posted
You could be asking the same types of questions of those who expressed the opinions about the south, too.
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posted
Sure, consider my questions extended accordingly to the rest of the group.
Its just that my interest was aroused by Tatiana's assertion, and I figured it might be worth exploring, wherever it goes.
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posted
I think the reason people think we're more racist in the South is that there are MORE black people here, and more mixing. As Javert pointed out, in many areas of the North and West, the people stick to their own neighborhoods. We lived in Indiana for awhile and (after growing up in NC), I was struck by how few black people I saw. The black people they did have acted like white folks because they had assimilated the culture. My husband is from Arizona, and he often claims I'm being racist when I point out that the black culture as a whole doesn't value education, or that they raise their children to value "toughness" over empathy or that they value sneakiness over hard work. I'm for sure not saying every black person is like that, and as I pointed out, I would say most of the people in my neighborhood are not like that, but growing up here, watching how they treat their children, a picture develops about their culture (not the individuals), that people growing up in mostly-white regions never see. They tend to think the only difference is skin color, but people from other cultures are raised differently.
Posts: 31 | Registered: Aug 2007
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posted
I wonder if the noose kids are going to get an additional retroactive punishment now. Surely a suspension isn't enough; they should each have to write a long report on something like "The White Male in American History" (as some students at my college had to after a racist stunt) to prove they're sorry.
Posts: 781 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
I read (so take it with a grain of salt) that the largest chapter of the KKK is in Arizona. At the press clipping service I work at one of the things we look for in articles is white supremicist groups. There is a client that ONLY wants news of such groups in relation to Arizona. But that does not tell us much.
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quote:They tend to think the only difference is skin color, but people from other cultures are raised differently.
If I'm reading you correctly, GG, you're saying that the reason the South seems more racist is that the races are around each other more, and thus have more informed opinions of each other...?
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posted
I think the south seems more racist because they're the ones who lost their minds when blacks expected things like equal rights. But I think it's telling that blacks demanded them here. In the south, they knew enough whites that it was important to be treated like real people.
White southerners may have been raised with a patronizing attitude towards blacks historically, but they also had a sense of obligation towards them. I think southern attitudes towards blacks were much more complicated than modern folks give them credit for being. It's easier to label people as cruel and evil than to actually find out why their reaction seemed reasonable to them at the time. What's the first rule of writing? Everyone thinks he or she is the hero of the story. Everyone thinks their actions are right or can justify them when they know they're wrong.
When I watched the PBS documentary narrated by Morgan Freeman, it was strongly implied that systematic, legal prejudice against blacks was stirred up by wealthy landowners in the 1800s to keep the slaves and indentured servents from banding together for working reforms. By making both elements of the plantation's working class ememies, the landowners kept their profit margin where they wanted it. Somehow I wonder if modern prejudice doesn't continue that purpose in some way. I'm not sure what the economic benefit would be, but I'd bet anything that if there was one for all races getting along, folks with money would be trying a lot harder to get eveyone to be color blind friends.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by pH: I will say that I found racism much more prevalent in Chicago, and I grew up in Florida and have lived in Louisiana for four years.
-pH [/QUOTE
Having grown up in Chicago, I take issue with that statement. The thing with Chicago is that it is self segregated to an extent. The North Side is where all the white folk live, the South and West sides are where all the Black and Hispanic folk live. Historically, the rich white folk lived on the South side, and then there was the great white flight when the Black folk moved to Chicago from the Southern states.
I am by no means stating that there is no racism in Chicago, 'cause there certainly is as there is, unfortunately, everywhere in this country.
I am white and attended a public grammar school that was very very mixed. We had people from all over the world in that school. And when I went to high school, I went to a magnet school on the Near West Side. The school was 80% African American. I never had trouble with racism. There were no separate proms, and no specific 'white' or 'black' areas. I have never known anyone to be excluded or denigraded simply because of their race.
Also, my mom's side of the family is from Mississippi, where I definitely experienced more racism than I ever did in Chicago. However, I find it annoying that people assume that if you're from the south, or have family in the south, that you are racist. That's absurd. I don't think there is anywhere in this country where racism is completely dead. And that is a sad state of affairs.
Posts: 511 | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Anything more concrete/quantitative than one anecdote?
Also, where do the Latinos and Asians live in Michigan?
quote:Originally posted by Javert Hugo: There are different expressions of racism. In Michigan, race relations doesn't make the national news but the black people live south of 8 mile and the white people live north of 8 mile and there is NO MIXING. Anything that might lead to mixing is resisted strenuously on both sides.
Woah there sparky, NO mixing? 8 mile isn't a magic barrier. There are plenty of black people living north of 8 mile and plenty of white people living south of it, they are just a minority. And I question how much the 8 mile road barrier even matters anymore. The majority of those living south of 8 mile come north to work with white people during the day and then go home at night. I live at 11 mile, and I work at 16 mile, which is right in the middle of the richest part of the white suburbs, but my coworkers are an even mix of hispanic, black and white. So the idea that we're segregated with no mixing is absurd to me, and even though there is a sort of line in the sand, it's constantly being washed away as people move around much more freely now than they could a couple decades ago.
And really that's just Metro Detroit, it's not the whole state. There's a very large latino community in Grand Rapids, more on the north side. Detroit has MexicanTown, as well as a huge Chaldean (Arabic) community in Dearborn and elsewhere. There's no strict Asian community, they're mixed in everywhere.
Where in Michigan did or do you live JH?
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
The Rodney King incident and trial come to mind.
My personal experience from my visits around the western hemisphere is that the midwest is the most racist part of the country. A few quick anecdotes. My friend Jason told me that a child in the midwest said to his mother in the store "There's a black man!" and pointed to him, as though he'd never seen one. He said the southeastern US is the least racist part of the country in his experience. He's traveled all over for his job. My friend Josh said the same, and he lived in California for a long time, and also has traveled extensively in the rest of the country. When I was in Michigan, someone asked me if I liked the South and I said yes I loved it. He then asked, "aren't there an awful lot of black people down there?" and I blinked in shock. Two friends of a friend in Virginia harassed an interracial couple in the car next to us one night when we were driving in traffic. I was shocked and really horrified by that. Understand that nobody here would do that, make casual racist remarks to virtual strangers. Even the people who still believe it realize it's completely socially unacceptable to say it in polite company.
There are certainly racists here in the South, don't get me wrong. It's nothing to brag about that we're the least racist section of the country, considering how racist we still are. But the whole idea that racism is primarily a southern thing is completely false. It's much better here than elsewhere in the country, from everything I know.
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quote:Woah there sparky, NO mixing? 8 mile isn't a magic barrier.
Eminem agrees with you.
I think I started thinking of the south as more racist when, as a a child (maybe 10 or 11) I saw a news report on a controversy over displaying the Confederate flag. I don't even remember the exact nature of the controversy, but I do remember some people being really REALLY pissed off about it. We'd been learning about the civil war and I couldn't understand why someone would want to fly the flag of a bunch of racists and traitors.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Luet13: [QUOTE]Originally posted by pH: I will say that I found racism much more prevalent in Chicago, and I grew up in Florida and have lived in Louisiana for four years.
-pH [/QUOTE
Having grown up in Chicago, I take issue with that statement.
Then I hope you can understand how weary those of us in the South are of people in other parts of the country pointing the finger our way whenever racism is brought up.
posted
Just as a side note, I'm not sure people think of Florida when they think of the South. I don't.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Not that I do not find this interesting (I do on an anecdotal level, although I find the black/white focus a little disorienting), but does anyone have anything more compelling such as statistics/quantitative information?
Although I do see that the largest (maybe) KKK chapter is in Arizona, which is an interesting nugget.
I kind of have an idea where I would start looking in Canada for such information (Statscan) but I'm not sure about the US equivalent.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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quote: South Florida is not "the South." Northern Florida most definitely is.
I guess Central Florida is just kind of southern. My piece was an even mix of rednecks, farmers, retirees, and doctors.
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EDIT: South Carolina and Georgia seem to be the worst from what I can see in terms of number of hate groups per 1 million people.
Posts: 1327 | Registered: Aug 2007
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posted
Those statistics are really suspect. They don't include the number of people who are members of these groups - some of those groups listed might have one or two members. Also, some of the incidents listed in their "Hatewatch" sound to me like they may not have had racism as a motivation. Then, they list hate group "incidents" and include everything from murder to the publication of a newsletter - each counts as an "incident" as if they were equivalent.
Then there's stuff like this:
quote:"About 16 members of the Mississippi White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan gathered at the county courthouse to distribute pamphlets with names, addresses and photos of local registered sex offenders and fliers about illegal immigration."
Ummm...I wouldn't think 16 is a huge turnout or anything the KKK wants to brag about. And this is Mississippi, a place that has a reputation of being a hotbed of Klan support.
Or this one:
quote:Tampa (Arson) Published on 04-12-2007 A building next to a mosque and educational center was set afire. [emphasis mine]
So, the mosque and educational center were NOT set on fire? How do they even know this was a hate crime? Maybe it was coincidence, or an insurance scam by the owner of the building?
And, if you skim "HateWatch" for 2007 without regard to what type of incident they were, I get these numbers for the "deep south" states:
AL - 4 - (one of which was a "legal development" and only a mention on a sentencing of a crime that took place years before, so I think it's unfair to include that in 2007 numbers - the crime didn't take place in 2007 - but I will put it here since this is representative of a total of the "Hatewatch" incidents)
GA - 2
MS - 3
TN - 3
SC - 2
In contrast, some other states that are not part of the deep south:
NJ - 9
NY - 14
CO - 6
OR - 6
CA - 35
Bottom line - no area of the country has a monopoly on racist jerks. They're everywhere. It's really unfair to characterize any people as being more or less likely to be racist based simpply on what regional accent they might have. Let's judge people by their actions, not what part of the country they hail from.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
The Civil Rights Era wasn't that long ago, the idea that some people believe racism is somehow dead after 50 or 60 years is just plain crazy to me. It's still around but it's more subtle, insidious even.
For instance in a study entitled "Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?" some not so great results were discovered.
quote:Abstract We study race in the labor market by sending fictitious resumes to help-wanted ads in Boston and Chicago newspapers. To manipulate perceived race, resumes are randomly assigned African American or White sounding names. White names receive 50 percent more callbacks for interviews. Callbacks are also more responsive to resume quality for White names than for African American ones. The racial gap is uniform across occupation, industry, and employer size. We also find little evidence that employers are inferring social class from the names. Differential treatment by race still appears to still be prominent in the U.S. labor market.
You can imagine my dismay after reading that, my name is Jamal. Then I again I can't really be surprised at the results when I read a comment in this very thread
quote:Originally posted by grammargoddess: My husband is from Arizona, and he often claims I'm being racist when I point out that the black culture as a whole doesn't value education, or that they raise their children to value "toughness" over empathy or that they value sneakiness over hard work. I'm for sure not saying every black person is like that, and as I pointed out, I would say most of the people in my neighborhood are not like that, but growing up here, watching how they treat their children, a picture develops about their culture (not the individuals), that people growing up in mostly-white regions never see. They tend to think the only difference is skin color, but people from other cultures are raised differently.
Do you really think she'd ever give a call back to a person named Jamal?
Posts: 796 | Registered: Mar 2005
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Another interesting point about traditional vs. unusual names I've noticed is that it seems to correlate to marital status. Our paper publishes pictures of babies on their first birthday and lists the names of the parents. By and large, traditionally named babies have parents with the same last name while unusually named babies have parents with different last names.
I'm not sure I'd lump Jamal into the unusual category, but Ja'Mal or Jahmall I would.
Now, it could be that several of these parents have chosen not to be married or are married but the wife kept her last name. But my assumption with a large number of last names and odd baby names is that these are unmarried, poor parents. So while the study doesn't think socioeconomic assumptions are being made, that doesn't mean they aren't.
[Edit to add] I found the list of names at the end, and I don't find any of them to be all that unusual. Not by my criteria anyway. But the study was published in 2004, so I'm curious how much of Rasheed, Hakim, and Kareem's bad luck was based on their perceived religion instead of race.
This website has many implicit association tests that are supposed to test for biases towards one group or another. There is a Race IAT there that I found very revealing. It says that I show no automatic preference for europeans or african americans, however I feel that I just got lucky. I made two errors, both of which involved associating a good word with the african-american column, and I felt that I was hesitating longer on the european/bad and african/good test.
Posts: 1327 | Registered: Aug 2007
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There is an entire chapter of the book, "Freakonomics" devoted to why he thinks people choose the names they do. He even devotes pages to minority names
That book is pretty fascinating stuff. -----
That hate map was kinda interesting, Utah had the fewest groups and only hate group was some splinter religious group called "fundamental latter day saints," and they were listed under, "general hate." Do they just hate everything in general?
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by AvidReader: [Edit to add] I found the list of names at the end, and I don't find any of them to be all that unusual. Not by my criteria anyway. But the study was published in 2004, so I'm curious how much of Rasheed, Hakim, and Kareem's bad luck was based on their perceived religion instead of race.
Sadly that might of had an impact on the study. All forms of discrimination are wrong.
Posts: 796 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Wow. Great link, Threads. I tried a demo test about Judaism and got no preference one way or another. The test was pretty easy to keep straight. Then I tried their multicultural to unicultural feature test and shocked myself. I was strongly unicultural. I had a hard time keeping the categories straight.
It's got me second guessing some interactions I've had at work. I've been assuming I treat everyone as individuals, but now I wonder if the negatives I see in a couple coworkers are emphasised by their skin color. Maybe they have more good points than I've given them credit for.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
I just took the skin tone test and despite the fact that I got no automatic preference on the race test, I just got "Your data suggest a moderate automatic preference for Light Skin compared to Dark Skin."
Posts: 1327 | Registered: Aug 2007
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posted
Excellent link Threads. I did the Arab one and as much as I'd like to say I'm not biased according to the test I am. Eye popping results. I'll have to examine my world view. :edit: I'm almost afraid to do the other test. I'm not sure I want to find out the results.
Posts: 796 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
I failed the test. It said you are unable to accurately distinguish between faces of African Americans and Western Europeans and so determination of bias can not be made. So, I can honestly say, that just like Stephen Colbert, I don't see races, only people. I know some very smart, very successful African Americans. However, I do think that in some regions there is a stigma to education in the African community. Many of those smart educated people I know have been persecuted by even their families for acting too white. So, I would give a call back to someone named Jamal, but if Jamal started blaiming all his life failures on someone else, I wouldn't buy it. (Of course, I wouldn't buy that from a white guy either so I am not sure if that is racism).
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:Many of those smart educated people I know have been persecuted by even their families for acting too white.
I have seen this in some of my African American friends as well. It makes me very sad, as if educating oneself and striving to better oneself should ever be considered a racial trait.
One friend has a daughter in the gymnastics class with my daughter, and said her aunt told her she should get her daughter out of gymnastics because it was a "rich white person's sport" and she'll spend so much time with "those white girls" that she'll "start acting white."
Fortunately my friend recognizes that for what it is - total bunk - and we are all continue being friends and teammates.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Hmmmm, I like the last set of contributions to this thread. Very interesting.
BlackBlade: Utah didn't have the least, some states did have 0 groups
General hate is described if you click on the legend on the first page, it seems to mostly be a "miscellaneous" category.
Belle: By contrast, I've heard that some Asian students that enter liberal arts rather than engineering, computer science, and other practical disciplines are joking referred to as being "too white" due to the liberal arts student's greater proclivity for drinking, partying, and whatnot Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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quote:Zeus: Now, where you goin'? Dexter: School. Zeus: Why? Raymond: To get educated. Zeus: *Why*? Dexter: So we can go to college. Zeus: And why is that important? Dexter: To get es-pect. Zeus: RE-spect. Now, who's the bad guys? Dexter: Guys who sell drugs. Raymond: Guys who have guns. Zeus: And who's the good guys? Dexter: We're the good guys. Zeus: Who's gonna help you? Raymond: Nobody. Zeus: *So who's gonna help you*? Dexter: We're gonna help ourselves. Zeus: And who do we not want to help us? Dexter, Raymond: White people.
I knew there was something else I didn't like about this dialogue. At some point, these kids are going to need letters of recommendation, either for college or for graduate school. Maybe they can get by without ever having to shuck and jive some white high school teacher or professor, but that's not been my experience.
posted
Wait....why is it bad to need a letter of recommendation? And how the heck is a college going to know if the person who wrote the letter is white, black, Asian, or Martian?
posted
Mucus: I don't know how I did not see those 0s, sometimes I really do question what is wrong with my senses.
Irami: I don't think the point of the dialogue was to say, "Never let a white person help you," so much as, "Don't rely on white people to lift you up."
Indeed Samuel L Jackson spends the rest of the movie helping and being helped by Bruce Willis, a white man, save New York
Also not every person who writes these letters of recommendation are white you know.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by grammargoddess: ... the black culture as a whole doesn't value education ...
But Wowbagger/Jamal, many black people agree with this statement, and see it as a failing of Black culture. Notably Bill Cosby, who has spoken often on the topic.
Not so much the sneakiness thing though. Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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quote:Originally posted by grammargoddess: ... the black culture as a whole doesn't value education ...
But Wowbagger/Jamal, many black people agree with this statement, and see it as a failing of Black culture. Notably Bill Cosby, who has spoken often on the topic.
Not so much the sneakiness thing though.
Yeah, I wasn't disagreeing with the education part of what she said. You only have to look at the national graduation rates for African American students especially the males. I'm at a loss to explain why that is.
The line about the being raised to be sneaky...that's what set my teeth on edge.
Posts: 796 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
I'm glad I didn't put much stock in the story as it was written in the periodicals I was reading.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Wow. I wonder if this guy is the one making stuff up or if the traditional media was. It does make one pause to remember that most of the things we think we know are things we truely know nothing about.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
Yeaaah. Back when this was the big topic on progressive blogs, and some commentors such as myself suggested restraint and careful fact gathering, we were suspected of being racist.
Posts: 1515 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Does the bit about the assembly and someone asking "Can anyone sit under the tree?" to be met with general laughter seem odd to anyone else?
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Does the bit about the assembly and someone asking "Can anyone sit under the tree?" to be met with general laughter seem odd to anyone else?
Do adolescent teenagers saying dumb things that they think are hilarious seem normal to anyone else?
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I thought the article as a whole was interesting and kind of needed given the disproportionate uproar.
The only bit I thought was kind of lacking was:
quote: Myth 11: Jena Is One of the Most Racist Towns in America. Actually, Jena is a wonderful place to live for both whites and blacks. The media's distortion and outright lies concerning the case have given this rural Louisiana town a label it doesn't deserve.
Yeah, I can see that kind of label being somewhat of an irritant. However, in an article that is supposed to debunk myth, the author should really be prepared with more than just a personal assertion. Otherwise, everyone is always sympathetic to their hometown and I doubt many people would be prepared to say that their hometown is the "most racist."
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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