Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 alpha 4/15/85; site ubvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!qantel!lll-crg!seismo!harvard!think!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!decwrl!amdcad!cae780!ubvax!tonyw From: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: defining racism -- Laura on compassi Message-ID: <395@ubvax.UUCP> Date: Wed, 8-Jan-86 22:50:42 EST Article-I.D.: ubvax.395 Posted: Wed Jan 8 22:50:42 1986 Date-Received: Mon, 13-Jan-86 17:54:27 EST References: <336@l5.UUCP> <28200431@inmet.UUCP> Reply-To: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch) Organization: Ungermann-Bass, Inc., Santa Clara, Ca. Lines: 195 Part II of 2: In article <28200431@inmet.UUCP> janw@inmet.UUCP writes: > >[Tony Wuersch {amdcad!cae780 or amd!}!ubvax!tonyw] >>... most modern racism has little to do with >>frustration at all. > >>If companies screen out blacks from entry-level jobs because many >>blacks lack work skills or because the average US black performance on >>educational tests is lower than whites, these motivations show either >>a bad understanding of how statistics apply to individuals or a pragmatic >>understanding of the high costs of interviewing. Since this kind >>of screening is a labeling of individuals according to skin color, >>it's a classical racist activity. > >You've named a genuine exception to the frustration theory, >though I don't believe companies have a screening procedure like >this. It would be liable to cause a terrible scandal when someone >blew the whistle. The *opposite* kind of racial screening is >widely practiced (the affirmative action). I agree that this is a >racist practice; but it does not proceed from a racist *atti- >tude*. I don't believe, though, that this is "most" or most >dangerous form of, racism. "A bad understanding of how statistics >apply to individuals or a pragmatic understanding of the high >costs of interviewing" are relatively weak causes for action >and relatively easy to overcome. Mass feelings, not rational mis- >calculations of a few executives, are the danger. Individual employees do this screening, not companies. How would jan suggest the whistle be blown? The US government doesn't allow statistical measurements, for instance. Whistle blowers who whistle in the wind get fired for troublemaking or disloyalty. As I've said in previous postings, to criticize the opposite direction of screening is to say that racism goes both ways, as if power went both ways. Power doesn't go both ways, it goes overwhelmingly in one way. Same with racism. Screening has to be placed in a social context before judgments pro or con should be rendered. The judgments should change in different social contexts. I think the most dangerous forms of racism are those which can be mobilized by states or politicians. The next most dangerous forms are those which follow from common wisdoms reinforced by mass medias. I'd really distinguish common wisdoms from mass feelings. Mass feelings are things which, I would think, grow through one's own life or experiences. Common wisdoms are things which are quickly passed on and accepted as truths. Racism tends to attach to specific occupations rather than regions. For instance, New York City taxi drivers usually refuse to pick up Black people. I drove in one taxi which told the Black person where I was left off that it had to go off-duty, after the driver had told me what a fuckin' pain it was to deal with these kind of people. (Not an isolated instance, by the way. I lived in NYC for two years.) If we divide the "common wisdom" theory -- the cabbie learned about Blacks from other taxi drivers -- from the "mass feelings" theory -- the cabbie dislikes Blacks from bad personal experiences -- I'd choose the "common wisdom" theory. At least it might explain why the most racist taxi drivers I knew were recently emigrated Russian Jews. >>If a company rejects a black as a salesman in the South, for an entry >>level job, does frustration lead it to do so? Maybe its customers >>could be expected to not like blacks, and the company is afraid >>that dislike would reflect on it and its products. Pure racism, >>to me. > >Now that is *not* a true exception. That is *reflected* racism. >As soon as southern customers change their attitude towards black >salesmen, companies will follow suit. Here, frustration is still >the root cause. Where did frustration enter in? Who was frustrated? Who or what gave people reason to be frustrated? Why don't people distribute their frustrations out randomly, instead of always at the same groups? As to reflection, I think most racism is just reflection. "Reflection" means "reflection of common wisdom", to me. What difference should it make to Blacks that customers have negative attitudes about them? How does that reflect on their abilities as salespeople? >>Was the paternalism of Gone With the Wind a consequence of frustration >>and hatred? Or just common opinion about the appropriate place for >>blacks? Racism again. > >Not *just* opinion, but opinion with strong emotional underpin- >ning. Rationalizatioons for slavery were invented increasingly as >the South felt greater need to defend it. Attitude came first, >opinion afterwards. I've never seen the movie you mention but I >read the book (long ago) and I thought it was a gross idealiza- >tion of real southern attitudes. The peak of Southern racism was >probably reached at the time of Reconstruction. Here, frustration >as root cause is evident; and they never fully recovered. This is just confusing. I think jan is saying that frustration equals emotional underpinnings equals attitudes. But I could just as well say that common wisdom equals emotional underpinnings equals attitudes. I thought the dispute was over the source of the emotions, not the emotions themselves. I thought jan believes the emotions came out of psychological, real-life experience. I believe the emotions are passed around and repeated and invoked by popular communications, because they fit common wisdoms or national myths. Let me distinguish between what I see as psychology here and what I see as sociology. I think psychology is the science of how people interpret and respond to real life experiences. I think sociology is the science of how people take on and transform the attributes of their social environment. Psychology focuses on individual experiences; sociology focuses on social environments and movements. The psychology/sociology debate as it relates to social issues is the following: what is more important as a determinant of social action, the reaction to situations given attitudes, or the transmission and distribution of attitudes themselves? A sociologist would choose the latter, a psychologist the former. As a sociologist, it seems to me that aside from it's being negative, that frustration is the particular attitude being passed around about racially oppressed groups is much less important than that it gets passed around so much and so widely. If jan wants to hold to a psychological theory, he should also be required to explain why, if the transmission of attitudes is not so important, attitudes about races differ so tremendously worldwide (very little racism in Brazil, for instance). If he attributes this to "national psychology", then I'd contend that we are really not arguing about the cause of racism, but about its locus -- nations or individuals. Which would be an advance in the discussion. I say nations. >An interesting analogy is French xenophobia. According to Ana- >tole France (a well-known writer), it dates to the Franco- >Prussian war. Before that, foreigners were very welcome. But the >French never lived down the humiliating debacle of 1870. The >Dreyfus affair was another characteristic result. > >In Germany, Jews were made a scapegoat for the Versaille treaty. >Now, this is *the* classical case of racism at work, and frustra- >tion is an obvious cause. Antisemitism grew in Germany at the height of its success, in the latter half of the 19th century and first decades of the twentieth. The difference between pre-Hitler and Hitler was that the state did not act on antisemitism until the tyrant Hitler had enough power to ignore morality and democratic restraint. It certainly does not date to the treaty of Versailles, and neither, I'd bet, does French antisemitism date to the Franco-Prussian war. >>If a black family comes into a neighborhood and common wisdom is that >>the movement of black families precedes larger movements and eventual >>rundown of a community and spread of crime, is resisting that family >>a sign of frustration and hatred? Racism again. > >Analyze it: *why* larger movement. I assume a middle-class neigh- >borhood. The first black families coming are middle class; they >don't run down the community. But, because of racism, some whites >start to sell; others *anticipate* this reaction; prices go down, >and the downward spiral begins. Again, reflexive racism. Substi- >tute a non-racial group (e.g. a professional one) most of whose >members are poor. One member moves in - no stampede follows - >no room for poorer group members - no spiral. Eliminate racial >dislike, and it will be the same with race. This is an argument that the personal experiences of these families have nothing to do with their reactions to Blacks. That is, it's an argument which says the psychological history of individuals is unimportant except in the broadest degrees -- an anti-psychological argument supporting my case. >>I'd contend that the only racism the above theory might explain is >>the resentment-against-the-world-as-a-whole type of racism characteristic >>of the KKK or Aryan Nations -- not unimportant, but not pervasive either. > >*Very* pervasive, especially in various ethnic neighborhoods. KKK >and AN are just extreme representatives, the tail of the bell >curve - not pervasive by definition. Jimmy Carter won the 1976 >nomination in part because of a well-chosen phrase about *ethnic >purity* - for which he then apologized, was publicly forgiven >by Rev. King Sr. etc. - but the point had been made. Or take the >last Chicago mayoral elections - race-driven on both sides. Finally, >take your own example with salesmen in the South. Where does that >customer attitude (enough of it to influence company policy) come >from? Same feelings that, in a much stronger dose, fuel the KKK. > > Jan Wasilewsky Tony Wuersch {amdcad!cae780, amd}!ubvax!tonyw