Equality my ass

It doesn't, and that is why we are so much more liberated (and Liberace-ch'ed?) than the lobsterbacks and bangers-n-beans crowd across the River.

Appropos of nothing - except maybe history - there's a tribe of Native Americans in the American West (mine, actually), who were "occupied" and herded onto a reservation by units of the U.S. Army, back in the 1880s. Except that these units were made up of blacks - former slaves and veterans of Union forces during the American Civil War - and under the command of white officers. During the "roundup", these enlisted soldiers became somewhat rowdy, and killed a number of the tribal people, raped the women, and bayoneted several children. The massacre was stopped by the white officers, all of them former abolitionists, who reacted with horror and spent much of the rest of their lives trying to make it up to the tribe - and accomplished many good works in the process.

Recently that same tribe had a series of unfortunate encounters with black gang members out of SoCal, who were trying to use the reservation as "distribution center" for their drug trade, and an isolated place for crimes of kidnapping and execution. Tribal elders and police were helped by state and federal authorities who were primarily white.

So if you go among these Indians today, you will find that blacks are held in suspicion, whereas whites are generally trusted and given respect. On the other hand, local off-rez law enforcement is now under a very competent, very sensitive black sheriff, and the new local school principle - very popular - is a black person who has shown great tolerance and sensitivity to the interests of the tribe. So attitudes are changing.

All of which demonstrates the complexity of racism, and the difficulty of resolving the issues it produces. The idea that whites or European civilization is by definition "racist" may or may not be true, but it is very definitely unhelpful, and by that reason alone must be rejected. All peoples, all civilizations, are racists and "-centric", and therefore, so what? Power is what gives weight to racism, and any discussion of racism must be "integrated" with a discussion of power and authority.

If you don't stop thinking and start just accepting how cultural interpretation is presented to you, we're going to have real problems around here :/

Well that would be all well and good if the program were actually about the disadvantaged. It's not. It's purely about race. Do disadvantaged white people not count because there are less of them? These kind of racial "equality" schemes do nothing but keep people focusing on race instead of on ability and means. There should be programs to help the poor and disadvantaged, but as long as they are tied to race they're just racism in an altruistic disguise.

Among my friends, the blacks and jews I know are by far the most racist. They feel entitled to be racists because of their respective histories. I consider it a kind of overcompensation and backlash. An eye for an eye. It reminds me of something I heard Spike Lee say in an interview once. He said that he didn't believe it was possible for blacks to be racists because they are disadvantaged. Huh? I think that attitiude is despicable. All it does is ensure that racism will live on to plague future generations.

Actually, it's not possible for black people to be racist because they do not hold a significant enough balance of power. People from the power culture can be racist because they use the race of another person to make sweeping decisions regarding resources, criminal justice, etc. People of a minority culture can be bigoted, yes, that's true, and many are, but racism is based on how decisions are made that affect people of a certain race, not solely on personal attitudes about race.

Sure, it's bigoted to give black people an advantage white people do not receive, but you can't effect change if you can't get a seat at the table in the first place. Have you ever seen the competition to receive one of the scholarships/grants, etc which are race-based? It's completely whacked, and that's because there are so few of them.

You're saying that it's a-ok for blacks to hate others based on the color of their skin because they're a minority? That's absurd. There is no excuse for racism. Period.

I didn't say you couldn't have an opinion. I was merely pointing out that bitching about it here wasn't going to do you much good.

I'm not saying it's ok, I'm saying you mis-labeled it as racism. If blacks held a significant amount of power and prevented people of other races from education, voting, getting loans, housing, etc. becaue of their skin color...that would be racism. Hating people because of their skin color is bigotry.

No, they can be racist, and sometimes are, in conditions in which they can exercise power, as I pointed out above. As a practical consideration, racism is simply one form of a process of power - the accumulation, organization, and focusing of power through an exclusionary process that concentrates it in the hands of a "few" (a few thousand, a few million, even a billion or two), and the abuse of that power in regards to people outside of those "few".

Giving people an advantage on the basis of their race perpetuates racism because it reflects the same exclusivity and abuse of power - only turned in another direction. Giving people an advantage based on their socio-economic conditions is a more acceptable and less dangerous way of achieving the same ends.

A poor white person can be labelled a racist.
So can a poor black person.
Neither of which seem to have much power.

from dictionary.com
Racism is:
1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.


Power is a completely different thing and is interpreted differently by people.
I have a job, a home, and a good friend/family based. It could be interpreted that I have more power than someone made homeless by Katrina.
Colin Powell was a four star general, fought in wars and served the President of the United States. I would say he certainly has more power than me.

Partly you make my point for me. Partly I guess I have to ask which culture you live in? In America, race is a problem. Not only as a socio-economic factor, but as a political one also. People of color don't like receiving benefits because we are of color any more than whites like it that it occurs. But if that's the only way to get off to college, you take it and hope your hard work pays off. I resent that people of color who posses the money to go to college still apply for and receive these benefits because they grew up in an atmosphere that afforded them support and opportunities to succeed while others grew up in hell and still managed to even get on the list for a scholarship. If you can't get a seat at the table, you can't effect change. If Colin Powell had taken a run at the presidency in 2000 or 2004, he would not have been elected BECAUSE OF HIS COLOR as much as for his political standings on issues. He has lived a long time as a token black man, and though he may hold power, it is power tempered by the very white President, Vice President, Chief Justice, etc....same can be said for Condoleeza Rice, btw.

Such was my intent.



Yours. And I may or may not be more aware of the various nuances of racial issues than you.



This is true of any racially-diverse society. All modern societies are racially-diverse, therefore.... As I said before, "so what?" Practical considerations dictate that we move on to find attainable solutions.



Yes, I know what you mean. Similar attitudes exists among Native Americans of different economic classes.



Unless I'm mistaken, we're in general agreement - except, perhaps, on the issue of what constitutes a definition of "racism".

As an atheist, I could never get elected either. Bigotry sucks, even for white victims of it.

Maybe..

I don't think of Colin Powell as a token black man. I think of him as an intelligent man who deserves to be president and I respect his intelligence and his person.

Condoleeza Rice is an idiot. Not because she is black, but because she is so obviously Bush's puppet.

Class divides more than race ...

Ok, yes, I think we do agree up to that point. I'm not posting my whole vitae here to compare who is a better expert on race, and I make no claims of being an expert at all. I am Native American, I grew up on a reservation, I still live on a reservation. I am a person whose race gets counted by degrees of "Indian blood" versus degrees of white blood and whose tribal enrollment confers the label of "legally incompetent" to manage my own land, so it is held in "trust" by the United States government. Do I have a lot of resentment, sure. Do I let that dictate my attitudes towards whites, blacks, Asian Americans, etc.? No.

In the last federal election, the leading political flier put out by Republicans in the state of South Dakota listed former US Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle as a supporter of prairie dogs--thinly veiled to mean Native Americans, because at the time there were enough Native voters to swing the vote in Tom Daschle's favor. Unfortunately "mix-ups" at the polls in SD and fliers like that one severely swung the vote in the other direction, despite that Native voters turned out in record numbers.

Where I'm from we're still fighting the battles African Americans fought in the 60s in the South. (and did they not also fight those battles in 2000 and 2004 in Florida?) The point of my posts is to illustrate that just as soon as a person of color raises their head to see light or speak up, someone is there to swat them back down using politically correct terms and "education" as their excuses. I'm not pointing fingers at anyone in this thread. I'm giving my view as a person of color.

Scholarships for people of color are hard to take, and even harder to justify. Until people of color have the advantages to compete successfully with people of the majority culture (and I'm talking about growing up in a safe,supportive environment, attending fully-funded safe schools where their culture is celebrated and taught, and having the ability to live free of fear of harrassment based on their skin color), then those scholarships are still needed.

To further make an observation, of those holidays listed above that have white men in them, none of the holidays exist in any way as a direct observation of their 'race'*. However, the holiday that is centered around a black man exists in celebration of this case. Seems to me that if anything, the holidays list is oh-so-slightly tilted towards blacks.

Any deed or requirement that takes into account one's 'race'* - be it to diminish or uplift - is by definition racist. The only way that racism will end is when people start considering race to be irrelevant. Period.


-Newfie


** I use the term "racist" loosely, as that's the common phrasing for ethnic discrimination. Personally, the only "race" I recognize is "the human race". We're all of the same race, we just have diverse ancestral roots. That's to accepted and embraced, not divided and segregated - in any form.

I meant to post earlier but when I first read this it made my head explode. It was quite a messy cleanup and I got distracted.

MLK day is not a celebration of a man being black. Are you the most ignorant person on the face of the earth or is that comment just convenient for you?

Oh and someone else said something stupid about a poor white person not having racial power. They have power by virtue of being white. Kind of like when whitey was all about making the black people drink from a separate fountain. Even the poorest white person gets the right to vote.

Oh and someone talked about Latinos. They didn't arrive in this country as property. I know Kris is talking about the UK but I can't really address that. I was born in the US and I didn't even realize there were other countries until six months ago.

Now if you will excuse me, I have to go take my faggot ass and try to convince "the man" not to pas a referendum in Maine to fire me and other gay people when they so desire just because we are homos.

Oh, my mistake then. And here I was thinking MLK was best known as one of the black right movement's most eloquent and insightful supporters. Guess I dont know him at all!



Hate to burst your bubble, but 'whitey' is tarring everyone with the same brush. That's as racist as discriminating against blacks. And btw, ever think that maybe there's at least one or two people who accomplished things in life because of their hard work and/or unique contributions to the world? I sure as heck didn't get where I am in life because of my skin tone.




Despite the rumours to the contrary, there is more to the world than just the US. I'm Canadian myself. I can also state that in the area I grew up we were too poor and too busy trying to just survive to care about race. What we got was purely from merit, not from some naive notion of 'whites have power because they are white'.

It may have been been like that in the past, but it's definitely not like that now. And it definitely wasn't like that where I come from.




Nice display of sarcasm. Last I checked though, sexuality wasn't a form of race. It's an unfortunate target of bigotry, but that's a separate conversation.


- Newfie

He wasn't just some black guy who supported the "black movement". Whatever the fuck the "black movement" is. He was a civil right leader in a time when those rights were scarce.

I guess you don't know him...at all.


Well, not everyone. You see, not everyone is white. I know it is hard to believe sometimes, but it is true.


You're sure? How sure? You've never in your entire life associated with a bigot? Someone who perhaps let you go places they didn't let others go? You watched all the job interviews before yours and know without a doubt that you were the most qualified applicant? That's is quite an impressive life.

I commend you for making it this far without ever encountering racism. It is quite an accomplishment.


I've heard of this place. You have snow there yes?


Unfortunate? Interesting. I think I know all I need to from you.

tralala... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mugabe

Who the HELL you calling a gamer?

I only pointed out MLKjr Day was about a black man because someone said there were more holidays about white people than black people. I realize that there is much much more to the holiday than someone's skin color. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a great man. It is a shame that we have come to fighting over whether there are enough holidays per person's skin color.

I love it when [fill in your choice] people stage victim-fests.

As do I.

I love it when white people stage victim-fests.