I'm not racist but...

[MIdgebabe]

I guess most people accept that the statement "I am not racist but " usually comes before a very racist remark.

But I have noticed another phrase common on here

"I'm not racist, I just don't like "

Why is it similar? Because you can't really know why you don't like someone. You may think it's a rational dislike, but all the evidence is that it's actually an unconscious decision on top of which you add rationality.

All the evidence? Because BAME people know they are more likely to be disliked / police searched / lose out at interviews than white people. Because we know that people who are chosen in blind tests are not chosen if the tests are not blind, no matter how unbiased the people doing the choosing think they are.

It's really difficult, and it is hard / daft to attribute to individuals a behaviour that emerges from people on average. And most people want and try to be non-racist

But when a BAME person suspects that racism underlies something, denying that , which happens on here, or claiming "not me" seems a very racist thing to do.

flashbac Indeed statistics can support racism as you can skew the information sought. Statistics and facts aren’t necessarily the same thing. Data alway needs a narrative.
I was talking more specific information that cannot be skewed. Five men being charged is very different from a more vague 42% of prisoners are illiterate.

I live in a town with a large Muslim population, feral youths (majority white) are the biggest scourge on the town. Horrible you stereotype like that Nicola.

Full quote. It's clear how the sentence was used and it was in no way to create another stereotype. Just to counterpoint the precious posts about Muslim men being a problem.

Previous!!!

For example in the 70s-80s when apparently white people didn’t have to worry about HIV / AIDs as it was a ‘black’ disease.
And white gay men.

BTW, there was no "AIDS" in the 70s. It was first described in 1981.

How about I don't like white men because they're paedophiles.

Statistically the majority of paedophiles are white.

I don't go round thinking every white man is one though, probably because I am white. I wonder if the majority of paedophiles were from a different culture would I feel different. I like reflecting about why we think the way we think.

Everyone has unconscious bias. I think the trick is to recognise and reflect about it.

@flashbac
Yes, great point because statistics can reflect racist realities in a society then they can also be misused to perpetuate those racist realities. Like your stop and search example...it self perpetuates. But that doesn’t make the statistic itself racist imho. People do misuse the prison population %s often...

I think it’s clearly understood that a key cause of crime is poverty. So the fact that here in the US, most prisoners are black is a reflection more of the systemic racism keeping black people in poverty than criminal tendencies.

It is also a reflection of racism in the US justice system because a black defendant will get a longer sentence for the same crime than a white defendant. So you have a first in, last out thing going on in prison.

Like white guy gets 2yrs
Black guy gets 4yrs

2yrs later, you’ve added 2 more white guys and 2 more black ones but white guy #1 is free so you now have
2 white guys
3 black guys

You do that over and over and your pie chart of prison population will get really unbalanced even though all the guys did the same crime. Then that 3 in 5 convicts for x in prison are black...say it’s dealing drugs...well that is then mis-used by police to decide who to stop and search.
(I’ve assumed black/white are same % population to make the math simpler to illustrate just how deep an impact harsher sentences alone is on prison population stats.)

70s-80s when apparently white people didn’t have to worry about HIV / AIDs as it was a ‘black’ disease.

I don’t remember that. It was in the 80s and it was first thought of as a gay disease. Then they added intravenous drug users to that list...heroin junkies. In early 90s, they recognized anyone could get it. By late 90s the porn industry almost crashed when they had an outbreak.

I don’t recall here in the US anyone saying it was a “black disease.” There was in the 90s real concern about AIDS in Africa but that was because of women having a lack of access to condoms and some African countries even refused to believe AIDS existed.

I don't think it was fair of mnhq to delete Nicolas comment. She was just giving her opinion and not bashing anybody.

@Teddybear45 I was seriously sexually assaulted by a white man with blond hair, I however am not racist against white people and nor do I dislike people with blond hair. My boyfriend is white with blond hair.

It does seem that if a white person does something it isn’t a reflection on white people, but if another ethnicity does something then the whole ethnicity is demonised. Look at mass attacks, brown person terrorist, white person who hates a certain religion, way of life etc nutter. The only difference in the crime is skin colour.

@SimonJT
It does seem that if a white person does something it isn’t a reflection on white people,

Well, here in the US there is plenty of that going on. Dead white people owned slaves, and it’s completely considered a reflection on white people today by many. All white people are racists is what they say, it’s in white people DNA, white people most destructive force on the planet, etc etc. White guys do some mass shootings, and news outlets talk about white people being white supremacists and the danger of “angry white men toting guns.” Trump opens his mouth and then some blame white women for electing a racist, sexist, xenophobe to the WH.

Just sayin’ everyone’s chickens come home to roost. Anything anyone does is taken as a reflection of their race, sex, religion, gender, sexual orientation, Rich/poor status etc etc . It’s sad really that society has come to this.

@DoctorAllcome

Although there is some element of truth to that post, it's not was widespread and the effect is tiny compared to the group blaming that is done to black and other non-white groups, and women!

^Statistically the majority of paedophiles are white.

I don't go round thinking every white man is one though, probably because I am white. I wonder if the majority of paedophiles were from a different culture would I feel different. I like reflecting about why we think the way we think.^

I think it's because the paedophiles who operate in gangs and target young vulnerable girls are in the main of pakistani origin.

That's really not the truth @pus there have been some gangs in recent years but there have been lots of white paedophiles gangs in high reaching places over the years. It's usually been boys that they were targeting unlike the recent Pakistani gangs who have targeted teenage girls.

@lweji
Hmmm. Well it’s always been widespread as every race tends to think most favorably about its own race and so generally, these kinds of racist assumptions tend to tally up by population sizes. So by sheer numbers, in the US yes more widespread against nonwhites. ( I firmly think that no race is more or less racist than another race % of people wise.)

So, in a majority white country, it’s less prevalent to see/read anything attributing the actions of individual whites to their race. They’re not going to bad mouth their own race. Same as how anti-black stuff hardly ever comes from within my community- it’s almost always coming from outside the black community. Which is why you see it more...because the vast majority of racists do not talk about their own race but another.

Agree, impact is always the heaviest on whoever is the minority. The US is more diverse than U.K. so a trickle of anti-white stuff is leaking out to mainstream.

I hope we can all eradicate racism before whites become the minority in the US, otherwise the tables will be turned. That’s just the way human societies have operated and still operate. I have no stomach for retribution. I’d rather live in a world where everyone is free from the effects of racism.

I’m afraid DoctorAllcome you come across as someone wanting to drive racism through propaganda. I initially thought you were a UKIP person but now see you are a white American.
..before whites become a minority in the US
That’s not about to happen anytime soon, is it? The 2010 US census seems to show 72% of Americans are white. It’s scaremoangering. You don’t work for Trump do you?

Pointing out that white privilege in the US stems from slavery isn't being anti-white.
That some current fortunes were built on slave work isn't being anti-white.
I don't think anyone wants to punish whites today for their slave owners ancestors, but calling out for some restoration to redress the balance isn't being anti-white either.

@DoctorAllcome
"They’re not going to bad mouth their own race."- which races are you talking about? In the Indian culture there is a caste system which is punitive towards the darker and Dalit community. There is colourism in the black community which is detrimental. There is also colourism in the East Asian community (what is called Asian in the US). There is colourism and racism in the latino community, where the Morena socially oppress those of darker skin (consider Brazil, Colombia, Venuzela etc which all have black communities due to an extensive history of slavery, and still oppress those of African heritage). Lots of blackpolitical research (in the US) shows that actually it is the white community that is hesitant to speak out about the racism shown by others of white heritage, for fear of their own prejudices.

"I hope we can all eradicate racism before whites become the minority in the US, otherwise the tables will be turned" - you might need to read up on White fragility. You show a lot of evidence of being scared of the potential of being in a minority in your homeland (which is unlikely to happen as per the research btw), this is the reality for all people of colour, including those of Mexican heritage in the US, who have never known the land of their forefathers.

It is quite exhausting to read @Doctor's posts, but I think that @Lweji and @CherryPavlova have done a great job of challenging the Doctor's points. But I died a little inside when s/he wrote that you can't argue with statistics. I died.

oh, and racism is the combination of power and racial prejudice. It is not either, or. It is the sum of the two combined. Power in this term can be political, financial, cultural, …… etc.,

I hope we can all eradicate racism before whites become the minority in the US

So the split is white/not white? Completely disregarding the differing ethnicities within the 'not white' group as being distinct from each other.

Kinda racist in itself that...

Uh, ok. So I’m a black woman. I guess you all missed that? My calling the black community “my community” and so on? Did I not sound black enough for you?

My comment on bad mouthing was about racism and how races hardly ever say blatantly racist things or express racist opinions in public about their own race. So taking that out of context to then mention colorism, which is not racism, is a big fat so what.

Talking about slavery is not anti-white...well no shit. But I did not say that did I? Another out of context comment.

The cherry on top is quoting to me the “dear white people” definition of racism. Yeah like I don’t know what that is. Uh huh. It’s not as simple as power + prejudice because power balances fluctuate. You come up in my neighborhood and I can show you that power on an individual level is a whole another ball game from systemic, structural power within society. There is more than one kind of power. But I guess you don’t know that we have power too and think you own all that. You don’t.

This was my last “exhausting” post. Sorry for taking up too much white space....pun intended.

I think it's because the paedophiles who operate in gangs and target young vulnerable girls are in the main of pakistani origin.

Do you have evidence or is it just your perception?

The 2 nastiest women I've known have been blonde & white.

& the nastiest group of men I've met were white too.

It just happened that way.

The potential rapists I've had the misfortune to come across have been white & Asian & Arabic males. But that's because I mostly mix with men from those three backgrounds.

I hate to say it but many men from ALL races can be rapists.

You know some women say NAMALT?

Not All Men?

Well I say NYT.

Not You Too.

When yet another 'nice' seeming man turns out to be sleazy.

Someone close to me was raped by a paedophile white man with a beard.

She isn't racist but she can't stomach looking at white men with beards.

My heritage is a community within the uk which is marginalised, judged, despised, feared, with a lifespan at least 20 yrs lower than the rest of the uk. Children’s education is sub standard with most of the community either totally illiterate or with very poor literacy skills.

Access to proper health and medical care is often denied. Domestic violence is rife. The normal assumption is we don’t pay taxes, we don’t work in ‘proper’ jobs. Our streets are unsafe, therefore anyone from outside the community coming in will be attacked. Any domestic crimes around our homes are normally our fault.

The majority have given up their traditional way of life, hide their heritage just to be able to live normally and be treated fairly.

This is going on daily. These threads really annoy me. People feel so strongly about racism when it suits them but turn a blind eye when it doesn’t or the victims are just not politically worthy