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But often those making that claim fail to consider context. Or, rather, they go context hunting to prove their claim.
In the past, I've argued this point often with colleagues. I would point to where a person of color (or a woman) did something racist (or sexist) and they justify the action and say it wasn't racism (sexism) because that same person, in a different context, lacks power. A police chief does something racist? Hey, he was discriminated against as a kid; he's considered a dangerous person by a white woman walking on a street at night; he has trouble getting a cab. A woman won't hire a man because, well, they have all the advantages anyway and she really would have trouble working with a man, and she's not sexist because in some other setting she's perceived as a powerless victim.
Yes, you need power to operationalize your racism. On the other hand, a lot of "racism" in society is expressed by people with no power to affect their erstwhile victims. My mother's clearly a racist. All blacks are lazy, stupid n****rs (except Obama; she's never voted anything other than (D) in her 60 years of voting). Yet she has no authority whatsoever over anybody else outside her own family, and never has had any authority.
Then again, "power" is a subtle thing: If you think badly of yourself or are unsure about your group's standing, just having a peer, somebody with no power, express a rude thought can impact your behavior.
Once I had a boss who told me that he had been against hiring me. He wanted somebody of a different ethnicity, believing that people of my ethnicity couldn't be trusted and were lazy. He had held the application window open for a few weeks in hopes of getting somebody at least as qualified as I was but with the right skin color. He said I worked out, after all. That was a zero-sum game.
People don't just perceive prejudices against themselves. They perceive prejudices against their group. The stronger the group boundaries, the easier the perception. And perceptions don't change quickly--a lot of teenagers talked about discrimination in work, in school, but few had ever worked. They were *expecting* to be discriminated against. It's very easy to confirm a bias you already hold.
I had an Iranian friend. He applied for a job. He was interviewed. He was turned down. A white guy got it, a guy who arguably was less qualified. He was told by colleagues that it was racism. He asked me what I thought. "Nah, probably not. You know the people on the hiring committee--are they racist?" He said his resume was perfect for the job, that they seemed to like him during the interview. I said the people calling it "racism" saw racism everywhere. If the traffic light changes when they approach, it's a racist act. They fail a test, it's racism. He was troubled, called a fool for not seeing the racism that was obvious for all to see. They very nearly convinced him. A few weeks later he got a call: They thought his resume strong but the job he applied for was too small. They took a few weeks to cobble together the funding for the position they created for him, at a salary significantly higher than the one he applied for. They knew they had money for a position and were sure the chancellor would sign off on it; they didn't know how much they'd scrape together, so they couldn't make him an offer, nor could they tell him until the chancellor had actually placed his imprimatur on the idea. The Iranian had no strong bias to be confirmed or denied; many of his colleagues assumed everything was racist, it was just a matter of figuring out how it was racist. They worked hard to find a way to make the job offer he got a racist act. "They realized you were qualified, and wanted to avoid a lawsuit." Yeah. Right.
As for the article, the point is that blacks perceive, according to the researchers' stats, less racism. It's not held more or less constant, it's decreased sharply.
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