The premise states that old people are more racist BECAUSE they appear on the surface less tolerant? I was under the impression they appeared less tolerant because they are from a different time where “tolerant” was defined differently.
I never said anything about judging the actions of the past that way. I’ve actually said the exact opposite by saying more leeway should be given to older people as an adjustment needs to be made for the time they grew up in. I’m talking about judging current day actions of a 20 yr old and a 70 yr the same.
Because it forces you to accept that there’s a difference in racism levels so to speak between two ages as if age is THE driver. I don’t believe age even is a driver let alone the driver between average levels of racism or that there even is a statistically meaningful deviation of average racism between them. I don’t honestly know how’d you’d accurately measure in this case either.
Yes, in the sense that it is inherently racist to believe your race is superior and; therefore, it’s acceptable to own another person.
It depends, in the sense that I believe it would depend on whether or not there was malicious intent, ie, hatred towards said slaves based on their color as opposed to simply viewing ownership of slaves as property*.
*Which I obviously believe is wrong on about 1,000 levels to be clear.
Agreed. In an objective world, we don’t give them that leeway, and they appear even more racist if judged by today’s standards (which personally isn’t my preferred way). I’m 100% down to look at this in whichever way you want.
If we give old people leeway to account for changing times, we end with having to make an exception for them (needing an exception requires a reason. in this case, an adjustment due to living through times where being racist wasn’t frowned upon).
If we don’t give old people leeway to account for changing times, we end with old people being the “victim” of circumstances and being alive in a time where being racist wasn’t frowned upon, so they’re basically dead in the water when being compared (on average) to the follow up generations.
Are we giving them leeway due to times changing or are we not?
If you forced to chose who is likely more racist between a 70 year old and a 20 year old given no other information, the “correct answer” (and why ED posted the thought experiment) would be the 20 year old because we have become more culturally tolerant, at least on the surface, between 1947 - 1997.
I’m not giving “them” anything. It isn’t black and white. Very few things are.
Not really. If your gut-sense is that the probability of an old vs young person having racist feelings is truly 50:50, you could answer ‘I guess I would flip a coin, because I don’t think knowing an individual’s age tells me anything about the likelihood of them harboring racist feelings.’ But if your gut-sense is even 51/49 (one way or the other), it of course behooves you to go with the 51.
Care to answer now?
It doesn’t matter. That’s one of the nice things about thought experiments–they don’t have to be practical IRL. (Einstein’s gedanken involved him riding a photon.) The experiment simply stipulates that the measurement–however it’s accomplished–is satisfactorily appropriate to you.
Again, no. See above.
If I’m reading you correctly, there’s a deep irony here. You seem to be suggesting that if a slave owner truly believed that it was simply a scientific fact that blacks were ‘sub-human,’ one has to at least cut him some slack vis a vis being a racist. Kind of like it’s hard to call our (distant) ancestors stupid for thinking the world was flat before the needed astronomical info was available–they (flat-earthers back in the day) were obviously 100% wrong, but as they were going along with what everyone at the time ‘knew’ to be fact, it’s unfair to judge them too harshly for it.
On the other hand, if a slave owner knew/felt blacks weren’t inherently inferior, then he was a racist, because he knew what he was doing (owning another human) was wrong.
The irony, of course, is:
The first slave owner believes that blacks are inferior, which is the very definition of a racist; whereas
The second slave owner believes that blacks are not inferior, which is the very definition of not being a racist.
Let me try and explain myself a bit better: I think there are really two components to racism. 1) the inherent belief a race is superior/inferior (objective) and 2) Is there intent to be hateful/malicious towards another race based solely on color (subjective).
Regarding #1, obviously, antebellum slave owners believed in the inherent inferiority of their slaves by today’s standards. So, yes, I believe they were racist in that sense. Although I think you could make an argument that at the time since blacks were viewed as property (more in my #2), it was less about being superior and more about what you and I would see as a really F-up world view where blacks are simply property.
Where I think the concept gets very dicey is #2. If we answer this question within the context of life in the antebellum South then, IMO, the answer shifts from yes to “it depends”. In the antebellum South, blacks were considered property. It was the norm for a black person to be a slave. I don’t believe it was viewed at the time in terms of inferiority vs. superiority, universally. It is very hard to imagine, based on my life experiences, that a person, regardless of their color, was viewed as anything other than a human being. However, and I do apologize in advance because this will probably derail the thread (I will not post about it again) do we not view the pre-born as sub-human and; therefore, not provide the same protections to said unborn as we do a fully developed human being? Obviously, we do not as we abort millions of fetus’ a year and part of the country thinks that’s perfectly acceptable and part of the country thinks it’s an abomination. So, back to antebellum slavery, I think it’s reasonable to conclude essentially the same. Some slave owners probably did believe blacks were just sub-human property to be treated as the owner saw fit and some probably believed, correctly, that they were a human being just like they were.
All that said, I think it’s a difficult question to answer, succinctly, which is why I said I think it depends. Can you be racist to a piece of property? Did all antebellum slave owners really view their slaves as sub-human? If you believe a slave is property, but you treat them well are you a racist?
So, a person like Jefferson for example, owned slaves while he also tried to pass emancipation legislation in the early 1800s (maybe late 1700s I suck with dates) and by all accounts, he treated them well and was even allegedly in love with Sally Hemings. Is he a racist? A lot of people would say yes and a lot of people would say no. That’s the nature of these types of questions. A lot of people believe if you owned a slave of a different race you were racist, period. By today’s standards, I get that 100%, but Jefferson didn’t live by today’s standards and norms. He lived when slavery was an acceptable institution. It was an accepted institution for basically all of history up to this point. Did he (Jefferson) view his slaves as inferior? I donno, we weren’t friends, but it seems unlikely he would love someone he viewed as inferior. It seems his intent, at least on several occassions, was to end slavery as well.
Tl;dr I think circumstance and intent matter and I think you have to try and put yourself in the shoes/mindset of someone actually living in the antebellum south to answer the question, which is a very difficult thing to do.
Also, just to clear a few things up. I am not trying to “cut him some slack vis a vis being a racist”. Just like I was not trying to give anyone “leeway”. I am simply trying to answer the question posed the best I can.
I’m not nearly as eloquent as you guys in here, and I truly appreciate the civil back and forth, it’s a pleasure to read (genuinely).
As far as your question ED, I would say that the 70 year old is going to be less racist. They no longer have anything to “fear” from minorities, they are retired, they have their homes, they are simply doing old people stuff.
A 20 year old on the other hand has now had it beaten into them (by news, by media, by whatever) that their jobs are being taken, that if they have the exact same resume as a minority they will be passed over based on the fact that they are white due to regulations (the “reserved” spots in colleges or in the work force).
I do not believe that the 20 year old will typically be as overt about it as a 70 year old, but I genuinely believe that the “fire” of racism is probably more prevalent in folks just entering the work force than those that have left it.
Couple points here. 20something’s consume far less MSM than previous generations. The MSM that IS consumed is viewed with much more skepticism than non MSM news. Also most of us have figured out that affirmative action = reserved spots is a political talking point that doesn’t actually exist in 99% of practical applications.
20something’s usually aren’t stupid enough to believe the political talking points of AA as it’s been around a large majority of our lives.
Edit: I guess final point is I thought most MSM isn’t pushing the AA = reserved spot lines anymore, but as I don’t consume much of it I could be wrong.
That’s an interesting point, if somebody (or a group) is more racist but understands that it is frowned upon so they won’t say it, even though they believe it. How would you measure such a phenomenon?
Compared to old people who don’t give a rats ass anymore, they’ll say whatever is on their mind. The bluntness might make them appear more racist, even if they aren’t.
They are consuming news though. From what I’ve seen, that comes from facebook, twitter, blogs, and other things that are usually more biased than MSM (generally).
Maybe not specifically to AA and reserved spots, but there are a lot of programs that target specific ethnicity and women, its not hard to see the imbalance. I’m not saying its a bad things those programs exist as that’s a different conversation, but noticing them is not hard. Pretty much every women I was in class with (mechanical engineering, very male dominated) had scholarships that were only available for their gender.
My grandpa can get away with a public fart WAY easier than I ever could. There is a certain point where he’s old enough where people just shrug, its not worth it. A 20something can still be influenced to not be a racist/douche/rude or whatever.
I agree with this, the main stream has been overtaken with YouTube personalities and viral sensations that are very polarizing and very alluring to 20somethings, especially early 20 somethings.
All it has to do is “be there” in the back of your mind (as a young adult looking for a job) to sway your feelings, whether it is real or not, and whether or not that person is stupid, people look for something to blame when the fail at getting a job.
I don’t think it is, I simply think that it has been a large enough buzzword for our generation that it is simply “there” and you can’t be absolutely sure that you have the same chance.
I think we agree on all those points, really. I’m not sure if that was your intent or not, ha. And if I missed something I am sorry and definitely want to discuss further.
But this has literally always been the case. Any number of reasons that is utter bullshit could stop a more qualified person from getting a job. As an anecdotal example, the company I currently work at has a HUGE problem with Nepotism. The 4 owners here basically spend most of the day breathing out of their mouths until they can upend another department by handing it over to an unqualified relative.
You also have inherent bias and prejudice from a variety of places/people for a variety of reason. (imo) if someone get’s shot down for a job, and the first thing they try to blame is affirmative action (without DIRECT INSIDE knowledge that AA is the culprit), they’re probably just a shitty prospective candidate for a job.
The example I gave above about my grandpa/cousin calling waiters monkeys was real. You can’t make this shit up lol.
I think we still agree, I am in the camp that there shouldn’t be names or race on a resume/application, piece of professional work/research, etc.
My point with that was simply that most people aren’t going to look at themselves and say, “Yeah, ha I put together a pretty shit resume since I’m not a great employee.” They’re going to say, “G-Damn affirmative action, at it again!” (“They took 'er jerbs!”)
I honestly agree with pretty much every point you’ve made, I think.
Gosh, you guys really don’t understand Identity Politics.
Trump won because of sexism and misogyny. Clinton said so.
Also James Comey, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama, Jill Stein, Vladamir Putin, Julian Asange, Anthony Weiner, the New York Times, lazy women, liberal activists, and the Electoral College.
