Congratulations to the UK on officially having their own version of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

https://i-d.vice.com/en_uk/article/7...result-anxiety

 

this was my favorite headline:

https://www.yenisafak.com/en/world/m...lected-3507539

maybe Brits don't feel safe in the UK around the Muslims who has increased crime rates -- especially in a sexual / knife / box truck / acid manner.

 

 

Laughs in paid maternity leave.

 

 

 

 

Timely photograph...

This morning, out of curiosity, I decided to try and find a peer-reviewed research paper, a journal, a study, a news article, or hell, even a Vox story which discusses the demographics of racism. Specifically, I am interested in understanding how U.S. demographic groups rank in regards to racism.

I did not find any during my brief search which leads me to believe that none exist - or at least that none have been permitted to be published. It doesn't seem like it would be a terribly difficult thing to determine if given a representative sample of each demographic group, the most difficult part would be developing the questions such that you could reveal an individuals relative level of racism without them knowing that it was the true intent of the anonymous questionnaire. I find it difficult to believe, given how big of an issue the perception of racism is and how many college graduate students there are who need topics on which to write their racism studies thesis. I could only come up with one good reason why there weren't any such studies published and available for my intellectual consumption - it's possible that the people and groups who have the authority to approve such research very strongly dislike the results of that research.

Perhaps "young black women from single parent households who earn less than $30,000/year" are the most racist demographic? Or maybe it's "the stereotypical car-less 30-something urbanite?" "Second-Generation Asian Immigrants?" "Self-reporting democrats 18-34 years of age?"

It seems to me that if such a study were to conclude that "white anglo-saxon males ages 34-59" were the "most racist" group it would be blasted all over the world 24/7 for at least a year in the current climate.

I'm hopeful that such a study, using unbiased methods, random and not-self-selected participants, and conducted without premeditated results, actually exists. I think I would enjoy reading it.

That is all.

Edit: White, Male, 35, Not Sorry.

 

Anecdotally, the most racist person I've ever encountered, by an enormous margin, was an older Japanese woman, the grandmother of a woman I was in a relationship with at the time. She had been a child in Japan during WWII, and had a deeply ugly and open contempt for other Asian races that I can only assume was taught her during that time. This was about ten or fifteen years ago, and I had a good friend who was half Korean, and she wasted no time in telling me that Koreans are subhuman trash. Absolutely no filter or shame about her racial opinions.

In contrast, when I was a teenager I knew an old German woman, the grandmother of a classmate, who had been an actual, card carrying member of the **** party in Germany. She didn't have a racist bone in her body, but still, in the 1990s, liked Adolf Hitler, because he made the trains run on time. An absolute sweetheart.

 

I have been physically attacked for being a "white" American by Asians and Pacific islanders, Blacks, and a group of Turks. I have also had close friends from each subset. Racism is a learned behavior.

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime." -Mark Twain

 

I definitely have had cause to fear for my well being because of my skin color, on an Indian reservation in Washington State, and in Hawaii. In both cases, whitey was not welcome at local hangouts, and I needed to beat a tactical retreat. However, my high school had a big population of Pacific islanders and I always got along famously with those guys (which is why, in retrospect, I thought it would be fine to go to locals only spots in Hawaii).

We are wired by hundreds of thousands of years of brutal tribalism to de-humanize the other. It's a very effective safety mechanism, and one that is not easy for everybody to simply shed because we wear pants now and **** indoors.

 

Yeah, Hawaii was one of those encounters. More than once.

 

I'd argue the opposite, that racism is somewhat innate but to view others as individuals is learned. That's the point of Mr. Twain's quote I think. I'm grateful for my military service in this regard as it brought me into close contact with all kinds of people.

 

QFT

 

I believe that sometimes it's just reactive. If I see some shenanigans on the road, I can't help myself but say, "Stupid (fillintheblank)". Seems natural. I honestly don't believe I prejudge anyone. I simply judge them on the behavior I see, and add a few adjectives.

Speaking of military service... in the late '90s I went back to a flying unit. One day, the entire squadron was gathered for an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) briefing because something had happened at some other base, and the Air Force was circling the wagons. The squadron exec came in with a VHS tape. There was a yellow sticky on the box that read "Homo Brief".

I'm not sure the briefing changed any minds.

 

There's a Rousseau versus Hobbes argument much older than either of us. But I am thankful for growing up on military bases with friends of many cultures and from different geographical areas.

I don't believe I saw any difference in the children I was playing with in my earliest memories because of their skin color or cultural origin. All I can recall is that my friend from India had a house that smelled of strange spices. He was just another kid that I was friends with. I was about 3 and 1/2 for 4 years old. I did not think of people in racial terms until an older cousin made a remark at one point. But I still did not understand what he meant or why.

 

All black people are racist against whites. Tell me that's not learned.

 

I don't believe that ALL people of any race are prejudiced in the same direction.
The statement crams millions of people into a single prejudice without looking at them as individuals.
On the flip side I do believe that 100% of human beings have prejudices that color our perception every day.

As an example, the one semester that I went to college away from my home town there was a colored person from Africa living a couple of doors down in the dorm.
He absolutely despised American "persons of color" and was most outspoken about it and loved calling them "stupid lazy *******" at every opportunity.
I thought it was funny because he was the darkest person I had ever seen.
He hated them because his opinion was that all American blacks squandered opportunities that African blacks would dearly love to have available.

He didn't learn to dislike them at an early age.
It was something he decided after coming to the USA to attend college.

 

black culture in america is disgusting.

 

Nature / Nurture... argument that is as old as psychology. I think it depends on age of exposure. If you grew up in a neighborhood with various ethnicities, then you would need training or specific experiences to become prejudiced. However, if you lived in an isolated village in Africa, you would fear white people from the first moment you saw them; too different.