Systemic / Institutional / Societal Racism

[epilogue]

We aim to please here at RM headquarters.

[tree_]

I'd really like an explanation how me seeing all colors equally is problematic. I thought being "color blind" was pretty much an MLK thing from the start. All men created equal, not being judged by the color of their skin, etc.

[Rob]

So step up to the plate and offer an alternative. Why is there such a huge wealth gap between black and white Americans, including between black Americans w/ college degrees and white Americans w/o one?

I don't know the answer to that.

Your accusations that people here are close-minded for positing that it's because of systemic racism rings a little hollow when you can't offer up one alternative explanation. I'd say maybe find one before calling people here sheep for believing they know the cause.

It is not a prerequisite to believe in a god in order to truthfully claim to not have proof for other gods. Again, I'm open to proof and have not done complete due diligence yet.

Are you open to proof/evidence? Doesn't seem likely. You've ignored the links and stats that some here have offered, as expected.

[epilogue]

Let's start with how "shouldn't be judged by the color of their skin" is very different from "not seeing color."

Secondly, you can see it however you want. You can say "I see all colors equally" but that isn't the way the world or the system sees things. You came here wanting to talk about systematic racism but you don't seem very interested in seeing any other perspective than your own.

[tree_]

By saying I don't see skin color I actually meant I don't judge a person by the color of their skin. Whatever you want to read into it it's not true for me. I'm telling you that I am not racist.

[tree_]

So step up to the plate and offer an alternative. Why is there such a huge wealth gap between black and white Americans, including between black Americans w/ college degrees and white Americans w/o one?

I don't know the answer to that.

Your accusations that people here are close-minded for positing that it's because of systemic racism rings a little hollow when you can't offer up one alternative explanation. I'd say maybe find one before calling people here sheep for believing they know the cause.

It is not a prerequisite to believe in a god in order to truthfully claim to not have proof for other gods. Again, I'm open to proof and have not done complete due diligence yet.

Are you open to proof/evidence? Doesn't seem likely. You've ignored the links and stats that some here have offered, as expected.

yes I am open to proof and evidence. I will read that link when I have time later. Probably tomorrow. I'm going home from work right now

[McParadigm]

I'd really like an explanation how me seeing all colors equally is problematic. I thought being "color blind" was pretty much an MLK thing from the start. All men created equal, not being judged by the color of their skin, etc.

Bias is a thing that we are blind to. Bias is a subconscious event that affects your perceptions of the world around you, but which exists beyond your own self-perception.

Judging equally is dependent upon first being able to accept that, first of all, people do judge each other, and that bias is a force that affects those judgements.

You can’t judge equally without pursuing honest clarity of your biases, and you can’t recognize internal biases targeting differences you seek to become blind to.

[tree_]

Okay well what I'm actually saying is that on a deep philosophical level I believe skin color should not and does not influence my opinion of a person any more than the color of their hair or their height or any other attribute. I do see that if a person is not conscious of what is going on in their brain they can be swept away by illogical thoughts and feelings. By saying that I don't see color I am in no way implying that I am a person that does not hold this philosophical belief firmly.

[Mickey]

I honestly don't think you have a "deep philosophical level"

[Mickey]

Though in that you are not alone in N&D

[tree_]

Maybe not. But it's as deep as anything else in my brain. I see no reason to be racist to anyone. It just would not make sense to me.

[epilogue]

Here you go, tree.

This is a very articulate piece by a Black writer/actor. The writer is discussing Blackness on Broadway. This is interesting to me because it's about my chosen industry but it's important and vital because of what he says about systemic racism all over the United States in every industry.

Here's a snippet and the link to the full essay is below:

A story that uses a Black body onstage is either a story about an “imagined” world, or a story about a “real” one. The simpler use of a Black body onstage is in an “imagined” world. This is to say, a musical in which the Black bodies play characters who, as written, do not see the Blackness of themselves or of other characters in the show. This is an “imagined” world because real life human beings always see the Blackness of themselves and of other people. The most obvious examples of this sort of story are magical or fantastical in nature: The Lion King, or The Wiz. In these contexts the Black bodies onstage are, essentially, incidental. There’s no story-driven reason the bodies have to be Black, but it is certainly easier to justify the tone or the imagery or the music heavily borrowing from a Black space by putting them on Black bodies. The creators of shows like this can be easily heralded as creating “diverse” and “progressive” work for this reason, because in the context of American musical theater, the simple act of putting a Black body onstage is radical.

Other incarnations of the “imagined” world story are often more insidious — musicals that use a Black body in an ensemble or as a side character, but wherein that Black body is playing a character that is not seen in their Blackness and does not see Blackness. These are often shows that are centered around white bodies that don’t have to be white bodies — Pilar in Legally Blonde, or Alana in Dear Evan Hansen, or even Tom Collins or Joanne in Rent; we often only think of these characters as Black characters because the original performer has a Black body. When discussing these roles, we tend to do ourselves a disservice by being distracted by the nuances of those performers instead of the nuances of the characters themselves. Pilar might operate as the trope of “sassy black friend” in the script of Legally Blonde, and may even be noted, in casting announcements or breakdowns, as a non-white character, but this does not change the fact that the use of the Black body in that part is incidental.

This is true of Hamilton as well — the Black bodies in Hamilton are incidental. The characters with Black bodies are not seen in their Blackness and do not see Blackness. Hamilton also dangerously hand-waves away the notion that American racism is built upon the exploitation of Black bodies specifically. The book and score explicitly reference the work of well-known Black artists, and even go so far as to unambiguously refer to the enslavement of American Black people, but the Black bodies it uses onstage are buried in a sea of ethnic ambiguity, so deftly that we can begin to believe that we cannot see them at all. This imagined world is “post-racial.” If we cannot see their Blackness, then we have overcome racism. Much more intelligent writers than I have written entire essays, books, and even a play about the anti-Blackness of Hamilton for this very reason.

For the past decade, I have aggressively declared, in a fit of my own misguided progressivism, that I would only write stories about imagined worlds, because I, as a general rule, don’t particularly care for shows in which the Blackness of the characters is a necessary plot point. But this is letting myself off the hook, because what I’m really saying is that I, like you, have overcome racism. I have drunk the kool-aid. I, like the good characters of yore, have seen beyond race into a world in which race doesn’t matter. In that world, I no longer have to confront anti-Blackness as it manifests in me or my collaborators against Black bodies. In that world, all bodies are created equal, and the trappings of Blackness are ignored and unconfronted. A light skinned Black body might be considered with equal weight as a dark skinned Black body, even though the impact and implication of dark skin in the theater is significant. Because of the overt and implicitly racist machinations of an American economic juggernaut like Broadway, the Black bodies with the privilege of white adjacency, like mine, will be given opportunity and access that a “Blacker” body might not receive. And I cannot imagine my way out of that reality.

https://medium.com/@heathcliffsaunders/ ... fa1b012a8b

[bada]

tree is actually providing a service here guys we should give him a break. He's basically standing in for everyone's in-laws and we now have the benefit of McP's and Mickey excellent retorts for the next family picnic nightmare. I usually come up with a real zinger three days after the fact now I'm prepared.

[McParadigm]

Okay well what I'm actually saying is that on a deep philosophical level I believe skin color should not and does not influence my opinion of a person any more than the color of their hair or their height or any other attribute.

I think (hope) most people would say the same. And I don’t have any claims to make about the number of people who have active racist thoughts vs unconscious biases that they don’t perceive...but I’d expect that the latter is far more common than the former.

I tend to think that the number of active racists is fairly small, which is part of why we as a nation have such a hard time having this conversation. We rarely see racism writ large on a personal experience level, yet we do see these measurable disparities that exist at a societal level, and struggle to explain them.

I also think the influence of race on our perceptions and our responses to people/events is often comparable to how other biases play out. For example, I’d like to think (hope) that the vast majority of men ascribe to gender equality...but it is nevertheless demonstrably true that men are much less hesitant to interrupt a female colleague in a meeting than they are a male. An internal, invisible bias influences a split second decision (“is now the time to speak up”) that mostly happens in our subconscious. Being blind to it is what makes us vulnerable to it.

I do see that if a person is not conscious of what is going on in their brain they can be swept away by illogical thoughts and feelings.

[wease]

jesus christ. You gave him his own thread.

[tree_]

Wease. Free speech is good, especially if you disagree with someone. You can't just shut down people because you don't like them. This actually is supposed to be a liberal value.

[wease]

Maybe not. But it's as deep as anything else in my brain. I see no reason to be racist to anyone. It just would not make sense to me.

Of course you don’t think there should be a reason. You don’t think racism exists, thus you can’t be a racist. But you are and now you’re getting your troll rocks off by pretending racism isn’t real and having everyone shower you with attention for it.

[digster]

Getting criticized for what you say doesn't have anything to do with losing your speech.

[tree_]

Maybe not. But it's as deep as anything else in my brain. I see no reason to be racist to anyone. It just would not make sense to me.

Of course you don’t think there should be a reason. You don’t think racism exists, thus you can’t be a racist. But you are and now you’re getting your troll rocks off by pretending racism isn’t real and having everyone shower you with attention for it.

if you pay attention closely you will see that you misunderstand what I said. I said I don't currently see the evidence for systemic racism in America. of course racism exists. There will always be a certain amount of people that are complete nutjobs.

[tree_]

Getting criticized for what you say doesn't have anything to do with losing your speech.

of course not but weeze wants me to be banned and silenced because according to him I'm some kind of racist troll