[RD] Most White People Want to Keep Their Priviledge (And Know They Have It)

[GoodEnoughForMe]

I didn't really know how to title this thread, but I think the sentence I posted is fair and accurate based on the overwhelming amount of data we have on the subject. And I think this short clip is a good warm-up (in it, 100% of white people admit that they are treated better by society than black people).

I've been struck lately by how political parties in the US, well, the two major ones, are increasingly divided by racial lines. Democrat voters are outpacing America's overall increasing diversity, while the Republican party continues to win over shares of white voters. This has accelerated over the last couple elections and appears to be a sort of inevitable reality of Republicans overwhelmingly winning the white vote, and Democrats winning everybody else*.

One of the most difficult realties, and depressing ones, is that a large body of evidence suggests that as white people are either A) given information about increasing diversity, or B) placed in a situation in which they personally witness the diversity (as in, a train car with many people of colour), they become, essentially, more racist. And not only that, but even just discussing or bringing racism to the forefront can harden racial divides and increase racial resentment.

Mendelberg also runs her own experiment to explore the idea. She conducted a study with a random sample of Michigan voters where she showed fake television news stories about a gubernatorial race; in the stories, the conservative candidate was arguing that welfare recipients were an unfair burden. Some of the fake stories featured B-roll of black welfare recipients; others featured B-roll of white recipients. They were otherwise identical — but the stories with B-roll of black recipients led respondents to express significantly more hostile views toward government programs to assist black people. In fact, the effect on their expressed racial views was stronger than the effect on their expressed opinions on welfare.

I'm going to link some of the studies below, and will summarize their findings afterwards.

https://internet2.trincoll.edu/FacProfiles/CVs/1480166.pdf
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0146167214524993
http://groups.psych.northwestern.edu/spcl/documents/Craig_RichesonPS_updatedversion.pdf
http://www.econ.jku.at/papers/2012/wp1205.pdf
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0003122415587313

I think it's commonly believed that if only white people saw other skin colours in their day-to-day interaction, they'd become more inclusive, learning that people of colour are, fundamentally, other people are people too. The opposite is in fact true. When white people are put in a subway car with mostly white people, and then one with many Latino people, they become much less pro-immigration after the 2nd car than they were after the first. When told about a growing population of Latino or black Americans, they not only report more negative feelings towards minority groups, but also express less of a desire to donate to causes that might support them. When given census predictions about America's future "majority-minority" (I know that term is sort of stupid), white people answer more often that they would like to live and work among other white people only. And indeed, many are doing so; data suggests that neighborhoods and schools are now the most segregated they have been since the 1960s, even though the country as a whole is much more diverse.

Even those who identify as liberal, or progressive on politics as a whole or immigration are not immune.

But why would a self-avowed liberal change her political position just because of a line from a census report? Richeson and Craig are pretty sure the answer is that these white people feel threatened.

Richeson and Craig ran a version of the experiment where participants were told that even though the minority-majority switch was coming, the social order would continue to be the same. White Americans would still come out on top in American society.

In that condition, the effect disappeared. “And that’s how you know it’s status threat” fueling the effect, Richeson says.

But perhaps what most struck me was this quote from one Cornell Belcher, who worked on Obama's polling team for both of his elections, and was knee-deep in data, anecdotes, and everything about how people vote.

That was a tweet really to the progressive establishment — which means too often white Northeastern liberals — the idea that if we just had a better economic message, these people would all of a sudden go, “Oh, my god, what was I thinking, I should be voting Democrat!” That if we just find the right words to connect with downscale whites, they’ll say, “Oh, you know what, I am voting against my economic interests.”

It’s a disconnect that’s frustrating to me. They’re not voting against their economic interests; they are voting for their higher interests — there’s an idea that your group positioning doesn’t matter economically. The idea that you can disconnect white people from their group position and make pocketbook arguments to them void of the history of their group is folly.

That is not to say don’t target or don’t go after them. That’s absolutely not what I’m saying. What I am saying is just that the answer isn’t simply a pocketbook argument — we do have to inoculate against the increased tribalism and racialism in order to have that conversation. As long as there is a group sense of decline, we do have to calculate for that in our conversation and try to inoculate that as opposed to simply coming up with another argument about why raising the minimum wage is beneficial to you.

By the way, look at the last midterm [election] in Arkansas, which is full of the kind of blue-collar voters you’re talking about. [They] voted against [Democratic Sen.] Mark Pryor [who supported a minimum wage increase]. There is a disconnect here that progressives need to understand if we’re going to make a more effective economic argument for blue-collar whites, and stop telling them that they’re voting against their economic interest. That is a complete lack of understanding by progressives of the connections between economics and identity.

Interviewer: But they are actually voting against their economic interests, right? Are you saying that it doesn’t feel that way to them, or that it’s simply not important to them, because voting with their group identity in mind feels more urgent?

I would even push back on that. Who are we to say that they’re voting against their economic interests? If in fact you think you’re losing your country, that’s your higher interest, and how in the hell am I gonna prosper if [I believe] other people are taking my country?

There's been a lot of knee-jerk reaction that Democrats have an economic message issue, but I don't think that's necessarily the big-picture, or much of the picture at all. Not only that, but there's a certain kind of liberal arrogance suggesting that if only the working-class whites could see the economic light, they'd vote Democrat. Rather, the big picture is approaching the thorny situation of race in American society. Because it's increasingly clear that both bringing it up can be a turn-off for white voters, and that increasing multi-culturalism is also a turn-off for white voters, and that multi-culturalism right now is the bedrock of the Democratic voting base, and as such, is not something they can shy away from. And it's also increasingly clear that, for now anyways, the political party battle lines are becoming almost entirely racial in breakdown. And if many white people at least understand and fear their coming status as less than 50% of the population, then they aren't "failing to see the light" by voting for, say, Trump, they're simply voting among ethno-cultural lines, which is a time-honored human tradition. And, if nothing else, Trump certainly did his part to fan the flames.

There are of course two facets to pursue here. One is the general result of America's increasing diversity, and how it is drumming up white nationalism. Any thoughts on how to solve or combat that are welcome. The other facet is more strategically inclined; how does the Democrat Party move forward knowing that, for the time being, they still need a chunk of the white vote (particularly in local races), even as their voters are much more diverse than the rest of the country?

* There is one tiny, glimmer of hope. There is one generational group of people that has shown much less aversion to diversity and, while still having plenty of strains of white resentment and nationality, appears, based on early data, to have reduced it to a minority. I'll let you guess which group of special snowflakes this is.

 

[Synobun]

When they separated church and state, I was pleased to find that the concept of original sin from the church made its way into the state side of things.

Diversity isn't drumming up white nationalism. Artificially created racial divides are. If your go-to phrase is to tell a white person they are privileged, if you constantly talk about how there needs to be less white people, and if every single humorous quip you utter is some joke about the whites, you cannot be shocked when people start digging their heels in.

Is there inequality? Sure is. Do you solve inequality by making one side an "other"? Sure don't.

Are many white people racist? Absolutely. Do you discourage their racism by utilizing their skin colour as a weapon? Definitely don't.

In their desperate fight to eliminate racism, they are encouraging it. It is not a coincidence that racial tensions have been so much worse since it became socially acceptable to brand everybody with a certain skin colour as an enemy. Both sides are making fools out of themselves.

 

[Leonel]

I'd say education but I've witnessed in liberal Seattle that people purportedly raised by liberal parents behave just as racist so I'm not so sure anymore.

There was even an incident when me and my girlfriend went to a fancy tea shop in Capitol Hill that was actually hosting a meeting on letter writing to state representatives to combat police shootings. My girlfriend, who's black btw, stood to the side while the store owner was talking to a customer and was about to quietly ask about the petition before she was cut off in the middle of her sentence, whereas I stood on the other side of the store and hollered at her about the same and literally got between her and her customer and was still treated better for my boorish behavior.

The thing about Seattle is that it's very white with the most populous minority being East Asian which, I know from personal experience, is a comfortable minority for white people. I wonder in this study how exposed to other races the test subjects were exposed to in their youth and if so we can sort of 'inoculate' kids in their early developmental years.

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

In their desperate fight to eliminate racism, they are encouraging it. It is not a coincidence that racial tensions have been so much worse since it became socially acceptable to brand everybody with a certain skin colour as an enemy. Both sides are making fools out of themselves.

I dunno I'd say racial tensions were worse when there was, say, a civil war over it.

Anyways, as I pointed out in the OP, a ton of white people realize they are treated preferably, thus the video and the study in which when told they still would be, they suddenly didn't concern themselves with being a minority.

 

[Synobun]

I dunno I'd say racial tensions were worse when there was, say, a civil war over it.

Anyways, as I pointed out in the OP, a ton of white people realize they are treated preferably, thus the video and the study in which when told they still would be, they suddenly didn't concern themselves with being a minority.

This just in: People like being treated optimally.

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

Right, so that needs to be addressed, constructively, which is one of the questions posed in the OP. But the "artificial racial divide" is already there, and has been. I'm not sure ignoring it is the best strategy, but I'm open to ideas.

 

[Synobun]

Right, so that needs to be addressed, constructively, which is one of the questions posed in the OP. But the "artificial racial divide" is already there, and has been. I'm not sure ignoring it is the best strategy, but I'm open to ideas.

Ignoring it doesn't work because people don't want it to go away. @Leonel is on the right path with education, but this idea requires education that doesn't support the artificial divide. There are many college courses today that utilize 'white privilege' as a legitimate theory in social dynamic, and some that have begun to officially use the "you can't be racist against white people!" rhetoric. This would need to be eliminated from what's acceptable to have in a classroom setting, same as not being able to peddle creationism in an evolutionary biology course.

 

[Lexicus]

When they separated church and state, I was pleased to find that the concept of original sin from the church made its way into the state side of things.

Diversity isn't drumming up white nationalism. Artificially created racial divides are. If your go-to phrase is to tell a white person they are privileged, if you constantly talk about how there needs to be less white people, and if every single humorous quip you utter is some joke about the whites, you cannot be shocked when people start digging their heels in.

Except there is a pretty good empirical case in the OP that it is, and you don't get to just ignore that case by going "nuh uh"

In their desperate fight to eliminate racism, they are encouraging it. It is not a coincidence that racial tensions have been so much worse since it became socially acceptable to brand everybody with a certain skin colour as an enemy. Both sides are making fools out of themselves.

Oh, and now a reversion to this racist trope? Racial tensions are not "getting so much worse." It's only white racists who think this, because their idea of "racial tensions" is not when white America "ends welfare as we know it" and locks millions of black people in prison for years on end, their idea of "racial tensions" is when black people get angry and start talking about these things. It's exactly the same as the Southerners calling the Civil Rights Movement a bunch of Northern rabble-rousers, "just outsiders stirring up trouble, our Negroes have always been totally content with being treated like livestock..."

I dunno I'd say racial tensions were worse when there was, say, a civil war over it.

The Civil War had little to do with racial tensions, more to do with the political economy of slavery.

My girlfriend, who's black btw, stood to the side while the store owner was talking to a customer and was about to quietly ask about the petition before she was cut off in the middle of her sentence, whereas I stood on the other side of the store and hollered at her about the same and literally got between her and her customer and was still treated better for my boorish behavior.

I have heard similar stories of extremely racist treatment of PoC in supposedly liberal/leftist spaces. It's extremely discouraging.

 

[Synobun]

Oh, and now a reversion to this racist trope? Racial tensions are not "getting so much worse." It's only white racists who think this, because their idea of "racial tensions" is not when white America "ends welfare as we know it" and locks millions of black people in prison for years on end, their idea of "racial tensions" is when black people get angry and start talking about these things. It's exactly the same as the Southerners calling the Civil Rights Movement a bunch of Northern rabble-rousers, "just outsiders stirring up trouble, our Negroes have always been totally content with being treated like livestock..."

Nothing you have just said made any coherent sense.

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

The Civil War had little to do with racial tensions, more to do with the political economy of slavery.

Right, but I guess I'd define a fight over slavery as being a sort of pre-eminent example of racial tension, although maybe that's overly broad.

 

[Lexicus]

Nothing you have just said made any coherent sense.

On the contrary, it made perfect sense, but I'll try to rephrase it. The idea that racial tensions are getting worse is itself a racist idea. People who believe that racial tensions are getting worse have a view of racial tensions that resembles the belief that the part of an iceberg you can see above the surface is the whole iceberg.

Right, but I guess I'd define a fight over slavery as being a sort of pre-eminent example of racial tension, although maybe that's overly broad.

It depends on what your definition of racial tension is I guess. The way I see things the Civil War can't really be called an example of racial tensions (though the aftermath certainly can) because both sides were in fundamental agreement about the inferiority of black people. It wasn't until Radical Reconstruction that you begin to see actually diverging attitudes on race, with the Republicans in Congress pushing all this super-interesting and way-ahead-of-its-time civil rights legislation, which provoked the reactionary backlash (typified by the KKK) that dominated Southern politics until the 60s and is arguably still one of the most important influences on US politics to this day.

The point that I'm making is that slavery is not a purely racial issue, and was not seen as a racial issue by maybe 99% of the people involved in politics at that time. The issue was not "how black people are treated" it was more like "what the institution of slavery does to our politics and economy."

 

[Synobun]

On the contrary, it made perfect sense, but I'll try to rephrase it. The idea that racial tensions are getting worse is itself a racist idea. People who believe that racial tensions are getting worse have a view of racial tensions that resembles the belief that the part of an iceberg you can see above the surface is the whole iceberg.

There being more hidden below the surface does nothing to disprove the idea of a gradually worsening situation.

How on earth is acknowledging that things sometimes get worse instead of better racist anyways? That's an utterly nonsensical assertion.

 

[Farm Boy]

It is heretical.

 

[Bugfatty300]

I think it's commonly believed that if only white people saw other skin colours in their day-to-day interaction, they'd become more inclusive, learning that people of colour are, fundamentally, other people are people too. The opposite is in fact true. When white people are put in a subway car with mostly white people, and then one with many Latino people, they become much less pro-immigration after the 2nd car than they were after the first.

Well, damn...that's very telling. City subways are such comfortable and jovial friendly places. Public transit is the perfect place to meet new people and really get to know them personally. Like whether or not they showered that morning, or ever.

Every time I've left a subway car, I've never had anything but empathetic happy thoughts of everyone on board.

If white people can't even shed their metaphoric klan robes on a subway car then there is very little hope for them. The democrats really are in trouble as a progressive party.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

The idea that racial tensions are getting worse is itself a racist idea.

How does your mind even let you type things like that? Even if the notion is entirely fallacious and stems entirely from ignorance, how on Earth is it a "racist" idea?

Edit: I suppose it depends on what this week's definition of "racist" is of course.

 

[Lexicus]

There being more hidden below the surface does nothing to disprove the idea of a gradually worsening situation.

How on earth is acknowledging that things sometimes get worse instead of better racist anyways? That's an utterly nonsensical assertion.

You're still not getting my point, because this isn't what I'm saying at all. Clearly in light of Trump's election the situation for persons of color in this country is going to get mightily worse. But that's different from this notion of 'racial tensions.' My opinion is that 'racial tensions' are not in fact getting worse, the tensions that have existed are simply coming to the foreground because now black people are talking about them. You see a Black Lives Matter protest and think 'racial tensions are getting worse, uh oh' and ignore the decades of gentrification, police brutality, mass incarceration, destruction of black families, etc that led to this moment of protest. But those are the real racial tensions.

Now, maybe these things are what you meant by racial tensions (and I would agree they are getting worse), but from what you've said it doesn't seem that way. It seems you are taking the typical reactionary line of blaming anti-racist activism for 'creating' racism, and that what you mean by 'racial tensions' is ultimately superficial, ie. people publicly talking about racial issues.

 

[Synobun]

You're still not getting my point, because this isn't what I'm saying at all. Clearly in light of Trump's election the situation for persons of color in this country is going to get mightily worse. But that's different from this notion of 'racial tensions.' My opinion is that 'racial tensions' are not in fact getting worse, the tensions that have existed are simply coming to the foreground because now black people are talking about them. You see a Black Lives Matter protest and think 'racial tensions are getting worse, uh oh' and ignore the decades of gentrification, police brutality, mass incarceration, destruction of black families, etc that led to this moment of protest. But those are the real racial tensions.

Now, maybe these things are what you meant by racial tensions (and I would agree they are getting worse), but from what you've said it doesn't seem that way. It seems you are taking the typical reactionary line of blaming anti-racist activism for 'creating' racism, and that what you mean by 'racial tensions' is ultimately superficial, ie. people publicly talking about racial issues.

The issue with "anti-racist activism" is that it is often based off of explicitly racist ideals. Many of the protests and arguments are built off the back of the idea that someone is a victim and someone is an aggressor. Someone is innocent, someone is guilty. Someone is the enemy, and the enemy is anyone not like you. The "fight fire with fire" approach rarely works and it is rare for equality to be achieved by lessening someone else's worth. Ideally, those who are disadvantaged would be raised to equal footing instead of the power dynamic being switched around. You don't fight back against racism by openly saying there should be less white people, or that white people need to be taken down a peg because of their original sin, or that the opinion of a white person is less than that of someone who falls within a "diverse" background.

I'm taking the line that current accepted methods of fighting back against racism generate more racism. Racism was already there. They're just making it worse (from both sides).

 

[Lexicus]

I'm taking the line that current accepted methods of fighting back against racism generate more racism. Racism was already there. They're just making it worse (from both sides).

Yep, and I regard this as a basically racist and reactionary idea, so I guess further discussion is pretty pointless.

 

[Synobun]

Yep, and I regard this as a basically racist and reactionary idea, so I guess further discussion is pretty pointless.

That's pretty racist of you.

(Doesn't make sense? Yeah.)

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

Well, damn...that's very telling. City subways are such comfortable and jovial friendly places. Public transit is the perfect place to meet new people and really get to know them personally. Like whether or not they showered that morning, or ever.

Every time I've left a subway car, I've never had anything but empathetic happy thoughts of everyone on board.

If white people can't even shed their metaphoric klan robes on a subway car then there is very little hope for them. The democrats really are in trouble as a progressive party.

A subway car shouldn't make you wholesale have more negative perceptions of an entire group of people that just happens to align with skin colour.