Racial Prejudice: What's God Got To Do With It?

Just imagine looking at your neighbor and seeing reality - then imagine your neighbor's religion.
And then imagine your own religion. You're now two steps away from reality.

Maybe religeous intolerance leads people also towards racial predjucice and even racism. Perhpas that is why some Christian sects and many Christians seem so at-home and comfortable with racial predjudice and racism, and do not seem to notice or sense any kind of hypocrisy in themselves, but only intolerant certainty that they are right, and others are wrong.

This is no way to win souls for Jesus...

"Woo's mother is white, and his father is part Chinese. He attended an all-black high school growing up in Port Arthur, Texas, where he still remembers what it was like to be a minority.

"Everyone understands the rules, the lingo, the mind-set -- except you," he says. "It was invaluable, but I didn't know it at the time."

When he became pastor of Wilcrest in 1992, he was determined to shield his church members from such an experience. But an exodus of whites, commonly referred to as "white flight" was already taking place in the neighborhood and the church.

Membership fell to about 200 people. At least one church member suggested that Woo could change the church's fortunes by adding a "d" to his last name.

"The fear there was people would think I was Chinese," he says. "There would be a flood of all these Asians coming in, and what would we do then?""

The first thing a Hindu in India would say is: "true we have caste system and we dont like people of another caste, but what is the difference between you and I? You dont want too many Asians in your church, and you dont want your son or daughter to marry a non-white Christian. So, not much difference between us!"

Better that seven out of ten Americans claim not to be racist, than seven out of ten Americans claiming to BE racist. At least it suggests that Americans don't like the label, unlike in the past when they were racist and proud of it.
It is, perhaps,a necessary step on the road to a non-racist mind-set.

Mr. Mark,

A follow-up. How's this for strange, but true? I just returned to your link, evidently pasted from David Waters' blog, and found that the YouTube and McCain videos are now identical, both now sans Obama on the dollar bill, sans Mount Rushmore Obamas, etc. That is, the YouTube video is now identical to the McCain video I described in my earlier post.

What the hey is going on? Whatever it is, IMO, it's not good.

Mr. Mark,

I followed the link you supplied, then went to McCain's website to watch "The One." The two videos are quite different. There is no Obama on a dollar bill, no Mount Rushmore Obamas, etc., although there is the scene of Charlton Heston parting the Reeds Sea.

As for the rest, some of it depicts the actual myth-style ads that Obama did run. What to make of the discrepancy, etc.

Btw., I'm an Obama supporter, not into either idealizing or demonizing either candidate.

On another note, I've been a registered Democrat all my life, but with the recent changes in the Democratic primary system, I'm thinking of switching to Independent. As well, I'm a liberal, not a neo-liberal (aka moderate, conservative of yesteryear) and don't know that I want my name affiliated with either party.

To go with your metaphor, I don't like the pot I'm on, nor could I ever go with that provided by the Republicans.

Peruse:

www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama and www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Barack_Obama to educate yourself about BO before November.

Peruse:

www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain and
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_John_McCain to educate yourself about JM before November.

And don't forget to vote !!!!

Mr Mark - I started out as an Independent. I was aware that I didn't know what political party I was, so chose a non-committal stance.

After I voted a few times and thought about the issues of the day, I saw an obvious pattern emerge -- so I registered as a Democrat.

I wonder why the MSM hasn't bothered airing the McCain ad where they made fun of Obama's appearance and put Obama's face on a $100 bill and Mt Rushmore?

View the video here:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/08/01/mccain-ad-did-make-fun-of-obamas-appearance/

In election campaigns in America, it is the standard operating procedure to throw all the dirt and mud you can at your opponent, and to build yourself up by tearing your opponent down.

Whan a white person behaves that way towards a black person, though, the motivations are suspect. Hillary Clinton found that out. She did what politicans always do, she threw all the mud she could at her opponent.

Now McCain is doing what "politiicans do;" he is throwing as much mud as he can at Obama. But Obama is black, and this practice, which has become the standard thing to do, suddenly seems to have racial undertones, that perhaps are not inteneded, but, how can a person not wonder?

The standard operating procedure is what stinks, and now easy to see why, when we see it applied to a white man beating up, in a mean and spiteful spirit, on a black.

Maybe McCain would do better just to promote himself and his own ideas and record and not trash his black opponent, and drag up all that unneccesary racial stuff. I don't think he gets it though.

There is going to be alot on race in this election.

Read Professor Berlinerblau's blogs God Vote on election issues. The blog has been inactive for about week, he is probably on his summer break.

jyume,
The relevent "actual soundbite",which you forget to mention is:
"people who do not look the way they do".
Now what biblical concept do you suppose would cause mr. Obama to believe that:
"typical white people" who are:
"bitter towards people who do not look like they do"
Would then be even more inclined to "cling" ever closer to their bibles?

This demented,twisted line of reasoning says much more about what mr. Obama thinks of God,than what he thinks of "typical white people".

Peruse
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Barack_Obama to educate yourself about BO before November.

Peruse
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain and
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_John_McCain to educate yourself about JM before November.

And don't forget to vote !!!!

Dear Arminius -

My reply to Parker may have been a bit strong, I admit, but I know too many "Independents" who assume that label for themselves to avoid having to ever pick sides, as it were.

I remember any number of D friends who started calling themselves Independents when the Ds fortunes were at a low ebb, and I'm beginning to hear Rs saying they're "really more of an Independent" now that the fortunes of the Rs are headed over the cliff.

I have more respect for an R who sticks to his guns and goes down with the ship than an Indy who flows with the political tides. As a lifelong D, I wish my Party had the guts they used to have and would go to the mat on the important issues, rather than caving as they so often do. I can't believe what bush has gotten away with, and it wouldn't have been possible without spineless collusion from the Ds.

I'm heartened that Obama has announced that he will order a top-to-bottom review of all Executive Orders when he takes office, and will overturn any that infringe on liberty. What that will mean in practice I don't know, but the announcement itself gives one hope.

Friend Farnaz:

Old Mark Twain once said
that Its is only the dead
Who can speak all the truth
to those on the good earth

Though Twain spoke his truism,
he knew that joke symbolism
Sometimes being uncouth
can still point to the truth
While avoiding too toxic a criticism

"I am stunned and awed, awed and stunned. You once mentioned that you were a writer. Can you say what kind of writing you do?"

Many thanks for your kindly review
I glad its amusing to you.

As to the kind of writing I do
Too obscure for most good folks to view.

"Do you think pseuonymity is the plight of postmodern human?"

Why yes, I do.
And don’t you too?

But who would feel safe
Speaking out in this place?
Without much circumspection?
Or at least name protection?

“And is calling yourself "Pseudo" a postmodernist embrace of your/that identity?"”

Pseudo’s symbolic
For uncertain knowledge
And reflective jollies
That just might give insight
And help cool the follies.
But that's for some another night.

Hi, Mr Mark,

Well, good grief, why don't you just let it all hang out and tell us how you REALLY feel? (LOL)

Technically, I am an independent, since I carry no card that identifies me with a party. However, in a rather long life, I have voted only twice for republicans, both moderates, neither running for president. Once only in a presidential election I voted for an independent instead of a democrat, Perot in 1992, because I was disgusted with both parties.

I have been known to vote republican in primaries just to stir the pot. The most wonderful phone call ever in my life was from the republican national committee: "Hello, this is the republican national committee. How are you today?
". BIG grin for me, as I replied, "You might want to know that I am a liberal democrat!". Pause... "Have a nice day.". Click. I must have laughed for five minutes.

Dear Parker -

Thanks for the comment.

I don't believe that compromise is attainable or desirable in all situations. Most situations? Yes. All? No.

You wrote:

"As for D's and R's, I consider myself an Independent, and am not so impressed with either choice."

I know how you feel. I'm not at all impressed with Independents. To put a Biblical spin on it, "I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot: I would you were cold or hot. So then because you're lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth."

Sometimes, one needs to crap or get off the pot.

Mr. Mark,
The "box" idea included the perspective that we can listen, learn from, try to understand and compromise and work together with, a "team" or "group" that views the microcosm of their "world" differently than we do. That's what I was alluding to. It doesn't have to shut down communication at all.

As for D's and R's, I consider myself an Independent, and am not so impressed with either choice, but am grateful for the balance of powers in government even if mis-handled much of the time.

Dear Parker -

Thanks for the comment.

Here's hoping that the seminar you attended touched on the fact that not all positions or arguments boil down to "a whole list of rationale for believing as we do about other people whom we may consider we are "better than." Often times, it is the IDEAS and PRACTICES of one group or another that are "better than" those of another group. Sometimes, what would appear to be "better" in theory isn't better in practice (Ex: communism).

I certainly don't for a moment believe that all Democrats are better people than all Republicans, but I do believe that the over-arching ideas and political positions espoused by the Democrats are far, far better than those espoused by the Rs, and I'm more than willing to debate that point with anyone who is ready to engage the debate with facts, figures and real-world evidence to back up their claims (as opposed to offering whole-cloth "beliefs" and the stipulations of received opinion as "evidence" for their position).

Similarly, I don't for a minute imagine that all atheists are better people than all religionists, but I do believe that the atheistic position is better than the religious position, and for myriad reasons that I've annoyingly spouted on the blog ad infinitum.

Reducing philosophical arguments to the level of personality battles and/or rationalizing distinct philosophical viewpoints away by claiming that real distinctions are little more than one producing "a whole list of rationale for believing as we do about other people whom we may consider we are "better than," rather ends the discussion for all time, doesn't it?

Thanks for the chat.

Mr. Mark,
I noticed your reply to me in the previous discussion, after I hadn't visited the site for a few days because I had lost interest in the topic and had other things to do.

Susan's essay here reminded me of a seminar I attended recently where one of the topics was "boxes" we as humans put ourselves into, as individuals and teams or groups. We rarely see ourselves clearly, and often build a whole list of rationale for believing as we do about other people whom we may consider we are "better than."

When presented with an idea that jeopardizes our rationale for our "box" or comfort zone, we often reject it out of hand without serious consideration.

Some people put any notion of a Supreme Providence in a "box" by in essence saying, "if my parameters for finding Providence are not met, then that proves there isn't one." Such is life.

To HAMMERHEAD (anonymous):
Pardon my confusion, but before your string of Obama-like soundbites, you seem to premise the entire accusation on a “deep seated hate towards God.”

In the context of your comment, it appears that you are accusing Sen. Obama of hating God. Hence my “What?” Perhaps you meant something else?

Regarding the actual relevance of those soundbites, you really have taken them out of context. Obama (rather clumsily) suggested that many people are “bitter” over their economic lot, and frustrated by their lack of support. Those other issues (guns, religion, anti-immigration, anti-trade) are auxiliary; they are ways for some people to vent their frustration. Not everyone, but some. I suppose the implication is that satisfied people tend to be more accepting of others, while people under stress sometimes look for ways to exclude others. This isn’t a shocking idea. It just wasn’t said very well.

Pseudo:

My apologies for rhyme
Of "Susan Jacoby" with "Poetical moby".
It seemed for the best at the time.
----------
I confess I did wonder about this since it is the converse of "moby" that could work. However, I then recalled the poet Richard Hugo. Have you read "The Triggering Town"? I think he would have laughed and said something like "Sobeit. It rhymes." That is, and only is, if he were into rhyme at the moment.

Farnaz

Pseudo,

I am stunned and awed, awed and stunned. You once mentioned that you were a writer. Can you say what kind of writing you do?

Do you think pseuonymity is the plight of postmodern human? And is calling yourself "Pseudo" a postmodernist embrace of your/that identity?

Yours in semi-coherence,
Farnaz

Mr. Mark,

Try being a D? Did that a few times with JFK. Then along came the big mouth Monica and her friend Bill. Poor Hillary not only lost forever her bid to be president because of M & B's bite of fun and foolery but now she is in hock for $22 million. Had she only divorced him!!! Too late now.

And when did the vote of the righteous Right rise on the issue of family values??

Susan:

My apologies for rhyme
Of "Susan Jacoby" with "Poetical moby".
It seemed for the best at the time.

A Silly Phantasmagoria of Pseudonymics :

There once was a big group of bloggers
Mostly a lot of pettifoggers
Who could not get a joke
But just wonder who spoke
What a bunch of pedantic slow sloggers!

Could Pseudo just be Fernaz?
No, Pseudo's not got the pizzaz.

Could Pseudo be the Jihadist?
No, that would be way too immodest

Could Pseudo be Susan Jacoby?
Writing the worst of bad verse
To engorge her poetical moby?

Pseudo wonders at all of the rumors:
Just where is your good sense of humor?

As Pseudo I shall remain
For what's there to gain, and why should I strain
To be another by some feat of legerdemain?

By the way, the freedom of a white candidate to accuse any black candidate who brings up race of "playing the race card" is a nifty form of racial politics that plays on racial prejudice. It's a way for McCain to play his race cards--a higher hand, without a doubt--by playing the innocent: "I didn't bring up race; it was that bad black candidate who reminded us that he's black."
------------------

Oh, please. Obama did bring up the race card, and I, for one, think it was a good move. On the other hand, McCain has the right to remark on it. What do you want, Susan? McCain takes Obama as an equal challenger. He hasn't shown himself as out to patronize or slander Obama.

Where were you when everybody on earth was bringing up the gender card with Clinton? That is, everybody, except Clinton. When did she play the "gender" card"? When did she so much as comment on the pervasive and ugly sexism in the media? Where were you?

Many white women of a certain age, I've found, wish to displace their own questionable status in this culture by denying it. This they do either by explicitly directing sexist aggression toward their peers or by observing it in silence. Then, too, many neo-liberals, women and men, are comfortable with neo-liberal Obama, since he doesn't pose the potential threat Clinton did to eliminating the misery of the poor and many, many immigrants.

Blue collar workers are "bitter," healthcare is a non-issue, and I'm not an immigrant between status, so forget it. For liberals, however, blue collar workers are increasingly disenfranchised, healthcare is an issue, and undocumented immigrants count. So, we can't forget about it, not any of it.

Obama has my support since I cannot vote for John McCain. However, I refuse to idealize Obama or demonize McCain and whine when he acts like a candidate. Would more would do the same, frankly.

Mary Cunningham:

"I do, however, think you have a great future as a novelist— the number of characters you can keep spinning is no small achievement!—if only you could work out a coherent and compelling plot. Not victimhood: it’s pretty passé ."

I confess that your various guises do not encourage me to think of you as a future mistress of belles lettres. As for wit, like most self-proclaimed victims, you lack the capacity.

Paranoid people are so often guilty of that which they project onto others that I need not belabor the point with respect to your delusionary self. Your case is particularly unfortunate since on those occasions when you are on terra firma, you are quite lucid, and I, for one, enjoy reading your posts.

Frankly, I don't know what good all this hostility does you. Frankly, I think it harms you much more than it does me or anyone else, and I hope you are able to overcome it.

Best,
Farnaz

Mr Mark:

As a lifelong D myself, I hope you're analysis about the election is correct. But you might be engaging in wishful thinking. I'm nervous. The poll released today has Obama ahead only 45-44. I think there's enough latent racism for McCain to overcome that on election day.

I'm hoping the debates will seal the deal. However, you must know that Americans don't think highly of the intelligent, articulate type. That will be held against Obama. But my fingers are crossed.

jyhume,
"What" do you believe to be false, "typical white people" or "typical white people" who "cling to their religion and guns" over their being "bitter" with "people who do not look the way they do" ?

To HAMMERHEAD:

What?

A deep seated hate towards God will oftentimes manifest itself in a racially- religious based attack on people who love God.
Such as when a professed belief in an entire population of "typical white people" is used as a vehicle to charge said "typical white people" with "clinging to their religion and gun" as a result of their frustration with other ethnic populations "who do not look the way they do".

Dear CCNL -

I MIGHT be a D? Is there any question about that?

Yep, lifelong D and proud of it. Try it!

Hmmm, do you think Mr. Mark might be a D?

Powell-Rice ticket? D must be inhaling!!!!

Dear Anon

The Rs aren't up for the fight this time. The ones who ARE up for anything are planning on voting for Obama. The perfect storm of a widely hated POTUS, a lackluster candidate and his increasingly embarrassing campaign, ongoing and headline-grabbing Party corruption, military quagmires around the globe and the fact that they didn't get to run against Hillary has spelled doom for the Rs this cycle.

BTW - I'm surprised the Rs are sticking with McCain. As you note, they're all about winning, no matter what the cost.

I still hold out the option that they will dump McCain (probably over a trumped up health issue) and roll the dice with a Powell-Rice ticket. The Rs KNOW that McCain will lose, dragging down scores of Rs with him, so what have they got to lose? The Rs who don't like Powell dislike McCain for the same reasons, but a Powell-Rice ticket would energize Rs and the media.

Like I said, they're facing a total wipe out this Fall that could take decades to recover from, maybe, NEVER recover from.

Better a gamble than a sucker's bet.

Mr. Mark - "McCain realizes he hasn't a prayer in this election, and that's based solely on the lack of enthusiasm republicans have for him as a candidate."

Wrong. The Republicans have not yet begun to fight, and when they do they'll push every dirty button they can and they're likely to succeed.

And the buttons they can't push, they'll rewire.

To JY Hume:

Exactly. I couldn't have said it better myself. And by the way, the blogger who talked about a minority "ruling over a majority" offers a perfect example of both racial prejudice and ignorance about American democracy. The President of the United States does not "rule" over us. We elect him. But I suspect that the idea of a black "ruling" is at the heart of a lot of unexpressed public distrust of Obama.

Susan writes:

"Today Sen. John McCain's campaign manager accused Barack Obama of "playing the race card" because Obama said that he "doesn't look like all the other presidents on the dollar bills." Well, Obama doesn't look like all of those other presidents. And it's about time that we all stopped pretending that this doesn't matter. By the way, the freedom of a white candidate to accuse any black candidate who brings up race of "playing the race card" is a nifty form of racial politics that plays on racial prejudice. It's a way for McCain to play his race cards--a higher hand, without a doubt--by playing the innocent: "I didn't bring up race; it was that bad black candidate who reminded us that he's black."

How right you are.

McCain's campaign calls Obama "arrogant." Hmm. Sounds a lot like the old phrase "uppity n-word" to me. Obama is an "elitist." Oh, like those lazy blacks who don't want to work. OK.

Today's WSJ has a serious article on the following topic: is Obama TOO THIN to be president? That's right, he's too thin! The logic: 60% of Americans are extremely overweight. How can they possibly "relate" to a thin person?

Oh, I don't know. How did the majority of people relate to a dry drunk coke-abusing frat boy?

McCain realizes he hasn't a prayer in this election, and that's based solely on the lack of enthusiasm republicans have for him as a candidate. He thinks his only hope is to take the bush Family route - go negative, do whatever it takes to win and brush it all off afterward as "just politics." Ergo, he has hired the Rove Machine to run his campaign.

This time around, though, it seems that only the media and die-hard Rs are buying the spin. The one factor that mitigates against any negatives McCain can throw against Obama is that 80% of the country absolutely LOATHES gw bush and 60% of the country is sick of Republicans. The MAJORITY in the country realize that anyone would be hard pressed to screw up EVERYTHING as badly as bush and the Rs have in the past 8 years, and they're more than willing to give a fresh voice a chance.

Deep in their hearts, the country knows that even if Obama ended up being a total screw up as president, that he could never be as bad as the last 8 years. That kind of screwing up takes malicious INTENT, and one doesn't see that with Obama. No, the country is more than ready to return to the previous definition of presidential screwing up that served us so well before gw bush redefined the term to dangerously obscene levels.

When you've survived near-terminal cancer, you don't worry so much about possibly getting a cold.

McCain, on the other hand, is coming off as a card-carrying member of the AAA: Angry-Addled-Aged. The country didn't buy it with Mike Gravel and they're not buying it with McCain.

And - sad to say - McCain's poor performance on the campaign trail (especially his many horrible gaffes on foreign policy) are showing him to have been something of an empty suit in his political career. The simple fact is that McCain isn't ready for prime time. He doesn't have the ideas or the policy knowledge one needs for the job. Considering he didn't bother getting it in 30 years in DC, the chances are he'll never get it. Looks like "The Maverick" never was anything past an empty moniker, a moniker that the press STILL pins to McCain simply because they as a group are even less creative than McCain.

Obama has proved in this campaign that he CAN and will learn. He's a quick study, and the electorate knows it.

And that's why Obama will win in a landslide in November. The only question will be the length of his coattails...which seem to be growing with each new revelation of Republican corruption.

"If you wish to find a link between faith and discrimination and bigotry, you need to look outside the majority faith of the Americans."

No...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Jones_University

http://www.exmormon.org/blacks1.htm

Islam and Judaism are not inclusive religions, whereas at least white Christian missionaries claim Christianity is. So, even if Moslems and Jews are not inclusive, Christians are supposed to be inclusive. By being racially exclusive many white American Christians particularly down south are not doing the cause of evangelism any favor.

Ibrahim:
At risk of speaking for Ms Jacoby, but certainly speaking for myself, I think you may have missed the point. It’s not to deny that 70% of Americans are generally good people and accepting of others. The problem is that so much of racial prejudice is subtle, understated, and often unknown to the person.

We all have a great capacity to view ourselves as good and right, even when clearly to others we have been bad and wrong. Self-image is a very difficult thing to view objectively.

Is there a correlation between racial prejudice and faith (religion)? I doubt it. I certainly do not see a causal relationship. Racial prejudice, as far as I can tell, is simply human nature. Religion just becomes a convenient tool for expressing this already-existent tendency. Sometimes it helps people to overcome it; sometimes it makes things worse.

You are trying to debunk the claim, substantiated by scientific research , that 70% of Americans are accepting of other races. You blundered when you brought Obama in the picture. Obama is a member of minority within a minority. Not only is he Black, but his father was a foreign student from Kenya and a Muslim at that. Tell me how many societies you know would allow a member of a minority to rule over the majority? Let us take Egypt for example ,which is supposedly the most liberal among the Arab Muslim countries, would not allow a member of the minority Christian population be a judge or even a police officer, let alone a President. Many in this country seem to be enamored by Israel, which is continually praised as the only democracy in the Middle East. The Arabs in that place constitute over 20% of the population and are the indigenous population or what is left of them.. Have you ever heard of an Arab cabinet minister there?
If you wish to find a link between faith and discrimination and bigotry, you need to look outside the majority faith of the Americans.

One thing that should be added to this discussion is that racial prejudices and racism, while linked, are far from identical. I did not say that all white Americans (or white women) or black Americans or Latinos are racists. What I said was that nearly all of us harbor various kinds of racial prejudices. It is not possible to have been raised in this society without absorbing certain prejudices. Unconscious prejudices are the most dangerous, because they cannot be held up to the light and examined. I have an old friend, raised in the Jim Crow South of the 1940a, who came north for his higher education in the 1950s. He recalls the first time he went to a beach (Coney Island) where blacks and whites were occupying the same sand and swimming in the same water. "I felt a kind of instinctive revulsion," he recalls, "and I started to move down the beach to a spot where there were fewer blacks. And then I though, this is just the kind of thing you've come north to escape. What you're about to do makes no sense."

If this man had remained in the society in which he was raised, he wouldn't have had to take a hard look at his prejudice in the light of a aunny day on the beach. Prejudice becomes racism only when you fail to challenge it. Then prejudices turn into institutionalized racism.

Today Sen. John McCain's campaign manager accused Barack Obama of "playing the race card" because Obama said that he "doesn't look like all the other presidents on the dollar bills." Well, Obama doesn't look like all of those other presidents. And it's about time that we all stopped pretending that this doesn't matter. By the way, the freedom of a white candidate to accuse any black candidate who brings up race of "playing the race card" is a nifty form of racial politics that plays on racial prejudice. It's a way for McCain to play his race cards--a higher hand, without a doubt--by playing the innocent: "I didn't bring up race; it was that bad black candidate who reminded us that he's black."

Farnaz, I have clashed with you several times but always with my own name. I;ve mostly left ‘No Faith’ because the blog architecture is badly designed and moderated. Unscrupulous posters like yourself take terrible advantage, even worse, you are not particularly knowledgeable nor even very witty (unlike Y & Co.)

I do, however, think you have a great future as a novelist— the number of characters you can keep spinning is no small achievement!—if only you could work out a coherent and compelling plot. Not victimhood: it’s pretty passé .

Best,
Mary C.

"I dunno, George, are you saying that most white women are racist?"

No! Most white non-Jewish white American women, particularly those with WASP background, and definitely those concentrated in the south are racist. Most would never sit next to a person of color in a bus be it a man or a woman. As far as I am concerned any woman (or man) partiuclarly a christian man or woman who refuses to date a person of another race is a racist...I mean those who base their dating habits on skin color or anatomy..Now if a Chinese Christian person only dates a Chinese Christian he or she is not racist, but wants to maintain a culture. But if a Chinese Christian dates a Korean Christian but refuses to date a white person is a racist. It is based on anatomy and skin color.

"Would that include those who are married to black men?"

No!

"And here am I, George, a brown and Jewish woman, who has dealt with racism from two angles and has also dealt with sexism. The anti-brown, anti-Jewish racism came from both white and black Americans."

Welcome to the real America. You have my company!

It's a mess, George. Let's face it.

Interesting. I had basically the same reaction to this question that Susan had: so 7 in 10 Americans think they do not harbor racial preference or prejudice? Who are they kidding?

Yes, as some here have said, this can be overcome. Today’s school kids fortunate enough to grow up in peaceful, diverse schools indeed are better than earlier generations. But many, probably most, Americans still don’t grow up with that experience.

Everywhere I’ve ever been, both here and abroad, people (of all ethnicities) harbor some level of racism. Or perhaps a better term would be “groupism.” People are naturally wary of the unknown other. We’re more comfortable with things that are familiar. That doesn’t make us bad people. It makes us normal – and a bit intellectually lazy. We’re too lazy to know people as individuals, rather than seeing them as members of groups.

But just because this laziness is normal doesn’t make it right. It’s really a habit of mind; sometimes we’ve got to force ourselves to get past prejudice and get to know the person.

For most Americans, racial (or group) prejudice is probably more subtle than they are aware. It’s not malicious, not nasty, but found in an amorphous uneasiness or lack of trust.

George writes:

"This racist but honest white woman sums it up well, I believe, the feelings of most white women about race whether Christian or not....."
----------------
I dunno, George, are you saying that most white women are racist? Would that include those who are married to black men?

And here am I, George, a brown and Jewish woman, who has dealt with racism from two angles and has also dealt with sexism. The anti-brown, anti-Jewish racism came from both white and black Americans.

It's a mess, George. Let's face it.

My Dear Pseudo,

By the way, do you feel hounded to have been confounded

With a poet whose doggerel should clearly be impounded?

Even if so, may The Farce be with you, always.
-------------------
There once was a blogger named Pseudo
To whom (Ms.) Farnaz gave ten kudos
Unlike many a blogger
He(?) knows he's a fogger
Which is why he rhymes better than they do.

With admiration,

Farnaz (maybe)

This racist but honest white woman sums it up well, I believe, the feelings of most white women about race whether Christian or not.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdjt-DyoU6s

FARNAZ:

"Hi Pseudo,

May I make a suggestion? Ignore the two Anon accusers, and the one self-identified on the previous thread. One of the Anons is JAC, an out and out bigot, who thinks I'm Muslim, and obviously has a problem with both Muslims and Jews."

Is there a Pseudo-Farnaz?
Wouldn't it be really a jazz?
To find out that pseudo
Was not in the moodo
To write his own razmataz!

By the way, do you feel hounded to have been confounded
With a poet whose doggerel should clearly be impounded?

Even if so, may The Farce be with you, always.

CCNL writes:

"With respect to Barack Obama: his ethnicity is not an issue in my book, his inexperience is."

For many, I think race is an issue with Obama. Self-proclaimed "liberals," often economic neo-liberals, find Obama's race a compelling reason to vote for him, while racists find it a compelling reason to vote against him. Then, there are the likes of yours truly who will vote for him because, though neo-liberal, like Bill Clinton, he is closer to their politics than John McCain, a neo-Con of sorts, a libertarian conservative.

There are also those who insist that Obama is Muslim and that that is a reason not to vote for him. What do we call that? Bigotry? Racism? The racializing of identity like anti-Jewish racism?
--------------
"With respect to John McCain: his ethnicity is not an issue, his age is."

Yes, McCain's age is an issue for Obama supporters. My former trio (racism, sexism, classism), I expand by one, ageism, to form a quartet.

Re: Your advice on what to do about racism

1. Education is very important and has done a great deal, but not enough. Experience with different kinds of people is of the utmost importance and all of us must hold it out as a value.

2. "Sue realtors and real-estate agents who continue to segregate our country breaking every equal opportunity law on the books."

Agreed, but often the process of segregation is more subtle than this. Sometimes, the real issue is segregation by class. In New York, in high crime areas, one finds "pioneers," white, who move into black and/or Latino neighborhoods, where crime is beyond belief. Gradually, as more and more homeowners are offered good deals for their houses, more whites come in, and the police with them. Once the neighborhood is established, black
middle class people, some like the ones who left move in. There is, then, a process, combining "gentrification" and "yuppyism." For the crime-plagued renters, well they just disappear.

Our beloved mayor is helping the process along by destroying housing projects, shipping persons on public housing off to wherever he can find a place. Pennsylvania is the most recent new location. He's also changed the zoning laws, disrupting solid communities, allowing stores to build one on top of the other.

It gets worse. And this man is the darling of the New York Times, the neo-liberals, and the conservatives. Whom to sue?

3) "Ditto for the white doctors who control the AMA."

Agreed, and they should also be sued for sexism and ageism.

4) "Ditto for personnel managers of many large firms."

Sue also for sexism and ageism.

L Kurt writes:

"I know many people will think that this is simply wrong, but I think that even identifying someone as being of another race is an act of racism. Until we can stop doing this racism will be "normal."

How true. Obama - he of the black father and white mother - is identified as being "black" because of his skin color.

Our hope is in our children who -thankfully- are growing up in schools and a society free of the overt prejudices we baby boomers were saddled with. My kids don't see color. They will not countenance discrimination along racial, ethnic and gender lines. It never even dawns on them that they are rejecting discrimination! Such discrimination no more enters into their life view than does their experience of Neanderthal hunting strategies. Discrimination is non-operational as an option to them.

Our kids are better than us. Better than we could have ever dreamed people could be. Good luck to them...and good riddance to the prejudices their elders were saddled with for so many years.

The cause of racial prejudice?

As with the prejudices of religion, it basically is a problem of the Three B Syndrome i.e. people are Bred, Born and Brainwashed in racial prejudice/hate but in this case the brainwashing in general comes from parents, relatives and peers although sometimes by religious leaders like Jerry Falwell, Richard Butler, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Malcom X and Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

What to do about racial prejudice?

1) Educate, educate and educate with a good dose of good example on everyones part.

2) Sue realtors and real-estate agents who continue to segregate our country breaking every equal opportunity law on the books.

3) Ditto for the white doctors who control the AMA.

4) Ditto for personnel managers of many large firms.

With respect to Barack Obama: his ethnicity is not an issue in my book, his inexperience is.

With respect to John McCain: his ethnicity is not an issue, his age is.

LKE: "I think that even identifying someone as being of another race is an act of racism. Until we can stop doing this racism will be 'normal."

Please everyone. Stop, listen, and hear the sound of the hammer hitting the nail on the head.

Dear Susan -

Is there some reason that this column of yours today no longer appears on the home page or with the efforts by the other columnists. I had to click on your archives to find this piece.

Hi Pseudo,

May I make a suggestion? Ignore the two Anon accusers, and the one self-identified on the previous thread. One of the Anons is JAC, an out and out bigot, who thinks I'm Muslim, and obviously has a problem with both Muslims and Jews.

The second Anon has some kind of agenda I don't quite understand. Perhaps she/he shares JAC's view that all us Jews are shape-shifting demons.

The third, self-identified, has been accused several times by different bloggers of having posted under different names, and has had it in for me for awhile now. I thought she'd gotten past whatever her prejudices were/are, but, evidently, she hasn't.

My last reply to JAC, who, we know, isn't Catholic from Crossan's last thread, concerned her post that Moses had no wife! So, JAC may not even be Christian. She/he certainly isn't Muslim, maybe Hindu, I don't know or care.

JUSt let them post away is my suggestion. I look forward to your posts, think you a great versifier, and wish you would blog here more frequently.

Regards,
Farnaz

Susan Jacoby:

Sometimes, I truly wonder if you've ever spent time with anyone outside your immediate, privelged white Christian orbit.
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"How many white women, walking down a dark and lonely street, give African American men a wide berth?"
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This comment makes me almost embarrassed for you. It was common among black commedians back in the day. Perhaps, you missed the news that your rhetorical question is passe.
-----------------
"or by the candidates' different views about health insurance and our ailing economy. This election is also going to be decided by the willingness or unwillingness of many whites, who never imagined a black American with a real chance of winning the presidency, to pull the Democratic lever for a ticket with an African American at the top."
-------------------
An extremely cheap shot at those who take presidential elections seriously and realize that whether Obama is elected or not, racism in this country will not end. Were you among the well over 1,000 Americans waiting outside of a weekend clinic with their families to get a tooth pulled, follow up from breast cancer surgery of TWO YEARS AGO, a diagnosis for an infection you've had four three weeks, of the lump on your son's arm, you just might think that for the 46,000,000 Americans, black and white, without health insurance, health care has some significance.

Our ailing economy? You seem to be eating quite well. Not everyone is. However, I haven't heard wide criticism of Obama's economic criticsm.
------------------------
Racism, classism, sexism are closely related. I've heard nothing from you, although I've heard a great deal, read a great deal from other Obama supporters on the disgracefully sexist treatment of Hillary Clinton.

This great trio of isms is hardly the domain of believers, as you have demonstrated. And then we have we have the curious situation of racialized identities, such as Jews, of columnists who feel that Jewish self-understanding matters not a whit, that of Jews, in particular. Jews are not "politcally in." So, for instance, you have the interesting phenomenon of a white, culturally Christian journalist first selecting as a great favorite a short story that offended many Jews, then resorting to bigoted reprensible language when challenged, finally, offering as fact specious defenses made up at the spur of the moment.
-----------------------
"But I don't think that liberals have any more insight into their subterranean racial biases than conservatives do. In fact, liberals may be less honest with themselves on this subject, because opposition to racism is part of a liberal's self-definition."

Precisely, and, sad to say, descriptive of thoughts I've not infrequently had about you as you, no doubt, have inferred. Obama will, I hope, win the election, since I believe he offers us more hope for healthcare, the economy, and, possibly, improvement with other nations than his opponent. However, the man is very well educated, highly intelligent, and does not require the help of persons so arrogantly out of touch as you are. Frankly, I suspect he would have burst out laughing had he heard the comment about the pit bull.

I also surmise that if he read, "No doubt this man [of the pit bull comment] believes in God," he would shake his head at the woeful loss of reason in this country.

Daniel ITLD,

My history is similar, if not so dramatic. I too grew up in the Jim Crow South, but in a town that had a much higher population of educated people, many from the North. So when the 1954 Civil Rights law was passed, we soon integrated, with no real fuss. Surrounding towns were different. In the nearest, the county seat, the local sheet-clad bigots dynamited the high school to prevent it being integrated. Riots followed, and the Guard was called in. The town I lived in had a vacant school, and so the neighboring high schoolers used that. I remember being really bewildered at all of this - I was raised with no racial prejudice, and the people I knew who had it were fairly low key and non-violent. My church, Episcopal, was officially non-committal, which was typical for the church during that era, although many Episcopalians were active in Civil Rights.

It was not a pleasant time.

I am a white man. Being a white man, I can actually "feel" the advantiages that I have in this society, in America.

Growing up in the Jim Crowe South, and becoming aware of the world at the exact time of the Civil rights movement of the mid-60's, and being a member of a more liberal church, in part of the white community that was in dissension with the Jim Crowe status quo, the convergence of all these things in a young boy's life has had the most lasting influence on my life.

From those days, to me, conservative and liberal will always be wrapped up with maintaining the Jim Crowe status quo, and the struggle to shatter it. Conservatives were always the bad people, on the wrong side. Conservative Christians regarded the Civil Rights movement as the work of those wicked Yankee meddlers.

In my growing up years, the adults in my life and in my church did not have time to train me in the fine points of Christian theology, but were instead, engaged in the real world of re-working and re-shaping the Jim Crowe south into a better society of greater equality. And we worked hard, not in specific projects, but in the daily grind ouf our lives, which ran in opposition to those in a position of advantage, the Born-Agains, the Conservative Christians, and the Baptists.

I have made the point on these threads before that I have been a guest of a number of Catholic friends over the years in Catholic church services. But I have never been invited by a Baptist into a Baptist Church, and I have never been to a Baptist Church service.

In the world in which I grew up and the heritage of belief which I carry with me, there is a deep estrangement between my Methodist Church which was more liberal, and the Baptists, and their Conservative brethren.

I know alot of non-Protestant people think that all Protestants are the same. But this is not true.

Griffin: "I think that there are many people in the racial majority in America that lead very unexamined lives."

I know many people will think that this is simply wrong, but I think that even identifying someone as being of another race is an act of racism. Until we can stop doing this racism will be "normal."

"What's god got to do with it? are the exact words that came to mind when I saw this question on racial prejudice. Fifty years ago, I don't think the question wouldn't even have been asked -Lack of prejudice wasn't fashionable then.

I observed a somewhat benign form of Christian prejudice a few years ago when I attended a parish in a racially mixed neighborhood. The all white (save one) membership of the church wanted to figure out how to encourage more black attendance, because they wanted to see more black faces in the pews on Sunday morning.(Someone actually said that). When it was suggested that the way to see more black faces was to go to a black church, they quickly lost interest.

It's too bad that the study cited in the question didn't break down those with 'racial prejudices' by belief in god. I would be fascinated to see if the 90% 'god believing' Americans are statistically more or less likely to be racially prejudiced.

To be clear, I'm not making any claim that they are or that they aren't. I just think that it would lead to a very interesting discussion.

To address Ms. Jacoby's post, I think that there are many people in the racial majority in America that lead very unexamined lives. They think that if they don't use the 'N-word' and think that minorities shouldn't be lynched that they've 'moved beyond race.'

While I'm glad that lynchings are no longer publicly acceptably, leaving the more subtle aspects of our society's racism unexamined does little to combat it.

Ryan Haber

Words, words, words...2,000 years of words and excuses.

But there has also been 2,000 years of actions that have spoken louder than these words.

I am not going to judge you or Christians, in general; it's too easy, and sad.

"How many women, walking down a dark and lonely street, give men a wide berth?"

It would be an unusual woman who did not. I believe it encourages racism to imagine that this natural act has anything at all to do with race.

Susan, again and again I am impressed by your commonsense. You very saliently connected two related gaps between the teaching of churches and the lived practice of its members: that gap in racial attitudes and that in sexual morality.

The simple fact is that, Christianity, at least, has never taught that Christians are perfect, but rather, that humans are sinners and therefore need Christ. We shouldn't be surprised to find Christians are sinners, and have sinful practices and attitudes. We Christians should take pains to remove sin from our lives, but we are yet works in progress. How does the fact that some Christians have sinful racial attitudes reflect on Christianity's central claim that people need Jesus Christ? Well, it hardly disproves the claim anyway.

I think you also did a good job pointing out the elephant in the living room - unacknowleged racial issues in our nation.

Of all the questions that On Faith has asked, this one is perhaps the biggest non-question.

The "joke" by the man at the end of the article is such a great example of racial stereotyping. And if the reporter had questioned the man about the "joke" he probably would not have viewed it as racial. But it is that type of innocuous joking and thinking that is the worst to defend against. It takes a lot of self examination to confront one's racism, which everyone has. As a Christian and a southerner I constantly have to monitor my own behaviors. This is a great article with much truth.

I Had Crossed a Line

It had been a sheltered childhood.
Growing up on a Minnesota farm had not prepared me
for crossing the Mason-Dixon Line.
So, when, not long out of boot camp,
I was riding a train to Norfolk,
I was surprised when the conductor said to me
and to no one else,
“Wouldn’t you be more comfortable in a car
farther back?”
I didn’t know what he was talking about.
I had noticed that I was by then surrounded by
Negroes, as they were called in 1951,
but I knew I was heading South.
I didn’t know I was the only Caucasian in the car.
I didn’t know the others had left…or where to.
I didn’t know what was happening exactly,
but what became clear was that
I had crossed a line.

I didn’t understand why a friendly black woman
of middle age had chosen to sit by me.
A home economist, she told me
and described the living conditions
of the people she worked with
There in those West Virginia hills,
in those shabby little houses
we could see as we rumbled passed.
I didn’t understand that I was being given an education,
quite deliberately on her part, I surmise:
an introduction to The South.

I told the conductor, no, I was fine where I was,
still not understanding that the car
I’d been in since Chicago was now
a “Colored Car.”
He shrugged with a look that said,
“I won’t force you,”
and I was left alone amidst people new to me,
People I would see a lot more of during my next four years
in the state of Virginia.

My adjustment was surprisingly brief.
My surprise at “Colored” and “Whites Only” signs
soon faded into that’s-the-way-it-is-here acceptance.
If I ever reflected on the unfairness of it all,
electric water coolers along side tepid water fountains.
I recall no outrage.
In my 18-year-old thinking, only a recognition:
I’m in the South now; this is how it is.

Several months had gone by when, one night,
I had a dream:
On a beautiful, bright Saturday morning
I had boarded a bus to go downtown.
I don’t remember why.
All I remember is what happened along the way.

Between the Naval Base and downtown,
the bus passed through what had to be the
oldest part of town.
Absentee landlords had left 200-year-old houses to crumble,
no doubt knowing that urban renewal was on its way.
The poverty-stricken tenants, of course,
were black.
And as rumors among sailors had it,
diseases like TB were rampant
in that part of town.
And it felt just fine to have these folks,
like automatons, head for
the back of the bus.
Until that dream of a Saturday morning, that is.

I don’t usually remember my dreams,
but in this one, my memories remain vivid:
I was sitting on the sunny side of a bus
near the front,
not paying much attention.
But then,
we stopped to pick up a passenger
in that part of town.
A black woman, a few years older than I, got on.
Though the bus was not at all crowded,
she paused…and sat in the empty seat
next to me.
I was suddenly horrified, indignant, not sure what to do.
I pressed against the wall of the bus.
I pulled my arm away, so as not to touch hers.
I pushed my hands between my knees,
and looking down,
I saw my hands
were the same color
as hers.

Suddenly awakening from this terrible dream,
I felt stunned, stricken…
and ashamed.
I had crossed a line,
never again to be the same. —G. T. N.

Only one thing will save us - tutti frutti booty!

My view is that the more folks objectify those with whom they disagree, the more they are able to pour out their hate.

It is common in this "text based" realm to build effigies and burn them down...without a full realization of common humanity we all share. Most often that is why one would chose to post anonymously and not fully own their statements.

"The liberals I know are like the conservatives I know. They don't go around shooting each other. You might be able to learn from somebody who holds a view quite different from your own," ~ Joe Barnhart.

Take good care,

Steve Schlicht

Once again, Susan hits the mark. Because of latent prejudice, in this case of whites against blacks, polling numbers should be viewed with suspicion. If McCain is within a few points of Obama on election day, that could very easily be erased, and we will have a Republican president for at least another four years. In the privacy of a polling booth there are no outsiders -- such as a pollster -- to interfere with that little voice raising doubts about a black president.

As "Daniel" points out, it is laughably easy to establish that being more religious does not make one more tolerant of other races. (And we know that being more religious makes one less tolerant of one group of people, gays.)

That white fundamentalist Christians may be more tolerant of minorities than they were 40 years ago is yet more proof that morality does not come from the Bible (or any religious text). The Bible absolutely embraces slavery and the inferiority of certain races. (And, of course, there's also the Book of Mormon.) More tolerant views about race have not come from studying the Bible more closely. It comes from a desire to live in a civilized society.

I know the polling results about race are for adults, but one can learn a lot by studying children, too. My kids go to a school that is almost entirely Christian (with a Jew or two). Probably my kids are the only kids of a nonbeliever. And which kids are the kindest to the special needs kids, the new kids to the school, and the dozen or so kids of color? I may be biased, but I've spent enough time in the school and heard enough to know my kids are near the top. I guarantee it is not the fundamentalist Christian kids. I suspect tolerance is given lip service in Sunday school, but these kids likely just observe and mimic their parents' behavior.

Stupid people believe in God.
Stupid people are racist.
People who believe in God are Racists.

Proved by pure logic.

If a person stands up in public, and tells of his blieifs and of his religion, or of his non-belief and atheism, and then sits down, we can have no way of knowing if this a good person or a bad person.

Because the good and the bad that people carry around inside of them is independent of their spiritual life and of their religious belief.

Many Conservative Christians, and religious people in general, do not understand this, but have a sense of special entitlement, that they are, by definition "good" people, superior people, people "better" than ordinary people.

Christians post here all the time with that attitude. And they condemn atheists as "inferior" people, by definition. But that also is not true.

You don't have to have a college education or read alot of books to know that being a Christian doesn not make a person good, and being an atheist does not make a person bad. All you have to do is just live, and pay attention, and you will make this easy observation.

One of the most dominating churches in America today, the Southern Baptist Church, was born in the defense of slavery, in its regional separtion from the Baptist Church. And this is the church that sustained "Jim Crowe" in the South, and this is the church which dueled in my small town with the Methodist Church, my church, about how wicked the new order of Civil Rights for blacks was in the South.

I know from my very own experience, that this is how it was. And since those days, there has been no back tracking among Conservative Christisns, but at the most, a gradual acceptance of social change for the good, and a gradual forgetting and rewriting of history, so that Christians were on the good and right side, and not on the wrong side.

And so, Christians should be a little more humble with regards to their heritage on matters of race and about who is a good person and who is a bad person.