I was not sure whether to recommend or not...you go on a bit of a tangent, but I think your gist is correct.

In my experience, those exhibiting a sense of superiority over another race or ethnicity are usually the ugliest and/or dumbest specimens of theirs.

I'm not sure how/why the Brecht quote fits in there.

"... the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?"

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/156506.php

I think the second part of your blog (needing someone to look down upon) is way off - but, you raise an interesting point: is racism a manifestation of something else?

Some scholars suggested that racism is a component of group privilege (which also includes maleness and heterosexuality). Nothing to do with self-esteem, good/bad emotions, blah blah blah.

Group privilege explains the entirety of discrimination far better than any self-esteem based theory and it provides a clearer rationale for corrective action.

It also shows that affirmative action that deliberately favors one group against another is the same group privilege just turned on its head.

Unfortunately, the issue of racism in America has been deliberately politized from the beginning and its difficult for people to discuss it objectively.

There is a growing number of people who believe that the terms of affirmative actions should be redefined:
- focus on socio-economic status (not race or gender)
- enforce truly color- and gender-blind policies

That change in the definition would result in policy action that still reaches the same groups (African-Americans, women, etc) but it will do it without perpetuating group privilege.

Some universities have come to see that a diverse student body is good for everyone in the school. Some all-white or almost all-white colleges actively seek minority students, I don't know with what success.
Sonia Nieto of U. Mass at Amherst makes a strong case for the same in "Affirming Diversity."
Obama's tendency to want to address the poverty of all citizens, not just those of color, is comforting to many. But we are not color-blind yet, and won't be for a while yet, and if some affirmative action programs can get us there faster, it's fine with me.
You could argue that integrating the military was a huge boon to improved race relations; until the World War II soldiers mustered out, came home, and found segregation still in full swing.
The Clark experiments in the 1940's showed us a lot, but I supposed many people used the data filtered through their own filters: A strong majority of black children (aged 3-7, I think)identified the white doll as the "good doll", the black doll as the "bad doll".
Now you can raz-matazz about group identity and individual self-perception or self-esteem, but it seems clear that each time a person of color can succeed in any endeavor, it raises the level of possibilities that a minority can visualize and strive for.
Some people seem to think that minority acceptances and scholarships don't depend on academic excellence and grades; it just isn't true from my experience.

Interesting take David.

There's no doubt that race is fundamental to the pathology of conservative white American political behavior. But I don't think a conversation is what's going on. What is going on are the preliminaries before a massive fight. The mishandling of the reconstruction and our refusal to make clear once and for all since then that racism is out forever and ever and will never be allowed to return is haunting the nation. The white racist haters of the right, delusional as they are, believe they are the rightful owners of the country. They believe they are the only legitimate voice. They believe they are the "real" Americans. In their delusional fantasies they rise up and subjagate those who would displace them. That's what bringing the guns to rallies is about and the signs about them being unarmed in DC "this time" are warning of. They will attempt, as racists have in the past, to intimidate and bully the entire nation to do their will. Talking does nothing to lessen their efforts. In fact, it encourages them to go to even greater and more hysterical and dangerous lengths. They understand force, not just physical, but sometimes physical force. We, as a nation, are going to have to make it clear by whatever means necessary that they and their racist views will never again be allowed to hold power. They are finished. Before it is all over, some of them will become violent. It has always been the case in the past and we must deal with their insane, terrorist behaviors swiftly and decisively when the time comes, and it is coming. Hard to know when, but it can't be too far off now. Time to conclude the "conversation" once and for all.

David -- I think you are honing in on something essential, and also dysfunctional, about our American society; you are right, imo, that we are all about winning and losing; we are either winners or we are losers and never the twain shall meet. Hence the maniacal chant of "we're number one" or "USA,USA..." at sporting events -- we cannot bear to lose, or even be perceived as losing.
Why? Because the cost of losing, in America, is dismissal, derision, the humiliation of being shunned... or worse, castigated, in the sense of color and class.
All the debates -- about healthcare, about the economic "recovery," about education -- all of them are about winners and losers.
How did it happen? That a country founded in the principle, if not the practice (or the practice, if not the principle) of DEMOCRACY ends up, two hundred years later, being one of hierarchy? And the South is relevant in this regard, as it is a cliche that, in the south, the hierarchy goes like this: white men, followed by their children and their hunting dogs, followed by their wives and/or their black amahs, followed by white men "from off," followed by white women from off... followed by -- god help them -- black or mixed race men. Foreigners are not even on the table of discussion.
I weep for my country, which I love but also revile, in its current state of non-union.

There is a certain history the Europe has the we do not share. Europe has been invaded, partitioned and bombed to rubble more times than one can remember.

This has an effect on how one views the world and their own area. They just don't get that uptight about most things.

C

This has an effect on how one views the world and their own area. They just don't get that uptight about most things

Not exactly. Here's a recent example:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/world/europe/01france.html

Your view is a very simplistic stereotype, one which seems to have a lot of attraction to Americans with some kind of inferiority complex about being American. If you want to play "comparative cultures," we don't really rank that low on the whole the "fear of the other" and xenophobia thing. Actually, there's a lot of evidence for the argument that we rank quite high. That Times' story made me think of how ironic it was that they gave us the Statue of Liberty and we emblazoned it with Emma Lazarus' poem.

I lived on 30 bucks amonth for food for a period of ten months.

I lost 90 pounds. That was the good news.

I had tv but no cable. three religious channels and the big four. I remember my ten bucks being late and this hamburger commercial used to DRIVE ME NUTS.

Someone says to himself, hey I 'need' a car. which means he needs some outlandish car payment every month which barely covers the interest on the loan which is 'subprime' no matter how you look at it. And the more expensive, the more expensive the maintenance and insurance. All this after paying the license fees.

Now he is looking at a payment half the size of his mortgage.

now he needs seven or eight decent suits and a redo on the basement...

Pretty soon the guy making two hundred big ones a year has nothing in the bank. He lost his pension a year ago.

His sixteen year old already costs him fifteen a year at the private school and next year college will cost forty grand.

No wonder the SOB thinks he is in hell. And his wife picks up thirty or so from the department store desk job........

Then peeps are constantly hitting on both of them for contributions.

Meanwhile, some guy is gopher Wisconsin is pulling in 75 g's from his car wash and he does not have a worry in the world. Owns the small rambler he got from his parents after they died and an employee of his keeps his 98 Olds runnin fine.

The 'rich guy' thinks that between property taxes, sales taxes on big items, state income tax, federal income tax...all his problems stem from the government while at the same time, his employer get ninety percent of its gross from government contracts or as a result of tax credits given to its employers.

There is so much ego involved in all of this as well as cultural influences that the economics of both examples becomes less and less relevant.

My take is that the puritan hatred of the "loser" as one whom God has cursed and the fear of carrying that stain is really the motor of American life and that black people are the sacrificial "loser" or whipping boy, which permits even the most lowly (in his own perception) white person to feel superior to someone. By electing an African-American to the office of president (winner in chief) the USA has just taken out a lifetime membership card in the "losers club" for large (huge?) percentage of its population.