Are you racist?

[Gemini Cricket]

Originally Posted by The Shadoe

Just curious... we all like to think that we are beyond the race issue, but deep at heart, are we?

Nope. I don't think we are.

But then I think we're all racist. In some way. We all make assumptions based on someone's race. I think if someone says they don't, they're not being honest.

Just my 2 cents.

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by Gemini Cricket

Nope. I don't think we are.

But then I think we're all racist. In some way. We all make assumptions based on someone's race.

I've found that I am more of an "economicist" than I ever have been a racist. I don't make assumptions about someone based on their race, but I frequently do based on the way someone is dressed or how they walk or whatever.

If I see a group of kids in their late teens walking through a neighborhood dressed in gang clothes with their hats on backwards, I get nervous. I don't care what race they are. If I am in the mall and a couple black guys walk by, I don't notice more than if anyone else walks by.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

I don't make assumptions about someone based on their race,

So when you see someone who looks Hispanic, you don't assume there's good odds they speak Spanish? Or someone says, "mind if I bring my friend David Goldberg over for brunch," you don't think that maybe bagles and lox would make a good choice to serve?

These are just broad buckets that ease social interaction in the short term. It means people don't have to walk around with life-history pamphlets so that we can start conversations with each other. As long as we realize that those generalizations are simply a start point, not an end point, it's a useful thing. It's only when people mistake "stereotype" for "general truth" that things become problematic.

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

So when you see someone who looks Hispanic, you don't assume there's good odds they speak Spanish? Or someone says, "mind if I bring my friend David Goldberg over for brunch," you don't think that maybe bagles and lox would make a good choice to serve?

I'm sure there are various cultural things, but i'm pretty culturally ignorant. The bagels and lox - wouldn't even cross my mind. The hispanic speaking spanish - probably, but I wouldn't assume they didn't speak English.

Is making an assumption about such things being observant or being racist? I guess it's a fine line.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

I'm sure there are various cultural things, but i'm pretty culturally ignorant. The bagels and lox - wouldn't even cross my mind. The hispanic speaking spanish - probably, but I wouldn't assume they didn't speak English.

I simply picked a couple examples. Your mileage may vary. The point being we all make certain immediate assumptions based on very limited information on a person (whether it's their race, their mannerisms, their clothing) that gives us a starting point to then build a more complete picture. The don't all have to fall into the "someone would be offended if they knew I assumed this" category.

Is making an assumption about such things being observant or being racist? I guess it's a fine line.

Like I said (twice), making assumptions is not racist. It's hardwired into our brain and is what allows us to be social beings (and likely allowed us to survive prehistorically, as that kind of pattern recognition helps avoid dangerous situations). It's erroneously using those assumptions as a be-all guide for actions and decission making that carries one into the realm of racism.

[Alex]

The ways in which I'm "racist" tend to be probabilistic. I put racist in quotes because I'm not necessarily meaning just negative things but simply conclusions based solely on race.

I see a Hispanic person and I know that they are more likely to speak Spanish or have difficulty speaking English but I don't assume that to be true of this particular person. But if I walk into a fast food restaurant and see a Hispanic person working the register I will approach them more mentally prepared to deal with a language barrier than I might be if it were a white person (though of course, it is certainly possible they have a language problem as well).

I know that a black person is more likely to have grown up poor, with imprisoned relatives, and raised by grandparents but I don't assume that to be true about any particular anonymous black person.

No, it wouldn't occur to me that David Goldberg might want bagels and lox, but that is for two reasons: 1) despite the fact that it is also an ethnicity I tend to view Jewishness as primarily religious and I really don't care about religion and 2) I don't view bagels and lox as particularly Jewish. Similarly, when I look at "soul food" I recognize it as really just being poor Southern food (my grandparents ate the same stuff on the farm); it's just that for most Northern whites the first poor Southerners they met were blacks migrating from the south and therefore the food they ate became associated with blacks.

Anyway, I definitely use race to make probabilistic predictions about people but I do that with any other possible clue about people (age, dress, geography) and do my best not to actually act based solely on probabilistic predictions. As long as race is associated with differentiating predictors, "racism" can't really go away and may actually have some value.

But no, I have never liked or disliked somebody simply because of the color of their skin. I may like or dislike behaviors that have some racial correlations (and such correlations almost never anything to do with inherent racial qualities) but I do my best to differentiate correlation from causation.