Racism

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I don't understand racism. I just don't, even though people have explained it to me again and again, I've read articles and such, but I just don't get it. To me, it makes no real difference whether you're black, white, yellow, beige, or even freaking blue. Everyone is shaped the same way and the organs are all the same and the general pattern seems to be the same. The materials might be different, but thats it.
I was just wondering if this is due to being Autistic, or if I'm missing some sort of understanding that most other people have built in. Is anyone else indifferent to this aspect of society?

Racism is pretty illogical and a lot of it is based on emotions (i.e 'That person is different from me'). Aspie's tend to be more logical and less emotional, so perhaps that is part of the reason. There is a 'them and us' mentality to racism and I'm not sure that people with Aspergers necessarily feel that they are part of the 'us'.

I've never understood racism either.

Alot of the time it is due to someone either feeling worthless or something bad happens to them and they have to blame someone else and they don't want to blame someone else so they blame another color/religion.

I don't really get it either, but I don't think it has anything to do with being an aspie because I know plenty of NTs who are not the least bit racist and also aspies who are really racist.

I don't get it either. For years I just thought racism was when you don't like someone just because they are black or born or yellow or Jewish, etc. and are intolerant of them and mean to them and single them out. Then I learn as an adult it means stereotyping them. If you stereotype blacks, you are being racist. So if you stereotype anything, wouldn't it be called racism as well? I think people call it prejudice. I don't know why they call it all racism. I just looked it up in the dictionary and it said nothing about stereotyping races.

The problem is with everyone, not just NTs. On this site there are Aspies who are racist, sexist and homophobic and some of them quite strongly so - those that go too far with their obnoxious posts get banned from WP.

Last edited by TallyMan on 11 Aug 2012, 5:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

I think humans still have a strong trait of Tribalism which can be expressed different ways, one of which is Racism.

Tribalism isn't all bad. Sometimes it's is part of a sense of community identity. This could be based on race, religion, politics, and strangely even sports teams.

Sometimes tribes can co-exist, but they need their space between each other. If pushed together there can be serious friction and things get ugly. This makes me think of how things get seriously confrontational from Klan members, Religious Fundamentalists, Political Demagogues, or even sports maniacs that turn violent at games.

I sometimes wonder if strongly individualist people don't feel as much need for the community Tribe identity. They're content with their individual identity and think group mentality is crazy and dangerous.

Or possibly some individualists try to understand this and become great mediators, philosophers, and even leaders.

You don't get racism, but you just said something kinda racist. I am not saying this to condemn you, because just about everyone says something racist in their lifetimes, usually several times.

In this case, you referred to colors that do not occur on humans naturally. Blue people do not exist. (link) That link explains why it's problematic to invoke strangely colored people when discussing race. You personally may not hold the intentions described in the post, but because some people do have and express those intentions, it's best to avoid coming across like that.



No, the materials are the same too. But the experiences are different. I don't mean that all black people or all Asian people or whoever have identical experiences. I mean that black people in the US, for example, are likely to have experienced a lot of racism that white people do not experience - at least not from the receiving end, since so many white people do perpetrate racism - and that is an important difference. Not a difference inherent to being black (because race is a social construct), but a difference imposed on black people by white people.



Racism isn't built in. It's taught. It's part and parcel of every part of society (although it may take different forms in different societies).

Anyway, I think one's understanding and interaction with oppressive beliefs and attitudes is definitely affected by autism, but I do not think autism prevents anyone from holding and expressing oppressive beliefs and attitudes.

Last edited by Verdandi on 11 Aug 2012, 5:41 am, edited 2 times in total.

Stereotyping is a part. Not liking someone just because of their skin color is another part. Racism, like most oppression, is multi-faceted and never just one thing.

If you stereotype black people, that's racist. If you stereotype gay people, that is not racist, but is homophobic.

I'll always remember a comment made by another pupil at school when I was aged around 14. Trying to be none-racist he said "It isn't their fault they are born black"

I don't get how saying someone's skin color is racist.

You seem to have missed the subtlety of the prejudice. He implied being black wasn't desirable, equating it to being a fault - but not the fault of the kid born inside the black skin.

I get yelled at a lot for this from Tumblr activists and the like, and I don't know how much is me and how much is them.

You know how people comment on articles and repost them and try to point out racism and sexism and all that in them? Or like how if there's something in the news that features a person who's not white/straight/whatever, the issue generally turns to that, even when it seems like the real problem doesn't have anything to do with it? Usually I end up pointing out that it's irrelevant to the discussion, and then I get called a racist or a bigot, even though in my mind, I'm the one trying to get people to focus on things that actually are significant, rather than race or religion or sexuality or ethnicity or anything.

It's not that I don't think racism and sexism exist, and I don't doubt that they can influence people's attitudes, even subconsciously, but I don't understand why the people who are supposedly on the side of the minority groups insist on turning everything into a class war situation.

Like I was reading about the OJ Simpson trial, right. Most people are familiar with it. I was reading about the problems with processing the evidence and not really concerned with the social aspect, though I knew it was a big media event. I was then incredibly surprised to hear about the huge controversy that was caused not by the evidence flaws or the fact that he had a lot of money to pay good lawyers but over the idea that he, a black man, was being accused of killing a white woman. This had seriously never even occurred to me before, which is an oversight on my part I suppose, but I was so confused. What do the shades of pinkish brown they were matter to the case? After all, he was a big celebrity, not some poor kid from the projects who was being used as a scapegoat, right? That's what I was thinking, anyway. And if Nicole were black or Asian or Guatemalan or native Alaskan Inuit, I don't understand how that would make her death or the charges against OJ any better or worse. I've tried to understand this, because I feel like I am missing some social assumption here, and I dislike being called a bigot when I don't understand the implications of something. From what I've gathered, race came into play (supposedly) because the lead investigator was racist (he was) and conducted an inept inquiry (it was) on purpose in order to frame him because of his skin color (here's where I'm lost). I have nothing that would explain why he would go through the trouble of framing a famous athlete for a murder he didn't have pre-knowledge of, and why he would think that a media frenzy against a rich and popular man that he would lose would be better for society than going after the real killer, who, if OJ was not guilty, would still be at large.

That's the best analogy I can think of. Is there some obvious social understanding that I am ignorant of, and therefore underestimate the true harm of prejudice, or are the other people just overreacting and trying to make everything political? Like I said, I'm not in any way denying that prejudice exists, it's just that I wonder about some of the times it's accused of being there when maybe it's got nothing to do with it at all.

I'm sorry, but I still don't understand the problem with saying people are blue? Isn't it a way of saying that your statement is all-encompassing, like saying "and all the rest," so as to avoid people jumping in saying RAAAARR YOU FORGOT TO INCLUDE #F03897489246878 WHAT ARE YOU SOME KIND OF SKINHEAD?
Also there are so-called blue people. I know this is not what either Verdandi or League_Girl was referring to; I just find it interesting from a medical standpoint. It's called methenoglobinemia. Do a google search for Blue Fugates. It's really fascinating.

Tumblr activists are often zealous and overbearing, and I think some of them are doing it more to troll than to actually promote social justice.

I think most are earnest, though, but taking their lead from the more zealous types. I was on Tumblr but I barely pay much attention. The last time I looked there was this whole thing about how people with mental illness don't really experience ableism, not like people with real/physical disabilities.



Because it's trivializing, by including non-existent skin colors in the list it makes it sound like race is trivial and meaningless when it is neither of those things. I don't know if you read the article I linked (which is not the best explanation I have read, but it seemed fairly thorough) but that goes into detail as to why it comes across badly.



Yes. There are also blue people who take too much colloidal silver. That's called argyria. I knew about the Fugates although I hadn't thought of them when I responded.

The OJ Simpson trial did have many racist elements to it, not the least of which was the framing in the media about a black man murdering a white woman, and this contributed to just how much of a media circus it became. Race was also used during the trial in various ways, some of them also racist.

That's just about as much as I can say at this point. My recollection is fairly fragmented and I was barely paying attention to it at the time.

As for sometimes racism being brought up when you can't tell whether it's there? My experience is that it rarely helps to try to argue that it's not present, and that it is often present even if someone like you or I doesn't see how it is present. I don't think that pushing back against racism (or sexism, homophobia, or any other oppression) is innately political, and I think that it is trivializing to respond to someone's expressed pain by telling them they're just overreacting and trying to make everything political. Odds are that while it may look political to you, it may be deeply personal for the person who reacted.

I don't think there are "obvious social understandings." White people in general (and I say this as a white person) often try to be indirect, covert, and microaggressive about their racist attitudes and behavior, and will fall back on as much plausible deniability as possible to cover for it when they're caught out doing or saying something racist. Many react as if being told they're racist or that they did something racist is word than the racist thing they did in the first place. This is actually irrational behavior, as their intention appears to be an emotional rejection of the idea that they could be racist (and thus a bad person) because they think of themselves as good people, and they're reacting to cognitive dissonance. A rational response would be to apologize, or at the very least try to understand what just happened.

Well, Verdandi, I must say I agree with the comments of Erin McCoy on the blog post you linked to; read them, and be amazed at how quickly her points are dismissed by other commenters.

I have used the 'I don't care if someone's black, yellow, or purple with green spots' phrasing, myself. But I am 'of colour'. No one here in the Netherlands will ever call me 'white', even though I do have some 30 percent Caucasian heritage. They'll call me Asian, they'll call me black, no problem. But for some reason, they won't recognise that there's a fair bit of Dutch and German thrown into my mix, as well.

I get my share of silly situatiuons in a primarily white society, too. Just earlier this week, I was on the train to Berlin, when, on the first train station past the Dutch-German border, the German police were doing a random ID sweep- and singled me out to get carded. No one else was asked to show their ID, and it just so happened that I was the only passenger in the compartment without fair skin. Still, I can consider myself privileged for living in a community where racism is rare.

Nevertheless, I am mostly indifferent to race or skin colour. That's why I will continue to say, "it doesn't matter to me if someone's brown, white, red, or bright green." It's not so much about throwing fantasy colours in there to trivialise ethnicity and racism, it's a bit like PennyDreadful says, to encompass everything- including a hypothetical purple- or blue-skinned person. It's throwing the ball back into the court of whoever took issue: 'Why does it matter to YOU if someone is black, white, or Navy blue? It's not relevant to me!' I find racism to be an issue of dire importance to address and combat, but my personal attitude toward race/ethnicity is in fact the backbone of my anti-racist beliefs.

Lastly, ethnicity is not only marked by skin colour, but by other physical attributes (facial features, body build, hair) as well. Conversely, within a single ethnic group, various tones of skin may occur. Equating ethnicity with skin colour may be as cavalier an act as listing green, blue, and silver after existent skin colours is perceived to be in the blog entry you linked to.