As someone who had lived for a while at one point in time among many WASP conservatives and straight-ticket GOP voters, I can say with 100% certainty that racism is not only alive and well within certain circles but in some respects rampant. I now live in a more rural part of a red state, and it’s just as rampant here as it is in some gated communities in Southern California. And then you’ve got dog whistle political messaging, pretty clear evidence of systemic racism in certain law enforcement and academic agencies and organizations, Roof’s recent murder of 9 African Americans as an act of domestic terrorism and a disturbing amount of defenders, the subculture of serial chain emailers who just love Photoshopped images of Michelle Obama as a chimp, anti-immigrant sentiment, anti-Mulsim sentiment, the millions of racist social media comments that pop up every minute on the Internet, and numerous hate groups that associate themselves with the conservative movement I’m pretty sure racism is still very much alive and well. Everything else O’Reilly posits here is putting words in Powers mouth and straw manning.
No one is saying ALL Americans are racist.
While arguing over whether everyone in the U.S. acknowledges the legacy of slavery in the U.S., Powers told O’Reilly, "There are actually a lot of people in this country who are racist."
You’re doing the same thing O’Leilly did here. I don’t know if it’s deliberate or simply a matter of not undertsanding the meaning of words. A lot does not mean EVERYONE.
“F*ck it. We’ll do it live!”
I have never indicated, ever, that “American” is synonymous with “whiteness”. America is great PRECISELY because among the population EVERY race and shade of color is present. A huge amount of businesses that have practiced discrimination on affording loans or jobs to African-Americans have been caught and paid huge fines, effectively ending for the most part that practice. As for the transferring of black wealth to white hands for a century after the civil war please do tell me, what kind of wealth ex slaves had that has been transferred?
As long as we have you, Fox News and the GOP, Bill O’Reilly, this country will have a strong racial problem.
I blame Fox News and the GOP for the state of racial unrest in this country today. You don’t constantly degrade people of color - use latent racism as a wedge issue - without major consequences. You reap what you sew, buddy.
Could you then rank the countries of the world based on how racist they are? Based on what?
The point is not whether the US is more or less racist than someplace else it’s how do we reduce racism here.
Their labor was exploited under a system of sharecropping that amounted to slavery light (and, yes, poor whites were often exploited too). The fact that they were not allowed to accumulate wealth was a huge opportunity cost, to use the proper economic term.
When you say “a lot” and it comes across like a huge part of the population is still racist, then it’s not me not understanding the meaning of words, it’s you that you have a poor choice of words and cannot quantify exactly what “a lot” means. What “a lot” means? 100? 1,000? 100,000? a million? What “a lot” is supposed to mean?
No it’s very clear - you are the one that is not understanding.
A lot does not mean EVERYONE, no matter how you are trying to say what “comes across”.
Try again.
O’Reilly is representing a point of view widely shared by the Fox demographic. Millions of older Americans lived through the civil rights movement. They correctly point out that things aren’t as bad as they were during their youth. We have come a long way they argue. They aren’t racists because they tolerate eating with blacks and they know a nice black woman or something similar. We have a long way to go. People still think in stereotypes that are based on the color of the skin of the person they see in front of them. To the extent people are still driven by such stereotypes there is racism, but it is the sort of racism that Bill O’Reilly and millions like him just don’t recognize.
I would say most people are racist to one degree or another, including most blacks. Certainly humans evolved as tribal creatures, who tend to regard everyone outside their tribe as a threat. This is true within the races, too, as the slaughters in the Balkans and Rwanda and a host of other places shows.
The issue is, knowing that, do you simply give in and hate everybody who isn’t exactly like you, or do you resist those urges?
I don’t have those urges, so I don’t have to resist them. And I agree with all you said.
The beauty of America is we have broken down lots and lots of those tribes. Once upon a time people of English ancestry looked down on people of German ancestry and both looked down on the Irish. Nobody wanted their daughter to marry an Italian. Over the generations that kind of tribalism has gone away. In my family a giant step was taken when one of my cousins married a Hispanic man who was later accepted by my uncle. There is nothing like a grand child to break down racism. The current generation is more accepting of blacks and whites marrying. As O’Reilly’s generation falls away white racism will slowly end. We aren’t there yet.
Mr O’Reilly has always seemed to me to have a prejudiced sub scriipt.
I bet that a well-designed neuropsychological study, perhaps involving fMRI, might show differently. Such studies have generally shown that what people actually think and what they SAY they think are quite different.
You would be a very rare person if you didn’t have those urges.
I don’t understand why Bill didn’t drag Kirsten down some stairs by her hair???
PS-The “people in a hut” remark said a lot…
And most people of that (my) generation when confronted with the idea of their being racist respond with - I can’t be racist. I have black friends. She was simply anticipating and stereotyping his likely reply.
ronbeyers-I’d like to think you’re right. However, isn’t Dylann Roof 21?
Well, pretty much the question was if I hate people who are different from me or if I resist the urge. I don’t hate people and surely I don’t hate people because they are different from me.