What Breeds Racial Intolerance?

[Mr. Bungle]

Childhood experience? Social conditioning? Familial influence (IE if your father is a racist, he could end up having an influence on your racial biases)? Psychopathy??? Probably not the last one. Likely the first couple.

Something I've been thinking about since I've started to notice my own father's acts of mild racial intolerance. Earlier today we were in the car, and I found a blank CD in his glove compartment. I had burned him some CD's of albums I like for him years ago, and since we were getting tired of David Bowie dance mix #120983, I decided to dick around with the blanks.

The first one I put on was Illmatic by Nas. My dad isn't a big rap fan, hell in most cases he seems to kinda despise it, especially the "gangsta rap" variety. So, when I told him it was one of the most beloved and respected albums in that genre of all time, he got a horrified look on his face, demanded that I eject it and tossed the disk onto my lap. It's odd, because a while ago when I was listening to clouddead in the car with him (white rappers, not "gangsta" in the slightest) he didn't seem to mind, although he didn't like it that much.

And he's a fairly open-minded guy, for the most part. Yet he seems to dislike African-American hip-hop culture, finds Basketball boring and simple, often makes stereotypical (and unfunny) jokes about them (black man can't swim, black man's got AIDS, black man's from the jungle and loves fried chicken, shit like that) and honestly I can't think of any black people he has expressed a great deal of admiration towards. He likes Obama, though. So he isn't a complete bigot.

As I started to notice these acts of light ignorance, I thought about his upbringing. For the first ten years or so of his life, he was raised in Brooklyn. I don't know exactly where, but it was in the 1960's and he went to a public school. He's never mentioned anything about any negative experiences with black people, but I can't help but wonder if there's any correlation between his negative viewpoints towards most blacks and his upbringing in New York. I might be kinda delusional here, or grasping at straws, but I dunno. It's kinda plausible.

What do you guys think? Have any family members with racial intolerance (to any degree)? Where does it start? How do you abolish it? Can it be abolished?

[Job McYossie]

My grandfather tries to be racially tolerant, but doesn't do too well. He's totally aware that he's a few years behind the racial cultural curve, but he doesn't see it as important as other things. So he's not ignorant, but a little arrogant.

[V_O_T]

I feel that its personal experiences and environment that affects some people and their outlooks and it builds tolerance and intolerance depending on the situations they get caught up in.

My dad is some what the same in that respect. But in all honesty hes just an old fashioned ethnic jolly Greek man who doesn't take things in vane, or doesn't mean it in a negative light.

although it is funny when we mention gay people to him because he gets a bit on edge. He likes them as a normal person would, but if he gets hit on by a gay dude he gets a bit defensive haha.

Anyways, I believe it stems from media stereotypes, historical events, personal situations and environment. Your dad is an individual still and has been and seen a lot of the crazy crap going on in this world, and with age comes the glorious skill of not giving a shit. So, unless hes a hard core KKK activist or slaughters Chinese babies for trophies, he seems and thinks like every human. its just his outlook on life. And the stereotype you dad was mentioning about black people is very much a real thing.

There are black people and there are Niggers. A big difference. Like gay people and queens. Humans and assholes. All these jokes people make stem from a common idea or event. They tend to stick as a joke and should always be taken as a joke. In the end, its all about the actions, not the words. I think. I don't know. I'm a chicken farmer. As for abolishing it? don't laugh at the jokes. The things you don't laugh at get slammed with "that awkward joke" he said and he should say them less and less. I'm blabbeling now lol.

[MA]

i sort of agree with the chicken farmer. what? i'm not biased.

i find racism naturally repulsive, but at the same time i don't know the most politically-correct people in the world either, so it's not like i crusade against it. if you want to dress up like a ghost and start burning crosses then that's your choice, and you will have to deal with any consequences that might come your way, just leave me the fuck out of it. that said, if i saw racism in motion (someone being verbally/physically assaulted because of their race or something), i wouldn't just ignore it. i wouldn't be able to ignore it. that's when my utter disgust reaction kicks in.

like when people tell racist jokes, i will be polite and not make anyone feel alienated (the fucking irony), but i still won't find it funny. if i start laughing at things i don't actually find funny in the slightest, i'll just be lying to myself as well as everyone else.

[STM]

I'll tell you who breeds racial intolerance; cis white male scum.

Honestly, I think there's a difference between making a racist joke and genuinely hating someone for their race or ethnicity, hell I'm one of the most accepting, open minded person you'll meet, I have a mixed race girlfriend, I'm pansexual and all that, and I'll still crack a 'racist joke' every once in a while. There's not a drop of venom behind it, they're just quips that make people laugh. In the same vein, I've been called a 'dirty fucking pikey' a few times and I couldn't help but find it funny just because I knew the person was only mucking about.

Now, anecdotal experience alert: I believe I have also come under racial prejudice, and without going into a long, boring story, I got screwed out of three months wages back when I worked at a building site, for being white.

Coming back to your question about racists in my family: My Dad is a weird case, he had a black girlfriend and he has nothing against individual non-Caucasian people but he does seem to hold up these bizarre stereotypes and he was mortified at the prospect of Bulgarians emigrating to the UK and 'stealing our jobs'. He also isn't too fond of gays, he says it's wrong to do a dude up the arse and that they all have AIDS, also something about keeping them out of the Churches. But yeah he's actually toned that down over a few years so...maybe he's getting better.

Racism tends to be perpetuated by groups, I think. Society is inherently racist, not as much as it was two hundred years ago, but it's still there, thinly veiled and sometimes it bubbles up to the surface, the good thing now is when a public figure is caught being racist there is a god awful media/ public outcry. Like that basketball bloke (don't know his name) who told his wife not to hang around the black basketball people. I honestly believe a lot of racism stems back to religion and though many religious institutions aren't racist now, they got the ball rolling and they're not doing enough to de-construct racism.

[Mr. Bungle]

Racist jokes can be funny if crafted in an original fashion, have a healthy amount of truth to them or are just... well... funny. Yeah, that's vague, but if something makes me laugh, then I laugh. If it's not funny, I'll generally not laugh, but just kinda nod depending on how severe the joke was.

Generally though they're very forced and I feel like people are just trying to release their true feelings towards a group through form of a joke because it's socially acceptable and people will typically just think "ha ha what a joker he should do stand up" and not stop to think "damn dude you've been making fun of that Asian man playing his DS on the bus for an hour now, why not make fun of your own kind for a change?" And if they never do or are offended when someone makes fun of their cracka ass, then that's a telltale sign of intolerance, prejudice or racial pride (which is awful).

[Bullet Magnet]

In our culture, racial intolerance goes back to the early 1700s, and not before. It helped to justify the slave trade, and the descendants of slaves and slavers have both been laden with the scars of that horror ever since. Having your mind warped out of shape by racist ideology is a miserable curse indeed, even though they may not recognise it themselves, being blinded to the contributions of the majority of the human species and even wilfully contributing to their suffering is a wasted existence. The fact is that the idea of a racially and culturally isolated Europe is pure fiction, there have always been a great many people from all across the old world in Europe, across all echelons of society, and they got by pretty well. The concept of race as we understand it is a recent thing. Interesting fact: Britain (except north-west Scotland) as once ruled by a black African: the Roman Emperor Septimus Severus reigned 193-211 CE, and was cremated in York. Okay, not the most pleasant of individuals, but one of a great many instances in which it is clear that black heritage is our heritage too. I'm actually really pissed off about this, all through school and then continuing on with other sources I have been taught a version of our history that is at once incomplete, wrong, and unashamedly whitewashed. And I am furious. It doesn't just disenfranchise our racial minorities from their connection to our countries' pasts, it cuts us all of from the knowledge of the accomplishments, contributions and stories that made our world what it is today.

And now I've got a mixed-race cousin with dark skin growing up in an all-white family in an all-white village and he's starting to notice, and I'm becoming painfully aware of how many ways the world has been set up to be harder for him in ways it was not for me and there is no fucking reason for any of it. It's completely fucked up and unbelievably unhealthy and I cannot fathom how it got this way or how we don't bother to open our eyes to the experiences of those around us. Shit.

[Slog Bait]

The inaccuracies, biases, and white washing in history is why I have a hard time believing any sort of historical texts I read. It's at that point where it's almost impossible to tell what's real and what's fiction.

I was lead to believe for the first 14 years of my life that the US was peacefully established with the intention of true equality and freedom, and first nations people welcomed us with open arms.

[Bullet Magnet]

Who the fuck told you that?

[OANST]

Septimus Severus wasn't black, and could hardly be called African. And racial discord has always existed since the dawn of recorded history.

[Slog Bait]

Who the fuck told you that?

School : D

[STM]

In our culture, racial intolerance goes back to the early 1700s, and not before.

That's bollocks, BM. Racism is an inherently human problem that tightly coils around our entire history. The Babylonian Talmud talks about the sons of Ham who were 'cursed by being black'. Even fucking Aristotle said that everyone who wasn't a Greek was worthy of nothing more than being a slave.

[Jordan]

The DNA of the human race was infected with a virus by an advanced alien civilisation that tells the brain "be an absolute fucking cunt for no good reason".

[Bullet Magnet]

That's bollocks, BM. Racism is an inherently human problem that tightly coils around our entire history. The Babylonian Talmud talks about the sons of Ham who were 'cursed by being black'. Even fucking Aristotle said that everyone who wasn't a Greek was worthy of nothing more than being a slave.

I said in our culture. Others have done their own thing, and I am by no means claiming that there was a perfect racially going culture before then. But racim as we today know it and all the behaviours and stereotypes and words and glass ceilings and everything we know racism in our culture to be today started then. It wasn't that much earlier than that that foreign cultures and empires in Africa, the Middle East and Asia (and the Americas, prior to contact) were much more advanced than Europe was at the time.

[Nate]

Also, and this is a very fine hair to split, many of the ancient cultures weren't racist per se; they were culturalists. They didn't give a shit what colour your skin was as long as you'd been raised in the same city, religion, and politics. And they hated everyone else.

Then there's tribalism, in which you hate people with the same skin colour just as much as you hate other races.

[STM]

Ahh, so that makes it okay then.

[Slog Bait]

Explaining or clarifying something does not automatically equate to justifying or excusing an action.

[STM]

I know, I was just tired and grumpy and couldn't be arsed to give a proper response. My point is simple that any form of persecution against another human being for whatever reason is wrong.

[Manco]

Unless they’re dicks.

[MeechMunchie]

That's personalitist, you bastard.

[Nate]

I know, I was just tired and grumpy and couldn't be arsed to give a proper response. My point is simple that any form of persecution against another human being for whatever reason is wrong.

Slog Bait's point still holds.

Also, I did say in my post that making that point was no more than an exercise in hair-splitting (or, if that phrase isn't universal, nitpicking).

[moxco]

It's remarkably easy to externalise blame for society's problems onto an out-group. It doesn't necessarily have to be race; it could be language, religion, or caste; but race is a very dividing trait in most societies.

[Bullet Magnet]

Race itself is a cultural concept that doesn't correspond to any real biological classifications or distinctions. And that it has cultural origins is even more apparent when you notice how different cultures differentiate "racial" groups across different lines. This is noticeable in the way Africans and Indians differentiate racial groups within their own groups, which we clump together.

[STM]

Also, a lot of 'racial' stereotypes within developing countries were imposed by the colonial powers. The Rwandan Genocide between the Tutsi and Hutu clans was sparked by a sense of racial superiority stirred by the German and Belgian colonists.

I mean, look at fucking India and Pakistan, before the British Raj, the Hindus and Muslims used to get on together and in fact, the Mughal Empire was ruled by a Muslim minority that was pro-Hindu and one of the empire's primary values was religious equality. Three hundred years later you have a Hindu country and a Muslim country frequently threatening nuclear annihilation over something as pointless as a spit of land in the mountains.

[Bullet Magnet]

Would those be the colonial powers that happened to be steeped in bullshit racial doctrines?

[STM]

Why yes, yes they would.

I know the Tutsi and Hutu problem was down to the 'science' of eugenics. In part the Dutch decided one group was better than the other because they had 'European' noses.

[MA]

my mother breeds racial intolerance.

just throwin that the fuck out there, dawg.

[Havoc]

Racial intolerance is mostly the result of different cultures clashing and people drawing conclusions because of it. But also because of history and upbringing on both sides of the fence.

In the case of racism in the United States it has a lot to do with slavery being a big part of US history. Black people have been treated as inferiour beings for decades and while that is no longer the case now, the effects can still be seen. Because of that early on seperation between black and white, it's still hard(er) for black people to be accepted in society. Thus harder to find jobs, harder to socialize. And subsequently easier to end up in crime and/or poverty. Ending up in a downward spiral that only confirms the racial bias people already have.

In Europe we have the same problem but with a different ethnic group. Instead of racism towards black people, we have racism against Islamic immigrants. Mostly these are people who moved from the farmlands of countries like Turkey, Morocco, Egypt and refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran. These people have a completely different culture and lifestyle than people in Europe do. The original immigrants tend to not care about adjusting to a new country or accepting its customs. Their offspring, in turn, aren't taught the local country's rules and customs either, just the beliefs that are passed down from their own culture. The result is that, in Europe, we have a LOT (and I mean a LOT) of criminals with an Islamic background. Mostly the children of those original immigrants. They're often highly aggressive, have zero respect for women or the law.

These criminals with an Islamic background, at least in the Netherlands, represent the majority of the crime figures these days. And even though that absolutely doesn't mean that every single Islamic person is a criminal, it becomes very easy to start thinking that way when you see this particular group in the news over and over and over again, always related to some form of crime.

Is it wrong? Yes, of course. These people represent a minor fraction of the total population. Is it understandable? Yes, it is. Because it's also human nature.

[Bullet Magnet]

There was an experiment on behavioural psychology performed on kids, in which a group of children were told on different days that those with particular eye colours were better than those which other eye colours for that day. I'm not sure how it was reinforced, but the attitude change was immediate. But the most disturbing thing was, during academic activities the "oppressed" groups would perform less well and require more time to finish, an effect that disappeared when participating in the other side of the experiment, or not participating at all.

[Varrok]

What a lovely experiment