Einstein: The Negro Question (1946)

http://www.onbeing.org/program/albert-einstein-the-negro-question-1946

by juanplusjuan • 12 years ago

441 255 12 years ago

onbeing.org

jamesblonde• 12 years ago

Way ahead of his time

earleybird• 12 years ago

I believe it is a mistake to think that we're somehow smarter or better than those who have gone before us.

Retra2• 12 years ago

Well, we should be. Every day we aren't is a sad day.

markgarity2• 12 years ago

As individual human parts perhaps, but as a collective humanity we surely are.

lpsz• 12 years ago

What, however, can the man of good will do to combat this deeply rooted prejudice?

More diversity (in neighborhoods, in workplaces, in schools) would certainly help -- the transition from "us" and "them" to a unified "us." And yet, it's disappointing how segregated America still is today. One fairly in-depth study [1] offers an example of how "today" came to be. (This report is not about any current events, but rather a detailed account of city zoning over a few decades.)

[1] http://www.epi.org/publication/making-ferguson/

skylan_q• 12 years ago

More diversity (in neighborhoods, in workplaces, in schools) would certainly help

Maybe instead of forcing segregation, or forcing integration, freedom of association could be tried?

moron4hire4• 12 years ago

Unfortunately, once communities start out segregated, they stay segregated.

kingmanaz• 12 years ago

Or maybe self-righteous Zionists like Einstein could try diversifying their own promised land before proscribing said diversity to others?

As it stands, today Palestinian's are in camps, today Ethiopian Jews are deported, and all the while the past sins of the gentiles are ever decried on the airwaves.

rogerallen• 12 years ago

if you haven't seen this, there's even some math to explain how "today" came to be.

http://ncase.me/polygons/

swatow6• 12 years ago

Mathematical models can be used to argue for a wide range of viewpoints.

You could also write a model where people have different innate preferences over the lifestyle they want to lead, and so self-sorting is an unambiguously good thing.

I understand that everyone wants "math" to be on their side, but it's not really mathematics that is doing the work here, it's your assumptions.

itg• 12 years ago

"More diversity (in neighborhoods, in workplaces, in schools) would certainly help"

I'm not so sure. I went to a very diverse and large high school in NJ and what ends up happening is self segregation. All the ethnic groups would mostly end up hanging out with their own types.

shaded2• 12 years ago

That definately happens but is an underlying cause. I'm not sure what it is. I've lived in other countries where this natural segregation does not happen.

LukeShu• 12 years ago

I also went to a very diverse highschool (recently; class of 2012), and saw the same self-segregation. However, when I saw the census dotmap that was on here a while ago[1], it was obvious that even though the school district was diverse, each of the neighborhoods was clearly a "${race} neighborhood". I'm willing to believe that the self segregation in-school reflected the segregation outside of school; that more diverse schools and neighborhoods might solve this.

[1] http://bmander.com/dotmap/index.html though it seems to be down now

learc833• 12 years ago

I went to a diverse high school as well, and the county I live in now is about 45% white, 40% black, and 15% Hispanic. High School was segregated, Churches are segregated, even stores are segregated to a degree.

I don't know if there is a way to change this. The cultures are very different between white, black, and Hispanic. We even speak different dialects.

Unless you want to start forcing one culture to conform to another, de facto segregation is the likely outcome.

zimbu668• 12 years ago

When filming Planet of the Apes, the apes and humans didn't mingle over lunch, and the apes, orangutans, and chimpanzees all self segregated as well.

http://www.futilitycloset.com/2013/12/13/skin-deep-2/

Dove• 12 years ago

Yeah, I think it has more to do with how you're taught to think about people than what you're exposed to.

I grew up in Spokane, WA -- 87% white by demographic survey, 98% people who look white if all you know about race is what you learned in Social Studies in elementary school. :) But what I was dominantly taught about who 'my people' were came from Christianity -- Christ died for everyone. My tribe is humanity. I was not raised to think race was important, and I didn't. That upbringing is with me to this day. I didn't reflexively categorize people by race, and I still don't. It's not something I even notice unless attention is called to it somehow.

Other people from the region were raised differently. The inland pacific northwest is a region that white supremacists like, and we had them.

Growing up in a racial monoculture, you could wind up totally innocent and clueless (like me) or totally racist (like some people I knew of), and probably a lot of other things. It really depended on what you were taught.

The same can happen in diverse cultures, too.

When I moved to Seattle, there was a lot more racial diversity. It still didn't mean anything to me, but it clearly meant things to others, and some people made quite a big deal out of it. I had an amusing conversation with a fellow visiting from the UK about it:

    Him: So . . . what is *with* your black people?
    Me: Excuse me?
    Him: Well, back home, we have black people, too.  
         But . . . they're just regular people.

The racial diversity in Seattle and in the UK did not result in the same attitudes! Of course, there are other 'tribes' over on that side of the world that do matter. But they aren't the same ones as matter over here.

All in all, I think it's not what you're exposed to. It's how you think about it. If you see race, or gender, or religion, or age, or profession, or interests, or lifestyle as what makes someone 'your people', you can't help but have loyalties and opinions about what it means to be in or out of that circle. It doesn't matter if you meet foreigners (by your definition) every day, or once or twice a lifetime.

saraid2163• 12 years ago

Also see keywords: echo chamber, filter bubble.

revscat2• 12 years ago

I believe a greater benefit would occur were we to have more mixed race couples, and with it the offspring that would tend to be produced by those relationships.

cJ0th• 12 years ago

absolutely. More generally you could say that people from different races need to have something in common to get along with each other. Or even more general: People need to have something in common to have a healthy relationship.

I think the main problem is that most people lack a true passion for anything. Even many people of the same race don't get along well because they have no real interest in anything. If they don't even share the same race (i.e. have even more different properties), shit is about to get real.

Based on that theory I would guess that you see less racism amongst hackers, musicians, athletes etc.

Humans may have made great progress technologically. But having neat digital watches didn't help society as a whole to grow intellectually to the same extend.

anomalous• 12 years ago

Although, this sort of integration was encouraged and took place in Brazil and the mixed-race Brazilian offspring of today still seemingly and disproportionately prefer to be categorized as 'white' based on year-to-year census results.

leephillips• 12 years ago

Or, as Sen. Bulworth says in the movie of the same name, "Everybody just gotta keep fuckin' everybody 'til they're all the same color."

seekingtruth4• 12 years ago

So, literally genocide.

FrankenPC• 12 years ago

Yes. But, due to powerful cultural influences, humans will tend to want to group together for comfort purposes. Diversity implies fractured culture. Humans are loathe to fracture their sense of community through shared culture.

I'm going with good, fair, and free mass education. All the way to college. If everyone gets the same level of education then no one will FEEL out of place in any culture as they will be aware of common cultural differences through education.

Good education repairs a LOT of social ills.

angrybits• 12 years ago

An increase in diversity is a goal, it's not a course of action. We should be trying to root out whatever the underlying causes are that lead us to segregate ourselves into the groups that we end up in. Forced de-segregation (as in the case of bussing kids around in public school districts) is only temporary, as the people who want to be in their groups will take action to achieve that end.

For whatever it is worth, I think income inequality (between rich and poor, all races) is probably the biggest inhibitor to this problem. Motivated-yet-poor people cannot easily break out of their groups, with no money for college and (alot of times) a criminal record preventing them from enlisting in the service. If you have resources you have choices, and the poor have very little in the way of choice. And the affluent who do have a choice will almost always make the choice to not live among those who have nothing to lose, whatever their color may be.

saraid2163• 12 years ago

An increase in diversity is a goal, it's not a course of action.

Yes, actually, it is. It's fine to say you disagree with the course of action because you believe it is immoral or ineffective, but it is absolutely a course of action.

We should be trying to root out whatever the underlying causes are that lead us to segregate ourselves into the groups that we end up in.

One of these causes is "that's how it has always been". How would you propose to root out this one?

moskie• 12 years ago

Why not both? I think we can work to address both the symptoms and the disease in tandem. Treat the symptom of segregation by implementing programs or initiatives that actively promote diversity. Also, root out the underlying cause by.... doing lots of various things over the course of generations to convince/teach people that racism is wrong.

Treating the symptom helps alleviate the problems experienced by people of color who are alive today. Addressing the cause could take a long, long time.

protonfish• 12 years ago

Forced integration is a terrible idea that is proven to not work. It is the equivalent of locking enemies in a room and hoping they work it all out peacefully.

lexcorvus2• 12 years ago

More diversity…would certainly help

It's far from certain. For example, Harvard social scientist Robert Putnam has (tentatively and, I think, somewhat reluctantly) suggested the opposite. Here's an interview he did for National Public Radio:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1280266...

Money quote:

Social scientist Robert Putnam, probably best known for his work "Bowling Alone," on the decline of civic engagement, wanted to know does diversity have an impact on our sense of community? His recent finding suggest that diversity might not make us stronger. In fact, it might just be the opposite. It might make us less inclined to participate in civic life, at least in the short term.

scobar• 12 years ago

I think Einstein's very next sentence, "He must have the courage to set an example by word and deed, and must watch lest his children become influenced by this racial bias." is great advice.

The faster we demonstrate to our younger generations that our erroneous tradition must be corrected, the faster the goals of more diversity and elimination of racial bias can be achieved.

NoMoreNicksLeft• 12 years ago

More diversity

If I were to ask, "what can a man of good will do to combat tornado calamities", would you respond with a "more air temperature homogeneity would certainly help"?

We can't reasonably engineer or create "neighborhood diversity". There are some policies that have tried to accomplish this, and they fail miserably. The "diversity" ends up artificial and hollow, and does nothing for prejudice. In some cases it seems to amplify it.

the transition from "us" and "them" to a unified "us."

There can never be an "us" when we're talking about the 300 million people in the United States. There can't even be an "us" if you're talking about the 8 million in New York City, or the 500,000 in Atlanta.

Human beings are limited in their ability to form an "us", and it's in the low hundreds.

seekingtruth4• 12 years ago

Show me a place on Earth where decreasing the ethnic/cultural homogeneity has improved community cohesion and rapport.

laofmoonster• 12 years ago

What do you make of this map, then? It shows scores on an Implicit Association Test, measuring subconscious racism by white people against black people.

http://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2014/12/R...

There is a liberal-conservative correlation on the map, a but far stronger correlation is the racial makeup of the state. The "deep roots" of racism don't seem to go away with exposure. Other empirical data, such as Robert Putnam's work mentioned in another comment, suggest just the opposite.

mariodiana2• 12 years ago

The thing I like is the reference to Aristotle. Today, there are some people who are too quick to brand anyone who disagrees with their enlightened views as a "moron" or worse. There's no winning hearts and minds that way. It's better to gently point out the mistakes of those who are otherwise worthy of respect, in the hopes that this will spur others towards self-reflection, than to castigate and put people on the defensive. We could use more of that.

wutangson13• 12 years ago

Great point, even considering that Einstein seems to be taking Aristotle and ancient Greek dogma totally out of context. Perhaps, as was and is a tradition in academic circles, he was advocating that contemporary scientists were in fact better and more enlightened than the Greeks. Or, maybe it was a reaction against Hitler's fascination with the ancient Greeks. Yet, Aristotle did not present a clear belief system on slavery, especially considering that even Socrates dialogue Meno, he makes the case for the equality and infinite capacity of all humankind.

Locke1689• 12 years ago

Meno was written by Plato.

lotsofmangos8• 12 years ago

Plato wrote Meno and Aristotle presented a very clear belief system on slavery in Book I, Chapters 3 through 7 of The Politics and in Book 7 of the Nicomachean Ethics.

"But is there any one thus intended by nature to be a slave, and for whom such a condition is expedient and right, or rather is not all slavery a violation of nature?"

"There is no difficulty in answering this question, on grounds both of reason and of fact. For that some should rule and others be ruled is a thing not only necessary, but expedient; from the hour of their birth, some are marked out for subjection, others for rule."

http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.1.one.html

edit - mind you, he also had a tendency to write stuff like: "If a woman looks at a highly polished mirror during the menstrual period, the surface of the mirror becomes like a blood shot cloud", so it isn't as though the slavery thing is a small unfortunate oversight in some otherwise wise philosophy. If you forget for a minute that you are dealing with Aristotle, he is consistently quite considerably bonkers, and seemingly just winging it through a lot of his writing, though there is plenty of genius in there as well.

anigbrowl4• 12 years ago

Socrates' dialogues were documented/written by Plato, not Aristotle. While there was certainly a conception of universal potential in ancient Greek philosophy, I think there was also the comfortable assumption that enslaved peoples were inferior insofar as they had allowed themselves to be enslaved in the first place. You could draw a parallel with the relatively limited role of women in Greek society. I think it's this sort of confirmation bias Einstein was taking aim at.

whistlerbrk• 12 years ago

You are spot on. When we put people in the defensive they often entrench themselves in their position, sometimes even knowing they are/may be wrong.

huxley• 12 years ago

I don't think Einstein was being that nice, he was essentially saying that intelligence and education were not guarantees against bigotry and bias.

Aristotle proposed in Book 1 of Politics that certain human beings were natural slaves, as different from the free citizens of Athens as human beings were from beasts. He argued that barbarians deserved enslavement because they lacked souls.

Back in 1550, Aristotle was marshalled in an important debate on race: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valladolid_debate

While much of the debate was around the notion that Spain had the right to conquer the Americas, a major part of Bartolomé de las Casas' debate with Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda centred on the rights of Native Americans. Both men were humanist theologians and well versed in classical works, so Aristotle's idea of Natural Slavery was central to their cases.

De las Casas argued that native Americans were worthy of the same rights as European Christians because they were rational human beings with souls, not natural slaves. Years later, De las Casas expanded this idea to a universal statement that no human being regardless of race deserved slavery.

Sepúlveda took Aristotle on face value and argued that Native Americans were natural slaves and as such didn't deserve to be treated as rational human beings, he made the odious argument that enslaving them was a paternal response which improved their lives.

It's important to note that the debate on the shared humanity of the races and their human rights is an argument that is at least half a millennium old.

jacquesm• 12 years ago

I have some hope that in 500 years time we will look back at todays debates and have similar thoughts of how terribly out of touch with reality the debaters seemed to be and how obvious their biases and self-serving arguments were. Thank you for restoring some of my faith in humanity.

mariodiana2• 12 years ago

Einstein wrote: "It is clear that [Aristotle] was enmeshed in a traditional prejudice from which, despite his extraordinary intellect, he could not free himself." And your comment on that is that "he was essentially saying that intelligence and education were not guarantees against bigotry and bias." I don't see how any of that conflicts with what I've said.

It's human nature -- even for people who realize they're no Einstein or Aristotle -- to believe that they know what they're talking about; and it's also human nature to get defensive, since their self-image is often wrapped up in their outlook. If you invoke Aristotle, you give a person an "out." You allow a person the freedom to examine his beliefs while shielding his fragile self-image from coming apart. He can conclude, "I was wrong, but that's okay. Even Aristotle was wrong."

Aristotle and Einstein aside, what I'm getting at is this "Fox News vs MSNBC" divide that we have in this country is not doing any of us any good. We can either appeal to people's sympathies, or brand people as self-satisfied, socially irresponsible, head-in-the-sand enablers of the status quo. I think the first is the better strategy. I also think the tone of Einstein's letter is much, much nearer the first than the second.

lnanek2• 12 years ago

I think the Aristotle point is a very bad one. People captured in war are flat out inferior to people who won the war or battle. They lost and were enslaved after all. It immediately makes the person arguing for equality have to start falling back on, well, they are really equal in ability it is just they had poor circumstances or luck, trust me even though they lost they are equal!

If we had everyone in the country run a race and the fastest were forced to move to the west coast and the slowest forced to move to the east coast and we waited a generation, people would start saying west coast people are fast in general. And they wouldn't be incorrect. So I don't see anything wrong with Aristotle saying the group of people who end up slaves are inferior, they provably are because they've been tested and selected for failure.

Saying Greeks are superior to Iranians or some other general pronouncement about ethnicity and attributes may not be correct, the DNA of the human race is mostly the same between ethnicities anyway, but saying Greeks are superior to the group of people they defeated in battle and enslaved in person is a tautology.

BuckRogers• 12 years ago

I don't think one side losing in a war means anything at all about the individuals who participated. An army could have the best soldiers and lose due to the general (not to mention resources among other things including being on an off-day, or just mistakes).. I don't think what you're suggesting is anything but sophism. The same kind Aristotle was using.

That said, I do think Aristotle was insightful enough to realize this. Just a guess, but many times when people say stupid things there were social pressures to make these declarations in support of the existing society.

What you said, could easily be used in attempt to say American slavery was justified. Most people realize taking advantage of people is in no way a demonstration of superiority.

Have you ever made a mistake? Do you crush every mortal that crosses your path? I don't think so.

dangerlibrary• 12 years ago

Einstein's point isn't that the Greeks didn't win, it's that Greek militarily superiority doesn't justify slavery.

lotsofmangos8• 12 years ago

funnily enough, Aristotle said people captured in war as slaves were not true slaves, had the legal right to sue for freedom and that slaves were born slaves. He was completely against might makes right.

edit - also, his views on slavery somewhat stretch the definition of what we and most of his contemporaries would necessarily regard as slavery. This being Aristotle.

He is still really just excusing the slavery of his time however.

He states: "all are not either slaves by nature or freemen by nature, and also that there is in some cases a marked distinction between the two classes, rendering it expedient and right for the one to be slaves and the others to be masters: the one practicing obedience, the others exercising the authority and lordship which nature intended them to have. The abuse of this authority is injurious to both; for the interests of part and whole, of body and soul, are the same, and the slave is a part of the master, a living but separated part of his bodily frame. Hence, where the relation of master and slave between them is natural they are friends and have a common interest, but where it rests merely on law and force the reverse is true."

and also:

"And again, no one would ever say he is a slave who is unworthy to be a slave."

This would suggest that the easiest way to not be Aristotle's slave would be to tell him to sod off and do his own cleaning, though I suspect the reality may have been different.

zo1• 12 years ago

"So I don't see anything wrong with Aristotle saying the group of people who end up slaves are inferior, they provably are because they've been tested and selected for failure."

It's a very complicated question/topic. One that I think people are very uncomfortable discussing honestly, precisely because it makes us question preconceived notions about race. Then again, that's usually the case with social concepts.

anigbrowl4• 12 years ago

This is a fallacy of composition. Luck plays an important role in military success - Napoleon famously said he was less concerned about a general's skill than whether he was lucky - presumably meaning opportunist enough to seize an advantage when one unexpectedly presented itself. Likewise, numbers matter; a sufficiently large army will overwhelm many smaller ones not because of any inferiority of fighting spirit among the defeated, but just by being hopelessly outnumbered. Where small forces has famously resisted larger ones, such as Leonidas' 300 Spartans or the British Army at Rorke's drift, it did so because of the ability to exploit geographical or technological advantages

Your mistake here is to confuse a temporary strategic superiority that confers success in battle or even in war with some sort of moral or intellectual superiority. Back in World War 2 Hitler undoubtedly displayed strategic superiority at first (although the roots of German success go back to the late stages of WW1, when German generals 'banked' some of their military technology within newly Communist Russia, an arrangement which evolved into the non-aggression pact between Hitler and Stalin). But Hitler, like many conquerors before, fell victim to hubris and overreached when he should have consolidated. Despite being a political and military genius, his misplaced assumption of innate racial and cultural superiority (largely adopted from Prussian Kultur) proved to be a strategic weakness.

blazespin• 12 years ago

I was always impressed by his stand against zionism.

http://www.newdemocracyworld.org/old/einstein.htm

swatow6• 12 years ago

Interesting that his views on race in America are now mainstream, while his views on Zionism are rarely voiced outside the far left or far right. It seems to me that his views are based on a consistent application of principals, while American politics isn't.

Retra2• 12 years ago

Most mainstream Americans' political principles are variations on "defend your side at all costs." An ideology without a (real) problem to solve is a very dangerous thing.

josh_fyi• 12 years ago

He supported Labor Zionism. Like other Labor Zionists, he opposed the right wing of Zionism. Also, like other so-called cultural Zionists, he was more concerned with establishing a homeland where Jews could express their culture, but was less concerned with having a sovereign state. Indeed at that time, the land was a "mandate" under British rule, neither Jewish nor Arab. (In those days, many lands were ruled by European empires. The notion that each non-European nation needed its own state only solidified later, partially under Israel's example.)

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/12/how-eins...

ctlaltdefeat• 12 years ago

What? He was a Zionist according to the classical "definition" and principles of the time. The varying uses of the word "Zionist" are confusing, yet nonetheless Einstein supported self-determination of the Jews in Mandatory Palestine.

aik• 12 years ago

Very interesting. There are some other articles by Einstein there as well. The Science and Religion one is particularly interesting:

http://www.onbeing.org/program/einstein039s-god-einstein039s...

fsloth6• 12 years ago

I am humbled by the sincerity and humanity of this writing. Thanks for sharing.

kroy2• 12 years ago

This is really fascinating. This part particularly struck me:

"[Americans'] sense of equality and human dignity is mainly limited to men of white skins. Even among these there are prejudices of which I as a Jew am clearly conscious"

As a non-black person of color, this has been my access point to issues of race and oppression. Thinking about the (relatively) minor prejudices and indignities I've experienced made me a lot more receptive to the idea that things just aren't right for a lot of people. That oppression is real. And it's also made me aware of the privilege that I do enjoy as a college-educated male who's the son of college educated parents.

This is a very prescient and relevant piece by Einstein. I'm glad it's on HN!

washedup• 12 years ago

Couldn't agree more that the opposition is real. I have witnessed much of it living in a divided city like Chicago. The most difficult question about it is what we can do to shift government attention and resources? Not in the form of police cameras, squad cars, or militarization, but in the form of education and infrastructure projects. This is only a small part of the question, however. A bigger issue is not where the government spends money, but zoning laws, tax incentives to move to certain areas, and other laws that have been built up and influenced over time to create the situation we have today.

People have been noticing this and pointing it out for a long, long time. Surely Einstein would observe similar treatments as well, particularly because of his fresh perspective.

doomlaser• 12 years ago

One of the biggest peaceful protests on this issue is happening today, across the nation, but you wouldn't know it from the Hacker News frontpage.

It's been troubling seeing any links about the Ferguson and Eric Garner protests wiped from Hacker News before they attract very many upvotes. The issues being debated encompass government action, fundamental technology and privacy rights, as well as race, but they're being ignored here for the most part and I don't understand exactly why.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/14/us/thousands-march-in-wash...

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2014/dec/13/police-k...

lukifer2• 12 years ago

And it's also made me aware of the privilege that I do enjoy as a college-educated male who's the son of college educated parents.

What's scary about privilege is that it's usually invisible.

I think it's fair to say that the majority of humans experience both prejudice and privelege, albeit of radically different quantities and qualities. But while we can't help but be keenly aware of the former, the latter tends to hide itself in our definitions of "normal".

kroy2• 12 years ago

That's a really good point. To me privilege and oppression are two sides of the same coin though. To recognize one is to, by deduction, recognize the other.

sethbannon• 12 years ago

"I can escape the feeling of complicity in it only by speaking out."

Sadly on the matter of unequal race relations these words ring nearly as true in 2014 as they did in 1946.

revscat2• 12 years ago

What makes this discussion so much more frustrating today is that the racial biases are inherent in the system. While the laws are structured to be. Entrap, their application is decidedly not. While I, a white male, choose to do as Einstein here suggests and live a life of example, and teach my children the destructiveness of racism, my actions do not directly help those in my country who are suffering from official and unofficial forms of discrimination.

I want to do more, but... "What can men do in the face of such reckless hate?"

_aoou2• 12 years ago

I think this starts to address your question:

http://qz.com/250701/12-things-white-people-can-do-now-becau...

And I think this article is really helpful for perspective:

http://www.timwise.org/2014/12/we-dont-need-nice-we-need-jus...

phazelift• 12 years ago

Amazingly great thinker with a great heart too, we are so in need of people like him..

332233323232• 12 years ago

The ancient Greeks also had slaves. They were not Negroes but white men who had been taken captive in war. There could be no talk of racial differences.

As Slavic I find this inaccurate and bit offensive :-)

learc833• 12 years ago

Most people in America would consider a Slavic person white.

There is no scientific definition of "white", it is a social construct that has changed to be more inclusive as various groups integrated into American society.

332233323232• 12 years ago

It does not even compute...

kzrdude• 12 years ago

What is weird from my perspective is how the races as concepts still are accepted and used, even though they are ambiguous and deeply problematic. For example those that have the "pleasure" of hearing "but you are white" will understand that there is a scale of whiteness and you've just been graded on that scale.

vixen992• 12 years ago

A bit offensive? Why?

xxxyy2• 12 years ago

Because there are racial-alike tensions within the Caucasian people, such as Nazi/Jews, West/Slavic, Protestant/Catholic.

tinco• 12 years ago

I don't know the history of it, but it seems likely that Greece waged a lot of war with the (slavic) countries north of it, so their slaves would be predominantly of slavic descent. Slavic people also have a pretty easily discernable look to them, at least many do, so it's not hard to imagine they could be subject to racial discrimination in Greece.

tsax• 12 years ago

Lol how do you think 'slavs' got their name? Have you looked at the Arab and Ottoman slave trade?

999199919991• 12 years ago

Slavs moved into southern Europe 1000 years after Aristotle :)

vinceguidry• 12 years ago

Anyone interested in this topic should read Karen Armstrong's Fields of Blood

http://www.amazon.com/Fields-Blood-Religion-History-Violence...

The first chapter gives a very good rationale for where hatred and subjugation of the 'other' comes from and the book traces how this kind of socialized violence evolved over the ages.

iamdave• 12 years ago

Two hours from hopping on a ten hour train ride, thanks for the reading material!

vixen992• 12 years ago

Relevant to the subject Einstein addresses I strongly recommend the writing of Thomas Sowell.

http://www.tsowell.com/

mikeyouse• 12 years ago

Sowell has some interesting things to say but it's mixed in with the heavy portion of nonsensical wharrgarbl.. He spends a lot of time calling for the bombing of Iran (so that the US doesn't surrender to them after they nuke us of course), claiming that Obama hates America (going so far as to compare to him to Hitler for creating an oil spill fund), advocating bizarre Federal Reserve conspiracy theories, and all sorts of other strange ideas.

It's hard to take the rest of what he says seriously with all that baggage..

markgarity2• 12 years ago

"It would be foolish to despise tradition. But with our growing self-consciousness and increasing intelligence we must begin to control tradition and assume a critical attitude toward it, if human relations are ever to change for the better. We must try to recognize what in our accepted tradition is damaging to our fate and dignity—and shape our lives accordingly."

Key takeaway, in my opinion, and this extends beyond racial prejudices.

bostik• 12 years ago

What you quoted above gives credence that another quote attributed to Einstein actually is his. I can even recognise the tone in the segment about Aristotle and his views about slavery.

The quote in question? "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein

Even if it was misattributed, it's still one hell of a motto to live by.

Fishkins• 12 years ago

That quote was correctly attributed to Einstein (although it's unclear whether we used those exact words) http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/04/29/common-sense/

schimmy_changa2• 12 years ago

If this moves you, follow Einstein's logic to today's world and join in the struggle. There are marches today, consider this your invitation!

SF: https://www.facebook.com/events/675598982556580/

Oakland: https://www.facebook.com/events/858052834217501/

NYC: https://www.facebook.com/events/959630214065046/

Boston: https://www.facebook.com/events/1559794327598726/

(and I'm sure there's one near where you live as well)

schimmy_changa2• 12 years ago

I am not sure why this is being downvoted... People are asking above "What, however, can the man of good will do to combat this deeply rooted prejudice?". One prong of this prejudice is the structure of our justice system, and participating in these marches can help that.

calibraxis• 12 years ago

It's downvoted because it's currently the most serious and rational post on actually solving oppression. Rather than musing abstractly about some dead white scientist talking about blacks. (While taking a break from making money for investors/bosses.)

Speaking of prominent white activist intellectuals, here's Chomsky's view on Einstein: "Compare Russell and Einstein, two leading figures, roughly the same generation. They agreed on the grave dangers facing humanity, but chose different ways to respond. Einstein responded by living a very comfortable life in Princeton and dedicating himself to research that he loved, taking a few moments for an occasional oracular statement. Russell responded by leading demonstrations and getting himself dragged off by the cops, writing extensively on the problems of the day, organizing war crimes trials, etc. The result? Russell was and is reviled and condemned, Einstein is admired as a saint. Should that surprise us? Not at all."

smsm4212• 12 years ago

I share deep concern about police militarization and police brutality. These problems have been raised for years, particularly in the context of War on Drugs, but also in larger context of alienation of population from the government, and were largely ignored by the wide public, happy to be "tough on crime" and laughing at those libertarian idiots with their obviously exaggerated concerns. It is good thing that the topic finally starts to enter the public conscience and that people start to realize there should be strict limits to government power in general and the police power as the most frequently encountered one in particular. I share the sentiment expressed here: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6557 about the deep problems that exist and I think it's good people start to realize these problems exist. I think also here: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/03/framing-for-light-inste... it outlines some of the problems people need to be aware of when looking for solutions.

But when I read recent reports about arson, looting, windows smashed, trash cans overturned and lit on fire, businesses destroyed, police officers assaulted with rocks, explosives and firebombs, millions of damages caused, when I read about "burn that bitch down" - I think maybe this particular instance is not what I want to be part of at all. Maybe associating with this wouldn't do as much to combat either public perception of police needing to be tough or any particular prejudices.

And then I read something like this: http://reason.com/blog/2014/12/10/a-college-president-had-to... and this https://twitter.com/onekade/status/543202210516303872/photo/... and honestly, I don't know what to think.

5F36B5F626402• 12 years ago

Garner, from what we know, seems to be a man who did nothing seriously wrong during his encounter with the police. It is quite disturbing that this encounter resulted in his death. It's not even clear that he should have been having an encounter with the police in the first place.

We can look at Garner, and see that a great injustice happened to him.

Compare to Brown. The police had a very good reason to stop him (walking in the middle of the street, matches description of person who had just robbed a nearby store and assaulted the shop keeper), and he attacked the police officer and tried to take the officer's gun. The only thing it appears that the police officer did wrong was letting Brown approach the car while the officer was inside with his gun still holstered, which allowed Brown into a position to attack.

Looking at Brown, we see a man who did something really stupid, and suffered pretty much the same outcome that we'd expect for anyone in that situation.

Lumping Garner and Brown together, like these protestors are doing, seems to me to be an insult to the memory of Eric Garner.

sillysaurus310• 12 years ago

he attacked the police officer and tried to take the officer's gun.

I wish this single sentence was underscored and repeated every time this issue comes up. Physical evidence confirms this sequence of events: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/24/ferguso...

There would not be blood inside the police car if Brown hadn't been reaching into the car. In what scenario was it reasonable for Brown to reach inside the police car? Are people seriously suggesting that Brown was casually leaning into the cruiser, and the officer pulled out his gun and shot him? Why is there blood inside the car if Brown wasn't wrestling for his gun?

But, no, we can't let a little thing like evidence and due process stop us. Why people have chosen to make a violent individual who just robbed a store into a martyr is beyond me. That store he robbed has now been looted, by the way.

pvnick4• 12 years ago

Indeed, what Brown did would have gotten any of us shot.

king_jester3• 12 years ago

and he attacked the police officer and tried to take the officer's gun

This is disputed by witness testimony: same say this happened, others say it didn't. Other testimony indicates that Wilson may have instigated conflict when making the stop.

Looking at Brown, we see a man who did something really stupid, and suffered pretty much the same outcome that we'd expect for anyone in that situation.

This is not at all the case. Wilson shot Brown when we was a significant distance from the car (100+ feet) and Brown was not armed in any way. We do not expect someone who commits a petty theft to be executed by the police when Wilson had a variety of other options at his disposal. Doing something stupid isn't and should not be a death sentence.

Lumping Garner and Brown together, like these protestors are doing, seems to me to be an insult to the memory of Eric Garner.

These deaths are wholly related to the racism of police practice in the United States. Presenting disputed testimony as the truth is extremely misleading.

jqm4• 12 years ago

While I generally agree that Brown was responsible, Wilson did do something wrong. He pulled up squealing tires and yelled for Brown to get the F* out of the street.

This type of verbal hostility is probably what got Wilson attacked in the first place. He set the fight button off. Not saying Brown was right.. he wasn't right, and he was stupid. Once he let his temper get the better of him, his shooting was all but inevitable.

But I think this is what people are protesting against as much as anything. Not shootings necessarily, but the general dickish, hostile attitude of police. Especially against certain groups.

nobrains• 12 years ago

All men are created equal. Except Blacks. And Muslims. And non-Americans. And Native Americans.

moron4hire4• 12 years ago

Racism will continue to be a problem as long as it serves as a useful distraction for the people to prevent us from really scrutinizing the ruling class and the complete disparity between the goals of the super-rich people and the needs of the rest of us who are just trying to get by.

Racism, sexism, homophobia, drugs, guns, taxes, war, spying, all of it are just distractions because whether the issue goes left or right won't matter to most people. What really matters is whether or not people can feed their children, have a roof over their heads, have something meaningful to do with their time, be warm in the winter, be free from violence. These are the things that matter, but we're all caught up in bikeshedding over how to get there.

And in the process, a very small group of people get to come in and unilaterally take action to fill their own pockets. Everything else that happens is the rest of us playing Lord of the Flies.

Isms will end when the majority takes up the cause of the minority, because in actuality, it's their/our cause, too.

_almosnow• 12 years ago

Totally agree with your view of how things work on a higher scale.

Isms will always exist because not all of us are equal and we will never be; and I'm not saying that with a discriminating tone, what I mean is that you have to be completely retarded (excuse me, but it's true) to actually believe and state that we are all the same. We all like different stuff, we all have different ways to achieve our goals, we even have (VERY) different moral foundations to asses whether something should be right or wrong.

On the other hand, most of us are used to live under the terrible premise to puts oneself (and thus, its kind) before others. Put these two facts together and everything that has happened (and will continue to happen) throughout our history becomes obvious.

lexcorvus2• 12 years ago

Many a sincere person will answer: "Our attitude towards Negroes is the result of unfavorable experiences which we have had by living side by side with Negroes in this country. They are not our equals in intelligence, sense of responsibility, reliability."

I am firmly convinced that whoever believes this suffers from a fatal misconception.

Although it has clear political implications, the last part of the quote-within-a-quote ("They are not our equals…") is a scientific hypothesis. Does it strike you that people who take the opposite view of Einstein's—or who even consider its possibility—are treated as merely mistaken? As suffering from a misconception? No—they are treated with opprobrium, condemned with epithets (racist, fascist, etc.), and purged from civil society.

No reasonable person denies that the ancestors of slaves were mistreated, but as an explanation for group differences this is not mutually exclusive with cultural or biological factors that may have nothing to do with past oppression. Unfortunately, this subject is not treated as a scientific matter—it has become a political fight. Einstein appears to be "ahead of his time" not because of the triumph of his scientific arguments but because his political allies have been consistently advancing.

nyolfen• 12 years ago

oh noo the racists will be called racist, such material oppression

lotsofmangos8• 12 years ago

It was ever a political fight.

That's what happens when you end up neighbors with the great great grandson of the bloke your great great granddaddy paid to have kidnapped and shipped to the country as a piece of equipment.

Sure you can argue over the details about what their family have been like to be around in the intervening time, but don't be surprised if the conversation gets back around to the question of who exactly kidnapped who in the first place.

Is pretty pointless to winge about it being political.

peterfirefly12• 12 years ago

Plenty of people in my family emigrated to the US 1840-1890. They didn't bring any slaves over from Africa. Lots of people emigrated from Scandinavia and Germany/German states in that period.

Don't overestimate the original sin of current white Americans.

eli_gottlieb4• 12 years ago

Although it has clear political implications, the last part of the quote-within-a-quote ("They are not our equals…") is a scientific hypothesis. Does it strike you that people who take the opposite view of Einstein's—or who even consider its possibility—are treated as merely mistaken? As suffering from a misconception? No—they are treated with opprobrium, condemned with epithets (racist, fascist, etc.), and purged from civil society.

People who continue to advance a hypothesis long after the data falsifies it, in order to support political views that are, subject to the true facts, immoral, should in fact be purged from civil society.

No, black people are not innately inferior in any physical, intellectual, or moral sense.

No, women are not innately inferior in any physical, intellectual, or moral sense.

No, Jews are not conspiring to take over the world.

Yes, you are a racist, and yes, you should leave the public eye right now. Nobody will miss you, as you've done nothing but attempt to muddy waters that were long-since cleared up.

The facts cannot speak, and thus, alas, cannot repeat themselves until you actually bother to listen, but I for one am tired of your like.

mathu7• 12 years ago

this is the part of Einstein's legacy that I wish more people knew about

UhUhUhUh• 12 years ago

Bottom line, then and now, to be a racist you need either be stupid or have serious psychological issues or a combination of both. On a side note, I always admired Einstein for his tremendous ability to abstract problems. I believe he is the co-inventor of the "thought experiment" with Mach. You can always feel this ability in his writings.

peterfirefly12• 12 years ago

Galileo has a brilliant thought experiment in De Motu about heavy and light falling bodies, possibly connected with a string.

I think Bacon (both Roger and Francis) also used thought experiments to great effect.

pvnick4• 12 years ago

I hope what I have to say is not as controversial as I fear, but I don't think that individual racist beliefs are as big a problem as we have been told. To look at somebody and consciously judge them to be inferior based on their skin color is so outdated and obsolete, that those who do so are fringe members of society who are typically elderly and either changing their mindset or dying out. We elected a black president in a landslide victory for God's sake. Twice!

No, what is harmful is the vindictive, hyper-vigilant collectivist attitude that persists in a ham-handed attempt at "leveling the playing field." The idea that certain groups of people (blacks, women, gays, etc) need compulsory protection at the expense of other groups (white males), induces a sort of resentment as a response to what is perceived to be a witch hunt. For example, certain events - such as the destruction of Paula Dean for admitting to saying the word "nigger" in the past, or Brendan Eich's dismissal as CEO for his donations against gay marriage - and certain policies - such as affirmative action or the greatly lopsided outcomes of most child custody battles - evoke an understandable, but completely irrational, feeling of resentment towards those groups as a backlash for perceived unfair treatment. It's this "us vs. them" victim mentality that's the problem in mainstream America. That's where the real racist attitudes come from, not some sort of widespread, conscious conclusion that certain groups are intrinsically inferior to others.

The answer is not collectivist protections or more anti-racism vigilance, it is to look beyond our superficial differences and to consider all people as individuals with an equal capacity to love and to be loved. Racism is an outdated idea. Let it die on its own.

ivraatiems2• 12 years ago

What evidence leads you to believe that it will, in fact, die on its own?

pvnick4• 12 years ago

Racism's trajectory is such that it is quickly disappearing. That is the case even in the deep south where I'm from (this is fairly profound considering our civil war defeat is still a big deal in the minds of many), but rather the racism you do encounter is in response to perceived injustices such as those I listed. Thus the hyper-vigilance perpetuated by the media does more to harm racism's disappearance than to hasten it's natural death.

Edit: Also, because racism is illogical. Irrational ideas tend to be replaced by good ones in the "free market" of ideas. There is no reason to beat tolerance into people, simply show show them the compassion and unity that equality leads to, and contrast that with the ridiculous KKK guys in goofy white cone hats and piss-stained bed sheets and let them make up their own mind.

theorique4• 12 years ago

Equality of opportunity is a good thing - equality of outcomes is exactly the sort of creeping socialism that our Founding Fathers warned us against.

A lot of the cultural Marxist agendas being promoted in recent years are based on bad data and slanted measurements (e.g. the "pay gap" between men and women, which disappears when you control for hours worked, age, and other important variables). Such agendas are explicitly aimed at going well beyond mere "fairness" (i.e. equality of opportunity) and are aimed at seizing power from disfavored groups, and reallocating it to favored groups.

eli_gottlieb4• 12 years ago

Can you please explain what a "cultural Marxist" is without referencing any far-right literature?

rockmeamedee4• 12 years ago

I disagree with your argument. Here are my thoughts why. We have been 'looking beyond our superficial differences' for a while and it hasn't done anything. I actually think 'not seeing race' is itself a form of racism, because a lot of our racism is subconscious, or cultural.

We don't have a racism of segregation anymore. It's a racism of omission. Instead there are pay gaps, unfair justice, stereotypes and erasure. EG: It's not that we censor out black music on the radio, we just prefer it when a white person sings it (macklemore, iggy azalea, eminem, miley, etc).

It works the same way as telling woman: "oh I don't see you as a woman in the workplace. I don't expect you to get pregnant or have health issues different from men. I expect you to have someone at home who takes care of your kids (like a wife would). And then I will subconsciously expect you to be more caring and nice than your male coworkers (if you disagree with anything I say I will call you a frigid bitch)". The roles we put women in are gendered, like EG: we don't expect a secretary to be a woman but if she is, she'll get very different treatment from a male secretary (who is more likely to be called Operations, won't have to pick up everybody's laundry and order lunch, etc. This happens for real).

Back to racism. Racism is still a _big_ problem for a lot of people. Police can strangle black people _on camera_ and get away without even a trial. Cops drove up to a black child with a toy gun, shot him, then did not even call an ambulance or provide emergency CPR. Police officers barged into a house and shot a 7 year old black girl while she was sleeping. (They said they had the wrong house). No repercussions. Not a settlement, not an apology, no reaction.

Young black men are 21 more times more likely to be shot by a police officer than their white counterparts.

When you tell someone 'I don't see you black' what you are saying is "I am ignoring the struggles you face on a daily basis and also will continue to subconsciously treat you negatively". Ask a black person how many times they get called Bro, homie, or 'my nigga' by people 'who don't see them as black'. And in the public consciousness, black people are seen as demons, monsters, thugs. (further reading: the blue eye brown eye experiment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZKWkhnSb5k)

The idea that certain groups of people (blacks, women, gays, etc) need compulsory protection at the expense of other groups (white males), induces a sort of resentment as a response to what is perceived to be a witch hunt.

White males have been oppressing these marginalized groups for millennia. White male culture is homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, and racist too. If you would like examples I can give plenty. If you want stats I can give those too.

Brendan Eich's dismissal isn't irrational. A group of people decided that they didn't want a homophobic CEO.

I think the reason these events might seen incoherent is because they look like small, one time things that bring up a large public reaction, one person's slip-up here or a wrong sentence uttered here. But:

1) The things said reflect a deep hatred of the group they are against. You have really hate black people to nigger like Paula Dean did. Eich is clearly homophobic if he donates to anti gay marriage groups.

2) They might seem like one group is targeted out of the blue, but to the oppressed group these events are another thing on the long list of violence done against them. For example, if you were a woman at a tech conference and heard a thousand different dongle jokes, POSIX forking references, images of naked women, etc, on the thousand and oneth dongle joke you might get angry too. That might be seen as irrational, because hey, it's just a joke... It's not. Culture is the sum total of our collective experiences, it's made of a gajillion little things put together. People have the right to complain about these little things, like t-shirts that don't fit women at conferences. If everywhere you looked you found 'little' examples of people like you getting the short end of the stick, you wouldn't be too happy either.

3) Sometimes these things might seem out of the blue because of the way collective consciousness works. Recently twitter directed a lot of attention at a company called Strange Fruit PR. The words Strange Fruit refer to a song about lynchings, where trees in the South 'bear strange fruit', aka dead black men. If we saw a PR company called Holocaust PR or something like "arbeit macht frei" PR (a common sign posted in nazi concentration camps that said "work makes you free") we'd also freak out. Strange Fruit is two years old and it just came to twitter's attention, so it seems out of the blue, but it's just happened now because a critical mass of people found out about it recently. Sometimes it takes a while to build the political momentum to have a conversation on something.

It's this "us vs. them" victim mentality that's the problem in mainstream America.

Black people in the US have as a group been enslaved, raped, economically enslaved, lynched, raped, denied votes, denied education, denied space in the community, denied housing, denied loans (see redlining), ignored, shot by the police, etc for the entire history of America (those where random examples). I don't think it's very human to tell them to ignore the past (and ongoing racism) and that there is no longer a 'us' and a 'them'.

If you disagree I would like to know why you don't think the above applies.

pvnick4• 12 years ago

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I agree that human history is filled with all sorts of atrocities, and slavery and race-influenced violence is among the worst. However, within the past couple decades, we are finally reaching a point where "true" equality is attainable, and I think that the only way we're going to get there is to see people first and foremost as human beings, not as part of some arbitrary collective (race/gender/sexual orientation/etc). We can appreciate those superficial differences, but when we let those differences define us then human nature is to qualitatively favor/disfavor certain groups.

As for the justice system, yes it is heavily skewed towards punishing minorities, particularly because of the drug war. I don't know how we fix that, but I do think ending the war on drugs would go a long way.

Your post can be summarized as believing we have not made as much progress as I think we have, but I am a bit more optimistic, and we need to begin converging on a permanent state of affairs, being carful not to over correct, lest we increase racial tension and regress. The only way towards true equality is to learn from our history, but at the same time look to the future while being careful not to make the same mistakes. This means that modern individuals belonging to historically disenfranchised groups should not receive preferential treatment just because their ancestors were mistreated. We need a healing process, not pay-back. It's the quickest, most painless way we're going to eventually reach true harmony as a species.

rockmeamedee4• 12 years ago

edit: forgot a word in 1) insert 'say' between the word 'to' and the racial slur.

ceejayoz• 12 years ago

The idea that certain groups of people (blacks, women, gays, etc) need compulsory protection at the expense of other groups (white males), induces a sort of resentment as a response to what is perceived to be a witch hunt.

The difference between this and a "witch hunt" is that real witch hunts didn't find a bunch of witches.

_aoou2• 12 years ago

Racism may be an outdated 'idea', but in practice and many people's daily lives, it is reality. The American society is built on systemized racism (colonialism and slavery), and the existence and lack thereof of privilege within different groups of people is a direct result of this, and it needs to be changed, because the playing field is not level. Recommended reading:

http://www.timwise.org/2014/12/we-dont-need-nice-we-need-jus...

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thorncoyle/2014/11/an-open-lett...

pcthrowaway2• 12 years ago

While Einstein only fully stopped eating animals shortly before his death, there is some indication he also felt uneasy accepting the general attitude on animals as food for some time before that. This is prejudice that that most of us have yet to shake still.

RivieraKid• 12 years ago

It's subjective, I don't feel that eating animals is wrong.

pcthrowaway2• 12 years ago

Do you feel that it would be wrong to kill a healthy dog for food? While I get that morality is subjective, I think people would have said similar things about black people back when Einstein wrote this.

Igglyboo• 12 years ago

That "prejudice" is extremely subjective and has been going on for millions of years.

subdane• 12 years ago

In addition to the wonderful piece, I enjoyed the fact that he appears to be wearing a bad-assed, black leather jacket in the photo.

desdiv• 12 years ago

I highly recommend Jane Elliott's "Blue Eyes Brown Eyes" lesson for anyone who have not seen it yet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=uQ...

In any discussion about racism, the stratified-by-race-IQ-chart invariably gets brought up (crtl-f for "itjustdontwork" for its latest rendition in this thread). Jane Elliott's video helped me to find a new perspective on the IQ chart data.

arielm• 12 years ago

Einstein's simplification of this situation, even though it was made in a time where political correctness wasn't common, is a fresh view that reminds me how important it is to stop pronouncing racism and instead to each do our part in extinguishing it by action.

jxm262• 12 years ago

love this.

"A large part of our attitude toward things is conditioned by opinions and emotions which we unconsciously absorb as children from our environment. In other words, it is tradition—besides inherited aptitudes and qualities—which makes us what we are. We but rarely reflect how relatively small as compared with the powerful influence of tradition is the influence of our conscious thought upon our conduct and convictions"

just wow. This gives me alot to reflect on and goes much deeper than racial prejudices. This can be applied to alot of areas in my life. I was one of the top in my high school class for math, and skated through college pretty easily. Came out being kind of cocky then learned pretty quickly how little I actually knew. The past few years have really really given me perspective. Speaking for myself, I seem to grow much faster when I humble myself and acknowledge my areas that need improvement.

sysk• 12 years ago

I was about to quote the same paragraph. It is the one thing in this text that is truly timeless.

queensnake• 12 years ago

Such self-fondling pabulum around here. If Aristotle can be wrong, so can Einstein. See: IQ data.

I bet at least the number of people who posted want to say the same thing, but have refrained from posting. I bet frikkin' Paul Graham thinks the same thing (maybe gentler) - he's alluded to 'inexpressible ideas about race' (paraphrase) in one essay.

pas• 12 years ago

Hm, I might be misinterpreting your "IQ data" pointer, but just to be clear: variance of IQ in groups is much larger than between them.

Einstein: The Negro Question (1946)

Related Stories