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Now let me start off by saying that I'm not a race-baitor, and people that blame things on race in situations when it has nothing to do it piss me off deeply. Now that being said, I want to focus on the topic of racism in America. After logging into Yahoo for the first time in God knows how long to check my email, the front page article caught my eye. "Confederate flag dispute triggers clash in S.C."

To keep it brief, a Florida-based group called the Black Educators for Justice demonstrated at the South Carolina capitol at noon.Three hours later a column of about 50 white supremacists, carrying Confederate flags and a Nazi flag, marched toward the south steps of the capitol. As you'd guess a scuffle broke out and was later broken up by police. Before the rally, a North Carolina-based chapter of the Ku Klux Klan announced that it would demonstrate outside the capitol. But the group that occupied the south side steps, shouting “white power,” carried the banner of a Detroit-based group called the National Socialist Movement Party, which just so happens to be the largest and most prominent neo-Nazi group in the United States. The crowd reached about 2,000 people at its peak.

Now despite this being a blatant act of racism rather than "southern pride", Susan Hathaway one of the Pro-South protesters exclaims "We’re sick and tired of the PC attacks to eradicate our heritage". Scrolling down to the comments, I expected to see maybe a few people try to defend these neo-nazis and klan members, but Yahoo being Yahoo, it was to my surprise that I found thouands of comments not only defending them, but blaming the Black Educators for Justice for the confrontation. Racial slurs and all. It was then, I was reminded of how people have bent the truth to excuse racist acts before, and continue to on the internet, and in real life. For example, a few years back I was at my friends house, his "I'm not racist but…" dad was throwing the n-word like it was a common pronoun. You could imagine the look on his face when he noticed me by the table. But it wasn't just him, times before his daughter and nephew had said nigger casually before when they didn't know I was over, and one time his nephew said it directly at me like I wouldn't give a damn. And these were just people that knew me.

Now after all of this, you can tell me this is an isolated incident, but with all that's happened recently, I have to ask, just how alive IS racism in America? How many of these racists, are people I know? How many of them are on KYM? Store owners? Co-Workers? How many would be willing to not only defend, but support this type of discrimination? They'd never admit to it because that would social suicide in today's society, that's why I never trust people who claim not to be racist. I let their actions speak for themselves.

I think its about as alive as a lich.

People can hold the sentiment maybe, but it's not like it's allowed to survive as anything other then vulgar language. Which even then is heavily frowned upon and phased out with the hammer of justice. Like, of those thousands of white supremacists who showed up, I'm betting many were 1) Unemployed, 2) On welfare benefits because they don't have a job, 3) have jobs in lower level and entry level positions.

Because in this day and age, actually coming out and even just saying racist stuff gets you doxxed online, and fired the next day. Because if you're caught actually being racist, you lose hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars even if there's just the slight chance that maybe you were being discriminatory. Saying a slur gets you fired from almost every job, and you can found countless examples of that with a simple google search. Not to mention theres enough of the message in every form of media and incorporated into K-12 education, that there's an overwhelming pressure against discriminatory behavior.

We even have an entire group of people who take the fight against racism to extremes and become problem causers themselves.

To me, when that sort of thing occurs, then racism might as well be dead as a door nail. It's about as alive as the Flat Earth theory and Anti Evoltionaries.

That's the problem though. Today, you can't tell if someone's racist just by being around them (unless you're white yourself) because they'd never show it. That's why there's so much racism on the internet. It's their only outlet outside of home. What's worse is that these same people would rather blame the media and other races for keeping racism alive instead of themselves and it makes me sick.

From my observations, I've come to think of racism as being a hallmark of stupidity. Fundamentally, this is because to fear, mistrust, and therefore often hate of people who are strongly not like us in terms of our most basic tool for making observations about our world- the senses, specifically sight- is an instinct deeply buried within the human mind. Without a higher level of intelligence to keep it from taking control, it will invariably rear its ugly head.

From this, I figure that racism will never vanish from anywhere, let alone the United States.

However, this explanation is of course not sufficient to explain all racists. Certainly not throughout history, as there were times when essentially everyone could pretty objectively be defined as one. For these other instances, we have racism not as a primal instinct, but rather an ideology. (And during those historical periods, even "common knowledge".) Now I believe it's fair to say that most individuals do not truly invent their own ideologies- rather, they are usually learned. Sometimes a person can discover one and be convinced later in their life, but more often then not they are fed to us as children, and will typically stick to some degree. (Though this is certainly changing today, and has been for centuries.)

So in conclusion, here's my secondary question that should help in illuminating the answer: How many kids are taught objectively racist beliefs in the US today, and how many have been through the last ~30 years? In addition, how likely is is that they will hold/have held onto them through adulthood? In my opinion, just based on the current landscape, the former group is a significantly small minority, but perhaps not very small.

What's wrong with that situation exactly? They have no ability nor power to harm anyone with their racism beyond words. To me, racism is dangerous when it is allowed to influence policies and decisions of power.

When something is given the power over life and death, its a serious "living" problem. So forming up lynch mobs, or creating a supremacist society, or having a rigged justice system that favors one race over the other, is when racism is actually a problem.

People being mean in their heads isn't dangerous to anyone except those people and their own heart pressure. And trying to weed it out when its having 0 impact only causes the witch hunts you see happening on social media with those folks I mentioned trying to take the fight against racism too far, by going after normal people who aren't racist.

Truth is, racism died with discrimination being illegal. Its death throttles were in the 90's when the last of the racist rhetoric was allowed on television and allowed to be spoken from people in positions of authority. Now we're trying to stamp its corpse into mush and get rid of that lingering stench it left when it evacuated its bowels.

I say let those people spew their stuff on the internet. And let them be with the same folks who spout "Kill All Men" and "Cis Scum" and other stupid things. They can go, and spend all their time wasting away behind a computer, instead of going out and hurting people/influencing others lives.

If they can't affect anyone any longer, actually affect them beyond saying hateful things on the internet. When that is the measure of what it means to be racist, instead of going out and killing/supporting killers in the streets. I think racism is pretty much done for.

I completely agree with you actually. My problem wasn't with racist people venting on the internet since no one cares about them. My problem was with with how racist people are in positions of power and CAN influence/hurt other people's lives, and the general public would have no clue of the person's intentions.

That was the New Black Panthers (The Black Educators for Justice are a NBPP offshoot) and the KKK and they've been planning that clash literally since the minute they found the pics of Roof with the Confederate flag. I was totally going to make a thread about it, but I figured nobody really cared. An apparently PC anarchist group also showed up.

That's a pretty hilarious banner given the circumstances, you gotta admit.

& why do you mention the Nazis:

but not these people literally marching down the street chanting "black power" with their fists in the air?

So, having established that extremists come in all flavors, you're asking just how significant this kind of extremism is in everyday America?

Not particularly at all. They exist. They gather in front of government buildings and yell at each other. Most of them don't believe in voting. Most of them are poor and lack the power to make real change one way or the other.

2,000 people showed up between all the sides coming together? Way more people than that showed up for the memorial services for the people Roof killed. Even people who might admittedly be a "little bit racist" are not attending white/black supremacy rallies. This kind of extreme is not typical.

What is typical is the inherent racism of affirmative action put forth by our government.

For example, Obama this month announced a new info mining database that's going to make housing more "fair and equal". It's called the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Database and it's going to racially balance the nation one zip code at a time. Any zip codes with more than 50% minority population is considered segregated and the federal government will provide new construction subsidized housing in surrounding zip codes where the population is more than 50% white to encourage minorities to move there to make up for the "racial imbalance" (but if white people all move to a minority zip code that is called gentrification and is frowned upon, don't forget).

Race is not being viewed as just another part of who you are, just your skin color, we're all the same on the inside, etc etc etc. Race is viewed as a privilege or detriment that must be accounted for at all costs, that's what affirmative action is. Now I can lose out on a job I'm more qualified for because a minimum-qualification minority applicant comes with tax breaks and subsidies for businesses that hire them (and universities that enroll them), and I'm supposed to be okay with that because slavery existed. This country isn't trying to solve its race issues, it's just changing up who benefits the most from their race.

Truth is, racism died with discrimination being illegal.

I dunno. I wouldn't say it died. More like it was forced underground. To bubble and simmer beneath society, hidden from sight, but able to seep from the cracks in the ground. And in some cases able to erupt from fissures in our political climate.

Recent events (and Youtube comments) have shown how racism lurks in the background ready to pop out for the right moment

Yes. But I wouldn't call that either alive nor thriving. It's sorta like boxer Jake LaMotta. He's still alive, in 2015. But compare him to how he was in the late 1940's/early 1950's, and that's how I see racism today.

It went from being one of the strongest forces in society. Where you literally had parties and parades over killing minorities. To being reduced to barely coherent ramblings left around for people to mock, cringe at, and troll with and against.

I'd say it's death with the outlawing of discrimination was like a person choking. The very first gasp of breath that doesn't go down. From there, it was only a matter of time before the inevitable keeling over and releasing of the bowels. Which we see in all these job firings and massive online campaigns against all things seen as racism, real or imaginary.

If you broaden the term 'racism' to include discrimination against people of other cultures, not simply skin colour, you open a whole can of worms. In this case, racism flourishes as much as it ever has.

Even with the first definition however, we're only one economic crisis away from descending into barbarism. As Golden Dawn has demonstrated in Greece, hatred festers in times of turmoil. Those who have studied Weimar Germany will have two incidences to cite, though I'd take using the 1920's as an example with a grain of salt.

You can just look to America for that. The number of hate groups in the UScorrelates very well with the state of the economy (although some researchers contest that). When the 2007 recession hit and Obama was elected, the number of hate groups skyrocketted. Many of those groups evaporated as the economy improved, or it could have been that they lost steam after Obama had been in office for a while.

I'd say greece is a better example and the rise of the new dawn political party.

I think that racism is alive pretty much anywhere since people tend to make stereotypes based off of past behaviours.

Now I don't think stereotyping in general is automatically bad (for example, assuming that certain areas of Detroit are full of dangerous people is a completely justified stereotype and could save your life) but people DO stereotype and people DO build off of those stereotypes. And many of those stereotypes are actively harmful and are actively affecting people's lives.

It's really a two way street though. I'm going to assume OP is talking about black-white relations, and I can't help but find it extremely frustrating when black people automatically assume that, because I'm white, that I have disrespect for them. I treat everyone that looks safe with respect, black or not, and the only time I put my guard up is with people who could hurt me. This is something I have to take into consideration – I am a young and fairly small woman who really couldn't overpower a tall, large man if they wanted to hurt me (again, a reasonable stereotype).

I get frustrated with the fact that my attempts to reconcile these events fail because of assumptions on race. I've had people interpret genuinely respectful actions, such as giving space for people, as an excuse to pull the "white versus black" card. And I fucking call out people for that – you're perpetuating problems with that kind of attitude, I don't care what your problem is, you are contributing to this hatred.

I mean, I live in a weird place that's between racist white territory and a heavy black population. Smack dab in the middle. And I visit people from both regions, and it just bothers me how these two sides hate each other and constantly say the other is harming their quality of life when in reality a lot of the cases are either misinterpreted or outright fabricated.

It really gets in the way for people to work together.

^I mean yeah, if you live in a shit neighborhood like that, then you live in a shit neighborhood. That's not racism, that's just a fact.

Everyone has their own personal biases, and racism is no exception. A large reason why people are racist are due to constant personal conflict with certain kinds of people. It's impossible to stop everyone from being biased because much of it is based on personal experience. Then they "teach" other people of their experience, and so on and so forth.

I work at Wal-mart, and I can say for a fact that generally black customers tend to be the worst. I've had one get mad at me because I asked them how many items they were buying, and another who yelled at me because I was waiting for a stall in the bathroom. I bet he thought I was watching to make sure he didn't steal something, even though I was wearing headphones and was on my break.

But the thing is, that's just my experience. I've also had black customers that were the nicest people, so that's why I don't look suspiciously at every black person I see. I also have a friend named Andre who is literally the most polite person I have ever seen, so there's that as well.

Is it racist that I assume the worst when it comes to particularly black people while working? Yeah probably. But like I said, that's just due to personal experience. It could just be that a lot of shitty people shop at Wal-mart and they sometimes happen to be black, but that in itself is a bias against people who shop at Wal-mart in the first place. Any -ism is a personal bias, race is just one of them.

^ Oh believe me, I know. The Wal-Mart near my house is ratchet central. Wal-Marts tend to bring out the undesirables in most cities. That's one of the reasons I'd never applied there.

But I've got to say from MY personal experience, 99% of people who claim that "everyone's a little racist" are racist assholes who just say that to feel better about themselves. Of course you're not going to view yourself as a racist if you only compare yourself to extremes. Just look at what Hulk Hogan said.

"I mean, I'd rather if she (his daughter) was going to fuck some nigger, I'd rather have her marry an 8-foot-tall nigger worth a hundred million dollars!" he reportedly said. "Like a basketball player! I guess we're all a little racist. Fucking nigger."

See what I mean?

I agree, but my point was more that both sides throw shit at the other while people who don't really want to get involved are dealing with the consequences along with them.

99% of people who claim that “everyone’s a little racist” are racist assholes who just say that to feel better about themselves. Of course you’re not going to view yourself as a racist if you only compare yourself to extremes.

I disagree. I think cultural evolution has hardwired mankind to note the tiny genetic differences between African, Mongoloid, Caucasian etc and react to them. It's all a leftover artifact from our ancient tribal human instincts. I think because of that as well as the ongoing cultural tensions in the modern world, we find ourselves acting more subconsciously racist that we want to admit. We won't ever get rid of real racist thinking thanks to that

I wont deny that there are some genuine racists trying to excuse their bad behavior with “everyone’s a little racist”, but we all do get nagging racist thoughts from time to time and sometimes they do impact our decisions even if we wholeheartedly believe in equality

This of course does not excuse racism. We as a modern society are capable of dismissing our ancient instincts and that we should.

It's okay to be able to note that mankind has different breeds. What matters is our actions. You can say to yourself that some people are different as long as you recognize that they are humans beings just like yourself and deserve to be treated equally like any other human being.

The good news however is that racism as I see it is entirely rooted in culture, and only culture. It doesn't exist in our genes. And culture can be changed. We still need to adjust our culture to stop acting like race is a thing that matters

Race: a category of humankind that shares certain distinctive physical traits.
This is fairly vague, and if several people wore the same thing, by this definition, they would be their own race (dear god imagine the wife-beater gold chain race). Generally though a trait is genetic, and that of course leads to the more traditional sense of the word race (i.e. genetic differences between people).

Race: a class or kind of people unified by shared interests, habits, or characteristics.
This is even vaguer and suddenly makes sense in reference to stuff like "PC Master Race".
This is important, because race has multiple definitions, even more than the couple I just listed and can thus be interpreted to mean different things. If you're talking about race in terms of classes, racism would be a heavily incorporated concept in society that has little chance of being removed any time soon. But I am going to go with the traditional sense of the word race, which would be the genetic differences between people in regards to this debate.

Racism: the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.
Overall I have met people of various races that do indeed possess traits common to MOST, certainly not all, but most of their race. Black people I've noticed to have more pronounced facial features and the Irish commonly have easy-to-sunburn skin, you're definitely going to have certain physical traits stemming from the genetics of various races that have their ups and downs. Racism in that subtle sense, is never going to die, my irish skin is indeed inferior to another skin that does not burn. You can argue inferiority can be related to aestetic pleasure of how it looks which of course would be completely subjective, rather than the pragmatic pleasure of whether or not is helps you survive something like the sun, but looking from a pragmatic point of view, irish skin is not as good against the sun as many other races such as Africans. By this logic racism is not nor could it ever be close to dead.

Now I am sure on a very very subtle level, race can influence everything ranging from how good human being is at certain physical tasks to even psychological (although I believe the psychological influence is minimal at most, unlike other racists whom at one point believed certain races were inherently dumb at certain things). But overall, race affects the individual with it on a minimal, near-impossible to measure level.

At least, that would be the case if it were not for the sociological factors of people treating a race like a role, and believing certain roles are better or worse than others to have, and then treating people accordingly with that role rather than based on how the person acts. It's an ironic, inescapable fault, that race plays such an incredibly subtle role in our physical and even more so subtle role in our psychological abilities, yet is the most noticeable feature on any human being.

How alive is racism in the U.S. is a broad question that could apply to the whole world. Race affects how people view you, how they view you affects how you view you, how you view you affects how you act, multiplied by infinity. Race is nothing more than a symbol but a hard to escape symbol, with meanings other people have ignorantly tied to it that simply do not empirically exist outside of human perception. Is there a negative stigma in the United States targeted toward a race or multiple races? Yes, just like all other countries. More so than normal? That depends on which country you compare it to at this given point in time. I would doubt if there are many if any countries devoid of specific negative stigmas toward other races, but we are certainly far from numerous other countries preaching ultra-racist/genocidal desires. For something more specific you'd need to look through tons of information and statistics on racism in various parts of the United States on varying issues and be able to simplify all that down into a cohesive, simply opinion. That naturally is tough, unless we want to start archiving information into this chat and then discussing it. Those are all my thoughts though.

What about institutional racism? Someone mentioned 'shit neighbourhoods' and another spoke about black customers of Walmart being the worst. If making that connection isn't racism, what about the existence of that connection in the first place?!

Higher rates of poverty, crime, incarceration etc point strongly towards an environment that is biased against people based on skin colour. An individual can deflect claims of racism, but it still exists on a wider scale.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/04/08/oreilly-cherry-picks-debunked-statistics-to-dow/203223

@Cindy, I'm not saying racism didn't play a part in that, but I read that the main reason for higher rates of Blacks in poverty is simply the Poverty trap. People born into poverty have a hard time escaping poverty. We still have many people alive today who marched in the equal rights movement, the atmosphere of back then that put many African-Americans in poverty still affects them, their children, and even grand-children today. Of course, along with poverty comes crime, which is followed by incarceration. It's a trap that the children of those who drank from water fountains labeled "colored" have yet to escape.