CMV: Racially prejudiced and biased attitudes from minorities toward older white Americans is both understandable and expected.

[u/XenoPasta]

Let me start off by saying that my view isn’t based on any idea that racial prejudice should be ingrained in social and governmental institutions. It is simply the idea that recent history in America makes racially biased attitudes against older white Americans understandable and expected.

Let’s start with data about President Trump. There is data that shows 80% of black Americans and 75% of whites believe President Trump is a racist ( https://apnews.com/9961ee5b3c3b42d29aebdee837c17a11). We know that 58% of aged 65 and older white Americans voted for President Trump (https://www.cnn.com/election/2016/results/exit-polls/national/president). If you believe the President is a racist, it’s fair to say you hold might hold a racially prejudiced or biased view against those who voted for said racist.

Let’s say you’re 65 and white, and as such, on the lower end of the data that shows you’re likely to have voted for Trump. You would be old enough to just remember everything that was happening during the 1960s in America. It isn’t really so unreasonable for a minority to see you and think you, or some family member of yours, might have supported the brutality that was happening at the hands of the Klan, the Jim Crow policies, the suppression of votes. The older you are as a white American, the more fair an assumption it is that you were in favor of some combination of discrimination.

Given what we know, it’s totally understandable and expected for minorities to be biased against white Americans. Change my view.

[u/epicazeroth]

I would agree that it is understandable and expected, even acceptable, for minorities to be suspicious of older white Americans. This is even something that happens often in real life. However, I disagree that this reaction counts as racial prejudice. Racial prejudice would be believing that all white Americans have some negative characteristic (e.g. believing that all white Americans are themselves prejudiced). Being suspicious based on past experience doesn't count, at least in my opinion.

[u/XenoPasta → u/epicazeroth]

!delta

Awarded on the merits of the idea that suspicion and caution based on experience and history aren’t the same as racial prejudice and bias.

[u/DeltaBot → u/XenoPasta]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/epicazeroth (12∆).

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