Neurotypical Privilege

Post Reply New Topic

Would you show the exact same amount of fear if a white person started following you as if a black person started following you?

If you had to guess who got the best grade in a class, having never seen the class before, and you were told this guess was something you must do, who would this be that you'd guess got the best grade?

If you needed to ask for advice from someone you didn't know, would you be more prone to ask for advice someone who looked like you?

There is blatent racism, and there is internalized racism. Think about your answers to those questions. People as a whole aren't as colorblind as they think. They generally don't think that blacks should be separated from whites because they're lesser beings, but frequently would be more afraid if a black person approached them at nighttime than a white person doing so.

I do think that not everyone is a racist though.

There's implicit racial bias and there's explicit racism. Implicit racial bias is where you act and think as if you are racist, but you don't actually believe that you are racist. As Harvard's Implicit Associations Test and other research have shown, implicit racial bias is widespread in society, so unless you have Williams syndrome I don't believe you don't have implicit racial bias.

I don't have any fear of any person following me, black or white. It's happened thousands of times, and nothing happened.



Don't know, but I wouldn't guess based on the the race of the person.



No, that would be dumb. Why would I get any better advice from someone just because they looked like me?:duh:



Well I'm happy that we can agree on that.

Call it what every you like. Racism is racism. Either you believe in the superiority of one race, or you believe that everyone is equal, and I fail to see how Williams syndrome has anything to do it.

There's also implicit racial bias. Surely you are not denying that it exists and is widespread in society?

This thread is still going? What are you people, gluttons for punishment?

I'm speaking primarily about the US, but it's also true of Australia and Europe. And everywhere else.

And there aren't 7 billion white people in the world. Approximately 20% of the world's population is white.

Defining racism as strictly explicit beliefs in the superiority of one race over others does make it easy for a lot of fairly racist people to deny they're racist. While such explicit racism causes a lot of problems for people (and frequently leads to violent hate crimes), the more widespread implicit racism gives us institutions that favors white people. This has been researched to death.

As for how racism exists everywhere else, there was this thing called empire building the Europeans did during the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and Industrial Revolution. Look up colonialism and imperialism.

I recall someone saying that other civilizations (African, North and South American, Asian) were all primitive but this is basically a lie taught to all of us to justify crap like "manifest destiny" in the US, the Stolen Generation in Australia, or Leopold's abuse of the people of the Congo. Or how South Africa ended up with Apartheid. Or how the US and Europe justified the Triangle Trade (that is, slavery).

Racism is prejudice against a group of people because of the color of their skin + power over those people.

Dictionary definitions are insufficient and often inaccurate.



Well, the belief that these characteristics/differences exist because of race is itself racist, and there is such a thing as "positive racism" which is still racism:

http://aphilosopher.wordpress.com/2008/ ... ve-racism/

Also, there are no true biological differences between races:

http://wupa.wustl.edu/record_archive/19 ... races.html

Because race doesn't exist. It is a social construct, which I explained in detail earlier in the thread. But:

http://minerva.stkate.edu/people.nsf/fi ... cience.pdf



You don't fit a very narrow and inaccurate definition of racist, but my posts weren't really about you in the first place, so why make this about you? But since you made it about you, yes, your belief that there are inherent differences between racists is a racist belief. However, this doesn't make you a bad person. It just makes you fairly typical in this regard.



Your last sentence is likely more indicative of you not paying attention or not knowing what to look for than a true absence of racist sentiment. Because racist attitudes are part of the "cultural background radiation." If you're not seeing racism, it is more likely that you are simply not paying attention. And these are things that are widely believed to be true, and so are not interrogated or critiqued as racism.



Why the dictionary definition of racism is wrong:

http://racismschool.tumblr.com/post/457 ... fined-that
http://freethoughtblogs.com/brutereason ... of-racism/
http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com/ ... acism.html

You can't really take three steps on google without tripping over an explanation of why the dictionary definition of racism is wrong.

I honestly don't think I am racist...I do not find my race 'superior' to others in any way shape or form and even at a young age had intrest in different cultures and such. But I cannot classify myself as 'white' necessarily as my grandmother on my dads side is Native American which make me part native American. And I have kind of a hard time believing that most people are racist, I haven't really seen it.

My mother is one of the most racist people I know, and she's 1/4th Native American (specifically one of the tribes in the Blackfoot Confederacy). That really doesn't prevent anyone from being racist.

Most people don't understand the point I was trying to make when I said all white people are racist. I'm definitely not saying everyone is a potential member of Stormfront or the KKK. Just that people are taught to carry implicit racist bias. Like white people who would never explicitly claim that people of color are inferior still carry racist attitudes and may not even realize those attitudes are racist.

Also, I am white. Just in case anyone forgot.

No you are not paying attention. I see plenty of racism everywhere (all races to all races), but the majority (more then 50%) of people I have met are not racist. If you can't see what a ridicules over generalization it is to say that everybody is racist, I don't know what else to say. If you said 95%, it might be hard to argue with. But 100% of people do not share the same beliefs about anything. People are going to take issue with you, when you make generalizations like that.




So you just make up your own definitions for words?

I think most people understand your point. I'm sorry, but you are way over generalizing it. It's not that absolute.

Funny stuff, actually (poignant funny.)

First you really do not seem to have much if any understanding of what I was saying. It is not psychology (though there is nothing wrong with discussing psychological concepts), but a form a sociology and how community organizes around human brain function, specifically encapsulation or making frameworks out of concepts by omitting various data. All brains work this way, and groups organize by this same principle, imo, and though I did get some theory of group organization (but not the part about encapsulation) from a book I recently read by a psychoanalyst, I am no fan of that profession and have called them psycho analysts, (including the person I got some of this theory from), though not all of them. I am basically anti-therapy but would not go so far as recommending a person never go to a therapist, and I have been to one myself who did help in in some ways, but not that much, though I like him as a person and he had some good insights at times, but so does just about anyone I know..



The first sentence above was in response to Verdandi saying I was keeping people from talking. Unlikely:-), You edited out the part previous which referred to that. What I wrote has nothing at all to do with asking "What is the real intrapsychic conflict here?" I do not ask such questions or even respect the kind of people who does ask such questions. Has someone been saying this kind of stuff to you? If so, I suggest not to hang out with such a person.



This is the part that to me is funny poignant. You made what I consider to be a very off base correlation of material you do not really understand (which you yourself indicated you had trouble understanding) and then decided, based on this, that I am engaging in psychoanalysis (what I would call psycho analysis) and that I have no business in doing so unless I have been trained and certified. Who trains these folks, by the way, and certifies them? I will answer for you. It is other psycho analysts.

And no, I am not Freud. He had some good insights about human functioning and the unconscious and some not so good ideas, also, but imo I understand a whole big LOT more than he did.

Beneficii, personally I see you as very smart, meaning very, but in the somewhat small swatches of material I have read from you previous to this thread I have noticed quite a few of these kind of correlations that don't fit and feel to me rather odd, though I know you are seeing something or other that I am not, which is why I haven't dialogued with you a lot. It is not a matter of disagreeing and not wanting to dialogue because of that---I just think it would be too frustrating--there is a feeling of being cut off, meaning a weird detachment coming from the interaction that does not feel grounded, though I find it kind of interesting, actually. Now I am just sharing my personal feeling here. Do not tell me I am practicing psychoanalysis.

Max's belief in inherent differences between races is racist and so is your belief that all white people are racists.

It is fine to go after a common mindset that stigmatizes people. The mindset to go after is fear of difference which is the root of most prejudice. That is what the pro gay marriage people activists have done beautifully A lot of straight people feared and were(and are) disgusted by the idea gay sexual relations. The activists said you have nothing to fear from us because us getting married is not going to change one thing about your relations. The logic was unarguable. They also tapped into conservative and libertarian values. They argued that they valued permanent long term relationships. We want to do our thing without government interference. The conservative libertarian types who were the leaders in the push back against gay rights were rhetorically disarmed, they could not disagree with what they argue for all the time. They could have centered their campaign about fighting "straight privilege", and said all straight people are straightists because they have implicit feelings of prejudiced against gay people. They would have found plenty of evidence they were correct, satisfied that they had proven their point. In the meantime gay people would not be getting married in a number of states and anti gay people would not quickly be becoming marginalized.

Please, stop, all of you.

That is up to the moderators. I would just avoid us and let us do our thing.