Will racism ever end?

Tribalism/Racism/Xenophobia has been going on for around 100,000 years.

A lot of lads on here will tell you there is no racism at all.

Well, we might meet an alien species and be species-ist to them instead.

Or maybe all races will disappear and merge into one melange...

It ends in the spilt second that something alien comes out of space and arrives here

until that happens no

My friend recently described to me how her lockdown experience from March 2020 was hell on earth because of the racist abuse she got.

These are her exact words. I removed some of what she said and replaced it with XXXX as it was potentially identifying.

As a mixed race woman who was born in Ireland, growing up in the 80’s and 90’s and living for most of my life in one community as a child, student and mother, my experience of racism have taught me how to live in this country. I choose my battles, but few who decide to impose their racism on me walk away without understanding how their behaviour has affected me. There is a constant pressure on me to justify for my  reason for living here (where are you really from?), racial profiling (airports, shops,  check points) suggest that I am a threat and potential thief, social evenings inevitably are an invitation for at least one stranger a night verbally abuse me, I have been physically assaulted a number of times, once when heavily pregnant. I have been refused admission to pubs, hotels and followed around shops. I have been asked to pay at the point of service while others pay their bill at the end of a night. These are only some of my experiences of growing up in Ireland as a mixed race Irish person. These experiences have taught me how to live and navigate my environment and to assess levels of threat posed to me.

XXXXX

Where most found lockdowns a novel and frustrating experience, for me it became a prison. My 5km walk became increasingly dangerous. If there was a day that I escaped being verbally abused or the threat of being physically assaulted, there was always the reminder through xxxxxx and misinformation across social media platforms that people who looked like me were to be taken out of the community. We were being dehumanised through the tactics used on social media, shared by friends, colleagues and people I had grown up in an attempt to rid the community of people who look like me. We were considered rapists, paedophiles, prostitutes and careful consideration should be applied with people of colour on the basis that we were a threat to children, wives, husbands, the elderly and in general to the wider community. Fear was induced and there was an increased level of threat experienced by most who did not look Irish.

XXXXX

Exposing these incidents as they arise can reduce the tolerance that the community I grew up in have towards this behaviour. Without challenging it, it grows and becomes more pronounce, acceptable and normal. 

Can you tell me, what do you think politics is about if it isn't about things experienced by significant groups in society.

To suggest that behavior that has its foundation in viewing people in a specific way because of how they look or the wider group of which they are seen to be members of and treating them negatively as a consequence of this is either borne out of complete ignorance, or wanting to give a pass to people who commit such acts.

The chance to travel, experience, observe and mix with other races today bears no relation to the vast majority of time that humans have walked the planet and if there was an ability to score the average persons awareness of or opportunity for integration (for however long) of other cultures throughout that time there would have been a massive jump in such a metric within the last 50 odd years as TV, the internet and access to low cost travel changed these things.

These opportunities are unlikely to change (although low cost travel probably should) and so it is simply wrong to suggest people didn't mix so much throughout history and as a consequence are unlikely to do so in future. It is clear some people wish that this would be the case but the trends suggest otherwise.

In the US, the rate of new marriages that are interracial grew nearly 6 fold between 1967 and 2015 to nearly 1 in 5 being such. As generations go by and kids from these marriages look for partners, you would think the concept of race matching won't even enter most of their minds.

Racism will not end because too many people gain an advantage by using it to divide the single human race into smaller groups fighting each other.

The poor of all skin colours have more in common than they do with the rich of the same colour skin.

How racism has developed over the years is largely down to the makeup of the family's hierarchies down through the generations.

If people were born in a much older era when compared to now in the present day; the stark differences in how racism was expressed from that particular period of time up to now can be quite heartbreaking. Many many centuries ago; black people in America were not immune to prevent themselves from becoming slaves to white people of their generations from days gone by. Racism, brought on by slavery back then, being expressed from one race to the other was by and large seen as an essential norm by the ruling classes in those days.

But when you look at the impact of racism today; it's still here with us while we see ignorant people express powerful and emotional messages of hate to their common man who will never be the same as them. But the people who express these less visible messages of hatred and discrimination towards these groups can be hard to swallow in this country. You could see these people in day to day life today working in normal jobs being normal people among the rest of society. But there is an undercurrent of racists out there who are within that category who can be quite nasty to others when the victims don't expect it.

Now imagine that man being talked about in the OP was actually working here with a decent career & reputation among his colleagues. And then outside of the workplace in a personal capacity; he has the gall within himself to secretly express his nasty racist undertones to other different people who are actually not blind to see the ignorance come out of his own mouth. How could people here feel about it if that was the case? What could people here say about hearing those racist messages unfold right in front of their eyes? Could they say that he was a dickhead or a scumbag to quieten his ignorant demeanour?

Or could you have people expressing praise to him because they were brought up in the same ilk as the racist? If you asked which one could be more shocking then the other. It's definitely the latter because that is how racism will never end in this country or in any other country. It will stick with the assholes as they know they can use it to beat someone verbally by expressing it because they can use it properly without seeing the consequences.

Is greed an inherent part of humans personality though? Is it naturally there or a learned trait?

I might agree with you that there is a certain aspect of fear of the unknown innate to humans.

But can anyone use that to excuse racist taunting and abuse at sports events for example. Is it fear making grown men make monkey chants and throw banana's at sports people they dislike?

People are people. Are all different and, as a result, you will always have a**holes. As others have said, prejudice has and will always exist. There will always be people who hate people of different colour. There will always be homophobes. There will always be people who hate Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Athiests etc.

There will always be people who think it's OK and non-impactful to make fun of people because of their race, their gender, their height, weight, hair colour, sexual preference, age. Basically if you are different from the norm (Whatever that is).

It's not an Irish thing. It's a global thing and anyone who thinks that it's more prevalent in Ireland than other places clearly has never lived abroad or even watched the news.

Nobody is perfect. Everyone - and I mean everyone - when they really look deep down, will find their own prejudices: It may be a fear of Muslims, or a distrust of the Travelller community or a general dislike of the LGBTQ community. I know I certainly have my own opinions that would be considered prejudiced.

Some forms of prejudice are more accepted than others. Are even considered funny. Tell me it's acceptable to abuse the fat kid or the skinny kid or the tall kid or the short kid or the ginger kid.

People may say this is an excuse or a "Get out of jail" card but it's not. It doesn't make prejudice right and it doesn't release our obligation to try our best to not be a**holes but it does mean that it will always ALWAYS be here.

So yeah, unfortunately, as long as there are people there will be prejudiced people.

Murder is clear, and obvious racism is obvious but its turning into a religion as a gift and a weird type of virtue signalling puritanism like Scientology except the Thetans are now "cultural appropriation" and all the other nonsense (see wokism of the day thread) which ironically could create more actual racism just so that people can have the quiet life