Happy Atheist Forum

Hi guys. If there had been a better forum to post this in, I would have... but there's not so I put it here in philospophy.

This is actually for english class. My teacher gave me a "creative project" assignment, and I chose to do a forum post. The topic I have to do it on is racism.

Personally, I don't see why anyone would be a racist. To some extent, even the original slave traders knew that the Africans were still people. This is evident in the phrase "black people", is it not? Also, there's nothing really to be gained from racism. It is worth noting that America, as well as the 15th century European powers who tried to colonize Africa, do not currently own Africa. They didn't even get much farther than having colonies in Africa at any point, did they?

One of my pet peeves is bad justification. Killing someone for revenge is an example of bad justification. "Because I said so" is a bad justification (that means you, 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. This is really bad justification. And isn't that what led to all the racism?

It's been scientifically proved that black people, white people, asians and whatever type of ___ people you can think of, are all human. We all belong to the same genus and species. We can donate blood to each other, reproduce with each other, and interact with each other peacefully. The difference (genetically) between white people and people with darker skin is something like 1% of your entire genetic makeup. Let's face it, we're all people.

But what about the word, "nigger"? Or even "nigga" (which is roughly equal to saying brother loosely)? Apparently, I'm not allowed to say either one because I'm white. And it's all due the history of the word. How is this fair? I didn't do anything to deserve having a word cut from my vocabulary. I wouldn't use nigger, but if I were to use the word nigga the way a black person would use it, why is that not fine? Black people say they substitute the "a" onto the word to give it a different meaning and take away its power. Well, I'm all for that, but I can't help because I'm white. Isn't this counter-intuitive? Not allowing me to say nigga simply reinfores the power of the word. If we can't accept that I mean the same by it as black people do, then that means the BLACK PEOPLE aren't ready to accept ME as equal. Damn racists.

I generally dislike people for what they say and do rather than the color of their skin.  

Having said that, I will also point out that there are cultural differences between people and sometimes those differences are easily assessed by color.  Sometimes.

Shoruke, why do you want to use the word "nigger"?

People categorize things as a way to save mental energy. You'd be exhausted if you thought about and analyzed everything seperately. It also helped with survival way back when. Humans are also placed in categories (race, gender, SES, hair color, etc.). Associations are made with these categories. This is where racism stems from.

Yes, we are all people. There is no race "gene".

As for the word "nigger". I just don't think it's appropriate no matter what your skin color. IMO, it's the most common way for a hiphop artist to ruin an otherwise good song. As for the fairness of it because of the word's history... well, the word wouldn't exist if it weren't for the history... so I guess it all evens out.   :wink:

Honestly, everyone is different. I've heard white people AND black people say it in both "positive" and "negative" context. Some people find it more offensive than others.

People tend to fear and/or dislike those who are different especially when they do not understand why those people are different.  In every case of slavery I am familiar with, it is a situation of enslaving someone who is different from the slave owner...whether the difference be social class, race, or religion.  I think scientific study has played a huge role in why racism is now considered something bad rather than an acceptable norm.

I'm not sure who told you the indigenous people were not strong enough to be slaves...they did manage to survive on their own without help for long before the colonies were settled, longer than the USA has existed.  I would guess the reason for choosing Africa as a place to grab slaves might have been partially due to the settlers giving the native americans small pox...maybe Africans were already more immune to it.

 Anyway, racism, or at least the enslavement of those from other cultures, has it's roots all the way back to the Egyptian times and probably before.  
Even the Bible (the supposed "good book") favorably speaks of owning slaves (of conquered tribes) and does so in a way that mirrors the racism found in the American ownership of black slaves.

As for hate filled racial terms...rather than taking away their power it would make much more sense to just quit using them.  But, as with all words they have a meaning in a given context.  With racial hate terms that context can have a lot to do with the color of your skin.  If some black people want to say "nigga" that's their thing...but even then that's a cultural choice and is normally used in the context of a close group of friends (even with those of a different race in some cases) rather than a general greeting to anyone that just happens to be black.


To get a better idea of how racism developed.  If you are walking down the street and a few blocks down you see someone who's skin is purple.  You have never seen someone with purple skin before and prejudge that person as scary and possibly harmful.  You immediately turn to run the other way and call the cops on your phone.

Another example, you live in a very remote part of the world in a small village, tribe A, filled only with white people.  A neighboring tribe, tribe B, is filled only with black people and is always hostile towards your village.  Your association of black people with hostility allows you to rationalize racism and you would likely put up strong defenses against any black person who may come to visit from thousands of miles away, tribe c, just as you would anyone who visited you from tribe B.  Basically, racism only makes sense where ignorance of key facts about the world and humanity are unknown....after the facts are provided it's a matter of killing out the tradition of racism.

Quote from: "shoruke"Personally, I don't see why anyone would be a racist. To some extent, even the original slave traders knew that the Africans were still people. This is evident in the phrase "black people", is it not? Also, there's nothing really to be gained from racism. It is worth noting that America, as well as the 15th century European powers who tried to colonize Africa, do not currently own Africa. They didn't even get much farther than having colonies in Africa at any point, did they?

Actually, if you 'colonise' a country that pretty much means you own it. There is no 'further' to go, so to speak. Since the French, the Ottomans, the British & the Germans had colonised pretty much all of Africa between them, it was as good as 'owned'.

At any rate, the concept of 'racism' has adopted far too broad a meaning as far as I'm concerned. For example, it isn't remotely historically inaccurate for me to say this:

Before imperial powers took over Africa, they were all killing and enslaving one another in small isolated tribes. We gave them civilisation. In fact said imperial forces didn't actually do much 'enslaving'; more buying slaves from African tribes who had just bested others. If it wasn't for those colonies, slavery would still be going on in Africa.

It's the truth. However it's frowned upon for us to state certain truths. It's politically incorrect. Yet it doesn't demonstrate any emotion (not even hatred), nor does it mention race.

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 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 know! And you can bet that atheism would be out of the picture. As would Christianity, come to that.

It's all far too complicated to pick out one group (eg. the Africans) and say "oh they were wronged in history and we need to make up for it" because frankly their ancestors might have been wronged but they're reaping the spoils of that just as much as we are (&, as you say, Shoruke, we didn't do anything to them!)

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. People don't like being made to feel guilty about things they never did, to hate their own race, nationality and otherwise for no reason. It's no surprise that you get skin head gangs popping up all over the place.

QuotePeople categorize things as a way to save mental energy. You'd be exhausted if you thought about and analyzed everything seperately. It also helped with survival way back when. Humans are also placed in categories (race, gender, SES, hair color, etc.). Associations are made with these categories. This is where racism stems from.

agreed.

QuoteYes, we are all people. There is no race "gene".

Yet the races are genetically different & not just in skin colour. Different paths of evolution do lead to different traits both characteristically and physically, however it's still ludicrous to generalise on a level such as this: "orientals are smarter than white people" or "black people are really stupid"

QuoteBut what about the word, "nigger"? Or even "nigga" (which is roughly equal to saying brother loosely)? Apparently, I'm not allowed to say either one because I'm white. And it's all due the history of the word. How is this fair? I didn't do anything to deserve having a word cut from my vocabulary. I wouldn't use nigger, but if I were to use the word nigga the way a black person would use it, why is that not fine? Black people say they substitute the "a" onto the word to give it a different meaning and take away its power. Well, I'm all for that, but I can't help because I'm white. Isn't this counter-intuitive? Not allowing me to say nigga simply reinfores the power of the word. If we can't accept that I mean the same by it as black people do, then that means the BLACK PEOPLE aren't ready to accept ME as equal. Damn racists.

No, mate, it has nothing to do with the black people at all.It has to do with political correctness.
Which is a messed up concept. But oh well, I still don't use the word 'nigger'. No, seriously, what's the point? It has a derogatory sound, and is quite pointless. I don't mind saying 'Black', since... Well... All Americans are African Americans (We came out of Africa.)
Some were just African more recent.

I'm not a racist, just a misanthrope.  

Fundamentalists have that effect on you.

But yeah, if I called a retard (As in someone with mental retardation, not just the common usage, 'idiot') 'stupid', and someone told me to leave, or that I was being rude, is it because the retards were intolerant of me?

Slavery is, generally, more about power than race.  It just so happens that the most well known, and most likely the most numerous, slave-owning period had a racial justification behind it.

The ancient Romans didn't care what race someone was, if they conquered a new territory, they took slaves.  If a person went too far into debt, they became a slave; race didn't really play a part, money and power did(first you get the money, then you get the power...).

In manorial/feudal times the workers of the land(serfs) were essentially slaves to their lords.  It was the same with many agrarian societies.

Throughout history those in a position of power, whether a country or a group of people, have exploited those beneath them.  Sometimes this manifests itself in chattel slavery and sometimes in wage slavery.

In summation, racism is just another way for people to assert their power, real or imagined, over other people.

This might sound dumb but I think that there are all kinds of words that people use to describe themselves and others like them that aren't okay for others to use, and it's like "I can talk bad about my family but you can't" kind of a thing.  I joke about being a redneck all the time but it can be insulting depending on how and when it's said.  I think that the N word has a very negative stigma attached to it whether you have used it negatively or not like the word atheist, if I were to say that to anyone in my family it would be all hell fire and brimestone for me, so anyway I just think if you understand that a certain word is generally hurtful or disrespectful it's just best not to use that word.  I just re-read that and it makes me sound like a wussy.  I think you should be able to speak how you want and be yourself but understand that certain things are just going to open the floodgates of anger and lot's of people will stop listening...they'll HEAR you but they won't be LISTENING.

I went a couple days without replying, so that people had a chance to post...

I'd like to thank everyone for posting, and sharing history lessons and such.

It is true that slavery, in some cases, can be 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?)

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.
If I could talk to an ancient American (funny term, but bear with me) and ask him what kind of people he took on as slaves, and why he had slaves at all, he would say "them nigggers had it comin'. Sides', I'm makin money off em and they don't take much feedin'." That's racist. And we know now that it was wrong.

As for the word nigger. It's not that I want to be allowed to insult black people with it, it's that I see their plight to take power away from the word, and I can't help at all, because they won't let me. Does this fact not attest to how little progress they've made to take power away from the word?

My method for removing power from "nigger" would be to support people like Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock (black comedians... lots of swearing and nigger-calling. Nothing takes power from a word like "When I go to a money machine tonight, I'm not lookin' over my back for the media! I'm lookin' fo' NIGGAS!") I guess it's a concept of attrition.
One example: When a kid (roughly 5 yrs. old) swears, his mother will get mad at him/her, and might even ground them. However, the child, influenced by his peers at school, will slowly become more and more vulgar in is mannerisms and speech. By the time he's my age (16), he can say "fuck" around his house and his mother will barely bat an eyelash.
So here's the parallel: the child is me, the mother is black people who hate the word nigger, and schoolmates are the rest of the general populace. Currently, if I use the word nigger, I'm liable to suffer repercussions. But over time, I, along with the people around me, will use increasingly vulgar language, until it enters regular conversation because nobody cares anymore. The black people themselves might not choose to use the word, but they'll see that I don't mean to use it with it's full power of insultingness.

Here's hoping the forum doesn't censor my swearing so that everyone can tell what I said, wish me luck for a good mark when I direct my english teacher to this site. Night everyone!

Quote). And the way I heard it, the early colonists needed slaves, and the Indigenous people weren't strong enough

I haven't even read the previous posts yet, but i have to point out that native americans were quite athletic and fit, prior to the arrival of england's germs,  BUT they had support network at the time, they knew the land, and could escape into it.  the blacks did not.  Huge disadvantage.

QuoteIt's been scientifically proved that black people, white people, asians and whatever type of ___ people you can think of, are all human

duh.  sorry, but DUH.

Quote. The difference (genetically) between white people and people with darker skin is something like 1% of your entire genetic makeup

NO, it is a chomosome that decides your skin color, just like some white people are way whiter than others....  The genetic difference between you and a monkey is 2% of your DNA.....

Quotethat means the BLACK PEOPLE aren't ready to accept ME as equal. Damn racists

ON your quest to free yourself of racism, be careful not to lump people.   the root of racism is ignorance, and fear.

Quoteinstead. This is really bad justification. And isn't that what led to all the racism?

Is there any GOOD justification for slavery????   Slavery is the result of racism, not the cause of it.

The

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

Damn, i just spit my drink on my keyboard.  I can't believe you believe that.  There were many civilizations in Africa prior to the raping their country, elegant ones at that.   YOu are lumping all African societies together there, my friend.  Africa is the birthplace of all humanity,  the birthplace OF civilization, it is your ancestoral home, too.
Sure, there were also wars, america has had many wars of its own in country.

 

Quote. In fact said imperial forces didn't actually do much 'enslaving'; more buying slaves from African tribes who had just bested others. If it wasn't for those colonies, slavery would still be going on in Africa

WHAT!?  It was definately slavery! ( the holocaust happened too btw)  Sure, other Africans did sell out their brothers there, but that is STILL SLAVERY.  The ones sold were free men women and children, who had been captured, not slaves. How nice you could foresee and predict what would be going on in 200 years later....

Quotelity. America, for example, would be nothing if we hadn't held its leash for a while

Digusting choice of words.  We could have joined together and did our own work.  Many other countries ahve succeeded that way.  Shoruke, get down here, HERE is some of what you call "bad justification" right here, buddy.  The whole next paragraph is givng me a headache.  I hardly even know where to stab it, it has so many uninfomed remarks back  to back....

Quote. As would Christianity, come to that

BTW-Christians used their religion as "bad justification" for slavery, you know this right?  We were 'converting " the slaves is why we told ourselves it was okay to ruin them.  And we did so ruin them, tortured them, ripped families apart...their family culture is still recovering from centuries of this horror inflicted upon them.  

QuoteIt's all far too complicated to pick out one group (eg. the Africans) and say "oh they were wronged in history and we need to make up for it" because frankly their ancestors might have been wronged but they're reaping the spoils of that just as much as we are (&, as you say, Shoruke, we didn't do anything to them

OMG!!!   Where do YOU live that balck people have an even playing field????!!!  Slavery didn't completely end de-facto, til the 30s and 40s, the blacks you see beside you in school had grandparents that got lynched, fairly legally, and couldn't even vote nor go into white restaurants and stores.  Try that idea on for even a minute.  But their grandkids should be all completely over it all, just walk it off after 200 years of having their families ripped up into pieces!  It DOES take many generations to undo the damge we have done.  
Blacks in this country so have a DIFFERENT ROAD to walk than YOU DO.  In subtle things and huge things--mortages, wages, opportunities--it IS NOT the same for you as them.  It is slowly slowly getting better, but it  is   a    L  O  N  G  way to go yet.

And yes, i do feel reparations are due, i can't believe affirmative action is over, after 200 year s of absolute torture, then in one generation, okay, we are even?!!
Maybe you did not own a slave, but you are indeed benefitting, the blacks are not reaping these same rewards and i am stunned to hear you imagine this.  We can see an injustice that still needs work and want to participate in it's healing even if we did not own a slave ourselves.

Quotethink 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

No, acting like racism is not there will not make it go away.  That has been tried already, didn't work.  NO, racism, like prejudice against atheists, needs to be brought out into the open so the education can begin.  EDUCATION is the cure.  How can one learn about being a better person if one isn't aware there IS a problem here!!!!!???

Quotereason. It's no surprise that you get skin head gangs popping up all over the place.

okay, now you are scaring me.  this might be a debate similar to talking with a fundy.....you say this--and yet, also wanna act like racism is pretty much over? and harmless?
THAT was one hecka of an ignorant remark..
.

QuoteYet the races are genetically different & not just in skin colour

there are also skeletal differences, but our dna is identical, like white people who have red hair and white people who have black hair,it is one tiny corner of a chromosome.
......

QuoteBut yeah, if I called a retard (As in someone with mental retardation, not just the common usage, 'idiot') 'stupid', and someone told me to leave, or that I was being rude, is it because the retards were intolerant of me?

Nicely done, allhail tuna.

QuoteI think you should be able to speak how you want and be yourself but understand that certain things are just going to open the floodgates of anger and lot's of people will stop listening...they'll HEAR you but they won't be LISTENING.

WELL PUT, ajayne!!  well, ignorant people might vey well perk right on up to the topic, though!!!!!  Start up a skin head thing...gross.

racism is born from ignorance...plain and simple.

oh shit, shoruke has another post.......i'll be backk.......

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

bull s#*t! I don't think you'd feel this way if YOU were being enslaved!!!!

Quotepower away from the word, and I can't help at all, because they won't let me. Does this fact not attest to how little progress they've made to take power away from the word?

Yes, you CAN help reduce rasism by being informed and intelligent in the words you speak to those around you, by putting in a good and informed word when a  bad card gets put on the table, even these small things may very well turn on a light for an ignorant person next to   you.
It might help someone discover their own ignorance...might not, but worth a try.  If you become a mortgage officer, a realtor, a teacher, a honorable cop or judge or politician, your opportunities to help keep things fair are even broader.

Focus perhaps on trying to set a good example in your word and deed, instead of if you feel "allowed" to use the N word.  There are better arenas and ways to use your wish to eradicate racsim than worrying over that cause.  There ARE better and bigger issues at hand in trying to help reduce racsim!!!!
But i'm so pleased to hear you are interested in helping reduce racism!!!!

Listen, Shoruke, the N word IS a powerful word, lotta blood on it, it always will be a powerful trigger.  Cunt is a powerful word to some.  You could yell cunt to your gramma all  day long..... she still won't like it.  Does that mean she is not "making progress" ?  Or does it mean you do not yet appreciate the effect words can carry?


Reread that gals post above all over again, comparing it to making fun of her family is ok if SHE does it, but not YOU.  maybe that'll help you understand, i thought it was a good remark.

 

Quoteslavery. (end vs. means?)

no!  HELL NO!!  C'mon--THINK!!!!!  You CAN'T REALLY mean that?  Lotsa people do their own work and still realize things, still become intelligent.  Are you kidding ????

Quotehere'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

For real--you would believe that??  NO, it's cuz he is a lazy ass, duh.  WHO gets to decide who gets to be an aristocrat? a birthright thing?  yeah, that'll probably work....definately they'd be smarter cuz they were pampered....(?)
  Artists and scientists can have their very own garden, and learn even more things while they garden (anyone who has EVER gardened can vouch, you realize a lotta things as your hands are in the earth..... and still have time to participate in the bettering of their civilization.  ONe does NOT have to be idle to develop intelligence.  mUch is to be learned while active.  YOur remark indicates an ignorance of things created by black amercians, including the lamp over your head and the cell phone up againsts your ear.
HOw exactly did you decide sitting on one's keister makes them  smarter?  Sitting makes us more valuable?  cool.

Quoteword, but they'll see that I don't mean to use it with it's full power of insultingness.

While you are yelling "cunt" at your gramma, do it real friendly like, so she can see you mean no harm, that even though usually that word means anger from a small mind coming her way, THIS time, she can see you are all smiling and all, and so then she won't mind.


 :roll:
Focus on helping to educate others who act stupid and are becoming desensitzed about the 'wrongness' of skn head gangs.  

Quoteword, but they'll see that I don't mean to use it with it's full power of insultingness.

Uh, good luck with that one. ha ha.
the whole idea you have sounds 'vulgar' to me.    :lol:      Again, let go of this focus, if you really TRULY wanna help, you surely can make a difference.  do you really wanna help wipe out racism, or is just you wanna complete your imitation of a black guy by using the n word too ??  Far and away,  black men ARE the most imitated people in america.
 


RE: your everyone be vulgar plan--
HOw would debasing oursleves to our lowest common denominator improve society?

Good luck on your quest to help 'the pllight of black people'.  It IS a worthy cause.  There are better focuses to be had to unleash your energy onto tho, than trying to imitate rappers to 'desensitize them' to a white guy using the n word.  If your plan could work, it woulda already worked by now...like by 1930 even....leave the n word alone.  
CAN'T WE ALL JUST RESPECT EACH OTHER and quit picking at scabs over fairly recent wounds of long standing government subsidized rasism?

QuoteAnother thing: we are all descended from slaves - we have just as much right to moan and gripe about it as anyone

NO, Mister, you are decended from AFRICANS, not slaves, and your path is very different from the grandchildren of slaves that you probably imitate in manner of dress, style, music and dance.   YOur right to complain about racism is completely valid, but you cannot for a moment pretend to be the decendent of someone who has survived that centuries long holocaust, nor a current victim of it.

Quotereality. America, for example, would be nothing if we hadn't held its leash for a while (ie. build 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

When you say "we" do you mean "we" as Americans or "we" as white people?


Yes, americans did invent fountain pens, pencils, combs and hairbrushes, typewriters, lightbulbs,   (so it really woulda been dark without us!) almost everything in the post office from stamps to the machines that sort the mail,  amilboxes too, elevators that allow us to build skyscrapers, toliets, trolley cars, air conditioners, electric clothes dryers, the furnace, stethyscopes, traffic lights, refridgerators, air brakes, the electric lamp, many things of the NASA space rockets, space guided missiles, jazz, , fiberoptics, and the cell phone.  
YES, AMERICANS INVENTED THESE THINGS.  BLACK AMERICANS.  

ONe fo the main fathers of the internet, without whose inventions the internet never woulda happened is african.    guess us white people are so lucky we 'held the leash and built up our country' huh....

If I may, I would like to reply to some of your statements, tigerlily46514.

Quote from: "tigerlily46514"NO, it is a chomosome that decides your skin color, just like some white people are way whiter than others....  The genetic difference between you and a monkey is 2% of your DNA.....

Perhaps I'm reading what you said wrong, but I'm pretty sure that melanin pigment plays the predominant role. Chromosomes, I would think, would only play a factor in genes being passed to offspring.

QuoteON your quest to free yourself of racism, be careful not to lump people.   the root of racism is ignorance, and fear.

I believe he was using satire.

QuoteIs there any GOOD justification for slavery????   Slavery is the result of racism, not the cause of it.

Slavery based on race is the result of racism, which is a bad justification.

I certainly believe slavery can be justified. Just not based on usual orthodox reasons, such as social class, monetary variation, and least of all race. That's just me though.

QuoteDamn, i just spit my drink on my keyboard.  I can't believe you believe that.  There were many civilizations in Africa prior to the raping their country, elegant ones at that.   YOu are lumping all African societies together there, my friend.  Africa is the birthplace of all humanity,  the birthplace OF civilization, it is your ancestoral home, too.
Sure, there were also wars, america has had many wars of its own in country.

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.

QuoteWHAT!?  It was definately slavery! ( the holocaust happened too btw)  Sure, other Africans did sell out their brothers there, but that is STILL SLAVERY.  The ones sold were free men women and children, who had been captured, not slaves.

Freedom is in the eye of the beholder. How do you figure they were free people? Slavery is an abstraction, and the periphery of "slaves" and "men, women, and children who had been captured" is quite thin.

QuoteDigusting choice of words.  We could have joined together and did our own work.  Many other countries ahve succeeded that way.

I'm no historian. but I highly disagree with that logic. Starting a civilization from scratch isn't the easiest thing to do. Particularly one that would of been in isolation from the rest of the world, not to mention the rather late start America had to develop. We could of joined together to do our own work. We'd be far behind in terms of development, but yes, we could of done that.

QuoteOMG!!!   Where do YOU live that balck people have an even playing field????!!!  Slavery didn't completely end de-facto, til the 30s and 40s, the blacks you see beside you in school had grandparents that got lynched, fairly legally, and couldn't even vote nor go into white restaurants and stores.  Try that idea on for even a minute.  But their grandkids should be all completely over it all, just walk it off after 200 years of having their families ripped up into pieces!  It DOES take many generations to undo the damge we have done.  
Blacks in this country so have a DIFFERENT ROAD to walk than YOU DO.  In subtle things and huge things--mortages, wages, opportunities--it IS NOT the same for you as them.  It is slowly slowly getting better, but it  is   a    L  O  N  G  way to go yet.

And yes, i do feel reparations are due, i can't believe affirmative action is over, after 200 year s of absolute torture, then in one generation, okay, we are even?!!
Maybe you did not own a slave, but you are indeed benefitting, the blacks are not reaping these same rewards and i am stunned to hear you imagine this.  We can see an injustice that still needs work and want to participate in it's healing even if we did not own a slave ourselves.

That's lacking justification everywhere, and it's a really despondent way of viewing things. Where are you getting those facts?

I don't know if I would recommend using it as a source to choose if you support it or don't, but I suggest you read the stuff here:http://www.acluprocon.org/bin/procon/procon.cgi?database=5-H-Sub-1Q.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=2&rnd=412.26809670492617

I would use a hyperlink, but I'm not yet certain how to make the format on this particular forum.

QuoteNo, acting like racism is not there will not make it go away.  That has been tried already, didn't work.  NO, racism, like prejudice against atheists, needs to be brought out into the open so the education can begin.  EDUCATION is the cure.  How can one learn about being a better person if one isn't aware there IS a problem here!!!!!???

Honestly, I don't understand your logic. 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. Education isn't a cure. Education is a treatment course. Or, at the very least, a painkiller.

Also, what are you refering to when you said it has already been tried?

Quoteokay, now you are scaring me.  this might be a debate similar to talking with a fundy.....you say this--and yet, also wanna act like racism is pretty much over? and harmless?
THAT was one hecka of an ignorant remark..
.

Again, I believe that was meant to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Quote from: "ReflectingNarcissist"Honestly, I don't understand your logic. People know about racism. It's a very prolific topic.

Sometimes I wonder if people do really understand what's at issue with racism. Too often it's reduced to the use of specific terms and who's allowed to use them and when, but racism is much more than that. It's systemic and social traps that consistently keep certain races from escaping the status quo.

If we can all agree that the only difference between people is skin tone, then why is there a massive disparity between the blacks, hispanics and whites when it comes to income, education and justice issues?

Blacks and hispanics are more likely to live in poverty, more likely to drop out of highschool and less likely to gain post-secondary education. They're less likely to be employed and earn less when employed. They're more likely to be imprisoned, and usually get harsher punishments than whites for similar crimes.

just as a refresher getting the person's name in the quote works thusly:

  quote="Whomever"  enclosed with these [ ], then whatever text, then /quote also encolsed with [ ].

put it all together and get

Quote from: "Whomever"blah, blah, blah

makes it much easier to know who's being quoted.

Tigerlilly, you've jumped to several conclusions here. Misread me a couple of times too. I'll skip some parts, since my answers would be more or less the same as ReflectingNarcissist's.

Quote from: "tigerlilly46514"WHAT!? It was definately slavery! ( the holocaust happened too btw) Sure, other Africans did sell out their brothers there, but that is STILL SLAVERY. The ones sold were free men women and children, who had been captured, not slaves. How nice you could foresee and predict what would be going on in 200 years later....

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 them. I was implying that the "which came first? The chicken or the egg?" 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.

Quote from: "tigerlilly46514"

QuoteAs would Christianity, come to that

BTW-Christians used their religion as "bad justification" for slavery, you know this right? We were 'converting " the slaves is why we told ourselves it was okay to ruin them. And we did so ruin them, tortured them, ripped families apart...their family culture is still recovering from centuries of this horror inflicted upon them.

Yes I was aware of this. Some Christians did indeed use their religion do justify such things (might want to be careful not to 'lump' people, there). Funny thing is, that doesn't actually contradict the overall point of what I was saying... in any way. It's irrelevant in fact.

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?

Quote from: "tigerlilly46514"

QuoteIt's all far too complicated to pick out one group (eg. the Africans) and say "oh they were wronged in history and we need to make up for it" because frankly their ancestors might have been wronged but they're reaping the spoils of that just as much as we are (&, as you say, Shoruke, we didn't do anything to them

OMG!!! Where do YOU live that balck people have an even playing field????!!! Slavery didn't completely end de-facto, til the 30s and 40s, the blacks you see beside you in school had grandparents that got lynched, fairly legally, and couldn't even vote nor go into white restaurants and stores. Try that idea on for even a minute. But their grandkids should be all completely over it all, just walk it off after 200 years of having their families ripped up into pieces! It DOES take many generations to undo the damge we have done.
Blacks in this country so have a DIFFERENT ROAD to walk than YOU DO. In subtle things and huge things--mortages, wages, opportunities--it IS NOT the same for you as them. It is slowly slowly getting better, but it is a L O N G way to go yet.

You're persisting with the lumpage, and thereby missing the point again. I'm talking in an individual sense, with a fair amount of emphasis. You are not responsible for the actions of other people who happen to be of your race (or nation, or religion for that matter) & it's utterly irrelevant how recent or far off these things happened, in this context (thought I'd make that clear so you don't go galloping off down another highway of fruitless moral outrage). No one has any right to come expecting apologies unless you have done something wrong; and increasingly people are being pressurised into feeling guilty for rubbish like that. Few months ago there was a BBC poll: "should Bristolian's apologise for the slave trade?" Why? I'm not saying "oi, black people, get over yourselves", I'm saying "don't blame me for your problems."

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. Dunno about you but I didn't do anything, so I'm not part of your collective WE. 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.

Quote from: "tigerlily46514"And yes, i do feel reparations are due, i can't believe affirmative action is over, after 200 year s of absolute torture, then in one generation, okay, we are even?!!

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.

Quote from: "tigerlilly46514"Maybe you did not own a slave, but you are indeed benefitting, the blacks are not reaping these same rewards and i am stunned to hear you imagine this. We can see an injustice that still needs work and want to participate in it's healing even if we did not own a slave ourselves.

You're hitting the wrong buttons, again, for the most 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. Just take a look at how much better the world is now than it was 200 years ago, and for everyone. It wouldn't have been possible for any culture to be vast and self-sustainable enough to stand against slavery if it wasn't built on it in the first place.

The rest I agree with. Participating in the 'healing' of such nasty cuts and bruises is a good thing, but people seem to think that by raving about 'debts', one race owing another, let's all feel ashamed and so on is just as ignorant and futile as racism itself as far as I'm concerned. In fact I believe it's that kind of thinking that gives people the capacity to be racist in the first place. That's what I was trying to convey.

Quote from: "tigerlilly46514"No, acting like racism is not there will not make it go away

Never said it would, or meant to, though I admit my phrasing was slightly askew from my meaning. Since you missed the rest of the post, therefore, it's no surprise you misunderstood me here.

Quote from: "tigerlilly46514"okay, now you are scaring me. this might be a debate similar to talking with a fundy.....you say this--and yet, also wanna act like racism is pretty much over? and harmless?

Now you're really jumping off the boat. I don't recall ever saying that racism is harmless or over. Nor did I imply it. It's an assumption on your part that I believe such things and it would be unsurprising if that derived from your clinging so faithfully to a collection of grand social schemas.

Quote from: "tigerlilly46514"NO, Mister, you are decended from AFRICANS, not slaves, and your path is very different from the grandchildren of slaves that you probably imitate in manner of dress, style, music and dance. YOur right to complain about racism is completely valid, but you cannot for a moment pretend to be the decendent of someone who has survived that centuries long holocaust, nor a current victim of it.

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?

I'll say again; everyone is descended from slaves. That's the plain truth. You wont find a single person on the planet who doesn't have a whole lot of slave blood in them. And it's not only centuries long, it's mixed and matched over millennia.

Once again though, you're appealing to heritage, whereas I am rebuking it, which has inevitably led to you going completely off target (trying not to use the word "again" again, again and again here). We are not responsible for the actions of our ancestors. We are, ultimately, separate beings. The only blame should really be placed on people who actually do these unspeakable acts of 'tearing apart families' and so on, not on whatever category they might fall into.

Quote from: "tigerlilly46514"When you say "we" do you mean "we" as Americans or "we" as white people?

Yes, americans did invent fountain pens, pencils, combs and hairbrushes, typewriters, lightbulbs, (so it really woulda been dark without us!) almost everything in the post office from stamps to the machines that sort the mail, amilboxes too, elevators that allow us to build skyscrapers, toliets, trolley cars, air conditioners, electric clothes dryers, the furnace, stethyscopes, traffic lights, refridgerators, air brakes, the electric lamp, many things of the NASA space rockets, space guided missiles, jazz, , fiberoptics, and the cell phone.
YES, AMERICANS INVENTED THESE THINGS. BLACK AMERICANS.

Actually the paragraph you were responding to there was more a side note on colonisation in general, so it wasn't referring to race. And by 'we', I meant Europeans.

And yes, bravo to those black Americans. The point I was making was that without the advancements handed to American peoples by colonies - if the continent was simply on it's own with no initial foreign rule - it would have taken it thousands of years to get to where it is now & there would be no USA. Side note in response to something else, as I say.

Phew, well that was a bit of fun. I feel like I've reached the end of an excruciatingly long tunnel. Hope that filled in a few cracks for you tigerlilly.

QuotePerhaps I'm reading what you said wrong, but I'm pretty sure that melanin pigment plays the predominant role. Chromosomes, I would think, would only play a factor in genes being passed to offspring.

Darn, you had such a lovely vocabulary in your introduction, i was so impressed, was excited maybe it was a genius !!! but not yet an informed, caring mind. dang it.  Anyway, where do you suppose melanin  'genes' are stored?  On the chromosome..

QuoteI believe he was using satire

Of course he was, duh.
And i thought he seemed annoyed that he "wasn't allowed " to use the N word......and he definitely DOES lump people.  But you certainly have a right to think that was clever.  And i have a right to help him try to understand that lumping can be a dangerous pitfall on the way to personal evolution.  Sure we all do that, but still, it is a good thing to be cognizant of.

QuoteI certainly believe slavery can be justified

Would you still feel slavery can be justified if it was YOUR MOMMA getting sold away from you?  If it was YOU losing all your freedom and rights and being tortured?  Would it be okay if IT WAS YOU??

The posters who all say that slavery is okay--NO one answered  THAT......
omg, am i the only person here who sees how cruel this kinda  thinking is???
 
This almost feels as frustrating as debating with fundies....you are denying your own humanity as WELL AS your reasoning ability for the sake of being oppositional...?  I totally do not really believe you can truly mean what you just said..i can't believe there are still people of your level of not caring at all about justice.

...cool, i just this minute realized i still DO have my idealistic bone still intact somewhere in this body!  yay for me!
Hope you ever get to experience the wonder of owning an idealistic part of your heart...if you ever do find you have grown one, don't scoff at it, protect it with all your might.  Might even last 50 years if you are lucky....

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

America has had several wars, too, and some pretty non-elegant societies of it's own (pilgrims never ever bathed at all ever..once each spring was all!!)  R.Narc, there have been and still are many elegant societies in Africa.  
Too bad you sound like you are too ethnocentric to appreciate them.  NOt to worry, we are all to some extent.

Not all villages were hostile,not at all!!!   Much of the ensuing hostilities between various villages was BROUGHT ON by the slave trading paying one village to steal actual people from another!!!  You gotta admit, that'd piss you off.

 I don't know how 'early' you are referring to, (are we talking trees here?) but at the time of the Crusades and other slave stealers,
there were many many peaceful and elegant societies, where the people were self governed, free, and respected the value of life.  Sorry you don't really seem to.....

QuoteFreedom is in the eye of the beholder. How do you figure they were free people

Self governed, with all basic human rights intact.  Chose their own families, their own occupations, their own homes, etc.  Like if you were right now, abducted and thrown into slavery, someone might say, but he USED to be free...see?  And another mihgt say, nah, the eye of the beholder, he wasn't free anyway.

  WHY DO YOU THINK ALL AFRICANS WERE SLAVES OVER THERE?????   there villages were free there, as you are now, until they came HERE.
And i was worried i, being from Indiana, I would be the redneck entering into a real cool evolved buncha people here.......

see, there i go, lumping people.  Sorry midwesterners. Also-- I have always looked up to atheists, i set a higher bar for them than others-which i readily admit is not right to do----but still, something in me is always disappointed to find narrow-minded, ethnocentric or cruel atheists.....always blows me away.  But that is a stereotype of mine, isn't it?  gotta work on that one

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

Back again to feeling like i am debating a Fundy....same exact feeling.  YOU GOTTA BE FREAKIN KIDDING ME???  Slavery is SO not an abstraction, buddy, it involves torture and rape and completely being ruined....would you say the holocaust was also an "abstraction"  ?


Google it, the estimates vary from around 11 MILLION to 20 MILLION that survived the voyage.  The number who died while shackled to wooden beds for months crossing the ocean is unknown...but hey, they were never "free", in your eyes, their shackles were some kinda 'abstraction'... right?  

I don't know if i can spend more time debating you if you aren't even gonna TRY to  keep it real...and honestly, this is probably a waste of time, similar to debating a fundie..


I'm only bothering with you for the benefit of the chance there might be some OTHER young mind reading this and still having a chance to get THEIR light bulb turned on...it is worth a try for the outside chance of helping some other young person reading...however honestly, posts THIS long, no one much reads 'em anyway i don't think...so i might quit with this....

I'm losing hope you can care enough yet about other humans to get the points i am trying to make.....but you are young yet, there is still hope as you grow you will develop this side of yourself more.  Heck, i was probably some kinda mess when i was your age.  At least you are both curious and brave, points for that.

QuoteI'm no historian

so i have noticed.

Quotebut I highly disagree with that logic

I'm not entirely convinced you are into logic anyway.

QuoteThat's lacking justification everywhere, and it's a really despondent way of viewing things. Where are you getting those facts?

Life, baby!  I have seen these stats my entire life...they are always the same, and the blacks are almost always getting the short end of the stick.....unless it is some right wing type 'fact'  thing, they can find a way to twist some facts.  We can always find facts to back ourselves up if we search long enuff...  Honestly, if you did Google this, sooner or later, you could PROBABLY find some stats that say how blacks make more money than whites, get better interest rates, get beat up by cops way less than whites, get higher pay, etc etc,  and are just doing peachy only 50 years outa Jim crow.

Despondent, no, actually i feel naively hopeful about improving things.  

If you need me to post stats on how much different life is for blacks than whites, you might be far too ignorant to even benefit from my effort.  But i could do it, but why not do it yourself for a project?  Google racial discrepancies of mortgages rates, pay scales, hiring deficts, college admissions, etc etc etc..  I still stand by my opinion it is way too soon to lose affirmative action.  i take it you only read 'con' half of that article......

QuoteHonestly, I don't understand your logic. 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. Education isn't a cure. Education is a treatment course. Or, at the very least, a painkiller.

You for one, do not seem aware of racism.  You seem baffled when i refer to the discrepancies in mortgages, pay scales, opportunities.....  I still disagree, and am not gonna bother reposting why....you can re-read my post all over again.....but i honestly don't think it is gonna help you understand, i sense a wall here...and that is okay, you do have a right to feel the way you do.  but it isn't based on facts. but you have a right to believe whatever you wish.

Actually tho, i think i do agree with your remark, there is no cure, only treatment.  YOu are right, it will never ever go away completely.  But we can still try to keep squashing it down anyway.
 

QuoteAlso, what are you referring to when you said it has already been tried

Really, you couldn't tell by my post what i meant????
Ignoring racism, as a way of making it go away.

QuoteAgain, I believe that was meant to be taken with a pinch of salt

Nah, truly, reread it in original context.....he was honked.   i kinda think for one's mind to go where he went with this, he has a rotten spot...eeeeough.  Salt might not be enough for it.

Must have some other good qualities though. we've all got our spots.
well, i feel spent and discouraged...i like to think most young people today are more informed than youths of the 30s..i kinda feel like you either
a) are being oppositional just for fun, like a debate team, and you really do care more about people and are aware of racism's effect on the USA......
/or/
b) you really do not know or care.....

either one, it wasn't fun....might give up. just tired.  I am sorry i do not have your vocabulary, McQ's humorus elegance of speech, or SteveS's patience, or Momma Squid's brevity, or rlRose's humility, (is that the right word, she is kinda sweet) so many others with great intelligence and  qualities i don't have, they coulda made much better responses than mine...but i do have passion.  guess i could benefit from trading out a cup of that for a cup of patience...

   
I really mean what i am trying to tell you, that racism is a strong factor in black people's lives, that slavery was real and brutal, and that we have a long way to go, and i still like to believe that if we all try to help squash it out, it could make a difference.  I really do believe that, all together, we could make a little ripple, that could eventually make yet another small shift happen.  Just a good word here or there, it can make a difference...  sometimes.I truly hope you did NOT mean what you said, but i admit your right to say it.
Keep on thinking.....

Ah, mister joy, haven't EVEN READ your response yet, which musta got posted same time as i was writing to R.Narc.....too tired to take on another young redneck just yet.  I'll be back in a few days, got company coming.  
If there is any one else out there who'd like to take on these guys, have at it.  I'll be back later...i hope.  i'm kinda getting discouraged, honestly, last week it was some young guys making ignorant sexist remarks...this week it is racist crap....maybe i need a break.  Or maybe this isn't where i belong after all...
  :bang:
 it's not so much fun as i thought anymore....feel almost as philosophically isolated here lately as i do as an atheist in Elkhart....
know what is funny?  i actually went searching myspace for some mature atheist liberals to invite here to round out the forum......hee hee!!  i did!!!
Hope my company is gonna be fun!!!
See ya soon!!

My 2cts. People should be judged on their acts, not on skin colour, religion, sex or whatever. For that reason I'm against any kind of discrimination (both negative and possitive). Historical mistakes, like slavery and the holocaust, should never be forgotten. On the other hand, how much are "we" to blame on what our forefathers did? Does for example a german child that is born today still has to feel guilty of what happened 3-4 generations ago? That doesn't seem right to me. Another problem that I see is that many people believe that the decendents of the former victims have more moral rights than other people. Since WW-II until now, no german politician would even dare to criticise Israel. This is rather silly, because what ever happens nowadays in Israel is not related to the holocaust.

I was going to stay out of this but here goes... <sigh>

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

HOWEVER, I do not believe any further reparations are due.  We have had affirmative action, which did nothing but discriminate against others who did not deserve it because places had to make their "quota" to meet guidelines.

Neither I nor any previous generations of my family have done anything to harm the race in question.  I'm HIDEOUSLY sorry they were wronged so grievously... but it's not my job to ensure that entire races are happy again.

How long do we have to apologize?  Same with what happened with the Nazis... how long does Germany and anyone of German descent have to apologize and pay for the mistakes (HORRIBLE mistakes, yes) made a few generations back?  See, I AM of German descent and I'm caucasian... so I have to make reparations to BOTH of these groups of people?  For how long?  And how many  more generations of my decendants will be required to do so?

With the Japanese, the US paid them money and some are still pissed about the interment camps.  I don't blame them.  But there comes a time when moving on is the best way to fix it.  I don't want to dwell on it any further.  The longer we dwell on the wrongs of previous generations, the more likely we are to repeat them.

I don't believe I'm racist in any way, shape or form.  I was tickled pink when I saw that the new 5th grader in our tiny school (5 kids in 5th grade now!) is black.  We are more diverse because of it.  Our little town is frighteningly pale and I WANT my son to be exposed to as many cultures and people as possible and that will only happen if we are colorblind.

So... to sum up... not racist, LOVE diversity, no more reparations or affirmative action, slavery WRONG no matter how you look at it.

Thank you for your time.  

Quote from: "Tom62"Historical mistakes, like slavery and the holocaust, should never be forgotten. On the other hand, how much are "we" to blame on what our forefathers did?

wow... look there.  Tom said what I wanted to say in fewer words.  That almost NEVER happens.  :lol:

These two sentences sum up what I feel.  Thanks, Tom!  

I 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.

If it isn't our responsibility to re-dress the repercussions of slavery -- economic, educational and justice inequalities -- whose is it? Nobody said we have to be ashamed of being white (this is what I'm hearing in a lot of reponses here. Correct me if I'm wrong), but as a group, whites have an awful lot of economic and political power in America, should we still sit by and wash our hands of the whole shlamazel?

Quote from: "Tom62"My 2cts. People should be judged on their acts, not on skin colour, religion, sex or whatever. For that reason I'm against any kind of discrimination (both negative and possitive). Historical mistakes, like slavery and the holocaust, should never be forgotten. On the other hand, how much are "we" to blame on what our forefathers did? Does for example a german child that is born today still has to feel guilty of what happened 3-4 generations ago? That doesn't seem right to me. Another problem that I see is that many people believe that the decendents of the former victims have more moral rights than other people. Since WW-II until now, no german politician would even dare to criticise Israel. This is rather silly, because what ever happens nowadays in Israel is not related to the holocaust.

It would be nice if people judged on people's behaviour, but they don't. I'm the child of German immigrants in Canada. I have dual citizenship, I speak the language and grew up in a traditionally German household. I was caled Hitler's daughter, given nazi salutes and, even recently, was tested with probing questions to see what my attitudes are about Jews. I don't think it's fair, but I do think it's my responsibility to keep on my toes when it comes to racism, antisemitism, and sexism, and I make sure that I don't complacently sit by and pass the responsibilty for change to somebody else while uttering the phrase "Don't blame me, I didn't do it."

We may not have committed the original sin, so to speak, but we're all part of the machine that maintains the status quo.

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.

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

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.

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.

QuoteAh, mister joy, haven't EVEN READ your response yet, which musta got posted same time as i was writing to R.Narc.....too tired to take on another young redneck just yet. I'll be back in a few days, got company coming.
If there is any one else out there who'd like to take on these guys, have at it. I'll be back later...i hope. i'm kinda getting discouraged, honestly, last week it was some young guys making ignorant sexist remarks...this week it is racist crap....maybe i need a break. Or maybe this isn't where i belong after all...
frustrated
it's not so much fun as i thought anymore....feel almost as philosophically isolated here lately as i do as an atheist in Elkhart....
know what is funny? i actually went searching myspace for some mature atheist liberals to invite here to round out the forum......hee hee!! i did!!!
Hope my company is gonna be fun!!!
See ya soon!!

Since 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) in the face of things you just manifested yourself. Fact is, we probably agree on most of this stuff.



rlrose and tom: That was more or less what I was trying to express before, so I 100% agree.

Quote from: "SabineMaia"If it isn't our responsibility to re-dress the repercussions of slavery -- economic, educational and justice inequalities -- whose is it? Nobody said we have to be ashamed of being white (this is what I'm hearing in a lot of reponses here. Correct me if I'm wrong), but as a group, whites have an awful lot of economic and political power in America, should we still sit by and wash our hands of the whole shlamazel?

Easier said than done though. It's plausible, especially with methods like 'affirmative action', that more damage can be done than good. I think people need to take more care in ensuring that their grand political schemes are not dangerously quixotic like that. Lots of little things make the big differences.

Quote from: "tigerlily46514"Ah, mister joy, haven't EVEN READ your response yet, which musta got posted same time as i was writing to R.Narc.....too tired to take on another young redneck just yet.  I'll be back in a few days, got company coming.  
If there is any one else out there who'd like to take on these guys, have at it.  I'll be back later...i hope.  i'm kinda getting discouraged, honestly, last week it was some young guys making ignorant sexist remarks...this week it is racist crap....maybe i need a break.  Or maybe this isn't where i belong after all...
  :bang:
 it's not so much fun as i thought anymore....feel almost as philosophically isolated here lately as i do as an atheist in Elkhart....
know what is funny?  i actually went searching myspace for some mature atheist liberals to invite here to round out the forum......hee hee!!  i did!!!
Hope my company is gonna be fun!!!
See ya soon!!

Jean, I usually agree with everything you post... we've had a good time of that so far...

But calling these guys rednecks and racist because they don't agree with you is pushing the envelope a tad.  They are not in favor of slavery any more than you are.  No thinking adult is.  But they have a different opinion on how we should deal with the topic in current society.  That doesn't make them rednecks or racist.

And the sexist thing last week was all blown out of proportion as well.

We do agree with you philosophically here... I'm sure we do.  But the details are more fuzzy for us than they are for you.  That doesn't make us evil or wrong, just different.

someone might have already said this but hasn't every culture at one point in time been repressed or even enslaved?  Shit I've got Scottish in me where the hell is my retribution from England?  I'm just sayin' if we owe one group something then we've got to owe damn near everyone something, it'll never end.

Spot on. You express it better than I do.

Quote from: "tigerlily46514"Darn, you had such a lovely vocabulary in your introduction, i was so impressed, was excited maybe it was a genius !!! but not yet an informed, caring mind. dang it.  Anyway, where do you suppose melanin  'genes' are stored?  On the chromosome..

No, I know how genetics work. I just misunderstood you. I thought you were saying that chromosomes exclusively hold ordinance over skin color, which is incorrect.

QuoteAnd i thought he seemed annoyed that he "wasn't allowed " to use the N word......and he definitely DOES lump people.  But you certainly have a right to think that was clever.  And i have a right to help him try to understand that lumping can be a dangerous pitfall on the way to personal evolution.  Sure we all do that, but still, it is a good thing to be cognizant of.

Honestly, I didn't sense that he was lumping people together. And if he was, I'm sure he's cognizant of it and it's ability to be detrimental to, as you call it, personal evolution.

QuoteWould you still feel slavery can be justified if it was YOUR MOMMA getting sold away from you?  If it was YOU losing all your freedom and rights and being tortured?  Would it be okay if IT WAS YOU??

This almost feels as frustrating as debating with fundies....you are denying your own humanity as WELL AS your reasoning ability for the sake of being oppositional...?  I totally do not really believe you can truly mean what you just said..i can't believe there are still people of your level of not caring at all about justice.

Does slavery have to involve merchantry and commerce? Do slaves have to lose their freedom and be tortured? Slavery doesn't come in one, single package. People shouldn't be able to buy other people. As well, they shouldn't be able to inflict harm upon them for their social rank. That may be the extent of my libertarianism, but I still believe that. I don't speak of slavery as you seem to perceive it. I meant it in a sense in which I suppose "serfdom" would be a better title. Indeed, I believe justification of slavery through Darwinism is sick and narrow-minded.

Quote...cool, i just this minute realized i still DO have my idealistic bone still intact somewhere in this body!  yay for me!
Hope you ever get to experience the wonder of owning an idealistic part of your heart...if you ever do find you have grown one, don't scoff at it, protect it with all your might.  Might even last 50 years if you are lucky....

Thank you for the concern, but I stay away from those with excessive idealistic personalities. They tend to annoy me. I prefer to surround myself with cynics.

QuoteAmerica has had several wars, too, and some pretty non-elegant societies of it's own (pilgrims never ever bathed at all ever..once each spring was all!!)  R.Narc, there have been and still are many elegant societies in Africa.

So personal hygiene dictates who deserves to be enslaved?

QuoteToo bad you sound like you are too ethnocentric to appreciate them.

Indeed, only clean, shower-loving whites escape my ire.  :roll:

QuoteNot all villages were hostile,not at all!!!   Much of the ensuing hostilities between various villages was BROUGHT ON by the slave trading paying one village to steal actual people from another!!!  You gotta admit, that'd piss you off.

 I don't know how 'early' you are referring to, (are we talking trees here?) but at the time of the Crusades and other slave stealers,
there were many many peaceful and elegant societies, where the people were self governed, free, and respected the value of life.  Sorry you don't really seem to.....

I don't doubt that plenty of African societies were peaceful. There were far too many for there to of not existed some that were. Still, I believe that the majority were indeed warring.  Just off the top of my head, a very large, old, and prolific civilization, Nubia, has been experiencing invasions,civil wars, and unpopular policies for almost it's entire history. It's been in existence for a very long time. It was founded circa 3000 B.C. I believe. The crusades certainly shook things up, but it was by no means the instigator of all the violence there.

QuoteSelf governed, with all basic human rights intact.  Chose their own families, their own occupations, their own homes, etc.  Like if you were right now, abducted and thrown into slavery, someone might say, but he USED to be free...see?  And another mihgt say, nah, the eye of the beholder, he wasn't free anyway.

Again, I'm pretty certain that Africans were never predominantly self-governed or upheld human rights.

Quote-something in me is always disappointed to find narrow-minded, ethnocentric or cruel atheists.....always blows me away.  But that is a stereotype of mine, isn't it?  gotta work on that one

It's just as disappointing to find an atheist that believes all atheists to be paragons of virtue and goodness.

QuoteBack again to feeling like i am debating a Fundy....same exact feeling.  YOU GOTTA BE FREAKIN KIDDING ME???  Slavery is SO not an abstraction, buddy, it involves torture and rape and completely being ruined....would you say the holocaust was also an "abstraction"  ?

Slavery is an abstraction. There is not a single defined set of guidelines or a dogmatic system that slavery follows.
No, I would not call the holocaust an abstraction. There was, in history, a single holocaust. This holocaust followed a set pattern and was orchestrated for the same reason throughout. Genocide is an abstraction. A specific act of genocide is not.

QuoteGoogle it, the estimates vary from around 11 MILLION to 20 MILLION that survived the voyage.  The number who died while shackled to wooden beds for months crossing the ocean is unknown...but hey, they were never "free", in your eyes, their shackles were some kinda 'abstraction'... right?

The Atlantic Slave Trade was not an abstraction.

QuoteI'm only bothering with you for the benefit of the chance there might be some OTHER young mind reading this and still having a chance to get THEIR light bulb turned on...it is worth a try for the outside chance of helping some other young person reading...however honestly, posts THIS long, no one much reads 'em anyway i don't think...so i might quit with this....

I'm losing hope you can care enough yet about other humans to get the points i am trying to make.....but you are young yet, there is still hope as you grow you will develop this side of yourself more.  Heck, i was probably some kinda mess when i was your age.  At least you are both curious and brave, points for that.

Again, thank you for the concern, but I'd rather not have my viewpoints and opinions be those instilled into my mind by another person. Specifically, one I currently disagree with.

QuoteLife, baby!  I have seen these stats my entire life...they are always the same, and the blacks are almost always getting the short end of the stick.....unless it is some right wing type 'fact'  thing, they can find a way to twist some facts.  We can always find facts to back ourselves up if we search long enuff...  Honestly, if you did Google this, sooner or later, you could PROBABLY find some stats that say how blacks make more money than whites, get better interest rates, get beat up by cops way less than whites, get higher pay, etc etc,  and are just doing peachy only 50 years outa Jim crow.

Despondent, no, actually i feel naively hopeful about improving things.  

If you need me to post stats on how much different life is for blacks than whites, you might be far too ignorant to even benefit from my effort.  But i could do it, but why not do it yourself for a project?  Google racial discrepancies of mortgages rates, pay scales, hiring deficts, college admissions, etc etc etc..  I still stand by my opinion it is way too soon to lose affirmative action.  i take it you only read 'con' half of that article......

I do have knowledge of the stats. And they're not at all as bad as you seem to believe they are. Has the Civil Rights Movement done all it can? No, but it's not done yet. Has the Civil Rights Movement done alot? Yes, by a large amount.
And no, I read and considered all the sides of the argument. (Except, of course, if one of the writers was one of those darn, non-showering Africans. In that case, I ignored it completely).


 

QuoteReally, you couldn't tell by my post what i meant????
Ignoring racism, as a way of making it go away.

Yes, I know that. I mean what are you referring to specifically? What event?

QuoteNah, truly, reread it in original context.....he was honked. i kinda think for one's mind to go where he went with this, he has a rotten spot...eeeeough. Salt might not be enough for it.

To each his/her own.

   

QuoteI really mean what i am trying to tell you,[/b] that racism is a strong factor in black people's lives, that slavery was real and brutal, and that we have a long way to go, and i still like to believe that if we all try to help squash it out, it could make a difference.  I really do believe that, all together, we could make a little ripple, that could eventually make yet another small shift happen.  Just a good word here or there, it can make a difference...  sometimes.I truly hope you did NOT mean what you said, but i admit your right to say it.
Keep on thinking.....

Racism is a strong factor in black people's lives. Slavery (of blacks) was real and brutal.  We have quite a bit to go, but saying a "long way", and especially bolding and underlining it, is an overstatement.

Quote from: "rlrose328"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.

Quote from: "rlrose328"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.

Quote from: "rlrose328"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.

Quote from: "rlrose328"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?

Quotesupport 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......

QuoteBut 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?

QuoteI 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!!!!!

QuoteBefore 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'.....

QuoteAnother 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!!!!!

QuoteIt 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.....

Quotejustified. 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.....

QuoteI 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...

Quotehere'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....

Quoteparents). 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....

Quoteit). 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?

QuoteI 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.

QuoteAfrica 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....

 

Quotepeople? 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.....

.

Quoteic. 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?

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

QuoteHave they been given more opportunities though?

exaactly.

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

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

QuoteOh 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.

Quote?" 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????

QuoteIncidentally, 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....

QuoteYou'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.  

Quoteyourselves", 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.  

Quoteso 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.

QuoteAnd 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.

QuoteDo 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...

QuoteNow 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.  

QuoteHowever, 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

 

QuoteYep. 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?

Quotepart. 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.

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.

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!!!

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!

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.

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

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.

Quote from: "rlrose328"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 (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0104552.html)

Employment status by race (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0873314.html)

Infant mortality rates white vs. black (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0779935.html)

Educational attainment by race (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0779935.html)

California statistics
Check out the labor force status link for San Francisco county. (http://www.calmis.ca.gov/htmlfile/subject/demoaa.htm) 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.

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.

Quote from: "tigerlilly46514"

QuoteOh 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.

QuoteMissionaries 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.

Quote from: "tigerlilly46514"

Quotedebate 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.

Quote from: "tigerlilly46514"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.

Quote from: "tigerlilly46514"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.

Quote from: "tigerlilly46514"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.

Quote from: "tigerlilly46514"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.

Quote from: "tigerlilly46514"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.

Quote from: "tigerlily46514"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.

Quote from: "tigerlilly46514"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...

Quote from: "tigerlilly46514"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.

Quote from: "tigerlilly46514"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.

Quote from: "tigerlilly46514"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.

Quote from: "tigerlilly46514"It is possible that i am blurring you with the other young white guys..sorry if i am...

No problem.

Quote from: "tigerlilly46514"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.

Quote from: "tigerlilly46514"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.

Quote from: "tigerlilly46514"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. :lol:

Quote from: "Steve Reason"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.

Wow so much to respond to but um to the person who created this thread:


While you personally didn't do anything to have the word removed from your vocabulary w/o sounding harsh or w/e OH WELL.....poor you I guess. Do you want to say it or do you want to say it without risk of being hit? Why would you want to say it given the history and impact of the word? power. Well, I'm all for that, but I can't help because I'm white.   You can't be serious in saying if you can't say it like WE can then we don't want to accept you?! BS. Just because most of us don't want white people saying wassup my nigga or wassup nigger doesn't mean we don't like you or accept you and I might add there is a handful of black people who could careless if whites said nigga or nigger.  You on the other hand bit be a tad big ignorant.

Quote from: "Mister Joy"

Quote from: "shoruke"Personally, I don't see why anyone would be a racist. To some extent, even the original slave traders knew that the Africans were still people. This is evident in the phrase "black people", is it not? Also, there's nothing really to be gained from racism. It is worth noting that America, as well as the 15th century European powers who tried to colonize Africa, do not currently own Africa. They didn't even get much farther than having colonies in Africa at any point, did they?

Actually, if you 'colonise' a country that pretty much means you own it. There is no 'further' to go, so to speak. Since the French, the Ottomans, the British & the Germans had colonised pretty much all of Africa between them, it was as good as 'owned'.

At any rate, the concept of 'racism' has adopted far too broad a meaning as far as I'm concerned. For example, it isn't remotely historically inaccurate for me to say this:

Before imperial powers took over Africa, they were all killing and enslaving one another in small isolated tribes. We gave them civilisation. In fact said imperial forces didn't actually do much 'enslaving'; more buying slaves from African tribes who had just bested others. If it wasn't for those colonies, slavery would still be going on in Africa.

It's the truth. However it's frowned upon for us to state certain truths. It's politically incorrect. Yet it doesn't demonstrate any emotion (not even hatred), nor does it mention race.

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 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 know! And you can bet that atheism would be out of the picture. As would Christianity, come to that.

It's all far too complicated to pick out one group (eg. the Africans) and say "oh they were wronged in history and we need to make up for it" because frankly their ancestors might have been wronged but they're reaping the spoils of that just as much as we are (&, as you say, Shoruke, we didn't do anything to them!)

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. People don't like being made to feel guilty about things they never did, to hate their own race, nationality and otherwise for no reason. It's no surprise that you get skin head gangs popping up all over the place.

QuotePeople categorize things as a way to save mental energy. You'd be exhausted if you thought about and analyzed everything seperately. It also helped with survival way back when. Humans are also placed in categories (race, gender, SES, hair color, etc.). Associations are made with these categories. This is where racism stems from.

agreed.

QuoteYes, we are all people. There is no race "gene".

Yet the races are genetically different & not just in skin colour. Different paths of evolution do lead to different traits both characteristically and physically, however it's still ludicrous to generalise on a level such as this: "orientals are smarter than white people" or "black people are really stupid"

Plenty to be gained from racism ...... that'd be power.



WHAT?! Before they came to colonize and civilize Africans they were just running around and killing each other?  Deliciously ethnocentric. This is greatly eurocentric too so all these civilizations would be crawling on their knees or swinging in trees if great civilized white people hadn't saved them?! ........ seriously?  Africa is the cradle of civilization! There were empires! KINGDOMS!  There'd be no modern science w/o white people....that's a lie too.


What black people are you talking about the benefited from the spoils of slavery? We sir are NOT the benefactors of slavery..... how naive are you? Races are not genetically or biologically different....... there is no biological race even though racial is a real CONCEPT.

Quote from: "shoruke"I went a couple days without replying, so that people had a chance to post...

I'd like to thank everyone for posting, and sharing history lessons and such.

It is true that slavery, in some cases, can be 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?)

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.
If I could talk to an ancient American (funny term, but bear with me) and ask him what kind of people he took on as slaves, and why he had slaves at all, he would say "them nigggers had it comin'. Sides', I'm makin money off em and they don't take much feedin'." That's racist. And we know now that it was wrong.

As for the word nigger. It's not that I want to be allowed to insult black people with it, it's that I see their plight to take power away from the word, and I can't help at all, because they won't let me. Does this fact not attest to how little progress they've made to take power away from the word?

My method for removing power from "nigger" would be to support people like Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock (black comedians... lots of swearing and nigger-calling. Nothing takes power from a word like "When I go to a money machine tonight, I'm not lookin' over my back for the media! I'm lookin' fo' NIGGAS!") I guess it's a concept of attrition.
One example: When a kid (roughly 5 yrs. old) swears, his mother will get mad at him/her, and might even ground them. However, the child, influenced by his peers at school, will slowly become more and more vulgar in is mannerisms and speech. By the time he's my age (16), he can say "fuck" around his house and his mother will barely bat an eyelash.
So here's the parallel: the child is me, the mother is black people who hate the word nigger, and schoolmates are the rest of the general populace. Currently, if I use the word nigger, I'm liable to suffer repercussions. But over time, I, along with the people around me, will use increasingly vulgar language, until it enters regular conversation because nobody cares anymore. The black people themselves might not choose to use the word, but they'll see that I don't mean to use it with it's full power of insultingness.

Here's hoping the forum doesn't censor my swearing so that everyone can tell what I said, wish me luck for a good mark when I direct my english teacher to this site. Night everyone!

Slavery can't be justified.


 "We take those we conquer as slaves so that our aristocrats have more free time to do arts and science, and better our civilization."  It can certainly be racist and elitist and ethnocentric........... you can't think your culture is far more superior so since it's so refined that why it's okay to make those we think are beneath us to be like us.

Quote from: "Mister Joy"the blacks are not reaping these same rewards and i am stunned to hear you imagine this".

Yes they are. Just take a look at how much better the world is now than it was 200 years ago, and for everyone. It wouldn't have been possible for any culture to be vast and self-sustainable enough to stand against slavery if it wasn't built on it in the first place.[/quote]

NO..........no....... we aren't. The world is better for a lot of people now than  200 years ago.... people have ipods and computers but SO WHAT.  What rewards are we getting THE SAME as in on the SAME LEVEL as white people in general.... as a black person who knows the lower-income world of black Americans well TELL ME. TELL ME while we're still 2nd class citizens and a good amount of us still struggle day by day but WE GOT IT GOOD...please tell me.



FOUNTAIN PEN.....black person.
comb ..... black person
elevators....black person.....
.................... dude most of the stuff you named was made by a black person.



For many of the advancements we have you day you might want to thank Africa.

Quote from: "tigerlily46514"

QuotePerhaps I'm reading what you said wrong, but I'm pretty sure that melanin pigment plays the predominant role. Chromosomes, I would think, would only play a factor in genes being passed to offspring.

Darn, you had such a lovely vocabulary in your introduction, i was so impressed, was excited maybe it was a genius !!! but not yet an informed, caring mind. dang it.  Anyway, where do you suppose melanin  'genes' are stored?  On the chromosome..

QuoteI believe he was using satire

Of course he was, duh.
And i thought he seemed annoyed that he "wasn't allowed " to use the N word......and he definitely DOES lump people.  But you certainly have a right to think that was clever.  And i have a right to help him try to understand that lumping can be a dangerous pitfall on the way to personal evolution.  Sure we all do that, but still, it is a good thing to be cognizant of.

QuoteI certainly believe slavery can be justified

Would you still feel slavery can be justified if it was YOUR MOMMA getting sold away from you?  If it was YOU losing all your freedom and rights and being tortured?  Would it be okay if IT WAS YOU??

The posters who all say that slavery is okay--NO one answered  THAT......
omg, am i the only person here who sees how cruel this kinda  thinking is???
 
This almost feels as frustrating as debating with fundies....you are denying your own humanity as WELL AS your reasoning ability for the sake of being oppositional...?  I totally do not really believe you can truly mean what you just said..i can't believe there are still people of your level of not caring at all about justice.

...cool, i just this minute realized i still DO have my idealistic bone still intact somewhere in this body!  yay for me!
Hope you ever get to experience the wonder of owning an idealistic part of your heart...if you ever do find you have grown one, don't scoff at it, protect it with all your might.  Might even last 50 years if you are lucky....

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

America has had several wars, too, and some pretty non-elegant societies of it's own (pilgrims never ever bathed at all ever..once each spring was all!!)  R.Narc, there have been and still are many elegant societies in Africa.  
Too bad you sound like you are too ethnocentric to appreciate them.  NOt to worry, we are all to some extent.

Not all villages were hostile,not at all!!!   Much of the ensuing hostilities between various villages was BROUGHT ON by the slave trading paying one village to steal actual people from another!!!  You gotta admit, that'd piss you off.

 I don't know how 'early' you are referring to, (are we talking trees here?) but at the time of the Crusades and other slave stealers,
there were many many peaceful and elegant societies, where the people were self governed, free, and respected the value of life.  Sorry you don't really seem to.....

QuoteFreedom is in the eye of the beholder. How do you figure they were free people

Self governed, with all basic human rights intact.  Chose their own families, their own occupations, their own homes, etc.  Like if you were right now, abducted and thrown into slavery, someone might say, but he USED to be free...see?  And another mihgt say, nah, the eye of the beholder, he wasn't free anyway.

  WHY DO YOU THINK ALL AFRICANS WERE SLAVES OVER THERE?????   there villages were free there, as you are now, until they came HERE.
And i was worried i, being from Indiana, I would be the redneck entering into a real cool evolved buncha people here.......

see, there i go, lumping people.  Sorry midwesterners. Also-- I have always looked up to atheists, i set a higher bar for them than others-which i readily admit is not right to do----but still, something in me is always disappointed to find narrow-minded, ethnocentric or cruel atheists.....always blows me away.  But that is a stereotype of mine, isn't it?  gotta work on that one

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

Back again to feeling like i am debating a Fundy....same exact feeling.  YOU GOTTA BE FREAKIN KIDDING ME???  Slavery is SO not an abstraction, buddy, it involves torture and rape and completely being ruined....would you say the holocaust was also an "abstraction"  ?


Google it, the estimates vary from around 11 MILLION to 20 MILLION that survived the voyage.  The number who died while shackled to wooden beds for months crossing the ocean is unknown...but hey, they were never "free", in your eyes, their shackles were some kinda 'abstraction'... right?  

I don't know if i can spend more time debating you if you aren't even gonna TRY to  keep it real...and honestly, this is probably a waste of time, similar to debating a fundie..


I'm only bothering with you for the benefit of the chance there might be some OTHER young mind reading this and still having a chance to get THEIR light bulb turned on...it is worth a try for the outside chance of helping some other young person reading...however honestly, posts THIS long, no one much reads 'em anyway i don't think...so i might quit with this....

I'm losing hope you can care enough yet about other humans to get the points i am trying to make.....but you are young yet, there is still hope as you grow you will develop this side of yourself more.  Heck, i was probably some kinda mess when i was your age.  At least you are both curious and brave, points for that.

QuoteI'm no historian

so i have noticed.

Quotebut I highly disagree with that logic

I'm not entirely convinced you are into logic anyway.

QuoteThat's lacking justification everywhere, and it's a really despondent way of viewing things. Where are you getting those facts?

Life, baby!  I have seen these stats my entire life...they are always the same, and the blacks are almost always getting the short end of the stick.....unless it is some right wing type 'fact'  thing, they can find a way to twist some facts.  We can always find facts to back ourselves up if we search long enuff...  Honestly, if you did Google this, sooner or later, you could PROBABLY find some stats that say how blacks make more money than whites, get better interest rates, get beat up by cops way less than whites, get higher pay, etc etc,  and are just doing peachy only 50 years outa Jim crow.

Despondent, no, actually i feel naively hopeful about improving things.  

If you need me to post stats on how much different life is for blacks than whites, you might be far too ignorant to even benefit from my effort.  But i could do it, but why not do it yourself for a project?  Google racial discrepancies of mortgages rates, pay scales, hiring deficts, college admissions, etc etc etc..  I still stand by my opinion it is way too soon to lose affirmative action.  i take it you only read 'con' half of that article......

QuoteHonestly, I don't understand your logic. 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. Education isn't a cure. Education is a treatment course. Or, at the very least, a painkiller.

You for one, do not seem aware of racism.  You seem baffled when i refer to the discrepancies in mortgages, pay scales, opportunities.....  I still disagree, and am not gonna bother reposting why....you can re-read my post all over again.....but i honestly don't think it is gonna help you understand, i sense a wall here...and that is okay, you do have a right to feel the way you do.  but it isn't based on facts. but you have a right to believe whatever you wish.

Actually tho, i think i do agree with your remark, there is no cure, only treatment.  YOu are right, it will never ever go away completely.  But we can still try to keep squashing it down anyway.
 

QuoteAlso, what are you referring to when you said it has already been tried

Really, you couldn't tell by my post what i meant????
Ignoring racism, as a way of making it go away.

QuoteAgain, I believe that was meant to be taken with a pinch of salt

Nah, truly, reread it in original context.....he was honked.   i kinda think for one's mind to go where he went with this, he has a rotten spot...eeeeough.  Salt might not be enough for it.

Must have some other good qualities though. we've all got our spots.
well, i feel spent and discouraged...i like to think most young people today are more informed than youths of the 30s..i kinda feel like you either
a) are being oppositional just for fun, like a debate team, and you really do care more about people and are aware of racism's effect on the USA......
/or/
b) you really do not know or care.....

either one, it wasn't fun....might give up. just tired.  I am sorry i do not have your vocabulary, McQ's humorus elegance of speech, or SteveS's patience, or Momma Squid's brevity, or rlRose's humility, (is that the right word, she is kinda sweet) so many others with great intelligence and  qualities i don't have, they coulda made much better responses than mine...but i do have passion.  guess i could benefit from trading out a cup of that for a cup of patience...

   
I really mean what i am trying to tell you, that racism is a strong factor in black people's lives, that slavery was real and brutal, and that we have a long way to go, and i still like to believe that if we all try to help squash it out, it could make a difference.  I really do believe that, all together, we could make a little ripple, that could eventually make yet another small shift happen.  Just a good word here or there, it can make a difference...  sometimes.I truly hope you did NOT mean what you said, but i admit your right to say it.
Keep on thinking.....

Yay you do have a brain.

Quote from: "rlrose328"I was going to stay out of this but here goes... <sigh>

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

HOWEVER, I do not believe any further reparations are due.  We have had affirmative action, which did nothing but discriminate against others who did not deserve it because places had to make their "quota" to meet guidelines.

Neither I nor any previous generations of my family have done anything to harm the race in question.  I'm HIDEOUSLY sorry they were wronged so grievously... but it's not my job to ensure that entire races are happy again.

How long do we have to apologize?  Same with what happened with the Nazis... how long does Germany and anyone of German descent have to apologize and pay for the mistakes (HORRIBLE mistakes, yes) made a few generations back?  See, I AM of German descent and I'm caucasian... so I have to make reparations to BOTH of these groups of people?  For how long?  And how many  more generations of my decendants will be required to do so?

With the Japanese, the US paid them money and some are still pissed about the interment camps.  I don't blame them.  But there comes a time when moving on is the best way to fix it.  I don't want to dwell on it any further.  The longer we dwell on the wrongs of previous generations, the more likely we are to repeat them.

I don't believe I'm racist in any way, shape or form.  I was tickled pink when I saw that the new 5th grader in our tiny school (5 kids in 5th grade now!) is black.  We are more diverse because of it.  Our little town is frighteningly pale and I WANT my son to be exposed to as many cultures and people as possible and that will only happen if we are colorblind.

So... to sum up... not racist, LOVE diversity, no more reparations or affirmative action, slavery WRONG no matter how you look at it.

Thank you for your time.  

I'm for reparations but reparations don't always have to equal handing someone a check. I wouldn't want a white person saying oh slavery sorry about that...... an I'm sorry would be a slap in the face....i'll pass on that. Didn't Germany pay out reparations?

A lot of racist or at least racially naive people don't think they are racist and/or racially naive....just saying. You can't say no more reparations if they weren't given...... I've never read of a big debate about reparations being paid out to Jews or Japanese Americans and their descendants OR Native Americans but there's always a big debate when it comes to black Americans.....hhhhhmmmm.

Quote from: "ReflectingNarcissist"Racism is a strong factor in black people's lives. Slavery (of blacks) was real and brutal.  We have quite a bit to go, but saying a "long way", and especially bolding and underlining it, is an overstatement.

What makes you say it's an overstatement? Quite the contrary.....if you do actually see what's going on in America right now saying there is a long way to go is an understatement....... this country has a long way to go.

Actually I think we're going backwards as a country.

Quote from: "SabineMaia"

Quote from: "rlrose328"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 (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0104552.html)

Employment status by race (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0873314.html)

Infant mortality rates white vs. black (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0779935.html)

Educational attainment by race (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0779935.html)

California statistics
Check out the labor force status link for San Francisco county. (http://www.calmis.ca.gov/htmlfile/subject/demoaa.htm) 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.

ha......................  

And um............. also........ how many white people have forgotten the privilege of just being white?

Perhaps I AM naive... I like to think I'm colorblind when it comes to race.  I just don't think about it.  People are people and it matters not what color their skin is, at least to me.  I don't think I have a privilege of being white... but then again, I think people who are naturally thin don't see how privileged they are, either.  So I guess you could be right.

But just because I'm white doesn't mean I take advantage of it any more than we can say that all people of color are on welfare or are Christian.  Any type of blanket statement just can't apply in real life.

Anyone can throw out statistics, but in this debate, I can only speak from my own experience.  When my son's math class got a new student, I saw that she was black and I was tickled because it's a very white school (new Charter school... no clue why it's not more diverse).  My son just chattered on and on about a new student... and when I asked my son to describe his new classmate to my husband that night, the word "black" never came out of his mouth.  She was tall, smart, funny, had "great hair" and "laughed really loud."  That spoke to me.

I don't feel people can be colorblind...........not in this country.....not entirely. I agree people are people no matter their color and should be treated as such.  Of course because you're white doesn't mean you personally take advantage of it..... but you think some don't? Well a blanket statements can't apply everywhere anyways.

You are right about the color-blind thing, I guess...  there was a "reality" show called "Black/White" where a black family and a white family donned the other race (using really good makeup) to live as the other race whenever they went out.  The things each side faced was really eye-opening.  The white mom was a complete bitch... even by the end, after everything she experienced that was negative (and there was a lot more than I would have expected), she was still insisting she was colorblind and that blacks didn't experience what they so clearly DO.  (I forgot about that show when I posted yesterday.)

Unless we can switch bodies for a few days or weeks, neither of us will truly understand what the other person experiences.  I TRY to be colorblind... would that be more accurate?  I don't feel it's hard or that I have problems with it... but maybe I do and just don't see it.

I'll concede there are whites who take advantage of their race... but you'll have to concede there are blacks who take advantage of Affirmative Action and other options available to them by using the race card as well.

Can we agree there are problems on both sides?

About the color-blind thing ... I don't know.  Its interesting.  Here's something that happened to me that made me think about this issue: 10 years ago I was staying in Silver Springs Maryland while working on an account in D.C. (the downtown hotels were all full 'cause of cherry blossom week - really?  Yes, really.  This place advertised "close to the Metro" - a brisk 25 minute walk apparently qualifies as "close").  I went to dinner at a local bar/restaurant type place, and after a while I just suddenly realized that I was the only white person in the place - everybody else was black.  This didn't disturb or concern me in any way - but it was strange to me that after being there for an hour or so it suddenly registered.  Would I have noticed sooner if I was black, and everyone else was white?  I don't know.  Then again, why did I suddenly notice?  Why didn't I notice right away?  I guess I'm just not used to noticing.  I'm not used to "seeing" races, or thinking about other people's race, or being highly aware of the race of people around me.  But - I did notice after a time.  So - am I colorblind?  Clearly not.  But, I'm also not highly attuned to other people's racial makeup.  Weird?  I relate this simply as a curious experience.  I grew up in an integrated school with lots of kids of different races - white, black, Indian (as in, from India, not Native American), and Asian.  If you're exposed to other people of different races when you're young, do you just not care so much what other people's race is?  Maybe.  (shrugs)

The young lady tending bar and filling up my beer glass was really, really cute.  This I noticed right away.  So, I'm clearly not genderblind.  Maybe she distracted me from the other patrons?  I thought we exchanged more than one warm smile, maybe even a flirtatious glance or two.  Or I was deluded and she was just being nice.  Or, she wasn't colorblind either, and was just amused by the one white guy in the place.  Who knows?  Maybe she was irresistibly attracted to my raw animal magnetism - yeah, that was probably it!  :roll:  

She sure was cute though - no scandal btw - I was single in '97.  :wink:

On a more serious note, I've reviewed some parts of this lengthy thread, but I wanted to pull out:

Quote from: "Tom62"My 2cts. People should be judged on their acts, not on skin colour, religion, sex or whatever. For that reason I'm against any kind of discrimination (both negative and possitive). Historical mistakes, like slavery and the holocaust, should never be forgotten. On the other hand, how much are "we" to blame on what our forefathers did? Does for example a german child that is born today still has to feel guilty of what happened 3-4 generations ago? That doesn't seem right to me. Another problem that I see is that many people believe that the decendents of the former victims have more moral rights than other people. Since WW-II until now, no german politician would even dare to criticise Israel. This is rather silly, because what ever happens nowadays in Israel is not related to the holocaust.

I wish to congratulate you, Tom62, for offering up such a rational position.  I agree with this wholeheartedly.  To say otherwise is to say the child is responsible for the 'sins' of the parent.  And that idea I reject, entirely, on principle.

Ebz, initially I reacted negatively to the statement:

Quote from: "EbzDirtyHeathen"how many white people have forgotten the privilege of just being white?

but, it seems you recanted this by saying

Quote from: "EbzDirtyHeathen"Well a blanket statements can't apply everywhere anyways.

Which is a sentiment I certainly agree with.  I'm not going to agree with you, most likely, on all the reparations issues - for several reasons - but this is a whole discussion.  Instead, I'd rather just say that I strongly agree with you when you say:

Quote from: "EbzDirtyHeathen"Slavery can't be justified.

Indeed.  Slavery is never justifiable - my libertarian outlook views slavery as one of the worst possible transgressions in social interaction - it is the ultimate invocation of authoritarian power.  Mandatory taxes, mandatory military service - these are bad too - but they pale in comparison to slavery which is mandatory subservience in all regards.  I feel that all people are the ultimate owners of their own bodies and their own lives - therefore there is no room for slavery in a just world.  One person cannot own another.  

(takes break, catches breath)

We all own ourselves and ourselves only without inherent authority over, or subservience under, anybody else; and this statement I claim as an intrinsic human right that leads to a rational morality.  The concepts of freedom and slavery are completely antithetical (obvious, right?).  Therefore, there is no way that a person can be genuinely interested in the promotion of freedom and individual rights while somehow rationalizing slavery as acceptable under certain circumstances.  This would be blatantly contradictory and hypocritical.  The only answer, then, that makes any sense is just what you say: "Slavery can't be justified".

This race topic sure does rile everybody up good, doesn't it?  :wink:

Quote from: "SteveS"About the color-blind thing ... I don't know.  Its interesting.  Here's something that happened to me that made me think about this issue: 10 years ago I was staying in Silver Springs Maryland while working on an account in D.C. (the downtown hotels were all full 'cause of cherry blossom week - really?  Yes, really.  This place advertised "close to the Metro" - a brisk 25 minute walk apparently qualifies as "close").  I went to dinner at a local bar/restaurant type place, and after a while I just suddenly realized that I was the only white person in the place - everybody else was black.  This didn't disturb or concern me in any way - but it was strange to me that after being there for an hour or so it suddenly registered.  Would I have noticed sooner if I was black, and everyone else was white?  I don't know.  Then again, why did I suddenly notice?  Why didn't I notice right away?  I guess I'm just not used to noticing.  I'm not used to "seeing" races, or thinking about other people's race, or being highly aware of the race of people around me.  But - I did notice after a time.  So - am I colorblind?  Clearly not.  But, I'm also not highly attuned to other people's racial makeup.  Weird?  I relate this simply as a curious experience.  I grew up in an integrated school with lots of kids of different races - white, black, Indian (as in, from India, not Native American), and Asian.  If you're exposed to other people of different races when you're young, do you just not care so much what other people's race is?  Maybe.  (shrugs)

The young lady tending bar and filling up my beer glass was really, really cute.  This I noticed right away.  So, I'm clearly not genderblind.  Maybe she distracted me from the other patrons?  I thought we exchanged more than one warm smile, maybe even a flirtatious glance or two.  Or I was deluded and she was just being nice.  Or, she wasn't colorblind either, and was just amused by the one white guy in the place.  Who knows?  Maybe she was irresistibly attracted to my raw animal magnetism - yeah, that was probably it!  :roll:  

She sure was cute though - no scandal btw - I was single in '97.  :wink:

See.....given your experience well for me it seems normal if I'm in a room and there's mostly black people....I don't think there are sure a lot of black people in here or hmmmm everyone is pretty much black but almost immediately if I were somewhere and it was all or mostly black people there I'd notice hmmm so there are 2 black people here like I immediately count the black people lol......like in my junior high there was no joke 1 and only 1 white person in my school.....a white boy. And in my elementary you had a handful of mixed kids just like in my junior high. I didn't get around many Latinos, or Asians or more white kids until high school and even then blacks were anywhere between 60-70% depending on the school year. For me I noticed more when I got around a good amount of non--black people.

Quote from: "SteveS"On a more serious note, I've reviewed some parts of this lengthy thread, but I wanted to pull out:

Quote from: "Tom62"My 2cts. People should be judged on their acts, not on skin colour, religion, sex or whatever. For that reason I'm against any kind of discrimination (both negative and possitive). Historical mistakes, like slavery and the holocaust, should never be forgotten. On the other hand, how much are "we" to blame on what our forefathers did? Does for example a german child that is born today still has to feel guilty of what happened 3-4 generations ago? That doesn't seem right to me. Another problem that I see is that many people believe that the decendents of the former victims have more moral rights than other people. Since WW-II until now, no german politician would even dare to criticise Israel. This is rather silly, because what ever happens nowadays in Israel is not related to the holocaust.

I wish to congratulate you, Tom62, for offering up such a rational position.  I agree with this wholeheartedly.  To say otherwise is to say the child is responsible for the 'sins' of the parent.  And that idea I reject, entirely, on principle.

Ebz, initially I reacted negatively to the statement:

Quote from: "EbzDirtyHeathen"how many white people have forgotten the privilege of just being white?

but, it seems you recanted this by saying

Quote from: "EbzDirtyHeathen"Well a blanket statements can't apply everywhere anyways.

Which is a sentiment I certainly agree with.  I'm not going to agree with you, most likely, on all the reparations issues - for several reasons - but this is a whole discussion.  Instead, I'd rather just say that I strongly agree with you when you say:

Quote from: "EbzDirtyHeathen"Slavery can't be justified.

Indeed.  Slavery is never justifiable - my libertarian outlook views slavery as one of the worst possible transgressions in social interaction - it is the ultimate invocation of authoritarian power.  Mandatory taxes, mandatory military service - these are bad too - but they pale in comparison to slavery which is mandatory subservience in all regards.  I feel that all people are the ultimate owners of their own bodies and their own lives - therefore there is no room for slavery in a just world.  One person cannot own another.  

(takes break, catches breath)

We all own ourselves and ourselves only without inherent authority over, or subservience under, anybody else; and this statement I claim as an intrinsic human right that leads to a rational morality.  The concepts of freedom and slavery are completely antithetical (obvious, right?).  Therefore, there is no way that a person can be genuinely interested in the promotion of freedom and individual rights while somehow rationalizing slavery as acceptable under certain circumstances.  This would be blatantly contradictory and hypocritical.  The only answer, then, that makes any sense is just what you say: "Slavery can't be justified".

This race topic sure does rile everybody up good, doesn't it?  :wink:

I don't recant at all saying how many white people have forgotten the privilege of just being white at all......I didn't include all but I meant saying many .....I worded that right but I really meant my question and I wasn't being rhetorical either. You think there isn't any?

I lean libertarian also................. I think that's common with Atheists I dunno.....most of my atheist friends to too *shrugs*. No we probably won't agree on reparations but I get into it with as many black people as white people and asians so ...... we're going on about that RIGHT NOW in an African American Studies class I currently take.


What do you mean when you say there is no way that a person can be genuinely interested in the promotion of freedom and individual rights while somehow rationalizing slavery as acceptable under certain circumstances? Because I'm -_o whhhhaaaatttt right now.


Racism talk and Slavery talk riles up everyone.....it's so easy on the internet but try getting people into it IRL. People get scared or skirt around trying to talk about it let alone discussing it in-depth.

Quote from: "rlrose328"You are right about the color-blind thing, I guess...  there was a "reality" show called "Black/White" where a black family and a white family donned the other race (using really good makeup) to live as the other race whenever they went out.  The things each side faced was really eye-opening.  The white mom was a complete bitch... even by the end, after everything she experienced that was negative (and there was a lot more than I would have expected), she was still insisting she was colorblind and that blacks didn't experience what they so clearly DO.  (I forgot about that show when I posted yesterday.)

Unless we can switch bodies for a few days or weeks, neither of us will truly understand what the other person experiences.  I TRY to be colorblind... would that be more accurate?  I don't feel it's hard or that I have problems with it... but maybe I do and just don't see it.

I'll concede there are whites who take advantage of their race... but you'll have to concede there are blacks who take advantage of Affirmative Action and other options available to them by using the race card as well.

Can we agree there are problems on both sides?

Ugh while I love Ice Cube the show Black/White pissed me off....I thought it was crap....... neither family learned anything, oh yeah I remember that mom smh.....good thing he never continued that.....like make=up will put you into our shoes REALLY? there's no way....they can take that off by the end of the season. Wow we totally disagree on the makeup too....oh great make them all dark with kinky hair -_-....really nice. The white makeup was just as bad.

Switching color won't show much, just like skinny chicks in fat suits, you'll get a little feel for it but come on it's nowhere near just throwing something on and being THAT (black, skinny, asian or w/e) everyday and you can't change it inside or on the outside. I'd be pretty insulted if a white girl threw on some brown makeup and they threw cornrows on her and widened up her nose and plumped her lips a little bit and she lives like a black woman for a week or a month vs. me being what she's trying to be everyday. So you get a feel but that feel you get doesn't scratch the surface.

Suprise surprise I'm REALLY against affirmative action. I'm an awesome student....I hold about a 3.87 ..... never really had a gpa lower then that since I've been in college.... admission to my college and any grant or award I'VE gotten I earned. I wouldn't want anyone letting me get a leg up if I don't deserve it but they feel I need that boost because I'm black. You should get where you are by your own merit. There's plenty of racism here in Amerikkka but affirmative action seems necessary but to me it seems like a handout. I used to think the white and Arab/Indian kids gave me funny looks when I stayed in honors housing or walked into an Honors class ..... I dunno if it was because I was new or if they were looking at me like what the hell is she doing here. We can indeed agree there are problems on both side.........blacks who use the race card for everything even if it isn't a factor in a situation and white people who really think there is no advantage at all in just being white.

Quote from: "EbzDirtyHeathen"What do you mean when you say there is no way that a person can be genuinely interested in the promotion of freedom and individual rights while somehow rationalizing slavery as acceptable under certain circumstances?

What I mean is simple: if a person attempts to rationalize that under certain circumstances slavery is actually justifiable, then I say that person cannot be genuinely interested in the promotion of personal rights and freedoms.  Because the ideas of personal freedom and slavery are completely antithetical - they cannot co-exist.

I expected some disagreement from you on my commentary - but I thought this one was safe  :?  Did you maybe just misunderstand my statement?

Quote from: "EbzDirtyHeathen"I don't recant at all saying how many white people have forgotten the privilege of just being white at all

Okay then.  So - you feel that I have a certain privilege simply by "being white".  You don't think this qualifies as a blanket statement?  Anyway - on to the question,

Quote from: "EbzDirtyHeathen"You think there isn't any?

We're probably going to disagree on the usage of the word 'privilege'.  Its entirely possible that I'm reacting strongly to this on the basis that I find a serious negative connotation in the word 'privilege'.  Since you stated that you too lean toward a libertarian mind set then surely you can understand my deep dislike of positions of privilege.  If I had a privilege, I would consider this to mean special rights, or exemption to laws or regulations, that are available to me that are not available to most; in this case, simply by virtue of my skin being white.

Having said that, I certainly have not detected, in my personal experience, that I have received special rights or exemptions simply as a result of my skin color, nor have I by action ever set to use my race as a means to illicit special rights or exempt myself from the laws that govern (or are supposed to govern) us all.

On the other hand, I certainly acknowledge that I have not had significant racist experiences perpetrated against me.  There have been several minor incidents - untoward comments and such that we've probably all had to experience, but certainly nothing serious - nothing that I felt could be considered criminal - merely bad taste.  I also acknowledge that this experience may well have been different if I was a different race.

Is this what you would consider a privilege?  Its hard for me to think of it that way --- I would say that being a victim of racism is an injustice, not that failing to experience racism is a privilege.  This is a subtle difference, but hopefully you see what I mean.  None of us should feel privileged to be treated justly.  If we are all in possession of the same rights, then none of us are privileged at all - which is a laudable goal.

What do you think?

Excellent Post!So much to read,so much to understand,my little mind is unable to decide whether or not I am a human being,let alone if I am any particular sub-group,in fact I am not even sure that there is any substantial difference between me and any living creature,now I am starting to question if there is any actual difference between me and non-living matter.Maybe I need glasses,or maybe I should see a psychiatrist and ask why whenever I see an ape of any kind,I want to wave my hands about,climb a tree and shout,"I am almost as good as you!",except I know I'm not,because my particular branch of the family tree has decided that we are not apes,that we are not animals,and that therefore a whole new set of rules should apply.Yes you you can kill your own species,any reason will do,different levels of melanin,slightly different eyes,slightly different faces,slightly different gibberish when talking to yourself in the church,the temple,or the mosque.So I am not even sure that I am a part of the Human(e) Race,let alone any funny little sub-division,now if they changed it to the Insane Race I might have a better understanding of who I am...

Quote from: shoruke on October 03, 2007, 04:45:00 PM
But what about the word, "nigger"? Or even "nigga" (which is roughly equal to saying brother loosely)? Apparently, I'm not allowed to say either one because I'm white. And it's all due the history of the word. How is this fair? I didn't do anything to deserve having a word cut from my vocabulary. I wouldn't use nigger, but if I were to use the word nigga the way a black person would use it, why is that not fine? Black people say they substitute the "a" onto the word to give it a different meaning and take away its power. Well, I'm all for that, but I can't help because I'm white. Isn't this counter-intuitive? Not allowing me to say nigga simply reinfores the power of the word. If we can't accept that I mean the same by it as black people do, then that means the BLACK PEOPLE aren't ready to accept ME as equal. Damn racists.

In all honesty, it really depends on where you're from. In Philly, I know plenty of white kids who can say nigga, and that's cuz we know they don't mean it in an offensive way, they've proven themselves to be chill. Whereas in Milford, you say it and it's considered fighting words... But that's prolly cuz there are a lot of rednecks here. It also depends on how you say it. There's a BIG difference in 'nigger' and 'nigga'. Call me a nigger and I'll bust a cap in ur ass. But call me your nigga, and we chill. But for the most part, I suggest you avoid doing so, cuz some people take it as offensive no matter who says it.
And on the topic of the 'privilege' of being white, yeah, I'll give some credit to that, but that's only because there are still racist out there.

Quote from: not your typical... on December 06, 2011, 05:47:06 AM
In all honesty, it really depends on where you're from. In Philly, I know plenty of white kids who can say nigga, and that's cuz we know they don't mean it in an offensive way, they've proven themselves to be chill. Whereas in Milford, you say it and it's considered fighting words... But that's prolly cuz there are a lot of rednecks here. It also depends on how you say it. There's a BIG difference in 'nigger' and 'nigga'. Call me a nigger and I'll bust a cap in ur ass. But call me your nigga, and we chill. But for the most part, I suggest you avoid doing so, cuz some people take it as offensive no matter who says it.
And on the topic of the 'privilege' of being white, yeah, I'll give some credit to that, but that's only because there are still racist out there.

If I said that word in front of any of my mates I would get challenged instantly and a slap round the head, doesn't matter what colour of skin they may be no one is to say that word as its just degrading in every possible manner. Same goes for all racist slurs within the group.

Quote from: Crow on December 06, 2011, 05:02:54 PM
If I said that word in front of any of my mates I would get challenged instantly and a slap round the head, doesn't matter what colour of skin they may be no one is to say that word as its just degrading in every possible manner. Same goes for all racist slurs within the group.

Which is why i say it depends on where you come from. If you has grown up in the ghetto in Philly, you'd be able to say it and get away with it, because while from it's background, it might be degrading, it's like how now kids will call their best friend a slut or a bitch. A term of endearment. It shows a certain amount of trust and care amongst the group by saying, 'we can even insult each other, but we know we still love one another'. But if it were some random person, a fight would be started.