Race and Racism in The United States

[Soldati Senza Confini]

To be fair, I think the demonstrated differences across populations is a good thing.

However, they're just not meaningful for the social sciences and are vastly more meaningful in the medical field, where knowing the predisposition one group (or colloquially "Race") has of having X disease is significantly more important and significantly more meaningful.

I disagree, to an extent. Race based diagnosing has done significant damage to the medical field as a whole, and it's substantially more effective to look at patients on an individual basis and look through their family history. There's some overlap between that and populations, but it's applied to something much too broad, whereas it's much more effective to observe and diagnose with a more specific and less vague method.

Mind if I ask if you could give some examples as to the sort of damage that race-based diagnosing and epidemiological studies have done in the medical field? Just curious.

[Mavorpen]

I disagree, to an extent. Race based diagnosing has done significant damage to the medical field as a whole, and it's substantially more effective to look at patients on an individual basis and look through their family history. There's some overlap between that and populations, but it's applied to something much too broad, whereas it's much more effective to observe and diagnose with a more specific and less vague method.

Mind if I ask if you could give some examples as to the sort of damage that race-based diagnosing and epidemiological studies have done in the medical field? Just curious.

Mental illness is the biggest one I've come across. This source does a good job explaining the dangers of race-based diagnosing. It's especially troubling here in the United States because of the "one drop rule," something the source also mentions, where the majority of your family can be mostly "white", but if you look "black" enough, you'll get treated and diagnosed a certain way.

[Liberty and Linguistics]

The solution to your problem of course, isn't to fight against racism but rather- to accept it as what is natural and true. Learn what racial/ethnic group you belong to and do not feel any shame in embracing that. I choose to keep to my own as much as possible and couldn't be happier.

I belong to the human group. I keep to my own, the humans, as much as possible. I feel no shame in being human, and considering humans to be something I belong to.

Oh, wait, you're talking about the social construct sometimes called "race?" Oh, that's hilarious.

[The Cobalt Sky]

The solution to your problem of course, isn't to fight against racism but rather- to accept it as what is natural and true. Learn what racial/ethnic group you belong to and do not feel any shame in embracing that. I choose to keep to my own as much as possible and couldn't be happier.

I belong to the human group. I keep to my own, the humans, as much as possible. I feel no shame in being human, and considering humans to be something I belong to.

Oh, wait, you're talking about the social construct sometimes called "race?" Oh, that's hilarious.

That was hilarious

[Saiwania]

I belong to the human group. I keep to my own, the humans, as much as possible. I feel no shame in being human, and considering humans to be something I belong to.

People who claim to be completely colorblind with regards to race are deluding themselves in my experience. Most people can definitely differentiate between different skin colors and will treat people differently based on their own prejudices. It is perfectly normal.

[Soldati Senza Confini]

I belong to the human group. I keep to my own, the humans, as much as possible. I feel no shame in being human, and considering humans to be something I belong to.

People who claim to be completely colorblind with regards to race are deluding themselves in my experience. Most people can definitely differentiate between different skin colors and will treat people differently based on their own prejudices. It is perfectly normal.

You don't see how this is an issue?

[Tahar Joblis]

Mind if I ask if you could give some examples as to the sort of damage that race-based diagnosing and epidemiological studies have done in the medical field? Just curious.

Mental illness is the biggest one I've come across. This source does a good job explaining the dangers of race-based diagnosing. It's especially troubling here in the United States because of the "one drop rule," something the source also mentions, where the majority of your family can be mostly "white", but if you look "black" enough, you'll get treated and diagnosed a certain way.

What I see there is a slippery slope argument - much as I've seen around in this thread several times: That simply using race information (as in the case of BiDil, which proved largely ineffectual in general but often very helpful for black patients) is equivalent to taking a nose-dive into 19th century phrenology. The fact of the matter is that using "poor proxies" is what medical practitioners generally have to resort to. Raw weight is a poor proxy; BMI barely better; but medical professionals still diligently record that information to help understand a patient's problems and potential treatments.

There is nothing wrong with (for e.g.) prescribing BiDil to a black patient under circumstances you would not prescribe it to a white patient, because it's known that whatever genetic factor makes BiDil effective seems to be found mostly in black patients. You should also be faster to think of sickle-cell anemia with a black patient. Then, of course, there are the complicated issues surrounding vitamin D and race, which we're still unraveling the picture of - but only via studies that examine racial differences explicitly.

Making medicine race-blind in response to past problems related to ideology and history is itself an ideologically motivated move - and will blinker you to populations that respond better or worse to particular treatments, or that suffer more commonly from one ailment than another. Race-blind medical studies in the US amount to an unintentional focus on treatments that are best for the majority population - but not necessarily for the majority of the global population, or even for minority populations within the US.

[Mavorpen]

People who claim to be completely colorblind with regards to race are deluding themselves in my experience. Most people can definitely differentiate between different skin colors and will treat people differently based on their own prejudices. It is perfectly normal.

You don't see how this is an issue?

Honestly, he might as well be arguing that people who claim that their cars aren't sentient, and that seeing Jesus in their toast doesn't actually mean that Jesus isn't in their toast, are deluding themselves.

[UED]

Honestly I think racism will never go away (at least in my lifetime), but maybe, just maybe, the people of 200-300 years in the future racism will be non-existent?

If we could only accept each other for being human
;-;

[Tahar Joblis]

You don't see how this is an issue?

Honestly, he might as well be arguing that people who claim that their cars aren't sentient, and that seeing Jesus in their toast doesn't actually mean that Jesus isn't in their toast, are deluding themselves.

It's not at all difficult to find studies where people who claim not to be racist nevertheless exhibit behavior that seems to indicate they are, in fact, racist.

It is, of course, very difficult to reliably measure implicit attitudes. You could claim skepticism, especially with all the problems we've had with non-replicable studies in the social sciences regarding things like priming (a key component of many studies on implicit attitudes). On the other hand, in an environment where almost everyone claims to be not racist, we still have very strikingly different treatment of blacks and whites in, for example, the courtroom, that's quite visible on an aggregate level even if we can't pin down specific instances very well.

[The Cobalt Sky]

Honestly I think racism will never go away (at least in my lifetime), but maybe, just maybe, the people of 200-300 years in the future racism will be non-existent?

If we could only accept each other for being human
;-;

I think that's being very optimistic, but I hope so too.

[Mavorpen]

Honestly I think racism will never go away (at least in my lifetime), but maybe, just maybe, the people of 200-300 years in the future racism will be non-existent?

If we could only accept each other for being human
;-;

I think that's being very optimistic, but I hope so too.

Well, like I said in my first post, the sooner people move past the notion that you can only be racist or hold racist beliefs if you're a self identified white supremacist KKK member, the sooner we can erode away racial stereotypes and people can be judged by their character and not their superficial phenotypical attributes that indicate "race."

[MLK]

I think that's being very optimistic, but I hope so too.

Well, like I said in my first post, the sooner people move past the notion that you can only be racist or hold racist beliefs if you're a self identified white supremacist KKK member, the sooner we can erode away racial stereotypes and people can be judged by their character and not their superficial prototypical attributes that indicate "race."

I second the notion.

[Chestaan]

A country founded in white nationalist beliefs that had a 90% white population at the peak of its racist sentiment not many decades ago has major problems of white supremacist portions of populace oppressing the disadvantaged minorities? Color me shocked!

I would, but then a lot of Americans would probably discriminate against you.

[The Cobalt Sky]

I think that's being very optimistic, but I hope so too.

Well, like I said in my first post, the sooner people move past the notion that you can only be racist or hold racist beliefs if you're a self identified white supremacist KKK member, the sooner we can erode away racial stereotypes and people can be judged by their character and not their superficial phenotypical attributes that indicate "race."

I agree, and I think I kinda said that.

I don't think it's "just a select few" that are racist. Openly racist, maybe, but I think that just because someone doesn't say "White Power" out loud as a greeting to everyone they meet doesn't mean they aren't a racist. Racism is generally more subliminal than that.

[Patridam]

Well, the racial profiling and the prison population disparity might have something to do with blacks committing more crime. The system still has a good smattering of racists and some people with discriminatory tendencies who don't think they are actually racist; of course; but a large part of the problem is urban poverty.

[The Cobalt Sky]

Well, the racial profiling and the prison population disparity might have something to do with blacks committing more crime.

No. Because there's racial profiling means that African Americans are targeted more meaning the fact that we commit more crimes isn't actually fact, or not one that can be proven with simple arrests. If there's racial profiling, and there's a lot of it:

“For every 10,000 residents, about 3,400 more black people are stopped than whites, and 360 more Latinos are stopped than whites. Stopped blacks are 127% more likely to be frisked -- and stopped Latinos are 43% more likely to be frisked -- than stopped whites. Stopped blacks are 76% more likely to be searched, and stopped Latinos are 16% more likely to be searched than stopped whites.
Stopped blacks are 29% more likely to be arrested, and stopped Latinos are 32% more likely to be arrested than stopped whites.
Now consider this: Although stopped blacks were 127% more likely to be frisked than stopped whites, they were 42.3% less likely to be found with a weapon after they were frisked, 25% less likely to be found with drugs and 33% less likely to be found with other contraband. We found similar patterns for Latinos.
Not only did we find that African Americans and Latinos were subjected to more stops, frisks, searches and arrests than whites, we also found that these additional police actions aren't because of the fact that people of color live in higher-crime areas or because they more often carry drugs or weapons, or any other legitimate reason that we can discern from the rich set of data we examined.”
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/23 ... oe-ayres23

Then the "blacks just commit more crimes" argument falls apart because of course it seems that way if African Americans are focused on more.

EDIT:
There's also this:

“Prison sentences of black men were nearly 20% longer than those of white men for similar crimes in recent years, an analysis by the U.S. Sentencing Commission found.”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014241 ... 3789858002
http://www.vox.com/2014/7/1/5850830/war ... minorities

[Edgy Opinions]

Abolitionnists existed back then, and if you consider this factor, then all of Europe should be racist.

You seem to be implying I don't think white supremacy is a cross-cultural project that benefits and interests all people who can be received under said umbrella term, in whatever context, whenever it privileges them.

[Edgy Opinions]

Well you know, despite the violent historical origin of the US, now at days we accept immigrants from all parts of the world and live together in peace most of the time. Unlike ethnic nationalist enclaves of Eastern Europe or tribalism in Africa where people die over that. Let's look at progress. The US is much better than what it was before.

...there is racial violence in historically developed countries and less developed countries with "good" racial relations, actually.

[Divitaen]

Well, the racial profiling and the prison population disparity might have something to do with blacks committing more crime. The system still has a good smattering of racists and some people with discriminatory tendencies who don't think they are actually racist; of course; but a large part of the problem is urban poverty.

I don't deny that sometimes crime rates are higher amongst the African-American community for socio-economic reasons, but that doesn't change the reality of racial profiling. I think its hard to ignore the evidence with Stop and Frisk rates, the fact that African-Americans are disproportionately jailed for drug offences even though the drug usage rate is the same between the races, the fact that Stand Your Ground laws apply disproportionately more to White perpetrators than Black ones, or that African-Americans are disproportionately sentenced to death for the same crimes and convictions as their white counterparts. The fact is that a large part of the injustice in America stems from a racial disparity not in socioeconomics but in the treatment of the races by law enforcement and the justice system.

[Edgy Opinions]

Honestly I think racism will never go away (at least in my lifetime), but maybe, just maybe, the people of 200-300 years in the future racism will be non-existent?

If we could only accept each other for being human
;-;

We need to end Orientalism, anti-Blackness, the ideology of anti-Indigenous genocide/Lebensraum/assimilation, Antisemitism, ethnic nationalism, therefore all nationalism, therefore either States or capitalism or both (if that isn't necessary for the other bits in the first place)... eh

[Republic of Coldwater]

I'm not defending racism, as it isn't a good thing to do. One should not simply hate another person's race, as it is merely a few genes that really don't dictate much, but racism will never end, it will always be an existent idea that cannot be simply ended. It has always been around, and regardless of what education programs you put in place, regardless of what legislation you instill upon law, we will always have racists. It is a sad, hard truth that we must accept.

[Republic of Coldwater]

Honestly I think racism will never go away (at least in my lifetime), but maybe, just maybe, the people of 200-300 years in the future racism will be non-existent?

If we could only accept each other for being human
;-;

We need to end Orientalism, anti-Blackness, the ideology of anti-Indigenous genocide/Lebensraum/assimilation, Antisemitism, ethnic nationalism, therefore all nationalism, therefore either States or capitalism or both (if that isn't necessary for the other bits in the first place)... eh

Capitalism? Whot.

Capitalism can exist in any society, regardless of its racial status.

Orientialism and Lebensraum aren't necessarily racist. One can be an orientalist and a support of Lebensraum without being a racist.

[Edgy Opinions]

I'm not defending racism, as it isn't a good thing to do. One should not simply hate another person's race, as it is merely a few genes that really don't dictate much, but racism will never end, it will always be an existent idea that cannot be simply ended. It has always been around, and regardless of what education programs you put in place, regardless of what legislation you instill upon law, we will always have racists. It is a sad, hard truth that we must accept.

I'd say you could be largely right, if we could not erase our culture's notions of "individuality" and "merit" that are just codewords for the ideologies with highest power of expansion according to a given privileged version of truth, and power hierarchies themselves that tag people according to lived experiences that are inherently unique and equally human and valuable, and privilege to learn to use them and have wisdom and factoids in their construction of professional and public identity through that.

The point where racism ends is where there aren't richer or poorer because there aren't classes, where no one feels more sense of connection to a given approximate boundary of "immediate humanity" that is fully ideologically and socioculturally built because all those were erased, and where people can't be measured in accounts to that because no one owns property or signs of unlimited success before others because everything is common belonging to others.

[Seperates]

I'm not defending racism, as it isn't a good thing to do. One should not simply hate another person's race, as it is merely a few genes that really don't dictate much, but racism will never end, it will always be an existent idea that cannot be simply ended. It has always been around, and regardless of what education programs you put in place, regardless of what legislation you instill upon law, we will always have racists. It is a sad, hard truth that we must accept.

Ah our eros for tribalism is a strong one...