racism

[SabineMaia]

But we KEEP redressing the issue... over and over again with each generation... and it becomes expected that the offended group with get MORE equality than the rest of us.  If I keep giving my son a cookie because I don't have time to spend with hiim because I'm busy working, he'll expect the cookie whether I'm working that day or not.  It's a simplistic comparison, granted, but that's my point.

Actually, the issue has never fully been redressed, but attempts have been made, with varying success: the repealing of Jim Crow laws, civil rights laws, integration and affirmative action (more on that later). Still, after 40 some-odd years of these actions, blacks are more likely to live in poverty, not be hired, be passed over for promotion, and earn less than their white contemporaries. If the issues had been properly redressed, this wouldn't be the case.

Rather than dealing with the issues they face, they believe they are due MORE because of past wrongs.  And I don't believe that.

Neither do I, but we have yet to right the wrongs that are ongoing in our society. Racism isn't glaringly obvious as it once was. It's not cool to make racist jokes, for whites to use the word nigger, and all that fairly superficial stuff. Racism has gone underground. It hides in rationalizations about why that white man deserves more money than that black man. It hides in why the white guy hired after you gets promoted before you do. It hides in mostly white schools with more textbooks, more resources, and fewer safety issues. All the while we complain that they're given more opportunities than we are.

I had a friend whose husband was a instructor at a college.  They had to meet "Affirmative Action" goals so he had to re-interview for his job one year (when he HADN'T had to for 6 years running).  He did NOT get his job... because the college had to meet Affirmative Action goals for the state/federal guidelines, the job went to an African American man who had much less experience and was not nearly as good an instructor as my friend's husband.  Is that fair to HIM?  No, it's not... but that's what Affirmative Action has caused.

Well, no, that doesn't seem fair from where I'm sitting. Neither does it seem fair for the Alabama Department of Public Safety to hire blacks to fill their Affirmative Action quota, yet not promote a single one of them above entry level, while all the whites hired rose up around them.

Affirmative Action is an imperfect system run by flawed people. It was put in place in the '60s in order to counteract institutionalized racism. Blacks did not have access to the same opportunities in regards to promotions, salary increases, admissions to colleges, scholarships and financial aid as whites. After fourty-five years, the playing field has leveled quite a bit, but not entirely. Don't forget, affirmative action only applies to public institutions. While government-run facilities have to follow these rules, nobody elsse does, and there's still a whole lot of discrimination taking place.

I'm not saying we shouldn't be aware that inequities exist... we are only human and old habits die hard.  But to give them MORE opportunities than the rest of us have is not right.  That's not equality.

Have they been given more opportunities though?

[tigerlily46514]

support you tigerlily, and I'm happy to see someone else gets emotional about these subjects. I just haven't had much time lately for a proper response.

  THANKS!  I needed that, to know i am not the ONLY one who feels there is NO justification for slavery,ever.  I'm back, and i will start answering, i am bummed no of the guys who kept insisting slavery ws okay sometimes would answer some of my questions i posed to them, not one who said slavery is ok would take on "would it be okay if IT WAS YOU".......

I am back, and kinda surprised none of them responded to several good points i made...huh.

ignored the points COMPLETELY....huh......

But calling these guys rednecks and racist because they don't agree with you is pushing the envelope

Well, rlrose, i guess you are right, it was a little harsh.  Around here, if someone makes ignorant remarks, they are called rednecks, but that isn't fair to label these kids.  Several of their remarks WERE definately ignorant at best,racist at worst.....the original topic included wether slavery was OKAY, some insisted it was ok!!!!!!! i can't take that kind of ignorance.  It is a moral question.  But you are right, i was a little harsh, i WAS getting honked, have very little tolerance for racism.  Or any of the isms, really.  I can go back and pull out the ignorant remarks that ifeel are definately racist, but i'll have to do it one at a time cuz of my browser, i haven't yet learned how to change pages from page one back to page 3 without losing the stuff...see?

I believe slavery is wrong... can never be "right" in any sense

WHEW!!!!!  Love to hear it from another, love to find another like mind!!  Hate to be alone in THAT thinking as i was when i was angrily posting back to them!!!!!

[tigerlily46514]

Before imperial powers took over Africa, they were all killing and enslaving one another in small isolated tribes. We gave them civilisation

BAH HA HA!!!!
extremely ignorant remark.....which i already addressed in previous posts, but am re-selecting to show you there WERE indeed some mighty ignorant remarks that honked me off....

Here's a few more.....read 'em and weep.  HIt 'expand'.....

Another thing: we are all descended from slaves - we have just as much right to moan and gripe about it as anyone else - & the world would not be as prosperous and cushy as it is today were it not for that reality. America, for example, would be nothing if we hadn't held its leash for a while (ie. build

by held it's leash, i interpreted this to mean have slavery.  Which i responded!!!!!

It is true that slavery, in some cases, can be justified

i already responded but am re posting to show you how i came to be honked off enuff to use the word redneck.....
As Momma Squid said, sometimes we can assume cultural differences by skin color, sometimes, i sometimes assume a cultural attitude (redneck) by the things people say.....

justified. It's true that if we hadn't had a slavery system in ancient Rome/Greece, then Aristotle, Hipocrates, Pythagorus, and several other great people wouldn't have had the time on their hands to educate people on how the world works. But that still doesn't justify racism, that only justifies slavery. (end vs. means?)

bulls#*t, and i already responded to that too.....

I think whirling it all up and making a huge ridiculous drama out of it is just media spin and stupidity. It's something that's only going to make it worse

I strongly disagreed with this, too.  About ignoring racism in media coverage does NOT make it go away....The person who wrote that would feel differently if he had been victim of some of the amazing racism still alive and well out there in the good ol USA...

here's a hypothetical example. If I could talk to an ancient Roman, and ask him what kind of people he took on as slaves, and why he had slaves at all, he would say "We take those we conquer as slaves so that our aristocrats have more free time to do arts and science, and better our civilization." That wasn't racist

I already shredded that one, too....

parents). And the way I heard it, the early colonists needed slaves, and the Indigenous people weren't strong enough, so they brought Africans over as slaves instead

 needed slaves?!!!  There are so many things wrong with the morality of that post, i am tempted to re-respond to it all over again....

it). It would be living in the dark ages with no industry (we did that), no modern science (heck, we did that too), no vestige of modern culture (well we pretty much did that) and the list goes on. Similarly, if the Roman empire hadn't conquered Europe, think how far behind we Brits and Europeans in general would be, and you, in turn, would be also? America may not even have been discovered yet for all we

bulls#*t again, already shredded that one too.  see what i was dealing with to get that provoked?

I certainly believe slavery can be justified

see, to me, that is redneck, not just a difference of opinion, but calling 'em rednecks is kinda harsh....i'll try to stop it.

Africa has always been a warring place. "Elegance" is a very subjective thing, anyway. Many early civilizations could be considered "elegant". They were still hostile

very ethnocentric and ignorant and very untrue as well, VERY misinformed, was hoping to get away with some ignorant  guess.......i already responded....

 

people? Slavery is an abstraction, and the periphery of "slaves" and "men, women, and children who had been captured" is quite

Ok, that was probably the one that really set me off to thinking there is some rampant ignorance running around here...still love my own response to that one.......completely untrue..completely lacking humanity.....i was shocked, cuz i do like to think of atheists as cooler than others, and i do like to pretend things are getting better, that young people today are more evolved and educated than the 1930s young poeple.....

.

ic. People know about racism. It's a very prolific topic. I've never understood people who seek to "raise awareness" on huge, in your face issues like this or global warming or any other multitude of reasons

.
Again, i strongly disagree and stand by my post to that!!!!
well, that is it for page 1, trying to show you why i thought they were redneck!!!!  but i will try to not say redneck again, might offend other rednecks.....on to page two, maybe tomorrow......there's ones i haven't read yet...are we supposed to cut 'em slack cuz they are so young?

[tigerlily46514]

be back later......WEEDS is on!!

[tigerlily46514]

Have they been given more opportunities though?

exaactly.

[rlrose328]

Jean, please read the following links... redneck has nothing to do with discriminating against blacks:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redneck
http://www.answers.com/topic/redneck?cat=technology
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/rednecks

And I do believe they have been given more opportunities... maybe not EVERY SINGLE person of the minority race, but in general, they have.  And they take advantage of the fact that they CAN receive more opportunities.  I don't know how it is in Indiana, but I spent a good amount of time in the central valley in California and the Bay Area (San Francisco)... they just hint at racism and they will get anything they ask for.  Businesses bend over backwards to hire blacks and hispanics over whites so they can all say how "forward-thinking" they are... there are no whites to promote over the minorities because it's ALL minorities.  

I couldn't get a job there if I tried hard because I'm white.  I acknowledge it may be different elsewhere, but I know what I've experienced in my life.  I was lucky to get into the State for employment where that type of thing isn't tolerated, but as a supervisor (clerical), I was urged time and time again to seek minorities in my hiring.  I tried very hard to remain color-blind during the hiring process, regardless what my manager wanted me to do.

We're talking about two different things... racism and slavery.  I'm very much against slavery in any form, period.  To own another person and control their actions using force, brute or otherwise, is just plain wrong.

Racism is alive and well in America and it applies to ALL races in some form everywhere in this country.  Some races have a history of suffering more racism than others... but if you think that racism doesn't apply to white as well, then you need to look around a little more.  I again apply the story about my friend's husband "losing" his job to a minority due to quotas... that was an example of racism against whites.  It's a much rarer form of racism, but it exists as well.

Why can't EVERYONE be treated the same, regardless of the color of their skin or their country of origin? Just wipe the slate clean, no one owes anyone anything, and we just move forward from there?

Because we're human... and the world will never be perfect.  That is an unfortunate truth.

[tigerlily46514]

Oh absolutely. I said that imperials didn't do a whole lot of 'enslaving' (ie. capturing people and labelling them as merchandise rather than human beings). Tribal African's pretty much did most of that for

I strongly disagree with your view.   Who do YOU think brought the slaves here???  


 Missionaries themselves did indeed capture Africans and bring them to the boats.  True enough, other Africans did co-operate in overtaking their neighboring villages to bring the previously free people to the ships of the 'imperial' missionaries, but at that point, the missionaries then labelled them as merchandise and chained them to the floor of the ship and sailed off and sold them as merchandise.

?" debate regarding racism/slavery is fairly asinine, since they're totally separate & abstract things in a chaotic and complicated world. It isn't as simple as one race enslaved the other, bad evil white people, poor oppressed black people.

Actually, it was that simple, it WAS just that way for hundreds of years.  And i still love my reponse to your saying 'slavery is abstract'...NOT GONNA REPOST IT, BUT I LOVE IT.......and yes, torture was so VERY involved with slavery, you really DON'T know much about it, do you?  That explains why you are less offended by it than me maybe.  You think of it as some poor people just willingly going along with doing all the labor????  Unaware of how families were ripped apart, with children and mothers and fathers all being sold separately, away from each other, this went on  for hundreds of years, and people were beaten AND MURDERED regularly?  You were unaware of that????

Incidentally, since you brought it up and even though this is still mozying off the path, do you believe that the world would be a better place now if Christianity had never existed

Well, here i am doing what none of you did to MY questions, i am gonna answer!!  Actually, i have never considered this question,.....but being so aware of how much damge religion has caused, how
much blood is on the christians' hands, i guess i'd say yes...I'm sure there must be some good christians take credit for, they did have some lovely art and hymns...but yeah, i think we'd be better off had they never existed.....it's hard to picture....new question to me....

You're persisting with the lumpage, and thereby missing the point again

Well, there IS a lotta lumpage going on ALL AROUND THIS TRHEAD, but i stand by my assertion that blacks today have decended from GRANDPARENTS, not 'remote ancestors', who suffered HUGE OBSTACLES AND RACISM AND DE-FACTO SLAVERY, they DO NOT yet have the same opportunites, they do face racism on many different levels, in a million ways.  That is an actual fact.  All stats bear this out--If that is lumpage, so be it, the stats are saying it is this way.  

yourselves", I'm saying "don't blame me for your problems

sad.  you might not yet have deep understanding of what a black's problems even entail...including how the white dudes' attitude can be an obstacle, and depending on his job when he grow ups, contribute significantly to the problems faced daily for the oppressed minority.

I much liked Sabine Maia's response to that remark of yours.  

so you don't go galloping off down another highway of fruitless moral outrage

Sorry, i LOVE my moral outrage about racism,  i wish there were more people like me, i wish we had more moral outrage on many things even beyond racism, like the war, etc.  No, i'm gonna keep it and cherish it, and be proud of it,  you won't convert me out of it.   Hope YOU ever get to feel some inside of you. Thanks.  It was a compliment to me.

And sure racism is bad and I'll always be against it but I'm not going to express this by convincing myself that I am a racist and going around being all sorry for it. That's not going to stop or even slightly hinder anything; it's just pathetic.

Again, i am responding, when you all aren't responding to my great points i made....
I don't think that is what i was trying to get you to realize, I DO think empathy is a wonderful tool to combat racsim, not self loathing,  but since that is where you went with it, the answer is education.  Read books.  Watch documentaries.  Study it up.  Learn about it.  You may gain a whole new insight.

Do you see how you're over-simplifying things here? 'We are even'? You're mashing whole populations as well as generations into convenient bundles which you can then talk about like they're singular entities which 'owe' each other things. One bundle is bad to another bundle, so we've got to even the score? Well then yay for 'positive' discrimination. It does nothing.

I still stand by what i said.  I am still very much for affirmative action, it is way too soon to remove it.  

Yes, there might be times a white dude feels he was not chosen and is more worthy, but USA needs to be forced into leveling the playing field.  there are so many MORE  OTHER times when the black person is passed over.

 The more you learn about the statistics the more you may be more open to affirmative action.  Yes, i do feel if an institution oppresses and tortures an entire group of people for hundreds of years!!!, that institution should try to make amends to level the field after putting so many mountians in front of them.

  I also DO feel it is a factor how recently, HOW VERY VERY RECENTLY slavery and legal racism ended right here in our country.  IT ISN'T 'MANY GENERATIONS AGO'  IT WAS THEIR GRANDPARENTS.   Sometimes ya gotta force people to take turns, play fair, share.  Especially when so MUCH damage was done by the majority for so so so so long....it WAS off the hook....it was a holocaust.   that went on for centuries...and is just ending 'legally' in the 50s and 60s...

Now you're really jumping off the boat. I don't recall ever saying that racism is harmless or

It is possible that i am blurring you with the other young white guys..sorry if i am....i can't leave this page to go get the quote that shows where i pick up this feeling the field is all even now!!!!!?????now that slavery is abolished, that blacks have equal rights as whites, that racism shouldn't be in the news,(!!!) it is already all even, what do i mean blacks face racism, like it is over......and then someone throws in the skin head thing!!!!!= which represents a dangerous and racist segment of USA.... at the same time.....undid their own point by themselves.  

However, since I can now take your response as a separate chain of statements, I don't disagree with you. 'Cept for the bits about 'WE': what WE did & what WE still do et cetera

funny enuff, i had the same comment about 'we' on the other page.......you attitude is very common that since you did not own a slave you owe nothing.  I still strongly feel reparations are due, and that affirmative action should continue for the length of time we enslaved them.

 I realize this is not a popular stance, but i am now repeating myself.  I have already explained

 

Yep. With you on the whole AFRICANS thing... I am indeed descended from very ancient AFRICANS, as, funnily enough are modern day AFRICANS. What's your point

why.


You said you were decended from slaves, i object to your feeling you have the same experience as the GRANDCHILD of one who could be murdered in a noose and no one would be prosecuted.  It is not the same.  

If you are going back 1000s of years, you possibley might be right.  But to act like  your lot in life has been affected by slavery  the way the black guy next to you  is  ignorant.

   Which is unfortunate, as i am noticing you ARE more well spoken and have ideas that are better presented than the other young white guys in this thread.  I must admit, at first, you all did blur together.  But still, you MUST realize how different your life would be had your grandfather been whipped and threatened with death for almost nothing, had your grandmother been legally raped, etc, can you picture how this would affect your parents!!!??.... and thus your self?

part. The only relevant section of this is "the blacks are not reaping these same rewards and i am stunned to hear you imagine this". Yes they are

Oh, you really don't know, do you?  You don't see the racism and scars and damage still making a powerful difference in a black man's life than yours???  how differently everything is for them than you?  still today?  Their path is NOT the same yet, racism trips them up over and over.   The poverty os being a sharecroppers/slave's grandchild can take a long time to overcome.   The opportunities are NOT the same yet.  But we can all try to do what we can to level the field.

quote]ince you don't understand what point of view you're attacking - which is what I explained in the post that you didn't read but were presumptuous enough to reply to anyway - don't call me a redneck and don't imply that I'm a racist. Stop being so irritatingly self-righteous (and worse, self-pitying[/quote]

So nouns, ('redneck' )are out, but adjectives are okay?  I do think i might have got exasperated with R.Narc and took it out on you, you are right, it wasn't much fair to comment on a post i hadn't even read yet.  

yeah, i guess i might be a bit self righteous, but i have conducted myself very well against all the isms, for 5 decades, against all odds, and i have a quilt of friends that cross all paths of life, i have been maid of honor at more than one all black wedding, i have long been active with the ACLU, MY OWN DTR ONCE DESCRIBED ME AS "Al Sharpton trapped in a white woman's body"  so if anyone has earned the right to righteous, i gotta be on up there....  
Self pity?  it was discouragement, i think i even said that it was i was overwhelmed with.  
But i guess i need to keep it real.  It is a huge button for me, racism. I know way too much about it.  sometimes knowledge is a cross.....

Maybe it is how an atheist might feel when confronted with a fundie......

I hope i didn't miss any of the posts i wanted to respond to...


Thanks to everyone who is out there trying to squash out racism.  We can make things better, sometimes in leaps and bounds, sometimes only a bit at a time.  I really believe this with much passion.  I really do think we ALL can make tiny waves of change around us.

[tigerlily46514]

R.Narc, i am not even going over all this with you again, you are not gonna get it.  If you REAALLLY want the answers to the questions you post, i have ALREADY posted them.

[tigerlily46514]

Rose, i will check those sites.  I'll be back.  Haven't looked at them yet nor read your whole post.  but i will later!!!

[tigerlily46514]

Rose, still haven't red your post, but i gotta admit, i sure did get a chuckle out of that first site!  bah ha ha!  thanx, i did need a laff!
I guess i use the word redneck, as someone put it in a post i put up asking if atheists use the word soul, and some one put it so nicely, some phrase like, "It gets across a commonly understood idea" or something.  By popular usage i guess i was using the word 'redneck'...

.plus, in all fairness, i realize now i might have been lumping all the young white guys into one single nightmare....having taken a few days off, i can sort of see they are separate individuals with slightly different attitudes after all......my bad!

[tigerlily46514]

Rose, i've read your post, and outa fondness for you, am less likely to take you full on, plus i don't think i could top some of the great posts put up by the one with the mosquito logo....and there's is another one on the previous page who also touches on this....

White oppression is a very sporadic molehill that causes much outrage,  compared to black oppression, as a fact of life, which we all tend to grow numb and desensitized to..  It is kinda hard to compare them.

[Steve Reason]

I love racism. It helps make my life enjoyable. Nascar is my favorite kind of racism. HA! I crack me up!  

Actually I think racism and slavery and wrong. I really don't care about reparations and quotas and all of that -- one way or the other. If you're looking for justice, than you stepped onto the wrong planet. I just live the best I can and try not to hurt anyone along the way and help out where I can. If everyone did that, we'd have a great planet. But we all know that's not the way it works, and that's just the way it is.

Wringing your hands and saying "WHY?", no matter how you view a certain subject is likely to put you in a nut house. It doesn't mean you shouldn't strive to make things better; and maybe we have some sort of responsibility as humans since we were lucky not to be born in the Sudan for example -- but just don't be surprised when things don't go your way.

I take the evolutionary approach. Change over epochs.

[SabineMaia]

And I do believe they have been given more opportunities... maybe not EVERY SINGLE person of the minority race, but in general, they have.  

The stats don't support your belief.

US statistics of interest:
Annual household income by race

Employment status by race

Infant mortality rates white vs. black

Educational attainment by race

California statistics
Check out the labor force status link for San Francisco county. It doesn't appear that minorities have any advantage over whites, and this is after approximately 45 years of affirmative action, which, by the way, has also allowed white women to make significant headway in the labor force.

[rlrose328]

I stand corrected by statistics.  But I still firmly do not believe in reparations and I don't believe Affirmation Action solves any more problems than it creates.

[Mister Joy]

Oh absolutely. I said that imperials didn't do a whole lot of 'enslaving' (ie. capturing people and labelling them as merchandise rather than human beings). Tribal African's pretty much did most of that for

I strongly disagree with your view. Who do YOU think brought the slaves here???

I didn't state any opinion there, save to agree with what you said previously. Which, by the way, is pretty much what you're trying to get at now. You're making assumptions about my points of view again.

Missionaries themselves did indeed capture Africans and bring them to the boats. True enough, other Africans did co-operate in overtaking their neighboring villages to bring the previously free people to the ships of the 'imperial' missionaries, but at that point, the missionaries then labelled them as merchandise and chained them to the floor of the ship and sailed off and sold them as merchandise.

This is going into needless detail, but yes; whatever you say. You aren't contradicting the point I was getting at so I'll nod and smile as you dish out the facts. Carry on reading and you'll see, if you don't already.

debate regarding racism/slavery is fairly asinine, since they're totally separate & abstract things in a chaotic and complicated world. It isn't as simple as one race enslaved the other, bad evil white people, poor oppressed black people.

Actually, it was that simple, it WAS just that way for hundreds of years.

You're getting closer to the point now but you're still off target by quite a bit. I'm finding it slightly difficult to get across, so I don't blame you for jumping to the conclusions you have here (in this specific case anyway). I'm saying that one collective race - which spans over a far longer time than hundreds of years, I should add - did not do anything to another collective. Ultimately, individual people did it to other's, albeit on a massive scale and racism was a key factor. What I'm trying to express is that to see it in any other way (eg. white's evil, blacks oppressed) is over-simplifying things and isn't rising very far at all above the kind of collective thinking that incited racism in the first place (that I believe incites it, in any case). I wasn't trying to get at any more or less than that.

and yes, torture was so VERY involved with slavery, you really DON'T know much about it, do you? That explains why you are less offended by it than me maybe. You think of it as some poor people just willingly going along with doing all the labor???? Unaware of how families were ripped apart, with children and mothers and fathers all being sold separately, away from each other, this went on for hundreds of years, and people were beaten AND MURDERED regularly? You were unaware of that????

There you go again. Never said slavery was good or trivial. Couple of points to bear in mind when you're talking to me - and hopefully they'll sink in this time:

1) I don't think slavery is justifiable.
2) I don't think it's a trivial matter, nor have I insinuated that.
3) If you are offended by my supposed lack of offence when it comes to racism, then I do apologise for having a little more emotional reserve than you do. I should be using bold, underline and italic a whole lot more (because it achieves so very much) and I should definitely frequent tangents of passionate argumentative assault that amount to nothing because there is no opposition in the person I'm talking too.

Well, here i am doing what none of you did to MY questions, i am gonna answer!!

I'm glad, and I'll get right on that, but first let me point out that I've answered everything. You might want me to take a racist perspective and argue with you from that stand point to give you a brilliant excuse to get on the ya moral high horse, but that isn't going to happen.

Actually, i have never considered this question,.....but being so aware of how much damge religion has caused, how
much blood is on the christians' hands, i guess i'd say yes...I'm sure there must be some good christians take credit for, they did have some lovely art and hymns...but yeah, i think we'd be better off had they never existed.....it's hard to picture....new question to me

Hmm... I'm on similar grounds of uncertainty. Christianity, regardless of the balance of good acts/bad acts (which I think would swing more towards the 'bad' side, to be honest), played a huge part in moulding the modern world as we know it; without it our Earth would be a very different place. Too different, I think, for us to know whether it would be better or worse. Kind of similar to what I was saying two posts ago.

Let's say you have two worlds. The death of billions in on year happened in the past of one - let's say something like a plague - and nothing anywhere near as catastrophic as that ever happened in the other. That doesn't go to say that the present is better in the latter than in the former, in fact it could conceivable be the other way around. Terrible things can happen, but good can come out of them. That doesn't justify them happening, I know, but it's something that can, at least, be salvaged & should be looked after and respected rather than just denied.

Well, there IS a lotta lumpage going on ALL AROUND THIS TRHEAD, but i stand by my assertion that blacks today have decended from GRANDPARENTS, not 'remote ancestors', who suffered HUGE OBSTACLES AND RACISM AND DE-FACTO SLAVERY, they DO NOT yet have the same opportunites, they do face racism on many different levels, in a million ways. That is an actual fact. All stats bear this out--If that is lumpage, so be it, the stats are saying it is this way.

Connect the specific quote that you're replying to here to the thing I said immediately afterwards and there you'll have your answer.

sad. you might not yet have deep understanding of what a black's problems even entail...including how the white dudes' attitude can be an obstacle, and depending on his job when he grow ups, contribute significantly to the problems faced daily for the oppressed minority.

You didn't even read what I said, clearly. I answer racism by not being racist, not by passing judgement on my own entire race & pressurising them into atoning for sins that most of them had no involvement in anyway.

Sorry, i LOVE my moral outrage about racism, i wish there were more people like me, i wish we had more moral outrage on many things even beyond racism, like the war, etc. No, i'm gonna keep it and cherish it, and be proud of it, you won't convert me out of it

Don't be so vein. You know full well that I didn't mean your moral outrage towards racism, I meant your moral outrage towards me. While you may think I'm a racist, or want to, I'm not one & I've made that pretty clear.

Again, i am responding, when you all aren't responding to my great points i made....

I actually agree with quite a few of your 'great points', if they're the one's I'm thinking of. I've said that a couple of times before, come to that. What I've explained to you, in response to most of these, is that you have misunderstood me and so said 'great points' are all but pointless. Thanks to your confusion, you are the one who isn't answering me, you see?

Here, however...

I don't think that is what i was trying to get you to realize, I DO think empathy is a wonderful tool to combat racsim, not self loathing, but since that is where you went with it, the answer is education. Read books. Watch documentaries. Study it up. Learn about it. You may gain a whole new insight.

for the first time that I can find, you seem to have understood not only single words every so often but whole sentences. I'm over the moon.

Yes I'm aware that's not what you were trying to 'get me to realise', but you've yet to take one more rational step. What you're responding to here, you seem to agree with at least on a basic level - empathy not self-loathing - and what is it that you're responding to exactly? A response of mine, intended to make my own point of view more clear for you, because you were frankly oblivious to it before. What we're each talking about is indeed detached, thanks again to a misunderstanding on your part. I agree with your point (ish) and you agree with mine (ish). Ergo, we're on the same ground here, more or less. There is no contradiction, save for the one's you manifested. The same applies to many of the other sub-arguments here - your assumptions have caused them, nothing more, and in reality we're not anywhere near as opposed as you seem to think - but this is the first in which I've been able to get through to you.

I still stand by what i said. I am still very much for affirmative action, it is way too soon to remove it.

Yes, there might be times a white dude feels he was not chosen and is more worthy, but USA needs to be forced into leveling the playing field. there are so many MORE OTHER times when the black person is passed over.

The more you learn about the statistics the more you may be more open to affirmative action. Yes, i do feel if an institution oppresses and tortures an entire group of people for hundreds of years!!!, that institution should try to make amends to level the field after putting so many mountians in front of them.

Well, you've given you're reasons, I've already given mine; we both seem to understand each other there at least. I don't see it as a game, I don't see a race as an 'institution'. So as far as affirmative action and so on is concerned, we'll probably have to agree to disagree, I think. It's that sort of deal here: I could argue with you, but I'd just be repeating myself, you could carry on, but you'd just be repeating yourself, and so on.

I also DO feel it is a factor how recently, HOW VERY VERY RECENTLY slavery and legal racism ended right here in our country. IT ISN'T 'MANY GENERATIONS AGO' IT WAS THEIR GRANDPARENTS. Sometimes ya gotta force people to take turns, play fair, share. Especially when so MUCH damage was done by the majority for so so so so long....it WAS off the hook....it was a holocaust. that went on for centuries...and is just ending 'legally' in the 50s and 60s...

You've made this point before and I've answered it.

It is possible that i am blurring you with the other young white guys..sorry if i am...

No problem.

i can't leave this page to go get the quote that shows where i pick up this feeling the field is all even now!!!!!?????

Again, I see no playing field, no teams and no game, so there's no way I could think in the manner that you suggest.

You said you were decended from slaves, i object to your feeling you have the same experience as the GRANDCHILD of one who could be murdered in a noose and no one would be prosecuted. It is not the same.

if you are going back 1000s of years, you possibley might be right. But to act like your lot in life has been affected by slavery the way the black guy next to you is ignorant.

Which is unfortunate, as i am noticing you ARE more well spoken and have ideas that are better presented than the other young white guys in this thread. I must admit, at first, you all did blur together. But still, you MUST realize how different your life would be had your grandfather been whipped and threatened with death for almost nothing, had your grandmother been legally raped, etc, can you picture how this would affect your parents!!!??.... and thus your self?

You are generalising but absolutely right, of course. I stand corrected there, my statement was slightly flippant (well I kind of knew it was then, but hey, I'm a bastard). Still, I stand by my belief that since I did not own a slave, I owe nothing, as you simply put it.

Oh, you really don't know, do you? You don't see the racism and scars and damage still making a powerful difference in a black man's life than yours??? how differently everything is for them than you? still today? Their path is NOT the same yet, racism trips them up over and over. The poverty os being a sharecroppers/slave's grandchild can take a long time to overcome. The opportunities are NOT the same yet. But we can all try to do what we can to level the field.

Again, racism's still around, blah dee blah, yadda yadda. Been over this. Same ground (ish ) on all of that. I'm simply making the observation that the Western world was built on slavery and not just that but oppression. It was like that all over the world, in fact, for millennia, as you know more than I do, I'm sure. Ancient Egypt, the Roman Empire, the feudal system, the empires of the early 20th century, and so on. I'll repeat the point I was making, then, in more detail: I believe that the only 'institution' (and by that I mean nation, group of nations, political body or what have you, not race) capable of making any kind of effective, ambitious stand against slavery and oppression on an international scale, not just in small communities, is one that was initially built on it. And it's true isn't it? The now far more multi-racial (because of slavery, at least in the UK) & democratic Western World? I think it's unpleasantly ironic. If you think I'm being too cynical and misanthropic, there, then say so, that's fine, but if you wouldn't mind not patronising me, that'd be great.

Wont respond to the rest because it's all about me personally and you personally. Can't be arsed.

Actually I think racism and slavery and wrong. I really don't care about reparations and quotas and all of that -- one way or the other. If you're looking for justice, than you stepped onto the wrong planet. I just live the best I can and try not to hurt anyone along the way and help out where I can. If everyone did that, we'd have a great planet. But we all know that's not the way it works, and that's just the way it is.

Same attitude here. Human being can't incite change over a minimalistic space of time & I think it can just as easily piss everything up if they go overboard trying (ie. affirmative action). People should just do their bit and teach their kids the same principals. Slowly but surely.