An Argument with my philosophy professor about racism do you agree with me or disagree?

Question

He claims that white people are more racist then black people. he used many "big" words and studies that white people are more racist. Thats B.S how can you make a study about who is more racist? My point is that if i will go to africa then i would get descriminated on there because most of the population there is black ( in most parts anyway)... here majority are white so that is why there is more racism towards black people. He says that in africa they like white people and white people are still more racist.

Answer 1

Did he mean worldwide? Because that would be a difficult claim to make. In some areas it seems like there is greater racism by whites, and in some areas greater racism by blacks. I wish you could give more detailed account of his answer and the "big" words he used, since I cannot really condemn somebody's argument without understanding it.

The question of if you go to Africa you will be discriminated against is an empirical question that would have to be solved either through studies or actually going to Africa. If you haven't been and can provide no studies, your argument doesn't hold much weight - it is just an appeal to intuition. You also need to specify if you think this would be discrimination, or "discrimination against." The difference is that "discrimination" by itself does not necessarily harm the individual. There can be positive discrimination (which is what your professor claims when he says that Africans like white people.) It is discrimination because it is judging a person based on the group they were born in to, but it would be a positive discrimination. "Discrimination against" however, is harmful to the subject of the discrimination.

The only place I have been in Africa is Morocco, where the population is predominantly arab and berber, not black. There was certainly discrimination regarding me (the population could, just by looking at me, tell I was not a local, and acted accordingly) but it was almost always positive. Most people in most parts of the world are very generous and kind towards foreigners.

I can't evaluate his argument since you didn't really tell us what it was. All I have to go on is the reasons for your argument, and I think they are less than convincing. Your arguments are

1) If you go to Africa you will be discriminated against (But while it is plausible that there will be judgments made about you based on your skin color, it is not obvious that they will be negative judgments. My own experiences in Africa contradict your expectations. Your point here needs a lot of empirical evidence to back it up.)

and 2) That in any given country the ethnic majority will be more racist than the ethnic minority. "My point is that if i will go to africa then i would get descriminated on there because most of the population there is black ( in most parts anyway)... here majority are white so that is why there is more racism towards black people." (But again, there is no reason to believe this and a lot of good evidence otherwise. South Africa is a perfect example of the racial minority being more racist and oppressive than the majority. Additionally, any nation that has ever been colonized is likely the same. In India, for example, the British minorities discriminated against the majority races far more than the majority discriminated against them.)

Really, this is a sociological question more than it is a philosophical question. But the two reasons you have given for not believing your professor's case both have very strong counterexamples. I see no reason to side with you. Of course this doesn't mean that your professor is right, just that the reasons you give are flawed.

P.S. I would have to disagree with future posthuman Archailect. SInce we do not know what exactly the professor's reasoning was, we cannot say that his assertion is racist. This is the problem with condemning before you understand. If his argument was just that based on various studies, there is sociological evidence that whites tend to be more racist than blacks, this is not racist. This would be no more racist than saying based on various studies, there is evidence that whites tend to get higher paying jobs more often than blacks. Racism means judging an individual based on the race they belong to and independently of their actual characteristics. In both examples, individuals are not being judged based on their race. If the professor then extrapolated from this that I am a racist because I am white, then he would be making a racist claim.

Answer 2

If that is literally what he said, then he is wrong.

On the other hand, if what he said was that statistically more white people have been found to show racist predilections past a certain point, or that the average intensity of racism is greater in white people than other races, or something along those lines, then it's conceivable that he is correct.

There is almost no way to assert that every member of a race has a particular characteristic. Even trying to is ridiculous except for the grossest of generalizations, and even then I'd expect and exception or two. It is possible, however, to try and predict how many of them have a characteristic and talk about that. And there is a WORLD of difference between the two.

So it may be true that the likelihood of a woman being involved in a car accident on a per-mile-driven basis is greater than that of a man, or for white people on average to have more responses that are defined as racist on a particular survey. This does not mean that any particular woman is going to get in an accident or any particular white person is racist. Nor does it mean that women or white people or whatever MUST be this way or that it's even their fault (perhaps women seem to be in more accidents because men drive into them, or because men don't report theirs).

That's the difference between statistics and specifics.

Answer 3

Black people do not have the same power of Institutional racism that White people in this country do. It is a White Majority, an almost totally White government, and many large organisations (Police/Fire Service/ Army etc etc) are either almost totally white in number or certainly almost exclusively white at the upper levels. This often ends with a greater amount of racism within what is basically a culture of its own (anyone who has been in the armed forces will know what I'm saying).

So yes in that sense. But then look at Zimbabwe now - it isn't Whites that are running the show there, so the institutional racism is directed at Whites (I'm not getting into the politics / rights and wrongs of that country it's just an example) then again they have larger more powerful mainly White institutions trying to get involved there... but that doesn't change the current reality for Whites that live there.

So in this country No, not on the same scale. But who is more or less racist as a race in general is probably an impossible question for us to answer as racism works on so many different levels (even within the same 'race'!!)

Answer 4

I'm still wondering how you quantify degrees of racism. Do you conduct a survey? How do you define level of hatred, and how do you differentiate between level of hatred and a subject's natural tendency toward violence? Does one look in the newspaper for hate crimes and find that Klan members nail people to crosses and burn churches while black people rape white women, and then decide which groups committed the greater atrocity? Do you count how many white people say they don't have a problem with interracial marriage and compare it to how many minorities feel the same way? Do you go to comedy clubs and count how many racial jokes the white comedians tell versus the black and Hispanic comedians? Are the white people more racist because they discriminate against all groups, while the other groups are less racist because they all seem to only dislike or resent white people most of the time?

I don't know how you or your professor quantify which race is more racist, but the entire thing just seems counter-productive. It's just another way to divide us. And even if you ever find a way to definitively prove which is the most racist race of people, what are you going to do about it? Wipe them out? Send the entire lot of them to mandatory government re-education? What is the point of seeking this information, other than the mental masturbation of proving your point?

Answer 5

OK, now, I'm a white guy, but I think I know where your professor is coming from. There is a difference between bigotry based on race and racism. Bigotry based on race can indeed be shared by all people and nationalities. Racism, on the other hand is a system of oppression based on economic and social status. Indeed, because of the imperialism of the late 19th and early to mid 20th centuries a white person in nearly any country can receive social benefit. This is a racist system.

Most modern sociology books written on racism are looking i as a system rather than an attitude.

Answer 6

Racism is common to all peoples, all nations, and all times. You're right, he's wrong.

It could be that he's so entrenched in trendy academic views that he's lost site of the big historical picture. Anyone who's studied world history should know that racism and predjudice have always existed, and that darker skinned people are no more immune to it than lighter skinned ones.

The important difference relevant to the current situation has more to do with who is currently in power. At the present, white people have much more power and wealth than black people in the U.S. and in other parts of the world. Because of that, the racist views among some of the white people who enjoy a dominant position make a bigger difference than the racist views of the black people. That doesn't mean that either group is any more or less racist. It just means that the racism of the people on top, in this case white people, is more felt by the black people who are more powerless, than vice versa.

Answer 7

I think that I would have to disagree with you, but I wish I didn't.

If one looks back over world history, as long as any kind of civilization has existed, there have been slaves and masters. And this was nearly always based within racial parameters.

What is different with regard to the current era, is the centuries long domination of the black race by that of the white. Country doesn't matter. It has been this way since the age of exploration: approximately 4-5 long centuries, in which the white has always dominated the black. And its not likely to change in the foreseeable future. It has almost become a genetic based, outlook.

Such long held, prevailing views are not easily changed. And regardless of what anyone says, it is still very much with us.

A realistic,

Wotan

Answer 8

You forget about the effect of colonialism in places like Africa where white people may be the minority, but not necessarily discriminated against. There are many places in the world where white conquerors have so instilled the superiority of their lifestyle in the indigenous population that generations of dark-skinned people believe that white skin is inherent good.

Yes, prejudice is everywhere since we humans tend to fear/hate that which is different from us. But that fear/hatred is not something that can be measured when the person with the prejudice doesn't have the means to act upon it. I don't agree with the Jesse Jackson-esque philosophy that black people can 't be racist because they don't have power, but an affluent white Westerner is going to have to do more than just show up in Africa to be discriminated against.

I would suggest that the best way to study racism in non-white cultures would be to take an "average" white person who doesn't exhibit affluence or influence, have him live and work alongside non-white people in a predominantly non-white culture, allow the white person to exhibit basic differences in his day-to-day lifestyle, and see how the non-white "natives" react. Especially a non-white boss or a non-white police officer.

In a sense your professor is correct because it would be nearly impossible to remove the black subjects of your study from our white-dominated world. But that doesn't account for the basic human qualities that give rise to racism. Your professor seems to be suggesting that non-white people are less capable of fear/hate. In that sense, your professor's attitude towards the "noble savage" is extremely racist in itself. That the non-white people subverted by the dominant white culture are less sophisticated (less human) because they are/were oppressed.

Also consider the white-racist attitudes that non-white people adopt as their own. Your question assumes black racism against white people, but what about black racism against other black people? Doesn't the historical favorism of light-skinned blacks over dark-skinned blacks speak to the racism held by black people, even if it was influenced by white people?

Fear and hatred are human qualities, not white or black qualities.

Answer 9

By making a negative assessment of a people based on their skin color, your professor is himself engaging in blatantly racist behavior.

Nonetheless, it's been my personal observation that in much of academia, the white race is often regarded as the Bad Guys and racist almost by default. Granted, in past decades and centuries whites do not exactly have a sterling history when it comes to dealing with other races, but the good majority of whites nowadays regard racism as morally wrong. I think the academic emphasis of racism being inherent in whites only serves to prolong and exacerbate the remaining difficulties in race relations by building resentment among whites and minorities alike toward each other.

Answer 10

I am expecting someone to find a racist gene. The xenophobic gene and if you have some number of copies you are xenophobic.

Comparing degrees of racism is tempting to do. I am sure I have thought about it too. I think I would have the sense to not make a case for racism fodder in front of a class of students.