# Let's talk about Racism



## Jamshyd

God forbid we do, as I'm now automatically a racist by suggesting we talk about it, right? .

*Problem a.* western society is _so_ overburdened with post-war guilt that not only has it sanitized all conceptions of race, but also stigmatized any discussion thereof that doesn't involve sanitation. 

*Problem b.* despite the above, people continue to use the "we" tongue. This happens even in corporations - one hears another talk in the "we" tongue to describe the corporation. Nationalism is as fashionable as ever, and people are at an almost dangerous scramble to define and redefine their collective identity. 

*Problem c.* how, then, does one reconcile the movement to sanitize the discourse from racial references with the equally mushrooming movement to increase the amount of "we"'s? 

*What I say*: If you say "we", then you are giving the other permission to generalize you in their discourse. A society which is built on, and breeds, collectivism has opened itself up to racial discourse. An individual that talks in the plural has given others the right to generalize him.   

End of case (for me).

Please challenge this (or, by all means, support it ).

p.s. For other PnS staff, please feel free to close or edit this thread it is already too risqué or if it turns uncivil.


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## Jamshyd

* (some of) My proposals:* 

1. Eradicating racism does _not_ start with the individual who is making racial generalizations*, but by the group being generalized. Therefore, group mentality needs to be abolished.

2. Being different is *not* a bad thing. As a matter of fact, I find difference fascinating. We need to learn to acknowledge differences and appreciate what we could learn from each other, rather than attempt to coagulate into blocs.

Just my 2 Drachms.

* Nor does it start by paranoia leading to the stigmatizing of any who dares makes generalizations.


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## DOB

I am racist


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## peer.review

Jamshyd said:


> * (some of) My proposals:*
> 
> 1. Eradicating racism does _not_ start with the individual who is making racial generalizations*, but by the group being generalized. Therefore, group mentality needs to be abolished.
> 
> * Nor does it start by paranoia leading to the stigmatizing of any who dares makes generalizations.



This proposal only brings into focus one aspect of racism, namely, interpersonal racism.  If we expand the concept of racism to incorporate internal and structural forms of racism, then we see that interpersonal acts of meanness based on race only make up a small portion of what can be deemed as racism.  Thus a "solution to racism" (if such a thing exists) ought to include macro, meso, and micro level changes.


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## ThaiDie4

Jamshyd, would you mind clarfiying for me what a " 'we' tounge" is??

I think I get what you are saying though, about the fact that Western society rarely talks about race. Everyone is so scared to be racist, that I guess they just pretends that we are all the same! I remember one night I was trying to point out one of my friends to another friend of mine and I go, "Oh he's the tall black guy over there." And she's like "SHHH don't say that!"... Say what? Black? He *is* black! 

I've had people tell me that "African-American" (I live in the U.S.) is a better word to use- but then, what if that person isn't African?? There are blacks from other places of the world besides Africa! That's a major pet peeve of mine. I have no idea what country my friend was originally from, so I'm not going to call him an African-American.

I don't know, I'm rarely in a situation where whites are the minority, but if I overheard someone refer to me as "that white girl over there", it wouldn't bother me. But, I always try to respect people... if someone were to be offended by me calling them out by race, I would appologize and not do it again! Plain and simple.


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## MyDoorsAreOpen

Race is so far not a scientific concept. (So far no one has been able to provide a statement about the nature of race that is testable or falsifiable.) Still, I think it is a socially valid concept. The word simply comes from the Latin word 'radices', which means 'roots'. Your race is your ancestral roots, however you and those people you belong to choose to conceive, trace, and define that.

Likewise, when someone is being racist, they are making a judgment about a person based solely on that person's roots, [and here's the catch] however THEY choose to conceive, trace, and define that. Whenever an act of racism is committed, the doer has decided that the recipient of the action does not share his ancestral roots, and on the basis of that alone, deserves to be held to a different standard of some sort, than someone whom he DOES see as sharing his ancestral roots.

Racism is, therefore, an act of othering, based on factors that the recipient of the action had no control over, namely his ancestry. That's 

Jamshyd, I agree with you that among Westerners, political correctness, and a squeamishness to even bring up the topic of race and racism, is a backlash (or a flipside) to the unabashed and horribly damaging racism that made the Colonial Age what it was. I understand the shame that the peoples of the West must feel for the deeds of their not-so-distant ancestors, since the legacies of the Colonial Age are as real as ever today. It's kind of a collective sheepish sense of "Welp, I guess nothing I could say could fix what I've done, so I'll just shut up now."

But, like you said, that doesn't do anything to address the real injustices that continue as a result of racism past OR present.

I'm all for openly discussing injustices, past or present, that are a result of one pedigree of people deeming themselves more entitled than some other pedigree. When the people involved aren't themselves vindictive or looking to lay blame, tabling these grievances can be a great way to build understanding and bury historical hatchets. I have, in fact, done this on a number of occasions. I've taught myself not to feel uncomfortable when issues of race come up.

Still, I see three potentially big problems with opening discussing race and racism, that have the potential to cause big rifts of mistrust to form between individuals:

1) The issue of generalities versus individuals. When you speak in generalities about a whole group of people who claim a common ancestry, how can I ever be sure how much, or how little, you measure ME by those generalizations? You can add all the disclaimers you want about me being your friend, but at the end of the day THOSE ARE MY PEOPLE YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT, whom I love and cherish!

2) The issue of 'doing the done thing' vs. 'doing what I personally think is right'. I can have perfectly rational reasons for breaking with social convention in a big way, in this case broaching the subject of race. But if no one receives me well, and no one can understand where I'm coming from in doing this, have I really accomplished anything other than alienating myself? Japanese literature is replete with moral dilemmas of this kind, of 'what I must do' (giri) vs. 'what I know is right or compassionate to do' (ninjou)

3) The issue of self-determination. You can make any observations about me you want. But no matter how well-founded those objective observations are, you can never know exactly what it's like to BE ME, and have lived my life. So too with groups. Most groups of people, especially ones that are bound by a common sense of roots and history, would agree that one must be an in-group member in order to have anything close to a full understanding of the mindset involved in being a member of that group. Even an in-group member, writing voluminously and floridly about his life as a member of his group, cannot bestow upon out-group readers a full sense of this, because out-group members are filtering whatever they read through a completely different set of filters. Therefore, that you would purport to TELL ME what it's like to be a member of MY GROUP... BAH!

I'm fond of saying that Chinese people are, on the whole, more money-minded than Westerners. I can defend this as objectively true, using controlled, peer-reviewed sociological studies. And indeed, I've had Chinese people tell me I'm spot on. But I've also been called a racist for making this judgement, because such a statement doesn't nearly do justice to the Chinese mindset in all its depth, and doesn't encourage a full and balanced appreciation of what it means to be Chinese. But if I can NEVER get a handle on what it means to be Chinese, should I even try to verbalize it? This is not an easy issue.

I find one thing that helps is to ask questions TO the individual, ABOUT the individual. ("I noticed you listen to music with a lot of bass. You into that, huh?") This invites the person to explain a difference in group preferences or tendencies, from their side (the inside), if this is indeed the case. ("Oh yeah. Us Kerblakistanis love bass-heavy music!") This is a great way to build understanding, without the possibility of causing offense by foisting assumptions on people.


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## MyDoorsAreOpen

^ Um... I don't think I have. 

What's ingrained in us instinctively is fear of the unknown. The antidote to that is facing our fears and getting to know what we've been fearing better.


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## L2R

the "politically correct" movement does as much damage as blunt racism in the separation of people.


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## jackie jones

Let us not forget to include adverse racism in this conversation.


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## Max Power

Racism is usually built around unfamiliarity with the culture of others. It stems from a fear of the unknown, if you will.

It's usually ingrained during childhood from parents who prbly got it indoctrinated from their parents.



I'd be willing to bet there's more racism in schools where there is a low minority-count verses a school where all races are blended together equally.


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## B9

It's an extension of ego - like a group ego - we are better than them mentality. No different from me considering myself better than you - or you (mistakenly) considering yourself better than I 

Yeah I agree about the paranoid sanitisation in europe - however the rationale behind it seems sound enough to me.

Risque Racism - how sweet.




MyDoorsAreOpen said:


> ^ Um... I don't think I have.
> 
> What's ingrained in us instinctively is fear of the unknown. The antidote to that is facing our fears and getting to know what we've been fearing better.




I'd suggest that more basic matters could be at work- reproduction of oneself & the creation of the ideal enviroment in which to do so may play some part - I am as ever speculating


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## ebola?

jamshyd said:
			
		

> p.s. For other PnS staff, please feel free to close or edit this thread it is already too risqué or if it turns uncivil.



If this is too risque, then our forum is not worth its salt. . . 
...
I am currently grading papers for a sociology of race seminar and am considering a dissertation project centering on racial tensions.  On the other hand, I would say that I am currently quite poorly versed in current racial scholarship: I as of yet don't really know how to conceptualize race, particularly in relation to ethnicity (in many cases, I find that the hyphenated monstrosity, "ethno-race", is necessary) or nationality (which gets complicated with the emergence of numerous trans-nationalisms).

As a rough cut, I find the following definitions useful (I think of these as ideal types that blur together):

Race: this appears to be an ascribed status, born of the exercise of political power made more expedient by "othering" particular groups on the basis of arbitrary physical, characteristics.  Here, I find the Foucauldian/Althusserian concept of interpeletation most useful, as do I the frame of internal colonialism.

Once set in motion, the reproduction of race becomes all the more viable insofar as it is refracted through the erroneous lens of biological essentialism.  Just to get things clear, race (even with the oft overstated nuances of Brazilian racial practices) is not a biologically valid system of categorization.  The rough cuts of race don't bear a great deal of genetic correlation beyond those genes coding for the visible phenotypic traits we usually associate with race, these genetic traits correlate unreliably with ancestry, and categories based on such traits are an arbitrary selection from continuous human variation.

People often make an analogy between breeds of dogs or cats and races.  This analogy is woefully flawed.  Humans are a very young species, and there has not been sufficient time for genetic specialization of sub-groups on the basis of populations separated by patterns of migration.  Nor have there ever been such separated enclaves of humans.  We're total sl00ts.    If you want to find a sub-group with the greatest amount of genetic variation, it is to be found w/in central Africans (the irony being that African Americans are very likely to be treated as a homogeneous group in the US).

Yet race is 'real' insofar as we are compelled to act on its basis.

Ethnicity: this appears to be more voluntary projects of identity, born of underprivileged sub-groups' reactions to practices of oppression (individual and institutional).  Think of 'Black' (a race) versus 'African American' (often denoting a tie to an ethnic project, but now shrouded in confusion, used as a 'politically correct' proxy for "Black").  It is a lot more easy to opt out of an ethnic project, as many Afro-Caribbean immigrants to the US will attest.

Nationalism: this appears to lie in between race and ethnicity in terms of ascription versus voluntarism, insofar as bottom-up political projects meet with the top-down exercise of power, through official institutions of power, many of which hinge on citizenship rights.  I think that Ben Anderson has it mostly right, although he highlights the voluntarist side of the coin.

Now, how do the three meet?  I am not sure at all, although it seems to be partially determined by the empirical case at hand.

enough typing for now. 

ebola


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## swilow

I am ism-ist. Or maybe ist-ism. 

 Racism is also a generalisation; I know racist people that are good and kind; I know tolerant folks that are wankers. Racist/racism is probably another way of simply categorising humans. Either way, we all came from monkeys and not that long ago, so lets just eat bannanas and be done with it.


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## swilow

ADDENDUM: I have never laughed at a racist joke nor told one. To me, the concept of a racist joke is an oxymoron.


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## karruters

Jamshyd said:


> I'm now automatically a racist by suggesting we talk about it, right? .


 ...what... the fuck?


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## L2R

swilow said:


> ADDENDUM: I have never laughed at a racist joke nor told one. To me, the concept of a racist joke is an oxymoron.



hows about jokes which exaggerate or make light of widely known stereotypical traits and attribute of a specific culture or race not to mock or embarrass but to create and share a bond of recognition, acceptance and empathy?


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## swilow

^Well, I see what your saying- but what I meant is that I don't find racism funny, hence my inabilty to perceive any real so called racist joke as an actual joke. The concept of racist humour, to me at least, cancels itself out.

That said, I would make a joke about aussie stereotypes without feeling as if it were racist.


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## Lady Codone

The idea of "race" is an illusion.  The DNA of human beings from all races is just alike, except for 1/1000th of ONE section on ONE strand (of which there are billions), which accounts for _all_ the physical differences between the races.  Race is just another variation in our species, just like different color cats, different breeds of dog, or any other phenotypical variation, yet many people view it as if we really were from different species.  

It's not our race that makes us different so much as our culture.  It just so happens that your race often determines which culture you're brought up in.  The only difference that can be attributed solely to race is physical appearance, and that's hardly a subject worthy of discussion unless you're particularly shallow.


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## ebola?

I just killed the meme thread in the lounge with white guilt (OLOLOL. . .) 



			
				Jamshyd said:
			
		

> Problem a. western society is so overburdened with post-war guilt that not only has it sanitized all conceptions of race, but also stigmatized any discussion thereof that doesn't involve sanitation.



I agree, and I'll add that this type of sanitization is near perfect for reproduction of institutional racism (concealed by the apparent death of overt, individual racial preference).



> If you say "we", then you are giving the other permission to generalize you in their discourse. A society which is built on, and breeds, collectivism has opened itself up to racial discourse. An individual that talks in the plural has given others the right to generalize him.



Fair enough.  But egotistically, if I make carefully considered, nuanced, statements 'we statements', mired in qualification, do I open the door to people making similar 'generalizations' about me?  I can live with that. 



> 1. Eradicating racism does not start with the individual who is making racial generalizations*, but by the group being generalized. Therefore, group mentality needs to be abolished.



I'm sure that you're well aware of this, but eradicating racism will hinge centrally on uncovering and dealing with the structural conditions that lead to racial disparities, outside of our own experiences of group action.  The key moment of this process will likely be international.



> 2. Being different is not a bad thing. As a matter of fact, I find difference fascinating. We need to learn to acknowledge differences and appreciate what we could learn from each other, rather than attempt to coagulate into blocs.



Your overall approach, while normatively sound, runs against most everything that we've observed in human beings thus far.  We appear to be rather adept at fashioning in-groups and glorifying them, but at the cost of establishing stigmatized out-groups.

Perhaps human society is at some sort of inflection point though--that is, perhaps prior human societies were broken into blocs based on the raw material fact that individuals would cooperate on a daily basis with those of their in-group and meet those of the out-group only in relations of war.  In contemporary society, though, there are numerous criss-crossing lines of cooperation, similarity and difference intersecting in almost all interactions.  In this way, everyone is some sort of socio-cultural 'hybrid', and this hybridity is becoming all the more obvious.

So perhaps human society is currently shedding the mindset congruent with cooperation on the basis of similarity and proximity, fashioning something more appropriate for conditions of intensified differentiation (and proliferation of sub-groups), and active role-appropriation by individuals.

To digress briefly and wrap up, the type of role-appropriation that we see in contemporary settings stands congruent with the above vision of Jamshyd's.  We tend, more and more, to hold membership in groups by applying the generality of the group to the particularities of our own actions and meanings.  Yet we appropriate from multiple groups, so while any individual may bear certain characteristics of his or her group-affiliations, no group attributes are appropriated completely, and each appropriation from the group stands tempered by appropriations from other groups.  So perhaps the recognition of this fact is the first step toward reconciliation of in-group/out-group conflict.

I appear to be an optimistic Durkheimian here--quite odd. 

ebola


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## Lysis

I really think the racist word gets thrown around too much.  I know there are people who seriously hate people of other colors or cultures, and yes, I believe it's disgusting, but I don't think pointing out stereotypes is racist.  

For instance, a couple of days ago, my upstairs neighbors had a flood in their kitchen.  The water was gushing into my house really badly (they had a fridge leak).  The problem was that they speak little to no English.  I did get pissed because I had an entire living room with water everywhere and I couldn't simply go over to them and say "hey guys! we have a problem!"  I don't think I'm racist for getting pissed that these people only speak spanish.  I don't hate them for their race, but it's one of the annoying stereotype of latins - they don't want to speak english.

Every stereotype has a hint of truth in it.  I don't think it's racist.  I equate racism with extreme hate...like hating someone so badly for their color that you want them dead.  I also don't think racism is as prominent anymore.  I think the racist groups are being pushed into the shadows, and that's just where they need to be.  It's not like you can walk around proclaiming your loyalty to the KKK without people disassociating with you.


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## swilow

^You could probably have made it pretty clear without using words what the problem was to these spaniards. If anything, get frustrated by the actual flooding, not the fct that these people couldn't speak english. That seems to be a real side issue. 

Stereotyping, while not always racist, is pretty discriminatory. Sure, there are certain facts about certain peoples; but what about the ones that don't adhere to these so-called facts? The danger of stereotyping is that one cannot see the individual in the group. It hinders progress, and in truth, makes little sense on a logical level.


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## Max Power

swilow said:


> ^You could probably have made it pretty clear without using words what the problem was to these spaniards. If anything, get frustrated by the actual flooding, not the fct that these people couldn't speak english. That seems to be a real side issue.
> 
> Stereotyping, while not always racist, is pretty discriminatory. Sure, there are certain facts about certain peoples; but what about the ones that don't adhere to these so-called facts? The danger of stereotyping is that one cannot see the individual in the group. It hinders progress, and in truth, makes little sense on a logical level.



Along those same lines, I believe perpetuating stereotypes hurts those who don't fall along those stereotypes.

When people spread the idea that:

"X race is known for being or doing Y" where Y is some negative attribute/stereotype.

Then ALL people belonging to X race, unfortunately, get thrown under the bus.

What's funny is that Y can also apply to a multitude of other races. Not just X. 

So while Y might be a legitimate issue/problem that needs to be addressed, I think all the negative energy or anger gets pointed at race X. And unfairly so.

If that makes sense to U.


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## rachamim

Jamshyd: Hahahaha. You know, I am of course going to comment on the incongruity of a person only 1 generation removed from the Middle East questioning the Collective Mentality but then perhaps this is what unquestioningly qualifies you as one of the people best able to appreciate the distinctions being made.

Using the pronoun "we" does not limit others to generalities, nor does it subvert individualism. When one has siblings, and one talks of them is one negating one's own individuality? The individuality of those siblings? 

The sense of self is important but humans are social animals. More than that need for "community" is the need for protection against those outside the group. Huamns, being animals, have a base nature and sad as it may be, animals respect strength.

You can smile and make jokes all day but if I have a loaf of bread and your child is starving you will do what it takes to get my bread, include killing me. If you recognise that hurting me will definitely cause not only yopu but you AND that child to die you will think long and hard about it and more times than not decide against taking that bread.

Nationalism is not a modern invention as Europeans imagine it to be. People held loyalty to city states eons ago, against all other entities outside that city state. It is a tried and true survival mechanism that enables humans to obtain a distinct advantage over other humans and so it will outlive all iof us, just as it preceeded all of us.

MyDoor: " 'Race' is not a valid term and does not exist 'scientifically'.": Yes it does, but not BIOLOGICALLY. It certainly exists ANTHROPOLOGICALLY.

Biologically there is race as well if you want to play the semantics card, the "Human Race." But, in the sense MyDOor meant it, true, it does not exist biologically. We are all the same biologically and the pysical variations are miniscule if truly indexed.

Antropologically speaking though race does exist as auseful indexing of those otherwise minor variabilities that offer that which is unique. How is it indexed? Cranium Dimensioning (often misunderstood by those outside antrhopology to pretain to that pseudo-science eugenics, but it does not have a damn thing to do with intellect), Blood Type Grouping, Finger Print Indexing but suprisingly (to many) it does NOT involve skin colour.

A Tamil from southern India, a so called "Aborigine" from Australia, the average Arab nd any Nord all qualify as purely Caucasian. Yep, all "White." Now, you can take an African tribesman who is mocha brown and that same Tamil who is 2 shades darker and that African will be "Black" (Negroid) while the Tamil is "White" so that at the very least "Race" confuses the issue more than anything.

On that note. Jamshyd made a point about "fear of racism" stifling honest debate/discussion. Political Correctness is a curse and I despise it to no end.

Thai: "People in the US have said it is better to refer to Blacks as 'African-Americans' but what if the person being described did not come from Africa...Blacks come from places other than Africa.": Assuming we are talking about Negeroids, they only actually come from Africa.

You have groups that come close, like so called "Negritos," like the tribes living in my home island of Mindanao but they had THAT label applied to them in days gone by, before the wonders of mopdern science that prove no known connection to modern Negroids.

Though, if one wanted to play games with ths issue, we all come from Africa if the dominant theory holds true (Better not tell "Peking Man" though!).

If you are in the Americas, it would be extremely unlikely for you to ever see a Negrito. Ergo, a person with black coloured skin, broad nose, so called "woolly" (hate that adjective in THIS context) hair then the person either came from Africa or their ancestors within the last 400 years did. The term applies equally either way.

I have found "Afro-American" just as acceptable, or "Afro-Carribbean" as the case may be, and so on.


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## MyDoorsAreOpen

^ I agree that bonds of roots and kinship become much more divisive and exclusive, and matter much more, when people feel threatened. The threat doesn't even need to be real -- fascist pundits have been able to conjure up widespread xenophobia and racism in their homelands, simply by convincing the masses their way of life is under threat.


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## rachamim

Beamers: "Racism and Xenophobia (NOT neccessarily the same thing mind you) are Survival Mechanisms.": True, BOTH are but they are also no longer needed with the world as it is. We have the ability to integrate/assimilate that which we accept and reject that which we do not without resorting to what inevitably develops into violent exclusionism.

One Survival Mechanism that evolved to negate such over rejectionism is the more palatable Endogamy. Hate to always introduce my own "Flag" into it but we Jews mastered it and were able to cease total genocide as a "Survival Mechanism." Too bad we exterminated so many groups along the way but we were certainly not unique. Any group who did not do so is no longer in existance.

"Racial Profiling...": You make a serious mistake correlating 'Profiling' with 'Racism'. Profiling as practiced by Americans hinges on the retarded but scientific Profiling as practiced in Israel has proven utility.

First, let me explain that Jews and Arabs are not only the same, exact race, but the same sub-classification as well: SEMITIC.

Indeed, if anyone cares there is a very exploitative piece of art by some Swiss poseur who has taken photos of Jews and "Palestinians" and has found exact look alikes in each group, and in another installation has a hodgepodge of photos where people can take a stab and guess which one belongs to which group, and of course noone can ever tell. If anyone cares, mention it and I will post the links.

In any event, we Profile based on characteristics that have nothing to do with one's biological appearance. When an American cop pulls over people for "Driving While Black" as the issue is labeled, it is pure ignorance at work. Just to note that I have had countless instances where I have been subjected to Reverse Racial Profiling for being very clean cut and fair skinned in the South Bronx Projects where I had a flat until very recently and so I do relate to the issue on a personal, subjective level.

IF Americans were to be properly trained in the practice and then were to apply that training correctly it could do some real good.

If Americans get nervous with Arabs on planes I have never seen it. I mean, I have heard of 2 or 3 cases soon after 9/11 but in all my travels I have never even seen strange looks and I just flew into NYC a few days ago.



"Most wars are due to racism.": Wrong, and they are NOT due to religion either. Most people do not realise it but most wars are fought over land and its natural resources and religion, or to a much lesser extent racism and/or natonalism are merely ideological vehichles for cohesion.

War is one thing I am sad to know well and I challenge anyone here to name 5 wars in all of history that were not rooted in land and land issues. Appropriation of land for wealth (and sustenance includes wealth) is the root of all conflict.


Ebola: "Comparing Human Race to 'Breeds' of cats and dogs fails miserably. Humans were vey young as a speciees.": Ebola you were making great stride until THAT. How old do you imagine cats and dogs are? We are ancient in comparison! 

It is not an apt comparison BECAUSE "Breeds" have been artifically created by ebforced breeding practices and the only way to absolutely obtain this same lack of variation is via the enforced practice of Eugenics, a horrid idea that I pray is never realised, even remotely.

It is intersesting because until the late European Renaissance racism does not seem to have existed. Rome had black emperors. The only places that really held such feelings of superiority, Han China, Japan amongst known places seem to have done so due to concerns of cultural inferiorirty with relation to other groups more than any kind of Superiority Complex.

"Humans have not been around to develop genetic specificity due to extreme isolation resulting from migratory or other behaviors...": OK, 2 words: Andamese and Japanese. 

Those 2 groups have much different histories from what is known, and both disprive THAT assertion. Mind you, there are others but those are the easiest to research for anyone interested in lack of genetic variation in 2 different sized genetic pools.

"It is ironic that while Central Africans probablly show the most genetic diversity, Afro-Americans are most often treated as a homogenous entity which, given the truth in Africa is counter-intutive to say the least.": Well, in Ameerica the deonominator has to rely on the core commonality tied by culture more than genetic patterns because due to the nature of Afro-Migration to the Western Hemisphere they (Blacks) have been robbed of their original cultural heritage, and actual geographic root(s). So, in developing a shared identity through 4 centuries of mostly racist persecution and ill treatment they have naturally concentrated those few core attributes: Skin colour, cultural commonalities, etc., etc.


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## Lysis

swilow said:


> ^You could probably have made it pretty clear without using words what the problem was to these spaniards. If anything, get frustrated by the actual flooding, not the fct that these people couldn't speak english. That seems to be a real side issue.
> 
> Stereotyping, while not always racist, is pretty discriminatory. Sure, there are certain facts about certain peoples; but what about the ones that don't adhere to these so-called facts? The danger of stereotyping is that one cannot see the individual in the group. It hinders progress, and in truth, makes little sense on a logical level.



The only problem I have with stereotyping being considered bad is that no one considers GOOD stereotyping bad.  For instance, I've seen a few threads on BL where the OP claims that it seems like drug users tend to be really smart geniuses who don't fit in (paraphrased, of course).  Of course, plenty of other people chime in to agree.  If we can't say most black people are lazy, then it's wrong to think most drug users are smart.


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## Max Power

Lysis said:


> The only problem I have with stereotyping being considered bad is that no one considers GOOD stereotyping bad.  For instance, I've seen a few threads on BL where the OP claims that it seems like drug users tend to be really smart geniuses who don't fit in (paraphrased, of course).  Of course, plenty of other people chime in to agree.  If we can't say most black people are lazy, then it's wrong to think most drug users are smart.



I think it's safe to say that some black people are lazy and some drug users are smart.

It's also safe to say that some black people are hard working and some drug users are stupid.

The problem arises when people start saying, "Oh, you're a __________? You must automatically be ___________"

People need to understand that we are all individuals, unique in our own way. It's unfair to jump to a conclusion about someone (regardless if that stereotype is a positive one) without really getting to know that person first.

Lazy people (and hardworking people) exist in all races. There are intelligent (and not so intelligent) people in all walks of life.


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## swilow

Lysis said:


> The only problem I have with stereotyping being considered bad is that no one considers GOOD stereotyping bad.  For instance, I've seen a few threads on BL where the OP claims that it seems like drug users tend to be really smart geniuses who don't fit in (paraphrased, of course).  Of course, plenty of other people chime in to agree.  If we can't say most black people are lazy, then it's wrong to think most drug users are smart.



That is some bizarre reverse logic there. All stereotyping is pointless because it doesn't consider individuality. Good/bad= well, they don't apply all that much IMO- what does apply is whether, via a stereotype, any truth can be gleaned about a subject. Which it can't. The nature of stereotyping means that truth is obscured.

BTW, your whole post has stereotyped BL; right here "I've seen a few threads on BL where the OP claims that it seems like drug users tend to be really smart geniuses who don't fit in (paraphrased, of course).  *Of course, plenty of other people chime in to agree*. "

That may be so, in some areas of Bluelight; not all. Keep thinking


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## rachamim

IF drug use is part and parcel of the human condition, and it is UNDENIABLY, it serves that users would encompass every segment of every society...and they do.

BL is a website. Participation requires 2 things, computer access and and time, something poor users are not going be able to come up with in any real way.

I came to NYC last week, and when in the US I must switch from my regular Maintenance substance of morphine, and enroll in methadone programmes because of drug laws here, and social conditions. If you were to enter maybe 99% of the programmes here in NYC you would most likely see an overwhelming number of very poor racial minorities. Does that then mean all addicts are Puerto Ricans on welfare?

Of course not, it simply means that in ONE environment they predominate. If you were to go to Betty Ford, or Malibu you would see very wealthy, and mostly white  (and also Jewish which is actually not one and the same) patients.

BL has people with time to spare, and computer access. People chiming in on BL maybe trying to boost their own egos, but I would imagine it is more of a case where they are actually in touch with reality.


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## slimvictor

Interesting topic. 
I hope to respond about my own thoughts when I have some time.
For now, I will post a relevant article that I found interesting.

Our Racist, Sexist Selves
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: April 6, 2008 in the NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/opinion/06kristof.html?scp=1&sq=racist sexist selves&st=cse

To my horror, I turn out to be a racist.

The University of Chicago offers an on-line psychological test in which you encounter a series of 100 black or white men, holding either guns or cellphones. You’re supposed to shoot the gunmen and holster your gun for the others.

I shot armed blacks in an average of 0.679 seconds, while I waited slightly longer — .694 seconds — to shoot armed whites. Conversely, I holstered my gun more quickly when encountering unarmed whites than unarmed blacks.

Take the test yourself and you’ll probably find that you show bias as well. Most whites and many blacks are more quick to shoot blacks, no matter how egalitarian they profess to be.

Harvard has a similar battery of psychological tests online (I have links to all of these from my blog, nytimes.com/ontheground, and my Facebook page, facebook.com/kristof). These “implicit attitude tests” very cleverly show that a stunningly large proportion of people who honestly believe themselves to be egalitarian unconsciously associate good with white and bad with black.
The unconscious is playing a political role this year, for the evidence is overwhelming that most Americans have unconscious biases both against blacks and against women in executive roles.
At first glance, it may seem that Barack Obama would face a stronger impediment than Hillary Clinton. Experiments have shown that the brain categorizes people by race in less than 100 milliseconds (one-tenth of a second), about 50 milliseconds before determining sex. And evolutionary psychologists believe we’re hard-wired to be suspicious of people outside our own group, to save our ancestors from blithely greeting enemy tribes of cave men. In contrast, there’s no hard-wired hostility toward women, though men may have a hard-wired desire to control and impregnate them.

Yet racism may also be easier to override than sexism. For example, one experiment found it easy for whites to admire African-American doctors; they just mentally categorized them as “doctors” rather than as “blacks.” Meanwhile, whites categorize black doctors whom they dislike as “blacks.”
In another experiment, researchers put blacks and whites in sports jerseys as if they belonged to two basketball teams. People looking at the photos logged the players in their memories more by team than by race, recalling a player’s jersey color but not necessarily his or her race. But only very rarely did people forget whether a player was male or female.

“We can make categorization by race go away, but we could never make gender categorization go away,” said John Tooby, a scholar at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who ran the experiment. Looking at the challenges that black and female candidates face in overcoming unconscious bias, he added, “Based on the underlying psychology and anthropology, I think it’s more difficult for a woman, though not impossible.”

Alice Eagly, a professor of psychology at Northwestern University, agrees: “In general, gender trumps race. ... Race may be easier to overcome.”

The challenge for women competing in politics or business is less misogyny than unconscious sexism: Americans don’t hate women, but they do frequently stereotype them as warm and friendly, creating a mismatch with the stereotype we hold of leaders as tough and strong. So voters (women as well as men, though a bit less so) may feel that a female candidate is not the right person for the job because of biases they’re not even aware of.

“I don’t have to be conscious of this,” said Nilanjana Dasgupta, a psychology professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. “All I think is that this person isn’t a good fit for a tough leadership job.”

Women now hold 55 percent of top jobs at American foundations but are still vastly underrepresented among political and corporate leaders — and one factor may be that those are seen as jobs requiring particular toughness. Our unconscious may feel more of a mismatch when a woman competes to be president or a C.E.O. than when she aims to lead a foundation or a university.

Women face a related challenge: Those viewed as tough and strong are also typically perceived as cold and unfeminine. Many experiments have found that women have trouble being perceived as both nice and competent.

“Clinton runs the risk of being seen as particularly cold, particularly uncaring, because she doesn’t fit the mold,” said Joshua Correll, a psychologist at the University of Chicago. “It probably is something a man doesn’t deal with.”

But biases are not immutable. Research subjects who were asked to think of a strong woman then showed less implicit bias about men and women. And students exposed to a large number of female professors also experienced a reduction in gender stereotypes.

So maybe the impact of this presidential contest won’t be measured just in national policies, but also in progress in the deepest recesses of our own minds.


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## rachamim

Those tests smack of dime store psychology. Facial expression, subliminal signalling all facor in so much more than obvious physical attributes like skin colour.

Basing a complex label like "racist" soley on incremental millisecond responsiveness in a hypothetical situation 99.9+ humanity will never face is worth nothing more than any other party trick.

The danger of course is that most people wil not have that realisation and thereafter colour their lives (pardon the pun) based on some automatic analysis that negated any and all specific context and conditioning.

There are so many things with tests like that, and this is not the place for me to build on it but do not be too hard on yourself about some micro-second of a difference...but then perhaps you were simply being fascetious.


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## BiG StroOnZ

*Racism exists because people are easily offended.*

*Racism stops when people stop getting so offended.*

When people call me a Guido, they think it's offending me but it doesn't at all. It's actually a compliment. The same should go to every single other culture, if they could just let go of their arrogance and move on. 

Politically Correct is also hurting the world as mentioned earlier in this thread. I don't demand people call me Italian-American everywhere I go, needless to say that I'm considered by every corporation, and government consensus as merely a "Caucasian" when my skin gets darker than a Latino in the Summer. Whereas, everywhere you go it seems that these census documentation required for getting a job (applications) or any other related literature that requires you to state your "Race/Ethnicity" They have outlined a limited amount of what people can be. You're either (I'm sure I missed some, but you get the point):

Native American
Pacific Islander
Asian
Hispanic/Latino
African American
or...
Caucasian
OTHER 

Nobody complains that it's so general when it comes to being White, or even Other but I'm sure everybody sits there reading the paper that is "White" and is like wait? This is a weird technicality here. I know I do. Do I make a big deal about it... No, because it's meaningless and is a waste of energy.


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## swilow

> Racism stops when people stop getting so offended.



Dunno there bruv, I reckon getting lynched by the KKK is fair grounds to take offence. Call me sensitive I guess


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## BiG StroOnZ

^This is more related to racial violence which comes from ignorance; repeated hate passed down generation for generation without reason

While we're making scenarios: going into a particular neighborhood where you would get jumped just for being a "white" ...because you "don't belong here"

Reminds us of the 50's and 60's all over again


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## TwisteTexan

racism will stop in millions of years when we are all blended into one mud race...I'm proud to be part native american and part czech! Whats wrong with that racism? Shit... And P.S. for all you bastards prowling around for some lightskinned person badmouthing the darkies to pounce on here I am... Go ahead, cause I think blacks are far more racist than the majority of whites I have met. Blacks keep the issue going. Shit, racism is far greater than whats going on in the south though, People who bring the shit up are the real racists... lets have a dialogue... NO. Do people not have purebred dogs, and cats and cattle. THATS RACIST TOO just on another species level... Let the racists be... It's not gonna stop in our lifetime... Just maybe a huge race war one of these days... Sorry if I was offensive.8) I didn't wanna water it down.


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## slimvictor

rachamim said:


> Those tests smack of dime store psychology. Facial expression, subliminal signalling all facor in so much more than obvious physical attributes like skin colour.
> 
> Basing a complex label like "racist" soley on incremental millisecond responsiveness in a hypothetical situation 99.9+ humanity will never face is worth nothing more than any other party trick.
> 
> The danger of course is that most people wil not have that realisation and thereafter colour their lives (pardon the pun) based on some automatic analysis that negated any and all specific context and conditioning.
> 
> There are so many things with tests like that, and this is not the place for me to build on it but do not be too hard on yourself about some micro-second of a difference...but then perhaps you were simply being fascetious.



On the one hand, I agree that such tests might lack "ecological validity", meaning that they don't necessarily predict what real people will do or think in the real world.  They are creations of psychologists, and the results are not necessarily applicable to anything outside of the (very odd and "unnatural") situation in which they are presented - that of pretending to shoot characters, video-game-like, on a computer screen.

On the other hand, the claim that subtle factors such as facial expressions influence people's judgments "so much more" than obvious factors such as skin color is anti-intuitive.  It seems very unlikely to be true to me. Any evidence supporting your unorthodox viewpoint?


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## ThaiDie4

TwisteTexan said:


> And P.S. for all you bastards prowling around for some lightskinned person badmouthing the darkies to pounce on here I am... Go ahead, cause I think blacks are far more racist than the majority of whites I have met. Blacks keep the issue going.



Um, wow...

I think you took it to an innappropriate level my there friend. No doubt there are racists of all races, white or black and everything in between, but to label certain people as "more racist" than others is just turning around and making those very assumptions that you are protesting so much! It's a vicious cycle. Don't let someone's racism towards you in turn make you racist towards them and their race. Take how each person treats you as a testimate of that person's character, nothing more or less.


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## New

rachamim said:


> and mostly white  (and also Jewish which is actually not one and the same)




Thank you for saying that. Trying to explain that to people in the real world in my experience has been like trying to explain nuclear physics to a brick wall. Unlike other popularly hated groups of our time, being Jewish appears to be a theological difference to some people, and some people WANT to convert to Judaism for some reason. It is customary to dissuade them severely to see if they're serious, because asking to be Jewish is kind of like asking for a death wish, if history serves me correctly. It still boggles my mind why anyone would want to be anything besides what they were - Hell, I'll teach you about the significance of the Trinity myself, along with Jesus's teachings as the Logos on Earth. It just seems to me Racism is unhappiness with one's self taken out on somebody else.


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## MyDoorsAreOpen

Samael said:


> It just seems to me Racism is unhappiness with one's self taken out on somebody else.



Yep. I'd have to agree there. I've never met a militantly racist person who was truly happy and comfortable with their station in life.

I have, however, met perfectly happy and well-adjusted people who claim that IN THEIR EXPERIENCE, a generalization they hold about a different ethnicity has proven largely true. I don't think such people deserve to be branded as racists for voicing this generalization. But they may need to meet more people of that ethnicity, and get to know them better as individuals.

Samael, my wife and I have discussed this, and she definitely sees 'Jewish' as an ethnicity as well as a religion. At the genetic level, you guys are definitely a distinct population, indigenous to the Levant, and closely related to other peoples from there. One can belong to the Jewish religion but not the Jewish ethnic group, or vice versa ('Secular Jews'), but until recently both were uncommon -- if you belonged to one, you probably belonged the other too.

A good analogy can be made to another very ancient Middle Eastern people, the Armenians. The Armenians are an ethnic group and nationality with their own unique religion, which has done a lot to hold the ethnic group together outside of its homeland. Somewhere out there, there is a devout follower of the Armenian Apostolic Church who can trace none of his ancestry to Armenia. But this is uncommon. (Finding ethnic Armenians who don't practice their religion is a lot easier -- like Jews, their religion has a high attrition rate, and many of both ethnic groups' more famous people tend to be faithless, I've noticed.) So theoretically belonging to the religion and belonging to the ethnicity are separate, but in practice, they largely overlap, making the distinction mostly academic.

My wife invited me to convert to Judaism, and I may yet still. But one of the major stumbling blocks is that in my observation, 'feeling Jewish' has a lot to do with having been raised Jewish as a child, especially by a Jewish mother. I don't know if I could ever know what this feels like. To her and her family, this is a loyalty issue: without my formal declaration of membership, how can they be sure I'll stand by their daughter when INEVITABLY she and her people face persecution again?


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## KStoner6tb

What about reverse racism?  Comments?  I don't think what TwistTexan said was out of line.  That's what I mean by reverse racism.  It's keeping us from progressing because it's the way things are, which just slows the necessary evolution.

BET television...God only knows Al Sharpton would have a brain aneurysm if anybody thought of starting a WET.

It just seems the whole, equallity thing is kind of reversed now, and going in the opposite direction instead of uniting people as a whole which was "the dream".

I also believe that if you live in a English speaking nation(US) you should attempt to learn the language.  This is nothing against latinos or hispanics.  If my (white)friend who is raising a toddler at the moment, taught him Spanish for the hell of it, instead of English, I'd feel the same way.  Skin color is not a factor.  So I don't know where people get off claiming it's racist to expect your fellow (born here or elsewhere) Americans, because that's what you are when you move to this country, to speak English.


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## ThaiDie4

I know what you mean by reverse racism, Kstoner... I'm sure a lot of people have expierenced it, including myself, and its definently something not to just dismiss. But I think there is a difference in how you expressed that VS how TwistTexan did. To retaliate against it by judging a whole group of people as being "more racist" is being hypocritical. I wouldn't like to be judged for another white person's racism, so I wouldn't judge ALL blacks just because SOME are racist. There are racists of all colors.


----------



## New

MyDoorsAreOpen said:


> My wife invited me to convert to Judaism, and I may yet still. But one of the major stumbling blocks is that in my observation, 'feeling Jewish' has a lot to do with having been raised Jewish as a child, especially by a Jewish mother. I don't know if I could ever know what this feels like. To her and her family, this is a loyalty issue: without my formal declaration of membership, how can they be sure I'll stand by their daughter when INEVITABLY she and her people face persecution again?



Let me make it simple for you:Would you want to be Jewish even if you and your wife divorced, whereupon she proceeded to hunt down each of your family members?


----------



## MyDoorsAreOpen

^ Shomer fucking shabbas.

ThaiDye, I worked in a hospital where I clientele was predominantly Black, and I'm a skinny pasty white dude with glasses. I definitely copped a few attitudes from people who had clearly prejudged me based on appearance / ethnicity alone.

But these experiences paled in comparison to the vast majority of encounters that had nary a hint of racial tension, and were basically just two people talking. Some people even warmed to me who'd initially been on their guard.

Every ethnic group has members who are suspicious of outsiders, often for historical reasons that have worked their way deep into local lore, coupled with ignorance and unworldliness. Not everyone can change, but it's always a really uplifting experience when you've gotten through to someone that no, we're not all fuckers. We're people just like you, in almost all ways.


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## rachamim

Slim: "Rachamim said that facial cues matter more in perception that does 'race.' This seems counter-intuitive.": Admittedly it does seem like it would go again common sense but you have to realise that our psychology is both nature AND nurture.

Ever go to a playground and watch kids under the age of 8 or so? It does not matter what country it is, ethnicity, "race" or religion. All children at that time in their lives see people irrespective of race, though certainly learned behaviors have BEGUN pushing and pulling them.

Black children playing with white, and all combinations one can imagine.

Now, fast forward a few years, 11 or 12, anywhere in the world you will notice a marked difference.

There is alot to discuss if we wanted to get a decent grasp on this but time and bandwidth being what it is I will try to narrow it down for the sake of brevity.

I read a great article in the last issue of the Journal for the National Academy (US) of Sciences, by Kurzban, Tooby and Cosmides, 3 very good Evolutionary Psychologists at UC Santa Barbara. The piece, whose title escapes me momentarily talks about how the traditional mainstream Psych orthadoxy has held that when humans assimilate a new face they then slide the face into a pre-constructed figurative box, or file.

Kurzban et al postulate that we first recall that file/box and slide that face im AFTER that initial recall. In other words, our pre-conceived notions regarding physical parameters undoubtedly colour our future categorisations there after.

No brainer, right? Except that this "box/file" is never static. If you take a corn farmer from Iowa and drop him in Tibet all faces, no matter what they wear, what they do will look identical to one another. Give that farmer 4 to 6 months and the people around him wil be as varied as anyone in his Grange Hall back home.

It dates back to our distant past as clan based hunter-gatherers, when we lived in groups of no more than 150 people. New faces represented possibility of disease, violence, competition, loss and so on. 

So...We developed our amygdala, and Fusiform (it is in the infero-temperal region of the brain) to hone in on these variations in subliminal cues and physical construct.

Ramachandran at U of C San Diego is great on Facial Recognition and how "type" and "individuality" interplay to create subliminal response that in the case of the Harvard nonsense is being construed for inherent bias.

There are physical cues in both respondant and example that need to be taken into account.

Ramachandran offers that if a person like that Iowan Farmer I used in a previous analogy is acclimated over a medium length of time, their responsiveness, obvious and subliminal, will be effected towards a much different result.

Sometimes you have people like Phelps at NYU who postulate that "Startle Response" is a universal survival mechanism employed by all members of one race versus any other but that, to people who think like I do on this issue, is truly counter-intuitive.

To buy into that other school of thought you have to first accept that ALL people of 1 physical type are always going to subliminally fear those of another physical type as probable (not just "potential") threats... As would our envisioned member of a 150 person clan based community in the distant past.

True milisecond response goes much deeper than any obvious cue like colour. "Halo Effect" is a good sub-facet if Evo.-Psych if you care to delve into it. 

We see a face, black, white or whatever and we are drawn to the face. It is not colour attracting or repelling because our interaction with other humans is anything but that simple.

People like Phelps remind me of Cesare Lombroso, who believed it all boiled down to such simple mechanisms. I am not denigrating Lombroso because in his time his Eugenics-related (crap) work was on the cutting edge. Yet today we look back and he seems once removed from Hitler. Perhaps one day people will say the same about researchers boxing eveything up so neat in...another pun...BLACK AND WHITE.

(Edited, as always, for spelling)


----------



## rachamim

Samael: "Thanks Rachamim for noting the distinction between "Jewish" and "White.": This is a potential minefield but I will attempt to be clear about my views.

As I must have noted early in this thread, "Race" does not exist. It is an Athropological concept to better classify different cultures, and at this point is on the cusp of extinction because its limited utility ended long ago.

"Jews" were a People long before they adopted Ethical Monotheism as a faith/way of life. When Jews did adopt their religion, they first and foremost saw it as a tribal faith. That was not unique. It has existed all through time, and continues today in an increasingly rare number of groups, Druse, Yazidi, Alavi, Alawi and most Hindu groups. 

Jews were unique though, for among other things, allowing conversion to their tribal religion, and thereafter fully accepting converts into their group, bestowing Peoplhood/ethnicity in addition to their religion.

The only Jewish groups that have forbade conversion have been radical offshoots like the Samaritans and Karaites, both of which rescinded this ban, at least partially in recent years as they battle extinction due to dwindling numbers. Karaites in turns have come back into the mainstream for the most part and today there is no outward difference and the internal divisions (which I will not bore folks here with) are falling away as well).

But why are Jews not White? In the US Jews, until the 1950s in some places, were barred from hotels, universities, cafes, and so on. Yet, the more we were excluded the more we wanted it. We took new slave names (Jews traditionally never has surnames, except in Spain, and even there only when dealing with non-Jews), anything to sound Un-Jewish, moved out of our mostly self-imposed urban ghettoes in the US and Canada, and within the last 2 generations have truly become as American as the Americans (funny saying that since it was a Jew who financed the American Revolution so who is more American than a Jew) and yet in recent years we begin to see Germany repeating itself.

In the early 19th Century CE/AD we began agitating for Emancipation, we adopted German surnames (funny but those so called "Jewish sounding" names in the US now), stopped everything we felt marked us as Jewish in anyway and of course intermarried with Germans.

This Emancipation happened quite rapidly and just as quickly as the Jews became "more German than the Germans" the backlash took place, culminating of course in the Holocaust.

I am NOT saying that the US is Nazi Germany and that the US will try to exterminate us. I am only saying that just as in Germany we see a serious backlash beginning against us. The Walt and Mearsheimer Paper and all this anti-Israel crap which more than 9 times out of 10 is simply a vehichle for overt anti-Jewishness (i.e. so called "Anti-Semitism").

So...it remains as important as it always has been, for Jews to remember who the are.

In a broader sense, anyone who has either been to Israel or merely paid attention when seeing it on TV or in the media knows that most Israelis are tan to black in actual skin colour. Until the influx of Jews from the former USSR more than 70% of us were brown or black (in Israel). Now it is a bit over 60% so the basic point remains valid.

However, in recognising that most BLers are in the US and dealing with THAT frame of reference I phrased it in that vein.


----------



## rachamim

MyDoor: "Jews are an ethnicity as well as a religion, but this is a recent development.": Mostly true. We have always taken converts. Some of our most famous Jews have been such. King Davis was only 3/4th, Solomon's mum was a foreigner. Ruth? Joseph's sons? His wife? Moses married to the Midianite?

When 1 converts, even if they convert with a spouse so that both were not of Jewish "blood," their children will then live in a mostly Jewish enivornment like so many Jewish children do. Ergo, tend to marry Jews, and so within 4 generations that couple's progeny will be fully absorned back into our bloodline.

Because we practice endogamy to such a high degree our genetic pool is very narrow, and so outliers, like those marrying in are absorbed fully. Heck, we prefer marrying nieces and barring that 1st cousins so of course Israel is basically a nation of 3rd and 4th cousins...

"MyDoor's wife and he have discussed MyDoor converting...": My wife is a convert. She is Filipina. I could not have married her, even thought about it had she not first sought conversion on her own. I would not have entertained talking to her as more than casual acquaintances.

Obviously your wife was not raised traditionally, since you are already married. In any event, conversion should only ever be for truly spiritual reasons, never because of marriage, to give children less emotional conflict, and so forth.

Today the number of Jews marrying non-Jews, in the US, is in the low 60th percentil. In 1991 it was in the 40th. In 1954 it was 19%. In 1940 it was 3%. The trend is obvious.

That trend will continue barring some caclysmic event, and that is a shame but at the same time our religion and culture is alive and well.

"Secular Jews...": You are correct in that "Secularism" is new in Jewish Culture. ALL these secularised  and otherwise adaptive movements (Reform, Liberal, Reconstructionist, Humanist, Masorti, Conservative, Modern Orthadox, Chassidic/Hassidic and Ultra-Orthadox) are a riff on the same theme: Human Apathy, and egocentrism.

There is 1 thing, "Jew." Not everyone will strive to fufill their obligations and those that do strive will have varying degrees of success when doing so. Yet, in the end, it is the striving that matters (I have said as much in other posts).

Using labels like "Reform" and "Conservatism" is utterly ridulous. Both frew out of 19th Century CE/AD Germany and as I noted earlier, we all know how well their rationale went. What is truly amazing is that even after seeing what attempted assimilation leads to there are still Jews, mostly in America, who believe that they should do a better job at assimilating!

It boils down to this: There is G-D and the Law of G-D, and then there is striving to fufill the onus of the Law.

Wearing black clothes, a knitted skull cap versus a silk one, a shtreimel over turban, these are all meaningless. They are affectations, trappings and yet so many Jews wear and utilise them as a badge of allegiance.

You can go to any major Jewish gathering in NYC and see just by outfits and hats who belongs to which group. Underneath, all are Jews.

"The situation of Jews having a close intertwining of religion and culture...": True, we Jews do have that, as I said but Armenians are not like Jews because of 2 huge underpinnings: 

I) Jews were a People, and while nomadic adopted their religion. AFTER we had our religion we evolved into a sedentary People. Armenia like so many other nations were a well established nation long before Christ even came to Earth (if you beilieve he even did so), let alone the Armenian brand of theology.

II) Converting to the Armenian Church does not make you "Armenian." It merely makes you a worshipper in the faith shared by most Armenians.


"MyDoor has notices that Judaism has a large number of famous irreligious Jews, as does Armenia.": Well, think about it, not too many Chassidic kids are going to sing for Simon and Paula, yes? Not too many doing their routine at the Improv, and so on.


----------



## ebola?

Lysis said:
			
		

> Every stereotype has a hint of truth in it. I don't think it's racist. I equate racism with extreme hate...like hating someone so badly for their color that you want them dead. I also don't think racism is as prominent anymore.



Given your narrow definition of racism, you're correct.  However, it turns out that color-blindness is a handy ideology for the reproduction of institutional and structural arrangements that privilege a particular group at the cost of oppressing another.



> I think the racist groups are being pushed into the shadows, and that's just where they need to be. It's not like you can walk around proclaiming your loyalty to the KKK without people disassociating with you.



The KKK rose to prominence during the reconstruction that followed the civil war because Blacks credibly threatened white supremacy in the South.  In lieu of legal, institutional, and structural means, terrorism rose to prominence.  Now that whites don't need the KKK to maintain privilege, the organization has fallen into the shadows.



			
				rach said:
			
		

> Ebola: "Comparing Human Race to 'Breeds' of cats and dogs fails miserably. Humans were vey young as a speciees.": Ebola you were making great stride until THAT. How old do you imagine cats and dogs are? We are ancient in comparison!
> 
> It is not an apt comparison BECAUSE "Breeds" have been artifically created by ebforced breeding practices and the only way to absolutely obtain this same lack of variation is via the enforced practice of Eugenics, a horrid idea that I pray is never realised, even remotely.



Great point, although I believe that you add key nuance to my views rather than discounting them outright (as I believe that a longer quote would reveal).  When humans undertook selective breeding of dogs and cats, it allowed for the cultivation of genetically distinct sub-groups in a remarkably short period.  If Eugenics were to have succeeded/ ends up succeeding (yuck!), it would stand the chance of constructing the magnitude of racial difference that it originally set out to combat, yet unlikely in its own image.

It is intersesting because until the late European Renaissance racism does not seem to have existed. Rome had black emperors. The only places that really held such feelings of superiority, Han China, Japan amongst known places seem to have done so due to concerns of cultural inferiorirty with relation to other groups more than any kind of Superiority Complex.[/QUOTE]

Correct, although I guess that all this changed when racist ideology became politically expedient for modern imperialist (capitalist) Europe. 



> "Humans have not been around [long enough] to develop genetic specificity [correlating with particular sub-groups] due [additionally] to [a lack of] extreme isolation resulting from migratory or other behaviors...": OK, 2 words: Andamese and Japanese.



I am not sufficiently well versed in the empirical literature, but I don't think that you disprove my overall argument with this group's distinct characteristics.  Fine.  There is a small human sub-population that underwent exceptionally strict and lengthy isolation, leading them to express richer genetic difference from everyone else than others in the human race do from each other.  This alone does not suggest that the vast majority of humans, whose ancestral sub-populations never experienced such stark isolation, separate into clear genetic sub-groups.  

And even if we did separate into clear genetic sub-groups, this would not suggest that race as we know it would map onto such groups (as you well know, I'm sure).

Besides: you've not yet presented data showing that the Andamese differ along a significantly wide genetic basis to provide evidence of genetically distinct human sub-populations.  It could be that the genetic differences between Central Africans dwarf those between the Andanese and other humans (but are sufficiently ample and reliable to discriminate the Andanese genetically). 



> Ebola:"It is ironic that while Central Africans probablly show the most genetic diversity [of any geographical sub-group of similar size], Afro-Americans are most often treated as a homogenous entity [in the US, particularly] which, given the truth in Africa is counter-intutive to say the least."
> 
> Rach': "Well, in Ameerica the deonominator has to rely on the core commonality tied by culture more than genetic patterns because due to the nature of Afro-Migration to the Western Hemisphere they (Blacks) have been robbed of their original cultural heritage, and actual geographic root(s). So, in developing a shared identity through 4 centuries of mostly racist persecution and ill treatment they have naturally concentrated those few core attributes: Skin colour, cultural commonalities, etc., etc."



Let's reason it out for a second: imagine that no Africans, Afro-Caribbeans, etc. immigrated to the US after 'we' secured 'our' slaves*, and imagine that all such slaves were drawn from Africa itself, not, for example, purchased from Latin American slave-owners.

African Americans would remain roughly as genetically diverse as the American or human population at large, as the vast majority of genetic diversity was present right there in Africa.

Thus, arguments parallel to mine apply to ethno-races (or whatever) who migrated voluntarily, as they are situated within larger populations 'ethno-racially' from them.  The sole possible exception would be an 'ethno-race' who are descendants of a particular sup-population that was genetically distinct within Central Africa (and for some reason, this genetic sub-population alone migrated out of Africa at a particular time, unaccompanied by those genetically distinct from them).



> Basing a complex label like "racist" soley on incremental millisecond responsiveness in a hypothetical situation 99.9+ humanity will never face is worth nothing more than any other party trick.
> 
> The danger of course is that most people wil not have that realisation and thereafter colour their lives (pardon the pun) based on some automatic analysis that negated any and all specific context and conditioning.
> 
> There are so many things with tests like that, and this is not the place for me to build on it but do not be too hard on yourself about some micro-second of a difference...but then perhaps you were simply being fascetious.



However, such tests successfully demonstrate that socialization in racialized societies can shape our split-second, unconscious impressions (particularly insofar as they relate to rich, socially derived schemata, even those we'd consciously reject).  Does that make someone 'racist'?  That's not the point, as it would be silly to place moral responsibility based on such unconscious tendencies that most people within America share.

The whole point is to inspire interrogation of the unconscious judgments so that we may make better-informed conscious evaluations.

And it's not just "dime-store psychology".  I used to work in cognitive psychology, and these types of tests' methodologies indeed check out (such differences in reaction-times point to differences in gut-level impressions that credibly influence conscious evaluation and action).  However, they say merely THAT something is occurring, not why or what should be done.

And. . .I have to go...more later.

ebola
*For the record, none in my family have been discovered to own slaves.  This doesn't make my ancestors ethically superior; rather, it reflects their middling class-origins and migration to the Northern United States.  Not that this matters now.


----------



## KStoner6tb

^^Why don't you tell me what Al Sharpton would say if I wanted to start a WET(white entertainment television)  to go alongside BET(black entertainment television)


----------



## New

rachamim said:


> Samael: "Thanks Rachamim for noting the distinction between "Jewish" and "White.": This is a potential minefield but I will attempt to be clear about my views.
> 
> As I must have noted early in this thread, "Race" does not exist. It is an Athropological concept to better classify different cultures, and at this point is on the cusp of extinction because its limited utility ended long ago.
> 
> "Jews" were a People long before they adopted Ethical Monotheism as a faith/way of life. When Jews did adopt their religion, they first and foremost saw it as a tribal faith. That was not unique. It has existed all through time, and continues today in an increasingly rare number of groups, Druse, Yazidi, Alavi, Alawi and most Hindu groups.
> 
> Jews were unique though, for among other things, allowing conversion to their tribal religion, and thereafter fully accepting converts into their group, bestowing Peoplhood/ethnicity in addition to their religion.
> 
> The only Jewish groups that have forbade conversion have been radical offshoots like the Samaritans and Karaites, both of which rescinded this ban, at least partially in recent years as they battle extinction due to dwindling numbers. Karaites in turns have come back into the mainstream for the most part and today there is no outward difference and the internal divisions (which I will not bore folks here with) are falling away as well).
> 
> But why are Jews not White? In the US Jews, until the 1950s in some places, were barred from hotels, universities, cafes, and so on. Yet, the more we were excluded the more we wanted it. We took new slave names (Jews traditionally never has surnames, except in Spain, and even there only when dealing with non-Jews), anything to sound Un-Jewish, moved out of our mostly self-imposed urban ghettoes in the US and Canada, and within the last 2 generations have truly become as American as the Americans (funny saying that since it was a Jew who financed the American Revolution so who is more American than a Jew) and yet in recent years we begin to see Germany repeating itself.
> 
> In the early 19th Century CE/AD we began agitating for Emancipation, we adopted German surnames (funny but those so called "Jewish sounding" names in the US now), stopped everything we felt marked us as Jewish in anyway and of course intermarried with Germans.
> 
> This Emancipation happened quite rapidly and just as quickly as the Jews became "more German than the Germans" the backlash took place, culminating of course in the Holocaust.
> 
> I am NOT saying that the US is Nazi Germany and that the US will try to exterminate us. I am only saying that just as in Germany we see a serious backlash beginning against us. The Walt and Mearsheimer Paper and all this anti-Israel crap which more than 9 times out of 10 is simply a vehichle for overt anti-Jewishness (i.e. so called "Anti-Semitism").
> 
> So...it remains as important as it always has been, for Jews to remember who the are.
> 
> In a broader sense, anyone who has either been to Israel or merely paid attention when seeing it on TV or in the media knows that most Israelis are tan to black in actual skin colour. Until the influx of Jews from the former USSR more than 70% of us were brown or black (in Israel). Now it is a bit over 60% so the basic point remains valid.
> 
> However, in recognising that most BLers are in the US and dealing with THAT frame of reference I phrased it in that vein.



The first part was rather educational. The second part is hard to quantify to younger folk today.

My last name is Spanish(most likely) with Hebrew meaning, probably as my ancestor's attempt to "walk the line" between Jewish and secular.


----------



## slimvictor

KStoner6tb said:


> I also believe that if you live in a English speaking nation(US) you should attempt to learn the language.



Who told you that the US is an English-speaking country?
English is *not* the official language of the US.
Many people speak English, but many speak other languages, too.

There are well over 300 languages spoken in the US.
Maybe they are all worthless, compared to your favorite language?
Maybe they just don't count, since they aren't English?
After all, you speak English, and so does nearly everyone around you, I would guess.

There were around 1000 languages spoken in North America in 1492. 
The main reason that they are not spoken now is that the US government engaged in intentional genocide and language-destroying mission. 

One way they did this was through the purposeful spread of diseases like smallpox.  Of course, of the natives that did survive, a policy of forced sterilization of native American women (in which the women were lied to, and told that the operation was reversible) was undertaken in the 1940s and 1950s.

Another way was for the government to forbid and punish the use of the language, which the US did until fairly recently, for speaking native lgs (and by *forcibly* sending all native children to boarding schools, separating them from their families).  Children caught speaking their native lg were subjected to* physical abuse and humiliation*. Removing the children from their ‘uncivilized’ homes and forcing them into English-only boarding schools didn’t leave the languages much of a chance at survival. This was an intentional policy of language extinction.

So, is this why the US is an English-speaking country?  Because the English-speakers killed or sterilized the natives, or forced them to stop speaking their languages?

When the country was in its infancy, the US was very close to making German the official language for a bit.  

Maybe you thought that it was an English-speaking country since you can't speak anything else?8) Just a guess. You seem locked into your culture and beliefs, and unable to grasp the idea that, in addition to your friends and family and other English speakers surrounding you in your life, other people have valid existences. Many of them were born in America and do not speak English, or do not speak it well.   Many came to America as adults, and do not speak English well, but they are Americans.  Just as your ancestors came to the US from somewhere, and most likely didn't speak English before arriving.  Isn't that what America is all about?

According to the 2000 census, 82% of Americans speak English natively.
According to my memory of a college textbook, around 85% of people are right-handed. Should we call the US a right-handed country, and look down on people who use their left hands?

There is nothing wrong with being a multilingual nation.
The US is an example of such a nation.
Considering the melting pot/mixing bowl descriptions of the US, it is no surprise, and the linguistic diversity of the country deserves to be celebrated, not dismissed, as you did.

Try learning another language sometime, or even living in a foreign country, and maybe you will start to understand what is beautiful about America.


----------



## ThaiDie4

MyDoorsAreOpen said:


> ^ Shomer fucking shabbas.
> 
> ThaiDye, I worked in a hospital where I clientele was predominantly Black, and I'm a skinny pasty white dude with glasses. I definitely copped a few attitudes from people who had clearly prejudged me based on appearance / ethnicity alone.
> 
> But these experiences paled in comparison to the vast majority of encounters that had nary a hint of racial tension, and were basically just two people talking. Some people even warmed to me who'd initially been on their guard.
> 
> Every ethnic group has members who are suspicious of outsiders, often for historical reasons that have worked their way deep into local lore, coupled with ignorance and unworldliness. Not everyone can change, but it's always a really uplifting experience when you've gotten through to someone that no, we're not all fuckers. We're people just like you, in almost all ways.



Absolutely :D I agree, it's definently a beautiful thing when walls can be broken down and people can just look at each other as people. I'm to know that most of your expierence was positive rather than negative in that regard


----------



## ebola?

KStoner6tb said:
			
		

> ^^Why don't you tell me what Al Sharpton would say if I wanted to start a WET(white entertainment television) to go alongside BET(black entertainment television)



Oh, because there are more interesting things to discuss than the rote, sensationalist argument that would follow.  This is assuming that you're not trolling.

Frankly, no one should give much of a shit what Al Sharpton says, let alone what he would say. . . 

ebola


----------



## KStoner6tb

ebola? said:


> Oh, because there are more interesting things to discuss than the rote, sensationalist argument that would follow.  This is assuming that you're not trolling.




Nah things are just getting way too theoretical, and I like keeping it more real.  Everybody has their theories, I'd rather discuss shit that really goes on, and how people feel about it.  



ebola? said:


> Frankly, no one should give much of a shit what Al Sharpton says, let alone what he would say. . .


Hahah point taken.  You know what I mean though.  I ain't trying to rock the boat(to the point of capsize) too much, just food for thought, and it's dinnertime.


----------



## TwisteTexan

Shit, thats an oldie but a goodie, yeah a W-E-T, white entertainment television... it would be war...
Racism is a wild multi faceted deal, I mean there are so many different examples of it, it must be human nature, no it IS human nature.  The problem is people use racism to push radical ideas or agendas.  I mean, the whites needed cheap labor, they used race and religion as an excuse to enslave many an African... I think racism is still very much present here in the south, and I don't think I was out of line, I mean did I say anything really offensive? I just stated the obvious.  Take a ride through Dallas, TX make sure you swing through Oak Cliff and Kiest & Polk, get out of your car and walk around... and see if you don't feel uncomfortable because of your race... It's real round here in the great state of TX...hell I feel racist for being proud to be a Texan! But I know I shouldn't people have just made SUCH an issue of it, especially with our first BLACK president, who cares? He's not even that dark, but the racists must point out that he's BLACK. I don't like being called white, i'm not fucking white, I'm tanned... Racial Minorities make a big deal out of it because society wants them to, It's human nature...  In the words of John Lennon...Let it Be.


----------



## swilow

^In the words of Paul McCartney you mean


----------



## KStoner6tb

slimvictor said:


> Maybe you thought that it was an English-speaking country since you can't speak anything else?8) Just a guess.



Actually, I'm quite handy with the espanol comparde.  You better ask somebody


----------



## TwisteTexan

Your location says japan, and that explains quite a bit...
slimvictor
"Who told you that the US is an English-speaking country?
English is not the official language of the US."

I love these types who pick your words apart and make some great conclusion that you are "mistaken"
Dude, there is no official language anywhere, except music maybe, but come on, English is the language spoke in America. Period. 
Yo habla pequito espanol para todos mojados vive(living?) en tejas, pero espanol es muy difficil para gringos? Tu Sabe?
I see ya Kstone, seems us texans have a pretty good window to watch the racism, and living in the south, we see the brunt of it... How can some scholar in Japan or England comment on racism when the closest they get to it is watching the news?
I mean yeah, you can comment and speculate, but until you get to ground zero, racist central, the southern U.S. you really are just picking apart words and testimony.
I'm a racist, and it's human nature. And to say you aren't a little bit racist, your lying to yourself... and i'm outta here... I don't know why I ever even opened this, guess to vent, and try to explain what it's like where racism is real.  

"There were around 1000 languages spoken in North America in 1492. 
The main reason that they are not spoken now is that the US government engaged in intentional genocide and language-destroying mission."

Slimvictor, those were the native american languages, and many native americans died of disease not genocide.  
And while your bad mouthing the U.S. Govt. atop your perch in the crowded machine they call Japan, why don't you go have a look at what your govt. does to it's own people. 
それをあなたのろば吹きなさい 
later...


----------



## ebola?

Kstoner said:
			
		

> Nah things are just getting way too theoretical, and I like keeping it more real. Everybody has their theories, I'd rather discuss shit that really goes on, and how people feel about it.



Getting way to theoretical is precisely how I 'keep it real'.  If we fail to move beyond our immediate perceptions and interrogate common-sense understandings, we remain fated to reproduce the types of misunderstandings that leave racism, particularly institutional racism and structural racism, intact.



> Hahah point taken. You know what I mean though. I ain't trying to rock the boat(to the point of capsize) too much, just food for thought, and it's dinnertime.



Fine.  I'll bite.  If an official "White Entertainment Television" were to emerge, Al Sharpton would flip out and say something that would exemplify the supposed reverse racism to which you point.  Al Sharpton, however, provides a ready straw man, a counter-point to the Rush Limbaughs of the world...


I think that de-facto, we _already have_ White Entertainment Television.  Most people have at least tens of white entertainment channels, hundreds if you have digital cable or satellite TV.

Part of white privilege, as it functions, is the ability to disregard race, to engage in 'race neutral' discourse, media consumption, and so-on, when that which is neutral is constructed as de-facto white.  Take a look at the "normal" popular prime-time programs (this would be excepting, say, BET, UPN/WB/CW/whatever it is).  People of color overwhelmingly appear as tokens and/or gross caricatures of cliches.

Now, this isn't to say that BET has succeeded as a valid Afrocentric identity-political program.  Consumption of BET ends up reinscribing racialized, othering stereotypes (in a very gross and cliched way) and produces docile consumers, for Black and White (and other) viewers alike.



			
				Twisted Texan said:
			
		

> [racism] must be human nature, no it IS human nature.



While it might be the case that it is human nature to exclude and dehumanize outsiders in terms of in-groups and out-groups, this needn't take on a racial character.  Hell, race as a concept has existed solely for a small minority of human history.



> He's not even that dark, but the racists must point out that he's BLACK.



Not just, or even primarily, racists.  A Black president remains a visible aberration (in a good way! ) due to rife institutional and structural racism and the continued barriers to success that they present to Blacks.



> I don't like being called white, i'm not fucking white, I'm tanned...



I believe it rather telling that only white people say such things.  It is easy to disavow 'the game' from a position of privilege within the game, as it is precisely from such a position that one benefits by claiming to stand on 'neutral' ground.



> English is the language spoke in America. Period.



Period?  More like "ellipsis". . . 
Speech communities in the US rooted in other languages demonstrate otherwise.  To the extent that individuals with to establish English as an official language, they simply wish to protect the status quo from racial and cultural change.

eblowla


----------



## slimvictor

TwisteTexan said:


> Dude, there is no official language anywhere, except music maybe, but come on, English is the language spoke in America. Period.



Um, I think you should be careful talking about things you have no knowledge of.  This is true for this point, as well as the rest of your post.
Wikipedia lists 116 languages that are the official language of at least one country.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_official_languages
For example, Dutch is the official language of Holland (along with West Frisian).
Danish is the official language of Denmark.
Mandarin is the official language of China.

The US does not have an official language. 

And is English really "the language spoken in America. Period." ???
As I stated earlier, 82% of Americans are native English speakers.
Are you just ignoring the other 18%?  That is a lot of human beings to ignore...
Maybe it is easy for someone as closed-minded as you seem to be. 
Maybe it is easy for someone as racist as you claim to be.
But if you had any real experience in some of the big cities of America - Chicago, New York, LA, San Francisco -  you would have heard dozens of other languages.  
This is part of the beauty of America.  By pretending it doesn't exist, you are trying to make everyone in the country like you.  Sorry, not everyone is as racist as you. Sorry, not everyone lives in the same world as you do.  



TwisteTexan said:


> Yo habla pequito espanol para todos mojados vive(living?) en tejas, pero espanol es muy difficil para gringos? Tu Sabe?



Actually, Spanish is a comparatively simple language, with few irregularities compared to English and a very easy spelling system, as well as comparatively simple morphosyntax. The fact that you said "Tu sabe" shows that you lack even rudimentary mastery of the system of verb agreement, which would require you to say "Tu sabes", since "tu" is a second person singular and it is in the present tense.  This is one of the easiest parts of Spanish to master, and so I have little choice but to conclude that you are not, by any stretch of the imagination, a Spanish speaker, despite your apparent attempt to show off. 
Additionally, native Spanish speakers do not use a pronoun, such as "tu", in such cases - they would simply say "sabes".  Again, this shows that you have little experience with the language.



TwisteTexan said:


> I see ya Kstone, seems us texans have a pretty good window to watch the racism, . How can some scholar in Japan or England comment on racism when the closest they get to it is watching the news?
> I mean yeah, you can comment and speculate, but until you get to ground zero, racist central, the southern U.S. you really are just picking apart words and testimony.
> 
> I'm a racist, and it's human nature. And to say you aren't a little bit racist, your lying to yourself... and i'm outta here... I don't know why I ever even opened this, guess to vent, and try to explain what it's like where racism is real.



Um, if racism is human nature, then why do you think that I can't comment on racism since I live in Japan?8)
You say that the closest I get to it is watching it in the news, but if it is human nature, as you claim, then don't you think I should have more experience with it than that?
You are contradicting yourself. 

Do you assume I have always lived in Japan?
I have experience living and traveling in more than a dozen countries.
I have lived in the US for more than 20 years.

I now live in Japan, which you seem to assume has no racism, but that is simply not the case.   I have experienced racism in Japan, as well as the other countries I lived in.  I have experienced it from both sides, as the majority and as the minority, which seems to be something beyond your imagination.  

Finally, I never said that I am not racist.  I do try my best to avoid racism, but I believe that some racism is inevitable in human beings.  However, this doesn't mean that we have free reign to ignore 18% of the US population or to say "What the fuck, since racism is inevitable, let's be really racist!".



TwisteTexan said:


> Slimvictor, those were the native american languages, and many native americans died of disease not genocide.



Well, the disease was, in many cases, intentionally inflicted upon them.  
Also, there was a clear government policy of intentional genocide.  
Just because you know nothing about it does not mean that it didn't exist.




TwisteTexan said:


> And while your bad mouthing the U.S. Govt. atop your perch in the crowded machine they call Japan, why don't you go have a look at what your govt. does to it's own people.



Again, your small-minded assumptions and contradictions make this a hard argument to participate in.
First of all, you said that I don't get close to racism in Japan, and now you want me to look at the Japanese government - presumably for its racism?  What does the Japanese government do to its own people?  I can think of many things, but I am having trouble guessing what you are referring to.
Second of all, why do you assume that I must be Japanese if I live in Japan?  Have you ever heard of people living in a country that is not their own?  Evidently not.  However, it is not that uncommon.

Sorry, if you want a rational discussion or debate, you'll have to come up with something better than that.


----------



## slimvictor

One more thing...



TwisteTexan said:


> それをあなたのろば吹きなさい



I have no idea what you are trying to say.
If you want to write in real Japanese, I will be happy to answer in Japanese, but that is just gibberish.


----------



## ebola?

Moderator's note: the biography and personal conditions of the poster leave unaffected the validity of her arguments, with 1 exception: if a poster deploys personal experience as a source of data, it may be scrutinized and critiqued with valid bearing on the quality of the argument.



> Again, your small-minded assumptions and contradictions make this a hard argument to participate in.





> Sorry, if you want a rational discussion or debate, you'll have to come up with something better than that.



You are standing on the cliff's edge of personal insult, which is unnecessary at best (yes, I know, you were provoked...but I don't believe in vengeance in general.


----------



## swilow

> English is the language spoke in America



Hmm, not too well by some  :D


----------



## slimvictor

ebola? said:


> You are standing on the cliff's edge of personal insult, which is unnecessary at best (yes, I know, you were provoked...but I don't believe in vengeance in general.



Point taken.
Thanks for pointing it out in a gentle way.


----------



## ThaiDie4

slimvictor said:


> Um, if racism is human nature, then why do you think that I can't comment on racism since I live in Japan?8)



^ Most definently! I haven't had the priveledge to do much traveling outside the U.S., but I've been around people of different races\ethnicities enough to know that racism is not simply a "black" vs. "white" thing. 

It's not a matter of a specific race, or a specific country, its the fact that some people are threatened/scared/etc. of people who are different than themselves.

And I also agree that simply accepting racism because it's the easiest\most natural thing to do is wrong!!

Before going to college, I didn't have as much interaction with other races besides my own as I do now. I ended up living with a black girl my past year of university for the first time. Yes, admittedly it was a little uncomfortable at first, simply because it was unknown territory (not because I dislike other races!) and I assumed I wouldn't be able to relate to her on a lot of things - I couldn't have been more wrong. She's a great friend of mine now. Sometimes you have to push your comfort zone a little bit. I can look back now and say maybe I was a bit ignorant prior to our friendship, I'm not ashamed to admit it. It's a lesson learned.

When you get down to our biological makeup, there are not that many differences between people of different races. A professor of mine gave us some statisical breakdowns, and I do not recall exact numbers, but as humans we all have more in common than we do different (this is obvious, but its something to keep in mind!)

Culturally is where I think you start to see more seperation. And if we can all agree to disagree and have mutual respect for each others beliefs and lifestyles, that's a big step to overcome racism. Granted, that's not always an easy thing to do, and there are some people you will just never accept... but at least dislike them on a personal level, for what they DO, not what they look like. The _skin color_ isn't what makes a person act how they act, or believe what they believe, etc. One again, all of this is probably obvious, but I just wanted to put it out there anyway.

Sorry for the long length, but *certain* posts in here just anger me a bit. Maybe its because I deal with racists in my bfs family and it's just something I've grown to really despise.


----------



## TwisteTexan

You people who spend all day picking apart someone because they have a differing point a view make me stay on the Substance Abuse/Harm reduction side of the fence...You come voice your opinion on this sucker and someone is gonna make an ass of you.

I am sorry for anything offensive I have said, I didn't try to make anyone feel like an idiot though.

I am wrong, I commented on this whole thing from my seat in Texas.
I know racism exists all over, I said it's human nature, humans are all over...
Yes, some countries do have official languages, I learned something today. But go to Holland, who has an official language, and I bet there is someone speaking english...But yes you would make a great lawyer.
But let me ask a rhetorical question, 
What language is our constitution and all other American law written in? (besides a little latin...geez i'm sure i'm an idiot here too but oh well)
English.
Where can you talk to damn near anyone with the english language, America...
Who founded our colonies before we were even america, the english!
So, even though it's not official, it's pretty damn close.

I apologize for my small minded contradictions assumptions and exxagerations... 

And p.s. slim, about me speaking spanish... man I worked in a mexican restaurant for 3 years, i know lots of spanish, mostly food words and dirty shit , I never claimed to speak good spanish, in fact what i thought I was writing was " I speak a little spanish for all the wets in texas but spanish is difficult for gringos" I mean there you go, I said I speak a little, and you took 3 hours dissecting tu and sabes... Slim, if you got a problem with me PM me, your probably double my age and intellect but you ain't gonna sit and pick at me. Yes I said ain't, it means aren't...

But on the issue of racism, I wish people would just see it's something that happens and it is so deeply driven into society (at least where I live) that we won't get around it in our lifetime and the best way to rid ourselves is to teach our children to have open minds... I surely will. Thank you for your time.


----------



## TwisteTexan

accidently posted twice, sorry and peace.


----------



## Rodya

rachamim said:


> I am NOT saying that the US is Nazi Germany and that the US will try to exterminate us. I am only saying that just as in Germany we see a serious backlash beginning against us. The Walt and Mearsheimer Paper and all this anti-Israel crap which more than 9 times out of 10 is simply a vehichle for overt anti-Jewishness (i.e. so called "Anti-Semitism").
> 
> 
> In a broader sense, anyone who has either been to Israel or merely paid attention when seeing it on TV or in the media knows that most Israelis are tan to black in actual skin colour. Until the influx of Jews from the former USSR more than 70% of us were brown or black (in Israel). Now it is a bit over 60% so the basic point remains valid.



I have to disagree with what you're saying about antizionism being linked with anti-semitism (though anti-Jewishness is a better term). I don't like the state of Israel, I don't like it's militant politics or how it handles foreign affairs. I don't like how it gets preferential treatement amongst middle-eastern nations (its the only one allowed to have nuclear weapons). And I don't like how the state of Israel has a very strong lobby in the U.S. (its our ally and is supposed to help us in themiddle east (which we shouldn't be in in the first place) and so we give it billions of dollars of aid every year. Its more of a parasitic than a symbiotic relationship). 

As a matter of fact, I have been to Israel (though I am not Jewish) and I foundit to be an absolutely fascinating nation, however I noticed they way that Israel treated Arabs and I was disconcerted. I also noticed the militarized nature of the state, the border patrol stations when crossinginto Palestine was ridiculous. This is a police state.

The entire principle upon which Israel was founded is equally absurd; land was taken from a people that lived there for centuries, and given to the Jewish people as some sort of pology for the Holocaust. Really, the Palestinians have every right to hate Israel, and though I am against terrorism and militant Islam, I can't say that Israel is any better.

That being said, I have no problem with Jews, I especially find Orthodox of Hascidic Jews to be fascinating in terms of their depth of knowledge of Jewish Scripture and their devotiuon to their faith.


----------



## ebola?

resident Texan said:
			
		

> You people who spend all day picking apart someone because they have a differing point a view make me stay on the Substance Abuse/Harm reduction side of the fence...You come voice your opinion on this sucker and someone is gonna make an ass of you.



_Off-topic general exploration of parameters of discussion:_
1.  I don't spend all day doing this.  I find this type of debate to be good recreation.
2.  I am a sociologist, I'm currently grading students' work for a course in the sociology of race, and I'm considering a research project centering on racialization.  Basically, I am into this shit, I am beginning to become competent with it, and I've been trained to interrogate logical and empirical validity.
3.  Bracketing personal insults, why do you feel threatened when your views face interrogation?  What sort of discussion do you want to have?  Something like, "This is my view. . .", and then people will reply with "Yeah, me too," or "No, but I have experienced [some non-sequitor]. . ."?

Sounds kinda mundane to me.  I tend to learn a lot more when critically examining, analyzing, synthesizing, etc.  Please try not to take it as an attack.

4.  Didn't you yourself try to discount someone's views because he was Japanese?  People tend to come across more credibly when they do more to mitigate or conceal their hypocrisy (the latter being the human condition).

In sum, if you feel like an ass when someone criticizes your views without resorting to personal attacks or other forms of malice, you may feel like less of an ass after having scrutinized your own views.



> I didn't try to make anyone feel like an idiot though.



This is not my intention here...ever...well, sometimes it's nice to make someone who insulted another's intelligence look like an idiot.  Hey; irony is fun! 

_back on topic:_


> What language is our constitution and all other American law written in?



What bearing does this have on what current public policy should be?  Sure, during that period, the American settler-populace, and especially the aristocratically linked politico-economic elites, mostly took English as their native tongue, so of course they authored political procedure therein.

Our demographics have changed, along with our cultures and speech communities, so English as a monolithic official tongue no longer makes sense.

Remember that appeals to tradition are logically fallacious.



> Who founded our colonies before we were even america, the english!



So those who were most successful in invading North America were English.  What does this indicate about what should be done now?  Hell, in a sense this invalidates your argument in that the ubiquity of English language in the US area depended crucially on a campaign of genocide undertaken by external invaders.



> I wish people would just see it's something that happens and it is so deeply driven into society (at least where I live) that we won't get around it in our lifetime and the best way to rid ourselves is to teach our children to have open minds...



A caveat:
Racism as individual prejudicial perception and treatment is in its death-throes (well, there's that new War on Terror driven hatred of "those A-rabs").  Rather, institutional and inter-institutional dynamics (that is, structured racism) create and reproduce most persisting racial inequities.  Ideological color-blindness conceals such inequities, allowing them to persist.

But sure, teaching your kids to be open minded is a good thing...it's practically the best that one could do, but it's also important to teach them to scrutinize immediate appearances to reveal hidden processes.  It will be only through the latter practice that contemporary racism will be addressed.

ebola


----------



## TwisteTexan

point(s) taken, you are very intelligent, thank you for sorting me out...Sorry I got kinda heated...
But I do think we should hold on to english as a standard language. Let me explain why I comment like I do on that argument.  I'm down here and 10 years ago forms used to be nice and large print, now we have pages which are half spanish and half english... The mexicans are taking texas and the rest of the border states over slowly and we need to MAKE them learn english or we are gonna HAVE to learn spanish... Now, I was here first. I don't give a rats ass about speaking spanish... it's hard, I mean yeah it can be fun, but I cannot express myself in spanish! Since my little rants earlier, I have come to the conclusion I shall be civil.  What is going to happen to the languages, what SHOULD happen? I think you ebola, or some other could maybe enlighten me, and I didn't really mean you when I said that picking apart stuff, your a mod on here, it's kinda your job... 
And yes, I am anti-japanese, was raised that way, all the WWII family shit... you know... sorry slim... I was out of line and picked on you... I'm glad I came and talked about racism, I am becoming less of a racist and less regional by the post


----------



## New

Rodya said:


> I have to disagree with what you're saying about antizionism being linked with anti-semitism (though anti-Jewishness is a better term). I don't like the state of Israel, I don't like it's militant politics or how it handles foreign affairs. I don't like how it gets preferential treatement amongst middle-eastern nations (its the only one allowed to have nuclear weapons). And I don't like how the state of Israel has a very strong lobby in the U.S. (its our ally and is supposed to help us in themiddle east (which we shouldn't be in in the first place) and so we give it billions of dollars of aid every year. Its more of a parasitic than a symbiotic relationship).
> 
> As a matter of fact, I have been to Israel (though I am not Jewish) and I foundit to be an absolutely fascinating nation, however I noticed they way that Israel treated Arabs and I was disconcerted. I also noticed the militarized nature of the state, the border patrol stations when crossinginto Palestine was ridiculous. This is a police state.
> 
> The entire principle upon which Israel was founded is equally absurd; land was taken from a people that lived there for centuries, and given to the Jewish people as some sort of pology for the Holocaust. Really, the Palestinians have every right to hate Israel, and though I am against terrorism and militant Islam, I can't say that Israel is any better.
> 
> That being said, I have no problem with Jews, I especially find Orthodox of Hascidic Jews to be fascinating in terms of their depth of knowledge of Jewish Scripture and their devotiuon to their faith.




You don't have to agree. People DO use it as a front for anti-semitism. Not everybody, but some people. And I've been to Israel, too. I think it's a nice place. There were areas that had Syrian landmines still buried, and there were areas that were like I said, nice.

It's not a police state, it's war-torn. It's been war-torn for a thousand years.


----------



## ebola?

Teh Texan said:
			
		

> point(s) taken, you are very intelligent, thank you for sorting me out...Sorry I got kinda heated...



Thanks.  I don't deserve it, but thanks. 
However, it's pathological to fall into the dynamic where one person tells the other how to think, legitimized by expertise or whatever.  I think that we should expose ourselves to a variety of ideas and critically assess them, perhaps coming up with our own in the process.

I can't legitimately claim that I have the right to "sort you out".

And I've seen far more vitriolic...and even racist insults than yours.



> The mexicans are taking texas and the rest of the border states over slowly and we need to MAKE them learn english or we are gonna HAVE to learn spanish... Now, I was here first.



I disagree on several grounds.
1.  For this to work, the validity of the current system of nation-states must be assumed.  Otherwise, why should people speak their language of choice?
2.  Given the US's cultural history and demographic trajectory, I doubt that you will be compelled to speak Spanish, particularly when engaging governmental bureaucracies.  Given white privilege, conditions of segregation, and claims to objectivity that shape the policies of the state, English will remain prolific.
3.  Depending on where you reside specifically, you probably weren't there first.  Not long ago, Texas was part of 'New Spain' and then Mexico prior to its annexation by the US.  This is not to mention the prior native presence.

Basically, I reject 'flag in the ground' logic. 



> What is going to happen to the languages, what SHOULD happen



_A priori_, each opinion is equally valid, worthy of equal consideration.  I'm not here to tell people what is true or ethical.  Besides the aforementioned, I can present political prescriptions, but from my own ethical standpoint.

As a critic of capitalism with anarchist sympathies, I look upon nation-states as illegitimate, intertwined with other venues of exploitation and domination.  Thus, I believe that cross-border flows of people should be radically free, partially ameliorating the cross-national inequalities of wealth that we see.

I also think that culture is what we make of it, and we innovate mainly by creating hybrids born of meeting those different from ourselves, so I would oppose a national language.


----------



## Nibiru

Sometimes, working out on the farm I look across at a dark person working in another row as my skin burns from the sun, and think of how stupid a thing brownness is to hate someone over.


----------



## TwisteTexan

*Alright, I hear ya...*

Man that is some good stuff, but it sure is radical.
I enjoy some diversity, and I know i should do my own research, but earlier I wondered...
How does the U.S. immigration policy differ from other nations?
I'm sure our wildly exaggerated terrorism threat has slowed the process, but I figure we have about the same policy if not more accessible than other nations.
anyways, gotta go, got company.
Ok, I got a minute, I don't mean to say it's radical in a bad way, but you would like virtually open borders right? I think it could be a shock that the already weak American economy couldn't take at this moment, or perhaps ever.
Have you considered the economic as well as the social impact? It would surely be wild where I live, and i'm 1/4 chickasaw indian, but I cannot use that excuse as our ancestors were from Mississippi.  But besides that I am sure that the competition for employment would surely make it hard on some friends, hopefully my college degree i'm almost finished with shall keep me afloat if that were to happen...
Ebola says: cross-border flows of people should be radically free, partially ameliorating the cross-national inequalities of wealth that we see
I like the part about being able to flow freely but you even say the cross national inequalities of wealth should be eliminated, and i really see that as wealth distribution. I oppose that for sure! I'm not wealthy, but I eat well, and drive a big truck. Would a fair medium be free flow, but definitely some immigration restrictions and a quota maybe? Ouch, sounds so unfree, but "withdrawl" from out current ways is gonna be nasty...


----------



## stimutant

didnt read the whole thread but was going to post smth. like this:



Jamshyd said:


> 2. Being different is *not* a bad thing. As a matter of fact, I find difference fascinating. We need to learn to acknowledge differences and appreciate what we could learn from each other, rather than attempt to coagulate into blocs.




differences can and should be celebrated.


----------



## KStoner6tb

SlimVictor, so is Japanese not the national language of Japan?  French in France?  Portuguese in Portugal?  Why don't we just go ahead and guess what ancient cavemen were speaking...shit maybe even apes?  I'm talking about TODAY.  Sometimes you can just go with common sense without getting too intellectual to prove a point.


----------



## Heuristic

Jam,

Surely you can't mean that we all of us should stop using the word "we."  Sometimes it's simply correct usage, no?

I tend to think racism will end simply by social mixing and a strong social norm against such thinking.  I view it as in sharp decline.

Regarding the English as national language discussion,

I can understand both sides to this.  On the one hand, current inhabitants of a nation or political entity have a legitimate interest in preserving certain traditions of that nation, and in fostering ground for easy communication and understanding between inhabitants.  I also think it's in the interests of anyone living in the U.S. to learn English, and to the extent that language programs or schools might receive increased funding if English became "official," such a move might be a good thing.  On the other hand, I think some of the consequences of putting language up for legislative vote might be unintended and/or negative.

In short, I don't think this question is answerable outside the specifics of what happens legally when we make English the "official" language.


----------



## slimvictor

KStoner6tb said:


> SlimVictor, so is Japanese not the national language of Japan?  French in France?  Portuguese in Portugal?  Why don't we just go ahead and guess what ancient cavemen were speaking...shit maybe even apes?  I'm talking about TODAY.  Sometimes you can just go with common sense without getting too intellectual to prove a point.



I think that you don't understand what an official or national language is.
It means a language that has a legal status under the law of the land.
It doesn't always mean that the language is the most widely spoken - for example, Maori is an official language in New Zealand, even though 95% of the population can't speak or understand it. 
English has not been given any legal status in America, and it is therefore not the national or official language of the country, even though it is clearly the language of choice for governmental and judicial affairs, as well as the most convenient language to speak if you live in America.

As far as "cavemen", I have no idea what you are talking about, or how it relates to this discussion.  Apes do not speak any language. 

What you say about "common sense" is very tricky.  What if your "common sense" doesn't match mine (which is true in this case)?  Whose should we consider correct?  If they don't match, should they even be called "common"? 

Many, many languages are spoken in America.  They are all worthy of respect.  Some are spoken by a very small percentage of the people, but even these people, and their languages, are worthy of respect.  The fact that so many languages are spoken is, to me, one of the coolest things about America.  
People who pretend that "America is for English" are ignoring this diversity and not respecting the minority languages.

Note that I am not saying that Chinese or Thai or even Spanish should become official languages in America.  I am simply saying that Americans speak more than just English.


----------



## KStoner6tb

slimvictor said:


> I think that you don't understand what an official or national language is.
> It means a language that has a legal status under the law of the land.
> It doesn't always mean that the language is the most widely spoken - for example, Maori is an official language in New Zealand, even though 95% of the population can't speak or understand it.
> English has not been given any legal status in America, and it is therefore not the national or official language of the country, even though it is clearly the language of choice for governmental and judicial affairs, as well as the most convenient language to speak if you live in America.
> 
> As far as "cavemen", I have no idea what you are talking about, or how it relates to this discussion.  Apes do not speak any language.
> 
> What you say about "common sense" is very tricky.  *What if your "common sense" doesn't match mine (which is true in this case)?  Whose should we consider correct?  If they don't match, should they even be called "common"? *
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Many, many languages are spoken in America.  They are all worthy of respect.  Some are spoken by a very small percentage of the people, but even these people, and their languages, are worthy of respect.  The fact that so many languages are spoken is, to me, one of the coolest things about America.
> People who pretend that "America is for English" are i*gnoring this diversity and not respecting the minority languages.*
> Note that I am not saying that Chinese or Thai or even Spanish should become official languages in America.  I am simply saying that Americans speak more than just English.



#1))Hahah c'mon.  I don't know, what does the word common even mean anyway?  Enough with the pscyhobabble seriously.  I'm trying to understand your very libertarian views, attempting to relate, but you make it oh so very hard.  It's not that complicated.  People speak English in America.  You move to America, attempt to learn it.  It aides in the transition and helps immigrants bond with natives.  It's that simple.  

#2))Oh I respect them.  Respect the country YOU LIVE in, and the people  here inhabbiting it by attempting to speak the predominant language spoken.   You moved here, remember?  I didn't go recruit you to live here, it wasn't my idea.  Shit, speak 15 different languages when you're at home or whatnot in order to retain your high level of culture.  Just attempt to learn English.

EDIT:  And why don't you go ahead and tell me what the "national" or "official" language of the US is...


----------



## KStoner6tb

slimvictor said:


> As far as "cavemen", I have no idea what you are talking about, or how it relates to this discussion.  Apes do not speak any language.



Remember how you mentioned  the Native American tounges, and how those were the  original "languages of America."   But you're referring to events that are 233+ years old.  That's why people change/evolve.  Do the best with what you have now...which is having everyone on the same page language-wise.


----------



## TwisteTexan

Well said slim, it is true... I think there is an underlying fear us Texans and surely other Americans harbor that as minority populations increase in size, as well as the number of illegal aliens that our standard language which all our textbooks and family used has began to become less "official."  Government forms are now nearly double the length as spanish is presented in full print in order to facilitate "their" language and needs.  I find this as no problem at all, but notice that the welfare and food stamp offices have many more resources for foreign language speakers as the Tax Office!   Oh well, just an observation.  I find it hard to free my mind from seeing a non-english speaker as some sort of parasite, whether it be the lady in front of me in line who can't seem to get food stamps because she has no social security card(I had food stamps last semester, i _sorta_ understood the conversation ,_slim_  )  or whether it be a foreign exchange student, who my tuition funds, not so much the govt... But my eyes are opening thanks to some on this board...


----------



## ebola?

mmm...if this develops further, we might want a separate thread on immigration policy (although it binds inextricably with race).



			
				Twisted said:
			
		

> Man that is some good stuff, but it sure is radical.


1.  Thanks.
2.  I hope that it is, as I'm a leftist extremist.  Seriously. 



> How does the U.S. immigration policy differ from other nations?



It is radically more lax than most all European nations, Japan, and to a lesser extent Canada, etc.  I'll assume that you are interesting mainly in 'developed' nations.  Historically, 'we' have imposed various regulations to shape the proportions of nationalities coming in, sometimes subtly and sometimes blatantly brutally, but usually motivated by ethnic chauvinism or racism.

So. . .my opinion is that the US's immigration policy is wrong-headed, but others' are even worse.



> I think it could be a shock that the already weak American economy couldn't take at this moment, or perhaps ever.




I'll give two answers, the first focusing on low-level, undocumented Latinos, and the second on highly skilled professoinals:

In what way?  Labor from undocumented Latinos provides the state a net gain in funding (per the cooked books, social security is deducted, but they can never collect it), reduces commodity prices by virtue of low, highly exploitative wages, and pushes other people's wages upward, as bottom-level (in terms of pay and status) jobs are excised from the 'mainstream' labor market.

If things get really bad, where we have a group analogous to the Oakies of the great depression who resorted to bottom-level migrant-labor jobs, then immigrants could potentially negatively affect domestic workers in competing with them.  However, history suggests that in this situation, racism prevails: the immigrants are fired and domestic demands are placated.

With skilled immigrants, things are a bit different.  They could potentially undercut salaries for domestic professoinals, and they present negative labor-market effects as any new entrant thereto would.  However, to take South Asians in silicon valley as an example, immigrants appear to be demanding the same wages as domestic WASPs.  They also stimulate our country's aggregate demand and provide their inventiveness.  

But what if they send remittances home or emigrate once there are jobs back there?  While this surely hurts us in the short term, I still consider it just.  Given that national inequalities of wealth arose out of imperial pillage, such transfers of wealth, in addition to job opportunities for immigrants, make the economy just a bit more just.  I don't think that capricious conditions of birth justify property claims.

In the longer run, the game runs far from zero-sum.  As prior poor nations and populaces get richer, increased demand stimulates increase productive output, enlarging the pie to be split.



> But besides that I am sure that the competition for employment would surely make it hard on some friends, hopefully my college degree i'm almost finished with shall keep me afloat if that were to happen...



Are your friends migrant laborers?  Are they employees in discount maid services?  Do they take care of people's lawns?

If they're computer programmers, what makes their claim to work more legitimate than a Pakistani on work visa?


----------



## slimvictor

KStoner6tb said:


> #1))Hahah c'mon.  I don't know, what does the word common even mean anyway?  Enough with the pscyhobabble seriously.



It's only "psychobabble"if you don't understand it (and, presumably, feel threatened by it). But to me, it's common sense.  Thanks for supporting my argument about the questionable validity of the idea of so-called "common sense". 



KStoner6tb said:


> It's not that complicated.  People speak English in America.



This is the problem I have with your view.  It oversimplifies things greatly.  Many people speak English, and many people don't.  If 18% of Americans don't speak English (natively), according to the 2000 census, that is a lot of people.  Assuming a population of 300 million, that represents 54 million people.  The population of California is 33 million, Oregon is 3.5 million, and Washington is 6.5 million. That gives us 43 million, still less than the number of non-native speakers in the US.  So saying the people speak English in America is like you pretending that the US doesn't have a west coast, plus a few more states.




KStoner6tb said:


> You move to America, attempt to learn it.  It aides in the transition and helps immigrants bond with natives.  It's that simple.



It's funny, but I just realized that you seem to be arguing against something I never said, and that I don't believe.  I also support the idea of teaching immigrants English, for the same reasons you state.  We may have been in agreement all this time!

I am glad to hear that you respect the languages and people that are different than you.  But I think that if you thought about it a bit more deeply, you would feel more compassion than you have shown.  Some immigrants struggle to survive, working multiple jobs, seven days a week, so I am not sure when you would suggest that they go to English classes.  Still, I agree that it would be ideal if they could learn English.  A government program to help them with this might work (I am not a Libertarian, by the way). Are you willing to support it with your tax dollars?



KStoner6tb said:


> And why don't you go ahead and tell me what the "national" or "official" language of the US is...



There is no official or national language in the US.  
To my knowledge, there has never been.

By the way, many countries have multiple official languages, such as Canada, Belgium, and Singapore, and they do quite nicely.


----------



## TwisteTexan

I got 2 good laughs out of slim and ebowla's replies...

ebola- "2. I hope that it is, as I'm a leftist extremist. Seriously."  
I consider myself more conservative, but it's great that you come right out with that... You surely have the right to believe whatever you like. made me laugh.

And the fact that SlimVictor is using psychobabble... Lol, psychobabble...  I am pretty sure I have heard either Rush, Hannity, or Levin use that term... But, slim's stuff isn't psychobabble, it's actually damn refined... If anyone has spit psychobabble on this post it's me. And i'm damn proud. 

well guys, i'm headed back to the parent's for the weekend, I really enjoy this dialog can't wait to check it monday... I might even fire up mom's 56.6kbs and come see what's up

by the way, I find Mark Levin to be fascinating. There is my right winger status, suprise 8) well sorta, I guess i'm pretty easy to judge


----------



## Ousley

I'm not racist, I hate everybody equally! just kidding


----------



## moonyham

1: if i need a lite for a cigarette and theres a black dude and a white dude that i can ask.. im gonna ask the white dude. I dont care what you think tbh, black people are more likely to commit crime that is FACT and ive never had a white person try to jump me, only blacks and browns(i call brown people blacks just for simplicity sakes). 

2: Theres no reason why people cant get them selves out of a hole. Every civilization and country has gone through hardships and most have managed to come better off.. oh except for countrys where they are black they all just rot and put there hands out asking for free food.


Basically, if germany, france, england, spain and so on have managed to become the countrys they are today, then so can ANY country. So stop making EXCUSES about famine this and aids that, and start makign SOLUTIONS is what i say to africa.

You see.. im not racist, im just realistic. Whites are obviously superior if every white country is first world/developed and every(almost) black country has slums everywhere, famine, disease, and no police or medical help.


----------



## swilow

^You do realise Africa is a continent of many countries, whilst 'germany, france, england, spain' are, in fact, seperate countries? 

The problem for many African countries has been the impact of colonialism; I feel quite certain if christinanety was  not so prevalent in many of these places, things like AIDs would be on the decline. Sadly, they are not. 

Anyway, your opinion is your own, and your entitiled to it, even though its wrong. If you won't ask a brown/black person for a lighter, bad luck. Also- who cares? Whats that got to do with racism, except as a good example thereof?

Bah. Theres no such thing as black or white, just people. Strangely, as science confirms, we are all descended from the same hominins, and in fact, are the same race- Homo sapiens sapiens. There is no other human race. 

Anyhow, I try and transcend that sort of thing. All cultures have something to offer, lighters or otherwise, but if you close yourself in, you may thing your being real, but your living in a dream.


----------



## TwisteTexan

It is just so so true that blacks commit far more crimes than whites in america. It may be due to their upbringing, but grow up with them you will see their enthusiasm for crime... It is a damn shame but it's true, listen to hip hop, watch bet, go to the black part of town... IT PISSES ME OFF. They blame it all on "crackers" and the white "man"  too.  This is not all of them but more than 50 percent do ont like and do not trust whites... I doubt more than 50 percent of whites dislike blacks... maybe 10-15 percent. I don't dislike them, I just feel discriminated against. If there is any racism in texas it is the blacks being racist toward whites becuase of the few incidents which get blown up on the news... How many times does the news show white families being robbed of cars and or beaten just because they were in the wrong part of town? That's not good headlines... I despise black power and white power, but i'm not gonna let the blacks continue to be hypocrites!


----------



## swilow

^If 'black' people committ more crimes, I'd like to see evidence; and then we can examine that, and find that crime rates tend to be higher amongst minority ethnic groups who are living in poverty because they were used as slaves for years after being forcibly stolen from their homeland. Same goes with indigenous Aussies; many people think they are mere drunks and criminals, but the truth is, they had a flourishing civilisation which was stolen from them; imagine yourself suddenly taken over by a tribal group and forced to adopt those customs- would you be able to assimilate? Consider what the changes would be for you, and see if you can use some logic to see how it is for many, many ethnic groups.


----------



## Papa1

^ Right. People don't exist independently. Their health, mental well being and opportunities for change all depend on the environment they were born into. Just 150 years ago (7 or 8 generations at most) african americans in the us were held as property, slaves; just 50 years ago they were subhuman by law. Communities, advocacy groups, supportive institutions, integration, confidence and pride, these are all multi-generational projects which are essential to the success and functioning of any people. We are all the products of our environment, and therefore our history. This needs to be held in mind any time you read crime statistics or watch the news. As Swilow said, its the same story story the world over...


----------



## Pharcyde

Um I guess Im racist......

I have colored friends............

I use certain words in public that most people wouldnt.....

I dont hate other races, but Im proud of mine and am not afraid to say it........

I will always side with my race, even if theyre wrong.......

Am I racist? Maybe, or maybe Im just proudto be white......


----------



## KStoner6tb

swilow said:


> ^If 'black' people committ more crimes, I'd like to see evidence; and then we can examine that, and find that crime rates tend to be higher amongst minority ethnic groups who are living in poverty because they were used as slaves for years after being forcibly stolen from their homeland. Same goes with indigenous Aussies; many people think they are mere drunks and criminals, but the truth is, they had a flourishing civilisation which was stolen from them; imagine yourself suddenly taken over by a tribal group and forced to adopt those customs- would you be able to assimilate? Consider what the changes would be for you, and see if you can use some logic to see how it is for many, many ethnic groups.



Evidence?  It's a fairly well known fact that the number of black inmates for outnumbers white in American prisons.  Google it man.  

It's just the whole hip-hop culture.  It's ok for people(of any ethnicity) to "want to be" or to "act black"  It's the cool thing to do. The clothes, the slang, the attitude.  

There are some people who don't wish to be "hip-hop." If somebody acted so brash, cocky, and abrasive about being proud to be white, they're considered a straight up racist.    There's a double standard, it's a fact.


----------



## Pharcyde

I do hate "wiggers" and I do say certain things to them.  Things that if I posted here would be a warning for sure


----------



## Papa1

KStoner6tb said:


> Evidence?  It's a fairly well known fact that the number of black inmates for outnumbers white in American prisons.  Google it man.
> 
> It's just the whole hip-hop culture.  It's ok for people(of any ethnicity) to "want to be" or to "act black"  It's the cool thing to do. The clothes, the slang, the attitude.
> 
> There are some people who don't wish to be "hip-hop." If somebody acted so brash, cocky, and abrasive about being proud to be white, they're considered a straight up racist.    There's a double standard, it's a fact.



Black culture today is a product of its history. You can't separate the two. Part of that history is slavery, discrimination, abuse and neglect, and that can't be forgotten when you're reading crime statistics or judging the guys on the bus. 

Everyone needs to be held to the same legal standard, but you need compassion and an understanding of history (i.e. where people and their roots have been) when doing so...


----------



## KStoner6tb

^^You believe the same with native american history?  I believe they went through a lot more shit than african americans.  Haha and I'm not judging the guy on the bus.  I am proud to be white, and from the south.  Everybody automatically associates the south with racism.  I get along fine with blacks, and have 2 very close mexican-american friends.

So, I'm supposed to not be proud of being southern, because some people owned slaves 150 years ago?  I wasn't sicking a german shepperd on a black man in 1962 mobile, alabama.  People have changed for the better, realize their mistakes; it's called forgiveness.

(southern)Whites are soo scared of being proud of their culture because everyone's SOO deathly afraid of being labeled a racist for it.  When, most of the time they are unjustly so.


----------



## ebola?

kstoner said:
			
		

> I'm talking about TODAY [in terms of national languages].



I disagree.  You appear to be talking about a bygone era where America's dominant emancipatory project was to unify everyone in a single, modern social and economic system, including a unified culture rooted in the Enlightenment.  As various identity-political projects have shown, this universalist project bore hidden biases and exclusions.

Given America's demographic changes, a more pluralist approach is now appropriate.



> Sometimes you can just go with common sense without getting too intellectual to prove a point.



1.  This is pretty much how I think and talk by default.  That does not entail that it is the only right way, however
2.  when racism functions concealed behind a veneer of race-blind meritocracy, naked common sense just won't do it. 



> People speak English in America. You move to America, attempt to learn it. It aides in the transition and helps immigrants bond with natives. It's that simple.



This sounds like an issue of individual life-skills, not an edict pointing to the validity of a certain type of political domination. 



> Respect the country YOU LIVE in, and the people here inhabbiting it by attempting to speak the predominant language spoken.



I'm happy respecting my neighbors, but why should I respect my 'country' (whatever that might be)?  If I view the state as an illegitimate construct born of a history of domination, exploitation, and violent exclusion, why should I respect its legitimacy (that is, the legitimacy of my rulers)?



> And why don't you go ahead and tell me what the "national" or "official" language of the US is...



This is very easy--we lack one. 



			
				mooooony said:
			
		

> 1: if i need a lite for a cigarette and theres a black dude and a white dude that i can ask.. im gonna ask the white dude. I dont care what you think tbh, black people are more likely to commit crime that is FACT and ive never had a white person try to jump me, only blacks and browns(i call brown people blacks just for simplicity sakes).



A simple analogy:
Most cocaine users started out drinking milk as children.
Most milk-drinkers remain cocaine naive.
Is dairy to be avoided based on the above information alone?

The fact of the matter is, what you see as 'black crime' appeared as a fairly direct effect of geographically and racially concentrated poverty, as structural economic change stripped the inner city of economic opportunity.  Why is this a racial issue?  Prior and current housing discrimination barred many African Americans entry to areas outside the city.

Yes, most people who are subject to such conditions and turn to crime as their sole source of economic opportunity are Black or Latino.  However, a tiny minority of Blacks and Latinos instigate such crime, and when they do, it's overwhelmingly against their neighbors in the inner city.



> Theres no reason why people cant get them selves out of a hole. Every civilization and country has gone through hardships and most have managed to come better off.. oh except for countrys where they are black they all just rot and put there hands out asking for free food.



How are we to interpret the fact that those countries who prospered most quickly were colonial superpowers, and then the US, who benefited uniquely from exemption from massive destruction during WWII and its resource-rich frontier (based in 'internal colonialism')?  Of course the poor countries are predominantly black and brown, for race as we know it coevolved with colonial practice.



> Basically, if germany, france, england, spain and so on have managed to become the countrys they are today, then so can ANY country.



Perhaps you mean, any country that benefited from the Marshall Plan. 



> You see.. im not racist, im just realistic.



One person's realism is another's myopia and reification.



			
				H said:
			
		

> I tend to think racism will end simply by social mixing and a strong social norm against such thinking.



For the most part, we already enjoy the latter.  However, inter-institutional dynamics following the Jim Crow area have for the most part structured society to preclude the former.

bah...more later. 

ebola


----------



## swilow

^Win

If people cannot see that most humans are products of their environment, both long-term and the immediate environment, they are blind.



> There are some people who don't wish to be "hip-hop." If somebody acted so brash, cocky, and abrasive about being proud to be white, they're considered a straight up racist. There's a double standard, it's a fact.



Because "white pride" usually comes with hatred of other races. Being proud of your heritage is a way of making sense of it; most blacks who are proud of the fact do so because people have tried to wipe them out. I'd be proud to know my lineage had fought back. As it stands, I am not ashamed that I have white skin, but I have indigenous aussie ancestors- either way, I am still not proud of myself.


----------



## KStoner6tb

swilow said:


> ^Win
> 
> Because "white pride" usually comes with hatred of other races. Being proud of your heritage is a way of making sense of it; most blacks who are proud of the fact do so because people have tried to wipe them out. I'd be proud to know my lineage had fought back. As it stands, I am not ashamed that I have white skin, but I have indigenous aussie ancestors- either way, I am still not proud of myself.



I've come across more racist blacks, than I have whites.  Sure, a 70 year old black man  had to endure some fucked up shit back in his day.  I can understand him being a little resentful, as that shit will stay with you for life.  But the black youth of today, who are being raised to despise whites, because of shit their grandpa went through??  How does that help solve anything?  IMO young white men are more accepting of young blacks than vice versa.

So it's my fault my grandpa didn't have to go through any racial discrimination bullshit?  That means he wasn't a good man, and I shouldn't be proud of what I come from?  I shouldn't be proud of who I am because my great grandparents didn't have to put up with segregation?  Oh and that automatically means I, myself hate other races because I"m proud to be white?  You know, you can be proud to be white without being a backwoods, hillbilly dumbass whose idea of a party is lighting up a couple crosses in their front yard on a Saturday night.

Sounds kind of ignorant and presumptuous on your part no?  You actually proved my point.  Without even knowing the person, you assume they hate other races because they're proud of their (white) heritage.  Fail


----------



## ebola?

My apologies for repeating myself a bit...



			
				Texan de jour said:
			
		

> listen to hip hop, watch bet, go to the black part of town... IT PISSES ME OFF. They blame it all on "crackers" and the white "man" too.



We shouldn't confuse the propagation of media stereotypes with authentic cultural artifacts and meanings.  Beyond that, the 'reverse-racism' that you perceive stems from a couple of conditions:

1.  Giving the author of a particular message a great deal of credit, we can say that 'the white man' is responsible for the current condition of African Americans in the sense that it was indeed whites that set up a system of privilege and oppression to work in their favor, a system that continues to operate in transmuted form despite (and indeed now because of) a widely held ethic of color blindness.

This does not indicate that particular whites, now living, bear responsibility for this type of racism.

2.  Giving this message less credit, it's simply emblematic of humans' tendency to turn to blame individuals rather than the less exciting, more cognitively taxing task of critiquing wider social systems.



> This is not all of them but more than 50 percent do ont like and do not trust whites... I doubt more than 50 percent of whites dislike blacks... maybe 10-15 percent.



Where are you getting such statistics from?

To argue more generally, I believe white racism and 'reverse-racism' to function distinctly by virtue of being situated in different social contexts.  White racism functions to reinforce status-quo privilege while anti-white racism is a reaction against such privilege, its expressions often based in oversimplification and misunderstanding of the 'Black Power' form of anti-racism (which is linked with the internal-colonial analysis of racial oppression).



			
				willow said:
			
		

> imagine yourself suddenly taken over by a tribal group and forced to adopt those customs- would you be able to assimilate? Consider what the changes would be for you, and see if you can use some logic to see how it is for many, many ethnic groups.



exactly.  
The Afro-centric turn of African American culture is a very different animal from 'white pride' (or whatever).  African Americans often express pride in their identity because they are enmeshed in a project to reconstruct and reinvent a culture of their own in the wake of its prior obliteration.  

'White pride', on the other hand, is simply a blunt restatement of the superiority of the privileged.  The privileged needn't express pride in their culture when it has ascended to define 'objectivity' and 'neutrality'.



			
				kstoner said:
			
		

> There's a double standard, it's a fact.



If it's a 'fact', it's a fact so oversimplified as to be misleading. 



> You believe the same with native american history?



Of course.  It's a fucking travesty that the largest genocide in recent history has been white-washed out of common knowledge.



> So, I'm supposed to not be proud of being southern, because some people owned slaves 150 years ago?



Why should people take pride in arbitrary circumstances of birth, like race or region? 
Besides, I don't think that you're particularly repressed here, as illustrated by the proliferation of Confederate flags.

ebola


----------



## KStoner6tb

ebola? said:


> Why should people take pride in arbitrary circumstances of birth, like race or region?



Didn't you just partially define the word culture?  Oh yah, only non-caucasions are allowed to be proud of that stuff



ebola? said:


> Besides, I don't think that you're particularly repressed here, as illustrated by the proliferation of Confederate flags.
> 
> ebola



Not everyone that sees that flag, automatically pictures racism.  It's also known as a "rebel" flag.  Just  rebelling from the norm, being your own person.  It dosen't mean you hate anyone.  Once again, it is what you make of it.


----------



## ebola?

> Didn't you just partially define the word culture? Oh yah, only non-caucasions are allowed to be proud of that stuff



Did you give any attention to my discussion of white pride vs. black power?



> Not everyone that sees that flag, automatically pictures racism. It's also known as a "rebel" flag. Just rebelling from the norm, being your own person. It dosen't mean you hate anyone. Once again, it is what you make of it.



Then why point to a mobilization led by wealthy plantation-owners working in opposition to changes in the economy and polity during the dusk of slavery?  If it's about independence and freedom, why not fly the black and red? 

ebola


----------



## MyDoorsAreOpen

People here who are complaining that X race of people are unrespectable or cause trouble, might want to ask themselves if they're blaming the victim. You don't have to personally LIKE or take after the ways of another ethnic group. But it does behoove you to understand historically why your people and theirs have the current relationship they do, and to have some compassion and tolerance. It's not anyone's fault what historical legacy they were born into, and what avenues were (and WERE NOT) available to them.

I say this as someone who was mugged and almost killed for wandering into the wrong side of a city when I was 18. I learned to be warier and more street smart. But I didn't learn to hate and mistrust an entire race of people.


----------



## KStoner6tb

ebola? said:


> Did you give any attention to my discussion of white pride vs. black power?




Not too much  What do you expect, it was friday night, and I was preparing for my weekly klan meeting!  That's all us southern white folk do round deez' parts.

This is one of those touchy subjects and I'm goin to have to slowly bow out, not in defeat, but in a agree to disagree sort of way.  Your astute, quirky responses give me an intellectual hardon, and I just can't compete sir.


----------



## glitterbizkit

Wow, I'm liking this thread a lot.  Good discussion, and very civil for such a controversial topic 



moonyham said:


> 2: Theres no reason why people cant get them selves out of a hole. Every civilization and country has gone through hardships and most have managed to come better off.. oh except for countrys where they are black they all just rot and put there hands out asking for free food.
> 
> 
> Basically, if germany, france, england, spain and so on have managed to become the countrys they are today, then so can ANY country. So stop making EXCUSES about famine this and aids that, and start makign SOLUTIONS is what i say to africa.
> 
> You see.. im not racist, im just realistic. Whites are obviously superior if every white country is first world/developed and every(almost) black country has slums everywhere, famine, disease, and no police or medical help.



I just need to add this, because as a person who has grown up in a country in Africa and loves it dearly - despite it's many flaws - this is a sensitive topic for me and I get offended when people who know next to nothing about my continent or it's history display such a complete lack of compassion and understanding.

Do you know anything at all about the history of Imperialism?  Africa has been completely raped in the ass by the Western world.  Imagine your country being violently invaded, having all your resources taken away from you, your people being completely dehumanised and treated worse than animals.  The last African country to gain its independence was Namibia, only 19 years ago!!!  If a person knows anything about the extent of the damage done by colonialism in Africa, they'd be completely deluded to expect a full recovery so soon (and taking into account the damaging effects of neo-colonialism, this gets even more difficult). This is no simple excuse, it is an explanation - it is a fact that the countries you speak of are so well-off because they profited from the violent theft of the resources of colonised countries.  As for solutions - there are plenty being put into action right now, and although it is slow and painful, I am damn proud of the progress being made.  

For example:  In the past five years, my country's HIV prevalence rate has dropped from roughly 20% to 15%, all because of a mass drive to educate people, as well as the introduction of free antiretrovirals and better access to HIV testing - done by Africans, for Africans.  Is this not a clear example of a solution?  There are many success stories like this all over Africa but you don't hear about it because misery and disaster sells better.  If you think African people are just sitting on their asses all day waiting for handouts, you had better educate yourself a bit more.  (Meanwhile, the HIV rate is rising in the Western world - a recent survey I read in the papers here in the UK revealed that nearly 70% of teenage girls surveyed thought you couldn't get it unless you were gay...)

I realise that this is probably like talking to a brick wall - you can tell by some people's posts that nothing you say would ever make them open their eyes - and I'm too hungover to be anywhere near as eloquent as I'd wish to be.  But it saddens me that so many people have this view of African countries without knowing anything about them, without having been there and having seen the beauty of the continent or understanding the extent of it's suffering.  To a lot of people, Africa is just a dark spot on the map with nothing but starving AIDS victims asking for handouts.

Also:



moonyham said:


> every(almost) black country has slums everywhere, famine, disease, and no police or medical help.



This actually made me laugh a little, just because it's one of the most ignorant generalisations I've ever heard about Africa.  My country is quite poor, but we have police (albeit a lot of corrupt ones), pretty good medical care, and some stunningly beautiful parts of the city - you really wouldn't know you were in a third world country.  Africa isn't just what you see on the news.

All that being said, I don't hold any grudge against the Western world on behalf of my country.  It's not all black and white - hell, because I grew up in an English-speaking former colony I've been able to get a degree in English Literature in a London university (as of two days ago actually! :D).  As with everything, there's always good mixed with the bad.  There is no point hating someone for their ancestor's crimes and sometimes I feel that Brits have a little _too_ much colonial guilt (I find it quite endearing though).  

Still, all I wish for is that people made less generalisations without knowing anything about the subject, and also showed a bit of compassion, knowing that yes, Africa is generally quite Fucked Up, but you'd be too if you had the same past, and a long recovery period is unavoidable.  I have hope though, it would be good to see Africa rise back onto its feet in my lifetime.


----------



## Papa1

^ That was great, really well said.

I think that so much of racism comes from being uninformed. Because if the racist had really met the people, saw the facts, he'd realise how ridiculous his generalisations are.


----------



## Pharcyde

glitterbizkit said:


> Still, all I wish for is that people made less generalisations without knowing anything about the subject.



So Ive had to deal with blacks all my life would that qualify me to pass judgement on the whole race?


----------



## swilow

^No. In fact, nothing "qualifies" you with the ability to pass judgment.


----------



## Pharcyde

I see..........not even personal judgement, thats what I ment


----------



## TwisteTexan

You know this thread taught me alot... That "racism" is not the american view of white vs. black... That should have it's own evil thread somewhere, and when I say evil this is why... 
It's the fourth of july, and I am fixing to make some racist comments for you guys to comment on and try to make me change my mind... Because regardless of trying to keep an open mind I still have racist thoughts.
First of all , I am from a small farming town in TX, 60% white, 30%black 10%mex

1. I think african americans have had plenty of time to clean their act up, they cannot blame slavery and racism for their problems anymore, I know plenty of blacks that have nice families and good jobs, why? because they struggled...
2. The whites who supposedly keep the blacks down had to go through the struggle of immigrating and many were poor and starving when they came, the africans sold their own people into slavery, and if any of them (or you if your reading mr. sharpton) get your ass a boat ticket and go the fuck back. 
3. Blacks are racist toward whites. PERIOD. You never hear a lawsuit because a black owned business wouldn't hire a white... The majority of black owned businesses will hire a black over a white with the same credentials...
4. Black people exclude themselves!!!! They are the racists!!! They set up their own churches, set themselves apart by celebrating Black History month...etc...
5. Have you listened to popular black music, rap? I love it, don't get me wrong, but they use the word nigga so much... and it's supposedly so offensive, but only when said by a white, thats such bullshit, that proves that they are fucking overdramatic.  
6. Fuck every last one of you who comes and tries to tell me i'm offensive, because i'm not, I love my black friends... I have had sex with a black girl, I love mexicans, I enjoy african american culture! I love rap, but BLACKS ARE RACIST TOWARDS ME!!!!
And like I said I only presented these views to get some positive feedback, so either ban me from BL or respectfully disagree, but call me an idiot and I will, well I won't do shit but laugh at you, and maybe call a random black guy a N---- just to hurt your feelings... Right after he says whats up nigga to his black friend... you double standard carrying pro-racist. lol


----------



## yunalesca

I'm half black, half Japanese. I feel so mixed up sometimes I never really know what to think about racism sometimes. lol


----------



## glitterbizkit

Pharcyde said:


> So Ive had to deal with blacks all my life would that qualify me to pass judgement on the whole race?



Of course not.  Generalisations have their place, but not when it comes to making assumptions about someone just because of the colour of their skin.  If I had grown up in rural South Africa, and had had to "deal with" white Afrikaaners who were racist and backwards, would that qualify me to pass judgement on the whole white race?  Or even on all Afrikaaners in general?  Of course white farmers in Africa *tend* to be more racist, but a tendency is not a hard rule - I even dated a man from an Afrikaaner farming family for a while, and he was a lovely person, not racist at all.  If I had made generalisations about the whole race, I wouldn't have been able to date him, and I would have missed out on a good experience.

Then again, I am a great believer that what you expect from people, you will receive (and this is backed up by studies too, i.e. the numerous studies in which teachers were falsely told that a certain student was a poor one, and the student began to do badly after this, subconsciously influenced by the teacher's opinion of him or her).  If you believe black people to be lesser human beings in any sense, then that will show in your behaviour towards them, either consciously or subconsciously, and will in turn cause them to react a certain way.  I truly also believe that we attract experiences which match our thoughts, but that may be a bit too mystical for this discussion.

But in other words... passing judgements on a certain race will certainly not work out in your favour.  I just thought of another example:  when moving to Sweden I came to know a few biracial kids there (I am half Swedish but grew up in Africa).  A lot of them seem paranoid about white people being racist towards them, something which I can't truly relate to as I grew up in such a racially tolerant environment.  As a result, they had experiences of racial intolerance aimed at them, while I had no experiences like that while I was living there.  Perhaps people did display racism towards me, but I simply assumed that they were rude people and the whole racist part passed me by completely.


----------



## moonyham

glitterbizkit said:


> Wow, I'm liking this thread a lot.  Good discussion, and very civil for such a controversial topic
> 
> 
> 
> I just need to add this, because as a person who has grown up in a country in Africa and loves it dearly - despite it's many flaws - this is a sensitive topic for me and I get offended when people who know next to nothing about my continent or it's history display such a complete lack of compassion and understanding.
> 
> Do you know anything at all about the history of Imperialism?  Africa has been completely raped in the ass by the Western world.  Imagine your country being violently invaded, having all your resources taken away from you, your people being completely dehumanised and treated worse than animals.  The last African country to gain its independence was Namibia, only 19 years ago!!!  If a person knows anything about the extent of the damage done by colonialism in Africa, they'd be completely deluded to expect a full recovery so soon (and taking into account the damaging effects of neo-colonialism, this gets even more difficult). This is no simple excuse, it is an explanation - it is a fact that the countries you speak of are so well-off because they profited from the violent theft of the resources of colonised countries.  As for solutions - there are plenty being put into action right now, and although it is slow and painful, I am damn proud of the progress being made.
> 
> For example:  In the past five years, my country's HIV prevalence rate has dropped from roughly 20% to 15%, all because of a mass drive to educate people, as well as the introduction of free antiretrovirals and better access to HIV testing - done by Africans, for Africans.  Is this not a clear example of a solution?  There are many success stories like this all over Africa but you don't hear about it because misery and disaster sells better.  If you think African people are just sitting on their asses all day waiting for handouts, you had better educate yourself a bit more.  (Meanwhile, the HIV rate is rising in the Western world - a recent survey I read in the papers here in the UK revealed that nearly 70% of teenage girls surveyed thought you couldn't get it unless you were gay...)
> 
> I realise that this is probably like talking to a brick wall - you can tell by some people's posts that nothing you say would ever make them open their eyes - and I'm too hungover to be anywhere near as eloquent as I'd wish to be.  But it saddens me that so many people have this view of African countries without knowing anything about them, without having been there and having seen the beauty of the continent or understanding the extent of it's suffering.  To a lot of people, Africa is just a dark spot on the map with nothing but starving AIDS victims asking for handouts.
> 
> Also:
> 
> 
> 
> This actually made me laugh a little, just because it's one of the most ignorant generalisations I've ever heard about Africa.  My country is quite poor, but we have police (albeit a lot of corrupt ones), pretty good medical care, and some stunningly beautiful parts of the city - you really wouldn't know you were in a third world country.  Africa isn't just what you see on the news.
> 
> All that being said, I don't hold any grudge against the Western world on behalf of my country.  It's not all black and white - hell, because I grew up in an English-speaking former colony I've been able to get a degree in English Literature in a London university (as of two days ago actually! :D).  As with everything, there's always good mixed with the bad.  There is no point hating someone for their ancestor's crimes and sometimes I feel that Brits have a little _too_ much colonial guilt (I find it quite endearing though).
> 
> Still, all I wish for is that people made less generalisations without knowing anything about the subject, and also showed a bit of compassion, knowing that yes, Africa is generally quite Fucked Up, but you'd be too if you had the same past, and a long recovery period is unavoidable.  I have hope though, it would be good to see Africa rise back onto its feet in my lifetime.




At the end of the day it all boils down to this: Humans have been on this planet all for the same amount of time.. well actually no, blacks have been here longer so they pretty much had a head start. And while the whites had inferior body structure and genetics, we strived to still become the best, the most powerful. While the blacks were busy chucking sticks and stones at each others villages, the whites were busy building empires, technology, soldiers, and so on. We saw an opportunity to make our civilizations even more powerful by using africa as a place to steal slaves from and pillage there resources. Are we worse because of that? No, we are now the people who run the show, the whole world. The ones who invented air travel and got into space.

Your naive to think that blacks are even slightly as smart as whites. Obviously your not because its YOU on the ground and US WHITES standing over you with a gun pointed at you. WE WIN ok, youve lost.. you had your chance some 500 years ago but decided fighting with a neighbouring village was a bigger agenda than working together and becoming a powerful force.

Its no ones fault that africa is the way it is now except the people of africa. EVERY nation has gone through the most awesome and hardout struggles and they didnt make excuses, they made solutions and became more powerful. Africa on the other hand decides... ah fuck it, lets give up and not even bother to become powerful or even slightly better off cause.. well cause the whites are already ahead and 'we can never catch up'. You have a losers attitude africa, and losers dont innovate and become better, they slowly die off and make way for the winners.


----------



## burni

first of all: i dind't read the whole thread and don't know if it has been said before, but for me, being german, racism is a sensitive topic.
we are the people who schould finally have learned their lesson, but still after the nazi generation is nearly gone, their thoughts and ideas still linger in the minds of certain idiots.
not so long ago we had an incident in a small city in germany i don't recall where atm. anyways, there were 3 people from india who wanted to visit a local fair, after a few boozed up rednecks saw them they started gathering people for a bashing, but the three indians grabbed a chance and ran away they could just flee into a fast food restaurant i think it was a pizza store or something, they got chased by several people don't know the exact number but more than 10. they smashed a window until finally the police arrived.
i was shocked to hear about this in the news the next day, this is just one of many incidents that have happened here another one involved molotov cocktails and a building where immigrants are being gathered before they find a suitable home that was in thüringen i think. 

but at least there are also many people in germany who have learned their lesson, and fight racism and intolerance. hopefully they rise in numbers!

and @glitterbizkit 
very well said the part about africa i had the luck to being taught history in a different manner and our teacher did a lot about imperialism and how it affected the people native to the land that was invaded (still i think there's more than what we learned but we gained a great insight) so i feel ashamed for my fortheres who did this to (assuming) your continent although we "only" had a few colonies.


----------



## Papa1

moonyham said:


> At the end of the day it all boils down to this: Humans have been on this planet all for the same amount of time.. well actually no, blacks have been here longer so they pretty much had a head start. And while the whites had inferior body structure and genetics, we strived to still become the best, the most powerful. While the blacks were busy chucking sticks and stones at each others villages, the whites were busy building empires, technology, soldiers, and so on. We saw an opportunity to make our civilizations even more powerful by using africa as a place to steal slaves from and pillage there resources. Are we worse because of that? No, we are now the people who run the show, the whole world. The ones who invented air travel and got into space.
> 
> Your naive to think that blacks are even slightly as smart as whites. Obviously your not because its YOU on the ground and US WHITES standing over you with a gun pointed at you. WE WIN ok, youve lost.. you had your chance some 500 years ago but decided fighting with a neighbouring village was a bigger agenda than working together and becoming a powerful force.
> 
> Its no ones fault that africa is the way it is now except the people of africa. EVERY nation has gone through the most awesome and hardout struggles and they didnt make excuses, they made solutions and became more powerful. Africa on the other hand decides... ah fuck it, lets give up and not even bother to become powerful or even slightly better off cause.. well cause the whites are already ahead and 'we can never catch up'. You have a losers attitude africa, and losers dont innovate and become better, they slowly die off and make way for the winners.




I don't think arguing with you is going to have any effect - but that shit is just way too big to flush.

Africa is the way it is because of *everything* that's happened there, africans, europeans, asians. It all counts. Everyone in its history is responsible for the way it is. Your beloved 'whites' had a huge part in royally _fucking shit up_ there for hundreds of years, and they're a huge part of why it is the way it is. The shipment of slaves to north america is the biggest movement of people *ever* - it funded the colonising of a whole *continent*. You betray your near total ignorance of not just Africa's history, but history period.

Hypothetical situation. I break into your apartment, trash *everything*, break your jaw, your arm, your legs, punch holes in every wall, break every window, smash every appliance, go through your bank account, your savings, rape and kill your wife, take your son away screaming - how long do you need to get over that? How long do you need to clean up? How long do you need to get back to where you were? And would I really be in the right for 'winning'?

Like I said, I don't expect you to respond intelligently. I'm just venting, and hoping that nobody reading your posts takes you seriously.


----------



## moonyham

your hypothetical situation fails because you wouldnt be able to break into my house let alone touch me. Youd be dead as a door knob before you got half way down my drive way cause im white and thus im smart enough to protect myself and my property, so that i can prosper and become more powerful.

Do you really think that all the most powerful nations just happen to be founded by whites by what, accident?? I mean is this just some sort of event that just, by very very low odds if you compare how many blacks vs whites there has been through history, happened to happen? Or could it be that whites are just smarter and because of this were able to create civilizations with police and armies and technologies and law and so on?

I mean if we were all equal brains wise and population wise(infact the blacks have always had more people than the whites), then why is it that of all the most rich and powerful nations are founded and run(well except the USA thanks to obama) by white people?


----------



## daysonatrain

moonyham, i have read several threads where you spout bullshit just to piss people off.  Why do you have to derail good conversations with your stupid provocations?  either that or you really are as stupid/racist as you write yourself out to be.

anyway, dont bother responding i wont be reading anything more by you in this thread.

As to the thread... I consider the role that religion plays an important part of the power structure that the world is in today.  The powerful (unfortunetly mainly white) first world has been indoctrinated with a controlling Catholic religion for thousands of years.  A religion that denies the base human desires as a way to union with the lord.  Many of the third world countries grew up with a more anamistic religion, without the denial of these base desires.  I think it is this repression by the Catholic Europeans that led to the greed and imperialism of the last thousand years.  I think the "style" of religion (or lack thereof) is a major factor in why certain people/countries felt the need to imperialize and control the world.  

I dunno,  this is kinda off the top of my head.  Maybe someone has something to add or totally debunk this theory.

-DoaT


----------



## moonyham

spout bullshit to piss people off? That actually really hurts me to hear you say that. Is my opinion any less valid than yours? Are you somehow able to judge who is and isnt making stupid provocations? Or maybe its just simply that you are so ignorant that you cannot handle to hear other peoples opinions because they differ to yours so much that you go and state that you arent even going to bother reading my future posts. I find it interesting(and funny) that you dont even bother answering my 'stupid provocations' and i can only come to the conclusion that you dont because you know im right, because you know there is no answer that is true _and_ disagrees with me.


----------



## juniortha3rd

This is such a touchy subject...... I'm actually afraid to reply to this thread while I'm at work. Sad, isn't it?

@ moonyham: I don't think your views make you a bad person. I just think that you're underestimating the decency of your common man. When I picture someone like yourself, I imagine someone who has lived a hard life, possibly filled with dissapointments along the way. So one day, you looked down at the color of your skin and said to yourself: "Well, I'll always be white! I can always take up the white cause, no matter how bad things get for me."

It's not right, it's not wrong. It's just..... nothing.


----------



## aanallein

This is an interesting thread. I really have to chime in with Rachamim and Sammael about the Jews being labeled white in the USA. I had this conversation with 2 people a few days ago (one of which is my gf who's father is Jewish nonetheless) and they didn't understand it when I said that Jewish and White (ie, caucasian) are 2 different things by definition. A lot of Jews may look white but they are Semites and that's a different ethnicity. Not sure they agreed with me haha. Oh well!


----------



## aanallein

I'm also going to throw this out there:

If you come to America and live here for more than a few years, learn English.

No, it is not our legal official language but it is by default our culturally accepted official language. When you go to a country and live there, merge with the culture. If you want to be employable and you want to be able to interact with the 270,000,000 english speakers here, learn their language. 

Call me racist but I call it courtesy and making an effort to make yourself part of those around you. If (more like when) I leave the US to live somewhere else (Israel and Scandinavia both appeal to me) it will be my most pressing goal to learn the language as well as possible as quickly as possible.


----------



## aanallein

Also about English:

American English is an an entirely different language from British English and is diverging more each year. We have the most accommodating language on the planet with the most words and fastest incorporation of foreign vocabulary of any language on the planet.

We are accommodating those who come to the USA by morphing our language to fit your needs. Calling us xenophobic and protectivist of our language and culture is frankly, stupid, given the reality of the situation.


----------



## Jamshyd

aanallein said:


> Also about English:
> 
> American English is an an entirely different language from British English and is diverging more each year. We have the most accommodating language on the planet with the most words and fastest incorporation of foreign vocabulary of any language on the planet.


Please provide reference for your claim that American English is "an entirely different language from British English".


----------



## MyDoorsAreOpen

moonyham said:


> your hypothetical situation fails because you wouldnt be able to break into my house let alone touch me. Youd be dead as a door knob before you got half way down my drive way cause im white and thus im smart enough to protect myself and my property, so that i can prosper and become more powerful.



This made me LOL, because last time I heard someone saying basically this, he was pointing his finger violently at some dude in Jerry Springer's audience, while Steve Wilkos gradually pushed him back. Just thought I'd share that. :D



			
				moonyham said:
			
		

> Do you really think that all the most powerful nations just happen to be founded by whites by what, accident??



It's not an accident. But nor does it have anything to do with genetic differences at the population level. Europe and Japan became the predators, and pretty much everyone else the preyed upon, because these places were geographically and ecologically the most fertile ground for the incubation of human cultures with well developed infrastructures of trust and resource movement/management (and therefore, warmongering and exploitation of weaker and less well organized peoples).

The wealth and poverty of human nations is well modeled as the same bag of seed strewn on a wide variety of terrains and soils.


----------



## aanallein

Jamshyd said:


> Please provide reference for your claim that American English is "an entirely different language from British English".



You are serious? One simply has to go to England or parts of Scotland or Ireland to hear extreme differences. Here's a wiki article on it -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_differences

Maybe entirely different language was strong but the two are very different. I cannot even understand a lot of scottish/irish people.


----------



## Jamshyd

*Standard* British English and *standard* American English (and standard Kiwi English, and standard ozzie English, and standard South African English) are all mutually intelligible thus making them different dialects of the same language.

Go find any introductory Linguistics text and read it. You'll find this to be a very pertinent point. Yes there are some exceptions to this rule, but English is definitely NOT one of them.


----------



## aanallein

^ k sorry its a diverging dialect (i have not taken intro linguistics, sorry). the point I was arguing was just showing how american english is quickly incorporating foreign vocabulary and is very accommodating while many other languages are not ( recently read an article on how american english is one of the fastest growing languages because so many new words from other languages are readily adapted to it.

i have also met 1 person from ireland and 1 person from alabama that i could barely comprehend (and a lot of people say californian's have a hard accent to understand when i talk to them). i've had better conversations in my extremely limited spanish with people than i had with those 2 individuals. written english may be mutual intelligible but spoken english isn't always very intelligible.


----------



## ebola?

_Off-topic_



			
				An Alien?  Call INS! said:
			
		

> american english is quickly incorporating foreign vocabulary and is very accommodating while many other languages are not



1.  The vast majority of English's foreign borrowing occurred prior to the great vowel shift, when roughly 40 percent of our lexical items were borrowed from French (IIRC, during Anglo-Saxon occupation of French people living in what is now the UK, prior to the Medieval period).
2.  Other languages do not?  No way!  Languages diversify and hybridize much as do species of organism.  
...
I'll give more later...I have to finish grading papers for...sociology of race! 

ebola


----------



## MyDoorsAreOpen

The idea that languages are discrete entities is as much a social fiction as the idea that races and ethnicities are discrete entities. In the grand scheme of things, both are as amorphous and ever-changing as the blobs in a lava lamp.


----------



## asphyx

http://yun.complife.ru/100facts.htm

Whites > Blacks


----------



## aanallein

ebola? said:


> _Off-topic_
> 
> 
> 
> 1.  The vast majority of English's foreign borrowing occurred prior to the great vowel shift, when roughly 40 percent of our lexical items were borrowed from French (IIRC, during Anglo-Saxon occupation of French people living in what is now the UK, prior to the Medieval period).
> 2.  Other languages do not?  No way!  Languages diversify and hybridize much as do species of organism.
> ...
> I'll give more later...I have to finish grading papers for...sociology of race!
> 
> ebola



Sorry I had just recently read an article in CCN that said exactly those things - that english is rapidly incorporating vocab from other languages (faster than most other languages), many languages are not growing, and english has the most words of any language. I didn't take a class in it and I'm not some kind of linguist. I just read it on CNN. So maybe its right or wrong but that's where I saw it.


----------



## ebola?

_Meta-conversation:_

Quick observation: it seems that a lot of people are neglecting to respond to one another, likely resulting in people talking past one another, rather than genuine conversation.  I say that we keep the dialogue going, so that we each (and all) may learn from one another.

_Back on-topic:_



			
				kstoner said:
			
		

> Not too much What do you expect, it was friday night, and I was preparing for my weekly klan meeting! That's all us southern white folk do round deez' parts.



Heh...er, please don't use straw-men to discredit your opposition.  Frankly, people over-blow the cultural differences between the North and South (of the US).



> This is one of those touchy subjects and I'm goin to have to slowly bow out, not in defeat, but in a agree to disagree sort of way. Your astute, quirky responses give me an intellectual hardon, and I just can't compete sir.



Thanks...possibly undeserved, but thanks.  I try not to view these exchanges as competitions (but I can't really avoid doing so to some extent).  Rather, they're chances to learn by engaging 'the other'.

I know that I talk bizarrely, so I'm happy to try and paraphrase what remains unintelligible (this goes for anyone).



			
				Pharcyde said:
			
		

> So Ive had to deal with blacks all my life would that qualify me to pass judgement on the whole race?



Ummm...you bring up some complex issues with your standoffish attempt to justify your views.
1.  I believe that everyone is 'qualified' to pass judgment on anything (at least in their minds).  At the same time, everyone can expect critical scrutiny of his or her views from others.
2.  No, I don't think that your are 'qualified' to make such a generalization ("qualified" in the sense that you cannot do so with logical validity or empirical adequacy)...even in terms of central tendencies of group-members.  Your sample is too narrow and biased, and your observations are subject to expectancy bias.  They also remain superficial, reifying race, failing to penetrate down to the causal processes that lead to it.



			
				twisted tea...er...Texan ;) said:
			
		

> 1. I think african americans have had plenty of time to clean their act up, they cannot blame slavery and racism for their problems anymore, I know plenty of blacks that have nice families and good jobs, why? because they struggled...



This may include a great deal of overlap with what I've already said to you...but my points appear to remain unaddressed.

1.  In what sense have African Americans had enough time to throw off the shackles of racism, particularly structural and institutional?  Our social institutions function such to reinforce and reproduce prior disparities.  Hell...African Americans STILL face severe discrimination when purchasing housing.

Perhaps your point would hold more credence if racism were truly addressed at some point.

2.  While most racial disparities may be explained via continued structural racism, much of the African American cultural response thereto is maladaptive, complicit in reproducing structural racism.  Thus, critique is necessary as well, but imminent critique tends to be far more fruitful.

3.  Now, effective individual strategies differ from expositions of conditions or good policy-strategies.  In the short term, the individual subject to racism succeeds more readily by taking responsibility than by placing blame, even if the latter is legitimate.



> The whites who supposedly keep the blacks down had to go through the struggle of immigrating and many were poor and starving when they came



1.  White immigrants benefited from a long-standing process of de-ethnification, whereby whites are now unified as 'generic'.  In short, there is no continued structure of oppression against Germans, French, etc., as African Americans currently face.

It must also be noted that white immigrants, for the most part, faced none of the systematic exclusion from education and labor market that African Americans faced.

Indeed, such immigrants benefited from white privilege upon arrival.

2.  Gah!  As I've argued, individual whites, for the most part, hold little responsibility for continued racial oppression.  Rather, the culprit at hand is a racist _system_.



> the africans sold their own people into slavery



This has no bearing on America's racist regime.



> if any of them (or you if your reading mr. sharpton) get your ass a boat ticket and go the fuck back.



1.  er...wut?  If any of them what?  
2.  Should descendants of European settlers secure tickets to Europe?



> Blacks are racist toward whites. PERIOD.



Period?  More like "ellipsis"...   As I argued before, context matters.  African American prejudice against whites functions vastly differently from white racism from a position of privilege.



> You never hear a lawsuit because a black owned business wouldn't hire a white...



Actually, there have been numerous successful lawsuits brought forward on such grounds (Brown et al. 2003).



> The majority of black owned businesses will hire a black over a white with the same credentials...



Citation?



> Black people exclude themselves!!!! They are the racists!!! They set up their own churches, set themselves apart by celebrating Black History month...etc...



Okay...I've already made this point in a couple ways...I'll try it this way: you would most likely do the same if you faced systematic exclusion from power and wealth on the basis of ascribed identity.

Such separatism is a compensating response to oppression, an attempt to launch an ethnic project to gain power.



> I love it, don't get me wrong, but they use the word nigga so much... and it's supposedly so offensive, but only when said by a white, thats such bullshit, that proves that they are fucking overdramatic.



I've already said this...but...context matters for matters of meaning too.  When you say "nigger" (or even "nigga"), it holds entirely different import from when the term is exchanged by two African Americans (on friendly terms with one another).



> 6. Fuck every last one of you who comes and tries to tell me i'm offensive, because i'm not, I love my black friends... I have had sex with a black girl, I love mexicans, I enjoy african american culture! I love rap, but BLACKS ARE RACIST TOWARDS ME!!!!
> And like I said I only presented these views to get some positive feedback, so either ban me from BL or respectfully disagree, but call me an idiot and I will, well I won't do shit but laugh at you, and maybe call a random black guy a N---- just to hurt your feelings... Right after he says whats up nigga to his black friend... you double standard carrying pro-racist. lol



Is this to provoke conversation too?  Or are you genuinely pissed off?
Really, I'm not sure where you're getting this apparent 'persecution complex' from.  Do you think that people here are unnecessarily attacking you (I hope you see why they'd attack your views)?

Also (this goes for several people), repeating your views or putting them forth more aggressively fails to:
1.  make said views more correct or
2.  convince people of said views.

enough for now...this is pretty time-consuming. 

ebola


----------



## KStoner6tb

ebola? said:


> Heh...er, please don't use straw-men to discredit your opposition.  Frankly, people over-blow the cultural differences between the North and South (of the US).
> 
> 
> ebola



What part of the country do you live in?  Haha I still  hear the question "Hey!  Do you rednecks still ride horses everywhere?" quite often from the northern peeps.  Yes it's more like a sports rivarlry, friendly ribbing type deal, but I can't stand 90% of the people I've met from the north(east)...race is no factor..so what's the term for my ignorant, blind hatred?  Something catchy is a plus .  Dumbass, ignorant-ass, and jackass are not an option


----------



## Jamshyd

^ That's the thing. There is no word for someone who's disposition toward a discrete cultural group isn't very nice due to negative experiences with a large majority of them.

This is exactly my attitude toward the Thai. 

I think it is very possible to develop a distaste for a specific society due to bad experiences directly relating to the structure of said society rather than for the biology of the people who make it, and this has nothing to do with being racist. 

And that is actually why I started this thread in the first place - the English language is in desperate need for language to express cultural dissonance without the need to resort to race which can sometimes be irrelevant. 

Sadly, the thread had veered way off that I actually stopped posting in it :D


----------



## KStoner6tb

Jamshyd said:


> And that is actually why I started this thread in the first place - the English language is in desperate need for language to express cultural dissonance without the need to resort to race which can sometimes be irrelevant.
> 
> Sadly, the thread had veered way off that I actually stopped posting in it :D



 You gotta step in and set us straight Jam!  Keep your mod hand strong :D


----------



## Chigger90

lol


----------



## Pharcyde

Jamshyd said:


> And that is actually why I started this thread in the first place - the English language is in desperate need for language to express cultural dissonance without the need to resort to race which can sometimes be irrelevant.




But isnt English the fastest  evolving language in the world?  So maybe we have or soon will have those new words


----------



## Papa1

Jamshyd said:


> And that is actually why I started this thread in the first place - the English language is in desperate need for language to express cultural dissonance without the need to resort to race which can sometimes be irrelevant.



But isn't culture an integral part of race? I didn't know they were separable.

Sorry to argue semantics, but I thought that race was a broad classification that included biology, but also included culture and society. So a generalized dissonance with a culture is a generalized dissonance with aspects of a race, and in that way racist. 

I think I'm probably just confused. In short - I'd love to hear more of what you mean.


----------



## rstar84

I tend to agree with those citing economic inequalities as relevant factors in the perceived achievement differential between races – or as I see it, the achievement disparities among social classes (measured economically and educationally). To illustrate the obvious, consider the educational differences between students of affluent suburbs compared to students residing in areas of concentrated poverty. 

Is language and language use (the varietal of the language) a factor in terms of educational access and achievement? Generally, for the average person, I think so. I think utilizing the favored or conventionally utilized form of a language (the form that is arbitrarily favored by universities and privileged classes) may help diminish educational inequity for people of marginalized classes by allowing them to have greater access to educational institutions. Perhaps I’m being naïve, but I think a positive correlation exists between economic disparity and linguistic drift (i.e. as the forms of English used by marginalized groups drift further from the forms used by privileged groups, so might the economic disparity between the different groups – or, admittedly, perhaps linguistic drift is merely a reflection of the ever-widening economic divide). I recognize that one group’s expression of language is no less valid than another group’s, and not all people of a particular group speak alike, but historically, marginalized groups tend to adopt more of the conventions of the dominant groups than the reverse, not because one form is “better” or “correct,” but because it is useful and practical to do so. If we agree that education can serve as a democratizing or equalizing force, and that universities favor certain forms of linguistic expression, shouldn’t we teach that form to students of marginalized groups?


----------



## moonyham

i concur with the dislike or hate of a culture because of bad experiences. If i hadnt ONLY had physical violence threatened to me by blacks in the streets,  then i probably wouldnt be saying that blacks are more violent, more prone to crime, more prone to giving negative input to a situation like asking for a lite.

If asians were the ones trying to intimidate me, trying to jump me with knives and telling me to give me them my wallet and phone or theyll kill me, then id feel the same towards them. Then fact of the matter is, asians and whites dont do this, its blacks who do and therefore thats who i am predjudice against. Im not racist im just realistic, like i said and i do have black mates(infact mates of almost all major ethnicitys) and i know that of course there are blacks who decide to be civilized but at the same time i also know that blacks are the least civilized of all people in almost all instances.

Do you all think there is no genetic correlation, and not a cultural one, that blacks are just less civilized by nature? I mean if you look at tribes and shit in africa.. well to say the least they have some pretty uncivilized methods of life... this was brought with them to where ever they decided to migrate too because its in there genes, not there culture.

All you have to do is look where black people live to see how uncivilized they are.. they have NO respect for there neighbourhoods, they look like dumps with burnt out cars, rubbish and tagging everywhere. White neighbourhoods on the otherhand are generally quite clean and tidy. It doesnt take MONEY to keep your yard and neighbourhood clean, all it takes is some fucking respect and anyone can pick up a piece of rubbish or dispose of rubbish properly, or choose not to tag, and all that stuff.


----------



## Jamshyd

Papa said:


> But isn't culture an integral part of race? I didn't know they were separable.
> 
> Sorry to argue semantics, but I thought that race was a broad classification that included biology, but also included culture and society. So a generalized dissonance with a culture is a generalized dissonance with aspects of a race, and in that way racist.
> 
> I think I'm probably just confused. In short - I'd love to hear more of what you mean.



It is difficult to separate the two with definitions, so I'll attempt to provide such separation implicitly:

Let us for the sake of conventionality say that "black" is a race (and most people would agree that it is). 

The black people in the US are part of American society and American culture (and of course, the sub-cultures within, especially the sub-cultures specific to African-Americans). The black people in Ethiopia are part of Ethiopian culture (and the subcultures within it). The black minority in Russia are part of Russian culture (and the subcultures within it...etc). And so on. 

The only common denominator between American blacks and Ethiopian blacks is a biological trait - ie. the skin colour. Such classification is what I would consider racial classification. 

A racist who thinks black people are inferior would not differentiate between the American blacks or the Russian blacks or the Ethiopians. To that person, it is this biological trait that counts, not the country of origin.

Now, if I come and tell you that I have a problem with _Ethiopians_ specifically, my problem is not that they are black. My problem is that they are part of a society that produces Ethiopian culture, with which I have a problem, and that is why I have a problem with them. 

As such, I do not think it is proper to call me a racist. 

(Note that I have no problem with Ethiopia, this is just an example). 

-----

Now here is an inverse example:

The white people in Italy are part of Italian culture, particularly (let's say) Milanese culture, and all the subcultures that follow. The white people in Finland are part of Finnish culture and all the subcultures that follow. The white people in Greece...etc. 

Let's say I'm a white guy from Spain, and I claim that all of the above, like me, are superior to everyone else simply because they are white. 

This would definitely make me a racist, merely because I glorified a large group of unrelated people simply because they share my skin colour. 

If, however, I say that Spaniards are superior to all others, I am not being a racist. I may be nationalist, ethnocentric or what-have-you, but not a racist. 

-----

While it may sound like I am splitting semantic hairs here, I think semantics here is an important matter, since "racist" is a very very loaded word and I see it utilized often (even by myself sometimes) erroneously since there simply isn't any other word to describe it. 

On a more personal level (which is what prompted me to start this thread), I've been called a "racist" because I speak rather lowly of Thailand and Thai people due to my experience living and working in that country for a year. Anyone who has taken the time to hear out why exactly am I doing this has conceded that, not only am I not a racist, but that my sentiments are in fact justified. As someone who is actually trained to be a social critic, I have seen some machinations in the structure of Thai society that tend to produce individuals who (assuming they aren't alienated from said society) will without exception act in certain disagreeable ways as a direct result of said machinations. But I'm not about to get into another discussion of Thailand - I just want to demonstrate one of the many examples out there of someone being unfairly called a racist.

I hope this clarifies better?


----------



## OpiodSlave

Racism is retarded. I have a black friend who is one of my best. But, I think...maybe even due too a almost primal instinct, we feel more comfortable with the same race.


----------



## moonyham

Jamshyd said:


> Now here is an inverse example:
> 
> The white people in Italy are part of Italian culture, particularly (let's say) Milanese culture, and all the subcultures that follow. The white people in Finland are part of Finnish culture and all the subcultures that follow. The white people in Greece...etc.
> 
> Let's say I'm a white guy from Spain, and I claim that all of the above, like me, are superior to everyone else simply because they are white.
> 
> This would definitely make me a racist, merely because I glorified a large group of unrelated people simply because they share my skin colour.
> 
> If, however, I say that Spaniards are superior to all others, I am not being a racist. I may be nationalist, ethnocentric or what-have-you, but not a racist.



Your basing this all off the idea that all humans are absolutely equal in all aspects(including mentally) and what you say is all very true if that were the case. However, i believe that each race has different mental capacities and abilities. Its no mistake that asians are the best at fast reaction sport like table tennis or first person shooter games as an example.  People will agree that different races are certainly different physically, blacks can sprint faster as an example(all the best sprinters are black, are they not). 

Just like men and woman(both homo sapiens yes) have different mental capacities(like supposudly woman are better at multitasking) then why is it so hard for people to accept or even dwell on, that different races have different mental capacities and traits.


----------



## burni

if i may add another 2 cents^^
i think the diversity amongst humans is nothing we schould use to undermine the other or letting your people stand in a better light, it's what makes us human and interesting for another.

hell there's nothing better than getting to know other cultures/countries/people.
so i beg you get rid of the term "race" when it comes to humans i always shake when hearing this because that shit drove my people to the extermination of several million people only because they followed a different belief or opinion, needless to say that they were not black at all.


----------



## swilow

asphyx said:


> http://yun.complife.ru/100facts.htm
> 
> Whites > Blacks



Epic of epicest fails there. There is no such thing as the "white race". You lose.


----------



## juniortha3rd

Jamshyd said:


> Now, if I come and tell you that I have a problem with _Ethiopians_ specifically, my problem is not that they are black. My problem is that they are part of a society that produces Ethiopian culture, with which I have a problem, and that is why I have a problem with them.
> 
> As such, I do not think it is proper to call me a racist.
> 
> (Note that I have no problem with Ethiopia, this is just an example).




That makes perfect sense. But the politically correct blowhards that run things here in the US (and Canada as well) can't see the distinction between culture and race. They just don't get it.

In some African countries with high rates of HIV, the men believe that raping a virgin will cure them of the disease. Which is, obviously, a primitive and stupid way of thinking. But if any of my coworkers heard me say "Wow, those guys raping virgins are fucking retarded." That makes me a racist. I'm mocking the culture in Ghana, or Gambia, or whatever hellhole this happens in. I'm not mocking the black race. I love everyone! but...........

My blood really boils when I think of the PC, extreme liberal WHITE people. (and the yo-boys/wiggers that are their children) My aunt got fired for telling a table full of black people in the office cafeteria, "Quiet down, you guys sound like a bunch of monkeys!" Of course, they were acting like a bunch of monkeys. They were being loud and talking at the same time. Why do we have to add this racial component to all of this? My aunt is kind of slow. She didn't understand what she was saying. It's bullshit, but its Washington DC, so bullshit is the norm.



----------

And speaking of DC.... Speaking of the extreme left's pet causes.......Fuck every single person who opposes "gentrification" of this city. When the rich people move in, crime goes down, and property values go up. The people that complain are always out-of-towners. It's always the same bunch of jerkoffs who've lived here for 3 years and all of a sudden, they care about "preserving the history of the neighborhoods." Shut the fuck up, and go the fuck home. If you want to live in an "authentic neighborhood," then just move to the suburbs, which is where all the city rats have been relocated to anyways. 

I'm guessing that its probably the same situation in NYC. I've never been there, but I do know that the city is 10 times safer than it was 20 years ago. So why is gentrification such a bad thing?


----------



## Jamshyd

moonyham said:


> Your basing this all off the idea that all humans are absolutely equal in all aspects(including mentally) and what you say is all very true if that were the case. However, i believe that each race has different mental capacities and abilities. Its no mistake that asians are the best at fast reaction sport like table tennis or first person shooter games as an example.  People will agree that different races are certainly different physically, blacks can sprint faster as an example(all the best sprinters are black, are they not).



Even if this is true, I still don't understand how does it make the separation of race and culture difficult?

That said, Thais (A culture of East Asians) are not particularly well known for either their brightness or their table-tennis skills. They do obsess about certain online games, but I think this has more to do with culture than race. 

And I've never even heard of a Malawian sprinter :D. (But I'm sure someone in Malawi races... just not world-class). 

Either way, I don't see how this has anything to do with my point.



> But if any of my coworkers heard me say "Wow, those guys raping virgins are fucking retarded." That makes me a racist. I'm mocking the culture in Ghana, or Gambia, or whatever hellhole this happens in. I'm not mocking the black race. I love everyone! but...........



Yes, I feel the same way .


----------



## rbe10741

i try not to be rasist. but for me sometimes its unavoidable


----------



## Pharcyde

wait I read some of this and I feel Ive got to say somthing about myself

I never said I have had bad experiences with black people.....did you assume I did by the way I posted somthing?  So are you contradicintgyourselves or somthing?  Am I reading to much into what you are saying?  MY mind is a blur


----------



## Jamshyd

It all depends on who you're referring to ("this" and "your").


----------



## rachamim

Mooneyham: "If Germany, France, Britain and Spain became the countries that they are today, then ANY country can do the same!": THEY became the countries they ARE by using slave labour. So, should I encourage my Filipino neighbours and family to start catching whites for slaves?

"Blacks commit more crimes.": Not in Vermont, New Hampshire and 20 something other states. It depends where we are talking about (not to mention which country).

Crime has many causes BUT race is NOT one of them. There are a few intersecting dyanmics that cause SOME parts of America to have a disporportionate number of black CONVICTS. Did you notice that last capitalised/hi-lited word? CONVICTS. 

Even in areas where figures are nearly in synch as to the number of arestees per race, Blacks are getting convicted at MUCH higher numbers than any other race. So, there are actually 2 issues that need to be examined, "Black arestees," and "Black convicts."


See, just because more blacks (per capita) than whites sit in prisons cells does not then translate into greater black criminality. When you have blacks predominating in urbanised areas, it is very easy to end up with greater numbers of blacks being arrested. Police are shooting fish in a barrel! Do you not imagine that it is not a whole lot easier to drive in a 5 block radius in Baltimore and round up junkies and street dealers than it would be to nab an equal amount of surburban white cocaine and Prescription Drug Addicts when driving around the town of Chevy Chase?

In the former scenario you have hundreds of vulnerable young man outside and congregating in large crowds while in the latter, people do not even walk let alone congregate outside.

But what of the reasons WHY blacks end up congregating and living in depressed urban areas? Slavery? Jim Crow? Societal bias still prevalent long after both? Broken homes due to a broken culture due to slavery that is itself due to those European Nations you threw out in your first point? 

You see, it goes back to the original exploitation, of minorities BY whites. That is not to say that Blacks do not have a responsibility to stop making excuses and start doing for self, only that at the same time, you need to take into account the very real fact that this issue (like all issues) is NOT black and white (no pun intended haha).

"All Black countries where people stand with their hands out asking for free food.": You mean those same countries where those same white nations exploited all the natural resouces for more than half a milennia and raped and enslaved their Peoples? Those countries?

"Whites are naturally superior if all white nations are doing so much better, are so much more advanced than non-white nations...": As I advised Jam in a similar thread, I believe in "Second Opinion,"there is a phenomenal book that you need to read, "Guns, Germs and Steel" by (Professor) Jared Diamond from UC. The advantage that those "white nations" clearly have is mostly to do with their GEOGRAPHY and NOTHING at all to do with the complexions of their inhabitants.

Once you remove melanin from the equation, what makes a Black different from a white? "Race" only holds a partial utility in Anthropology and is fast becoming marginalised even there. IF there is NO difference between "Races," how could "white nations" be doing better by virtue of race? Please DO explain.


SlimVictor: "English was never given Official status in the US though it is the lingua franca.": Very true. Most Americans have no clue as to that fact nor do they realise that German almost became the Official Language (Ben Franklin led that push) as well as the Turkey (Franklin once ahain) almost beating out the Eagle as "National Bird." Funny how it would have worked out.

(Edited for spelling)


----------



## rachamim

Ebola: "Undocumented Latino Labour in the US HELPS State economies due to, among other reasons, pushing documented wages up by virtue of excising lower paid documented jobs...": WHAT? Please tell me you do NOT believe THAT! It does no such things. It feeds an inexhaustible pool of easily exploited low wage earners while negating the need for societal improvements on so many crucial levels.

As for the point on charged/deducted Social Security  that is never fed into the system, again wrong (well MOSTLY). In a tiny number of cases (the Postville, Iowa case being a great example where you would be correct) there are employers doing that. Most though engage in cash wages, no deductions. 

The sticking point FOR the continuance of the status quo MIGHT be the dearth of willing documented labourers for digging ditches at 6 US per hour. In alot of cases they actually TAKE jobs and sink the economy (construction being a great example, why pay 60 US an hour to a union man when you can pay 7 or 8 to an undoumented Latino?).

Swilow: "If Christianity were not so prevalent in alot of those African nations AIDs would not be so pervasive...": Not true. Christianity in Africa is largely a melange of synchrestic faiths that more closely resemble traditional faiths once you negate the Cross from the picture. In places like Uganda, Congo and such, it is more due to the heterosexual machismo on the part of men. Family planning is just about non-existent and not because of any Christian denomination. Traditional mores towards sex, taboos, and the well entrenched tradition of migrant labour are what is driving that epidemic.

TwistedTexan: "How many times does the news who white families being carjacked simply for being in the wrong part of town?": You are ABSOLUTELY correct! Just not for the reasons YOU imagine. Black on Black crime FAR exceeds Black on White crime BUT you would not know that because when a black family gets victimised your media could not give a shi*. Let a white family come into some trouble and it is leading off the 6PM Report.

"50% of Blacks blame their 
actions/problems/ills on the white man.": Yeah, that has been my experience as well BUT when you realise than more than 90% of Blacks in America are only within 5 generations of slavery it changes the perspective. ONLY 50% complaining?

I believe that Blacks make far too many excuses BUT I ALSO believe that whites do not accept enough responsibility. It goes both ways and really wil never change until BOTH groups overcome these inherent stumbling blocks.

KStoner: "Blacks need to get over it, Stoner was not there in Mobile harming Blacks in 1962! It is called 'Forgiveness'.": Yep, you are right BUT before they can OFFER forgiveness do you not think they should know that America as a whole is sorry?

Just this past week the US Capitol in DC unveiled a plaque memorialising the Slaves that built! Your entire nation depended upon their labour. You say that why should you, as a Southerner, feel any remorse. I say that as a Sourtherner you more than any other American should appreciate the contribution made by Slaves, for 300 odd years. The Civil War had many causes but one major cause was the Slave-dependant economy and the prospect of losing that source of support. In other words, the entire South was built upon their backs and you are merely reaping the benefit. Ackowledge it, move on. As long as people like you continue to remain oblivious nothing will change.


----------



## bpayne

races are so mixed through interpopulation that anyone being racist to one group is most certainly being racist to their own group, there is no such thing as a race, we are all mixed to some extent


----------



## rachamim

Jam: "British English vs. American English.": You are correct of course, they ARE dialects within a standard language. However, part of what Aanellian said is correct. Every year they diverge further and further. Suprisingly this has accelerated in the Modern Era where as one might expect the opposite to occur with the ability to converse much more freely and the proliferation of a standardised media.

Anyway. I am sure you do not need me to tell you that often time Americans need subtitles when watching Guy Ritchie films (of course they are not in King's English but do illustrate wonderfully just how far they ARE diverging).

Indeed, Aanellian is right on when he mentions having great difficulty in comprehending even other Americans from different regions.

Myself, I am not a native speaker but in Israeli schools of my generation, when one learned English it was King's and King's spelling ("centre" for center and "labour" for labor). Today that have adopted American English. English as a whole is an interesting language, one of the most difficult to learn as well.

Ebola: "The great assimilation in English was during the Norman Occupation of Britain.": Yep, dead on.

" Languages always growing and adapting much like a living organism.": Yep times 2. Very true, that is why they are fascinating.

I wonder if most Americans realise that Spanish was spoken in most places there BEFORE English so that today's influx of Spanish speakers can easily be termed a "reversion" to the ORIGINAl language, not a CONversion to a new language. Puts "authenticity" in a much different light.

"(To Stoner): Please do not use Strawmen to discredit your opposition, regional differences within the US are usually exaggerated. There is not all that many things to differentiate bewteen Southern and Northern Americans.": Yes! The Klan is ALL OVER hahahahaha (I had to).

"Stop talking past one another...": That was the best advice I have seen in a long time. CIVILITY...

"Black on White bias is inherently different from White on Black bias due to Whites operating in a position of power, dominance and privlege.": Yes, true but I naturally feel like vomiting when I hear Black-centric pundits stating that "Black on White Racism can NOT exist due the whites operating out of privelege." Prejudice is prejudice and such academic distinctions only muddy up the waters. It often translates into a rationalisation (thus an excuse) to engage in Minority on Majority Racism.

"Nigga vs. Nigge*.": True. Blacks internalised what to them was a hurtful and very degrading word in a sort of compensatory mechanism. This internalisation allowed them to bear the degradation when faced ith its traditional usage by the white majority.

Jews have a similar but inverted dynamic with the word "Yid." It simply means "Jew" in Middle German but in its modern text it was been attached to a very negative context. While 2 Jews might say, "What's happening Yid?" A non-Jew saying, "What's up Yid?" can have very, very different connotations. It is all in the context.

Jam: "A Spaniard saying that the Spanish are the best is NOT the same as saying 'Whites are the best'. A Spaniars is talking about just that nationality where as the latter is talking about a much larger group.": The phrase you missed is "Cultural Chauvinism." When a person feels that a nationality, ethnicity or gender is superior they are a "Chauvinist."

(Edited for spelling)


----------



## Papa1

Jamshyd said:


> It is difficult to separate the two with definitions, so I'll attempt to provide such separation implicitly:
> 
> Let us for the sake of conventionality say that "black" is a race (and most people would agree that it is).
> 
> The black people in the US are part of American society and American culture (and of course, the sub-cultures within, especially the sub-cultures specific to African-Americans). The black people in Ethiopia are part of Ethiopian culture (and the subcultures within it). The black minority in Russia are part of Russian culture (and the subcultures within it...etc). And so on.
> 
> The only common denominator between American blacks and Ethiopian blacks is a biological trait - ie. the skin colour. Such classification is what I would consider racial classification.
> 
> A racist who thinks black people are inferior would not differentiate between the American blacks or the Russian blacks or the Ethiopians. To that person, it is this biological trait that counts, not the country of origin.
> 
> Now, if I come and tell you that I have a problem with _Ethiopians_ specifically, my problem is not that they are black. My problem is that they are part of a society that produces Ethiopian culture, with which I have a problem, and that is why I have a problem with them.
> 
> As such, I do not think it is proper to call me a racist.
> 
> (Note that I have no problem with Ethiopia, this is just an example).
> 
> -----
> 
> Now here is an inverse example:
> 
> The white people in Italy are part of Italian culture, particularly (let's say) Milanese culture, and all the subcultures that follow. The white people in Finland are part of Finnish culture and all the subcultures that follow. The white people in Greece...etc.
> 
> Let's say I'm a white guy from Spain, and I claim that all of the above, like me, are superior to everyone else simply because they are white.
> 
> This would definitely make me a racist, merely because I glorified a large group of unrelated people simply because they share my skin colour.
> 
> If, however, I say that Spaniards are superior to all others, I am not being a racist. I may be nationalist, ethnocentric or what-have-you, but not a racist.
> 
> -----
> 
> While it may sound like I am splitting semantic hairs here, I think semantics here is an important matter, since "racist" is a very very loaded word and I see it utilized often (even by myself sometimes) erroneously since there simply isn't any other word to describe it.
> 
> On a more personal level (which is what prompted me to start this thread), I've been called a "racist" because I speak rather lowly of Thailand and Thai people due to my experience living and working in that country for a year. Anyone who has taken the time to hear out why exactly am I doing this has conceded that, not only am I not a racist, but that my sentiments are in fact justified. As someone who is actually trained to be a social critic, I have seen some machinations in the structure of Thai society that tend to produce individuals who (assuming they aren't alienated from said society) will without exception act in certain disagreeable ways as a direct result of said machinations. But I'm not about to get into another discussion of Thailand - I just want to demonstrate one of the many examples out there of someone being unfairly called a racist.
> 
> I hope this clarifies better?



Yes, that makes a lot of sense.

I'm not sure what the word for that is... I think what makes a lot of racism stupid is that it's going from personal experience to false generalisations. For example, race x is not less intelligent than race y, no matter how many times you think that a person from race x is dumb. As long as you're not making the same kind of mistake - as long as you actually do know the Thai culture, say, and you're not just jumping to a generalisation because some things about your experience there ticked you off - I'd say you're doing things fine. If you are making the same kinds of false generalisations involved in racism, it might not be racism but it'd still be guilty of the same crimes.

If someone came and lived in Canada for a year, and then passed judgement on our entire culture (whatever that might be), I'd be skeptical that he's judging all aspects specifically...


----------



## Jamshyd

I do not want to drag my Thai shtick into this. 

Let me try to reply to what you're saying while attempting to stay on topic:

First, let's establish that "Thailand" and "Canada" are not races, they are nations. People associate to nationalisms _by choice_ (legal paperwork upon birth notwithstanding), whether they realize it or not. Any kind of offence a Canadian may take from a comment made about Canada is actually a result of hurt pride rather than unfairness. You chose "us and them", then don't get too weepy if "they" insult "you [pl.]".

Second, let's establish that certain judgements are applicable to Thai (or Chinese, or Japanese, amongst others) cultures that are not applicable to Candian (or American, or Australian, amongst others) cultures. The former are collectivist, the latter are individualistic.

Collectivist cultures not only accept generalizations, but _welcome_ them. 

These are issues one never really fully realizes from the armchair. You have to travel extensively and socialize with other travellers to actually know exactly what brings about such criticisms and judgements, which are actually not passed from individual to group as may appear, but actually from a group (foreigners) to another group (those whose lands these foreigners happen upon). 

As such, a lot of non-travelled westerners are simply incapable of imagining how collectivist cultures work.

The only thing I can say on this regard is to take my word for it, and try to see the fact that such criticisms actually resonate between travellers. 

Furthermore, this is not limited to travellers. Collectivist and pseudo-collectivist (_a la_ mid-east) cultures engage in such generalizations about each other on a regular basis. It is only in individualistic cultures that such practises are neither well-understood nor applicable (ie. you cannot judge someone from an individualist culture the way you judge a person from a collectivist culture). Ironically, this lack of understanding on behalf of the individualist can in itself be seen as a form of ethnocentrism...

I don't mean to sound arrogant, and I apologize if it appears so.


----------



## Papa1

Jamshyd said:


> First, let's establish that "Thailand" and "Canada" are not races, they are nations. People associate to nationalisms _by choice_ (legal paperwork upon birth notwithstanding), whether they realize it or not. Any kind of offence a Canadian may take from a comment made about Canada is actually a result of hurt pride rather than unfairness. You chose "us and them", then don't get too weepy if "they" insult "you [pl.]".



Agreed. I'm taking "Canadian" and "Thai" as _cultural_ labels.



> Second, let's establish that certain judgements are applicable to Thai (or Chinese, or Japanese, amongst others) cultures that are not applicable to Candian (or American, or Australian, amongst others) cultures. The former are collectivist, the latter are individualistic. Collectivist cultures not only accept generalizations, but _welcome_ them.



I don't have a lot of experience with this, so I can't say no...



> The only thing I can say on this regard is to take my word for it, and try to see the fact that such criticisms actually resonate between travellers. ... Collectivist and pseudo-collectivist (_a la_ mid-east) cultures engage in such generalizations about each other on a regular basis.



Neither of these points has any bearing on your arguments. The number of people that agree (or disagree) with your position is irrelevant to the legitimacy of your argument.

That said... I'm not saying that your judgement of Thai culture is wrong (both because I don't know what your judgement _is_, and because I know almost nothing about Thailand). I was just saying, simply, that _if_ your judgement makes the same kinds of generalisations that are used in racism, _then_ it would be wrong.

Without having a lot of experience with collectivist cultures, it seems to me that because of the complexity involved, passing a judgement on an entire culture, that is categorising it in terms of "like" or "dislike" - that's way too simplistic. I think that only _parts_ of a culture can be honestly approached like that. For example, if someone told me they didn't like Thai geography I'd say they probably haven't seen everything in Thailand... I do take your point though that I am coming at it from an individualistic world view.



> I don't mean to sound arrogant, and I apologize if it appears so.



I'm talking hypothetically here (again, because I don't know your view or your experiences) - so me too.




Jamshyd said:


> I do not want to drag my Thai shtick into this



Really? I'd love a little Thai stick in here...  Sorry, bad joke!


----------



## asphyx

swilow said:


> Epic of epicest fails there. There is no such thing as the "white race". You lose.



Sorry Mr. Semantics. Just replace 'race' with 'people' in each instance then.

And your comment hardly devalues the point that the website proves; which is that white people are better than black people in almost all aspects of life.

Everything in life isn't created equal.


----------



## felix

in my current job, which i've been doing for nearly a year, i've worked in:*

*Libya *(muslims, strange people, don't really like us white infidels, lazy, disorganised)

*Angola *(don't speak a word of english, fucking hate us white folks, can't do the job but need our help anyway, only seem to care about their cliquey tribal infighting rather than help rebuild their country after 20 years of civil war)

*Russia *(dour, stoic, don't and won't speak english, still mired in communism even though it didn't work, resent us westerners coming  in to help)

*Nigeria *(disorganised, kinda lazy, love british and other western people, respectful to an embarrassing degree, corrupt)


shocking huh? 

i used to think i was enlightened, before i went to these places. now i'm just enlightened in a different way. OBVIOUSLY there are exceptions to all of the above. some russians i met were wonderful and friendly, but most of them weren't. some angolans worked their asses off, but ummm... hardly any of them didn't. 

perhaps one other stereotype was true as well: i was always the overpaid white western foreigner, so perhaps i got the reception that they all think i deserved. 

so call me racist if you like, but i now know, with the experiences i have had over the past year, that the issue isn't as black and white** as the politically correct armchair generals seem to think.

in some ways i'm kind of troubled by my mindset over this issue. i still don't judge a person by their race when i meet them, but i can't help looking back when my last mission is over and realising that the stereotype fits probably over 90% of that country. i'd like to hear about others' experiences of this. 



* i know these aren't races, but i'm sure you're intelligent enough to realise that too. it's besides the point.

** i fucking hate puns.


----------



## ebola?

God Damn it!
I had a very long reply that was lost.  So I'm just going to reply somewhat selectively here.



			
				jamshyd said:
			
		

> I think it is very possible to develop a distaste for a specific society due to bad experiences directly relating to the structure of said society rather than for the biology of the people who make it, and this has nothing to do with being racist.



I concur.  If you have a charitable conversant who keeps in mind that your cultural critique is based in a structural analysis, not blame of individuals or reified cultural stereotypes (and also if this is truly the shape that your critique takes), I think that you can come out of this without veering into 'ethnic chauvinism'.

While I think that imminent critique bears a certain special significance here, I don't think that we can declare imminent critique as the sole valid critique.  No one _really_ wants to hold herself to hard-line cultural relativism, where no ethical critique would be possible, and it's most unclear where we should divide culture vs. sub-culture, vs. idiosyncratic meaning-making.  Thus, if we restrict ourselves solely to imminent critique, there is a large problem of determining who is 'authentic' enough to build such critique.



> And that is actually why I started this thread in the first place - the English language is in desperate need for language to express cultural dissonance without the need to resort to race which can sometimes be irrelevant.



Fair enough.  I can has neologism nao? 



			
				papa said:
			
		

> But isn't culture an integral part of race? I didn't know they were separable.



While culture and race somehow interpenetrate and present themselves intertwined (depending on how we define culture), but I believe that they can be moderately successfully separated analytically.

As a rough cut, race tends to be ascribed be the dominant framework of meaning in society, tends to be involuntary (you can't 'really' opt out of it, other than in cases of 'passing'), and functions as an instrument of oppression (maintaining privilege), and it often operates on the level of instant, unconscious categorization.

Ethnicity, on the other hand, tends to be a project of meaning-making and social network maintenance launched in reaction to oppression (particularly exclusionary practices) undertaken by the dominant group, and ethnicity tends to be voluntary and self-conscious.

It gets REALLY muddy.  For example, Judaism was pretty much an ethnic project  until the Nazis turned it into a racial project.



			
				moonycheese...er...ham said:
			
		

> Do you all think there is no genetic correlation, and not a cultural one, that blacks are just less civilized by nature?



The evidence suggests so (Ossorio and Duster 2005).



> Your basing this all off the idea that all humans are absolutely equal in all aspects(including mentally) and what you say is all very true if that were the case.



One needn't hold such a view to eschew the relationship between genetics and race.



> However, i believe that each race has different mental capacities and abilities.



Upon what are you basing your conclusions, other than casual observation?



			
				Juniorthathrid said:
			
		

> And speaking of DC.... Speaking of the extreme left's pet causes.......Fuck every single person who opposes "gentrification" of this city.



While I agree with your sub-point that the influx of hipsters to the cities in search of faux-authenticity is fucking st00pid, I find your view a tad myopic.  What social conditions set the stage for such gentrification, and are these conditions just?  What should happen to poor inner-city residents who are being priced out of their homes?



			
				rachamim said:
			
		

> Ebola: "Undocumented Latino Labour in the US HELPS State economies due to, among other reasons, pushing documented wages up by virtue of excising lower paid documented jobs...": WHAT? Please tell me you do NOT believe THAT! It does no such things. It feeds an inexhaustible pool of easily exploited low wage earners while negating the need for societal improvements on so many crucial levels.



Perhaps I spoke with insufficient nuance initially.  This inexhaustible pool of highly exploited low-wage workers relegates 'native' residents and to a certain extent documented immigrants into more privileged sectors of the labor-market, benefiting such individuals directly.  Furthermore, I would hazard a guess that the existence of such a labor sector of ready hyper-exploitation increased aggregate production by reducing the cost of business outlays for firms in this sector.

Is such an arrangement just or overall beneficial for society as a whole?  Hell no, but within a certain given context, the flip-side of oppression is privilege.



> As for the point on charged/deducted Social Security that is never fed into the system, again wrong (well MOSTLY). In a tiny number of cases (the Postville, Iowa case being a great example where you would be correct) there are employers doing that. Most though engage in cash wages, no deductions.



This has been becoming less and less true/consequential, as the expansion of the reach of the INS has forced employers of undocumented workers to take more care 'cooking the books', since roughly the mid-nineties to date (Massey et al. 2002).



> The sticking point FOR the continuance of the status quo MIGHT be the dearth of willing documented labourers for digging ditches at 6 US per hour. In alot of cases they actually TAKE jobs and sink the economy (construction being a great example, why pay 60 US an hour to a union man when you can pay 7 or 8 to an undoumented Latino?).



To reiterate a bit, It is my opinion that without this pool of hyper-exploitable labor, more citizens would be relegated to earning minimum wage in such jobs.  This 'union man' is becoming more and more a myth.
...
Now your points in general are pretty much spot on and put more eloquently than I would be capable of.  



> Prejudice is prejudice and such academic distinctions only muddy up the waters. It often translates into a rationalisation (thus an excuse) to engage in Minority on Majority Racism.



Here, I have to disagree.  Prejudice functions drastically differently depending on the context in which it inheres.  The Black pundits, as you say, certainly aren't putting forward an adequate analysis, but I don't think that equivocating all prejudice is the proper solution.



> Jews have a similar but inverted dynamic with the word "Yid." It simply means "Jew" in Middle German but in its modern text it was been attached to a very negative context. While 2 Jews might say, "What's happening Yid?" A non-Jew saying, "What's up Yid?" can have very, very different connotations. It is all in the context.



Interesting.  I've never observed this dynamic, as I've operated almost entirely in social contexts where Jews have pretty much been assimilated into the American generi-white.



			
				jamshyd said:
			
		

> These are issues one never really fully realizes from the armchair. You have to travel extensively and socialize with other travellers to actually know exactly what brings about such criticisms and judgements, which are actually not passed from individual to group as may appear, but actually from a group (foreigners) to another group (those whose lands these foreigners happen upon).



Of course, there is also something to be said for the insights of the 'outsider within'.  For example, it's no accident that secular Jews are severely 'overrepresented' in European classical and post-classical social theory (and still are among my colleagues...it's pretty cool).



> Furthermore, this is not limited to travellers. Collectivist and pseudo-collectivist (a la mid-east) cultures engage in such generalizations about each other on a regular basis. It is only in individualistic cultures that such practises are neither well-understood nor applicable (ie. you cannot judge someone from an individualist culture the way you judge a person from a collectivist culture). Ironically, this lack of understanding on behalf of the individualist can in itself be seen as a form of ethnocentrism...



Ah.  Great point, and very neat logical 'inversion'.  I think that your argument stands, as long as we carve out room for exceptions.



			
				asphyx said:
			
		

> And your comment hardly devalues the point that the website proves; which is that white people are better than black people in almost all aspects of life.



The 'point' of your link and the 'evidence' presented hardly needs devaluation.   Please, by all means, keep digging your own grave.


----------



## elbroski

It's absolutely incomprehensible to me how intelligent humans in the 21st century still hold onto fear and hate so fervently.  The color of ones skin means nothing.  It is of absolutely zero importance.  Is it so hard to see that somehow who is short, black, fat, skinny, girl, boy is just a human like you.  The physical appearance of the shell that we occupy for this short interval of time on earth is so utterly trivial and purposeless.  Like it just pisses me off that there are people on this forum who are so blind and asleep.  I know the majority of you guys (and girls) are good souls and I really love sharing this community with you all, but sometimes I'm just so disgusted that things like this are even topics.  The very concept of racism should have died 300 years ago along with monotheistic religion, gender laws and concepts, and drug prohibition.  All just pointless laws, stereotypes, and mandates that serve only to assuage the fear of the paranoid few at the top of the power structure.


----------



## Jamshyd

ebola? said:


> I concur.  If you have a charitable conversant who keeps in mind that your cultural critique is based in a structural analysis, not blame of individuals or reified cultural stereotypes (and also if this is truly the shape that your critique takes), I think that you can come out of this without veering into 'ethnic chauvinism'.



See, you have a very good point there. A problematic one, too. 

a. Like many issues of discussion, a _lot_ is weighed upon _faith_ that the conversant actually knows where you're coming from.

b. Chicken or egg: Are the stereotypes reified, or is it reality that precipitates said stereotypes? In my case, I am able to present a coherent structural analysis for my extreme criticisms of Thai society, and _even quote sources_ to back me up*, hehe. 



> While I think that imminent critique bears a certain special significance here, I don't think that we can declare imminent critique as the sole valid critique.  No one _really_ wants to hold herself to hard-line cultural relativism, where no ethical critique would be possible, and it's most unclear where we should divide culture vs. sub-culture, vs. idiosyncratic meaning-making.  Thus, if we restrict ourselves solely to imminent critique, there is a large problem of determining who is 'authentic' enough to build such critique.



I have a chronic issue with the word "imminent". I think I just plain don't know what it means. It seems to occur in the most unlikely of places: The Iŝa Upanishad (Mascaro translation), Foucault...etc. Can you explain to me what you mean by it?

Even the Oxford _Concise dictionary of English Etymology_ fails. It tells me that it is of Latin origin _imminēns_, and it means "Project, be impending". 

Nebulous semantics is nebulous .

And speaking of nebulousness... see, I think the sad truth is that no matter how much Academic sterilization is dealt forth, it is simply human to tackle other-human by group. 

Again, one finds that all exceptions to generalizations in collectivist societies are in fact people who have been alienated from said societies. I myself am an example of such. While I retain a lot of semitic features, my very body (if nothing more) twists said feature as to render them antagonistic to the group if bared. 



> Fair enough.  I can has neologism nao?



Absolutely. But "Ethnic Chauvinism" isn't always sufficient. Take the alienated critic (*cough*). He is not glorifying one group at the expense of another, but rather pointing out the errors of large groups as an alienated individual (who might, in fact, be in a _de facto_ group of other alienated individuals.

Am I making any sense? I've been immersing myself in Wilde and Nabokov lately and I think I may have picked up a textually-transmitted disease . If this is the case, I apologize. 



> As a rough cut, race tends to be ascribed be the dominant framework of meaning in society, tends to be involuntary (you can't 'really' opt out of it, other than in cases of 'passing'), and functions as an instrument of oppression (maintaining privilege), and it often operates on the level of instant, unconscious categorization.
> 
> Ethnicity, on the other hand, tends to be a project of meaning-making and social network maintenance launched in reaction to oppression (particularly exclusionary practices) undertaken by the dominant group, and ethnicity tends to be voluntary and self-conscious.



I do support very much the idea that race is involuntary while culture is, and definitely agree that it really does usually end up being a political instrument of dominance and submission. Race is not something that one can escape. Look what happened to Michael Jackson. Nor is sexuality. Look what happened to Michael Jackson. Culture, on the other hand, can be actively rejected and even subverted. Look what happened to Michael Jackson.



> It gets REALLY muddy.  For example, Judaism was pretty much an ethnic project  until the Nazis turned it into a racial project.



It isn't too muddy, really - just politic that can easily be circumvented by intelligence. I really don't wish to talk about Nazis because that's what we do all the time .



> The evidence suggests so (Ossorio and Duster 2005).



I'm interested. I can haz biblio ref?

 a whole?  Hell no, but within a certain given context, the flip-side of oppression is privilege.




> Of course, there is also something to be said for the insights of the 'outsider within'.  For example, it's no accident that secular Jews are severely 'overrepresented' in European classical and post-classical social theory (and still are among my colleagues...it's pretty cool).



You mean the Aliened? yes .



> Ah.  Great point, and very neat logical 'inversion'.  I think that your argument stands, as long as we carve out room for exceptions.



Those being, say... the Alienated?


----------



## ebola?

Ack...computer crash in the midst of a giant reply...I'll try to reconstruct.
...
I am very glad that you replied, Jamshyd. . .



			
				Jamshyd said:
			
		

> Chicken or egg: Are the stereotypes reified, or is it reality that precipitates said stereotypes? In my case, I am able to present a coherent structural analysis for my extreme criticisms of Thai society, and even quote sources to back me up*, hehe.



I think that both necessarily coexist.  Any analysis, even valid, will necessarily involve reification.  If we take the seat of reality to be processural, then any sort of conceptual interrogation of this process will distortedly transform it into a set of static, conceptual, 'things'.  These things can be interrogated in terms of processes, but insofar as such processes fall subject to analysis, they become reified anew...perhaps with infinite regress.

However, I find myself satisfied, usually, when even the first layer of reification is subject to analysis...which occurs woefully rarely.



> I have a chronic issue with the word "imminent". I think I just plain don't know what it means. It seems to occur in the most unlikely of places: The Iŝa Upanishad (Mascaro translation), Foucault...etc. Can you explain to me what you mean by it?



In this case, I simply mean "intrinsically" to mean "from within", in static conceptual opposition with "extrinsic", meaning "from without".  Often times, I will otherwise invoke "intrinsic" in greater dynamic opposition to "transcendent", the latter meaning, "moving beyond". 

So basically, the question is, must valid critique be leveled from within?  If so, what does it mean to be within a particular culture?

I'll have to think a bit more deeply and rigorously about the place of alienated positionality in imminent critique. . .



> I think the sad truth is that no matter how much Academic sterilization is dealt forth, it is simply human to tackle other-human by group.



If this indeed is the case (which appears likely), how may we mitigate or reauthor this most deplorable aspect of our 'nature'?



> Absolutely. But "Ethnic Chauvinism" isn't always sufficient. Take the alienated critic (*cough*).



Indeed, hence my call for a neologism.   Perhaps...'analytic/synthetic cultural criticism'?  But that is at once too imprecise and too cumbersome. . .



> I do support very much the idea that race is involuntary while culture is, and definitely agree that it really does usually end up being a political instrument of dominance and submission. Race is not something that one can escape. Look what happened to Michael Jackson. Nor is sexuality. Look what happened to Michael Jackson. Culture, on the other hand, can be actively rejected and even subverted. Look what happened to Michael Jackson.



This is both a funny and apt. illustration.



> It isn't too muddy, really - just politic that can easily be circumvented by intelligence. I really don't wish to talk about Nazis because that's what we do all the time .



Maybe this example only gets muddy when people start arguing (most often fruitlessly) over whether Jews are 'White'?



> ebola: The evidence suggests so (Ossorio and Duster 2005).
> jamshyd: I'm interested. I can haz biblio ref?



"Race and Genetics: Controversies in Biomedical, Behavioral, and Forensic Science", _American Psychologist_ (oh noes!!! ), January 2005.

It's a pretty up-to-date and easily comprehensible summary of what degree race is indeed genetic, along with some commentary on the racialized biopolitics of penal genetics in the US.  Because race resolves to little other than those genes associated with the phenotypes we see and non-protein coding genes that correlate with them, race cannot genetically mark predisposition to become 'civilized'.

ebola


----------



## dspade

I think that jamshyd has a good point rationalizing "we" in our brains is the true face of racism. not only are we racist so is everyone else in the world. even though such is a natural response in the human brain to organize circumstances and other input into categories. that coupled with the social awkwardness of yearning to be accepted by those you care for or idolize creates discrimination. and that is racism the belief that you are somehow better or worse than someone else. thinking yourself different doesnt make racist unless you believe your way of life or thinking is superior. just accept your fellow man while simultaneously carving your own path and may you find true enlightenment.


----------



## glitterbizkit

moonyham said:


> Your naive to think that blacks are even slightly as smart as whites.



How ironic that you're supposedly smarter than me by virtue of your skin colour, yet you can't spell 'you're'....  *Ahem*, ok, sorry for nitpicking, I just thought it was a little funny...

I went to a school that was truly multiracial, with about 40% black kids, 30% Asian, 25% white  and 5% mixed/other.  We all came from similar socio-economic backgrounds and all had the same educational opportunities.  And i can honestly say that race did not play a significant role in how well kids did at school... Apart from the Indian kids, who were always at the top of the class and seemed more intelligent than anyone else, but this also had a lot to do with their cultural background - their parents pushed them a lot harder to succeed.  So, in my experience, race has nothing to do with accomplishment, but culture and opportunity sure as hell does.



> Do you all think there is no genetic correlation, and not a cultural one, that blacks are just less civilized by nature? I mean if you look at tribes and shit in africa.. well to say the least they have some pretty uncivilized methods of life..



Moonyham, where exactly do you get your information from?  You don't seem to know much about African history or culture apart from generalisations about "tribes and shit"...  It's a massive continent, and in pre-colonial times African societies ranged from the highly sophisticated e.g. the kingdoms of Ghana or the Swahili civilisations, which were major centres of trade at the time, to the more primitive, e.g. the Khoisan hunter-gatherers, who nevertheless have/had a very interesting, evolved, and most of all, peaceful culture.  So exactly which tribes and shit were you talking about?  Names and dates please...

Civilisations all rise and fall, and there have been many African civilisations which have risen and fallen, the same as with civilisations in any other continent.  You just don't hear so much about African civilisations because most of African history was written or re-written by colonialists...  And so the continent took a huge, massive blow from colonialism.  Does this mean that Africa as a whole has not been prosperous before, or that it will never be prosperous again?  Nope, it doesn't.

Oh and I don't know where you get the idea from that Africans have adopted a loser's attitude and have decided to give up and just ask for handouts.  While I can't speak for all African countries as i haven't been to many of them, my country at the moment is an exciting place to be.... There's a lot of hope and economic growth.  People are buzzing with enthusiasm and ideas as to how they can improve their country.  It's not a bad place to be at all, at the moment.  I think you'd find yourself very surprised if you dropped your pre-conceived notions about Africa for a second and actually looked into the reality of things.  Of course, I don't expect you'd be the kind who would be interested in broadening your horizons.  Racists rarely are, and xenophobia thrives in comfort zones.  



> asphyx said:
> 
> 
> 
> http://yun.complife.ru/100facts.htm
> 
> Whites > Blacks
Click to expand...


I just glanced at this page and one of the first 'facts' was that black Africans have never been known to construct anything more complex than mud huts... when anyone who knows even a little about the history of African civilisation (and i am ashamed to say i don't know enough as I wish I did) knows about Great Zimbabwe, the impressive stone fortresses built almost a thousand years ago by black Africans, spanning an area large enough to house more than 10,000 people.  So that huge error makes the whole page very unreliable and suspect in my opinion.

Of course, throughout the history of colonialism, white colonials tried their hardest to prove that Great Zimbabwe could not have been built by black people (when in fact it has since been proven that it was built by Bantu peoples)...  Which maybe gives you an idea of why we don't hear a lot about accomplishments in African history... 

And they claim Africans have never cultivated crops or domesticated animals?  What utter crap - where do they get this nonsense from?  Perhaps you shouldn't believe everything you read, asphyx...


----------



## KStoner6tb

^^I don't know why you'd take you time to argue Moonyham or asphyx with them making such outlandish statements...clearly just looking to start shit.  I know you wasted at least 20 mins of your life typing that post glitterbiz


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## glitterbizkit

Yea I know, I don't really expect them to take the time to understand my arguments... but I enjoy defending my country/ continent....  Someone has to do it 

edit:  also, i know that other, more open-minded people have negative pre-conceived notions about Africa because they simply have not been exposed to anything else...  So I wrote that as much for those people as for moonyham and asphyx.


----------



## KStoner6tb

glitterbizkit said:


> edit:  also, i know that *other, more open-minded people have negative pre-conceived notions about Africa because they simply have not been exposed to anything else...  *So I wrote that as much for those people as for moonyham and asphyx.



True, good point.  Ok you didn't waste that 20 mins, I've changed my mind


----------



## glitterbizkit

And just because I have nothing better to do... I wouldn't even bother with this page were it not that I remember seeing it in the past, linked from another forum as well... As well as the fact that I enjoy making fun of the ignorance of bigoted people :D



> asphyx said:
> 
> 
> 
> http://yun.complife.ru/100facts.htm
> 
> Whites > Blacks
Click to expand...


Re: the "facts" about South Africa



> White people have lived in South Africa much longer than Negroes. There have been White settlements in South Africa for over 300 years, about the same length of time Europeans have lived in North America. Even 150 years after the first colonies around Capetown, at the beginning of the 19th Century, there still were no Blacks within 500 miles. The Blacks wandered in from central Africa later on, possibly fleeing the slave trade or due to famine. In fact, most of South Africa’s Blacks were born in other countries.



The KhoiSan were the original inhabitants of SA, they were partially displaced by the Bantu who did emigrate from the north, but this was long before the white settlers arrived.  When the white people arrived, the Bantu people had been there for over a thousand years.  This falls in the category of "duh, everyone knows this!" information, so I can only conclude that whoever wrote the page is _very_ uneducated.  This is almost like saying that there were no native Americans when the Spanish first came to the Americas.



> South Africa is by far the wealthiest and most advanced country in Africa,



Partly true, but when it comes to GDP per capita, SA lags after countries like Equatorial Guinea (which is no. 20 on the world list, according to World Bank), Mauritius, Botswana and Seychelles.



> producing nearly 75 % of the continent’s Gross National Product.



False



> Martin Luther King frequently enjoyed prostitutes and paid for them with his church’s money.



Urban legend with no proof.

Although I haven't read all the rest, those glaring inaccuracies confirm that the page is written by someone with too little education/ intelligence and too much time, and that the rest of the 'facts' are probably just as made-up as the above ones....  Not to mention the important fact that it has been established beyond a doubt that the genetic difference between 'races' is nearly non-existent, hence there is no such thing as racial differences between people.  Also, the anthropological references that guy has used are almost all 50 years old, the field has moved on since then...


----------



## hexxx

glitterbizkit said:


> And just because I have nothing better to do... I wouldn't even bother with this page were it not that I remember seeing it in the past, linked from another forum as well... As well as the fact that I enjoy making fun of the ignorance of bigoted people :D
> 
> Re: the "facts" about South Africa
> 
> The KhoiSan were the original inhabitants of SA, they were partially displaced by the Bantu who did emigrate from the north, but this was long before the white settlers arrived.  When the white people arrived, the Bantu people had been there for over a thousand years.  This falls in the category of "duh, everyone knows this!" information, so I can only conclude that whoever wrote the page is _very_ uneducated.  This is almost like saying that there were no native Americans when the Spanish first came to the Americas.



Read the references. They made me lol. "Soldier of Fortune" mag is a trustworthy reference? And a bunch of hate speech books. The Khoi San are unfortunately not really around any more. Either assimilated into other races (such as the coloureds - a group of people who are of mixed European, Asian and African decent) or wiped out by the Dutch, Xhosa, English and Zulus. The whites were indeed on the tip of the continent before the Xhosa but by a few years. S Africa is far larger than the tip of the Cape.

[qutoe]Partly true, but when it comes to GDP per capita, SA lags after countries like Equatorial Guinea (which is no. 20 on the world list, according to World Bank), Mauritius, Botswana and Seychelles.[/quote]

There are almost no people in those countries. Two resort islands, a minute country with a few oil billionaires (mostly foreign companies getting that money). The only country with a tiny bit of influence is Botswana. But is a huge country with massive natural resources, also no people. It's like saying Luxembourg and Monaco pack the most economic clout in EU because of the GDP / capita. But you're right, we aren't 75%, no where near it. Here are the Wikipedia figures:



> pos    2008    2009
> 1 	 South Africa 	277,188 	243,315
> 2 	 Nigeria 	214,403 	168,422
> 3 	 Egypt 	162,164 	188,059
> T	Africa 	1,518,911 	1,276,928



So it's around 20% of the continent. Still a large amount when you consider we only have 5% of the continents population and I'm estimating 80% (maybe more) of that wealth is in the hands of 20% of the population.



> Although I haven't read all the rest, those glaring inaccuracies confirm that the page is written by someone with too little education/ intelligence and too much time, and that the rest of the 'facts' are probably just as made-up as the above ones....  Not to mention the important fact that it has been established beyond a doubt that the genetic difference between 'races' is nearly non-existent, hence there is no such thing as racial differences between people.  Also, the anthropological references that guy has used are almost all 50 years old, the field has moved on since then...



Don't worry you didn't miss much. I read it for a laugh. 

The truth about racism in the country.

As you'd assume, because of the past there is quite high racial tension in the country. For everything that goes wrong, the previous regime is blamed. Get caught stealing? No problem blame the previous regime. There is also the common belief that acts of racism is only something that can be committed by whites, no such thing as blacks being racist. 

We have a policy called BEE (black economic empowerment). This is like a a supercharged gravy train on nitrous. It basically means that black owned businesses are given preference over white owned companies and to meet the score required to tender for contracts, people have to give away large portions of their companies that they struggled for years and years to build. Whites had no gravy train to ride during apartheid, work or die. Nothing was free like commonly believed. 

Tenders are lost even if companies are much, much cheaper. It doesn't take an economics major to figure out what's wrong with this policy.

It is literally destroying the country. We had massive economic growth and then the burden of this policy started to be felt and the criteria was made more rigid. Firstly in the incumbent power company. Coal transport was being outsourced to BEE companies and they stopped delivering coal at one stage. Their excuse was that they didn't want the coal to get wet?!?!?!!? I don't know whether to laugh or cry. So we had rolling black outs, load-shedding, the mines were taken off line during certain periods. Eventually some heads rolled and it was found that the government had been warned and warned to increase capacity for the past 20 years and nothing was done. The morons involved with the coal transport were more like an early warning system than the sole cause.  There were many suggestions that were to be implemented by the previous regime but all subsequent requests were ignored, the regulator was dragging it's heels and basically not doing it's job.

Stories like this are the norm. We have freedom fighters in office responsible for things like communication and general deviants in miscellaneous offices. eg home affairs (who was our previous health minister - a woman with convictions for stealing patients wallets during operations in Botswana and Hepatitis requiring a liver transplant at age 65+ She was given one even though she is an alcoholic and was fighting the nurses for booze after surgery).

Jacob Zuma (our big boss now) was up for fraud (as well as rape etc). It could have been a political conspiracy. Unlikely but not impossible. His financial advisor was convicted. He spent 2 years in prison hospital and discharged under a medical parole for high blood pressure. People here don't get medical parole. Even when they are dying their requests are caught in red tape. The few that do get it die in a few days. He was given 72 hours to live. 5 months ago. Pretty obvious what's going on. I spoke to some of the guys at work about this who are well educated and come from quite good backgrounds. They are above the poverty line and would probably be considered well off in certain circles and live the life that a upper-lower to lower-middle income person would. The common response was, he is a leader, he knows what he is doing therefore it is alright. The same response I got regarding Mugabe.

Racism is rampant here, especially black vs black. Xenophobia attacks were carried out against any non SA blacks a couple months ago. People were burnt to death. There is an image in the newspaper of a man burning to death while a policeman stands watching with a huge smile on his face. Even among my friends one moment that sticks out was a bunch of Zulu friends who got hostile towards a Venda friend. They said, don't hang out with this guy he's Venda, he's a mampara (idiot). It is also prevalent among all the major racial categories (black, white, coloured and Indian) that made up our demographics. But the most severe examples can be found in black vs black racism. But I suppose you can't call it racism because only whites can be racist. 8)


----------



## glitterbizkit

hexxx said:


> The Khoi San are unfortunately not really around any more. Either assimilated into other races (such as the coloureds - a group of people who are of mixed European, Asian and African decent) or wiped out by the Dutch, Xhosa, English and Zulus.



I did a project on them when I was studying anthropology.   I read a book written by a woman who spent some time traveling with the San in the Kalahari desert in the 60s or 70s, and I found their culture really fascinating.  The particular group she stayed with lived the same way they had been living for hundreds of years, peace-loving and in tune with their environment, no mean feat considering the harshness of the desert climate.

She went back to visit them a few decades later and many of them had been forced to abandon their previous lifestyle and move to the cities where they suffered extreme culture shock and were mistreated and exploited.  Many were now alcoholics, and quite a few had died of AIDS.  It was really sad.

Re: SA's GDP and all that:  I agree that it is the most advanced African country in many respects, just pointing out the errors that were stated as facts on that website.



hexxx said:


> But the most severe examples can be found in black vs black racism. But I suppose you can't call it racism because only whites can be racist. 8)



While I agree that people of all colours can be racist, I don't think xenophobia against black people by black people is technically racism, because it's not based on race, but on nationality.  

But yes, black people can definitely be racist.  I've had black people be racist towards me because I'm half white... and somehow this is assumed to be ok?  Recently a friend (mixed race) was telling me about an incident when an Afrikaaner man was humiliated in some way, and my friend thought this was ok because the man was a Boer, and so must have deserved it by virtue of his nationality and race.  i find it unacceptable, racism is wrong no matter what colour you are.

I've been hearing a bit about the things going on in South Africa, and I must say I was very disappointed when I heard that Zuma had been elected as president...  Still, with South Africa's history, I'm not too surprised.  The apartheid is all too recent for the resentment and hatred to die down so quickly... It's the story of human nature, holding grudges and seeking an eye for an eye.  Especially in countries when there is still so much poverty, and where most of the poor people are black and white people lead more affluent lives.  That's how Mugabe managed to do so much damage to Zimbabwe...  We almost had a similar man come into power in Zambia in the last elections - Michael Sata - an uneducated populist who won a lot of support from the poor people for policies that were similar to Mugabe's.  Thankfully, he didn't, although Rupiah Banda who is in power now is as corrupt as the rest of them.


----------



## hexxx

I agree with you 100%, but what surprises me is that the amount of hate towards blacks of other ethnicities pales in comparison to the amount of hate towards whites (or at least crime with race as the apparent main motivation). I've encountered very little of it directed at me first hand but I can take a joke though. Even the jokes are very mild and the worst I've personally encountered is someone trying to get me worked up (which is nothing). The hostility between black people doesn't necessarily even span over other countries, just slightly different areas. Even between so called classes, there is quite a bit of "racism" and I've heard racial slurs uttered against people of the same race. Mostly blame for "why people think we're xyz is because of abc's like you". And that is most definitely racism (using slurs), not just xenophobia, doesn't matter that it's between people of the same race (AND language / ancestry) hating themselves and / or own peeps. Xenophobia and racism are the same thing to me though - semantically and technically they are different, yes - but at the core, hate is hate. I classify Afrikaans vs English = Zulu vs Xhosa = black vs white = Nazi vs Jew, etc. They are all wrong. As wrong as each other. Stereotypes and racial profiling aren't as bad or bad at all IMO, even though they are considered racism. It is not necessarily hate. I can laugh at jokes about my own people as loud as I want but I won't laugh at the another racial group for fear of offending someone or fear of reprisal. If I know that I won't offend at all, I don't see what's wrong with humour. Certain people are malicious under the guise of humour but I definitely don't mean any malevolence over it, a lot of people differ in this regard.

I heard about that Michael Sata guy briefly, most people like that are after votes but I'm sure when the people of Zambia saw Zimbabwe and it's famine, cholera and economically meltdown, they decided that maybe the fleeing Zimbabweans were fleeing more than just the results of the propaganda. Off topic but what's with the licking of salt off peoples hands during a barbecue among your fellow countrymen? Assuming you are Zambian that is. We were at a house a while back and people were doing this, I'm sure the custom wouldn't have really been imposed on anyone but one of the only other S African's in the group (besides me and my inviter) was a girl who I brought and she made me hide with her while this was going on (she didn't want to hurt their feelings by declining). I found it quite amusing... She didn't though, lol, so I didn't ask our hosts what was up with it or find out if it was even a Zambian tradition. She wouldn't let me fearing that it would have been noticed that we hadn't had our turn yet!


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## glitterbizkit

I must say i haven't really encountered much xenophobia between black people of different ethnicities...  One of the good things our first president, Kaunda did was to unite the nation.  "One Zambia one nation" was his party's motto, so there's not much hatred at all between different tribes.  I haven't really noticed any hatred towards black foreigners either.  Maybe it's a historical/cultural thing?  I mean we have about 72 different tribes, so if Kaunda hadn't been so thorough in this there would probably be a lot of conflict...

Yea, i'm (half) Zambian, lived there for 18 years... and I must say I have never heard about this licking salt thing!  Sounds as weird to me as it does to you!  Maybe it's the *insert random tribe name*, I've heard they are really skanky bastards.


----------



## vegan

no time to read more than fragments of the thread
and no time to give my opinion
but since i see that jamshyd talked about thailand, and imagining what he said (didn't read the actual post); i would like to remind people of 2 points :

- there are several veeeeery different kinds of racism
the way is which thais are racist is extremelly different from the racism that most posters here probably have in mind

- if someone's not able to really communicate with the locals in a country, spending even (tens of) years there is not enough to understand them
you may make true observations
and rightly compare them to other cultures that you know
but that doesn't necessarily mean that you understood what you observed


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## KStoner6tb

^blatant racist.  The best kind.  Dont spread your hate propoganda around here Vegan.


----------



## vegan

^^ you forgot to add "420xtc" at the end of your moniker


----------



## ebola?

wrong subcultural slur, lol. 
(masterful prediction of this thread's content though! )


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## TwisteTexan

Whew, racism is def alive... Blacks in urban places won't even give most whites a chance to seem fair. They are set on some fear that is being passed down. The media that feeds off the shit...how bout this van jones racist ass on Obama's panel... He resigned, but he advised my countries president. I think it's the african american's that have a racist agenda, havent been here in a while, I fell off the earth like many bluelighters do from time to time.. but there is something us simple folk can understand... lots of this has gotten over my head, it's not so complicated, racism is natural... but humans have made it much worse... P.S. fuck a racist.


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## KStoner6tb

Quick question..Do yall think this is a racist(or stereotypical) comment:

"If you're driving around the ghetto late and night, trying to cop, and you are white, most likely you'll be pulled over by the police without any other reason than they know you're up to no good"


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## jackie jones

Most likely the reason for such an act to occur is because the police are bored and they hope someone is carrying, regardless of race.

So no, I do not find the statement racist (even if you were to say black instead of white), just inaccurate.


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## TwisteTexan

KStoner6tb said:


> Quick question..Do yall think this is a racist(or stereotypical) comment:
> 
> "If you're driving around the ghetto late and night, trying to cop, and you are white, most likely you'll be pulled over by the police without any other reason than they know you're up to no good"


it's not racist to say, but the cops are being racist...and shall continue to be as crime is much more enticing to the "oppressed black man" ha ha ha.... that sounds racist...


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## moonyham

Well to the 'my school was mixed race and it didnt make much difference in classes etc'.

Well, i went to a mixed race highschool too, about i dunno atleast half of the students were pacific islanders and about a third white and the rest asians and stuff, and all of the stupid classes had disproportionately high amounts of black/brown people, is all im saying.


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## moonyham

INFACT!!!

Heres a list of things that have influenced me to say these things.

1: Ive only been physically threatened, or had my life threatened, by brown/black people.
2: If i look at the people walking into WINZ for 'FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE' from the government, its disproportionately high in amounts of brown/black people.
3: If you look at prison/crime statistics, the prisons are fulled with disproportionately high amounts of brown/black people.
4: The only people who have ever tried to 'scab' money off me: 'hey bro, got a dolla bro?', are brown/black.
5: All the most uncivilized and dangerous countries are run-by/majority brown/black

So... I mean i could just keep going on to be honest but i think you all know it anyway.


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## boodha

well, i live in a third world african country and have for 4 years, 

and, what i have learnt is that color of ones skin, is not a factor in how one behaves, that the differences between people of different color are less than the similarities between them.

also, that peoples idea of "africa" is extremly narrow, and unless you have travelled in the continent of africa, you most likely have the wrong idea about the place.(i state this, as because i hear a lot of people lump stereotypes upon black americans via the "african" link)

education is important in how people see the world..how many highly educated racists do you know ?

i got more things i have "learnt" but regarding racism, these are simple, obvious areas.

straight out hatred/racism really blows my mind and can greatly upset me, we are all capable of loving other people of different races/skin color, and we all should.


----------



## jackie jones

There are very few black people where I live, but I must say that in my many travels, they are the only ones the only ones who will come up to me and ask for money, to use my cell phone, or ask for cigarettes. Also, in the very few times I have been ripped off during drug deals, it has always been by a black person. I never have problems with asians, natives, mexicans, or people from other races, just blacks. The only contact I have ever had with black people is them trying to screw me to the wall - not even a casual conversation that does not end in them asking for something.


----------



## moonyham

damn strait. When ever a brown/black person approaches me i know its gonna either involve drugs, violence, money, or some of shit i dont want.

I think if we just locked all black people up from birth we'd be alot better off


----------



## jackie jones

moonyham said:


> I think if we just locked all black people up from birth we'd be alot better off



I do not agree with that, I just do not want any contact with them, which is a matter of choice.


----------



## Moonmixer

moonyham said:


> damn strait. When ever a brown/black person approaches me i know its gonna either involve drugs, violence, money, or some of shit i dont want.
> 
> I think if we just locked all black people up from birth we'd be alot better off



That's more than a little extreme. I think the problem is that you don't know enough black people or live in an environment where a person of African descent can thrive. In Atlanta, there is an African-American majority, and so I know plenty of black people. I can tell you  that disliking black people because of the color of their skin is illogical and wrong (This goes to MrJackJones too). I'm not saying that either of your observations are illogical or wrong, I just think (or know) that you are coming to the wrong conclusions from your experiences. 

Minorities in the United States ARE disadvantaged because of their race. Anyone who says otherwise, frankly, is wrong. It's not because of some natural deficiency they have that black people constitute the overwhelming majority of impoverished peoples in Atlanta (and assumedly in the entire USA). Why? Because I know plenty of African-Americans who are completely competent, and in many ways more so than I am (I am Caucasian). And by plenty I don't mean a few, I mean PLENTY.

Because the majority of blacks are compromised in their ability to function in society based on the disadvantages that their "race" has experienced in the past, you will find that many are a product of their environment. I.E., an African-American who grows up in the ghetto down the street from my house is more likely to grow up and break laws, behave violently, and etc. than an African-American who grows up in the nicest part of town. How do I know this? Because there are white people that grow up/live in these same neighborhoods that are just as or more untrustworthy, delinquent, or lazy as any of the black people in the same neighborhood. 

In this way, many African-Americans are victims of the environment that they have inherited due to true racism and slavery in the past (and possibly in the present, although I have no concrete thoughts on that matter). 

I will admit, I dislike a LOT of black people. However, I know enough black people that I like and enjoy the company of to know that my dislike isn't based on race, but on the variable I have described above. 




I apologize for the long read and if my writing is hard to understand... this is the first time I've ever put these thoughts into words. Anyway.... comments?


----------



## jackie jones

Perhaps if I were to meet some decent black people, I would change my stance on the subject. Unfortunately, I as of yet have not. I did vote for the president (although at this point I am thinking that I should have not voted at all), because I thought he was pretty intelligent.


----------



## ControlDenied

you sound reasonable, anyway ive been ripped off to many times, it makes me feel like such a bitch i want to hunt them all down lol, but yeh most of the time its whitee people, ut thats because i dont even TRY to buy off black people lol... in europe arabs ALWAYS ripped me off


----------



## KStoner6tb

mrjackjones said:


> I did vote for the president (although at this point I am thinking that I should have not voted at all), because I thought he was pretty intelligent.



LOL at least you're admitting you made a mistake.  Some stubborn fools are hangin on for dear life....till the end.  

You think practically every black voter who voted for Obama, didn''t do it because he was black??  Get real with yourself.  Some media outlet went out in New York City, and switched McCain's policies with Obama's when asking people who they were voting for and why, and NONE of them even knew what Obama stood for.  

Isn't that considered racism because you could claim McCain WAS NOT elected because he was white??  *sigh*


So the fact that everyone wanted a black man to finally become president, was more important than his actual qualifications.


----------



## matterofperception

Wow i can't beleive how hateful people on BL can be race is just a physical charachterisitc it has NOTHING to do with how one acts. People are usually a product of thier enviornment and I would say alot of the perceived differences between races are because most races fit pretty well into a certian economic class. For example the amount of impoverished blacks/hispanics (in reference to USA) is much higher than the amount of impoverished whites or asians. Because the people grow up in diffrent enviornments they adapt to the world diffrently which means they act differently.


----------



## MyDoorsAreOpen

You guys should read the Wikipedia entries for 'Blackface' and 'Minstrel Show'. Black people in the US have been the subject of much malicious scapegoating and imaging-down throughout their history, which has had a direct impact on their perception worldwide. This has extended to peoples in other countries of similar complexion and social status, who carry a similar difficult legacy from the Age of Exploration / Colonial Era.

The thing is, this really only reversed within living memory. So now we have a whole generation of nonblack Americans who aren't old enough to remember blacks being segregated and lampooned without mercy. All they see is black people who don't trust nonblacks (especially whites), and don't feel the least way bad about exploiting whites, and the system whites built and run (think "lazy welfare moms"), if given the chance. Golly gee I wonder why. 

I do see equality achieved by black Americans in the future. But it won't seriously get under way until discriminatory, segregationist public policy, and media imaging-down, of these people, is well out of living memory. So quite likely not in our lifetimes.

This issue has definitely made me think philosophically about individuals' personal responsibility for their historical ancestors' deeds.

It was a hurtful but eye opening experience for me to work in a lowly position of service at a hospital with a majority black population. I was instantly held at arm's length by many (though by no means all). Some warmed to me when I was warm to them. Some not. I just had to learn not to take it personally (something I'm not good at doing), and see it in historical perspective.

I was never, EVER cheated, exploited, conned, stolen from, or attacked by anyone while working this job. Nor was I ever afraid such a thing was likely.


----------



## KStoner6tb

^Equality by black Americans?  You mentioned the word "reversed" which is how things are.  Agh go back and read my posts in the earlier parts of this thread, as I don't feel like repeating myself.  Why don't you go ahead and tell me when you'll KNOW for sure, when blacks have been paid due reperation for slavery?  When will this moment be?  Will you know it when you see it?  

We're trying so hard to "repay" blacks because of slavery that it really makes a lot of things downright wrong.  Affirmative action?  The best person for the job, not getting the job, because a certain number of blacks have to be hired??   How is that right??



Wasn't Dr. King's dream for everyone to be equal??  How does affirmative action encourage equality?  It's demanding hirings based on race!  This isn't the 1960s with the "good ole boys" not wanting to hire blacks.  Smart business people are going to hire the best person for the job...black, white, brown, whatever.


----------



## jackie jones

There is far more adverse racism in the US than there is outright racism. What Blacks had to endure was wrong, but that is pretty much over and now they hate white people for what their ancestors had to endure. I do not blame them for feeling that way, but I am not going to accept that as an excuse for their negative behavior, nor will I associate myself with such people.


----------



## MyDoorsAreOpen

^ Did you even read my post? Imagine your parents, and all the people of their ethnicity in their generation, had been viciously discriminated against during their formative years. Would it be logical that even after the tide began to turn, and official sanctions lifted, that they'd have a bit of a chip on their shoulder, and teach you, their child, that the majority that held them down were not good people?

40 years is not a long time, when we're talking long standing inter-ethnic adversarial relations.


----------



## yougene

KStoner6tb said:


> ^Equality by black Americans?  You mentioned the word "reversed" which is how things are.  Agh go back and read my posts in the earlier parts of this thread, as I don't feel like repeating myself.  Why don't you go ahead and tell me when you'll KNOW for sure, when blacks have been paid due reperation for slavery?  When will this moment be?  Will you know it when you see it?
> 
> We're trying so hard to "repay" blacks because of slavery that it really makes a lot of things downright wrong.  Affirmative action?  The best person for the job, not getting the job, because a certain number of blacks have to be hired??   How is that right??


Affirmative action isn't just about African Americans.  For example, the only reason I(a white male) was able to get into a competitive school is because affirmative action makes sure all demographics are equally represented in the institution.  Otherwise the school would be filled with asian kids with perfect SAT scores.


----------



## jackie jones

I certainly did read your post, before I typed out mine, MDAO. What I typed in my previous posts are observations drawn from first-hand experiences with black people.


----------



## KStoner6tb

yougene said:


> Affirmative action isn't just about African Americans.  For example, the only reason I(a white male) was able to get into a competitive school is because affirmative action makes sure all demographics are equally represented in the institution.  Otherwise the school would be filled with asian kids with perfect SAT scores.



That's why they consider more than just SAT scores.  That's kinda comparing apples to oranges because there is a big difference between someone applying for a job, and someone trying to get into college.


----------



## KStoner6tb

How is it so different?(education vs. job)  I'll go ahead and tell you yougene.

No one's life depends on whether or not you get into college.  

Ok, say your father, brother, etc is a police officer.  The department they work for is currently looking for a deputy sherriff, and has one opening.  A black man and a white man both apply for the job.  Now say the white guy scores 25 points higher on his police test, and is clearly the better canidate.  BUT, because of affirmative action, the department is forced to hire the black man.

Now this new deputy is paired with your relative as his partner.  Your loved one's LIFE can depend on how good  this person is at his job.  We're not talking about maybe getting an education; which is important don't get me wrong.  But, we're talking life and death.  Your relative gets killed in the line of duty all because we want to make everything 'fair' and the department was forced to hire a less competent black man???  

Btw, I'm not pickin on any skin color.  Whoever is best for the job, gets the damn job!!  It's pretty simple.  You don't see my sueing the NBA because it's not fair that I can't jump as high as Lebron James.  Oh it must be they're discriminating against me because there aren't as many whites as blacks in the association.  

Yes, what blacks were forced to go through was wrong.  No arguement, no doubt.  But some of the shit that goes on today to "repay" for our past maligns is not helping anything.  It just keeps the whole progression in neutral.

I'd like to hear what 'my doors are open" has to say


----------



## yougene

KStoner6tb said:


> That's why they consider more than just SAT scores.  That's kinda comparing apples to oranges because there is a big difference between someone applying for a job, and someone trying to get into college.



Right, they are comparing your SAT to others of the same ethnic group.


----------



## yougene

KStoner6tb said:


> How is it so different?(education vs. job)  I'll go ahead and tell you yougene.
> 
> No one's life depends on whether or not you get into college.
> 
> Ok, say your father, brother, etc is a police officer.  The department they work for is currently looking for a deputy sherriff, and has one opening.  A black man and a white man both apply for the job.  Now say the white guy scores 25 points higher on his police test, and is clearly the better canidate.  BUT, because of affirmative action, the department is forced to hire the black man.
> 
> Now this new deputy is paired with your relative as his partner.  Your loved one's LIFE can depend on how good  this person is at his job.  We're not talking about maybe getting an education; which is important don't get me wrong.  But, we're talking life and death.  Your relative gets killed in the line of duty all because we want to make everything 'fair' and the department was forced to hire a less competent black man???
> 
> Btw, I'm not pickin on any skin color.  Whoever is best for the job, gets the damn job!!  It's pretty simple.  You don't see my sueing the NBA because it's not fair that I can't jump as high as Lebron James.  Oh it must be they're discriminating against me because there aren't as many whites as blacks in the association.
> 
> Yes, what blacks were forced to go through was wrong.  No arguement, no doubt.  But some of the shit that goes on today to "repay" for our past maligns is not helping anything.  It just keeps the whole progression in neutral.
> 
> I'd like to hear what 'my doors are open" has to say



I feel like your example is contrived but I get your point.  Yeah, some people in the "majority" do fall through the cracks.  Society still has a vested interest in making sure whole demographics aren't falling through the cracks.  

We still have institutionalized bias towards ethnicity even if the people themselves do not.


----------



## MyDoorsAreOpen

KStoner6tb said:


> I'd like to hear what 'my doors are open" has to say



Um... OK sure. I always got the sense that Affirmative Action was supposed to be more of a jumpstart than a long-term crutch. It's there to build up a critical mass of nonwhite Americans in areas of achievement and influence, in order to get a trend going in this general direction. It's not so much a handout as much as a helping hand up.

Once the statistics shows that Black Americans are closing the achievement gap, which as I said, I think they eventually will, this program will likely be phased out.

The bottom line on race relations, that I can see, is this:
1. Do your part to make 'the buck stop here'. If someone treats you badly because your ethnic background isn't the same as theirs, show them that you won't let them get you down. Let them know that even if they have a problem with you, you DON'T have a problem with THEM, and you'll be damned if you're going to let their small-minded attitude keep you from getting what you want out of life.
2. Ignore people's ethnic backgrounds and just judge individuals on an individual basis. If someone is not a good person, call them out on it. But conclude that THAT person sucks, not "that's the problem with you people". Because what good does taking that attitude accomplish for either of you?

Blaming other people, or groups of people, for what's wrong with the world, is just an excuse for not getting out and living your life and doing something about the problems that concern you.

If we're talking about xenophobia, rather than racism, then yes, I do think one can legitimately conclude that Culture X has a set of core values that are fundamentally incompatible with one's own principles. That's a whole other can of worms that I don't have the time to get into right now, but again, it becomes a matter of minimizing adversarial encounters and coming to recognize a foreign people's shared humanity with yourself, even if the best show of compassion you can muster is to minimize encounters with them at all.

But black and white Americans are one culture. Having lived in some very different cultures than my own, AND in majority-black areas of the US as a white man, I can say with confidence that any cultural value differences between black and white America are negligible compared to, say, American and Chinese people. In fact, I'd say all people born and raised in America, to at least one parent/guardian who was also born and raised in America, belong to a single culture, regardless of their background any further back.

P.S. People who'll try to exploit you come in all shades and colors. That's life. If you learn how not to put yourself in situations where you're an easy mark, then you won't have heaps of negative experiences from which to make massive judgements about whole races of people.


----------



## spaceyourbass

It seems like the world keeps getting less and less racist.  What's the word...moral relativism...basically saying that one's morals depend on the environment he or she grew up in.  Either way I'm sick of hearing white dudes say racist shit.  Shit they wouldn't dare to say if there was just one person of the other group anywhere in the general proximity.  If your gonna be a racist at least have some balls.


----------



## moonyham

Moonmixer said:


> That's more than a little extreme. I think the problem is that you don't know enough black people or live in an environment where a person of African descent can thrive.



I have met PLENTY of browns, blacks, asians, arabs.. you name it. Auckland is FULL of immigrants, theres more islanders here than in the islands! Its EXTREMELY multicultural, so no a lack of other race people isnt the problem. People come to this city to live from all over the world, and you know, the main people who are criminals are the brown/black ones. They all come here with relatively the same oppurtunitys and racism is quite low-key/rare here so that isnt the issue. Brown and black people are just genetically less civilized.


----------



## Jabberwocky

^
I don't have your experiences and can not contest your subjective experiences and judgments. I doubt that opportunities are equal between people of different races where you are, but never having been to NZ or read much about NZ, I can only call that a feeling at this point.  My experience is that if I adjust for economic situations I don't think brown or black people are anymore likely to be criminal. There are areas of my town where poverty and crime are both more prevalent and if I disliked a certain racial group I could build a huge anecdotal case against any group from those areas. 

Alleged genetic inferiority is something that should become far less subjective in years to come, my gut feeling is that it will be largely proven to be utter bullshit, but time will tell.


----------



## moonyham

Enki said:


> ^
> I don't have your experiences and can not contest your subjective experiences and judgments. I doubt that opportunities are equal between people of different races where you are, but never having been to NZ or read much about NZ, I can only call that a feeling at this point.  My experience is that if I adjust for economic situations I don't think brown or black people are anymore likely to be criminal. There are areas of my town where poverty and crime are both more prevalent and if I disliked a certain racial group I could build a huge anecdotal case against any group from those areas.
> 
> Alleged genetic inferiority is something that should become far less subjective in years to come, my gut feeling is that it will be largely proven to be utter bullshit, but time will tell.



They ARE equal. Infact they are probably more biased towards islanders/maoris as it seems if your brown in this country you get far more benefits.. more subsidies, more treaty payouts, more everything... they just get more money for everything from the government and yet maoris are the worst health/worst everything pretty much, because they spend all there money on crack, alcohol, and cigarettes, instead of clothes and doctors visits for there kids.

Put it this way:

Population that is Maori: 16%
Prison population that is maori: 52%

And note, how almost all countrys with brown/blacks have very high disproportionate amounts of those people in prison? Oh yeah im sure EVERYWHERE blacks are just picked on more... yeah, right


----------



## spaceyourbass

A person is half genetics and half evironment, moonyham.  Ya typical closet racist hiding behind the internet.


----------



## moonyham

hey im not racist man. Jeez.. you always feel a need to label anyone different.


----------



## Lady Codone

People like to pretend that we've "come so far" and because it's 2009, things like sexism and racism don't exist, when in reality, they've only changed form.  

Racism among individual citizens will likely always exist to some extent and isn't as big a problem as racism among those in positions of power--corporation owners, politicians, law enforcement, the wealthy and elite.  Illegal mexican immigrants and middle eastern Muslims are the new Negro in America, while Black men are still targeted and racially profiled by police and make up a gross majority of the prison population due largely to unfair drug laws like the coke vs. crack jail sentencing.  Native Americans--once the sole inhabitants of this country--are all but extinct.  And Asians in America?  Well, let's just say that, statistically, you're more likely to see an alien in a movie/TV show than you are an Asian character.  Something isn't right with this picture.  

What racists contribute to a person's skin color--things like clothing style, vernacular/accent, music preferences and other means of self-expression--actually have more to do with culture and upbringing than race.  The stereotypes like "Black people are loud" and "Asians are smart" may or may not apply to certain people, but when they do, it's easier to attribute them to a person's skin color than to look at WHY a person is the way they are.  Nurture outweighs nature when it comes to race and behavior, making it both politically and scientifically incorrect to chalk all differences up to race.


----------



## glitterbizkit

moonyham said:


> hey im not racist man. Jeez.. you always feel a need to label anyone different.




Yea, spaceyourbass should take his damn stereotyping somewhere else, don't you think?




> Well, i went to a mixed race highschool too, about i dunno atleast half of the students were pacific islanders and about a third white and the rest asians and stuff, and all of the stupid classes had disproportionately high amounts of black/brown people, is all im saying.



My main point was that we all came from similar socio-economic backgrounds.  It was a private school so it was all middle class families who either had plenty of money to spare or who valued a good education enough to pay the fees.  Also, a highly international community where people had a lot of exposure to different cultures.  And as an effect of this, the "stupid classes" were just as racially mixed as the "clever classes".


----------



## ControlDenied

spaceyourbass said:


> A person is half genetics and half evironment, moonyham.  Ya typical closet racist hiding behind the internet.



i agree

thats why i often like blacks from africa, or north american blacks with immigrant parents, and get fed up easily with "local blacks" who blame me for slavery even though im jewish and polish, and try to fuck with me because im a skiny white guy lol...but luckily, in canada this is rare

anyway i wrote that just because the topic of africans in diaspora has been on my mind a lot. also because im starting to have a thing for coloured women  (glitterbizkit, you ever coming to canada? lol)

otherwise. 

yeh.

id say its actually in quarters. 
a person is:
1/4 genetics
1/4 environment
1/4 stereotypes/images
1/4 their intent/action upon the environment


----------



## ebola?

*sigh*  I tried...

Some of what I'm going to say will prove repetitious, but either I was being opaque or people would rather disregard counter-arguments and make the same ponts repeatedly. . .



			
				texan under torque said:
			
		

> Whew, racism is def alive... Blacks in urban places won't even give most whites a chance to seem fair.



In which situations and in which ways?  How do blacks tend to express that they are not giving you (and other whites) a chance to treat them fairly?  Heh...and "_seem_ fair"? LOL 



> They are set on some fear that is being passed down.



Well, Blacks continue to face oppression, granted mostly structural and institutional, but still significant prejudicial treatment.  I'd be resentful too.

A hypothesis: just as whites often think that racism begins and ends with individual prejudice, perhaps many blacks misperceive/infer that they remain oppressed because of racist views held by whites.  It is far easier to identify individual malice than systemic dysfunction/injustice.



> The media that feeds off the shit...



Like with the unrealistic frequency of blacks depicted as violent criminals? 



> .. but there is something us simple folk can understand... lots of this has gotten over my head, it's not so complicated



Life is complicated.  Surface appearances mislead.



> racism is natural...



Once again:
perhaps in-group/out-group strife is natural.  Race as we know it has not always existed.  In fact, it's a pretty recent invention.

ebola


----------



## ebola?

I'mma try to address some additional points here. . .



			
				Ham from the moon? said:
			
		

> all of the stupid classes had disproportionately high amounts of black/brown people, is all im saying.



I believe this to reflect:
1.  the effect of present institutional racial disparities on educational potential and the inclination to use of said potential and
2.  racial bias on the part of instructors.

Sam Lucas has done much to document the racism of educational 'tracking' in the US.



> Heres a list of things that have influenced me to say these things.
> 
> 1: Ive only been physically threatened, or had my life threatened, by brown/black people.
> 2: If i look at the people walking into WINZ for 'FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE' from the government, its disproportionately high in amounts of brown/black people.
> 3: If you look at prison/crime statistics, the prisons are fulled with disproportionately high amounts of brown/black people.
> 4: The only people who have ever tried to 'scab' money off me: 'hey bro, got a dolla bro?', are brown/black.
> 5: All the most uncivilized and dangerous countries are run-by/majority brown/black



And ALL of these points have been addressed in this thread, revealing underlying mechanisms other than the genetically determined failings of black folks.




> I think if we just locked all black people up from birth we'd be alot better off



Take a look at our (the US's) prison system!  We're doing as close to this as is possible, within our immense but still inadequate budget for prisons.  It does fuck-all when poverty remains unaddressed.




> I have met PLENTY of browns, blacks, asians, arabs.. you name it. Auckland is FULL of immigrants, theres more islanders here than in the islands! Its EXTREMELY multicultural, so no a lack of other race people isnt the problem. People come to this city to live from all over the world, and you know, the main people who are criminals are the brown/black ones. They all come here with relatively the same oppurtunitys and racism is quite low-key/rare here so that isnt the issue. Brown and black people are just genetically less civilized.



Can you present any evidence showing that you live in a magical land where races exist free of institutional racial disparities?



> They ARE equal. Infact they are probably more biased towards islanders/maoris as it seems if your brown in this country you get far more benefits.. more subsidies, more treaty payouts, more everything... they just get more money for everything from the government and yet maoris are the worst health/worst everything pretty much, because they spend all there money on crack, alcohol, and cigarettes, instead of clothes and doctors visits for there kids.



1.  I'm still waiting for you to present evidence of this supposed equality.
2.  The Maori exemplify the type of degradation caused by colonial invasion and settlement, the natives quarantined when they can't be eliminated, like American Indians in The States.  This is institutional racism on a grand scale, as imperial practice.



			
				continual denial of control said:
			
		

> you sound reasonable, anyway ive been ripped off to many times, it makes me feel like such a bitch i want to hunt them all down lol, but yeh most of the time its whitee people, ut thats because i dont even TRY to buy off black people lol... in europe arabs ALWAYS ripped me off



Do we see a pattern yet?  Where there is geographically and racially concentrated poverty, there is also a concentration of (violent) crime.  Does it make more sense to blame the race or the social system?




			
				Texan Stoner said:
			
		

> Btw, I'm not pickin on any skin color. Whoever is best for the job, gets the damn job!!



But has it ever operated according to this meritocratic ethic?  In the absence of interventions like affirmative action, we mostly have, "whoever is most culturally similar to those in charge of hiring, particularly if he holds the most and closest ties with higher-ups' in their social networks, will get the job," tempered by cursory attention to talent and skills.  This ethic is near-ideal for reproducing institutional racism under conditions of race-blindness.

ebola


----------



## Kenickie

the only colour that matters nowadays is green. i think the OJ case is what said it - don't matter what colour you are, if you have the $, you can buy your freedom just as easily as any white dude.

i like that vatos give me the most respect when they hit on me on the street.

reading this whole thread, most of the things said have been said a million times before, a long with all the negative views on "brown/black people", which is the exact same shit they've been fighting against for decades. Native Americans (which aren't brown, they are red) have been fighting even longer.


----------



## MyDoorsAreOpen

Did anyone read the recent Newsweek article "Is Your Baby a Racist?" Very, very interesting. It basically says that 'you've got to be taught to be racist' is not scientifically supported at all. White American parents who keep up the taboo of not discussing race in frank terms to their children, in the hopes that they'll be colorblind, is misguided, as is moving to more diverse places in order to give their kids more exposure.

Essentially, little kids will use any superficial difference -- right down to clothing colors -- to discriminate. They've got to be carefully taught NOT to do this, from an early age. If skin color, facial features, and ancestry are just not topics up for discussion in their homes, they won't learn NOT to use these things as criteria to separate the world into 'us' and 'them'.

My parents were always very frank with me in discussing race, and the history of how black Americans and white Americans got to the places they are today, status-wise. I never learned the dogmatic taboo of not discussing race at all, which many of my fellow liberal white Americans follow. As a result, I've highly offended some people before, to the point of being called racist, just for dispassionately suggesting that there are ethnic differences in the attitudes and preferences of whites and blacks, on the whole, which I see as patently true. You can't solve a problem without first acknowledging it's real, but that it need not remain problematic.

I plan to follow suit with any kids I have. I'll teach them very early on that people who look different from our family indeed have ancestors that come from different places, and have faced distinctly different historical struggles making it in America. I won't shy away from the shameful historical details, and impress into my kids that they're part of the great project of making the future better than the past, when it comes to relations between different ethnic groups.

I'm done finding despair in the distinct possibility that our default hardwiring as a species is to mistrust and shy away from those who don't look or act like ourselves and our family members. It's clear that such base drives can be overridden with the cultivation of the right mindset. After all, drastically changing our interactions with the world through the power of words, concepts, and abstract thinking is truly one of the treasures of being human, and one of the few things that truly separates us from all other living things.


----------



## Max Power

MyDoorsAreOpen said:


> After all, drastically changing our interactions with the world through the power of words, concepts, and abstract thinking is truly one of the treasures of being human, and one of the few things that truly separates us from all other living things.



It's both a gift and a curse.


----------



## MyDoorsAreOpen

^ Granted. It's all in how you use it.


----------



## king_d1ngl1ng

Here's my two cents:

I'm African-American and I grew up in a crappy neighborhood, in a crappy situation. I'm in college now, but I've made a few mistakes. I don't blame it on race or anything like that its all on me. I think its pathetic how many other African Americans use what happened to people they, nor I never met, and have had no association with as a crutch. Yes I've had it harder than others no its not fair, but that's life. If you want something, You'll work for it and obtain it.

 Reverse racism is just as wrong as racism. I don't see any problem with Caucasians having pride in what ethnicity they are, If I can be proud to be black, the you should be able to be proud of being white brown or what ever else you are, but it doesn't give you the right to think you're better than someone else. Ignorant people (black panthers, kkk, and plenty others) come in every color.


----------



## king_d1ngl1ng

moonyham said:


> I have met PLENTY of browns, blacks, asians, arabs.. you name it. Auckland is FULL of immigrants, theres more islanders here than in the islands! Its EXTREMELY multicultural, so no a lack of other race people isnt the problem. People come to this city to live from all over the world, and you know, the main people who are criminals are the brown/black ones. They all come here with relatively the same oppurtunitys and racism is quite low-key/rare here so that isnt the issue. Brown and black people are just genetically less civilized.




That sounds like something you'd read in a newspaper during the 1880's. Are you saying your genetically more civilized than I am because I'm black, and you're white?


----------



## jonO_O

Moonyham : It is socio economic status that determines crime, prison , and welfare statistics, not race. The reason that Maori and Pacific Islanders have such high numbers in jail and on the dole is because they've been systematically ratted out by white europeans over land, jobs and social status.

I do see racism in New Zealand, although many of our people are accepting to different cultures and immigrants. We still see today that European New Zealanders have much greater chances of professional jobs and land ownership. New Zealand is making strides towards equality with emphasis on education. This is evident in areas like Maori Te Reo language schools, scholarships for Maori doctors and lawyers and greater awareness of differences in learning styles between Maori and Pakeha (Europeans).


----------



## TruthSpeaker1

Culture also plays an enormous role in how a person behaves and what his preferences are.


----------



## CoffeeDrinker

I think any time race is used or talked about it just makes everyone look like a jackass.

Think about it. I am a white kid who sometimes hangs out with black people. Whenever another black person comes up to my friends they always do this slap-up thing and talk about their blackness and how cool it is. But in reality they are just acting like jackasses, and I am a jackass for sitting there watching it happen.

Another thing, I also know some poor white people who are very racist. Normally, these people don't bother me. They are just products of their upbringing and not everyone is very discerning in their beliefs as they should be. Whenever we hang out it's fun, we usually talk about fixing up our cars and shooting or burning things, but whatever. That's just what some poor white people like to talk about, but whenever they talk about race and how they hate black people it annoys the crap out of me. They are being jackasses, and again, I am a jackass for being there in that situation.

Whenever a racist white person hangs out with a black guy clinging to his blackness, the race issue is an unspoken taboo, and hanging out becomes much easier because everyone pretends it doesn't exist, and therefore it doesn't. 

Not to mention this whole idea of race is based on unfounded beliefs.
Race makes everyone act like jackasses. That's about the only thing I can say about it.


----------



## mihna

I don't think racism can end until the existing repercussions of our racist policies are reversed.  Doing so requires an open, honest debate about the topic.

Even after we fix the socio-economic disadvantages we created we will still have to deal with the prejudices that are in everyones head. Which I think will only happen long after the people who can remember what it was like before non-whites were socioeconomic equals die.

Everyone is a little bit racist. I'm half black and were raised by some of the most tolerant people around and well I still get nervous around some black people.


----------



## MistaJeff

I think a lot of people are racist against white males, it saddens me when people think you can't be racist against whites. A lot of people of color give me odd looks, I've never owned slaves, get over it! 

Also I don't think racism can truly end until there is only one ethnicity. I don't see that happening for a long time so I guess we all just have to get used to it.


----------



## MyDoorsAreOpen

MistaJeff said:


> I think a lot of people are racist against white males, it saddens me when people think you can't be racist against whites.



I had a job as a nurse's aide in NYC, where this job is dominated overwhelmingly by middle-aged American Black and Caribbean women. As a young healthy American-born white male, I had a lot to prove to them. Their stereotype of my demographic was privileged, pampered, entitled people who have no fucking idea what hard work, especially physical labor, feels like. So I had no choice but to be the hardest worker on the floor, and my rights to any sort of complaining, bad attitudes, or slacking off was effectively zero. I did ultimately overcome their stereotypes and suspiciousness of me, and win their respect, but it took awhile.

Stereotypes and mistrust of ethnically different people is pervasive among people who aren't close to any people of that ethnicity. The only thing any one of us can do about it is to take care not to fit these stereotypes.


----------



## Jabberwocky

*bumped* for upcoming prune

I'll say in addition that many people I've known to be able to be rational and analytical about most every issue that could come up have often succumbed to extreme emotionality when it comes to race.

Additionally, there is a lot of finger pointing regarding race relations. I suspect many people's fervor about racism is that no one really wants to take some ownership of racial preferences or less than positive feelings about an ethnic group, except for overt racists. This denial or lack of ownership about feeling related to race might be a factor in projection and finger pointing.


----------



## L2R

since this thread i read an interesting piece from georg simmel called "the stranger". he gives an interesting perspective at how one actually benefits from cultural trade from interactions with "others". i ended up writing a criticism about it, but it is interesting nonetheless. 

read it here
http://www.infoamerica.org/documentos_pdf/simmel01.pdf


----------



## Jamshyd

^ Thank you! Will definitely give it a read.

Simmel is considered a "classical" Sociologist and, if memory serves, one of the founders of the Symbolic Interactionism paradigm. Much as his name came up in the first couple of years at university, I just realized that I have never read anything by him. Go figure.


----------



## ebola?

L2R said:
			
		

> since this thread i read an interesting piece from georg simmel called "the stranger". he gives an interesting perspective at how one actually benefits from cultural trade from interactions with "others".



It is an interesting piece, however also demonstrating the pathologies of this particular exchange arising from the still in-process dislocation wrought of modernity.



			
				jamshyd said:
			
		

> Simmel is considered a "classical" Sociologist and, if memory serves, one of the founders of the Symbolic Interactionism paradigm.



Pretty close: Simmel was a 19th C. German social theorist, and as such, he provides key conceptual underpinnings that would later be reclaimed by symbolic interactionists in North America.  Namely, Simmel does far more to connect macro-structure (for him, quite formalized and geometrized) to the character of micro-level interactions than say Comte or Durkheim, paralleled only by DuBois, who mainstream sociology was busy ignoring during the period.



> Much as his name came up in the first couple of years at university, I just realized that I have never read anything by him. Go figure.



Yeah.  I didn't encounter Simmel's text until arriving at grad school, although one of our profs throws him at undergrads (it's very difficult prose).

ebola


----------



## L2R

ebola? said:


> It is an interesting piece, however also demonstrating the pathologies of this particular exchange arising from the still in-process dislocation wrought of modernity.



but was it arising? i took the writing to be more of a naive propaganda piece trying to convince people of the benefits to interactions in modernity. by the time simmel wrote it, modernity had already been here a long time. it goes back to the enlightenment.


----------



## ebola?

Philosophical, economic, socio-political, and literary-artistic modernity all follow different time-courses.  He wrote at the tail of the industrial revolution, and there seems to be a near ubiquitous and significant lag between change and our theories of such change.

ebola


----------



## L2R

still, was that interaction he describes actually happening?


----------



## ebola?

No.  It was meant as a paradigmatic illustration of a type of interaction that arises within a particular context, which opens up in particular social spaces due to the advent of modernity.

ebola


----------



## FrankieBonez

IMO, so many anti-racists who blatantly ignore racial differences are just as ignorant as open racists.  Differences are what make all of us so special but differences are still great tools for distinguishing each other.  Racism will never fully disappear (until everyone eventually becomes one race).  I can fully appreciate each race and culture but certain races' positive/negative attributes and stereotypes are too obvious to me to not critically analyze.  

Everyone preaches racial equality which I'm totally down for but what are we measuring that by?  Call me racist or whatever, I'm just observant.


----------



## ~_Hiss_~

I don't consider myself racist, as I've had black friends and don't look at them all as bad, but I'm disturbed that blacks have a 700% higher violent crime rate (according to FBI statistics) and overpopulate whites by a significant margin in prisons. I can't be quelled by "its just S-Eco-Status" because it has to be more than that. I expect genetics but could be rap/black culture and extra anger from their historical position. Two things which lean me to genetic cause(s): Black countries in the world are usually 3rd world or very poor. And blacks seem to have a much higher preference to cocaine/crack than whites, in which opiates are more popular.


----------



## ebola?

What about particularly unique conditions of ethnically marked, geographically concentrated poverty coupled with specific conditions of targeted police surveillance?



> I expect genetics



Why?  What does your training in biology suggest to you?

ebola


----------



## ~_Hiss_~

700% is just a huge number. If it was 1/10th that I'd still suspect something beyond poverty and police. Poverty is also bad among whites so I'd expect some evening out of numbers there. Why are so many poor in the first place?

Police could be a small part of the problem, but in black areas there tend to be more black cops. And i'm mentioning violent crime in particular, not drug deals so police surveillance isn't much of an issue.

I'm not against blacks, but there is some hidden anomaly or anomalies going on. They can get into college easier than whites. Some take advantage of this, and some hit the streets and kill. More blacks go to jail than college, a sad fact.

7 x more violent crime... thats like having a group of 50 whites and 8 blacks (the ratio in population), and those 8 hypothetical blacks kill/rape more people. 

Or you pass 7 random white guys alone in an alley, but passing only 1 black is just as dangerous...


----------



## Jabberwocky

~_Hiss_~ said:
			
		

> They can get into college easier than whites. Some take advantage of this, and some hit the streets and kill. More blacks go to jail than college, a sad fact.


Assumes facts not in evidence. Many universities have programs to recruit minority students. There are minority scholarships. Easier? Well that would depend on where the individuals in question grew up, where the went to high school, what sort of family and economic support they have. If you grow up surrounded by violence, desperation, injustice, threats against your safety and well being, etc it might not seem quite so easy.

Income levels, location within inner cities with more lead and pollutants, unequal nutrition medical care, imprisoned and absentee fathers- How would we go about looking for your hidden anomaly when there are so many unhidden and obvious contributing factors to minorities disadvantaged condition.


----------



## slimvictor

~_Hiss_~ said:


> Or you pass 7 random white guys alone in an alley, but passing only 1 black is just as dangerous...



The number represents the proportion of each race that were a) caught, and b) successfully prosecuted, not the proportion that engaged in illegal activity.
The racism within the system means that Blacks are more likely to get caught, and more likely to go to jail for the same crime. 
Socioeconomic circumstances plus a historical explanation seem to go a long way toward explaining things - I don't see why you would want to bring genetics into the story when you can get that much of an explanation from history plus environment.


----------



## L2R

there was a doco on this exact question of genetics aired recently on sbs. i missed it, but the ads looked interesting
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/race-and-intelligence-sciences-last-taboo


----------



## Kenickie

~_Hiss_~ said:


> 700% is just a huge number. If it was 1/10th that I'd still suspect something beyond poverty and police. Poverty is also bad among whites so I'd expect some evening out of numbers there. Why are so many poor in the first place?
> 
> Police could be a small part of the problem, but in black areas there tend to be more black cops. And i'm mentioning violent crime in particular, not drug deals so police surveillance isn't much of an issue.
> 
> I'm not against blacks, but there is some hidden anomaly or anomalies going on. They can get into college easier than whites. Some take advantage of this, and some hit the streets and kill. More blacks go to jail than college, a sad fact.
> 
> 7 x more violent crime... thats like having a group of 50 whites and 8 blacks (the ratio in population), and those 8 hypothetical blacks kill/rape more people.
> 
> Or you pass 7 random white guys alone in an alley, but passing only 1 black is just as dangerous...



sorry, but FUCKEN LOL. 8) "I'm not against blacks, I just don't like them" will continue to issue out of "not racist" people until it becomes the exact same as Muslim, which isn't being _racist_ of course, just _sensible._ I think I posted in this thread 30 pages ago and would have liked to see it die in the prune, as I would like to see most race discussions die in a prune -- on site and IRL.


----------



## ebola?

hiss said:
			
		

> Or you pass 7 random white guys alone in an alley, but passing only 1 black is just as dangerous...



Here, you fallacious causal inference (along with various stereotype-based, unsubstantiated claims) leads me to even greater doubt over your argument of genetic causation via process of elimination.  I have explained numerous trends in racialization at length in this thread and am not hasty to repeat myself further.

ebola


----------



## Kenickie

i'm most surely more likely to be raped by 7 random white guys in an alley (?! what the fuck?) than one black dude.


----------



## Droppersneck

Im sorry but I feel everyone is racist to a certain degree. I will admit I cringe a bit when I see a hot young white girl dating a black guy, but thats my problem. The fellow is doing good for himself and I guess deep down I am just jealous. Besides I am not really pissed at the dude as much as I am at the girl imho. I think deep down many people have these type of prejudices and all we can do is work on ourselves. Self improvement etc...







jk


----------



## Kenickie

but you don't cringe when you see a hot young black girl dating a white guy? 8)

can we move this thread to The Lounge for the LOLZ?


----------



## L2R

funny, i cringe a little when i see people dating others who could be mistaken for their sibling. pretty gross dude. mixed ethnicity couples just make me happy. seriously, my initial reaction when seeing them is joy.


----------



## Kenickie

my initial reaction is similar, and then shifts into protectionism rather quickly.


----------



## Droppersneck

Kenickie said:


> but you don't cringe when you see a hot young black girl dating a white guy? 8)
> 
> can we move this thread to The Lounge for the LOLZ?



Oh come on kinickie I said just kidding. Cut me some slack


----------



## ~_Hiss_~

There are just as many,  or more poor white people. Yet blacks are 700% more likely to commit violence... come on, 7x is too big for socio economic status. and even if it was because of extreme amounts  of poverty, why are so many poor? Something is going on, some unknown variable.

I also don't really like seeing black guys with white girls but don't pay much attention  or mind to it anymore.  (i won't chicken out and  say i'm joking- Droppersneck.... lol)

Numbers aside even, I think its a bit natural to be slightly racist; many people get over it living in society a while, yet some get worse, mostly dependent on how they were raised and more importantly, their experiences with members of the other race. Just think  of how we evolved, we had to protect our own little hunter-gatherer societies from people who didn't even look much different.

I'm not going to debate more about SES supposedly being the cause. Maybe some can't fit how huge of a difference 700% is. I'd suspect a hidden variable beyond SES at around 15 or 20%. This is huge in  terms of statistics, many standard deviations away from average.


----------



## ebola?

> I'm not going to debate more about SES supposedly being the cause.



That you summarize your opposition's argument as such (and that you refuse to elaborate on the supposed genetic underpinnings of race) leads me to think that you aren't interested in thoroughly exploring the causal underpinnings of racial disparities in various contexts.  I have spent hours explaining such factors and social contexts in this very thread. . .

ebola


----------



## Droppersneck

Will anyone argue against the fact that black people are more athletic? We can only argue when the topic is positive, this thread will never work in a politically correct setting imo


----------



## Dr Pepper

My aunt (mom's sister) married a black man, my uncle.  He's awesome.  Anyways, he has 3 kids, they're half and half.  When we play Call of Duty or something im always like "kill that nigger !!" or even "You NIG!" if he kills me.    Then im like *facepalm* as i realize what i said.  They dont ever seem to take offense, a couple times im like ooops sorry and theyre like dude its not a big deal.

So im thinking, since i have black family, i am more entitled than most in using the N word.  I could be like, whatup nig how you been ? Because black people do it among themselves.  Not that i would.  But i feel like it'd be at least somewhat less inappropriate given that we are family .  ne thoughts?

And on athleticism, i've never been beat in rock climbing by a black person.  Nor do i see them scaling the cliffs very much in my area.  Maybe they have bigger fish to fry. Although they'd own me in a race /hurdles/ anything requiring endurance on the ground....


----------



## L2R

Dr Pepper said:


> MMaybe they have bigger fish to fry. Although they'd own me in a race /hurdles/ anything requiring endurance on the ground....



"they" 





really?


----------



## Droppersneck

L2R said:


> "they"
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> really?



Dont kid your self Jaleel white is an excellent basketball player! Some stereotypes hold more clout then others imo.


----------



## ebola?

droppers said:
			
		

> Will anyone argue against the fact that black people are more athletic? We can only argue when the topic is positive, this thread will never work in a politically correct setting imo



Sure.  There is no as of yet discovered genetic basis for African American dominance in professional athletics.  It is likely that politico-economic oppression creates a larger pool of training athletes among African Americans, as they're denied opportunities elsewhere (I'm not saying that this trend is dominant among the majority of African Americans).

I could be wrong though--there could be some key sequence of genetic code affecting muscle fiber density, bone structure, etc. that happens to correlate with key genes expressing melanin content.

ebola


----------



## Droppersneck

ebola? said:


> Sure.  There is no as of yet discovered genetic basis for African American dominance in professional athletics.  It is likely that politico-economic oppression creates a larger pool of training athletes among African Americans, as they're denied opportunities elsewhere (I'm not saying that this trend is dominant among the majority of African Americans).
> 
> I could be wrong though--there could be some key sequence of genetic code affecting muscle fiber density, bone structure, etc. that happens to correlate with key genes expressing melanin content.
> 
> ebola



So their dominant presence in the NBA is purely because their socio-economic status growing up? I knew plenty of poor white people growing up and it gave them no propensity towards sports. Your so politically correct its flawing your logic imho


----------



## Kenickie

Droppersneck said:


> Will anyone argue against the fact that black people are more athletic?



because they are taller? 
why are they taller? 
because heat is more evenly distributed through out your body when you are taller. which is important when you live like, in africa or something.


----------



## ebola?

droppin' it said:
			
		

> So their dominant presence in the NBA is purely because their socio-economic status growing up?



So you want to reply to what I said while obscuring all of its nuances?  Good showing, bro. 

ebola


----------



## L2R

Droppersneck said:


> Dont kid your self Jaleel white is an excellent basketball player! Some stereotypes hold more clout then others imo.



yeah well there is no "them" when it comes to the absurdity that is "race". my point that the individual makes substantially more difference than skin tone still stands.


----------



## ninjadanslarbretabar

~_Hiss_~ said:


> 700% more likely to commit violence...



like someone said; people getting caught and prosecuted does not equals the number of people committing the violent crimes

i dont know if you are familiar with psychology i got interested in that when i was younger and ive learn about pavlov's dog for instance

here is what he would do : 
- bring food to a dog
- ring a bell 

its called conditioning
so then he could simply ring the bell and the dog would salivate
cuz on a very basic level thats how our brains work

if you get sexually abused as a child more chances are that you are gonna sexually abused someone as a adult

if you beat a dog all the time or beat a kid good chances are that you are gonna end up with a fuckt up kid or dog that is gonna go beat or bite people

i guess you get that correlation right ?

well i see this in the bigger picture of what did happen in africa
they had lots of warfare, but not as bad as it is today but thats how slavery started i think
you had people going to war for the sake of getting prisoner so that they could sell them to Europeans
and then they where slaves

so back then in north and south america, who was committing the crimes ? lots of whites where slave owners, well it wasnt a crime back then but i guess you are talking about being more prone to violence right, and back then its the whites that was doing the bad thing 
so would you have being racist againts whites back then ?

but anyway thats not my point,
what did slavery brought is conditioning on a whole group of people 
it lasted a very long time and it was pretty atrocious
then it got better and now there is a black men in the white house and women are allowed to vote and gay can almost marry and we can almost smoke weed legally but we aint there yet just like racism is still alive
and as long as there will be racism there will be inequality and there will be blacks filling up those crime charts
crime is related to poverty and obviously if you and everyone else that is "black" comes from slavery then it aint like they can magically get rich once slavery got abolished
so the slave mentality keep perpetrating itself over and over and is still alive today

if you got loving parent there is less chance that you are gonna start hating people 
if you are expose to french you are gonna speak french
if you are expose to english you are gonna speak english
if you are expose to love you are gonna express love
and if its hate you r gonna be a hatter

so try to understand the whole situation of what some africans had to go through and how it influenced their behavior up to today

its conditioning it aint in the genes

and i was centering on the americas but now look at what did happen in africa
you had people from europe coming to africa and doing whatever they cared to do, cuz, well thats what we do as human, we are at war, we come and conquer, we extract the resource and keep it all for ourself,  and war is the usual mean to achieve that 
(and war will fuck you up, you get deep trauma out of it)

so people who came out of africa had to fight alot and steal and exchange technology including the social technology ( the social structure and organization and planing and all that civilized stuff )
so european had a plan and guns and african were no match
it really doesnt mater if they were black or white or any colors or any culture
its all about power
someone is gonna be on top and someone is gonna eat crap
africa got crap

all the violence that has being pushed toward africa and african is still in there, now they give what theve receive

blacks ending up committing crimes is just a reflection of where they come from

and like i said it really aint about "race" 
as ebola pointed out there is no such thing as race
ginger and brunettes are of the same race in a similar way that whites and black are of the same race, its called the human race, thats science

but your cultural background sure does influence most of who you are and become
and some blacks are still perpetrating aggression cuz of the aggression that they have received (or are receiving)
be it the one im talking about or the infinity of other reason there is to push someone to commit a violent act

and sorry if this is all badly worded
i hope i can present a different perspective that might make you see things differently, like in a better light
cuz if you say that violent crimes are a bad thing i would assume that you wish there was more love out there, more compassion  and all that plur
love can come from understanding, and racism sure doesnt rhymes with love

can that make some sense to you ?



(btw there is some stuff in there that arent so well expressed and some people might conclude stuff that i didnt intend, so please dont be too quit to assume too much out of the details, its more of a general picture fastly drawn thing)


----------



## Droppersneck

ebola? said:


> So you want to reply to what I said while obscuring all of its nuances?  Good showing, bro.
> 
> ebola



Nice deflection. You know what I am saying. Your hands are definitely tied by political correctness. I do not blame you this is the society we live in, but I urge you to show a little moxy with the amenity of the internet!


----------



## Shrooms00087

Droppersneck said:


> Nice deflection. You know what I am saying. Your hands are definitely tied by political correctness. I do not blame you this is the society we live in, but I urge you to show a little moxy with the amenity of the internet!



Even if the facts (aren't) are wrong behind the idea of political correctness, that doesn't mean the concept is. Especially in cases of anonymity. You should hold yourself accountable for presented thoughts. You can't help being racist scientists say, but you can dictate your presentation of those sometimes irrational thoughts. That's correct, as much as it is mature.

The point to this thread escapes me though.


----------



## Jabberwocky

Droppersneck said:
			
		

> You know what I am saying. Your hands are definitely tied by political correctness. I do not blame you this is the society we live in, but I urge you to show a little moxy with the amenity of the internet!


 Do you want us to admit that certain traits are more prevalent in certain ethnic groups. Admitted, now what? We should assume all blacks have sickle cell and all Jews have Tay-Sachs and all whites have skin cancer? I admit demographic differences are interesting not just about race but occupation, brand preferences, localities all kinds of things. How much of a criteria ought race be for deciding things about an individual?


----------



## Droppersneck

Enki said:


> *Do you want us to admit that certain traits are more prevalent in certain ethnic groups*. Admitted, now what? We should assume all blacks have sickle cell and all Jews have Tay-Sachs and all whites have skin cancer? I admit demographic differences are interesting not just about race but occupation, brand preferences, localities all kinds of things. How much of a criteria ought race be for deciding things about an individual?



This is obvious imo. It doesnt have to be a negative thing, but by thinking this way you would be separating your self from the "intellectual" flock.


----------



## Shrooms00087

Droppersneck said:


> This is obvious imo. It doesnt have to be a negative thing, but by thinking this way you would be separating your self from the "intellectual" flock.



By that you mean, differences in color are attributed to early vitamin diets? Is it location, or is it race? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm


----------



## ebola?

Droppers said:
			
		

> Nice deflection. You know what I am saying.



Frankly, there was nothing to deflect: you appeared to respond to a bizarre caricature of my view, not any of the points that I put forth.



> This is obvious imo. It doesnt have to be a negative thing, but by thinking this way you would be separating your self from the "intellectual" flock.



Yes, of course there are differences in mean-trends among ethno-racial groups.  Otherwise, this wouldn't be a zone of controversy.  However, you're doing a disservice to yourself cutting short your investigation thereof.

ebola


----------



## Droppersneck

ebola? said:


> Frankly, there was nothing to deflect: you appeared to respond to a bizarre caricature of my view, not any of the points that I put forth.
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, of course there are differences in mean-trends among ethno-racial groups.  Otherwise, this wouldn't be a zone of controversy.  However, you're doing a disservice to yourself cutting short your investigation thereof.
> 
> ebola



So by "cutting my investigation short" I am not being objective enough in discerning that there is a direct correlation between athletic ability and ethnicity? I truly think your ideas of whats "right" retard you from further investigation. lol


----------



## Shrooms00087

Droppersneck said:


> So by "cutting my investigation short" I am not being objective enough in discerning that there is a direct correlation between athletic ability and ethnicity? I truly think your ideas of whats "right" retard you from further investigation. lol



Are you cutting my simple points purposely? Race = Vitamin. So with that simple knowledge, do elaborate.


----------



## ebola?

droppers said:
			
		

> So by "cutting my investigation short" I am not being objective enough in discerning that there is a direct correlation between athletic ability and ethnicity?



Nope.  Observing a trend yields, of course, a datum.  However, failing to explore its causal origins thoroughly renders such observation abjectly superficial.



> I truly think your ideas of whats "right" retard you from further investigation. lol



This might have proven more cutting if you were to have provided any indication that you know what my ideas on race are. 

ebola


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## ebola?

droppers said:
			
		

> Your hands are definitely tied by political correctness.



I'll have to hand it to you that this got me thinking:

To a certain extent, my formalistic language is shaped by politically correct contexts (as these are the primary settings in which I've engaged research and theory on racialization).  However, I don't think that this bears particularly direct influence on my causal analysis.

I find racism couched in pseudo-science a lot scarier than, "I hate niggers, lol!"  

ebola


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## Droppersneck

ebola? said:


> I'll have to hand it to you that this got me thinking:
> 
> To a certain extent, my formalistic language is shaped by politically correct contexts (as these are the primary settings in which I've engaged research and theory on racialization).  However, I don't think that this bears particularly direct influence on my causal analysis.
> 
> I find racism couched in pseudo-science a lot scarier than, "*I hate niggers*, lol!"
> 
> ebola



Well you are plotting simple* hate* versus evil, where you are wrong is thinking that we cannot segregate the facts from what we deem societally wrong in the "intellectual" community. I think sometimes if we get out of our comfort zones a deeper train of thought can be attained!


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## ebola?

> where you are wrong is thinking that we cannot segregate the facts from what we deem societally wrong in the "intellectual" community.



I actually said the precise opposite (even if I lacked firm ground to do so).  I give up, lol. 

ebola


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## qwe

Droppersneck said:


> Well you are plotting simple* hate* versus evil, where you are wrong is thinking that we cannot segregate the facts from what we deem societally wrong in the "intellectual" community. I think sometimes if we get out of our comfort zones a deeper train of thought can be attained!


lolwut.png


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## Droppersneck

ebola? said:


> I actually said the precise opposite (even if I lacked firm ground to do so).  I give up, lol.
> 
> ebola



Lol, were running circles we will simply have to agree to disagree.


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## Droppersneck

qwe said:


> lolwut.png



I do not speak internet you will have to spell it out for me bro if you want a response


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## qwe

translation: didn't make sense.

ur welcome.


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## Droppersneck

qwe said:


> translation: didn't make sense.
> 
> ur welcome.



well it didnt make sense to you because what I stated questions your whole online credo in a round about way. You obviously would never consider yourself an "intellectual" that would purposely shy away from the truth in order to protect a beleif system. Nor would I ever expect you to CWE :D


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## qwe

dude, how sober are you?

question my "online 'credo'" directly, have at it. i always love a good trainwreck.

>>Well you are plotting simple hate versus evil, where you are wrong is thinking that we cannot segregate the facts from what we deem societally wrong in the "intellectual" community.>>

this is what i don't think makes sense.  please reword it.

>>I think sometimes if we get out of our comfort zones a deeper train of thought can be attained!>>

of course...

about racism... modern racism is not seen even by modern racists.  it's overstereotyped modes of thinking, subtle generalizations that influence behavior; it's not necessarily malice toward a "race", or even feelings about a whole "race".

it makes much more sense to view different ethnicities, different individuals, layers of ethnicities; but even doing this, one can have racist tendencies in thought:  it's basic overgeneralization and overstereotyping blown out of proportion (but it feels like it makes sense at the time&place)... to consider "black" (as an overt and obvious example) as a group of people, makes no sense. they are spread across the earth, the genotype variation between a black and a white is the same between two blacks so there's not a genetic component to look at.  socioeconomic and historical factors can account for all of the important differences, as we're all human... 

this is why i haven't really looked at this thread till now.  racism is pretty silly, which is why i include it in so many of my lulz.  lulz is all it's good for nowadays.  

p.s., i think you know my hands aren't tied by political correctness.  that said, come at be bra


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## Droppersneck

qwe said:


> dude, how sober are you?
> 
> question my "online 'credo'" directly, have at it. i always love a good trainwreck.
> 
> >>Well you are plotting simple hate versus evil, where you are wrong is thinking that we cannot segregate the facts from what we deem societally wrong in the "intellectual" community.>>
> 
> this is what i don't think makes sense.  please reword it.
> 
> >>I think sometimes if we get out of our comfort zones a deeper train of thought can be attained!>>
> 
> of course...
> 
> about racism... modern racism is not seen even by modern racists.  it's overstereotyped modes of thinking, subtle generalizations that influence behavior; it's not necessarily malice toward a "race", or even feelings about a whole "race".
> 
> it makes much more sense to view different ethnicities, different individuals, layers of ethnicities; but even doing this, one can have racist tendencies in thought:  it's basic overgeneralization and overstereotyping blown out of proportion (but it feels like it makes sense at the time&place)... to consider "black" (as an overt and obvious example) as a group of people, makes no sense. they are spread across the earth, the genotype variation between a black and a white is the same between two blacks so there's not a genetic component to look at.  socioeconomic and historical factors can account for all of the important differences, as we're all human...
> 
> this is why i haven't really looked at this thread till now.  racism is pretty silly, which is why i include it in so many of my lulz.  lulz is all it's good for nowadays.
> 
> p.s., i think you know my hands aren't tied by political correctness.  that said, come at be bra



LMAO, good post/ good call. Bourbon,roxi, beer, and soma. I think I was making up words, but I still stick by my basic argument that political correctness ties the hands of people from looking deeper into alot of issues.


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## ebola?

This isn't an argument per se, as you've failed to substantiate your claim.


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## qwe

i think words have a huge power to influence our thinking and behavior.  we are creatures suspended in a web of meanings that we have created, and those meanings are held up by words.  political correctness is a collective attempt to direct our verbal thinking in a positive way, and could have positive impacts (as well as possible negatives?  why don't you explicate these negative impacts?  the positives are sort of obvious)


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## Jabberwocky

qwe said:
			
		

> (as well as possible negatives? why don't you explicate these negative impacts? the positives are sort of obvious)


 I read of a small group discussion in a university class in the 90's in Minnesota. People were asked about how they felt about homosexuality. A student said he thought it was a psychological problem for which people ought seek treatment. He was disciplined for some charge that didn't quite equal hate speak.

Organizations with a heavy emphasis on political correctness are often at the same time trying to put out a message that all ideas and cultures are valid. (Except well not _THOSE_ ideas). If Camille Paglia were a untenured instructor many places a lot of her ideas would result in dismissal. I don't dig every Paglia idea but I do like people who agitate against group think quite a bit.

A problem here is some people start to think every edgy contrary to possible group think positions is worthy of a lot of time and energy. Most aren't.

I'm getting off track there, a problem with political correctness is that it can appear or actually be Orwellian. Making and applying rules about speech and their underlying ideas is always going to seem uncomfortably fascist to many people. A complete comfortableness with enforcing political correctness would scare me, but some ideas expressed overtly would shut a lot of people out and create lots of distraction. It is no easy thing.


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## ebola?

Another datum:

If I were to say, "Niggers in America incur higher rates of incarceration primarily because of geographically and ethno-racially concentrated poverty in inner cities (due largely to the flight of manufacturing from such areas), increased punitive police-surveillance, and implicit discrimination," would it change a single damned thing about anything I've said?  It certainly wouldn't be politically correct. . . 

ebola


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## Droppersneck

Enki said:


> I read of a small group discussion in a university class in the 90's in Minnesota. People were asked about how they felt about homosexuality. A student said he thought it was a psychological problem for which people ought seek treatment. He was disciplined for some charge that didn't quite equal hate speak.
> 
> Organizations with a heavy emphasis on political correctness are often at the same time trying to put out a message that all ideas and cultures are valid. (Except well not _THOSE_ ideas). If Camille Paglia were a untenured instructor many places a lot of her ideas would result in dismissal. I don't dig every Paglia idea but I do like people who agitate against group think quite a bit.
> 
> A problem here is some people start to think every edgy contrary to possible group think positions is worthy of a lot of time and energy. Most aren't.
> 
> I'm getting off track there, a problem with political correctness is that it can appear or actually be Orwellian. Making and applying rules about speech and their underlying ideas is always going to seem uncomfortably fascist to many people. A complete comfortableness with enforcing political correctness would scare me, but some ideas expressed overtly would shut a lot of people out and create lots of distraction. It is no easy thing.



Great post. I have a feeling some wont be happy until the US is set up exactly like the movie Demolition man. If people want to come across as racist ignorant bastards that should be their right imo


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## Jabberwocky

In defense of political correctness the sorts of speech that are prohibited are those that can have an effect of shutting down participation from a segment of possible participants. A lot of prohibited speech would be pure harassment or intimidation if allowed. Making those rules so that people aren't harassed or marginalized but so that everybody feels freedom of expression is still present is likely impossible, but I think the majority of people see the way it is most places as a reasonable compromise.


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## qwe

^ it's possible if/when people stop tying such strong attachments to words and symbols, and think for themselves.


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## Jabberwocky

There are somethings about race trait prevalence that are completely value neutral and that I have probed for the possible reason. These are anecdotal, personal observations.

Among blacks that smoke, menthol cigarettes seem more preferred than they are among other groups. As a waiter I noticed and heard observation from other waiters that African Americans are more likely to order their drinks without ice and their steaks well done- much like European tourists. 

Immigrant Latinos in my area are much more likely to wear orange or turquoise colored trousers/jeans than any other group by far, I have no idea where they get them and they are less willing to give away info on colorful pants sources than they are to tell me if there are practicing brujos or curenderos in my area.

Anyways I believe the vast majority of differences in traits, among  purported races both superficial and less superficial are cultural rather than  genetic. I don't understand how differences have happened a lot of the time or what significance they hold but I think they are interesting.

I didn't ascribe any traits to Asians because the only two places I get to interact with Asians here in the mid-west USA are universities and casinos. Yes, I'm being factitious but it is true in my life. Excluding quite a few Filipino friends I really only see Asians at universities and casinos. This might be related to the demographics of the neighborhoods I'm in the most or something.


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## Sentience

I try never to say "we" or "my country". I often say "the government" even though its not the only one....its the big one that puts people in prisons and drops bombs on them.

I dont believe in borders. I reject the legitimacy of national territory. I am an internationalist who rejects the proposed concept of a one world government.


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## Portillo

In the evolutionary sense, various races have evolved differently. For example, some say that white ppl are more evolved than black ppl. In other beliefs we are all one. Such as in Christianity, we are all equal because we all came from Adam and Eve.


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## Jabberwocky

^I am attempting to discern some content in your post and am not coming up with much.
Please don't post just to post

"Other beliefs" within "In other beliefs we are all one." would have to be specified for your post to begin to mean something.

Evolutionary sense. . .   have evolved differently. (meaningless)

_in a color sense is rather colorful_

_in a government sense is governmental_
Please don't post just to post.


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## L2R

from his other posts, i can safely say that portillo has his heart in the right place. this post is just not worded very well. 

porty, those "evolutionary differences" in appearance are so minute as to be practically non-existent.


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## Portillo

I edited the post. I hope you can understand it now.


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## yougeekay

MyDoorsAreOpen said:


> ^ Um... I don't think I have.
> 
> What's ingrained in us instinctively is fear of the unknown. The antidote to that is facing our fears and getting to know what we've been fearing better.




yes.


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## ThaiDie4

FrankieBonez said:


> ....but certain races' positive/negative attributes and stereotypes are too obvious to me to not critically analyze.



That's kinda how I feel. It's not that I think negatively of any race as a whole, but certain things I notice more in people of one race vs. another can bother me. 

First of, a disclaimer: I'm not going to pretend like I'm a super cultured person or really educated on matters like this- I'm not at all. I haven't traveled much, and haven't studied matters like this beyond taking a 100-level Anthropology course at my university. I know my perspective is quite narrow, and that of a pretty privileged (I guess this is the best word to explain it..?) person in regards to my race and SES- I'm white and upper-middle class, which in the U.S. is definitely favored in the sense that I don't have to worry about too much racism or inequality or anything headed in my direction (being a woman changes that a little bit, but that's a whole 'nother issue  ). So I _try _to keep that in mind when I catch myself negatively judging someone's actions and attributing it to their race... because, of course, it can be pretty easy to judge others when you're treated in many instances like you are superior to them. 

Without trying to sound like a huge bigot, but still trying to keep it real, I don't really understand the whole "hood" attitude that I see in a lot of black people I've encountered. I mean, to put it simply, I understand that all people in general tend to act the way those around them act- and if your family, friends, and neighbors are "hood", you probably will be too (like all those examples Ninja listed about the child who is abused will grow up to abuse, etc.) 

BUT I *don't* understand it in the sense that I don't get it's appeal- again, not trying to sound like an asshole, but I think it seems kinda dumb and not attractive. Like acting all "badass" and talking like "nigga this, nigga that", that sort of behavior, to loosely summarize it. It just annoys me. I don't know what else to say about it. And I obviously realize that not _all _or _only_ black people do this, and it's certainly not a genetic "trait". So really it's not even about race itself... the level of melatonin in one's skin isn't going to determine this sort of thing. It's just that IME a higher percentage of blacks do this than whites, so unconsciously I'll sometimes attribute the behavior to race. That's where I am guilty. But I guess knowing is the first step to changing...


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## Jabberwocky

_Portillo- and P&S folk, I apologize for my crabbiness in my last post in this thread. I'll PM Porillo a more thorough apology_ I t was a carry over from several other situations having nothing to do with you and it was unfair for me to go at you about that issue. Really sorry.

Two totally neutral things about African Americans that I've always wondered about. Why are blacks that smoke overwhelmingly more likely to smoke menthols & why are they more likely to order in a restaurant like a European requesting little or no ice in their drinks and their meat well done? Both just my observations, I have no statistics on this :/


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## Portillo

Its all good Enki. I hardly ever post at Bluelight forum anyway.


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## MyDoorsAreOpen

Enki, the menthol cigarettes are due to an early ad campaign by Kool™ Cigarettes, capitalizing on the ideal of 'cool' -- the detached and calm state that black Americans have long held up as an ideal in the face of discrimination and hardship.

I have no idea about ordering drinks without ice. I do that. Always have. For me, it comes from my father and grandfather, who were both very frugal men.

In a similar vein, I've noticed that Native American men are considerably more likely than men of other races to have minor facial scars. Has anyone else noticed this? Why do you think this is?


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## Jabberwocky

As far as Native Americans having more facial scars, I have noticed this before. I had hypothesized that the Lakota, Dakota, and related clans in my area were perhaps more prone to keloid and hypertrophic scarring but I just did a bit of research and didn't find anything to confirm that theory. Native Americans are about the same likelihood to have keloid & HT scarring as other ethnic groups like African American and Latinos. Perhaps they are far less likely to get ER attention and followup for lacerations?

No evidence that they are more likely to be hockey players as far as I can tell.  I have an odd guilty feeling about using the they word towards other ethnic groups that often makes me double check what I'm saying, like a spidey danger sense-unless I'm out to be deliberately inappropriate-which seldom works well for me. Some people have a real gift for being inappropriate and insightful or funny at the same time. I've learned its not a skill I can readily emulate. </tangent>


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## Kenickie

MyDoorsAreOpen said:


> Enki, the menthol cigarettes are due to an early ad campaign by Kool™ Cigarettes, capitalizing on the ideal of 'cool' -- the detached and calm state that black Americans have long held up as an ideal in the face of discrimination and hardship.
> 
> I have no idea about ordering drinks without ice. I do that. Always have. For me, it comes from my father and grandfather, who were both very frugal men.
> 
> In a similar vein, I've noticed that Native American men are considerably more likely than men of other races to have minor facial scars. Has anyone else noticed this? Why do you think this is?



i don't know why it is about black people = no ice, or for that matter, super extra ice?? but all of my black relatives do one extreme or another.

i agree about native americans re; facial scars. i lived around a lot of desert indians, and it just seemed to go along with the atmosphere in which they live in. but there could be genetic reasons for this -- tribes like Pima are used in research about diabetes and such.


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## L2R

the only race specific trait like this that i have confidence in its legitimacy is the staggering effects of alcohol and other intoxicants on australian aborigines. thousands of years without any exposure to such things have, in my opinion, created  uniquely low tolerance levels in their genes.


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