Is racism a driving force behind foreign policy?

Racism is a very difficult subject to discuss in a politically correct world,
as when someone describes a racist event, the speaker is embarassed to repeat
racist thought, as by speaking it, makes it sound like the speaker agrees
enough to even repeat it, but that same PC culture is also repressing our ability to
call a spade a spade. What races? Latino, Arab, Black, Women, Asian, Oriental?

Do you think Racism is institutional in the Anglo culture today,
and do you think it is driving force behind foreign policy wars?

By the way, some people consider the term oriental offensive.

from non-whites (non-EUers).

Our foreign policy is an imperialist and colonialist grab for resources.
Some of the assumptions that justify it may be racist, like the Iraq War
is just revenge for 9/11, but greed and arrogance figure more prominently.

Its competition for resources, power, and the like. Racism charges are often canards, which have done a lot of damage over the years to the progressive movement.

However, consider this.

If they were white, would we bomb the shit out of them and steal their oil? Or would we merely cut a deal?

Race and culture does play a part at some level. People tend to be more trusting of those who seem similar, and are suspicious of any who are different.

Conservative politics has played the power of differences to the hilt. In fact, consider this ....... would there be a christian church if there were no hell or a Satan to rally people against.

Creating social networks and opportunities based on similarities and at the expense of differences is the basic fabric of capitalism and tribalism.

The causes are economic and political, it's about money and power. Racism is one of the excuses that makes it OK to oppress and steal from "inferiors". If you look back in history, there are always oppressed classes, and they are always considered inferior as a justification for their oppression. But is has not always been tied to race or ethnicity.

It's about money and oil. That's it.

which is one of the methods of foreign policy.

... to divide and weaken the working class. The only 'colors' these people favor are green and gold.

its practiced my many groups in and out of power.

Those divided, those infected, and those targeted are all victims of racism. It's a toxic weapon of mass division used by the wealthy and powerful. The plantation owners used it to divide and destroy the laborers - sharecroppers from impoverished blacks. It's still used to divide labor - bigted from target - destroying organized labor. If anything, the wealthy and powerful are the least infected by it. They merely seek more power and wealth.

Racism is there no doubt, we don't have to look much farther than our differing reactions to Katrina and the Florida floods, our prison system, or the way we deal with conflicts to show that. We get militant with brown nations and negotiate with white ones.

But, I don't think that's the driving force behind it. That would be greed. Racism is more the tool they use to get there, if someone is different than us it makes them a little strange and that can be used to more easily make them the enemy. We need enemies, so where we don't have one we can create one. Our kids drug problem isn't worth prison but the black kid on a corner is a future gang banger, and so on. I don't see racism as the driving force so much as a convenient wedge to emphasize the differences.

Is it institutional? Probably. We've built too much policy around it, everything from foreign relations to the safe school zones and mandatory minimums that hit our inner cities so hard. That's money too in the end though, it's how they get their prison growth and drug war budgets. Racism is there, but I don't think the goal so much as power and money is.

I've noticed that there is an increasing racist trend in the places where the wars, columbia,
Afganistan, where death squads and summary justice operate, and both places are on the frontline
of the blatantly racist drugs war. Your post just got me to notice that.

From racist Anslinger:
"There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others."

"...the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races."
http://www.heartbone.com/no_thugs/hja.htm

I think the problem with our foreign policy is the drugs war. It is how racism has become a
primary, and not a secondary motivation.

It's so spread out that people don't connect it but the drug war has driven many of our problems in South and Central America for decades, it's financed terrorist and criminal organizations and made billionaires of them, it's shaped our relations with large parts of the world and reshaped the relationship in the US between the public and power. It's the biggest single event since slavery I can think of that was 100% choice, and every result of it has been negative.

Many of our problems here at home, the enemies we face, and the weapons we face out there are a direct result of our war on drugs. Hell, we paid for them. If we'd just change our policies and stop creating and financing our own enemies we might see a real difference in the world over the next few decades. It is all tied together.

The ruling class, with their money and power, see the rest of us as mere commodities. It has nothing to do with the color of our skin. We're all the same to them - worthless, to be used as they wish.

Is that what class is?

the Civil War and the European theaters of WWI and WWII, most of our wars have been against brown people. Even the Civil War although mostly fought by white soldiers was about brown people. The American west was opened by war with Native Americans and their near genocide. The Indian wars although fought for land were definitely racially motivated.

I don't think racism motiviated the foreign wars we fought, far from it, but I think racism made the wars acceptable to Americans. I remember after WWII all the outreach and pouring of money to European war orphans. I didn't notice any of this sympathy with the Japanese. Yet, the opening of Japan to American occupation troops brought a new appreciation of their culture and history to our shores, not to mention the Japanese brides brought home by the troops.

has to be included in that. The Kosovo campaign was also white-on-white, by that standard.

And the Korean War I don't regard as a war we had any choice about. And how, exactly, to handle the Philippine insurgency in the early 1900s is a question.

Since most countries are 'non-white' (with more being Caucasian than white), and we're at least as likely to intervene militarily close to home than further from home, what's needed is to actually look at the incidence of US-on-white/nonwhite countries compared to their number and geographic extent. (How to handle things like the Indian wars in the 1760s is harder, since they were essentially proxies for British-French war.)

The Civil War is also a bit of a problem. The justification at first was mostly economic--blacks were involved, to be sure, but it was more than just that. But economics was a horrible reason for the North to justify invasion; it quickly became 'defending the Union' (as though subjugation to a Union was, indeed, unity) and 'freeing the slaves'. People can fight for freedom. But not to ensure favorable economics. In other words, the debate over what the Civil War was about depends at least partially on perspective: the South in 1861, the North in 1861, the North in 1864, or us, 2006. I've had differing views taught me over the decades, and that's the best I can make of it. This is largely from my 9th grade history teacher (whose dissertation involved the Civil War). He pointed out--with original, supporting documentation--that each side emphasized different things and had different symbols, each side gave different reasons for the conflict; he pointed out the varying interpretations of the war during Reconstruction and afterwards, and the factors that led to the reasons cited by the North and the South's seldom agreeing with what the 9th grade textbook said were the 'true' reasons. We spent a long time on the Civil War. In college history, the quasi-revolutionary professor spent maybe 20 minutes on the Civil War, calling it 'uninteresting'.

During the post ww2 occupation of korea, the US left in power the japanese
mandarins, and did not follow a policy of "ne-nazificaiton" like in europe,
this largely due to racism and ignorance. Had the north not invaded in 1950,
likely the south would have collapsed and gone communist anyways as the
american occupation was deeply unpopular. We exacerbated "liberators" to
attack to free the south from the ongoing supression of the japanese, and
we attracted china by pushing right up to their border at the yalu river,
another avoidable choice.

Kosovo was about establishing the new gun in town after the breakup of the
soviet union.

The civil war was fought when the US population was like Canada today. The
small population, combined with massive slave populations was a concern over
voting rights, much as how israeli's don't want the right to return, as by
voting rights, they'd lose their majority. Slave revolts and talk of democracy
is spooky shit for "kapital" and no matter the reasons, it just as well fits
in marx's frame of a class struggle of the underclass against the feudal system
of the planter borgeiois.

Phillipines and the british handling of the maumau rebellion in Kenya were, IMO,
massacres that racism provoked, by diminishing the value of non-white lives, but
that indeed fits with what people are saying here, that racism is just a tool
of war, not a cause.

should do an in depth post examining if there is a race factor in all the wars we have been involved in. I really do believe that Americans aren't as concerned about civilian deaths and displacement in non-white countries as much as they would be in European predominantly white nations.

An exception would probably be South Africa where we did not side with the white apartheid South Africans.

is sometimes a synonym of 'legacy not yet overcome'. Much 'institutional' racism is also completely predictable, given generally-held assumptions that make no mention or reference to race. It's a correlation relating 'disparate effect' to a possible variable ('race'), without exploring the contribution of other possible variables, and if 'race' is even a necessary one.

It is necessary; but it's probably not a large variable, since variables like 'family' and 'education', and a few others, account for disparate outcomes of subsets of whites, nearly in the same way as they account for disparate outcomes of blacks. This was obvious in the '90s. But rejected, because it's not acceptable to introduce this research into politics. Done mostly by dems to help actually solve some problems, it's denounced as racist. But what you don't understand you're unlikely to come up with solutions to. (A real cynic at this point would argue that politicians, therefore, don't want to come up with real solutions because they'd lose the next election.)

Same with international policies. People aren't good with statistics, or distinguishing causation from correlation. Analysis of variance is an advanced skill. 'Racist' is often equivalent to a general term of abuse, and hides a multitude of fallacies.

I get as tired as anyone does of the false claims of racism, with some people every problem that they have is related to it. Never occurs to them that whites run into jerks too, it isn't all racism.

But, it's a HUGE variable, not a small one. Take a moment to consider what drives the variables such as the lack of education, income, broken families, and so on in our poor communities. I'll point out a couple of factors here to consider then leave you to consider it for yourself.

One young black man in eight between the ages of 25 and 29 is behind bars today, right now. That does have a real impact on the community. For comparison that's 12.6% of all black males in that age group and just 1.6% of all white males in the same age group. That and a little more can be sourced at the following. http://www.prisonsucks.com/

The reasons behind those numbers isn't because they commit more crimes as such, it's our laws, our policies. There are other angles as well including voter disenfranchisement and the shifting of the census to move the voting power of prisoners from their homes to prison towns, but here's a rather blatant angle.

"Mandatory sentencing laws disproportionately affect people of color. African-Americans make up 15% of the country’s drug users, yet they make up 37% of those arrested for drug violations, 59% of those convicted, and 74% of those sentenced to prison for a drug offense." http://www.idpi.us/resources/factsheets/mm_factsheet.htm

Think about the real impact of those numbers on the families, on the neighborhoods, on the education of the kids in poor and broken homes, and so on. I'm afraid that much of the black and other minority communities haven't done themselves any favors with some of the nit picking over the years, but not knowing what to blame didn't make them wrong. The causes are there, and they do have more to do with our laws than their failings as communities. If we'd get off their backs maybe they'd have half a chance.

Some of Clinton's proposals were based on this research. It hasn't been refuted, just condemned.

If you look at education, crime, family structure, out-of-wedlock births, so on and so forth, you can find other neighborhoods that show nearly all the same evidence of 'racism'. Including all-white neighborhoods, and all-Latino neighborhoods. You find the same pattern of racist oppression and institutional racism, but 'race' isn't there in some cases. The communities are frequently small, but their very existence is a problem for 'racism is the main problem' argument. The reasons for the existence of porportionally many more, and much larger, black communities that are truly dysfunctional lie, ultimately, in the history of racism in the US. But the problem continues to be disproportionately, but not uniquely, a black one; saying this is so because of racism needs evidence. The same solutions tried on some black communities have been tried in white and Latino communities, with the same results: persistent intergenerational poverty, unemployment, crime rates, and all the same accompanying problems. So black and white communities *can* have pretty much the same problems. The black communities are worse in some respects: *that* difference is due to racism. But positing two completely different causations for the overlapping conditions requires evidence, and that evidence just hasn't been forthcoming. And yes, it's been looked for. Extensively. It's not easy for a researcher to say 'remove racism, and you're still going to have most of the same problems.' Everybody likes what appear to be simple solutions. The result is that much of the evidence for a racism-based account has, in fact, been shown to be derivative, dependent on other variables.

When all is said and done, the research is decried as blaming the victim. It's not blaming the victim at all; it merely uses many of the same words. It's basically saying that personal and family traits that we usually assume are volitional interlock in a way that is very hard for the individual to overcome, and are very easy to pass on to the next generation. Individual traits can be easily overcome, but the person usually relapses. The complex of traits *can* (rarely) be overcome without intervention, but that doesn't mean 'overcoming' through sheer force of will can ever be the norm. For blacks, for whites, or for Latinos. So just discussing the problem is seen as racist.

This doesn't mean racism *isn't* a problem. It is. One. It just means that the most egregious examples of racism are simply the imputing of causation to a mere correlation, when analyses of variance have shown that racism isn't the single most crucial factor. Escaping from persistent poverty is complicated by racism, so it's marginally harder for blacks to escape than whites or even Latinos. But the implication is that disposing of racism entirely won't address many of the biggest problems.

It can all be analysed in terms of class, but that analysis requires redefining 'class' in a way most wouldn't accept. It's not 'poor' or 'worker', but a class composed of a bunch of different factors, with income or occupation being just one. It draws lines where classical class-theory says no lines can be drawn, and improperly reverses the dependent/independent relationship between variables.

The usual course of action is to assume that racism is the biggest (independent) variable (that correlation must equal causation); the research must be denied as unacceptable.

I think you misread the point. I'm white, grew up poor and as a result spent four and a half years locked up before I'd turned 15 years old. So yeah, I'm pretty well aware that it can happen to anyone. The way the laws are written things such as safe school zones don't hit rural and suburban areas so hard. The nearest park, school, or day care center isn't as close as it is in the city.

What we ended up with is the neighborhoods where our minority populations are most concentrated are also the same places that are covered with overlapping safe school zones. The exact same crime committed by the same type of kids in two different neighborhoods result in a prison sentence for one and possible probation or treatment for the next.

Now it doesn't much matter if it's intentional or not, the results are there and have nothing to do with any action on the part of the people who fall victim to it. And no, it wasn't dealt with in the 90's. The prison stats I posted were for 2004, not back in the 90's. That's the racial balance of our system today, and yes those one in eight young black men in prison or jail today do leave behind a lot of single mothers and kids to live in poverty simply due to where they lived rather than due to the crimes they committed.

It really isn't a matter of opinion or reading anything a particular way, it's a simple fact that racial group which makes up 15% of our drug users gets 74% of our drug related prison terms. Intent I don't care to argue, the results speak for themselves, and it wasn't mostly fixed. Not when those are the most current stats available. If we want to know why they have problems, that's a good part of it and it doesn't require overt racism. Just flawed laws that hit them harder than us.

edit correct clumsy paragraph

But, I will say, since most of their supporters are bigoted, racist assholes, its a lot easier to justify killing people of a different skin color and with a different religion.

... How are they so sure? Easy - the folks in power say so. Done, and done!


EDIT: As the contents of this thread clearly indicate, white folks really don't believe in racism. Sure, they'll SAY they do, but only in the abstract. Whenever it's time to apply that abstraction to real life, they somehow ALWAYS manage to find some reason to avoid using the tag. The motto of white folks holds strong and true: If they didn't say 'nigger', it ain't racism.

There is a real opinion divide here. There is very clear evidence that massacres and
nasty shit is happening along racial divides, and in a very obvious pattern. I've heard
the justificaion given racially many times as a sort of word-of mouth underground
history that thrives, along with a lotta hate groups.

It ain't racism, its a statistical anomaly. ! ;-)

It happens all the time but its rarely talked about.

subjects when they begin to notice how tight the noose has become.

The U.S. / Western powers would feel a need to dominate the main oil producing and transporting regions of the world even if it was inhabited by blond-hair, blue-eyed Protestants.

But appeals to anti-arab and anti-Muslim racism are for domestic consumption in the U.S. and to a lesser extent the other Western powers to seek license to impose its agenda on the region.

I'm not suggesting a conscious conspiracy. I'm suggesting something more institutional.

I think our challenge as a people will be to see that there is usually a multitude of things that make up a person/agency/governments actions, and to simplify it down to just racism weakens the case and is dishonest in some ways. We need to look at everything to determine what are the causes and where we can have an impact. It just seems like this culture has a thing for race and having that be an issue. For others it might be gender, social status, wealth, etc.

My personal belief is that it really is more about power and class than anything else. Race is just a convenient way to divide up the power and organize a class structure.

Class in the USA is "dollars".
Class in britain is "breeding", and increasingly "dollars" as one can purchase the other.

Then strife against the poor is the real "war" that is pursued by the relentless overclass,
and by taking back FDR's deal, the war is across all races.

But this is a US phenomenon, how the class cuts across races, and makes an apparent balance
of equality, though the money and power paradigm is slanted totally by and for white america,
and one only need look at film industry to see these planted stereotypes of conformity to the
slave system.

I agree it is a complex thing, just the way i look at it, i want no part of racism, not a
fucking part of it, and if the motiviation is 10% racism, then i'm fucking barfing my guts
out with disgust. My experience of military persons and parts of texas has carried some deep
and spooky race attitudes i frankly didn't believe were that deeply entrenched until i seen 'em
close up. But its like something raised culture-like by families to preserve a status
quo of wealth distribution, for whatever rationale, and race is very obviously part
of this rationalie, however it is excused. I'd be willing to wager that if an atomic bomb
is used in the next century, it will not be on a white city. That the country is ruled from
houston-energy is not a good sign either.

Johnathan. Johnathan...

Hello, McFly???

Hello? McFly???

:rofl:

They're all in it together, with Halliburton getting the fat cleanup contracts.

by the 19th century view of the white man's burden. The Racial Contract has always been so. I'm dying to see how the US will attempt to steal the Chinese money because I know they have no intention of replaying that debt.

http://desip.igc.org/malthus/conflict.html

where it is you were suggesting that foreign policy is, in & of itself, predicated upon racism & racism alone i.e. the subjugation of brown, or colored peoples by your list above; the entire geopolitical landscape would be completely different. the luck of the greater draw so as to say, is that resources are somewhere else, having been maturated perhaps under the feet of, again presumably 'white' feet, then the game is not merely afoot; but on the move, ventured forth & excursionary

were racism-proper to be the "driving force", too many would be trampling over far flung lands already filled with diamonds, gold & oil etc, already occupied by other peoples that had the happenstance befall them, of having been born there whatever their color.

money is the color, and, as a practical matter, the color is green; with respect to the previous sadly, but for the color of the money itself...venture capitalism is color blind.

foreign policy seems then keyed upon: acquisition of resource, venture, capitol formation, free markets (however alleged), and the like. while less to do with racism per se imo.

adding here to make a point: the pursuit of world peace :hippie: which it would be novel to see in 1st place :thumbsup:

The oddity, is that in this thread, there are 2 very opposing responses, and i can't
help but wonder if we could see the skin colour of the speakers, whether this aligns
as blooinbloo points out.

Being lead by houston is not just energy, but that deep south racism that comes with it.

How do you reconcile the views on this thread with all that?

beyond that, for instance, greater China is making a grand stand for world acceptance on a host of fronts, as is seen in the headlines of newspapers worldwide. are they doing so because they are racist? which is i think is what could be alluding to here as well. or are they doing what is best for China? attempting to elevate themselves & feed their hordes of poor folk via commerce, and all that? absent the race quotient, and baiting.

or...

are they in fact racist because they are 'yellow' and seeking commerce? in that they are suppressing other 'yellow' people somewhat routinely, it would seem less likely; if while understanding tribes, clans & dynasties to be no-less than far flung in this world.

or...

are 'white' people...the only people capable of racism?

This thread seems to say, that people think discussing this is divisive, a progressive canard,
or that levelling the charge is unfair given the pragmatic history of white expansion in north
america and its manifest destiny to rule the planet. And now as the new white empire straddles
the planet, with 800 bases and nuclear weapons, it is not just a question of a people, like
(and i much concur) japanese, korean and far eastern cultures are extremely racist.

The racism is institutional and we're murdering brown skins on every continent with impunity,
with the extraterritoriality laws that US servicemen are not bound to law, above the law,
and above the International Criminal court as well.

It is that "our" racism is globalized, legitimized and apologized for here so eloquently,
with a good many folks in brute denial that it is a motivation at all.

I don't think race is really what is relevant.

Just like in the past - there was a time when the majority of immigrants in the US were English and they were against the Germans - and later they were against the Irish and the Italians.

Or how you have the Israelis against the Palestinians when many of either side are Semites. Some of the Palestinians are Christian - so it's not necessarily Jews against Muslims, either.

So much is made of the Hispanic thing - as if Hispanics are a different race from those of European ancestry (some may or may not be mixed with Native Americans) - when forms are filled out, etc. It would be interesting to see the day when the race thing will be dropped. Esp. with DNA testing which shows how mixed up so many people are anyway.

As far the Anglo culture - there are always groups to scapegoat. (They will scapegoat political groups if need be - like feminazis, liberals - as if we are from a different culture).

As far as wars - yes - I think it's far easier for the foreign policy makers to make wars against people who seem different - and the propagandists try to make them seem as different as possible. But I don't think it's race that is emphasized - it's more about values - how women are treated is brought up, for instance - not like they care as much as a as a tool in the propaganda wars. And then you have things that were used to demonize Iraqis - like "rape rooms" and things at Abu Gahrib - and then you have Americans that end up doing the same things. (But THAT'S different! :eyes: )

We kill a couple dozen innocent Iraqi civilians, and it is the "fog of war"

If a white american gets popped, then in go the marines.

I am white, and was recently in Mexico. I was greeted with "Yes sir, enjoy your stay" and other obvious niceties. Meanwhile, all mexican people were detained, hands on the wall, being frisked, and treated roughly. This happened when going both directions across the border.

Do not be fooled. Conservatives who crow about "tradition, Heritage, patriotism are often referring to various shades of white supremacy. They long to return to the good old days of the "manifest destiny" when God ordained the slaughter of the native americans so the white race could inherit the earth.

It sounds crass and unbelievable, butt it is what many refer to.

Fear is always the best way to sell war. We humans will never outgrow that one.

But to what extent in relation to other factors (religious, political, social, economic)? That's the real question you're asking. And to that question I would speculate that race has been a significant factor behind many wars of the past and the present. The lesson is not so much that "race" in policies is wrong so much as it is that war is wrong.

taking over the largely non-white world. It is a thouroughly racist endeveur, but I wouldnt say it is driven by racism. It is driven by greed, racism is incidental, just one more rationalization, just one more excuse, just one more lie that helps people amass wealth.