White Denial

Here's a posting from another board I wanted to copy in full. Even though it describes the situation in the US, I think it's quite relevant for all people who routinously deny the reality of racism.

1) “Racism isn’t a problem anymore, ”
My father-in-law stated this to me one evening. The absurdity of the statement was underscored by the fact that the neighbors in his all-white neighbhorood watched me intently from their windows each time I stepped outside on the front steps for a cigarette. Yet these sentiments persist solely because of white denial. This is the reason why so many traditionalists state that the origins of America are a testament to freedom and liberty while conveniently forgetting that these concepts applied only to white males that owned land.
Again, overt racism is easy to identify and characterize. So today’s racist is craftier and smarter. By bleeding minority schools and communities of much needed tax dollars, they score two for one. 1)They don’t have to pay for those derelict groups. 2) They can point an innocent finger at all the chaos that the poverty causes as reasons why said groups don’t deserve aid anyway.

2) “Everyone agrees that racism exists, ”
This statement is made so as to add weight to the otherwise dismissive response that will follow. Racism is only racism of the overt kind, dragged out behind the wheels of progress as a corpse to be mocked. As long as racism can be marginalized in the context of hallmarks made by dead people, we can talk about it. By characterizing racism as a historical problem only, today’s racists attempt to divorce themselves from any responsibility currently.
The fact is that what constitutes racism is decided by whites. The compensation (if any) for racism is decided by whites. All this in a system where being white is the standard by which all things are judged.

3) “Blacks (or other minority) are playing the race card, ”
Like the method of proclaiming society as being “too PC” in order to give credit to bigoted views, the above sentiment is a ready made catch-all that can apply to anyone attempting to bring focus to the racism problem in America. Though opportunists do exist, they are the exception. They remain the circus act brought to the forefront to discredit legitimate arguments. Of the millions of discrimination cases handled in this country on a yearly basis, it is notable that the most absurd seem to make national news almost instantaneously. Said cases are also usually thrown out of court, but that makes little difference.

4) “Blacks and other minorities need to clean up their shit in their culture in order to prosper. It has nothing to do with racism, ”
Nearly these same words have been uttered even during the Reconstruction days. After the Civil War, what aid was given to blacks was deemed to be enough…although no effort was made to educate or intergrate the black populace. After Jim Crow, what aid was given to blacks was deemed to be enough…while effort was made to educate and integarate blacks, it was overturned by subtle sabatoge of moving tax dollars to starve public education and minority communities. Surface remedies like Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action are constantly undermined all the time and the greatest benefactor of such programs has been white women.
It bears repeating that whites are not judged by the lowest common denominator- the trailer park relation- solely because whites are the standard by which everything else is measured. An uneducated, drug addicted white is judged by his bad decisions/family background whereas an uneducated, drug addicted minority is a product of his/her so-called dysfunctional culture.

5) “We want a colorblind society. We want to judge individuals based on not their color but their own merit, ”
Unspoken is the qualifer to this statement: your merit is based on your successful aherence to standards decided upon by whites. Specifically, all others outside of the Heterosexual White Christian Male spectrum continuously encounter resistence in the system.
The most insideous aspect of our society is not the overt racism. It is the racism whose arguments are backed by seemingly solid logic. Its adherents have a status deemed acceptable to society at large. And their collective power is utilized in subtle ways.
The racist of yesterday and today may have slightly different methodology but their uniform is the same: a suit.

6) “Assigning motivates to whites as a group is racist in and of itself, ”
This is the greatest lie of all in white denial: that whites do not have a collective culture of their own that holds and wields power in society. Instead, such traits are referred to other groups in describing power. The blacks. The Jews. The Hispanics. The Native Americans. The Christians. These groups and others are attributed with power they simply do not have because the unspoken group that holds the majority of power are the whites.

Those aware of racial idenity as whites are misled to believe that other groups outside of the standard (i.e. whites) hold more power than they really do. When Freyja speaks, she is not all together wrong. She mentioned on several threads that whites have a racial identity and are being forced by sociey to vote and act against their own people. This is true. What is flawed is nature of she believes this is being done.

Via white denial, whites are influenced all the time to go against their own people. Because whites are the standard by which all things in society are judged, more powerful whites utilize this standard to cause strife among the lower classes concerning race. Pressure is exerted to make middle and lower class whites feel threatened by these other groups. Emphasis is placed on how said groups deviate from the standard (i.e. white actions). These whites then proceed to vote in other whites based on fear(oh my god the Hispanics are going to outnumber us in 2050!!!) or anger (that .0002 cents in my check going to that welfare mother are unfair!!) or guilt (these poor uneducated blacks need vouchers) that screw over not only the minorities in question, but the whites themselves also.

And having said all that, let me say this loud and clear:

The biggest victims of white denial are not the minorities, but whites themselves.

It is only by convincing whites of the meme that their thoughts and actions are superior through subtle messages that our entire society doesn’t revolt. Their compliance is vital to the system. Take another pill, watch another show and forget. Buy this new shiny thing while we make it increasingly harder for you to live your life as you want while we work you into an early grave (don’t have to pay pensions that way).

If white people took a really good look around and realized just how much they are being screwed, there would be revolution tomorrow. But the powers that be keep the white portion of our society just comfortable enough to be dismissive and distracted. The minorities have already seen the shams our system pulls and are rightfully distrustful. Whites aren’t even aware of the cages they are in the majority of the time.

My two cents,
Tangie

You can find the thread here
another excellent article on white denial

As to my point, systemic racism is a byproduct of classism, consciously or unconsciously making use of on our inborn ethnocentric tendencies. We all must be aware of the demon under our beds if we want to fight it.  For the record, I disagree with the statement that the biggest victims of white denial are the whites.

Nferyn,

Here is an article showing that Whites have always been in total denial, not just now, but for all the time that Blacks have been in this country.

What Kind of Card is Race? The Absurdity (and Consistency) of White Denial
By Tim Wise

Occasionally, white denial gets creative, and this it does by pretending to come wrapped in sympathy for those who allege racism in the modern era. In other words, while steadfastly rejecting what people of color say they experience--in effect suggesting that they lack the intelligence and/or sanity to accurately interpret their own lives--such commentators seek to assure others that whites really do care about racism, but simply refuse to pin the label on incidents where it doesn't apply. In fact, they'll argue, one of the reasons that whites have developed compassion fatigue on this issue is precisely because of the overuse of the concept, combined with what we view as unfair reactions to racism (such as affirmative action efforts which have, ostensibly, turned us into the victims of racial bias). If blacks would just stop playing the card where it doesn't belong, and stop pushing for so-called preferential treatment, whites would revert back to our prior commitment to equal opportunity, and our heartfelt concern about the issue of racism.

Don't laugh. This is actually the position put forward recently by James Taranto, of the Wall Street Journal, who in January suggested that white reluctance to embrace black claims of racism was really the fault of blacks themselves, and the larger civil rights establishment (11). As Taranto put it: "Why do blacks and whites have such divergent views on racial matters? We would argue that it is because of the course that racial policies have taken over the past forty years." He then argues that by trying to bring about racial equality--but failing to do so because of "aggregate differences in motivation, inclination and aptitude" between different racial groups--policies like affirmative action have bred "frustration and resentment" among blacks, and "indifference" among whites, who decide not to think about race at all, rather than engage an issue that seems so toxic to them. In other words, whites think blacks use racism as a crutch for their own inadequacies, and then demand programs and policies that fail to make things much better, all the while discriminating against them as whites. In such an atmosphere, is it any wonder that the two groups view the subject matter differently?

But the fundamental flaw in Taranto's argument is its suggestion--implicit though it may be--that prior to the creation of affirmative action, white folks were mostly on board the racial justice and equal opportunity train, and were open to hearing about claims of racism from persons of color. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. White denial is not a form of backlash to the past forty years of civil rights legislation, and white indifference to claims of racism did not only recently emerge, as if from a previous place where whites and blacks had once seen the world similarly. Simply put: whites in every generation have thought there was no real problem with racism, irrespective of the evidence, and in every generation we have been wrong.

Denial as an Intergenerational Phenomenon

So, for example, what does it say about white rationality and white collective sanity, that in 1963--at a time when in retrospect all would agree racism was rampant in the United States, and before the passage of modern civil rights legislation--nearly two-thirds of whites, when polled, said they believed blacks were treated the same as whites in their communities--almost the same number as say this now, some forty-plus years later? What does it suggest about the extent of white folks' disconnection from the real world, that in 1962, eighty-five percent of whites said black children had just as good a chance as white children to get a good education in their communities (12)? Or that in May, 1968, seventy percent of whites said that blacks were treated the same as whites in their communities, while only seventeen percent said blacks were treated "not very well" and only 3.5 percent said blacks were treated badly? (13)?

What does it say about white folks' historic commitment to equal opportunity--and which Taranto would have us believe has only been rendered inoperative because of affirmative action--that in 1963, three-fourths of white Americans told Newsweek, "The Negro is moving too fast" in his demands for equality (14)? Or that in October 1964, nearly two-thirds of whites said that the Civil Rights Act should be enforced gradually, with an emphasis on persuading employers not to discriminate, as opposed to forcing compliance with equal opportunity requirements (15)?

What does it say about whites' tenuous grip on mental health that in mid-August 1969, forty-four percent of whites told a Newsweek/Gallup National Opinion Survey that blacks had a better chance than they did to get a good paying job--two times as many as said they would have a worse chance? Or that forty-two percent said blacks had a better chance for a good education than whites, while only seventeen percent said they would have a worse opportunity for a good education, and eighty percent saying blacks would have an equal or better chance? In that same survey, seventy percent said blacks could have improved conditions in the "slums" if they had wanted to, and were more than twice as likely to blame blacks themselves, as opposed to discrimination, for high unemployment in the black community (16).

In other words, even when racism was, by virtually all accounts (looking backward in time), institutionalized, white folks were convinced there was no real problem. Indeed, even forty years ago, whites were more likely to think that blacks had better opportunities, than to believe the opposite (and obviously accurate) thing: namely, that whites were advantaged in every realm of American life.

http://www.lipmagazine.org/~timwise/whatcard.html

Drusilla,

I actually already linked to that article  :

Maybe I should repeat my point here to get the discussion going:


As far as I understand, the Black Panther movement was spot on and a primary focus on ethnicity and glorification thereof (as opposed to a justifiable revision of slanted history) are really a distraction and don't help in fighting the perpetuation of systemic racism, but I'm mainly an outsider and would like to receive a more inside perspective. I too have to reflect regularly on my position to see if I'm not falling into the trap of perception bias caused by my theoretical paradigms.

A classic example is the use of the term tribalism. Some time ago I (even on this board) was too freely using the term without fully recognising it's loaded history and implicit connotations, but what can you expect from a Belgian 

Floridian,


The definition of racism as being "a feeling, thought or something inside" a racist person, is a meaningless and worthless definition to a Black person.

How would Black People fight racism, when it is allowed to be defined as such? Would they all become psychologists and teachers and spend their lives devoted to making sure that whites minds and judgements are corrected?

Think about the feelings of a Blackman being lynched? Is he worried about how to change their feelings? No. What he needs at that time is the power to stop them.

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.
Martin Luther King Jr.

I would like to add that it's not only black people that need to fight racism. Everybody should be involved, both through introspection and studying the systemic aspects of racism. It's all too convenient (both for whites and blacks) to only focus on the intentional racist thought and/or actions. By perpetuating a hegemonic colourless worldview, but in actual fact white worldview, you're making non-whites ab-normal by definition and this has got significant psychological and social implications.

I'm all for an eventual colourless/colourfull/multi-coloured society where the coulour of your skin is a non-issue, but as long as the norm is set by the hegemonic culture, disregarding the minority cultures (and this not only applies to races, but also to other sub-cultures) the tensions will remain and a real dialogue becomes very difficult. That's what I tried to emphasise with this thread on White denial.

Women are intrinsically bound to the total struggle of a race. The minority male in America has suffered equally from oppression. In a society which equates manhood with "success" the minority man suffered grave historical injustice. For many minorities, the struggle is for actual physical and spiritual survival. The perception is that women are merely perpetuating chauvinism because they have not been so quick to denounce their interdependence with their men.

I got your point, no worries 

US history is littered with inconsistencies and down right lies. We are told in history books that Christopher Columbus "discovered" the "new world", when in actual fact he only stumbled on a continent inhabited by native indians but unknown to "white" europeans.
We are told of the "brave pilgrims" (read that to mean illegal aliens) defending "their homes" against the "invading" indians when in actual fact it was the pilgrims invading the sanctity of indian territory.

We read of "founding fathers" who in actual fact were slave traders.

It is only in the "land of the free" that some are not free at all!

To floridian


      I will try very hard to suppress my anger at your statements,but I will rather advise that if you don't know much about racism you should desist from making people so infuriated by your statements. If any other race would show any act of racism to a white person is only but a reaction, haven't you guys done enough to be hated, history will always be the judge, I very much agree with Aurthur of this thread. I would prove it to you that without the west there wouldn't have been anything like racism.
      I studied in the former SOVIET UNION [ RUSSIA ], during the communist era there was nothing like racism in Russia, Russians were very nice people and colour blind, but after the PERESTROIKA [ THE FALL OF COMMUNISM ] in 19991, 1991 was OK, 1992 was also OK, to wards the ending of 1993 a lot of  AMERICAN films [ RACIST FILMS ] started coming into the former EASTERN BLOCK and that was it, as of 1994 it became hell to live in any EASTERN EUROPEAN COUNTRY. Look at RUSSIA today racially motivated killing in on every day bases, nature will never forgive you guys. Do you know how many times I've been attacked by WHITE PEOPLE because of race, not less than 500 times, now you want to tell me if it is going to affect my life or not.

Nferyn,

The mainstream view of history in America, is built on the Aryan view of history.

In otherwords, it is built on a lie. It always has been.

Ninetofive,

You should not be so naive that without the west there wouldn't be anything like racism. It's a historical fact that modern day racism has it's roots in western socio-political dominance and became essential in the justification of colonialism and the trans-atlantic slave trade, but that does not mean that because of what did happen, it couldn't have happened otherwise or done by others.

Assuming that the Chinese Emperor didn't call back his exploration fleet, it could just as well have been the Chinese holding the position of the European powers and their colonial offspring. We are all potentially subject to the motivations that lead to racism. The specifically virulent forms of the so-called scientific racism are mainly based on:
1. the aristotleian philosophical tradition of categorisation and essentialism, which lay the groundwork for objectification (something that has been perpetuated and reinforced by the Thomistic traditions in Christianity)
2. The mechanistic clockwork view on reality that sprung from the early stages of the scientific revolution, which further increased the already present perception of a categorical, reductionistic, objectified, mechanistic reality in which there was a hierarchical, absolute order.

Luckily that interpretative framework is no longer used by the majority of the scientific community, but it is still very much prevalent in popular culture and political discourse.

Nferyn,

You are probably not aware that the idea that "if europeans had not done it, somebody else would have" is part and parcel of the 'white denial' which you object to.

Simply said:
It is a way to dismiss what has happenned to non-white people by turning to some mythical and hypothetical idea of what might have been in non-white races if given time, i.e. we just beat them to it.

Here starts part mainstream history lie:

Whites in total denial about what they have done and continue to do.

But have total visual imagery of something that in fact never happenned: what the chinese or some other race might have done.

It's okay to smear and degrade other races for hypothetical horror, in order to give innocence to and booster the reputation of well known horrors that whites have done.

I have a question, I don't want anyone to get offended or get mad at me it's just a question. I am Cherokee (Native American) We are in America so we are Americans and our skin color is not light nor dark. What do you consider us?   

How so? I don't see how you can come to that conclusion. If you assume that whites are inheritently different from non-whites, you are using the exact kind of essentialist reasoning that springs from the European philosophical tradition.

That's not what I'm saying. If you are aware of the cultural attitude of the Chinese and the way they occupied and treated South-East Asia (Vietnam would be good example), you'D understand that they were just as capable as the Europeans. Not that they necessarily would have done that, but there's no such thing as necessity in history.

Most are just ignorant and a large part are indeed in denial (especially among the educated)

There are sufficient idicators that point in the direction that the Chinese might have done it. Even though they never rampaged Africa, their conduct in South-East Asia was far from exemplary and infused with a feeling of racial superiority.

I really don't know why you would call smearing and degrading other races for hypothetical horor, as:
- I don't see any smearing or degrading
- there is little hypothetical about the horrors comited in South-east Asia
and please, there is no reason to credit me with trying to booster the reputation or give innocence to whites, as this is in no way what I'm doing

No problem. In no way am I downplaying your experiences, on the contrary. What I don't understand is how can be evidenced from your experiences. Just curious. This thread will prove to be an educational experience 

I'm sorry to sound stupid, but I guess I'm just confussed with this whole topic. I will clarify, I am Cherokee and French, was born in the US so I assume I am white? My skin is neither white nor dark.