Talk:Racism in Thailand

Light-skin dark-skin bias

The section on the 'light-skin, dark-skin' bias expresses unsubstantiated justification from the lens of Marxist cultural theory, namely that of Antonio Gramsci, which is completely scientifically unsubstantiated. It asserts that prejudice in Thai society expressed toward black people is conditioned by contacts with Europeans. At several places it asserts contradictory positions: with respect to the influence of lighter-skinned Chinese people who allegedly hold more prestigious positions in society, it asserts that prejudice is shaped by their wealth vs the poverty of darker skinned rural farm workers, which is a social myth and speculation. It doesn't however suggest that the Chinese themselves are to be "blamed for this." However, when it comes to prejudice against people of African descent, it asserts this prejudice arose from "contacts through the Vietnam war and western movies." This is simply wrong, since it would suggest that racism in Thailand did not exist before the 1960's, an absurd position given the status of and sentiments toward Laotian people and many Thai minorities, or the racist views of the Chinese empire for many thousands of years where Han Chinese people were called "master race" or "lead race," nor would it explain countries like Japan who have had racist attitudes and closed society for their entire history.

To blame what is a human problem on Western peoples who originated not just ideas about human rights, but in fact created the world infrastructure of civil society organizations, international law and the UN itself, repeatedly referred to in the article, misses the point of racism and scapegoating. Historiaantiqua (talk) 11:34, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

The article doesn't lay this out greatly, but I think you're mixing up what should be separate points. From my unresearched understanding, (1) racism and xenophobia are certainly widespread in Thailand and predate 20th-century Western cultural influence; (2) certain prejudices, e.g. those against Black/African people, were likely absorbed through Western media, while many Thais nowadays are still oblivious of the political incorrectness; (3) the prevalent beauty standard viewing light skin as favourable isn't recognised by most as racism today. Does this make a bit more sense? --Paul_012 (talk) 12:16, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

That's precisely what I'm challenging - the idea of cultural absorption through the movies. This is a widely-believed idea, that people are "taught to hate." Why did anyone hate before we had movies? Racism is an inborn biological adaptation for disease contagion avoidance. When different groups of people came together, results were often catastrophic - some had developed immunity to diseases others hadn't. As well, biologically we are predisposed toward genetic similarity, since evolution motivates in us to pass on our genes, and those more similar to us are in essence fulfilling that collectively more than those who are different. This is not to say that we cannot use reason and understanding to better ourselves and overcome our nature but I believe the reasoning of the article doesn't stand the test of scrutiny. Western movies did not propagate prejudice against black people. While there were movies in which black people were portrayed in servant roles such as gone with the wind and the like, all western movies that I'm familiar with and correct me if I'm wrong largely presented prejudice, racism and discrimination in a negative light and most certainly since the 1940s practically all movies produced by Hollywood other than those for simple entertainment have had a culturating role in encouraging the growth of the human psyche toward a more accepting orientation. To posit that racism towards black people is caused by the very movies that preach against racism, even were we to accept the idea that one can teach someone something that is already inborn in all humans, how would we justify the acculturating aspect of movies that can be said to promote racism even though I don't know of any but not the acculturating influence of those movies which is the vast majority of them that preach against racism?

My point is that racism is the default position, anti-racism the accultured position. Current race theory and critical studies suggest only white people are racist - but even they, if you read them closely, know they're wrong. They simply do it as a strategy presuming that their methods move society toward betterment. Historiaantiqua (talk) 09:39, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Sorry - last point. Preference for lighter skin is due to neoteny. Neoteny is the phenomenon that emerges in species who have had a long evolution - the longer a species evolves the more it resembles in its adult stages the appearance of its infant and adolescent stages. This is because the choice of mating is made of individuals who appear more youthful. Since in humans females choose who to mate with, the selection of youthfulness in males results in eventual feminization if males also - if you look at what human females looked like 15,000 years ago for example you'll see they exhibit very masculine features. Both males and females are feminized over time bec what we associate as feminine is actually neoteny. Neoteny is best understood as human appearance before the infusion of testosterone. Test darkens the complexion. Females and children are always more fair than adult males. So the attraction to fairer features is not a consequence of associating sociopolitical status - ie working in the fields vs working in an office - that is a theorized correlation that is sociological, but not biological. Biologically we know why in every human race the lighter skinned people are considered attractive - neoteny. Historiaantiqua (talk) 09:46, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Hi. Can we bring this back to the article in question and provide some sources to the assertions made and relation to some of the passages in the artcle? This is not the place to discuss personal opinions on Cultural Studies. Thanks. SP00KYtalk 06:02, 3 May 2021 (UTC)