Poll: I don't get Racism

[lunam-kardas]

I was looking over the forums while watching some videos and I spotted this topic

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.303721-A-question-about-history-and-racism

Originally I was going to leave a post but I began to have a really hard time answering. Then it sort of just occurred to me that I don't really get the underlying subject matter...which got me thinking.

The thing is I can't really give the topic creator gamezombieghgh a good answer because the concept itself makes no sense to me. The reason why is sort of hard for me to explain but I'll give you an example.

Say Random dude(gender and race = whatever your preference) needs to hire a number of people to complete a project (computer/engineering/college play, again whatever your preference).

If random dude is a racist, random dude will only pick employees who possess random dude's ethnicity or an ethnicity random dude considers an acceptable deviation.

Because of this, the pool of talent random dude will hire from is severely limited, meaning that random dude will end up ignoring all highly qualified (best in their field) individuals who exist outside of this pool and his/her project will ultimately be poorer for it.

That's why it doesn't make sense to me, there is no benefit to be had.

 

[Lord Mountbatten Reborn]

I'm sure someone already made a thread with this exact name, and the answers given were generally:

That's the point. Racism is irrational; it doesn't have to make sense, but awareness of it and its existence is important.

 

[peruvianskys]

Every time I hear someone say "I don't get..." I just imagine Jerry Seinfeld saying, "Racism? What's up with that?!"

But yeah, obviously racism doesn't make sense from a consumer or employer standpoint, but people have always been prepared to ignore the rational benefits of an action in favor of their prejudices. Alan Turing was kicked out of the British government for being gay, even though he was probably the best computer scientist they had. Obviously they knew it wasn't the best idea, but sometimes the knee-jerk response to someone different from you trumps logic.

 

[Kiefer13]

Of course it doesn't make any sense. It's an irrational prejudice. Same for any of the others (sexism, homophobia, etc) that discriminate against people for superficial reasons rather than because of their individual merits.

 

[TakeyB0y2]

I'm sure someone already made a thread with this exact name, and the answers given were generally:

That's the point. Racism is irrational; it doesn't have to make sense, but awareness of it and its existence is important.

Basically this. There's nothing to be gained from racism, and racists receive no benefit from their unwarranted judgement. Racism does come with cons, however (lack of friends, alienating yourself by alienating others, legal ramifications, ect.).

 

[OverweightWhale]

If the person who's hiring is being discriminatory when they're choosing workers they won't care about the skills of other and will think the race/gender/ethnicity that they favor is superior in every way.

 

[FalloutJack]

People do nonsensical things all the time. You're one of those guys who are completely immune to this particularly-nasty one because you think.

 

[SillyBear]

snip

The exact same thread was just made man.

Anyway, racism isn't rational. It's an evolutionary trait we have. Chimps and other apes do the same thing. If you show them a picture of the face of someone from their clan they feel quite happy and go about their day. If you show them a picture of an ape from another clan they get upset, angry and violent.

It's all the same thing. We instinctively distrust and fear difference. Thankfully we are getting to the point where we can negate this, but society as a whole isn't there yet.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Oy vey, this again.

I might be stepping on a few hundred toes by saying this, but unless you've been living in a time capsule since birth you're always going to be slightly racist. I don't care if you're the Dalai Lama.

 

[CWestfall]

I'm sure someone already made a thread with this exact name, and the answers given were generally:

That's the point. Racism is irrational; it doesn't have to make sense, but awareness of it and its existence is important.

I agree with you until the last point. I tend to agree with Morgan Freeman.


You can't let race define a person. Don't refuse to hire somebody because they are a certain race, don't hire somebody because they are a certain race.

 

[lunam-kardas]

I'm sure someone already made a thread with this exact name, and the answers given were generally:

That's the point. Racism is irrational; it doesn't have to make sense, but awareness of it and its existence is important.

Sorry, I should have realized that this was already well trodden ground. I didn't mean to add a new corner to the polygon of redundancy.

 

[enzilewulf]

Thats why racism makes no logical sense. Racism means limitations. Most limitations are there and you can't do anything about it. Yet with racism you can break the limitations. You just choose not to. That makes no sense.

 

[Kryzantine]

In game theory, we may factor such intangibles concerning race into the payoffs.

Look at the service industry. When racism is rooted in society, a firm or employer may see employment of a discriminant as damaging to their business - and for good reason. If customers are being driven away by their prejudices, then an employer may feel that the lost business is simply not worth the skill benefit of the employee. For a long while, traditional gender and race roles were dominant in the service industry. There are still a lot more female waitresses than male waiters, for instance. Of course, now there isn't any clear difference, yet females seem to gravitate to the profession more than males do. And for a while, firms preferred women explicitly over men. There is no actual skill difference based on sex - I've seen great male waiters, great female waitresses, terrible male waiters and terrible female waitresses. But people are just more used to female waitresses - consequently, a firm may factor that into its decision making (though obviously not its official hiring policy).

An irrational person - meaning, an actual racist - would simply factor the negative consequences involving race much higher than anything else. He may feel his own performance would drastically plummet, he may feel that people will be more disturbed by skin colour than they really are, any number of things. In our modern society, these individuals are few and far between. But 50 years ago, even rational people had reason to turn away discriminants - they view the society at large as discriminatory, and even though they have no problem with the discriminant and would even prefer their skill over others, the negative perception surrounding their hiring would affect business moreso. This applies to a lot of jobs where public perception is a factor.

Like I said, an example such as the OP is few and far between now. Public perception has shifted away from such discrimination, and consequently, business will not be affected negatively over something like skin colour. Skill will therefore be a much more important factor. To the OP, it's not a societal thing now, but there are a lot of people still alive in this world, who have lived through a period when this was a societal thing. I'm not saying they're racist, I'm saying they're reminding of it.