The Big Picture: Skin Deep

Wrds

Dyslexic Wonder
Sep 4, 2008
170
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PattyG said:
Really? The universities of America are being flooded with unqualified minorities and whites are being pushed out? That's not what any statistics show.

Look, it's totally naive to think that because the culture of the past was more overtly racist than it is now that we should all pretend like race isn't a factor. The famous metaphor for this is a footrace where one of the participants falls way behind because he's been running with shackles on his feet for the first half. Then the shackles come off and the other guy who gained a big lead is saying "Hey, it's a fair race now, it's a totally unfair double standard to let him catch up." Poor white people, let's all shed a tear.
First of all, I never said anything about unqualified minorities, I made it clear that I was talking about minorities with equal grades.

Second of all, you spend a week on the University of Texas campus and tell me there are more Whites there than Asians, or Indians.

I'm not a racist, but I see what I see. That analogy of yours is laughable and doesn't speak for the whole picture. There's a civil rights act. If there's any discrimination in the workplace, said person is sued. I'm not going to tolerate double standards, regardless of history. I made that clear. I'm not going to be made to feel like I have to tolerate another race, or help them play catch up, that's just silly. I see every person, as a person. There is no race, we're all humans, there's so little difference between us genetically, and I'm choosing not to recognize it.

Just because shit happened in the past, doesn't mean I need to feel guilty or responsible for my great great grandfather's actions. And neither should a black man feel he deserves an apology for something that didn't happen actually happen to him personally, we're passed that already.

But you can bet your ass, if there was any real racial discrimination going on today, I'd be on the front line against it.

I've already spoken more on the subject than I ever want to, good day.
 

PattyG

New member
May 15, 2011
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Wrds said:
PattyG said:
Really? The universities of America are being flooded with unqualified minorities and whites are being pushed out? That's not what any statistics show.

Look, it's totally naive to think that because the culture of the past was more overtly racist than it is now that we should all pretend like race isn't a factor. The famous metaphor for this is a footrace where one of the participants falls way behind because he's been running with shackles on his feet for the first half. Then the shackles come off and the other guy who gained a big lead is saying "Hey, it's a fair race now, it's a totally unfair double standard to let him catch up." Poor white people, let's all shed a tear.
First of all, I never said anything about unqualified minorities, I made it clear that I was talking about minorities with equal grades.

Second of all, you spend a week on the University of Texas campus and tell me there are more Whites there than Asians, or Indians.

I'm not a racist, but I see what I see. That analogy of yours is laughable and doesn't speak for the whole picture. There's a civil rights act. If there's any discrimination in the workplace, said person is sued. I'm not going to tolerate double standards, regardless of history. I made that clear. I'm not going to be made to feel like I have to tolerate another race, or help them play catch up, that's just silly. I see every person, as a person. There is no race, we're all humans, there's so little difference between us genetically, and I'm choosing not to recognize it.

Just because shit happened in the past, doesn't mean I need to feel guilty or responsible for my great great grandfather's actions. And neither should a black man feel he deserves an apology for something that didn't happen actually happen to him personally, we're passed that already.

But you can bet your ass, if there was any real racial discrimination going on today, I'd be on the front line against it.

I've already spoken more on the subject than I ever want to, good day.
I've never been to UT, but a quick search of their demographics found this: White is 58% of the undergraduate student body, 17% asian/pacific islander.

Anyway, I'm not saying anyone should feel guilty or personally responsible for actions of the past. But I find it interesting how so few white folks want to acknowledge just how good we have it. It's great that you have such a noble and enlightened view of race, but that's not the way a lot of America is and to pretend otherwise is just allowing the problem to continue by ignoring it. As white people we have the chips stacked in our favor in a number of ways, both overt and subtle. The civil rights act doesn't mean the races are now on an equal playing field.
 

Havik223

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Nov 17, 2009
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My big problem with the change was the complete and utter disregard for the evolutionary process. Black people are black because their skin protects them from the effects of the sun in an environment where there is a lot of sun to be had. White people are white because they don't experience as much sun so they don't have to fear skin cancer, but they have a harder time gaining vitamin D as a consequence.

Thor and his kin are Nordic and they need that white skin so they don't get things like osteoporosis, but then again the whole "god" factor can explain away that inconsistency.
 

GunboatDiplomat

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Mar 23, 2009
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Ulfrick said:
You know what, all in all I do agree with you, my big problem with the movie though isn't that they cast a white character as black. its that they cast a character based on a white GOD as black, and belive it or not there actually are quite a few people out there (myself included) who still follow that religion. Sure you might say "its just a movie" or "its just a comic book" and in a sense you would be right. FOR ANY OTHER COMIC BOOK. but this is THOR we are talking about, this is the one that is based almost completely on a real world religion.

In fact, when I really think about it, its not even so much the fact that the studio decided to fuck around with one of the very important facets of my religion that pisses me off. its their response to the general outcry against it by alot of us. Instead of simply saying "he was the best actor" or flat out admitting that they where doing it in order to add some racial diversity to what would otherwise have been a predominantly white cast they instead start throwing around blanket terms like racist.

I'm not racist, I'm not angry about it because of his race, I'm angry about it because of them choosing to disrespect my faith and my culture and then trying to make me and people like me out to be the bad guys.

while we're at it, lets cast mohammed as asian and malcom x as white, see how the studios react to that.
Wait, you actually BELIEVE the norse gods exist? that if you die an honorable warriors death you'll go to valhalla. That valhalla actually exists?

Or are you actually just saying you believe this becuase you're "kind of spiritual" and you don't really like the standard religions for your part of the world and you want to be a bit alternative, so hey, lets pick the norse gods.

I mean you could pick Adad, Babylonian god of weather, statues of which I guarantee you are more impressive than any produced of the norse gods (exhibition available at the berlin national muselum), were worshipped by more people, were an awful lot older and have about as much relationship to the culture you grew up in but I guess theres no comic books made of them.

These "Gods" being exclusively white is just another happy bonus I suppose. Just like all of humanity. Oh wait...

I call shenanigans.
 

PattyG

New member
May 15, 2011
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Fwee said:
Here's a question with a hypothetical Avengers movie:
Would you rather see Bruce Banner cast as a crappy white actor to stay accurate, or have the same character played very well by a black actor?
Totally valid question. What's weird is that because Banner is a "normal" human it probably wouldn't be as big a deal if a minority played it. Because Heimdall is a deity, even though nobody believes in those gods anymore, there's probably more wrath there. Which is doubly silly because in the movie the Gods are basically aliens anyway and having been worshiped in Scandinavia seems to be totally incidental. Anyway, I would guess if it was between Denzel Washington and Billy Baldwin, almost nobody would prefer Billy. As a person of some Asian ancestry, I feel it's worth asking: If there was a movie about a physicist with repression issues, wouldn't an Asian guy make sense? I vote John Cho to play Hulk.
 

Therumancer

Citation Needed
Nov 28, 2007
9,909
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Alright, I've spent some time mulling over this, and even though it's doubtful Bob (or many other people at all) will read this, I figured I'd toss it out there. Some of this covers ground I've gone over before.

For starters, all of this stuff about the horrors of the white man oppressing the black man is pretty much bull. Yes, in the last few centuries we saw a brief period of time where this was the case. Throughout most of human history though, that was hardly the case. As I'm sure many people might remember from their world history classes, human civilization largely started with "The Fertile Crescent". The people that lived there? Not whites.

In the overall scheme of things white guys were pretty much the primitive savages that were running around in hides, swining from trees, and living in caves. You know, the stereotype certain racists make about darker skinned peoples. If we showed up in civilization at all, it was usually as slaves. The lighter skinned peoples in the region, like the hebrews, wound up being enslaved by the Egyptians.

I'm being intentionally brief but power shifted over a long period of time. We had the rise of the greeks who fought off attempts to enslave them en-masse (movies like 300 are overblown depictions loosely based on real events), and then the romans, but of course those people were generally dusky or olive skinned, us white guys were getting conquered and enslaved left and right by the roman empire that stomped all over Europe. Rome wound up falling, and then out of the dark ages the white guys arose finally carrying the torch of civilization that we pretty much built on the ashes of rome. Indeed one of the reasons why religion dominated those civlizations was because it was the church that was keeping a lot of the records from the Romans alive... and well, that's a side point.

In the last few centuries white guys managed to pull ahead, build up all kinds of massive technology, and become the dominant world power, but understand that anyone who tries to pull a "sweep of history" arguement in defense of black people is being a complete idiot. Especially with the US, while we DID keep slaves, it was basically for five bloody minutes globally speaking. When I look at what happened to the people my ancestors were from, and for how long, I am not buying any arguments of racial guilt because we got our moment. Besides which when you get technical all of the morality that did away with slavery in "modern times" came from white people, despite the passing of thousand of years it certainly didn't seem anyone else did it.

I'll also say that one thing people tend to forget is that the black slaves were not collected by white guys heading into Africa with guns and nets. The were purchused from other black guys. Traders used to load up on goods to trade in the Middle East and Africa, and use those goods to buy slaves which could be sold for more money back in Europe and America. Indeed if you know anything about slave ships (and I do from some reading) and have looked at the wreckage of ships like the pirate ship Whydah (which was originally intended for slaving before it was captured) they were set up to receive and display slaves on deck because for a number of reasons they generally didn't want to go on land in the areas where the slaves were being sold, either for fear of infection/disease, or because Muslims didn't want white men on Muslim soil. They slaves used to be made to row themselves and their owners out to the boats, where they were examined and sent down into the hold if a deal could be reached. Basically the popular fiction of the slave trade, is just that... a popular fiction. In reality most slaves were sold by their own people (ethnically speaking) in many cases being the prisoners taken in tribal wars or whatever. Plenty of books on the subject.


Once you get past all of the white guilt crap, and realize what BS there is, there is very little to really rationalize why you should have a dual standard in the media. Truthfully the actual PROBLEM is that there just aren't that many black creators of things like TV shows, comics, or anything else. To start seeing more black characters what you need is the black community to get enough people interested in writing, drawing, and similar things, so they dedicate themselves to it, and then from that creative pool a few will begin to see their work get accepted. That will lead to more movies being made with black characters, more comics with black super heroes (and movies), and more science fiction novels with black protaganists, etc...

Right now the situation is that whole "git rich or die trying" mentality, and the associated problems guys like Bill Cosby have talked about. Simply put in US black culture, blacks consider it wrong to live normally, and fall into a rut, or to try and throw themselves at an industry like comics, knowing that the odds are against them, and that even if they succeed they probably aren't going to be super rich. Rather they'd rather play the odds by doing something like basketball, or take acting lessons and hope to become a movie star, or turn to crime. It's either the very top, or the very bottom, stuff in the middle like "writer guy" just doesn't appeal, which is why it's so bloody rare and doesn't have much of an impact.

There is absolutly no excuse to change Heimdall's ethnicity, other than political correctness. The arguement that it's okay to do this, but not to "flip" a black character over to a white person because of there being so few black characters, when it's the same thing (and equally ridiculous) is simply wrong. If you want to see more black characters, then you need to encourage more people in black America to go to school, and become writers ans artists to create those characters.

To be honest in cases where we have seen characters "flipped" to white actors, there usually have been some excuses, among them of course finding someone who could actually play the role. A very differant situation from the "Heimdall" situation where there were probably a lot of white guys on the market who could have done that. Heimdall was "flipped" simply to have a black guy, there was no other reason. In the case of say "Prince Of Persia", I can't think of one Arabic actor who could have pulled it off. Heck, I can't even think of that many Arabic actors, how many people of Arabic ethnicity actually work in Hollywood? I mean sure, if you could find me a good Arabic actor who looked the part, could carry the acting, and do the Choreography as wekk as Jake could, and who applied for the role, then I'd argue there was some racism involved, but honestly I very much doubt that was the case.

When it comes to situations like the Heimdall thing, and race in general, I'll point a finger to Asia. It was a long time before those of asian ethnicity had a strong prescence in comics, but it happened because they got invested in the medium, and started producing artists and writers. They introduced those comics to other markets, and since the work was genuinely good, it began to inspire them. You then saw the eastern and western take on comics cross pollinating, and influances from both affecting both markets. Nowadays there are a decent number of asian characters even in American comics, but that is largely because of there being decent numbers of asian writers and creators.

Now, I will point out that in the course of these arguements I do tend to notice a lot of people who are black or hispanic nowadays mentionining asians as an exception to racism because their penetration into culture hasn't been unnoticed. The thing is though that they worked long and hard for that, and as there really wasn't much actual racism present, they succeeded. Back in the bad old days there were plenty of racial slurs for them too, used just as much as the "N" word or various insults towards Hispanics and Latinos. When racism subsided, they took the oppertunities, and that's where the big differance is. That black kid who blows off school to go play basketball, aiming at being the next Michael Jordan, who likes comics might just put down that ball and go pay attention in english class, and/or cultivate their drawing skill. Chances are he won't ever make it into comics, but if enough of them do this, eventually some will, and then we'll see black comic characters people will appreciate, without people needing to resort to the travesty of politically correct casting desicians. See, like most people, I don't care what color a super hero's skin happens to be, what I care about is a good character, and good storylines (and decent artwork of course). I think "Spawn" sort of demonstrated how little ethncity matters to a comic character. It's just that most creators tend to make characters of their own race (call it self projection and personal power fantasies even if they don't admit it), there ARE execeptions, especially when dealing with very prolific creators, but that's what they are, exceptions and not the rule. That's why you need more black creators to solve the problem, and for it to work they need to earn their way into those positions.


Ah well, I'm rambling, but that's my thoughts on the subject. No need to correct me on the history part, this was a long post, and I was being brief and basic intentionally. I'm well aware of there being exceptions in there to some of what I said, but this wasn't meant to be an all inclusive treatise on the subjetct since it was all leading up to my points about comic books (and heck the creative industries in general) and casting.

Like many things I find myself disagreeing with Bob, he leans pretty far away from me on the political spectrum I think, and also tends to be a little too narrow in his thinking. I think it's absurd to make a point based on racism, when racism was the way of the world in the time periods he was talking about, and what's more it had been going on for thousands of years. If you want to get technical white people didn't create racism, but we WERE the ones who pretty much ended it, at least within our territories like the USA, and this at a time when we're acting as powers with global reaches. All of this, when in reality we're probably the planet's "late bloomers" and wound up getting it more than anyone before the last few centuries. "White Guys" as we think of them (ie Saxons and such) were not really a big deal until after the Dark Ages ended, so that means we've had what? A thousand years, out of which we've been dominant for 500 or 600 or so... compared to the scope of history before that?

Like it or not, the above points are what I tend to use to make white supremecists cry.
 

PattyG

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May 15, 2011
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Father Time said:
Is anyone else sick of the fact that the automatic response to double standards that negatively effect whites is to point to slavery?

You know that thing that ended two centuries ago, was ended by mostly white guys and for whom no one alive today is in any way responsible for?

I'm sick of that shitty argument.

It's a stupid cop-out to say "oh this double standard is OK because of other double standards from a long time ago that don't exist now and are looked at unfavorably by almost everyone."

I thought Bob was better than that.
So I take it from your comments that you are completely unwilling to consider the idea that white privilege, while not being at the level of owning other human beings like it was 150 years ago, is still a prevalent force in America and in the world today? That white people have an easier time as a group than other ethnic groups?
 

PattyG

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May 15, 2011
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Therumancer said:
I think it's absurd to make a point based on racism, when racism was the way of the world in the time periods he was talking about, and what's more it had been going on for thousands of years. If you want to get technical white people didn't create racism, but we WERE the ones who pretty much ended it, at least within our territories like the USA, and this at a time when we're acting as powers with global reaches.

Like it or not, the above points are what I tend to use to make white supremecists cry.
So racism is over? Yay! I must have missed the memo when it happened, but that's awesome!
 

Therumancer

Citation Needed
Nov 28, 2007
9,909
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0
PattyG said:
Therumancer said:
I think it's absurd to make a point based on racism, when racism was the way of the world in the time periods he was talking about, and what's more it had been going on for thousands of years. If you want to get technical white people didn't create racism, but we WERE the ones who pretty much ended it, at least within our territories like the USA, and this at a time when we're acting as powers with global reaches.

Like it or not, the above points are what I tend to use to make white supremecists cry.
So racism is over? Yay! I must have missed the memo when it happened, but that's awesome!
Indeed it is.

However all sarcasm aside, you'll notice I was careful to say within our territories. Racism still exists, but largely it's present throught he second and third world. You see a lot of it in places like Asia (directed towards us for that matter) or throughout third world Africa and The Middle East with various active efforts at ethnic cleansing going on and so on.

Racism in the first world largely exists as a political tool, because the spectre can be used to invoke strong feelings and get people to rally simply due to it's negativity. However the very fact that it can be used that way is also a sign that it's dead, if racism existed as a major force within society, accusations of racism would be met more with a "yep, so?" or "of course I'm racist, that's the way things are" rather than causing people to rally, or become defensive at the accusations. Racism can be invoked as an issue specifically because it no longer exists as a mainstream societal force and can be a rallying point. This is touched on in a lot of sociology classes, basically as soon as you can get support from society in general by complaining about something, that means that there is no oppression involved.

In general the biggest problem in the USA today is that racism provides an excuse for minorities to not even have to try. To put it bluntly it's easier to "fight a war" or claim a group of people is keeping you down, than to head out there and have a life. As guys like Bill Cosby have pointed out (albiet within his sphere which is Children's education, where he has a PHD), all the oppertunities are the for black america, it's not being "oppressed" or "discriminated against", the issue is people going out there to take those oppertunities. People have literally been lining up to send books, computers, and supplies to the schools in the inner city and poor "ethnic" areas, only to find those supplies destroyed by the people they were brought to. Basically black america has gotten it into it's head that it's only proper to be at the very top, or very bottom of society, being normal and getting into the same rut as everyone else is seen as selling out. People who try and become educated and fit into th enormal rungs of society are viewed as being "Oreos" as in black on the outside, white on the inside. You might be thinking "But Therumancer, doesn't that make it a matter of racism?" and the answer is "no", it's a racial ISSUE, not racism, it's something that black america has to work out on it's own, the problem largely coming from the simple fact that the EASY part was done by the civil liberties movements, it's comparitively easy to rail against society and make noise. But as guys like Martin Luthor King Jr. pointed out, after his time comes the actual hard part when people need to put all that aside, shut up, and embrace the oppertunities that they fought for. The civil liberties movement was about enabling people to live normally within society, not for all of the minorities to jump ahead into the upper percentiles of wealth and prestige.

The thing is though, that with people being bombarded with messages of "OMG Racism" every minute of every day as people use it as a tool, it can be very easy for people to overlook that there is nothing behind it.

Now like anything there are exceptions, there ARE racists in the US as it's a free country, the same can be said of most first world countries. They are a tiny, powerless group of people who basically hide under their beds on the fringes of society. They have absolutly no power over, or influance on anything, and are not a factor because society moved away from them.

What you might think of the guy himself, Obama is also a good sign as to how dead racism is in the US, after all he could never have made it to the highest position in the country entirely on minority support, he's there because society just doesn't care what his race is. It gets pointed out largely by simply being a sign of how much the US has changed compared to say 60 years ago when racism WAS a societal force.

At any rate, the point here being is that the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and other first world nations largely founded by white people, have more or less ended racism within our borders. What's more through trade, business, the spread of ideas, and so on we are having a huge influance throughout the world on that score, though by no means enough to end it. In more than a few cases our peacekeepers have shown up to basically stop acts of ethnic cleansing and the like as well, and fear of intervention by the what are currently the most powerful nations on earth has influanced a lot of things just by our being, since nobody wants us to invade.

I could say more on the subject, but the point is that the sarcasm isn't warrented. Right now the only people who claim that there is any kind of mainstream racism in the US are those who have something to gain, even if indirectly, by it's existance... however the very fact that it can be used as an issue to garner mainstream support also goes to show how dead it actually is.

Really, sometimes I wonder what they teach people in school nowadays, a lot of this was being covered in sociology when I was growing up. But then again I've also had people on these forums tell me that the colonists on the Mayflower were basically communists who set out to establish communal living... and never having heard of John Carver or William Bradford who were you know... elected leaders... and how they wouldn't leave the boat until a leader was elected and so on. Under the circumstances I guess it shouldn't be surprising that there are people who think that the US is still a racist society despite those battles having been won decades ago, with the passage of time cementing those victories.
 

PattyG

New member
May 15, 2011
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Therumancer said:
PattyG said:
Therumancer said:
I think it's absurd to make a point based on racism, when racism was the way of the world in the time periods he was talking about, and what's more it had been going on for thousands of years. If you want to get technical white people didn't create racism, but we WERE the ones who pretty much ended it, at least within our territories like the USA, and this at a time when we're acting as powers with global reaches.

Like it or not, the above points are what I tend to use to make white supremecists cry.
So racism is over? Yay! I must have missed the memo when it happened, but that's awesome!
Indeed it is.

However all sarcasm aside, you'll notice I was careful to say within our territories. Racism still exists, but largely it's present throught he second and third world. You see a lot of it in places like Asia (directed towards us for that matter) or throughout third world Africa and The Middle East with various active efforts at ethnic cleansing going on and so on.

Racism in the first world largely exists as a political tool, because the spectre can be used to invoke strong feelings and get people to rally simply due to it's negativity. However the very fact that it can be used that way is also a sign that it's dead, if racism existed as a major force within society, accusations of racism would be met more with a "yep, so?" or "of course I'm racist, that's the way things are" rather than causing people to rally, or become defensive at the accusations. Racism can be invoked as an issue specifically because it no longer exists as a mainstream societal force and can be a rallying point. This is touched on in a lot of sociology classes, basically as soon as you can get support from society in general by complaining about something, that means that there is no oppression involved.

In general the biggest problem in the USA today is that racism provides an excuse for minorities to not even have to try. To put it bluntly it's easier to "fight a war" or claim a group of people is keeping you down, than to head out there and have a life. As guys like Bill Cosby have pointed out (albiet within his sphere which is Children's education, where he has a PHD), all the oppertunities are the for black america, it's not being "oppressed" or "discriminated against", the issue is people going out there to take those oppertunities. People have literally been lining up to send books, computers, and supplies to the schools in the inner city and poor "ethnic" areas, only to find those supplies destroyed by the people they were brought to. Basically black america has gotten it into it's head that it's only proper to be at the very top, or very bottom of society, being normal and getting into the same rut as everyone else is seen as selling out. People who try and become educated and fit into th enormal rungs of society are viewed as being "Oreos" as in black on the outside, white on the inside. You might be thinking "But Therumancer, doesn't that make it a matter of racism?" and the answer is "no", it's a racial ISSUE, not racism, it's something that black america has to work out on it's own, the problem largely coming from the simple fact that the EASY part was done by the civil liberties movements, it's comparitively easy to rail against society and make noise. But as guys like Martin Luthor King Jr. pointed out, after his time comes the actual hard part when people need to put all that aside, shut up, and embrace the oppertunities that they fought for. The civil liberties movement was about enabling people to live normally within society, not for all of the minorities to jump ahead into the upper percentiles of wealth and prestige.

The thing is though, that with people being bombarded with messages of "OMG Racism" every minute of every day as people use it as a tool, it can be very easy for people to overlook that there is nothing behind it.

Now like anything there are exceptions, there ARE racists in the US as it's a free country, the same can be said of most first world countries. They are a tiny, powerless group of people who basically hide under their beds on the fringes of society. They have absolutly no power over, or influance on anything, and are not a factor because society moved away from them.

What you might think of the guy himself, Obama is also a good sign as to how dead racism is in the US, after all he could never have made it to the highest position in the country entirely on minority support, he's there because society just doesn't care what his race is. It gets pointed out largely by simply being a sign of how much the US has changed compared to say 60 years ago when racism WAS a societal force.

At any rate, the point here being is that the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and other first world nations largely founded by white people, have more or less ended racism within our borders. What's more through trade, business, the spread of ideas, and so on we are having a huge influance throughout the world on that score, though by no means enough to end it. In more than a few cases our peacekeepers have shown up to basically stop acts of ethnic cleansing and the like as well, and fear of intervention by the what are currently the most powerful nations on earth has influanced a lot of things just by our being, since nobody wants us to invade.

I could say more on the subject, but the point is that the sarcasm isn't warrented. Right now the only people who claim that there is any kind of mainstream racism in the US are those who have something to gain, even if indirectly, by it's existance... however the very fact that it can be used as an issue to garner mainstream support also goes to show how dead it actually is.

Really, sometimes I wonder what they teach people in school nowadays, a lot of this was being covered in sociology when I was growing up. But then again I've also had people on these forums tell me that the colonists on the Mayflower were basically communists who set out to establish communal living... and never having heard of John Carver or William Bradford who were you know... elected leaders... and how they wouldn't leave the boat until a leader was elected and so on. Under the circumstances I guess it shouldn't be surprising that there are people who think that the US is still a racist society despite those battles having been won decades ago, with the passage of time cementing those victories.
Ask 10 black people whether they've been the victim of racism before. Essentially what's happening here is you (I'm assuming you are white) are attempting to speak for them saying their experience is totally null and void. Yes, black leaders are pushing for more personal accountability on the part of the black community, as well they should. They'll say don't blame others for your problems because that's a self-empowering message. But I don't think you'll hear any of them say racism is relegated to history.

Anyway, I don't want to pick apart your entire piece. Let me just mention one point: having Obama elected President doesn't mean the races are now treated equally. Obama graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law, George Bush was an alcoholic who ran his dad's businesses into the ground. When a black guy who is referred to as an "obnoxious drunk" by his father's associates can get elected President, then racism will be over.
 

Therumancer

Citation Needed
Nov 28, 2007
9,909
0
0
PattyG said:
[
Ask 10 black people whether they've been the victim of racism before. Essentially what's happening here is you (I'm assuming you are white) are attempting to speak for them saying their experience is totally null and void. Yes, black leaders are pushing for more personal accountability on the part of the black community, as well they should. They'll say don't blame others for your problems because that's a self-empowering message. But I don't think you'll hear any of them say racism is relegated to history.

Anyway, I don't want to pick apart your entire piece. Let me just mention one point: having Obama elected President doesn't mean the races are now treated equally. Obama graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law, George Bush was an alcoholic who ran his dad's businesses into the ground. When a black guy who is referred to as an "obnoxious drunk" by his father's associates can get elected President, then racism will be over.

You won't pick my statements apart, because it can't be done. You might be able to convince yourself you did it, but this is one of those cases where I'm simply right.

The thing is that you can't ask ten black people if they have been victims of racism fairly, because of the simple fact that the accusation of racism is a powerful tool. It also enables someone to blame some kind of nebulous racial oppression for their problems, rather than having to face them, and perhaps admit that they are their own problem. The use of the "race card" is one of the biggest problems we're dealing with on society today, and really the only way to deal with it is to stop letting it have an effect.

See, the thing is that the very fact that you really have to search long and hard to find someone who seriously believes in the racial inferiority of a group of people (or the inherant superiority of his own people) within nations like the US is why it's dead. You have to search because the people who would admit to such things face social censure for their beliefs, because the rest of society clearly does not agree with them. That means that racism is dead. If racism was alive, you would have the majority of messages on TV and in the media being about oppressing "lesser" peoples as opposed to oppressors being universally defined as the bad guys, and nobody would be concerned about being racist, because there wouldn't be any repercussions for it.

The thing is that I'm not saying that "their experience is totally null and void" but simply that "they" never had those experiences to begin with. In most cases racism is being used as a scapegoat for personal failure, and not wanting to do hard work. You lose in the rat race, then it was racism, your life isn't where you wish it was (and news flash, very few people are where they aspire to be), then it's time to blame whitey, etc... Some of them might even believe it, but that hardly makes it the case, and all you have to do is take a look at what's going on and how racism is treated and it's pretty obvious. Simply using the "N" word can get people in tons of trouble socially if not legally because of what society in general actually believes and supports.

Of course a lot of this comes down to politics and voting blocks as well, there are people who have a vested interest in convincing others that racism is alive and everywhere. People who will tell minorities (and not just blacks) that they are being oppressed, because it brings the people together, what's more people generally want to be told that their problems are not their own fault, that there is someone to blame... as racism was a problem, trying to pretend that it's still a force in society is a logical tool. The people flock to the leaders who tell them what they want to hear, and those leaders become powerful due to the support, and can leverage that following into political favor by pretty much acting as a mercenary voting block, whomever favors the leaders are the ones he tells the people who listen to him to support, and then they get better numbers in the polls.

Understand, I never said that there aren't people who don't believe racism is an issue, simply that it really isn't one.

It's just like the point Bill Cosby sort of makes, just because people don't want to do the hard work and acknowlege that equality means fitting into the same dis-sastified rut as everyone else, doesn't mean they are being oppressed. The oppertunities are there, the books, computers, money for education, however embracing those things just means you get the same shot as everyone else, it doesn't mean your guaranteed any kind of success any more than anyone else. Equality means that you go to school, you study hard, and then chances are you wind up doing a crappy job to make ends meet, that's life for everyone irregardless of race. However for a few people, again irregardless of race, they are going to do really well and break into that upper 1% of society. The problem is that we're dealing with an inherant sense of entitlement, with equality being viewed as "equal to the top 1% of society", which is hardly the case.

At any rate we're doubtlessly going to have to agree to disagree, but honestly you probably should have learned a lot about this kind of thing in sociology.

As far as the presidency goes, dress it up as much as you want, the bottom line is that if there was mainstream racism Obama could not have won, he would have been considered inferior on merits of race, and probably wouldn't have even been allowed to run for office, never mind garner the support (which goes accross racial lines) in order to win.

Also understand something, when your looking at presidential cantidates, it's not so much about the man himself, as about his organization. Presidents are just a face put on a coalition of interests, the guy who has been able to convince all the right people that he's best able to do the job they want done. There are tons of people all competing for the honor of bring the dude who gets run, and in the true nature of American competition the best guy comes out on top. "Best" can mean anything from intelligent, to charismatic, to just plain ruthless, or some combination of all of those.

Just to get the support to make it into a primary, with all the diverse interests that requires to say "your the guy we want" means that racism has to be dead, before it even goes to the people themselves. If some really pragmatic guys thought Obama was inferior, or that people would view him that way, they never would have considered him for their face, given that there were tons of people they could have used beforehand.

Yes, this is a very cynical way of looking at politics, but it's also accurate. In general politics reflect on the needs of society becase the guys paying the money for these campaigns and wanting their interests represented, want the surest bets they can run.

Honestly I think your a little too offensive about Dubbya because you don't like him. Me, I voted for him twice, but have mixed opinions. In the end, the bottom line was tha his backround convinced an entire organization of interests that he was the guy they wanted. Was he the smartest, the most charismatic, ruthless, or whatever? We don't know exactly what the respective thinking of the people was, but the guy won *TWO* elections despite his dirty laundary being out there, oh granted they WERE very close elections, but he still won them. Truthfully though I kind of suspect he won the first one due to Al Gore's own people (pretty much the "Clintonista" faction) pole-axing him despite the recounts. Do some reading on Gore and dirt digging and you'll notice that towards the end of the campaign there was a big deal being made about how he was receiving campaign financing from China that was being fronted through Buddhist temples. Given all of the problems with Clinton and the speculation that he didn't LOSE a bunch of military tech to the Chinese through incomperance but sold it to them, that could very well have been a big deal, a President caught being run by foreign interests that were rapidly rising to be enemies of the country? If you think the Obama-Citizenship issue is, big, that would have been bigger. I also think that's why The Democratic party pretty much lowered the boom on Hillary and bought her off with a promised cabinet position, if she was in the forefront all that garbage would have been thrown at her... but yeah at any rate this is all irrelevent supposition. The point I'm getting away from is that both Bush and Obama convinced the right people to back them, and in the end that's really what it comes down to. The very fact that Obama could do it, is a sign that racism is dead as a mainstream phenomena, just by becoming a cantidate, and then to win the election... well obviously nobody was saying "we can't have a racially inferior president" and not voting for him.

We're going to have to agree to disagree, and I probably won't write any more responses to this because if we seriously get into it, it won't go anywhere good. I've said my piece. The bottom line is that at least as far as race goes, it's not so much an opinion, as it is a pure sociological fact. As a society, the USA, and the first world in general, are not in any way, shape, or form racist. There might be a few racists on the fringes, but due to societal hatred they pretty much stay hidden because the merest hint of serious racism is enough to ruin careers, get someone beaten up, or face all kinds of social censure.
 

PattyG

New member
May 15, 2011
21
0
0
Therumancer said:
PattyG said:
[
Ask 10 black people whether they've been the victim of racism before. Essentially what's happening here is you (I'm assuming you are white) are attempting to speak for them saying their experience is totally null and void. Yes, black leaders are pushing for more personal accountability on the part of the black community, as well they should. They'll say don't blame others for your problems because that's a self-empowering message. But I don't think you'll hear any of them say racism is relegated to history.

Anyway, I don't want to pick apart your entire piece. Let me just mention one point: having Obama elected President doesn't mean the races are now treated equally. Obama graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law, George Bush was an alcoholic who ran his dad's businesses into the ground. When a black guy who is referred to as an "obnoxious drunk" by his father's associates can get elected President, then racism will be over.

You won't pick my statements apart, because it can't be done. You might be able to convince yourself you did it, but this is one of those cases where I'm simply right.

The thing is that you can't ask ten black people if they have been victims of racism fairly, because of the simple fact that the accusation of racism is a powerful tool. It also enables someone to blame some kind of nebulous racial oppression for their problems, rather than having to face them, and perhaps admit that they are their own problem. The use of the "race card" is one of the biggest problems we're dealing with on society today, and really the only way to deal with it is to stop letting it have an effect.

See, the thing is that the very fact that you really have to search long and hard to find someone who seriously believes in the racial inferiority of a group of people (or the inherant superiority of his own people) within nations like the US is why it's dead. You have to search because the people who would admit to such things face social censure for their beliefs, because the rest of society clearly does not agree with them. That means that racism is dead. If racism was alive, you would have the majority of messages on TV and in the media being about oppressing "lesser" peoples as opposed to oppressors being universally defined as the bad guys, and nobody would be concerned about being racist, because there wouldn't be any repercussions for it.

The thing is that I'm not saying that "their experience is totally null and void" but simply that "they" never had those experiences to begin with. In most cases racism is being used as a scapegoat for personal failure, and not wanting to do hard work. You lose in the rat race, then it was racism, your life isn't where you wish it was (and news flash, very few people are where they aspire to be), then it's time to blame whitey, etc... Some of them might even believe it, but that hardly makes it the case, and all you have to do is take a look at what's going on and how racism is treated and it's pretty obvious. Simply using the "N" word can get people in tons of trouble socially if not legally because of what society in general actually believes and supports.

Of course a lot of this comes down to politics and voting blocks as well, there are people who have a vested interest in convincing others that racism is alive and everywhere. People who will tell minorities (and not just blacks) that they are being oppressed, because it brings the people together, what's more people generally want to be told that their problems are not their own fault, that there is someone to blame... as racism was a problem, trying to pretend that it's still a force in society is a logical tool. The people flock to the leaders who tell them what they want to hear, and those leaders become powerful due to the support, and can leverage that following into political favor by pretty much acting as a mercenary voting block, whomever favors the leaders are the ones he tells the people who listen to him to support, and then they get better numbers in the polls.

Understand, I never said that there aren't people who don't believe racism is an issue, simply that it really isn't one.

It's just like the point Bill Cosby sort of makes, just because people don't want to do the hard work and acknowlege that equality means fitting into the same dis-sastified rut as everyone else, doesn't mean they are being oppressed. The oppertunities are there, the books, computers, money for education, however embracing those things just means you get the same shot as everyone else, it doesn't mean your guaranteed any kind of success any more than anyone else. Equality means that you go to school, you study hard, and then chances are you wind up doing a crappy job to make ends meet, that's life for everyone irregardless of race. However for a few people, again irregardless of race, they are going to do really well and break into that upper 1% of society. The problem is that we're dealing with an inherant sense of entitlement, with equality being viewed as "equal to the top 1% of society", which is hardly the case.

At any rate we're doubtlessly going to have to agree to disagree, but honestly you probably should have learned a lot about this kind of thing in sociology.

As far as the presidency goes, dress it up as much as you want, the bottom line is that if there was mainstream racism Obama could not have won, he would have been considered inferior on merits of race, and probably wouldn't have even been allowed to run for office, never mind garner the support (which goes accross racial lines) in order to win.

Also understand something, when your looking at presidential cantidates, it's not so much about the man himself, as about his organization. Presidents are just a face put on a coalition of interests, the guy who has been able to convince all the right people that he's best able to do the job they want done. There are tons of people all competing for the honor of bring the dude who gets run, and in the true nature of American competition the best guy comes out on top. "Best" can mean anything from intelligent, to charismatic, to just plain ruthless, or some combination of all of those.

Just to get the support to make it into a primary, with all the diverse interests that requires to say "your the guy we want" means that racism has to be dead, before it even goes to the people themselves. If some really pragmatic guys thought Obama was inferior, or that people would view him that way, they never would have considered him for their face, given that there were tons of people they could have used beforehand.

Yes, this is a very cynical way of looking at politics, but it's also accurate. In general politics reflect on the needs of society becase the guys paying the money for these campaigns and wanting their interests represented, want the surest bets they can run.

Honestly I think your a little too offensive about Dubbya because you don't like him. Me, I voted for him twice, but have mixed opinions. In the end, the bottom line was tha his backround convinced an entire organization of interests that he was the guy they wanted. Was he the smartest, the most charismatic, ruthless, or whatever? We don't know exactly what the respective thinking of the people was, but the guy won *TWO* elections despite his dirty laundary being out there, oh granted they WERE very close elections, but he still won them. Truthfully though I kind of suspect he won the first one due to Al Gore's own people (pretty much the "Clintonista" faction) pole-axing him despite the recounts. Do some reading on Gore and dirt digging and you'll notice that towards the end of the campaign there was a big deal being made about how he was receiving campaign financing from China that was being fronted through Buddhist temples. Given all of the problems with Clinton and the speculation that he didn't LOSE a bunch of military tech to the Chinese through incomperance but sold it to them, that could very well have been a big deal, a President caught being run by foreign interests that were rapidly rising to be enemies of the country? If you think the Obama-Citizenship issue is, big, that would have been bigger. I also think that's why The Democratic party pretty much lowered the boom on Hillary and bought her off with a promised cabinet position, if she was in the forefront all that garbage would have been thrown at her... but yeah at any rate this is all irrelevent supposition. The point I'm getting away from is that both Bush and Obama convinced the right people to back them, and in the end that's really what it comes down to. The very fact that Obama could do it, is a sign that racism is dead as a mainstream phenomena, just by becoming a cantidate, and then to win the election... well obviously nobody was saying "we can't have a racially inferior president" and not voting for him.

We're going to have to agree to disagree, and I probably won't write any more responses to this because if we seriously get into it, it won't go anywhere good. I've said my piece. The bottom line is that at least as far as race goes, it's not so much an opinion, as it is a pure sociological fact. As a society, the USA, and the first world in general, are not in any way, shape, or form racist. There might be a few racists on the fringes, but due to societal hatred they pretty much stay hidden because the merest hint of serious racism is enough to ruin careers, get someone beaten up, or face all kinds of social censure.
Respond or don't, I don't particularly care. But this is a public forum and I feel it's necessary for all potential readers to show your arguments are weightless.

Look, if you aren't going to trust people about their own experiences then all you're left with is what you want to believe. Black people say they've been the victim of discrimination? Well you don't want that to be true so you'll never bother to investigate and assume they're all liars. Hell, you could throw that into a million other arenas. Don't think OJ killed Nicole? Well then I'll just ignore the testimony and evidence. Don't want to think the Eiffel Tower is in Paris? Well I've never been there so I don't believe it. What a comforting world view you've constructed for yourself. You never have to try to see the world through the eyes of anyone but yourself. But as warm and snuggly as you may find your blanket of a philosophy it's the same branch of thinking that goes directly to holocaust deniers -- they don't want to think it's true so all the survivors are liars. And world-wide food shortages? That's too depressing so those starving kids must all be liars.

As far as your "sociological fact" goes, I studied sociology in college and my mother is a professor of sociology so unless you have similar credentials on the subject, I'm not going to be condescended to by you and your make-believe nonsense that you characterize as fact. Didn't want to get to that level of discourse but you did say, "You won't pick my statements apart, because it can't be done. You might be able to convince yourself you did it, but this is one of those cases where I'm simply right."

Finally, your definition of what constitutes racism is way off the mark anyway. As anyone with any sociological education could say, racism in the world today isn't defined so much by the ability of one ethnicity to own another as it is by the million different subtle ways in which whites are advantaged without anyone having to come out and ever say they like one race over another. To use one particular example, why are NFL quarterbacks overwhelmingly white when everyone else in the sport is more often black? Nobody every comes out and says "Black people don't have the brains and leadership skills." It's just a subtle thing that happens when coaches are choosing which one of their many athletes is going to choose and initiate the plays, and who's going to follow those choices. It's not a directly conscious decision, which seems to be the only racism you acknowledge. And it's the unspoken racism that is so easy to ignore, which is why it has stuck around for as long as it has. Fact is white people like to think that the advantages they enjoy are purely the product of their own efforts and endeavors, and never want to acknowledge that they might have benefited from their race or other things not in their control. Conversely, that makes people think those who are in bad situations are there because of their personal failures, having nothing to do with factors outside their control. You're saying black leaders will use the idea of racism as a rallying point for all the losers looking to blame external circumstances. That may be partially true, but the flip side to that is white leaders saying there is no racism, so you don't have to credit any external circumstances for your victories. And you seem to have missed my point entirely with Dubya. It wasn't whether he as a legitimate president or not. It was whether a black guy with the same personal failings as W could have won the presidency. I'm not an Obama fan, but nobody ever asked to see any other president or candidate's long-form birth certificate. John McCain was born overseas, but nobody seemed to care.

I quoted Louis CK in an earlier post, but I think it applies here: "If it was a choice, I would re-up with 'White' every year. I'll take white again, thank you." Yes he's a comedian his point it totally valid.
 

Therumancer

Citation Needed
Nov 28, 2007
9,909
0
0
PattyG said:
[
Look, if you aren't going to trust people about their own experiences then all you're left with is what you want to believe. Black people say they've been the victim of discrimination? Well you don't want that to be true so you'll never bother to investigate and assume they're all liars. Hell, you could throw that into a million other arenas. Don't think OJ killed Nicole? Well then I'll just ignore the testimony and evidence. Don't want to think the Eiffel Tower is in Paris? Well I've never been there so I don't believe it. What a comforting world view you've constructed for yourself. You never have to try to see the world through the eyes of anyone but yourself. But as warm and snuggly as you may find your blanket of a philosophy it's the same branch of thinking that goes directly to holocaust deniers -- they don't want to think it's true so all the survivors are liars. And world-wide food shortages? That's too depressing so those starving kids must all be liars.

As far as your "sociological fact" goes, I studied sociology in college and my mother is a professor of sociology so unless you have similar credentials on the subject, I'm not going to be condescended to by you and your make-believe nonsense that you characterize as fact. Didn't want to get to that level of discourse but you did say, "You won't pick my statements apart, because it can't be done. You might be able to convince yourself you did it, but this is one of those cases where I'm simply right."

Finally, your definition of what constitutes racism is way off the mark anyway. As anyone with any sociological education could say, racism in the world today isn't defined so much by the ability of one ethnicity to own another as it is by the million different subtle ways in which whites are advantaged without anyone having to come out and ever say they like one race over another. To use one particular example, why are NFL quarterbacks overwhelmingly white when everyone else in the sport is more often black? Nobody every comes out and says "Black people don't have the brains and leadership skills." It's just a subtle thing that happens when coaches are choosing which one of their many athletes is going to choose and initiate the plays, and who's going to follow those choices. It's not a directly conscious decision, which seems to be the only racism you acknowledge. And it's the unspoken racism that is so easy to ignore, which is why it has stuck around for as long as it has. Fact is white people like to think that the advantages they enjoy are purely the product of their own efforts and endeavors, and never want to acknowledge that they might have benefited from their race or other things not in their control. Conversely, that makes people think those who are in bad situations are there because of their personal failures, having nothing to do with factors outside their control. You're saying black leaders will use the idea of racism as a rallying point for all the losers looking to blame external circumstances. That may be partially true, but the flip side to that is white leaders saying there is no racism, so you don't have to credit any external circumstances for your victories. And you seem to have missed my point entirely with Dubya. It wasn't whether he as a legitimate president or not. It was whether a black guy with the same personal failings as W could have won the presidency. I'm not an Obama fan, but nobody ever asked to see any other president or candidate's long-form birth certificate. John McCain was born overseas, but nobody seemed to care.

.

Okay after this I'm done.

Racism is only one thing, the belief that someone is inherantly inferior to you based on their genetic makeup. That's it. Period. No other definitions apply.

People have tried to extend the definition to include other things because of the power of the term and by using "racism" it adds more weight to an arguement or situation that might not otherwise carry it. It's sort of like how the UN has tried to re-define Genocide as something other than wiping out a Genotype. That's incorrect, it's just the "ultimate evil" carries so much weight that people want to use it for other things, such as going after people for having a differant culture or stomp out a set of ideals. It gets paticularly lulzworthy when examined since by the UN definition we attempted Genocide of the Nazis based on ideaology, but hey... in the end when nobody takes the term seriously anymore due to dilution it will be nobody's fault but their own.

All I can say is that your probably misunderstanding what your mother is telling you about sociology if your even telling you the truth. Either that or she's one of those involved in political reinventionism within the academic community. It's a big deal with certain things like sociology and history, political correctness taking precedence over education, and the way people learn science and history being based around what is politically correct as opposd to what is actually right.

What your talking about is referred to by many as the "Invisible Knapsack" theory, which is basically a piece of debunkd garbage in most cases, used to justify racist outcry for political purposes. The idea of the invisible knapsack is that all members of a majority within a divided nation are inhernatly racist, simply by being, and can't avoid it. It's because they carry around an "invisible knapsack" of benefits they don't see. Such as being able to walk into a buisness and asking to see the person in charge or the owner and having the odds vastly in favor of that person being a member of your race. The idea being that to a minority that very fact is oppressive and thus racist. This is a simplistic version of it, but it's the theory a lot of what your saying comes from. The reason why it's debunked is because by it's very nature it's pointless drek that basically says that there is absolutly no way to get differant people to live together, because a group with a majority prescence is always going to be oppressive just by being. It kind of destroys it's own goal of addressing racism by ultimatly saying that the only way to be fair is to have a mono-ethnic culture. I'm bring brief as to how it gets to that point, but let's just say I've spent a lot of time on it. If you learn things properly it's pretty much one of those things you learn so you can understand it due to the people who believe it, but ultimatly is dismissed academically. Of course that doesn't mean that there are probably people who subscribe to it who are sociologists and try and teach it as being viable. That's one of the problems with our educational system... a lack of standardization, and too many politics being involved.

Simply put the basic arguement comes down to the fact that you can't not be racist, so are thus wrong, and by definition minorities become oppressed and right in their claims.

The reason why racism is dead, has been explained. The very fact that we are having this arguement, and that it's an issue where both of us on opposing sides think it's wrong, and indeed just about anyone observing this arguement from in the US would agree that it's wrong, and so on means that it's not an issue. For racism to exist for the purposes of this arguement it would have to be openly practiced, and publically supported. Thus you are wrong, because it is not.

People being people will do anything they can to get ahead. Right now because racism is dead but remains a hot button issue because of how it WAS a big deal, someone can get a lot of attention by making accusations of racism. This works beause everyone is going to be against the alleged racist(s). People when hearing a racism complaint will not say "so what, he's right". The very attention the accusation gets means that it becomes a viable tool both socially and politically for people to get what they want. Plenty of blacks claim to be discriminated against, heck, I'll extend it to minorities in general, but that's because it is advantageous for them to do so, not because it actually happens. What's more the "invisible enemy" provides an excuse for personal failure, or simply not to try within society. After all if this nebulous conspiricy of people is going to sabotage you, that makes a good excuse not to do anything and act like it's someone else's fault. No reason to go to school if you can say "well I won't get a job anyway because I'm black" or whatever. In general it's an issue because if you go to someone making a race complaint, and say "okay who is racially oppressing you" chances are they won't be able to point to anyone involved, instead saying "well, it's everyone" or pointing a finger at an organization without being able to say "he did this". That's because in cases where someone is fingered, there is no racism involved at all. Some guy whose fired can make an excuse it was because of racial discrimination, but chances are if you go see his boss nowadays he's going to be able to show exactly why he was justified in firing the guy. The reason why is because even if it WAS one of those racist fringers, he has to remain in hiding, he can't act overtly, because if he did he himself would lose his job and face social censure.


Now don't get me wrong, obviously people can put on a massive song and dance routine on this issue. If they couldn't we wouldn't be having this discussion, and nobody would be playing the race card to begin with. All it is though is a giant song and dance routine.

Of course if it makes you feel any better, within 10 years or so white guys won't be the majority in the US anymore. It appears we're going to be outnumbered by the various spanish peoples, Latinos, Hispanics, etc. I imagine there will be changes, and I'm kind of interested to see what will happen when "the man" isn't quintessentially a white guy anymore. Incidently, in a truely racist society we wouldn't let this happen, seeing it coming we'd institute a cull because we wouldn't view the "lesser races" as full humans, and be far more concerned about it than we are right now. The fact that you don't see the goverment building concentration camps or anything is pretty much a good sign that your wrong.

As far as people saying black guys don't have the brains or leadership skills for jobs, I'll address that seperatly. Nobody says they don't have the brains. Leadership skills is generally true, but that's because you don't see many people in black America developing them through schools and such. Nobody is discriminating, as much as calling it like they see it. It would be an issue if people were holding blacks back from going to school, becoming educated, and developing those schools, but that's not the case... black America does that to itself (and the same can be said of a lot of other minorities). The oppertunities are there, people are lining up to equip those schools even in the worst ghettos in the country, it's all about these guys choosing to put their butts down in the classrom seats and learn. Failure to do that is a cultural issue, NOT a matter of racism. It's not racist to hire people based on qualifications... it's not the fault of an employer if the prospective employee is not qualitifed for the job due to never having taken the oppertunities.

We will have to agree to disagree, this is going to just get circular if we continue. Neither of us are likely to be convinced of other's position.
 

birdplaneman

New member
Nov 23, 2010
11
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0
There's only so much verisimilitude that can be applied in a film.

I was really pissed off that they cast Russell Crowe in Gladiator, for example. I would have liked to see that role played by an Ancient Roman actor.

On a more serious note, one of the BIG race problems I've seen (at least in the US) is that white people who aren't racist think that, if they have conversations about race (conversations which definitely need to happen if we're going to make any progress), then they will be viewed as a racist.

This is a major contributor to the lack of discussion about race.

Oh, whoops, I'm a white guy who mentioned race. Guess I'm racist.