
Why Are People Racist? - Kortaggio
https://billmei.net/blog/why-are-people-racist
======
the_duke
I think the answer lies much deeper than that.

There is plenty of literature on this idea:

Racism is the modern manifestation of very primal instincts and behaviors
which are an integral part of human groups and societies.

To work well as a society, you need to have an identity, a sense of self, of
cohesion. For that, you need some contrast, an opposite. Other religions,
other countries, other skin colors. They all provide a convenient object for
differentiation.

In addition, it wasn't long ago that hunting, aggression, violence was an
essential part of survival, and we all still have those instincts. This
aggression is mostly under wraps and deeply hidden in modern society, but it's
present. And it needs to be directed somewhere, outside of the group.

The more presence a different group gets within your own, the more
differentiation and multitude of variety, the more prevalent racism becomes.
So the more international and diverse we become, the bigger the problems with
racism.

And with smaller satisfaction/happiness, there is more aggression.

\--

Sadly, I really don't see a solution in the short term. Our brains are just
not wired for the happy, inclusive, diverse, all accepting wonderland lefties
aspire to.

~~~
Nevermark
Or moral conservatives, libertarians, or anyone else capable of valuing
empathy over instinct aspires too.

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not_that_noob
It's basically a tribal identification mechanism wired into our brain. We have
inherited it from our ape ancestors. Chimps can identify the in-group and the
out-group, and go to war to eliminate the out-group.

We have realized fortunately that it's morally repugnant and scientifically
unsupportable. However, it springs forever from the human heart.

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Jun8
I think in all pieces for or against an -ism the author should first define
what that term means _to them_. People usually don't agree on some crucial
aspect of the term or will interpret and label a given example differently. So
one should also provide a few examples and explain why the given definition
applies.

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danharaj
Racism is not just a personal characteristic. It's an ideology. Any analysis
that does not examine how racism had been embedded in media and enshrined in
law throughout history is weak. People are less racist in America today than
when it was the law that black people couldn't use the same facilities white
people did. Just an example. We are strongly influenced by our environment.
Propaganda works. Coherent ideologies define our mental frameworks even when
they don't call attention to themselves.

This essay, to me, embodies the Liberal (as in Liberalism) conception of
racial politics. The Liberal conception of anything is usually neutered of
radical, transformative potential.

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duncan_bayne
I always thought that intellectual laziness was a large factor. It's much
easier, cognitively, to judge someone by his or her race than by achievements
and character.

[http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/racism.html](http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/racism.html)

> _Like every form of determinism, racism invalidates the specific attribute
> which distinguishes man from all other living species: his rational faculty.
> Racism negates two aspects of man’s life: reason and choice, or mind and
> morality, replacing them with chemical predestination._

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Analemma_
Don't forget confirmation bias. Once you've acquired some racist beliefs, from
then on you will be more likely to remember (or seek out) evidence that
confirms those beliefs, and evidence disconfirming them will quickly be
forgotten. From a racist point of view, these beliefs are correct and
supported by empirical evidence, hence the increasing tendency of some people
to describe themselves as "race realists"

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MichaelBurge
The problem with blacks isn't that "grandfather doesn't like the neighbors".
Blacks were forced into dirty ghettos by zoning laws and HUD redlining
policies 50 years ago, and they're still suffering the consequences.

You have to deregulate city zoning laws so people can develop the ghettos.
When people worry about the character of a neighborhood being destroyed by
development, that's a dogwhistle for a racist zoning policy. I don't think
they're talking about the architecture or number of parking spaces; they're
worried about the types of people who move into cheaper housing.

------
hug
Abandon hope all ye who enter here.

Nothing good can come of this thread.

------
oldmanjay
People are racist because humans evolved as tribal social animals, and so we
are all extremely good at playing ingroup v. outgroup. Race just happens to be
a very visible way to define groups. Defining it as a moral issue just leads
people to try to beat it with shame, or other racism. Both are doomed to fail.

~~~
dkarapetyan
I think the author got that part right. They mention that racism feels good
and that's partly because of what you said. It's a wiring quirk in the
reptilian brain.

~~~
candiodari
Not really. It's in there because ... it works. One of the main things that
our brain does is predicting behavior based on visible stimuli, and so we make
assumptions about behavior based on lots of things. 140cm high ? Odds of NBA
player seem slim. Skin color X -> behavior Y.

Which then leads to countermoves to compensate for behavior before it occurs.
Think of it as a way to solve the prisoner's dilemma without getting screwed
on the first play, because that's what it is.

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mmanfrin
The trolls are coming out of the woodwork here.

~~~
swissoak
Your comment isn't exactly constructive or interesting either.

~~~
mmanfrin
Discussion on a submission can be about the discussion as well. Are you
intentionally trying to be ironic with your comment -- which itself is not
constructive or interesting?

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chinese_dan
I think the better question is why do people think racism is wrong, but bias
of an entire group of people based on their political/personal beliefs is
okay.

~~~
danharaj
What _else_ would you judge someone except their beliefs and their actions?

Do you really want to try to make the argument that prejudice against skin
color is the same category of thing as disagreeing with ideas?

~~~
PravlageTiem
So you're saying it's okay to be prejudiced against people because of
religious beliefs?

Like... say... Judaism, for example?

~~~
danharaj
That's such a transparent strawman. The point is that a judgement has merit
solely based on its justification, not on its syntactic form.

I don't think you can justify prejudice against Jews. People who think they
can often use epistemological frameworks I find, to be frank, stupid. At the
end of the day, we can judge ideas based on their content, their meaning. The
idea that this is equivalent to an irrational judgement, like one based on
skin color, is what I am attacking here.

~~~
PravlageTiem
No one is making irrational judgments based off of the amount of photons that
are being reflected.

Many Indians can't reflect many photons, either. Police aren't shooting them.

Let's see if you can make the leap into what is being inferred with this
obvious observation.

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civilian
How about this: Americans aren't racist. It's a liberal boogeyman.
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/15...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/15/a-fascinating-
map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-racially-tolerant-countries/)

~~~
natuac
What if I'm not racist, but I don't want people from other cultures as
neighbours?

~~~
duncan_bayne
I think that's xenophobia, not racism?

~~~
LyndsySimon
Fear of outsiders != affinity for your in-group

~~~
duncan_bayne
Affinity for your in-group doesn't imply not wanting out-group neighbours. Not
wanting out-group neighbours is xenophobia.

