How racist are you

[Doctor Carrot]

it certainly made my blood pressure rise

i felt that the central premise of the exercise was, in itself, racist
i have personally stood on the front line and taken licks for my mixed race brothers, so why is that because i'm white, i'm racist?

that in itself shows a segregationist perspective.

i believe the exercise would be useful in a polarised society like the southern us in the sixties, south africa under apartheid or modern israel. but i fundamentally reject the concept that i'm guilty because i'm white. other white people may be guilty but i have no more kinship to them than i do to my rasta neighbour. less, in fact

modern britain is beautiful because of it's ethnic diversity. london is the best city in the world because of the race mix, and that's what makes it appealing to me personally. i was born in kensal green, and there, notting hill, ladbroke grove and brixton are my natural haunts. all made vibrant by the different cultures who've made it their home

so i really disagreed with the point the dude with the dreads made. he said that he avoided collecting his daughter from school as he was mixed race and his daughter looked white; as long as he wasn't seen, she would be regarded as white and the other parents wouldn't look down on her.
the thing is, the opposite is true for me. if i was looking at prospective schools for my kid and saw a dread collecting his offspring, that would make that school MORE not less appealing. equally those areas of london i love so much are pretty expensive to buy a house in, meaning that english people WANT to live somewhere with an exciting cultural mix

as for the point made by the middle aged black lady about some jokes being subtlety racist, well i'm sorry, i'm irish, and ALL the jokes i heard when i was growing up in the 70's were blatantly racist against me and my family and i didn't even bat an eyelid, enjoyed them even, and told them myself.
as far as employment goes, we have black female judges and many female non-white qc's. private companies just love to have non-white women representing them as it makes them look progressive in modern britain. likewise advertising. however the mediocre will never blame themselves for their own situation, that is true whether you're a lumpen proletariat voting bnp or a passed-over for promotion teacher or social worker

for me the lewis hamilton/jensen button situation just perfectly underlines where modern britain is. you couldn't turn on the tv without seeing lewis bloody hamilton during his successful year, and his success in f1 was greeted like england winning something or other. when he was subject to racist abuse in spain we basked in the smug superiority of the knowledge that we were different, we had notting hill carnival etc
so lewis was feted, sponsored from on high, but whe poor old jensen won NOT A BLOODY DICKY BIRD. to quote jensen himself (at the winners press conference) 'for fuck's sake. is this it?'
referring to the lack of attendance, and that has been representative of his reception since- i don't need to tell you that.
(don't get me wrong, i prefer it that way, i think there's too much commercialism in sport, but it just shows that hamilton was gold dust whereas jensen is less highly in demand)

point is, that in modern britain lewis' face fits. he is the one in demand with the advertisers, and not just to sell trainers. and that tells you all you need to know- advertiser aren't trying to make the world a better place, they're just trying to sell you your dreams, and in our dreams we want to be mixed race. if it was a sign of racist attitudes in germany when non-white workers were airbrushed out of ford ads in the 1990's then the opposite is true now

so of course there is racism. but to say that i'm responsible for the behavior of other white people is in itself, racist

Gav, I think you missed the whole point of the exercise.

You can post and pat yourself on the back for how unracist you are til your blue in the face but the fact is you still live in a system that is unfairly stacked against ethnic minorities. I think the woman made an extremely good point when she said white people are socially conditioned for white superiority and I agree with her.

I don't doubt for a second that you're not racist on the surface, i'm not racist on the surface either but we still uphold a system that is and there's a high chance we still make excuses for racism. In fact you've done exactly what she said white people do "Oh we've got black judges now that shows how non racist we are" completely ignoring the fact how black people are more likely to be poor and/or imprisoned than any other ethnic group "Oh those jokes against me were racist but I was OK with it" do you not see how you're just making excuses for it? That's exactly the point she was making.

I guarantee you're more racist than you think you are, I probably am too and that's the point she was making.

 

[girasol]

I think a lot of people missed the point of the exercise...

 

[FabricLiveBaby!]

I think Avenue Q got it spot on....

 

[Louloubelle]

Her point was that in order to understand you MUST go through it, and as a consequence supported and encouraged the segregation.

The point is, that you don't have to go through something to be able to empathise with the person going through it. Or disagree with its principle.

The "they have to go though it to understand" thing, doesn't wash with me. And i got wound up because it's a bollocks argument.

Except that the problem about the kind of pervasive subtle racism, as I think quite powerfully shown by this programme, was that many white people just don't "get it" even when they are put in a situation where they are discriminated against. That awful schoolteacher was a prime example.

 

[Santino]

I'm reluctant to judge anyone on the basis of their behaviour in that contrived and badly-executed exercise. Put someone under pressure and they'll come out with any old shit.

 

[kabbes]

I think a lot of people missed the point of the exercise...

Ain't that the truth!

People were way too quick to take things personally, as if they personally were being accused of a personal choice to be intentionally racist. This attitude destroyed it as an exercise.

The point was purely and simply to allow people in the blue-eyed group to understand emotionally what it is like to be systematically and instritutionally discriminated against. Not because they were horrible people. Not because they were proto-klansters. Not because they think of blacks and whites in different ways (although a lot of them actually did think this way, despite thinking that they didn't). But purely because they would otherwise never know what it was like. And understanding this on a visceral level is the first step towards changing the system.

The programme depressed me, but only because it showed just how far we still have to go.

 

[Louloubelle]

Gav, I think you missed the whole point of the exercise.

You can post and pat yourself on the back for how unracist you are til your blue in the face but the fact is you still live in a system that is unfairly stacked against ethnic minorities. I think the woman made an extremely good point when she said white people are socially conditioned for white superiority and I agree with her.

I don't doubt for a second that you're not racist on the surface, i'm not racist on the surface either but we still uphold a system that is and there's a high chance we still make excuses for racism. In fact you've done exactly what she said white people do "Oh we've got black judges now that shows how non racist we are" completely ignoring the fact how black people are more likely to be poor and/or imprisoned than any other ethnic group "Oh those jokes against me were racist but I was OK with it" do you not see how you're just making excuses for it? That's exactly the point she was making.

I guarantee you're more racist than you think you are, I probably am too and that's the point she was making.

I agree with this

Great post

 

[Santino]

The point was purely and simply to allow people in the blue-eyed group to understand emotionally what it is like to be systematically and instritutionally discriminated against.

Was it? Because the whole thing seemed to change direction halfway through, as if it had gone wrong and the organiser retroactively changed the purpose of the exercise.

 

[kabbes]

Except that the problem about the kind of pervasive subtle racism, as I think quite powerfully shown by this programme, was that many white people just don't "get it" even when they are put in a situation where they are discriminated against. That awful schoolteacher was a prime example.

Totally right.

"It's just the same as my husband! He was a rugby player but now he has to wear a tie!"

Until she understands why this statement is fundamentally stupid, she'll remain part of the problem, not matter how much she *thinks* that she isn't racist.

 

[kabbes]

Was it? Because the whole thing seemed to change direction halfway through, as if it had gone wrong and the organiser retroactively changed the purpose of the exercise.

It was, as shown by the clips of the exercise performed in other countries.

It went wrong for a number of reasons, not least of which was the deliberate sabotage of the exercise by a white woman who apparently thought she knew better than the person that had spent years constructing the experiment and conducting it with considerable success.

 

[Sadken]

FUCKING racist, just put it that way.

 

[Santino]

It went wrong for a number of reasons, not least of which was the deliberate sabotage of the exercise by a white woman who apparently thought she knew better than the person that had spent years constructing the experiment and conducting it with considerable success.

Given that they all knew it was an experiment, I wonder how many of them thought - in advance - that the 'correct' response was to disrupt things or refuse to go along. That would certainly have been in my mind.

 

[Louloubelle]

Totally right.

"It's just the same as my husband! He was a rugby player but now he has to wear a tie!"

You just couldn't make it up could you?

Until she understands why this statement is fundamentally stupid, she'll remain part of the problem, not matter how much she *thinks* that she isn't racist.

and the awful thing is that the UK is full of people like her, they are in the majority, and they are extremely defensive about their racism.

In fact some of the worst culprits in this respect IME are people who actually work professionally in equal opps.

Just off the top of my head I once met a schools equality officer (a Jewish man) who after a few post conference drinks, opined that Islam was a religion entirely based around the oppression of women. I was also at a workshop where a professional consultant on race (an Asian woman) made a horrifically racist statement about "scary big black men".

Thing is we are all racist to some degree, the degree to which we are unconscious of it and to which we defend against being conscious of it, is proportional to the control our racism has over us.

Just acknowledging the pervasiveness of unconscious racism is a huge step forward and I felt really depressed that so many of the blue eyed people couldn't even reach first base re looking at themselves in the mirror.

 

[Sadken]

I don't think the majority in this country are racist at all. I think most people would sit down for a drink or a cup of tea with most people and to presuppose that the majority are racist is some pretty fucking snooty bullshit imo.

 

[kabbes]

Given that they all knew it was an experiment, I wonder how many of them thought - in advance - that the 'correct' response was to disrupt things or refuse to go along. That would certainly have been in my mind.

I would have wanted to see where the experiment went. Otherwise what was the point in volunteering for it?

The blue-eyed people were literally being asked to experience this for two hours of their life. It is understandable that they would react negatively to it, although it is depressing the degree to which their defensiveness caused them to miss the point.

The sad thing, however, is the way that so many of the white brown-eyed people were unable to help it through for just two hours.

I do genuinely think that they were on the cusp of something before that fucking stupid brown-eyed white woman fucked it up. As we saw from the clips, it is experiencing the instutitional and power-based discrimination that the test serves as a metaphor for that is the catalyst to an understanding of what minorities go through. Without this, the experiment fails on its arse.

 

[kabbes]

I don't think the majority in this country are racist at all. I think most people would sit down for a drink or a cup of tea with most people.

What do you understand by the word "racist"? Do you really think it just comes down to who you are happy to spend some time with?

 

[tarannau]

It was an interesting programme to me, if not perfect by any means.

What was perhaps most telling is some that folks felt so uncomfortable and defensive about the whole idea, a belief that somehow they didn't need this learning. There's often a tacit acceptance that Britain is fairly sorted when it comes to racism, especially compared next to the more confrontational USA, but the urge to sweep things under the carpet and be more dismissive about the possibility that racism still seriously affects lives here is far more palpable.

 

[Sadken]

What do you understand by the word "racist"? Do you really think it just comes down to who you are happy to spend some time with?

For me, I've always understood racism as being a resistance or reluctance to engage with groups of people on the basis that they are inferior, dirty, stupid etc. etc. Or, from a distance, to feel that other racial groups are in some way inferior to your own. I don't for a second dispute that those feelings exist in the UK but I haven't seen anything anywhere to make me feel that it is a majority view.

 

[Santino]

It was very unclear how the experiment was supposed to play out, and how many different versions of it she had prepared. Obviously done with an all-white audience it would have a very different structure. With a mixed race audience it brought out existing tensions, but the original exercise created arbitrary distinctions between a previously uniform bunch of kids.

 

[kabbes]

For me, I've always understood racism as being a resistance or reluctance to engage with groups of people on the basis that they are inferior, dirty, stupid etc. etc. Or, from a distance, to feel that other racial groups are in some way inferior to your own. I don't for a second dispute that those feelings exist in the UK but I haven't seen anything anywhere to make me feel that it is a majority view.

Right, well I think you only have a surface understanding of the word then.

Racism is discrimination. This discrimination can be subconscious. It can be institutional, i.e. inherent in the social systems. It can be systematic. It doesn't have to be personal. It doesn't have to be a conscious decision.

It's very, very, very easy when you are one of the non-discriminated against to simply handwave the whole issue away and say that it doesn't really exist. You aren't even aware of it existing, because for it isn't part of your world -- for you, it literally doesn't exist. But this is a dangerous road to go down, which is why this experiment was attempting to make those from the privileged group feel what it was like.

If you want to know if discrimination exists, ask those who are discriminated against and then actually listen to their answer. Don't just decide from within your own privileged group that they must be wrong just because the people you know don't think of minorities as dirty.

 

[kabbes]

The programme, incidentally, was yet another reminder of how perfectly we are conditioned by our environments, to the extent that we actively hide this conditioning from ourselves. It's like people insisting that they aren't affected by adverts or films or peer pressure.

 

[tarannau]

Sadly I still think you're a little wrong there Sadken. The fact that people say that they treat people as equals - or even that they'll tolerate a cuppa with them - is not the same as actually treating them the same. There's a danger of being complacent, as if being polite (rather than frothing racist) to ethnic minorities really has led to equal opportunity and treatment to all. People can be personally friendly with you, but still hold racist views - it's strange how people can disassociate their preconceptions of race ('you're one of us now') from you personally, but still come out with discriminatory corkers in the next breath. I've seen it all too often.

 

[kabbes]

They don't even realise that their corkers are discriminatory either. With the very next breath after that, they will be insisting that we're all treated the same now and this is how it should be.

 

[g force]

Agree with Tarannau...I think you're way off Ken both in your idea of discrimination, its use in every day life and how it affect people.

 

[Sadken]

I've been discriminated against myself, mate. I don't need to ask around for an understanding of what the word means - as a jewish kid in an all catholic secondary school I took a fair bit of flak, although I imagine anti-semitism doesn't "count" as being racist to the mind of a lot of urbans. I also lived for a year in Japan, which is a pretty crazily racist country in its own adorable little way.

I don't really see how discrimination is any different from what I described in any event.

I also didn't say that racism doesn't exist.

 

[Sadken]

Sadly I still think you're a little wrong there Sadken. The fact that people say that they treat people as equals - or even that they'll tolerate a cuppa with them - is not the same as actually treating them the same. There's a danger of being complacent, as if being polite (rather than frothing racist) to ethnic minorities really has led to equal opportunity and treatment to all. People can be personally friendly with you, but still hold racist views - it's strange how people can disassociate their preconceptions of race ('you're one of us now') from you personally, but still come out with discriminatory corkers in the next breath. I've seen it all too often.

I wasn't saying that whether you have a cup of tea or not is the single determining factor, but that the fact that most people would with most people demonstrates that racism isn't ingrained or a default setting for most people in the UK.

I know it's possible for people to smile to your face and still hold horrible views about your ethnicity, however, I just don't see the evidence that the majority of people in this country are racist. I think it's liberal apologist self hatred stuff, really, and, in my experience, it doesn't reflect reality.

 

[kabbes]

Of course it counts that you experienced it yourself.

So why are you denying it? If you understand what it is like to have to fight every day just for the right to be you -- if you actually have experience of going through the very thing yourself -- what on earth are you doing saying that it isn't a problem?

And if you aren't saying that racism doesn't exist, what actually are you saying? That we shouldn't worry about it?

Not to mention that there's a classic thing that goes on -- "I have a problem too, so why are you complaining about your problem?" As if the existence of another issue somehow renders the first issue null. But that's a race to the bottom. Instead we should be trying to resolve ALL discrimination, not saying that some discrimination is OK because other discrimination exists.

 

[kabbes]

I just don't see the evidence that the majority of people in this country are racist.

Once again, I think you are not encompassing the full meaning and import of racism. It is not just about consciously thinking that other people are less than you. It is about the inherent structures and systems. It is about the way people are made to feel by the society they live in.

 

[tarannau]

I think you're fooling yourself and belittling the experiences of other there Sadken. Yes, we don't have the NF thugs of my youth terrorising streets and whole areas, but you only have to look at the vast differences in educational and career achievement to suggest that things aren't as rosy underneath

Racism isn't just Klan style hoods and blantant discrimination - it's far more subtle than that.

 

[Sadken]

Of course it counts that you experienced it yourself.

So why are you denying it? If you understand what it is like to have to fight every day just for the right to be you -- if you actually have experience of going through the very thing yourself -- what on earth are you doing saying that it isn't a problem?

And if you aren't saying that racism doesn't exist, what actually are you saying? That we shouldn't worry about it?

Not to mention that there's a classic thing that goes on -- "I have a problem too, so why are you complaining about your problem?" As if the existence of another issue somehow renders the first issue null. But that's a race to the bottom. Instead we should be trying to resolve ALL discrimination, not saying that some discrimination is OK because other discrimination exists.

Because race is an issue that has always interested me because I've always had a fascination with other countries, cultures and it's something that I talk about a lot to a lot of people. For instance, I spend a LOT of my working life sat around for hours at court with people of all ethnicities and race is usually a good time filling conversation. The vast majority of immigrants I have spoken to have been overwhelmingly positive about their experience of the vast majority of UK people.

I'm not saying it's NOT a problem, I'm just saying that the majority of the UK population are not racist. I think the fact that that counts for a controversial opinion on here says a fair bit. Where is the evidence?