Zone1 Can Black people be racist?

[Doug1943]

What @Ms Turquoise writes would be mostly correct if she just replaced the term 'racism' with 'racial oppression'.

Although of course a Black person can oppress a white person, in the calculus of oppression it's 1000-to-1 the other way around, historically. (Not today.)

But if we want to talk about oppression, the worst, most iniquitous, subtle form of racist oppression to which Blacks are subject is the concept of 'Acting White'.

'Acting White' means striving to achieve in school. It's used by less-able Blacks to pull down more-able Blacks, giving the former an excuse for their own failure.

A Black sociologist at Harvard has written extensively on this terrible phenomenon. [ An Empirical Analysis of 'Acting White' ]

Although this Wiki article is written by liberals who want to discredit the phenomenon, it's still useful. [ Acting white - Wikipedia ]

Many years ago, very liberal friends of mine on the West Coast, unable to have children of their own, adopted a little girl from India. As good liberals, they put her in the (integrated) public school system. She was dark-skinned, and the Black kids accepted her as 'Black'. But then ... she began to excel academically (her parents were very well educated people). And ... instead of being proud of one of their own beating whitey at his own game ... some of the Black kids began accusing her of 'Acting White'!

Peer pressure is the strongest determinant of behavior among young people, as shown by the late Judith Rich Harris in her book The Nurture Assumption.

If an evil person had wanted to wreak maximum havoc on the Black community, he could not have chosen a better instrument of destruction than the concept of 'Acting White'.

 

[Ms. Turquoise]

What @Ms Turquoise writes would be mostly correct if she just replaced the term 'racism' with 'racial oppression'.

Although of course a Black person can oppress a white person, in the calculus of oppression it's 1000-to-1 the other way around, historically. (Not today.)

But if we want to talk about oppression, the worst, most iniquitous, subtle form of racist oppression to which Blacks are subject is the concept of 'Acting White'.

'Acting White' means striving to achieve in school. It's used by less-able Blacks to pull down more-able Blacks, giving the former an excuse for their own failure.

A Black sociologist at Harvard has written extensively on this terrible phenomenon. [ An Empirical Analysis of 'Acting White' ]

Although this Wiki article is written by liberals who want to discredit the phenomenon, it's still useful. [ Acting white - Wikipedia ]

Many years ago, very liberal friends of mine on the West Coast, unable to have children of their own, adopted a little girl from India. As good liberals, they put her in the (integrated) public school system. She was dark-skinned, and the Black kids accepted her as 'Black'. But then ... she began to excel academically (her parents were very well educated people). And ... instead of being proud of one of their own beating whitey at his own game ... some of the Black kids began accusing her of 'Acting White'!

Peer pressure is the strongest determinant of behavior among young people, as shown by the late Judith Rich Harris in her book The Nurture Assumption.

If an evil person had wanted to wreak maximum havoc on the Black community, he could not have chosen a better instrument of destruction than the concept of 'Acting White'.

"Acting White" is not the worst problem for certain African-Americans. Their worst problem is and always has been RACISM. Sorry I have to disagree with you.

 

[Doug1943]

"Acting White" is not the worst problem for certain African-Americans. Their worst problem is and always has been RACISM. Sorry I have to disagree with you.

Please give some examples from the present era of how racism makes Blacks more violent than whites, and of how racism makes Blacks lag far behind others in education.

 

[protectionist]

They are, by far, the most racist in America.

 

[task0778]

Anybody can be a racist, the notion that only white people can be racist is bullshit.

 

[Doug1943]

The word 'racism' is used in such a sloppy (and dishonest) way, that it has almost lost all meaning.

Most words are not entirely adequate to describe complex, changing reality -- they're discrete and reality is analogue--, but 'racism' is especially subject to (often wilful) mis-use.

One of the first things you learn as a teenager -- if you're the kind of weird teenager who becomes interested in philosophy -- is the importance of defining your terms. But that's if you want to use words as tool with which to think, as opposed to political ammunition to fire at people you don't like.

Clearly, there is a very common form of human behavior which the word 'racism' has come into being to describe.

We are social animals. We tend to want to associate with those who are 'like' us. There may be genetic roots to this, but it's worth noting that our 'selfish genes', which 'want' only to replicate themselves, will therefore 'want' to combine with their counterparts whose envelopes (our physical bodies, including the behavior of our bodies) show signs of being the best choices for successrfully producing offspring who will survive, and themselves reproduce.

Thus even where racist thinking is very strong, sexual attraction across race boundaries is always present.

They are, by far, the most racist in America.

I think you may mean " the most race-conscious" in America.

The word single word "racism" is inadequate when talking about the phenomenon of racial animus. But one kind of "racism", and what many people assume when they use this word, is the belief in the superiority of one's own race, compared to the 'other' race.

And this superiority means superiority in achievements that everyone believes are important: in science, philosophy, art, music, mathematics, architecture, etc.

Certainly white racism is characterized by this belief in the superiority of one's own race, as opposed to the race which is the object of white racism.

But Black dislike/hatred of whites is not generally accompanied by this belief. Yes, there are a few pathetic attempts by some Blacks (aided by some guilty whites) to claim that Blacks were the founders of civilization, with great achievements in mathematics, etc.

But for this to have any credibility at all, they have to pretend that the ancient Egyptians were Black, as well as claiming more for Egyptian civilization as the source of Greek thought than most scholars of the period will allow. But this is very much a minority view among Blacks. (Shamefully, some white Leftists, who know better, encourage this ridiculous belief. See here:
[ Magic Melanin: Spreading Scientific Illiteracy Among Minorities: Part II | Skeptical Inquirer ] )

Black racism towards whites is not the mirror image of white racism towards Blacks, by any definition of the word 'racism'. Blacks do not believe that their race is superior to the white race.

 

[protectionist]

The word 'racism' is used in such a sloppy (and dishonest) way, that it has almost lost all meaning.

Most words are not entirely adequate to describe complex, changing reality -- they're discrete and reality is analogue--, but 'racism' is especially subject to (often wilful) mis-use.

One of the first things you learn as a teenager -- if you're the kind of weird teenager who becomes interested in philosophy -- is the importance of defining your terms. But that's if you want to use words as tool with which to think, as opposed to political ammunition to fire at people you don't like.

Clearly, there is a very common form of human behavior which the word 'racism' has come into being to describe.

We are social animals. We tend to want to associate with those who are 'like' us. There may be genetic roots to this, but it's worth noting that our 'selfish genes', which 'want' only to replicate themselves, will therefore 'want' to combine with their counterparts whose envelopes (our physical bodies, including the behavior of our bodies) show signs of being the best choices for successrfully producing offspring who will survive, and themselves reproduce.

Thus even where racist thinking is very strong, sexual attraction across race boundaries is always present.

I think you may mean " the most race-conscious" in America.

The word single word "racism" is inadequate when talking about the phenomenon of racial animus. But one kind of "racism", and what many people assume when they use this word, is the belief in the superiority of one's own race, compared to the 'other' race.

And this superiority means superiority in achievements that everyone believes are important: in science, philosophy, art, music, mathematics, architecture, etc.

Certainly white racism is characterized by this belief in the superiority of one's own race, as opposed to the race which is the object of white racism.

But Black dislike/hatred of whites is not generally accompanied by this belief. Yes, there are a few pathetic attempts by some Blacks (aided by some guilty whites) to claim that Blacks were the founders of civilization, with great achievements in mathematics, etc.

But for this to have any credibility at all, they have to pretend that the ancient Egyptians were Black, as well as claiming more for Egyptian civilization as the source of Greek thought than most scholars of the period will allow. But this is very much a minority view among Blacks. (Shamefully, some white Leftists, who know better, encourage this ridiculous belief. See here:
[ Magic Melanin: Spreading Scientific Illiteracy Among Minorities: Part II | Skeptical Inquirer ] )

Black racism towards whites is not the mirror image of white racism towards Blacks, by any definition of the word 'racism'. Blacks do not believe that their race is superior to the white race.

Some dictionaries may coin racism as meaning a superiority belief, but in practical life, it is more often a hate thing, and a competitive willingness to be "one up" on another race, even that is unfair (as in Affirmative Action programs)

 

[Doug1943]

Some dictionaries may coin racism as meaning a superiority belief, but in practical life, it is more often a hate thing, and a competitive willingness to be "one up" on another race, even that is unfair (as in Affirmative Action programs)

I prefer to use the word 'tribalism', since we see groups that are the same 'race' hating each other and acting towards each other just as Blacks and whites do in the US: N. Ireland, the former Yugoslavia, Sri Lanka, all of Africa.

In all of these cases, although often one group feels superior to the other -- for example, Northern Irish Protestants look down on Northern Irish Catholics -- the cultural levels are not in fact very different. Croats may feel superior to Serbs, but they don't see them as sub-human. Anti-Semites hate Jews, but they don't think that Jews are stupid.

But in the US, the Black/white thing is very definitely marked by the issue of cultural superiority. No one wants to talk about this, but it's true. Whites have, or at least had, this attitude to the populations of China, India, the Arab countries ... but the inhabitants of those countries know that their ancestors built great civilizations ... and what was done once, can be done again. (China is rapidly doing it. India stumbles forward. The Arabs and Persians have yet to get their act together.)

But if your ancestors are mainly sub-Saharan African, you have to accept that the great achievements of your people lie in the future.

The internalized feeling of permanent, congenital inferiority is a HUGE handicap ... one of its manifestations is the concept of 'acting white', which I mentioned earlier. You couldn't think of a better way to hold Black people down, than to have their best and brightest young people undermined this way in the classroom -- from their peers!