Does racial privilege exist in the US?

Does racial privilege exist in the US

  • Yes, racial privilege does exist in the US + I am white

    Votes: 69 90.8%

  • No, racial privilege does NOT exist in the US + I am white

    Votes: 3 3.9%

  • Yes, racial privilege does exist in the US + I am NOT white

    Votes: 4 5.3%

  • No, racial privilege does NOT exist in the US + I am NOT white

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    76
  • Poll closed .
Skeptic Tank said:
I'm white, I live in the U.S., and I acknowledge whites have some racial privilege... kind of. What I would really call it is natural (and appropriate) byproducts of their evolutionary history / the society being founded by and explicitly FOR them as a group / them still being the majority.

I think if this was still a healthy society, white privilege would still be embraced, expanded and codified into law. However, it would also be made nearly irrelevant by keeping the country as near to 100% white as possible.

This was the model throughout most of the nation's history and the clear intention, as indicated in writing and in law, of the founders and their inheritors for centuries.

Currently, there are plenty of racial privileges extended to nonwhites in the U.S. as well. Being held to a lower standard at every possible "checkpoint" as they go through life. Teachers grading them more softly, institutions falling all over themselves to "increase their diversity" and hiring people who'd get shown the door with the same qualifications if they were white, etc.

Whites are viewed as having agency and thus being capable of culpability and evil. Nonwhites are generally seen as lacking agency and thus always being acted upon either for good or ill by whites. Every problem in the country is viewed through the prism of "are white people doing enough for / being welcoming enough to __________ (insert group of nonwhites)?"

The increasing anti-white narratives in academia and media make it clear, as the country gets less white, the ability to live a sane and peaceful existence as a white person is disappearing. Whites need their own nation where questions of race simply need not come up.
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And what would happen to non whites in you 100% White America?
 
dudalb said:
And what would happen to non whites in you 100% White America?
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Nothing, because they wouldn't be present.

In the creation of said 100% White America, they'd have been paid to leave, most likely. Ideally, such a nation would be carved out of the least diverse, most white portion(s) of the existing U.S. before they get browned up much more than they already are, limiting the disruption and cost of this.

If it were to be the entirety of the existing U.S., it could be quite costly and/or bloody to achieve. That's a big, big reason why we shouldn't have put ourselves in this situation in the first place and should, at the very least, stop pouring gasoline on this fire now by shutting the border, ending refugee programs, ending aid to the third world (results in more third worlders, who inevitably want into white countries) and ceasing all idiocy like DACA, etc.
 
Skeptic Tank said:
Nothing, because they wouldn't be present.

In the creation of said 100% White America, they'd have been paid to leave, most likely. Ideally, such a nation would be carved out of the least diverse, most white portion(s) of the existing U.S. before they get browned up much more than they already are, limiting the disruption and cost of this.

If it were to be the entirety of the existing U.S., it could be quite costly and/or bloody to achieve. That's a big, big reason why we shouldn't have put ourselves in this situation in the first place and should, at the very least, stop pouring gasoline on this fire now by shutting the border, ending refugee programs, ending aid to the third world (results in more third worlders, who inevitably want into white countries) and ceasing all idiocy like DACA, etc.
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I'd just like to point out that the continent was brown long, long, long before the white people showed up and pretty much literally stole it from the first nations.

ETA: If you really insist that there need be a "White America" I suggest you should try carving it out of somewhere in Scandinavia. Or maybe Antarctica.
 
Emily, you need to take a class in how to construct a poll. As written, it's a troll, not a poll.
 
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Border Reiver said:
Nazi Germany is a good example of a state that really tried to make that whole homogenous thing work - and failed miserably, being completely trounced by several racially diverse nation states.
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21st century Germany is a good example of a nation state which gave up on racial homogeneity and went on to become an economic powerhouse and leader of the free world.
 
Doghouse Reilly said:
There is a lot of evidence that melanin is correlated with aggressive behavior, violence, and criminality. Not only in humans but in animals as well. This likely, if only partially, explains the tendency toward high crime rates among black populations.

Here is a very interesting study on the subject:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886912000840
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Other related articles on that site:

Japanese north–south gradient in IQ predicts differences in stature, skin color, income, and homicide rate

Demographic, economic, and genetic factors related to national differences in ethnocentric attitudes

In France, are secular IQ losses biologically caused?
 
Emily's Cat said:
Yes, they are. I've always been a bit fascinated by transparent agendas that manipulate science and research in order to support their pre-established conclusion.
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I've always been a bit fascinated by non-arguments made through innuendo as opposed to those directly addressing and refuting the evidence presented.
 
Doghouse Reilly said:
I've always been a bit fascinated by non-arguments made through innuendo as opposed to those directly addressing and refuting the evidence presented.
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I've always been a bit fascinated by correlation not equaling causation.
 
332nd said:
I've always been a bit fascinated by correlation not equaling causation.
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Interesting, because nobody said anything about causation. The correlation alone is quite interesting. If you'd like, though, I can link you to other studies that suggest there is a significant degree of causation.
 
Emily's Cat said:
I'd just like to point out that the continent was brown long, long, long before the white people showed up and pretty much literally stole it from the first nations.

ETA: If you really insist that there need be a "White America" I suggest you should try carving it out of somewhere in Scandinavia. Or maybe Antarctica.
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"Stone-age Europeans were the first to set foot on North America, beating American Indians by some 10,000 years, new archaeological evidence suggests."
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- Telegraph.co.uk

Doghouse Reilly said:
There is a lot of evidence that melanin is correlated with aggressive behavior, violence, and criminality. Not only in humans but in animals as well. This likely, if only partially, explains the tendency toward high crime rates among black populations.

Here is a very interesting study on the subject:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886912000840
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I've heard about this but hadn't seen that link, thank you for it.

I think it's a very interesting topic. I had heard that darker individuals within many bird and mammal species have been shown to exhibit higher levels of aggression. I think melanin may very well have this as a side effect, or really a better way to say it is that it's another of its effects. Different environments could select for darker pigment, higher aggression or both.

It is in any species' interest to field a variety of individuals with varying levels of intelligence, impulsiveness, adventurousness, caution, aggression, etc. because if they move into a new environment or their existing environment changes, at least some of the species may be prepared to adapt to that new environment because of these characteristics.

Equality in a species with distinct types separated by tens if not hundreds of thousands of years of divergent evolution in wildly different environments, such as our species, is a biological and evolutionary impossibility. There is literally no way we could have ended up with evenly distributed traits of intelligence, aggression, athleticism, etc. Could not have, and did not, happen.
 
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Emily's Cat said:
Hey, ambiguity brown is a wonderful thing.

Also, I'm not sure you understand how recessive genes work.
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Based on the following quote, the "recessive" in your post is a redundant word. And you could also add "nor evolution".


Skeptic Tank said:
- Telegraph.co.uk



I've heard about this but hadn't seen that link, thank you for it.

I think it's a very interesting topic. I had heard that darker individuals within many bird and mammal species have been shown to exhibit higher levels of aggression. I think melanin may very well have this as a side effect, or really a better way to say it is that it's another of its effects. Different environments could select for darker pigment, higher aggression or both.

It is in any species' interest to field a variety of individuals with varying levels of intelligence, impulsiveness, adventurousness, caution, aggression, etc. because if they move into a new environment or their existing environment changes, at least some of the species may be prepared to adapt to that new environment because of these characteristics.

Equality in a species with distinct types separated by tens if not hundreds of thousands of years of divergent evolution in wildly different environments, such as our species, is a biological and evolutionary impossibility. There is literally no way we could have ended up with evenly distributed traits of intelligence, aggression, athleticism, etc. Could not have, and did not, happen.
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Doghouse Reilly said:
Interesting, because nobody said anything about causation. The correlation alone is quite interesting. If you'd like, though, I can link you to other studies that suggest there is a significant degree of causation.
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Emily's Cat's third link suggests causation between biology and IQ loss in France.
 
Doghouse Reilly said:
Interesting, because nobody said anything about causation. The correlation alone is quite interesting. If you'd like, though, I can link you to other studies that suggest there is a significant degree of causation.
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Then why did you respond to the question of "What have you got against melanin" with that article?

Anyway, sure! Go ahead. This time try to find one where the link to the study doesn't go back to the article.
 
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jimbob said:
Rather depressing article in NPR

http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/10/25/559015355/how-black-americans-see-discrimination

in a study reported in this article, the black actors experienced more discrimination than they thought, once results were compared to white actors with similar situations.
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But here is a sobering thought: What if the black respondents to the NPR survey, who almost unanimously assumed that anti-black discrimination was a given, were like the people in the Urban Institute study and actually underestimating the drag that discrimination exerts on their lives?
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Or perhaps they overestimated? Didn't think of that, eh?

I saw an example of a black man telling another black person to shut up in a public waiting room a few weeks ago.

I was in line for an hour total. I was in a public government building. A black woman a few people in front of me was talking loudly, complaining about the line being unfair, just being mildly obnoxious, and the only person making any noise at all in the lobby. I kinda wished she'd shut up.

A black man stepped into the line several people ahead of her (his girlfreind was in line) and she started complaining loudly to him. Very obnoxious.

After about 30 seconds he turned around and laid into her: "You need to shut your mouth! We've been listening to you long enough now SHUT. UP."

He was pissed and almost yelling.

She said something, then he continued: "You and I are the only two black people in here and you're acting totally ignorant and I'm sick of this crap! It's hard enough without people like you acting like idiots! Shut your damn mouth!"

Just then, an older black guy sitting further away raises his arms over his head and starts exclaiming (I kid you not), "Je-rry!!! Je-rry!!! Je-rry!!!" I looked at him and he looked at me and we laughed. Before that I hadn't made a sound.

I thought about it a lot that day. Anyways, thought it was interesting.
 
mgidm86 said:
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Or perhaps they overestimated? Didn't think of that, eh? I saw an example of a black man telling another black person to shut up in a public waiting room a few weeks ago.

I was in line for an hour total. I was in a public government building. A black woman a few people in front of me was talking loudly, complaining about the line being unfair, just being mildly obnoxious, and the only person making any noise at all in the lobby. I kinda wished she'd shut up.

A black man stepped into the line several people ahead of her (his girlfreind was in line) and she started complaining loudly to him. Very obnoxious.

After about 30 seconds he turned around and laid into her: "You need to shut your mouth! We've been listening to you long enough now SHUT. UP."

He was pissed and almost yelling.

She said something, then he continued: "You and I are the only two black people in here and you're acting totally ignorant and I'm sick of this crap! It's hard enough without people like you acting like idiots! Shut your damn mouth!"

Just then, an older black guy sitting further away raises his arms over his head and starts exclaiming (I kid you not), "Je-rry!!! Je-rry!!! Je-rry!!!" I looked at him and he looked at me and we laughed. Before that I hadn't made a sound.

I thought about it a lot that day. Anyways, thought it was interesting.
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The highlighted bit: In the research reported, a lot of the black actors did not report that they had experienced racial discrimination in the study, but when the results were compared with white actors with supposedly the same financial situations, they were found to have been offered fewer buildings to view.

In other words, they did experience prejudice, even if it was unconscious, and they didn't realise at the time.
 
jimbob said:
The highlighted bit: In the research reported, a lot of the black actors did not report that they had experienced racial discrimination in the study, but when the results were compared with white actors with supposedly the same financial situations, they were found to have been offered fewer buildings to view.

In other words, they did experience prejudice, even if it was unconscious, and they didn't realise at the time.
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Yeah, the report (and the article) very clearly contradict the idea that black people are "overestimating" the level of discrimination they work under. One caveat - studies like the one you point to are necessarily limited by the assumed education level and profession, as well as the locations where the studies are done. However, several studies have been done in various US cities, and the results always show discrimination against black renters.
 
mgidm86 said:
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Or perhaps they overestimated? Didn't think of that, eh?
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In the context of the article, "overestimating" wouldn't be born out by observation. So even if they did think of it, that would be counter to their actual findings.

It's worth reading the whole article with an open mind, and least in my opinion.
 
Mumbles said:
Yeah, the report (and the article) very clearly contradict the idea that black people are "overestimating" the level of discrimination they work under. One caveat - studies like the one you point to are necessarily limited by the assumed education level and profession, as well as the locations where the studies are done. However, several studies have been done in various US cities, and the results always show discrimination against black renters.
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I'm not following how the highlighted comment is relevant to this study. Can you elaborate on where you feel that education and profession come in to play in any way that isn't innately based on racial bias?
 
Case in point.

tl;dr: White guy attempts to rob two black guys at gunpoint. Black guys fight back and manage to take the gun. The black guys run for safety and ditch the gun so they don't become a target. White guy tells the arriving cops that he was the victim and the black guys running away are the robbers. Cops do not question the white guy's story and it is only after the black guys' mom badger the police into checking the surveillance video that the police believe the black guys.

There are two relevant points here. First, the most obvious, the police incorrectly believed one white guy over two black guys until incontrovertible evidence was presented that the white guy was lying. Second, the two black guys felt they had to ditch the gun so they didn't become the victims of a shoot-first-ask-questions-later justice system.
 
Upchurch said:
There are two relevant points here. First, the most obvious, the police incorrectly believed one white guy over two black guys until incontrovertible evidence was presented that the white guy was lying. Second, the two black guys felt they had to ditch the gun so they didn't become the victims of a shoot-first-ask-questions-later justice system.
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Be careful of confirmation bias.
 
Upchurch said:
You have a different interpretation?
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Not that I disagree in this particular scenario, but one's fear of being disadvantaged or at risk isn't necessarily good reason to believe one is. There are a couple of mainstream examples of this where people believe precisely the opposite of what is true.
 
pharphis said:
Not that I disagree in this particular scenario, but one's fear of being disadvantaged or at risk isn't necessarily good reason to believe one is. There are a couple of mainstream examples of this where people believe precisely the opposite of what is true.
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Their fear wasn't exactly irrational, especially in St. Louis.
 
Ya I don't disagree. I'm not sure I'd throw away a weapon because that also seems reckless to me (it would have your DNA on it!) but I certainly wouldn't have it on me when contacting the police.
 
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