Talk:Racism in the United States/Archive 11

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Sidebars

@Historybufffanatic2005: I reverted your recent additions of sidebars because I feel there are too many of them, and to be fair to every victim and every theory of racism, we'd have to add a lot more (e.g. a sidebar on African Americans). But I kept your addition of the "Discrimination" sidebar, removing the former "Racial segregation" sidebar, because racism is a form of discrimination, but segregation is an expression of racism. --Rsk6400 (talk) 05:55, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

Racism section

The first section Racism is very incoherent. The first part is sourced to one person and is written in a biased way that factually defines racism a certain disputed way, says this didn't exist before the 1600s and seemingly blames capitalism. Then it has poorly worded sentences including "But when European traders discovered that their superior technology gave them a tremendous advantage in Africa, including their sailing ships and firearms, they began to plunder Africa's wealth and take slaves" and "they had no previous culture and lived like savages, a totally false assumption". This paragraph also implies that racism was solely created by slavers to justify slavery. The second paragraph, for some reason, gives and an overview of Anti-miscegenation laws, which is very out of place and is discussed further down in more relevant areas. I'm not sure what this section is for. It is incoherent and not balanced. The first part could be attributed to James Boggs but I think it should either be removed or changed greatly with more sources to include more a mainstream overview. Nettless (talk) 11:58, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

It does not seem incoherent to me, though it does not present a very global viewpoint. I'd agree that there ought to be things like WP:INTEXT citations to indicate which scholarly analyses of racism the current text comes from, as well as expansion with many more of the different analyses of the origins and nature of racism.

I'm not clear what the wording issue is with But when European traders discovered that their superior technology gave them a tremendous advantage in Africa, including their sailing ships and firearms, they began to plunder Africa's wealth and take slaves; we could switch the first word to one of the suggestions in wikt:but#Usage notes if you want. Otherwise, my objection would be that it implies this only happened in Africa, whereas in fact, in the Age of Sail, it very rapidly happened all over the globe.

You're right that the miscegenation stuff seems out of place; given the early point in history the rest of the section is positioned in it seems like material similar to the content in the breeding of enslaved people in the United States article would be more appropriate for laying out the American racial purity and control ethos, perhaps accompanied by discussion of the Comstock laws and Ages of consent in the United States#History to illustrate how heavy-handed even societal control of white sexuality and reproduction has been.

Without the slave breeding and ten-year-olds-getting-married context (seven-year-olds in Delaware, of course), all of the eugenics, Nazism, and anti-miscegenation phenomena of the twentieth century seem to come out of nowhere in this narrative, or like they're foreign influences or something, when really it's entirely homegrown and there's a great deal of continuity.

The discussion of indigenous genocides seems pretty light, too... this makes it sound like it all started in the 19th century, with no discussion at all of genocides beginning in colonial times, including of English allies such as the Praying Indians interned at Deer Island in Boston Harbor. All of that fits like a glove into eugenics and Nazism in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries too.

I live in New England and every other town and hill has a name from an indigenous language (frequently Massachusett) but I can count on one hand the number of times in my life I've met an actual indigenous person from New England. So yeah, I whole-heartedly agree that basing the racism section around just plunder and genocide in Africa is not appropriate.

And now that I look again, white supremacy is treated like it suddenly appeared in the late twentieth century, rather than having been constantly openly adhered to by politicians and political parties, and there's no mention of the association between many of the state Democratic Parties and "states' rights" and white supremacy. And the phrase "white power" doesn't even appear in the article at all, when the President of the United States of all people sent a video to all his online followers of someone shouting that? WTF? Now there's a mainstream viewpoint missing, as you mention... anyways, yeah, lots of work to do. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 13:46, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

I share your criticism of the section. The first part was totally unsourced. I moved the parts on the anti-miscegenation laws and on Jefferson, deleting the rest. Feel free to revert or discuss. --Rsk6400 (talk) 18:49, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Slave rebellions

@Struthious Bandersnatch: Excellent find. Still, there are two problems. First, I'm trying to solve the problem of this article being over-long. That's why I moved your addition to Racism against Black Americans. Second, I think your point should be based on secondary sources, not on primary ones (see WP:PSTS). I made a short search and found that there are secondary sources quoting the resolution, e.g. this one. --Rsk6400 (talk) 19:25, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

@Rsk6400: Could shortening the article on racism in the United States to the point that you remove all mention of the suppression of slave rebellions, and apparently any mention of slave rebellions at all at second glance, be going overboard? That's not very WP:5P encyclopedic.

This article is WP:NOTPAPER, after all. Racism in the United States might just be a topic that requires a long article to document accurately, and perhaps most issues related to it aren't appropriate for shunting off into places like an article about worldwide racism against Black Americans, which there's a great deal of in its own right as well. "a bit of what [you] consider superfluous" may not seem so superfluous to most people.

The template at the top of this article shows it to be considerably smaller than a single frame of the smallest-size streamed 4K resolution video (24 bits times the number of pixels for an average color depth), which according to our article Youtube switched to as a standard in 2014. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 20:12, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

I have to agree with Rsk6400 on this one. The article's size needs to be reduced, and if that means moving the content to another, related article, I don't, honestly, see the issue with that. Historyday01 (talk) 20:45, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Just to be clear, since I asked quite a thorough and specific question, you're agreeing that slave rebellions and their suppression are superfluous to the history of racism in the United States?

Size-wise, the compressed Wikipedia logo (enwiki-2x.png) is about 20k, only about an eighth of the current listed uncompressed size of this article's content. What else is superfluous and doesn't even need to be mentioned, or segregated into / buried in a linked article not even specific to the US? How much can be jettisoned, if the real priority here is getting everything down to just a few multiples' worth of the Wikipedia logo?

The fact that even Wikipedia editors involved in editing this article see no problem with these things—or even just the basic process of categorizing huge swathes of an article such as this as "superfluous" and squirreling the content away elsewhere—would be why there's also a "racial bias on Wikipedia" article, though I'm given to wonder if that article was also once much longer.

Ah, now that I'm taking a closer look at changes that have occurred, this definitely fits a pattern. All mention of Ronald Reagan calling foreign dignitaries "monkeys" turned out to be "superfluous"—the only mention of him that's remaining has him merely implying non-specific things about minorities, my suggestion in the above talk page section that the single word "but" could be changed was turned into an excuse to chop up and delete the entire intro to a section that was trying to place American chattel slavery in the broader context of Old World slavery, and most of the links to other US-related and racism-related articles have been deleted. Yep, this is Wikipedia.--‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 22:20, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Struthious Bandersnatch, as is clear from what I noted on Talk:Racism in the United States#Shortening the article, the article IS too long. The linked article, Racism against Black Americans is specifically about the United States, as is African-American history. So, lets make that clear. I often use WP:SIZESPLIT as a guideline when it comes to splits/spinoffs from articles like this one. This article definitely falls within the top category, "> 100kB/100,000 chars," where it says "almost certainly should be divided." This article has 310,896 bytes, or 310.896 kB. This article is 15 times more kB than the Wikipedia logo you mentioned. I got that number after downloading the logo on my computer. I think a comparison between the Wikipedia logo and article doesn't make sense as they are different formats. I would never say that spinoffs or splits necessarily mean that something is "mentioned...segregated...[or] buried" in another article. I've done many, many splits and spinoffs in my time in Wikipedia, and I think they can be useful in focusing on specific topics. I'm not sure I would say anything is "superfluous," to be clear. In terms of the recent edits, it looks like most of it has been moved to the Racism against Black Americans article from what I can tell. If it hasn't, then feel free to add the stuff to that article. As I've said in my comment, I wouldn't mind the removals as long as the content is preserved somewhere else. And yes, I am aware of racial bias on Wikipedia, but I would not say these edits are racially biased ones. Saying all this, if you have suggestions for how to reduce the size of the article, that would be great. Historyday01 (talk) 00:49, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Historyday01, I really hope that my edits are not "racially biased", so thanks for your remark. Struthious Bandersnatch, discussions tend to become complicated once you start to search for "patterns". The real pattern I followed was to remove specific examples while keeping scholarly analyses and summaries. To remove "superfluous" text was my first idea as expressed in my comment that you linked to. But I changed my mind after Historyday01 suggested that this article be split. I copied the whole of the section on African Americans to "Racism against Black Americans", clearly marking it as the only main article linked from that section. As far as I can see, there were no rebellions of enslaved people mentioned in this article before I started the process of splitting. The only thing mentioned was the enslavers' fear of rebellions and their suspicion that Denmark Vessey started one. I agree with you that Black resistance should be mentioned, in short in this article, and in more detail at Racism against Black Americans. The problem with over-long articles is not their size in kB, but the time it takes to read them. If you put too much information into it, the reader will learn nothing, because they will simply turn away from it. --Rsk6400 (talk) 07:06, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Sure. I think you meant Denmark Vesey, but yes, the problem with articles that overly long, is, yes, the time it takes to read them, and yes, that will lessen what the reader can get out of it, for sure. Historyday01 (talk) 13:21, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Shortening the article

Looking at the maintenance tag at the top, I have to agree. So I'm trying to shorten a bit of what I consider superfluous. Feel free to comment or revert if you disagree. --Rsk6400 (talk) 13:05, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Rsk6400, I think one solution would be to split off some of the sections into their own articles. I mean, the article definitely qualifies WP:SIZESPLIT. Just look at what it is when it comes to section sizes:

That's my suggestion at least. I mean, at minimum, the "Sectors of American society" section could be its own page... I'm not sure what it would be titled, though.Preceding unsigned comment of 13:36, 23 April 2021‎ by Historyday01

Thanks for the "section sizes" - I didn't know that trick. What do you think about the idea of creating new articles for the longest sections which would be called (1) Racism against African Americans, (2) Racism in the criminal justice system of the United States, and (3) Contemporary issues of racism in the United States ? The respective sections here could then be reduced to summaries. --Rsk6400 (talk) 18:15, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Sure! I forget that trick all the time, too, so I usually just have to copy it from different pages. I think those could all definitely be their own articles. That's a good idea. Historyday01 (talk) 19:10, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Race in the United States criminal justice system already exists as a page and is hyperlinked on here already. Nettless (talk) 11:40, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Hmm. Maybe some of the content from this article can be moved onto that article? Historyday01 (talk) 12:53, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Good idea. Now I'd propose: Create two new articles named (1) Racism against Black Americans and (2) Contemporary issues of racism in the United States and move much of our article there and to "Race in the United States criminal justice system" (long name, but at least shorter than the one I proposed above). Note that I changed "African Americans" to "Black Americans" since some recent Black immigrants don't identify as "African Americans". Any thoughts ? --Rsk6400 (talk) 18:03, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

I created Racism against Black Americans some time ago, but I no longer propose to create Contemporary issues of racism in the United States. Reason: The current size has been reduced to 117 kB. I intend to reduce it further by removing duplicate text, complicated language, and text giving undue significance to single events or primary sources. Feel free to comment or revert. --Rsk6400 (talk) 08:10, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

Ok, that makes sense. Historyday01 (talk) 15:26, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

@Historyday01: Thanks for your encouragement and ideas. The readable prose is now just below 100,000 Bytes, but I feel that the text is still too long. One problem I see is the length of the section on anti-Black racism: Since there is now a main article, it might be much shorter. But looking at its importance, both in history and today, it should not be much shorter. Any more ideas ? --Rsk6400 (talk) 19:22, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Great work! I think the length of that section is generally fine and I personally wouldn't think of cutting down the text in any other way. But that's just me. Historyday01 (talk) 20:14, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

Medical Racism

Using this article as a "parent article" I am hoping to develop an article that further explores medical racism in the United States. Although a shorter section, the health section of this article has already begun to describe some of the concepts and examples key to the observance and understanding of medical racism as a whole in the U.S. I've collected some references of interest to the article I will be developing that are listed on my user page. Ijwilliams (talk) 02:22, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Ijwilliams, are you already aware of Race and health in the United States? Firefangledfeathers (talk) 02:25, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes and I'm hoping to expand further on the concepts presented its sections titled "Racism" and "Inequalities in Healthcare". Some parts of the latter section are very similar to the "Health" section on this page and I think there is more that can be said without making either article too long! Thank you. Ijwilliams (talk) 18:06, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

I have added further details on how I will go about formulating this new article in my sandbox. I welcome any suggestion on how to best approach writing a new article and on this topic especially. I've split my plans into the different sections that I want to include within the article that include different racial/ethnic groups and concepts such as the historical context of this topic and contemporary issues that pertain to medical racism in the United States. Sources are included as well and are included under the section where I plan to utilize it. Ijwilliams (talk) 23:11, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Scull dimensions

‎MrDemeanour, as mentioned in my edit summary, I gave my reasons for the revert of the paragraph on the scull dimensions on the user's talk page, User_talk:Cmetoyer#Racism in the United States. I know that normally changes should be discussed on the article's talk page, and I want to apologize for the confusion caused. The reason why I did so was that Cmetoyer is a student editor, and so I intended to explain my revert in detail in order not to discourage them. --Rsk6400 (talk) 18:58, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Sure. I don't want to undermine new editors either. No need to apologise. Your remarks on the editor's talk page are apposite. Thank you for communicating.

FWIW, I'm not invested in this article - I'm very interested in the subject, but based on hard experience, I avoid getting into arguments with other editors on political matters. Life is too short.

MrDemeanour (talk) 11:47, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Evaluation

The article is written well in the correct tone of voice. It flows smoothly and is arranged well with a solid outline/structure. More visuals can be added to the article, and more substantive information can be inserted into the section being edited. Most importantly, the author needs to be concise in describing the material, as the article is lengthy and droning text will only bore readers (the author isn’t droning and their text is concise; this is just a point to keep in mind.) SageSab (talk) 01:51, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

evaluation

This article is extremely well written an engulfs all the aspects of racism in the united states. Its chronological structure an easy to read sections allow readers with little knowledge on the subject to understand. My only suggestion would just be to keep growing on what it already here. There are historical acts of tolerance and intolerance pertaining to racism each year in the united states. racism in the United States is always changing so this article must be kept up to date consistently. The author could continue to use scholarly sources which neutrally convey acts of racism in the united states WPGALLO (talk) 16:12, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 August 2021 and 3 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Cmetoyer.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 07:43, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Politics

The lead sentence in this section (already marked as dubious) is completely false. It states "Politically, the "winner-takes-all" structure that applies to 48 out of 50 states[96] in the electoral college benefits white representation, as no state has voters of color as the majority of the electorate" ... however, 6 states, 1 federal jurisdictions, and 5 U.S. Territories have voters of color in the majority. Hawaii, New Mexico, California, Texas, Nevada, and Maryland, the District of Columbia, and American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, respectively. Notably, the 5 U.S. Territories cannot vote in Presidential election, however, they can vote in primaries. Hawaii has ALWAYS been a majority voters of color and combined with D.C. and the other 5 states, this makes up close to 1/3 of the U.S. population. This needs to be changed. I saw the "dubious" tag but didn't see anything in here in its regard. OnePercent (talk) 14:02, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

that entire paragraph is a highly subjective claim and deserves to be removed from an article of such importance for its rather glaring flaws 2001:8F8:173D:6B4B:11BB:B455:CFD:A286 (talk) 05:07, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

The cited source is Political Sociology: Oppression, Resistance, and the State, a textbook written by two sociologists. It's an excellent source, and it fully supports the paragraph. Quoting from page 110 in the book: "The winner-takes-all structure of the Electoral College all but assures that African American, Latino, and Native American voters are being marginalized." The book was written in 2010, and it shows that white voters outnumber non-white voters in every state, counting people who actually vote. Binksternet (talk) 04:08, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

racism with disabled Americans regardless of skin tone.

Accommodating the Spectrum of Individual Abilities. Clearinghouse Publication 81.

Commission on Civil Rights, Washington, DC.

The monograph addresses legal issues involving discrimination against handicapped persons and the key legal requirement of reasonable accommodation. Four chapters in Part I examine background issues, including definitions and statistical overviews of handicaps; historical attitudes toward handicapped persons and an analysis of the extent of discrimination in education, employment, institutionalization, medical treatment, sterilization, architectural barriers, and transportation; a review of Federal Civil Rights legislation regarding the handicapped (Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Education for All Handicapped Children Act, Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act, Architectural Barriers Act, and Constitutional provisions); and a discussion of the goal of full participation and its impact on rehabilitation, employment, education, institutionalization, transportation, and architectural barriers. Part II examines the legal principles and standards involved in handicap discrimination law. The practice of reasonable accommodation is explored in terms of requirements for individualizing opportunities and providing equivalent opportunities; limitations on the obligation to accommodate; and removal of architectural, transportation, and communication barriers. A further chapter focuses on applying civil rights law to handicap discrimination. A final section presents conclusions on the general topic of discrimination as well as on subtopics of reasonable accommodation and the application of civil rights laws to handicap discrimination. (CL)

Descriptors: Civil Rights, Civil Rights Legislation, Court Litigation, Definitions, Disabilities, Disability Discrimination, Educational Discrimination, Eligibility, Equal Opportunities (Jobs), Federal Legislation, History, Legal Problems, Rehabilitation, Social Bias

Publication Type: Books; Legal/Legislative/Regulatory Materials; Information Analyses

Education Level: N/A

Audience: N/A

Language: English

Sponsor: N/A

Authoring Institution: Commission on Civil Rights, Washington, DC.

Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A 76.0.16.34 (talk) 20:41, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

United States has an RFC

United States has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Shoreranger (talk) 15:35, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

The Cold War

Sorry for deleting the section, but it had some problems: (1) It didn't match the chronology of the neighbouring sections. (2) Part of it (the last paragraph) was unsourced, other parts were sourced to a book about Ghana, i.e. a source that doesn't focus on the subject. (3) In my opinion, it gave too much prominence to the influence of external factors. (4) Page numbers were missing. All these problems can be repaired, so feel free to restore a modified version of that section. Rsk6400 (talk) 16:32, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

1) I feel this is more due to the structure of the page, as it jumps from ww2 to a rather vague overview of the period following (without including anything on the Cold War). If you could advise where you would place it that would be great. 2) Agree on the last paragraph, but it was more of a summary rather than any additional factual content so don't feel it needs referencing. The source about Ghana is actually very relevant in the context of the section - it talks about how those in Ghana were used as inspiration and a source of experience for the fight against racial inequality at home: this links to the MLK sermon source. 3) I don't really understand what you mean by this - everything in the section was linked back to how it impacts racism in the US, so don't see how a factor being internal/external makes any difference. 4) Agreed, will happily change this. Nffc9572 (talk) 09:49, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Editing on WP is all about following reliable sources (RS). 1) If you feel that the structure is flawed, you may correct it (respecting consenus and WP:BRD, of course). But I see your addition as causing a break in the structure. 2) If reliable sources (academic books) focussing on racism in the U.S. don't mention the inspriration from Ghana, then we have to follow those reliable sources and be silent about it, too. 3) I was applying WP:DUE: We have to give prominence according to reliable sources. How much prominence would an academic book about racism in the U.S. give to the points you want to add ? (see also Wikipedia:Tendentious_editing#Assigning_undue_importance_to_a_single_aspect_of_a_subject, but I don't suspect you of tendentious editing). Rsk6400 (talk) 08:21, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

exclusion of non-Americans

When this article uses the term Americans, does it exclude non U.S. nationals? Racism does not target "Americans" only, I would think. Senorangel (talk) 23:02, 20 July 2023 (UTC)