Can racially tolerant whites help end racism?

Funny, I had a similar situation to the linked video recently. Except the customer was wrongly taking offense.

At a corner store, I (white guy) was behind two black teens in line. They paid with a credit card. The clerk asked for an ID.

“We’re not buying alcohol.”

“I know. We ask for ID with a credit card.”

And the kids are visibly annoyed, looking at each other with a skeptical look of, “Yeah, right, sure they do”.

So I chimed in. “They do it to me, too. They do it to everybody.” Which is true.

I have no doubt those kids get un-earned suspicion from store owners, but this was not one of those times. Outside, as we all left, they said, “Have a good afternoon, dude” to me.

Anyway, I don’t think we’re going to end racism. We can lessen it, but unfortunately people are easily led by emotion and tribalism.

Great video! I think aware whites can definitely ameliorate racist situations. Can they eliminate them? I don’t know. The “Righteous Christians” who helped Jews during the Holocaust didn’t stop Nazism, but they certainly saved lives.

I think that’s the ONLY way to end it. That & victim stories.

I think there is something problematic in suggesting that white people are going to be the end all of racism (if they should accept the challenge.) I think the video’s message, however was poignant: it is important to recognize when you are in a position of privelage and step in as support when possible. This goes the same for stopping homophobia (straight allies) and transphobia (cis-allies? I’m not sure if there is a catchy enough term for this.)

It is also important, however, to acknowledge that minorities can alleviate racism against one another. California is no stranger to race wars and they are not strictly white vs other, but other vs other. We all need to work together in order to alleviate racism.

Sure it can help but to be totally honest racism exists in all cultures so everyone needs to be more tolerant across the cultural spectrum.

As long as the distinctions “white” and “black” have to be made? No.

I think a lot about this issue. I’m afraid we’ll be dealing with the repercussions of racism and slavery in this country for hundreds of years.
This is the way I think about it: it was a miracle Fredrick Douglas made it to adulthood, let alone all the things he accomplished. I think there were probably hundreds, if not thousands like him who were killed for saying the wrong thing at the wrong moment. And that is unfortunately hundreds of years of selective breeding that promoted fear and subordination, and weeded out blacks who had the courage to overcome racism through their unrelenting will. So now we’ve had a few decades (maybe) of having that selective pressure removed, but the damage will take as long to repair as it took to make.

I remember I was once suturing up a young black man from the inner city, about 17 years old, who was asking me very intelligent questions about what I was doing, and why, and how it worked, etc. Elbow deep in this guy’s thigh, I made what I thought to be some pleasant chatter: “So, you going to be a doctor?”
He scoffed. I almost wanted to ask him why he scoffed, but I lost the nerve. He didn’t believe being a doctor was a path that was open to him.I somehow wanted to communicate that to him, but I didn’t know how. I felt like, everything I’d say, he’d retort with “Whatever, Whitey McWhiterson”. And He’d be right in that I would never really understand what challenges he’d have to overcome to get to medical school, but I was certain once he made it there he’d be at least as good as any other doctor.
I regret not saying something to him, but to this day I still have no clue what I would have said.

I think whote people speaking up can certainly help.

To be devils advocate, the checker might very well have recognized the white woman and not the black woman. It’s a fact we usually are better at recognizing people of our own race. She also might be more chatty with the white woman, and so she recognizes her. Being more chatty with her could also be contrued as racist though. I also wonder when this story is from? Check the bad check book? Who still does that? Unless they were in some sort of really small town in a local grocer.

I think it is important for people to speak up and stand in unity when something is wrong. The one caution is sometimes, some people, don’t want the help. It’s worth the risk anyway, but still worth warning you about. During civil rights many white people came down from the north, a lot of them were Jewish who identified with, and were appalled by the discrimination since the holocaust was still fairly fresh. Not all black people were happy for the help. It stirred things up when maybe in their particular community they were content. I still think it is important to speak up though, for the greater good.

@drhat77 i understand that type of situation. Next time you just might speak up. I think since you were his doctor it might be more tricky than if you had just found yourself in a conversation with him. My most recent situation like that was this guy who was packing up my house, just talking to him a short time I realized how intelligent and curious he was. After the couple days of packing I asked him if he ever considered contunuing his education. I told him his intelligence and curiousity comes through and that I thought he would do very well if he pursued college. He said he was thinking about taking some classes at community college. I didn’t have time for a long conversation, but I just left him with the tip to let people who have college degrees help and guide him through the system and not be afraid to ask questions. I added if he goes to Jr. College to make sure the credits will transfer to a 4 year college. I sometimes wonder what he is doing now.

Edit: just saw your link and was going to post it :-)

Honestly, I get sick of hearing about race. There are scumbags of all shades and good people of all shades. The human species needs to grow the fuck up and move past skin color.

@flip those who are denied opportunities because of their race don’t have the luxury of getting sick about hearing this. It is an issue and not talking about it will not make it magically go away.

@drhat77 My point above is that everyone of all shades of skin needs to quit being so damn petty.

I don’t really think it will ever happen though. Humans love to divide into groups and fight one another. If we all had the same shade of skin, humans would divide themselves by eyecolor or some other arbitrary difference.

@flip86 I will say this, to give you a little support, even though I do think you are being too simplistic about it. The woman in the video talked about her daughter being so upset, and I do think that is over the top. The cashier would have looked up the name in her book, seen she was not on the bad check list, and no big deal. If it is policy to check ID and check the bad check book (which is very possibly the case) then what the cashier did wrong is not check the white woman. She could have been fired for it, especially if the check bounced. I do get tired of so many things being turned into race issues, but for sure sometimes there really is an issue.

It is an inconvenience to everyone to have to be equal to everyone all the time. What I mean is, take for instance when I would vote while living in TN. They had to check everyone’s ID. A lot of the time I knew the woman checking me in, she doesn’t need to check my ID to know who I am, but she had to make a showing of being equal to everyone. The line would go faster if she wasn’t checking the people she knew, and she knew a lot of people. I don’t mind that she asked me for ID, but it is just an example.

In the grocery store asking for everyone’s ID if it isn’t necessary is annoying. I worked retail for years, and when someone would pay with a check we all cringed. As a patron I cringed when I was the customer in line behind the person with a check.

Now some places actually swipe your ID when you are buying alcohol or something similar, so it goes faster.

Technology helps erase race actually.

I think its humiliating to have to be looked up in the bad check book, especially when the white customer up a head was not. Maybe it wouldn’t have happened if she had her WIC stamps with her.

What’s a WIC stamp?

No one around her would have noticed, they would have been annoyed the cashier was taking so long.

It’s incumbent upon all of us to speak up when we witness injustice, in any of its many forms. I don’t know how much we achieve when we do it, but every little bit helps.

Food stamps. I was heaping racism on top of what was already present. The narrator noticed. And the daughter did too. It irks me when the solution to racism is “blacks shouldn’t be so sensitive”.

@drhat77 Understandably irked. I am all for the white woman speaking up. At the same time, the cashier is an ignorant idiot if she is carding this woman solely based on race. Letting her upset them so much is not necessary. Instead of being upset, they can be annoyed, recognize racism, and stand up for themselves or choose to be passive, depending on the situation and if they personally want to bother. No one was being lynched, no one had a crew cut, swastika tatoo, and confederate flag t-shirt on.

I do hate when someone tries to tell someone else that they are being overly emotional, so I am being a bit hypocritical, but I think there is a better reaction. Plus, it is still possible the cashier did recognize the white wkman and not the black one. We would have to watch that cashier for a day and see if there is a pattern. If there is no pattern then she was just accused of being racist when she isn’t.

@Leslie so we agree? Why are we arguing? We should be marching on DC instead!

Segregation today! Seg- whoa, wrong speech!

@drhat77 We agree-ish. I think I probably have had more experiences with black people reacting when there was nothing to be reacting about. I agree there are still all too often a reason to be reacting.

I shared a story where I was almost the empowering white sister in law. Now I can share a story where I was almost the thick headed cashier.
A black woman brought her three year old boy to the er because he was jumping on the bed, fell off, hurt his head. I examined the kid, he was fine, and I jumped up and down the kid, singing the song “mama called the doctor and the doctor said… ”. At this point my brain tried to leap in but it was too late, I finished the song. “No more monkeys jumping on the bed.”
Well, my career flashed before my eyes. But luckily, the mother made no mention of it. I thought I dodged a bullet.
But after this discussion, I realized maybe she was offended, but didn’t have the wherewithal to be the mad black woman at three in the morning.
I feel terrible with this realization. I may have foolishly made a woman feel bad, her only sin bringing her child in for an exam.

@drhat77 Very open and honest example for you to share. So basically, she might have been offended, but you meant no offense. See, it’s tricky.

Sometimes things happen where I can’t for the life of me see why a black woman would be bothered by something said, except that either she has been mistreated before, or is just completely terrified of being taken advantage of, or maybe she learned it by the behavior being modeled for her. Just to go with the stereotype in the clip, black women get stuck with this label much much more often than black men. So, I empathasize with the woman in the video worrying about that stereotype being put on her if she said anything. But, that stereotype is not about reacting when something really is wrong or unjust.

My opinion is the majority of people are not racist, and we should start from that premise.

But, again, I think it is important to call out racism if we believe we are witnessing it, if anything to be instructive.

When I was in college I was visiting a friend her dorm and when I left I walked out to the elevators and there was a couple sitting in the windowsill so I said, “hi.” The girl said, “people are so nice here at state, at Michigan they are such a bunch of Jews.” Shocking to say the least. I said to her, “you should be careful, and I am not exactly sure what you mean, but I am Jewish.” Poor girl was horrified and apologetic. I told her I wasn’t angry, I was trying to let her know she was being an idiot. I wasn’t crying from it. Stupid girl. I do stuff like this all the time. I’ll be talking to someone and I can tell they are about to say something that can be construed as offensive towards Mexicans, and I often head them off and say, “careful, my husband is Mexican.” I’m saving them from being mortified later.

Indeed it is complicated. But the White looking sister went through all the false reasons the clerk might have treated her differently. If the clerk learned form that, then she was just unaware of her inner bias and needed some sensitivity training. If she went right back to treating people differently based on the color of their skin, then she is indeed a racist, and probably has no intention of dropping her bigotry because she is convinced it is justified.

@ETpro That’s why I think it was definitely worth saying something. But, she may not have been racist, there is still that possibility. We can’t know from this one instance.

@JLeslie I don’t think I said she was a racist. She did something that was deeply racially insensitive. As I said, she might just need sensitivity training, and she got a dose of that.

@ETpro I wouldn’t disagree. I guess what I am saying is, what if both women (customers) were white?

What if they were Martians? What if they were both talking pigs with ID cards showing they were Geico members? Why change the facts of what took place? The question relates to something that actually happened, not what might be possible.

@JLeslie once upon a time, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, car accidents were thought to be the fault of the driver. And people died and were injured, but what could we do? Better driver education, we guessed. But then society started changing its mind, realizing that many accidents were road factors, and many injuries and deaths were due to how cars were constructed. These days in the US, more people die from suicide than car accidents, so we’ve come a long way.
My point is that if we continue to think that some people will be offended even if no offense was meant, no one is really going to do anything about it. But if some kind of emphasis was put on sensitivity beyond the mad black woman context, maybe I wouldn’t have launched into the monkey song in the first place, because I would have instinctually known that it could hurt someone in that context.

@drhat77 I agree competely.

Women tend to feel taken advantage of and abused more than men. I think I feel this way much much more than my husband, there is no comparison. When a doctor does tells me something dismissive or asks me to do a test I think is wasteful or harmful I feel psychologically harmed. It feels like an assault. On a lesser level, but the same idea, when the cable company doesn’t believe me and tells me some ridiculous story about why my cable doesn’t work and finally the third guy who comes out fixes it in two seconds, those other two guys were incomepetent idiots, but I felt like the men aren’t listening to me, even maybe taking advantage of me. My husband does not feel any of those things in any of those situations. He just moves forward.

I kind of fail to see how the checker’s actions could be construed as anything but racial insensitivity at best in the context of the story and why and her daughter shouldn’t have been upset at being thus humiliated.

@jLeslie you should have seen the cavalcade of idiots the cable company sent to me to fix a simple problem. Rest assured it has nothing to do with you being a woman. Idiots always get defensive when they’re told they can’t do their job.

I was only able to watch less than 30 seconds of the video since it keeps freezing up on me. Since I can’t use the video to answer this question I’ll attempt to answer the premise of it. All races, cultures, religions and ethnicities need to learn to tolerate each other. I’ve been around very racist people who hated whites.

@Paradox25 You got it just fine without being able to watch the video all the way through, Sorry you had trouble with it, Here’s the YouTube version. Maybe that will run straight through for you.