Has Obama helped decrease raceism?

Although racism is indeed a vile and reprehensible thing, attempting to go to the other extreme can also be incredibly bad. One notable example of the anti-racism philosophy known as Political Correctness is the Rotherham Child Abuse scandal. The majority of the identified perpetrators were from Indian/Pakistani backgrounds (and who were not representative of the majority of people from the same background) and since the local (Labour-run) council wished to avoid any chance of being accused of racism, they not only ignored the molestation and rape of young (predominantly white) girls, they actively conspired to cover it up.

Despite the best attempts of the Rotherham council, the abuse was leaked to the press and in 2010, five men were convicted and jailed. However, a review two years later demonstrated that the problem was far larger than the local council admitted and that many other men were involved in grooming girls for sex.

The local council failed in their duty of care so dramatically because they effectively held the view that only white people are capable of racism and only white males are capable of sexism. Therefore, any attempt to claim that white girls were being molested by males from ethnic minorities was obviously a fabrication designed by the BNP to cause inter-racial strife and it should therefore be filed away and ignored. Attempts by local youth groups and other organisations to raise the profile of the problem were quashed mercilessly with the result that at street level, tensions between different communities rose sharply as the majority (wrongly) saw the ethnic minorities as being unrepentant sexual predators. The amount of damage done to the social fabric of the Rotherham area as a result of the-then authorities citing possible racism as a reason to not enforce the law is difficult to understate and many of the children born from the rape of the girls will grow up unable to trust anyone from non-white ethnicities, thus fueling tensions further.

In short, racism can cause a great deal of damage, but fear of being labelled racist can cause damage that lasts for far longer and is more difficult to overcome. In many cases, though, the underlying problem is not racism but rather traditional cultural imperatives which are incompatible with the host country and must therefore be either changed or countered in order to reduce societal friction.
In other words, to avoid constant racial strife, countries need to pursue the "melting pot" method of assimilation as opposed to the "Salad Bowl" multicultural route.

My own thought is the supposed facilitators are as racist or worse than the pointy headed Klansman. Generally I find people I like, and people I don't like and forget their race. I feel the reverse discrimination, quotas ect just prolong racism and maintain an excuse for hatred between people of different races. But that's our government SNAFU.

Poker

PS: For our non American readers who have not encountered it before Situation Normal All Fucked Up = SNAFU.

Poker. It's not reverse racism. It's positive racism.

What's so positive about viewing minorities as so incapable as needing government intervention to navigate society? Or viewing whites as so inherently racist that every unfortunate incident involving a white and a minority must be driven by racism? Well, only those unfortunate incidents where the minority suffers. Should the white suffer, that can't possibly be racism.

Where the use of the pejorative form of negro by a white is proof of racism, yet minorities can use vile terms like cracker without the stigma of racism. Btw, cracker is the slave owner cracking his whip.

Positive racism my fat aunt sally. Poker was right to call it reverse racism aided and abetted by the American Progressive left.

Annachie wrote:Poker. It's not reverse racism. It's positive racism.

PeterZ wrote:Positive racism my fat aunt sally. Poker was right to call it reverse racism aided and abetted by the American Progressive left.

Not just restricted to the US, it's malaise affecting all of Western Civilisation, TBH.

Currently the UK has "Anti-Discrimination" laws which actually exacerbate the situation, rather than ease it. However, none of the current political parties are likely to reform them. This is regardless of their position on the UK's political scale, or their regional affiliation.

UKIP might, but I suspect they'll leave well enough alone if they did get into a position of power.

Mike.

The old Jim Crow Laws stank to high heaven, and the current reverse discrimination laws stink as bad. Two wrongs do not and, cannot make a right! One cannot have positive racism without negative racism. Whatever need for such IE reversing the effects of the Jim Crow Laws is past.

Poker

Among many other things I worked for some years in a role assisting our indigenous people (Australian aboriginals).

This is a very complex area that doesn't have simplistic black and white (sorry about the pun) answers.

When people from a minority group face real difficulties in getting ahead due to racism there may be a pragmatic case for some assistance. I remember traveling with an Aboriginal colleague who went to a country motel to book rooms for us, only to be told that they were full. I then went and booked the rooms, and later the look on the owner's face was priceless when we turned up.

When people are excluded from jobs, finance or accommodation solely because of racism it becomes difficult for them to engage in mainstream society. Thus an argument can be made that some assistance early may avoid welfare and prison expenses later.

Prejudice is difficult to overcome. I headed up the team that wrote the then current regulations for indigenous assistance in our country in about 1990. At the time my mother in law (who was a good person) was convinced that they received a whole raft of mythical extraordinary assistance. Her belief was because she was told it in the golf club, and she flat out did not believe me when I explained that it just wasn't so. This was despite my wife (her daughter) telling her that I was the national expert at the time.

I also don't like the term reverse racism. I copped racism being a white person working with aboriginal people, from some in that community and to me it was no different regardless of where it came from.

I don't support automatic additional assistance to people based solely on their race, as I agree it can back fire. Possibly the best way is to give support to those finding it tough regardless of race, and if most of that support does go to a racial minority, then so be it.