Way OT: Racism

[Captain Kwok]

Dogscoff, well said.

[David E. Gervais]

I judge people by their avatars,.. (just kidding )

But seriously, I'm a bilingual Canadian living in Quebec. We don't have much racism here based on 'color' but that good old 'language' thing sure is a pain in the ***. I consider myself english because that's my mother tongue and it's the language I speak daily. (I'm fluently bilingual, and when I speak in french I think in french.) So, why is it that in the english community I'm praised for speaking two languages, and in the french community there is 'friction' due to my 'english' herritage. (and to be blunt my 'english' herritage comes from Scottland not England) An example of this is that my english friends are amazed at how fluent I am in both languages. In the french community, they basically say I should be ashamed of how bad I speak french. I never could wrap my head around the femminin/masculin part of the language. It all seems arbitrary to me, how does one remember that a table is female and a can of coke is male? (anyway I digress) One thing I find happening here in Quebec is that the language laws are turning all the english or 'other' language speaking people into 'bilingual' speaking people, and the french are loosing out on that. more and more french are becomming unilingual. So I think the french have shot themselves in the foot. In their attempt to make Quebec 'more french' which is kind of hard because I think the number of non-french-speaking people in Quebec can be counted on one hand. (about 5% of the population is now unilingual-english speaking) So why are they still afread of loosing their language? Why do they feel threatened by such a small number of people?

Anyway, the point I wanted to make is that racism is not just based on skin color, language is a big part of it too.

Nuf Said, Cheers!

[Puke]

well, the only people i discriminate against are francophile quebecois. sorry DG, just joking. i know you can handle a little friendly ribbing.

i dont know anyone that finds the word 'black' offensive, and i think its generally peoples (around here) view that it gets to the point rather than trying to be artificially politically-correct with things like african-american. but honestly, i dont call anyone black. i call people by their names, or i say "excuse me sir" or if im friendly with them i just say "hey."

the only time i have EVER had to describe anyone by their color is when i dont know their name and i am trying to describe them to someone who has or will see them, and i need to give them identifying characteristics. "talk to the Mexican guy in the blue shirt at the front desk" or "yeah, that pen belongs to the Black guy that walked through here five minutes ago"

As for anti-white descrimination, people are ugly. all people are ugly, and i dont mean how they look. 99% of people prefer people of a similar culture. its an evolutionary trait that encourages one culture to conquer the poor guys next to them, and its awfully hard to educate out of people.

so if i see restaurant thats full of pepole of one color or nationality, i stay out of it. theyre just going to be offended when i cant pronounce the things on their menu, and they are going to wonder what im doing there. and if i happened to walk in with one of 'their' women, theyre going to be upset about it - even if they keep it to themselves. and there is nothing worse than ordering food from people that dont like you.

likewise i wouldnt want to walk into a restaurant or bar thats filled with nothing but white people, especially if i have a forign girl with me.

i get along with all kinds of people, but im not going to go out of my way to change the world. its only going to work if they get along with me too, and maybe im a coward, but i play it safe by keeping to places that are already integrated.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Threads like this should NEVER go dead because the problems they attend will also never cease to exist - at least in my life anyway. (And I hope to live to the year 2100.)

[Thermodyne]

I won’t touch this one. Other than to say that is in our genes. As a species we are successful in part because of are ability to compete. And part of this is the underlying desires to have our own personal gene pool survive. In the deep dark past, the introduction of a new variation of species was a threat to the existing pool. So we developed an underlying predisposition to eradicate it and protect the existing pool. These days, the underlying spark is still competition, although it is for other things now. But take people today and add some stress, and many will tend to fall back onto the old hard wired genetic traits. Also there are some who are just horsesasses too. The part that really bugs me is the political correctness crap. It often prevents a meaningful dialogue and this hampers society as a whole.


Another thing that really bugs me is the misuse of terms that are often used in these types of discussion. An anti-Semitist would hate Arabs and Jews alike. Both groups of people are part of a larger group know as Semites. But it amazes me to see one Dr. Soandso after another pervert the term to advance a political agenda. These days it is most often applied to the acts of racial cleansing perpetrated by the Nazis, and the problems in the Middle East. The Nazis were anti Semites, but the Palestinians and other Arabs are not, they just hate Israel and anyone that supports Israel. Of note here is the fact that the Palestinians have little or no claim to the area known as Israel today. Its real name is Assyria, and in modern time it was the property of the Ottoman Empire (1280 > 1923) and then past into Egyptian control (Who were under the thumb of the English). I would think that any claims prior to 1280 would be beyond enforcing today. Never in modern time was Palestine a Nation or State. Palestine was not even a province under the Ottomans. Ottoman holdings So what we really have is competition again. I guess people are just born to it.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

AT, in the thread "What is Mega Evil Empire?" you say:

2. Any thing that is not like me is my enemy

You are (I assume) not like Latin American people. Does that make Latin Americans your enemy?

[Will]

Yes, very well said dogscoff.

But, where to begin... perhaps a little background.

My parents were born and raised in San Diego, and as far as I can tell, experienced very little in racial prejudice, being in a mixed Caucasian (hispanic and non-hispanic) communities. I, however, was born in San Diego and raised in rural Pennsylvania. As of a few years ago, one of my neighbors openly flew the Confederate flag. Everybody was white, and the only time anyone would usually see a black person is when the juvinile hall in the next county brought their inmates to parades as a drill team. So, from my parents, I got a message of tolerance for all people, and the lesson of not discriminating based on something so trivial as skin color.

From everyone else, though, I got full-on racism. It was a common view that black people should still be slaves. Everyone believed that all blacks are criminals, only some hide it better than others. Everyone felt that whites are superior in everything except violence and basketball. While I lived there, it was easy to just ignore all of the blatant racism that existed there. I just didn't know anyone who was affected by it, and as far as I knew, it didn't matter.

Then I came to school in Los Angeles. I met people that racism affects every day. It is much clearer to me the things that people of other races go through on a daily basis. A friend of mine purposely buys only bright clothing, because if he ever wears anything dark, he is immediately surrounded by suspicion that he is going to steal something, or already has. And if it was me put into exactly the same situation where he would be regarded with suspicion, there would be very different reactions.

A few years ago, there were some laptop thefts in the building where I lived. Basically some people were stupid, and walked out leaving all their doors open. Nobody saw people taking the laptops. But the police got a call from a white girl saying that the thieves were in a specific room, she was sure of it. The "thieves" turned out to be the black friends of a black girl that lived in the room next to the girl who called the police. They had been visiting a few times a week for months previous. They had never been on the floor where the thefts occured. Yet the word of one stupid white girl was enough to warrant an hour long interrogation of these innocent men, and a search of their vehicles. I guarantee that nowhere near that response would happen if the complaint was against a white or an asian male.

As for incidents of minorities becoming violent with white people, the occurance of that which is racially motivated is so small to statistically be considered zero. The black girls beating up the white girl? That doesn't happen without some sort of provokation. After the fact, it's difficult to find out what happened, because the white girl will claim she did nothing wrong and is entirely innocent. The black girls won't say what the provokation was because in hindsight, what most likely was a heat of the moment thing isn't enough to justify what they did, and they believe that nobody will listen to them anyway; and they're probably right.

As things are now, minorities are in a white-dominated culture. I don't know the exact numbers, but I believe fairly soon, whites will not even make up half of the population in the United States, but will still control most of the political and economic power. The cultural celebrations you speak of are an attempt to counteract this extreme power differential. The same goes for things like affirmative action. It's a common misconception among a lot of white people that affirmative action says you must hire a certain amount of minorities, or else some negative consequence occurs. On the contrary, the majority of affirmative action laws on the books simply require that due consideration be given to each candidate, and institutes policies requiring that minorities be given interviews for positions. Laws having quotas have routinely been struck down, and the ones that hold are the ones that will require employers and institutions to interview minorities and then choose the BEST candidate, when before, it would be all too common for all the non-white applications to be thrown out, and never even make it to the interview process. The laws are not there to put whites at a disadvantage, but instead to counterbalance the prejudice held by those in power.

Come back and complain about all this stuff when you have been a minority for a significant period of time, and been subjected to the whims (ranging from indifferent to malicious) of those in power around you. Until then, realize that you have far more advantages than other minorities in the Western world, and keep your complaints about so-called unfairness to yourself, because they aren't valid. When you can see the bigger picture, you'll realize that.

Anyway, that was a bit long-winded, even though I tried to stay clear of the points that have already been made in Kwok's and dogscoff's posts.

And Fyron, it was almost a valiant effort, but you failed

[Starhawk]

"Come back and complain about all this stuff when you have been a minority for a significant period of time, and been subjected to the whims (ranging from indifferent to malicious) of those in power around you. Until then, realize that you have far more advantages than other minorities in the Western world, and keep your complaints about so-called unfairness to yourself, because they aren't valid. When you can see the bigger picture, you'll realize that"

Unless you were born in the 60s-70s period you don't even know what it's like to really truely be at the "whim" of the government so that argument of yours is a little bit harsh considering you dealt with a minority of jerk offs, I assure you the reverse is true in places like Harlem, or Hampton Virginia or Norfolk Virginia......and to be perfectly blunt I've met more racist black people in my life then I have openly racist white people sorry but should I now go claming I'm at their "whim" since I was outnumbered and they got a kick out of knocking me just because I was "the white boy"?

And my point about black students getting bonus points on their exams is taht if you want to be treated equal you should have to work for it just like everyone else, you only earn respect when you are worth respecting.


OH and BTW the majority of Americans are either White or Mixed race these days so I do kind of understand why they are in main political offices and stuff, simply stated there are more of them then there are black/asian/latino people in this country.

"As things are now, minorities are in a white-dominated culture. I don't know the exact numbers, but I believe fairly soon, whites will not even make up half of the population in the United States, but will still control most of the political and economic power. The cultural celebrations you speak of are an attempt to counteract this extreme power differential. The same goes for things like affirmative action. It's a common misconception among a lot of white people that affirmative action says you must hire a certain amount of minorities, or else some negative consequence occurs. On the contrary, the majority of affirmative action laws on the books simply require that due consideration be given to each candidate, and institutes policies requiring that minorities be given interviews for positions. Laws having quotas have routinely been struck down, and the ones that hold are the ones that will require employers and institutions to interview minorities and then choose the BEST candidate, when before, it would be all too common for all the non-white applications to be thrown out, and never even make it to the interview process. The laws are not there to put whites at a disadvantage, but instead to counterbalance the prejudice held by those in power."

Yeah actually white people and mixed races severely outnumber other races in the majority of the united states so I don't know where your getting your info from.


Anyway to end my statements here on a note of non argument, you have ALL made valid statments and points. None of us are racists that's been made clear, and we all hate racism of any fashion. So let us all say we hope (and pray) that in the future racism is no longer a trait we have to see ever again.

[Will]

Starhawk said:
Yeah actually white people and mixed races severely outnumber other races in the majority of the united states so I don't know where your getting your info from.

How about the US Census Bureau? Current projections have non-hispanic Caucasians at under 40% by the end of the century. I didn't say that whites were already in the "minority", just that they are going to be. (Minority as in not over 50%... we'll still be the dominant percentage)>

And I'm not sure why you're throwing in the mixed race people... usually they get the racism even worse, not only from whites but from other minorities.

For entrance exams, there are very few institutions that add bonuses simply for race anymore. Usually, several factors are taken into account, and exams are mostly used to weed out the low performers, so more resource-intensive evaluations such as reading essays and interviews can occur for better candidates. Everyone is treated equally there. The misconception that there are "bonus points" is often used by racist groups to get people angry over minorities taking spots that "belong" to whites. This is then, unfortunately, picked up by fringe conservative groups, which is then picked up by mainstream conservative groups. It's all just a minor distortion of what usually goes on: the people who never really would have made it anyway get cut, and the people that would make the most interesting work and/or study environment get selected. Anyone who thinks that's "taking spots away from whites", I personally believe needs their head checked.

And I'm not denying that there is racism the other way (see mixed race comment). It's just minorities are not in a position to exploit power as much as white people are. And when minorities get in a position of power, they are less likely to exploit because they know what it's like.

It's all about keeping a balance. Blacks are given a little help to get to the interview stage, in what otherwise would be a white-dominated group. They also have to deal with getting pulled over for a DWB (Driving While Black). You don't. My final point stands.

Also, realize that I'm not angry about any of this. Mostly just frustrated over some of the issues brought up. As a white person, it is just about impossible to understand the daily prejudices that minorities go through, simply because of the ignorance of others. And these comments are showing a little lack of understanding of the situation. Like I said, realize how lucky you are, and all the things you DON'T have to deal with simply because your skin is white. Then it might be easier to understand why minorities need a little help every once in a while.

[Sivran]

Not really surprised that "Token Black Guy A" from ST:NG would be anti-white. "Token Black Guy B" (aka Michael Dorn) always seemed much more reasonable.

As for the N-word, I actually flat-out <i>asked</i> a black girl once. She must've realized I was just another clueless cracker. She just said that, as far as she and her peers were concerned, "nigga" is very different from "nigger."

Yeah, I was young and dumb. What can I say?

I think affirmative action should only come into play when candidates are equally qualified. And I do mean equally. If the minority is less qualified then let that be his motivation to improve. Same for the other guy if he's less qualified. Nothing should be modified by race or gender, people should get where they are on their own merits. Oh, so minorities have to put up with discrimination. Know what? Do something about it then.

My freshman english teacher used to say people aren't white, or black, or purple, or whatever. They're grey. All grey. He's a wise man, if somewhat idealistic.