Submitted 4 weeks ago by Social_Discussion@lemm.ee to [deleted]
Even if we all had the exact same skin tone there woulda still be racists. They would just move onto hair color or eye color or nose width. Some people just have hate in their hearts and they will use any physical differences to lump people together.
Personally I’m with Morgan Freeman on the topic. Just stop talking about it. Stop talking about race. We are all humans. We all got struggles. Let’s all get along as humans and work together.
Some people just have hate in their hearts and they will use any physical differences to lump people together.
Being skeptical of people looking different from you used to serve a purpose in our history. It no longer does but the feature can still be found in our biology. It’s not that some “just are hateful people” - it’s that they’re human.
The follow up question then is, how do we deal with that as a species? If we assume that humans have tribalistic tendencies, I don’t want to say inherent, but, deeply rooted? Can education and external pressure make it go away? Can we direct it into something else? It seems like sports teams with their fans is an outlet at least preferable to war, for example.
Well, american culture making such a big deal about ethnicity even when “positive” did influence a lot.
I never understood why the N word is racist because of history, but then being black makes it fine to say. It’s still linked to a racist background, but it seems like americans consider that minorities can never be or do anything racist.
And I mean, in 99% of cases the concept of ethnicity is (or at least is used in a way that is) purely racist. Apart from a few studies on genetic specificities, it has no purpose at all, and definitely no purpose in daily lives and governments.
What’s weird is that no one with a sane mind would say that a woman saying “women are bitches and shouldn’t be able to work” isn’t misogynistic, but when it comes to racism people are making up exceptions left and right.
If you focus on ethnicity, chances are you are racist, no matter the justification you put behind it.
I never understood why the N word is racist because of history, but then being black makes it fine to say
Context.
I have the complexion of a brand new piece of printer paper, one of my friends who legit could have gotten a job as a Wesley Snipes impersonator constantly called me the n word. He called all his friends that, and eventually I used it in the same context he had towards me for like the 50th time that day without me even realize I was saying it.
It wasn’t a big deal, but it’s not like that magically gave me permission to say it anywhere at anytime.
I mean, it’s 2025 man, there’s white people all over who have been saying the n word. The context is what matters. I just don’t get how someone could think it’s a (pun intended) black and white issue.
Hell, the most popular rapper in America has been publicly complaining about how another black rapper says the n word. Flat out saying that it’s not a race thing it’s a culture thing. It was literally the outro to one of the biggest diss tracks of the biggest beefs in modern rap era.
I just want to say that ethnicity is not necessarily related to genetics in any way, it’s about your heritage and upbringing. A person can be born and raised in Japan without having indigenous parents. In this way, they are ethnically Japanese if they choose to identify with the culture they were raised in.
So it’s not suddenly racist to appreciate someone’s ethnicity. It’s racist to assume someone’s ethnicity based on how they look.
And what you say about ethnicity being irrelevant to the government is quite controversial. For example, there are various treaties in effect between colonizers and indigenous peoples. Do you think such treaties are not valuable because they are based on ethnicity?
I think that being a colonizer is not something a government should be. So yes, definitely, such a treaty is bad.
A government should be treating people as equally as possible. Ethnicity only brings unnecessary division.
I never understood why the N word is racist because of history, but then being black makes it fine to say.
Lol I had a Black teacher that would not be happy if her Black students used the N word. (USA btw)
I wonder where this movement started where people overly obsess about this. Can’t we already just treat people for who they are/their personality and not judge them by their skin color and also not prefer some ethnicities over others?
I’m gonna guess you’re white. There are many reasons why people make race their identity. One of them is because OTHER people make it their identity. If you’re just a normal person walking down the street, but other people only reduce you to “black person” or “asian person” or “gay person” or whatever then there’s something in our nature that takes that on and reframes it into a positive, a strength. Most of the “something person” people I know didn’t start caring about that, but other people reinforced it SOOOOOO much. Additionally, when your category is legislated at the government level, then you can’t help but assume it’s a main part of your identity. To the government and society, you ARE that person. When you need permission from the government just to exist, it is defining.
I basically see it as racism every time someone is treated differently because of the color of their skin. There’s racism with bad intentions and racism with good intentions but it’s all still racism. In my ideal world we’d care about skin color as much as we care about hair color now. Most of the attempts to “fix” racism by paying more attention to the ethnicity of people that’s been coming from the left over the past years has just maken things worse and is one of the big reasons for Trump as well.
I think the word “cringe” is cringe but
Re: i wonder where this movement started
Blacks, whites, men, women, Mexicans, and vegans once almost accomplished something with Occupy and few years ago and it scared the Powers that B so much that they’ve spent almost the past 20 years destroying social connections to make sure it never happens again
Germany does have black people though, e.g. Antonio Rudiger, a German footballer who plays for Real Madrid:
Antonio Rudiger, a German footballer, wearing the shirt of the German national football team.
its being inflamed by the billionaires meant to distract you from the real issues.
Yes
I wonder where this movement started where people overly obsess about this
Evolution.
As a toddler you form your “in group” based on the people you see. Mostly that you are actually around, but also just exposed to on TV.
Anyone that you’re not exposed to is “out group” and you can use conscious thinking as an adult to include others in your ingroup but when you get old and lose mental ability you’ll fall back into “did I see people like that as a kid” distinction for “us” vs “them”.
For the vast amount of human history, if you ran into a group of different looking humans, they were a competitor and you either boned them or killed them.
People want to act like 10,000 years of human society makes us better than other animals, but that’s a blink of evolutions eye, we’re still animals and if we’re not socialized we’re gonna act like animals.
Can’t we already just treat people for who they are/their personality and not judge them by their skin color and also not prefer some ethnicities over others?
We do that by integrating society and children’s TV with integrated casts of diverse people.
Which is why conservatives and even some moderates opposed things like school busing and Sesame Street.
They’re not picking random shit that doesn’t matter, they’re planning decades in advance to make sure the next generation can be manipulated into thinking along racial lines rather than realizing there’s no just war except a class war.
Many societies around the world actually are a bit racist. Anti-racism is moreso a thing that started and was invented. Humans are just naturally racist until they become better educated and realise it’s wrong.
Humans are just naturally racist
No they’re not.
Like, I wrote an indepth explanation, you completely missed the details, and then posted a summary that’s completely wrong…
There’s a big difference between xenophobia and racism. The entire concept of race is a relatively new invention.
Rasism is naturally present in people’s psyche. People always needed to protect their ingroup againts the other groups of people. It’s a sad fact that so many people are not able to control their monkey brains better. We know it’s possible. I’ll never give up waiting for my Star Trek utopia.
I feel cringe about feeling “cringe”, but that’s probably just me.
Fair enough - carry on!
A guy at work said to me:
“Did you know that Native Americans don’t mind being called Indians?”
Oh, you polled thousands of people from all parts of the country?
I wanted to turtle into my shirt.
People actually have done that, and by a decent but not landslide majority (upper 60s%, IIRC), the original inhabitants of North America like the catch-all term: ‘American Indian’. Halfway alluding to the other guy’s reply, they actually do like to call attention to the ignorance that was put upon them upon first meeting. It’s hardly their blunder to be embarrassed by, and that moniker has become part of their history. Has it not?
If you want to be truly proper, you’d have to get down to the nitty-gritty & list every single tribe ever. By name. And that doesn’t work very well on a form when you’re making people check & sort themselves into boxes.
…which brings me to the final, and most ironic point of it all. People insisting on using Native American & African American often fail to realize those titles were put upon those people by the goddamn United States Government. Yes, the same one that enslaved the blacks. The same one that drove the American Indians from their lands, hunted them for sport, and rounded them up into camps. After the mistreatment, the USG said, “Hmm, what should we call these people? Oh, I know. ‘Native Americans’ & ‘African-Americans’.” Now it’s been baked into the cake for so long nobody even stops to question it, they insist upon it. Even if it’s technically inaccurate in niche cases (like Jamaican Americans), or insensitive (being labeled by your conquerors).
…idk. Call me a romantic bumpkin, but I work with black men & women who haven’t stepped a single foot in Africa. They eat cheeseburgers like I do, we drink from the same water fountains & use the same toilets, we shake hands. There’s nothing African about them besides their genetics; they are Americans just like I am an American. They happen to be black. Idk too many American Indians around here, only some with very diluted, distant heritage.
Even if a majority if indigenous folks didn’t mind the label, it’s still a label born of ignorance. It’s not like it becomes just OK because the surviving oppressed minority incorrectly labelled that way by the colonists are OK with it.
Just saw the post of some dude who said all Germans are racist because they don’t have black people.
Could you link it ? I want to have a good laugh
dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 weeks ago
Just a warning, your question might be interpreted as violating rule 5:
That said, I don’t see why cringing about racism is controversial, if anything it’s the majority view that racism is bad.
If you are genuinely interested in learning about where racism comes from, feel free to read: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism
Aristotle for example argued that non-Greek slaves innately lacked a will and thus depended on their Greek masters as rulers the way children depend on their parents (he made similar arguments justifying the supremacy of men over women). These views have a long history, and it’s worth learning about. You might start with the culture you are in (not sure if you’re from the U.S. or not) and read a few academic primers about race and the history of race in your culture.
You might also wonder what race is, and for philosophical questions about race I would start here: plato.stanford.edu/entries/race/
GrayBackgroundMusic@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
I give this a 50/50 being sea lioning. The reason being I thought this way when I was younger. I’m white and didn’t understand why everything was so focused on race until I was an adult. I don’t care about race that much, but everyone around me did and I thought it was weird. Once I was older and educated, I understood that it’s FAR more complex than my kiddo brain could handle without some education.
dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 weeks ago
yeah, I’m not really doubting OP’s intentions, I’m just trying to clue them in to how others might see their post so they aren’t surprised if it gets flagged
I think race issues were apparent to me as a young child, but it took the form of feeling insecure and unsure how to interact with racial minority peers of mine in school and so on, not wanting to make them feel uncomfortable but feeling fragile around them and thus accidentally introducing stigma. It was an awful feeling, and something that just didn’t happen with other students.