News Is Racism and the Race Card Still a Relevant Issue in America?

[Ivan Seeking]

That was my point. The question was framed in terms of black/white racial identity, but what about hispanic? Mixed-race? Or, if the Constitution is to be accepted, the lack of racial identification? Part of what creates the issue today is that people still try to identify themselves racially instead of moving past it. The race card is part and parcel of that. Two cases in point:

Tiger Woods is not a politician, but nevertheless, racial politics has followed him around in his golf career. The press has labeled him "black", but he rejects the label, partly because he doesn't want to dabble in racial politics, but also partly because the label is inaccurate. Though he looks somewhat African, he's only about 1/4 African, but half Asian. He calls himself "Cablinasian". So while the media inaccurately plays the race card on his behalf (really, for their own benefit), he does not. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_Woods#Background_and_family

You said that people try to identify themselves racially, and then provide an example of just the opposite. How does this have anything to do with your point?

Brack Obama is called the first black president and he identifies himself with that label, but the reality is that he's half black and half white - so really he's the first substantially mixed-race President. Labeling him "black" is only half correct and so it is equally correct to label him "white". A post-racial politician might have used his mixed-race heritage as a bridge toward discarding of race labels, but Obama has chosen to make "black" his primary identity, reject his white background and capitalize on the race card as a central part of his political identity, while still somehow managing to convince people that he's post-racial. I have no idea how he's been able to pull that off, but so far it has worked out pretty well for him. http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/04/nation/la-na-obama-census4-2010apr04

He identifies himself with being black because he was perceived as being black. And I would like to know how he stands to profit politically by filling out a census card. Beyond that, he has discussed his mixed race many times. Are you suggesting that most people don't know that he's half white?

More specifically, are you suggesting that Democrats don't know that he's half white? Please show some statistics. I see nothing accurate in anything that you've posted.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

So, I'm looking around at our Tea Party thread, and I notice that there's a lot of talk about racism. Now, this thread has only a passing connection to that one (inspiration, if you must know). I have a few questions I wanted to ask:

1. Do you believe that pro-white racism is still a relevant problem in America?

2. Do you believe that anti-white racism is still a relevant problem in America?

3. Do you believe that politicians and journalists play the Race Card too much in modern times, say, 2008-present?

Yes, yes, and yes, but things are far better today than ever before. Consider that only two generations ago, it was common to call any black man, "boy". My own grandfather did this but by no means was he a racist [not at heart]. He didn't mean it as an insult. That was just how things were in his day.

We also have the "bitter blacks". Black people who lived in a much harsher America grew bitter and biased. "Never trust whitey" was a common phrase from days gone by. Cleary this isn't generally true anymore, but for the people who lived through those times, the bitterness is hard to escape. As for blacks who are simply hateful racist for no good reason, well, they are just racists. There will always be some of those around in all ethnic groups.

Over the course of my life, we have come lightyears in regards to race. Consider that when I was a kid, mixed marriages were still considered exotic and, by many, disturbing, wrong, sinful, or even an abomination. Today, most people think nothing of it.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Wouldn't that be a different problem than racisim? It seems to be one of the problems that exist in poor population groups arising due to poverty/bad enviornment than color differences. That is blacks from upper economical class will have less or no difficulties (Obama). It could be argued that racism and poverty (economic hardships) go together for all kind of people.

In addition to any problems related to poverty are problems directly related to racism. It was those I was addressing in my post. A recent example that sticks in my memory is the DWB profiling on the NJ Turnpike which was pervasive and had no counterpart in racism against whites. The other was the systemic racial discrimination at Texaco.

 

[ThomasT]

So, I'm looking around at our Tea Party thread, and I notice that there's a lot of talk about racism. Now, this thread has only a passing connection to that one (inspiration, if you must know). I have a few questions I wanted to ask:

1. Do you believe that pro-white racism is still a relevant problem in America?

2. Do you believe that anti-white racism is still a relevant problem in America?

3. Do you believe that politicians and journalists play the Race Card too much in modern times, say, 2008-present?

Yes of course to all three. It's particularly relevant when one has close friends who are of another race.

I'm certainly biased toward my race (I'm white). However, I've come to know and have long-term friendships with some African-Americans, Arabs, Indians, etc. This is a very difficult subject, emotionally.

Of course, politicians and journalists play the 'Race Card' too much. But, it's predictable. This sort of 'perspective' creates conflict and tension. Good stuff for journalists. Not sure about politicians' motives.

Personally, I gravitate toward people who I feel I can trust, no matter where they come from or what they look like.

 

[russ_watters]

My personal feeling: law shouldn't define race. I think it started doing so back when slavery was legal. It had to, to determine who was a slave and who wasn't. Also, I don't think law should give racial considerations, but hate crimes are off topic.

So would you say that Affirmative Action should be abolished?

As far as what someone (Obama, e.g.) can do with respect to their racial identity: if they make false claims or want to switch depending on the pase of the moon, I really couldn't care less. I can't think of any decision I would make that would change, depending on someone's racial self-identity.

Consider the following scenario: a person who is 1/16th black but looks white and a person who is 1/2 black but looks black and declines to give themself a label apply to a college that uses Affirmative Action mandated racial criteria to select students. The 1/2 black person has better test scores, but since the 1/16th black person has identified himself as "black", he is accepted to the college due to that racial identification.

Enter the lawyers.

So if you are against people determining their own racial identity, whom do you want to make that determination?

Government records.

 

[russ_watters]

Just as a quick response to Russ's post on the first page, which I am unable to quote due to structural limitations...

I actually deliberately avoided a black/white view in the questions, opting instead for pro-white/anti-white. This was because current perception seems to label the race battle as "white people vs. everyone else". So, yes, Hispanics are included, and I actually tried to include everyone.

Huh - my perception has been that the battle is typically white vs black and that everyone else is ignored. But ok, fair enough.

However, I've noticed that judging on skin color tends to be false. As an anecdotal example, both of my parents are white. Much of my Dad's family is from Scotland and Germany, and my mother's family is Bavarian (Bayerisch) to the core. I look very German myself. My sister, who shares both parents, looks positively Native American (Blackfoot, to be exact). Goes to show that color doesn't always indicate race.

Note: She still puts down "White/Caucasian" on applications.

Same goes for both the Tiger Woods and Obama examples. It would seem that the physical traits that people associate with "black" are more dominant than those associated with "white".

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Tiger Woods

Those 1/4 African American, 1/4 Thai, 1/4 Chinese, 1/8 Native American and 1/8 Dutch are all alike.

 

[russ_watters]

Such as?

Affirmative Action. We had lots and lots of discussion about the New Haven firefighter case here and I'm pretty sure you participated in it.

Really? Please provide some examples. I think what you said is complete nonsense.

You have got to be kidding. This could not possibly be the first time you've heard it. Here's a google for a few million examples of the discussion:
http://www.google.com/search?source...F_enUS311US311&q=reverse+racism+doesn't+exist

The basic (most reasonable) argument is this: Whites have all the power, therefore blacks don't have the power to be racist:

When a group of people has little or no power over you institutionally, they don’t get to define the terms of your existence, they can’t limit your opportunities, and you needn’t worry much about the use of a slur to describe you and yours, since, in all likelihood, the slur is as far as it’s going to go...

So whereas “cool person” was and is a term used by whites to dehumanize blacks, to imply their inferiority, to “put them in their place” if you will, the same cannot be said of honky: after all, you can’t put white people in their place when they own the place to begin with.

Power is like body armor.

http://www.raceandhistory.com/selfnews/viewnews.cgi?newsid1024893033,80611,.shtml

You said that people try to identify themselves racially, and then provide an example of just the opposite. How does this have anything to do with your point?

Um...both of those guys do identify themselves racially. Perhaps you misread?

He identifies himself with being black because he was perceived as being black.

Is that all the power he has over his own identity - is he really that bound to the perceptions of others? I really thought he had more character than that and I'm shocked you think so little of him. Perhaps we should have elected Tiger Woods President!

And I would like to know how he stands to profit politically by filling out a census card.

That's not what he profited from. He profited from switching back and forth between the identities of "black" and "mixed race" by using "black" to court the vote of "african americans" and "mixed race" to court the vote of whites.

More specifically, are you suggesting that Democrats don't know that he's half white? Please show some statistics.

No. But whenever someone call's him the first black President, they are misrepresenting his race. And surely you don't need a citation to know that that happens, do you?

I see nothing accurate in anything that you've posted.

It appears you understood virtually nothing of what I've posted, which is mind boggling to me as this is all common knowledge stuff.

 

[yungman]

So, I'm looking around at our Tea Party thread, and I notice that there's a lot of talk about racism. Now, this thread has only a passing connection to that one (inspiration, if you must know). I have a few questions I wanted to ask:

1. Do you believe that pro-white racism is still a relevant problem in America?
Not much.
2. Do you believe that anti-white racism is still a relevant problem in America?
Absolute. Right now everything is anti white! Don't get me wrong, I am not white.
3. Do you believe that politicians and journalists play the Race Card too much in modern times, say, 2008-present?
Absolutely. The mainstream news want to see obama succeed and down play all the racial issue of obama.
Just for the record, I would have said yes to all three if asked.

The race issue will be our downfall.

 

[yungman]

So would you say that Affirmative Action should be abolished?
Consider the following scenario: a person who is 1/16th black but looks white and a person who is 1/2 black but looks black and declines to give themself a label apply to a college that uses Affirmative Action mandated racial criteria to select students. The 1/2 black person has better test scores, but since the 1/16th black person has identified himself as "black", he is accepted to the college due to that racial identification.

Enter the lawyers. Government records.

Affirmative action should be abolished. It is not fare for all the other people. Why Chinese has to get better grades than everyone else to get into medical school? Because they study hard and they get punished? Why is it some race can get the job even though he/she is less qualified but with the right color?

Everyone has equal chance, this is land of opportunity, everyone willing to work hard can get ahead.

 

[WhoWee]

Yes to all 3, with the caveat that certain forms of anti-white racism is now incorporated into the law as acceptable practice or even required and along with that it is socially acceptable/required in many cases. So while #2 exists, it is not typically viewed objectively and properly defined in our society. In other words: to many, the word "racism" cannot be applied in the way you have used it in #2. It only is typically applied to white against black.

I agree. However, I get the feeling "Muslim" and "illegal" will soon become the next true battlegrounds. Remember, the "Left" always needs a cause.

 

[yungman]

Progressives use race as a weapon to silence people. If you read back history, it is the republicans that were anti slave right from the beginning when the Republican party first form along with President Lincoln. It was the progressive democrat woodruff Wilson that enacted the segregation. President Eisenhower tried the first civil right bill and was stopped by then senate majority Linden B Johnson. So it was not until 1964 before the real civil right bill was passed. Infect Robert Byrd was associated with KKK and was very anti black.

People now are so afraid of the word racist. The only reason obama got voted in is because he is black. Can you imagine another person with only career was community organizer, two years as senator and voted present more than anything. Over 20 years sitting in a church listening to rev wright preaching hate, GD America, chicken come back to roost. One that started his campaign in the house of bill ayers. Can you imagine the kind of investigation any other person would have with this background. But all we look at is change.

Mainstream media dive into help him. Anyone saw the news from MSNBC on the story of the gun tooting white in the Tea Party rally that turn out the person was black. MSNBC intentionally not showing his face and have two anchors commented on white racism. This is kind of news that the majority of people are watching. And they have to nerve to complain Fox News being biased.


Now the progressives and liberals use the race card, pander to illegals to get vote. Obama is looking into giving amnesty to illegals. Pretty soon, you won’t even recognize this country anymore. How can you call enforcing our border racist? If you are here illegally, you are breaking the law. How can checking the driver’s license racist. I am Chinese, if cops stop me and ask for my ID, I’ll thank them for doing their job.

Now we have to be sensitive to the muslims! How about some sensitivity towards the 9/11 victims’ families.

I am an immigrant and I am a minority, I absolutely against all the racial sensitivities in this country. You want respect, you earn it. Don’t cry racist on cue. Those people give the word minority a bad name.

 

[CRGreathouse]

The only reason obama got voted in is because he is black.

 

[yungman]

And Palin don't have experience to be the vice president candidate! She only was the govenor for Alaska for two years, clean up a lot of the corruption, had about 70% approval rating when she left office, and she serve as the mayor before. These are true executive experience.

Obama was a community organizer related to ACORN. Serve as senator for only two years and more than a year away campaigning. There is not executive experience...and it really show now.

I don't think this is funny. Name any president in recent days that had less than three times the experience than him.

 

[Office_Shredder]

The only reason obama got voted in is because he is black. Can you imagine another person with only career was community organizer, two years as senator and voted present more than anything.

Are you aware that Obama was a lecturer at the University of Chicago for 12 years and invited to take a full-time tenure track?

http://www.law.uchicago.edu/media

s received many media requests about Barack Obama, especially about his status as "Senior Lecturer."

From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track. The title of Senior Lecturer is distinct from the title of Lecturer, which signifies adjunct status. Like Obama, each of the Law School's Senior Lecturers has high-demand careers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching. Several times during his 12 years as a professor in the Law School, Obama was invited to join the faculty in a full-time tenure-track position, but he declined.

He also joined the state senate in 1996, and stayed there until his election to the US senate, so he's been in an office at the state level or higher for 12 years before his presidency. It seems obvious that you don't actually know what Obama has done

 

[yungman]

Are you aware that Obama was a lecturer at the University of Chicago for 12 years and invited to take a full-time tenure track?

http://www.law.uchicago.edu/media



He also joined the state senate in 1996, and stayed there until his election to the US senate, so he's been in an office at the state level or higher for 12 years before his presidency. It seems obvious that you don't actually know what Obama has done

That's where the whole thing gone wrong. In education! People taught in college have NO IDEAS what is the real world. It is those acadamics with high education that think they are the elite class, knows better than the rest of the people that cause so much problem.

I know a lot of you guys are high acadamics and professors and I will get a lot of flags. You never can understand the real world until you walk amount them. I had been an EE for 26 years, almost totally self studied because my degree was chemistry. Been a manager of EE for over 12 years. I published papers in Review of Scientific Instruments and own a pattern on a detector of spectrometer type design. That said, I interview enough people coming out of college, It was sad! They have no idea what the real world is. The thing that made it worst is they truly think they know! Professors?? If they never been to the real world, a lot of them are just totally out of touch with the field they are teaching. Their ideas are always very ideal and the world is not ideal!

During the Health Care bill debate days. Frank Luntz did a fucus group of MD and medical students. You should see ALL the real doctors except one were against the bill, but most of the medical students are for the bill, talked about the kindness, helping people, their rights and all. Their goes to show you how out of touch they are. In the real world, it is how you execute rather than the idea, organization and persistance rather than coming out with some LITTLE nifty idea. You grow up when you enter the real world.

Back to the subject, being a state senate or senator IS not executive experience. Runing a state or a city is. When you have to make a decision on who to layoff to fit the budge, what program to cut and face the consequence, when you have to look into the eye of the person and tell him/her you have to let hiim/her go, then that is executive experience.

 

[Office_Shredder]

Why is experience running a state as governor a necessary qualification? John McCain didn't have any executive experience either, what's your point?

LBJ didn't have any executive experience until he was vice president and then succeeded Kennedy to be president, and he did a good enough job to get himself re-elected. Kennedy himself had no executive experience as well.

You're moving the goalposts. First your complaint was that he only served two years in the senate and was a community organizer. Then I pointed out you were ignorant of the facts, so you changed the criterion to being a governor or mayor

 

[turbo]

My nephew is as white as can be, and is a Navy lifer, recently commissioned as a Chief Warrant Officer. His wife is black, as is his adopted step-daughter. The daughter is one of the loveliest young women I have ever seen. Still, attitudes about race in Maine can make them a bit apprehensive about some situations when they visit.

There are not many black people in this state, and many around the Portland and Lewiston areas are recent Somali immigrants, some of whom have not integrated all that well into the local communities. Friction arising from dealings with such communities are more like "growing pains" than deep-seated, long-held resentments, though.

 

[yungman]

Why is experience running a state as governor a necessary qualification? John McCain didn't have any executive experience either, what's your point?

LBJ didn't have any executive experience until he was vice president and then succeeded Kennedy to be president, and he did a good enough job to get himself re-elected. Kennedy himself had no executive experience as well.
How did that end up?
You're moving the goalposts. First your complaint was that he only served two years in the senate and was a community organizer. Then I pointed out you were ignorant of the facts, so you changed the criterion to being a governor or mayor

Read my original post about Palin that the left complain she had no experience to be a VICE presidential candidate! YOu cannot cut both ways.

 

[yungman]

My nephew is as white as can be, and is a Navy lifer, recently commissioned as a Chief Warrant Officer. His wife is black, as is his adopted step-daughter. The daughter is one of the loveliest young women I have ever seen. Still, attitudes about race in Maine can make them a bit apprehensive about some situations when they visit.

There are not many black people in this state, and many around the Portland and Lewiston areas are recent Somali immigrants, some of whom have not integrated all that well into the local communities. Friction arising from dealings with such communities are more like "growing pains" than deep-seated, long-held resentments, though.

Racisism exist. I experience it as I am a Chinese came here in the 70s.

The point is how do you handle it. I know I look different, people don't treat me the same way. I know I have to work harder to proof myself and I did. I worked over 10 years in a company that the owner and the director were very very white. They even slip sometimes on the racial jokes. I got the most promotion from them. I got my manager of EE with them. I demended to become a manager, they said proof what you have, I did, and they gave me the position in 3 months! I was the manager for almost 10 year until I left.

Point is racisism exist, alive and well. But instead of cry foul, give up, sit on the floor and kicking your feet, do something, work harder! YOu earn respect, you don't demand it. I am proud to say, seems like companies are bias towards Chinese now a days because they are usually hard workers. It is up to you to set the example. Keep demanding respect and cry foul, you might be able to pass laws, but you just create racial divid and hate.

 

[Office_Shredder]

Read my original post about Palin that the left complain she had no experience to be a VICE presidential candidate! YOu cannot cut both ways.

I don't think there was a large contingent complaining about her experience, but rather about the fact that she seemed generally un-knowledgable and incompetent.

 

[WhoWee]

I hope this doesn't wander too far...I found the paper very interesting.

http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3352700/Gay_SeeingDifference.pdf?sequence=2

"Antagonism toward Latinos is believed to emerge, at least in part, from African
Americans’ fears of displacement or loss due to the advancement of an out-group competitor.
The fear, as one African American described it, is that Latinos are “taking the food from black
children” (quoted in Vaca 2003, 5).
The conceptualization of black-Latino conflict as being conditional on blacks’ fears of
material deprivation prompts the question of what factors can amplify or neutralize these fears of
displacement. In addition to a variety of individual-level correlates, researchers have sought to
link the environment in which blacks live to their levels of anxiety about and hostility toward
other minority groups (Bobo and Hutchings 1996; Bobo and Johnson 2000; Cain, Citrin, and
Wong 2000; Cummings and Lambert 1997; Oliver and Wong 2003; Sears et al. 1999). To date,
the primary emphasis has been on the racial composition of the environment, with fears of black
displacement purported to increase with the size of the Latino population in the area."


Could it be that racism itself is an unintended consequence of the welfare state?