What Racism Does to White People

[Joanne98]

by David Weiner

"Authoritarianism, the soil of racism, makes dominant white culture in the United States an easy pawn of fascism." So said social-psychiatrist Erich Fromm and others who argued that racism "renders its proletarian benefactors passive and weak, ready to coalesce into angry or obedient mobs but unable to pursue the goals of a self-actualized citizenry." The U.S. has been a nurturing culture for white racism, an environment that taught young whites to believe that, "If black people, or brown for that matter, did poorly it was because of bad attitude, poor parenting, and cultural degeneracy."

What Racism Does to White People

by David Weiner

"The political right continues to support racism, and the Left ignores it."

Racism in the United States no longer involves fat sheriffs spewing prejudice at young black people trying to enter college, black maids sitting in the wrong places on buses, or black workers attempting to eat at white-only lunch counters. Today, it goes about its business quietly and in the shadows. Racism continues to damage communities of color but it damages the dominant white community as well. It renders our society more vulnerable to fascism

Since Gordon Allport's ground breaking 1954 study, The Nature of Prejudice, psychologists acknowledge that racism harms those who benefit from it as surely as those it disenfranchises. White people receive unearned and undeserved benefits at the expense of their peers of color. They are not asked if they want these benefits and lack the power to reject them. Some white people welcome a game rigged on their behalf but most, surveys conducted by the National Opinion Research Center tell us, do not. People crave security but they also prefer to earn their status in society. Few people, of any color, wish to see themselves as Cinderella's sisters. In 2002, Alvin F. Poussaint, Harvard Medical School professor of psychiatry, noted that while the "American Psychiatric Association has never officially recognized extreme racism (as opposed to ordinary prejudice) as a mental health problem, although the issue was raised more than 30 years ago...". This issue remains on the table and consistently comes up for discussion at meetings. He is among a growing contingent who views extreme racism-as-pathology, akin to a delusional disorder, to be a strong hypothesis.

If so, how deep and widespread might this pathology be? Does it still prevail? Or, like a disease that once ravaged a population, has it mostly run its course, leaving devastation in its wake? Harvard sociologist William Julius Wilson's impressive body of empirical research suggests this to be the case. Job market changes combined with the effects of discrimination in the past, and "benign neglect" in the present, has created a deep well that people cannot climb out of. The forces that fought for civil rights in the past assume their efforts resulting in programs such as Head Start and Affirmative Action to have been sufficient, and now turn their attention to other matters.

"White people receive unearned and undeserved benefits at the expense of their peers of color."

http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=751&Itemid=1

[madaboutharry]

1. Thank you for the post.

Most white Americans live in denial about their attitudes towards others. Those who do admit their own prejudices find creative excuses for it. I don't really believe this nation will ever overcome racism.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

6. Examples: Obama is a "Muslim," a "militant," "arrogant," "elitist," "un-American"....

All code for "I won't vote for a black man." Forget the right. The primaries opened my eyes and exposed me to deep-seated racism within the Democratic party. DU isn't enlightened, either. Some of the worse forms came to the surface on this very forum...

[BR_Parkway]

10. Hang out in GLBT forums, you'll see alot of deep seated come to the surface there

[ChazII]

8. Sadly,

I agree with your premise. This nation will never become color blind and judge others only by their character. (But hey, I am a pessimist.)

[bemildred]

2. It's all about power and control.

Always has been.

[Doctor_J]

3. I think this has some merit on a number of levels. Look at Smirk

He is the smallest of men. He'd be dead or living in a cardboard box on the street if e weren't high-born. And, deep down, he has to know this. It's made grow in him deep self-loathing which he tries to escape by drinking excessively, killing people, and putting down anyone smarter than he is. And since 55% of the voters chose him, we can safely say that a fair number of those 55% share his world view, if not his pathology.

Second, Big Media parades around a few black republicans like serial sexual harrasser Clarence Thomas, payola recipient Armstrong Williams, and liberal-who-always-bashes-dems-and praises-repukes Juan Williams and says, "Look - there's no racism". That's where the domestication comes in.

[Demeter]

5. I'm Contemplating Shrub Living Under One of His Namesakes

bottle of rotgut in his right hand, pretzel in his left. I could dream all night about that.

Oh, the subject was racism, wasn't it? Racism rewards stupidity and laziness, and proves that even America has its tribal instincts intact, regardless of the melting pot metaphor.

[Karenina]

4. . .

[Jokinomx]

7. Racism is alive and well in the U.S..... my brother

who works in the iron ore industry told me last night some guys at work are making "Keep the White House White" t-shirts.

In more than one blog.... I have read "I can't vote for someone named Hussien!"

Can't these people realize this isn't about race... this is about stopping the killing of innocent people... it's about stopping and preventing war! I don't care if the guy was purple and named Saddam..... I still would vote for peace.

[tama]

9. Negrists, the political fanatics

"It's high time someone blew the whistle on all the silly prattle about revamping our language to suit the purposes of certain political fanatics. You know what I'm talking about-those who accuse speakers of English of what they call "racism." This awkward neologism, constructed by analogy with the well-established term "sexism," does not sit well in the ears, if I may mix my metaphors. But let us grant that in our society there may be injustices here and there in the treatment of either race from time to time, and let us even grant these people their terms "racism" and "racist." How valid, however, are the claims of the self-proclaimed "black libbers," or "negrists"-those who would radically change our language in order to "liberate" us poor dupes from its supposed racist bias?

Most of the clamor,as you certainly know by now, revolves around the age-old usage of the noun "white" and words built from it, such as chairwhite, mailwhite, repairwhite, clergywhite, middlewhite, Frenchwhite, forewhite, whitepower, whiteslaughter, oneupuwhiteship, straw white, whitehandle, and so on. The negrists claim that using the word "white," either on its own or as a component, to talk about all the members of the human species is somehow degrading to blacks and reinforces racism. Therefore the libbers propose that we substitute "person" everywhere where "white" now occurs. Sensitive speakers of our secretary tongue of course find this preposterous. There is great beauty to a phrase such as "All whites are created equal." Our forebosses who framed the Declaration of Independence well understood the poetry of our language. Think how ugly it would be to say "All persons are created equal," or "All whites and blacks are created equal." Besides, as any schoolwhitey can tell you, such phrases are redundant. In most contexts, it is self-evident when "white" is being used in an inclusive sense, in which case it subsumes members of the darker race just as much as fairskins.

There is nothing denigrating to black people in being subsumed under the rubric "white"-no more than under the rubric "person." After all, white is a mixture of all the colors of the rainbow, including black. Used inclusively, the word "white" has no connotations whatsoever of race. Yet many people are hung up on this point. A prime example is Abraham Moses, one of the more vocal spokeswhites for making such a shift. For years, Niss Moses, authoroon of the well-known negrist tracts A Handbook of Nonracist Writing and Words and Blacks, has had nothing better to do than go around the country making speeches advocating the downfall of "racist language" that ble objects to. But when you analyze bler objections, you find they all fall apart at the seams. Niss Moses says that words like "chairwhite" suggest to people-most especially impressionable young whiteys and blackeys-that all chairwhites belong to the white race. How absurd! It's quite obvious, for instance, that the chairwhite of the League of Black Voters is going to be a black, not a white. Nobody need think twice about it. As a matter of fact, the suffix "white" is usually not pronounced with a long "i" as in the noun "white," but like "wit," as in the terms saleswhite, freshwhite, penwhiteship, first basewhite, and so on. It's just a simple and useful component in building race-neutral words.

But Niss Moses would have you sit up and start hollering "Racism!" In fact, Niss Moses sees evidence of racism under every stone. Ble has written a famous article, in which ble vehemently objects to the immortal and poetic words of the first white on the moon, Captain Nellie Strongarm. If you will recall, whis words were: "One small step for a white, a giant step for whitekind." This noble sentiment is anything but racist; it is simply a celebration of a glorious moment in the history of White."

More: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html

[yurbud]

11. k