Why Do we still have racism? The Famous "N" Word.

[Aku no Hikari]

Actually, there are some rational, or at least reasonable reasons to be racist. I'll give you some examples from extreme to modest.

Okay, I see what you're trying to say, and I do not intend to pull a semantics argument, but "rational" and "legitimate" really do not mean what you think they do.

Rational thinking is reasoning based on facts rather than just sentiment.

The examples you listed are about people who've had negative experiences. Negative experiences generate bad sentiments. This is understandable. However, having had negative experiences with a subset of people from a certain race, ethnicity, nation or religion is no logical ground for generalizing the traits or behaviors of that subset to the entire category... and you do realize that since you said, "not all white/black/Germans are bad people".

Racism is said to be irrational because traits such as skin color are superficial and they cannot be used to determine anything significant on their own. None of the examples you listed, no matter how regrettable, contain a rational or legitimate reason for hating a whole category of people. The victims should hate their offenders, not a whole group of people who've never done them anything wrong.

[Digital Dragon]

As long as people choose to be ignorant, there will be reasons to exclude other people based on race, sex, religion, sexual preference, etc.

[Hanamaru Kunikida]

She basically went on this long rant about how white people shouldn't say the N word at all and how bad it was and even Asian/Hispanic people shouldn't say it and yada yada yada. She then went on to say that it was okay for African American people to say it to each other..

Again, I find this hilarious and hypocritical. I won't refer them as "African Americans" because if you're from the Bahamas, you're not American. Anyways, a lot of Black people are very hypocritical when it comes to the "it's only allowed among Black people" when they basically call other races that word. Some aren't really hypocritical, some they acknowledge the word as a slang and don't care if other races use it if it's in the right context and some don't really give a crap as some will go "I missed the part when you turned black".

Actually, there are some rational, or at least reasonable reasons to be racist. I'll give you some examples from extreme to modest.

A jewish person who survived the Holocaust has a reason to be racist against germans

A black man who has been attacked by white mobs has a reason to be racist towards white people

A woman who has been raped by a black man has a reason to be racist towards black people, or at least black men (take into account the psychological trauma of the situation)

I don't quite relate. Your statement makes a lot of sense, but at the same time it's pretty ignorant. I pretty much was harassed by black people just because I was Hispanic. I fought with them in school, most of the people I got in a fight with back in my school days were black. But guess what? Not all of them are annoying pricks. Like I said, most of my closest friends are Black, including my friends from the internet.

I won't argue about the Holocaust. A lot of people gang up on the weak, a lot of people of every race rape. Just because they are part of that particular race doesn't mean every one does it, that's plain ignorant.

Really, why negotiate the word rape with black people? That's pretty racist itself.

[brolyx74]

Okay, I see what you're trying to say, and I do not intend to pull a semantics argument, but "rational" and "legitimate" really do not mean what you think they do.

Rational thinking is reasoning based on facts rather than just sentiment.

The examples you listed are about people who've had negative experiences. Negative experiences generate bad sentiments. This is understandable. However, having had negative experiences with a subset of people from a certain race, ethnicity, nation or religion is no logical ground for generalizing the traits or behaviors of that subset to the entire category... and you do realize that since you said, "not all white/black/Germans are bad people".

Racism is said to be irrational because traits such as skin color are superficial and they cannot be used to determine anything significant on their own. None of the examples you listed, no matter how regrettable, contain a rational or legitimate reason for hating a whole category of people. The victims should hate their offenders, not a whole group of people who've never done them anything wrong.

I guess I should have used the word understandable than. Either way, I got my point across.

---------- Post added at 06:40 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:37 AM ----------

Really, why negotiate the word rape with black people? That's pretty racist itself.

well, each case I used was one I had seen before, or heard of before. That particular example was from someone on Dr. Phil.[COLOR="Silver"]

[Videogamer555]

I think the thing with racism is that while people realise now that a person's color doesn't make them bad or good, that still certain people who have certain traits of physical appearance also have certain behavior traits (which of course are unrelated to skin color etc). Rather the common thread for a certain people from a geographical region is where that group came from, and their cultural background that causes them to have certain beliefs and ideas, while at the same time people from a given geographical region tend to have certain physical characteristics as well.

Lets take an example. Blacks come from Africa, and their primary distinguishing physical characteristic is their dark skin. Also, people who's lineage comes from Africa tend to have certain values and beliefs (even if they didn't live in Africa themselves, their parents, and their parents parents from generation to generation pass along cultural traditions). Because of the harsh conditions found in Africa, these values which would have been passed down over generations include the need to be physically fit, and have keen survival instinct. Because blacks now live in the US where they no longer need to use these instincts taught to them by their parents, they look for other places where such physical fitness and survival skills are important, thus they form gangs and perform driveby shootings and other violent crimes (usually in inner city neigborhoods). And one thing you can't dispute is the fact that (percentage wise) there are more blacks in jail than whites. Now racists will say "see racism is good, it helps protect me from black gangs". What they are forgetting is the fact that their dark skin doesn't make them predisposed to commit crimes. Their learning of their native values (taught to them by their parents) when they are kids leads to their high risk of ending up in a life of crime. The only way at all that their skin color (via genetic code being passed down) and their values (via word of mouth teaching of cultural values) are connected, is that both originated in Africa. It would be a more correct to say that people who's lineage can be traced back to native Africans, are predisposed to commit crimes. Saying "blacks commit violent crimes" is a very ignorant and very racist view that directly equates behavior with skin color. My more accurate statement is factually correct, and not (as far as I can tell) in any way racist, as it doesn't consider skin color when talking about one's behavior patterns.

[Ranshiin]

^ tl;dr.

[-akichan-]

I see Racism as something people start to learn as they grow up, and it tends to be taught. I discovered how kids in grade schools can play with other kids of different skin colors. They are just so innocent and cute! But anyway, I remember I was taught by parents not to hang out with people of certain racial background, but I didn't care.

Let's not jump into the "N" as the title started, because I find that letter a big troublemaker. Let me share my opinions about what I saw after the Japan Tsunami that happened in March. I found some very harsh comments written by White Americans flaming at the Japanese people during the days of the remaining earthquake! Imagine how the Japanese survivors during that time were still miserable in trying to find their loved ones, and the people were still flaming on them about Pearl Harbor, and they were all asking the Japanese if they remembered Pearl Harbor so the disaster was resulted as a century revenge by God. I found those people to be extremely ignorant because those people weren't even born before Pearl harbor was bombed by the Japanese so I found it to be extremely funny! In many cases Racism rises because of what happened back in the history, but in THIS case it wasn't because they didn't even know how did it happen, and they just wanted to make the best fun of the Japanese or just hated the Japanese. I believe that these stupid people were likely to be taught by their adults, otherwise they would they even know what happened?! Even if they know about the bombing of Pearl Harbor, they wouldn't feel as much as those who were born after the incident, so I do believe that their parents have told them more details about the incident so they will hate the Japanese as they do.

Then under those ridiculous comments, there were other Americans (and also a lot of Asian Americans) were throwing bombs back to those ignorant people by calling names that are somewhat related to racial discrimination.

I live in United States as an Asian American, and I still find racism very annoying. Even though I'm in college and the campus is filled with people of diverse backgrounds, racism is still everywhere. I have been in some classes as the only Asian American, and the people looked at me weird like they have never seen an Asian with brown hair. One of the classmates told me to dye it back to black because brown hair is only for Whites, and the Asians should never try to look like them. And lets take Abercrombie & Fitch as another example. I buy clothes from Abercrombie all the time, but I have been noticing how they prefer White employees (at least that's what I see so far) only. And also the article I read a couple weeks ago about the Muslim employee that was working at the back were told to remove her headscarf. This Muslim lady were illegally fired after refusing to remove the headscarf. "It's the latest employment discrimination charge against the company's so-called "look policy," which critics say means images of mostly white, young, athletic-looking people. The company has said it does not tolerate discrimination," says in the Komo news.

Another reason I find why people are racist to certain races is because they find lots of differences such as behavior and cultures in people of different colors. For example, if I was offended by a black person, then I would find many excuses to bring down all the black people. Attitude follows behavior, and that would be my attitude toward this group of people (again, this is just an example). Then later on, I might behave offensively back to the blacks to show my hatred toward this group of people.

So as long as we have the angry thoughts of certain races, we tend to behave as we are racism toward that certain race. So I see this might be another reason why racism still exist, it's that because of the differences of other races.
-----------------------

It is very sad how racism still exist but it's inevitable. People are taught to go against certain races every generation, and we just can't stop them. Of course, it also depends on your interpretation if you feel like somebody is racially against you.

[nrL]

I hate that many people are too mentally limited to acknowledge the fact that skin colour is not the only difference between human races.

[Manhattan_Project_2000]

i'll tell ya what i HATE about racism........the double standards.
it almost seems to me that blacks are more racist towards whites (in general) than whites are to blacks (in general)

for an example:
if a white person were to say that a black person is a "N", people go crazy. they act like the white person just did the worst thing on the planet. also the black person will get VERY angry.
however, if a black person calls a white person "cracka" or "whitey" or "white trash" or "white boy" or just about any other name....nobody seems to mind, and it's accepted to a certain degree.

Black people didn't scream "cracker" at white people while they turned the dogs on them for asking for equal rights, which is the key difference. This is like saying that because "poo" and "s***" describe the same object we should find them equally offensive; it's stupid and waters down the language. Certain words should and do have more heft then others.

another example:
if a black person goes into a white neighborhood, he will generally be safe. (unless he goes into redneck central)
however if a white person goes into a black neighborhood, something bad might happen to him.

That issue is more economic/cultural then anything. I wouldn't want to be a well-to-do black person walking around in a trailer park in, say, Birmingham, any more then I'd want to be a well-to-do white guy in Harlem.

another double standard example, but with mexican
i used to work with this mexican guy. we would joke around at work and we got along well. he would ocasionally crack jokes about white people and america (all in good fun). people would laugh, everything was cool.
however if you made a joke about mexico or a mexican, he got pissed, and others didn't laugh.

Welcome to being the in the majority? What jokes can you tell about white people, other then we don't get pulled over as much and can't dance/dunk? Whereas Mexican jokes are all about them being lazy and/or drunk. Guess which is more offensive. Especially since Mexico, as a culture, tends to value hard work to support your family.

*edit*
just thought of another good example:
if a white person beats up a black person, it can be considered a hate crime. (even if the beating had nothing to do with race)
however if a black person beats up a white person, they will never charge him with anything more than assault.

Must be a god-mode hypothetical lawyer for the prosecution in order to get a hypothetical hate-crime conviction with no evidence, but k.

The whole "double standard" thing is what I hear from every WASP with an ethnically sheltered upbringing. It's almost always a case of confusing socioeconomic factors with race, fitting people into molds based on sitcoms or simple projection of (mild) racism.

I hate that many people are too mentally limited to acknowledge the fact that skin colour is not the only difference between human races.

When you eliminate culture from "race" (as you should, since race is defined as innate characteristics) you are left with slight morphological difference between "races". This is why almost every educated person feels racism is about as intellectually fruitful a position as flat-earthism and sun worshiping.

[Hanamaru Kunikida]

"Lissa said I look like a black boy"
"You look like no such thing"

So racist.

Fault language so spoiler'd it

 

[Gauntlgrym]

Black people didn't scream "cracker" at white people while they turned the dogs on them for asking for equal rights, which is the key difference.

i didn't do it!
what i mean by this is that it's silly to hold me (or others) accountable for what our ancestors did.

This is like saying that because "poo" and "s***" describe the same object we should find them equally offensive; it's stupid and waters down the language. Certain words should and do have more heft then others.

what's stupid is to act as if its "ok" for blacks to make fun of whites, but not the other way around.

forget the "particular" words..... all words aside.
when blacks call whites names (whatever the name) it is accepted to a degree, and nobody says the back person is racist.
however if a white calls a black a name (whatever the name) then he's suddenly a racist.

if you don't see a double standard here, then you must just be choosing to look the other way.

That issue is more economic/cultural then anything. I wouldn't want to be a well-to-do black person walking around in a trailer park in, say, Birmingham, any more then I'd want to be a well-to-do white guy in Harlem.

agreed.

Welcome to being the in the majority? What jokes can you tell about white people, other then we don't get pulled over as much and can't dance/dunk? Whereas Mexican jokes are all about them being lazy and/or drunk. Guess which is more offensive.

it doesn't matter what is MORE offensive!
what matters is that he seemed to think it was "ok" to be offensive to whites, but when someone was offensive to HIS race he got mad. thats being a hypocrite no matter how you slice it.

AND what are you saying anyway???
"welcome to being in the majority?" <------ are you implying that it's alright if someone is offensive towards another race, as long as the race is in the majority???? cause that's what it looks like you are saying, and that's absurd.

Must be a god-mode hypothetical lawyer for the prosecution in order to get a hypothetical hate-crime conviction with no evidence, but k.

if you think that getting a white guy who beat up a black guy charged with a hate crime requires "god-mode"...... then you are naive as to how are legal system works in the real world.

The whole "double standard" thing is what I hear from every WASP with an ethnically sheltered upbringing. It's almost always a case of confusing socioeconomic factors with race, fitting people into molds based on sitcoms or simple projection of (mild) racism.

say what you will, but i just call it like i see it.
when someone is being a hypocrite, then they are being a hypocrite.....period. it doesn't matter what the color of the skin is.

[-akichan-]

what's stupid is to act as if its "ok" for blacks to make fun of whites, but not the other way around.
forget the "particular" word, all words aside.

when blacks call whites names (whatever the name) it is accepted to a degree, and nobody says the back person is racist.
however if a white calls a black a name (whatever the name) then he's suddenly a racist.

Now that reminds me of Resident Evil...5? or 6? Well I forgot the number, but the setting was taken in Africa where the zombies were Africans. The blacks were starting to express their angers about why such ideas having the blacks to become zombies, but at the same time, they were okay with the previous Resident Evil games having mostly whites being zombies.

I wonder if the upcoming Resident Evil game will have its story taken place in Forbidden City and arises the anger of the Asians. XD

[Aku no Hikari]

^ tl;dr.

Woops, I meant to click dislike. Must have these glasses replaced.

[Capitán]

History and upbringing plays a part in all this.
If people ignore the association between a certain word and their race, than such prejudice would halt. Prejudice will still exist, but not aggressive prejudice.
People today still cannot see past color. Its a shame.

[nrL]

When you eliminate culture from "race" (as you should, since race is defined as innate characteristics) you are left with slight morphological difference between "races". This is why almost every educated person feels racism is about as intellectually fruitful a position as flat-earthism and sun worshiping.

I advice you to actually do some research before claiming that there are only morphological differences. Ah yes..if only people actually did some research before accepting the truth of other as their own world would be a better place.

Random clue is random

[Manhattan_Project_2000]

i didn't do it!
what i mean by this is that it's silly to hold me (or others) accountable for what our ancestors did.

People that had dogs set on them and their children are still around, of course they aren't going to forget in 50 years.

what's stupid is to act as if its "ok" for blacks to make fun of whites, but not the other way around.

It's not "ok", it's simply that, you know, keeping black people in servitude either literally or socially for 500 or so years kind of had an impact on their cultures view of white people. Simply put, when a white person starts saying racist crap you remind them of the events of the last half of the previous millennium.

forget the "particular" words..... all words aside.
when blacks call whites names (whatever the name) it is accepted to a degree, and nobody says the back person is racist.
however if a white calls a black a name (whatever the name) then he's suddenly a racist.

if you don't see a double standard here, then you must just be choosing to look the other way.

There is a double standard, but it's a fair one based on, you know, 500 years of screwing black people over. I guess in your mind people should ignore the historical precedent of white people acting racist in public being even more racist in private.

it doesn't matter what is MORE offensive!
what matters is that he seemed to think it was "ok" to be offensive to whites, but when someone was offensive to HIS race he got mad. thats being a hypocrite no matter how you slice it.

Why wouldn't the offensiveness of the joke matter in regard to being offended? That makes no sense at all.

AND what are you saying anyway???
"welcome to being in the majority?" <------ are you implying that it's alright if someone is offensive towards another race, as long as the race is in the majority???? cause that's what it looks like you are saying, and that's absurd.

Racist humor is offensive mostly because you remind people that there are people in this world that will limit their activities based on racial prejudices. A Mexican doesn't like being told Mexicans are lazy because there are actually people who believe that garbage with all their heart. In contrast, white people aren't often limited by the racial prejudices of other people, at least not in the USA.

if you think that getting a white guy who beat up a black guy charged with a hate crime requires "god-mode"...... then you are naive as to how are legal system works in the real world.

I do understand how the legal system works, and it operates on a evidence. Hate crime convictions are extremely rare because they are extremely hard to prove. I'm willing to bet they are much, much rarer then white-on-black-person assault convictions.

say what you will, but i just call it like i see it.
when someone is being a hypocrite, then they are being a hypocrite.....period. it doesn't matter what the color of the skin is.

I'm reminded of a passage from Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, spoiler tags for length:

 

You know, when I was a young man, hypocrisy was deemed the worst of vices,” Finkle-McGraw said. “It was all because of moral relativism. You see, in that sort of a climate, you are not allowed to criticise others-after all, if there is no absolute right and wrong, then what grounds is there for criticism? … Now, this led to a good deal of general frustration, for people are naturally censorious and love nothing better than to criticise others’ shortcomings. And so it was that they seized on hypocrisy and elevated it from a ubiquitous peccadillo into the monarch of all vices. For, you see, even if there is no right and wrong, you can find grounds to criticise another person by contrasting what he has espoused with what he has actually done. In this case, you are not making any judgment whatsoever as to the correctness of his views or the morality of his behaviour-you are merely pointing out that he has said one thing and done another. Virtually all political discourse in the days of my youth was devoted to the ferreting out of hypocrisy.
…
We take a somewhat different view of hypocrisy,” Finkle-McGraw continued. “In the late-twentieth-century Weltanschauung, a hypocrite was someone who espoused high moral views as part of a planned campaign of deception-he never held these beliefs sincerely and routinely violated them in privacy. Of course, most hypocrites are not like that. Most of the time it’s a spirit-is-willing, flesh-is-weak sort of thing.”

“That we occasionally violate our own stated moral code,” Major Napier said, working it through, “does not imply that we are insincere in espousing that code.”

“Of course not,” Finkle-McGraw said. “It’s perfectly obvious, really. No one ever said that it was easy to hew to a strict code of conduct. Really, the difficulties involved-the missteps we make along the way-are what make it interesting. The internal, and eternal, struggle, between our base impulses and the rigorous demands of our own moral system is quintessentially human. It is how we conduct ourselves in that struggle that determines how we may in time be judged by a higher power.”

I advice you to actually do some research before claiming that there are only morphological differences. Ah yes..if only people actually did some research before accepting the truth of other as their own world would be a better place.

Random clue is random

It's cool that you say that there's more then morphological differences and then provide proof (or possibly "proof", "proof" seems more likely given the source and name of the image) of a morphological difference. I'm kind of assuming you don't know what the word means.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphology_(biology)

This includes aspects of the outward appearance (shape, structure, colour, pattern)[8] as well as the form and structure of the internal parts like bones and organs. This is in contrast to physiology, which deals primarily with function. Morphology is a branch of life science dealing with the study of gross structure of an organism or Taxon and its component parts.

[Anoleis]

It's not "ok", it's simply that, you know, keeping black people in servitude either literally or socially for 500 or so years kind of had an impact on their cultures view of white people. Simply put, when a white person starts saying racist crap you remind them of the events of the last half of the previous millennium.

There is a double standard, but it's a fair one based on, you know, 500 years of screwing black people over. I guess in your mind people should ignore the historical precedent of white people acting racist in public being even more racist in private.

So, it's perfectly fine to blame people for things they did not do?

[Manhattan_Project_2000]

So, it's perfectly fine to blame people for things they did not do?

It's not so much OK as it is understandable. If you shock a rat every time it hears a bell, they figure out pretty quickly that there's an association between the two. I think it's more unreasonable that every white person that whines about double standard expects black people to forget about the last 500 years of history simply because White America as a whole hasn't been jerks for most of 50 years.

I hear they don't much like Germans in France or Russia, but it's not unfounded or unfair because there's a very good historical precedent.

[Wio]

It's not so much OK as it is understandable. If you shock a rat every time it hears a bell, they figure out pretty quickly that there's an association between the two. I think it's more unreasonable that every white person that whines about double standard expects black people to forget about the last 500 years of history simply because White America as a whole hasn't been jerks for most of 50 years.

How do you remember 500 years of history you didn't experience? History isn't taught with shock therapy (yet). It's pretty reasonable for people who weren't oppressed not to be bitter about oppression they know on a second hand basis. Idiots who spew white guilt enable bitterness and double standards.

[Heroic]

I was always taught to be aware no matter what, of racism or prejudice. But even with what happen in the past you should treat everyone in the present equally.

I was never one to dwell on history when focusing on a group of people, we should all just treat others kindly and with respect and make everything else irrelevant.

[animeyay]

I was always taught to be aware no matter what, of racism or prejudice.

And this, is precisely why racism will never go away: we have been taught about racism.
Although the teaching of racism intends to eradicate prejudice, it simply will not.
Why? In the process of being taught to avoid racism, we are also learning everything about racism as a byproduct.

[Heroic]

I mean, if someone is racist by nature you should be aware of such. I don't believe people should shy away from it, thus ignoring it altogether. But know what it is so that one can better confront it.

And this is coming from someone who's lived in the south for majority of their life. It's just better to be aware of what exists, rather than ignore it.

[nrL]

It's cool that you say that there's more then morphological differences and then provide proof (or possibly "proof", "proof" seems more likely given the source and name of the image) of a morphological difference. I'm kind of assuming you don't know what the word means.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphology_(biology)

Oh? Well, it appears I didn't knew the meaning of the word...in my language it refers to something else.
Anyway, what are your thoughts? I can see your sceptical. Oh, and the image was from my pc and the name was the one I created when uploading it on imageshack.
If the skull of a Attractive and Successful African American indeed looks like that, and to my knowledge it does, then it's something big, eh?

[animeyay]

what are your thoughts?...If the skull of a ****** indeed looks like that, and to my knowledge it does, then it's something big, eh?

So what? Different races have morphological differences. We all agreed on this already, I thought.
Exactly what are you trying to infer?

[nrL]

So what? Different races have morphological differences. We all agreed on this already, I thought.
Exactly what are you trying to infer?

Well....if their skull looks different...then that means that their brain is different too?
It is said that the average IQ of nig-ger is few points lower then that of a white man...and the brain areas responsible for more animal-like traits are more developed then in other races, at the price of the other parts of the brain which are, in comparison, somewhat lacking.