Irish Gay Group Banned From St. Patty's Day Parade...Again

While the racial and religious aspects of being Jewish are irrevocably tied together, the religious aspect is still a choice. The Jewish race is an interesting one - it is the only one defined also by its religious affiliation.

There's a fundamental difference between genetic differences and cultural assumptions about taste based on race or sex, which is what BET, Lifetime, Spike, and their ilk do. Do you find cliches like the assumption that all blacks like fried chicken and watermelon to be offensive? I do. Is it somehow different to assume that all blacks like hip hop, rap, and jazz? BET is founded on exactly those kinds of assumptions based on skin color. I have no problem with things aimed at certain interest groups based on voluntary choices (like religion for example) but when they're based on what race or ethnicity you're born into I think they're backward and I look forward to the day when the human race outgrows such simple mindedness.

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obviously you've not met my mother

No but I did have the great experience of being a waiter in a predominantly Jewish retirement apartment complex for 2 years. It was like having 200 Jewish grandparents. Oy vey. I was the particular favorite of Gertrude Feldstein, who once gave me a beautiful Star of David necklace and told me she never knew she could love a Catholic boy so much I also had a senile Jack Feldman leave me the deed to his condo in Palm Beach as a tip once. Needless to say I gave it back. I <3 Jewish people. The Shabbath elevator in my apartment building used to piss me off, as I lived on the 17th floor and every damn Friday it would stop at every floor

BET didn't assume black people all liked the same thing. BET showed music made by black people, had shows with black people on it, and had stories that represented the black community. They didn't presume that all black people liked anything - they just showed a segment of entertainment that was not being shown. They did assume that black people would like seeing themselves represented on television in a wide variety of ways, instead of the limited spectrum of the sitcom family or occasional sidekick. They aren't making any assumptions, just showing something besides what white television executives decide should be shown.

Your're a mench, bubbeleh.

You weren't asking me, I know-but I'll chime in anyway...

1. It feels soooooooooooooooooooo goooooooooooooooooood!!! Sure, there's a little twinge of guilt now and again when you realize every bad thing that has happened to anyone at anytime is some how all your fault
....but ruling the world sorta makes up for it.
2. No, I don't make a lot of money. But that's the military life for ya.
3. Yes, I have 1.5 non white friends as mandated by my state's Affirmative Action quota.
Luckily, being half black, I can count myself as that .5 black people.

MMmmmm....there's nothing better than being a WASP.

-Kiamat Dusk

Heh...how is 90% of television "white entertainment"?

Aren't many of the popular shows, the American Idols (bleh), huge and very often broadcast sports events, the criminal justice/investigation hits, the sitcoms (of which quite a few have some pretty "liberal" content), and movies out there fairly neutral forms of entertainment? Does every show out there have to have someone from every minority imaginable to be "non-white"?

With the exception of maybe a few sitcoms like Friends or Raymond, and a few sports like Nascar and golf, I don't understand this "90% white" thing.

I wouldn't say BET is racist.

Maybe late night it can be a bit objectifying of women and promote materialism and violence - "thug life", but then so does MTV. The one difference being that MTV doesn't follow up semi-nude rap videos with some preacher warning of the pitfalls of sin, 30 minutes later!

On the OP, I'd say that guy's comments were way out of line.

I am, however, unsure that insularity is the best weapon to fight oppression based on race, sexual preference, or what have you.

There is a difference between exclusionary insularity (we don't want you, you don't belong) and groups coming together out of commonality and shared experience. There is strength and comfort in numbers, and in a group that accepts you for who you are. I thank my parents for instilling in me the value of tolerance and also the importance of keeping a sense of one's own background and culture, while still embracing and being a part of American culture. I can't begin to fathom the way that people still act in 2006. Racism and homophobia are alive and well and front and center in America. The KKK is more active than ever, and you have a president trying to use the Constitution to legislate discrimination. It can be pretty disconcerting sometimes - for as far as we have come as a society, it seems sometimes we seem to be regressing.

Living in Miami, I know a lot of people who come here and stay within their own neighborhoods, never learn English, and do nothing to be part of actually living in the US. They demand signs and ballots and everything else to be in Spanish, and refuse to assimilate at all because they don't feel they should have to. I am not talking about someone's abuela who is simply too old to ever really learn English. I am talking twenty and thirty year olds who are also raising their children with these attitudes. That is insularity to the extreme.

No, I "get" racism.

If you don't think WET would be racist, then neither is BET. If you do think WET is racist, then so is BET. That's all I'm saying.

Don't let that strawman get near the fire.

Rejection of a double standard is a strawman, now?

Well, I have friends from various races. I have gay friends. I even have women folk friends! Imagine that! [/sarcasm]

Noone's 'day' has come. To have a white history month if you didn't have a black history month would be racist. To have a black history month without a white history month, and one for every culture, is racist. Calling all of history racist is like calling a chapter in a world history book detailing japanese feudal culture 'white culture.'

Its all listed..we have what historians have offered up. When historians can get a cohesive history fo the african tribes into the schools history books, it will be in there.

Affirmative action is racist. its puts one race above another.

I'd just like to point out that Bill O'Reilly has this same position on this issue.

-Kiamat Dusk

O'Riley is a good guy, for all that he's wrongly branded as a Rush-like political mouthpiece.

I completely agree, Rei. I just couldn't resist pointing out that a couple of his harshest critics are seeing eye to eye with him on this one.

-Kiamat Dusk

Once I know that you like to rub your "falafel" up against people in the shower, you get to shut the fuck up and lose the right to tell me what to march as.

Only if the double standard is a smokescreen, to continue the hateful use of hyperbolic metaphors.



Again, that makes it a lot LESS reasonable, IMO. You're not helping yourself here, Kiamat. In fact, if you to convince reasonable people, you should write ".......but on this issue I disagree with Fox News."

Since if there is any hated going on here, it's not on my part... I think I'm covered then.



Boy howdy, don't you love how everyone's opinion is equal these days?

O'Reilly is entertaining.. just don't listen to his (proven) false tales about a france boycott.

Define "proven false".

As much as I often disagree with Kiamat, I think his reason for bringing up Bill O'Reilly was not to say "See, Bill O'Reilly agrees with me!" - it was to point out to Chip (and Reitsuki) that the "can't they just be Irish people and not GAY Irish people" philosophy was in lock step with Bill's feelings on the matter. Given that both posters tend to generally 4be left leaning and not exactly Fox News ideal demographic, it is just a little swipe at the irony of it.

Define 'the journal he named as a source of financial information doesn't exist.'

Also define 'Frances outgoing sales to the US doubled since O'reilly mentioned his ban, he states they dropped.'