Talk:Racism in the United States/Archive 4

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Institutional racism

"particularly in the case of non-native English speakers or those raised in homes that spoke broken or pidgin English. Several states are attempting to reduce these educational disadvantages by developing a more culturally aware curriculum. For example, the 2005 California 6th grade statewide examination contained the question Patio comes from the Spanish word meaning what?. Including questions such as these provide opportunities for non-native speakers of English to have greater educational access."

Are the leading efforts to curb institutional disadvantages really centered in k-12 education? I'm also not sure the example convincingly demonstrates those efforts. lots of issues | leave me a message 8 July 2005 03:36 (UTC)

• The example given isn't very good, but actually many people would argue that one of the main problems minority groups in the U.S. face is poorer access to good public education. It is still true that de facto white children and minority children tend to attend different schools, and the schools that white children attend are usually better.--Pharos 8 July 2005 03:56 (UTC)

• I consider the example to be good, but coming from the mouth (or should I say keyboard) of the writer, that statement may carry less weight. You might consider the use of all English related questions on the language section of a test to be racism. But there should be another example. Howabout1 ^{Talk to me!} July 8, 2005 04:01 (UTC)

• There are two somewhat distinct issues: the general quality of education and the cultural appropriateness of education. I think the former is probably more generally accepted, and is a little "clearer". On the cultural appropriateness side, we have debates over AAVE, bilingual education and history as "Dead White Males".--Pharos 8 July 2005 04:23 (UTC)

Isn't the program designed to address institutional racism most well known and intensely fought in the mainstream arena - affirmative action? Shouldn't that be the subject of discussion instead of educational trends? lots of issues | leave me a message 8 July 2005 05:02 (UTC)

• That should also be discussed of course, but not "instead of" what is seen as "institutional racism" in general public education. After all, that is bascially what affirmative action is meant to counter.--Pharos 8 July 2005 05:05 (UTC)

• THe educational trend section is quite weak and rather insufficient to address institutional racism as a whole. I edited the section, but left the example as I simply lacked one to replace it with, and wanted to hopefully maintain the original author's intent. Elefuntboy 8 July 2005 22:17 (UTC)

History of Discrimination

Should the page include more details about the Civil Rights movement, or should it just include a link to it? --Titoxd 8 July 2005 22:32 (UTC)

• It could include more however the article needs a lot more on Western and especially Northern racist tendencies. Falphin 9 July 2005 01:12 (UTC)

West Coast

West coast section needs to be updated. Recently I've being hearing alot of racial tension between Hispanics and Blacks in Los Angeles.

Obviously you don't live in L.A. It's not recent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.119.151.233 (talk) 08:43, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

RfC

BAn RfC: Which descriptor, if any, can be added in front of Southern Poverty Law Center when referenced in other articles? has been posted at the Southern Poverty Law Center talk page. Your participation is welcomed. – MrX 17:13, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Recent changes to the article

I merged antisemitism with discrimination against Middle Eastern and South Asian Americans because A) Israel is in the Middle East, and B) many American Jews are non-Ashkenazi, and immigrated from countries in North Africa and other parts of the Middle East. One thing all Jewish ethnic divisions do share is cultural and historical ties to the Middle East, and similarity to other Middle Eastern peoples. So I thought it would best fit this section.Evildoer187 (talk) 00:56, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

When two—now three—editors revert your changes, it's time to consider that you're editing against consensus. Your changes disrupted the flow of the article. The fact is that the overwhelming majority of American Jews came to the US from Europe, not from the Middle East, and their experience has much more in common with other European immigrants than it does with Middle Eastern immigrants, most of whom arrived more recently. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 03:43, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

I disagree. I'm an American Jew and my family did not come from Europe. We may be a minority, but I think there should be something that takes us into account instead of lumping all of us in the European category.Evildoer187 (talk) 03:48, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

You don't agree that "the overwhelming majority of American Jews came to the US from Europe, not from the Middle East"? — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 03:51, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

No, I don't agree that American Jews as a group are European.

I'll leave it. Not worth getting banned over.Evildoer187 (talk) 03:52, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Why was my edit reverted?

"One of every nine black families has a close relative in prison over aggressive arrests done by US law enforcement.[108] Even though usage of illegal drugs are roughly the same along racial lines, the Drug Policy Alliance Network shows that blacks constitute 13 percent of drug users, but are 38 percent of people arrested for drug offenses, and 59 percent of those convicted.[109]"

I pointed out that most of those convicted for "drug offenses" were convicted of selling drugs, not using them. John Kaine (talk) 21:50, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm not the person who reverted your edit, but that's primarily a function of timing; if I had seen it first, I probably would have reverted because you provided no supporting sources for your addition. Moreover, the reference cited for the preceding sentence (#109) states that the rates of both usage and sales are equivalent in black and white communities, so the addition seems rather pointless.

That said, if I were interested in jumping into this particular dispute, I might do so by questioning whether a self-published article by a clearly partisan, agenda-driven organization qualifies as a Wikipedia reliable source. Fat&Happy (talk) 23:19, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Planned Restructuring and Additions

As seen with the rise of interpersonal discrimination, forms of discrimination are evolving with transforming societal norms in the United States. Thus, I believe it is important to update this Wikipedia page with current research regarding discrimination. With this updated information and organizational restructuring of the current article, I aim to provide a holistic and succinct summary of racial discrimination in the United States. With this, I hope others will find it easier to improve this article, such as supplementing existing citations, to prevent the threat of link rot.

(I simply wanted to let you all know that I'm planning on making structural changes to this article. I would love any input and suggestions throughout the process!)

jeanygina 23:58, 8 October 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Regina Leslie (talk • contribs)

Peer Review

I thought the information you added was great! It really added to the issue at hand and helped put it into better context! I thought your writing was great as well as your formatting. All that I think you should do in the future is add more the development section if you can and perhaps some more information, perhaps to the media section? A little bit on racism in pop culture? --Cchantre12 (talk) 01:21, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Peer Review

This article is very comprehensive. The only pace where I can see that more information needs to be added is in the alleviation section. Also, link to more pages where appropriate. Brodgers15 (talk) 03:34, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Rv of cited material

The following material was deleted for "vandalism":

"Academic perception of "white" as "bad" has led a number of apparently white people to label themselves as something else.(cite)[1](endcite)"

This was an .edu site where there was a report on most of the academics who were attending some conference were supposed to "break up into groups by race." Most were apparently white. No one wanted to enter the "white" group, because that was (to these academics) pejorative. So they invented other ways of classifying themselves, "Jewish," "Muslim," etc.

This Wikipedia article is accurate to a point, but fails to mention the fact that schools are no longer segregated de jure. Anyplace. This has made some difference. We have a black President, generals, admirals, Secretary of state, National Security Adviser, Supreme Court Justices, etc. Except for President, Jewish people have often held many of these positions for a long time. Until the 80s, quotas for blacks in universities. After that, de facto quotas which have been eliminated to some extent.

After the inception of "equal rights for blacks," a reaction set in for these other groups. "Equal rights laws" were established for Asians, Elderly (over 50!), Veterans, Youth, Women, etc. The majority everyone in the US is in some group which supposedly requires "more equal" treatment, except for white males between the ages of 18 and 50 (a minority).

Asians and Jewish people have outperformed whites and generally have superior incomes, yet consider themselves (to look at this article) as somehow "oppressed."

This would have been a great article around 1970. It is somewhat out of date in the 21st century. To paraphrase Groucho Marx, "Racism is the art of looking for discrimination, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies." Student7 (talk) 19:29, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

You are correct, the earlier revert was not vandalism. However, as written the rest of your post above does not seem actionable. I also reverted your more recent change to the article that started with a "despite electing a black president" or somesuch; see WP:OR. VQuakr (talk) 20:08, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

pov material

An editor replaced pov material that read "Many people in the U.S. continue to have some prejudices against other races, with a full third of Americans self-labeling.."

"Many" is subjective since we have an actual amount. What does "many" mean objectively? We have the figures.

"continue" implies that racism is wrong. Wikipedia does not take a stance on whether it is bad or good. It simply reports the facts. They have prejudices. That is sufficient and objective.

"full" is redundant at best, subjective at worst implying that there is a quantity more than a third, which the article does not claim.

There is nobody who has lived 20,000 years. The sentence is not logical. The ancestors of (a pure) native American lived in North America up to 20,000 years ago.

"enormously" to qualify "complex" is redundant at best, WP:POV at worst. If complex can be defined quantitatively, fine. This seems unlikely.

The article really needs rewriting to adjust pov terminology. Emotion is not helpful when attempting to produce a readable article which some student would like to gain some useful information. This is not television. It is supposed to reflect objective reality. The current article is slanted. Unecessarily. It puts off potential readers for that reason. You usually can't "teach" people and annoy them with polemics at the same time. Student7 (talk) 20:34, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Pointiness

How exactly did this edit (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Racism_in_the_United_States&diff=602284912&oldid=602234861) constitute WP:POINT? The purpose of my edit was to give a more complete elaboration on what the passage is trying to convey, not to make a point.Evildoer187 (talk) 16:47, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Nice try, Evildoer187, but I wasn't born yesterday. If you want to argue whether Jews are white, or whether Jews are European immigrants, get a blog. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 01:59, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

My revision did not negate the "whiteness" of Jews, or lack thereof. It even said that Jews are included under White American, along with other non-WASP white groups. Assumptions about my motives are not a valid reason for reverting anything. Evildoer187 (talk) 05:45, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

• White Anglo-Saxon Protestant explains "The term WASP does not describe every Protestant of English background, but rather a small restricted group whose family wealth and elite connections allow them a degree of privilege held by few others". So its not appropriate here. Dream Focus 22:26, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Ok, so then let's take the word WASP out. Here's my suggested revision...

"Many immigrant groups who are otherwise listed as White Americans, particularly Jews, Irish people, Poles, Italians, Arabs, and Eastern Europeans, among others, suffered xenophobic exclusion and other forms of discrimination in American society."Evildoer187 (talk) 18:32, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

• You have to take the entire paragraph as a whole.

Racism and ethnic discrimination in the United States has been a major issue since the colonial era and the slave era. Legally sanctioned racism sanctioned privileges and rights for white people not granted to Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latin Americans. European Americans (particularly Anglo Americans) were privileged by law in matters of education, immigration, voting rights, citizenship, land acquisition, and criminal procedure over periods of time extending from the 17th century to the 1960s. Many non-Protestant European immigrant groups, particularly Jews, Irish people, Poles and Italians among others, suffered xenophobic exclusion and other forms of discrimination in American society.

• We're talking about legal discrimination from the 17th century to the 1960's. We mention the major groups that had laws passed against them, then say "among others". How many Arabs did you have immigrating during that time period? Did any laws specifically affect them? Jews and Blacks were not allowed to stay in many hotels, or join golf courses, etc. There were signs in some cities saying "Irish need not apply", people refusing to hire Irish. We have an article about Anti-Italianism explain their situation. Anti-Polish sentiment is there too. Poland is part of Eastern Europe though. Are there significant numbers of other Eastern European groups that were discriminated against during the time period listed? I can't find anything talking about Arabs being discriminated against from 17th century to the 1960s. Dream Focus 10:32, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, yes. Many Arabs in the 19th and early 20th, although they were legally white, were often denied citizenship and naturalization on racial grounds. They also experienced xenophobia and, like Jewish Americans (at the time), were often considered "Orientals" rather than white. Here's one example, pertaining to Syrian Americans. http://www.everyculture.com/multi/Sr-Z/Syrian-Americans.html Evildoer187 (talk) 12:47, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

It says One early issue that roused Syrian Americans, as it did all Arab Americans, was the 1914 Dow case in Georgia, which established that Syrians were Caucasians and thus could not be refused naturalization on the grounds of race. So nowhere does it say they were the victims of "legally sanctioned racism". The law proves they prevented that problem from happening when it became an issue. You need a reliable source to prove "legally sanctioned racism" existed for them, since that is what the lede of the article is talking about. Racism that wasn't "legally sanctioned" can be listed elsewhere in the article. Dream Focus 18:14, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Malik Shabazz's removal of a passage simply because he thought Evildoer187 was trying to "push a POV" was not justified. Evildoer187 makes a good point here and I see nothing wrong with that edit - many of those immigrant groups indeed suffered xenophobic exclusion and discrimination. I suggest you decide on better wording if there's disagreement over this. Shalom11111 (talk) 03:52, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia goes by reliable sources. If any information is in doubt, it stays removed until someone can find a reliable source to prove the information is true. Dream Focus 06:26, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

I'll go grab some more sources. However, the paragraph states "xenophobic exclusion and other forms of discrimination". It never specifies whether or not it was legally sanctioned.Evildoer187 (talk) 21:09, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Some questions

Why are all these groups called hyphenated-Americans? The racism in the US was not specific to Americans, it was specific to Blacks, Jews, the Irish, etc. Immigrants as well as naturalized citizens were subjected to racism. If it were me writing this I would leave off the "American" part. Also, to me, Jews should have their own section as they came from all over the world and were not discriminated against because of where they came from but because of their ethnicity or "race." They should have a section not called "Antisemitism" but called racism against Jews, since that is what it was. Comments? Ridingdog (talk) 15:54, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

1. The article is called "Racism in the United States", therefore it pertains to Americans. 2. Disagree about Jews needing their own section, since they are ethnically/racially of Middle Eastern stock. They're fine where they are.Evildoer187 (talk) 16:01, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

I disagree. The article is about racism against people living in America. This racism has nothing to do with whether or not they are citizens. Racists did not ask if a Black or a Jew was an American citizen before they put up their signs that said "No Negroes Allowed" or "Exclusive Clientelle." With respect to Jews being from Middle Eastern stock, that may well be, but the discrimination against Jews was mainly against Jews who were (ethnically) from Russia and Germany and Poland etc. If I am not mistaken, very few Sephardi Jews came to US in those days. It is that confusion that strikes me that it would be best if Jews (or Jewish Americans) if you must, would be a better category for purposes of this article. Ridingdog (talk) 16:53, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Your first argument makes no sense. Your second argument is incorrect. Jews, regardless of where they lived after the 2nd century AD, are ethnically Semitic. Although Ashkenazim (who make up the bulk of American Jewry) were impacted to a certain extent by surrounding European cultures when they arrived to the continent, the core of their culture and ethnicity remained the same.Evildoer187 (talk) 17:28, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Evildoer's points - it was racism in the US against minority groups who were living in America, i.e. American by nationality. The article is referring to discrimination against minority groups within America, so naturally the groups in question were discriminated against not for being American (i.e. dominant-culture) but for being the "other". It's about discriminatory experiences that occurred within America, to some Americans, for being different, so hyphenated-Americans is still valid. Antisemitism is, by definition, "hostility to or prejudice against Jews", so I don't think that needs to be changed. It's a very commonly used term, it's in the dictionary and countless academic texts, and the meaning is pretty clear here, so I don't see a need to change it. Kitty (talk) 16:34, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

See my point above. Not all minority groups in America were American. The Irish were discriminated against because they were Irish. It is probably incorrect as well as redundant to refer to them as Irish-American since most of them were probably not American. The article is about racism in the United States so we are clearly talking about Irish and Polish folks in America, nowhere else. Ridingdog (talk) 16:53, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Most were indeed American, either as naturalized citizens or as second generation (born citizen) immigrants. I am really not seeing any coherent reasoning for a change here. VQuakr (talk) 18:36, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Irish by ethnicity/culture, American by nationality. Please familiarize yourself with the definition of nationality. Irish people of Irish nationality alone, living in Ireland, could not experience persecution in America, because they were not there to be persecuted. An Irish-American is indeed an American by nationality, and despite the fact that they were being persecuted for their Irish ethnicity, it is inaccurate and insensitive to act like they weren't really Americans just because they were being persecuted for being ethnically Irish. You say that "not all minority groups in America were American", which suggests that you aren't really au fait with the definition of nationality in the first place. An Irish-American is still an American, unless you personally have a very, very narrow definition of what an American is. Kitty (talk) 05:21, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

I think we decided some time ago not to use hyphens. See Hyphenated_American#Usage for example. Student7 (talk) 20:26, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Race/Ethnicity

I tried to link [[Race (human classification)|ethnicity-based]], an article which connects racism with ethnicity. It was reverted. The edit summary was "race and ethnicity not synonymous!" The first line of the linked article states, "Race is a social concept used to categorize humans into large and distinct populations or groups by anatomical, cultural, ethnic, genetic, geographical, historical, linguistic, religious, and/or social affiliation." Boldfacing mine. I think the link should be restored rather than argue repeatedly over this issue. Student7 (talk) 18:35, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

The article is about racism in the United States. The theory of the "social construct" of racism dates to about the 1980's. I do not think the link should be restored as it is anachronistic and anachronism is not encyclopedic unless the anachronism used is explained within the article. 216.246.232.41 (talk) 05:40, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree that the definition has changed since the 19th century. We are analyzing (not necessarily judging) history through modern eyes. I agree that the term is not used by itself in the body of the article. I think the term, or a similar term defining "race" needs to be linked somewhere within the article. Student7 (talk) 19:03, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Coatrack?

It seems to me that some parts of the article have become WP:COATRACK and not very useful as a result. The article says that conservatives tried to "defund" public schools. Well, a few did in 1960s or so, but haven't since. They have tried to reduce funding after it was found that spending per student did not correlate with increased performance. That is different from "defunding" however.

It talks about "top 1%", middle class, union busting (!?), etc. The topic was supposedly "Racism in the United States." The article seems to deviate from that in favor of an attack on conservatives and Republicans. If every article that is a "plank" in the Democratic platform is treated in an identical manner, Wikipedia rapidly becomes a "rant" rather than an encyclopedia. Would it be possible to try to stick to Racism as a topic? Maybe all attacks on conservatives and Republicans can be confined to one article, then a section can appear that would list it as {{main|Criticism of Conservatives in the United States}}. Then a small summary. That way, we would be able to have mostly facts that pertain to Racism here (and every other "plank" article), rather than merely political cant which tends to be repetitious. That way, it could be well maintained in one article. We'd be able to focus here on Racism, rather than how much some rich guy made last year, which seems to deviate somewhat from Racism. Student7 (talk) 21:51, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

You seem to be overlooking that the SECTION of the article in question discusses how racism is used as a political strategy and a "dog whistle." This was already the case before I added the very WP:notable views of renowned academic Ian Haney-López on this issue. I cited his recent book on the subject (and an interview he did with veteran journalist Bill Moyers to discuss the book) which certainly qualifies as a WP:RS considering it was published by Oxford University Press last year. Everything I added is straight from the sources provided.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 22:17, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

I cut this out from early in the article - newly added

• "It has been for decades the root of much Anti-Americanism for many non Americans expect its people to be racist, not only from Anglo Americans but in recent years also from minorities."
  

Something like this needs a source and anyway I don't believe that the last part is what Reverse discrimination is. Carptrash (talk) 07:22, 23 January 2015 (UTC)