Prologue
This post is inspired in part by Kim’s post on Tony Snow. What is fascinating to me is how Whites decide what is racist and what is not (there really seems to be no rhyme or reason to it). I’m not sure if there’s any sort of science to it, but it seems to me that there are many cases where even the most blatant evidence is not enough for some Whites to believe that a person’s behavior or ideology is racist. Let’s put Tony Snow’s comment aside for a minute, and focus on what white supremacy and white racism is.
On my site a few weeks ago, I was attacked by white supremacists, and I realized at that time that many people do not know what white supremacy is (or they do not care to acknowledge it). I remember some people saying, “I don’t see any white supremacist comments.” I started to ask myself why don’t they see this–was it because their own beliefs support white supremacy and they didn’t want to label themselves White supremacist. Was it denial? What was it? (incidentally, I later found a link directly from a major WS site to my blog, where they were attacking me on my views on the Duke case. One guy was also lamenting/laughing at how I banned him. Incidentally, this person was also banned from this site.)
One thing that bothers me is the tendency of many people in mainstream America to set the burden of proving racism so high that nothing is ever racist. I recently heard someone defending Nicholas Minucci (a man convicted of a racially motivated attack) saying that the N-word is not really racist. Well my thought is, when you use the n-word while beating a Black man with a bat, you are a racist–plain and simple. The other tactic that some in mainstream White American use to deny the power of racism, is to try and give examples where they believe that people of color are being racist to Whites as if this somehow absolves the White person they are trying to defend. The more I debate with people over these issues the more I realize that people are often clueless as to what racism and white supremacy are. And they are also clueless about how closely their own views mirror white supremacists.
In order to help people understand what racism is, I decided to start a post with quotes from the discussion boards on white supremacist sites, so people know what is out there. Perhaps this will help people get a real sense of White supremacist ideology. I suspect that many people on the boards I collected quotes from would not call themselves racist or white supremacists. In fact, their preferred term is “White nationalist.” As you read through the quotes, think about how their comments are similar to and different from the mainstream media. I am not putting links to these sites (as I do not want them coming to this site anymore than they already do, and I don’t want to give them publicity).
Pt 1 “You Might Be a white supremacist if…..”
If you believe the following about Bill Cosby’s comments to Black America, You might be a White Supremacist:
You hear Bill Cosby “speechifyin'” about how negroes must begin to act in more moral,self-disciplined ways (Ha!Good ****in’ Luck! )to be more prosperous and have better lives and better communities;and the negro leaders all say this is a good thing. (But “we aint nevuh lettin’ whitey off da hook”). But this ‘stripper’ represents everything wrong with black america today! She is a low-down,lying thieving filthy degenerate,adulterous,sleazy,drunken,immoral lump of feces. Yet no negro will speak against her;she is now a ‘black leader’;these innocent white guys,even if they are ‘privileged’,are betrayed by the rotten Duke PC community. And lambasting these guys for being privileged is just a pathetic dirty cheap way of hiding the real reason they are so hated:they are WHITE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Old Testament law commanded the Israelites not to engage in interracial marriage (Deuteronomy 7:3-4). The reason for this is that the Israelites would be led astray from God if they intermarried with idol worshippers, pagans, or heathens. A similar principle is laid out in the New Testament, but at a much different level: “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?” (2 Corinthians 6:14). Just as the Israelites (believers in the one true God) were commanded not to marry nonbelievers, so Christians (believers in the one true God) are commanded not to marry unbelievers. To answer this question specifically, no, the Bible does not say that interracial marriage is wrong.
A person should be judged by his or her character, not by skin color. All of us should be careful not to show favoritism to some, nor be prejudiced or racial to others (James 2:1-10, see especially verses 1 and 9). A Christian man or woman’s standard for selecting a mate should always be to find out if the person they are interested in is a Christian (2 Corinthians 6:14), someone who is born again by faith in Jesus Christ (John 3:3-5). Faith in Christ, not skin color, is the Biblical standard for choosing a spouse. Interracial marriage is not a matter of right or wrong, but of wisdom, discernment, and prayer.
The only reason interracial marriage should be considered carefully is because of the difficulties a mixed-race couple may experience because others will have a hard time accepting them. Many interracial couples experience discrimination and ridicule, sometimes even from their own families. Some interracial couples experience difficulties when their children have skin tones of different shades from the parents and/or siblings. An interracial couple needs to take these things into consideration and be prepared for them, should they decide to marry. Again, though, the only Biblical restriction placed on whom a Christian in regards to marriage is whether the other person is a member of the Body of Christ.
(Rachel’s Note–This actually ticked off several of the people in the WS forum off because they wanted a stronger pronouncement against interracial marriage–other than, it’s not practical. What I found interesting about the quote is that it is really representative of mainstream views on interracial marriage. Most of the people I interviewed in my research on interracial marriage had relatives who felt as this white supremacist does.)
If you believe the following statement about Black people in groups, You might be a White Supremacist.
I think it is just a numbers game. One or two blacks in a large group of whites know to behave themselves. If they start the shuck and jive show, they’ll quickly get ostracized. Once the group (or town or classroom or city) becomes 25-30 percent black though, they start reverting to their natural state. ( insert realistic monkey sounds )
If you believe the following statement about HIV, You might be a White Supremacist.
Black America Negroes are always whining how “da white mang keep him down.” Hell, we don’t have to work to hard to do that, they do it themselves for the most part!
Pt.2 How far out of the mainstream are white supremacists?
I also thought the following 2 exchanges were very instructive for those Whites who are not part of these hate groups, but truly do want to understand white supremacy. Unfortunately, I think these White supremacists may have a point in both of these threads. In the first thread they are basically saying that other Whites are too damn wimpy to say anything when they make racist comments, and then in the second thread they are debating about how to get other Whites involved in their movement (The first post sounds just like CNN’s Lou Dobbs). I put up the post that started the threads, and some of the more interesting responses to it (some of the responses would pointless so I left them out).
Here’s the first thread, which asks if the racism taboo is fading:
Like most people my age, I have to go through Communist Brainwashing at my college government class. Contrary to what I have heard, not all people fall for the white guilt. I was overjoyed when someone stood up for our people when my professer told us that it was white oppression that made blacks fail. I then saw a man in the back tell my professor that the blacks have been given every possible avenue to fufill equality except us giving them everything. I added that the worst black neighborhoods are neighborhoods. It is impossible to scream racism when everyone around you is the same color.
I’ve noticed that any white that has busted their butt and made it wont give blacks any concessions. Whites Earn the right to a 3 bed 1.5 bath in the ‘burbs. They no longer see the need to give the dangerous inner cities anything. The word Race Card is now used as much as racist.
Next is Comedy Central’s Mind of Mencia. Has anyone seen it? Mencia is a Mexican, but he tells racist jokes at every ethnic group. With whites watching that, they are starting to subliminally realize that there are differences in the races. Although White America is far from putting on a Waffen SS uniform and wanting to deport all muds, I do believe the racist taboo is fading.
All thoughts would be appreciated.
And here are some of the responses
“Mencia is funny at times. He tells it the way it is. No Political correctness. Yes, talk to middle class white males, and they are fed up, even SOME girls. Americans aren’t stupid(white americans that is). White nationalism has nothing to do with the nazi’s. The nazi’s were for white supremacism. White supremacism is the reason why we now have things like affirmative action. Talk about Nazi’s and you will tick off a lot of kids. Talk about things like affirmative action, illegal immigration, and they will start sounding more like us. First let’s deal with mexicans and africans before we deal with the jews.”
“Living in Massachusetts, I can’t see any sign of the racist tabbo fading. In my highschool, a student was suspended for sometime (around a month) for having a white power fist on his shirt while a black student has been wearing a black power fist shirt with no reprecussions. It’s rediculous. It might just be the communists running Massachusetts, or it might be the Jew principal and administrators at my highschool, but as I see it, racial sensitivity is still rediculously high.”
“i dont know if i can agree with you on this one. i go to a very multi culti school and yet, i always use the N word, i use it like its a regular part of my vocabulary, and because of it… absolutely nothing negative has happened, the muds laugh, and most of the whites agree, or they downtrodden me, but im still friends with them! i havent lost a SINGLE friend over saying the word and it seems that most people do hate them, they just think that nazism is intertwined too far into all of this and we as a people need to rid of nazism. they have also been brainwashed into believing “jews are ok” so we have to go at an anti nazi point of view.”
“I think that the taboo is fading amongst the people. The automatons that are supposed to be teachers, administrators, managers, etc… are the ones that still toe the party line, and expect the same from everyone else.”
“I think amongst most people, it was never particularly taboo to be racist. Most white people I know (even some half-jews and asians) don’t seem to care when I drop the “N bomb”, or shake my head in disgust at the lazy blacks who live here. It might have a lot to do with the fact that I live in the south, so most of my friends are racist rednecks anyway.” “It is true in my experience (as many have noted in this thread already) that mentions of nazis and anti-Jewishness is what turns people off. Most people will allow racist jokes, and even make general observations about blacks being lazy, and Jews being greedy, but they consider references to Hitler to be either pointless or just vicious.”
“It is indeed fading at least in my area. I was on the bus the other day and this white woman had struck up a conversation with the black woman she was sitting beside about how trifling those “mexicans” were who live in her apartment complex and how upset she was that her daughter had fallen in love with one.”
“It is indeed fading probably due to the influx of nonwhite immigrants. Blacks are not looked at as the big problem so much as the hispanics are.”
And here is the second thread, which asks “will mainstream America support White Nationalism?”:
I certainly hope so, but it won’t happen overnight. We need to make it happen. I believe that we should go after millions and millions of regular white folks (families with kids, workers, homemakers, etc.) who are worried about colored immigrants, jobs being shipped to China and India, U.S. blood and treasure being wasted on Arabs, neighborhoods going bad, etc. Whites realize that something is wrong with this picture, but haven’t connected the dots yet. That’s where white nationalists can help. We need to open their eyes without making them feel they are “racist.” Why not organize “White heritage celebrations” in rural areas of the South and the Midwest? Places where people can go to listen to the country music, look at antique cars, Confederate items, Harleys, arts and crafts, drink beer and have a good time. If we start receiving support from regular folks, we’ll also gain political clout. However, without an aggressive effort to attract mainstream whites, we’ll remain at the fringes of the political spectrum, instead of its center, where we belong.
Here is a later response from the same guy.) We have failed to attract mainstream whites because of our strategy. We keep trying to sell some pretty radical ideas to a white guy who sits on a couch, eats food, drinks beer and roots for black athletes. He does not consider the Nazis, the Klan and the prospect of a racial war an appealing alternative to his hedonistic lifestyle. Obviously, we need to find some other way to connect with this guy. We also need an upbeat, positive message, instead of this never ending doom-and-gloom. Let’s figure out the way to repackage our ideas and make them palatable to common folks.
And here are some of the responses from others:
“Which “Brand” of WN do you mean?
Personally, I think most Whites are “white nationalist” as a general philosophy. But the Devil is always in the details. White Pride is a great thing… until four skinheads jump a white guy in a parking lot because he played a friendly game of pool with a negro at the local bar. Then everyone goes… “hmmm, that could have been me”. And suddenly WN don’t smell so good.
So you can make an aggressive effort to attract mainstream people but if they don’t trust your underlying motives… WN is just another ‘ism'” “White America is lost. The majority of white Americans live in its big cities; cities which are infested with colored immigrants and Old Southern Blacks.
The Negro alone has an amazing cultural grip on white Youth and most the parents of these, from the Negro Sub-Culture mesmerized kids, are far too weak to teach their offspring any kind of racial pride.
Most white Americans haven’t got a clue where their ancestors came from and most don’t care. The fact is White America is on its way down the toilet!
Had Germany & Japan won the last war & devided the world up between them, we would be living in a much better world.
The death of Germany was the death of the LAST CHANCE for White Culture globally. However, I shall fight to my last breath for the resurection of German Culture and for a better world through >>eugenics< <." "I don't think that the Sally Soccer Mom and Joe Six Pack will come around till the savages are at the gates. Once a Katrina like event happens to them, they will totally come around to our side. Question is if we can do something with them when it happens?" "I estimate 50% of Americans (i.e., White people in the USA) will eventually accept "racism" as the proper organizing principle of society. The other 50% are irrevocably tied to non-Whites by blood (half-breed children or siblings) or marriage, or by financial dependence (Federal whores, including the political police), and/or they are so insane as to be incurable of their psychosis of self-hatred. Do not despair at my "low" numbers. Successful revolutions are frequent throughout history with only a plurality of support...both the Founding Fathers and Hitler came to power with active pluralities. Perhaps only 10% of Americans are currently racially-aware or racially-leaning. The remainder will "come around" when most of our large cities are in flames and the economy has went much further into the abyss. "Popular Comfort" is the greatest enemy of the revolutionary." "Yeh this is especially important - I think we have to identify exactly what rubs the majority of whites the wrong way and use that. Be very very politic - don't run off at the mouth on tirades - and above all stay honest and fair in all things. We should stay away from typifying people by race and concentrate on religious and cultural differences. e.g. If you see an CHinese guy eating - usually slurping rice in some disgusting manner you instantly feel the culural distance and there are deep tribal feeling that it awakens. The same with weird Islamic rituals and kosher slaughter, arranged marrriages etc etc. In addition I would say the media rubs people the wrong way. They keep hammering away at topics that annoy alot of people, and they have very little credibility after Rathergate, so I would say stick to a message of attacking foreign invaders rather than directly pointing them out." "I know we all hope for the day where mainstream white Americans can wear a t-shirt showing pride in there culture without being critized. But it's going to take time and a lot of hard work. And I know most of us are more than ready to do whatever it takes. If we had more organizations and eliminated certain things it would be a step in the right direction in my opinion. I agree with those that believe we need to eliminate those things that have people look at WN as a racist thing, such as Nazism, KKK etc. They mean something but are looked opon negativley as hate groups. I'm not about hating other racists, I'm about taking pride in my own, just like other races and cultures are intitled to do. I'm tired of being called a racist and sneered at when My friends and I where our white pride t-shirts or wear a confederate flag on a hat or coat. I'm tired of seeing young white americans supporting a different culture than there own. And I'm espically tired of Whites feeling sorry for "What there ancestors have done" to blacks, jews, etc. I'm tired of blacks being able to have television stations, magazines, websites etc. and not being looked down upon when whites try to show pride and it is only seen as negative and hateful. I'm tired of seeing Native Pride, Black Pride, Hispanic Pride, and every other Pride besides WHITE PRIDE being displayed publicly with no snickers. White Americans need to realize that the country we took a huge part in building is being controled by those who we're formerly repressed, and now we're the repressed minority. I believe the key is to get mainstream whites to be proud of there heritage and skin color, and quit feeling sorry or feeling the need to support other cultures before there own. In my mind, youth are the easiest to convince, in my own town we bring forth issues into the minds of those young white people who have been blinded by this cruel world. Those young people who wear monsterous chains around there necks, sag there parents, have no respect for there parents or the heritage, and have a need to fit in more with other races, and impress them."
There are over a 150 comments on the last thread mentioned, which indicates to me that these White Supremacists are very concerned with winning over the majority of White Americans.
So there you have it, here are some of the things white supremacists are saying. What’s striking to me is that if you tweak a word here or there, quite a bit of what they are saying is not much different from what people in the “mainstream” are saying.
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Charming people.
I don’t understand what’s “white supremacist” about the post on interracial marriage, though.
I don’t understand what’s “white supremacist” about the post on interracial marriage, though.
I second that. The writer said several times that interracial marriage isn’t sin, but can be difficult in this society. That’s true–people often are ostracized, so shouldn’t the people involved in the marriage, if they are Christians, want to pray about it? It doesn’t mean they are praying over whether the action is right–just right for them. The same potential for difficulty exists in marriage between classes, educational levels, nationalities (even if both members are white), etc.
If someone makes the leap, though, from “You might be ostracized” to “Interracial couples are on the fringes of society and therefore shouldn’t adopt–it hurts the kids”, I would say that’s an example of racism and White supremacism.
The rest of the stuff is too ucky to read carefully. Yick! Scary.
Change the racial terms to gender designations, and they sound exactly like MRAs or FRAs.
I feel it is also about religion and color.
One of the problems that exists in any discussion of race, or, more specifically, racial assessments based on appearance, and even more specifically racism against Americans who are the descendents of slaves, is making the distinctions among bigotry, white supremacy, and “ordinary” racial stereotypes with the coincident unconscious biases.
I suspect that the latter accounts for a lot of confusion about the former. People rarely analyze their own motivations beyond superficial rationalization; to go further smacks of Freudianism and the idea that we are ruled by all sorts of unconscious demons. Ugh! Much less anxiety from simply blaming the victim and attacking anyone who wants to bring up the subject.
I personally think that most Americans are not white supremacists (I would probably not rate the fellow talking about the difficulties of inter-racial marriage as a white supremacist, for example), and are, in fact, made very uncomfortable by any overt displays of racism. Unfortunately, the most likely times to encounter such displays are when black people are around, so they wind up associating blacks with that discomfort. That just feeds the unconscious biases, so the cycle perpetuates itself.
In _Blink_, Malcolm Gladwell describes a psychological testing method that can be used to assess unconscious bias. It can be found here in case anyone wants to do the self-assessment:
http://www.tolerance.org/hidden_bias/
What people don’t get, is that for some of us, this is just too painful to read…
Thanks for the post. We are less alone.
This quote is actually quite mainstream, unfortunately. I hear this sentiment quite a bit, especially in the area of employment. Although the percentage that seems to drive Whites into hysterics is around 5%.
About 5% of employees in management positions are Black so guess what, it’s time to “streamline” management by phasing out many positions particularly those held by African-Americans and Latinos and call them “supervisors” instead.
Black police officers comprise about 6% of the officers in my city’s police department, yet after writing about a law suit filed by one of them, a visitor wrote on my Web site that I would not rest until Black officers had taken over the police department. I can imagine this guy lying in bed at night cringing over the fact that he might wake up the next morning and Black officers comprise…7% of the sworn ranks. Hiring a Black officer to work in my city’s department is extremely difficult, due to the reputation it earned several years ago.
When women and men of color were given about 5% of governmental contracts in my state in comparison to 1%, that was enough to create the germ for an anti-affirmative action ballot initiative. Many petrified White men and White women(who again aligned themselves by race rather than by gender at their own expense(largely due to Clause C which was gender-specific) ) showed up to the polls to ensure its passage but one of the avid opponants of the initiative was an organization called Angry White Men for Affirmative Action.
I think Whites (Supremacist or not,) have their benchmarks of when to go into a tizzy when they feel like that their power has been infringed upon. 30%, 5% hell anything higher than 0 or 1(remember the less than two rule) might as well be a majority or even everything.
I work in a building where the majority of the businesses leasing space are Black-owned. That’s how it was when I started and then more businesses were White-owned and it changed how the long-time White employees of White-owned businesses treated us, blaming us for everything from plumbing problems to the termite infestations. Now, Black-owned businesses are the majority again and the dynamic has changed once again. I guess another benchmark standard for how unsettling Black-owned businesses appear to those that are White-owned is in there somewhere.
This comment was out into the moderation que by a White supremacist (who has a White supremacist blog). I did not approve the comment because I did not want any links to his site on this site, but I think the quote itself should go up, because it gets at the heart of my point. Here is his post,
(TNB-stands for typical Negro Behavior.)
My objection to the interracial comment is two fold. First of all, note the objection implicit in it that marriage between Christians and non-Christian is wrong or suspect. (Of course the White supremacists, like that because “Jews and Negros” are their two favorite targets.)
My other objection to the statement is the notion that it is unwise or children have problems. CK, I think there is a very thin line between, “You might be ostracized” to “You might be ostracized so don’t do it.”
In defense of this poster, he geniounely seemed to be trying to challenge some of the White supremacists, but the responses from the white supremacist were not nasty because, “hey he’s a good Christian guy at least he’s not a Jew.”
In my view anti-semitism and racism are twin towers.
Radfem,
As usual, you and I agree. I think the reason some white react like the guy did on your blog is that they think Blacks are like them. So I think he was projecting….thinking I want an all White PD, so these Black people must want an all Black PD.
The truth of the matter is that if this attitude about the tipping point of an acceptable number of people of color is very clearly reflected in neighborhood segregation patterns.
Rachel, I think I understand your objections.
What I don’t understand is how being opposed to marrying outside of one particular faith (a faith represented in every racial group), or being fearful of/warning of social ostracism, is white supremacist. Insular, perhaps.
Rachel S. Writes:
June 14th, 2006 at 5:43 pm
I guess I didn’t notice the distinction between Christians and non-Christians in that light because, growing up in a very conservative Christian household (I’m a Unitarian Universalist and partnered with a woman, FWIW), I heard a lot of that. It came from people who were in interracial marriages, who were not bigoted, etc. To me, that is a religious-theological stance, which may or may not be connected with a racist viewpoint.
So I’ll still hold that someone can make that distinction and not be bigoted. (Too, their definition of Christian is typically so narrow that no one who fits that definition would marry a ‘non-Christian’…i.e. a UCC member, liberal Episcopalian etc. But those are theological discussions, not racial.)
You’re right about the thin line. I know people who are prejudiced against black people. Period. And they disguise it with the same ‘prayer and discretion’ line. But I tend to give people a charitable interpretation, and prima facie, I don’t see anything intrinsically White Supremacist about the quote.
What I’m getting at is that while sometimes these issues get muddled together, sometimes one can be theologically exclusive, a biblical literalist, etc. and not be prejudiced. And for the sake of those people, I try to assume that until I’m proven wrong. That’s all I meant.
I think for many people the whole “you’re gonna have problems” statement is a cover. Rather than saying I am uncomfortable with it, and I think it is wrong; people say something like “you’re kids will have problems.” It’s a diversion in my view because many of the people saying this in their hearts are really uncomfortable with IRs, but they know on the surface that this sounds racist.
The guy who put this up is an interesting character because he is clearly trying to challenge some of the hardcore Neo-Nazi types, and they were pissed at this. But some of them were able to twist this around to read; “the Bible doesn’t say it is wrong, but it’s wrong because it’s impractical.” And of course, he didn’t step into stop that view of his remarks, which I took to mean(possibly incorrectly) that he had no problem with that interpretation.
I think for many people the whole “you’re gonna have problems” statement is a cover.
I getcha. Thanks for the clarification.
This whole thing would be such a hoot if it wasn’t so utterly lame…I mean, I read somewhere back that race isn’t even a real [scientifically valid] concept. People differ genetically all over the place, but the “big 3” (or is it 4?) categories are suspect. I can’t recall where I read that… And how many of the people that suprematists stigmatize are really “pure”, that is, devoid of any of the same genes as the suprematists? These racists might be dissing their cousins. I recall way long far back there was a story of a white man who went thru a big emotional upheaval when he found that he was 1/32 black [he finally got used to the idea.] If I’d been in that position I would have said, “BFD.”
I have a neighbor who claims to be unprejudiced but says he still thinks people shouldn’t marry “outside their race.” I was too tired to engage that one. I am just so sick of archaic, pseudoscientific hooey.
If in fact there is some scientific basis for the traditional racial categories, we should just start interbreeding till we are all tan. That will take care of one problem…
Hmmm, probably uncharitable of me, but I tend to hear the ‘you’re going to have problems’ as ‘people like me are going to give you problems’ – not always, but it’s usually pretty evident when the cover as you put it is occurring. And yes, it’s irritating.
I really don’t like racism I never have. But I truly hate the idea of breaking a working society to fix racism. You don’t throw sand in the machine to fix it. We have made progress on viewing people as less than equals on the basis of non sensical criteria. I am a true believer in the marketplace of ideas. No one idea should be protected or coddeld . New ideas and creative thought are specifically created through friction and free exchange. Getting someones Ox gored is good. If you cannot think clearly through someone saying something that while may be offensive does not harm your health, employment or ability to move through society then you have the problem. It is understandable that you might express how rude or uneducated they are. It is more than perfectly acceptable to track down if these people are members of totalitarian hate groups. Where I draw the line is calling simple rudness racism. Racism is a loaded word. Might as well call a woman a slut or a man a child molester. It tarnishes reputations and can in some cases kill careers. It is like waving a loaded gun around in a crowded room. If the label is accurate use it. But take care when you do. The danger if you don’t is thesame fate as the boy who cried wolf. I have had personal experience with a bully who used the racist label as a weapon. I have no tolerance for it.
question…
am i a racist? please answer.
i am faced with the terrifying prospect of placing my girls in the new orleans public school system in a year or two. totally aside from the fact that i am worried that they won’t get a good education i am worried about something else…
i had a friend who had a little girl in kindergarten. not only was she the only white child in her class, she was the only white child in the entire elementary school. no asians, no hispanics, no whites. 100% african american. this isn’t unusual in the public schools of new orleans. often there are only a handful of non african american students per school. and very nearly all the teachers and administrators (especially at the elementary level) are african americans.
am i racist for not wanting to put my children in that situation? i’m worried about them being in a situation where there is no one at all who looks like them.
recently, right after katrina when there were few choices, they were in a day care that was about 90% a-a. my 4yo would come home upset because the children would tease her about her “long blonde hair” and they’d pull on it and try to touch it. they teased her about her clothes because they weren’t urban wear. she frequently was hit and would often come home with scratches and bruises. every day when we picked her up she was off in a corner playing by herself. it was starting to happen to our 2yo too. mysterious bites, hair chunks missing, lots of crying.
we’d ask the teachers if there was anything wrong, if she was starting the fights or instigating the other children. nope. nothing was wrong. they didn’t see whatever it was that happened that day. no one knew anything. we pulled the kids out even before we had another place for them and they stayed home with me for about 2 months.
i don’t know if not wanting them to be in this kind of situation makes me a racist. the way my girls and my friends’ daughter were treated reminds me of how african american children were treated in the early days of desegregation. or in schools where they are an extreme minority situations.
now, post-katrina, the schools are supposed to be getting better having gone to charter schools. but from what i see when they show classrooms on tv is that they are still overwhelmingly african american and i’m pretty sure they’ll go back to their pre-k states soon.
it’s not that there are too many african americans in public schools, but that there are too few whites. the whites have abandoned the new orleans public schools. they’ve ‘white flight’-ed out to the suburbs or they’re in parochial schools. the only non-catholic private schools here are strictly for the very rich, costing an arm and two legs to go to.
i know that nola was a 70% black city. and if the schools were 70% black, i’d have no problems (except educationally–which i can supplement after school) sending the kids to public school.
so am i a racist?
The school is at fault for not policing the kids better. Whatever color they are. If they don’t have enough people to do this, you did the right thing by yanking your kid out until she can learn self-defense. If you can’t find a better place, homeschool or move. Can’t think of any better answers this early in the morn.
I really don’t like racism I never have. But I truly hate the idea of breaking a working society to fix racism.
The society is only in working condition if you are not the victim of racism. For those who are oppressed by the racism (institutional as well as individual) in our society, it is not working.
It is statements like these that really call for self-examination wrt privilege and lack of awareness of privilege.
Proud to Swim Home, been there, am doing that now. I think that the fact you’re agonizing over your decision shows that you’re trying not to be racist. N.O. is a terrible example of the intertwined realities of race and class, because if the students were middle-class and still majority Black, I don’t think you would be agonizing quite so much.
Where I live right now, 85-90% of the students in public schools are Black (about 20% of these are children of recent immigrants from African and Caribbean countries). We have an awful chicken-and-egg situation where the public schools have been terrible for at least a century, so that everybody who can possibly afford to do so, sends their kids to private school. Are we racist for putting our kids into private school because we want them to get a good education (a school in which about 50% of the students are Black, the rest are fairly evenly divided between other racial and ethnic groups), or are we classist because we can afford to pay extra for a better education than our tax dollars provide at the public school? Some community activists claim that if everybody who was currently going to private school was going to public school, the public schools would be much better, but I sincerely doubt it. The school system has our tax dollars and not our kids, so they have even more money to pay for stuff than if my kids were there, and the schools still stink.
am i racist for not wanting to put my children in that situation? i’m worried about them being in a situation where there is no one at all who looks like them.
This sounds to me like sketchy reasoning, in and of itself.
recently, right after katrina when there were few choices, they were in a day care that was about 90% a-a. my 4yo would come home upset because the children would tease her about her “long blonde hair” and they’d pull on it and try to touch it. they teased her about her clothes because they weren’t urban wear. she frequently was hit and would often come home with scratches and bruises. every day when we picked her up she was off in a corner playing by herself. it was starting to happen to our 2yo too. mysterious bites, hair chunks missing, lots of crying.
This sounds to me like a harrowing experience. Acting on these reasons is probably not racism; it’s acting on experience. You’ve tried this situation and realized that this situation produces results that make your child unhappy.
the way my girls and my friends’ daughter were treated reminds me of how african american children were treated in the early days of desegregation.
I’d be hesitant about this analogy, though you may have a point.
For those who think times are bad have not studied history or lived in hot spots around the world. We are not special we are merely people. American people to be sure but people. The level of pain and suffering caused by racism AT ITS WORST in this country could be maginfied many times. Look at the casualty stats for the Civil war. Look at any civil War. Civil strife is always the nastiest. While I understand the pain of victims of racism and they presume too much too think I have not also been a victim of overt blatant racism rarely seen in this country in the last 30 years. I can most likely provide personal accounts of victim of racism experiences that exceed most in this country. Be careful in thinking the system needs to be brought down. Civil wars and revolutions are messy and often eat their own before burning themselves out. If the machine of this society is seen as broken by too many a tipping point will be reached and those who have been kept in check like the white supremacists will take the opportunity of confusion to strike. We have shown that these are people that need to feel the restraint of a mostly lawful society. Yes there is unfairness and yes there is pain, but do not in your legitimate pain blind you to the chaos that can be unleashed if the system is broken rather than reformed. I know this is a long reply but I felt it needed to be said.
Yes, yes. There are places where it is worse, so we should do nothing here to make things better. Ho hum.
Why do you believe that the “system needs to be brought down” in order to minimize and eliminate racism? Is it because you believe that our current society is based on racism and without racism it will collapse into chaos?
I believe that we can minimize and eliminate racism without resorting to revolution and civil war.
But, really, I think that your response claiming that if we are too vigorous in fighting racism that there will be revolution & bloody civil war is ridiculous.
I’m glad that you don’t like racism and that you never have, but your second sentence strongly implies that while you may not like racism, you do not dislike racial privilage nearly as much. Why do you think breaking a “working society” is necessary to dismantle racism unless as someone has said, racism is a key part to making it work or at the very least doesn’t hinder its operation?
Also, the argument that we’d better not fight racism(which isn’t really that bad now, or in other places in the world as if that has anything to do with it except serving as a shield to put in front of you) because it might cause the White Supremacists to come out of where they have been held in check, and do something is one I’ve heard before but not much. Yes, they may come out in response, but hey, they were always there whether their presense is noted or not. The threat of them should not be used to keep any efforts to combat institutional racism in our society from taking place, or they win(along with their less extremist counterparts) even if when what they do consists of posting their hateful rhetoric on internet forums and reveling in the violent behavior of others of their ilk. Of course, this statement is much easier to make when you don’t experience their hate firsthand.
Before I came here, I was addressing some comments written by someone calling his or her self “Alabama Black Snake” who perhaps (under other monikers) shared charming information about his work as a government employee, the type who carry guns, as well as racist rhetoric including that involving African-Americans, fried chicken and watermelons. If he or she is indeed what he or she claims to be, then I think that this is a sign that this working system of which he or she is a part of in a fairly important capacity, is in serious trouble, although this person’s comments could also be seen as a sign that at least there is some work going on in their sphere and he or she is lashing out in response.
Civil war and strife almost always stumbled upon. Having the foresight to anticpate consequence of not only your actions but those who are reacting to you and even third party reactions. Fight racism by all means. But you may unintentionally blow the dam to get a drink. No one ever resorts to civil war it comes upon them in little steps. Action upon action and step upon step. One day instead of shouting across a baricade to police you instead talk in a little room to heartless proffesionals who will dispose of people in the same way we dispose of a dead cockroach. These people welcome protest to gather and identify. They wont shout at you or insult you they will instead send pieces of family members back to you. We must not reach the point regardless of the percieved worth of the cause.
My thoughts come form seing what seems to be too much anger and too little thought. I am not saying don’t fight racism. But fight it with full knowledge and skill. All I am saying is be careful in how you are doing things. Be a surgeon not a butcher.
Proud to Swim Home,
I am white. I grew up in Detoit. I attended Detroit Public Schools for 11 of my K-12 years, plus two years of public pre-school. 90-95% of the students in every school I attended were black. When I was in elementary school I was frequently picked on in the way you described. My parents chose to keep me in the system but they often would talk to the parents of children who beat me up because of my race. What they found was that most of those parents were very surpised to learn that their children were engaging in that sort of behavior. As the children got older, the physical violence stopped completely. There were still some kids in school who would verbally taunt me but really those cases were rare.
I ended up getting a good education in the public schools. I also may have gotten a taste of what it is like to be a minority. Certainly more of one than my peers in all-white suburban schools or private schools. Also, familiarity with people who are different than one can do a lot to ‘unlearn’ stereotypes. I am sure I still have some but I honestly believe that I have fewer than my parents do and that is a direct result of being placed into a situation where I had many African American peers. Basically what I am saying is that overall, it was a positive experience.
proud to swim home, Let me start by saying I respect your honesty. Many people would try to put up a front and say it was all about the quality of the schools, but you are admitting that you are uncomfortable having your kids in a school where they are one of a handful of white kids.
Let me start by saying that I am a White person who has been in predominantly Black environments, and I do get the sense from my own experience that it is much harder to be black in a predominantly white environment than it is to be white in a predominantly black environment. I think many whites make the mistake of thinking that blacks think like we do, but that is not generally the case. Are there prejudice blacks? Sure, But does the level of black prejudice rise to the level of white prejudice, no.
That said let me go through your statements, and discuss each one.
You said, “am i racist for not wanting to put my children in that situation? i’m worried about them being in a situation where there is no one at all who looks like them.”
If you live in the US and you are white, your kids will have no problem seeing people like themselves. The textbooks they use in the schools will have more whites than any other groups. The videos and other teaching materials will also likely have a high number of whites. Then when they get home and turn on the TV, read books, or play with toys, they will be exposed to whites. Will the majority of their classmates be the same race as them (in NOLA), no. Does that mean they will be forever scared, no?
You said, “recently, right after katrina when there were few choices, they were in a day care that was about 90% a-a. my 4yo would come home upset because the children would tease her about her “long blonde hair” and they’d pull on it and try to touch it. they teased her about her clothes because they weren’t urban wear. she frequently was hit and would often come home with scratches and bruises. every day when we picked her up she was off in a corner playing by herself. it was starting to happen to our 2yo too. mysterious bites, hair chunks missing, lots of crying.”
In my own experience children this small are not reacting to your daughter’s race, but to someone being different. I can also assure you that preschoolers have no real sense of “urban wear” versus “suburban wear”. As far as the hair goes, I think the kids were probably curious. My stepson is Black and at 4.5 years old, and he liked to touch my hair because it was different from his Mommy’s hair. The best way to handle this is to tell the kids something like, “people have many different types of hair. Everybody’s hair is pretty.” Although assuming these kids are playing with Barbie, they already have at least some sense of white people’s hair because they don’t make Barbies with black people’ hair texture.
Now I suspect that there were probably some problems in that day care, but why should we assume that those problems are because the kids are Black?? You may be able to find another day care and not have any of these problems (the other thing to note was that it was right after Katrina–I would not be surprised if there were a lot of kids acting out given the upheavel their families were in.). You may find a White day care with the same problems (biting hair pulling etc.). I think if someone assumes that a day care or school is bad because the kids and/or teachers were Black, then that is racist.
You said, “i don’t know if not wanting them to be in this kind of situation makes me a racist. the way my girls and my friends’ daughter were treated reminds me of how african american children were treated in the early days of desegregation. or in schools where they are an extreme minority situations.”
Wanting your kids to go a a good school without academic or behavior problems is fine. I think we just have to be careful not to go over board in relating the problems to African Americans.
You said, “it’s not that there are too many african americans in public schools, but that there are too few whites. the whites have abandoned the new orleans public schools. they’ve ‘white flight’-ed out to the suburbs or they’re in parochial schools. the only non-catholic private schools here are strictly for the very rich, costing an arm and two legs to go to.
i know that nola was a 70% black city. and if the schools were 70% black, i’d have no problems (except educationally”“which i can supplement after school) sending the kids to public school.”
There are two ways to think about racism. We can think about racism at the structural level and racism at the personal level. It is very hard for you to change the structural level, but you can change things at the personal level. To me this situation is the product of both personal and structural racism. From a personal perspective individual Whites are choosing to leave, and because of the bitter combination of segregation and classism, it is harder for African Americans to get out. My thought is if a person partakes in White flight then that person is part of the problem, but I understand why people want to leave a crappy school system. I suspect the Black parents over in New Orleans east (a black middle class area) probably were worried about the NO schools too and parents have a right to do that. But I also think people need to take on the structural problems as well.
Before I complete the rest of this answer……can you tell me the name of the school the kids would go to??? I want to look up some info. on the school.
This is the most disturbing statement I read, because it shows that we really do have to question whether so-called legitimate issues that just happen to negatively impact non-whites and non-Christians are intential efforts to institutionalize racism and other forms of hatred.
Neo-Nazis and their ilk are the same inside even if they manage to repackage themselves and become effective at spinning hatred so it looks upbeat and positive.
It certainly makes me take another look at the recent anti-immigration rhetoric. Mixing some politicians love for using fear as a political tactic and racism creates a toxic mess.
We have to talk about Racism on a structural level in order to undersand how to tackle it on a personal one. The two are linked.
Racism is part and parcel of our current system. Class is what drives it. Modern day racsim intially grew out of a need to justify slavery to intelectuals within colonial nations, which were driven economically into a position of imperialism by the advent of capitalism.
The need not only for raw materials, but also cheap labour, is what created theories of racial superiority. It suits people who rely on the exploitation of workers to continue these ideas.
Cheap labour is the most important comodity under capitalism. Products only become cheaper when they are either made by workers who will work for less, or a manufacturing method which requires less labour is developed. If a workforce is united, they will often fight for better wages. When this happens the employer is faced with two choices, give them better wages, or get cheaper labour. The marketplace often decides which choice they make. When the economy is suffering it is usually best to sack the workers and get cheaper labour. Where do you get cheaper labour from? Imigrants are best because they are usually more desperate for work.
How do you keep the imigrants working for less money? That’s easy! Make sure they have very few rights, and play up any differences in culture and skin colour that you can. The media usually lends a helping hand in this one. Bingo! The sacked workers resent the immigrants anyway because they took their jobs, but now the immigrants won’t get any help from the rest of the workers cause they’re Black/Hispanic…..insert race here. (Please feel free to replace ‘imigrants’ with ‘poorer people’ in what I have written.)
Solution: fight racism with unity, pretty obvious one that, but it took the civil rights movement in America to even begin to start achieving this.
Sorry, this is very long winded and generalised….. but now we come to the question of cultural racism i.e anti Semitism, Islamophobia…etc.
Anti Semitism has strong roots in medevil British history, but has flared up throughout Europe at one stage or another down the years. The York pogroms (Of which I only have a verbal history passed on to me by an anti nazi campaigner from York.) occured simply because the Jews in the area were allowed to charge interest on money they lent. Christianity was the dominant religion and forbade this. The anti semitic laws in England at the time meant that this was about the only way a jew could make a living. Of course, the people who owed them the most were the Noblemen who owned most of the area, and had tremendous power over the peasants. They decided that it would be best to simply drive out the Jews instead of paying them back. Bobs your uncle, a pogrom…. anti semitism spreads across Europe and becomes convenient muck in collective ages to be wheeled out by the ruling class every time they need a scapegoat. It’s similar to Indigenous Americans and Canadians having to rely on gambling laws to make a living.
OH GOD THERE’S MORE……. here we go…..
Islamophobia as we know it is slightly more contemporary, and fills the void left by universal condemnation of the industrial slaughter of the Holocaust. Fortunately, it really is very simple. It’s about the War on Terror and is being used to devastating effect right here in Blighty. If India were for any reason to rebel against American dominance, they’d have to resort back to the simple skin colour arguments. But Islamophobia suits for now anyway because most police officers and white supremicists can’t tell the difference between Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus.
Moral? As long as profits are more important than people there will be war and racsim, and the white supremacists will benefit from the common (Although not good.) sense conclusions that people draw from the shitty situations they find themselves in.
All very surface level arguments I know.
I’ll stop there because I’m anticipating yawns.
I’ll stop there because I’m anticipating yawns.
Not so much yawns as “huh, there’s great big errors of fact in the starting assumptions”. Imperialism long predates capitalism. Racial superiority theories are useful to buttress slavery, but are neutral (at best) for promoting “cheap labour”. Cheap labor as the “most important commodity” under capitalism doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Labor costs have been a steadily dwindling portion of the costs of physical goods, and there are more ways to cut the cost of goods than to cut the amount of labor required. Bad premises lead to bad arguments lead to bad outcomes (which explains the spectacular success of Marxoid economies around the world at providing happiness and prosperity to the common people).
Shackling the long march towards a racially harmonious world to these anciently bad ideas is, itself, another bad idea.
Yes Marxism is such a success story. Too each according to his needs (everything to those who DON’T produce), From each acording to his abilities. (If something is earned it must be taken away and given to the Non Producer). This is a failed ideology. Rewarding lack of productivity ensures that labour will have to forced because there is no incentive.
Women were forced into labor by reminding mostly by example of what would be the alternative to accepting a binding contract with recognizable similarities to serfdom. Women should instead be rewarded for what they can provide (Love children and passion) and attracted (enticed) to enter and stay in an arangement rather than be forced to enter and stay in a relationship. To the degree that one feels trapped anger will be present either expressed or suppressed. The critical question is this: Is the trap of ones own making.
On the feminine side of the gender devide very little of the burdens are by choice. A woman does not choose to menstrate ( Its Ok to tell me I can’t spell) or have the discomfort and disability related pregenancy. ( both of these are helped by recent biomedical technology but are still major burdens). Any effort to think about racism will have zero effect on these issues. If you have suffered under racism the effects can be corrected by law custom or thinking. If you are suffering gender realted biological difficulties then no attempt to treat it by law custom or thinking will have any effect on the root cause of the problem. What law can do is allow women to choose a method to relieve these costs of femininity in a manner of her own choosing without being overly sensitive to those who do not share the same issues. This is worth it economically due to the high value women bring to the society (Love passion and species survival). When a burden has removed it will become a non issue. Not being racist corrects racism, whta shall we do for women? Remove the second X chromosone? No we should provide privilege based upon worth first and burden second.
As Always I expect and welcome replies
“Women should instead be rewarded for what they can provide (Love children and passion)”
That’s what I’ve got. A whole bunch of love children and passion. (the passion beget the love children, alas)
Indeed, what shall we do for women? Men must stroke their beards and think hard upon this. what is it that women want? Is this something even discoverable? Women, so tricky! Maybe we could turn them into men, somehow. (Except then we would have to go with love children and passion – that would suck.)
Fortunately, the solution is obvious and lurking in the first paragraph! We should not reward people based on their needs. Love children and passion aren’t saleable commodities. Therefore, nothing for women! Anything otherwise would be communism. Also, nothing for poor people, nothing for disabled people, nothing for elderly people and everything for me (including love children and passion)! yay!
“No we should provide privilege based upon worth first and burden second.”
…I think there’s an awful lot that’s nutty in what you said, but this seems particularly silly. I can just imagine some of its more lunatic applications. A starving person comes to the table, begging for a scrap of bread, and the patriarch (well, he’s got that Y, don’t he?) looks at his matriarch (who lowers her eyes in submission), then looks back to starving person. “Sorry, starving,” he says, “but it looks to me like you need it too much. That’s your burden. It would be ridiculous for me to provide you the privilege of alleviating it. Do you have any talents that I could reward?”
Anyway, who says that what feminists want legally is a reaction to genetics? I mark there’s plenty of sexism rife in the culture. How ’bout we eliminate that?
Unless you’re somehow saying that women only exist as a deviation from men, and so all our problems are caused by being not-men, which I suppose is an argument which could be made, although it whiffs of a 1940s sci-fi pulp with a title like “The Last Woman.”
From an economic perspective I stand by my point. And as for having talents to reward, Yes absolutely, but read on because this is a compartmenatalized point.
If you choose to give or the culture encourages you to give by choice this is a seperate matter entirely. Not realizing this is a seperate matter is what is wrong with marxism. You may be a hard nosed boss about the work but also give a little or lot from a seperate organ…Your heart. But brain and heart don’t mix well. They do best when competing side by side. …. I strongly stand by this point.
As for the worth of Love passion and children, quite simply when all three are present it is beyond price and you offer freely all you have without question. That equation is always off the books….. And don’t start dissing the 1940’s S.F. Though I will say there is a lot of good contemperary S.F. also. It is just that S.F. Is like sex, you know exactly what you like and all else is off the table.
The comments to Proud to Swim (and the rest of the thread as well) have been thoughtful, respectful, and thought-provoking–a great discussion all around. I hope we don’t derail it with a “Marxism–yea or nay” discussion, which, if my 10 years on the internets has taught me anything, won’t be nearly as edifying.
I can see the point of not delving into macro and micro economics. I can go way too deep and sometimes need to be pulled back before the those politely listening go into permanent brain lock. I will attempt to stick more to the area of human behavior that is not quite so clearly defined as left / right issues.
However the point I was making is that many womens issues in a personal setting and some in a proffessional setting are best viewed without strict economic viewpoint. People have cultural and religious and traditional imperatives to their behavior. The I don’t care what it costs this must be done because it defines who I am decisions. The decisions make no sense economically but you do them anyway.
When a woman makes a personal impact on my life or I am asked to assist in areas that are so particularly female based that I don’t have either personal experience or a frame of reference I will give as close to a blank check support as I can.
Abyss2hope said
Can you quote some of this rhetoric? I’ve seen a fair amount of rhetoric lately protesting the presence of illegal aliens in the U.S., but I can’t recall seeing anyone opposing immigration.
Did everyone pack up and go home??
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this is most retarded crap i have ever heard. you know what i am a black person and i dont act like a monkey when i get with my friends. you know what, what i see is white people acting crazy when they get in their own groups drinking and cursing and watching nascar. also the interracial marrige thing doesnt apply to races it applies religion. GOD wants all his people to interact and wants us to get along. im sorry i had to say all his but this is how i feel about i love all races of people, but what i cant stand is people who hate and call themselves Christians. that isnt right. i if you dont like then fine. go ahead and hate. but i love you. REMEMBER GOD IS LOVE, LOVE IS GOD, PEACE!!
wow, what charmers.
Is it me, or does everything white folks touch, gets destroyed? They are like a virius.
People really need to have less ignorance in their lives. Racism is like a virus drivin by hate.
Ooh oops i just typed a long comment and as soon as i hit reply it came up blank! Please tell me it worked properly? I do not want to write it again if i do not have to! Either the blog bugged out or i am an idiot, the latter doesnt surprise me lol.