The Racist Mind

[Soandso]

Classism is a form of racism

It most definitely is not. Racism can play a role within classism for sure, but that speaks more to the systemic nature of racism and the stereotypes people have of certain people of a specific race naturally existing within a specific class. For example, a snippet from the cornerstone speech:

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition.

I didn't do that. I was pointing out that racializing everything is not the solution.

I wasn't suggesting you did, it was a comparison between how neonazis think vs. folks like the couple in the OP who glorify the old south

Racializing every issue is a tactic used by shady élites to divide and rule the people. So that black people and white people unite against the real thieves: the financial élites that steal the seigniorage from a nation.

Are you talking about critical race theory?

 

[Soandso]

They're over-generalizing "poor-people".

Regardless, you're right. There is more to it. However, lacking the over-generalization, adding attention to detail will always and forever moderate. Addressing these issues is like knocking out the captain who is directing many foot soldiers. When you write: "there is much more at work" that in my mind are the foot soldiers. I'm not ignoring them. I'm going after their boss. Knock that one down, and the rest of them will scatter.

Hmmm... What boss is there for racism, though? It's a cultural issue, seems to me. Not sure what else can be done to combat it aside from education and community outreach

 

[wellwisher]

This morning I came across a news article that left me feeling very disturbed

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/06/27/us/west-virginia-adopted-black-children-slaves-reaj

These white people adopted a bunch of black kids to make slaves out of them to work their farm like they were plantation masters from the 1800s

What was the thought process behind such a thing? How does one justify such evil; and against kids no less! I get that bad people do bad things and that the world has some seriously messed up people in it, but racism is a very common thing - what's the point? How is the world view rooted? Is it simply something someone is taught or grows up around? Why do people get so hung up around it?

I never understood it. I just don't get it

It has to do with emotional thinking, where a person's feelings come before reason. When the brain writes to memory it adds emotional tags to the sensory content. Our memory has both sensory content and feeling tones. This writing process is why our strongest and most enduring memories have the strongest emotional ambiance; marriage, children, trauma, etc. This useful to the animal. If they encounter a similar situation that triggers their memory, they can act on the feeling, and not have to think or reinvent the wheel. If they see a food item that triggers the feeling of craving, they eat. It is quick like instinct.

Since our memory has both sensory content and emotional tags, we can approach memory from either side of that two sided coin. However, we will get different the results for each approach. This dual nature of memory is designed to allow us to use both sides of the brain, based on situations. The left=differential; sensory content, and right=integral; emotional tagging. Ideally both sided should be used, but often just one side is used. Mr Spock would be pure reason with little emotional thinking. Captain Kirk would use both sides; situationally.

The sensory side approach to memory allows for more details and higher nuance resolution; critical thinking. Whereas, the emotional side approach tends to use a limited numbers of feeling tones that are recycled for many parallel uses. Therefore, such a person often deals in block data, such as your ten favorites songs will all feel good. These can be very different in sensory nuance, but all feel fine.

When it comes to racism, the emotional thinker and the sensory content thinker will not see eye to eye. The sensory thinker will see more nuance in each person, while the block data approach of the emotional thinker; often recycled hate, will tend to stereo type. One size fits all.

If you look at the two main political parties in the USA, Liberals tend to be the emotional thinkers. They like identify politics, which gives everyone a group distinction; block data groups; gay pride week. Terms like White Privilege, lumps an entire group by color and privilege, so even if one was homeless but white, you still have privilege just by being white. It does not use the sensory side, enough, to see such nuance. If it did or could it would see how this statement is false based on common sense and reason. People are all different in terms of the details.

As another example, Liberals define racism as only what white people due to other races of people. This is block data conclusion is in effect, since all the data has been trained to have the same conditional tag; teach racism. The person who use sensory nuance can see racism is based on anyone who uses emotional thinking to stereotype but does not look at the nuance. From a sensory nuance POV, emotional thinking unites the racists.

On the positive note, emotional thinking, by lumping data, can also integrate data and can be useful for bringing lots of data together for integral theories. But on the down side, this often comes down to education and socially induced tagging. That can create confusion and one sizes fits all solutions. All Police need to be defunded and not just the nuance cases. The emotional thinkers can see no distinction, but they do have motional conviction this is correct, since that is how it feels by induction/design/poor education.

For example, when Trump won the election in 2016, the Liberal leaders lumped him with all things people feared; Hitler, nuclear war, racism, and now Trump, thereby inducing a block data conclusion, that is integrated by an emotional fear tag induction, but not reason and sensory reality. Emotional thinker are easy to manipulate; block data goose step.

On another positive note, Jesus said to love one another thereby trying to get the emotional thinkers to block think in terms of love and when making new memory. So when you look around and meet people, your first instinct is open and friendly. However, there are also those who induce hate and fear and therefore can add block perception, that make people clan up and avoid or fight each other.

 

[Stevicus]

It most definitely is not. Racism can play a role within classism for sure, but that speaks more to the systemic nature of racism and the stereotypes people have of certain people of a specific race naturally existing within a specific class. For example, a snippet from the cornerstone speech:

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition.



I wasn't suggesting you did, it was a comparison between how neonazis think vs. folks like the couple in the OP who glorify the old south



Are you talking about critical race theory?

I would say both classism and racism (as well as nationalism) are sub-sets within social Darwinism. Both heavily imply that "natural superiority" (however it may be perceived) justifies unfairness, inequality, injustice, and abuse.

 

[Soandso]

It has to do with emotional thinking, where a person's feelings come before reason. When the brain writes to memory it adds emotional tags to the sensory content. Our memory has both sensory content and feeling tones. This writing process is why our strongest and most enduring memories have the strongest emotional ambiance; marriage, children, trauma, etc. This useful to the animal. If they encounter a similar situation that triggers their memory, they can act on the feeling, and not have to think or reinvent the wheel. If they see a food item that triggers the feeling of craving, they eat. It is quick like instinct.

Since our memory has both sensory content and emotional tags, we can approach memory from either side of that two sided coin. However, we will get different the results for each approach. This dual nature of memory is designed to allow us to use both sides of the brain, based on situations. The left=differential; sensory content, and right=integral; emotional tagging. Ideally both sided should be used, but often just one side is used. Mr Spock would be pure reason with little emotional thinking. Captain Kirk would use both sides; situationally.

The sensory side approach to memory allows for more details and higher nuance resolution; critical thinking. Whereas, the emotional side approach tends to use a limited numbers of feeling tones that are recycled for many parallel uses. Therefore, such a person often deals in block data, such as your ten favorites songs will all feel good. These can be very different in sensory nuance, but all feel fine.

When it comes to racism, the emotional thinker and the sensory content thinker will not see eye to eye. The sensory thinker will see more nuance in each person, while the block data approach of the emotional thinker; often recycled hate, will tend to stereo type. One size fits all.

If you look at the two main political parties in the USA, Liberals tend to be the emotional thinkers. They like identify politics, which gives everyone a group distinction; block data groups; gay pride week. Terms like White Privilege, lumps an entire group by color and privilege, so even if one was homeless but white, you still have privilege just by being white. It does not use the sensory side, enough, to see such nuance. If it did or could it would see how this statement is false based on common sense and reason. People are all different in terms of the details.

As another example, Liberals define racism as only what white people due to other races of people. This is block data conclusion is in effect, since all the data has been trained to have the same conditional tag; teach racism. The person who use sensory nuance can see racism is based on anyone who uses emotional thinking to stereotype but does not look at the nuance. From a sensory nuance POV, emotional thinking unites the racists.

On the positive note, emotional thinking, by lumping data, can also integrate data and can be useful for bringing lots of data together for integral theories. But on the down side, this often comes down to education and socially induced tagging. That can create confusion and one sizes fits all solutions. All Police need to be defunded and not just the nuance cases. The emotional thinkers can see no distinction, but they do have motional conviction this is correct, since that is how it feels by induction/design/poor education.

For example, when Trump won the election in 2016, the Liberal leaders lumped him with all things people feared; Hitler, nuclear war, racism, and now Trump, thereby inducing a block data conclusion, that is integrated by an emotional fear tag induction, but not reason and sensory reality. Emotional thinker are easy to manipulate; block data goose step.

On another positive note, Jesus said to love one another thereby trying to get the emotional thinkers to block think in terms of love and when making new memory. So when you look around and meet people, your first instinct is open and friendly. However, there are also those who induce hate and fear and therefore can add block perception, that make people clan up and avoid or fight each other.

Where would you take everything you've written here and apply it to the case brought up in the OP? How does it apply in this case? Where do liberals come in to play here?

 

[Kathryn]

Here's the thing I don't get - we don't get to choose what color we are born, or into what class. We do absolutely nothing to earn it. I mean, I am grateful that I live in the 21st century but I didn't choose to live now.

 

[Soandso]

Here's the thing I don't get - we don't get to choose what color we are born, or into what class. We do absolutely nothing to earn it. I mean, I am grateful that I live in the 21st century but I didn't choose to live now.

I suppose that's where feelings of entitlement come in. Completely random circumstances become "birthrights"

 

[icehorse]

I never understood it. I just don't get it

Humans are astoundingly susceptible to propaganda. (I'm using the term perhaps more loosely than is common.)

When we hear messages over and over, we come to believe them. This is a flaw in our brains, all too easy to exploit.

"Propaganda" is used everywhere and it's easy to not notice it in play, but we are all bombarded by it every day.

 

[Revoltingest]

Racism is just a subset of general bigotry, ie,
the perception that the "other" is less human.
Race, religion, status, sex, nationality....all apply.

 

[F1fan]

This morning I came across a news article that left me feeling very disturbed

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/06/27/us/west-virginia-adopted-black-children-slaves-reaj

These white people adopted a bunch of black kids to make slaves out of them to work their farm like they were plantation masters from the 1800s

What was the thought process behind such a thing? How does one justify such evil; and against kids no less! I get that bad people do bad things and that the world has some seriously messed up people in it, but racism is a very common thing - what's the point? How is the world view rooted? Is it simply something someone is taught or grows up around? Why do people get so hung up around it?

I never understood it. I just don't get it

Bigotry and racism are learned ideas. Studies of how children interact with each other shows no prejudices as can exist in many adults.

Think of racism as like language. We acquire language naturally from social interaction, and it is largely an unconscious process as we communicate. There's a similar thing happening with social attitudes and culture. We assimilate ideas due to exposure to them, like religious ideas. Of course we aren't robots and many of us can think for ourseleves and question the ideas we are exposed to. But in the broadest sense most citizens tend to adopt the ideas they are exposed to. Not all people in the Confederate South were racist. Many Germans of the 1930's were not anti-Semetic, but they were citizens of a nations whose policies were. They were citizens of a nation whose leadership decided to go to war. It is easy for circumstances to sweep up individuals and make them accountable for what their neighbors do. But citizens were influenced in a way that they adopted like language, and they acted from those attitudes and beliefs.

We many not understand racism any more than we understand Japanese, but there are many who have adopted the ideas that appeal to who they are, even if that is a person who is easily influenced by conformity to social norms, and driven by the need to belong.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

This morning I came across a news article that left me feeling very disturbed

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/06/27/us/west-virginia-adopted-black-children-slaves-reaj

These white people adopted a bunch of black kids to make slaves out of them to work their farm like they were plantation masters from the 1800s

What was the thought process behind such a thing? How does one justify such evil; and against kids no less! I get that bad people do bad things and that the world has some seriously messed up people in it, but racism is a very common thing - what's the point? How is the world view rooted? Is it simply something someone is taught or grows up around? Why do people get so hung up around it?

I never understood it. I just don't get it

It occurred to me that there might be more to the story, so I read the article. When I was a boy, several of my foster homes were on farms. I had chores to do, certainly -- but so did the other kids, the family's own kids. So I looked for that, and couldn't find anything.

When I came to the part about two of the kids locked in a room in the barn, however, and the fact that they used a portable outdoor toilet, it became clear to me that these kids really were being abused. To have ignored the "plumbing issues" inside the home for a month or longer is very unlikely (there were two incidents in May and June).

You don't get it? First, be glad you don't -- it means you have some empathy for others. The fact is, though, that some people just do not. And if others are in some way different, unlike themselves (a different colour, perhaps), empathy becomes that much harder. This is a part of human nature that most of us overcome through learning and experience in a diverse world. I'm willing to bet this couple were social misfits, with little experience of social diversity. Their lack of empathy would be all that much easier to maintain.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Classism is a form of racism,

No it's not. Ever hear "white trash?" That's usually a rich amd middle class white ******* (middle class who think they're rich is the worst in my experience) word for poor white people.

True! This is why I refer to them as "larping". What a weird thing to romanticize...

They weren't Live Action Role Playing. That's what larping is. It's a game. It's not mistreating others in such an egregious manner.

 

[rocala]

From my experience, it's standard procedure for caseworkers to frequently visit the children under care of foster parents.

I am not sure that would be the case once full adoption was complete. Of course the rules, and the efficiency with which they are enforced vary from place to place.

 

[Quintessence]

Racism is not only about the color of skin.
There are wealthy intellectual élites who feel superior to the populace, to the farmers, the fishmongers, the market vendors.
They think they were the "chosen ones" while the people is inferior and deserves an inferior status.
That's a much more sneaky and sly form of racism, because these discriminated people have the same color of skin as the discriminator.

Yup, and speciesism is the same way - humans think they are the "chosen ones" and above all other life on this planet and use it to excuse themselves for treating others poorly. And while neither racism or speciesism is the same thing as classism, they intersect and interrelate.

 

[dybmh]

What boss is there for racism, though?

The general category of "unjust criticism". The "unjust" qualifier can be prevented. That is its point of exposure.

 

[dybmh]

Not sure what else can be done to combat it aside from education and community outreach

Yes. While you're working to combat the particular individual details which are missing about the specific disdavantaged class, and working to prevent the over-generalizing of that particular group, which ever it is; I will be doing education and outreach regarding the root causes of racism, sterotyping, and bigotry which effect ALL classes and ALL groups.

Go Team!

 

[wellwisher]

Where would you take everything you've written here and apply it to the case brought up in the OP? How does it apply in this case? Where do liberals come in to play here?

I was explaining the nature of racism; one size fits all, as being due to emotional thinking. My impression was the couple, who adopted those children did not see children, but rather they lumped them into a stereo type, based on some negative emotion. My guess is that same negative emotion and their emotional thinking, would bring up a range of memories with that similar valance tag, which would justify their behavior, in their own minds.

The Children were in the adoption system. We do not know why? It could be poverty, due to drugs, a fatal accident, or even the children were getting too wild to handle. Regardless, we are all looking what appears to be a tragedy from the sensory data side, and can see how unjust this looks, even if it felt right to couple who adopted them. This is the pitfall of emotional thinking. Well meaning sentiment can have a dark side, if so tagged.

If you read the article from CNN, the second paragraph says;

Jeanne Whitefeather, 62 and Donald Lantz, 63, who are both White, have been charged with human trafficking of children, civil rights violations, use of a minor child in forced labor and child neglect, according to the 17-count indictment.

My impression was this article smelled like a dog whistle. It appears to be written for racism reinforcement for emotional thinkers. Rather than see two terrible people, they had to assign a skin color for reverse racists Liberals. They were going for a negative reaction, which is fine, but then set a broad political target, instead of a bullseye for a nasty human couple.

Jeanne Whitefeather, 62 and Donald Lantz, 63 were from West Virginia, which had voted Democrat, forever, but had became Republican since Bush in 2000. This dog whistle tagging appears connected to this election year. It trying to lump white people in a Republican State. They are all like this. The author did not care about the children, but used them as props during this tagging process; take sides.The DNC is losing the black vote, so the hope is to combine white, West Virginia, Conservatives, MAGA and Trump, all wrapped in hate. Now it is Trumps's fault to emotional thinkers. Expect Trump to get a leading question to complete the tagging scam.

Emotional tagging, which appears more common to the Left, appears to come from feminism, which has a significant pull in the party. The classic example is, if a woman is in love, she can see no wrong. Women suffer abuse this way and stay on. On the other hand, if she is jilted and falls out of love, she can see no right; lumping process. The Left is in love with Biden, and can see no wrong, even with his senior state of mind, since even that is lumped with love. Trump is lumped with hate, by the jilted wife, and can do no right. In reality, there is sensory nuance to both men; both have good and bad points.

 

[Kathryn]

Here's more on that topic. I am white and was born and raised in the South predominately. I have Confederates as my ancestors (I also have Union soldiers as my ancestors for the record). I am basically Scottish and English from northern England. I have slave owners and abolishonists as ancestors. But I didn't choose any of them before being born. Heck, I didn't even choose what century or what color of skin or what sex or ANYTHING. I didn't earn any of it.

I suppose that's where feelings of entitlement come in. Completely random circumstances become "birthrights"

Hey, get this - my parents were both products of divorce, and I think they determined not to put that on their kids. So I was raised in a two parent home. However, my mom was seriously mentally ill and my dad SHOULD HAVE divorced her but he didn't. At one point I even asked him why he didn't divorce her and he said "Where would she go? She'd be living on the street." So he hung in there. So on paper, I look entitled but I'm really, really not.

 

[Estro Felino]

Yup, and speciesism is the same way - humans think they are the "chosen ones" and above all other life on this planet and use it to excuse themselves for treating others poorly. And while neither racism or speciesism is the same thing as classism, they intersect and interrelate.

I agree 100% with you.

 

[Kfox]

This morning I came across a news article that left me feeling very disturbed

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/06/27/us/west-virginia-adopted-black-children-slaves-reaj

These white people adopted a bunch of black kids to make slaves out of them to work their farm like they were plantation masters from the 1800s

What was the thought process behind such a thing? How does one justify such evil; and against kids no less! I get that bad people do bad things and that the world has some seriously messed up people in it, but racism is a very common thing - what's the point? How is the world view rooted? Is it simply something someone is taught or grows up around? Why do people get so hung up around it?

I never understood it. I just don't get it

Case Workers are supposed to be in constant contact with adoptive parents, adoptive kids and monitoring these kids on a regular basis. How did they get all of this past the case workers? The story doesn't seem to address that.