Being any colour and discriminating against via racial stereotypes is racist.
It's not that being white causes racism and no one has said such a thing. Being white (or any colour really) and treating others differently or stereotyping against them because of their colour or ethnicity is distinctly racist.
For example, we have one poster in this thread who has declared that he will not rent his property to people of colour because he does not want to devalue his property. We have another poster who has pretty much embodied the very definition of racist stereotyping by not only ignoring the inherent institutional racism that exists, but also declaring that blacks who live in what he determined to be "ghettos" are lazy, uneducated, violent or prone to violence, lack problem solving skills (another way of declaring people are simply stupid). This is racist. The inability to understand the racist ideology that forced black people into ghetto's, restricted their access to education and employment, forcing the those very stereotypes on them to keep them there shows a fairly dangerous level of racism because it literally harks back to less than 100 years ago, where blacks who were educated, did not live in the "ghettos", had a nice house, worked in places like offices, for example, as being "uppity niggers".
This ideology still pervades society. If a black person somehow makes it out of the cultural mindset they have been forced into for generations by whites, they are deemed "uppity", they are constantly reminded that they do not really belong outside of that. A black person driving a nice car is more than likely to be stopped by police officers because the racist culture that is so pervasive teaches that blacks aren't meant to be driving nice cars, as such, they must have stolen it. That is the culture and institutional racism that keeps blacks in poverty.
So it isn't a matter of being white that causes racism. White culture that has embraced racist ideology historically and presently, that causes racism. There is a distinct difference.
As Kittamaru correctly points out, "race" does not exist in biology. What this thread proves is that "race" is a social construct, and it is all pervasive.
I am sure that Crcata does not believe he is racist. I am also certain that he is offended at being told his posts are racist. But they very much are racist. For example, here is one of his comments:
I want you to think about this for a few minutes.
Is it the police? And then he comments that the vast majority of interactions were deemed justifiable. In other words, the interactions of which he speaks amounted to white police officers shooting black people. In the majority of the time of these "justified" "interactions", the black men in questioned were unarmed. We have cases of black men dying in custody after being arrested for looking at a police officer and moving away from said police officers. Apparently avoiding eye contact is also tantamount to suspicion from the police, as is making eye contact. A black man cannot drive a nice car without fear of being stopped because the police believe they must have stolen it. A black man cannot walk down the street or sit on a bench outside a store, without police and others believing that he must be casing the joint. A black kid cannot play with a toy gun without two police officers driving their car up the curb and jumping out and shooting him within less than 2 seconds. Black kids cannot swim in a pool in a predominantly white area without being racially profiled and then thrown out and arrested like criminals for doing nothing more than swimming in a public pool in a predominantly white area. Try as I might, I cannot see how these actions are justified.
His comment ignores the very inherent and entrenched racism that exists behind that 'blue wall'. Blacks are more represented in prison because they are over-policed. Not because they commit more crimes than whites. If whites were policed as much as black people were, they too would over-represent in the criminal justice system. This is recognised around the world. Over policing certain groups within any population will see that group over-represented in the criminal justice system.
This over policing also ensures that black people are unable to move forward. Because they are constantly being stereotyped as criminals, constantly watched for any possible criminal behaviour and
stopped by police for being black by police officers who stereotype. And stopped even though they have done nothing wrong. Not only that,
black people are 3 times as likely to be searched as white people during one of these stops. It is even worse for Native Americans.
If you want a prime example of just how police differentiate between blacks and whites,
you need only look at the unlikely social experiment conducted by two seminary students. One white, one black. Both dressed similarly, both taking part in the same protest, next to each other. Both committed the exact same so called crime. The difference in how the two were treated is stark and startling. And it raises the question, how is it justified that the black student is treated so differently to the white student for the exact same crime? And people like Crcata wonder at how or why black people are angry?
Look at the case of
DeShawn Currie, an 18 year old male, who was pepper sprayed and arrested for entering his own house, with a key, because police felt he did not belong in the house where a white family lived after a neighbour racially profiled him and called 911. DeShawn is a child they had been fostering for a long while. Police pointed out to DeShawn, before pepper spraying him after he questioned what they were doing in his house, that he did not belong there, because picture frames in the living room had white people in it. Tell me, how many white teenagers are pepper sprayed and arrested for burglary because police believe they are burglars for entering their own house with a key?
And yet,
a black woman can call 911 for help while being attacked by her ex-husband, and the attack is being played out on the 911 call, a call that lasted 11 minutes, during which, she was pleading for her life and her attacker was telling her he was going to kill her, the police got to her house, knocked on the door and when no one responded, they left. No further investigation took place. Her family pleaded with police to check the house again, after not being able to contact her. They were told by police to check the local jail and hospital. The family ended up having to break down the door and found her body. Do you think the same thing would have happened in a white neighbourhood? I don't. There is a
great deal of disparity there.
Crcata deliberately glosses over all of these realities of "race" in America. And he dismisses them as being non-existent. So to answer your question, no, being white does not make you racist. What does make one racist is the support and belief in a system that enshrines racism at its very core. To wit, what is racist is white privilege and the defense of said white privilege while ignoring/and/or defending institutionalised racism by declaring it is all justified because (insert stereotype of choice here).
