It is everywhere, I could (as anyone who reads my posts knows) drone on for pages, listing example after example, but I won’t. I just think you need to see it in terms of that everyone basically distrusts everyone else, the more unlike you the other guy is, the less you can relate to him and the more likely you are to use artificial criteria to put that person in another category where you can convince yourself you can understand them. I’ve had discussions on here about how it seems like every white person I know, even if I don’t believe them to have a racist thought in their heads, if they start telling me a story about someone they met, if the person was white, they’ll say “I was talking to this guy,” but if he was black, they’ll almost invariably say “I was talking to this black guy.” Doesn’t matter if the guy’s race has nothing to do with the story, part of that is conditioned. But the younger generation doesn’t seem to do this as much as people of my generation. I don’t think people are going to have to be completely homogenized before racism is virtually a non-factor, but I don’t think it will ever go away, neither will sexism, ageism or any other other ‘ism’ you can use to describe why one group makes a distinction between themselves and another group.
Now, I want to say one thing about reverse racism, and I don’t want everyone to get all huffy and get into the hundreds of years of oppression and racial profiling and all the other horrible shit that non-whites have to go through…I’m not crying boo hoo for white guys like myself…we’ve had a good ride, but we’ve done it at the cost of oppressing others, and I have refused to play that game insofar as I can. Which means if something is outside my control, then I go with it, but anything I can control I do. I teach my son to not identify people by their race unless it has something to do with the story, and that being a different color is just like having a different color hair or eyes, just a feature, and yes, real world experience does some times conflict with that message. My son, almost 8, has commented that black kids pick on him more than white kids do…well I know that they don’t pick on him because black kids have something inherently within them to make them thugs (though I still know a few people even in today’s world who would automatically draw THAT conclusion). I’ve come to think it’s a combination of a couple things….one is that he goes to a very racially diverse school, and may actually encounter more black kids than white kids. Two, I’m sure it has to do with upbringing…basically the more educated and affluent the child’s parents, statistically speaking, the less likely they will be to suffer the kinds of self esteem issues that would cause the child to pick on someone who is different from himself, and statistically speaking, blacks in our society are still less affluent and educated than whites, this is on average. And hey, right now, the playing field for my son and his classmates is equal on the school grounds, but the playing field very well might NOT have been equal between my son’s parents and the parents of the black kids who might pick on him. So, I think a lot of what passes as minor racism these days is either directly or indirectly related to socio-economic legacy issues…if we work hard enough on equalizing our society, not though meaningless quota programs, but through genuine efforts to give all Americans a helping hand to raise themselves up into a strong and bustling middle class, regardless of how low on the rungs of society they may have started, in a couple more generations, it’s unlikely that most kids would develop an impression that other races pick on them more than their own.
Now, for those who cry that reverse racism is a BS issue, let me give you a story of something that happened to me and my son about 2–3 years ago. We were at a Chuck E. Cheese, and my son came to me, I think he was about 5, and he was crying that some kids had pushed him. So, as a parent, I wanted to find the kids and talk to the parents. Turns out there were 2 girls, both black, one maybe 7, the other maybe 10, and what had happened was, they were playing together and they were both picking on him a little bit (the older one moreso, and the younger one was acting out by example), and one of the two pushed him, but he didn’t see who did it exactly. When he went to where these girls were, a couple women, presumably the mothers of the two girls were there. So, I confronted them and asked if these were their kids, and I stated that one of them had pushed my son. They asked which one, and I asked him which one. Well, he really didn’t even see which one did it, he knew ONE of them had pushed him because they were the only ones who could have, and he got very upset right away and didn’t really have the tools an adult would have to ascertain exactly what had happened…being 5, he was equipped with one defense…come crying to your parents. When he couldn’t immediately say which one, one of the black women said, “uh huh, cuz I know we all look alike.” I was offended, appalled, angry, LIVID. I did NOTHING to indicate any racism, nor have I ever in my LIFE even entertained such a racist notion, and here she was, so unwilling to believe that her precious child could have done something wrong that she’s willing to call me a racist to my face because I’m white.
And you know what…that’s when I found that racism just begets more racism. When I was recounting this incident to my wife, I heard this come out of my mouth, “if she doesn’t want to be treated like a nigger, she shouldn’t fucking ACT like one.” What I meant was that if you actually play into a stereotype for your race (in this case, the stereotype in question is that blacks don’t take personal responsibility, particularly when it comes to raising their kids, and blame everyone else for their problems), you sort of lose your credibility when you accuse someone of being a racist, because they’re not reacting to the stereotype, but to your actual real world actions. And if she had acted like the other mother who was actually trying to be productive and listen to what the kids were saying and actually get to the bottom of it the way I was, the N word would have never crossed my mind much less my lips.
So, I think that illustrates a lot of what passes for these minor examples these days. No, we don’t have lynch mobs or whites only drinking fountains these days, but members of every race of people will hide behind the artificial construct of race should the actions of the person of another race fall within the stereotypes for that race. It’s not the kind of racism where people think their race is superior to other races, but it’s the kind that is built on an us vs. them distrust of others. And by no means do I think I have it all figured out, but I think most of what remains has a lot to do with the fact that certain stereotypes exist, and they came about because of observed behavior which should have been attributed to the individual, but when it was observed repeatedly among a particular group. other groups began to ascribe those characteristics to everyone in the group to which the offending parties belonged. And likely the individuals acted in these ways out of a combination of cultural mores, individual parental upbringing, and socio-economic status. But today when one group observes a member of another group acting in a way that fits within the stereotype associated with that group, it serves to reinforce the stereotype. But because people have such a hard time understanding that correlation does not mean causation, they get confused, and racism persists.
The “bad neighborhood” is a perfect example. Again, statistically whites are more affluent than blacks. The cause has a lot to do with the fact that blacks couldn’t own property until a couple generations ago, so whites do have about a 500 year head start in inheritance first of all, and second of all, since it was the whites who controlled everything up till 45 years ago in this country, there have been many obstacles to achieving socio-economic equality. So, there are more poor black people than poor white people. Statistically there is more crime among the less affluent and less educated. Again, the root cause is most likely economic….dealing drugs as a way to make money is a much more appealing idea if you live in an area with few career options and all your role models are broke. It’s also a fact that location is the most important part of real estate…you just don’t have a lot of neighborhoods where one neighbor is rich and the other is poor. So, blacks, being more likely to be poor, are more likely to live in poor neighborhoods, which because they are poorer neighborhoods will tend to be less safe. It’s not a bad neighborhood because of all the black people, it’s a bad neighborhood because of all the impoverished people. But some will never get that, and that is where racism will persist.
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