January 27, 2014

Whites think they're losing to blacks

Study Finds White Americans Believe They Experience More Racism Than African Americans

By M.B. DavidThere’s a saying that “the new racism is to deny that racism exists.” If that is the case, it may explain a study conducted by researchers from Tufts University’s School of Arts and Sciences and Harvard Business School. Their findings claim that self-described white Americans believe they have “replaced blacks” as the primary victims of racial discrimination in contemporary America.

The authors say that their study highlights how the expectations of a “post-racial” society, predicted or imagined in the wake of Barack Obama’s presidency, has far from been achieved.

The study finds that while both Caucasian and African Americans agree that anti-black racism has decreased over the last 60 years, whites believe that anti-white racism has increased. Moreover, the study finds that the majority of Caucasians believe that anti-white racism is a “bigger problem” than what African Americans face.

Tufts Associate Professor of Psychology Samuel Sommers, PhD is the co-author of the article “Whites See Racism as a Zero-sum Game that They Are Now Losing,” from the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science. He comments that ”It’s a pretty surprising finding when you think of the wide range of disparities that still exist in society, most of which show black Americans with worse outcomes than whites in areas such as income, home ownership, health and employment.”
White supremacy wins again: Melissa Harris Perry and the racial false equivalence

What costs white folks a slap on the wrist, or a mildly disapproving look, costs black people our dignity

By Brittney Cooper
This faux-outrage on the right about MHP’s racism and insensitivity obscures exactly this set of truths about the right’s shoddy record on race. That both Mitt Romney and Phil Robertson have and love black grandbabies should remind us that racism is not primarily about individual attitudes. White folks can love individual black people and still build a world that is inhospitable to black folks. In fact, individual and exceptional black achievers are necessary to maintain the lie of racial progress. Their presence has very little to do with systemic change, though.

Two professors at Tufts released a recent study that found that white Americans believe they have replaced black people as the primary victims of racial discrimination. While both whites and black people agreed that anti-black bias was high in the 1950s and had decreased over time, white respondents to the study perceived a sharp increase in anti-white bias, while blacks perceived such bias to be nonexistent. The question is whether this perception of anti-white bias bears out in material terms.

White Americans currently have 19 times the wealth of African-Americans. That gap has increased, not decreased, since 1995 when it was at an all-time low of 7-to-1. A 2010 study from Brandeis University found that even among the wealthiest African-Americans, wealth has fallen from $25,000 to $18,000. Perhaps even more shocking is that the wealth of upper-middle-class whites “surged to $240K.” So not only is white wealth increasing, but among African-Americans being “wealthy” on average means you have $18K in assets. That is laughably absurd.

Yet 83 percent of white Americans believe that equality has been achieved or will be achieved in the foreseeable future. Are you crying yet? The rest of this study will make you weep.

But here is the larger point: Trumped-up white outrage has material consequences for black people. Yet it is rarely rooted in anything real other than the perception of black and brown threat. That perception got Trayvon Martin and Renisha McBride and Jonathan Ferrell killed. It put Melissa Harris-Perry’s job in jeopardy. It has caused us to be less vigilant as a nation in making the playing field equal.

This is the height of cultural delusion: blaming the person on whose neck you’re standing for twisting your ankle.


Blacks to blame, naturally

Not only has white racism against blacks ended, says one conservative nutcase, but blacks are to blame for it.

Yes, you heard that right. Blacks are responsible for causing the racism they experience. How? By complaining about racism, blacks make whites so angry that they can't control their feelings. As with George Zimmerman, rage drives white folks to discriminate against, persecute, attack, and kill black folks.

Fox News contributor: Angry blacks to blame for rise in ‘American Anglo-Saxon’ racism

By Travis GettysA Christian radio host insisted last week that white people were no longer racist, and even if they were, it’s the fault of racist black people.

Sandy Rios, of American Family Radio, was offended when a listener suggested she was racist toward black people, who she blamed for inciting white racism.

“I think the racist garbage coming from the—uh, a lot of blacks right now who are just filled with bitterness and rage is just amazing to me,” Rios said. “It is racism, I am seeing it constantly here in D.C., you know, I think—and it’s causing white citizens to become more racist than they ever were.”

She continued, referring to white people using the term for Germanic tribes that once dominated England and is now generally associated with British-American Protestants and white supremacists.

“I think for the most part, the American Anglo-Saxon crew really has moved past racism, they did it quite a long time ago,” she said.

Rios, a Fox News contributor, said racism had demonstrably ended because segregation was no longer legally enforced and the nation had elected a black president.

“I mean, they did elect Barack Obama twice, so I think it’s not nearly the issue in the white community that it was in the 50s, sure it isn’t, or the 60s—it just isn’t,” she said. “But it seems to be raging, racism seems to be absolutely raging in the black community.”

She blamed this rise of racist feelings among whites on this same black president who signaled the end of American racism.
White and Racist? Blame it on Black People?

By Robert De FilippisWell that settles it and puts the history of racism in this country in a new light.

Let’s take this back a couple hundred years. Now I know how Black slaves brought on their own bad treatment.

They were filled with “bitterness and rage” consequently the White slave holders were provoked into their racist feelings and treatment of Blacks. You know what I mean, lashing them, impregnating their women, breaking up families, taking their names, languages, religions, and cultures away from them. All these were valiant efforts to reduce White racism.

As anyone can now see, Whites have made great strides in trying to eliminate racism for over 200 years, like when they lynched Blacks for their own good. After all, getting rid of a source of White racism was a good thing, right?
And as our latest historian, theologian, and duck hunter extraordinaire, Phil Robertson recently told us, when he worked right alongside Blacks in the cotton fields as a young man, he never met an unhappy Black person in the South.

Now I understand better. An unhappy Black person could probably make several White people turn racist, so in order to keep racism as non-existent as it was in the South, most Blacks just sat on their bitterness and anger, swallowed hard and moved on. And it worked so well.

That is until some really “bitter and angry” Blacks tried to vote, get served in restaurants, sit anywhere on a bus, go to movies or stay in town after sundown. They really created a great deal of White racism. And Whites had no option but to turn police dogs and fire hoses on them to relieve their own feelings of racism.


Meanwhile, racism continues

Back in reality, it's unfortunately easy to find scientific data proving the ongoing harm of racism. For instance:

Study: Racism may speed cell aging and premature death in black men

By David EdwardsA study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine this week found that aging was accelerated at the cellular level in African-American men who reported experiencing racial discrimination and who internalized anti-black attitudes.

Although it is well-known that African-Americans have a shorter life span than whites, researchers from the University of Maryland are believed to be the first to link biological aging to racism-related factors, according to UMD Right Now.
Comment:  For more on whites whining about being the victims, see:

Whites think they're discriminated against
Whites "sick of the race card"
Mentioning racism = dwelling on past?

For a few examples of people who didn't get the memo that racism is over, see:

Hating Indians is in vogue
Boastful cornerback = "thug"?
GOP official: "Herd all the Indians"
Tittler the Internet troll
Native stereotypes in Life of Brian

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