Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

May I just say, I know I have all kinds of race related prejudices and biases along the way that I struggle with and try to get rid of, but the longer this discussion goes on the less I like white people. Fuckin' white people.

2. When I hear whites with their often enormously entitled attitudes ripping on the "entitlement classes," I'm reminded of the indefatigable power of cognitive dissonance.

[taxwonk]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

2. When I hear whites with their often enormously entitled attitudes ripping on the "entitlement classes," I'm reminded of the indefatigable power of cognitive dissonance.

I'm just reminded we are a nation of assholes.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

you may not believe that, but I'm not sure I really give a shit. Whether you believe it or not is immaterial to me.

Not to be a timmy, but these two sentences are redundant. Do you edit your posts?

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

I'm not even sure where you got the idea that I'm claiming that a black person did something to me personally which caused me to have fear of all black people.

Probably here:

What about real life experience? When that fear is learned through personal experience rather than taught?

Seems like a reasonable inference.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally Posted by Adder

Probably here:



Seems like a reasonable inference.

I don't think TM needs a white knight.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

But that doesn't mean the stereotypes didn't come into play and I didn't pick them up from somewhere. They persist even where there is experience to the contrary.

I don't disagree with this. My point was that being "taught" these prejudices is not the only way we obtain them. Some are taught. Some are based on observation (with the understanding that at the time the observation is made the observer does not know that what was observed should not be assigned to an entire race - which makes sense since that little microcosm is at the time the observer's whole world).

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

May I just say, I know I have all kinds of race related prejudices and biases along the way that I struggle with and try to get rid of, but the longer this discussion goes on the less I like white people. Fuckin' white people.

First, 2.

Second, I don't think I've noticed this before, but the people who keep complaining on NextDoor about crime in my neighborhood are much more agitated about Hispanics than blacks.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by taxwonk

I could be wrong, and I probably should know better than to try and speak for Thurgreed, but I think his point, in part, is this. I witnessed a group of black kids picking on a group of white kids. Am I justified in saying that I learned from this that black people are more aggressive, to be feared more? I witness a group of white people beating a black man. Am I to learn from this that white people are violent and prone to criminal behavior?

It's something more than just witnessing violence that informs my beliefs. Otherwise, I should now understand that both black and white people are violent and prone to criminal behavior and therefore cannot be trusted. The two are on equal footing.

[eta: As GGG said,] The following is something important about the way the human brain works: Behavior by minorities will be attributed to the minority status, but the same behavior by majorities will not be attributed to the majority status. See Gordon Allport, The Nature Of Prejudice.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

I don't think TM needs a white knight.

I'm just saying that I wondered if that's what you meant too.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

I don't think TM needs a white knight.

Now you're knighting the fucking white people, too?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Now you're knighting the fucking white people, too?

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Now you're knighting the fucking white people, too?

I almost put "pun intended" a la Penske but thought it would ruin the joke.

[Not Bob]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

First, 2.

Second, I don't think I've noticed this before, but the people who keep complaining on NextDoor about crime in my neighborhood are much more agitated about Hispanics than blacks.

But we don't want the Irish!

I am, I am afraid to admit, a little bit racist. To answer TM's hypo, I wouldn't cross the street to avoid a black dude in workout gear. And groups of rowdy young men of any stripe make me nervous. Add alcohol to the mix, such as coming or going to a sporting event, and I am very careful about things.

But I have to honestly admit that I'm a bit more nervous about groups of rowdy young black men than I am about groups of rowdy young white men. I ain't proud of that part of me, and it wasn't something explicitly taught to me (i.e. my folks didn't ever say "hey, Not Bobby - them black people are dangerous!" or even allude to the "bad" part of town, etc.), but I clearly picked it up. Maybe from the culture as a whole, maybe the towns and schools when I was a kid, maybe from the unspoken attitudes of my traditional working class Irish Catholic union membership machine politics family - who knows?

Anyhoo, I try to at least act like I've never used the n-word, or the s-word, or the k-word. And I try to pretend that I'm not a little bit racist. But by reminding myself that I am that way, and that while I may not be able to control the initial reaction, I can control what I do or say after that initial reaction --- that keeps me from hating myself too much.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

I'm not sure I can answer all of these questions, and you never answered my questions about whether you would cross the street or not.

Bullshit. I absolutely answered it. If I speak in general terms, you can assume it includes me. But let me make it clearer. If I saw a group of teenagers or adults who looked like they are out for trouble or dressed to convey that look, I may very well cross the street. But I make absolutely no distinction based on the color of their skin.

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

I'm not even sure where you got the idea that I'm claiming that a black person did something to me personally which caused me to have fear of all black people. That simply isn't true. What is true is that I witnessed groups of young black men (boys) terrorize other people (boys) at a significantly disproportionate rate than other groups of boys (whether that's a result of institutional racism or not is not really significant through the eyes of a 15-year old boy). I saw it...my brain processed it...and likely stored that information for future use. I was never terrorized myself, mainly because I was friends with some of the black guys (and frankly was protected via that friendship).

Maybe we are getting off track because I used the term "you." I only inserted you because that's the example (out of tons of examples) that you chose.

Look, I don't appreciate the fact that you have seized on this one example as somehow being dispositive of your point. Are you being unreasonable for crossing the street because you think a group of young black men look dangerous based on your personal experience? No. I tried to get you to apply a reasonable thought process to the issue by tweaking the hypothetical (hell, I even used me in a hypothetical), but you refuse to bite, so maybe you don't want to have a discussion about actions that aren't so clear cut reasonable. [eta: I missed your most recent response when I wrote this.]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

Every black person should obviously not be held responsible for what was witnessed as a 15 year old. I know that. We all know that. But that doesn't change the effect of what was witnessed on the subconscious brain. Subconsciously, the brain recalls what was observed and immediately characterizes a similar scene as potentially dangerous. I'm not saying it's right but it's what our brains do.

Correct. And I think there are a lot of other sources that add to the fear that your subconscious brain recalls. Your first reaction was to say, "Why do you blame people for having that?" Not an uncommon reaction. Whenever I want to talk about the existence of that feeling in white people, they bend over backwards to try to explain it away (find any reason why it might not be a racist reaction, accuse me of being oversensitive, get defensive about being blamed or labeled). It feels like I have to be protective of some white dude's feelings when I react to that person doing something offensive to me because they have been programmed (personal experience or not) to fear me. How is that a thing?

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

Now, I think you're right that we have to first recognize this subconscious bias, and then have to consciously work at reversing it. I am trying, and I think I've actually been fairly successful - you may not believe that, but I'm not sure I really give a shit. Whether you believe it or not is immaterial to me.

Ha. I believe you are and probably have been working on it, without ever having the delight of meeting me. Hell, I wouldn't waste my time discussing this at all if I thought you (or anyone else on this board) didn't care about trying to improve on that front. I think that I have spent a hell of a lot of time thinking about this stuff and am more sensitive to it in other people and in myself than most people, but I work on it every day too. There isn't a person in the world who shouldn't be.

Also, I don't quite understand your little speech about whether you give a shit if I believe you or not. If you're trying to make the point that it's something you value independent of what I say, yeah. I figured. Not sure what it adds to the conversation otherwise.

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

My point was that you seemed to be asserting that the only cause of the bias is "taught" by (subconsciously and consciously racist) white people. And I'm merely arguing that some of it is also learned (rightly or wrongly) by personally observing the actions of groups of young black men.

I understand your point. I'm not sure you're grasping all of mine. When I say white people are taught, I am including all of the things (and more) I listed in my previous post. Hell, black people spend all their lives fighting a lot of that programming as well and often wind up losing and hating themselves, their features, darker skin tones, etc.

But you put so much emphasis on your personal experience example that you seem to be unwilling to acknowledge other factors that may have also shaped "your" actions. If from birth, every cop show has a terrifying black thug as the worst of criminals and the news focuses on inner city drug crime but ignores meth-related crime outside of cities, and people internalize the fear created by that bullshit, maybe when people see a black kid in a hoodie walking in the middle of the day in their super nice neighborhood, they think he's about to commit a crime based on many things, including if they've seen a young black kid commit one in the past. In fact, what I would like you to see is how that fear--cultivated, maybe, by personal experience of a particular variety--extends to treatment of black people doing every day shit completely unrelated to your very specific example.

TM

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

Honestly not really sure what you mean by this.



I don't really know the answer to this except that I think it's more likely that I'd cross the street if the group were black. But I'm actually guessing at how I'd react instinctively, and that's an honest guess. In that situation, I'd probably be half-way across the street before I even thought about the racial undertones of the decision. And then I'd probably feel guilty about it. You can call me an asshole, I guess, but I'd say it's my subconscious brain "playing the odds". But maybe your point is that the odds in my brain are wrong because of all of your stated sources of fear.



I think in your first hypothetical I wouldn't cross the street for you. In fact that exact same situation happens to me relatively frequently in Chicago and I've never crossed the street.

Anyway, I agree with you that the sources you state of the fear-of-young-black-men are causative of that perception. I just don't think that all of that perception is necessarily taught.

Missed this post (not at work). I think everything you said in this post is reasonable and consistent with what I just posted.

TM