- A recent Public Religion Research Institute poll found 44% of Americans surveyed identify discrimination against whites as being just as big as bigotry aimed at blacks and other minorities. The poll found 61% of those identifying with the Tea Party held that view, as did 56% of Republicans and 57% of white evangelicals.
- U.S. Census Bureau projections that whites will become a minority by 2050 are fueling fears that whiteness no longer represents the norm. This fear has been compounded by the recent recession, which hit whites hard.
Uh-huh. All that bigotry I face, day in, day out. I just wish brown folk could recognize how bad I’ve really got it. People see me walking down the street and I just know they’re staring! I must stick out like a sore thumb. Especially in Maine. And when I go for a job? Oh, man. Talk about bigotry. I can’t begin to describe how many times I haven’t even been offered a cup of coffee at an interview. And when I go down to the coast in the summer? I swear I got an undersized lobster one time. Bigots.
Augment your reading with Shambling After.
Filed under: Politics and Social | Tagged: 44%, Louis CK, Racism, Shambling After, Teabaggers |
For the Sake of Science 
I’m assuming you not trying to say that whites don’t face racism.
I’m going to say this…
I grew up in an area where white people were.. well, i’m not sure they were a minority, but the numbers were pretty close. In high school, white people were out numbered for sure.
That being said, there were times I was singled out and maybe insulted for my white-ness. It does happen. There is certainly still a divide between the races, which is sad considering what day and age we live in.
Then I came to Maine. And considering I have dark hair and olive skin, I became Mexican. I walk down the street and on more than one occasion, people speak spanish to me. Someone even called me a spic once!
Racism exists and it goes all around, it is not discriminatory. As it shouldn’t be.
However, as Louis CK explained so eloquently, being white is like winning the fucking lottery. And as winners, white people aren’t used to actually dealing with what minorities have dealt with for years. So what if someone calls you a name or points out to you just how white you really are, you haven’t had to deal with the burden of being a minority. Move on.
The way it looks to be worded in the article question did not ask if whites are discriminated against in an identical fashion to minority groups. It instead asked if discrimination happens on a large scale, and I would say yes.
A quick look at the FBI hate crime report from 2010 confirms that there were a significant number of anti-white hate crimes last year, although about a 5th of anti-black crimes. http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2009/data/table_01.html
When I first read it I thought it was saying do they think it’s morally just as wrong, which would have gotten a Yes in a survey from me too.
Why can’t people voice real concerns about racism without it being seen as minimalizing past victims?
Because you’re trying to claim that whites and minorities are even comparable in terms of discrimination.
I don’t see that typed anywhere.
Unless you are disputing that data, I still don’t see what you are seeing.
Yeah, I don’t follow.
I don’t know where Mr. Hawkins stands on things like affirmative action, but they can correctly be seen as discrimination against certain races and genders. That’s the entire point of them – and that policy is not a crime.
The FBI link shows that blacks are clearly a higher repsentation in the targets of hate crime – and that didn’t even take into account the differences in population. However, that is the reporter crime rate and it only includes illegal discrimination – it does not include things like affirmative action.
What I don’t care to see is when people rank some forms of discrimination by race – that a white kid being attacked after school for being white is somehow more tolerable than a Hispanic kid experencing the same attack. All discrimination is a problem and we shouldn’t tolerate some over others.
It isn’t hard to knock down a strawman.
What your doing is attempting to compare – along with 44% of Americans – the discrimination whites face to the discrimination minorities face – and I can’t believe I’m even having this debate. White people in America know what it means to not be defined by their race. When someone sees me, or when someone of my race succeeds, or when someone of my race fails, people don’t immediately associate any these things with being white. They same cannot be said of any other minority. And that sort of stuff isn’t going to show up in any – highly disingenuous – statistics.
Jesus.
Don’t you mean inconvenient statistics? Get over it Michael, what I see here is simply an attempt to create separate classes of people.
Either all racial discrimination is bad or none of it is, you can’t have it both ways.
No one is saying whites face the same levels of racism. No one is saying they are even close. The fact is, there is a significant amount of racism against white people.
I’m afraid that atheism is incomparable to any other religion (you know how I’m using that) on a discriminatory level, and therefore shouldn’t be compared at all. In fact you shouldn’t even mention that they face any discrimination. As with whites the level is very low, and might belittle the other religious discrimination. Note that Jewish stat.
Or perhaps as Michael (Hartwell) said, “All discrimination is a problem and we shouldn’t tolerate some over others.”
The strawman here is on your side, unfortunatly. I was not claiming your position was that racism against one group was more immoral than another. I was just making a statement against it as part of a larger argument. You have jumped in front of that bullet, then claimed I was wrong to shoot it at you.
Nate,
If I didn’t let Michael have his strawman, I’m not going to give it to you.
Actually, 44% of Americans are saying exactly that.
So how are you measuring this? Surely not with ratios. How about raw numbers? What’s your zero? How do you determine that?
Okay, let’s have you and (other) Michael move to the same district and run for office. You both have similar economic stances. And let’s say the district is pretty evenly split on social issues. Who do you think is going to win, you the Catholic or Michael the atheist?
So yes, I can compare the two, at least in America. Of course, if I look at Uganda, then certainly not. But I also couldn’t look at white discrimination the same way there.
It’s not meant to be a strawman. There is racism against whites, and if that’s not much of an issue, I fail to see why it would be different for any other race.
Even looking at data from years past, I notice that there are more reported incidents of hate crimes against white people than all the other tracked groups combined, excepting blacks.
Why would I even want to make my religion known? Lets assume the district is in Atlanta, Georgia. I would say the write in candidate Mickey Mouse would win. I would say the better looking one would win if religion wasn’t known, obviously me!
This is ridiculous. Mainly because you’re all white males (excepting this other Michael that I do not know) that live in the whitest state in the country. You’ve most likely never actually experienced any sort of racism personally– aside from maybe watching a movie starring predominantly black people and felt insulted when they made fun of your race.
All discrimination is bad. Duh. No one has claimed otherwise. But the degree to which you, white males, are discriminated against is negligible in comparison.
Oh here we go, I really don’t know what gender has to do with anything here “shamblingafter,” and I don’t respect your view in the slighest – that only personal experience matters, and no amount of logic, reason, research or evidence can surpass that.
I have lived in Providence, RI and did infact recieve remarks and threats of violence for both my race and because someone though I was gay – but none of that matters here because we are talking about principals and facts, and our own personal experience is anecdotal.
Perhaps your side thinks the two groups in question have such a wider rate of discrimination is because your politics tend to believe active racial discrimination against minorities is much more common than my side believes. No matter who is right, the difference in view can explain a lot of whats going on here.
and Nate, I would clearly beat you in a beauty contest. Don’t bite off more than you can chew, bucko.
I didn’t specifically say anything about gender. But as much as your sexuality influenced your experiences, so does gender. White males are more privileged than any other group of people. That was my only point on that ground.
And I specifically did not point to you, because I don’t know your “experiences,” nor do I care to. My point is that it’s bull shit to bitch and complain about racism against white people if you’re completely removed from it. If you’ve seen it, I’m sorry you have. That sucks no matter what race, gender blah blah blah you are. But for anyone who has not, I don’t think they should have a voice in such an argument.
And experience absolutely matters. You don’t know anything until you’ve seen it for yourself. How could you know that white people are discriminated against unless you’ve seen it for yourself? Reason and logic both point to the opposite being true, so that’s illogical. And yes sure, you could find evidence and research that could prove either side to be true.
I lived for 2 years as a member of a white minority near Atlanta, GA. Lot’s of discrimination, thank you very much. Multitudes of black owned businesses, and employees and lots of crappy service and muttered slurs.
One side is just as guilty as the other. There are more white people so there is less discrimination. I should mention that the hostility in some places in Atlanta is closer to what you picture in the 50’s, no one hides their disdain.
Haha, I missed the beauty contest part.
It’s on, set up the catwalk.
No, it isn’t.
Oh no? I forgot, I imagined all of that ill treatment, I’m white! Racism doesn’t count when it’s directed at me. Thanks for reminding me.
I must have quite the imagination, because I imagined (two stores in particular) where the proprietor made no secret that whites were not welcome.
Remember that store owned by white people recently where blacks were told to “hurry up and leave before you get helped out the door, casper”?
Neither do I. I liked the honesty though, and I never went back. I spread the word about my ill treatment to my friends and none of them visited either store. Certainly the man lost money by the loss of our business. So I feel he got his reward.
I’m sure it was my fault though, that would play right into the liberal narrative wouldn’t it?
You still can’t have the strawman.
Odd, I have her right here with me. She picked up McDonald’s on her way over.
(It’s a straw woman, its hard to tell.)
This Chipotle Bacon BBQ burger thing kicks ass, just so you know. It tastes even better when not eaten in a facility where I’ve been directed to leave by a racist.
Our own personal experience and opinions do matter. If we were talking strictly about principles and facts no issue would need to be made that its no worse for a minority member to be discriminated against than a majority member, that there is no reason to separate the two.
Here in Maine whites may be the majority but not in the big cities down south. Given the statistics from the FBI its quite clearly not just me or the multitudes of other “caspers” stationed at Forts Benning and Brag.
Dismissal is not an overly effective means of argument, as newenglandbob quite often illustrated, typically followed by an “LOL”, also not very effective.
There’s only one side that has made that an issue here.
Not from what I’ve read.
Neither I nor Shamblingafter said discrimination is okay against whites, or that it isn’t as bad when it happens to whites. What we’re saying is that any discrimination whites feel pales in overall comparison to what minorities feel.
I think we’ve all made our points well enough by now, I’m bored once again.
The only thing I really have left to say is that no one knows how anyone else feels. I’m sure there are whites more hurt by the racism they experience and blacks (or whatever) who couldn’t care less, as I feel.