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We Should Discuss The “Hamitic Myth” More

It’s one of the underlying “justifications” for racism.

Ted Bauer
4 min readJan 29, 2024

I went to Tulsa this past weekend and went to Greenwood (site of the Tulsa Race Riots) and the Greenwood Rising museum, which covers race and black entrepreneurship in Tulsa, and has this quote on the side of the building:

That was cool. Applies to addiction too, as a side note.

While in the museum, which I am sure a lot of MAGA types would say “is designed to make you feel bad about being white,” I did think a lot about racism and race relations and whatnot. I didn’t “think” about it in the “I will do better” or “I shall examine my own biases” set, because most of that stuff and those sayings seem pretty performative. Instead, I was thinking a bit about the roots of racism.

At this point, I think a lot of people who remain staunchly or subtly racist are doing so because:

  1. That’s how their family is, so it’s what they know.
  2. They want to belong to a tribe of sorts, and racism feels like an easy way in.
  3. A minority did something bad to them, i.e. robbed them on the…

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Ted Bauer
Ted Bauer

Written by Ted Bauer

I write about a lot of different topics, from work to masculinity to relationships and social dynamics, I.e. modern friendship. Pleasure to be here.

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