I am a racist (and so are you).

[Requia ☣]

I'd argue against that.  It's just a matter of sifting out bad data before making a decision.

Wouldn't that require that the person in question admit the bias to themselves?  How many people do you really think are capable of doing that?

[Mangrove]

What the post says:

Yes, it's true. Though I'm cringing in admittance, I have to come out of the closet about this. It's just far too damaging to keep it in.

All people are racists, which is to say, all people discriminate based on surface differences of facial structure and pigmentation. The founder of sociobiology EO Wilson claimed it's a product of kin selection, a universal issue with a genetic root. People who are superficially different than us and our kin are more likely to be considered untrustworthy, dangerous, or simply unfriendly. People who are superficially similar to us and our kin are more likely to be considered trustworthy, benign, and friendly. This root has nothing to do with culture, although the culture factor certainly comes from and stacks upon this. Strangers are the unknown, the different and the possibly dangerous, and visual cues are very important in this determination. I may get hounded for months for posting this, but I know it's true. Some situations require split second decisions about threat or friendly, for which automatic reactions have been highly selected over evolutionary time. Kin selection based racism was initially part of that.

What I am NOT saying here is that we are all Lester Maddox. I don't think anyone here actively discriminates on the basis of race (and if you do, GTFO seriously), nor would I recommend doing so just because there is this biological basis (and if you do, also GTFO). What I am saying is we all have the capacity for superficial discrimination. This is of course not limited to race; culture adds layers of superficial differences to discriminate against. Very few people are aware of this unconscious act. I know I was shocked when I saw it in myself, when I initially shied back from people of different pigmentations or dress or facial features just because they looked different, even in completely nonthreatening situations.

This is something that requires awareness. When these ubiquitous prejudices remain just an evolutionary vestige, when they are made aware of in mind and checked they are unable to enter outward actions. It's when they are ignored, when people pretend they don't exist that they become dangerous, that we submit ourselves to monkey impulses of kin selection.

I'm a racist. But I'm recovering.

What I think this is actually about:

I know I was shocked when I saw it in myself, when I initially shied back from people of different pigmentations or dress or facial features just because they looked different, even in completely nonthreatening situations.

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

I do not base my hatred on a person race or religion, I hate everyone equally. 

Except the kid's father who I hate more than everyone else. 

He's a white cracker rednecked idiot. 

[E.O.T.]

I do not base my hatred on a person race or religion, I hate everyone equally. 

Except the kid's father who I hate more than everyone else. 

He's a white cracker rednecked idiot.

THAT ONLY

          disproves anything if you're a white cracker redneck idiot yourself, otherwise it just sounds racist.

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

I do not base my hatred on a person race or religion, I hate everyone equally. 

Except the kid's father who I hate more than everyone else. 

He's a white cracker rednecked idiot.

THAT ONLY

          disproves anything if you're a white cracker redneck idiot yourself, otherwise it just sounds racist.

You know it's bullshit like this that is why I stopped coming here. 

NOTE: INTENDED SARCASM!

Fucking christ I'm fucking done!

[E.O.T.]

I do not base my hatred on a person race or religion, I hate everyone equally. 

Except the kid's father who I hate more than everyone else. 

He's a white cracker rednecked idiot.

THAT ONLY

          disproves anything if you're a white cracker redneck idiot yourself, otherwise it just sounds racist.

You know it's bullshit like this that is why I stopped coming here. 

NOTE: INTENDED SARCASM!

Fucking christ I'm fucking done!

HA!

          i'll take an order of that intended sarcasm, please

AS IF

          anyone thought they'd enter a thread regarding racism on the p.d. board and leave unscathed

[NotPublished]

fuck shit fuck


...

my lack of swear words concerns me.

Am I racist? Perhaps. From experience, almost every female I have met in RL, are insane. Considering 80% of my friends are females, they are...really...scary...sometimes I just want to get away and scream myself to sleep in a corner

Everytime I meet a female, I am biased towards them being insane.
Everytime I meet a guy, I am biased towards them being douche *much prefer this! As I am douche also*.

Hows that for racist?



(Of course this is mostly within my age bracket...)

[note: replace insane with sensitive and douche with guys and its suddenly nicer]

[Payne]

UNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNG.

This thread pisses me off to a horrendous degree.

Yes, I and many others may well have an instinctive reaction to skin colour. We are on many levels instinctive creatures, and sometimes may have to act on those instincts (the cop with a gun example from earlier).

Is the cop a racist if he is white and shoots a black man on instinct, just because he's black? No.

"Racism" implies a certain kind of wilful blindness, and a conscious discrimination.

For a counter-example; wanting, deep down, things to be fairer for all does not make one an immediate "Socialist", which implies a certain number of other things which include conscious choices.

An identification with people who are less alien than yourself is an entirely natural thing. I'm not saying that natural = good, of course, but to FUCK with anyone saying it's a bad thing.

[0]

I do not base my hatred on a person race or religion, I hate everyone equally. 

Except the kid's father who I hate more than everyone else. 

He's a white cracker rednecked idiot.

THAT ONLY

          disproves anything if you're a white cracker redneck idiot yourself, otherwise it just sounds racist.

You know it's bullshit like this that is why I stopped coming here. 

NOTE: INTENDED SARCASM!

Fucking christ I'm fucking done!

YEP.

That's why I'm just lurking now.

Anyway, back to lurking.

[Kai]

What the post says:

Yes, it's true. Though I'm cringing in admittance, I have to come out of the closet about this. It's just far too damaging to keep it in.

All people are racists, which is to say, all people discriminate based on surface differences of facial structure and pigmentation. The founder of sociobiology EO Wilson claimed it's a product of kin selection, a universal issue with a genetic root. People who are superficially different than us and our kin are more likely to be considered untrustworthy, dangerous, or simply unfriendly. People who are superficially similar to us and our kin are more likely to be considered trustworthy, benign, and friendly. This root has nothing to do with culture, although the culture factor certainly comes from and stacks upon this. Strangers are the unknown, the different and the possibly dangerous, and visual cues are very important in this determination. I may get hounded for months for posting this, but I know it's true. Some situations require split second decisions about threat or friendly, for which automatic reactions have been highly selected over evolutionary time. Kin selection based racism was initially part of that.

What I am NOT saying here is that we are all Lester Maddox. I don't think anyone here actively discriminates on the basis of race (and if you do, GTFO seriously), nor would I recommend doing so just because there is this biological basis (and if you do, also GTFO). What I am saying is we all have the capacity for superficial discrimination. This is of course not limited to race; culture adds layers of superficial differences to discriminate against. Very few people are aware of this unconscious act. I know I was shocked when I saw it in myself, when I initially shied back from people of different pigmentations or dress or facial features just because they looked different, even in completely nonthreatening situations.

This is something that requires awareness. When these ubiquitous prejudices remain just an evolutionary vestige, when they are made aware of in mind and checked they are unable to enter outward actions. It's when they are ignored, when people pretend they don't exist that they become dangerous, that we submit ourselves to monkey impulses of kin selection.

I'm a racist. But I'm recovering.

What I think this is actually about:

I know I was shocked when I saw it in myself, when I initially shied back from people of different pigmentations or dress or facial features just because they looked different, even in completely nonthreatening situations.

Perhaps it is. Maybe it was directed at myself? No matter, I've fallen out of love with the OP over the past several days and while I agree with Wilson's sociobiological work on kin selection, the premise is shit and I wouldn't put it past some people to run with it as an excuse.

[Mangrove]

Kai,

You're a decent person. I've never known you to do or say anything that could be construed as racist.

In your OP, you apologize for a belief system that you don't espouse. You have nothing to apologize for. No right minded person would ever think you had a thing for white hoods, cross burnings etc - so relax!

While I've studied a fair bit of biology, I am not a biologist of any stripe, so I can't profess to knowing very much about E O Wilson, sociobiology or any of that stuff. I think it goes without saying that humans will naturally notice what is different from them. Not just pigmentation or facial variants, but just about everything. It's entirely natural that reptilian parts of our nervous system get pinged by what is different.

The word 'discriminate' carries a number of meanings:

a) To distinguish by discerning or exposing differences
b) to make a distinction, to use good judgment
c) to mark or perceive distinguishing or peculiar features
d) to make a difference in treatment or favor on basis other than individual merit

Definition (d) is the only one that fits what we think of as 'racism'.

Noticing what is different is not the same as making a value judgment.

At risk of being a stinking pop psychologist, my feeling when examining the OP earlier lead me to:

a) You are not your thoughts. Thoughts are mental events produced in our consciousness. They are capable of being observed, examined, analyzed.

b) Sounds to me like you saw someone who was different. You noted the difference and then jumped to an overblown and false conclusion, that you were a racist.

c) Because your dominant belief system (more thoughts, just repeated) is that 'racism is abhorrent' you  conflated 'I noticed a difference' with 'I must be racist' which is against what you ordinarily believe, thus leaving you with a weird feeling that you somehow, can't trust yourself. I think you may be just a little over sensitive here. Deep breaths!

I can't help noticing black people in my town because it's small and predominantly white. I notice but there's no judgment. I also notice Victoria's Secret models on tv - it doesn't mean I don't love Mrs Mang, it doesn't mean I'm not attracted to her, it doesn't mean I'm going to go all Tiger Woods on her either. No, all it means is that scantily clad women on tv are sometimes capable of getting my attention. And no sooner has the ad gone, my thoughts have moved on. It's just a mental event. (A mental event that is not in any way aided by the fact that Mrs Mang will comically yell 'boobehs!' whenever buxom lasses appear on screen.)


Evolution may have selected us for certain 'discrimination' but it also gave us a frontal cortex, higher thinking and the ability to say 'hey, I just had a thought....oh...there's another one....wow...my head is really noisy.....I can examine what I think about!'  That ingenious faculty stops many of us from sliding back into the primordial ooze.   

As I said, I don't really know much about Mr Wilson (Dr Wilson?) so I can't comment. I hope that it's not like a lot of so called 'Evolution Psychology' where people with too much time on their hands come up with various scenarios about how they think ancient humans behave and then try and draw some conclusions to modern life. Shit like - "Oh well, we believe that people are racist/gay/alcoholic/violent/gamblers/republicans etc etc because thousands of years ago people in caves would've done XYZ."

Pure, unadulterated nonsense. We cannot say too much about the behaviors of 'cave men' because they're all dead. We cannot observe them, we cannot test them and we cannot collect much in the way of evidence. It's almost entirely untestable and thus not really science.

Every few years someone will come up with yet another one of these speculations which are all variants upon the same theme. Hell, even the jackass who wrote 'Men are from Mars etc' was on tv talking about how in days of yore, cavemen would've spent quiet time alone in their caves which is why modern men like to get away from their wives!

So I dunno.....using Evolution to form a blanket generalization that 'everyone is racist' is, IMHO extremely faulty. (And yes, someone will almost certainly mangle the premise to justify their own dumb ideas.)

[Kai]

Actually, it wasn't just noting a thought of difference, it was noting a thought of extra caution and attention due to the difference. Which frankly yes, did make me feel like a bigot.

[President Television]

Actually, it wasn't just noting a thought of difference, it was noting a thought of extra caution and attention due to the difference. Which frankly yes, did make me feel like a bigot.

Drop it. It doesn't mean anything. If you'd had time to think it through, you wouldn't have consciously made that judgment, would you? That's what matters. Nothing else. Things like this are why it's important to think for ourselves.

[Triple Zero]

It's dangerous in that it provides an excuse for actual racism.  It gives people something to point to in order to explain their racist behavior and say "look, everyone is racist, I'm just more honest about it."  And considering the former takes vigilance, self control, and effort I think it's pretty safe to assume the majority of people would tend to the latter justification.

I agree that this is a danger, but the reasoning is easily disproven. Compare to how we say over here that everybody is a primate/monkey. We don't say "I'm just more honest about it" to justify acting on our primate impulses. Quite the opposite, we pride ourselves on being able to observe and overcome these impulses when this is required.

[Mangrove]

Actually, it wasn't just noting a thought of difference, it was noting a thought of extra caution and attention due to the difference. Which frankly yes, did make me feel like a bigot.

But you didn't follow it up with "HEY YUOO.....GET OUTTA MA NEIGHBERHUD [racial slur of choice]!"




Srsly dude, I think you'll be ok. Your lower nature went 'ping' and your higher nature noticed it. You became aware of a thought and decided it was ill suited to your life & beliefs. Great, it means your nervous system works just fine. If only more people did this!