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Where do you believe race and racism stand in america, how do you think they can be properly dealt with.

To be quite honest i feel as though the whole "racism doesn't exist" and "just don't talk about race" arguments are essentially the equivalent of this

Racism will always exist as long as there are stupid, small-minded people. Or, put simply, racism will always exist. The kind of xenophobia that belief system represents is a function of the basic, animalistic parts of the brain. Now when racism is a widespread cultural norm, those of actual intelligence can be stuck in the mental rut. That's what has really all but vanished in most of the First World.

racism is overrated.
Its made into a WAY bigger deal than it really is.
People treat people differently due to skin color no more than they treat people differently due to gender, sex, age, religion, nationality, etc.

racism is not more rampant than any other discrimination.

Its just at the point where talking about racism is dumb.

People discriminate against people for a whole list of reason. No one reason is more important than another.

Ok I will speak on my REAL life experience.

Where i was living for the last two years was Baltimore, MD. ok

152882352% black 10% white

i always get "prey'd" on by "gangstas" but it's like im happy i have military training and for some reason they dont fuck with me. But if my appearence wasn't as threatning towards them id be fucked.

true fact: every time i have been robbed, had my house broken into, ect the people were black.

but Me I still harbor no hate because i guess im so forgiving of people

Also my daughter's mother is black so my daughter is mixed. So just the looks I got from idiots were actually funny. Unfourtunatly we arent together but IDK man shit is not cool

LMAO @ people commenting on this issue that dont even live in an area where racism is high….

@0.99※(long name)

i agree, but i think OP wants a "REAL" life opinion.

not a textbook im sure op knew this

Well, thats, not at all true.

Black men are more likely to receive harsher sentences for crimes than if a white person committed the same crime.

Black people more often than white people get stopped and harassed by the cops. Criming while white proved this.

Then there's the colorism rampant in the black community. Stereotypes which cause many people to develop irrational fears of black people. Media portrayal which causes many blacks too develop self-hatred.

The simple fact is is that in America if you are Black you're chances of succeeding are lower than whites. That is a huge problem that need to be addressed.

hahahaha triple A omg!#!!!

I get harrassed by the cops because im WHITE
they think if a white person is around they are buying drugs

yo you need to come down here dude.

also you cant say what AMERICANS anything because it is your opinion OP! wow

At no point did i state or even insinuate that it doesn't happen to whites. Police brutality is in no way focused on just one race. It just more often happens to Blacks.

"you cant say what AMERICANS anything because it is your opinion OP"

Im not sure i understand what you mean.

^meaning in america is so diverse state to state that just because where you live doesnt mean the whole country is experiencing this.

also, when was police brutality mentioned?

Pretty sad to hear coming from a dark-type.
 
Jokes aside, no, racism isn't gone from first-world countries. People still lock doors as I walk by when they don't for that Asian couple, people still say I shouldn't be offended by certain things and will get adamant if I do (you shouldn't put too many of your own values on other people,) and people still get screwed over because of their race. Just because they aren't getting lynched over it doesn't mean it's not something minorities have to deal with that whites or certain Asians don't in the US.

One successful black man suggested for black people being pulled over for no reason to sell their nice vehicles so they don't get pulled over. He says that he doesn't get pulled over as often now. Is that right? Should he have had to do that?

He either had to deal with being pulled over all of the time or get a car he didn't really want. So…What is this? Why would he bother to sell his nice car? Something that isn't based on racism?

No, racism today is not being shot in the back while trying to run away, having the police lie about it, and then try to frame him (fortunately, someone caught it call on camera).
No, it's not a gay or autistic kid getting bullied.

But it's no secret in my experience that if you look a certain way and you're in a certain situation, police will poke and prod. And for every 100 pokes, someone will have had a bad day, say something antagonistic, and will end up getting arrested when they:

• Shouldn't have been poked in the first place, and/or
• had to deal with something people of other races don't.

I wear a dress shirt and dress slacks to work everyday, and people target me, in one way or another, based on my race. "Do you want to buy my CD?"

Discrimination based on race is racism. I don't have to fear for my life in most instances, but if you know the statistics, even blacks who live similar lives and lifestyles to whites live shorter lives than whites. (If you don't believe me, then I can take you to some academic articles, but I won't do that if you won't read them.)

And when you look at those in African countries with similar levels of wealth, that disparity is no longer present.

It doesn't make everyone a racist, per se, but that doesn't mean it's not racism.

• For every egregious instance, there are several more times subtle instances where you might get taken to jail but released. It only costs you a few hours' time, but why did it cost you that time in the first place?
• For all of the subtle instances, there are several more instances where someone was able to avoid a situation, by doing something they shouldn't have had to do.

For example, I'm walking back from class through the parking lot of the school I'm at. This is something that all students do.

A police officer sees me, and asks me what I'm doing.
I say I'm walking home.
He says to go around the parking lot.
 
I could just show him my school ID, but he might just decide I'm being belligerent or trying to smart off to him, which is grounds for him to arrest me. As if he's going to get fired for that.

Or he could decide that despite being a student, that I still had no business being there after a certain time, take me in, give me a hard time, make me stay at the station until 10 or 11pm, be let go, and have to deal with all of that.

So I just walk all the way around the parking lot as he watched. Meanwhile, others are sparsely walking through with lighter shade and less shade from the po-po's.
 
I avoided anything that might have happened by doing something I didn't have to do. The guy who was shot in Charleston wouldn't have been me, because I wouldn't have run. But a lot of college kids run away from cops and get away without getting shot. Are you saying all of those black cats that we don't have video on and are shot by the police dangerous?
 
You have to be more cognizant of what racism is. It's not the overt racism that is prevalent. It's stuff that should have to be dealt with because you're brown.

Sure, it happens to other people for other reasons, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Maybe if you get taken to jail a few times and released with no record, you'll see why people like me with graduate-level education say that's an uninformed opinion.

Or maybe if you take some sociology classes, you'll see how racism is still a thing.

lol i would have walked right through fuck the police.

I think there is a bigger issue with discrimination against the poor and ghetto people, than black.
More black people are poor than white, so you'll notice more stuff happening against black people, but if you really look at it, at people of all skin color, you'll notice a much more consistent trend of people getting longer jail time and harassment by their class, not so much skin color.

really, how often do you hear of a rich person going to jail, even if they do something wrong?
Someone from the ghetto will go to jail for a decade for even the smallest things.

Also, lol @ stories "This cop said something to me, must be cause i'm black"
Right, no white person has EVER had ANY encounters with the police EVER.

@josie
I was unaware that i said racism doesn't exist.

True.

….back to racism

Police harassment counts as brutality according to some people

Racism is a thing mostly aimed at minorities. Yes, I know the definition states that it's simply in regards to someone's race, but that's just a textbook definition and can't compare to the real deal.

OP made his opinion clear on racism and believes it's something blacks suffer the most from. I'm not necessarily gonna disagree with him on that sure. But like I said, how racism is acted out in real life is mostly related to the minorities. OP lives in the US and is black, so being a minority there is certain to make him a victim of racism.

Alex lives in an area where he's heavily outnumbered by blacks. He's the minority, even though he lives in a country where he's the majority. But because he's a minority in his place, he gets profiled. This is racism as well. I don't get people who make an exception for "white racism" and how it doesn't exist.

In my country, Middle-Eastern countries have it more difficult. We have a lot of immigrants from those areas because we're closer by. Other races suffer from it as well, but Middle-Eastern is hit the most. Let's just say that it goes as far that even one of our political parties pretty much centers their campaign around wanting Middle-Eastern immigrants gone and are even getting a good amount of votes over it.

Now to go to a different location: Japan. In recent years the supposed homogeneity of Japan and the dangerous idea of racial purity that goes along with it had some pieces written about it. Just Google a bit, you'll find enough. Like everywhere, the intensity of the racism varies from cutely naive to belligerent xenophobe. A lot of it is aimed at other Asian countries. But to go back to "white racism," whites are no exception of this in Japan. At the mildest form every white man is by default an American who knows jack shit about Japan. But currently, being any race that isn't Japanese, you can still be forbidden entrance and you will still find these signs at certain places in Japan:

So to go back to where I started: Racism exists everywhere and it varies everywhere. When you look at how racism is acted out in real life, no textbook definition is going to help you. If you're a minority, odds are you will suffer from racism. Truly having racism gone is when people no longer associate any stereotypes or characteristics with certain skin colors.

Theres some sort of bias towards interracial couples, like commercials for families always seem to show white families, or black families no mixture, no white wife or black spouse.
Why the bias towards mixed race people?

So much of the evidence for racism is anecdotal, and all the people bringing it up never have any solutions for it. Alas.

and your solution is…

I hope your joking, if not

wow, idk, maybe because there are less interracial marriages than others?

I didn't say I was convinced there was a specific problem that you could formulate a tangible solution for.

While I'm sure part of the reason is in fact racism (as shown by the controversy over that Cheerio's commercial a while back), I'd say a major part of why there aren't usually mixed couples in commercials is because, like poochyna said, the majority of relationships take place between two people of similar skin color (Wikipedia places this amount at around 15.1% of all marriages being interracial marriages in the US). I mean, let's face it: a company's goal is to try to sell their product to as many people as possible. This means they'll try to market to their largest audience, and since non-interracial couples are a majority, companies will take the obvious route and try to sell their products to them. And, honestly, a lot of companies probably just haven't thought about it.

I don't think this is necessarily a big issue. Just because companies don't put interracial couples in their commercials, it doesn't mean they're making a conscious effort to be racist. Honestly, I think if people quit putting race issues up on such a high pedestal, racism itself would dissipate more quickly. I'm not saying don't talk about it, as ignoring the problem won't make it go away; just don't go to the point where you're trying to pry out racism in places where it doesn't exist.

I've never been to Japan, so I can only speak from second-hand anecdotes, but from what I've heard racism in that country is primarily directed at other asians, particularly koreans and chinese, with whom the japanese have a long-standing historical enmity.

The sign in the picture might very well refer to the fact that the staff at this particular establishment doesn't speak english, which is why they accept froreigners with japanese friends (who may translate for them).

Like Triple said, most of the problems are very subtle or so deeply integrated into society that people don't notice. Usually people think of racism as something really strong and forward like "fuck them niggers" or the KKK or something and that those people are a minority that are mostly shamed so it's nothing to worry about anymore. While this is kind of true, it's ignorant to the real problem at hand which is the deep-seeded and sometimes subconscious racism that causes issues for minorities today.

For example, there's internalized racism which I've covered before in more detail so I'll just kind of sum it up here. There's many situations of that anyone could be guilty of like being more hesitant to speak to or make friends with minorities, hesitant to make physical contact with them, referring to white people as just "people" or "that guy" or "that girl" while specifically noting someone's race as their primary characteristic when describing a minority. Some of these are harmless and some of them aren't, but it's all a form of racism that many people are guilty of without knowing it. The consequences of this can range from minorities not being very represented in various forms of media, which they often aren't especially video games. Good god video games are almost utterly devoid of minorities. The more dire consequences are what really hurt people which is having a higher chance of being incarcerated or a lower chance of landing a job. As for personal experiences, I know my parents are both very biased towards Mexicans and Hispanic people in general and don't know it themselves. More than once I've caught them making very off color comments generalizing Mexicans, which is even weirder for my mom because she's Latin, and she has a bit of internalized sexism too which makes it even weirder but that's a whole other story.

Another problem with society might not be directly rooted in modern racism but more the remnants of past racism, but modern racism still does play a part in this and is holding people back. For example, why do crime and poverty rates seem to still have minorities as the majority? Racism is the most obvious answer. At least from a US history perspective, black people have had people trying to limit them in every way even after an end was put to slavery. Would hundreds of years of segregation and slavery and sharecropping really go away because of MLK? Of course not. It's still there. Minorities still vastly live in poverty and uneducated because of the limits put on their forefathers, and once you're born into poverty, it sure is hard as hell to get out. This is where the true problem lies I feel. Like Triple said, ignoring the problem will only let it grow or fester or at the very least allow it to remain as is which is unacceptable. Sure going as far as Starbucks or something is pretty ridiculous, but don't act like racism isn't a problem.

EDIT: I just read Josie's post and it's a perfect life experience describing the hypothetical stuff I've been talking about here.

Except company advertising posters of staff meeting rooms which always have the "mandatory black guy" to show the company supports racial diversity.

You're asking a difficult question of racism as often defined in this thread. You're asking for bench science answers where the study demands that you look at the field for a proper answer (i.e., if you look too specifically at a potential problem in the social sciences, you miss the larger explanation for recurring problems.) In terms of causality, social science cannot hit on all of the Bradford-Hill Criteria for Causation, but offering alternative explanations outside of some form of systematic oppression and pervasive mindsets are likely to be more akin to conspiracy and denial than scientific support in itself.

Or in short, there's no other systematic explanation, and the anecdotes are often too similar and too frequent to dismiss as being stray instances.
 
Further, there are entire fields devoted to studying the phenomena in different ways. You can look at sociology and cultural anthropology to see the more theoretical approach, and psychology goes so far as to identify a solution (i.e., have people who have prejudiced views interact on an open, regular basis with people of the background they are prejudiced towards). Social work goes so far as to identify residential practices as racist by looking not only at law but by looking at how it changes over time in response to social events. I don't think most stray people outside of the fields studying racism can effectively debunk the research on it, even though they don't really know how to find it anyway (i.e., ignorance on the subject matter).
 
 
Fortunately for you, I have enough social science training to find and analyze such studies.
 

I can go and find you this evidence if you'd like. Just say the word, and I'm completely capable of breaking the character limit on a couple of posts with some highly cited academic articles. I'm hoping the explanation on why it's difficult to give you a straight answer is sufficient though.

It always annoys me when people say "Africans did not have any advanced civilizations."

Yes they did.

>even though they don’t really know how to find it anyway

Correct, I don't know where academia happens to stash all their studies on race and racism, although I suspect it's somewhere behind a paywall.

However, I can look at some of the topics that have been posted in this thread, and they haven't been particularly helpful. Take the bit about the cops pulling over more blacks (assuming, then, that this takes into account where these cops happen to work, which, given the lack of citations, it might not). This being a racist mindset still doesn't fully explain why cops do it, something that would probably be very crucial in getting them to stop. Are they doing it because they just hate black people? Are they doing it because they think they're more likely to find some sort of incriminating evidence if they pull the person over (and what if they're right?). Merely knowing that some sort of bias exists and occasionally bringing it up in conversations ultimately isn't going to fix it.

Don't forget about Songhai, Mali, Benin, Ghana, Great Zimbabwe, Axum…

Those that are reading, if you haven't heard of any of these… Well I'm not surprised. Not your fault. It's a real shame, pity, what it is, that we don't learn about these things. We center so much around Europe and it's history, other nations and areas are forgotten. Hell even with Asia it's just a side glance. I guarantee you your average student knows more about Greece and Rome than say, the Tuareg peoples or the Heian Period.

I could go on and on, but I'm too tired for a lecture. If anyone is interested, I'll write up some more concerning the education system and management/view of minorities and history.

Advanced civilization?

this is so irrelevant

Clearly you have missed the point.

Here, I'll condense it. We learn more about white/European cultures and histories than Asian or African. In case you still don't get it, this means students and kids grow up oblivious to other people and their traditions.

Maybe this deserves a thread of its own?

It's very relevant. Many "smart racists" say that Africans didn't have any advanced civilizations and use that as a reason to be racist.

What's more, many will classify Egypt as European instead of African.

Even if we were all the same skin color, there will still be idiots out there who will think they're better than others for the dumbest reasons.

To continue the point some have made in this thread, racism will always be around. People want to feel superior and it's one of the easiest ways, even centuries in the future when race-mixing has made one race, people will still find something to discriminate over like with the whole Kendrick Lamar issue where "she's too light skinned" even though she's 75% black.

As for the locking doors when a black person comes by, I would be just as likely to do this with a shady looking white person as I would be with a shady looking black person, I distrust all races.

It's not the races you distrust. It's people in general. Sure people could call it racism but in reality it's a sense of caution or paranoia. But people are quick to jump the gun and bring out the racist card when a colored person is involved. And I know it's not the best example, but take the episode "Cartman's Silly Hate Crime" from South Park.

If a black man gets punched (not shot) not because he was black but because he angered or insulted a white man, should it be warranted as a hate crime? If a Christian who owned a restaurant was to refuse service to a Buddhist not because he worships differently, but because his restaurant is full, is that an act of racism? (I know these aren't the best examples, bear with me). So why should someone, of any color, belief, etc., be labeled as a racist automatically when they do something to a person of a different color, belief, or such for a reason completely irrelevant to their color or belief? Hate crimes should only be labelled as such when the cause of violence or harassment was based specifically on race. Although it's difficult to separate hate crimes from ordinary crimes due to circumstances such as the victim and the instigator, as well as how hostile they are to each other and how the situation they were in escalated, compared to what they tell police.

Another point I wanted to bring up are racial slurs. I hear everyday Hispanics around me calling each other "paisa" or "mayate" (which were originally derogatory terms for Latins). I hear black people call each other "nigga," claiming it's not offensive if it doesn't end in "-er". So what does draw the line between a slur and just a greeting? Do these words even deserve recognition, ironically or not, by others of the same race? What if someone of a different race called me the same thing with the same humor or intention, rather than to be hostile? Should it be labeled racist then?

This is an outsiders perspective, but it seems that what America is experiencing today isn't "pure" racism. That is to say, the belief, that certain people are inheirently worse than others because of their skin color, has been eradicated. For instance, few seem to believe that blacks are inheirintly criminal because of their uncivilized nature – which would have been the view of "classical" racists – and that they should be treated acordingly. Rather, they are mistrusted because poor people are statistically more likely to be black (or the other way around?) and because poor people are more likely to be criminal. The problem isn't dogmatic racial chauvinism, but… ethnic mistrust? I don't know.