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  1. #1
    Things Change Member JAG's Avatar
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    Default Re: Facing up to my own racism

    Quote Originally Posted by IrishArmenian
    Jag, the point is: its human nature to be afraid of/dislike differences.
    The goal is to rid oneself of those fears/dislikes.
    Hell, I've never bought into the Islamist extremist fear/stereotyping but other ones, rest assured, used to be prevalent in my mind.
    How is it human nature to be afraid of / dislike differences? I haven't read that manual on the human brain, obviously. The point I would make is, not only can you not prove that but it simply is not the case. Look around you, walk down the street, you will see an instance of someone not giving two hoots about racial difference. Why can't it be human nature to embrace difference? What is the difference between them which is so significant? What is so significant about about the dislike of difference which means it is some form of super universal value? There is no such thing as any value universal in humans, and you can't prove otherwise.

    Antioch - yes I am alive, just been, er, living I guess you could call it ;)

    the prejudice you talk of, how can it be universal when you yourself doubt it in the very same post.

    whatever names it's called, is an inner devil in all but the very few humans.
    It can't be universal if it is in 'all but the very few'.

    Furthermore the examples you give, fine some people may say that, but do all? That 'gangsta wannabe' you point out, has he got this prejudice, even though he is a 'white guy' 'acting' like a 'black guy'?

    And if it is prejudice you talk of, why does it have to be connected to race at all? Surely if it is merely prejudice and weary beliefs people hold you are on about, why be connected to race at all. Surely the same kind of thing happens when some people might think of an old person sitting behind the wheel of a car - 'oh they are going to drive slow and be terrible' - or for that matter what some people might think of a white, skin headed youngster behind the wheel - 'oh he is going to drive crazy'. What it sounds like you are hinting at is not prejudice based on anything, merely stereotypes and prejudice in general. Nothing you state in your post explains why this has to be a merely racial thing.

    And stereotyping or this kind of prejudice again merely comes from society and culture, not by some human nature present in every human. I fail to see the point you put across.
    GARCIN: I "dreamt," you say. It was no dream. When I chose the hardest path, I made my choice deliberately. A man is what he wills himself to be.
    INEZ: Prove it. Prove it was no dream. It's what one does, and nothing else, that shows the stuff one's made of.
    GARCIN: I died too soon. I wasn't allowed time to - to do my deeds.
    INEZ: One always dies too soon - or too late. And yet one's whole life is complete at that moment, with a line drawn neatly under it, ready for the summing up. You are - your life, and nothing else.

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  2. #2
    American since 2012 Senior Member AntiochusIII's Avatar
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    Default Re: Facing up to my own racism

    Quote Originally Posted by JAG
    It can't be universal if it is in 'all but the very few'.
    Semantics.
    Quote Originally Posted by JAG
    Furthermore the examples you give, fine some people may say that, but do all? That 'gangsta wannabe' you point out, has he got this prejudice, even though he is a 'white guy' 'acting' like a 'black guy'?
    You're missing the point.

    The example is merely a popular anecdote of what is going on.

    Quote Originally Posted by JAG
    And if it is prejudice you talk of, why does it have to be connected to race at all? Surely if it is merely prejudice and weary beliefs people hold you are on about, why be connected to race at all. Surely the same kind of thing happens when some people might think of an old person sitting behind the wheel of a car - 'oh they are going to drive slow and be terrible' - or for that matter what some people might think of a white, skin headed youngster behind the wheel - 'oh he is going to drive crazy'. What it sounds like you are hinting at is not prejudice based on anything, merely stereotypes and prejudice in general. Nothing you state in your post explains why this has to be a merely racial thing.
    Quote Originally Posted by My posts from earlier
    One could call it prejudice, or any other name. It's the same mentality that -- I think, since I don't exactly speak for everyone -- whatever names it's called, is an inner devil in all but the very few humans.

    ...

    It was, I think, racism (white), a gap of age (old), class conflict (rich, "aristocratic"), and all sorts of other -isms mixed into one, all of which essentially refers to the same idea of "us" and "them."
    Let us explore the surface of racism shall we? What is it? A fear of different skin colors, different social backgrounds, different languages, different cultures, different... well, many differences mixed into one.

    What is xenophobia? A fear of people from foreign countries.

    Etc.

    What do they all have in common? A fear of difference. That's where I'm trying to point the topic to. No need to restrict ourselves because the same thing has many ways of expressing out.

    Quote Originally Posted by JAG
    And stereotyping or this kind of prejudice again merely comes from society and culture, not by some human nature present in every human. I fail to see the point you put across.
    Can you expand on this assertion?

    Curious. You seem to refuse to acknowledge what I (and apparently a lot of other people, going by this thread) see as innate racism in all of us, and consequently something worth exploring in. You claim it is entirely a societal construction; why?


    Quote Originally Posted by HoreTore
    Also, if something was "in human nature", then it should be logical that it applies to every human, shouldn't it? Well, if the OP is in our nature, then every european should behave the same way, shouldn't they? I mean, it's in our nature, wasn't that the point? But why then don't everyone react the same way? Maybe because it's a learned trait, not something in our nature?
    See the statement in Papewaio's sig.
    _____________

    Interesting indeed. You two seem to consider the concept of human nature as false. That is not a position I see very often. If you don't mind, how about expanding upon it for us?

    And before jumping anywhere, duly note that recognizing our base instincts is different from justifying them. Again, see Papewaio's sig.

    On a related point, I think both your assertions that "we" fear "Muslims" is the result of mass media and society pointing us that way. I sincerely think that they don't have nearly as much impact as you both claim they have. They might indeed be responsible for pointing our fears to the "Muslims," but that is merely a direction; the fear comes from us.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lemur
    I also don't see why people are jumping on PJ's comment. I thought it was perfectly fair.
    Based on your advice, I shall pay very much attention to this Arabic-looking guy I see every other day in class for fear of his potential danger based on the general perception of terrorists of today I think.

    It's not my fault of course. It never is. I'm just rightfully afraid because people who apparently look like him are apparently doing bad things around the world. And this has nothing to do with racism either.
    Last edited by AntiochusIII; 10-09-2007 at 08:25.

  3. #3
    Praefectus Fabrum Senior Member Anime BlackJack Champion, Flash Poker Champion, Word Up Champion, Shape Game Champion, Snake Shooter Champion, Fishwater Challenge Champion, Rocket Racer MX Champion, Jukebox Hero Champion, My House Is Bigger Than Your House Champion, Funky Pong Champion, Cutie Quake Champion, Fling The Cow Champion, Tiger Punch Champion, Virus Champion, Solitaire Champion, Worm Race Champion, Rope Walker Champion, Penguin Pass Champion, Skate Park Champion, Watch Out Champion, Lawn Pac Champion, Weapons Of Mass Destruction Champion, Skate Boarder Champion, Lane Bowling Champion, Bugz Champion, Makai Grand Prix 2 Champion, White Van Man Champion, Parachute Panic Champion, BlackJack Champion, Stans Ski Jumping Champion, Smaugs Treasure Champion, Sofa Longjump Champion Seamus Fermanagh's Avatar
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    Default Re: Facing up to my own racism

    Quote Originally Posted by JAG
    How is it human nature to be afraid of / dislike differences? I haven't read that manual on the human brain, obviously. The point I would make is, not only can you not prove that but it simply is not the case. Look around you, walk down the street, you will see an instance of someone not giving two hoots about racial difference. Why can't it be human nature to embrace difference?
    Consider:

    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    Our Aversion to the Unfamiliar
    Judy Illes, Vivian Chin
    Brain and Culture: Neurobiology, Ideology, and Social Change. Bruce E. Wexler. xii + 307 pp. The MIT Press, 2006. $34.

    In her 1992 book, Imperial Eyes, literary scholar Mary Louise Pratt observed that "the space in which peoples geographically and historically separated come into contact with each other and establish ongoing relations" is often a battlefield, "usually involving conditions of coercion, radical inequality, and intractable conflict." This concept of a contact zone (to use the term Pratt coined for it) provides the basis for a hypothesis that Bruce Wexler tests in Brain and Culture—that early wiring in the brain makes it hard for people later to accept novelty and unfamiliar experiences. Difficulty in handling the unfamiliar—people with a different skin color, different values or a different ideology, for example—is an essential feature of the often-negative interactions between cultures.

    Wexler's thesis is that "the developing human brain shapes itself to its environment." The particular form of the environment is relatively insignificant. What is important, Wexler claims, is that incongruities between the environment and the developed brain introduce distress and dysfunction. He bases his argument on findings from laboratory experiments, which he applies to psychological and social problems.

    After a brief introduction describing how the human brain works, Wexler provides in part I ("Transgenerational Shaping of Human Brain Function") a review of basic neurobiological experiments examining brain plasticity. The range of topics within this domain is great and includes visual-adaptation experiments, language acquisition through imitation, and the effects of parental nurturing and sibling interactions on the development of human intelligence. In his discussion of these subjects, Wexler explores the relation between the internal structure of the brain and the external environment. For example, human frontal lobes (which, as Wexler points out, are "thought to be closely associated with values, morality, emotion, and other personality traits") are not fully mature until the age of 20 to 25 years. This late maturation may provide an evolutionary advantage, he says, in that it affords more time "to incorporate the growing collective wisdom and latest innovations."

    Part II ("The Neurobiology of Ideology") constitutes the heart and soul of this volume. Here Wexler brings empirical data from laboratory experiments to bear on historical phenomena, and neuroanatomical data to bear on social phenomena. He describes, for example, how brain-imaging studies have correlated activation of the amygdala—induced when people view pictures of ethnically diverse human faces—with social prejudice. He explores the neurobiological antagonism to difference, whether it relates to the relatively mundane (dress, food, theater) or the more profound (premarital sexual behavior, escape from a brutal parent, disobedience in combat).

    In addition, Wexler explains that people develop internal, experience-determined neural structures that "limit, shape, and focus perception" on the aspects of environmental stimulation that they commonly experience. Their external and internal worlds, therefore, act in concordance with each other. Wexler argues that when people are faced with information that does not agree with their internal structures, they deny, discredit, reinterpret or forget that information. When changes in the environment are great, corresponding internal changes are accompanied by distress and dysfunction. The inability to reconcile differences between strange others and ingrained notions of "humanness" can culminate in violence. The neurobiological imperative to maintain a balance between internal structures and external reality fuels this struggle for control, which contributes to making the contact zone a place of intractable conflict. The result manifests itself in our world today in, to give two examples, racial inequality and intercultural hostility. Indeed, part of the problem, Wexler suggests, is that interaction among diverse populations is a relatively new phenomenon:

    For 80,000 to 100,000 years human beings lived in isolated communities distributed around the globe. Division into separate communities may have preceded the development of much of a language or culture, and there may never have been a common human language or culture as we think of each today. Certainly cultures developed independently of one another over most of the history of the species, and each community was unaware that most of the others even existed. The distinguishing feature of the current epoch in human development is the discovery and initiation of contact among previously separate and very different peoples and cultures.
    Wexler describes how the prejudicial beliefs that lead to cultural clashes derive directly from sociocultural input, beginning with the important adults (parents, for instance) to whom an individual is exposed during childhood. He makes a few bigger leaps that are less easy to digest, such as when he compares a kitten's experience with unfamiliar oblique lines in a visual-plasticity experiment to that of an immigrant displaced from a village distinguished by flatlands to a city of skyscrapers. But his arguments are provocative and thoughtful nonetheless.

    However, Wexler does not appear to have considered the simple fact that some unknowns bring joy. Personality, sense of identity and taste can have a profound effect in determining whether unfamiliar stimuli are perceived as negative. People often have positive reactions to new experiences, such as the sound of an agreeable piece of music never heard before, the smell of a delicious but unfamiliar recipe, or even novel concepts such as the ones in this book.

    There have also been times when communities and even nations have overcome cultural conflict. Consider the work of Martin Luther King or the women's rights movement. To take another example, many immigrants forced to leave their home countries suffer irrecoverably from the experience, but others choose to move and find better opportunities or maybe just a pleasant change of pace. Some people are driven to help others from different cultures, as evidenced by the long existence of international organizations such as the Peace Corps, Doctors Without Borders and Engineers Without Borders.

    Furthermore, Wexler's position is that familiarity, or "consonance between inner and outer worlds," is inherently pleasurable. An external event that coincides with a past experience in a person's life, he asserts, is enjoyable "merely on the basis of familiarity and independent of any qualities of the object." But people often express negative reactions toward familiar stimuli, such as boredom with a job or relationship. In addition, some immigrants avoid moving to familiar social environments that might incite memories of painful or stressful experiences, such as racial or gender inequality. Thus not all goal-directed behavior can be explained by the internal-external dichotomy on which Wexler bases his position. These counterexamples cast doubt on his claim that familiarity is always pleasurable.

    The brain is, after all, both the driver and receiver of ideology. Certainly much of human behavior is hardwired. But unlike the heart, liver or even our genes, the brain can respond in a dynamic way not only to internal physiological cues but also to unpredictable external ones, and it can embody that response in future behavior. This book is a foray into uncharted territory, exploring how neuroscience can unveil ways to help us understand one another despite our differences. Wexler calls for education to alter our instinctive aversion to the unfamiliar, and Brain and Culture is a significant contribution to that effort. It is an approach from which all citizens and all cultures can benefit.


    Might also look up neophobes and neophiles for some good info here.


    There exists a substantial body of research that suggests that this "aversion" characteristic is the next thing to "hardwired" in most of us. BG is to be commended for forcing himself to face this issue and attempt a resolution for himself.
    "The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that's why it's so essential to preserving individual freedom.” -- Milton Friedman

    "The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." -- H. L. Mencken

  4. #4
    Prince of Maldonia Member Toby and Kiki Champion, Goo Slasher Champion, Frogger Champion woad&fangs's Avatar
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    Default Re: Facing up to my own racism

    Not entirely sure what I can add to this thread so I'll just say thank you for creating this it BG.
    Why did the chicken cross the road?

    So that its subjects will view it with admiration, as a chicken which has the daring and courage to boldly cross the road,
    but also with fear, for whom among them has the strength to contend with such a paragon of avian virtue? In such a manner is the princely
    chicken's dominion maintained. ~Machiavelli

  5. #5
    Member Member RoadKill's Avatar
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    Default Re: Facing up to my own racism

    It's called Tolerance, you can never get rid of racism, all you can do is stuff it down your throat and keep it to yourself, and smile about it.
    "I thought CA was unarmed? Unless he got some samurai swords or something... I only got some rocks and some sticks." Shlin in BR realizing he has no weapons what so ever.

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