Okay, I would likely get over 40, but I dispute most of the answers.
#1: I wouldn't do any of those things. If it's the first time I've ever met or heard about this particular significant other I'd just try and get to know them. Why would I want to talk to their parents when I don't even know them yet?
#2: I don't care if black folks use the N-word to each other. I'm sure as hell not going to use it because it is incredibly offensive for me to do so, but I'm not going to get offended if those it's offensive towards use it.
#3: None of those answers make any sense. Why would I assume an articulate black person is from California? Is that thing?
#4: I drive through extremely black neighborhoods on an almost daily basis whether I'm late for a meeting or not.
#5: No problems here.
#6: Reggae, but I don't smoke, so the reasoning is wrong.
#7: No problems here.
#8: I don't (and not just because I don't carry a purse), so I have idea what to answer here.
#9: No problems here.
#10: The "correct" answer isn't correct.
#11-13: No problems here.
#14: I disagree with the "correct" answer. I sincerely hope there are large aspects of this country I don't recognize in 25 years, but not for the reasons the quiz is asking.
#15: No problems here.
As with everything I post, you kind of need to expect a curve ball, or not.
I posted this to stimulate thought and discussion and I feel like the original poster had the same goal in mind. If you are opposed to thought and discussion maybe you shouldn't lurk in a discussion board.
This ain't the SAT, no one will be prevented from attending the school of their choice because of their score.
Yeah, its a little in your face but so is racism. I frequently try to make a joke of racism Hey remember these but everybody doesn't think its funny.
Racism lives right here in the year of our Lord two thousand and fourteen, its just more subtle today. Nobody burns crosses much anymore but did you know black females in the military had regulations limiting them from wearing their hair naturally. It may be good enough for God but the army wants you to put a perm in that shit. To me that is racist and infuriating. Those of you who can't grow an afro probably had never even thought about it. hmmm.
Full disclosure, I can't grow an afro either, at this point its more like an afro donut.
I think you have the same flaw as BT, you are taking this thing way too seriously, although you probably don't need to switch to decaf.
If you read that blog where the quiz originates you will see that the author spends his time poking the birthers, confederates, neo-nazis and people who think the country must be won back from those blacks in the whitehouse etc. I just thought the quiz was kind of cute.
OK here is a real life dilemma. Should I be angry when a 19 year old white kid who has spent his entire childhood caught up the the hip hop culture listening to rap music and approaches me in all sincerity and says to me "What's up my nigga?"
Maybe I was primed by the pleasantries here, but reading through the quiz it read to me more like semi-humorous comment (maybe of mixed success but with enough things in it I recognize for me to nod here and there) than like something that really expected me to have answers I would be seriously committed to. One weird effect I find in this kind of thing, as a less-than-lifelong and partially socialized American, is that sometimes the only reason I know some of the things are supposed to be associated with black folk is through hearing them pointed out as inaccurate stereotypes of black folk.
I am guessing you are European maybe British or actually German. The thing is many non American countries have their own particular history with racism (Wasn't it Portugal who invented the whole Atlantic Slave Trade).
But unlike America, Europe seems to have pretty much let it go for the most part. Whereas here in the good old US of A in 2014 we still have candidates for office running on pseudo-confederate party tickets in the full expectation that the south will rise again and white folks will be restored to their rightful place of honor and domination. Right now today.
So I get why you foreign born folks don't get what all the fuss is about.
I refuse to support Rupert Murdoch's misinformation empire so I let my subscription to the WSJ lapse some years ago.
But I don't feel that I should be barred from commenting on the article just because I can't read it, so here goes.
What it looks like they are doing in Europe seems to be tribalism not racism. That's a completely different animal, something more akin to the boys against the girls back in kindergarten.
Racism is just mean. Best example I can give you is the treatment of blacks in the south during World War II. For some reason German prisoners of war were held in captivity in the south during the war. Now here they are enemy military combatants in a war that is actively engaged and German POWs were allowed better treatment than black US soldiers.
The white German POWs were allowed to dine inside the local restaurant and the black US soldiers were forced to go around back to pick up their food (if they were allowed to dine at all). You cannot make this shit up. Why POWs were taken out to dinner I don't know. I guess it was some kind of Hogan's Heroes joint.
And that's the difference between racism and tribalism.
The National Front can vary depending on the country, but in essence it is a neo nazi political party, and they just made massive gains in the EU. Including getting 25% of the vote in France.
@JuJ, I would not want to suggest in the slightest that Europe/Britain (I am British by origin) does not have racism. It's configured a bit differently because more focused on past empire and recent immigration (the experience of Turkish Germans, say, or Indian and Pakistani Brits. It's mean and discriminatory and at times violent. And us white British folk have had learning to do. And of course Britain is hardly guiltless (yes, that's British understatement) with regard to the African slave trade in the first place. Then moving to the US spins the wheel - different history, different stereotypes, more white guilt I think, and I suspect more inclination in some quarters to deny that the problem remains (a denial I have always found puzzling). Basically I would not want to be heard as suggesting I wonder what all the fuss is about - it's just weird when for instance learning about how as a white person I am supposed to have particular stereotypes about black people that I would not actually otherwise have known were a thing because of lack of history here. I no doubt have stereotypes, just not the right ones
First let me say that I am not disagreeing with anything that Germanprof said. But let me try to define tribalism as I use not as the Oxford English dictionary might define it.
Those people over there from that other place are different and we don't like them. My perception is that a Black Brit is just as likely to harbor the same resentments as a White Brit. To me that's tribalism. Europeans don't get too caught up with your genetic background as long as you adhere to the societal dictates.
We have some of the same thing in America with Hispanic immigrants. Black Americans had just as much concern with the Hispanic immigrants as do White Americans. Although Blacks have recently started to figure out that Blacks and Hispanics are living under the same rock.
Whereas American racism is based on skin color. Frequently it is subconscious, white people aren't even aware that their perception is biased they just assume that their understanding is the only proper and correct way (re: my earlier example about black women's hair and the military). They don't care how much money you have or how many generations your family has been in this country or how many degrees you have or how honorably you served your country. White is right and there is no amount water or education or refinement or soap that will make you alright. And you can put as many Negroes in the Whitehorse as you want but it is never going to convince them that they don't have a God given right to supremacy and domination.
This sounds kind of like the National Front which at least until recently was considered fringe. Whereas in America major political parties base their entire appeal on white resentment.
The National Front has been fringe, though some parties like that have made enough headway to cause discussion in parts of Europe. You're right that there are differences, though I am not so sure skin color is so absent as a factor in Europe. Certainly generationally my grandmother would comment on "darkies", though more with socialized prejudice than implacable ill-will. Skin color is surely a factor in the experience of Indian/Pakistani immigrants - though again, as you note, there are differences, because language and religion (Islam) are significant factors too. (I taught briefly in a "public" (US sense) school that was over half "ethnic minority", and we had all the students take half a semester each of French, German, Urdu, and Punjabi; as far as I know the Indian/Pakistani parents had no complaints about their kids learning some German/French, but there were white parents who did not like their kid learning a "Paki language". Not all "foreign" languages are foreign in the same way.)
I agree that tribalism/xenophobia is not necessarily racism - e.g. various forms of traditional white British antipathy to equally white and ethnically very closely related German and French people.
I guess I think the American experience is uniquely configured, and I think you are right to resist the possible implication that the black experience(s) in America is just a subset of a generic "racism" across various locations - it's more specific than that; but at the same time the same ugly impulses find different channels/shapes in other social configurations. There's discussion at the moment based on the latest Social Attitudes survey of whether Britain is becoming more or less racist. Some of the commentary I think is grappling with some of the distinctions you are looking to draw, e.g.
the proportion of people who, asked about their opinion of themselves, admit to being a little or very prejudiced jumped from 26% in 2012 to 30% last year.
but:
In 1983, 49% of people said that they would mind a lot if a close relative were to marry a black person. When British Future, a think-tank, asked a similar question in 2012, the figure had fallen to just 15%. According to Robert Ford, an academic at the University of Manchester: In the 1980s, people said they werent racist but didnt want black in-laws. Now its the opposite.
Would this fit with what you are after, i.e. the self-description as "prejudiced" would be more like your "tribalism" and the willingness to have black in-laws "racism"?
ETA, sorry, here's the source.
I do so enjoy arguing with academics. You guys footnote everything and provide sources and documentation. Which seems like an awful lot of bother as compared to just pulling it out of your ass like me ;+)
I do think we are saying the same thing differently. Although when I look at the definition of xenophobia it seems to have a foreign component to it. You have to be from another country to be a victim of xenophobia.
Whereas racism doesn't seem to matter whether you are foreign or domestic.
Britain had their fling with slavery and then seemed to let it go once the jig was up. I am not aware of there being a British equivalent of the Klu Klux Klan or a Jim Crow period or a political leader physically standing in the school house door to prevent black children from attending or a major political party who's sole unifying theme is opposition to that that that Negro in the Whitehouse and an uncompromising willingness to do damage to your own constituents simply to further that opposition.
Yes, Britain does not have good equivalents to those things, or the great migration or the Underground Railroad or lynching or even Ann Coulter (though you can find racist rants and defenses of "White Britain" fairly easily in comments under Internet articles that sound a lot like some American white restoration rants).
One thing I found interesting in that article I linked was the suggestion that willingness to describe yourself as prejudiced is relative to the level of social expectation, so that people might more readily describe themselves as more prejudiced when the standard has become more strict, or when they are comparing themselves to a social average that is less prejudiced. Is part of what makes it easier for people here to deny that racism is still an issue that they are comparing themselves still to the Klan?
Of course another thing that makes it more complicated for me is that when I moved here, as a European I had prejudices against *white* Americans.
Comments
A. Hide under your sombrero.
B. Listen to talk radio commentator say that Latinos are naturally conservative.
C. Tell your son it's ok to "dream."
Highly offensive and obtuse quiz.
#1: I wouldn't do any of those things. If it's the first time I've ever met or heard about this particular significant other I'd just try and get to know them. Why would I want to talk to their parents when I don't even know them yet?
#2: I don't care if black folks use the N-word to each other. I'm sure as hell not going to use it because it is incredibly offensive for me to do so, but I'm not going to get offended if those it's offensive towards use it.
#3: None of those answers make any sense. Why would I assume an articulate black person is from California? Is that thing?
#4: I drive through extremely black neighborhoods on an almost daily basis whether I'm late for a meeting or not.
#5: No problems here.
#6: Reggae, but I don't smoke, so the reasoning is wrong.
#7: No problems here.
#8: I don't (and not just because I don't carry a purse), so I have idea what to answer here.
#9: No problems here.
#10: The "correct" answer isn't correct.
#11-13: No problems here.
#14: I disagree with the "correct" answer. I sincerely hope there are large aspects of this country I don't recognize in 25 years, but not for the reasons the quiz is asking.
#15: No problems here.
Craig
As with everything I post, you kind of need to expect a curve ball, or not.
I posted this to stimulate thought and discussion and I feel like the original poster had the same goal in mind. If you are opposed to thought and discussion maybe you shouldn't lurk in a discussion board.
This ain't the SAT, no one will be prevented from attending the school of their choice because of their score.
Yeah, its a little in your face but so is racism. I frequently try to make a joke of racism Hey remember these but everybody doesn't think its funny.
Racism lives right here in the year of our Lord two thousand and fourteen, its just more subtle today. Nobody burns crosses much anymore but did you know black females in the military had regulations limiting them from wearing their hair naturally. It may be good enough for God but the army wants you to put a perm in that shit. To me that is racist and infuriating. Those of you who can't grow an afro probably had never even thought about it. hmmm.
Full disclosure, I can't grow an afro either, at this point its more like an afro donut.
Craig
Nonetheless, as an Hispanic man, I have the right to say that something so constrained claims to represent racism in its entirety is BS.
I agree the quiz is BS, its is not supposed to be the definitive all inclusive determinant of what is or is not racism.
The quiz is a joke, but a very serious one designed to stimulate thought and discussion. That is all.
On an unrelated note, I am going to recommend that you switch to decaf for a while.
I think you have the same flaw as BT, you are taking this thing way too seriously, although you probably don't need to switch to decaf.
If you read that blog where the quiz originates you will see that the author spends his time poking the birthers, confederates, neo-nazis and people who think the country must be won back from those blacks in the whitehouse etc. I just thought the quiz was kind of cute.
OK here is a real life dilemma. Should I be angry when a 19 year old white kid who has spent his entire childhood caught up the the hip hop culture listening to rap music and approaches me in all sincerity and says to me "What's up my nigga?"
Excuse me?
You go fuck yourself
And have a nice day
Craig
On sale now for $3.99 at amazon.
Thanks for the link to the academic survey where they are seriously trying to assess something. They are killing me with the disclaimer:
maybe I should have included this on my quiz
Pleasantries indeed!
I am guessing you are European maybe British or actually German. The thing is many non American countries have their own particular history with racism (Wasn't it Portugal who invented the whole Atlantic Slave Trade).
But unlike America, Europe seems to have pretty much let it go for the most part. Whereas here in the good old US of A in 2014 we still have candidates for office running on pseudo-confederate party tickets in the full expectation that the south will rise again and white folks will be restored to their rightful place of honor and domination. Right now today.
So I get why you foreign born folks don't get what all the fuss is about.
Craig
But I don't feel that I should be barred from commenting on the article just because I can't read it, so here goes.
What it looks like they are doing in Europe seems to be tribalism not racism. That's a completely different animal, something more akin to the boys against the girls back in kindergarten.
Racism is just mean. Best example I can give you is the treatment of blacks in the south during World War II. For some reason German prisoners of war were held in captivity in the south during the war. Now here they are enemy military combatants in a war that is actively engaged and German POWs were allowed better treatment than black US soldiers.
The white German POWs were allowed to dine inside the local restaurant and the black US soldiers were forced to go around back to pick up their food (if they were allowed to dine at all). You cannot make this shit up. Why POWs were taken out to dinner I don't know. I guess it was some kind of Hogan's Heroes joint.
And that's the difference between racism and tribalism.
Craig
I don't think I am saying that (or at least didn't intend to say that).
I don't even know what most of that means.
What or who is the National Front?
Craig
Those people over there from that other place are different and we don't like them. My perception is that a Black Brit is just as likely to harbor the same resentments as a White Brit. To me that's tribalism. Europeans don't get too caught up with your genetic background as long as you adhere to the societal dictates.
We have some of the same thing in America with Hispanic immigrants. Black Americans had just as much concern with the Hispanic immigrants as do White Americans. Although Blacks have recently started to figure out that Blacks and Hispanics are living under the same rock.
Whereas American racism is based on skin color. Frequently it is subconscious, white people aren't even aware that their perception is biased they just assume that their understanding is the only proper and correct way (re: my earlier example about black women's hair and the military). They don't care how much money you have or how many generations your family has been in this country or how many degrees you have or how honorably you served your country. White is right and there is no amount water or education or refinement or soap that will make you alright. And you can put as many Negroes in the Whitehorse as you want but it is never going to convince them that they don't have a God given right to supremacy and domination.
This sounds kind of like the National Front which at least until recently was considered fringe. Whereas in America major political parties base their entire appeal on white resentment.
I agree that tribalism/xenophobia is not necessarily racism - e.g. various forms of traditional white British antipathy to equally white and ethnically very closely related German and French people.
I guess I think the American experience is uniquely configured, and I think you are right to resist the possible implication that the black experience(s) in America is just a subset of a generic "racism" across various locations - it's more specific than that; but at the same time the same ugly impulses find different channels/shapes in other social configurations. There's discussion at the moment based on the latest Social Attitudes survey of whether Britain is becoming more or less racist. Some of the commentary I think is grappling with some of the distinctions you are looking to draw, e.g. but: Would this fit with what you are after, i.e. the self-description as "prejudiced" would be more like your "tribalism" and the willingness to have black in-laws "racism"?
ETA, sorry, here's the source.
I do think we are saying the same thing differently. Although when I look at the definition of xenophobia it seems to have a foreign component to it. You have to be from another country to be a victim of xenophobia.
Whereas racism doesn't seem to matter whether you are foreign or domestic.
Britain had their fling with slavery and then seemed to let it go once the jig was up. I am not aware of there being a British equivalent of the Klu Klux Klan or a Jim Crow period or a political leader physically standing in the school house door to prevent black children from attending or a major political party who's sole unifying theme is opposition to that that that Negro in the Whitehouse and an uncompromising willingness to do damage to your own constituents simply to further that opposition.
Yes, Britain does not have good equivalents to those things, or the great migration or the Underground Railroad or lynching or even Ann Coulter (though you can find racist rants and defenses of "White Britain" fairly easily in comments under Internet articles that sound a lot like some American white restoration rants).
One thing I found interesting in that article I linked was the suggestion that willingness to describe yourself as prejudiced is relative to the level of social expectation, so that people might more readily describe themselves as more prejudiced when the standard has become more strict, or when they are comparing themselves to a social average that is less prejudiced. Is part of what makes it easier for people here to deny that racism is still an issue that they are comparing themselves still to the Klan?
Of course another thing that makes it more complicated for me is that when I moved here, as a European I had prejudices against *white* Americans.
It seems we are in agreement
Wanna fight anyway?