence of certain racist groups both in Europe and the USA alike. These people, again, will never be the majority, but they've managed to get a resurgence because the other side has been so loud and obnoxious that it's prevented debate, and ergo, prevented people from being able to disseminate data on their own. Ergo you have the Tumblrinas on the regressive left who, despite attempts to change the definition of racism so only whites can be guilty of it, are just as racist as the assholes on the alt-right who blame the blacks/jews/insert race/ethnicity here for all their problems, with both sides fueling one another in this hotbed of moldering idiocy and fail.

So where does that leave us? Well, it's a self-correcting problem, given time. If one group's sufficiently racist, it'll eventually fuck off in due time. There's fallout, of course, but that's a subject for another thread. If either side of the racism divide gets too much power, things will suck for a bit, but when one side inevitably dies off (which will happen; these groups are unsustainable, and will piss too many people off and be subjected to public backlash eventually), the other's power will wane in kind and we'll be right back where we should be, with these idiots marginalized as they should be.

 

[Mark Corrigan]

That was basically my point, and no, it isn't 'some' groups; it's all groups. Everybody wants to be on the oppression train these days, if not collectively, than the loudest voices are screaming about it because it wouldn't be profitable if such a consistency stopped. PREJUDICE, stereotyping, and discrimination based on preconceptions about a group is still there, but Racism as a catch all term for it no longer means as it should.

Oh, but that's very easy to explain and it goes beyond just racism. There's an awful lot of money to be made and political influence to be won by exploiting people's sense of entitlement, especially since in most civilised countries all major political parties have long ago reached a consensus on the most important policy aspects and are now focusing on irrelevant things in order to create an illusion of differences - and that involves looking out for any fringe electorate that can be won solely by pandering to their entitlement. That's why in some countries "identity politics" is such a big thing and which is why I'm certain that sooner or later we will see the emergence of an MRA/"alt-right" equivalent of tumblr, for example, which will also give greater voice to the so-called "white nationalists", "race realists" and other wankers. Thank God Europe is not quite there yet.

 

[Abethedemon]

I define racism as the discrimination against an ethnic group. What a lot of intersectionalists forget is that people of color can be racist against other people of color. In addition, I think the idea that all white people are racist is very wrong, because there are groups of people who could be considered "white" (Such as the Sami people or da jooz) who are discriminated nonetheless both by other white people and by people of color.

 

[norrington]

Racism is judging people on the colour of their skin, if this is as widespread as you claim it should be easy to prove and black people affected by it should have easy cases. As it is the notion that all white people are inherently racist is, ironically, racist.

It's not all white people, it's all people, on average. It's most likely connected to a lack of exposure to people outside of one's own race in early development; infants and toddlers who have grown up in white families and been exposed to primarily white faces in school tend to be able to better recognize emotions and read the faces of people of their own race. Here's a quick list of quotes related to this (linked to source).

1. This is an article quoting a couple different sociological papers which talks about how early such biases set in.
   
   
   Adults have more difficulty recognizing faces that belong to people of another race, and this deficit appears to start early.
   New research indicates that by the time they are 9 months old, babies are better able to recognize faces and emotional expressions of people who belong to the group they interact with most, than they are those of people who belong to another race.
   Babies don't start out this way; younger infants appear equally able to tell people apart, regardless of race. (Wynne Parry, Livescience.com)​
   
   
2. Psychologists love tying facial recognition to empathy; how it relates exactly isn't clear and I don't want to get into the differences in cognitive vs affective and/or emotional empathy and the implications that has for anti-social personality disorder and the autism spectrum and all that since it's way the hell off topic, but there is a connection nonetheless, summed up here:
   
   
   Regardless of the particular terminology used by different authors, there is broad agreement that empathy involves three primary elements: a cognitive capacity to adopt the perspective of the other person, some monitoring and self-regulatory mechanisms that keep track of the origins of self and other emotions, and an affective response to another person, that often entails sharing that person’s emotional state...We generally know what emotional states other experienced by reading their facial expressions (Balconi and Pozzoli 2007, 2009), since emotional cue detection may guarantee an adequate empathic response to that emotional situation. Thus, the perceptual ability to attending in social relevant stimuli, including facial expression of emotions, is central to empathic response (Enticott et al. 200. (Baltoni + Bertottoni, Cogn Neurodyn)​
3. This is a webpage disussing Harvard's "Project Implicit," a survey studying implicit or subconscious biases in subjects. More on that in #4, but this page was very informative and compiled a lot of the information I've referenced above and been talking about here.
   
   
   Whether laboratory studies adequately reflect real-life situations is not firmly established. But there is growing evidence, according to social scientists, that hidden biases are related to discriminatory behavior in a wide range of human interactions, from hiring and promotions to choices of housing and schools. In the case of police, bias may affect split-second, life-or-death decisions. Shootings of black men incorrectly thought to be holding guns — an immigrant in New York, a cop in Rhode Island — brought this issue into the public debate. It is possible unconscious prejudices and stereotypes may also affect court jury deliberations and other daily tasks requiring judgments of human character. (Tolerance.org)​
4. So, the Project Implicit test, which you can take here, talks about what the results of its test do and don't indicate here in their FAQ:
   
   
   Social psychologists use the word prejudice to describe people who report and approve negative attitudes toward outgroups. Most people who show an implicit preference for one group (e.g., White people) over another (e.g., Black people) are not prejudiced by this definition. The IAT shows biases that are not endorsed and that may even be contradictory to what one consciously believes. So, no, we would not say that such people are prejudiced. It is important to know, however, that implicit biases can predict behavior. When we relax our active efforts to be egalitarian, our implicit biases can lead to discriminatory behavior, so it is critical to be mindful of this possibility if we want to avoid prejudice and discrimination. (Proj. Implicit FAQ)​

EDIT: I thought it might be unclear, as well, so I thought I'd add another quote from the Project Implicit page, on how all this ties into systemic and institutionalized cultural racism. This survey is so interesting because it shows how it isn't just 'well of course white people have an implicit bias towards black people, look at all that other shit about inherent cognitive bias explaining it!' but that:

Results from this website consistently show that members of stigmatized groups (Black people, gay people, older people) tend to have more positive implicit attitudes toward their groups than do people who are not in the group, but that there is still a moderate preference for the more socially valued group. (Proj. Implicit FAQ)​

Its a point of rhetoric and reasoning, not of law, if black people cannot articulate clearly and prove what is wrong they cannot expect change. In any discussion, such as the one the society needs to have regarding race those who make an allegation have to prove it- once its proved the other side must then refute. Saying 'its not my job to educate you' is refusing to engage in this process and effectively demanding the other side 'listen and believe' . The back and forth in the legal context is called an adversarial proceeding but in normal language we just call it a discussion.

I don't mean this as any kind of hard and fast rule, it's mostly just a personal thing with me, and it's said with a very specific scenario in mind that I don't think most people here would necessarily be the type to bring about. I think black people can and have articulated and proven what is wrong with the system and what is being done to them many times over, I think a great deal of this information has been published online and in other formats.

However, if someone's talking to a black person, and they call you racist, and your response is 'That's not racist' and you get into an argument with them about it, and then start going 'how is that racist?! No, explain to me, I wanna know!' in that tone people get when they think the other side can't explain shit because they're full of shit, and then going 'hah they didn't explain it to the white guy vehemently disagreeing with them then asking them condescendingly to explain with no real indication that they're actually going to explain, therefore I win the argument' is shitty. I'm not saying anyone here would do that, I'm saying it is something you see a lot on the internet and in real life. That's anecdotal, though, of course, but that's primarily the type of situation that the 'it's not the duty of the oppressed to explain to their oppressors how they're being oppressed' is responding to. It's not 'no one is ever going to talk about it', it's not 'no one has a duty to explain it', its that it's not on the oppressed group to do it.

In fact, this is why white people dodging the argument after pulling the 'no such thing as reverse racism' line is that much more inexcusable, to me, because if they do believe all this, then they're essentially saying that they fully accept that black people are suffering extreme systemic oppression, and yet they also don't have a civic duty or responsibility to respond and attempt to educate someone to the best of their ability just because the other person is being a bit rude. It's a complete narcissistic cop out.

As far as the natural burden of proof argument, you can't hold an example applicable to a wrongdoing between two individuals as being equally applicable when the wrongdoing is on a societal scale, or when it's criminal in nature, which is why the state prosecutes criminal cases and why abolitionists didn't go 'well if the slaves really had it bad they'd take care of it themselves.' That's an extreme example and I'm not trying to say that either is analogous, but why the natural burden of proof stance doesn't hold water as well in this situation.

It's also to do with the fact that such a standard rests on the assumption that both parties are standing on equal ground from the start, but in a case of systemic oppression, just as in a case of victimization, that isn't the case. You'd be asking the wronged party to prove that he is subjected to systemic inequality by the accused, and your logic for requiring that is that we're all equal, and that their opponents view them as equals, when the accusation is that they don't. That's why activism is important. That's all that statement's really about, as well as a suggestion to some people that they shouldn't demand a black person calmly explain race issues to them if they've already said they don't want to talk about it, or if the other person has been uncivil up to that point. It's not a 'it's not my job to educate you' at all, in fact, for me, it's me saying the exact opposite; it is my job, my duty, my obligation to do so.

I'm guessing the implicit bias piece I covered here and the argument made in point 3 is gonna be the next step in the argument, and I'm more than happy to get into statistical examples of systemic racism and all that next, but I'm gonna post this first partially because I want a quick break and partially because that is sort of a separate argument and you should of course have the opportunity to respond to this before we complicate all this shit even more.

 

[Vitriol]

It's not all white people, it's all people, on average. It's most likely connected to a lack of exposure to people outside of one's own race in early development; infants and toddlers who have grown up in white families and been exposed to primarily white faces in school tend to be able to better recognize emotions and read the faces of people of their own race. Here's a quick list of quotes related to this (linked to source).

1. This is an article quoting a couple different sociological papers which talks about how early such biases set in.
   
   Adults have more difficulty recognizing faces that belong to people of another race, and this deficit appears to start early.
   New research indicates that by the time they are 9 months old, babies are better able to recognize faces and emotional expressions of people who belong to the group they interact with most, than they are those of people who belong to another race.
   Babies don't start out this way; younger infants appear equally able to tell people apart, regardless of race. (Wynne Parry, Livescience.com)
   
2. Psychologists love tying facial recognition to empathy; how it relates exactly isn't clear and I don't want to get into the differences in cognitive vs affective and/or emotional empathy and the implications that has for anti-social personality disorder and the autism spectrum and all that since it's way the hell off topic, but there is a connection nonetheless, summed up here:
   
   Regardless of the particular terminology used by different authors, there is broad agreement that empathy involves three primary elements: a cognitive capacity to adopt the perspective of the other person, some monitoring and self-regulatory mechanisms that keep track of the origins of self and other emotions, and an affective response to another person, that often entails sharing that person’s emotional state...We generally know what emotional states other experienced by reading their facial expressions (Balconi and Pozzoli 2007, 2009), since emotional cue detection may guarantee an adequate empathic response to that emotional situation. Thus, the perceptual ability to attending in social relevant stimuli, including facial expression of emotions, is central to empathic response (Enticott et al. 200. (Baltoni + Bertottoni, Cogn Neurodyn)
   
3. This is a webpage disussing Harvard's "Project Implicit," a survey studying implicit or subconscious biases in subjects. More on that in #4, but this page was very informative and compiled a lot of the information I've referenced above and been talking about here.
   
   Whether laboratory studies adequately reflect real-life situations is not firmly established. But there is growing evidence, according to social scientists, that hidden biases are related to discriminatory behavior in a wide range of human interactions, from hiring and promotions to choices of housing and schools. In the case of police, bias may affect split-second, life-or-death decisions. Shootings of black men incorrectly thought to be holding guns — an immigrant in New York, a cop in Rhode Island — brought this issue into the public debate. It is possible unconscious prejudices and stereotypes may also affect court jury deliberations and other daily tasks requiring judgments of human character. (Tolerance.org)
   
4. So, the Project Implicit test, which you can take here, talks about what the results of its test do and don't indicate here in their FAQ:
   
   Social psychologists use the word prejudice to describe people who report and approve negative attitudes toward outgroups. Most people who show an implicit preference for one group (e.g., White people) over another (e.g., Black people) are not prejudiced by this definition. The IAT shows biases that are not endorsed and that may even be contradictory to what one consciously believes. So, no, we would not say that such people are prejudiced. It is important to know, however, that implicit biases can predict behavior. When we relax our active efforts to be egalitarian, our implicit biases can lead to discriminatory behavior, so it is critical to be mindful of this possibility if we want to avoid prejudice and discrimination. (Proj. Implicit FAQ)

While the studies you have quoted are interesting re empathy none of them prove in anyway that what all four recognise as a minor bias is enough to overide decision making based on merit in favour of race- they show we are better at recognising and interpreting features we are broadly familiar with and that we are better at empathising with people we understand better, but it is a break to suggest this supplants objective criteria the project implicit stuff acknowledges this. The implicit study attempts to weasel round this by pointing out that a racist on a jury may skew results but they fail to connect overt racism with a minor difference in interpreting facial expressions ( which, for all its talk of bias, is what that test is actually testing). The flaw with most such studies is that they are unable to prove that an unconscious bias controls a conscious action. It is widely known flaw btw that according to that study the far sighted are most terrible bigots!

But even if we do take your point as true that does not make a case for distinguishing between systematic and regular racism. In a system which does not distinguish institutional racism can still be challenged by an individual experiencing it. I maintain the only reason for the distinction is to allow racist doctrines like AA to pass without being labelled racist as this is politically difficult. It is political doublespeak to distract from the inherent illiberal nature of the practice. It can be argued AA is a political necessity but that isn't an argument for changing the term.

This is the third post where you have failed to show any reasoning for making the distinction between systematic racism and racism by narrowing the definition for racism and including instead racial bias or whatever for racism against traditional advantaged classes.

Saying syatematic racism exists is not an argument for no longer calling individual discrimination against whites racism.

As far as the natural burden of proof argument, you can't hold an example applicable to a wrongdoing between two individuals as being equally applicable when the wrongdoing is on a societal scale, or when it's criminal in nature, which is why the state prosecutes criminal cases and why abolitionists didn't go 'well if the slaves really had it bad they'd take care of it themselves.' That's an extreme example and I'm not trying to say that either is analogous, but why the natural burden of proof stance doesn't hold water as well in this situation

Of cousre you can- its the only workable way to have a discussion about most

Your slavery anlogy is misleading as it was a discussion on morals which naturally has no objective proof. In rce relations both sides agree racism is wrong- but it's existance requires proof or evidence to be acted upon.

The reason discussions have to flow like that reguardless of scale is the near impossibility of proving a negative compared to proving a positive.

To illustrate this I repeat my allegation that you are racist against whites and challenge you to prove me wrong.

As I said in my earlier comments racism is a serious allegation- if someone claims its ocuring on any scale the response should absolutely be ' show me how?' that in no way implies the allegation should be ignored, but if the response at that point is to try and shift the burden of proof the accusation must be abandoned as otherwise the already discussed difficulty of proving a negative means every accusation of racism no matter how spurious becomes impossible to dispute.

That includes the claim I'm making against you now.

Edit:The tone of this message is far more aggressive than in intended: liberally sprinkle '!' throughout. I just feel you've lost site of the key points we were actually dicussing.

These are:

Narrowing the definition of racism in favour of racism for 'systematic racism' and 'bias' for racism against those classes traditionally not oppressed.

And

Whether 'its not my job to educate you' is an appropriate response when asked to prove racism.

 

[norrington]

This is the third post where you have failed to show any reasoning for making the distinction between systematic racism and racism by narrowing the definition for racism and including instead racial bias or whatever for racism against traditional advantaged classes.

I'm sorry, I've been trying to respond to specific points that've come up over the course of the discussion. I hope I haven't been going off topic or come across as though I'm trying to avoid the main issue; I'm not, if I've done either of those things unintentionally, just... Please excuse me and keep reminding me I'm off the mark, if it's not too annoying, since I do tend to lose sight of the main point when arguing about something with so many different parts to it.

The flaw with most such studies is that they are unable to prove that an unconscious bias controls a conscious action.

I'll work on linking this more clearly next.

It is political doublespeak to distract from the inherent illiberal nature of the practice. It can be argued AA is a political necessity but that isn't an argument for changing the term.

I do argue that it's a political necessity even though it is illiberal; I'm going to be responding to ADK's post shortly for more on that, though I don't know if that will get straight to the point you're making here.

Your slavery analogy is misleading as it was a discussion on morals which naturally has no objective proof. In race relations both sides agree racism is wrong- but it's existence requires proof or evidence to be acted upon.

Apologies for it being misleading, I tried to acknowledge that; I was thinking it was more misleading in the sense that it's not to a similar scale, though. And you're right, there is a fair bit of difference in the way that slavery was being debated as opposed to how racial injustice is debated today and the question at hand being different, that's a good point and I hadn't thought about it at the time. Couldn't it be argued, though, that abolitionists were arguing that a moral wrongdoing existed, when the pro-slavery side argued that the existence of slavery did not equal the existence of a moral wrongdoing?

It may not be worth pursuing since it wasn't a key point of my argument, and getting too deep into the ins and outs of a compare/contrast between the slavery debate and the racism debate, and I'm not asking that rhetorically, I genuinely don't know if that would make them seem more equivalent in some way, so feel free to just ignore this part if you think we're getting too far off the main point.

The reason discussions have to flow like that regardless of scale is the near impossibility of proving a negative compared to proving a positive.

I agree with you, and in a formal setting, in the context of political activism or debate and forensics or in a court of law, that's true, because both parties have come to the argument with the assumption that they will be challenged, and their participation is a sign of tacit agreement to be held to rigorous standards. Similarly, in an informal setting where two people are having a civil discussion in line with all the basic principles of a debate, anyone, no matter their race, has a right to get up and walk away, and the other person has a right to call them an asshole, I'm not arguing either of those things, either.

As I said in my earlier comments racism is a serious allegation- if someone claims its occurring on any scale the response should absolutely be ' show me how?' that in no way implies the allegation should be ignored, but if the response at that point is to try and shift the burden of proof the accusation must be abandoned as otherwise the already discussed difficulty of proving a negative means every accusation of racism no matter how spurious becomes impossible to dispute.

I'm saying the notion is mainly applicable in everyday scenarios, when there's already been a parting from the basic principles of debate and civility; it's not meant to be addressed to someone who's discussing things calmly and civilly (as cows often use it, for instance) but to people who don't have backgrounds in debate or don't appreciate the fact that they've already departed from the principles of a debate by being aggressive, impolite, making personal attacks, or mocking the other person without responding to them then expect the other person to respond civilly. In that latter scenario, I personally don't hold it against a black person for stepping back and removing themselves from the situation since the other person has indicated that they have no interest in hearing them out regardless, but that a white person who is making this argument does have more of a civic duty to try if they genuinely believe, as they've argued already in such a context, that it is a matter of systemic oppression of an entire group of people. That's all that really means.

If a formal complaint has been made or if it's an informal discussion and no one's been unnecessarily uncivil, you're right, both parties have an obligation to argue their point to the fullest, or they forfeit the possibility of winning the argument by walking away. I'm not at all trying to make a situation where someone can make an unfounded accusation with severe repercussions and not have to back that up, and I don't think it happens regularly enough in reality to an extent of severe damages to the accused; as far as the burden of proof in that argument, the accusation has shifted to, arguably, being one of slander, in which case the burden of proof that these damages exist and have had a detrimental effect on the person's quality of life, and that the original statement was untrue, would be on the person being called a racist.

To illustrate this I repeat my allegation that you are racist against whites and challenge you to prove me wrong.

As I said, I'm gonna respond to ADK first since their comment's further back, then I'll get into this again. I want to be clear about what exactly it is you want me to prove, though, so I don't go too far after a side point that's mostly irrelevant, since, given the volume of all this, it's a bit difficult for me to piece apart exactly where the argument stands now in explicit terms.

So, I need to:

• be able to connect the results of those studies, which are gauging facial recognition and therefore (through virtue of link #2 in my old post) an aspect of the underlying mechanisms in relating to another person through empathy with a larger phenomenon of cultural racial bias
• demonstrate the existence of systemic racism (or should I hold off with this, since you have overriding points at the moment)
• argue for the reason why there should be a distinction made between the racism experienced by white people and the racism experienced by oppressed minorities, based on the assumption that systemic racism does exist

Is that off the mark, or is there anything else I need to address there, or what?

 

[Vitriol]

It may not be worth pursuing since it wasn't a key point of my argument, and getting too deep into the ins and outs of a compare/contrast between the slavery debate and the racism debate, and I'm not asking that rhetorically

I don't disagree with you at all there- but I think it can be safely left by the side, we both agree there was a debate, that it was moral in nature and that there is a difference in debate of subjective motals and objective facts.

The point you need to address is not the existence of systematic racism or unconscious bias- for the purpose of discussion im happy enough to assume systematic racism exists reguardless of its origin.

The point is that the existence justifies narrowing the definition to, as you put it:

Racism = punching down

With individual racism described as:

the term they have for the thing you guys are talking about is 'racial prejudice' which can happen in any context

Your initial argument was that it was to highlight the important effect of institutional racism. My initial point was that doesn't make sense as a new term would do that and the only practical difference between choosing a new term and redefining one for its already serious connotations is to take those connotations away from discrimination the speaker views as OK ie AA.


That said I think we've both said enough that we have made our views pretty clear and im happy to let the matter rest.

Im travelling atm and the Internet is shitty- I fucked this up three times trying to post so please excuse formatting errors.

 

[norrington]

I don't disagree with you at all there- but I think it can be safely left by the side, we both agree there was a debate, that it was moral in nature and that there is a difference in debate of subjective motals and objective facts.

The point you need to address is not the existence of systematic racism or unconscious bias- for the purpose of discussion im happy enough to assume systematic racism exists reguardless of its origin.

The point is that the existence justifies narrowing the definition to, as you put it:


With individual racism described as:



Your initial argument was that it was to highlight the important effect of institutional racism. My initial point was that doesn't make sense as a new term would do that and the only practical difference between choosing a new term and redefining one for its already serious connotations is to take those connotations away from discrimination the speaker views as OK ie AA.


That said I think we've both said enough that we have made our views pretty clear and im happy to let the matter rest.

Im travelling atm and the Internet is shitty- I fucked this up three times trying to post so please excuse formatting errors.

The reason behind the distinction is the same reason behind trying a hate crime differently than a violent crime not motivated by racial bias. Assuming that distinction is valid for the sake of debate, then it comes down to a simple matter of the impact words carry. 'Racist' has negative connotations, and the strength of those connotations, in my opinion, don't match the strength of a racist act committed in isolation from systemic and culturally ingrained racism.

As far as just picking a different term to refer to white-on-black racism in order to achieve the same effect, it's just the fact that that's not how language works. For instance, if the words were switched, and racism referred to general racist acts and prejudice referred to white on black racism occurring within a system of systemic oppression, it wouldn't accomplish anything. Telling someone they're prejudiced just doesn't have the same level of strength to it that telling someone they're racist does, it doesn't garner the same reaction, they don't mean the same thing within the vernacular due to what the words connote, the sociological change is meant to reflect that difference which already exists within society, for the same reason changing 'negro' to 'black' or 'african american' as the acceptable term to refer to black people was valid.

That may seem contradictory to my earlier arguments against your claim that calling someone a racist is damaging, and a lot of that has to do with poor wording and elaboration on my part for the sake of getting my point across more succinctly. Basically, I see it as sort of analogous to the term 'alcoholic' with respect to its negative connotations and the weight they carry.

To follow through with this, it'll take a bit more unpacking.

Spoiler: Alcoholism metaphor

First, keeping in mind that we're assuming systemic racism does exist, then in this analogy, it would be the analogue of alcoholism as a psychological disease; members of the oppressive majority, even if they are not personally prejudiced in individual interactions, benefit from the systemic racism of that society through virtue of the fact that more room is made for them while others are being hindered by oppression. That benefit, and the earlier-quoted tendency to allow implicit bias to affect decision making when not being consciously considered while making the decision, or accepting those benefits without considering the racially oppressive system in which those benefits arise, would be the equivalent of drinking as an untreated alcoholic.

Non-alcoholics, then, would be racial minorities who don't benefit from systemic racism. Non-alcoholics can drink without being an alcoholic, so calling them an alcoholic for drinking is untrue. People can drink and hurt other people as a consequence of their drinking, and the fact that they were drunk doesn't excuse what they did, but they're not necessarily an alcoholic because of one such incident, because they can still function in day-to-day life without alcohol.

Now, as far as why I have this seemingly flippy-floppy view of the term, saying simultaneously that it's not life-ruiningly offensive but that it does carry weight, is this. Saying 'all white people are racist' is, to me, similar to saying 'all people who've gone through the Alcoholics Anonymous program are alcoholics.' An alcoholic who's been through AA doesn't get offended by being called an alcoholic; they call themselves alcoholics because even when you've stopped drinking, you acknowledge that the disease is still there, the issue that made you rely on drinking in order to function is still in you, you are still an alcoholic. If someone accused them of being an alcoholic in a particularly vitriolic way, they'd take that accusation as a sign to seriously consider their own actions and whether they were slipping instead of jumping straight to 'I'm not an alcoholic how could you say that about me.'

Unrecovered alcoholics, by contrast, are quick to deny it altogeter and brush the person off, and take serious offense to being called an alcoholic. If they admitted they had a problem, though, and that they had done wrong, and they went through AA, they'd respond to the accusation the same way I described beforehand.

Now, if it's a formal allegation of serious racism on par with slandering someone for something they didn't do, either it'll be proven untrue and the accuser will be appropriately reprimanded, or the person will have done some wrong, in which case they were rightly called a racist. In the other direction, if a black person commits an act of racially-motivated violence or property damage, they're held guilty for that property damage or violent act; if a non-alcoholic harms someone or damages property under the influence, that doesn't inherently mean that they are an alcoholic (court mandated AA aside), but they will still face the consequences of their actions.

You could argue that it's not one-to-one because the penalty for a DUI is the same regardless of whether or not someone's an alcoholic, but that's not necessarily true, since the penalty alotted is on a scale, and that penalty is usually based on, along with the severity of the offense, BAC levels and likelihood of repeat offense. If an alcoholic gets a DUI, even if they don't have other misdemeanors or anything else on their record indicating that they are an alcoholic on paper, their BAC will very likely be much higher since heavy drinking increases an individual's ability to function at increasingly higher BAC levels (and therefore less likely to make the kind of error that would result in being pulled for a DUI with a 0.08 BAC, where a nonalcoholic might be more likely to make such a mistake at that lower level).

You could argue that the comparison falls apart there, because alcoholic or not, someone getting stopped at a traffic stop with any BAC over 0.08 is getting charged, but alcoholics are going to be more likely to encounter a traffic stop while over 0.08 through virtue of the fact that they're chronic drinkers. Basically, then, the increased likelihood that an alcoholic will receive criminal charges and that those charges will be more severe due to factors like a higher BAC can be seen as analogous to the stronger weight a hate crime carries as opposed to the same crime committed in a non-racially motivated way within the context of this metaphor.

To me, then, I wouldn't be insulted if someone called me a racist, and I'll happily call myself a racist because I benefit from this system. If someone called me a racist, I'd take the accusation seriously and ask them how, exactly, I'm being racist, and more than likely agree that what I'd done was racist, and apologize. That's why I say I don't think it carries as much weight, because if a black person calls me a racist, it's basically a statement of fact even if, after discussing it with them, nothing I did in that moment legitimately merited an accusation of racial prejudice. I am a racist because I benefit from a system of racial oppression as a white person, the term fits. I don't see it as offensive, even though I acknowledge that the term carries weight. The very fact that the term carries weight is why it should be used within a specific context.

Making the term 'racist' to mean oppressor-on-oppressed prejudice is justified because the term alludes to the systemic racism the accused benefits from and forces them to consider its existence and the role that it plays in their life and their outlook on life. In the inverse, there's no need for a black person to consider how their views of white people may be shaped by a system they benefit from which oppresses a white person, the term doesn't need to carry so much weight. A black person not hiring a white person because of their race doesn't have the same detrimental effect on a white person as it would in the inverse situation. Systemic racism provides more weight to the action, so there should be weight to the word used to accuse someone of such an action.

 

[Vitriol]

Racist' has negative connotations, and the strength of those connotations, in my opinion, don't match the strength of a racist act committed in isolation from systemic and culturally ingrained racism.

This is the core of where we disagree- to me both acts are equally abhorrent as they offend against the individual's right to equality and I would address the difference in practical consequence with sentencing or damage awards.

Racist in the broad definition can still be used to describe everything you've mentioned however it's hard to see any reason why affirmative action should not be described as racist- it's institutional oppression based on colour. It might be politically justifiable but the real reason for restricting the wording is its proponents do not want to be labelled racists. The only real difference between Jim Crow laws and affirmative action is the colour of those negatively affected.

Your definition of racism is way off. It is only true that all members of a non oppressed class benefit if race is the primary attribute in society. In America, for example, I think it's pretty obvious that wealth matters more therefore a policy like affirmative action does not just rebalance the scales in favour of blacks but as a natural consequence punishes poor whites as the balance that is being adjusted for is not something that they were benefitting from in any tangible way.

As far as the burden of proof and your normal response. It's fine but that is not what I asked you to do, don't tell me how you normally respond by asking for evidence prove to me that 'it's not my job to educate you' is a valid response which does not retard discussion by proving that you are not racist and my earlier claims are spurious.


I think we've got as far as we're going to with this- you believe racism can justly be redefined to address class based disparity, I believe it cannot without impinging on individual rights.

 

[norrington]

This is the core of where we disagree- to me both acts are equally abhorrent as they offend against the individual's right to equality and I would address the difference in practical consequence with sentencing or damage awards.

Racist in the broad definition can still be used to describe everything you've mentioned however it's hard to see any reason why affirmative action should not be described as racist- it's institutional oppression based on colour. It might be politically justifiable but the real reason for restricting the wording is its proponents do not want to be labelled racists. The only real difference between Jim Crow laws and affirmative action is the colour of those negatively affected.

Your definition of racism is way off. It is only true that all members of a non oppressed class benefit if race is the primary attribute in society. In America, for example, I think it's pretty obvious that wealth matters more therefore a policy like affirmative action does not just rebalance the scales in favour of blacks but as a natural consequence punishes poor whites as the balance that is being adjusted for is not something that they were benefitting from in any tangible way.

As far as the burden of proof and your normal response. It's fine but that is not what I asked you to do, don't tell me how you normally respond by asking for evidence prove to me that 'it's not my job to educate you' is a valid response which does not exceptional individual discussion by proving that you are not racist and my earlier claims are spurious.


I think we've got as far as we're going to with this- you believe racism can justly be redefined to address class based disparity, I believe it cannot without impinging on individual rights.

In the big picture, white people are far less likely to be in poverty than black people; black people have higher poverty rates than white people across the board in the US. Poverty rates among the white population are disproportionately lower than the ~75% of the US population that white people make up.

White poverty is more complicated. On the one hand, as white people,they're still members of a privileged class that have stood to benefit historically from the oppression of other minorities. For this, there's the fact that they are far less likely to live in areas of concentrated poverty, more likely to be viewed as "deserving" and "hard-working" by the general public. On the other, they're hurt by the public's tendency to view poverty as a racial issue:

to the extent the public identifies poverty and welfare efforts with blacks, that same public will become increasingly hostile to the provision of income support needed by all persons in poverty, including whites. Studies have found that the public perceives the poor to be much blacker than they are, and that the public perception of blacks and their work ethic is the single strongest predictor of their attitudes towards income support programs. In other words, if whites think of blacks (especially poor blacks) in negative terms — a kind of racism that provides privilege to the white poor who can be viewed as more deserving than those of color — this racism will translate into calls for safety net cuts, thereby endangering the well-being of the very whites who benefited in relative terms from the racist imagery in the first place.

So, poor white people are hurt by systemic racism despite the fact that they're members of the privileged class because of the culturally ingrained views of the oppressed class, which have a harmful effect on poor whites who are sort of caught in the crossfire. It's not dissimilar to what happens with men who are harmed by society's perpetuation of "toxic" masculinity in the shape of being more likely to be incarcerated, more likely to successfully commit suicide, more likely not to speak out about rape, sexual harassment, or sexual abuse as a child, and less likely to win child custody in courtrooms. For instance, areas with the highest black population density tend to have the lowest rates of upward economic mobility; however, that lower likelihood of upward mobility effects all races equally within that majority-black area. In addition to this, black children are less likely to be born into poverty (keep in mind, this makes sense given the fact that white people make up ~3/4 of the US population) but are also less likely to rise up out of poverty in adulthood than white children.

Black people are more likely to be victims of homicide, they have higher incarceration rates, make up a disproportionate size of the prison population; prosecutors in the US justice system are statistically more likely to invoke capital punishment for black-on-white homicide than the inverse (the number's 296 to 31). The majority of people exonerated by DNA testing after wrongful convictions were black.

I've agreed with you several times that appropriate action is illiberal, and it could arguably be considered a form of institutionalized racism (though it's a difficult argument to make considering that the country's lawmakers and lobbyists are a disproportionately white male majority), but coming on the heels of centuries of the US's disenfranchisement, segregation, and widespread violence against blacks and other minorities, it may be one of the best available options for making a step towards greater equality and overcoming the deeply ingrained and otherwise difficult-to-undo racial scars that still have severe effects today.

Or maybe it's not. Maybe it actually will have a detrimental effect. It doesn't change the fact that racism exists and is different from racial prejudice. I say my justification for distinguishing the terminology still holds water, and your subsequent disagreement rested largely on going back to denying that systemic racism or institutional racism exists.

 

[Vitriol]

In the big picture, white people are far less likely to be in poverty than black people; black people have higher poverty rates than white people across the board in the US. Poverty rates among the white population are disproportionately lower than the ~75% of the US population that white people make up.

White poverty is more complicated. On the one hand, as white people,they're still members of a privileged class that have stood to benefit historically from the oppression of other minorities. For this, there's the fact that they are far less likely to live in areas of concentrated poverty, more likely to be viewed as "deserving" and "hard-working" by the general public. On the other, they're hurt by the public's tendency to view poverty as a racial issue:
So, poor white people are hurt by systemic racism despite the fact that they're members of the privileged class because of the culturally ingrained views of the oppressed class, which have a harmful effect on poor whites who are sort of caught in the crossfire. It's not dissimilar to what happens with men who are harmed by society's perpetuation of "toxic" masculinity in the shape of being more likely to be incarcerated, more likely to successfully commit suicide, more likely not to speak out about rape, sexual harassment, or sexual abuse as a child, and less likely to win child custody in courtrooms. For instance, areas with the highest black population density tend to have the lowest rates of upward economic mobility; however, that lower likelihood of upward mobility effects all races equally within that majority-black area. In addition to this, black children are less likely to be born into poverty (keep in mind, this makes sense given the fact that white people make up ~3/4 of the US population) but are also less likely to rise up out of poverty in adulthood than white children.

Black people are more likely to be victims of homicide, they have higher incarceration rates, make up a disproportionate size of the prison population; prosecutors in the US justice system are statistically more likely to invoke capital punishment for black-on-white homicide than the inverse (the number's 296 to 31). The majority of people exonerated by DNA testing after wrongful convictions were black.

None of this matters at all to the individual unable to get into a course or a job because of the colour of their skin. As you admit it's fundamentally illiberal and goes against the core of our society. Every example you have cited can be dealt with by the individual and on an individual scale without impinging on the rights of others.

There is no difficulty at all in white lawmakers pushing policies that hurt their own race- being racist is judging people arbiterily on the colour of their skin, ones own is irrelevant.

Gang culture counts for most of the problems you described above. From murders, to sentences, to poverty traps, to likelihood of being searched. If the black community is being targeted by law enforcement as it has a disproportionate gang and criminal culture that isn't arbitary and therefore is not systemic racism.

None of this changes that your distinction exists purely to allow certain forms of discrimination for arbitrary reasons beyound the individuals control.

The obvious solution is to invest more in poorer schools no matter the colour and let merit carry then rather than make it artificially easy for one group on the basis of their colour. Which is quite obviously racist. That is what they did in London and it worked very well.

I'm not going to touch your comments on 'toxic masculinity' as that's way off topic, but I consider the very concept every bit as offensive as 'fragile femininity' and the 'weaker sex'.

 

[norrington]

The obvious solution is to invest more in poorer schools no matter the colour and let merit carry then rather than make it artificially easy for one group on the basis of their colour. Which is quite obviously racist. That is what they did in London and it worked very well.

I agree with you there, and it's something people have been pushing for for years. Ironically, people made arguments similar to your own about the bussing program being racist, when it was designed to overcome the inherent segregation that comes with dividing school populations by district, which had black students and white students bussed to schools further away from where they lived to try and combat the fact that black schools got less funding. It was hardly effective, and you're absolutely right that the natural solution would be to give the schools more funding, but this analysis of data collected by the US Dept. of Education points out "that schools with 90 percent or more students of color spend a full $733 less per student per year than schools with 90 percent or more white students," (p. 2).

Gang culture counts for most of the problems you described above. From murders, to sentences, to poverty traps, to likelihood of being searched. If the black community is being targeted by law enforcement as it has a disproportionate gang and criminal culture that isn't arbitrary and therefore is not systemic racism.

I don't understand this point; are you trying to suggest that black people are inherently more violent and prone to gang culture by some natural difference from white people? Without systemic racism playing a role, how else would you explain the disproportionate rates of black gang violence compared to other races? Compared to the white population?

Gang violence rises in response to preexisting inequality, which is why gangs are often prevalent among disadvantaged immigrant communities (such as the Italians, the Irish, the Russians and various others on the East coast at different times in US history, and among the hispanic/latino populations here), the urban poor, any community with fewer opportunities for education, employment, financial aid, and so on. Gang violence has a strong positive correlation to income inequality.

None of this matters at all to the individual unable to get into a course or a job because of the colour of their skin. As you admit it's fundamentally illiberal and goes against the core of our society. Every example you have cited can be dealt with by the individual and on an individual scale without impinging on the rights of others.

White people are statistically more likely to get call backs for job interviews and job offers than black people.

The authors find that applicants with white-sounding names are 50 percent more likely to get called for an initial interview than applicants with African-American-sounding names. Applicants with white names need to send about 10 resumes to get one callback, whereas applicants with African-American names need to send about 15 resumes to achieve the same result.

In addition, race greatly affects how much applicants benefit from having more experience and credentials. White job applicants with higher-quality resumes received 30 percent more callbacks than whites with lower-quality resumes. Having a higher-quality resume has a much smaller impact on African-American applicants, who experienced only 9 percent more callbacks for the same improvement in their credentials. This disparity suggests that in the current state of the labor market, African-Americans may not have strong individual incentives to build better resumes.

[...]

Statistically, the authors found that discrimination levels were consistent across all the occupations and industries covered in the experiment. Even federal contractors (for whom affirmative action is better enforced) and companies that explicitly state that they are an "Equal Opportunity Employer" did not discriminate less.

If a black person gets turned down because of the color of their skin, systemic racism means that they'll be 50% less likely to get a call back than a white person who gets turned down for a single job. That single act of discrimination has a more damaging end result for the black person than the white person.

None of this changes that your distinction exists purely to allow certain forms of discrimination for arbitrary reasons beyound the individuals control.

The above is why I'm saying racism should be a different term. Even if Affirmative Action didn't exist it would deserve to be its own term. That's been my argument the entire time. The distinction exists as a way to illustrate a preexisting difference in the effect an individual act of prejudice has on the person being discriminated against.

P.S. Toxic masculinity isn't meant to be offensive, I'm sorry if it came across that way without more context; it describes societal expectations placed on men to act a certain way. Your linking it to fragile femininity is quite valid because the whole point is that it's an unfounded societal double standard with little to no logical or scientific basis that perpetuates gender inequality that is equally harmful to both genders. It isn't meant to suggest that all masculinity is inherently toxic, but that society's preconceived notions of masculinity and the value system we attach to masculinity has a negative effect on men, just as the preconceived notion of fragile femininity has a negative effect on women.

 

[Vitriol]

White people are statistically more likely to get call backs for job interviews and job offers than black people.

That makes perfect sense- they are more likely to be better educated and wealthy. That's not racism, it's just the effect of a difference in resources. White people from poor backgrounds get less than those from rich ones for the same reason.

don't understand this point; are you trying to suggest that black people are inherently more violent and prone to gang culture by some natural difference from white people? Without systemic racism playing a role, how else would you explain the disproportionate rates of black gang violence compared to other races? Compared to the white population?

Gang violence rises in response to preexisting inequality, which is why gangs are often prevalent among disadvantaged immigrant communities (such as the Italians, the Irish, the Russians and various others on the East coast at different times in US history, and among the hispanic/latino populations here), the urban poor, any community with fewer opportunities for education, employment, financial aid, and so on. Gang violence has a strong positive correlation to income inequality.

no there is no inherent genetic bias- my point is that there is a culture of joining criminal gangs which does not exist in analogous poor white groups. Yes poverty is a factor but culture is a larger one- all the immigrant groups you mentioned came from regions with strong organised crime. Other immigrant groups such as the Koreans, civil war era spainish, Dutch or Scandinavians do not and it is no coincidence that those groups escaped the poverty trap. Black America likes to blame racism for all its woes but a lot of them, especially those regarding the justice system, are a direct result of their own decisions to form and join gangs. The % of blacks jailed who had no connection to organised crime is proportionate to the rest of the population.

Being poor is not an excuse to join a gang, but a gang culture within an ethnicity is absolutely an excuse for the police and justice system to pay them closer attention and is going to have negative consequences for their education levels generally which in turn will effect their employability.

I would note that African immigrants do not have the same problem with call backs as native blacks suggesting the problem is one of culture not race.


My quote function has broken.

To your last two points: if the only difference is in severity of the effect this can be delt with by the awards revoverable. That is not an argue ment for different terms just for different awards when discrimination is proven.

Toxic masculinity: I am familiar with the definition and the theory surrounding it. I think it's bullshit. Society does not hold men up to some Victorian caricature of the stiff upper lip family man rather this concept is used as a scapegoat by third wave feminist academics unwilling to admit that certain changes in various areas over the past 30 years were made specifically to advantage women with no thought to how they would effect men. disparities in medical, psychological and social funding combined with extensive lobbying on behalf of females on a range of issues with no equivelant masculine advocacy is to blame for high male suicides, mental illness and homelessness. Not some cartoonish concept of the ideal man no one has had any notion of fitting for a hundred years. Somewhere else in the sub forum I go into more details on this. I think it's the men's issues thread.

 

[norrington]

That makes perfect sense- they are more likely to be better educated and wealthy. That's not racism, it's just the effect of a difference in resources. White people from poor backgrounds get less than those from rich ones for the same reason.

no there is no inherent genetic bias- my point is that there is a culture of joining criminal gangs which does not exist in analogous poor white groups. Yes poverty is a factor but culture is a larger one- all the immigrant groups you mentioned came from regions with strong organised crime. Other immigrant groups such as the Koreans, civil war era spainish, Dutch or Scandinavians do not and it is no coincidence that those groups escaped the poverty trap.

White gangs in the US include biker gangs such as the Hells Angels, the KKK, and skinheads/Aryans, they create big problems among prison populations as well.

Korean gangs like Kkangpae have been gaining prominence in the US in the past few decades. Korean immigration has been low, historically, and been on the rise in the past 50 or so years (and Kkangpae activity with it) until recently rates have begun to stall as the economy in South Korea has somewhat stabilized.

Arguably, though, their influence is negligent; accepting that for the sake of argument, then, I'll compare the 'culturally peaceful' immigrant populations you've cited with the more historically gang-oriented cultures. A total of 302,000 Spaniards have immigrated to the US since 1820, and several thousand immigrated back in the early 20th century before the civil war. Compare that to 5.5 million Italian immigrants between 1820 and 2004, 4.5 million Irish immigrants between 1820 and 1930, and a current Russian American population estimated at 3.3 million.

Now to consider the US's other major immigrant groups, Germans, Scots, and the English. Most immigrated for economic opportunity or due to religious persecution; German-speaking Europe and Great Britain have historically been very economically prosperous and stable countries. German immigrants assimilated quickly, I'd argue because there was little prejudice against German-speakers (before WWI+II) among any populations (except maybe the French, and the American public has always had an iffy opinion of the French, who kept to their own areas regardless). Beside that, much of the German immigration was very early on (like the Irish, largely in the 17-1800s, but Germany and Ireland in those centuries are hardly comparable).

Morals aside, on an economic scale, organized crime develops when there is a place for it within the economy; when the cost-benefit analysis of engaging in criminal activity in order to gain wealth is the most viable option because other options are closed off. The theory behind that is covered well in this paper, which I've quoted below. It's nothing to do with a cultural predisposition.

Mafias and gangs emerge in areas of weak state control, because of prohibition and geographic, ethnic, or social isolation.

...

From highly sophisticated mafias to youth street gangs, organized crime is present in almost every country in the world. In addition to the better publicized Italian and American mafias1 , examples include the Yakuza in Japan, the Triads in Hong Kong, Shanghai’s Green Gang, Colombian and Mexican drug cartels, numerous groupings in post-Soviet states, youth gangs in Los Angeles, New York, Soweto, or Sao Paulo, as well as many other less well-known – even some, given the nature of the business, unknowable – groups.

...

Organized crime is more likely to emerge then in conditions under which either the State is weak or when the State effectively cedes control by, for example, prohibiting certain activities that are then picked up by organized crime. That is, organized crime is more likely to emerge in conditions that are close to anarchy (absence of rule) and there is a power vacuum.

...

Another type of distance from the center of power that matters is that of ethnic and social distance. American youth gangs have traditionally flourished in low-income areas often populated by a homogeneous ethnic group – Irish, African-American, Hispanic. Many residents of such areas typically have viewed themselves as being apart and discriminated by the larger society (See Jankowski, 1991). The police and the justice system have also been often viewed at best as indifferent to their welfare and at worst as agents of repression. Therefore, ordinary crime becomes difficult to control in such areas, and gangs step in to fill the gap that is created, but also further contribute to violence in a more organized fashion.

Now, you could argue that it's just because of a false perception of discrimination among the black community, but if that were truly the case and discrimination and oppression against blacks were all in their own heads, the prominent role gangs play in urban economies would start to fade, as there wouldn't be as much of a demand for them. No doubt it's self-perpetuating to some extent, but the Italian mafia has largely faded from relevance except for a few stronghold families in places like New York; it's no longer a pervasive problem touching every corner of the country like black gang activity is. That's because there is still a demand for the services gangs provide, because those services are not being provided effectively by the state.

That makes perfect sense- they are more likely to be better educated and wealthy. That's not racism, it's just the effect of a difference in resources. White people from poor backgrounds get less than those from rich ones for the same reason.

Why are white people more likely to be better educated and wealthy? Why is that justifiable? How is that not evidence of systemic racism? Black people aren't stupider, by your own arguments they should have just as much opportunity as white people (especially with Affirmative Action favoring them so unfairly).

Also, the study I quoted was sending out identical resumes with "white sounding" and "black sounding" names so that doesn't explain why a white resume got a call back 1 out of every 10 times while a black resume got a call back 1 out of every 15 times. Here's the study in full. Employers hear a name they associate with blackness and they don't call back when they would call back if the applicant didn't have a name like "Tyrone, Jamal, Darnell, Aisha, Keisha," or whatever else.

Blackness in America is culturally associated with incompetence, violence, stupidity, and poverty, even when the statistics or the facts don't support that (for instance, when the majority of Americans below the poverty line are white), even when the individual is just as qualified as their white counterpart. That is, by definition, racial prejudice.

 

[RepQuest]

(for instance, when the majority of Americans below the poverty line are white)

That's because there are more whites than blacks in the United States. Per capita rates are more important in that regard.

 

[norrington]

That's because there are more whites than blacks in the United States. Per capita rates are more important in that regard.

I appreciate the clarification, but I covered that earlier (at least in part):

In addition to this, black children are less likely to be born into poverty (keep in mind, this makes sense given the fact that white people make up ~3/4 of the US population) but are also less likely to rise up out of poverty in adulthood than white children.

 

[Vitriol]

White gangs in the US include biker gangs such as the Hells Angels, the KKK, and skinheads/Aryans, they create big problems among prison populations as well.

Korean gangs like Kkangpae have been gaining prominence in the US in the past few decades. Korean immigration has been low, historically, and been on the rise in the past 50 or so years (and Kkangpae activity with it) until recently rates have begun to stall as the economy in South Korea has somewhat stabilized.

Arguably, though, their influence is negligent; accepting that for the sake of argument, then, I'll compare the 'culturally peaceful' immigrant populations you've cited with the more historically gang-oriented cultures. A total of 302,000 Spaniards have immigrated to the US since 1820, and several thousand immigrated back in the early 20th century before the civil war. Compare that to 5.5 million Italian immigrants between 1820 and 2004, 4.5 million Irish immigrants between 1820 and 1930, and a current Russian American population estimated at 3.3 million.

Now to consider the US's other major immigrant groups, Germans, Scots, and the English. Most immigrated for economic opportunity or due to religious persecution; German-speaking Europe and Great Britain have historically been very economically prosperous and stable countries. German immigrants assimilated quickly, I'd argue because there was little prejudice against German-speakers (before WWI+II) among any populations (except maybe the French, and the American public has always had an iffy opinion of the French, who kept to their own areas regardless). Beside that, much of the German immigration was very early on (like the Irish, largely in the 17-1800s, but Germany and Ireland in those centuries are hardly comparable).

White and korean gangs do exist but not in anything like the numbers of black and hispanic gangs per head of pop.

This site has a fairly comprehensive breakdown, you'll notice the black numbers are out of line with their population but in line with thir prison pop.
https://www.nationalgangcenter.gov/survey-analysis/demographics
If it was a matter of economics whites and asians would have proportional representaion to their share of the poor. They don't.

If it was a poverty trap then the more prosperous latinos would not have a rate of almost 50% gang membership despite being a more socially mobile demographic.

The inconveniant truth for african americans is that the numbers relating to their poverty and lack of social mobility is not shared by recent african immigrants. It is therefore absolutely a culture based thing. Ghetto culture has negative stereotypes attached because empirically people living in those areas do have less education and are more likely to commit violent criminal actions.

As a further element of the social trap is the hugely high percentage of single parent families in black communities. Its far out of proportion to their population size and that of any other group. It cant be blamed on racism and children growing up without a father have been proven to be more susceptible to violent and criminal lifestyles and lower academic qualifications again and again.

Whic brings me nicely to the names issue- names do not have race they have culture. One can change their name. That survey does not test what people think of black people but 'black culture' and as the statistics show there are empirical reasons for them to wish to be disassociated with it. That isnt sytematic racism, if all one has to differentiate between two applicants is that one has chosen a name that implies a connection with a more violent less stable subculture it makes perfect sense to choose the other.

It's not that it is justifiable that whites are more likely to be wealthy but rather it is unjustifyable to punish the children for the sins of the fathers as it were. This goes back to my comments about our system being inherently liberal individualist- we hold people to account for their actions, not the actions of others.