How to not be racist.
First, this is not click-bait or trolling. I'm dead serious.
I grew up in a rural Northern town with basically all white people. I subscribed to not judging people by the color of their skin, religion, or ethnicity. Overall it was like the sleepy little town of Mayberry mixed with Bedford Falls.
Since going to college and working in large cities (Chicago, NYC, and others), I have met wonderful individuals from different cultures, countries, backgrounds, and ethnicities. Never have I ever seen the utter entitlement, laziness, rudeness, and otherwise contempt from a single color of people. Time and time again I've had poor experiences while taking the subway, L train, or even huffing it down 5th Ave chasing a cab. I've been cursed at, spit at, and even threatened for money, iPhone, or the like. Having played lacrosse in college I can hold my own and find these folks not as tough as their mouth. I'd like to think these are one time unusual and infrequent items but they are not. It's every single week.
Today I was putting money into the Metrocard machine when some individual began his daily hustle, 'ayo, lemme tellya sumfin, I am in town for a funeral, my momz was jus murdered noumsayin, and I'm tryin to get a few dollaz for a greyhound ticket home. Can I get a few of dem dollaz?"
Me, "I'm sorry to hear that and I'll pray for your mother, but I don't have any extra dollars."
Him, "You raciss-ass cracka!" (spit)
I hate the thoughts I have and even feel guilty typing this but I'm at my wits end and it's not like I can call a friend and say, "So about them people..."
Did you?
Absolutely.
I’m wondering if he called a friend and which one?
Off-Topic just keeps getting better and better
:D
EDIT: I thought this was MonacoMonkey at first when I saw the title.
MonacoMonkey has gone quiet recently, starting to get worried...
Step 1 would probably be to pay more attention while you’re walking down the street so you don’t accidentally start fights, while step 2 would probably be to stop generalizing about whole races of people based on your interaction with the homeless (and realize the fact that you don’t know enough people of other races to not automatically do this makes you particularly illequipped to reason about what they deal with). Honestly though I wouldn’t recommend that path for you since it doesn’t seem clear from what you’ve said that the racist fuck niche you’ve been going for so far won’t work out for you, and there certainly seems to be a room in finance for that particular kind of asshole.
Empathy. It all comes down to empathy and realizing that the man cursing you may have mental issues, be a victim of systemic oppression/racism or just may be frustrated with his day.
Seriously, once you can empathize with people and their situations, you become a nicer person. All of this takes years of patience and maturation of course..
Empathy? I hope you're not trolling, but people like you are exactly what's ruining our society.
Regardless of what type of background the man is from, his thought process of being "entitled to free money" and having the freedom to call other people racist because he didn't receive any cash/food is wrong.
Unfortunately, modern liberals and socialists have fashioned the a societal norm that rich people are evil and ANYONE who doesn't ostensibly appear to be selfless with their riches is automatically considered shit.
I am not a troll, I am not a liberal, I am not what is ruining our society.
Christ, you're a child. Look how triggered you get from a homeless person. Do you feel any sense of guilt? Maybe that's the cause of how you're feeling.
How hard is it to give someone consideration, realize you might not know the intricacies of their life and forego judging said person? Op asked how not to be racist. That is exactly how.
Don't hold other people to the same standards you hold yourself to.
I mean stereotypes are there for a reason. They hold true quite often.
Take time to dissect your stereotypes and you'll see they quickly fall apart. What are the origins of them and why do they exist; what sort of systems were in place in the past that led to those stereotypes?
As @Perfunctory said, a lot of it boils down to empathy.
I say this as a conservative dedicated to the principles of classical liberalism--you have to be radically committed to the principle that every man should be judged on the content of his character or actions, and not on immutable--and irrelevant--characteristics. Even if 99% of one group of people were bad, it would be horribly immoral and unethical to unfairly judge the 1% that was good (this is actually a Biblical principle).
Remember, there's nothing fundamentally different about our genetic code--a disproportionate number of persons of a certain melanin simply grew up without the discipline of parents. It will take generations--maybe centuries--to correct, but I believe we will solve this issue.
Do whatever you can to focus on truth, and not feelings, on justice and not on condescension. Each morning you've got to roll out of bed and commit yourself to acting and thinking justly. You will fail; try again.
This is what I need to hear. What's true for some is not true for all.
Thanks, you said this much more eloquently than I could ever hope to
You should’ve just said a simple “I’m sorry” and bowed your head tbh.
As a lifelong New Yorker, I call bull shit on your story. The people who would act the way you described don't play fucking lacrosse, and homeless people have far better stories than that. Try again you racist fuck.
I mean honestly, "raciss-ass cracka"? Come the fuck on, dude. People in Minnesota might read this and gasp, but this is a laughably bad attempt at whatever you're trying to accomplish.
And if any of this is true, quit being such a fucking snowflake. Being sworn at happens, and I was spit on by an angry Vietnamese lady once, I'll never forget that. Life is a thing, and it isn't always pretty. You sound like a 30-year-old virgin from the sticks, to be frank. Cities are made by man to stuff as many people as possible in them to achieve maximum productivity - shit won't always be vanilla milkshakes and slow walks down the beach.
I've had a couple friends from the middle of nowhere, USA. The one thing I wish they'd understand is that other people not of their upbringing are fundamentally different from them and have gotten entirely different meanings from their lives. Some people never had loving parents, pets, or even a nice Sunday. Imagine that: imagine never having had a single nice Sunday afternoon in your life.
I grew up in the Bronx, the shitty borough of NYC, and not in a great neighborhood. I witnessed more than a few street brawls in my youth and have seen people get shot. The one thing that separated me and perhaps two of my friends growing up from everyone else we knew was that we "dreamed" of getting out one day. But virtually nobody we knew thought they could ever "make it." You simply cannot fathom what it means for someone to be convinced that their life is meaningless and that they can't ever improve their situation at the age of 10.
My advice to you is to man the fuck up. And get some black friends.
why do you think you are better than him? don't you realize that your beliefs and feelings are out of your control just as his are?
Where did I say I was better? Or is that your interpretation based on your own biases? My thoughts aren't out of control, I'm not writing posts about how I'm offended at xyz. I'm telling what I think is the truth - that the OP is a whiny bitch who needs to learn to think outside his precious version of what reality should be.
...
So is the title of the thread a question? Or am I the only one that finds it ironic af??
On a scale of 1 to 10 on the likeliness to get raped in prison scale, saying you play lacrosse makes you an 11.
Nice
Racism is the belief that certain races are inherently superior or inferior to others and that individuals belonging to certain races should be treated differently and discriminated against.
What you are feeling is not racism but rather anger and frustration at blacks' behavior. These feelings are actually supported by empirical data. Blacks are 13% of the U.S. population but account for nearly half of all violent crimes. In NYC, they account for a majority of violent crimes as well. Of course, liberals such as Ta-Nehisi Coates argue that the state of Black America is due to the legacy of slavery and segregation, and that blacks are helpless victims of historical forces, unable to improve their lives. Although slavery and segregation undoubtedly had a profound impact, this argument is wrong. The black crime rate and black kids born out of wedlock are significantly higher now than it was in the 1960's, when discrimination against blacks was far worse, and the black poverty rate was far higher. Studies have shown that kids growing up with 2 parents do better in life than kids in single parent households.
Liberals then argue that it's due to socioeconomic status. Although there is indeed a correlation between socioeconomics and crime, poor blacks still commit crime at a higher rate than poor whites and at a significantly higher rate than poor Asians. It's also not about race per se. After all, Nigerian-Americans are one of the most successful groups in this country.
This then gets us to culture and values, in particular what parents teach their kids when they are growing up, their minds malleable and easily influenced. On AVERAGE, Black-American households are far more likely to indulge in racial grievances, blaming whites for their problems, and not emphasizing education, self-control, and discipline. In this sense, they are the opposite of Asian-American households.
A few personal anecdotes come to mind. I grew up in a working class family, and when I was a kid, we used to live in an apartment complex in the suburb of a major city. The local public high school at the time was one of the nation's best. Then, blacks from the inner city began moving in droves. Within just a few years, the neighborhood was unsafe, our apartment was robbed a few times, my sisters were assaulted, and the public schools became utter shitholes. My parents had no choice but to save up money and move to an all-white suburb. Second anecdote. When I was in Chicago, I volunteered for a non-profit that mentored disadvantaged inner-city high school students, the vast majority of whom were black. In this capacity, I helped them with test prep, homework, and college applications. I was stunned and angered at how little their parents cared about their own kids' education; it was utterly disgraceful. Although I tried my best to help them, the damage inflicted by their parents was unfortunately too much to overcome.
No amount of affirmative action, government benefits programs, or Ta-Nehisi Coates books, will fix this. It is up to Black America to wake up from its slumber and get its house in order. Yes, you guys were screwed over by slavery and segregation, two of the most shameful practices in our history. But we can't undo the past; we have to persevere and improve our future. The answer does not lie in government. Only by liberating itself from the shackles of racial grievances, victim mentality, and entitlement, can Black America achieve its full potential.
Are you serious Brady? We have a con artist President in office now solely because he convinced droves of white people to blame others for their problems. I've known you for nearly 10 years, and you are a perfect example of blaming your misery on others, all because you just never could get into HBS.
Also, well done again WallStreetOasis.com on policing this hot garbage. I'm sure you've got plenty of eyeballs on the site in the wake of the Lincoln tragedy, and it'll be nice for new visitors to get a taste of what WSO has become.
I don't believe in racism, but I always find it hard because it goes against everything we do in day to day activities. Essentially, racism is stereotyping, and we stereotype things most of our day.
Think about when you buy fruit, you look for the most appealing. You essentially stereotype the bad pieces of fruit out. If you see a scary dog, do you walk up to it in the hopes that, maybe if I pet it, the dog will be nice?
Now, just because we tend to stereotype things doesn't give you the right to be outright racist.
Having South African ancestors, something I am very much afraid of is positive discrimination similarly to the Affirmative Action currently happening in South Africa.
In European firms I keep hearing that they need to promote x% of Females, Y% of Minorities and Z% of LGBT+ to Senior/Partner/CxO ranks. This is very worrying given that in some (if not most) cases these people didn't have the best qualification/performance for the actual job. We are moving away from a meritocracy (never said that it has ever been a pure meritocracy) towards a world where being a white male will just limit you in your career because of stupid rules. People shouldn't be considered on a gender/race/sexuality basis, rather a pure performance basis. For instance I don't think it is fair for target students to get 'diversity internships', these people are not the ones that truly need help, non target kids with parents that never went to College should get the chances, because they never when to a private high school, never had a clue what targets/semi target schools are because for their parents going to the best state school with a football scholarship is the best thing that could happen in their lives (it's great compared to the average american, but not enough for IB).
All this unfairness makes me worry about the true merit of Females/Diversity/LGBT candidates when the get a job. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of them that would have made it anyway, but I have seen a guy in ER (SA) not knowing what the WACC was in a DCF, and guess what, he was part of the above category.
TLDR; positive discrimination could make people racists.
There is just no way in hell that you are getting racial slurs thrown at you everyday in NYC, buddy. You came to the wrong forum to try and pass that bullshit. You do realize you aren't the only white guy who played lax in the city, right? You left your comfort zone and now are facing things you've never seen, NY is the real world get use to it.
Q: "How to not be racist?"
A: Just don't be a racist.
Idiots like the op will complain about muslims and shout Merica, then go out and commit the same exact crimes, trying to "right" the world of its sins. Just DON'T do that. Fight planned parenthood, make marriage cool, instead of dumb posts about not wanting kids and marriage, because you're worried about your "fun" and your "independence" and your "wealth".
It's literally a world full of hypocrites. The muslims think they're holy, but can't wait to fuck 72 girls who probably wouldn't want anything to do with them. The white Nazis, want to have their fun and be ultra-conservative. All ya'll sound like a bunch of uncultured bitches on here.
I'm going to set aside from the fact that the post itself is absolutely made up, and possibly I chain email that I may have already received from a weird uncle.
That being said OP if you ever actually do find yourself in a big city (you have clearly never been given your post) I'm going to give you some candid advice:
1) put on headphones 2) don't make eye contact with ANYONE you don't intend on having a conversation with; and most importantly if someone does interact with you and the interaction is unwanted, 3) a simple "nah/no man" will be more than enough to get someone to move on
fucking hitting them with one of these faux, "I don't have any money but ill pray for you," would make me swing on you too.
Got damn, the op is just a dumb country bumpkin. No offense, but y’know. All the zealots and racists swarming like flies to a light for this troll post, wasting mad energy for nothing.
As a non NYC native that has lived in the city for years I can say that the OP is full of shit. Just some alt-right troll who wants to hijack WSO and turn it into Stormfront2.0
^ I guess since a few of you have never seen a hustler try to finesse some dollars from a target after living in NYC your whole life means it has never happened ever. Nope, never. And never in the history of NYC has a certain individual of color called different colored person a cracka. Nope, never.
You got me. I made this whole thing up as a card carrying KKK member. Ban my account now.
No one is saying you've made the whole thing up. You're just reacting in a fairly privileged manner.
First off, many if not most homeless people in this city, certainly the ones living in the subway, are mentally ill. And the majority of those are people of color. So you are vastly more likely to be approached by a person with real mental problems who is a black man than a white one. So when an above poster told you to have a little empathy, what he was saying was get out of the mindset that the world revolves around you. That person whose cartoonish accent you tried to transcribe? Probably mentally ill, and has no better way to express himself. A better question than "how do I protect myself from this homeless filth" is "how do I get that guy help"? And if you're taking the criticism of a mentally ill person to heart as expressive of an entire cultural group, you are either very stupid or very much a troll.
Second, as a white, straight man who has lived his whole life in NYC, and knows many, many other white, straight men living in the city, I feel confident saying that your experience is probably reflective of your attitude. Yeah, panhandlers ask me for change sometimes. No one has ever called me a "raciss-ass cracka" (also, unfortunately for all the 1970's era blaxsploitation film makers , most black people in New York don't talk like that. They talk like, you know... normal human beings). No one calls me a racist. There's an old saying, where if you're looking around the room and can't spot the idiot, it's probably you. I feel like you can paraphrase the generic point there for this situation - if there is a reason why people seem to think you in particular are a racist, then maybe you should do a little self-examination.
I mean, you can also just use your brain?
A homeless individual's circumstances are not the same as a well-to-do individual's - regardless of ethnicity. Middle class and above folks from any ethnicity will absolutely not act the way you're talking about - why would they need to?
It just so happens that the US has literally fucked over a significant proportion of their own inhabitants for hundreds of years such that they're now overrepresented at the bottom of the pack. Tell me, how do you expect to see any huge uptick in prosperity within ~40-50 years from a contingent of society that weren't even allowed to be seen as human beings for hundreds?
The folks who fail to understand the sheer magnitude of what was done astound me. You're talking about GENERATIONS of individuals being born into enslavement - the word "opportunity" wasn't even a thought let alone a concept for these folks. What do you think the result of that level of economic suppression does to a group? Where on the totem pole do you think these folks start from? It's as if people think that you can just fix entrenched oppression - it doesn't work that way. This process is going to take a long time and as such, any criminal or adverse overrepresentation you see now will remain largely that way until things have reached equilibrium - something that will probably not happen in our lifetimes.
So, do me a favour and engage that noggin of yours a bit when you feel this twinge of "racism" to actually understand the dynamics at play behind what you experience - maybe it'll knock some sense into that lump of gray matter. Even better, try to be a part of the solution by maybe mentoring high potential kids from these backgrounds? Who knows they might some day join the comfortable and ignorant class themselves.
TL;DR separate your distaste for those worse off than you from "racism", they aren't the same thing so stop being an idiot assuming they are.
I'm sorry you had to deal with that, OP. As you can see from the earlier posts, people in big cities place a much smaller if not negligible amount of importance to manners and friendliness on the small, person-to-person scale. It's a weird mix of "Don't be racist, everyone's the same, help people" and "Plug in your headphones and ignore everyone around you".
I've resorted to ignoring people until I'm ready to face the disappointment that is likely to happen after reaching out to random people. The problem with this is that a lot of these people feel ignored by society, and are often treated like shit so they in turn treat others (like yourself) like shit. A lot are in different places mentally and culturally as well.
To answer your question on how not to be racist, I would say this: You're being surprised at this behavior, and looking for some connection that will explain it. Racism is a low-effort way to categorize these things, even if a majority are of one race or bring up racism themselves. If you continue attempting to discover the root problem of what makes these people act the way they do, I think you'll move past racism soon.
Maybe take a trip down south where you can see white people being just as trashy, and make friends of color who are upstanding citizens. I guarantee it won't be hard to find them.
Overall, it's good that you recognize that you do not want to be a racist person. It really is a terrible way to limit yourself, and you will be missing out on the thought exercises that will help you later in life. Keep on working through it, and don't forget to blow off some steam if you're feeling frustrated so you can continue to think clearly.
Respect.
OP, you seem slightly less deplorable than the rest of the racist trash that has infiltrated this site, so I'll give you some earnest advice: Become a mentor to a youth in that exact demographic that you so resent (Minds Matter, New Jersey Seeds, A Better Chance, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Daniel Murphy Scholarship Foundation in Chicago). Learn to develop empathy for their situation, their lack of resources, and how much harder they have to work just to stay out of violence and get ahead in life. Realize they are human, and build a friendship. And next time you feel the urge to cast scourge across an entire race of people because of one bad interaction, picture the face of this kid instead.
I volunteered with one of these organizations when I first moved to my city, and was assigned a 14-year old black freshman from the worst part of the city who had a single mother determined to ensure he would break the poverty cycle. He won a full scholarship to a private high school, had a 3-hour roundtrip bus commute every day, wasn't allowed out after dark to avoid the street violence, and eventually graduated in the top 10% of his class. Almost 10 years later, he is now a computer programmer for IBM living in a downtown high rise. Picture him instead.
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