Race versus prejudice versus censorship

2020/06/16 - psychology

As tensions are growing, I thought it would be necessary for me to document some of the things I’ve learned from living in a multicultural household. I see a lot of wrongs in the world, and one that sticks out like a spear in my bleeding ribs is how people are buying into the control imposed by pandering tech CEOs.

Racism versus prejudice

I suppose if I outright say “Racism doesn’t exist”, the most arrogant people would ignore the rest of this page and never return. I don’t even believe that myself. What I do believe is that most people don’t know what Racism means. The formal definition is “prejudice, discrimination, antagonism directed at a particular group of racial or ethnice group.” The word in that definition that I want to highlight is prejudice.

I have read about 150 of the 250 cognitive biases on Wikipedia. I think that is a fantastic list. Maybe bias is important, maybe we can’t overcome certain bias, that’s outside the scope of this because I am only going to point out a few biases. I hope by the end of this article, the smartest people I know will understand that they in fact are prejudiced, and it is perfectly OK to be a little prejudiced.

So what is the difference between racism and prejudice? We can pretty well define antagonism and discrimination. Discrimination is TREATING somebody differently. Antagonism, for example, is like burning a cross on a Black American man’s front lawn. Antagonism is using the N-word as an insult to a Black person. Discrimination doesn’t have to be antagonising. It could be as simple as offering a person a job based on the color of their skin, or denying a person gainful employment based on the color of their skin (instead of based on their qualifications).

I have witnessed people use the race card and claim they are being discriminated against after harassing other people or doing something wrong. This is to say that the word racism can be used against people, not used to protect people. That is a really sorry state to be in, when you feel disadvantaged your ENTIRE life because of the color of your skin. Another ridiculous example would be making all the white-men take an ethnic diversity class, but not requiring other people in the same position. Or laying off one a-hole because another a-hole decided it's too "egregious".

However, if we are only talking about the discrimination aspect of racism, one would realize that racism is merely a subset of prejudice. Prejudice is defined as “preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience”. To over-simplify, the goal of this article is to give you the tools and words necessary to reasonably be experienced and prejudiced. Enjoy.

Scientific reasoning for prejudice

Among the many interesting biases, Similarity-Attraction Effect stands out to me. People are attracted to people who look like themselves. In my own experience, people have asked me “Is that your sister.” when referring to me and my wife. I did not marry my sister. My wife is not also my sister. Classic facepalm moment. But it made me curious, why would a stranger think my wife is my sister? Because I subconsciously recognize a similarity in the shape of our faces and eyes that makes her more attractive to me. Because we have picked up on similar body language and have developed similar mannerisms. A person can recognize those similarities almost instantaneously.

I had a girlfriend who broke up with me in college to go out with my best friend at the time. A little while later I realized they both have a big mole at the exact same spot on their forehead! Coincidence? I think not. My wife and I were at a birthday party one time. Our friend was Chinese, and she married a Czech guy. There was a very pronounced division in the room between her Chinese friends, and his white English speaking friends. The Chinese people could all speak broken English and none of the white people spoke any Chinese. The room was obviously and naturally “segregated”, and it felt a little awkward. Because of our obvious biases, we all thought it was easier to speak in our respective native languages. Probably, some opportunity to learn from one another was lost. Does that mean anyone was racist? NO! Does that mean anyone was prejudiced? YES! Does that mean anyone should be ostracized for their behavior? NO!

The fact is, biases keep us safe, and they protect our little bubble of a worldview. But that isn’t to say people don’t break out of their bubble. I married a Polish-Jew, she’s taught me a lot about history and how minimal American history is compared to the thousands of years of wars other countries have experienced. More than just voicing her own knowledge of history, it’s inspired me to learn some more history of my own. The word Slave for example, comes from the Slavic people that were brutalised by Romans over 1,000 years ago.

Another example of this bias, if I am walking alone at night, and I see a man coming towards me. I might cross the street to continue walking. It’s coincidental that it’s a black man, but my cave-man psychology takes over and makes me nervous. I think to myself, am I racist because I am nervous? Or is being nervous just a symptom of being alone and walking at night? The latter is where the truth lies, because I would be nervous even if it was a white man crossing paths with me. It has nothing to do with skin color, and everything to do with me being easy to beat up and rob. My own wimpiness and lack of will-power to protect myself that makes me scared. But of course, any on-looker of this situation could immediately label me a racist because it’s easier to label someone or something than it is to understand this entire article.

Common stereotypes and truthiness

I’m going to list a lot of common stereotypes, but before you’re turned away by them, consider their reasoning, history, supporting evidence, and how oversimplifying things is easier than learning what makes it true. I’ll number them and then offer the explanation of “reason and actual experience” that most people lack when they are being prejudiced. As you are reading these, remember this idea “Stereotypes are bad because not everybody fits that description.” That’s a cop-out (pun intended). That’s saying, I can discredit whatever truth it is because I know it’s not true once or twice in my life. That’s like saying, if something is 90% true, we don’t have to pay attention to it because of the 10%. That never happens in science. We pay attention to both 90% and 10%, it’s all significant information that we use to form our worldview.

  1. Asians are good at math
  2. Black people kill black people twice as often as white people kill black people
  3. I don’t like black people
  4. The biggest obstacle for women’s equality is other women
  5. I don’t like fat people
  6. Indians are greedy
  7. Middle-easterners are greedy
  8. Poor people aren't environmentally conscious
  9. Black girls got booty
  10. Asians are bad drivers
  11. Black people are criminals
  12. Mexicans are abusive
  13. Natives are alcoholics
  14. Jews control everything and speaking out is anti-semetic
  15. Only white people are racist

Now, I’d like to prove every one of those statements wrong, by offering reasonable experiences as to why stereotyping is easier than knowing for sure.

  1. I’ve always thought saying “Asians are good at math” is funny. It was also funny when Andrew Yang said this during a speech. So why is something so racist funny? Because it’s also based on factual evidence. The writing and phonetics of asian languages make them better at simple math. Having a leg up from language and thousands of years of calligraphy and practicing and teaching formal methods that are different than The American Way, has given them an advantage when exploring advanced math. It’s also no surprise the abacus is from Asia. Mad respect.
  2. This statement is really what inspired this article as I saw CEO Ryan Roslansky lay off employees for “Racism”. But the truth here is, Ryan doesn’t like truth. He also doesn’t like Truth being pointed out to him. He runs Linkedin and he can censor it however he wants, including shutting up truth speakers and forcing hardship on their lives. The truth is, just stating this fact is hurtful. Nobody wants to work for a racist company like LinkedIn. How many ways do I have to say it? “Words are not racist.” Listen to George Carlin on this one. Words do not constitute “treating a person differently” they are just words. They are not actions, the action of speaking words is a 1st Amendendment right. But because we thrive on social media owned by specific rich people, they don’t need to give a fuck about your 1st Amended rights. Even Reddit says “we are not the thought police” yet they constantly filter and censor people’s thoughts because THEY DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU. YOU ARE A PRODUCT THAT HAS GONE ROTTEN. They will just as easily cast you out into exile as they will sell your entire track record of online existence to the highest bidder. The irony is, now LinkedIn’s employees have lost the opportunity to grow, they will fester their ejection into more hate.
  3. Continuing this thought. Let’s not forget Airbnb did the same thing a few years ago. The worst and most dangerous part about this is it really disadvantages everybody involved. These CEOs don’t give a fuck about black people, they only care about money. So by firing a bunch of “racist” employees and offering black people their jobs, they are inviting black people into a company that doesn’t care about them, but panders to them anyways, rather than actually working towards fixing the problems black people face, they are pandering. For every black community that gets support during the BlackLivesMatter movement, there is a white community being created from ignorant poor white people. It is all one pot. Let that sink in. The entire GDP, the budget of the world, is all one pot. There is only so much to go around, so for one ethinic group to have MORE, another ethnic group has to lose. If communism has taught us anything, it’s that trying to artificially manufacture equality, EVERYBODY LOSES. Another big great example with quelling stereotypes and racism instead of addressing the real problem directly. If one of the biggest problems with Black ethnicity is lack of education, that probably means they can’t comprehend and understand BIG TECH COMPANY TERMS OF SERVICE. I read TOS agreements because I think it’s interesting to see how screwed up companies are that they have to outline themselves in big Black ink. If someone violates the Terms of Service and I report them, racism has got nothing to do with it. The symptoms of their ethnicity has everything to do with it. To over simplify this, and really drive the point home, Airbnb looks racist because Black people are uneducated and can’t understand the Terms of Service. If I decline to host a person, it’s because they did something stupid, not because they are black. That doesn’t make me a racist, that makes me compliant to Airbnb’s Terms of Service.
  4. This one is great. Tons of evidence can be found that women discriminate against other women. Every time a woman uses the word “bitch” to describe another woman, she is putting her own sex down, wholehearedtly. Cussing is contempt, people who use cuss words to express themselves lack the intelligence to use more descriptive words. Obviously, I include myself in that, as I use cuss words when emotions overtake reasoning. Like when I’m passionately describing Retaliatory Diversity Panderers above.
  5. This is sad and scary to me. I guarantee I could eat any fat person under the table when it comes to sweets. I could eat an entire chocolate cake and kill myself from gluttany. This is the perfect example of how disliking fat people protects my own health. With that said, I have many friends and family that by all social norms would be considered “overweight”. If we learn to “love ourselves and our bodies” is the perfect scapegoat for people to be their MOST UNHEALTHY SELVES. Thank you for that Meghan Trainor, who’s actually losing weight and trying to take care of her body now. So much for all that bass. Because stereotyping is easier than doing research and experiencing truth.
  6. Indians are greedy. I love this one because everybody reasonably hates me for it. Let me tell you about a story about a little girl born in India. Her mother and her have to protect themselves from becoming a rape victim when they go outside to evacuate into a hole. They also take bribes for job positions and immigration visas all over the world. If you don’t like these stereotypes, fucking change yourself and look in a mirror because the elitist English speaking world is the reason they exists. We created this fraud, we accept it, we let it continue. Instead of hiring a white male, we hire from a recruiting company that runs a lottery that Indians pay to participate in with the small chance of providing a better life for themselves. As a father, of course I’m going to save up so that I can pay for my child’s wedding. The fact that there is a side business benefiting from a marriage is just that, a side-effect. Doesn’t change the sad fact that money is used to “sell” daughters. That, like most stereotypes, is an oversimplification of a sad truth that we would rather label as “discriminatory” than face head on.
  7. Continuing this thought, middle easterners are greedy too. I’ve never met a middle easterner that didn’t try to be Bouji. But why? Where does this stereotype come from? It comes from the next point. It comes from the fact that a person growing up in Afghanistan is afraid of blue skies because those are the days they drop bombs. White elitist America created this stereotype. White elists America labels me a racist for saying it so they don’t have to deal with the trauma they’ve caused all over the world.
  8. Poor people don’t have the mental capacity to care about the environment. You’d better believe that if a person grows up in poverty their entire life, they will use whatever means necessary to get ahead. Do you think spoiled white Jaime from the midwest cares about the Mexican famers that lost their livelihood because Phoenix soaks up all the water? Do you think he really cares about the Hopi who created the reservoir so that Phoenix could steal it from them? No he does not. He doesn't care about blasting the A/C in the desert creating MORE heat on the outside while making the inside pleasant. He’s also delusional in thinking that working for an insurance company “is helping people.” Last time I checked, helping people is the only way to help people. Insurance has got nothing to do with it, and how self-righteous of him to believe so when he’s wasted 2 other ethnic groups in the process. Go Quaker yourself. Case in point, white privilege doesn’t exist, only arrogance, and the ability and willingness to exchange arrogance for knowledge.
  9. This is actually true, but not for the reasons we would like. There are many black women that I find astoundingly beautiful. I don’t like intentionally creating a barrier between whites and blacks using language. I prefer “Uncle Toms”. Because they sound smart and they aren’t intentionally creating division like the N-word does. I like language. I learn new words every day. I learn other languages everyday. If words are used to hurt someone, that’s wrong. Black women and sometimes men intentionally use the word “ax” in place of the word “ask”. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the people using these words are stupid, I think their language of choice is stupid. I am not a fan of the French language either, does that make me racist? NO! Because most Frenchies are white. This language is just as offensive to me as the N-word because it comes from a period in history that highlights slavery, and I don’t want to think about it. I also don’t like “big booty”, on white/yellow/brown/black/red girls, no matter what color a person is, I prefer someone who is fit and thin. Does it make me a racist to prefer a specific body type? NO! Does it make me prejudiced in the face of preserving that ideal genetically? Yes. I’m prejudiced towards fit people. Everybody is. But here are some examples of incredibly beautiful and fit black women, just in case you're bored of reading. Hot damn.
  10. Asians are bad drivers. But so are most people. This is one of those things that applies to 90% of people, like a Horoscope bias. But it’s only racist because we replace “Most people are bad drivers” with “Asians are bad drivers.” That makes it a good stereotype. Have you ever tried driving in Rome? It’s terrifying. But interestingly, I also got the sense that people are more concerned about not hitting someone else with their car, instead of the American way of driving by assuming someone else isn’t going to hit you with their car. It’s almost like an American driver would rather get hit by someone and sue them instead of learning and taking the necessary evasive actions to avoid the collision. Americans are the worst drivers of all. And we often dislike things about other people, that we also dislike about ourselves.
  11. Black people commit more crime per capita. No denying it, it’s been proven time and time again. But as the most enlightened people acknowledge, they commit crimes based on the symptom of their environment. The law doesn’t care about symptoms, as I have learned. If you do something wrong, you MUST be punished. The sad fact here is that the exact same reason we use to quash a stereotype actually is causing that unfortunate symptom. If everybody got together and agreed that people who commit a crime don’t need punishment, they need discipline, we could brainstorm all day long on how to discipline someone. But the easier, stereotypical way to punish a criminal is to send them to jail so we don’t have to think about them anymore. I, on the other hand, have a highly external locus of control. It causes severe depression, and that’s why most people want nothing to do with these ideas. External locus of control means bad things happen to good and bad people. On the contrary, an internal locus of control lends to the age old SCAPEGOAT “you need to take responsibility for your actions.” Egg-heads who say and believe those words use them against people because they can’t deal with the reality that something is wrong with their reality. Unfortunately, it’s those same arrogant egg-heads that believe inheritance and family wealth should be abolished. It’s the same egg-heads that don’t understand it is easier for philanthropists to deal with a single foundation instead of dealing with hundreds of begging charities. They probably don’t even know the difference between punishment and discipline, and they don’t know the difference between a foundation and a charity. Look it up, I won’t do it for you.
  12. Mexicans are abusive. Statistically speaking, they are the most abusive ethnicity. Why is that? How true does a stereotype need to be before it’s just a widely accepted fact? I ask myself this question a lot. Does anybody want to deal with thinking about the symptom or are you ready to label me a racist and move on? Here’s some truth serum for you, it’s easier to label someone a racist than to think about the symptoms of what makes our society sick. I’ve thought about it a lot, which is why I have no reservations about pointing these things out. According to the definition of prejudice, the difference between labeling someone racist and accepting the truth of a stereotype is a person’s ability to reasonably express their experiences. I know more abusive Mexicans than Black predators because I live near the Mexican border. But looking at this graph of the world, it would show Africa, the Middle East, and South America are the most abusive towards Women.
  13. This is a sad truth with a long unfortunate history. Like the fact that Mormons killed white people and blamed it on natives. Or the fact that Mormons killed natives and never prosecuted anyone. Or the fact that Mormons sold alcohol to natives for over a century. I cannot think of a single ethnic group that has suffered more abuse, than natives, except maybe Jews, Palistinians, Blacks, Irishes, and any other ethnic group. Natives were forced to assimilate by Richard Henry Pratt. They also suffer from a genetic disorder that causes alcoholism to be more prevalent. They aren’t even spiritually allowed to drink alcohol. Alcohol is a plague. Plague is also plague, and we gave them that too. They also get drunk and kill each other, and it’s perfectly OK by their law, but they are persecuted by our laws. This is a ridiculous double standard of self-righteousness, all life is meaningful.
  14. Wow. This one hardly needs any explanation because anybody reasonable (excluding ignorant/manipulative Jews) would agree. Even Jews admit that it’s true. Even the Jews that know it’s true, try to deny it to continue the misinformation bubble so you don’t want to retaliate and burn them all. There is philosophical evidence, there is statistical evidence, there is historical evidence, there are blatant admissions, there are more Jewish judges than any other ethnic group. There is probably no other ethnic group that this idiom applies to better, “the truth hurts.” Jews also control NASA, whether by planting clouds, and banks.
  15. Good grief. Every culture in the world is racist against people who are darker than themselves. Some Indians and Chinese I know are the worst offenders of this, even I am surprised coming from my place of privilege. I’d only expect some of these things from the biggest assholes, like if I was intentionally trying to be a jerk. Saying only white people are racist is completely false. Blacks, Asians, Indians, Japanese, can all be racist.

Censorship and truth

The truth hurts. wipes sweat from brow. That was rough. I’m glad I got it out though, because I’ve been thinking about all this history for a long time, and couldn’t think of how to organize it in one big racist rant. Luckily, I can’t be fired because I’m self-employed. But that’s the problem isn’t it? Words are not racist, people are, and people’s actions are.

Why should words be used to hurt people? When I was growing up, my momma always told me that “sticks and stones will break your bones, but words can never hurt you.” This should have ended with, “words will leave you with crippling anxiety and fear for the rest of your life.” Because that’s the truth. It is easier to label someone a racist than to think about what is wrong. It is also easy to hurt somebody, or an entire ethnic group, who is already being hurt with words. The reason we deject stereotypes is because the truth hurts. And none of us know how to fix this problem. But I believe sometimes just knowing is good enough, actions can come later, at any point in life. Perhaps knowing will lead me to be a more sympathetic person when action is needed instead of words.

This is why, I think moron CEOs like Ryan Roslansky fire people over their choice of words. Because the truth hurts and he can’t change it. However, what he can change is firing an employee, labeling them racist, and making his company look good for firing all the racists. This is censorship. Censorship is more toxic than racism. If censorship was working perfectly well, no one would ever voice their opinions and we could all live happily together being racists secretly. Would you rather live in a world full of secret racists, or exile the openly racist people?

Billionaire tech CEOs DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU. You are a product to them. They care about money so they can get the hell away from you and enjoy their pedophile island escape resorts. The 1st Amendment does not apply to companies. It applies to the government. The government is the only one that cares about protecting first amendment rights. NEWS COMPANIES ARE COMPANIES. News does not care about the 1st Amendment. News can publish and quash whatever voice they want. My blog is hosted on a Cloud service. Cloud services can be contacted and destroy my blog. My blog reaches you over the internet. Internet Service Providers can be contacted to destroy my blog. Constitutional rights are a farce unless you have the money to complain about them being violated. Money is security.

Why do we prefer money over ethics? Because money is the only thing that can protect you enough to enact your ethics. No money, no ethics. I promised myself I’d never work for a Bank or Insurance company, yet here I am applying for them because they have the money to hire a charity case like me. Here is the conclusion. Words hurt people, or rather we let ourselves be hurt by words. The most vulnerable people are hurt the most by words, especially when they highlight their vulnerabilities. It’s hard to derive any sympathy from people, or even recognize sympathy when we are currently being hurt. It’s hard to express sympathy, when you don’t want to talk about something. Stereotypes are a Catch 22 because it lacks sympathy and fails to address the underlying problem. I hope everybody learned something from this, at least one new piece of history.

If I was working for a tech pandering company, I would seriously be reconsidering what they mean by “Growth opportunity” now. Considering usually if you report a problem to HR, you ARE the problem to HR. So if you are laid off because of Coronavirus, or your participation in BLM, or even for trying to raise awareness of an issue. Rest assured knowing you are fucked. There is nothing to protect a person from being laid off for raising ethical questions.

Reason and experience