Sorry if I seem out of loop up here in Canada, but at the same time I'm also a bit more outside the ketchup bottle. A wise man once said, "If you want to know who the minority is, go stand at a bus stop." Racism isn't limited to whites keeping blacks down. There are plenty of blacks who are prejudiced against whites and Latinos and Italians and whomever else isn't who they are. There seems to be plenty of it to go around and no one ethnicity can claim to be totally clean. I think the whole racist element is stupid, and we should all try harder to live together in harmony. What do you think of the idea that a lot of racial tension is brought on by the ultra rich who use it in a Machiavellian manner to keep the masses quarrelling amongst themselves while they feed and exploit the discord for their own ends?
I'd argue that racism is about a dominant class undermining a less-privileged class. We could say much the same thing about misogyny, anti-Semitism , Islamaphobia, and homophobia.
In this country, however, I'd argue that our national heritage was founded on genocide and built on the backs of slaves. "White" has been the gold-standard, so to speak. It has determined who which groups would have rights and which would not, or which groups would be accepted and which would not. It is still pronounced in how we give certain groups the privilege of being called "white" while other are denied that privilege. For example,
when Italians and Mediterraneans first came to this country en masse, they were most assuredly considered non-white. People with swarthier tones were sub-standard, while it was assumed they would certainly not assimilate . They might not have legally been denied rights, but the culture certainly didn't accept them, often to the point they were prevented from living and working in many areas. Since then, we have seen other groups come in at that bottom rung and we no longer have separate designations for Italians or Mediterraneans. In modern times, census reports don't distinguish these groups from other whites, yet we have a very
distinct separation for those who are "Hispanic." When I fill out surveys or take census records, it specifically asks if I am "White, Non Hispanic." That separation is indicative of our culture. Hispanics are considered inferior and often unwanted. Think of the "
Papers, Please" laws we've seen in certain states. We don't worry about limiting Canadian, Australian or any European immigration the way we discuss stopping immigration from South of the Border.
However, there are ongoing arguments in legal journal articles that racial profiling does exist and threatens
human security, particularly community security of the Mexicans living in the United States. India Williams argues that the Border Patrol is very likely to stop anyone if a suspect resembles "Mexican appearance" and states that such generalization of unchangeable physical features threatens the culture and the heritage of the ethnic group.
[121] Andrea Nill argues that it is only a small portion of Mexicans and Latinos that are illegal immigrants, but there is a demonization and illogical discrimination of Latino community by giving less respect, rights, and freedoms, whereas white American citizens will never have to worry about being stopped by the police due to their skin color
Admittedly, other white groups, such as the Irish, Jews, Germans, and Eastern Europeans have all been on this bottom rung. Benjamin Franklin notoriously hated German immigrants, thinking they were undermining the country. The difference is that other European groups still look white. It's why I'm considered to be more American than a Jewish person - or any person - of Middle Eastern origin, even if their ancestors have been in this country far longer than my own. It's why many Americans consider Ted Cruz to be more American than Barack Obama, even though the former was born in another country whereas the latter was born in this country. I've found those originally from South America, who are generally fairer in complexion and speak with a Castilian dialect, to be considered more white than Hispanic. No doubt this has something to do with having less Mestizo ancestry. (Google Uruguay as an example. I have friends there.) In the U.S. non-white is still considered a threat to an American ideal, which has apparently
become worse since Obama first took the presidency. Explicit racism is still very on the table, especially in one party, even if a few claim otherwise:
Poll Finds Americans Slightly More Racist
A new
AP Poll finds racial attitudes have not improved in the four years since President Obama's election "as a slight majority of Americans now express prejudice toward blacks whether they recognize those feelings or not."
"In all, 51 percent of Americans now express explicit anti-black attitudes, compared with 48 percent in a similar 2008 survey. When measured by an implicit racial attitudes test, the number of Americans with anti-black sentiments jumped to 56 percent, up from 49 percent during the last presidential election. In both tests, the share of Americans expressing pro-black attitudes fell."
Andrew Sullivan: "Close to 80 percent of Republican voters expressed 'explicit racism.' Maybe that's why they are comfortable with a candidate from a church whose theology remains based on white supremacy and that barred African-Americans from full membership as recently as 1978."
Seriously?
