I am a racist?

[Toilailee]

..or at least a particularly prejudiced person.

Last night a black person pulled over in his beat up old corolla within 10-20 meters from me and I instantly prepared myself for fight to the death. I readied the utility knife I had in my pocket, which I use at work and usually have with me because of that (not because I feel the need to carry a weapon ), and went through the possible scenarios in my head. If he comes at me with a melee weapon I can take him on, or if he has a gun it's unlikely he'll hit me at that distance in the dark and I can run for cover behind a building and then keep on running or something.

Absolutely no reason for my reaction other than that I happened to see he was black and that he drove a junker. Any1 relate?

[Black Relic]

To be honest. I think anyone would do something like that (me included) in a situation like that. Although the person doesn't need to be black.

But I would rather say you where for overly cautious of a situation and prepared for the worst, not necessarily racism, unless you have trouble being around or working with them.

[ChrisNihilus]

Racism and common sense are two different things.
Beign racist mean to thing that people of other races are inferior to yours.

But if a particular race or culture in your zone is associated with criminality, and has a higher statistic of assaults, then is just common sense. This is not because of their race but for their socio-conditions.
In fact it's normal for immigrants and many ethicities to live in poorer conditions than average, and sometime they have to rely on criminality to survive.

It's not about the race, it's an economic factor.

I'm pretty sure we all know that black persons that grow up in better conditions turn out to be excellent citizens, like any other.

[BaptismByLoli]

Personally, I would classify that as stereotyping. Or maybe that's just me...

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[Torpid]

Racism isn't necessarily about outright discrimination. Racism is also about prejudice. If you would have acted in that way had a person of every other ethnicity drove nearby to you then obviously you're not prejudiced, otherwise you are, in which case you're racist.

Furthermore I would like to note that the statistical discrepancies between the crime that people of an African descent are largely superficial and not a true reflection of black crime. That said, it's likely black people do commit more crime than non-black people. It's also likely that working class people commit more crime than middle class people. If a clear working class labourer, who's white, appeared in this same scenario would you brace yourself for mortal combat?

Oh and common sense doesn't exist. The closest thing to it would be the fundamental laws of logic, but a proper awareness of them (even if the terminology/naming is not known explicitly) is not very common at all...

[BaptismByLoli]

You need to stop being too serious and over-analytical before your hair turns white XD

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[Torpid]

Is there really such a thing as too serious, or over-analytical?

[BaptismByLoli]

Yep, there is ^^

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[RagingJenni]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwfGKEIn5xw

There's your homework for tonight.

[Atlas]

To answer the thread title, I don't think you're racist, but you didn't do a great job explaining yourself.

[Lost Son of Nikhel]

No. You aren't racist. Your body and mind simply prepared by themselves for a possible dangerous situation, maybe a possible kidnapping.

I don't know how is in your countries, but the "racist" word is going to turn into the next Reduction ad Hitlerum. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum .Its used so many times that is losing his meaning.

[Batpimp]

as a latino man in a mostly white community let me tell you racism is real.

I don't think what you did made you racist toil, but it does mean you have beliefs about black people that are not all based on actual reality.

[ChrisNihilus]

I'm not American.
Here the discrepancies are huge; but not for Black people, Asians or whatever.
They are ok. We don't really have race-issues.

But we have a lot of cultures and some of them have criminality rates so high, ignore them in real life is just suicidal and foolish.
Prejudices are bad, but come from reality and facts.

I'm Italian, i know what prejudices are, i'm usually a part of them.
But i understand it. Most of us are dishonest and deceitful as the stereotype, my people did some real damage in other countries.

I'm not going to say that prejudices on me are unfair. They are not.

The only thing is that prejudices need to go away as soon we have a chance of knowing the person and that person prove them wrong. But sometime you don't have the time to know the other person (like in a dark alley), so prejudices are a good approximation.

We have a word that you don't have. "Buonista".
It mean a person that fanfare good sentiments, excesive tollarance and causeless benevolence just to make him looks and feel better, and because that don't touch him in anyway whatsoever, so he isn't going to pay the price anyway.

Being a racist and being a buonista is equally wrong.

[viggih]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwfGKEIn5xw

There's your homework for tonight.

He He He, you linked my countries contribution.

So happy right now.

[Wise Windu]

While racism is definitely real, I wouldn't say the things he seems to fear aren't based in fact. I can only speak for the U.S., but here there are statistics showing without a doubt that the crime and violent crime rates and incarceration rates for minorities is comparatively high.

To be fair though, the criminal justice system in the U.S. is pretty screwed up and tends to target minorities and poor communities because it's easier to do; and since a lot of prisons are becoming private (they get paid more by the government for having more prisoners) and a lot of police stations have been using arrest numbers as a measuring stick for salary and promotion, the incentive to go for easy profiling and minor drug arrests is very high, and having sheriffs who were promoted to their positions because of their arrest records perpetuates that kind of thing. It doesn't help that most prisons don't do anything to help the prisoners find jobs after they get out, and that most jobs have the "did you commit a crime" check box on applications. It makes it so that prisoners don't have many options when they get out and tend to go back to crime.

It's kind of fucked up, the system pretty much makes the society more like what people seem to be paranoid about instead of fixing it.

[RagingJenni]

He He He, you linked my countries contribution.

So happy right now.

Hey thanks for giving us something other than weightlifters

I'm not American.
Prejudices are bad, but come from reality and facts.

That's not true. We also create prejudices from what we're told which doesn't necessarily have to be real or factual.

To be completely serious this is a racist prejudice and I don't think you can argue it since Toil even explains how he reacted to the man being black. Poor (judging by the car) black men don't have a good reputation in media.

That being said I've had the same reaction, though that might be because I come from a city with very few immigrants per capita. It's just one of those things you have to learn to recognise as racist.

You should still be ready to fight if some guy approaches you down a dark street tho. I always got my keys ready so I can stab anyone that breaches my 3m safety zone

[Lost Son of Nikhel]

That's not true. We also create prejudices from what we're told which doesn't necessarily have to be real or factual.

To be completely serious this is a racist prejudice and I don't think you can argue it since Toil even explains how he reacted to the man being black. Poor (judging by the car) black men don't have a good reputation in media.

That being said I've had the same reaction, though that might be because I come from a city with very few immigrants per capita. It's just one of those things you have to learn to recognise as racist.

You should still be ready to fight if some guy approaches you down a dark street tho. I always got my keys ready so I can stab anyone that breaches my 3m safety zone

Were are you from, Raging? Because in my experience, it's upside down.

In my country, Spain, if an immigrant (black people, asian, muslims...) commits a crime (any type of crime) its simply ignored or, in the best situation, mass media (progresist or conservative, I doesn't matter) said that they are "isolated incidents", when they are almost the 40% of the convicts of the Spanish's jails when they only are the 11% of the Spain population.

But, hey, beware if the attacker is a white guy/girl and the victim is an immigrant. Prepare yourself for dozens and dozens of reportages and weeks of information about the aggressor, where you are going to know even how many times the guy/girl fart throughout the day. Prepare yourself for fucktons of bull sessions about how the racism is growing in Spain. Prepare yourself for a bunch of protest marchs against the "racism".

And in any Europe's country AFAIK isn't different.

[Torpid]

Ok, Nikhel, your comment confused me. Do you think that somehow having different coloured skin makes you 400% more likely to commit crime? Probably not, so it has to come down to income right? Well, why don't poor ethnic majorities get imprisoned at disproportionate to the average rates?

Oh wait... Institutional racism. The very reason why you think that immigrants are so criminal is the very reason why they are so criminal. If police only look for racial crime, they will only find racial crime. If police stop and search 3x as many blacks as whites, obviously they are going to find blacks, on average, are 3x more likely to be carrying weapons then whites and you know what all this does? It fuels the institutional racism further and the statistics cause additional prejudice which then makes then stop immigrants even more, just because they were "driving while black... or Yellow, or brown, or whatever fucking non-majority colour they happen to be".

I'de also like to note that prejudice is where people form beliefs about people of a certain type without basis. A stereotype need not be prejudiced. Now, if ethnic minorities really do commit a significant amount of additional crime than ethnic majorities then acting differently in their presence is not racist, because it isn't prejudiced as there is underlying factual basis there. If however they do not commit a significant amount of additional crime then acting differently is racist as it is prejudiced to do so.

I guess ultimately according to all these definitions, whether or not Toil was racist depends on the extent to which black people in his country actually do commit more crime than other ethnicity's. Obviously, statistics saying they do is not them actually committing more crime. I don't live there though, I live in the UK and here the difference in non-London real crime between ethnicities is from my experience negligible and so if he acted that way outside of London in the UK he would be racist, but acting the same in London wouldn't be racist.

[BaptismByLoli]

I think we can all agree that Racism is a pain in the ass to deal with

[RagingJenni]

Were are you from, Raging? Because in my experience, it's upside down.

In my country, Spain, if an immigrant (black people, asian, muslims...) commits a crime (any type of crime) its simply ignored or, in the best situation, mass media (progresist or conservative, I doesn't matter) said that they are "isolated incidents", when they are almost the 40% of the convicts of the Spanish's jails when they only are the 11% of the Spain population.

But, hey, beware if the attacker is a white guy/girl and the victim is an immigrant. Prepare yourself for dozens and dozens of reportages and weeks of information about the aggressor, where you are going to know even how many times the guy/girl fart throughout the day. Prepare yourself for fucktons of bull sessions about how the racism is growing in Spain. Prepare yourself for a bunch of protest marchs against the "racism".

North Bothnia, Sweden. Sweden take in a lot of immigrants but overall fewer in the northern counties. We have the same buzz going on about hate crime and such but it's pretty much needed since the conflict about how many immigrants we're taking in is steadily growing. But what's happening to us seem to be the same as what happens to you; whenever a man with immigrant background gets assaulted the newspapers flip out about it, and in the end that proves more how deeply ingrained the prejudices we have, are. They are basically shouting "Look! White people beat up other people too it's not just immigrants!" Right now we have a new major party called the swedish democrats who have inspired a massive anti racist movement, which more than anything else shows how prejudiced people on both sides are.

Tbh though I'm more prejudiced against 100+ kg white men with shaved heads since we do have a nazi problem.

[ChrisNihilus]

Were are you from, Raging? Because in my experience, it's upside down.

In my country, Spain, if an immigrant (black people, asian, muslims...) commits a crime (any type of crime) its simply ignored or, in the best situation, mass media (progresist or conservative, I doesn't matter) said that they are "isolated incidents", when they are almost the 40% of the convicts of the Spanish's jails when they only are the 11% of the Spain population.

But, hey, beware if the attacker is a white guy/girl and the victim is an immigrant. Prepare yourself for dozens and dozens of reportages and weeks of information about the aggressor, where you are going to know even how many times the guy/girl fart throughout the day. Prepare yourself for fucktons of bull sessions about how the racism is growing in Spain. Prepare yourself for a bunch of protest marchs against the "racism".

And in any Europe's country AFAIK isn't different.

Same problem here... well similar.
Our media don't ignore if a crime is committed by an immigrant (usually it's the opposite), but the law don't have the strenght to touch him.

We had been more than several cases where immigrants killed multiple people at once, and they spend just a couple of weeks of prison or nothing at all.
If he is a clandestine that commit a crime, he receive a letter that intimate him to go away... and that's it. No real power to do anything.

[Nurland]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=mZAiLTsvzbI

[Swift]

You are not rascist, because the likely hood is that in a situation where a man pulled up in his car right next to you, you would probably think why he would choose that space than any other. This more so if a man with a bald head and big arms wearing a vest came along, then you would feel more provoked to defend yourself than a black man walking by. It depends more on how they present themselves, but the fact someone got out of the car next to you will be more likely the factor that caused you react in that way, the person getting out is only a secondary consideration.

[Surprise Attack!]

As another american but also an immigrant not born in the USA, I can relate. I don't think you are racist, but rather, prejudiced like 90% of the world's population. Wouldn't lose sleep over it.

You're not one of those who walks around telling me how I need to exterminate the xenos and purge the unbelievers.

And no, I'm not talking about the fictional world of WH40k.

[Toilailee]

As another american but also an immigrant not born in the USA, I can relate. I don't think you are racist, but rather, prejudiced like 90% of the world's population. Wouldn't lose sleep over it.

You're not one of those who walks around telling me how I need to exterminate the xenos and purge the unbelievers.

And no, I'm not talking about the fictional world of WH40k.

I am no murican, nor do I live there. Such prejudices.

[Commissar Yarrick]

I personally do not call myself racist. I prefer term "Racially aware" Or "Racial realist" for few.
Tisk. tisk.

[Surprise Attack!]

As another american but also an immigrant not born in the USA, I can relate. I don't think you are racist, but rather, prejudiced like 90% of the world's population. Wouldn't lose sleep over it.

You're not one of those who walks around telling me how I need to exterminate the xenos and purge the unbelievers.

And no, I'm not talking about the fictional world of WH40k.

I am no murican, nor do I live there. Such prejudices.

O_o

Wait what? You aren't? For some reason I thought you were.

[Swift]

No, he is from Finland. Or a dank cave in Cornwall where they gnaw the bones of infidels.

[Toilailee]

As another american but also an immigrant not born in the USA, I can relate. I don't think you are racist, but rather, prejudiced like 90% of the world's population. Wouldn't lose sleep over it.

You're not one of those who walks around telling me how I need to exterminate the xenos and purge the unbelievers.

And no, I'm not talking about the fictional world of WH40k.

I am no murican, nor do I live there. Such prejudices.

O_o

Wait what? You aren't? For some reason I thought you were.

You should visit sometime, see what the free world is like.

[Torpid]

You should visit sometime, see what the free world is like.

QFT