"Any racist needs to seek help. It's not normal in the 21st century to think in that way."

[Bluebear]

--Leila Lopes, Miss Angola/now Miss Universe

The concept and controversy of beauty pageants aside, love that quote!

http://tv.yahoo.com/news/leila-lopes-angola-crowned-miss-universe-030158499.html?nc

[Skittles]

1. she is correct

I believe it was never normal but it is certainly glaringly abnormal now; same is true for homophobia

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. I beg to differ...racism WAS indeed entirely "normal", for ages.

The ....normal....definition of "normal"=
adjective. 1. conforming to the standard or the common type; usual; not abnormal; regular; natural.

It was normal for hundreds of years.
The "standard" of racism underlies much of history, there has always been an ethnic or race based "other" that people have attacked, put down, treated "less than"...
the most glaring being white Europeans against those of a darker skin color, a belief system they dutifully continued once they invaded the Americas in the 1500's.and certainly had been some motivation in the Crusades, against Muslims.

Of course, what used to be "normal" does not equal "right".
( Keeping in mind that I on DU, this disclaimer is necessary).

I am merely pointing out that the first part of your sentence:" I believe it was never normal"
is not held up by history.

[pampango]

3. As one example of racism in the US in the 1950'a only 4% approved of black-white marriages.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/149390/Record-High-Approve-Black-White-Marriages.aspx

Americans are approaching unanimity in their views of marriages between blacks and whites, with 86% now approving of such unions. Americans' views on interracial marriage have undergone a major transformation in the past five decades. When Gallup first asked about black-white marriages in 1958, 4% approved. More Americans disapproved than approved until 1983, and approval did not exceed the majority level until 1997.



Now 86% approve.

[LatteLibertine]

5. It's an interesting poll and as with

all polls it should be kept in perspective. From the source page:

Survey Methods

Results for this USA Today/Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted Aug. 4-7, 2011, with a random sample of 1,319 adults, aged 18 and older....

There are over 300 million people in the nation right now.

[pampango]

6. True. "...one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage

points."

That is how polling is done. They all should be taken with a grain of salt. :)

[LatteLibertine]

7. Polls are useful

and too many folks treat them as if they're an omnipotent snapshot of >all< 300+ million minds in the United States.

That's my problem with them.

In politics, they are often used to influence public opinion rather than report it.

[geckosfeet]

8. That is an eye opener.

[5X]

9. I'd like to see what sitcoms were on tv during the peaks. n/t

[The Doctor.]

4. There are triggers in the limbic system.

That make people afraid of 'different'.

We know what those triggers are now, but these people are too inherently frightened to even listen, let alone learn why they are demented.

We know for a fact that, on average, 'conservatives' have underutilized anterior cingulate cortexes. They cannot reconcile 'different' or 'differences'. It's one of the reasons they are more prone to be sport's fans.

They are philosophical morons that have no place in making policy... yet here they are.

[Raschel]

10. I think that was beautifully put. Racists are abnormal and it's great to label it that way.

Great statement.

[backscatter712]

11. Racists should be forcibly medicated. n/t

[treestar]

12. Uh, no

Racism is wrong, but what you advocate there is worse.

[Ian David]

13. These things are rigged. Miss Universe is always from Earth. n/t

[pampango]

14. Planetarianism (?) is a tough one to deal with.

;)

[Bluebear]

18. ...

:)

[ChillbertKChesterton]

15. 1) Racism seems totally normal as an automatic attitude or even one

with a little thought behind it, given the right circumstances.

For example, a person grows up having a "normal" middle class upbringing in a nice suburban community. Growing up, they hear the PC message of "race doesn't matter, all that matters is your skills and how hard you work in life, you should be colorblind when viewing the world". They don't have many people of color in their school. When they reach adulthood, they begin to notice a few things: minorities in poor neighborhoods seem to behave differently than their white friends in the suburbs; minorities are convicted of crimes at a far higher rate than whites and make up a disproportionate % of the prison population; in terms of net worth, minorities have 18-20 times less wealth than whites; television portrayals of minorities put them in either a criminal or cartoonish light; or they simply have a few bad experiences with minorities.

Given that "normal" upbringing and without personal investigation into sociology, it seems rather "normal" for a person in this situation to develop racist views.

More quickie examples: A worker loses his job or faces pay cuts in order to compete with immigrant workers competing for the same position. A police officer or other public service worker who's job entails facing the socioeconomic differences between whites and minorities on a daily basis. It's not uncommon for police officers to develop racist views when they are placed in poor minority neighborhoods.

There are many other examples of how racism develops that don't involve going to klan meetings as a kid or having an IQ of 79.


2) People's ideas of racism are very limited. I've heard some people claim "you can only be a racist if you believe there are genetic differences between races that make them superior or inferior", which is a bogus super specific definition. I've heard people claim you can only be a racist if you declare that one race is better than another. Racism takes on many forms, subtle forms. Often times, I've seen more "sophisticated" and complex forms of racism coming from liberals than conservatives. You don't have to hate a certain racial group in order to be a racist.

[Bluebear]

16. I like Miss Universe's take better, sorry

[Nye Bevan]

17. Anti-semites too. Like when people state that Jews control the media, Hollywood and Congress,

or that Jews should go back to Germany and Poland.