what is racism?

by russell

My wife and I had dinner with a friend recently.  She was talking about the conflicts she feels as a liberal living in the SF bay area.

One thing she discussed was the more or less unconscious bias she often experiences when she interacts with black and brown people.  Especially black and brown people who don't appear to share her socio-economic position.

What is that?, she wondered.  Where does it come from?  She has no animus or malice toward black or brown people, very much the opposite.  But still, the noticing of skin color, and the adjustment of how to interact with them.

I suggest that it is, quite simply, racism.  If you respond to people differently because of their skin color, that is racism.

But I don't like to use that word, she says.  It implies hatred.

And that, says I, is the problem.  If we can't call it racism because that means we're some kind of Nazi or Klansman, then what do we call it?  If we can't give it a proper name, how do we address it?

IMO racism isn't about hating people, although some folks will add that in for good measure.  It's about making assumptions about people, responding to people, interacting with people differently based on the color of their skin.

Does it matter, if there isn't hatred involved.  Yes, I think it does.  Because people perceive how you perceive them.  And being perceived as different in a way that needs special treatment - whether it's animus, or the kind of weird walking-on-eggs deference that Liberals Like Me often adopt, or whatever form it might take - it harmful to people.

Not harmful like the imminent threat of bodily harm kind of harmful.  Harmful like undermining your sense of being a person harmful.

But wait, doesn't this make almost all of us racists at some level?  Yes, I suspect it probably does.  I can't imagine how anyone could grow up in the US and not imbibe at least some of our historical legacy with their own mother's milk.  I don't know how you'd escape it.

So, if everyone or almost everyone is sorta-kinda racist, does it even matter?  Yes, I think it does.

IMO we need to stop thinking about racism as being solely about nazis and Klan rallies.  I.e., solely about hate.  We need to recognize it as our legacy as Americans, and perhaps as humans.  We need to see it in ourselves, when it's there, which it probably is.  And we need to acknowledge it and stop trying to pretend it ain't there.

If we can get that far, maybe we can even get beyond it.  But getting beyond it is not in the cards as long as we can't own it.  And we can't own it if we can't acknowledge and talk about it.

And we won't be able to acknowledge and talk about it if it automatically carries the stigma of hate.

It's not that hate isn't part of it, and it's certainly not that hate doesn't deserve it's own measure of approbrium.  But hate surely is not the whole of it, nor is hate the only source of harm in it.

Comments

[sapient]

How do we change that, so that the wealth that is created in this country gets spread around more evenly.

One thing we shouldn't do is, of course what the Trump administration is allowing, to create racially discriminatory effects in public programs.

[bobbyp]

Let's talk about that spreading the money around thing.

I AM IN!!!!! You have any? ;)

I know bobm has a honed sneer for the Jonathan Chaits of the world, and Chait has been hippie punching for decades.

THAT is what I would like to see stop.

The country is sorting out into more or less definable ideological groups....like it or not.

Go with the flow. Pick a side. Like the old Wall St. adage: Bulls make money. Bears make money. Pigs get slaughtered.

The Dem Party, as actually constituted, is further left today then it has been since the 60's. The Green Party, as actually constituted, is a sick joke.

The GOP is well down the ethno-nationalist aggrieved white power road.

Currently, the Dems are going in the right direction. Fer christ's sake, there is widespread discussion about 'medicare for all', free university education, universal child care, UBI, jobs guarantee....holy shitsky, batman.

Let's push them to go further.

[hairshirthedonist]

The food is better"?
"Beautiful houses are being renovated?"

It's like everyplace is freaking Park Slope.

Or like lots of places in large cities are similar to Park Slope. Even Fishtown in Philly's getting to be ... well ... nice! That place was a dump 20 years ago.

Proximity to cities, for that matter, has bugger-all to do with it.

Being within cities has something to do with it. The difference on your by-county Gini Index map between cities and the other dark blue areas is that the cities stand out from their surroundings. You have high indices in larger swaths in poor parts of the country, but the counties don't stand out much relative to the others around them. On the other hand, I can say, "Oh, there's Cleveland. There's Seattle. There's Pittsburgh. There's San Fran. There's Minneapolis."

If you want to solve inequality, the solutions might be different in different places with different dynamics.

That aside, if the article was anything, it was Clinton-bashing more so than a general take-down of liberal coastal elites. There was little mention of urban people generally looking down on rural America (or eating arugula). This was about it (emphasis mine):

What’s striking about Clinton’s remarks is that she seems to be connecting the wealth of the places she won to the character of the people living in them. Granted, this is hardly the first time someone has posited that America’s richer regions are more virtuous or praiseworthy than its poorer regions. Such attitudes have long been commonplace among the residents of richer regions.

The thing about it for me is that the points Reihan Salam (who I admit comes off like an a$$hole to me most of the time) is making is that they're not really anything like the crap that Trump and his base are always whining about.

Where are the "real Americans"? Where are the "traditional values"? Where's the "hard work" and "personal responsibility" and "taking care of families"? (All those things they claim to be theirs.)

That's the culture-war crap that goes up my keester. The stuff wonkie wrote a great comment on not long ago (which I might take the time to find).

[russell]

One thing we shouldn't do is, of course what the Trump administration is allowing

The list of things we shouldn't do that Trump is allowing is bigger than my head can hold.

I AM IN!!!!! You have any? ;)

LOL

Most of what I got goes to the bank to pay off my mortgage, so I can retire before I get too old to learn to play Ornithology and Giant Steps.

:)

[CharlesWT]

, more than they will ever be able to make use of in any way that will make a meaningful difference in their own lives.

That wealth isn't being wasted. It's mostly invested to create more wealth for them and a lot of other people.

There's no way Bill Gates could or would want to spend all his wealth on himself and his family. But he's spending big chunks of it in efforts to make other people's lives better. He doesn't always get it right but he's having a net positive affect on the world.

And his personal wealth is a small fraction of the overall wealth his company has created.

[wj]

There's no way Bill Gates could or would want to spend all his wealth on himself and his family. But he's spending big chunks of it in efforts to make other people's lives better. He doesn't always get it right but he's having a net positive affect on the world.

Gates? Yes. Buffett? Yes.

Koch brothers? Mercers? etc. Not so much. They are spending their money in order to (to be generous) make people's lives better by their own lights. But having a net positive effect on the world? Not that I can see.

[hairshirthedonist]

But what's ironic (maybe) about this quote:

What’s striking about Clinton’s remarks is that she seems to be connecting the wealth of the places she won to the character of the people living in them. Granted, this is hardly the first time someone has posited that America’s richer regions are more virtuous or praiseworthy than its poorer regions. Such attitudes have long been commonplace among the residents of richer regions.

is that it's traditionally been a view more common among Republicans (what might be referred to as "Country Club Republicans" - Mitt Romney's people, perhaps).

[hairshirthedonist]

That wealth isn't being wasted. It's mostly invested to create more wealth for them and a lot of few other people.

Fixed.

There's no way Bill Gates could or would want to spend all his wealth on himself and his family. But he's spending big chunks of it in efforts to make other people's lives better.

Bill Gates is a representative example of what number of people? (Also, too, he doesn't work in the FIRE sector. Bonus points for that.)

[bobbyp]

There's no way Bill Gates could or would want to spend all his wealth on himself and his family.

There is no way that Bill Gates should have been allowed to corner that much claim of our common future output (i.e., wealth).

Furthermore, as things are now, Bill Gates, not US gets to decide, all by himself, at his whims, what to do with it.

And the commons dies.

So we need to change the rules, hone down the inequalities.

If Bill had stopped at a billion the world would be a better place.

[Countme-a-Demon]

New York City!!!???

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooPBXfnIpYI

Arugula!!!??? Grown soon in .... Abilene, Texas??!!! .. too.

https://www.brightfarms.com/grow-local/

You got to fly over the rural arugula farms in California and elsewhere. Planes don't land there.

http://www.growingproduce.com/vegetables/2014-top-25-vegetable-growers-west/

The entire "flyover country", "coastal elites" "political correctness", "city slicker" playbook is poisoned manure covering every square inch of the country ten feet deep from coast to coast and emitted by the conservative manure movement, located in your major metropolitan areas, to spread their fake news political e coli into the gut of every dupe and rube, regardless of location, out there.

If you think this New Yorker cartoon is solely making fun of the out-of-towner tourints, then you've been skipping the arugula and dining on America's main course of lying republican pig manure at the source.

https://condenaststore.com/featured/and-coming-up-on-the-right-joe-dator.html

That tour bus guide was probably born and raised in Iowa.

Like Mickey Mantle, she went where the lights were brightest. Cause she's probably good at something and didn't want to end up playing Double-A ball.

Maybe she'll move back to Iowa and start an arugula farm and make a mint. What are cracker conservatives, who know how to do nothing but pay others nothing to grow cotton, going to call her.

The cartoonist, Joe Dator, was born and raised in the Bronx.

Go ahead, tell a guy from the Bronx he's an arugula-eating, coastal elitist.

Start running before you tell him. Drop the latte before you start running, snowflakes.

[bobbyp]

I take my arugula straight, no chaser.