Thread: Racism

Opinion of, experiences of, explanations for. A tender subject for many.

Well Kalster

Most noxious elements of human behaviour seem to come from fear.

There seems to be alot of racism at the moment where i'm living because of the sudden high volume of immigrants, especially polish who are supposed to be 'taking all the jobs' etc.

I think it boils down to people being afraid of losing their security and thinking they are going to miss out or feel embittered worrying that someone else will get bigger slices of the pie.

They then get a sense of a 'them and us' which develops an idea of an 'enemy'

Personally i think good luck to them and if i was suffering hardships in my home country and there was a promise of a better life and prospects of work somewhere else, then i would probably go there too!

It's a shame, but hopefully this is teething problems for a better future where we might get more used to each other and live in peace. I do hope so

I think there is a difference between immigrants who immigrate to find a better job and realy make an affort where their going to live and immigrants who dosen't do shit only living of govourment pay checks and not doing anything to immprove scociety.

Thats the problem in Norway anyways. There are to many freeloaders and people are getting sick of they taking our taks money whilst there are sevral groups of hard working people that don't get shit. Those people that are called "white trash" (i am sorry for this translation but I don't know an ybetter ones) in the us.

i am black and have experiencae racism but i ignore it...

Originally Posted by KALSTER

Opinion of, experiences of, explanations for. A tender subject for many.

The OT bible is the source of 'racism'.
In the beginning, it separates 'day' and 'night' into two factions.

Its day Sun god is represented by the chauvinist lion as a male.
While on the other hand, the Moon represents the 'darkies' as females.

The 'image' on the Moon does look like a 'fetus' and its 28 day cycle around the Earth is equal to the periods of the female menstral periods.

So we have a 'killer' Sun god and a female 'creator' God.

But the ONLY chauvinist is the lion.
Practically all the other species in Nature do not separatge thenselves from the females since they all wear the same clothing(?)

The Egyptians however, have replaced the lions head (Sphinx) with that of a Pharoah (human).
So the message here is that the humans are the superior specie, not the lion.

The Sun can also represent the females as the sources of 'energy' since after delivering the newborns, they also feed them for a couple of years to nurture them.
The plant seeds (eggs) are the sources of all the plants that feed us all, so I think it is proper to use the Sun as a representative of the females also.

The proper representative of the chauvinist lion is the Sahara Desert that is an example of death that the lion represents.

So the subliminal psychology here has carried over from the OT to todays economic representatives of chauvinism (fangs and claws) in relation to the creator darkies (hands) that the capitalists have reduced to just a commodity.

So this is an example of my opinions on the racist issue.

Cosmo

Racism derives from the evolutionary advantages associated with being suspicious of people who are strangers, i.e. different.

To add to Ophiolite's highly accurate comment: Here is a very interesting article suggesting that within-group cooperation evolved hand-in-hand with intense between-group competition (a state which likely prevailed during our evolutionary history) - which would of course promote aggression towards people who you do not perceive as being part of your group.

I have a different take on racism

First I see the very concept of race itself as a convenient but partially arbitrary construct that is conscribed in time. If you go back in time eventually the races of our era become less meaningfull and fade and a thousand years from now the races we hold so dear will also have faded.

And also where do you draw the line and why? Are egyptian white? If not wheres the border? You can go from Ireland to Egypt with a little cardboard with all the shades of beige from your local paint store and you might be hard press to find a defenitive distinction between people behind and people in front.

Its partially arbitrary in that it is mostly based on our primary sensory mode, vision.

If I show to you a person with dark skin the racism/race will apply even if the dark skin is due to african blood or native american blood. You could see a person and say hes white while his kids might not be.

If you have to look at the genetics to fabricate your races your not better off. A 'white' person with type O blood can get blood from a 'black' person with O blood but not from a 'white' person with type AB blood. Between two person of european origin one can be immuned to HIV because of a Tcell mutation and the other normal, you cant tell by looking at them whose got that potentially crucial genetic characteristic.

anyway I think racism is a learned behavior. My daughter is going to a daycare center with children from many origin and the kids dont make any distinction whatsoever.

As for the us vs them factor, this is a cognitive construct, if theres no visible distinction it can be created based on other social factors, religion, language, wealth, preferance, sexual orientation, etc.

One element I note however, is that for historical reasons the race construct is often associated with significant cultural differences, these cultural differences accentuate the perspective that the other is different because he not only looks different but "Behaves" differently.

Originally Posted by icewendigo

anyway I think racism is a learned behavior. My daughter is going to a daycare center with children from many origin and the kids dont make any distinction whatsoever.

As for the us vs them factor, this is a cognitive construct, if theres no visible distinction it can be created based on other social factors, religion, language, wealth, preferance, sexual orientation, etc.

One element I note however, is that for historical reasons the race construct is often associated with significant cultural differences, these cultural differences accentuate the perspective that the other is different because he not only looks different but "Behaves" differently.

Of course you have to learn who is in your group and who isn't. You learn this as you grow up. Your parents and community teach you what is considered normal for your group and then what is not normal for your group becomes an indicator for an outsider. But it is highly probably that a general feeling of enmity for someone you perceive as being from another group is genetic. We're very flexible on learning exactly what is in-group and what is out-group, and the feeling can possibly be overcome.

Racism as competition between groups seems like a plausible explanation, at least it explains why racism in one form or another seems to have existed in just about every society in the world (I'm generalizing here, but I have seen many examples from widely different places and times). It seems that one unarmed stranger inspries curiosity in humans (no threat, possible gain), while large numbers of 'out-group' people are rarely greeted with friendliness. So fear is certainly an element as well.

In studies on immigration issues in the Netherlands I've read that the first foreign inhabitants in a neighbourhood were often welcomed by the 'natives'. They were curious about his background and offered some (often patronizing) assistance to integrate the foreigner into their community. But when the number of foreigners in a neighbourhood reached a certain threshold curiosity changed into distrust, and friendly attempts at integration would change into "assimilate or leave".

Maybe a tendency for racism is one of those things we inherited from prehistoric times (like a tendency to eat lots of salty, fatty food; a tendency to like healthy, physically attractive leaders, etc). It may have given advantage in the past, but in a globalized world it makes us waste good opportunities and seek unnecessary conflicts. A racist human wouldn't have had much conflict in prehistoric times as encounters with strangers must've been rare. Nowadays they occur daily. And the advantages of having a cosmopolitan, open-minded outlook on the world are just huge nowadays. These days racists are usually not the most wealthy and succesful people in any society. Just imagine a scientist who rejects any research results that come from outside of his/her own country, he'd be clueless.

I wonder if once being conquered affects race relations? Historically speaking, one could look at the white man's recent exploits as a reason for a superiority complex. I also wonder if it is racism when you live in the conqueror's society and are subject to their avails. Once time passes and the conquered have slowly intermingled, fought for their rights and demanded equality does it become easier to shout racist because the conqueror still maintains the superiority but is less likely to react?

To All

To add to my privious post on this thread, I can add more reasons to show that the OT is the culprit in promoting racism.
It not only separates night and day but also portrays females as sinners
(false) by eating the fruit from a tree? This is an insult to the apes
This is another reason why the followers of the OT refuse to accept Darwins Evolution?

Then again, the Jews portray themselves as 'gods chosen people'?
Discrimination and racism!

Cosmo

Racism is pointless and I don't understand it.

personaly i think it is an unfortunate 'side affect' of a survival mechanism, people are naturaly suspicius and curius of something new or diferent, but that curiosity can quickly turn to fear and/or hatred, unless they stop to see that this 'difernent' thing is actualy just the same as themselves.

racism comes primarily from ignorance and fear.

Isn't racism a way of forming bonds and attachments between like 'races' or 'groups'. I mean take a high school playground for instance. The grebs, the goths, the freshes, the football players. Each of them slander each other to and behind their backs, and it forms bonds between similar people. Is it possible that whites do this to blacks? I'm not being mean here but most Americans online on video games I meet are VERY racist. Curious to know why the yanks are more predujucidal than any other country. Apologies to any yanks who are not racists .

A psychologist named Henri Tajfel demonstrated that discrimination can be the sole result of group categorisation. You will find racism or any other form of discrimination will occur so long that there is a 'them' and 'us' and a way to categorise things. For example, white and black ethnicity.

Originally Posted by Pendragon

Racism as competition between groups seems like a plausible explanation

This concept was put foward by Muzafer Sherif in 1966. However Tajfel's study on intergroup discrimination has shown that it will occur without competition, and just the very categorisation of a person will cause discrimination.

Tajfel puts this down to Social Identity Theory, in that by discriminating against another group it will make your own group seem superior, thus boosting self esteem. I highly recommend his study it is a good read.

Do you perhaps have a link for us? Sounds pretty acurate.

Originally Posted by elhermoso

This concept was put foward by Muzafer Sherif in 1966. However Tajfel's study on intergroup discrimination has shown that it will occur without competition, and just the very categorisation of a person will cause discrimination.

I'd like a link to the study too, because of course in modern humans discrimination may occur even without any obvious competition - because the behavior was established to be innate to our nature during our evolution when competition WAS very high between groups and it was ALWAYS advantageous to discriminate between us and them. The current environment may have changed, but the genes probably haven't caught up with that fact yet.

Tajfel puts this down to Social Identity Theory, in that by discriminating against another group it will make your own group seem superior, thus boosting self esteem. I highly recommend his study it is a good read.

And boosting self esteem reduces levels of stress hormones and increases performance, which is always a good adaptation to have if you're trying to compete against other groups. I imagine it also increases feelings of group identity and thinking highly of your group, and not just yourself, which I think goes without saying would be important for intergroup competition.

This is the best link i can find:
http://www.holah.karoo.net/tajfelstudy.htm

Of course the original study isn't on racism (because of ethics), rather discrimination, but the concepts remain.

Originally Posted by paralith

The current environment may have changed, but the genes probably haven't caught up with that fact yet.

This, arguably, lies at the very root and all the limbs and branches of the problems that beset humanity at large and each individual human. Not only could an entire book (or many books) be written on the subject, but an entire philosophy could be created.

teenie,i'm not black,you say you igngore it ?people should learn that this is gods earth and we should all get along