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Let's talk about Racism

^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.
 
^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. ;)
 
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.
 
^ 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.
 
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.
 
^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.
 
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.
 
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 :)
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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 ;)
 
^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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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.:X Shit, racism is far greater than whats going on in the south though, People who bring the shit up are the real racists:p... 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.
 
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?
 
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.
 
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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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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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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