In a new poll released by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) on Tuesday, a whopping 43 percent of Americans told researchers that discrimination against whites has become as large a problem as discrimination against blacks and other minority groups. And an even bigger share of Americans — 53 percent — told pollsters American culture and “way of life” have mostly changed for the worse since 1950.
First, there are some real and large differences in the way that different groups of Americans answered those two questions up above. Half of white Americans — including 60 percent of the white working class — told researchers that discrimination against whites has become as big a problem today as discrimination against blacks and other minorities. Meanwhile, 29 percent of Latinos and 25 percent of black Americans agreed. White Americans feel put-upon and mistreated — and large shares of non-white Americans do not seem to have any knowledge of the challenges that white Americans say they face.
Of course, there are always aspects of other people’s lives that we do not or cannot understand. But the sheer size of the racial/ethnic gap concerning perceived discrimination against white Americans is particularly interesting because there is very little in the way of objective evidence of this discrimination and the disadvantage that typically follows. On just about every measure of social or economic well-being, white Americans fare better than any other group.
That’s true of housing and neighborhood quality and homeownership. That’s true of overall health, health insurance coverage rates, quality of health care received, life expectancy and infant mortality. That’s true when it comes tomedian household earnings, wealth (assets minus debt), retirement savings and even who has a bank account.
That’s true when one actually looks at who is graduating from college, who holds the bulk of the nation’s high-paying and management jobs and who does not. That last point really has to be made clear. Look closely at the chart below. Notice a pattern? Asian Americans out-earn all other groups, but not by much, despite, as a group, obtaining more education. And black women and Latinas both have more education than their male counterparts. But that doesn’t show up in their earnings.
White Americans are, as a group, born healthier and live longer and get better health care, jobs, education and housing in the years in between. Yet half of white Americans believe that discrimination against them is as big a problem in their lives as it is for those of people of color. But there’s just no evidence to back that up.
What does exist is ample evidence of continued-but-shrinking racial and ethnic inequality in many arenas and utter stagnation and backsliding in others. Basically, what’s changed since the 1950s — outside of technological innovations such as this here Internet — is that white Americans no longer have an exclusive or almost-exclusive hold on the best housing, jobs, schools or the ballot box.
white people see racism as a zero sum game. less people against black people means more people against whites. less restrictions on black people means more restrictions on whites.
this is why it makes no sense to think that you can be pro-black but NOT be anti-white. this is whiteness. this is how white people think. this is how their minds are programmed. they see increased freedoms for black people as an assault on white people, they’re mad about it and they will fight back in every way they can INCLUDING trying to elect an overtly racist white man to the white house.
what’s fucked up is that they got black people believing this bullshit. black people out here talking about reverse racism, alllivematter and all that other bullshit. sleep as fuck. just pawns in a sociopolitical game whose aim is the protection and continuation of white supremacy.
make no mistake that restraints are indeed being put on white people and whiteness. absolutely. as paulo freire said..
The restraints imposed by the former oppressed on their oppressors, so that the latter cannot reassume their former position, do not constitute oppression. An act is oppressive only when it prevents people from being more fully human. Accordingly, these necessary restraints do not in themselves signify that yesterdays oppressed have become today’s oppressors. Acts which prevent the restoration of the oppressive regime cannot be compared with those which create and maintain it, cannot be compared with those by which a few men and women deny the majority their right to be human.
let’s be clear that no matter how much racial equality may be right and no matter how much racial equality we instill in society, white people will feel that it’s oppressive. why? one more time paulo freire.
…even when the contradiction is resolved authentically by a new situation established by the liberated laborers, the former oppressors do not feel liberated. On the contrary, they genuinely consider themselves to be oppressed. Conditioned by the experience of oppressing others, any situation other than their former seems to them like oppression. Formerly, they could eat, dress, wear shoes, be educated, travel, and hear Beethoven; while millions did not eat, had no clothes or shoes, neither studied nor traveled, much less listened to Beethoven. Any restriction on this way of life, in the name of the rights of the community, appears to the former oppressors as a profound violation of their individual rights—although they had no respect for the millions who suffered and died of hunger, pain, sorrow, and despair.
this is why white people long for a day when black people were more firmly underfoot but fuck’em. we ain’t stopping.
