American Racism in the ‘White Frame’

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Check out this interview with Joe Feagin, a prominent sociologist who teaches at Texas A&M and regarded as a racism studies expert.

It's something to ponder.

The civil war ended well over a century ago. Why has it taken so long to address problems facing Black Americans? Why has America let inequalities fester for so long while doing nothing, condoning them? Racism is systemic, says Joe Feagin.

So it's not just a matter of affirmative action like many people think. It's far more ingrained in the American economy than people realize since whites have inherited from their ancestors for generations during slavery and segregation when blacks were deprived.

This sociologist pretty much says whites are richer than blacks because of slavery.

Because the people on top like their power and don't want to give it up. We can see this in smaller areas, like with regular employees vs CEO's. A few years back, my husband got a 13% pay cut while the higher ups gave themselves a 3% raise! When it came time to tighten the budget more, they opted for firing 120 teachers district wide, including the teacher of the year, instead of taking pay cuts. The union didn't even help the teachers out because they didn't want to take a pay cut either. They like the status quo far too much.

The people who are near the bottom also don't want to give up their position over the people further down than they are, particularly if they are different.

It's said that many of the jim crow era lynchings were over accusations that were trumped up or made up from whole cloth because a black person had some thing, some land, some success, or competed competently with a white person. so they would make something up about disrespecting a white woman or some crap, and kill them.

there are documented cases, like a black man who had been refused service at the local general store, and went on to open his own general store and didn't refuse service to anyone of any color. The racist who ran the old store didn't like losing business to a black man, so he conspired (successfully!) to get him killed over an entirely contrived rape allegation.

Often a black farmer would improve his land to the point where whites desired it, and they would just make sure he died young and acquire it through government action.

More recently, there is evidence that japanese internment during WWII was originally inspired by racist white strawberry farmers who were jealous of japanese-owned strawberry farms (which they succeeded in taking over and operating). By the time that was clear, the government acted like it was justified to save face.

A lot of this came down to working class whites who didn't want to feel that they "were no better" than working class people of other races.

What's wacky is that there are "economists" who argue that not only should the top stay at the top and the bottom should stay at the bottom, but that the people in the middle shouldn't rise to the top either. Most of them are adherents of Ayn Rand, the noted female impersonator and failed author.

Anyway, with regard to systemic racism, it becomes useful to think of it in D&D-like terms of automatic positives and automatic negatives.

My friend Dmitriy likes to argue that he cannot possibly be "privileged" as compared to anybody because he immigrated to the united states from Ukraine in the early 90's "bare assed, with nothing". It was during the collapse of the soviet union. He said that everybody was unemployed and the price of food was skyrocketing. So his family sold everything they owed to immigrate, and arrived penniless.

But his father was an electrician or something. A tradesman with certification and experience (albeit from another country).

And it turns out that when you are a jewish immigrant from the soviet union in Brooklyn, there are other former-soviet jews who will help you out, help you find a place to live, get you some cash work while you work on getting your license and joining the union, and generally look out for you.

Just because his father spoke russian and adhered to the jewish faith, they got some automatic positives that a black person with the same skill set wouldn't have. Certainly not in the Brighton Beach neighborhood.

Not that the black person with the same skill set doesn't have other automatic positives specific to his situation.

Stories like this are why I have a hard time seeing it in the black and white (pun not intended) scope the SJW's see it in. I see so many variables with individuals while they can only see in groups.
It's something that really bugs me, because it's not as easy to fix when you have people who are on the bottom who don't want change, and people in the middle who want to change while none of the other people want them to... People don't want to cooperate with change, until the media starts showing how many people of a certain group are dying.

They don't seem to talk about how Native Americans apparently have the most violence done against them, though. I find that interesting. When I tried to bring it up, the SJWs stopped talking or ignored it completely.

Violence against Native children
Violence Against Women Act Lets Tribes Prosecute Non-Native Domestic Abusers

Yeah, SJWs should go to school and become actual sociologists, so that they can be *Educated worthless complainers. Then they can moan and whinge with more specificity, authority, and jargon.

But honestly, all we're agreeing on here is that it isn't that they're black - it's the cumulative effect of the positives and negatives in any given situation.

In this town, casually mentioning that my dad taught at the university for 39 years is a +10 in several situations. You bet i milk it.

Having the same surname as mormon church leader in any mormon enclave (i don't) is like a +50. Unless it's something way common like Smith.

I grew up with Osmonds that can't sing or dance and were dirt poor 3rd cousins of the famous ones, and just having that name was at least +3.

I'm tall. Statistically that's like a +2.

We could go on.

Immigrant russian jew with no money who doesn't speak english? -20. In brighton beach? +30.

Being black in most parts of the south-eastern united states is a -10 or worse in many situations.

I have a friend who is a senior-level java developer in texas, which should be like a +40, except she's a hispanic lady, which in texas is about a -40.

I think it's probably completely unrealistic of me to want a world where no one gets judged for who they are, what they look like, etc. It's been ingrained in our very beings with thousands upon thousands of years of being judgmental as a form of survival.

How can we make the world a better place?

If you are white you are bad, be ashamed of being born white even though you had nothing to do with salvery be ashamed anyway because all white people are bad and should be rounded up in death camps to pay for the crimes of slavery that the blacks and native Americans have been through!

This song is so true and we white people are all bad and worthless!

Teach kids not to be dickbags.

It's a gradual thing.

If we whites did not exist the world would be a better place.

It's not just a matter of people being dickbags. According to sociologist, who has done a lot of work and study in this field, Joe Feagin, it's a matter of 80% black history in the US has been either under slavery or Jim Crow type segregation and this has kept blacks from generating their own wealth they can hand down to their children which is what whites have done. He goes even further to say whites have money because of policies concerning blacks. It put them at an unfair advantage and they profited off black labor. It has kept them from developing the same systems whites have, which enable ease finding good jobs which adds to prosperity, along with inheritances from generations of wealth building. Blacks have been deprived of this in America. So it's not just, blacks can't find a job so let's solve this with affirmative action. It's much worse that that, according to this sociologist.

Yeah, we can stop being dicks to each other, but that doesn't fix a broken system :/

Besides, I think there are a lot of people who like to be jerks just to make themselves feel better (in the sense that now there's someone who feels worse than them. I should find that video again...)

The problem is EDUCATION.

Whites are not that much better.

Thankfully Asians are the largest immigrant group to come get the high paying jobs that blacks and whites won't do.

What's going to have to happen for black Americans to "catch up" is a few generations of black wealth building, creating legacies, inheritances and creating structures of networking that are similar to what whites Americans have created over time.