How Modern Anti-Racism Hurts Black People

[anatess2]

Interesting juxtaposition of Modern Anti-Racism and Religion.  The LDS Church is mentioned a few times.  I agree with the way he portrays anti-racism as a religion and how it hurts the people it is supposed to help but equating it to "Mormons" made me go... hey, wait a minute... 

 

[2ndRateMind]

So, @anatess2, I would concede that 'anti-racism' might someways be ideological, rather than rational.

But I do not think that it constitutes a religion. For starters, one can be of any religion, of any denomination, sect or cult, and still be either racist or anti-racist, or some compromise between.

So, what is a religion, that it differs from the rhetoric around mere political ideology?

Leslie Sevenson, et al, (2018) are interesting here, in 'Thirteen Theories of Human Nature' .

Accordingly, religions are comprehensive world views. As such they comprise (at least) the following:

• A background metaphysical view of the universe, and humanity's place within it.
• A specific theory of human nature, in the sense of a set of distinctive claims about humanity, society and the human condition.
• A diagnosis of some particular defect or some several defects in humanity.
• A prescription to address each defect, and an ideal as to how humanity might best live out their lives.

I am not persuaded anti-racism, or, indeed, racism, qualifies in any respect, except possibly the third, and so it seems to me that it is disingenuous to call anti-racism a religion. It appears to be more of a social movement, simply calling for the widespread introduction of social justice. And I, for one, can't find fault with that.

Best wishes, 2RM.

 

Edited April 29, 2019 by 2ndRateMind

[bytebear]

I have my own story involving unfair treatment from the police.  If I told you the story, and didn't tell you my race, you could easily call it a racism thing, or profiling, or whatever.  I just realized that some cops are unfair and, frankly, jerks.

[SilentOne]

On 4/30/2019 at 3:34 PM, bytebear said:

I have my own story involving unfair treatment from the police.  If I told you the story, and didn't tell you my race, you could easily call it a racism thing, or profiling, or whatever.  I just realized that some cops are unfair and, frankly, jerks.

A few years ago I read an article that included a question something like, "Have any of these things happened to you?" or "How many of these things have happened to you?", followed by a big long list of stuff that had happened to the black author or their friends/relatives (I don't remember exactly what the article said about that). The clear implication was that white people would have experienced few if any.

There were about three that hadn't happened to me.

I can definitely believe that those things happen more to black people, but what I thought the article really demonstrated was that while yes, I have never experienced life as a black woman (or man), the average black person has never experienced life as a white person.

Edited May 2, 2019 by SilentOne

[anatess2]

3 hours ago, SilentOne said:

I can definitely believe that those things happen more to black people, but what I thought the article really demonstrated was that while yes, I have never experienced life as a black woman (or man), the average black person has never experienced life as a white person.

And I've never experienced life as a white woman or a black woman.  I don't think I'm getting the point here.

[bytebear]

1 hour ago, anatess2 said:

And I've never experienced life as a white woman or a black woman.  I don't think I'm getting the point here.

The point is, those examples of racism are often experienced by people who aren't a minority.  It's like you are comparing bad experiences of one group to the ideal life of white people.  Fact is, a lot of white people are shot by cops.  And per-encounter statistics show that whites are actually more likely to be shot than blacks.  But we never, EVER hear about these stories, because they don't fit the narrative.

[anatess2]

10 hours ago, bytebear said:

The point is, those examples of racism are often experienced by people who aren't a minority.  It's like you are comparing bad experiences of one group to the ideal life of white people.  Fact is, a lot of white people are shot by cops.  And per-encounter statistics show that whites are actually more likely to be shot than blacks.  But we never, EVER hear about these stories, because they don't fit the narrative.

Ok.  I get it now.  I tend to look at it in a different way.  When one race is experiencing more of something than other races, I tend to look into what is in that race that causes it.  When I hear black people are getting shot by cops more than other races, I tend to ask, why are black people having encounters with cops in the first place instead of asking are whites getting shot by cops.  When I hear Asians are getting into Ivy League more than other races it causes me to look into what is it about Asians that get them into Ivy League to cause such a prejudice to exist rather than start counting non-Asians getting into Ivy League.  Make sense?

[Guest LiterateParakeet]

Anatess, I only watched the first couple minutes of this, and was really intrigued...but I got interupted and haven't had a chance to get back to it.  You know this is a topic of interest to me, so I will make time to watch the whole thing, and likely share my thoughts.      

[JohnsonJones]

7 hours ago, anatess2 said:

Ok.  I get it now.  I tend to look at it in a different way.  When one race is experiencing more of something than other races, I tend to look into what is in that race that causes it.  When I hear black people are getting shot by cops more than other races, I tend to ask, why are black people having encounters with cops in the first place instead of asking are whites getting shot by cops.  When I hear Asians are getting into Ivy League more than other races it causes me to look into what is it about Asians that get them into Ivy League to cause such a prejudice to exist rather than start counting non-Asians getting into Ivy League.  Make sense?

From what I understand, there is actually racism AGAINST Asians to prevent them from getting into Ivy Leagues as easily.   There was a lawsuit about this a little while back.

What it really means is that there is prejudice against Asian Americans.  On the otherhand, if you are Chinese, you are more likely to easily get in for several reasons.  First, there is pretty solid proof of Chinese (and to a degree Korean) Cheating on the TOEFL and various other tests.  They pay a LOT more in many instances to go to the Universities and in a for profit system, this money is pretty highly valued.  I have heard about rampant and blatant cheating on the behalf of these Asian students (NOT to be confused with the Asian Americans that speak English as their native language and have played by the system...these are those from overseas that really don't deserve the slots they have...but money speaks) and Professors basically being handicapped in every way in dealing with this cheating.  They have their hands tied, they cannot do anything about it.  If you see cheating with most, you can bring it up and that individual will be questioned in the least, and perhaps kicked out of the university.  If it is one of the Chinese from wealth...it is covered up or you are told to shut up and sit down.  It's a tricky situation.

In my current opinion...

It's not that Asian-Americans are really easily getting into the Ivy Leagues or any university in greater percentages or numbers (when considering Asian-Americans as a whole), and the bias against them is much greater than any other race currently.  It is that the Wealthy Chinese and a few other groups are basically buying their way in.  This gives the appearance that there are a LARGE amount of Asian minorities in the University system (but a huge amount of them are foreign and NOT US citizens).  They are the ones that give this appearance of success, while basically buying it with foreign money.

My advice to anyone who is Asian in the US today, do NOT mark that you are Asian on many of your college applications UNLESS you are from another nation and are backed by wealth.  Even scholarships for supposed minorities are ignoring the REAL American minorities and giving it to foreigners (where they are from nations where they are actually the majority), meaning that for Asian Americans, they are perhaps the most oppressed of minorities in the US presently in regards to actual REAL bias against them and agendas to prevent them from gaining ground.  They need higher GPAs, test scores, and diversity in activities than any other group to get the same benefits (acceptance into universities, scholarships, etc).

The difference between them and other groups as far as I can tell (and I'm not positive, it is kind of mystifying why they don't have more outrages on how they are treated) are due to many of them being splintered into different groups (you have the Indians, the Pakistanis, the Japanese, the Southwest Asians...etc) with none of those groups being really large enough to voice anything.  AS they may be the smallest minority in many areas, they have no voice (which is typical of a real minority) and thus are ignored even by those minorities which are greater.  The STEREOTYPE that they are successful also means that many minorities tend to look down on them rather than see that the Asian Americans are also minorities.  I also think there may be a cultural element where Asian Americans and Asians in general do not complain about circumstances as much as some other groups might (note, this is just conjecture on my part).

 

 

Edited May 3, 2019 by JohnsonJones