Are Racial and Religious Minorities Partly Responsible For Prejudice They Face in America?

March 19, 2004 | ComtedeMaistre

[ComtedeMaistre]

All Americans belong to an ethnic or religious group, that, in relation to the entire population of America, can be thought of as a minority group. That applies if you are German-American, Polish American, Episcopalian, Methodist, etc. Even WASPS, taken as a group, are a minority of the white population in America.

It is a fact that, historically, some minority groups have faced much more prejudice than others. Two books by well known conservatives, Dinesh D'Souza and Congressman Peter King of New York, have presented new ways of looking at prejudice.

Peter King has recently been promoting a new novel on Islamist terror in America, and he revealed that 85 percent of Muslim Mosques in America are managed by extremists. This helps to partly explain anti-Muslim hostility in America. In a 1995 book, "End of Racism" Dinesh D'Souza claimed that, anti-black racism could reduce in America, if blacks changed their culture. It was a book that received much attention.

Is there a precedent in America for a minority group moving from a situation of being despised, to a position where they are admired? Yes. The Mormons offer the best example. Mormons were once hated intensely, and suffered great persecution in America, because they once practised polygamy. But the mainstream Mormon Church abandoned polygamy in the 1890s. Today, Mormons are widely admired as being strongly pro-American, honest, hardworking, have strong families, make good neighbors, do not whine, and maintain very high moral standards. Mormons, a once despised group, are now a group that most Americans look up to.

To some extent, Asian-Americans enjoy some of the same positive stereotypes. They make good neighbors, are law-abiding, respectful, they do not whine, have low divorce rates, are humble, (not to mention - high SATS, are hardworking, etc). That is why many white men prefer Asian women over those caucasian females who have been poisoned by radical feminism.

Today in America, there exist strong prejudices against Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, Jews, Jehovah Witnesses, etc. Are there cultural changes that members of these groups can make internally, which can help reduce prejudice against them?

[ComtedeMaistre]

Dinesh D'Souza said in his 1995 book, that if a minority group behaves in a manner that brings credit to itself, then, by its actions, it will discredit the stereotypes that majority hold against that minority group.

People who contine to spread stereotypes against the minority group in question, will discredit themselves, because the civilized behavior of that minority group will be a living refutation of the stereotypes against the group.

Is this too politically-incorrect a method, of examining racial and religious prejudice?

[PRND21]

Are there cultural changes that members of these groups can make internally, which can help reduce prejudice against them?

Yes. Don't vote Democrat, they can't survive without a government funded underclass.

[dirtboy]

IMO the first step in dealing with racial matters is to stop treating a race as a monolithic entity - to where an individual is judged first and foremost by his or her own actions and not also by the actions of those who happen look like them.

Your approach really doesn't move us in that direction.

[ComtedeMaistre]

>>where an individual is judged first and foremost by his or her own actions and not also by the actions of those who happen look like them<<

That is what I do. I judge people as individuals, not as members of the group they belong to. There are good and admirable people from every race and religion.

But our society is prejudiced against certain groups, based on certain behavior the society believes is prevalent in that group. How do you propose to change that?

[John Thornton]

This is essentially the same message that Booker T. Washington conveyed a hundred years earlier.

[FormerLib]

...the first step in dealing with racial matters is to stop treating a race as a monolithic entity...

Absolutely correct. Race is an aspect of a person that tells us nothing about them other than the origins of their ancestors.

[ComtedeMaistre]

And he was a truly wise man. Wouldn't you agree?

[leadpenny]

. . . Dinesh D'Souza claimed that, anti-black racism could reduce in America, if blacks changed their culture.

I don't expect anyone to change their culture, and I don't want to be discriminated against just because I am a Caucasian.

[ComtedeMaistre]

I wonder what you think of Rep. Peter King's comments on the religious leaders of Muslims in America. Don't you think that anti-Muslim prejudice would reduce, if the leadership of Islam in America became more moderate?

[leadpenny]

Today in America, there exist strong prejudices against Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, Jews, Jehovah Witnesses, etc.

Do you believe there are strong prejudices against Whites in America?

[tdadams]

Is there a reason you posted this vanity essay as news?

[ComtedeMaistre]

>>I don't want to be discriminated against just because I am a Caucasian<<

Caucasian is not a culture. There are caucasians with admirable cultures, and others with less admirable cultures.

[marron]

If you've traveled, you know that ethnic stereotyping and ethnic rivalries exist the world over. The US is unique in attempting to avoid such bigotries, and in viewing, or attempting to view, people as individuals rather than as members of some larger subgroup.

Culture is the repository of certain virtues, at least on a good day, and we have the tendency to see culture as the source of those virtues. It isn't, it is the reverse, it is the higher virtues that leaven and raise up a culture. Cut any culture off from the source of the virtues that make it worthy, and what you have is ultranationalist fascism. Or racism. Or just an annoying and unwarranted arrogance.

The trick is to focus on the virtues themselves. Any culture is admirable to the degree that it embodies the higher virtues, evil to the degree that it does not, but it is the virtues themselves that matter. We aren't on this earth to be just another good member of our subgroup.

[John Thornton]

Yes, he was.

[dirtboy]

But our society is prejudiced against certain groups, based on certain behavior the society believes is prevalent in that group. How do you propose to change that?

It transcends race. Bigotry in the past was rife, but I think people are a lot less prejudiced nowadays than they used to be. But just about everyone is a victim nowadays in their own mind, and that gives them an excuse for their bad behavior. So Jesse Jackson tells the urban thug that it's White America's fault that he's in jail, women say that men oppress them, smoking is the fault of Big Tobacco, we're fat because of how McDonald's makes junk food, blah blah blah ... it's more important to counter the victimhood mindset than the racial claims that sometimes are connected to them.

[ComtedeMaistre]

It is an important debate on contemporary American life and culture.

[leadpenny]

Are you saying I cannot be discriminated against or are you just being a smart a$$.

[dirtboy]

This is essentially the same message that Booker T. Washington conveyed a hundred years earlier.

It was a noble concept, but it didn't help that much against institutional racism. But now that the last vestiges of bigotry reside in the minds of some individuals instead of being enshrined throughout our laws, we've got different issues, and much of what is peddled as racism and bigotry is spread by the Victimhood industry to justify their sorry existence - and the irony is that the last vestiges of legal racism, such as affirmative action, are kept alive by the Victimhood industry.

[tdadams]

It is an important debate on contemporary American life and culture.

If you do say so yourself.

[cyborg]

Sure there is.