White Liberal Racism Part 2: Ok Everyone Can Relax, Jamal Is Gone

It’s a stereotype in and of itself that a black person believes that white people talk about black people and other minorities behind closed doors.? The classic, “you can’t trust whites” mentality is pervasive through much of black culture all over the world. This mistrust is usually based in racial history, and of course rooted in the microaggressions?that I wrote about in White Liberal Racism Part 1.

But there is also a darker, more “honest” form of racism that exists not just in Conservative culture, but surprisingly in Liberal culture as well.

Adam Salter?wrote a revealing article called “That awkward moment when I realized my white “liberal” friends were racists.” Salter?talks about his experiences moving from Canada to the L.A.?area and discovering a secret world of hidden racism within some of the most liberal minded people he met. Here are just a few excerpts from his article.

“Seemingly nice young people, once they knew and trusted each other, were trying to take their friendship ?to the next level? with these revelations of their racist beliefs. It was like they felt they could finally talk openly and drop the facade they maintained in public. They did this joyfully, as if it were a postmodern bonding ritual to confirm that they were members of the same cool social ?tribe,? one that didn’t include blacks.”

“The guy told us how much his father made off of the rappers and how easy it was to finesse their contracts to give them less profit. He said most of them were criminals and not smart enough to run their business by themselves. Considering who his father’s boss apparently was, he may have found it easy to justify certain stereotypes in his own mind. His girlfriend’s ideas were even more laughable, including the classic ?Black people are dirty!?

The second quote really got my attention. It goes to show the racism in the (mostly) liberal entertainment industry. The recent scandal involving the leaked Sony Pictures emails was a prime example of the “elite liberal racism” that conservatives love to howl about from their glass houses. The racism within the corporate rap industry should not surprise anyone. The music itself is heavily influenced by the racism of the producers and executives, who see ignorance and self-hatred as profitable traits for a black artist to have.

This kind of thinking is more dangerous among rich white liberals. They can espouse a seemingly well reasoned and intellectual racism. And how that can have a very big effect on the blacks in whose?lives they may have great influence.? Here’s another example from Adam describing “intellectual racism.”

But there was another friend who was far more liberal than the others, and who had much more profound philosophical beliefs about race. This was a really caring, creative, and certifiably alternative Asian-American woman. She was well-educated, highly-skilled and just interested in the world.

She had heard that Martin Luther King was actually a self-serving demagogue who fomented racial animosity and stopped blacks from integrating into modern society. She wondered if the post-slavery marginalization and death of so many black people was just ?survival of the fittest? at work ? a natural ?culling? that would efficiently thin the herd of American society by eliminating its weakest members.

She had also visited the South and was amazed at what she saw as such an ideal relationship between blacks and whites. She thought that they really knew how to get along with each other there because they had been living together so closely since the time of slavery.

Some of these opinions are extreme, but they may be more common among ?intelligent? people than we think. It’s not that these apparently liberal racists knowingly create some convoluted hybrid philosophy combining progressive concepts with outdated racial theories. The reality may be that racist ideas are still passed along so effectively that many people take them for granted and don’t see any problem holding them in parallel to their political ideals, conservative or liberal.”

I have often read comments on Yahoo that are related to articles talking about racial issues, where you would have a small number of posters spam insidious racist misinformation posing a dry scientific study. They would talk about how science had proven blacks had inferior brains, or certain genes that made us more aggressive and violent than whites. The propaganda went on and on, and number of thumbs ups versus thumbs down was equally troubling.

The hidden racism that exists behind closed doors and among close friends is probably the last battle ground. No matter how much social progress we see, it’s the private moments when people are truly themselves, that will measure how far we have really come as a society.