- Ahhhhhron:
- White people are more likely to be racist than any other race.
Uhhhhhh yes and no.
I think white people in many areas have a sense of entitlement which can lead to seeing others as foreign, Other, 'a minority' or 'ethnic' (even though Asians outnumber Caucasians now; to quote the lab tech from Better Off Ted, "I'm not exotic; I'm Asian. There are more of us than there are you, so statistically, you're the exotic one.”) In a lot of Western countries, whiteness has been normalised (and thus made invisible) to such an extent that we have things like, when I was growing up, the "skin colour" pencil (a kind of coral/peach shade; and my school had a higher-than-average Indigenous population, so it shocks me that we didn't even question things like that.) So in those areas, or in areas which use to be very white but have recently become more multicultural/pluralised, I imagine racism is something a) used by white people and b) felt by people of colour far more than not-A and not-B.
However there are a lot of areas where people of colour (though I imagine it is more along ethnic/cultural lines than purely skin colour) are very racist. Racism isn't owned by white people, but (I feel like) they've done it best. And in countries which are either majority-Caucasian populations, or where the social structures/institutions are run by mainly Caucasians, I think it's white-racism which needs to be taken most seriously, because of the power that group holds over the rest.
But it depends how you're defining racism, I guess? Like sexism, I think that these '-isms' are things which can only actually be imposed by the dominant group/s. I don't think a woman can commit/perpetrate sexism (against men). However, any and all individuals can (and plenty do) express sexist/racist beliefs, or actions which are sexist/racist. The belief/act on its own may be perfectly characterised as, say with racism, expressing prejudice against another race, or the superiority of your race, or a perception of a fundamental flaw/defect in other races, generalised from [members of that race] to [all members of that race], whatever you want to say a racist view entails; but if it's from someone who lacks hegemony or agency or is disenfranchised, I don't think it's an -ism. (It's not structural, there is no system underlying/supporting it.)
And also I think that statement is probably from within a United States experience (though you may have only meant "in the United States") which might be accurate within that scope. But I don't think that I would agree that there is something fundamentally racist about white people. I think racism is learned (/taught.)
Wow this is really tl;dr.
Having said all that. I'm white, and usually I'm okay with it, but it's awful to think how little I can understand of the privilege that I live with - how very unfair it is that I was born into a white middle-class family, and, just because of that, get this ridiculous advantage/opportunity in life, regardless of my personal skills/intellect. What is
wrong with society.
Also, I just re-read the title, and this is a thread about 'ethnicity' rather than skin colour, which makes everything above even less relevant. My cultural tradition is of the Anglo-Saxon derived Australian variety. And it is fairly bigoted, racist and
bogan, generally, which I hate. The fact that over half the country would prefer an ex-priest who wants to push gays back into the closet and ban contraception (nb: mild exaggeration) rather than an unmarried female atheist whose crimes include taking leadership after the party (not her, the party) removed the former leader, and trying to put through a carbon tax (for the environment) and a mining tax (to distribute wealth more equitably) rant rant rant. I'm really not a fan of Australia, I see very little reason to be a 'proud Australian'. But at any rate I think the nation-model of government will eventually die out the same way that the colonial and imperial models failed, as soon as people realise that nationalism is hollow, divisive and undesirable. Though, there, I'm again conflating ideas that are not the same (race ethnicity appearance nationality) sorry sorry sorry.
