Are we all a little bit racist?
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Channel: SBS Insight
Views: 521,313
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Keywords: Topic, insight, Opinion, Conversation, Insight, Jenny Brockie, racist, SBS, youtube, race, ethnicity, Australia, discrimination, bullying, multiculturalism, I'm not racist, but, feelings, offence, crime, Racism, Psychology, culture, religion, different, offense, offensive behaviour, sledging
Id: lfTUMc7yS54
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Length: 51min 31sec (3091 seconds)
Published: Wed Mar 21 2012
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I'm asian in America and I struggle with racism all the time. The thing that annoys me the most isn't that some people are racist but that most people don't even perceive racism against Asians to be a problem or to even exist. It's unthinkable if you make a claim that no one is racist agianst black people but somehow it's ok to think asians don't suffer the same way especially when there are so many stereotypes and so many people buy into them. Most of all it feels like being invisible.
I'm only 10 minutes in, but I'm loving how open all of the participants and audience members are. Being honest is the only way to defeat it.
Just to jumpstart a conversation here: I take the stance that we're inherently wired to be slightly distrustful of other people that don't look like we do. From a evolutionary standpoint, maybe there's something there about protecting your own family members, and especially your children. If you don't know your extended family members that well, if they look more like you, you're more willing to attempt to help them.
So racism is a combination of that inherent distrustfulness, tied together with cultural stereotypes about different groups. So maybe we'll never be truly rid of racism; the best we can do is teach our children about these negative thoughts, and learn to examine those thoughts for real truth.
If you want to take an implicit association test to test your own biases, Harvard hosts a number of them, including the Race IAT.
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/takeatest.html
In my mind, I always replace "I'm not racist, but..." with "I'm racist, and..."
I'm a white guy.
I'm prejudice, but not racist.
That is I don't wish harm or less good to any group or person because of their race. Nevertheless, people of other races make me nervous. The darker the skin the more nervous I am. It is not something I can undo. I can explain to myself that I'm an evil fuck for feeling that way and I should change my feelings. But the feelings don't change.
This effects my behavior in perhaps a strange way. I go out of my way to be more friendly to a dark skinned person. If we are passing on the street and you are a black person I'll smile and say hi. If you are a white guy I'll probably ignore you and go on my usually grumpy way.
We may have a predisposition to be distrustful but that doesn't mean we should use that as an excuse to be bigoted. Personally I think zizek comes up with a interesting point. Make it absurd. Of course this requires a certain level of trust - so that both parties know it isn't meant in a horrible way, only in jest.
Here a nice site that's very relevant that came out a few years back
That right-wing 'Australian Protectionist Party' guy is a tosser. Aside from him I think everyone brought a lot to the table and found this discussion really interesting. Thanks for sharing. :)
I am racist. I was born this way. It's wired deeply into the primate brain. Lots of weird shit is wired into our brains too. Not all of it good. We see all sorts of illusions that don't necessarily make it easier to live in the modern world or to be fair to people you have no real cause to be unfair to.
But unlike the rest of the apologists, I just don't give a shit. You want to change, you want to become pod people. You spend billions of dollars trying to indoctrinate against this (and pretending that this is education). You posture among your friends that you've all been indoctrinated more than they. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Doesn't seem that honest either. Or even effective.