How to combat racism

True Scotsman · Jun 24, 2015

Percivale said:
If you want your child to do well in school, is it a good idea to constantly call him stupid? No.
Does that apply to adults too? Yes.
So, if you constantly call people racist, will that make them more or less racist?
I think it makes the problem worse. Liberals are really trying to push the idea that lots of Americans are still racist. Sometimes they call it institutional racism. That sort of talk will irritate or anger many people; nobody likes being accused of evil. It pushes some toward despair or apathy; if after all we've done trying to be fair and colorblind we're still racist, what more can we do? Better just give up.

And this may be what the liberal elite wants. If racism really goes away, they lose their position of prestige and influence as spokesman for the downtrodden races.

I think you're right. The worst thing that could happen to these liberal (statist) elites is for us all to wake up one day with the same skin color.

I think this is a philosophical battle. What we are battling against is the concrete bound, anti-conceptual mentality. Those pushing race in our faces are trying to take us back in time to a primitive tribal existence, themselves being the leaders of the tribe.

The way to combat it is first to be philosophically armed. Understand what racism is and why it is so irrational. Act rationally in all your dealings with others. Be an advocate of reason as one's only guide to action and knowledge. Become an individualists, not a tribalist. Then shun those who are racists no matter what their skin color. Have nothing to do with them. That's what I do. I have family members who are racist and I don't deal with them.

TheBear · Jun 24, 2015

Calling someone a racist is a conversation stopper. In many cases, the term is use to taint an individual, (the politics of personal attacks strategy), so that anything they have to say is clouded and rendered unreliable and incorrect.

nightflight · Jun 24, 2015

The assumption here being that "racism" is a white thing only.

CRAZY_CAT_WOMAN · Jun 24, 2015

Maynard Keenan said:
A lot of people are racist. Here's thing thing, though: That doesn't mean a lot of people are evil monsters trying to hold black people down.

If a racist person in power. They hold a black, Mexican or a different ethnicity back, when they choose not to hire them, when they are right for the job. Also you would be teaching kids to not like another ethnicity.

Maynard Keenan · Jun 24, 2015

CRAZY_CAT_WOMAN said:
If a racist person in power. They hold a black, Mexican or a different ethnicity back, when they choose not to hire them, when they are right for the job. Also you would be teaching kids to not like another ethnicity.

You seem to have not read the rest of my post beyond the quoted section. I went on to describe how a great many people have no active, intentional desire to hold down those of other races but rather have biases they either don't recognize or won't acknowledge. That was about whom I spoke.

CRAZY_CAT_WOMAN · Jun 24, 2015

Percivale said:
I did not deny that racism exists; rather I'm interested in how to fix it,

If your racist, you can teach your kids not too. Break the cycle. It's harder when you have racist family members, but you can tell them, they aren't welcome in your home. If they are going to make racist comments.

Percivale said:
I'm pretty sure accusing everybody of being racist is not the way.

How are they accusing everyone. They are just talking about the problem. If your not racist, you should have a problem. I never hear them calling me racist. So I have no problems.

Smidlee · Jun 24, 2015

Armoured said:
Kill all the intolerant people.

Wow. That really going to the extreme. Wouldn't killing intolerant people would be considered intolerance itself?

nightflight · Jun 24, 2015

When whites become a minority, racism will be a thing of the past.

Or that's what many seem to think. They forget that while racial and ethnic identity have been verboten for whites, it has not only been tolerated among other races/ethnicities, its even been encouraged. And that isn't going to magically go away.
Just wait until MLK Blvd. is changed to Haime Hernandez Way.

It will be interesting times.

Armoured · Jun 24, 2015

Smidlee said:
Wow. That really going to the extreme. Wouldn't killing intolerant people would be considered intolerance itself?

*whispers* that was the joke.

Vylo · Jun 24, 2015

I have to commend the OP for their sound advice. I stopped trying to see racism, and just like that it disappeared! Police no longer target, beat, and murder black people. No one treats black people any differently. The KKK and neo-nazis all disbanded, realizing their folly. It even started disappearing from history books! What was one of the major causes of the civil war? Not slavery, that never happened.

Thanks for curing racism. Now if we all just stop seeing doctors, we can eliminate cancer!

katherine2001 · Jun 24, 2015

JustOneWay said:
Some people just have no understanding of empathy. You present a view of what it is like to be a black man, just as Obama has done. They turn it around and make it as though all you and he are doing is stirring the pot and dredging up old racial wounds.

I believe the OP wants you to stop talking about racism so it can go back into the closet. Apparently, calling out racism only makes it worse....

I say you keep telling your story until everybody understands.

I agree with this post. dgiharris, never stay silent about what you have to deal with because many, many others go through the same treatment. The worst thing we can do is remain silent. That just allows the delusion that there is no racism in the US to continue. I've also seen the suggestion that if people didn't identify themselves, the racism would go away. After all, people would never notice differences in skin color unless we are told about it, right?

BabylonWeary · Jun 24, 2015

How to combat racism, but putting up a fight only inspires more racism because trying to bully people into submission is where all the racism come from. Allowing people to be themselves without force fitting them into stereotypes or other manufactured identities would be helpful.

JustOneWay · Jun 24, 2015

Ok, I have had enough of you who are racists....

Timeout is in order, and if you continue with the bad behavior then I have no choice but to send you to bed with no supper.

(Only way to deal with children is to be stern)

nightflight · Jun 24, 2015

The shooting in Ferguson was just the tip of the iceberg of the kind of abuse of the black community that was going on there.

Even Eric Holder's DOJ found the shooting justified. For crying out loud how many times does this have to be repeated??

Percivale · Jun 24, 2015

Maynard Keenan said:
A lot of people are racist. Here's thing thing, though: That doesn't mean a lot of people are evil monsters trying to hold black people down. We've got to get over that concept of racism as being representative of racism and its effect, or as even particularly relevant to our society. The "I hate ******" racist is rarely in any position of power or influence. Those people don't drive racial inequality. We have two problems driving racial inequality. One is legacy: for most of the time after the end of slavery, there WERE active policies that benefited whites and suppressed blacks, and these directly led to an unequal society. The second is less overt, implicit bias. It's what drives people to be more likely to hire someone who is white, even when a black applicant has equal qualifications. It's what drives people to be more wary around black men than white men. It's isn't an active desire to suppress anyone, but it's real nonetheless. It doesn't make you evil, it doesn't make you a monster, it makes you human. It's no moral judgment against a person to accuse of this, because it's universal to have biases. The only moral judgment is against those who refuse to acknowledge that it may be true, and refuse to do anything to compensate for it. These are the barriers that we must overcome now. We must work to acknowledge and suppress within ourselves any biases we have, and we must work to fix an unequal society that was made unequal by deliberate intent, even if that deliberate intent was not our own.

I agree with all of this, and do try to compensate for any racist feelings I have. I get the impression most of us do that, and its discouraging when that's not enough. I think it would be more encouraging and motivating to focus on the goal and the ideal rather than the problems, and look more at how we can improve things rather than who we can blame for them.

nightflight · Jun 24, 2015

Stop using the accusation of racism as a political weapon and a tool to silence dissent would go a long way in combating racism. Assuming of course that that is what is wanted.

stamperben · Jun 24, 2015

nightflight said:
Stop using the accusation of racism as a political weapon and a tool to silence dissent would go a long way in combating racism. Assuming of course that that is what is wanted.

Tell us then, when is the accusation of racism to be allowed?

JustOneWay · Jun 24, 2015

nightflight said:
Even Eric Holder's DOJ found the shooting justified. For crying out loud how many times does this have to be repeated??

You ignore the DOJ report. You are so focused on one case that you are missing the big picture.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...ights-from-the-dojs-scathing-ferguson-report/

http://www.justice.gov/sites/defaul...5/03/04/ferguson_police_department_report.pdf

The Justice Department completed a months-long review of the case and released those results Wednesday. The report cites "unlawful bias against and stereotypes about African-Americans," and points to a number of violations of constitutional rights.

Attorney General Eric Holder said a "highly toxic environment" existed between Ferguson police officers and the city's African-American residents before Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown last year.

"It's not difficult to imagine how a single tragic incident set off the city of Ferguson like a powder keg," Holder said.

He pointed to the use of excessive force overwhelmingly against African-American residents, noting that only African-Americans were bit by police dogs, and said "no alternative explanation" except racial bias exists to explain it.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/04/politics/ferguson-justice-report-shocking/

nightflight · Jun 24, 2015

stamperben said:
Tell us then, when is the accusation of racism to be allowed?

When it (racism) actually occurs.

nightflight · Jun 24, 2015

JustOneWay said:
You ignore the DOJ report. You are so focused on one case that you are missing the big picture.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...ights-from-the-dojs-scathing-ferguson-report/

http://www.justice.gov/sites/defaul...5/03/04/ferguson_police_department_report.pdf

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/04/politics/ferguson-justice-report-shocking/

The poster I was responding to referenced "the shooting in Ferguson".

How to combat racism

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