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Let's talk about Racism

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.
 
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?
 
^ 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.
 
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)
 
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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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
^^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)
 
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.
 
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.8o
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.
 
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^ 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 :)
 
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
 
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. :\

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.
 
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.
 
^In the words of Paul McCartney you mean ;)
 
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...
 
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
 
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.

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.

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!".

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.


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.
 
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