Sep 1, 2015 Just interested in what kind of opinions the people of S80 have on racism and how prevalent they believe it to be in today's society. I hear people all the time claiming that it barely exists anymore and black people or other minorities are just playing the race card. That they're all just lying or exaggerating. It's strange how many people deny racism is even really a thing anymore. I think there's an overwhelming amount of people who claim not to be racist that actually are to some degree (whether they even know it or not). Racism is being prejudice. I'm sure there are many people reading this that can admit they're prejudice towards a certain race to at least some extent when they really give it some thought. Sure, I could be projecting a little here, because to be honest, I have realised how easy it is to have racist ideas/thoughts and that I have had them in the past. The thing is though, I know many people far more racially biased than I've ever been that claim not to be racist and that would never be identified as a racist by other people. It really shouldn't even be much of a surprise that racism is still alive and kicking... It was only a few decades ago that blacks had a separate section on a bus ffs. Anyway, wanted to share a couple of videos I've seen lately... Here's an experiment done by someone named Jane Elliot. She started doing an exercise where she'd split up her class into two groups determined by eye colour. Brown eyes and Blue eyes. One group would get the chance to be the superior group and then the roles would reverse the next time they did it. Some of the doc shows that being done and talks about the results and then later catches up with the children decades later as adults so they can talk about the affect it had on them. Also, this guy is an ex cop that worked in Baltimore and has been very vocal about his experiences with the police force and institutionalised racism. Found it very enlightening. Here's a shortish video where he talks about some of these things: Here's a podcast where he goes into much greater detail. Can get it on iTunes too. It's very interesting, as insight and transparency from someone in his position on these topics are very valuable. I know a lot of people likely don't really give a f--- about any of this but that's cool. Was hoping I could get some opinions and also possibly some people to share more documentaries/videos.
Sep 1, 2015 I hate racists and I believe all racists should die but only if they're black, Muslim or Jewish. Or gay or disabled. Or Asian.
Sep 1, 2015 Racism is stupid, yes. I work with people from all kind of 'races' and I never treat them differently. Of course when something happens and a foreign person is involved people are quick to say 'what a surprise' (especially here), but in some cases I don't blame them.. but yeah also agree that people saying 'that's racism!!!' for no reason is also dumb.
Sep 2, 2015 Yeah, that "what a surprise" reaction is the problem a lot of the time. The same people that have that reaction will say they're not racist tho. The blue eyes experiment shows how easily that kind of reaction can be programmed into you. I think a lot of people keep that reaction in their heads. It's quite crazy how much overt racism you'll see on the internet because people are anonymous.
