Do you encounter more or less racism nowadays?

from the sound of it you grew up in a town so white there wasn't a whole lot of opportunity for racism to reveal itself. not to get all yoda but hate is a reflection of fear, and a few minority families scattered around town isn't going to raise too many hackles. on the other hand, in college you have a bunch of kids who are experiencing many new things at once, including new cultures and ethnicities. that foreignness is going to bring out a lot of insecurity, ignorance, anger, and even hate.

I've found that since I've hugged my Hispanic maid after learning she's the only one who's really there for me, racism no longer exists.

damn you, supersucker. in writing my response I forgot I wanted to get an easy crash joke in there.

Of course people still race cars.

We've got a mixed bag of prejudices here. Blacks and homosexuals get a lot less trouble than they used to where I live in the UK. Unfortunately it's pretty grim with respect to asylum seekers and immigrants from North Africa and Asia (especially), gypsies (or travellers) and economic migrants from the EU accession countries.

Right now a weird kind of contagious schizophrenia seems to be sweeping Britain. It allows you to bitterly complain about Mr. Ahmed draining the state through the social security system (thus threatening civilisation as we know it), fictionalize your tax returns and continue to function as a rational human being.

Blair, New Labour and the Conservative Party in opposition don't seem in the least bit concerned about this so I can only see things getting worse.

"People still hate each other, they just know how to hide it better."

None that I can see here.

Do you encounter more or less racism nowadays?

Aryan!

Dude, I so want an elite scarf now! Are they red?

As for your question....I just don't know. I have seen a lot of what you say during my extended vacation called college. Some of the kids from the wealthiest families were horrid racists. It wasn't even funny in an absurdist French way.

I don't have stats for this and I could be generalizing. So here goes...

The upper economic class in the US is still mostly a white domain. However the ever growing middle class and upper middle class is exponentially more diverse. This would mean that a higher percentage of people in that class are interacting with people of other races and creeds. Interaction at an early age can help curb racism (at least to a degree).

If I hadn't known you were in Jersey, I would have figured it out from that response.

Excellent.

I grew up in a small town in Northwestern Ontario, Canada. I saw plenty of overt racism, mainly directed at Native Canadians.

Then I moved to a northern suburb of Atlanta. Not nearly as obvious here, but I find that I'm tested alot. People I have casual contact with (eg. mechanics, sales people, etc.) will say something inappropriate, waiting to see if they get a reaction from the 'white-guy'. I usually just close my eyes and shake my head, letting them know that the conversation is over.

I can't say as I'm seeing much of it, but if there's one thing that marks Seattle as much as liberalism, it's politeness, so maybe the racists are just keeping it to themselves. I've heard from people who've been to Boston that it's a pretty racist place in general, though. David Cross' last album had a reference to that effect as well. But since I've never been there, I'm just talking out of my ass.

I live in an area with an interesting mix of prejudices.
My town is in the midst of an impressive rejuvination. More and more Gen X professionals from Philadelphia (a mere ten minutes away) are moving here to raise their kids. The main street has become a restaurant district (all privately owned) visited by folks from other more affluent towns. We have a sizable gay population.
My town also happens to be located next to Camden, NJ, voted by Newsweek as the most crime ridden small city in the COUNTRY a few years in a row.
So- people from the surrounding burbs make snide remarks about our gay population. Many (if not most) people here in town fear an overflow of hispanic and black people from Camden. So much so that recent restrictions now prevent houses from being split into rentals. Camden has been slowly bringing industry back to the city (it actually thrived 30 years ago). If gentifrication starts to spread as well, these housing restrictions will repel much of the blacks and hispanics that are muscled out. They'll probably end up in Pennsauken, a larger town with cheaper real estate and many blue collar jobs.

All I have to say is that it's hard growing up white and middle class in america

Shit, it's hard growing up Hispanic/Black and upper middle class in America.

Apparently only towards liberal intellectual elite scarf-wearing pussies...and thank god, cuz I hate those fuckers!

I agree that racism is still around it's just less overt.

That's right, it's considered bad form to publicly express racism now. You can pass legislation that blatantly favors whites, and work it out so the police are more likely to be in a white neighborhood, and skew legal policies so that sentences are tougher on non-whites. You just can't stand up in public and say "Them niggers is lazy". That'll get you a talking-to of the sternest kind.

Yeah, that gay PC shit really bothers me.

Yeah, that really wasn't my point, but okay.

I see more ignorance about race and racism rather than overt racism.
People making comments on subjects which they've half or none of the information, and so on.
Though I've met one or two "skinheads" in my day, they're more ridiculous and pathetic than offensive and dangerous.

In Spain?

Noooooooo...

Just because our irresponsible (and that's putting it mildly) government is offering green cards galore for those inmigrants that should ever want to set foot in our country just for the sake of looking tolerant and vote-worthy when the unemployment rates are soaring and the precariousness of the job market is bitchier than ever doesn't mean we are becoming more and more racist. Noooooo...

Newsflashes, as of today Wednesday March 15th 2006: spanish coast guards rescue the bodies of 80+ north african shipwrecked immigrants while trying to cross over to our peninsula in lifeboats (...) The Canary Islands regional government claim to be overflooded by illegal immigration for the sixth straight month (...) Over 350 Immigrants try to reach the spanish coast daily (...) Illegal immigration mafias make over 3500 bil. euro with the complicity of the Moroccan government.

But hey, everything's looking good, really. Sorry to all of you, our EU neighbors.

When Shane's around, every other word seems to be "white-pride."

Hey, are you showing how stupid these arguments are, or do you actually believe that crap? Because if you believe those arguments, you're a dumbass. If not I owe you kisses and chocolate.

You guys are acting like racism is a bad thing.

Wayke up whayte payple!

I had something really neat happen to me at Best Buy the other week. As I was leaving there was a black family in front me. The cliched big momma with her four little kids. They seemed like lower class but whatever. Anyway, as we approached the exit they left right before me and the alarm went off. The employee sitting by the door looked, saw them and hesitated and they kept walking out... he stopped me instead even though I didn't go through the little detactor thingy yet so the alarm wouldn't have gone off because of me.

I found it odd that he didn't stop the black family who set the alarm off. I hope this doesn't come off as sounding racist but what I'm saying is is that I think he didn't stop them because he was scared it would look like he was picking on the black family because they're black. I didn't complain and actually didn't care since it took him a whole five seconds to de-magnitize my bag (which was already done by the cashier) and I was heading home anyways so I had nowhere to be.

I just loved the guy's expression when the alarm went off when the black family walked by the door. He clearly was thinking about what to do and you could tell he was thinking fast and hard. Like I said I hope this doesn't come off as me sounding racist. I don't want to be put in the same league as JuddL and his whole "retards aren't humans" thing.

Or Best Picture.

Interesting news bit this weekend: there was an attempted abduction in Portland in which a man snagged a two-year-old from a couple exiting a bus, and he was quickly tackled by a man on the sidewalk before he made it a block away. The man who tackled the would-be kidnapper was black.

The news then showed a test that the local station ran months earlier in which they play-acted a child abduction on the street with a hidden camera, to see how many people would interfere. After several runs, they got finally got one where two young men ran in to stop the kidnapping. Both men were black. The white people turned their heads and kept walking.

Now first of all, what does this say about white people in this culture? And more disturbingly, what does it say about the news coverage that they refused to acknowledge this in the commentary? They showed the footage, you could see everybody's skin color; but they didn't mention the disparity. Kind of harkens back to the Katrina looting/finding thing, doesn't it?

You do realize how silly this sounds, don't you? You want to take some limited test, performed in one section of one city on one day, throw out the fact that during several runs, no one of any color reacted at all, then once again throw out the fact that on this one particular time, other races besides whites didn't react, and then spin this whole thing into an indictment on every white person as a whole? Were there other blacks around during any of these times that didn't react? Asians? Hispanics? Middle Eastern? Do you have any other facts to support you claims that white culture as a whole won't help anyone at any time?
Dumb fucking statements like this is why we'll never be able to have honest discussions about race.

Calm yourself.

First of all, I didn't claim that this was some kind of systematic and exhaustive study that conclusively proved anything. I just thought it was interesting that the only people who felt the need to interfere happened to be black. I certainly didn't lay claim that "white culture as a whole won't help anyone at any time". I asked a question. But feel free to put words in my mouth if you feel that it strengthens your righteous indignation.

Then you cut off and ignored the final part of my post, which I thought was the more important bit, where the report failed to mention the race discrepancy. Conclusive or not, I find it worthy of mention.

What do you think?

Make that a box of white chocolate. No racism implied.

Okay, Sparky. Don't get your martyr complex in a bunch just because I called you on your silly sweeping comments. I was calm and the "righteous indignation" was more like minor annoyance. I don't feel like I was putting words in your mouth, either. I was simply finishing your thought and clarifying your implications. Not my fault that what you implied was ridiculous.
As for ignoring the rest of your post, that's because I had no problem with that part. See, posing the question "I wonder why only black men stopped to help in this particular incident?" is a lot different than running off at the mouth with "What does this say about white society?" Try and think out something before posting instead of tripping over yourself in an attempt to prove that you aren't racist. That dishonest crap is as harmful as pure, unfiltered bigotry.

You did so with assumptions about what my thought and my implications actually were, and to a ridiculous degree, I might add. I simply described something I'd seen on TV, and asked the question "What does this imply?" I thought I was stirring a little discussion. I didn't realize that it would be taken to mean "All white people are evil". It is my firm belief that evil and stupidity are doled out in equal portions to peoples of all races.

Not the best backpeddling I've ever seen, but I'll just chalk it up as we think each other are full of shit on this particular issue and move on.

Sorry, baby, why do you make me hurt you?

Here's some chocolate.

xoxoxoxoxoxox.

Love, Ali.