Browning of America

[Molly]

I think racism will die a slow death, not by changes of attitude but because of blending of the races. In 100 to 200 years, I think Americans will take on a distinctive look of their own. We will be a blend of white, black, Asian, Hispancic and Middle Eastern.

I think the angry, white voters are in their death throes.

Some day Americans will all look the same and I am sorry I won't be around to see it. We are all one.

BTW, I am a white, middle class woman. The only thing that angers me is entitlements for the rich. Such as a certain billionaire who did not pay Federal Income Tax for perhaps decades because of wealthy privilege. The system is rigged, folks, and you are not part of it.

[creaker]

I think it will never go away, but just ebb and flow. There is rabid racism in parts of the world where outsiders can't even see the differences between them. Maybe racism is just a symptom of a deeper issue.

[Suzanne]

I think it will never go away, but just ebb and flow. There is rabid racism in parts of the world where outsiders can't even see the differences between them. Maybe racism is just a symptom of a deeper issue.

As an anthropologist, I have to agree with you, creaker. Anthropologists have reported, since the beginnings of ethnography, that all populations have inbuilt snobberies toward members of their own societies.

Racism is just as prevalent in other countries, and may have nothing to do with colour. I'm South African, and whites are not homogenous! Afrikaners and English despise each other and many are really racist in their dealings with each other. Native South Africans have many schisms: the Zulu look down on the Shangaans, who in turn despise the BaSotho, and so on. I often visit Croatia, where I've found that mainlanders and islanders often despise each other, while northern and southern Croatians do likewise. They're all white and (almost) all Catholic. In India, the caste schisms still exist, and Untouchables are still the lowest of the low. In Japan, the Ainu and Eta are underdogs. Among white people in the USA: think of the redneck jokes. Trailer trash. White versus blue collar. The Boston Brahmins:

And this is good old Boston,
The home of the bean and the cod,
Where the Lowells talk to the Cabots
And the Cabots talk only to God.

--Toast, Holy Cross Alumni Dinner, 1910.
John Collins Bossidy (1860-1928)

Among the multicultural and multiracial elite, there are still gradations. Here you earn high status, or contempt, based on your financial status. There's still sexism : on Wall Street, women, no matter how brilliant, and even if they come from the same elite schools as the male interns, never get the same opportunities. They're shuttled through a different system and often relegated to tasks like photocopying while the male interns are schmoozing with the movers and shakers. This is true regardless of skin colour - though white males are still worth more than black or Asian males. Karen Ho wrote an astounding ethnography of Wall Street called Liquidated, that's very well worth the read.

We seem to have an inherent drive toward classism, and I think sexism and racism are just extreme demonstrations of that tendency.

Could it be evolutionary? Well, we don't say "the pecking order" for nothing - just watch a flock of chickens for a couple of days. "Underdog"? In canids, there are individuals, often of the same family, that are subservient, even servile. In chimpanzees, some lineages have high status from birth, and will literally rip food out of the mouths of, bully chimps, and kill infants of lower-ranking families. This is particularly easy to study among the females, as infants (male and female alike) take their rank from their mothers.

I see the tendency in myself. I constantly classify the people I know, those I meet casually, even those I simply observe as I walk along or take public transit. I've been surprised, over and over, to find that I often have strong commonalities with people I wouldn't have chosen to hang out with! yet I still prefer some groups to others, and choose to hang out with them.

[Molly]

Suzanne - Thank you for your perspective. In a few hundred years, we may look similar, but yes, there will always be some type of discrimination based on social status, education or beliefs.

[ToomuchStuff]

I think the title is a bit misleading. The probably should have been at the lead, as I expected this was a firearms manufacture discussion.
I think I have often enough expressed my views on racism. It being a lie and a word which just allows whichever side uses it to continue. Prejudice being the correct term and there can be good and bad prejudices, where racism means there is more then one race; human.

[razz]

It is not about colour which is simply one means of differentiating between bodies. Hutus and Tutsis killed each other, Sunnis and Shiites kill each other, and so on and on and on and on... Until mankind finds a way of seeing another as equal in value, bullying and racism will continue.
It is a choice made in the mind of each individual. It requires leadership and courage to be thinking differently from the mesmerized masses. It starts with me and you and you...