Apartheid(Apart Hate): The Achilles Heel of Great Democracies- Society's Rigged Discriminated Underdevelopment.
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The Antithesis of Humanity
Racial attitudes in America have their antecedents in the culture of Elizabethan England, and when they came to the North America and the Caribbean, they came into frequent contact with peoples whose culture, religion and color was markedly different from their own. The Early responses of the Englishmen to Indians and Africans,lay the seeds of what would become, for centuries or more later, one of the most painful problems in American history- the problem of racial prejudice
For the past three to four presidential cycles, The United States has been facing some form of racial strife or another. Every segment of society has faced crise de conscience over the gap between promise and the reality of American life. The commitment to human dignity and equality for all citizens has been contradicted by persistent discrimination against large minority groups within the American Society. The causes and consequences of racism, and racial attitudes have shaped the American Experience since Europeans first set foot in the New World. Over time, we've had a chance to gain some insights into the racist assumptions that govern the perceptions and behavior of white Americans that are embedded in the institutions of our society today. These very actions are now clogging the media in all their forms and manifestations, and are part of the raging discourse by different people. President Lyndon B. Johnson established a commission, headed by Governor Otto Kerner of Illinois to inquire into the causes of civil disorders. In the Spring of 1968, the commission charged white America with the primary responsibility for the racial disorders sweeping the nation. The report concluded that: "Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black- one white- separate and unequal. What white Americans have never fully understood- but what the Negro can never forget- is that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto. White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it, and white institutions condones it. "Most Americans", the commission reported, "know little of the origins of the racial schism separating our white and Negro citizens. Few appreciate how central the problem of the negro has been to our social policy. Fewer still understand that today's problems can be only if white Americans comprehend the rigid social, economic and educational barriers that have prevented Negroes from participating in the mainstream of American life" Along with blacks, other minorities- Indians, Europeans, Asian immigrants and Mexican-Americans- have also been objects of white racism
The Beginning of the End
Our heightened awareness of racism and its consequences derives from the present ferment over racial injustice. Eurocentrism at its worst has generated a cacophony which has been set against the interest of the local oppressed minorities and international cooperation and mutual understanding. This has been designed to ultimately subvert international relationships. The European, Arab and American slavers and Imperialist have brought this about in the forms of Nazism, Apartheid, Imperialism, slavery, intellectual arrogance, racial murders and military and technological dominance. Much of human history has been a fight for the survival against natural hazards and against real and imagined human enemies. Development in the past has always meant the increase in the ability to guard the independence of the social group and to infringe upon the freedom of others. Underdevelopment has been the norm in the past centuries. The Negro has been defined by white society as inferior, licentious, intellectually and morally inadequate. On view of this, Americans contemplated emancipation at the end of the eighteenth century thought of recolonizing Africans,by using and implementing the Black Codes, because the white people could not see any genuine assimilation of blacks into white society as being possible.
No two historical events can ever be identical in every detail. Times change; people change; conditions change; history moves. However there are some instances where history is repeated, and such repetition may either be coincidental, deliberately engineered, and influenced by humans. To be sure, man's inhumanity to man is not a modern phenomenon, one has to go back eons to Osiris and Seth, Cain and Abel, etc. The pages of history are full of instances and cases of injustice. murder, torture, exterminations, that one is in the end is forced to conclude that of all the living creatures, human beings are the most cruel. To say that human beings sometimes "act like animals' is incorrect. The opposite is true. The encroachment of Europeans on the land, people and cultures of this part of the world was a protracted act of aggression that has not ended until this day.It is clear that africans and indigenous Americans could have put together an amalgamated way of life without the destructive war against each other. for the European to have achieved this, he would have to respect the humanity of the people he found; and he showed no tendency to do so in spite of the fact that most of them treated the Europeans as guests, until they decided to be conquerors and enslavers.
This mistreatment of these people and their slow disappearance through disease, murder and starvation depopulate large areas of the Americas and Caribbean Islands. Christopher columbus asked for Father de Las Casas who came over on his third voyage to petition the Pope for an increase in the African Slave trade, allegedly to save the should of the Indians. The Pope sent commissions to inquire into the conditions of the Indians, only to discover that on some Islands in the Caribbean Sea, there was not one Indian left alive.
Prejudice, Disinformation and Racism
Mark Twain posited this observation: "In many countries we have chained the savage, and starved him to death... in many countries we have burned the savage at the take... we have hunted the savage and his little children and mother with dogs and guns... in many countries we have taken the savage's land from him, and made him our slave, and lashed him every day, and broken his pride, and made death his only friend, and overworked him till he dropped in his tracks". The Red man averred: They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept one; they promised to take our land, and they took it." Africans in South Africa state: "When the White people came, we had the land and they had the Bible; now we have the Bible and they have our land." The dislocation of the owners of the land from their land is one of the early inhuman and human rights violation which has effected the disowned to this day.
Racial attitudes in America have their origins in the culture of Elizabethan England, because it was in the sixteenth century that the English people, who were on the verge of creating an overseas empire in North and The Caribbean, began to come into frequent contact with the peoples whose culture, religion and color was markedly different from their own. In the early responses of Englishmen to Indians and Africans lay the seeds of what would become, four centuries later, one of the most agonizing social problems in American history. On the problem of racial prejudice, Mark Twain wryly observed: "There are many humorous things in the world; among them the white man's notion that he is less savage than other savages."
When the Englishmen arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1620, or at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620. There were many written and oral reports about the Indians in the New Worlds, many based upon the Spanish and Portuguese experiences in Mexico, Peru and Brazil for those who wanted to know. For five centuries explorers, geographers, cartographers, colonists, travelers, adventurers, warriors and reporters have attempted to describe in different ways and for different reasons unfamiliar regions of the planet. There is a great deal to be learned about European societies from these efforts of reporting the unknown. One such mappenmode found in a copy of Hidgens Polychronicon who eat one another, the Garamentes who live in a zone where the water boil by day and freezes by night, the Farici who live on raw flesh of panthers, the Monoculi who posses one leg apiece but who who none-the-less could run very fast and who spend their days sitting benignly in the sun with their single foot held as a sunshade above them. There was one nation whose heads grew beneath the shoulders, another with umbrella lips, one without tongues, one without noses, one without ears.
These illusory creatures had been projections of misunderstood realities. Others found it difficult to dispute this phantamasgoria of what others were presumed to have seen. These monstrosities continued to be half remembered by the map makers, empire builders(Cecil Rhodes is one of the many), and empire destroyers of the sixteenth century. After all, they had been sighted by honest men who needed a good tale to tell and whose public needed it pre-conceptions confirmed by evidence. Exploration was a pursuit of information and each added unit of information filled in a troubling uncertainty about the nature of the world. The effects of such reportage began laying seeds of misconceptions, stigma, racism and prejudice which is still prevalent in many renewed forms today. These early accounts seem to have created a split of the Indian in the English mind. On the other hand the native was imagined to be a savage, hostile, beastlike creature who inhabited the animal kingdom rather than the kingdom of men. Another account described them as men who 'spake such speech that no men coulde understand, and their demeanor like the bruite beastes'; In 1585 prospective adventurers to the New World, described the native of North America as naked, lascivious, individuals who cohabited like beasts without reasonableness. Richard Kakluyt, the great propagandist for English colonization, described the Indians in 1585 as "simple and rude in manners, and destitute in of the knowledge of God or any good lawes, yet of nature gentle and tractable, and most apt to receive the Christian Religion, and to subject themselves so some good government'. This tarnishing of the image and the dehumanization of other races from the time of columbus, Bartholomew Diaz and Vasco da Gama, has carried over into the present day social relations.
The Republic of South Africa Saga
In both South Africa and Southern Rhodesia, the overriding issue was the European struggle to maintain economic monopoly over land, minerals, jobs, social services and to repress African competition and nationalism. The white rural bourgeoisie and urban working class looked up to the settler political vigilance and state capitalism to protect their racialist economic privileges against real and imaginary African competition. On the other hand, settler farmers wanted the state to make laws that would eliminate any competition with Africans over land, mineral, agricultural produce and extension services, and were guaranteed cheap and slave labor. In January 1944 Dr. Malan described the nature of the the republic as follows:"To ensure the safety of the white race and of Christian civilization by honest maintenance of the principles of apartheid and guardianship." The apartheid policy was the work of a special commission which was appointed by the Nationalist Party in a pamphlet before the end of 1947 and it said: "The policy of our country should encourage total apartheid as the ultimate goal of a natural process of separate development. It is the primary task and calling of the State to seek the welsfare of South Arica, and to promote the happiness and well-being of its citizens, non-White as well as White. Realizing that such a task can best be accomplished by by preserving and safeguarding the White race, the Nationalist party professes this as the fundamental guiding principle of its policy." The population of South Africa is one-fifth white and four-fifths African. The white minority controlled the political, military and economic structures. The black majority provided and still provide cheap labor within the white controlled areas. This dichotomy was deliberately created and maintained. The first laws depriving Africans of legal rights to the land were passed in the nineteenth century. By 1940 there was a whole battery of laws restricting Africans rights to own land, to travel, to work in skilled jobs, to vote, to organize and so on. Then, when the Nationalist(Afrikaner) Party took over in 1948, they systematically reworked these laws into one comprehensive structure, known as apartheid(literally separateness). They created Native Reserves, later to be known as Tribal land then Bantustans, which was the fulcrum and keystone of this Apartheid policy. These were the same as the Indian Reservations in the United State. Whites took over eighty seven percent of the land and allocated the 13 percent to these Reservations. To enforce these laws, the apartheid regime introduced Pass Laws (Identification Laws) that gave the white rulers a tight and rigid control of the Black population's movement. The restricted the African population from living in urban areas and passed various laws to that effect. They forced the black population into migrant labor system. The workers families were to live in the bantustans while the men worked in the mines and big cities around South Africa. They exerted tight political control and did not allow Blacks to vote in the national elections. Black opportunities were further hampered by an educational structure that ensured that 'natives' will be taught from childhood to realize that equality with Europeans was not for them'. The curriculum was distorted, preventing and ensuring pupils will be prevented from gaining much knowledge of the world outside the apartheid system. The apartheid regime prohibited mixed marriages by legislating and implementing and enforcing the Mixed Marriages act thoroughly. In a nutshell, this then was what constituted the apartheid system by the mid- 1970s. It is primarily a system of exploitation based on a division of society based on race. The heart of the apartheid system lay in influx control, passes, resettlements, migrant labor and laws, Terrorism Act, mixed marriage act, separate living conditions and social services, media, books, TV, hospitals, etc. This was one of the most devastating underdevelopment of a whole race of people right through to contemporary times. In this case too, democracy was a farce and serious contradiction to the civilized notions of modernity and Advancement.
Review of American Slavery
What we are seeing so far in both cases in the United States, was a conscious effort and attempt to manipulate the world in order to make it conform to the Settlers, Colonialist world view and economic dependency. The Africans who were brought against their will across the Atlantic never fully adjusted to slavery or accepted it as something that was inevitable. Instead, they pursued liberty under the trying and seemingly impossible conditions, and their search continued throughout the entire period of their enslavement. The real fight for liberty by these Africans started on the shores of Africa and in the slave-holding forts along the West African Coast. As many slaves were forced onto the slave ships, they picked up a handful of African dirt and forced it into their mouths in their determination to take some of their homeland with then as they went into forced exile. This spirit of revolt was natured throughout slavery and took many forms wherever slaves were found, whether in South America, in the Caribbean, the United States or Africa.
The African Slaves who arrived in Jamestown, virginia, in 1619 were not chattel slaves, in the general sense; they were indentured servants. But, by the early 1930s America, Alexis de Tocqueville noticed that: "Some schools do not receive the children of the black and of the European. In the theaters gold cannot procure a seat for the servile race beside their former masters; in the hospitals they lie apart; and although they are allowed to invoke the same God as the whites, it must be at a different altar and in their own churches, with their own clergy. The gates of heaven are not closed against them, but their inferiority is continued to the very confines of the other word. When the Negro dies, his bones are cast aside, and the distinction of condition prevails even in the equality of death..". While the black people in the North were proscribed politically, they also were hindered economically. Black benefitted little form the economic expansion of steamboats, railroads, factories and cities. With the growing need for labor, white workers demanded the exclusion of black workers.
While blacks struggled for economic survival, they also suffered the attacks of violent anti-Negro mobs, generally composed of white workers. Black people in the North were victims of segregation, discrimination and violence. The oppressive structures of race relations was influenced by the images of the Negro long established in the minds of white Americans. The African slaves inherited their chains form the Indians and poor whites,both of whom were indentured servants in large numbers before the arrival of Africans.
Outcomes of Human Rights Abuse
The history of building Democracies on the backs of Africans, Indians, Chinese and other colonized and oppressed people created whole generations in different lands of underdeveloped nations. That is why we have have what is now called the Third World, Second World and first world. But, developing people of different races apart and infusing hate in the process has not made contemporary democracies of the Third, Second or first world any way civilized and developed. The process of under-developing other people has in itself not made development in these settler and colonialist nations any better. If one country is wealthier than others, an inquiry has to be made as to why there's such great disparity in wealth. Another component of modern development is that it expresses a particular relationship of exploitation of one country by another. Democracies built in this way are bound to fail over time and there is a whole history to back this assertion. Apart Hate will be the downfall of of modern day capitalism, and Racism, is the handmaiden of this sub-human treatment of other races, and will be the final straw that will destroy the types of democracies we are now living in. This issue will be explored in much more deeper and in-depth look to see how this democratic apartness is playing itself out in the times we live in. Apartheid(Apart Hate), the underdevelopment of humanity, is the antithesis of Civilization.
Quick Review of Democracy
In his book, "The Sane Society", Erich Fromm has this to say about Democracy: "Just as work has become alienated, the expression of the will of the voter in modern democracy is an alienated expression. The principle of democracy is the idea that not a ruler or a small group, but the people as a whole, determine their own fate and make their decisions pertaining to matters of common concern. By electing his own representatives, who in a parliament decide on the laws of the land, each citizen is supposed to exercise the function of responsible participation in the affairs of the community. By the principle of the division of powers, and ingenious system was created that served to retain the integrity and independence of the judiciary system, and to balance the restrictive functions of the legislature and executive. Ideally, every citizen is equally responsible for and influential in making decisions. ...the problem of democracy today is not anymore the restriction of franchise but the manner in which the franchise is exercised. How can people express "their" will if the do not have any will or conviction of their own, if they are alienated automatons, whose tastes, opinions and preferences are manipulated by the big conditioning machines? Under these circumstances, universal suffrage becomes a fetish. If a government can prove that everybody has a right to vote, and that the votes are counted honestly, it is democratic. If everybody votes, but the votes are not counted honestly, or if the voter is afraid of voting against the governing party, the country is undemocratic. It is true indeed that there is a considerable and important difference between free and manipulated elections, but noting this difference must not lead us to forget the fact that even free elections do not necessarily express "the will of the people." If a highly advertised brand of toothpaste is used by the majority of people because of some fantastic claims it makes in its propaganda, nobody with any sense would say that the people have "made a decision" in favor of the toothpaste. All that could be claimed is that the propaganda was sufficiently effective to coax millions of people into believing its claims," [In another sense, this is happening to people because they have no other choice to what is offered- my addition].
From adds: "Actually, the functioning of the political machinery in a democratic country is not essentially different fro the procedure on the commodity market. The political parties are not too different from big commercial enterprises, and the professional politicians try to sell their wares to the public. Their method is more and more like that of high-prssure advertising. ...All this goes to show that without the initiative that comes from immediate responsibility, ignorance will persist in the face of masses of information however complete or correct. ...The situation of control in a modern democracy is not too different from the control in a big corporation. They make the decision between two party machines competing for their votes. Once one of the is voted into office, the relationship to the voters becomes remote. The real decisions often do not lie any more with individual members of the parliament, representing the interests and wishes of their constituency, but with the party. ...For a while it is true that one must think before one acts, it is also true that if one has no chance to act, the thinking becomes impoverished; in other words, if one cannot act effectively - one cannot think productively." With the mess that the idea of democracy is around the world, no wonder so much chaos prevails, and human underdevelopment increases.
This is a common theme that runs the gamut through all the so-called democracies throughout the world. There is always an element of government intervention, use of force, coercion, corruption, brutality, and abuse of the citizens of these states, by their leaders, for self-aggrandizement. In these countries, China, the US, throughout Africa, the Philippines, Vietnam, Russia and everywhere else where there is is tis purported democracy, we find serious violations of human and civil rights to the populations. Constitutions are changed; prostitution and sex trade the norm, violence and torture a way of life; poverty and corruption compounded by the use of cheap labor has become what contemporary governments clamor for. Poor education and substandard house seem to be what the established order of democracy want to see; homelessness, struggle for work, water, electricity, basic health and food seem to be now used as tools of control for this so-called democratic governments. It would have seemed like democracy meant human progress and freedom, but now it looks like Democracy is the underdevelopment of people in an apartheid way in order to foster illegitimate rule and human rights violation.
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Yeah, a republic with a democracy... Well, as I have said, keeping people apart with hate in a country practicing democracy, that is a formula for disaster and failure. South africa was a republic too. So, thanks for the response, the article speaks for itself. So we are living in the Republic of USA. We still have a democracy, racism and separate development: we have too many unresolved issues and the underdevelopment of humanity will be our downfall.
Democracy is the god that failed. http://mises.org/story/3686
Doug French does a great job looking at Maslow, Hoppe and democracy in his analysis of why politicians in democratic societies tend to be the same sorts of people who frequent mobs and criminal organizations the world over. It's not about racism, it's about human nature and the nature of freedom.
peace!
... be unto all of us...
I ixwa, this is an incredibly dense piece of writing. Worth the read, but if I could offer a couple of suggestions -- can you add in some subtitles in between sections to help give some eye relief?
Can you include some photos with captions to illustrated your key points?
The hardcore history and politics buffs will dig what's here. For those less dedicated, you could make this great info more accessible with a few 'tricks' of the hub trade.
Peace, MM
@ledefensetech-If human nature works in tandem with racism on its coat-tails, then it is no more human nature per se, nor the nature of freedom. It is learned behavior that is sucked form social norms and mores that dictate that racism is doing the human good. That is misleading and ahistorical. To be free does not means to be ruthless, oppressive and underdevelop other people/races. Human nature therefore, is something else if it destroys itself and dehumanizes other human beings
@Mighty Mom- Thank you for the help, and I need it. I will work on the piece and future pieces with some form of heading and some captions. I am still learning how to utilize utilize the 'few' tricks of the trade. I do have all the things you advise me to use, I will work very hard to make your suggestion better, in connection to my writing. I really do appreciate your advise and can never thank you enough- Thank you again...
You claim that racism is the weakness of democracy, but I see it somewhat differently. Those who hold power in a democracy will often times use race or status or wealth or some other criteria to set people against one another. Once you start seeing the other guy as an enemy you'll be more likely to support such a candidate that "protects" you from your "enemies".
Read the article I posted. It talks about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. I studied that in school, but one thing I found out that was new to me was that Maslow divided his penultimate needs level into two parts. I'll quote from the article:
"Maslow studied some famous people along with a dozen not-so-famous folks and developed some personality traits that were consistent with people he judged to be self-actualizing. Besides being creative and inventive, self-actualizers have strong ethics, a self-deprecating sense of humor, humility and respect for others, resistance to enculturation, enjoyment of autonomy and solitude instead of shallow relationships with many people. They believe the ends don't necessarily justify the means and that the means can be ends in themselves.
One readily sees that Maslow's self-actualizers have nothing in common with politicians in a democracy, but closely fit the profile that Hoppe describes of the natural elite that would lead a natural order.
But a step down from the top of the hierarchy-of-needs pyramid is the need for esteem. Maslow described two types of esteem needs according to Maslow expert Dr. C. George Boeree: a lower-esteem need and a higher one. And while the higher form of esteem calls for healthy attributes such as freedom, independence, confidence, and achievement, the lower form "is the need for the respect of others, the need for status, fame, glory, recognition, attention, reputation, appreciation, dignity, even dominance."
Somehow I don't think the high esteem people are the ones to go into government. If you look at the behavior of any politician, and this holds true the world over, you see that the vast majority of them act according to the low esteem traits. Not an especially rousing endorsement of democracy if you ask me.
I will try and break this one down for you. Something is missing , however, from the extensive scholarship on prejudice carried out after WWII. The thrust of this scholarship was to suggest that prejudiced people were emotionally sick and emotionally healthy people were ethnically tolerant. A direct relationship was posited between neurosis and prejudice. What this formulation disregards is the covering over and apparently strengthening qualities that may be conferred by racial prejudice. The greater the underlying anxiety of a person, the more prejudiced he is, because the pressure of his anxiety weakens hi personal controls. Thus weakened, he seeks relief through prejudice, which serves to reduce anxiety because prejudice facilitates the discharge of hostility. If hostility is discharged, regardless of whether it is toward the 'realistic' object of hate or not, anxiety is reduced. Prejudice suggests to the person that he is better than others, hence he does not need to feel so anxious. The prejudice can help a person to protect his individuality and maintain emotional balance of a distorted personality. T.W. Adorno found that the 'primary feature of racially prejudiced personality is authoritarianism- a preoccupation with issues of power such as who is strong and who is weak. His world is one if rigidly stereotyped categories of power, success and punitive moralism He seeks to align himself with the conventional, and with what is regarded by others as good and strong. The authoritarian thinks in rigid categories of dominance and submission, those who command and those who obey, masters and slaves'. I think my article correctly points out that historically, the relations developed from apartheidized social relations only speedily brings down democracies in power. Apartheid is in sync with racism, thus is a hinderance and anathema towards any form of civilization. Thanks for the response.
Thanks for a great article! As a survivor of the apartheid state I know at first hand some of the things you write about here. I am in borad agreement with you on most of the issues. I agree that racism is the response of a sick mind - no getting around that. Authoritarianism is just one way that such sick minds respond to the challenges of society. Democracy and racism cannot co-exist. The presence of racism in a society dimineshes the possibility of democracy.
In South Africa the only way the racism could be maintained was to institute draconian and anti-democratic laws. I'm not saying that we have completely overcome racism here - it still exists to our collective shame. But at least we are moving quite consciously away from it and it is no longer legislatively tolerated. But for 400 years it was increasingly and incrementally apploied through legislation and social norms so to do away with it is not going to be an easy or quick job.
The spreading of knowledge and the promotion of discussion about these issues are the ways to deal with racism. I just hope that, along with sexism and ageism we will overcome these evils in our society and so be able to move towards a more effective and just democracy.
Thanks again for your thoughts.
Love and peace
Tony
Hola Tony!
I am very happy to hear from you an am looking forward to communicating with you on many levels. I have tried to work on the errors you pointed out and tried to tighten the script more. Thank you for the comments you are making to my hub and will be looking forward to discussing some deeper and much more serious issues.
A very relevant discussion. As a descendant of slaves brought to the new world, I am seeking to further my learning about my history and its relevance to my life today. Your hub has opened a very poignant topic that most North Americans would prefer to run away from in the hopes that it will go away. Well it isn't, ithas been here ever since this continent was first explored by Europeans.
You mentioned about the slaves' participation in their liberation. The Bible was used as a control means for slave to accept the status quo in order to receive rewards after life (heaven). Thanks goodness, many slaves had the will to fight for freedom; this fight continues even in the 2009.
I see the parallels between South African & American sociopolitical structures.
Thanks for such informed discussion...
Thank for thinking that my discussion was relevant. I hope to be hearing from you more in the future. I appreciate your passing bye my hub, and hope to write some more and pique your interests. Thanks again.
That's a very interesting point about authoritarianism that I hadn't considered before. I'm not so sure that is the root cause of racism though. Authoritarian means are used to keep people separate, apartheid being an example and not teaching slaves to read another, but I rather think that racism start with the fear of the other and lack of trust.
World War II also saw the desegregation of the military. This was done with few issues and I believe that was for one reason. The military had just been through the largest war in human history. Working with groups like the Tuskegee Airmen and other colored regiments probably went a long way towards eliminating the extreme fear of the other that racism represented. It's hard to hate someone that you have to rely on and who may have saved your life. And that old adage of "familiarity breeds contempt" holds true. That was the idea behind desegregation of the schools, I think.
When the attempt was made to desegregate society, on the other hand, there was no mechanism to defuse the fear of the other and that's why people acted with violence. Absent a mechanism like soldiers bonding in combat, you have to have time to build trust between different groups of people. The same thing happens in war, but combat compresses the time needed to establish trust. Usually because high casualties tend to fall disproportionately on those who haven't garnered the trust of their buddies.
Yes, "Racism start with the fear of the other and lack of trust.." I think that racism is so universal in our country, so widespread and deep seated, that is is invisible because it is so normal(Shirley Chisholm). Students, research workers soldiers and professionals in the behavioral sciences- like members of the clergy and educators- are no more immune by virtue of their values and training to the diseases and superstitions of American racism than is the average man. Today, racism is far more camouflaged than it was earlier in the century. It is buried in institutional practices. It is hidden in coded language and subtle messages some people get when they shop,or look for a place to live or for a taxi, or have dealings with the police. "Racism ... is not simply about attitudes,dislikes and motivation of individuals or individual acts of bigotry and discrimination. Instead, racism refers to the way society as a whole is arranged, and how the economic, educational, cultural and social rewards of that society are distributed. It's about collective justice(Project Hip Hop, 1997) Finally, this is what Clarence Page said about Racism: "Racism is a sensitive word. Americans often avoid it, even when it is relevant... It is a sensitive word because it exposes so much, institutionally and personally. It is a Rorschach word, a linguistic inkblot test. How you define it reveals something important about you, how you see the world and your place in it". Racial prejudices are indications of a disturbed and potentially unstable society. The Problem of the twentieth and twenty first century(My addition), is the problem of the Color-line(Du Bois).
I don't believe that. Mostly because if you believe the "invisible" theory you open yourself up to all sorts of nonsense. Let me ask you this. What has a true effect on another person, a racist thought or a racist action?
What do you think? hmmm..
Action of course. Thought are ephemeral. Thought can result in action, but until you see action, thought really doesn't matter. I can think whatever I want about the "Other" but unless and until I do something in accordance with those thought, it doesn't matter what I think.
Consider this. Can you change a person's thoughts by passing a law?
Yup! I bet you know that a spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her bee cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of the bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. I was hoping you have read my article above and one of the quotes I used was; The Red man averred: "They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept one... You should read the Dread Scot Decision and that will somewhat answer your second question. What ignorance and confusion, you say that whatever you think about a person does not matter, it's the action that matters. So, if you think another person is less human than you, and do not act on it, what does that make you? Some thoughts have been pounded into the national psyche, and one of them is that history counts.
Breaking a promise is an action. Sending Dred Scot back to his mater was an action. Actions count. Thoughts don't until they become action. How hard is that to understand?
Missed it again, let's try this tact: The theories of of race and attitudes of racial superiority and inferiority, prejudice and bigotry, evolved into an institutionalized system of discrimination, of exclusion, of deprivation, and oppression based on color or race. Racism and cultural aggression were and are highly destructive of people of color in terms of the struggle to develop and sustain community and "peopleness. Historically, racism constituted and constitutes a system of special privileges, benefits, and psychological and symbolic and material rewards for white people. These and other issues were first thought of and passed into laws, and practiced by those who benefitted form them for centuries. It is indeed feeble and disingenuous to impugn thought and action as if one is separate from the other. The other part of the Dreadscot Decision which you forgot to mention, was at its core, the judge stated that 'the slave had no rights that whites need to respect" and afterwards sent him back, though he was a free man. Thoughts are the same the laws and action they engender. Actions have affected countless people all over the world and because so many people, throughout the millennium have acted upon them. In most cases, you thoughts and opinions, affect and effect your way of seeing, behaving, talking, reasoning and defending the indefensible(See my comment above), viz.., racist thoughts and action affect the intended target so that the prejudiced person can feel good. Re-read my quote on Authoritarianism. The very idea that you can think someone as inferior,let alone act upon it, in of itself is wrong, it does not matter whether you act on it or not. You also ought to read the thoughts of Lynch. By the way, reading with understanding is fundamental.
You're getting color mixed up. It doesn't matter what "race" benefits from discrimination, institutionalized discrimination is still evil. Or would you say that a African system which strips white landowners of their property and subject them to abuse somehow less evil than a white system which strips black landowners of their property and subjects them to abuse?
Historically it has been whites who have set these systems up, but whites don't have a monopoly on the practice. I'd like to suggest the Holocaust and pogroms against the Jews as exhibit A. Again, the fear of the other prompted those acts.
Fear of the other is a fundamental human trait. If you look at tribal societies, for instance, the name they have for people who live near them is almost always their word for enemy. Yet that doesn't mean that people don't understand the need or feasibility of working in concert towards a goal. The Iroquois founded a confederation and the Cherokee founded a nation during pre-Colombian times. So while the fear of the Other is universal, we can grow to see other people as one of our own.
So how, exactly, do people get over their fear of the Other enough to cooperate?
Missed it again, let try this tact: The theories of of race and attitudes of racial superiority and inferiority, prejudice and bigotry, evolved into an institutionalized system of discrimination, of exclusion, of deprivation, and oppression based on color or race. Racism and cultural aggression were and are highly destructive of people of color in terms of the struggle to develop and sustain community and "peopleness. Historically, racism constituted and constitutes a system of special privileges, benefits, and psychological and symbolic and material rewards for white people. These and other issues were first thought of and passed into laws, and practiced by those who benefitted form them for centuries. It is indeed feeble and disingenuous to impugn thought and action as if one is separate from the other. The other part of the Dreadscot Decision which you forgot to mention, was at its core, the judge stated that 'the slave had no rights that whites need to respect' and afterwards sent him back, though he was a free man. Thoughts are the same the laws and action they engender. Actions have affected countless people all over the world and because so many people, throughout the millennium have acted upon them. In most cases, your thoughts and opinions, affect and effect your way of seeing, behaving, talking, reasoning and defending the indefensible(See my comment above), viz.., racist thoughts and action affect the intended target so that the prejudiced person can feel good. Re-read my quote on Authoritarianism. The very idea that you can think someone as inferior,let alone act upon it, in of itself is wrong, it does not matter whether you act on it or not. You also ought to read the thoughts of Lynch. By the way, reading with understanding is fundamental. I liked the hub by @glassvisage titled "The Color of Fear: Personal Reactions and Thoughts". This is a very good read.
So are you saying that you can read minds or see into the heart of another human being and know for sure what is there?
No, and thanks for your feedback.
And that's my point. Nobody can tell what is in the mind or heart of another person. The only way you know for sure is how they act. So in a way you have a point. Someone with racist thoughts is more apt to act like a racist, but that doesn't always hold true.
Actions matter.
Thoughts are the reason why...
Sometimes, but you are not the sum of your thoughts, you are the sum of your actions. Tell me, would you believe someone when they said they were a trustworthy person or would you believe them after acted towards you that earned your trust?
It is entirely too possible to get caught up in what people think, something you can't prove or disprove. The only thing you can judge people by is what they do.
Thanks for your comments, reading is fundamental. Words hurt...
Only if you let them. I really think you missed my point when I talked about those people who were able to overcome the fear of the Other in order to form associations and confederations. Wouldn't our time be better spent investigating how they were able to do that, rather than wasting our time trying to figure out the impossible, like what other people truly think?
Your goal is, after all, to get people to live in harmony and peace is it not? Are you better served by studying divisive hate-filled societies in order to understand how people live in peace or are you better served by studying confederations of people in order to understand how they were able to live in peace?
You sound disturbed, agitated and very angry. I will continue to address any issue that tickle my fancy. I do not wish what life would be like if...(whatever) All I do is to try and point out those continuing social relations that affect people because they are real and are part and parcel of our social realities. Racism in America has deep social roots. A variety of factors- social,economic political and religious- have interacted over a period of 400 years to implant racial ideologies in the American culture and to imbed racism in our institutions. But American racial prejudice cannot be understood simply in economic, political and intellectual terms. Racism is also personal and social in origin. It must also be seen as a psychological function of the personality related to character structure, patterns of society, and adaptation to personal and social origins.
The psychology, consciousness and behavioral tendencies of individuals and societies are to a very significant extent the products of their personal and collective histories. I do not aim to make you feel any comfortable or unhappy, as you will find out as you read my excerpts, also, will not follow your trend of questions to investigate that you suggest. What I am highlighting is both the collective and personal histories of the people and what has happened to them, and is happening to us, and how we can learn from that. Both personal and collective psychology are constructed from memory as well as those experiences which have been forgotten or repressed but which still represent themselves in individual and collective habits, tendencies, traditions, emotional responsivities, perspectives, ways of processing information, attitudes and reflex-like reactions to certain stimuli and situations. Both types of experiences interacting with current perceptions are utilized by individuals and groups to achieve certain material and non-material ends. The character of individual and collective consciousness and the range of their behavioral possibilities are very significantly influenced by their recordings and recollections of their historical experiences. To manipulate history is to manipulate consciousness; to manipulate consciousness is to manipulate possibilities; and to manipulate possibilities is to manipulate power . I f what I wrote above maddens you, all the better because you are at least reading and learning. If you have nothing else to contribute to the article above and you do not know how to even discuss the topic properly, a library is not such a bad place to pore over all the historical material you can read. Also read Howard Zinn's "A peoples History of the United States: 1492 to Present. The Skinner Rat Experiment would suffice here. You must also not be intimidated by history or historians, because maybe history is projected in this culture as being irrelevant, but we should look at history as Psychohistory, i.e. the psychological result of undergoing certain historical experiences. History is the present, and history is the future.
History is history no matter where you begin to look, and there is nothing 'hate-filled' about the past, stop nattering and go and read, as I have advised, more than once.
nice information. we should concern about this. I am happy living in country without racial issue. nice hub.
Thank you for your comments, and I hope your country preserves that non-racial existence and identity. I think that racism has to go, because we are all living on one planet earth floating in space in one corner of the Milky Way. We do not have any neighbors we know of. We need to live with each other in harmony because we are all we have at this time in space and existence.
someonewhoknows 2 years ago
Democracy itself is only possible in a perfect society.
Good luck trying to find that!
There never has been a perfect society that I'm aware of,unless you know something I don't!
The reasoning behind the creation of a Republic was the fact that a democracy has been proven to be impractical as a stable system of government.
In a Republic it matters more that a greater percentage of the people in general are willing to live with the laws passed by their representitives in government.In a republic the people who have to live with these laws can ingnore them by their vote through the jury system when such laws are tested in resl life.
A jury of the people have the real power in a Republic and they are not elected and may or may not have a personal interest in wheather a particular law is enforced or not.
Contrary to what you may hear "Judges" that are elected have no control over what evidence a jury may hear about concernimg any particular court case.
So a Republic form of government if,taken seriously by the people has more advantages for the people than a Democracy.
There are people who say "we are a counntry of laws and there can be no freedom without the law."
First,their would be no laws without a group of people coming together to make those laws.
Second,the laws were made by the people,and they can be scrutinized after the fact by the people who have to live under those laws.
Third,the law can be changed if the people find them oppressive.
If,any of these princilpes is circumvented then the people are living under a dictatorship wheather it is by one individual or a group of individuals.If the people are forced to abide by so strict an enforcement of the law,without the ability to judge the law ,they are no better off than a slave would be.
In America,our Republic has been systematically de-constructed by those who would try to enslave mankind as a whole.Most people are either unaware of this or simply don't care what happens as long as their needs are met.They are slaves that don't know or care about it,as long as they are comfortable.The minute they are personally uncomfortable they will be told ,it's a particular group that is responsable for their uncomfortable situation in the name of free enterprise we have given away our freedoms in exhange for security,or the police state."Homeland security.It happened in germany ,and now it's happening in America.