The American Racism Split

[Davka]

It's not weird. Most of those poor rural whites are racists.

Citation please. And aren't you racially profiling poor rural whites by saying that? Which makes you racist, yes?

No, it doesn't. He would have to be painting ALL whites with a single brush to even approach anything like racism. It might be classism, but it's a classist stereotype that exists for a reason.

Those of us who have lived in rural flyover country have personal experience with Joe Sixpack and his xenophobic, FOX-news worshipping tendencies.

Here's a citation for you: FOX news is the most-watched news network in America. Who do you think is watching them? Who is their target audience? Could they even exist, let alone be wildly successful, if there were not a significant group of people lapping up their every word as the Gospel Truth?

 

[ImGod]

It's not weird. Most of those poor rural whites are racists.

Citation please. And aren't you racially profiling poor rural whites by saying that? Which makes you racist, yes?

http://facebook.com

 

[Rhea]

^^ yeah, that's the kind of attitude I'm talking about, right there.

"I don't see the problem, therefore it doesn't exist unless you can produce statistics. Because we all know that accurate statistics exist for everything that happens. Anywhere."

So how do you know it exists? Should I believe everything you say, just because you say it? I don't see people talking on the phone in the car nearly as often as you claim that you do .Obviously I live in a completely different place. But without statistics I have no way to judge which of our experiences is more typical. I don't even know whether you are accurate in your statement of what you see.

My husband and I play a game. Every time we see someone driving erratically, we pass them and look to see if they are on the phone. Of those who drive erratically, the vast majority (enough to place bets on and make a killing) are on the phone. I would estimate well in excess of 70%. And we live in a state that outlaws being on the phone while driving!

There are years and years of stats to back up the existence of a genuine problem from racism. But observations can also be made and not tossed off every time they are observed, if one is willing to stop and think.

 

[Rhea]

Citation please. And aren't you racially profiling poor rural whites by saying that? Which makes you racist, yes?

No, it doesn't. He would have to be painting ALL whites with a single brush to even approach anything like racism. It might be classism, but it's a classist stereotype that exists for a reason.

Those of us who have lived in rural flyover country have personal experience with Joe Sixpack and his xenophobic, FOX-news worshipping tendencies.

Here's a citation for you: FOX news is the most-watched news network in America. Who do you think is watching them? Who is their target audience? Could they even exist, let alone be wildly successful, if there were not a significant group of people lapping up their every word as the Gospel Truth?

careful with that stat: They are the most watched CABLE NEWS network.
While it doesn't discount your point at all (because 1/3 is still 120,000,000 Americans and that is a lot), they actually only have an audience share of 30% of all news programs. But that 30% does include a pretty monolithic audience type ("conservative"), and it is indeed a shitpotful of people.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

It's not weird. Most of those poor rural whites are racists.

Citation please. And aren't you racially profiling poor rural whites by saying that? Which makes you racist, yes?

I don't think so. I used to wonder why poor rural white folk would oppose healthcare and other programs that would benefit themselves. It didn't make sense. In my investigating the history of healthcare legislation in the U.S. I found out that the reason UHC never happened was because of entrenched southern racism, white folks afraid of desegregation. Nothing has changed since those early years when Harry Truman was Prez.

I should add that I lived in the south, including Texas, long enough to learn same. My kids were born there. I really don't need statistics to understand the phenomenon.

Here's a good summation of the Healthcare history in the U.S.

History of Health Reform in the U.S.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

There are poor and working class rural white folk who get it, but they tend to be scattered and they don't seem to show up in those man on the street interviews on the local news, so they have become invisible to the public mind. But I have met them. And i know a little something about this country's history. I know about the STFU (yes those are the actual initials) which stands for the  Southern Tenant Farmers Union. I know that the Moral Monday marches here in NC are very diverse affiars with most of those arrested on the three marches I attended being not only white but also over the age of 50.

Don't give up on Bubba yet. He knows more than you think. Now wannabee Mr. Charlie, he's a horse of another color.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

There are poor and working class rural white folk who get it, but they tend to be scattered and they don't seem to show up in those man on the street interviews on the local news, so they have become invisible to the public mind. But I have met them. And i know a little something about this country's history. I know about the STFU (yes those are the actual initials) which stands for the  Southern Tenant Farmers Union. I know that the Moral Monday marches here in NC are very diverse affiars with most of those arrested on the three marches I attended being not only white but also over the age of 50.

Don't give up on Bubba yet. He knows more than you think. Now wannabee Mr. Charlie, he's a horse of another color.

Bubba and rural white folk does sound stereotypical. Lets just call them your typical southern working stiff.

 

[Davka]

There are poor and working class rural white folk who get it, but they tend to be scattered and they don't seem to show up in those man on the street interviews on the local news, so they have become invisible to the public mind. But I have met them. And i know a little something about this country's history. I know about the STFU (yes those are the actual initials) which stands for the  Southern Tenant Farmers Union. I know that the Moral Monday marches here in NC are very diverse affiars with most of those arrested on the three marches I attended being not only white but also over the age of 50.

Don't give up on Bubba yet. He knows more than you think. Now wannabee Mr. Charlie, he's a horse of another color.

I've met these people too. Most of them are pretty quiet about their beliefs, because being polite is also part of rural culture, and arguing the minority position isn't polite. Some of them are hardcore iconoclasts, wearing their Yellow-Dog Democrat bona-fides on their sleeves and plastering their pickup trucks with liberal stickers, just daring anyone to mess with them. They are tolerated in small towns because they grew up there.

 

[Rhea]

There are poor and working class rural white folk who get it, but they tend to be scattered and they don't seem to show up in those man on the street interviews on the local news, so they have become invisible to the public mind. But I have met them. And i know a little something about this country's history. I know about the STFU (yes those are the actual initials) which stands for the  Southern Tenant Farmers Union. I know that the Moral Monday marches here in NC are very diverse affiars with most of those arrested on the three marches I attended being not only white but also over the age of 50.

Don't give up on Bubba yet. He knows more than you think. Now wannabee Mr. Charlie, he's a horse of another color.

Bubba and rural white folk does sound stereotypical. Lets just call them your typical southern working stiff.

They don't have to be southern... fr the record.

 

[fromderinside]

There are poor and working class rural white folk who get it, but they tend to be scattered and they don't seem to show up in those man on the street interviews on the local news, so they have become invisible to the public mind. But I have met them. And i know a little something about this country's history. I know about the STFU (yes those are the actual initials) which stands for the  Southern Tenant Farmers Union. I know that the Moral Monday marches here in NC are very diverse affiars with most of those arrested on the three marches I attended being not only white but also over the age of 50.

Don't give up on Bubba yet. He knows more than you think. Now wannabee Mr. Charlie, he's a horse of another color.

I've met these people too. Most of them are pretty quiet about their beliefs, because being polite is also part of rural culture, and arguing the minority position isn't polite. Some of them are hardcore iconoclasts, wearing their Yellow-Dog Democrat bona-fides on their sleeves and plastering their pickup trucks with liberal stickers, just daring anyone to mess with them. They are tolerated in small towns because they grew up there.

While I'm not above finding such people, the ones I found boasting McGovern stickers seemed to be the same ones who cheered at the end of Easy Rider at our local drive-in theater rather than genuine anti-racist people. When I went back in the eighties there were still working white and black fountains and bathrooms in places like Sopchoppy and Two Egg. Even now a friend who just retired as head of research at a government facility wrote in his family Christmas letter the bad old days are still a problem in schools, bars, and clubs in Dothan.

Its the same in more rural, rural tradition, regions up north well north west where hard working younger types still go hunting for deviants now and again. The middle age category of these poor working white people usually go underground and only spring up when times get edgy in groups like John Birch and Tea Party

I'm not hopeful given the tendency for polarization to increase among common thinking groups which seem to be all the rage now spurred on by social media.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And some of us understand that data such as this is not proof of discrimination. When you dig into it race turns out not to be a factor, but rather their parents.

Yes, because the numerous studies which show that employers are more likely to interview job-seekers with white-sounding names, even over those with slightly better resumes but black-sounding names, is due entirely to those applicant's parents. Ditto for studies that show the same thing for renting decent apartments. Racism plays no part whatsoever in the prevalence of poverty among African-Americans.

Oh, wait - I see what you're saying. Their parents were black, which is why they're black. Darn those callous melanin-rich parents for passing on that gene!

You're citing the only two bits of research I'm aware of that support the racism position--and at least the former has the big problem that blacks are just as likely to do it as whites.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So how do you know it exists? Should I believe everything you say, just because you say it? I don't see people talking on the phone in the car nearly as often as you claim that you do .Obviously I live in a completely different place. But without statistics I have no way to judge which of our experiences is more typical. I don't even know whether you are accurate in your statement of what you see.

My husband and I play a game. Every time we see someone driving erratically, we pass them and look to see if they are on the phone. Of those who drive erratically, the vast majority (enough to place bets on and make a killing) are on the phone. I would estimate well in excess of 70%. And we live in a state that outlaws being on the phone while driving!

There are years and years of stats to back up the existence of a genuine problem from racism. But observations can also be made and not tossed off every time they are observed, if one is willing to stop and think.

There's years and years of totally bogus "research" that "shows" racism. Almost all the "research" does not consider the possibility that race is a proxy for SES. Any study that concludes racism without considering this hypothesis isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

My husband and I play a game. Every time we see someone driving erratically, we pass them and look to see if they are on the phone. Of those who drive erratically, the vast majority (enough to place bets on and make a killing) are on the phone. I would estimate well in excess of 70%. And we live in a state that outlaws being on the phone while driving!

There are years and years of stats to back up the existence of a genuine problem from racism. But observations can also be made and not tossed off every time they are observed, if one is willing to stop and think.

There's years and years of totally bogus "research" that "shows" racism. Almost all the "research" does not consider the possibility that race is a proxy for SES. Any study that concludes racism without considering this hypothesis isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

And you can produce examples of such research that do not control for SES?

 

[Davka]

Yes, because the numerous studies which show that employers are more likely to interview job-seekers with white-sounding names, even over those with slightly better resumes but black-sounding names, is due entirely to those applicant's parents. Ditto for studies that show the same thing for renting decent apartments. Racism plays no part whatsoever in the prevalence of poverty among African-Americans.

Oh, wait - I see what you're saying. Their parents were black, which is why they're black. Darn those callous melanin-rich parents for passing on that gene!

You're citing the only two bits of research I'm aware of that support the racism position--and at least the former has the big problem that blacks are just as likely to do it as whites.

They're not 'bits' of research, they are independent studies that have been done by more than one team at more than one time. It's a pattern, not a one-off.