Racism in Policing

SO, I've made the case several times that open-carry is a Whites-only privilege, and that the cops treat whites and blacks dramatically differently in the same situation.

Well, here you go:


Tell me again how racism is dead? How the police don't have a racial bias? Tell me why one man's rights are protected while several of the other's are violated.

Simple answer: If you cannot give a Right to everyone equally, then no one should be given that Right.

...And another...

Yet another unarmed black man shot by cops. This time he was mocked while dying.

“He shot me! He shot me, man. Oh, my god. I’m losing my breath.” ~Eric Harris, down and in the process of being cuffed

“Fuck your breath! Shut the fuck up!” ~Officer Sociopath

How many more of these do we need to see?  How many?!

What's wrong with Indiana?

With regards to the following piece from Daily Kos, all I can say is...

Bravo. Probably the best post I've ever read from them, and I read them every single day.

What Do Conservatives Want When 

They Say "I Want My Country Back?"

Equal rights for all: Women, Minorities, all Religions, Atheists, LGBT folks, etc... Nothing short of this is acceptable. And yet states like Indiana and Arkansas and Georgia and Nevada and too many others are doing their damnedest to go in the wrong direction.

These laws have long since ceased to be about protecting religious freedom, because nobody's "religious practices" are threatened by doing business with a gay person. (Or a black person, or a Jewish person, etc...)  If you are in the business of selling bread for $2 that costs you $1 to make, you are not HARMED if a gay person buys some: You are $1 ahead. End of story. It's THAT SIMPLE. It is not a burden to anyone to expect them to do business, in the very business that they went into business to do! It benefits them. Tangibly.  Expecting someone to drive farther, pay more or go without IS doing harm.  It imposes a burden on that person, a tangible, economic burden that is the precise, legal  DEFINITION of harm.

Arguably the stupidest defense I hear of these laws was the following:

Governor Pence? That's ALL JESUS DID. His ENTIRE LIFE was about WELCOMING SINNERS! That's pretty much ALL HE DID!  Also?  (you ignorant fuck) WE ARE ALL SINNERS.  And should anyone say otherwise they are automatically committing the sin of PRIDE.  For you to claim that this law is what Jesus wants is to take the Lord's name in vain, to the highest degree.  

MARK 2 13-17 JESUS IS A FRIEND OF SINNERS!

And you, sir, are no friend to mankind, or to civilized society.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, 

or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"

Does that sound familiar Governor? It should: You put your right hand on the Bible and swore to uphold it (not the other way around!) when you were sworn into office.  How about:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, 

that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, 

that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Pretty "American" sounding, no? What part of that suggests that we discriminate?  What part of that says that people should be limited in their choice of who they love? Or marry?  What part of ANY of this allows one person to use their "deeply held religious beliefs" to harm another?

YOUR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM ENDS AT THE TIP OF MY NOSE.

And your law is a disgrace.

It is NOT like so many others - established to protect ACTUAL religious practices, particularly those of minority religions and Native Americans. It is a perversion of those laws, twisted to amount to no more that a political backlash against the progress that's been made against the bigotry that holds us back from bringing TRUE equality under the law to all people.

In closing couldn't say it any better that Steven D. did in the Kos article that I linked to:

I don't want my country back.  I want a better country.  One that truly provides liberty and justice for all people.  And I certainly don't want a country where anyone can discriminate against anyone else of whom they do disapprove and escape liability for that immoral and otherwise unlawful act under any pretext, be it freedom of religion, racial superiority or traditional values. 

I never want to go back to the country that existed when I was born. The one that exists now needs far too much improvement as it is.

Bravo, Steven. Bravo.

What if he was black?

Stumbled across this vid from the Young Turks.  This took place not far from where I live and work.  Let em just say that Cenk got it 100% correct.  That guy's Black? He's DEAD. Immediately. End of story.

And,yeah: The open carry laws have gotten out of hand.

Race and Relevance

How many jobs are MORE DANGEROUS that Law Enforcement?

And in truth, John Stewart said it best:

Racism Part 2: What they don't teach you in school

Babies are racists. LOL - OK not really, but read #5 on that list. (From Cracked.)

The history of how White, Southern Racism shaped this country from the beginning. (From Kos.)

The Case for reparations. (From the Atlantic)

And Racism is still worse than we realize. (Cracked.)

Now lets examine the effect of the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964.

For this exercise I am going to focus on two geographic areas in particular: The SOUTHEAST, defined as Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia; and the NORTHEAST, defined as Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont.  (For their parts, the MOUNTAIN STATES have always been Republican strongholds, and that hasn't changed. The MIDWEST has always been a contentious battleground and that hasn't changed. The PACIFIC STATES, with the exception of Alaska (which votes like a Mountain State) DID flip, from Republican to Democrat, but did so much later, in the 1990's, so they're not relevant to the discussion either.)

I am going to look at two time periods. The first starts in 1876 which was the first post-Civil War in which the Democrats were able to challenge the Republicans with a unified party and a single candidate.  It ends in 1960, the last Election before the passage of the Civil Rights Act. The second period begins with 1964 and goes through to the present day.  In this exercise I am looking the results of the States' PRESIDENTIAL Elections.  This oversimplifies a bit, but I spot-checked a few of the Southeastern States' Gubernatorial races once when a Tea Party friend of mine challenged it and the pattern held pretty solid on the states he had me check.  I may do Governors, Senators or Representatives one day, but for now let's just look at Presidential results.

From 1876 to 1960, the Southeast held 300 total Presidential Elections. This takes into account that North Carolina was not part of the Electoral College following the Civil War until 1908. In these 300 Elections, the DEMOCRATIC Candidate (Tilden, Hancock, Cleveland (3x), Bryan (3x), Parker, Wilson (2x), Cox, Davis, Smith, Roosevelt (4x), Truman, Steveson (2x) and Kennedy) won 255 of them.  That's a winning percentage of 85%.  So.. Pretty clear that the DEMOCRATS were strong in the Southeast following the Civil War and Prior too Civil Rights.

In the Northeast, in the same time period, there were 242 total Presidential Elections. In those, the same Democratic Candidates took home only 79 Victories, for a 32.6%  Winning Percentage.

NOW... Since the signing of the Civil Rights act, what has changed?

Well, since 1964, the Southeast has held 182 Presidential Elections. In that time, the Democratic Candidate (Johnson, Humphrey, McGovern, Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton (2x), Gore and Obama (2x)) has won a mere 43 of these, dropping their winning percentage from 85% to a paltry 23.6% - a decline of 61.4%!  Meanwhile, of the 156 Presidential Elections held in the Northeast since the signing of the Civil Rights act, those same Democrats won 108 times. That's a 69.2% Winning percentage, up from 32.6% - a gain of 36.6%!  So clearly...

1) There has been significant ideological drift in both the Northeast and Southeast.

2) This shift is shown to have happened almost immediately after the signing of the Civil Rights act.

3) The Democratic Party (the one who's President SIGNED the Civil Rights Act) moved North, while the Republicans became the darlings of the Old Confederacy and Segregationist States.

A coupe of notes:

1) I counted DEMOCRATIC Victories, so that no one could call Bullshit if I tried to lump Independent such as Strom Thurmond or George Wallace in with the Republicans.  As it is, they were not counted. Also, if I was counting Republican victories, what do you call Teddy Roosevelt in 1912?  Seems wrong to count the Bull Moose Candidate, but it seems just as wrong to leave him out. So we'll use the Democratic performance to show the trend.

2) Surprisingly the biggest exception to the trend in the Southeast is actually NOT Florida: It's WEST VIRGINIA!  West Virginia has gone to the Democrat SEVEN TIMES since the signing of the Civil Rights act.  Florida has gone only five, and three other have gone four times. The STRONGEST Republican States since the signing of the Civil Rights act (in the Southeast) are Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma and South Carolina. Since 1964 a Democrat has only won ONCE in each of these States.

3) Prior to Barack Obama in 2008, the only Democrats to win ANY of the Southeastern States were themselves Southerners :Johnson, from Texas, Carter from Georgia and Clinton from Arkansas. (This was no help to Gore, of Tennessee, who failed to win any in 2000, though we won't discuss Florida.)

4) If you ignore the influence of NATIONAL LANDSLIDES, which say little about any one regions politics and more about the politics of THE DAY, the trend gets even more stark. If I remove the Four Franklin Roosevelt land slides on '32, '36, '40 and '44, the Johnson landslide of '64, the Nixon landslide of '72 and the Reagan landslide of '84, here's how it breaks down:

Southeast, 1876-1960: 244 Elections, 199 Democratic Victories, 81.6% Winning Pct.
Southeast, 1968-2012: 140 Elections, 34 Democratic Victories, 24.3% Winning Pct.

Northeast, 1876-1960: 198 Elections, 47 Democratic Victories, 23.7% Winning Pct.
Northeast, 1876-1960: 120 Elections, 93 Democratic Victories, 77.5% Winning Pct.

So they go down 57.3% in the Southeast, a little less than before, but go up 53.8% in the Northeast - a LOT more than before.

Take either methodology, as you prefer. AND, if you're going to make the argument that the Democrats are the REAL racists, you're going to have to explain THIS phenomenon away first, if you expect to be taken seriously. Robert Byrd or no Robert Byrd.

Now for something a bit lighter, here are Five Shockingly Racist Scenes in Famous Superhero Comics. (Cracked.)

Racism Part 1: The Law and Justice

Watch these three videos, if you can stomach it - they're pretty brutal...
(trigger warning, etc...)

The PUBLIC EXECUTION / POLICE MURDER of John Crawford III:


The DRIVE UP EXECUTION / POLICE MURDER of Tamir Rice:


The CHOKING THE LIFE OUT OF / POLICE MURDER of Eric Garner:


...And then contrast these to Steve Lohner...

...or the KID GLOVE handling of Joesph Houseman:


Seriously?! This obviously, openly, armed, angry, belligerent, RW asshole yells at the cops for almost 10- minutes strait?! Tamir Rice? John Crawford? The cops gunned them down, on sight, in under ONE SECOND.  And I'm supposed to believe that race doesn't play a factor?  I'm supposed to believe that these cops were acting appropriately?!  And then I'm supposed to believe the cop, and the lone, white, racist witness in the Michael Brown case?! BULLSHIT.  This is not only criminal, it's indefensible. The Grand Jury, in every case, didn't see that way, so fuck them.  The Prosecutors consistently shit-canned their own cases, so FUCK THEM.  Gerlado wants to tell me that BLACK PEOPLE are the problem? FUCK HIM. And if you can't recognize the problem here? THEN FUCK YOU.

And if you're still even thinking of telling what a threat these people were, let's not forget that they somehow made the effort to take THIS GUY alive:

James Holmes, remember him? Killed 12 people, was carrying a Shot Gun, a Semi-Automatic Rifle, a Hand gun and Tear Gas Grenades?  Imagine for a moment the mentality it must take to take the time, effort and risk to take this piece of shit alive, and yet the men above had to be put down like dogs in under a second.

Go ahead. Try to argue with me on this.  It's not a question of whether we have a police-state problem, or a race problem, it's only a question of how many people, black AND white (and every other color) need to DIE before something constructive is done about it.


And if you're still skeptical, how about some crushed testicles?

And before anyone wastes any of my time telling me that these are isolated incidents, here is a list of UNARMED Black Men killed by the police since 1999. (And from my own research for past posts, I can assure you that this is FAR from an exhaustive list.)

Oh, and let's not forget that nearly bottomless scum pit of a prosecutor who thought that an abused woman firing a warning shot at her abusive ex-boyfriend deserved SIXTY YEARS in prison for it.
Yeah. No problem with White Privilege or Male Privilege here, is there?  By all means, let's keep "standing our ground."

And even after all that, if you don't understand why they riot, especially in THEIR OWN neighborhoods? Well, THIS GUY explains it, and gives you different perspective on it.  It's his opinion and perspective, not mine, but the more I see of just how much we have a problem with racism in this country, the less inclined I am to judge ANY of these folks.

(And more on all this in my next post.)

(CORRECTION: In the video, I referred to JOSEPH Houseman as JOHN, and JAMES Holmes also as JOHN.  My apologies.)

(After all, the last time anyone saw JOHN Holmes in a theater, he was armed with something completely different.)

Best Lewis Black clip EVER!

Holy fucking cow, did Conchobhar send me something amazing. (Sit through the part about Apple Juice, it is SO worth it! Behold:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

And for the record? I supprt 100%, everything he said following the Apple Juice bit, including his commments on Nancy Grace, Chaz Bono and MMFA 2011 Misinformer of the Year on LGBT Issue Docter Keith Ablow!
Great stuff, Lewis.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now, I also wrote a bit about Chaz Bono a few months back.  It was posted for about five minutes and I took it down. At the time, after re-reading it, I was afraid that it might come off as either misogynistic or homo- or transphobic.  But... I THINK, with all of the other pieces on Gay Rights and Women's equality that I've penned lately, and in the context sharing Black's AMAZING Daily Show clip above, that I can post it now without fear of it being misinterpreted.
(And yes, that last statement obvioulsy excludes William.) ;)
So, here is my quickly deleted post, unedited, from the night of 10/4/11:

Dancing with the Stars (Yeah, I know)

Yeah, you read that right.

I just came from the gym, where I spent one hour on an elliptical, held hostage by the person two machines down from me who watched Dancing With the Stars while she worked out, finished just ten minutes into my workout, but left the TV on when she left. Yeah... That's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it!

ANYWAY about the time I noticed it was on, the Star in next couple up was Chaz Bono. And I'm thinking... Yeah, now there's an interesting story. Maybe I'll watch this. Why not.

Let me say two things, unequivocally:

First: I fully support, 100%, any decisions that Chaz and for that matter any of the transgendered make with regards to how they decide to live their lives. I would gladly watch a million people to make what I, or anyone else, might consider a huge mistake than to ever stand in the way of even a single person's pursuit of happiness. And I will never be able to wrap my head around the philosophy of people who don't think that way.

That being said...?

I'm pretty sure my second point will at least pass (D+) the test of political correctness: Chaz Bono dances like exactly what he is: A very fat, very out of shape, fairly uncoordinateded white man. And it with no irony, or lack of self awareness that I say that I'm not even sure that standing around, walking a little bit and occasionally giving the pixie that's spinning circles around you a push, even qualifies as dancing. It is also with full awareness of exactly why I was at the gym in the first place that I say that a fat man should never, under any circumstances, wear a tuxedo without a cummerbund.

The only one with a more ill-fitting ensemble was Nancy Grace. Now I don't approve of those who go out of there way to attack women on the basis of their appearance. And, hey: She's on the plus side of fifty, and I only hope I look that good when I get there. On the other hand, as she is on the *ahem* plus side, she might have picked something other than a skin-tight dress that showed every single bulge and crevice in high-def. Yeah, that's a cheap shot, but it's NANCY GRACE so... Yeah, like I care. Also, there's just something funny about two people prancing around with their arms in the air when one of them constantly looks like she's smelling armpit.

And yeah, I realize that the cheap shots about Grace are beneath me. (Or should be, anyway.) But it is not about merely being fat, or a woman having the gall to age. After all, Rikki Lake is just as fat at 43, but she at least had the sense to pick a dress with some flowing fabric around it. You know: Something that actually looked good on her?! Oh... and she's was pretty much one of the few "stars" who could actually DANCE.

Now... God willing, I shall never mention Dancing With the Stars, nor Rikki Lake, in this blog EVER AGAIN.

Breaking down the stereotypes

Conservatives love to read Liberals' accusations of racism as the Liberals' inability to answer their arguments.  Well, no, the problem is that their arguments do not reflect reality.  They rail against fictitious programs and legislation that never happened, and then ask us to defend it.  We simply call them racist because we can't imagine why else someone would be willing to tell so many lies about this President.  So... Is it possible to criticize a black man and NOT be a racist? Sure.  I've done it to Tom Sowell, Colin Powell, Michael Steele and Clarence Thomas MANY times. Me! An OBAMA voter! And I'll do it again:

HERMAN CAIN IS AN IDIOT.

So there are two stereotypes that are struck down: Liberals won't criticize blacks, AND criticising a black makes you a racist!  And if we wins the primary, I bet you'll see a third one struck down: That black people will vote for ANY black candidate!

Here's another one: Liberals want to raise taxes, Conservatives don't.  Well... the first part is more of a misstatement. Liberals don't WANT to raise taxes... We just the only ones who realize that we HAVE TO.  The second part? Is complete and utter baloney sausage.  Conservative ABSOLUTELY want to raise taxes. They just want to raise them on the poor and middle class - that mythical "47% of American who pays no taxes!"

And this isn't even an issue of raising taxes versus raising revenue - you like that old Laffable Curve suggests?  This 9-9-9 plan of Cain's that everyone "loves" because it's so simple? Is nothing more than a tax increase on the rest of us.

So what... is this class warfare?

I couldn't tell you. Class Warfare seems to be whatever the Right wants it to be.  So let use MATH to call it what it it: A TAX INCREASE.

Well, what's the problem? I though Liberals wanted to raise taxes?! What is it so much better to tax the rich a little more, when you've got people who aren't putting in?

OK... I'm sure I don't have to dignify that question with a response, for any of my regular readers. But if you're new, or Conservative, here's why:

BECAUSE THE RICH CAN AFFORD IT.  Because taxing the rich will have -ZERO- impact on their spending decisions whilst taxing ANYONE ELSE will have direct impact on theirs!  And THAT will destroy the economy! Less spending = Shitty economy. That's not Liberal dogma or academic theory: that's FACT.

Herman Cain's plan is the worst possible thing: Increased taxes on those who can least afford it.

You know... If the only Black people I knew were Clarence Thomas, Michael Steele, Tom Sowell and Herman Cain?  (IOW - If I were a Republican?) If THAT was the extent of my sample population?

I'd probably be racist too.





(Likewise, if Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman, Chrstine O'Donnell, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, etc... were the most intelligent and outspoken women I knew? I'd probably be as mysongyinst as they Right is as well!)

Lighter Fare...

It's election day so I'd like to share with you an episode from a classic British Comedy called "The Black Adder."  This particular episode is rather apt since it deals with politics, elections and particularly political corruption.  BTW... That's Rowan Atkinson of Mr. Bean fame, playing opposite Hugh Laurie, of House. Brilliant stuff, IMHO.

Part One:


Part Two:


Part Three:


Ah, the good old days...


"You could appoint him a high court judge."
     "Is he qualified?"
"He's a violent, biggoted, mindless old fool"
     "Sounds a bit overly qualified!"

(The Roberts court?)

"It's is a triumph of stupidity over common sense."

(I've been predicting that for months now!)

More Friday Fun: Nazi Tourette's

OK... Even though it WORKED, the Google Tag Poetry was still pretty lame.  So... for anyone who hasn't yet seen Lewis Balck completely pwn Glenn beck on the Daily Show, or catch the replay on Countdown, here you go.  This is what genius sounds like.



"What you gotta do, is find an attic!"

Brilliant.

On Stereotypes

Following up my last post, I wanted to take the opportunity to explore stereotypes. Now, to some extent there is something in our DNA that causes us to instinctively fear that which is different. It’s ingrained in us, and it is unnatural for us to move beyond this. And I don’t believe this is God given – meaning that we were just made this way. I believe that the bulk of this fear is evolutionary. Back when human society more closely resembled the wild, the tribe that was welcoming would have been wiped out by the more aggressive, or more xenophobic tribe. Survival came from strength, and aggressiveness, rather than cooperation and sharing. And in that environment it, it behooves one who wearing the BLUE face-paint to be wary of the one wearing the RED face paint. (And don’t get me started on that other tribe, in the GREEN face-paint!) But now we’ve filled in most of the available space, and the maps don’t have any more blank spots left on them, to get along as a society, we cannot continue to live in this manner. Now we have to work together.


So why do these racist stereotypes persist? The way I see it, it’s a special form of Magical Thinking strongly reinforced by Confirmation Bias. Those links will connect you to arguably the BEST material available on those subjects, but I think my claim of ‘Magical Thinking’ might require some explanation.

First of all, ‘Magical Thinking’ is basically non-scientific causal reasoning. In other words: It’s where superstitions come from. Here’s a completely non-partisan example of what I talking about. My Das is an avid golfer. He also had a bad back, and occasionally this affects his game. For many years he swore by the medicinal (magical) power of wearing a copper bracelet. He swore this improved his game, and he had the data to back it up! He put on the bracelet… his game improved. He took it off… it got worse! How could I argue with that?! Well, I might cite the regressive fallacy. You see, chronic pain comes and goes. It gets worse, then it gets better, then it gets worse again. And it’s reasonable to conclude that when it’s BAD, it would affect your golf game. Now… ask yourself this: When are you MOST LIKELY to put that bracelet on? Probably after a few days of bad pain that have started to affect your game. And when would you be most likely to take it off? Probably when you’ve felt pretty good for a few days, and don’t have that nagging reminder in your back to put it back on. If you think about that for a moment, you’ll realize that when you have a condition that waxes and wanes, and you’re sort of being tricked here: You’ll try your magical solution when it’s bad, and then credit it for the inevitable improvement – one that would have happened anyway! And you’ll take it off, and then BLAME THAT for the pain inevitably coming back! Now, this same fallacy is why we have superstitions, religious ritual, alternative medicine, 'as seen on TV' products and any number of other bullshit things that people swear WORK.

So… how does this apply to racism? One of the most common arguments I hear, living in Southeast Michigan, is, “Just look at Detroit.” It's 98% Black, and they’ve ruined it! Now, I will grant you that there IS a connection between Detroit’s Blackness and its state of urban decline, but I hope that I don’t have to explain to most of you why this is not a simple, causal connection. The number of economic factors that lead (and are caused by) to urban decline, the relative impoverishment of minorities, white flight, crime, corruption, etc, etc… Are far too numerous to describe here. But white people left, black people moved in, and the place went to hell. What more proof do you need?!

Correlation is mistaken for causality all the time. And a justification for racist sentiment such as this one is no exception. The logic here is the same as with magical thinking, and it ignores every factor except our desire to blame all the world’s problems on that other tribe while exonerating our own. But it’s not superstitious thinking alone that perpetuates it. There’s also a heavy dose of confirmation bias.

This fallacy basically describes how we are far more likely to remember, and place far more value and emphasis upon, those incidents that reinforce what we already believe than those that contradict it. A man who thinks women are lousy drivers, for example, will remember every woman who ever cut him off, or paused when the light turned green, or lost her way and had to bang a euie, forget about every MAN who ever did the same, and feel that he has more than sufficient data to conclude that women are the inferior drivers. And no amount of auto-insurance industry data that shows that MEN make more at-fault accident claims than women will convince him that what he saw with his own eyes is somehow an incomplete picture. I’m sure you can find numerous parallel examples like this one that support SEXISM, but the same is true of RACISM.

How many people, when discussing immigration, will tell you about all the crimes that these ‘filthy, lazy, uneducated Mexicans, who come in here and drain all our resources’ have caused? Now… first of all, you already know that they’re filtering out most all crimes committed by whites from their minds. And if they DO acknowledge any 'white crimes,' they’ll still BLAME them on the influence of minorities. (After all: We had NO CRIME before all these damned Mexicans moved in, right?) It's like mixing coloreds and whites in the laundry: The whites just get more colored, the coloreds don't get more white now, do they? Now, one only has to consider what was going on in Boston and Chicago and New York in the early 20th centry, for example, back when these cities were almost completely white and yet riddled with violent crime and political corruption,  to realize just how much bullshit this conclusion really is. (And if you want to blame the (white) immigrants of the day, I’ll remind you that Tammany Hall was hardly staffed by anyone fresh off the boat!)

I discussed in my last post what my experience with Mexico and with Mexicans has been, and I’ll add that I’ve never worked with, or gotten to know a Black that I could respect and get along with either. And I’m not ignoring the crimes committed by minorities. I’m merely also not ignoring crimes committed by whites. Hey: Bernie Madoff and Ken Lay, and Jeff Skilling, and Goldmann-Sacks and Bernie Ebbers… THESE crimes are 100% White, and each has caused more harm to our country and our economy, and cost us more, than every crime ever committed by a Mexican or a Black in this country combined. But hey: They wear the BLUE face-paint instead of the RED face-paint, so they’re in OUR TRIBE. So it’s only natural that we forget about them, and forgive them, even though they’ve wiped out the life’s saving of millions of people, and the average Black or Mexican can only steal your car or what’s in your wallet. Wrong face paint? We’re just going to fear you more, and we're just more incluined to remember your crimes.

The other reason I think we are naturally drawn to negative stereotypes is our own fragile egos. We can’t stand the thought that we might be inferior in some way, any way, and so we slander the other in what amounts to a defense of our own egos. Mexican’s are lazy? Every one of the hundreds of Mexicans I’ve met make the average American look like a outright bum. And it’s not just negative stereotypes that work this way: Ostensibly positive ones work this way as well.

Take for example, ‘Asians are good at math.’ Well, I went to go to an 80% Asian high school, and I can tell you quite clearly that Asians are NOT ‘better at math’ (or science) on the whole, as a people than the Americans or Europeans are. Do you want to know why they get good grades in these subjects? THEY WORK GOD-DAMNED HARD FOR THEM! And that’s why ‘Asians are good at math’ is in fact a NEGATIVE stereotype: It deprives them of credit for the great effort they put into their studies, dismissing it instead as merely a genetic superiority. And we’d rather do THAT than just admit we’re lazy or try to match their work ethic. (And the more we see how hard we have to work to match them, the more we'd like to think - hope, relly - that they do have sort of genetic advantage.  Again: we'd rather make an excuse that admit defeat and give credit where it's due.

Also, one also has to realize that the average American only sees the BEST of what, say, China or Japan has to offer. Many Americans have gone to school with the son or daughter of a Asian-American engineer or businessman or entreprenuer. How many have met a typical Chinese subsistence farmer? And I’m not denigrating them either. There are plenty of illiterate, uneducated white people as well, right in this very country. Hey: Every country has their share of people like this.  But to claim that this is ALL that’s in say, Mexico, or to deny that there are any in Japan, is every bit as harmful and insulting to both groups, and to every individual within each group.

And I don’t want anyone to think I’m claiming to be any better here! I still check my door locks when a group of black people walk by my car. And I would still feel more comfortable if I was carrying a gun when I’m in Mexico. And as I’m not ignorant of the dangers that certain situations pose, I’m also not completely immune to the irrational thoughts that something comes with from those situations, into other areas of our lives. Also, I have to say that I LOVE IT when I catch a Japanese or German engineer (both of whom I've worked with in my career) really screw something up.  In my experience these groups both look down on American engineers, the way Americans look down on Mexican labor.  So I love it when they accidentally reveal a little bit of good old fashioned HUMANITY. You can call it schadenfreude, but I take it as a reminder that these people are not machines; that they are, in fact, perfectly imperfect HUMAN BEINGS.  And I’d love to say or think that I’m perfect, but I know the fact is that I’m not. The only advantage I have is that I realize this and that I want to be better than that.

For a more humorous take on stereotypes, please see Cracked.com's skewering of the five most statistically full of shit national stereotypes.