I was waiting for my daughter-in-law after her first post - delivery checkup. I got talking with another mother who had a two day old baby daughter. Her proud mother was there waiting for her first post - delivery checkup too. They were both super friendly and happy for me to see the tiny baby girl.
Five minutes later my daughter-in-law came out of the doctor’s office. My husband moved forward to help her with her coat. I was about to say farewell to the new mother and grandmother before we left when I saw the daughter protectively wrap her baby and pull her away from me. Her mother’s eyes were wide as she stared at my daughter-in-law who was born in the Philippines.
She has beautiful dark brown skin and dark black hair. My granddaughter has brown eyes like her mother and soft light brown skin. Her dark tuft of black hair resembles her mother but its soft texture comes from my blue eyed fair skinned son.
Their eyes showed how threatening they felt my mixed race two day old granddaughter was.
I picked up my coat, turned my back on them and joined my family. There are no words to be said when you see that someone looks upon a baby girl with horror because she has parents of two different races.
Their eyes told me everything I needed to know.
Thank you for explaining this form of racism so clearly Walter.
Thank you for sharing Jocelyn. I've been in situations like that too. Even though those people are wrong, it still lands like a punch. I think if we focus on the mechanism of indoctrination rather than the hatefulness of racism itself, it makes us better equipped to address the issue. Thanks again!
Jocelyn, I have seen that very look and know what you mean. Your description was so on point that it almost took my breath away. I've seen that look too, but only truly "saw" it after I was moved away to another country where people where not so "othered."
A recent article by Jay Kuo demonstrated that this is true for all bigotry. The article is very dense in complex theories about sexuality. Jay wrote it in response to the GOP’s insistence that there are only two sexes, male and female and their crusade to codify that into law. The article is very dense in complex theories and formulas and made me feel a bit overwhelmed. I consider myself pretty intelligent, but I admit I don’t have a science brain. It made me realize that those who insist there are only two sexes, or who believe in White Supremacy, can’t possibly understand this kind of data. Those who double down on bigotry and racism don’t have the cognitive strength to understand deep data dives. And they’ve been conditioned not to be persistent in pursuing knowledge. It’s so much easier for them to just accept the binary as opposed to the spectrum, rather than do the work to understand the much more complicated scientific facts.
A significant portion of the musical "South Pacific" is devoted to expounding what you say. When the film was made in 1958, the Hollywood producers begged and pleaded with Rodgers and Hammerstein to allow them to cut the song "You've Got to be Carefully Taught" [to be racist-JH]. R&H steadfastly refused to budge.
So very true! Being born in early 50's, I grew up watching how that worked. Luckily my dad was not racist and I followed his example. He passed when I was 16 so unfortunately my sons did not have him as a role model. I would say my younger son has followed me more than his dad.
Thank you, Walter, for this clear-eyed view of how indoctrination works and is perpetuated. I grew up in the southeast corner of Virginia in a time when the schools I attended were still segregated, and the beach where we went to swim was separated from our black neighbours by a pier. Can you imagine? There was only a pier between us, and we literally could not see each other. Years later, after the advent of Google Earth, I zoomed in on the beach where I spent almost every day from the age of 7 through 15, and saw that it was only a wooden structure, run down and falling apart, that was the line of demarcation between two beaches - both very, very famous and overrun with summer tourists. In my mind, when I thought to picture my time on the beach of my childhood, the beach stopped and only some sort of fog existed past that pier.
We were children, in my time of growing up on that beach, and we were interested in anything that was new or unusual to us - that is just the way that kids are as they are attracted to novelty. So, now I wonder why we did not "see" people who were just on the other side of a pier. Once I realized that I had been completely blind to other children playing in the waves practically within earshot of me, I tried very hard to understand why my brain had played such a horrible trick on me. I believe that your article fills in many blanks, and Jocelyn's comments about subtle body language adds to it nicely. We never saw anyone of colour on our side of the pier, so we normalized the idea that white people were the norm. And, given the southern propensity for subtly ignoring anything that doesn't fit with that old Southern gentility attitude - including ignoring the fact that we LOST an entire war or that said war was about state's rights and not slavery - it would have been an easy step to believing that the only persons of value (or worth noticing) are white people.
At some point I must have stood on the beach, looking out to the bay and let my gaze wander to the south. I don't remember it, but it would have been very strange if I hadn't looked that way. But, you are right, Walter, I had been so steeped in that attitude of "they don't exist" that I absorbed it. By the time that I had reached my rebellious point in adolescence, when I might have defied the edict to only look where I was told, my family had moved away from the beach, to an all while neighbourhood, and where I attended a high school that, like many others in the south, had defied federal legislation about desegregation and finished my public schooling without attending any classes with anyone who did not look like me.
We definitely must do better by our children than what was done to us.
It is both. If you live in a multi ethnic neighborhood that has low social trust (for example high crime and gentrified neighborhoods) you will see more racism.
1) I have a friend who is a progressive and grew up in the suburbs. She is definitely not a racist and she moved into a mostly black neighborhood that is getting gentrified. The families in that neighborhood hate each her. She didn’t know why. She had someone write her an anonymous note telling her to GTFO. I had to literally explain to her that she is a gentrifier and they look at her like an invader. She ended up getting married and moved in with her now husband.
2) in 1960s and 70s New York, you had the great migration where blacks left the south and went north. They moved into the ethnic enclaves of Italians, Irish, and Jews and this caused a lot of social tension.
I don’t think these are cases of indoctrination. These are bottom up tensions resulting from low social trust, and proximity.
Mike, you're describing systemic racism (and classism). Urban/suburban DIS-investment and RE-development systems to be specific.
Dis-investment is a process in which cities and towns withdraw, or withhold, public funds from some neighborhoods in order to increase public funding for other neighborhoods - and business districts.
Public dis-investment results in streets full of pot holes, broken sidewalks, broken water pipes, no street cleaning, no bulky items pick up trash days, no parks, no landscaping, no trash cans or benches on streets, faded or bent stop signs and signals, trash strewn lots, and vacant and boarded up buildings, schools, churches, and broken sewers etc.
This visible decline of the public realm is reflected in the steady decline of property values. At some point in the dis-investment process, property owners are underwater (they owe more than their property is worth), so they move out, board up their properties, or abandon them. Time marches on and rental and purchase prices continue to fall, vacancies increase, crime moves in, schools close, businesses close, etc.
In the RE-development process, cities establish Re-development agencies, whose sole purpose is to remove existing residents and businesses in order to make way for higher income residents and businesses. Gentrification (in residential neighborhoods) and the Importation of corporations into business districts (Walmart, KMart, Home Depot are common).
RE-development agencies have the power to take property by eminent domain, overlay homeowner associations that can impose amenity fees, and other expensive requirements, that force low-income property owners out of the area. For example, many homeowners who have paid off their homes who suddenly get hit with all those new fees I just mentioned, plus property tax hikes, often lose their homes.
DIS-investment and RE-development encompass many interlocking systems including schools, parks, policing, fire services, hospitals etc. Bottom line, the public and private realms must work together, in partnership, or both will fail.
And that's where indoctrination comes in. People see a downtrodden neighborhood and think its the resident's fault - but they are wrong. People think wealthy people have good schools because they pay more in property taxes - but they are wrong about that too.
You can follow the money UP and DOWN the same ladder.
The great migration began in 1910 and lasted until 1970. Southerners moved north and west in search of work and housing which were primarily physical labour, or factory jobs. Worker housing has been a continuous battle since the1600s. Bottom line, the rich and powerful have always been determined to cram as many people as possible, into the smallest spaces possible, and spend the least amount of tax dollars possible in those areas.
The point is that it isn’t indoctrinated. It is organic. It is people noticing patterns and things changing and reacting to it.
If you look at a lot of the “anti racist” activists they are mostly upper middle class types who are insulated from the dangerous neighborhoods. That is why they tend to be more supportive of soft on crime policies and defund the police.
Racism is absolutely not organic. The reason neighborhoods are laid out the way you're talking about is because of racism. The reason people respond the way they do is because they've been indoctrinated to respond that way. You need to take a step back and recognize how much of your basic patterns of thought are not organic at all, it's artificial. It's social control.
Uh-huh. First of all, don't use profanity because the second people start writing rude comments I recognize they don't have anything productive to say. Second of all, there are massive differences in human behavior based on culture. That's because societies indoctrinate differently, some good, some bad. If you want to dismiss reality, there's no point in me wasting my time on you.
I watch for unconscious racism in people’s eyes.
I’ll give you an example.
I was waiting for my daughter-in-law after her first post - delivery checkup. I got talking with another mother who had a two day old baby daughter. Her proud mother was there waiting for her first post - delivery checkup too. They were both super friendly and happy for me to see the tiny baby girl.
Five minutes later my daughter-in-law came out of the doctor’s office. My husband moved forward to help her with her coat. I was about to say farewell to the new mother and grandmother before we left when I saw the daughter protectively wrap her baby and pull her away from me. Her mother’s eyes were wide as she stared at my daughter-in-law who was born in the Philippines.
She has beautiful dark brown skin and dark black hair. My granddaughter has brown eyes like her mother and soft light brown skin. Her dark tuft of black hair resembles her mother but its soft texture comes from my blue eyed fair skinned son.
Their eyes showed how threatening they felt my mixed race two day old granddaughter was.
I picked up my coat, turned my back on them and joined my family. There are no words to be said when you see that someone looks upon a baby girl with horror because she has parents of two different races.
Their eyes told me everything I needed to know.
Thank you for explaining this form of racism so clearly Walter.
Thank you for sharing Jocelyn. I've been in situations like that too. Even though those people are wrong, it still lands like a punch. I think if we focus on the mechanism of indoctrination rather than the hatefulness of racism itself, it makes us better equipped to address the issue. Thanks again!
I agree with that because you’re not going to change the mind of the indoctrinated anyway. Only falling off the bike can teach you then.
It’s part of how I handle people who are staunch MAGA adherents.
Don’t argue, just get out of their way because they are heading for a big hard fall.
Meanwhile being kind and helpful to children is part of support against indoctrination that I can do to help others.
We might not be able to change their minds. But we can have (hopefully) a productive discussion about indoctrination :)
I’m hoping for that productive discussion too.🌹
Jocelyn, I have seen that very look and know what you mean. Your description was so on point that it almost took my breath away. I've seen that look too, but only truly "saw" it after I was moved away to another country where people where not so "othered."
A recent article by Jay Kuo demonstrated that this is true for all bigotry. The article is very dense in complex theories about sexuality. Jay wrote it in response to the GOP’s insistence that there are only two sexes, male and female and their crusade to codify that into law. The article is very dense in complex theories and formulas and made me feel a bit overwhelmed. I consider myself pretty intelligent, but I admit I don’t have a science brain. It made me realize that those who insist there are only two sexes, or who believe in White Supremacy, can’t possibly understand this kind of data. Those who double down on bigotry and racism don’t have the cognitive strength to understand deep data dives. And they’ve been conditioned not to be persistent in pursuing knowledge. It’s so much easier for them to just accept the binary as opposed to the spectrum, rather than do the work to understand the much more complicated scientific facts.
A significant portion of the musical "South Pacific" is devoted to expounding what you say. When the film was made in 1958, the Hollywood producers begged and pleaded with Rodgers and Hammerstein to allow them to cut the song "You've Got to be Carefully Taught" [to be racist-JH]. R&H steadfastly refused to budge.
So very true! Being born in early 50's, I grew up watching how that worked. Luckily my dad was not racist and I followed his example. He passed when I was 16 so unfortunately my sons did not have him as a role model. I would say my younger son has followed me more than his dad.
Thank you, Walter, for this clear-eyed view of how indoctrination works and is perpetuated. I grew up in the southeast corner of Virginia in a time when the schools I attended were still segregated, and the beach where we went to swim was separated from our black neighbours by a pier. Can you imagine? There was only a pier between us, and we literally could not see each other. Years later, after the advent of Google Earth, I zoomed in on the beach where I spent almost every day from the age of 7 through 15, and saw that it was only a wooden structure, run down and falling apart, that was the line of demarcation between two beaches - both very, very famous and overrun with summer tourists. In my mind, when I thought to picture my time on the beach of my childhood, the beach stopped and only some sort of fog existed past that pier.
We were children, in my time of growing up on that beach, and we were interested in anything that was new or unusual to us - that is just the way that kids are as they are attracted to novelty. So, now I wonder why we did not "see" people who were just on the other side of a pier. Once I realized that I had been completely blind to other children playing in the waves practically within earshot of me, I tried very hard to understand why my brain had played such a horrible trick on me. I believe that your article fills in many blanks, and Jocelyn's comments about subtle body language adds to it nicely. We never saw anyone of colour on our side of the pier, so we normalized the idea that white people were the norm. And, given the southern propensity for subtly ignoring anything that doesn't fit with that old Southern gentility attitude - including ignoring the fact that we LOST an entire war or that said war was about state's rights and not slavery - it would have been an easy step to believing that the only persons of value (or worth noticing) are white people.
At some point I must have stood on the beach, looking out to the bay and let my gaze wander to the south. I don't remember it, but it would have been very strange if I hadn't looked that way. But, you are right, Walter, I had been so steeped in that attitude of "they don't exist" that I absorbed it. By the time that I had reached my rebellious point in adolescence, when I might have defied the edict to only look where I was told, my family had moved away from the beach, to an all while neighbourhood, and where I attended a high school that, like many others in the south, had defied federal legislation about desegregation and finished my public schooling without attending any classes with anyone who did not look like me.
We definitely must do better by our children than what was done to us.
Very true
It is both. If you live in a multi ethnic neighborhood that has low social trust (for example high crime and gentrified neighborhoods) you will see more racism.
I will give you a couple of examples.
1) I have a friend who is a progressive and grew up in the suburbs. She is definitely not a racist and she moved into a mostly black neighborhood that is getting gentrified. The families in that neighborhood hate each her. She didn’t know why. She had someone write her an anonymous note telling her to GTFO. I had to literally explain to her that she is a gentrifier and they look at her like an invader. She ended up getting married and moved in with her now husband.
2) in 1960s and 70s New York, you had the great migration where blacks left the south and went north. They moved into the ethnic enclaves of Italians, Irish, and Jews and this caused a lot of social tension.
I don’t think these are cases of indoctrination. These are bottom up tensions resulting from low social trust, and proximity.
Mike, you're describing systemic racism (and classism). Urban/suburban DIS-investment and RE-development systems to be specific.
Dis-investment is a process in which cities and towns withdraw, or withhold, public funds from some neighborhoods in order to increase public funding for other neighborhoods - and business districts.
Public dis-investment results in streets full of pot holes, broken sidewalks, broken water pipes, no street cleaning, no bulky items pick up trash days, no parks, no landscaping, no trash cans or benches on streets, faded or bent stop signs and signals, trash strewn lots, and vacant and boarded up buildings, schools, churches, and broken sewers etc.
This visible decline of the public realm is reflected in the steady decline of property values. At some point in the dis-investment process, property owners are underwater (they owe more than their property is worth), so they move out, board up their properties, or abandon them. Time marches on and rental and purchase prices continue to fall, vacancies increase, crime moves in, schools close, businesses close, etc.
In the RE-development process, cities establish Re-development agencies, whose sole purpose is to remove existing residents and businesses in order to make way for higher income residents and businesses. Gentrification (in residential neighborhoods) and the Importation of corporations into business districts (Walmart, KMart, Home Depot are common).
RE-development agencies have the power to take property by eminent domain, overlay homeowner associations that can impose amenity fees, and other expensive requirements, that force low-income property owners out of the area. For example, many homeowners who have paid off their homes who suddenly get hit with all those new fees I just mentioned, plus property tax hikes, often lose their homes.
DIS-investment and RE-development encompass many interlocking systems including schools, parks, policing, fire services, hospitals etc. Bottom line, the public and private realms must work together, in partnership, or both will fail.
And that's where indoctrination comes in. People see a downtrodden neighborhood and think its the resident's fault - but they are wrong. People think wealthy people have good schools because they pay more in property taxes - but they are wrong about that too.
You can follow the money UP and DOWN the same ladder.
The great migration began in 1910 and lasted until 1970. Southerners moved north and west in search of work and housing which were primarily physical labour, or factory jobs. Worker housing has been a continuous battle since the1600s. Bottom line, the rich and powerful have always been determined to cram as many people as possible, into the smallest spaces possible, and spend the least amount of tax dollars possible in those areas.
The point is that it isn’t indoctrinated. It is organic. It is people noticing patterns and things changing and reacting to it.
If you look at a lot of the “anti racist” activists they are mostly upper middle class types who are insulated from the dangerous neighborhoods. That is why they tend to be more supportive of soft on crime policies and defund the police.
Racism is absolutely not organic. The reason neighborhoods are laid out the way you're talking about is because of racism. The reason people respond the way they do is because they've been indoctrinated to respond that way. You need to take a step back and recognize how much of your basic patterns of thought are not organic at all, it's artificial. It's social control.
Yeah that is bullshit. People see patterns and act on them. Sometimes they are rational. Sometimes they are not.
Uh-huh. First of all, don't use profanity because the second people start writing rude comments I recognize they don't have anything productive to say. Second of all, there are massive differences in human behavior based on culture. That's because societies indoctrinate differently, some good, some bad. If you want to dismiss reality, there's no point in me wasting my time on you.