Quote:
Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
-All people are inherently biased in regard to almost all stimuli they see.
-This includes appearance, voice, dress, almost anything.
-People are bombarded with stereotypes of others from birth (from media, from family, from friends, etc.).
-People also develop their own biases from past experiences with people (generalizing that all of a group behaves a certain way based on interaction with single member of group).
-There are a million heuristics that your brain uses to pre-judge people, things, and situations in the moment (it's an evolutionary survival mechanism).
-From an evolutionary perspective, you cannot help but be biased in some regard toward anything you encounter (unless it's something entirely unlike anything you've had any exposure to in the past).
-Using these facts, everyone is indeed racist, as you cannot possibly avoid taking race into account in some regard, positive, negative, or neutral, when you encounter a person.
-This necessarily means everyone is biased toward all other races and even his own.
-It also means we're classist, sexist, regionalist, nationalist, etc., because we all have kneejerk biases toward all people based on what we know about their background.
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You are correct. We are built to create shortcuts. These shortcuts result in prejudgments. Sometimes they are positive, sometimes they are negative.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
-If we adopt your position that all men are racists because it's impossible not to be racist (which is true within that definition) aren't we just lumping race into a large bucket of other stimuli in response to which people develop biases?
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No. Because the biases created when it relates to race (especially towards black and brown people) are based on complete fucking bullshit which has been historically cemented into our societal outlook and reinforced at every turn by white people who benefit (intentionally or unintentionally) from it. They must be actively fought. But first the actions you take (and the thoughts you think) based on your racial biases must be
acknowledged.
You cannot lump biases based on race in this country with the mental shortcuts you take when it comes to actual experiences you've had and say, "Hey, this is all the same shit!" If you know 2 dozen lawyers and they all tend to argue over anything and everything, it makes sense for your brain to create a shortcut when you encounter a lawyer to be on guard against being baited into an argument. The bias you have when it comes to darker skinned black men being more dangerous
is not based on your experience. And the people who argue that it is are fucking lying.
Hell, in the diversity groups I'm a part of, we're trying to fight the model minority stereotype. For example, Asians are often assumed to be naturally gifted at math and science and often have real problems getting the attention and help they need in schools.
This stuff is real and shooing it away like you do because it's not racism if (i) it's not intentionally evil or (ii) only happens every once in awhile with certain white people is pure denial. And it's absolutely detrimental and infuriating to the people who experience it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
I'm not arguing or playing a game here. Perhaps you see where I'm going, perhaps not. Racism as a historical phenomenon in the US is unique. It's historically been aimed at one group. How do you not dilute that unique definition by using the expansive definition that racism includes "any instance in which you have developed a bias against another based on his race." It seems like there need to be sub-definitions of racism, one of which would be "Anti-Black Racism," which would cover the unique societal elements of that particular variant we've had here.
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Your attempts to avoid this through semantics are ridiculous.
TM
