Ok, the title is meant to be provocative, but I’m not trolling. I think the media portrays racism in a dangerously misleading way in the US. It’s always treated as a problem of bigotry among poor whites... especially in some “other” region. I grew up in a “white trash” area (majority white, but nonwhite folks too) and people said a lot of racist things are there was certainly some ugliness and resentment that turned to bigotry and scapegoating. So you’d hear racial slurs a lot, but also people just talked a lot of crude shit in general. But pretty much everyone also knew and saw how cops treated young black folks and Latinos. Nobody liked the cops in general. But then when I started working I realized that a lot of better-off people had horribly racist attitudes—but just didn’t use slurs and weren’t obvious about it. A good chunk of them were kinda liberal too and many believed they weren’t actually supporting racist policies or attitudes because they wouldn’t dare use a slur. Even Trump supporters who were portrayed in the media as “salt of the earth” bigots, had a much higher median income than average voters who in turn have higher incomes on average than eligible non-voters. Like to the media someone who has a million dollar local contracting business or owns a print shop or something is “working class” because of cultural signals like t-shirts and baseball caps. But then there’s the alt-right. Mostly recruiting college students, most active in California (also home to the largest number of organized hate groups). Most of their leaders are fairly well-off people with education and probably used to be college Libertarians. Going back in history, the NAZI brownshirts were middle class former low-ranking officers in the military and - again college students. They made arguments that Jews were unfairly using hidden connections to excel at small business or the professions... just like the alt-right claims affirmative action or women or whatever are unfairly taking “their spots”... as in their chant “the Jews won’t replace us”. I think the media shows a shallow representation of racism based on Archie-bunker type stereotypes. Instead of speaking about racism structurally, they just moralistically hold their noses about poor whites using “crude” language. Some do, but generally folks are just more blunt about opinions compared to middle class people who tend to hide behind politeness. I think this minimizes the harm and dangers of racism and also allows savvy white nationalists to get media attention as “provocative” or unconventional figures (rather than the racist nationalists they are) simply because the speakers don’t use crude language and are well educated or cultured. Just posting it because I’m tired of hearing people in the Bay Area talk about racism as if it’s something outside or something that “uneducated poor whites” in other regions are wrapped up in. And I’m curious if other people who don’t have a middle class background experienced anything similar.
I’d take overt racism over covert racism any day. I’d rather hear someone call me a name and know exactly where I stand than the alternative where you spend forever experiencing racism but never being able to pin point it.
Yes! My current company is 80% white. You really feel the covert racism over here (offices are in SF and NYC). When it first happens, you think it's just that person. But when it happens over and over with various people. It's definitely you.
Completely agree with your observation. And I think people in the Bay Area generally are clueless about racism. I’ve seen more racism here than I saw during my college years in the heartland. What makes the Bay Area especially bad is that we’re importing populations from places where it’s ok to be racist towards dark skinned people for instance.
The worst racists I’ve ever encountered were wealthy, liberal swarthmore graduates living in Philadelphia.
French. Revolution.
The problem isn't "racial slurs" or personal bigotry as much as "systemic racism": the kind of racial bias that is built into our media, justice systems, and education systems. For example, making a racist comment like calling someone "white trash" might hurt the person's feelings, but that's vastly different than racism like police shooting unarmed black people, or pulling someone over for "driving while black", or judges systematically giving out harsher prison sentences to black people than white people who committed the same crime. There was a study once where researchers sent out resumes to hundreds of different jobs. The resumes were identical, except for the name of the applicant. It turned out that applicants with "black sounding" names like Omar or Latisha were called back almost 10x LESS than applicants with "white sounding" names like John or Mary. For the exact same resume! That's the kind of racism that we need to fix.
Have you heard of something called "Statisitc" or common sense? If one has met 10 Omar that are not good workers then why should one continue to try another Omar?
Emotion often flies in the face of behavior-based trends. This is one of those cases.
This actually explains Trump country quite well and the general animosity to the fakery of the coasts who dismiss the lower classes without attempting to understand them: http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about/
I used to be from a poor white conservative area. In college was surrounded by middle class. Now the rich. I do think on average poor people are dumber and dumber ignorant people are more likely to be racist. If anyone thinks for a second that the bay area is as bad as some red states they need to get out more. And I mean into the south or Midwest because they haven't seen shit yet. You are correct when you say rich people just hide it more but I see it as rich people hate everyone more equally then the poor. If that makes sense? Basically rich people don't care about race they just view most of society as beneath them no matter the skin color.
While poor people really want to also look down on others so they readily support every thought that makes them feel superior even if they can't pay their cellphone bill.
Media definitely paints it as a low income problem, when the most racist people start with the wealthy
I mean... the SF police had a neo-Nazi ring a few years back, there’s a guy who tried to shoot up the SF ACLU recently, Oakland cops shot Oscar Grant and were initially not charged and allowed to hang out in another state. Hunter’s point has been destroyed, the Mission is pricing everyone out, Oakland was the HQ for Northern California KKK in the middle of the last century, Orange County rich people basically invented post-jim-Crow style modern racist local politics in the 70s, Identity Evropa hangs Nazi-like signs on the Bay bridge just last month, a millionaire in SF stabbed a guy while participating in a NAZI rally in Southern California last year, CHP was found to have colluded with and protected a white nationalist group who stabbed people at the Capitol building about a year ago - they told the stabber that he could help them build a case against the guy he stabbed... and there’s a huge ass LEGALLY RACIALLY SEGREGATED prison system here. Hell, I work in a building named after a California governor who rose to power in the early 20th century by promoting explicitly anti-Asian policies. And middle class Californians sip their coffee and pat themselves on the back for being better then them damn uncivilized rednecks in “Trump country”. I think we have to look much harder here and not rest in thinking that it’s somewhere else or just “those people” that are racist and making life hell for people.
Are you referring to Earl Warren? I think his later actions helped undo much of the damage he caused in his earlier political career.
San Fran and Oakland don’t need police. I think they’d operate fine under vigilante groups and such. Probably more effective than the neonazi rings you’d find in SFPD.
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I’m mixed black / European jew, I was born poor, worked into middle and upper middle class. Went to public and private schools. And I’ve seen this so many times.