Excellent piece on being Black and Nerdy....


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Freehold DM wrote:
Aranna wrote:

What?! You guys are on because you think there was some super secret racism going on in my neighborhood that never got talked about or acted out on around others? Talk about not having proof! That is no different than saying all white people are racist just because they are white.

I try to avoid thinking in such terms, Aranna, but it's not impossible that one of your neighbors was bigoted. I am a firm believer in the idea that high fences make good neighbors, and some people are very good at keeping their mouths shut about things that bother them. It doesn't mean you lived in Sandford(Hot Fuzz reference FTW!!!), but rather that the fences on some issues may have been too high for you to see over, especially as a kid.

There's a bit at the beginning of Silverado after Emmet (Scott Glen) comes across Payden (Kevin Kline) in the desert after he'd been robbed of all of his possessions and left for dead.

Payden starts to explain to Emmett how he got into the situation in which he was found:

"Me, I'm ridin' along minding my own business. Four cowboys come by and we decide to ride together for a while. Friendly as can be. I always figure might as well approach life like everybody is your friend or nobody is. Dont make much difference. We got in the middle of that frying pan and all of a sudden everybody's pointin' their gun but me. Guess they admired my horse..."

I agree that you never really know about people until certain situations come about. Doesnt matter whether theyre complete strangers or people you've lived next to all of your lives.

Now in the above example you can call Payden naive and say that he kinda deserved to get taken. On the other hand his outlook was to give people the benefit of the doubt which most people agree is a good outlook to have.

However, if you trust no one at the outset it kinda keeps you from getting robbed and left for dead in the middle of a desert...


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I live in China...I'm white (but not white enough...damn Arab blood line) and find the racism and color thing strange here...
...in particular, black Americans have trouble getting hired to be English teachers because they are, "too ugly." Yet Russian Women who speak with heavy accents can get jobs (they get paid badly) as English teachers.
-Personally I don't understand where the black people are bad thing comes from, when you consider China has little if any interaction with Africans until modern times.
-Not sure what I'm trying to say, but I'd suggest anybody who is black and wants to work in China to really make sure they are thick-skinned. In Korea I saw a kid actually try to rub the 'black' off a dark-skinned teacher. I think the kid may have been brain-damaged or something though...


thejeff wrote:

Again, we don't know you. We're not even saying you're necessarily wrong.

All I'm saying is that it's easy for someone it's not directed at to miss things.

And it's not always hate. Sometimes it's just assumptions. Not hating black people, just assuming they're not as smart or as hard working or moral as white people. And some people will make exceptions for people they know personally. "Bob, he's a good guy. He's not like the rest of them."
If you miss the second part of that and just see him being friends with Bob, you'll think he can't be racist.

Again, I've seen it myself. I've missed things myself, only to have them pointed out to me later. I've been told people and areas weren't racist only to later see for myself or learn from other people that they were. More subtly than outright hatred or shunning, but still there.

Yeah this is the more common racism I see in America. My brother jokingly calls them "affably racist", since it's racism not based on hate, but ignorance, and they can seem so polite. I've been told I'm hard working for a Puerto Rican. It sounds like they are complimenting you and perhaps to them, they are. But it's still racism.

Also I'm dealing with crap currently cause one of my best friends today admits that not only should racism be acceptable, but encourage. As if it enriches culture or something. I can't describe how heart broken I feel.


Odraude wrote:
thejeff wrote:

Again, we don't know you. We're not even saying you're necessarily wrong.

All I'm saying is that it's easy for someone it's not directed at to miss things.

And it's not always hate. Sometimes it's just assumptions. Not hating black people, just assuming they're not as smart or as hard working or moral as white people. And some people will make exceptions for people they know personally. "Bob, he's a good guy. He's not like the rest of them."
If you miss the second part of that and just see him being friends with Bob, you'll think he can't be racist.

Again, I've seen it myself. I've missed things myself, only to have them pointed out to me later. I've been told people and areas weren't racist only to later see for myself or learn from other people that they were. More subtly than outright hatred or shunning, but still there.

Yeah this is the more common racism I see in America. My brother jokingly calls them "affably racist", since it's racism not based on hate, but ignorance, and they can seem so polite. I've been told I'm hard working for a Puerto Rican. It sounds like they are complimenting you and perhaps to them, they are. But it's still racism.

Also I'm dealing with crap currently cause one of my best friends today admits that not only should racism be acceptable, but encourage. As if it enriches culture or something. I can't describe how heart broken I feel.

I don't know what to say to that man.

Dude, I'm sorry for your friend and your friendship. Hopefully he can wake up.


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I think this is an area where the old ideals of courtesy could be important. You know, the basic idea that you act toward strangers in a predictable, pleasant way, and that you do it because it reflects well on you. See, you don't have to assume everyone is a friend, because not everyone is and that will cost you. It is enough that they are human beings and deserve fair treatment. It is an outdated way of looking at things today, and when it wasn't, it certainly didn't prevent racism - but many other things have changed in the field today.


I agree Sissyl, and the typical degenerate is without a redeeming belief in courtesy and good conduct. Ortega Y Gasset predicted this collapse of civility because of the rise of the mass man: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Revolt_of_the_Masses

Which reminds me of a culture I am putting together from a setting. A martial culture that believe in civility, calm, restraint and formalised conduct. They are decent, honourable and bound by their word, but so help you if you breach any of their many rules on etiquette or disrespect them, they go completely murderous.

Wars begun over the tiniest infraction of incivility. Think I'll take how the samurai treated disrespect from the low born and magnify it by about 5. Make it a national ethos.

Put down your tea cup too forcefully and make a demand, and before you know it, you are strung up on hooks, as they foam at the mouth and wrench on those chains, snapping tendons and pulling bones from the body.


I agree as well Sissyl being friendly is so easy to do and it is the absolute best way to interact with people IRL. Rewarding on both sides.

Ok I see what some of you are saying "that you don't have to hate to be prejudiced" and although I was never included in any comments to this effect anywhere other than at my various jobs. I can see how it could exist outside of my noticing. BUT if you are black HOW do you differentiate from racism and the usual bad day crap people take out on each other? Everyone is treated like crap from time to time and it has nothing to do with any ism. If you are imagining that the white people you meet are harboring such a low opinion of you then won't you just falsely assume racism every time someone treats you like dirt?


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Aranna wrote:

BUT if you are black HOW do you differentiate from racism and the usual bad day crap people take out on each other? Everyone is treated like crap from time to time and it has nothing to do with any ism. If you are imagining that the white people you meet are harboring such a low opinion of you then won't you just falsely assume racism every time someone treats you like dirt?

Well, if you're "imagining" that people around you are racist, you will indeed "falsely assume" racism, almost by definition. And your perception that the person is treating you badly because he's racist instead of simply a jerk or unhappy is no more guaranteed to be correct than your perception that because someone is polite to your face, he must be friendly.

Which is one of the poisonous things about racism. It sows distrust, and generally reaps a bountiful harvest.

Something you can use as a clue, though, is who gets treated badly. If it's always or even often the black who gets picked on, there's may be a reason. If you've got an equal-opportunity jerk, that person may be more likely simply to be rude and uncaring.


HarbinNick wrote:

I live in China...I'm white (but not white enough...damn Arab blood line) and find the racism and color thing strange here...

...in particular, black Americans have trouble getting hired to be English teachers because they are, "too ugly." Yet Russian Women who speak with heavy accents can get jobs (they get paid badly) as English teachers.
-Personally I don't understand where the black people are bad thing comes from, when you consider China has little if any interaction with Africans until modern times.
-Not sure what I'm trying to say, but I'd suggest anybody who is black and wants to work in China to really make sure they are thick-skinned. In Korea I saw a kid actually try to rub the 'black' off a dark-skinned teacher. I think the kid may have been brain-damaged or something though...

The black people (men) are bad thing is pretty much universal. The impression is gotten through popular media I think.


Orfamay Quest wrote:
Aranna wrote:

BUT if you are black HOW do you differentiate from racism and the usual bad day crap people take out on each other? Everyone is treated like crap from time to time and it has nothing to do with any ism. If you are imagining that the white people you meet are harboring such a low opinion of you then won't you just falsely assume racism every time someone treats you like dirt?

Well, if you're "imagining" that people around you are racist, you will indeed "falsely assume" racism, almost by definition. And your perception that the person is treating you badly because he's racist instead of simply a jerk or unhappy is no more guaranteed to be correct than your perception that because someone is polite to your face, he must be friendly.

Which is one of the poisonous things about racism. It sows distrust, and generally reaps a bountiful harvest.

Something you can use as a clue, though, is who gets treated badly. If it's always or even often the black who gets picked on, there's may be a reason. If you've got an equal-opportunity jerk, that person may be more likely simply to be rude and uncaring.

Exactly.

I need to stop posting on these boards and just assume that eventually someone who is more patient and articulate will eventually come around and post something that expresses my point better than I could have. :-)


Orfamay Quest wrote:
Aranna wrote:

BUT if you are black HOW do you differentiate from racism and the usual bad day crap people take out on each other? Everyone is treated like crap from time to time and it has nothing to do with any ism. If you are imagining that the white people you meet are harboring such a low opinion of you then won't you just falsely assume racism every time someone treats you like dirt?

Well, if you're "imagining" that people around you are racist, you will indeed "falsely assume" racism, almost by definition. And your perception that the person is treating you badly because he's racist instead of simply a jerk or unhappy is no more guaranteed to be correct than your perception that because someone is polite to your face, he must be friendly.

Which is one of the poisonous things about racism. It sows distrust, and generally reaps a bountiful harvest.

Something you can use as a clue, though, is who gets treated badly. If it's always or even often the black who gets picked on, there's may be a reason. If you've got an equal-opportunity jerk, that person may be more likely simply to be rude and uncaring.

But if you don't know the guy being a jerk toward you then all you can do is "imagine" what that reason might be. It is a form of bad judgement I guess to assume anything one way or another. I guess racism is poisonous indeed if what I believe are just a tiny handful of truly prejudiced people can make you think so poorly of so many.

Still it is wisdom indeed to wait and withhold judgement till you see if it's just black people he is a jerk toward or everyone.


Aranna wrote:


But if you don't know the guy being a jerk toward you then all you can do is "imagine" what that reason might be.

That's correct.

Quote:
It is a form of bad judgement I guess to assume anything one way or another.

It's also unavoidable. The best you can hope for is to be aware of your assumptions. This isn't restricted to discussions of racism; the idea that you're not a brain-in-a-vat or a human-trapped-in-the-Matrix is also an assumption. You should always be aware of the possibility that you're not seeing or not realizing something important.

Quote:


Still it is wisdom indeed to wait and withhold judgement till you see if it's just black people he is a jerk toward or everyone.

It is. But by the same token, it's also wisdom to withhold judgment to see if the person being nice to you is actually nice or merely polite.


I can't speak for all white people, but being white, other white people that are racist seem to think that I am on "Team Racist." They are not shy about sharing their racist views when there are none of "them" around. As such, if someone says they've spent years with a group of people and never heard a racist thing uttered, I'd take them at their word.

That being said, EVERYONE is racist to some degree or another. Its to the level that it is taken that it becomes an issue.

I remember reading an article several years ago about stereotypes that said most people have default packages in their brains. These packages can be racial, gender, religion, etc. Until you actually meet a specific individual, you're thinking with that package.

So for example, the first time you meet someone of a different ethnicity/culture/race as you, your brain tries to relate their appearance, the way they talk, they way they walk, act, etc. to something that is familiar.

Once you meet the individual, you no longer think with that package in mind, you think of them as an individual.


There was an interesting question in a psychology paper somewhere. It went something like:

Person A, let's call him George, is a perfectly pleasant person. He lives in a decent way, does his part for the community, has impeccable work ethics, communicates clearly with others, and even when drunk, he's generally nice to people. It's just that when it comes to women, he becomes distant, based on his views that women are less competent than men, women should not get promoted, have responsibility, and so on. Basically, he thinks women everywhere have as sole redeeming feature that they can propagate the human race when blessed with a male's attention, and they are handy in the kitchen and around the house. He is not an employer but a lowly clerk, and doesn't make the calls regarding hires and promotions, so in general, the effect of this is limited to him more or less avoiding women. When he has to talk to women for some reason, he's sort of icy, but courteous.

Person B, Steve, hates every other human being equally. He's disgusted by them, he despises their pissy problems, he doesn't want anything to do with ANYONE. He enjoys when things go wrong to others. He laughs in private at their misfortune. He even goes so far as to actively sabotage things the community is trying to improve. He is unemployed by choice, because he enjoys the thought of others paying for his expenses. He has systematically done what he can to weasel out of paying taxes, and has been smart enough to keep clear of the police. If he has to interact with someone else, man or woman, he does his best to find out how he can make their day worse, if possible without being obvious about it, just because he enjoys it.

So, who's the worse man? George or Steve? Nota bene, Steve treats women FAR worse than George ever would.


Sissyl wrote:
So, who's the worse man? George or Steve? Nota bene, Steve treats women FAR worse than George ever would.

Does it matter? They're both damaged, toxic people. I won't tolerate either one in my life. Though if George can STFU and do his job, never talking about his views or behaving in any way but professionally polite, I could probably work with him as long as I never heard any of those inappropriate things come out of his mouth.


Indeed. So your view is that Steve is the worse man, I take it?


Both George and Steve have axis 2 issues for which they need serious help.


Absolutely. George is a sexist, however.

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 16, 2012 Top 32

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Sissyl wrote:
So, who's the worse man? George or Steve?

By default, hypothetical George is the worse man. Hypothetical Steve is an immature, overgrown child, not a man.


Sissyl wrote:
Absolutely. George is a sexist, however.

Yes he is. And I'd hate to see him in a position where he had power over anyone. Hiring, management or the like. I'd also not want to deal with him socially,

Steve on the other hand is far more of an active and damaging person.

No one said that sexism (or racism for that matter, because it would b easy to make an analogous situation with race) is the worst thing ever. Just that they're bad.


Tormsskull wrote:
I can't speak for all white people, but being white, other white people that are racist seem to think that I am on "Team Racist." They are not shy about sharing their racist views when there are none of "them" around. As such, if someone says they've spent years with a group of people and never heard a racist thing uttered, I'd take them at their word.

That probably covers the blatant Klan style racism. Not so much the "I'm not racist, but we watch the black people more closely in the store" kind of racism.

Once someone starts talking about only a tiny handful of people being racist and assuming that black people are just being biased in seeing racism so often, I'm assuming the person is only talking and thinking about blatant "I hate n@#%~+s" racism and is ignoring far more pervasive but subtler biases.


Sissyl wrote:
Indeed. So your view is that Steve is the worse man, I take it?

No. Both have the potential to do immense harm and damage. Currently one is in less of a position to do harm than the other. That's really all I can say about it.

Deciding one is better and one is worse is sort of like saying this murderer is better because he got caught after killing three people, and the person in the next cell didn't get caught until he'd killed four. Or rapist, or robber, or vandal, or bully, or bigot, or pick your harmful, damaging behavior in varying degrees of harmful and damaging.

Seriously, do you think you can even put a 'better' or 'worse' label on any of that? Or say that any amount of it is okay, or acceptable, or tolerable? None of it is. It's a matter of who is in a position to act on their sickness and for how long they are able to do so, not so much about how sick they are.


BigDTBone wrote:
Because Super Mario Bros 2 was a NES title, not an SNES title.

It was released for SNES as a 4 in 1 cartridge. I had both versions :p


Daenar wrote:
BigDTBone wrote:
Because Super Mario Bros 2 was a NES title, not an SNES title.
It was released for SNES as a 4 in 1 cartridge. I had both versions :p

Yeah, but anyone who had Super Mario All-Stars would refer to it as such.


Odraude wrote:
Also I'm dealing with crap currently cause one of my best friends today admits that not only should racism be acceptable, but encourage. As if it enriches culture or something. I can't describe how heart broken I feel.

Dude...you're so sensitive for a Puerto Rican!

Seriously though, that blows. I get exasperated enough when people suggest that things like DST create cultural identity; I can't even imagine how I'd react to something as insipid as what your friend said.

...If he even still qualifies as a friend.

HarbinNick wrote:
I live in China...I'm white (but not white enough...damn Arab blood line) and find the racism and color thing strange here...

Yeah, I briefly lived in S Korea, and damn, Koreans are racist! Well, some of them are, at least. I'm a polar bear, so they loved me and many of them seemed to idolize America, but some of them had some incredibly insipid comments about black folks. Oh, and gay people. I think it'll be a while before Korea embraces same-sex marriage too.

Sissyl wrote:
So, who's the worse man? George or Steve? Nota bene, Steve treats women FAR worse than George ever would.

I think Steve is worse in a sort of localized, short-term way. He's toxic, but obviously so; pretty much anyone who catches on to his BS is going despise and react against him.

Whereas George's sexism doesn't really damage anyone, but someone who caught on to his prejudice might be swayed. Especially say, if he were to have kids, or mentor a younger clerk.

So while Steve is more immediately destructive, George has the potential to create long-lasting ripples of insidiousness.


thejeff wrote:
Once someone starts talking about only a tiny handful of people being racist and assuming that black people are just being biased in seeing racism so often, I'm assuming the person is only talking and thinking about blatant "I hate n~@*~#s" racism and is ignoring far more pervasive but subtler biases.

Actually, I am not assuming that at all. If we define racism as "not treating someone else as well as they would treat someone of their own race" then I know a lot of racists, and I would argue many people are racist to this degree.


BigDTBone wrote:
Daenar wrote:
BigDTBone wrote:
Because Super Mario Bros 2 was a NES title, not an SNES title.
It was released for SNES as a 4 in 1 cartridge. I had both versions :p
Yeah, but anyone who had Super Mario All-Stars would refer to it as such.

nope. I owned it. Forgot what it was called don't really care but thanks for the ass-umption.


ShinHakkaider wrote:
HarbinNick wrote:

I live in China...I'm white (but not white enough...damn Arab blood line) and find the racism and color thing strange here...

...in particular, black Americans have trouble getting hired to be English teachers because they are, "too ugly." Yet Russian Women who speak with heavy accents can get jobs (they get paid badly) as English teachers.
-Personally I don't understand where the black people are bad thing comes from, when you consider China has little if any interaction with Africans until modern times.
-Not sure what I'm trying to say, but I'd suggest anybody who is black and wants to work in China to really make sure they are thick-skinned. In Korea I saw a kid actually try to rub the 'black' off a dark-skinned teacher. I think the kid may have been brain-damaged or something though...
The black people (men) are bad thing is pretty much universal. The impression is gotten through popular media I think.

From what I heard and read (which might or might not be accurate, though) about negative approach to black people in East Asia it supposedly works like this: important part of East Asian cultures - Chinese, Korean, Japanese, probably Vietnamese as well, is conformity to local standards, including physical appearance. Exotic appearance is more often perceived negatively than in European/American cultures. While white people look differently than easterners, they are still closer to East Asians standards of appearance than black people and thus perceived as more attractive (or at least less "ugly") than the former.


Daenar wrote:
BigDTBone wrote:
Daenar wrote:
BigDTBone wrote:
Because Super Mario Bros 2 was a NES title, not an SNES title.
It was released for SNES as a 4 in 1 cartridge. I had both versions :p
Yeah, but anyone who had Super Mario All-Stars would refer to it as such.
nope. I owned it. Forgot what it was called don't really care but thanks for the ass-umption.

Whatever you want dude. I would bet real money you didn't go around telling your friends about how you just got Super Mario Bros 2 for your SNES. Anyway, the original comment was said toungue-in-cheek but also stands on its own merits.


Tormsskull wrote:
thejeff wrote:
Once someone starts talking about only a tiny handful of people being racist and assuming that black people are just being biased in seeing racism so often, I'm assuming the person is only talking and thinking about blatant "I hate n~@*~#s" racism and is ignoring far more pervasive but subtler biases.
Actually, I am not assuming that at all. If we define racism as "not treating someone else as well as they would treat someone of their own race" then I know a lot of racists, and I would argue many people are racist to this degree.

That would really refer to Aranna's "what I believe are just a tiny handful of truly prejudiced people".


thejeff wrote:
Tormsskull wrote:
I can't speak for all white people, but being white, other white people that are racist seem to think that I am on "Team Racist." They are not shy about sharing their racist views when there are none of "them" around. As such, if someone says they've spent years with a group of people and never heard a racist thing uttered, I'd take them at their word.

That probably covers the blatant Klan style racism. Not so much the "I'm not racist, but we watch the black people more closely in the store" kind of racism.

Once someone starts talking about only a tiny handful of people being racist and assuming that black people are just being biased in seeing racism so often, I'm assuming the person is only talking and thinking about blatant "I hate n@#%&~s" racism and is ignoring far more pervasive but subtler biases.

Lol. On the watching black people in the store comment, I come from an area where blacks rob stores, constantly. All the time, almost always them. The cops are kept very busy. Generally they are quite young, sometimes they are into it when they are older. Maybe they graduate to burglary or a spate of sexual crimes.

So, in a certain social context (poor town with high black crime), watching a black person in a shop is not racism, you simply know the statistics and you have seen it happen again and again (and then again) over years.

I told people in the state capital about this, in an urban place far from my home town and they didn't believe me. They think I am joking, making the comedic connection between race and criminality or something. :|

There is prejudice and racism, and then there are tired store owners and their workers that are just tired of being robbed and shoplifted by black people.


DM Under The Bridge wrote:
So, in a certain social context (poor town with high black crime), watching a black person in a shop is not racism, you simply know the statistics and you have seen it happen again and again (and then again) over years.

I would say that clearly is racism. That's why everyone is racist to an extent - we all are a product of our environments and experiences.


An awareness of the reality and the statistics is not racism. Nor is acting with caution in accordance with this knowledge.

Racism gets stretched pretty thing when it is a label for people that watch out for being robbed by black people, in an area where black people do the robbing.

Being vigilant against likely perpetrators isn't the same thing as viewing all blacks as sub-human or indulging in racial hate (as I said, more people are tired of being robbed than heavy into racism, which is discouraged in school, work and government, and not a popular stance to have).


Got to watch those statistics. It is of course possible that's true in your area, I don't know. However "young black man == criminal" is a common assumption in areas where it's not so true as well, which makes me suspicious.

It's also possible for example that most crimes in an area are committed by young males and most young males in the area are black, which means that most crimes are committed by young black males, even though an individual young white male is equally likely to commit a crime.

Watching the black males more closely also results in more of them being caught, which skews the statistics and reinforces the prejudice.


But if you watch those statistics and come to an obvious conclusion, you can be labelled racist. Lol.

I have heard the statistics argument before, about the unjust targeting of black youth.

Aaaand the cells are full of black criminals in this little town, because the majority of criminals are black, someone saw them do it, they were arrested and identified, seen on camera, or they were found with the stolen goods (trafficking in stolen goods is also a crime). Truly, these opportunistic criminals are caught very often, but it happens again and again. Now we are taught about skewed statistics and not to judge people by race, but sometimes they are the ones doing the crimes, en masse.

*shrugs*

So I have heard it said, if they didn't want to be in jail, they shouldn't have done the crime. The funny thing is, they hear the criticisms of law and order and the targeting of blacks, and then they claim the justice system is un-just-after they have been caught robbing other people of the public.

It makes me shake my head. Of course, not everywhere is like my little town of paradise where crime by blacks upon everyone else, is very high.


Subtle nuance is not true racism... Would you call most men racist? Black or white doesn't matter they treat blondes differently than dark haired girls. You probably even do it yourself thejeff without even thinking about it. True racism is when you decide for yourself consciously that a group is inferior.


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"Certain ethnic groups are overrepresented in the crimes statistics than others": Acknowledging a situation.

"Crime tends to correlate with lack of wealth, lack of options in life, institutional discrimination against groups, and a host of other factors. If certain ethnic groups commit more crimes than others it is likely due to these issues": trying to describe and explain the situation.

"Certain ethinc groups are criminally inclined by nature": racism.

Shadow Lodge

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I'm currently working in a Wal-Mart as asset protection. What this means is that I, among other things, look for shoplifters. Either out on the actual sales floor, or in the asset protection office through the system of security cameras. The population of the town is approximately 75% black, 22% white, and 3% other races. There was one person who I worked with who actually suggested that whenever they catch a black shoplifter, that they then ONLY look for white shoplifters until one is caught. I guess so they can avoid the semblance of racism.

To me, that's absolutely crazy. While I'm sure that she wouldn't have ignored blatant shoplifting by a black "suspect", it does imply that she would skip over suspicious behavior of a black suspect simply because it was the "turn" for a white shoplifter to be caught.


Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:

"Certain ethnic groups are overrepresented in the crimes statistics than others": Acknowledging a situation.

"Crime tends to correlate with lack of wealth, lack of options in life, institutional discrimination against groups, and a host of other factors. If certain ethnic groups commit more crimes than others it is likely due to these issues": trying to describe and explain the situation.

"Certain ethinc groups are criminally inclined by nature": racism.

It is also uninformed. There is no inherited template for things like shoplifting or tax fraud or the like. How could there be, unless taxes and shops had been a thing for uncountable generations? What does exist, and the reason criminal behaviour is consistently shown to be heritable, is variants of the risk/reward circuits. One specific such point is that different people's MAO-A enzyme look different. Those with extremely exotic versions are the people who only manage to feel alive when jumping from bridges and the like. We all react differently to risk. Other points of divergence regarding criminal behaviour are your capacity for empathy and your impulse control.

Connecting this to ethnicity would require some pretty odd studies. If they were made, it could show that certain ethnicities DO have different patterns of risk and reward than others. Contrary to popular belief, we are far, far from genetically homogenous. Skin colour is among the least ways we differ from one another. However, it's a bit like language: A functioning language is either easy to express yourself in, or easy to decipher the meaning of. There are many ways of coexisting - and even if someone were to belong to a group that has a higher rate of violence: a) That says little about the individual, b) we should be judged by our actions, not preemptively sorted by risk, c) the value of a person is not tied to our genetics. We CAN be DIFFERENT and still of EQUAL VALUE.

*dons flame-retardant suit*


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being from the states I've always felt uneducated poor people are petty criminals...and sadly far too many in America who meet that description are black.
-I've mentioned my sister is a white woman working in the Catholic Schools in Camden NJ...the thing is her students are actually good, as she says parents want their kids to go to Catholic school, they usually have married parents...the public schools are terrifying...literally hell. Guns get pulled, drug dealing at school playgrounds, all kinds of horror stories.
-I really feel the urban black population has been ignored and failed by everybody, by both political parties, by their 'leaders' their churches, and by education. It's like the native Americans, largely ignored or brushed under the rug...
-But I'm also not going to lie, a white woman getting lost in Chester PA or Newark NJ is going to have a terrifying experience. My sister once had to beg a police office to let her past a check point in Camden, as he said "Why is a white lady trying to get into this neighborhood at 6:00 AM?"
At least the locals mostly appreciate the school teachers...


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Nothing is more terrifying than the unknown. Especially when all you have ever seen of an area is from police action seen on the news. I was on my way back through Chicago once when I was 18 after visiting my father in a nice suburb. I was a bit stubborn and wanted to get home well before my shift started at work the next morning. But very soon I found myself hopelessly lost after jumping off the expressway looking for a gas station that was open at 3am and had diesel fuel. I had never in my life seen such a poor and shabby area. And to make things worse EVERYONE was staring at me. My fuel gauge was pegged on E and I was imagining horrible things. I had no cell phone not a lot of kids did in the nineties. I wanted to cry but I didn't. Instead I stopped the car and prayed until I calmed down. Then I gathered my nerve and talked to one of these really poor looking people. After the shock and surprise of being approached by someone like me in the middle of the bad part of Chicago the man finally gave me really good directions. I thanked him earnestly and asked if I could do anything for him, thinking maybe he needed some money or something. But he just smiled and told me he was fine, that he was a bit worried about me out here all alone and even offered to follow me to make sure I made it to the place ok. He followed me till I made it to the place and left without another word. He was like an angel sent by God. And he made me realize people are people no matter where they come from or what they look like. I probably was never really in any danger that night. The media doesn't show us the millions of good upstanding black people they show us the handful of violent criminals. Even the kind hearted black man who helped that terrified lost white girl that night had bought into the same media vision of violent black youth and was worried about me. It also reinforced the thought that racism had to be fading away. If I had been lost in the same place decades ago during the worst race violence I may have truly been in danger.


Kthulhu wrote:

I'm currently working in a Wal-Mart as asset protection. What this means is that I, among other things, look for shoplifters. Either out on the actual sales floor, or in the asset protection office through the system of security cameras. The population of the town is approximately 75% black, 22% white, and 3% other races. There was one person who I worked with who actually suggested that whenever they catch a black shoplifter, that they then ONLY look for white shoplifters until one is caught. I guess so they can avoid the semblance of racism.

To me, that's absolutely crazy. While I'm sure that she wouldn't have ignored blatant shoplifting by a black "suspect", it does imply that she would skip over suspicious behavior of a black suspect simply because it was the "turn" for a white shoplifter to be caught.

Well yeah, that would be stupid, but at the same time watching the blacks more carefully because they make up ~75% of the shoplifters would also be stupid. An individual white person may be just as likely to steal, despite the vast majority of thieves being black. But since most of the criminals are black it seems an obvious thing to do.

And once you focus on them for awhile, you'll catch even more of them and less white people, so the statistics will make it seem like black people are more likely to steal, justifying even more of a focus on them.


Aranna wrote:
Subtle nuance is not true racism... Would you call most men racist? Black or white doesn't matter they treat blondes differently than dark haired girls. You probably even do it yourself thejeff without even thinking about it. True racism is when you decide for yourself consciously that a group is inferior.

Well, then we need another name for the effect that raises barriers and enforces a lot of discrimination in this country. There are studies showing the effects of that kind of subtle discrimination: Identical resumes with black sounding names getting less interviews. Similar results for ones with female names. Police behavior towards minorities. Other patterns in hiring and promotion.

There's a lot less Klan-style lynchings and cross-burnings these days. That's good. But it doesn't mean the attitudes are completely gone. Prejudice works on many levels. Sometimes the subtle ones are just as destructive because they're harder to see.


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Two things:

Back in the late 80's early 90's I worked in Tower Video on W 67th Street. On the other end of the block was Tower Records. The security guys at both stores were basically one unit. So if their office was full or in use sometimes they would bring someone that they caught to our office to have their picture taken or to wait for the police.

These guys were pretty good at what they did and every now and then when I'd go over to Tower Records and hang out in the back I'd see the pictures of the people that got caught shoplifting. A lot of the faces were black and brown. But a fair amount of them were white. And not white, low income either. People who could afford to live on the upper west side (and if you know anything about NYC you know what I'm talking about. Even back then it was expensive to live there.) would be stealing. One of our security guys even pondered the fact that he was so used to looking for black and brown perps that he probably overlooked the same behavior in a white perp and missed a collar.

The other thing is that when the gun running pipeline from the carolinas started to get compromised, meaning that the cops started pulling over damn near every young black male with Carolina, NY or Jersey plates? The gun runners got smart. They started propositioning white guys or white couples or white elderly couples on fixed incomes to transport their product for them. Because no one would look twice at them. As far as I know that's still the modus operandi to this day...


Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:

"Certain ethnic groups are overrepresented in the crimes statistics than others": Acknowledging a situation.

"Crime tends to correlate with lack of wealth, lack of options in life, institutional discrimination against groups, and a host of other factors. If certain ethnic groups commit more crimes than others it is likely due to these issues": trying to describe and explain the situation.

"Certain ethinc groups are criminally inclined by nature": racism.

Exactly. It is not racism if you know who is committing the crimes, but you do not hold the stance that specific races are criminally inclined by nature - essentialising them as natural criminals.

We almost had to call the thought police.


I don't know why, but this thread reminds me of the post-Trayvon verdict rally we held up here in New Hampshire which was attended by all of New Hampshire's black population, which, I think, is 14 people.

Anyway, it was called by us and the NAACP, and, maybe, 50 people came out. The NAACP organizer revved up the crowd and then started asking people for testimonials. A couple people spoke and then a middle-aged+ white woman got up.

I can't remember exactly what she said, but she started going on and on about everybody being racist and then went on for a while about some anecdote about taking a wrong turn in Boston and ending up in Roxbury and, ohmigod, there were black people everywhere and they were all looking at her, and she had to pull over and check a map and some scary black man approached her car and she freaked out and...

I am sure she meant well, but at this point one of the 13 other black attendees, similarly female and middle-aged+ shouted, "Honey, you're f&~*ing killing us!"

As my comrade quipped to me after the event, when you open up the mic, you never know what people are gonna say.

My lone contribution on the topic of being black and nerdy.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I was best man for a buddy of mine that was in the military, taking place in a town in rural Nebraska. The other two groomsmen were also military, and one of them was black, and all of us were nerds and gamer geeks. We went to the local Wal-Mart to get things for the bachelor party that evening, and to kill some time.

We split up after the alchohol aisle to get other stuff, look at other things, when a manager approached me. "Excuse me, but where is your black friend?" he asked. "I dunno, off looking at something, why?" I asked. "I was just making sure he intended on paying for that bottle of booze he was walking around with."
Now, each of us had been walking around with a bottle of booze, looking at other things. The groom saw me talking to the manager and asked what was up. When I told him, he gave the manager a dressing down about him being in the US military, had been overseas fighting, and did not deserve such treatment, regardless of his color of skin, and asked why he wasn't concerned about any of the rest of us walking around with a bottle of booze. The guy got incredibly defensive, saying he was just doing his job. We scoffed at this, asking him if his job was to be the "negro patrol".
We all put our stuff back, and left, and got our alchohol elsewhere.

When we caught up with the ladies later and shared the story, the bridesmaid got mad and called the Wal-Mart to complain about it as well.

Her sister works there, and called her up furious that she had gotten the manager fired, and asked why. "Someone like that doesn't need to be in a position of authority."


Daenar wrote:
BigDTBone wrote:
Daenar wrote:
BigDTBone wrote:
Because Super Mario Bros 2 was a NES title, not an SNES title.
It was released for SNES as a 4 in 1 cartridge. I had both versions :p
Yeah, but anyone who had Super Mario All-Stars would refer to it as such.
nope. I owned it. Forgot what it was called don't really care but thanks for the ass-umption.

IIRC, there was a period of time where Super Mario All Stars wasn't called Super Mario All Stars. If you still have that cartridge where it was called by its original name, it's probably worth a fair amount of money.


DM Under The Bridge wrote:
thejeff wrote:
Tormsskull wrote:
I can't speak for all white people, but being white, other white people that are racist seem to think that I am on "Team Racist." They are not shy about sharing their racist views when there are none of "them" around. As such, if someone says they've spent years with a group of people and never heard a racist thing uttered, I'd take them at their word.

That probably covers the blatant Klan style racism. Not so much the "I'm not racist, but we watch the black people more closely in the store" kind of racism.

Once someone starts talking about only a tiny handful of people being racist and assuming that black people are just being biased in seeing racism so often, I'm assuming the person is only talking and thinking about blatant "I hate n@#%&~s" racism and is ignoring far more pervasive but subtler biases.

Lol. On the watching black people in the store comment, I come from an area where blacks rob stores, constantly. All the time, almost always them. The cops are kept very busy. Generally they are quite young, sometimes they are into it when they are older. Maybe they graduate to burglary or a spate of sexual crimes.

So, in a certain social context (poor town with high black crime), watching a black person in a shop is not racism, you simply know the statistics and you have seen it happen again and again (and then again) over years.

I told people in the state capital about this, in an urban place far from my home town and they didn't believe me. They think I am joking, making the comedic connection between race and criminality or something. :|

There is prejudice and racism, and then there are tired store owners and their workers that are just tired of being robbed and shoplifted by black people

Where is this place where *only* black people commit crime?


Comrade Anklebiter wrote:

As my comrade quipped to me after the event, when you open up the mic, you never know what people are gonna say.

I had a similiar situation happen at a mental health funding rally I attended for work once. Yeesh.

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