Job Discussion Forums

[cameron.mayo]

On a personal level; yes I have been racist in the past, odd comments/ behaviour etc...and yes these will probably slip out again in the heat of the moment in the future. I ask my self why? I think its a need to sometimes feel superior in the face of feeling threatened. In other words, at times I am not comfortable with my own inadequacy/masculinity. Its the same as sexism, alot of us men need to feel superior to women to sugar coat our own failings/short comings.


I'm in NYC and blind freddy can see black America to a degree has been shut out of opportunities white American has more access to. Why the shutting out, what happened to a fair go? TO me its about the majority bullying minorities to hold on to power/territory/money/decsion making etc...

[Captain Onigiri]

Racism is the labels we put on people based on how they look as opposed to the labels they may have earned as individuals.
I have never considered myself as a racist growing up. (possibly due to a lack of introspection and lack of a desire to wear pointy white sheets at night) One of my first real jobs out of college was as a Caseworker for Family Services in downtown Kansas City. (for those not familiar with the US welfare system, caseworkers at Family Services decide eligibility for the scant U.S. social welfare programs) Of course, African-Americans still bear the brunt of poverty in the U.S. I had to have a daily dialogue with myself about the reactions I had to my clients. Most importantly, I had to constantly remind myself at times that the clients I dealt with acted the way they did not because of race but because of poverty. It was very disturbing for me to discover that given the right conditions that some latent racism would come to the surface. Unless our parents were the most enlightened hippies, all of have some latent racism instilled in us as children. Strangely enough, it was the clients that came in and fulfilled every negative stereotype that made me the most angry.
So far all we've talked about is negative predjudices involved in racism. What about positive predjudices? Most Westerners think Asian children are brainiacs that will wreck the grading curve. Studies show that at least U.S. teachers expect more form the Asian students in their class. Those of you who have actually taught in Asia know there are at least a few Asian students (like all other cultures) that are dumb as bricks. Is that predjudice at good thing or a bad thing?

[Captain Onigiri]

Okay, my last post I really edited because I didn't want to make yet another page long post like I usually do. But now that I've re-read it I keep on saying to myself, "O God! What if they misunderstand that? What if they take that wrong." One probably shouldn't edit for brevity a post on a topic as delicate as racism.
What I mean to say when I was a caseworker was that sometimes I would go back to my cubicle as think to myself before I thought about it, "Why would [insert race here] people do such and such?" and I would have to conciously correct myself by saying, "They don't do [insert behavior I didn't understand] because they are [insert race here] but because this person lives in poverty and they do this to survive in life."
Anyway, I hope I didn't come across as an evil, racist SOB.

[abufletcher]

Captain, it's in situations like you found yourself in that really forced us to confront the racist demons we all have. Few of us have really had to come face to face with ourselves.

In the Gulf, it was common for expats to have maids (typcially from either India or the Philippines). Durng my years there I saw many friends, otherwise sensitive and caring people, come to act in ways that would have fit right into the pre-Civil War south. At parties you'd hear people say things that sounded like slave-owners sitting on the veranda: "Can't get a lick of work out of 'em." "Give'em a day off? Well, they'll just go out and get pregnant?"

Again these were otherwise reasonable, intelligent people, and it gave me pause to think that had I been born as a weathy white in the Old South I might have accepted without question the social order of my world.

It was my wife, herself from a very poor village background, who gave me balance in these situations. Being Mexican (and Mexicans being scarce in the Gulf) she was automatically assumed to be Philippino -- even by the Philippinos -- and as a result was often treated in the same ways. The Philippino women would come to her with their horror stories and phone her desperate for help when they had been locked in their employers apartments and had their passports taken away. When my wife was outside with our blond daughter, people (Philippinos and western expats) would come by and ask "Who's the mother?"

Then there was the "reverse racism" that was often quite hard to resist. I'd be driven downtown to do some paperwork and find 300 Indian and Pakistani workers waiting in line and inevitably some Omani official would see my white face and wisk me to the front of the line and I'd be done. How many people would have the moral fortitude to say "No, I'll just spend the next 6 hours in the sweltering heat in line with all these other people."

Western expats in Japan complain about racism but I don't think they appreciate all the slack they are cut because of the color of their skin. Slack that is not extended to other groups of foreigners here in Japan.

[David W]

[JimDunlop2]

This whole thread is ridiculous. Why should we spend all our time and effort pondering what racism means to us? Sounds like a grade 8 speech contest or essay topic.

When are we going to start concerning ourselves with ELIMINATING racism in all its forms, no matter how it affects us (or doesn't) or what it means to us (or doesn't).

Here are some resources to get you started.

http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cerd/

http://www.amnesty.org/

http://www.internationalanswer.org/

[stillnosheep]

bump

[cameron.mayo]

Jim wrote:
Why should we spend all our time and effort pondering what racism means to us? When are we going to start concerning ourselves with ELIMINATING racism in all its forms, no matter how it affects us (or doesn't) or what it means to us (or doesn't).

Because eliminating it starts with understanding it. And as you can see most of the punters, myself included, and definately you, would not have a clue where to begin.

EXCEPT: that the common thread we all share is 'being in an environment where we are in the minority'

To me this is a great place to start, don't under-estimate the gutz it takes to do this.

[JimDunlop2]

If you have to wait until you understand it entirely, you will never achieve anything. There's plenty you can do and you don't have to have a PhD to do it... Did you know there's an Amnesty chapter in Tokyo? Sometimes they hold events -- maybe you could consider attending one. A lot more practical in my mind than sitting here writing essays.

Dakara... I certainly have a clue where to begin. The question is, do you?

P.S. What's a punter?

[angrysoba]

Jim:

Kudos to Amnesty and I still want to believe in the UN, but that ANSWER group look like they're pushing an utterly irresponsible agenda.

"Bring the troops home now!" means letting Iraq slide into further chaos and handing it over to terrorists.

[cameron.mayo]

Jim: And what do you do to combat racism?

[JimDunlop2]

I attended the March in March -- which was not only about workers' rights but also about human rights and elimination of racial discrimination and profiling.

I've written letters to newspapers.

I've taught racial awareness classes to my students (elementary and jr. high).

I've taught my students (and other teachers) about human rights leaders and important figures like Nelson Mandella and Martin Luther King Jr. I've also tried to teach them the universality of their achievements for all people, including the Japanese.

I haven't yet, but plan on submitting an affidavit in Debito Arudo's racism lawsuit against the Japanese government.

These are the things that come to my mind right away.


It would certainly be nice to do more -- and perhaps some ideas or suggestions could come out of this thread. I don't have the free time to be a full-time activist, but I do think there are things we can all do in our own communities.

[cafebleu]

Great points on this thread. I'd like to address a few - in my opinion and I think it's backed up by evidence, the notion of IQ and race has and continues to be confused by the inability to separate culture/environment and intelligence level.

In Japan I became fed up with hearing older students (not all of them, mind but enough of them) trumpet the superiority of the Asian IQ. The evidence - that Asian students in some studies regularly outscore their Caucasian (hate that word but we know what it means) and Black/Coloured peers. A reality check is needed here.

What separates Asians such as Japanese, Chinese and Korean people from their peers of other races in countries such as the USA where a lot of this data comes from, is a general difference in parental expectations. If you are an African American in Compton, LA, for example and you have no strong male role models involved in meaningful work, you are more likely to quit school early and get caught up in a semi legal/illegal lifestyle on the streets. Same for some places in New York, to give only two examples.

'Experts' who like to criticise Blacks in the USA by comparing them unfavourably to Korean immigrants' children, for example, miss one key point. These people have a strong cultural influence for success in their new country, particularly in business. The ubiquity of Korean grocery and other shops in poor/poorer areas of the USA, often where other minorities, live is not evidence of the superiority of the intellect of Koreans.

It shows a different cultural influence at work, one that embraces business and one that is fostered by families pooling their resources. Non Asians have also demonstrated this - Italians in the UK, US and Australia often started their own businesses by drawing on family savings which cut out the need to go to third parties and suffer high interest rates.

The whole history of how Africans ended up in the USA depicts influences working against those stablising cultural influences towards business. Slavery, then 'freedom', segregation in the wake of 'freedom", and the pronounced gap between an African American middle class and a notable African American underclass.

Such influences did not encourage African Americans to make study their prime objective or running businesses in tandem with families who had savings their choice.

Even now, Asian students depict cultural influences in their allegedly higher IQs - and the Japanese, for example, can be said in one respect to appear to lack a certain form of intelligence compared with some other racial groups, which I'll get to later. From elementary school, Asian students are made to learn by rote. Something which older posters might recall being part of their own school days before schools in western countries adopted the notion that literacy rules, mathematical rules were not fundamental from the jump.

The Japanese/Korean/Chinese school systems teach their elementary school students to learn maths and grammar, etc by rote. That makes it easier for them to progress to equations and to learn their complicated alphabets to give only two examples. That is the chief reason Asian students do better on IQ tests which deal with mathematical/logical matters. Much as many non Asian teachers find that kind of teaching soul destroying it does give Asian students the fundamentals for performing better than non Asians in those IQ tests.

However, lateral thinking is also a crucial part in determining intelligence. And I don't think it's biased to say after my experiences in Japan and those of many others, that lateral thinking is in short supply there - as well as in some other Asian countries. Again, it's cultural and not instrinsic to whether ancestry is Asian, White, African etc.

Being given formulas and rules and being told what to do is fine for learning in one respect but it also produces a number of people who cannot find solutions on their own. Many non Japanese have commented on how difficult Japanese people find it to work unsupervised or to come up with solutions without referring to set rules. Or how difficult it is to get them to follow a logical train of thought when responding to different challenges or situation - as opposed to following the logic of mathematical rules taught in the school system, for example.

Japanese society's achievements are largely derivative - ie Japan has borrowed overwhelming from non Japanese sources for its technology etc. Japan has always been a borrower rather than an initiator which tells us about the culture.

[abufletcher]

[Keith_Alan_W]

Perhaps a better question than that of the existence of race, is whether the denial of race works?

Just take a look at the French press over the past year and outsiders see 'racial tensions' and 'racial violence', all in a country that officially denies the existence of race. In fact in France it is illegal to ask questions concerning peoples racial heritage or ethnic background. Just look at the mess they're in. Sure, you can respond, 'it's got to do with economic status and the disenfranchised,' but the fact remains that (besides the current situation concerning young people's wages in general) that the economically disenfranchised don't have white skin and are predominately non-Christian.

In Britain it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of race or skin color, but it is perfectly legal to discriminate on the basis of religion. So in the UK, you CAN put a sign in front of your shop or other type of business saying no Catholics, Muslims, Buddhists, etc., but does this not target people of a specific racial or ethnic background?

I myself am a 'nuturist not a naturist', meaning that I do not buy into claims that Asians are better at math etc. etc. But, on the other hand, i am a multiregional evolutionist (I.E. the human race did not solely evolve in Africa, but in many places simultaneously), so I have my own conflict of interest here and it is very hard for me to reconcile the two positions.

I think that in a perfect world we would all just consider ourselves 'human', but unfortunately, culture, that great social brainwashing tool that has allowed for all of our advancements from the days of cavemen, leads to an inability to understand people from other cultures and an undue sense of pride in the culture/race/ethnic group that we know best, our own. Unfortunately, such undue pride is a necessary thing in order fore cultures to maintain their existence, thus racism, cultural and ethnic superiority are endemic in human society.

Also, all this talk of Asians and Caucasians and whatever large grouping one can think of, doesn't really lend it self to the core of racism. For example the Han people (the majority in China) consider themselves to be a different race than the Japanese. I proclaim my Celt ancestry and refuse to be classified in a group that includes the Anglo-Saxons (I.e. the English), the Hutu and the Tutsi's are 'blacks' to Westerners, but they see themselves as very different.

Anyone on this forum ever been to Poland? They are an interesting group. Completely white, but not similar to Scandinavians at all.　You can pick out a Pole in group of Northern Germans just as quickly as you can pick out a Japanese person in a group of Northern Germans. Physical differences are obvious and our brains have been hardwired to notice such differences and categorize them into stereotypical groups accordingly. (Wonder what I'm talking about? Think of the word 'chair'. Do you have a picture in your mind? Does everything we know as a chair match that picture? No they don't. The visual representation is our stereotype. It helps organize a certain piece of furniture into a category, but it doesn't match all the possibilities. Now think of the words 'white man'...). This is the biological explanation of where racism comes from. The cultural explanation involves misunderstanding people of different cultural groups. And the violent social bigotry cause of violence etc. is PRIDE.

So to solve the problem of racism, people need to seek understanding of other cultres instead of judging them. We need to realise that we are biologicaly predetermined to stereotyping and intellectually challenge this mechanism. And we need to stop being proud of what we have no control over (the colors of our skin, the religions we've been socialized into etc.).

Here's a funny, but scary video concerning Americans knowledge about the world. (If these people were to start a war, Austrailia would be in trouble )

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1215977913765241144&q=where+is+North+Korea&pl=true