As a white male myself, I guess I'm answering your question in the affirmative by even presuming to post an answer to it at all. Surely the question you asked is so broad that no one could reasonably answer it in the negative. Racism exists: some people or practices are racist. Sexism exists: some people or practices are sexist. There: I've said it, and I defy any reasonable person to deny my assertions or call them "illegitimate." Now, it's a harder and more interesting question exactly how much a white male can say about racism or sexism without losing credibility on those issues, but I'm inclined to think that a white male could, in principle, become the world's foremost authority on racism and sexism, and the burden of proof would rest with anyone who said he couldn't speak legitimately on this or that particular aspect of those issues: we'd be owed an explanation why not.

Perhaps examining the root meaning of "privilege" could help us unpack this question a bit. The term means "private-law" - or to put it another way - the laws that operate for most persons do not apply to some particular thing or person or group. For example, one might have "privileged information" which means it is not available to most others.

When I teach a college class of students from a wide variety of socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, I am keenly aware of the disparity of their life circumstances. But the very fact that they are in college is a form of "privilege" insofar as the vast majority of human beings (across cultures and time) have not had access to higher education - and advantages that follow from this privilege may continue to accrue throughout life, regardless of race, gender or class.

When we look at various and exceptional gains that appear to be generated by groups, we see real clusters of advantages in terms of race or whatever other category/social marker you choose. The term White privilege suggests that the question of color does not occur to white folks - precisely because they are the "normative" human in some societies; others are outliers identified with markers such as "race." "White privilege" - even if dirt poor and uneducated - exists because the social laws that apply to them differ than from the "others". Think how different is the mundane experience of shopping or driving and how one is followed or pulled over based on perceptions of race.

The prosperity of persons of European descent is not neutral data or statistical fact, but must be understood within a whole context of a dominant culture that skews advantage in a particular way, unevenly, to the group deemed to be the norm. White males have been at the top of the pyramid with white women reaping the rewards of privilege by attaching to an elite male (i.e. a "good catch!").

A great question - I hope others will respond to give a more fulsome reply.

Yes, in the United States, the child of a black and white couple is typically labeled black. Unfortunately, many do not recognize the historical relationship between racial categorization and white privilege. In short, whiteness was conceived in the 18th Century as a mark of privilege. Racial categorization was about maintaining the dignity, the citizenship, the rights of white people. It was also about the denying non-whites these same privileges and rights.

It is worth noting that these racial classifications are social constructions that have changed throughout history. For instance, people of Irish, Italian, and Slavic heritage were not always considered white in the United States. I strongly suggest the documentary film Race: The Power of An Illusion (http://www.pbs.org/race/000_General/000_00-Home.htm).

Nevertheless, I would seriously challenge (i) the idea that mixed black and white children ‘just look more like black people than white people’ and (ii) the idea that ‘people will assume he or she is black until informed that there was a white parent.’ Mixed-race children turn out in various heights and builds, shapes of face, texture of hair, and skin of amazingly diverse hues. Some mixed-race children are a spitting image of their white parent, just one shade darker. It is not that people do not detect that there is a white parent involved, it is that when we run into ambiguity, tradition would have us assign the mixed-race child to the non-white race. Such is the racial categorization that is assigned to a person from the outside.

But what about the identity we claim for ourselves? Racial identity for a mixed-race person can be quite confusing, considering that he or she is often beset with competing cultures, traditions, and allegiances. Linda Martín Alcoff captures it well when she writes: "I am not simply white nor simply Latina, and the gap that exists between my two identities – indeed, my two families – a gap that is cultural, racial, linguistic, and national, feels too wide and deep for me to span. I cannot bridge the gap, so I negotiate it, standing at one point here, and then there, moving between locations as events or other people’s responses propel me. I never reach shore: I never wholly occupy either the Angla or the Latina identity. Paradoxically, in white society I feel my Latinness, in Latin society I feel my whiteness, as that which is left out, an invisible present…" (“Mestizo Identity”).

There are a lot of complicated issues here! But let me just address one.

Let's suppose it true that black Americans do, as a whole, have lower scores on IQ tests than do white Americans. To suggest that there might be a biological explanation for this fact is to suppose that African Americans are, as a group, (i) biologically different from white folks and (ii) in some relevant respect, biologically similar to each other. That is, there has to be some relevant biological feature that black people generally have that white people generally do not. That is not itself a racist idea, but it is, so far as anyone can tell, just plain false. Black people have various genetic features that causes them to have dark skin, but these genetic features are not significantly correlated with very much else. And, indeed, I recall reading a year or so ago a study someone did that suggested that the skin tone of the early migrants to Europe changed within a couple dozen generations.

Now, as I said, the idea that black people are biologically distinguished as a group, in ways that go beyond skin tone, is not itself racist. But it is at the root of much racist thinking. It was generally supposed in the 18th century, for example, and by folks as smart as Thomas Jefferson, that black people were fundamentally and importantly different from white people, and that was part of what justified their racism. But if the only thing black people have in common is dark skin and African ancestry, then it's hard to see what would justify treating such people in the ways racists would prefer.

There is much wisdom on such matters in work by Anthony Appiah.

I doubt whether we should feel that we ought always to treat everyone entirely equally to avoid being called racist. We are allowed to have preferences and sometimes these will be on racial grounds, perhaps, provided that those preferences do not systematically discriminate against people in ways that do them harm. Unless we had some fairly fixed preferences, it would be very difficult to discriminate among different sorts of people in any way whatsoever, and dating is based on such discrimination. It is as well to be aware of one's prejudices and to consider whether it is worth trying to challenge them, but there is nothing wrong in acknowledging them and recognizing their role in defining a personality.

Blind dates are fun because they force the individual to respond to partners with whom one might not otherwise consider going. On the other hand, if every date were to be a blind date, this would not be evidence of having an open mind but rather of a lack of character.

Hm, your question is so deep yet so brief that one wonders what is motivating it. But perhaps a brief question initially warrants just a brief answer. I imagine that racism is a position that holds (1) that (physical) race is a meaningful/legitimate category or way of classifying human beings and that (2) different qualities tend to be found in people of different races and that (3) some of these qualities are more valuable than others. Having stated it so baldly and so roughly it is NOT obvious why it is wrong; in fact it may well be correct (although actually proposition (1) is definitely a hard one to defend empirically, and proposition (2) is so statistical in nature, admitting of so many individual exceptions, that it is probably useful as a practical guide to behavior, if that is how people who endorse (10-(3) probably want to use it.) But of course what makes it "wrong" to most people is that it is (a) factually wrong (ie either one or more of those three propositions are false, or perhaps the specific qualities judged to be 'more/less valuable' are wrongly so judged) and (b) even if it's factually correct, the type of behavior it sanctions is morally objectionable for any number of reasons... (but details here would have to be worked out by looking at specific cases of alleged racism ....)

just some thoughts.

ap

What seems to be at issue in this question is not racial discrimination, in terms of which the question begins, which would seem to imply that what's at issue is negative bias towards people in virtue of their race, which certainly wouldn't be an aesthetic, but a moral issue; the second sentence suggests that what's really at issue in the question is the nature of the basis for distinguishing among people with respect to their race, which is a distinct matter, and which need not--although, admittedly, it tends to--have moral and political implications. Now there is no doubt that individuals from different races often appear different--even if, as recent empirical work has suggested, there is little to no genetic difference between such people, so that they are not essentially different, even though they appear different--and it does not seem implausible to me that one might, whether because of habit, preference or other reasons, find individuals of certain races less attractive than those of other races. The mere fact that one finds individuals of certain races more attractive than those of other races need not itself have political and moral implications, and if in saying that one preferred individuals of certain races to those of other races, one were merely signaling one's aesthetic preference, this need not reflect on one's moral status at all, for the aesthetic preference need not have moral implications. Given current US law regarding freedom of speech, provided that one isn't in a politically sensitive position and thereby not speaking for oneself, but from one's position, it seems to me that there is no bar against the expression of one's preference for individuals of certain races, rather than others, regardless of whether in so doing one is expressing an aesthetic or a moral judgment, and no law could be passed that banned or even limited such expression. (Even if this expression did even incite others to mistreat members of the less aesthetically races, hate speech has been upheld in the US Supreme Court.) To be sure, if in expressing one's preference for individuals of some race(s) as opposed to others, one were making a value claim, in addition to registering an aesthetic preference, then even though, in the appropriate circumstances, even such expression could not be curtailed, such expression would reflect morally on the agent expressing such a preference, but if the preference were indeed merely aesthetic, then it does not seem to me that it would have any such implication whatsoever.

Some of the stereotypes that drive such preferences could, of course, be racist. But it is also true that the factors that attract us to others erotically are not generally matters of simple choice, and the mere presence of a preference "type" does not seem to me to be clear evidence of racism. Some of us prefer tall partners--is this "shortism" because we tend not to prefer short partners?

I think of racism as consisting in beliefs or practices that would deny equal moral, political, or economic rights to members of the targeted race. I don't think anyone has any kind of a right to have me attracted to them as a potential romantic or sex partner, so I can't really see how my preferences in these areas can have the consequences of denying anyone equal rights.

Having said this, I also think that many cultures do lend some support to sexism or to regarding women as second-class citizens. I wouldn't blame a woman from such a culture for having a preference against men of that culture.

By the same token one shouldn't be proud of say one'smother if she discovered a cure for cancer. It also depends upon what you mean by pride. A warm, postive feeling about the connection. I don't see any problem with that.

I don't think our emotions follow the dictates of reason. There are all sorts of feelings that we have that would not seem to be "justified."That is the way that we are put together. Some philosophers seem to imagine that we can talk/ reason ourselves out of such feelings. For the most part, i don't think so.

The questioner makes a number of factual claims which seem to me to need rather a lot of support. In fact, I'm not sure that any of the factual claims the questioner makes are correct.

Who is it that dismisses racially charged remarks by blacks as "nothing"? What examples of workplace mistreatment due to whiteness does the questioner have in mind? Which of the NAACP's leaders are racially biased, and what is the evidence of that bias?

Where is the evidence that "reverse racism" is rampant? Are whites being randomly stopped by black police when driving through black neighborhoods? Are whites suddenly more likely to receive jail time for drug crimes? or to receive the death penalty for capital crimes? Have dozens of studies shown that a job applicant whose details (e.g., name) make it clear that he is white is less likely to be interviewed than one who is clearly black, even if all relevant details of the CVs are otherwise identical? Have similar studies shown the same thing about applications for apartments?

Until some support is provided for these kinds of claims, I'm not sure there's much to be discussed.