African American
Related: About this forum**AA GROUP** Rhetorical question: Why is White America so invested in racism?
My answer: For the same reasons that Male America is so invested in sexism, and the same reasons that American society as a whole is invested in capitalism.Property. Wealth. Status. Influence. Power.
Think about it: If private property is a society's measure of wealth, and wealth is the single most important marker of status, influence, and power in that society, then who in their right mind wouldn't want to own as much property as they possibly could? And if women and black people are legally considered property...see the connection yet?
This is why the South seceded. This is why racism is still a thing in 2016 - because old habits die hard, and treating black people as the property of white men (whether it be legally, economically, politically, socially, or culturally) is a habit as old as European colonization of the Americas itself...
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some people are ignorant, scared and suspicious of people who are different....look at how even white LGBT are treated, even meaningless differences ( and really, they are all meaningless, aren't they?)
brush
(57,950 posts)"Make America great again" hinted at restoring to dominance over POCs and women.
Thus, fewer votes for Hillary.
juxtaposed
(2,778 posts)HassleCat
(6,409 posts)Fear of the unknown, fear of the other, fear looking for a direction.
raging moderate
(4,510 posts)I struggled against this with my son, mightily. It was all around us in the air in Southern Illinois, and he picked it right up. By the time he was grown up, it was mostly gone. He even fell in love with a Chinese woman, although they later broke up. Still, he sometimes comes out with some of those old ideas. My daughter seemed somewhat less affected.
I suspect that "white" people have some neurological problem that makes us all tense and jittery. Those with no gift for introspection naturally look for the source of their irritation outside themselves, and strike out irrationally. We who have some kernel of self understanding face a never ending struggle to soothe, counsel, and control ourselves . And then there is all the misinformation accumulated over the past thousand years or so, all designed to consolidate the power of the most aggressive "white" people. Notice I have that word in quotes. We are not really white. We have various skin tones, just not very melanin rich. Big deal. Only got me tons of sunburns and then skin cancer.
brush
(57,950 posts)Do you know the meaning of that particular card, as the owner of the shop hinted at a significant meaning behind it?
raging moderate
(4,510 posts)heaven05
(18,124 posts)it helps to perpetuate white privilege. Period.
Exactly, they don't understand that giving other groups rights that you always had does not mean you are oppressed. Someone said this, don't know who, but is appropriate.
raging moderate
(4,510 posts)How can they not enjoy the relief in the people who gain these privileges? Not to mention the new ideas and energy of these people in mutual efforts.
radical noodle
(8,749 posts)to promote division between groups.
heaven05
(18,124 posts)and your run of the mill politician likes us at each others throats because our eyes are off of their shenanigans.
jack69
(163 posts)So many of the "Christian" churches preach a subtle message of racism. I'm not sure why, guess they are controlled mostly by racist, white, well off men. Consequently, they only hire preachers that are like minded. Probably the primary reason my father was fired from his churches in 1966 for preaching for racial equality and justice. This was in rural South Dakota, guess it wasn't seemly for a poor white minister-farmer to preach of such things.
Starry Messenger
(32,375 posts)You don't get American capitalism without the racist economic accelerant of slavery and then Jim Crow.
All of the conditions of our economy spring from that one "Original Sin" of the establishment of the world's first liberal bourgeois democracy not extending freedom to the slaves, which was a complete repudiation of the Enlightenment principles the country was nominally based on.
It's in the very air we all breathe. Until we unwind the structural racism entwined in our society, we will always be fighting this, and we will always be at the mercy of the worst of reactionary capitalism. It's no coincidence that this country goes bonkers after even the smallest reforms for Black Americans. They know just what button to press when their power is threatened, and their voters respond like rats addicted to cocaine.
brush
(57,950 posts)It's no coincidence that this country goes bonkers after even the smallest reforms for Black Americans. They know just what button to press when their power is threatened, and their voters respond like rats addicted to cocaine.
That is the best analysis I've heard yet on what white privilege is about and, btw, just why many whites responded to Trump's "Make America great again."
They heard the dog whistle loud and clear and interpreted it for what it really meant — "Make America white again."
Starry Messenger
(32,375 posts)Like Van Jones said, it was a "whitelash." Several of Chumps voters aren't caring that he's breaking his nominal promises because they interpreted "drain the swamp" as "stop racial equity."
forjusticethunders
(1,151 posts)The Founders KNEW slavery was wrong. They repeatedly WROTE slavery was wrong. Jefferson and Washington, KNEW the system was oppressive and immoral despite owning slaves. But let's say they repudiated slavery - at BEST there would have been no republic, at WORST they would have been strung up to a man (unless they somehow deliberately appealed to the masses, black and white, and given their high class position, they would never have considered this as a possibility, let alone actually chose this option). So they hedged, double-thought, and bluffed, and hoped the issue would solve itself. They were very, deeply, momentously aware of the fatal contradiction at the heart of the Republic.
Where the rot lies is about 150 years prior to 1776, where we see the first laws differentiating black and white. This essentially divided the lower class into two castes, and this prevented the lower class from taking united action against the upper class (and this was deliberate on the part of the planter class)
Starry Messenger
(32,375 posts)I get frustrated when people think racism will just resolve itself if we unwind capitalism somehow. For several years I've thought that the worst excesses of capitalism would feel under threat when we work on mitigating structural racism. They certainly react like they are under mortal threat when we do.
forjusticethunders
(1,151 posts)Jokes on them - there is no unwinding capitalism without unwinding racism first. If not for the isms and phobias, you'd quite possibly be having your kids stand for the Internationale, instead of the Pledge.
ismnotwasm
(42,476 posts)Especially as long as we have the left minimizing its impact--all to make a political point. The right doesn't care, isn't expected, doesn't have to carry the anti-racist torch. What the so-called left has done--and continues to do I will never forget and never forgive.
sheshe2
(87,896 posts)The one that they are so desperately trying to hold onto. Look at the census, scales will tip by 2040-2050. Bye~
heaven05
(18,124 posts)forjusticethunders
(1,151 posts)While racism is now Its Own Thing and increasingly decoupled from the class issue, that will never change the fact that racism is an expression of class hierarchy, the latest expression of which is capitalism. The interesting thing is the extent to which America *denies* racism - it shows that deep down they know it's wrong, so they engage in double think to shield themselves from the moral implications of America's foundations.