We Are All Racists

[Edwcraig]

Last edited Sat May 30, 2020, 09:24 AM - Edit history (1)

http://democraticprinciples.blogspot.com/2012/04/we-are-all-racists.html

Primal man was neither the fastest, nor the strongest and not even the smartest hunter. What mankind did have, to enable it to survive, was the ability to communicate. Man had speech and with an abundant vocabulary. This enabled mankind to be able to survive by forming groups to hunt in units. Man could use the power of numbers against even the most powerful of foes including other animals, nature, the environment and yes even other groups of men. This trait was not for social reasons. It was the one and only thing that enabled primal man to survive.

In fact our primal nature is to form a tribe if we do not have one. We must. We know our very existence requires it. What our primal fathers learned is the tighter the tribe (thinking, acting, and dressing alike) the more the tribe can act quickly as one. And in the primal world, there were two kinds of humans - the quick and the dead. The more obedient we are to the rules of the tribe, the better the chances that the tribe would survive. We fear not conforming to our tribe.
I am a big University of South Carolina fan. There is nothing more exhilarating to me than standing among 80,000 of my football tribe of fellow Gamecocks as the band marches and the speakers blare the strands of “2001”. The team thunders on the field responding to the almost mad adulation of the packed throng. It is breath taking. My heart races. I scream and clap. I cannot wait for the sport combat to begin. I applaud as my tribe attacks the enemy tribe; and even more, as one 19 year old brutally hits another 19 year old of the enemy tribe. I am not myself. I am in rapture - the rapture of millions of years of primal conditioning. Millions of years where defeat meant pain, hunger and death and victory meant food, water, shelter and life. I cannot help myself.

According to Biologist E. O. Watson, “Experiments conducted over many years by social psychologists have revealed how swiftly and decisively people divide into groups and then discriminate in favor of the one to which they belong. Even when the experimenters created the groups arbitrarily, prejudice quickly established itself. Whether groups played for pennies or were divided by their preference for some abstract painter over another, the participants always ranked the out-group below the in-group. They judged their “opponents” to be less likable, less fair, less trustworthy, less competent. The prejudices asserted themselves even when the subjects were told the in-groups and out-groups had been chosen arbitrarily.

When in experiments black and white Americans were flashed pictures of the other race, their amygdalas, the brain’s center of fear and anger, were activated so quickly and subtly that the centers of the brain were unaware of the response. The subject, in effect, could not help himself. When, on the other hand, appropriate contexts were added—say, the approaching African-American was a doctor and the white his patient—two other sites of the brain integrated with the higher learning centers, the cingulate cortex and the dorsolateral preferential cortex, lit up, silencing input through the amygdala. Thus different parts of the brain have evolved by group selection to create groupishness, as well as to mediate this hardwired propensity.

When the amygdala rules the action, however, there is little or no guilt in the pleasure experienced from watching violent sporting events and war films in which the story unwinds to a satisfying destruction of the enemy. The horrors make the fascination. War is the strong life; it is life in extremis.”

Biologist E.O. Wilson on Why Humans, Like Ants, Need a Tribe. https://www.newsweek.com/biologist-eo-wilson-why-humans-ants-need-tribe-64005

It is primal and biological. We all have the “ists”. We are jingoists -biased against, those to the west, east, north, south, across the ocean, river or mountain, sexists - biased against the opposite, racists - biased against non-conforming skin tones and mannerism. And yes we are all "ists" - against what is not our tribe. As a white - racist against blacks, as a black - racist against whites, as brown - racist against yellow, as yellow – racist against white etc. None of us are able to help ourselves. We are primally conditioned.

The first step in the Alcoholics Anonymous 12 Step Program is.
“1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.”

Without the admission by an alcoholic that he or she is an alcoholic, defeating alcoholism is impossible.

I submit that unless we admit that we are powerless over racism, we cannot take the steps to overcome our racist and all other "ists" predilections. By understanding my condition, and the cause of my condition, I am socially able to deal with my condition. I have to recognize that, by nature, my amygdala is going to fire and I have to wait and let my cingulate cortex and the dorsolateral preferential cortex, light up to manage my acceptance of a non-tribal member. It is not easy. We are all afflicted.

Democrats who claim that the Democratic Party is not racist are wrong. But Democrats, by the very nature of the party, reach out to a multitude of tribes. It is unique in its approach and contrary to the exclusive nature of Republicans. The democratic philosophy, fostered by the Democratic Party, is in fact recognition of the “ists” state of the human race. The Party rules and culture are to recognize that the very differences we have, are in fact the strength of our Party and nation. What is not understood by the more primal members of the electorate is that the political philosophy of democracy is a philosophy contrary to the primal tribalism of our human nature. The beliefs of the Democratic Party is to embrace our differences. It is the biological equivalent of the firing of the cingulate and dorsolateral cortexes. It is a good thing.

Recognizing the human condition of racism and bringing together all the tribes to share in the political process and the power is a Democratic Principles.

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. cant be a racist without power to enforce it...bigot, yes, not a racist

Black person not a racist in USA

[Karadeniz]

2. Not entirely true unless all you consider is the brain's functioning. However, soul also contributes

To Mind and has a whole different set of values.

[JustGene]

3. My Take

human behaviors are much more instinct based than our egos can tolerate.
survival is the dominant one. When it is misguided due to amplification it becomes a fount of greed, fear, and irrational othering.
Bringing a lack of empathy for outsiders, if not hatred.
The biggest amplifiers are Tribalism, inequality, and Religion.
Religion plays on the survival instinct by promising a solution to Death (afterlife)
and then setting requirements to achieve this that promote their method of indoctrination.
Race on its own means nothing.
It is simply a way to other and blame people who are "different".
A bit of this and you get inequality.
Instinct is a basic driver of human actions.
They can be overcome, but how many bother, or believe they were better and more important, controlled by a "soul"
We operate differently in some ways, but we are still Animals, Genus human.
Animals actually do much better without those drawbacks.

Philosophy Geek
Hippie

Gene

[Behind the Aegis]

4. I disagree.

Prejudiced? Yes. That is the biological component, perhaps a survival instinct. Bigoted? No. That is a learned behavior. Of course, as evidenced in at least one response, the concept is difficult for people to understand and vocabulary gets blurred an misused so often it makes it even more confusing to navigate.