Are race relations actually getting worse in your personal experience?if (Corporate Profit, Mexicans)

[jpdivola]

If you turn on the news, it seems the country is coming apart at the seams on the issue of race and overt racism is making a resurgence.

Every morning seems to bring some new racist outrage video of a white person yelling at a Latino or Muslim, college students demanding white free spaces, stories on the rise of the alt-right, and most terrifyingly off all racial violence, even the pages of city data seem to blow up on issues of race.

But I dunno, I just don't always see it in real life. Things aren't perfect. But it dosent seem like things are truly getting worse. Just we have more social media which draws attention to the worst of human nature and can give an overly negative portrayal of how bad things are.

[Tritone]

Yes, in real life, race relations are fine. Everybody's polite...people get along fine. Race-related conflicts are rare.

The media profits off of sensationalism, so they draw attention to the craziest people they can find, which creates the illusion that America is on the verge of a race war.

[Labonte18]

Oddly.. The areas that people think about being racist, are generally some of the more tolerant areas. Specifically, I'm talking about the South. Yes, there's fights over the confederate flag, but I think little of that comes from a racist standpoint, at least in this day. People hear a southerner talk about heritage and roll their eyes.. That's serious. Yes, you have the occasional ass, but for the most part.. Many people here had family fight in the civil war for the confederacy. These people weren't fighting for slavery (Say what you wish about the government).. They were defending their homes.

I photograph graves for FindAGrave in my spare time.. You'd be surprised how many markers have a confederate flag engraved on them.

Now, take northern areas.. Minnesota and New Hampshire and the like. Where the black population is 3%. That's kinda the areas where things happen and people are all shocked about it. I remember when Joel Ward beat the Boston Bruins a few years back.. Ward is a black hockey player.. The N-word was flying all around Boston.

[redguard57]

Define "worse" and "better."

I'm 34, so I don't remember a time when race relations were really bad. Based on my experience I'd say they are somewhat better than when I was young. I can remember kids using racial epithets more brazenly. Now it's something that's more taboo.

I would say that there's more racial resentment than I can remember, although it may just be that I'm noticing something I didn't think about before. What I mean by that, is that some whites think that minorities are getting stuff they don't deserve somehow, and minorities are resentful that the society has not moved forward as much as they might have expected. Those resentments turn into bitterness.

That said, things are not perfect.

Two examples from my experience:

1) Growing up in the 80s, 90s and 2000s, I don't remember my black associates and friends expressing much about their dislike of police. They would joke about how black people get pulled over more often and things like that, but like I said, usually expressed as a joke, although we all knew there was a little truth to it.

Now, most of the black people I know are pretty openly unhappy about the situation with the police. When I've talked to them about it lately, they will tell me in frustrated detail how the police scrutinize them more, how they're more afraid to be pulled over, etc...

I'm not sure if the situation is actually worse or they are just more openly expressing what they always felt. My intuition says the latter.

2) I'm grew up in south Texas which was and is heavily Latino. As a result I never really gave a 2nd thought about Latino/Hispanic people... to me they were always just a significant percentage of the population. I would hear some racial epithets from a minority of the white population here and there, but not that much. Certainly far from all of them.

Now that I live in a more white state, the resentment against the Latino minority, which has only grown up here much more recently, is VERY clear and much more widespread.

The house I live in was a former rent-house which used to be occupied by a Latino family. The wife only spoke Spanish and the dad spoke limited English. (I live in a neighborhood that is rapidly gentrifying.)

The white neighbors were VERY happy to discover that a white family had bought the house and was moving in... they told me to my face how much they disliked the previous occupants and spared no racist cliche like "those Mexicans were dirty, they smelled, they did drugs, they stole X or Y from my yard" etc... I was shocked that the neighbors thought I would be okay with making fun of them or talking crap about Mexicans. I met the family a couple times when the house was pending and they seemed like nice people to me. I found no drug paraphernalia, nothing out of order in the house beyond normal wear and tear. In fact they did a great job cleaning it before I moved in, so it was very obviously racial prejudice talking on the part of the neighbors.

[MrRational]

Originally Posted by jpdivola

Are race relations actually getting worse ...?

RACE as a rallying cry has always been a cover.
The issue, now as always, is the underlying economics.

When personal economics are weak and unstable fear and anger will show up
whether you're poor and white or poor and black or poor and brown.

[WiseManOnceSaid]

Originally Posted by jpdivola

If you turn on the news, it seems the country is coming apart at the seams on the issue of race and overt racism is making a resurgence.

Every morning seems to bring some new racist outrage video of a white person yelling at a Latino or Muslim, college students demanding white free spaces, stories on the rise of the alt-right, and most terrifyingly off all racial violence, even the pages of city data seem to blow up on issues of race.

But I dunno, I just don't always see it in real life. Things aren't perfect. But it dosent seem like things are truly getting worse. Just we have more social media which draws attention to the worst of human nature and can give an overly negative portrayal of how bad things are.

You mentioned the right word. "News". There's nothing wrong with race relations in this country. I grew up in deep south South Carolina. I can remember my father dropping "N" bombs at every black person he saw. I can remember my grandparents speaking about blacks as 2nd class citizens. Their views, over time, changed for the better.

It wasn't 60 years ago that we were segregated as a country. We have made huge strides in the past 50 years.

The only racism I see now is drummed up by the media. Social media is still media. Media in it's current form has to sell advertising to satisfy it's corporate profit needs. In order to meet their profits, they need sensationalism. Racism sells advertising. Boring news like "the national corn crop was bountiful this year" doesn't sell ads.

Follow the money, you will find racism at the end of that rainbow.

[Dreamingx]

Well we have a president that calls Mexicans rapists and doesn't believe Muslims (Islamophobia can be raciialized btw) should be allowed in the US so of course when you have someone like that as a leader then yes people feel more emboldened to be racist to people of color and immigrants and Muslims. I live in a majority white town and have experienced racism. Not to the extreme but it still happens like the go back to your own country comments..

[phetaroi]

Originally Posted by WiseManOnceSaid

You mentioned the right word. "News". There's nothing wrong with race relations in this country. I grew up in deep south South Carolina. I can remember my father dropping "N" bombs at every black person he saw. I can remember my grandparents speaking about blacks as 2nd class citizens. Their views, over time, changed for the better.

It wasn't 60 years ago that we were segregated as a country. We have made huge strides in the past 50 years.

The only racism I see now is drummed up by the media. Social media is still media. Media in it's current form has to sell advertising to satisfy it's corporate profit needs. In order to meet their profits, they need sensationalism. Racism sells advertising. Boring news like "the national corn crop was bountiful this year" doesn't sell ads.

Follow the money, you will find racism at the end of that rainbow.

I suggest you Google "Racism in South Carolina". Perhaps you can't see the forest for the trees.

[phetaroi]

Overall, I think racism in the U.S. is a mixed bag.

Living here in Colorado Springs (but I lived most of my adult life just outside of Washington, D.C.), I see quite a few mixed race couples (often military), and no one seems to pay much attention.

On the other hand, no one (except one segment of our society) can deny the many news stories that tell us of racial incidents.

[vision33r]

Race relations here have made tremendous progress. Social problems exacerbates race issues. People of certain race that climbed the eco-social ladder have done very well in the last decades. People of certain race that continue to fall behind economically will continue to complain about race issues.