What is Racism?

[Boojatta]

Poll question: What is Racism?

Choose the option that most closely matches your viewpoint in the dialog below.

[dipsydoodle]

1. A state of mind

no more and no less.

[salin]

2. I don't understand that poll... at all.

[fizzgig]

6. neither do i

:hi: salin

[EFerrari]

7. Me, either.

[salin]

13. Hi There!

glad I have good mystified company! :hi:

[bryant69]

3. There is only 1 Racist

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[TheWraith]

4. If Salman Rushdie died, I'd be happy, but that's because I like him.

I'd be happy he beat the Iranians, and expired under his own power.

[Boojatta]

9. True or false: Lady Di (Princess of Wales) died?

Can you answer that question true or false? Do you feel compelled to include your opinion about the circumstances of her death? Do you need to launch an investigation into the circumstances of her death?

[TheWraith]

15. True. NT

[melody]

5. Here are my options

race: noun
1. a group of persons related by common descent or heredity.
2. a population so related.
3. Anthropology.
a. any of the traditional divisions of humankind, the commonest being the Caucasian, Mongoloid, and Negro, characterized by supposedly distinctive and universal physical characteristics: no longer in technical use.
b. an arbitrary classification of modern humans, sometimes, esp. formerly, based on any or a combination of various physical characteristics, as skin color, facial form, or eye shape, and now frequently based on such genetic markers as blood groups.
c. a human population partially isolated reproductively from other populations, whose members share a greater degree of physical and genetic similarity with one another than with other humans.
4. a group of tribes or peoples forming an ethnic stock: the Slavic race.
5. any people united by common history, language, cultural traits, etc.: the Dutch race.
6. the human race or family; humankind: Nuclear weapons pose a threat to the race.
7. Zoology. a variety; subspecies.
8. a natural kind of living creature: the race of fishes.
9. any group, class, or kind, esp. of persons: Journalists are an interesting race.

racism: noun
1. the prejudice that members of one race are intrinsically superior to members of other races

[Marrah_G]

8. What an odd poll

[dipsydoodle]

10. I have to assume

that anone who voted for the 4th option is having a laugh. Czechoslovakia didn't even exist prior to 1918 and neither did Poland as such. The former was part of the Austro Hungarian Empire and the latter part of the German Empire. Aside from that Austria was regarded as being equally fanatical with Germany during WW2.

[JVS]

11. Austria tried to keep the Germans out?

That's news to me!

[Boojatta]

14. How many Jews actually did something to try to prevent Nazis from killing Jews?

[MedleyMisty]

12. None of the above

from my research and thinking about it and stuff, racism seems to me to be a learned behavior of projecting your problems on to some Other and not seeing other people as individuals with their own feelings and thoughts and motivations and personalities but instead just seeing them as objects to take out your self-hatred and anger on.

Since I am a lower class Southern white straight female, I have the most experience with classism, regionalism, and sexism. Which are really basically the same thing as racism - all prejudices are pretty similar psychologically.

Anyway, generally when some guy posts a sexist rant it's because he couldn't get a date or got passed up for promotion over a female or whatever. And he can't take responsibility for his own weaknesses and failures and so he blames it all on the half of the species with ovaries. It's not that I'm an asshole that no one wants to hang out with, it's that all women are gold digging whores who just want money. Or it's not that I'm not the best at my job, it's that damn affirmative action politically correct bullshit.

Same idea with the others - it's not that I am in any way responsible for perpetuating institutionalized racism, it's all those damn Southerners. I'm also not responsible in any way for being born into money and taking advantage of that and not helping out other people - poor people just need to pick themselves up by their boot straps.

Of course there's layers and layers and all sorts of complicated things. That's just a general idea.

Another part is projecting your repressed urges on to other people - like how a lot of white people who have been taught all their lives that sex is wrong and dirty and nasty have this idea that African American people are all sexual deviants. Although it seems to me that people thought that way more back in the day and now it's more homosexuals who get the projection of people's repressed sex drives, but being white I'm just talking and don't really know.

The basic idea of prejudice seems to be seeing other people as projections of your self for you to hate and oppress and sometimes beat and torture and kill at will as opposed to seeing them as real individuals with their own lives and worth. I think that's one reason why the "war on terror" propaganda works so well - it lets you project your fear and anxieties into a group of people that are far away and who you'll never see, so you can sit in your living room and cheer their deaths without any possibility of the cognitive dissonance sometimes caused by seeing your victim up close and personal.

[undercutter2006]

16. it's simple

when a group of people who have common characteristics discriminate against a disadvantaged group

like when the majority of politicians or CEOs are white

or when black kids bully a white kid in an african american school, or black people abusing white people in prison

the group that is in majority and in power in any one envirnment will automatically abuse other groups, that's just life