>My point is simply that living in a segregated society from early on, and the early whispered conversations about Black people as a “they”, set in motion a force very much like compound interest.
Ta-Nehisi Coates' landmark Atlantic article, The Case for Reparations [1], helps explain how this segregated society came to be:
> The American real-estate industry believed segregation to be a moral principle. As late as 1950, the National Association of Real Estate Boards’ code of ethics warned that “a Realtor should never be instrumental in introducing into a neighborhood … any race or nationality, or any individuals whose presence will clearly be detrimental to property values.” A 1943 brochure specified that such potential undesirables might include madams, bootleggers, gangsters—and “a colored man of means who was giving his children a college education and thought they were entitled to live among whites.”
The federal government concurred. It was the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, not a private trade association, that pioneered the practice of redlining, selectively granting loans and insisting that any property it insured be covered by a restrictive covenant—a clause in the deed forbidding the sale of the property to anyone other than whites. Millions of dollars flowed from tax coffers into segregated white neighborhoods.
“For perhaps the first time, the federal government embraced the discriminatory attitudes of the marketplace,” the historian Kenneth T. Jackson wrote in his 1985 book, Crabgrass Frontier, a history of suburbanization. “Previously, prejudices were personalized and individualized; FHA exhorted segregation and enshrined it as public policy. Whole areas of cities were declared ineligible for loan guarantees.” Redlining was not officially outlawed until 1968, by the Fair Housing Act. By then the damage was done—and reports of redlining by banks have continued.
The federal government is premised on equal fealty from all its citizens, who in return are to receive equal treatment. But as late as the mid-20th century, this bargain was not granted to black people, who repeatedly paid a higher price for citizenship and received less in return. Plunder had been the essential feature of slavery, of the society described by Calhoun. But practically a full century after the end of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, the plunder—quiet, systemic, submerged—continued even amidst the aims and achievements of New Deal liberals.
> Millions of dollars flowed from tax coffers into segregated white neighborhoods.
Wait, wouldn't it be the other way around? Inflating property values would increase tax revenue. Even if they were subsidizing white home ownership they may have come out ahead.
It's one of the driving forces of gentrification: if investing X gets the city X + Y in tax revenues then it's an economically sound decision.
"We’ve seen videos of innocent black citizens gunned down by the police that is supposed to protect them"
Really? Where are these videos. I think I only saw one video making the rounds where this was the case. The rest was speculation and mob mentality. "Hands up Don't shoot", for instance, never happened.
"We’ve seen a community devastated by a terrorist attack that can only be described as pure, premeditated evil"
This sort of "evil" happens almost every day in the inner city. Chicago, for instance, had 7+ shootings in only one weekend. Why are we focusing on the one rare nutcase and someone making it into proof that an entire community of people are racist (ironic that this is exactly what we are trying to stop: judging an entire group of people on one person's actions).
How about the college event in Ohio that stated that only "African Americans" can attend and the guy (who was not African American" filming was pushed around and bullied??
How about the trans-gendered guest on the Dr. Drew HLN show that not only put his hand around the another guest's throat he was supposed to be debating, but threatened him with violence??
"It was only recently, when White-on-Black police brutality and terrorism began to surface in the news,"
How can you possibly call this "terrorism"?? In nearly all cases I've seen so far, the police offers asked the person in question to stop or comply..and they resisted, which resulted in a use of justified force.
"that I was turned on to a stream of different voices. Reading the #drivingwhileblack tweets"
Which is bullshit. I'm not black and have gotten stopped multiple times in my life for things I considered bullshit. If you give the cop an attitude, you will suffer the consequences. If you comply and are cool about everything the officer asks, he will let you go or write you a ticket.
You need to think about it from his/her perspective: If you overpower the officer, they could lose their life.
"I think we need to readily acknowledge that we are racist,"
Speak for yourself. I give everyone an equal chance, regardless of race. It's their actions later that determine whether I like them or not. I'm sick and tired of the thought police somehow trying to convince me that I'm racist.
If the majority of people in this country were really racist, we wouldn't have people of color in pretty much every position of power and occupation..including the presidency.
I think the key point you (and many people) are missing is understanding how much racist behavior is unconscious. I'm engaged to a woman who's half-black, and I still occasionally say something slightly racist by accident.
Check out the Implicit Association Test (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit-association_test) for an introduction to this line of research. You can still be doing/saying racist things while meaning well. The only solution is self-awareness and humility.
>If the majority of people in this country were really racist, we wouldn't have people of color in pretty much every position of power and occupation..including the presidency.
Funny. I take the exact same anecdotes and conclude, "Wow, black Americans are pretty resilient."
>Federal troops withdrew from the South in 1877. The dream of Reconstruction died. For the next century, political violence was visited upon blacks wantonly, with special treatment meted out toward black people of ambition. Black schools and churches were burned to the ground. Black voters and the political candidates who attempted to rally them were intimidated, and some were murdered. At the end of World War I, black veterans returning to their homes were assaulted for daring to wear the American uniform. The demobilization of soldiers after the war, which put white and black veterans into competition for scarce jobs, produced the Red Summer of 1919: a succession of racist pogroms against dozens of cities ranging from Longview, Texas, to Chicago to Washington, D.C. Organized white violence against blacks continued into the 1920s—in 1921 a white mob leveled Tulsa’s “Black Wall Street,” and in 1923 another one razed the black town of Rosewood, Florida—and virtually no one was punished.
>Having been enslaved for 250 years, black people were not left to their own devices. They were terrorized. In the Deep South, a second slavery ruled. In the North, legislatures, mayors, civic associations, banks, and citizens all colluded to pin black people into ghettos, where they were overcrowded, overcharged, and undereducated. Businesses discriminated against them, awarding them the worst jobs and the worst wages. Police brutalized them in the streets. And the notion that black lives, black bodies, and black wealth were rightful targets remained deeply rooted in the broader society. Now we have half-stepped away from our long centuries of despoilment, promising, “Never again.” But still we are haunted. It is as though we have run up a credit-card bill and, having pledged to charge no more, remain befuddled that the balance does not disappear. The effects of that balance, interest accruing daily, are all around us.
Thanks for your thoughts. The point of my article wasn't to deny that there are any counterexamples to my overarching theme. No argument involving society is going to be free of counterexamples.
I disagree with some things you've said here but will just say 2 things:
1. I'm grateful you give everyone an equal chance. I thought I did too until I uncovered what I now believe to be an ingrained sort of bias. If you're free from that, more power to you! Far be it from me to tell you who you are.
2. I do believe that racism is one of the hidden engines of society, and inhabits each of us more than we know for that reason. That's why I was proposing to move the dialogue from an existential proof of racism to a question of how exactly it has shaped us. It's not (or doesn't feel like) "pseudoempathy" as another commenter put it. It feels like moving past denial to a more productive mode of engagement with this gnarled issue.
Let me first state why I disagree with you, and then why I don't think you should be downvoted.
(at the time I'm writing this, parent's post is light grey.)
Time and time again, studies demonstrate that we are all a little bit racist.
Another commenter pointed out that the Implicit Association Test is a nice introduction to this research.
You can take a test here: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html
Unconscious discrimination is a serious source of hardship for minorities and it's important to be aware
of our bias. This is what the author of the article is getting at, and he is correct in the central point.
However, we live in a culture where racists are the scum of the earth, fired from their jobs, ostracized,
hated universally. You can even be fired from your job if you defend someone that's a racist [1]
Given how hated racism is in our culture right now, debate about racial issues is skewed in three ways. First, we might not take the side of the privileged in an issue because we fear we are being unconsciously racist. Second, we might not take the side of the privileged in an issue because we fear we might be called a racist, and,
if not immediately fired from ours jobs, at least shunned. Finally, we might not take the side of the privileged in an issue, because even if taking their side would be technically correct, the privileged already have enough privilege, so to say, and by speaking out in favor of them we might be weakening the forces which are working hard to eliminate racism from society as much as possible.
These biases can be just as unconscious. And they obscure the truth.
Parent is also speaking out of fear. He has come to believe that acknowledging the existence of implicit racism,
is the same as always siding with the minority in every case. Even in cases where the minority is clearly in the wrong.
If you value truth, this is an abomination. If you value truth enough, it's something to get extremely angry about.
By heavily downvoting parent's post, you are confirming these exact fears, while ignoring the true criticism hidden within. You are turning people away from the movement to eliminate racism, or at least making them less enthusiastic. And therefore you are doing more to slow the eradication of racism than posts like parent's ever would.
Can we upvote parent for his bravery in speaking out against the bias our culture currently has?
And calmly and rationally debate his concerns? That would be infinitely more convincing than the downvote button.
You should know that what you've said is considered totally racist these days and you'll have to write an article like the one you just criticized if you ever want to clear your name.
marcusgarvey|10 years ago
Ta-Nehisi Coates' landmark Atlantic article, The Case for Reparations [1], helps explain how this segregated society came to be:
> The American real-estate industry believed segregation to be a moral principle. As late as 1950, the National Association of Real Estate Boards’ code of ethics warned that “a Realtor should never be instrumental in introducing into a neighborhood … any race or nationality, or any individuals whose presence will clearly be detrimental to property values.” A 1943 brochure specified that such potential undesirables might include madams, bootleggers, gangsters—and “a colored man of means who was giving his children a college education and thought they were entitled to live among whites.”
The federal government concurred. It was the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, not a private trade association, that pioneered the practice of redlining, selectively granting loans and insisting that any property it insured be covered by a restrictive covenant—a clause in the deed forbidding the sale of the property to anyone other than whites. Millions of dollars flowed from tax coffers into segregated white neighborhoods.
“For perhaps the first time, the federal government embraced the discriminatory attitudes of the marketplace,” the historian Kenneth T. Jackson wrote in his 1985 book, Crabgrass Frontier, a history of suburbanization. “Previously, prejudices were personalized and individualized; FHA exhorted segregation and enshrined it as public policy. Whole areas of cities were declared ineligible for loan guarantees.” Redlining was not officially outlawed until 1968, by the Fair Housing Act. By then the damage was done—and reports of redlining by banks have continued.
The federal government is premised on equal fealty from all its citizens, who in return are to receive equal treatment. But as late as the mid-20th century, this bargain was not granted to black people, who repeatedly paid a higher price for citizenship and received less in return. Plunder had been the essential feature of slavery, of the society described by Calhoun. But practically a full century after the end of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, the plunder—quiet, systemic, submerged—continued even amidst the aims and achievements of New Deal liberals.
[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case...
hoopd|10 years ago
Wait, wouldn't it be the other way around? Inflating property values would increase tax revenue. Even if they were subsidizing white home ownership they may have come out ahead.
It's one of the driving forces of gentrification: if investing X gets the city X + Y in tax revenues then it's an economically sound decision.
codygman|10 years ago
paulhauggis|10 years ago
Really? Where are these videos. I think I only saw one video making the rounds where this was the case. The rest was speculation and mob mentality. "Hands up Don't shoot", for instance, never happened.
"We’ve seen a community devastated by a terrorist attack that can only be described as pure, premeditated evil"
This sort of "evil" happens almost every day in the inner city. Chicago, for instance, had 7+ shootings in only one weekend. Why are we focusing on the one rare nutcase and someone making it into proof that an entire community of people are racist (ironic that this is exactly what we are trying to stop: judging an entire group of people on one person's actions).
How about the college event in Ohio that stated that only "African Americans" can attend and the guy (who was not African American" filming was pushed around and bullied??
How about the trans-gendered guest on the Dr. Drew HLN show that not only put his hand around the another guest's throat he was supposed to be debating, but threatened him with violence??
"It was only recently, when White-on-Black police brutality and terrorism began to surface in the news,"
How can you possibly call this "terrorism"?? In nearly all cases I've seen so far, the police offers asked the person in question to stop or comply..and they resisted, which resulted in a use of justified force.
"that I was turned on to a stream of different voices. Reading the #drivingwhileblack tweets"
Which is bullshit. I'm not black and have gotten stopped multiple times in my life for things I considered bullshit. If you give the cop an attitude, you will suffer the consequences. If you comply and are cool about everything the officer asks, he will let you go or write you a ticket.
You need to think about it from his/her perspective: If you overpower the officer, they could lose their life.
"I think we need to readily acknowledge that we are racist,"
Speak for yourself. I give everyone an equal chance, regardless of race. It's their actions later that determine whether I like them or not. I'm sick and tired of the thought police somehow trying to convince me that I'm racist.
If the majority of people in this country were really racist, we wouldn't have people of color in pretty much every position of power and occupation..including the presidency.
KingMob|10 years ago
Check out the Implicit Association Test (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit-association_test) for an introduction to this line of research. You can still be doing/saying racist things while meaning well. The only solution is self-awareness and humility.
marcusgarvey|10 years ago
Funny. I take the exact same anecdotes and conclude, "Wow, black Americans are pretty resilient."
>Federal troops withdrew from the South in 1877. The dream of Reconstruction died. For the next century, political violence was visited upon blacks wantonly, with special treatment meted out toward black people of ambition. Black schools and churches were burned to the ground. Black voters and the political candidates who attempted to rally them were intimidated, and some were murdered. At the end of World War I, black veterans returning to their homes were assaulted for daring to wear the American uniform. The demobilization of soldiers after the war, which put white and black veterans into competition for scarce jobs, produced the Red Summer of 1919: a succession of racist pogroms against dozens of cities ranging from Longview, Texas, to Chicago to Washington, D.C. Organized white violence against blacks continued into the 1920s—in 1921 a white mob leveled Tulsa’s “Black Wall Street,” and in 1923 another one razed the black town of Rosewood, Florida—and virtually no one was punished.
>Having been enslaved for 250 years, black people were not left to their own devices. They were terrorized. In the Deep South, a second slavery ruled. In the North, legislatures, mayors, civic associations, banks, and citizens all colluded to pin black people into ghettos, where they were overcrowded, overcharged, and undereducated. Businesses discriminated against them, awarding them the worst jobs and the worst wages. Police brutalized them in the streets. And the notion that black lives, black bodies, and black wealth were rightful targets remained deeply rooted in the broader society. Now we have half-stepped away from our long centuries of despoilment, promising, “Never again.” But still we are haunted. It is as though we have run up a credit-card bill and, having pledged to charge no more, remain befuddled that the balance does not disappear. The effects of that balance, interest accruing daily, are all around us.
[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case...
jlipps|10 years ago
I disagree with some things you've said here but will just say 2 things:
1. I'm grateful you give everyone an equal chance. I thought I did too until I uncovered what I now believe to be an ingrained sort of bias. If you're free from that, more power to you! Far be it from me to tell you who you are.
2. I do believe that racism is one of the hidden engines of society, and inhabits each of us more than we know for that reason. That's why I was proposing to move the dialogue from an existential proof of racism to a question of how exactly it has shaped us. It's not (or doesn't feel like) "pseudoempathy" as another commenter put it. It feels like moving past denial to a more productive mode of engagement with this gnarled issue.
marcusgarvey|10 years ago
http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/sep/25/ohio-shoo...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Azy3OBLXX-g&feature=youtu.be
codehotter|10 years ago
Time and time again, studies demonstrate that we are all a little bit racist. Another commenter pointed out that the Implicit Association Test is a nice introduction to this research. You can take a test here: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html
Unconscious discrimination is a serious source of hardship for minorities and it's important to be aware of our bias. This is what the author of the article is getting at, and he is correct in the central point.
However, we live in a culture where racists are the scum of the earth, fired from their jobs, ostracized, hated universally. You can even be fired from your job if you defend someone that's a racist [1]
Given how hated racism is in our culture right now, debate about racial issues is skewed in three ways. First, we might not take the side of the privileged in an issue because we fear we are being unconsciously racist. Second, we might not take the side of the privileged in an issue because we fear we might be called a racist, and, if not immediately fired from ours jobs, at least shunned. Finally, we might not take the side of the privileged in an issue, because even if taking their side would be technically correct, the privileged already have enough privilege, so to say, and by speaking out in favor of them we might be weakening the forces which are working hard to eliminate racism from society as much as possible.
These biases can be just as unconscious. And they obscure the truth.
Parent is also speaking out of fear. He has come to believe that acknowledging the existence of implicit racism, is the same as always siding with the minority in every case. Even in cases where the minority is clearly in the wrong.
If you value truth, this is an abomination. If you value truth enough, it's something to get extremely angry about. By heavily downvoting parent's post, you are confirming these exact fears, while ignoring the true criticism hidden within. You are turning people away from the movement to eliminate racism, or at least making them less enthusiastic. And therefore you are doing more to slow the eradication of racism than posts like parent's ever would.
Can we upvote parent for his bravery in speaking out against the bias our culture currently has? And calmly and rationally debate his concerns? That would be infinitely more convincing than the downvote button.
[1] http://www.gamerevolution.com/manifesto/turtle-rock-communit...
hoopd|10 years ago
You should know that what you've said is considered totally racist these days and you'll have to write an article like the one you just criticized if you ever want to clear your name.
andrewmcwatters|10 years ago