How much of an institutional racist are you?

[MrSquished]

The thread about Trump thinking that pretty much everyone on welfare and government assistance programs was black got me thinking because when I was younger, I thought that as well.

I'm a 40 something white male from Northern NJ. I grew up here. I grew up about 20 miles west of NYC in what was basically a middle-middle class to upper middle-class town that was by far majority white. In my high school of approximately 1,000 students there were only a few African-Americans in total. I had no black friends growing up.

My father was a far-left progressive and liberal who showed zero racism that I remember, and only showed concern for the plight of the African-American in a socio-economic and political sense. Like very strongly as well. He was very very political. My parents took us to the city often enough to expose us to more culture, we were not sheltered at all. I too turned out to be a left-leaning progressive as well....but yet

....I still have racist thoughts. They just pop up sometimes. Sometimes I can get frightful of a black person when walking around my city at night. Or sometimes think some negative thoughts when driving through the ghetto. I have to push them out of my head in disgust. The thing is, I was never taught these things in my tight-knit familial unit. They all must have come from our society - hence the name institutional racism. It's very very strong stuff. And these days all my friends are white and Asian, and not by choice. It's not like I rejected a non-white friend from entering my life. And it's not just me - when I hang out in larger groups with my friends' friends and their larger networks nowadays, they are also predominantly white with a couple of Asians thrown in. This is totally normal as well and not racist. But it goes to show how little the races can mix. Even in a very very progressive area of the country.

Eventually I did learn that welfare recipients were not pretty much all black. From probably talking with my dad about politics and that thing called a liberal arts education. But society taught me to think otherwise for years into my twenties at least until when I went to college. What's crazy is that a lot of folks are much older, supposedly educated, and in positions of power and are still ignorant. Thanks to my dad, and school, I've been on the right side of things and argued with many people against racism and being respectful of the uphill battle African-Americans have to fight more often than not. But so many people don't get it.

Everyone wants to think they aren't a racist - and we see some pretty racist folks that think that, but what about the rest of us that are actually liberal and progressive socially and more advanced? How much has the system ingrained some racism inside of you?

 

[Jaskalas]

I recall sitting at my desk in the first grade. Maybe it was a table, I do not remember the specific detail. What does stand out is the kid next to me. Insisting that I was doing him wrong. I was sitting there minding my own business, not a care in the world besides the paper in front of me. He accosts me. How dare my right hand (I'm a lefty) rest in that position!? Turns out my middle finger was sticking out. I simply found it comfortable to lay my hand on the desk that way. It meant nothing to me, until someone else instilled their values, their idea into my head that it was wrong. That it was a symbol and I should not do that.

That was one of the days where my childhood innocence was lost.

Now, to your subject, I do not recall any one incident where I first regarded a person of another race as an "other". There were a couple minor incidents where kids annoyed me and they happened to be different. But there were also many white kids in similar regard. Nothing special about that. What I do remember is not caring at all about race. At some point later that changed, insofar as some measure of fear in "others" was instilled. A corruption, not unlike having the concept of a middle finger forced upon me as a little kid.

To what extent does that corruption run? Could I honestly know, and properly express it? I try to treat people fair, based on their actions, but I also stereotype with the expectation of being disappointed by others. But deep down I don't give a !@#$ and I'll cheer on Black heroes just as easily as white heroes. Be it Morgan Freeman, Will Smith or Samuel Jackson. They are not "other" to me, they are family. I grew up loving them and always will.

 

[Greenman]

Everyone is a little bit raciest.

 

[UNCjigga]

When I was a teenager, I distinctly remember Kurt Loder on MTV doing a segment on Ol Dirty Bastard (Wu Tang Clan) and they had a cameraman and VJ riding in a limo with him and all his kids as he went to go cash out some food stamps. ODB was laughing it up, flashing his welfare ID and flaunting the fact that he's getting all these royalties yet still gets welfare.

That one moment damaged my entire perception of welfare recipients (and black people in general) and it took years for me to undo that.

 

[sandorski]

Everyone is a little bit raciest.

Not me. I'm only a little bit racier.

 

[shortylickens]

If I want black girls on my dick but not in my neighborhood, does it mean I'm racist?

This post of yours is wildly unacceptable on more than one level.

Perknose
Forum Director

 

[BoomerD]

If I want black girls on my dick but not in my neighborhood, does it mean I'm racist?

Shorty, your local tattoo parlor should be able to help you with that. It's probably the closest you'll ever get...

Me, I distrust and hate everyone...especially...those people...or those...or those...or.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZg5yPz6cWk

 

[compuwiz1]

Wanna know how to get racism out of the equation?
Stop talking about it.
Stop the media narratives.
Stop politicking on it.
Stop making people think they are victims. (politicians do this best)
The longer we are consumed with it, the longer it will be a problem.

A few weeks ago I went out and had some fried chicken in a predominantly black neighborhood, then went into some of their shops. Everyone I came in contact with was courteous and respectful to me, as I was to them.

We also went to an Asian market and I was pretty much the only white person in there. Same thing, nice, respectful people.

While I do believe there are some racist assholes out there, I just don't see it around me. I see good people from all races, getting along just fine for the most part.

Where I grew up, we had one black family on the south hill of our city. We went to school with their kids from a very young age, all the way up through high school. Beyond understanding they were darker color, that was quickly forgotten about and a deep bond grew between them and our family. So, I basically had no exposure to people of color until I enlisted in the Marines. There is were I saw a lot of diversity and made some really good friends, some of which, I am still friends with to this day. We were all brothers in the Marines. Skin color didn't matter a bit.

The relatives, on my mom's side of the family, from back in the midwest, were some of the worst racists I'd ever known. We'd go back there in the summers and listen to gramps and the uncles use racial slurs and tell racist jokes all day long.

 

[mikeymikec]

Wanna know how to get racism out of the equation?
Stop talking about it.
Stop the media narratives.
Stop politicking on it.
Stop making people think they are victims. (politicians do this best)
The longer we are consumed with it, the longer it will be a problem.

You're proposing that to deal with a real problem, we must treat it as an imaginary one. Do we all need to wear ruby slippers for this to fix the problem, or is it just that we need to wish for it hard enough?

Has purely wishing for problems to go away worked well for you before?

 

[Victorian Gray]

You're proposing that to deal with a real problem, we must treat it as an imaginary one. Do we all need to wear ruby slippers for this to fix the problem, or is it just that we need to wish for it hard enough?

Has purely wishing for problems to go away worked well for you before?

Don't forget to click your heels together or it won't work.

 

[compuwiz1]

You're proposing that to deal with a real problem, we must treat it as an imaginary one. Do we all need to wear ruby slippers for this to fix the problem, or is it just that we need to wish for it hard enough?

Has purely wishing for problems to go away worked well for you before?

If you focus on only finding racism, or other negative aspects of life, you will find them. I do not deny there is a problem, but I also give some of the mediums I cited as exacerbating the problem and magnifying it. Blowing things out of proportion is never a problem solving method. Awareness is important, however.

 

[Muse]

Everyone wants to think they aren't a racist - and we see some pretty racist folks that think that, but what about the rest of us that are actually liberal and progressive socially and more advanced? How much has the system ingrained some racism inside of you?

From John Lennon's Working Class Hero:

"You think you're so clever and classless and free but you're just fucking peasants as far as I can see."

Or The Offs' Everyone's a Bigot:

"We're all bigots..."

I'll speak for myself. I too grew up where there weren't many blacks. In fact I don't remember any in my grade school experience. I only saw them up close when my mother hired a maid! I never interacted with those ladies.

We had a live in black maid for a short time, it was a nice experience, she was warm and friendly and made us great fried chicken on some Friday nights.

By the time my sister went to my high school almost 6 years later than I did there were a fair number of blacks going there.

Later in my life I met a lot of blacks, worked with them. They aren't so "other" to me as they are to whites who virtually never interact with them. Even so, there's no getting around the aspect of subcultures of blacks (and others) whose day to day life is different, a lot different from the carbon copy culture that we live it. They are people. Of course "black lives matter." I like to think this way: Everybody's lives matter, no more or less than anyone else's. Blacks have just as much potential as anyone else and you can say the same for all ethnicities. I see warmth, intelligence and humanity everywhere. I do happen to live in a melting pot, so it's way easier for me than most people.

As far as welfare is concerned - I went into a bank one day in my town when I was quite young and the teller happened to be a girl I knew (we both white) and we chatted a bit and it came out that I'd lost my job and she told me I should get unemployment. I didn't know it existed. I filed. I have collected unemployment many times, every time I was entitled to it, I figure, partly because it usually was hard to find work and I needed the money! I was on food stamps for a short time. Great stuff! I loved it. I like the fact that we don't pay tax on food items in CA. I think of unemployment as a safety net that society spreads to stabilize people so that they have some of the stability that many take for granted. Many in society aren't beset with the stability issues that many others are subject to. Unemployment is a buffer for that problem. It's temporary, at least in CA. In bad times, they sometimes enact extensions.

 

[pmv]

What does 'institutional' have to do with it? The question appears to be asking about personal prejudice, which I thought was kind of the opposite of 'institutional' racism. Surely by definition an individual can't be an 'institutional' racist, unless that person is somehow an institution?

Not sure that navel-gazing is that useful anyway. Surely one has to look at specific cases and particular actions and most of all at the distribution of power?

 

[WelshBloke]

A few weeks ago I went out and had some fried chicken in a predominantly black neighborhood, then went into some of their shops.

Umm....

 

[TheVrolok]

Wanna know how to get racism out of the equation?
Stop talking about it.
Stop the media narratives.
Stop politicking on it.
Stop making people think they are victims. (politicians do this best)
The longer we are consumed with it, the longer it will be a problem.

A few weeks ago I went out and had some fried chicken in a predominantly black neighborhood, then went into some of their shops. Everyone I came in contact with was courteous and respectful to me, as I was to them.

We also went to an Asian market and I was pretty much the only white person in there. Same thing, nice, respectful people.

While I do believe there are some racist assholes out there, I just don't see it around me. I see good people from all races, getting along just fine for the most part.

Where I grew up, we had one black family on the south hill of our city. We went to school with their kids from a very young age, all the way up through high school. Beyond understanding they were darker color, that was quickly forgotten about and a deep bond grew between them and our family. So, I basically had no exposure to people of color until I enlisted in the Marines. There is were I saw a lot of diversity and made some really good friends, some of which, I am still friends with to this day. We were all brothers in the Marines. Skin color didn't matter a bit.

The relatives, on my mom's side of the family, from back in the midwest, were some of the worst racists I'd ever known. We'd go back there in the summers and listen to gramps and the uncles use racial slurs and tell racist jokes all day long.

lol, this guy. Promotes ignoring a deep seeded societal then boils racism down to the context of courteous interactions. Must be convenient to have such a simple world view.

 

[boomerang]

....I still have racist thoughts. They just pop up sometimes. Sometimes I can get frightful of a black person when walking around my city at night. Or sometimes think some negative thoughts when driving through the ghetto.

My Primary Care Doctor likes to shoot the shit a bit. One time we got on the topic of racism. He made a point and made it very well that there is a huge difference between racism and prejudice. Many people don't understand the distinction between the two and it's compounded by the word prejudice having different definitions.

We were in agreement in feeling that prejudice is the instinct built into humans that can keep you from harm. The fight or flight response is triggered in part by it. It's the instinct that makes you feel very uncomfortable getting on an airplane with bearded middle eastern men after a number of them flew planes into buildings. It's the instinct that makes you wary walking through an area where people of a different ethnicity held a violent demonstration in the very recent past. It's the survival instinct that is built into all of us taking the forefront. It's not bad, it's good.

I've been saying it here for years. We humans are still very much tribal. It doesn't take any effort to see it. Major cities typically have areas that people of the same race live together. Areas where people of the same ethnicity live together and even areas where people that worship the same live together. Same color, same language, same belief system, people congregate together that share those things in common because the instinct to live with one's own tribe is still very, very strong. Like seeks like.

There is no shame in having prejudice. You cannot turn it off and you don't want to turn it off.

There are powerful people in this world that want to forcibly break down our tribal, our prejudicial instincts. Why? That's a real good question to ask yourself. I don't know the answer but it pretty much comes down to intentions of good or evil. Are their intentions good, that will benefit everyone, or are they evil that will benefit only themselves? Why forcibly try to eradicate the tribal instincts that have kept humans protected to a great degree through the ages? One person alive right now who is trying to break down the tribal bonds is a man who had the power to bring down the financial system of a nation and did so. We know that he did that to benefit himself yet many believe his social engineering efforts are based in altruism. I feel prejudice towards him. My instincts tell me he is not to be trusted.

If I touch something hot I instinctively pull my hand away. I don't want that instinct eradicated just as I don't want the instinct to hang with members of the tribe I identify with to go away. I am convinced that over time the tribal instinct will be greatly diminished and eventually eliminated. But it's not going to happen in a lifetime and I really resent people trying to force that change on me. Even more so I resent people that attempt to make me out to be a pariah because I resist making changes that they themselves are unable to make.

You are an example of the person that can't make that change himself. That is absolutely not said in any way as a negative towards you. You gave your background and your thoughts. You feel bad because you have what you feel are racist thoughts. I have tried to make the point that what you feel is not racism, it is prejudice and it's there to protect you from harm. It's a part of your psyche that is hard coded and it's nothing to be ashamed of.

I'm pretty sure I'll now be branded as a racist but I truly don't care.

 

[allisolm]

"We were in agreement in feeling that prejudice is the instinct built into humans that can keep you from harm."

That's not what prejudice is so pretty much everything you said falls apart from there.

 

[Kneedragger]

You're proposing that to deal with a real problem, we must treat it as an imaginary one. Do we all need to wear ruby slippers for this to fix the problem, or is it just that we need to wish for it hard enough?

Has purely wishing for problems to go away worked well for you before?

Let me ask you an honest question.
If one grew up in a mixed area their whole life and treated everyone equal what more is this person to do? Knowing racism is alive and well?

 

[mikeymikec]

If you focus on only finding racism, or other negative aspects of life, you will find them. I do not deny there is a problem, but I also give some of the mediums I cited as exacerbating the problem and magnifying it. Blowing things out of proportion is never a problem solving method. Awareness is important, however.

So awareness is important, but everyone should shut up about it? Excuse my confusion, but you're not exactly coming up with a coherent position here.

Let me ask you an honest question.
If one grew up in a mixed area their whole life and treated everyone equal what more is this person to do? Knowing racism is alive and well?

I am not sure why you are asking me this question in response to my previous post (there seems to be a missing narrative that led you to ask me this question), and I am not sure exactly what you mean by this question. Please clarify and elaborate.

 

[Zorba]

What does 'institutional' have to do with it? The question appears to be asking about personal prejudice, which I thought was kind of the opposite of 'institutional' racism. Surely by definition an individual can't be an 'institutional' racist, unless that person is somehow an institution?

Not sure that navel-gazing is that useful anyway. Surely one has to look at specific cases and particular actions and most of all at the distribution of power?

I think he is blaming institutional racism on giving him unconscious racism?

I know what the OP is saying. I have to catch myself sometimes, usually when someone is doing something that fits a stereotype. I then remind myself of all the white males I've seen do the same thing. I don't like that I take notice of it more when it fits a stereotype, though.

 

[mikeymikec]

My Primary Care Doctor likes to shoot the shit a bit. One time we got on the topic of racism. He made a point and made it very well that there is a huge difference between racism and prejudice. Many people don't understand the distinction between the two and it's compounded by the word prejudice having different definitions.

We were in agreement in feeling that prejudice is the instinct built into humans that can keep you from harm. The fight or flight response is triggered in part by it. It's the instinct that makes you feel very uncomfortable getting on an airplane with bearded middle eastern men after a number of them flew planes into buildings. It's the instinct that makes you wary walking through an area where people of a different ethnicity held a violent demonstration in the very recent past. It's the survival instinct that is built into all of us taking the forefront. It's not bad, it's good.

If you lived by this principle, you would be living in a cave and threatening to kill anyone who comes near you and your fellow cave-dwellers.

Since I think it's a reasonable assumption that you live in a 'developed' society and you depend on all the comforts such as running water, sewage extraction, reliable electricity, a nearby supermarket and other such facilities, medical care etc, all provided at some level by people (not to mention every person you ever interacted with), you don't even vaguely know as well as the fact that every demographic that those people belong to has had people who have tried to do harm to people like you, and yet you evidently don't think it's absolutely fucking ridiculous for you to harbour and even embrace prejudices towards beared men on planes because you heard that someone who looked similar blew up a few planes one day. What if some guys of your own 'tribe' blew up some airliners tomorrow?

If I touch something hot I instinctively pull my hand away.

That's not prejudice, that's cause and effect fuelled by a survival instinct. To use this example in the context of this discussion would mean that you are not harbouring prejudice because you would only react when you encounter a situation that is actively harming you (e.g. you reacted when someone harmed you), whereas in the rest of your post you've been describing prejudice.
Prejudice in the context of your example would be a phobia that any such item may be hot and refusing to go near it, resulting in people who care about you suggesting that you go see a shrink because such a phobia would clearly be affecting your ability to interact in a normal society and may result in harm to yourself or others.

 

[piasabird]

I think Liberal News Outlets enforce racism because of the way they report or in some cases selectively report the news. The agenda is driven by putting people into groups races and categories and then pitting one group against another. This is also how the IRS and Congress works also. It is all about special tax breaks for categories. It is all about us against them.

I live in a town in Illinois and we have a lot of white under-privileged people who are on welfare, food stamps, etc. It is rough here to find a job because of high taxes. This is Madison County, IL so the lawyers and politicians have scared most business out of the state and lawyers have run a muck. So all the people that want to work basically either moved out of the state or work in a neighboring state like Missouri, which is right across the Mississippi river.

 

[soulcougher73]

Let me ask you an honest question.
If one grew up in a mixed area their whole life and treated everyone equal what more is this person to do? Knowing racism is alive and well?

Probably not support people or parties that support/push/thrive/entice racism. If you like to treat people equally then you should support people and parties that also like to.

 

[interchange]

These are words that don't have technically precise definitions, and this is a discussion whose aim is to get at things that operate in our unconscious and are implicit in our societal structure.

We're never going to have a mutually agreeable and objectively validated discussion about this.

It's still the most important discussion I think we can have. I applaud @PixelSquish for starting it. Regardless of any imprecision with the language, we all knew basically what he was getting at as evidenced by the other productive contributions here.

Personally, I know it's there. I used to know that but not pay much active attention to it until my work forced me to unmask a lot of the racialized assumptions made by myself and others and how society influences racial stereotypes and how constrained we are by them. And for a while I thought that this exposure extricated these things from me. At least in my clinical work I wasn't consciously letting race dynamics influence my care. But in my psychoanalytic classes I was made to confront more, and I am still realizing just how many ways that race is present and has always influenced me. Mostly, my behavior had been to avoid confronting racial dynamics because I didn't want them to be there, don't want for race to get in the way of having human interactions. But the thing is, race dynamics are present whether you yourself are invoking them or not. And if you try to run away from them you run away from the non-racialized interactions too. And that avoidance reinforces them.

Thus, I have learned that the best approach is to embrace the fact that they are there and have the interactions anyway knowing that some racial dynamics will be present and sometimes they will reflect my own prejudice of which I was likely unaware. And to hope that my imperfections are tolerated just as I try to tolerate the imperfections of others enough to actually connect as human beings. In that case, I believe we do have an opportunity to at least weaken the grasp our unconscious racism has on us.

As for institutional racism, that's a whole other animal. I do believe conscientious political action to address racialized disparities present in society is important. And that's with the knowledge that we really can't do such a thing fairly.

 

[Kneedragger]

So awareness is important, but everyone should shut up about it? Excuse my confusion, but you're not exactly coming up with a coherent position here.



I am not sure why you are asking me this question in response to my previous post (there seems to be a missing narrative that led you to ask me this question), and I am not sure exactly what you mean by this question. Please clarify and elaborate.

Sure. Reading his post and your response it seems you stopped reading after the first paragraph but I could be wrong... Because by the end of his post he circled around understanding there is racism but felt he treated everyone equal and didn't define anyone by their color.