Who are Racists?

[Amergain]

I experienced a strong broad spectrum of racism in the USA during the year I lived there in a neuroscience fellowship.

We know that all living humans today are descended from a genetic Adam some 150,000 years (a guess) ago. We are a single species of bipedal ape that vocalizes ideas and writes them down. Race is a non-biological term.

It exists mostly where humans have group characteristics developed during the thousands of years living in more isolated locations on the supercontinent of Eurasia-Africa-Australia. Separated by waterways, mountains, or deserts they have developed shades of skin pigmentation, nasal orifices fitted to climate and even body proportions fitted to climate.

When members of these variant humans are in contact we develop views of them as different. Different can easily evolved into superiority and inferiority especially in competition. It exists in Europe when non-Europeans were imported or immigrated. It happened in India between Aryans and Dravidians, in Australia and the Americas between Europeans and natives. Slave trade was justified on the false belief that Blacks were inferior, and supported in Europe and America by Organised Christianity.

I find it interesting that the USA, a very religious country also has the greatest problem with racists and racist violence. In the USA the most religious region (South) is the most racist and religiously intolerant.

Question: Is racism a genuine belief in one's ethnic superiority? Or is racism a feeling of personal inferiority covered up by claiming others are inferior for "racial" reasons.

Amergain

[Symptom777]

Racism is an evolutionary device to protect us from people who do not share our genes, and to cause us to protect those that do.

[Nef Raven]

The first and the third alternative is actually stating more or less the same thing.

[Nef Raven]

Question: Is racism a genuine belief in one's ethnic superiority? Or is racism a feeling of personal inferiority covered up by claiming others are inferior for "racial" reasons.

I do not feel inferior at all by noticing someone is a racist. I know that hispanics have been treated inferior through out the United States, and Puerto Ricans are not treated fairly in many situations; especially if they haven't dominated the native tongue in the U.S. Anyway you look at it, learning a new language can be quite humbling.
We on this island sometimes try filling out some of those simple documents to participate and buy like other american consumers and cannot because sometimes they fail to place the Common Wealth of Puerto Rico on the drop down menu of some of those applications. Take my word for it. It does not make me feel inferior in any way. It's their loss not mine. I'll just do my shopping in our stores over here.

Thank you.

[Antone]

Originally Posted by Symptom777

Racism is an evolutionary device to protect us from people who do not share our genes, and to cause us to protect those that do.

Thank you for inserting a little common sense.

Originally Posted by Amergain

We are a single species of bipedal ape that vocalizes ideas and writes them down. Race is a non-biological term.

By this logic, "species" must also be a non-biological term. And why not just say that DNA is a non-biological term.

Race is a biological term. It typically indicates a subcategory within a species which exhibit distinct and consistent variations. As you (and Symptom) indicated, these variations are encouraged by social separation--for if they interbreed, they will loose their characteristic distinctions--but that doesn't make them non-biological.

[Antone]

Originally Posted by Amergain

When members of these variant humans are in contact we develop views of them as different. Different can easily evolved into superiority and inferiority especially in competition.

I think you have this backwards. Racism doesn't occur because groups come together--it occurs because a group separates at some point.

Moreover, racism is an instinctual characteristic that is exhibited by virtually all living organisms. For example, Sea Anemones are those translucent, plant-like creatures that live in the sea. Large beds of them live in harmony, but sometimes, when two 'alien' beds grow into one another, the Anemones at the edges of each bed will try to dislodge the 'enemy' Anemones.

In her first book, Jane Goodall told about her 14 years of living with and observing a community of Chimps. She told of her love for the peaceful ways of the chimps--which she perceived as being quite different from the violence back home among the humans. First and foremost she noted that there didn't appear to be any WAR.

About three years after she published her book, the tribe of chimps that Goodall was watching had become quite large and food was beginning to be harder to find. More and more quarrels broke out and eventually--to relieve the social pressure--the group split apart, with a smaller group heading away from the old home territory to form a new tribe in the forest to the south.

At first the two groups lived in relative peace. Then the larger, original tribe began to make trips south to the splinter groups new home--where they mercilessly harassed and killed the separatists. They beat their former friends and family mercilessly, breaking bones, opening massive wounds, and leaving the resultant cripples to die slowly.

It didn't take long for the smaller separatist group to be totally destroyed--while the females and the territory of the splinter group was annexed by the males of the original group.

Countless similar stories can be told of other types of animals. If you watch a peaceful animal community long enough to see it separate into two groups--shortly after you will see an increase in violence that can only be called war.

Dian Fossey had a very similar experience... writing about the peaceful Mountain Gorillas, who she came to feel were among the most peaceful creatures on the face of the earth. Yet when these creatures encountered other social groups of Gorillas, they waged vicious battles that left many dead and even more severely wounded.

Historically, the idea that diverse communities of Human beings CAN live together peaceably in the same area (without one being subjugated to the other)--let alone that they SHOULD--is a relatively new development in human psychology. Moreover, despite what some may believe, it is not yet the dominant human attitude on the face of the earth. For example, Muslims are quickly becoming the dominant religion on the face of the earth... and the fundamental teachings of Islam promote the idea that anyone who is not a Muslim should be oppressed or even killed. This is not to say that all Muslims support such ideas--but it is the teachings of Mohammad. That is why the radical terrorists are called fundamentalists. They are the ones who adhere to the most fundamental (or original) teachings of Mohammad.

Even among themselves, one Muslim faction can frequently be seen massacring another. And many Muslim countries (and organizations) are clearly waging a war of genocide against Israel and the US, among a long list of other countries.

Originally Posted by Amergain

Slave trade was justified on the false belief that Blacks were inferior, and supported in Europe and America by Organised Christianity.

Wrong. In America, Slaves were originally justified by economic 'necessity'.
America's founding fathers did not believe that Blacks were inferior--and, in fact, many of them tried very hard to have slavery abolished in the original constitution. And many blacks played important roles in society, including key roles in the success of the Revolutionary and Civil Wars and even serving as congressmen. This is a history that has largely been whitewashed by radical liberals (who need blacks to feel like victims).

In any case, the Southern states were not willing to join the Union if slavery was abolished--and so, to make things work the other founding fathers compromised. Slavery was to be abolished in 20 years. Unfortunately, those twenty years saw changes that brought an economic boom in the south that would have largely collapsed without the use of slaves.

Even so, the founding fathers were very careful to build into the constitution the means by which the slaves could eventually be freed. This includes the constitutional claim that all men are created equal, and that our rights come from God, not the government.

One of the consequences of these constitutional claims is that Blacks in South America came to be seen as "less than human"... If all men are created equal, then Blacks couldn't possibly be men or they would have to have the God-given right to be free. The only for southerners to avoid giving blacks their freedom was to rationalize that they were not MEN.

This created, in America, a racial vehemence that was unusually strong. Other countries who practiced slavery around the same time that America was doing so did not have to convince themselves that Blacks were not Human.

Despite this, America has come an amazingly long way in a very short time... from the racial reforms of the 1960s, we now have a society where mixed marriages are common-place and easily accepted. We are among the countries where such marriages are the most easily accepted.

America does still have a number of factors that greatly contribute to racial tensions.

1. We are a racial melting pot. By design, America is a land that accepts and encourages all races. And because racism is built into the genetic make-up of all living things, this creates the possibilities for racial tensions--particularly when conditions aren't optimal.
2. Lack of border control--and the illegal immigration problem: Illegal immigrants cause many serious societal problems, from overcrowding our schools and prison systems, to the war zone on the border, contributing to the drug problem, over taxing our social security and health care system and so forth. Both legal immigrants and multi-generational Americans find this very troubling and it increases the racial tension they feel for those who are so obviously destroying the country they love. And it doesn't help when inflammatory, pro-immigrant groups like La Rasa stir up more racial tension with their hateful and intentionally racist rhetoric.
3. Institutionalized racism--and the racial animus it creates: If you discount the first few factors (and perhaps a few other similar factors I may have missed) the principle cause of racism in America is the way the liberals in our government have institutionalized racism. For example, Affirmative Action is clearly an institutionalized form of racism. It gives preferential treatment to one group based solely on race--and if that's not racism then what is. I believe that among whites, this is by far the biggest cause of racial tension. Very few white people do not have a story of a black person who slacks off at work and threatens to sue the employer if they try to fire them for not doing their jobs and forcing someone else to do it. This isn't to say that there aren't Blacks who are hard working, decent folks. But government has given blacks the means of being unworthy of being hired--and this has lead to a stereotype that is largely justified. And this stereotype further delays the rate at which racism disappears. What businessman in his right mind (all other things being equal) would hire a black man who is likely to feel entitled to shirk his work and threaten to sue--when he can hire someone else who is statistically less likely to do those things? It's not racism, per say, it's simply common sense.
4. The Welfare state and other forms of Institutionalized Poverty: Shortly after the American Civil War, the illiteracy rate among blacks was actually significantly less than it is today. But various liberal leaders (perhaps with good intentions) have enforced government policies that have lead to the radical and institutionalized decline of the black community. Black children are less likely to have a father than any other race--because the government welfare system has encouraged single mothers--and discouraged those women to marry the fathers of their children.

Originally Posted by Amergain

I find it interesting that the USA, a very religious country also has the greatest problem with racists and racist violence. In the USA the most religious region (South) is the most racist and religiously intolerant.

This is an absurd claim. Despite all of the factors that contribute to increasing racial tensions in America--America has very little racism among it's average citizens--and even less actual racial violence.

The violence on the borders, for instance, is not really racial. It is primarily drug related. Similarly, the violence AGAINST tea-party goers isn't racial--it's politically motivated. And there is no racism or violence in the opposite direction--despite the lies perpetrated by so many radical liberals. In fact, blacks make up about 10% of the Tea-party population... which is about the same percentage of blacks in the general population. Many blacks have given speeches or sung songs at tea parties too; and they are always very well received.

By contrast, it is the radical liberals who invariably attack and savage blacks when they exhibit any hint of thinking for themselves--such as when they are strong conservatives.

Radical liberals are the real racists. They claim that they speak for blacks, but only if those blacks fall in line and think the way they want them to. Democrats were the one's who opposed freeing the slaves. Some historians have said that the Klu Klux Klan was primarily a democratic institution, whose major goal was to prevent blacks from voting Republican. Blacks who voted Democrat where not harassed. Over the years, liberals have been very successful in co-opting the truth and rewriting (or ignoring) history. And over the years, they have successfully turned blacks into a new kind of slave. A permanent poverty slave who will vote for them, despite the fact that everything they do contributes to ensuring that black continue to be a permanent underclass.

Originally Posted by Amergain

Question: Is racism a genuine belief in one's ethnic superiority? Or is racism a feeling of personal inferiority covered up by claiming others are inferior for "racial" reasons.

Neither.
Racism is treating one group differently than you treat another.

Whites commonly engage in so-called reverse racism... meaning that they try so hard not to offend or to be racist that they end up bending over backwards to accommodate blacks and/or those who claim to speak for blacks. In other words, they treat blacks differently than they treat whites or other races.

In my opinion, reverse racism is by far the most common form of racism being practiced in America today.

[Ironlord]

Racism is a social construct, not a biological one.

No matter if you are black or white, you have the same type of blood through your veins and the same genes.

Now racism does exist in this nation, but so it does in other nations too. And our Constitution does say ALL men are created equal. No ifs ands or buts.

Yes there is some parts of our nation that racism still exists, but to categorize all of the southern states as those places is also wrong.