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  • smeagolheartsmeagolheart Member Posts: 7,963
    Balrog99 wrote: »
    @SorcererV1ct0r
    I knew you were referring to Bill Clinton. Some folks must be too busy removing the motes from their opponents' eyes...

    Everyone knew he was referring to Bill Clinton but you've got to point out the ridiculousness that is the blind spot conservatives have to their people's crimes. It's the same story over and over: leftists are violent - yet the right wing murders people 9-1 over the left. The left commits voter fraud - yet it's the right stealing the left's votes through right wing voter fraud (every case) and gerrymandering (again 80% of gerrymandering benefits right wing.

    So when Epstein died all the right wing, including and egged on by President Trump(!) jumped to 'it was Bill Clinton!'. Utterly ridiculous.

    Why was it Bill Clinton? Oh right because lies.

    There's far more concrete evidence of Trump being a child rapist. Not to mention, Trump's AG Barr controlled the prison where Epstein died. And before he died there were reports of Barr meeting with Epstein.

    But for some reason, these people who follow right wing media are wildly misled. It must be the Fox News effect where people who watch Fox (conservative media( are more misinformed than people who watch no news at all.
    BelleSorciereThacoBell
  • deltagodeltago Member Posts: 7,811
    BillyYank wrote: »
    Balrog99 wrote: »
    BillyYank wrote: »
    So, yesterday, this happened in Michigan:

    Candidate: Michigan City Should Be as White ‘as Possible’
    “Husband and wife need to be the same race. Same thing with kids,” she said. “That’s how it’s been from the beginning of, how can I say, when God created the heaven and the earth. He created Adam and Eve at the same time. But as far as me being against blacks, no I’m not.”

    One thing I have never regretted in my life is moving away from Michigan.

    Boo! Marysville is an Evangelical stronghold city like Grand Rapids. That's like saying Oklahoma sucks because of Tulsa or Colorado sucks because of Colorado Springs or Florida sucks because of Pensacola. What state are you in that's so much better?

    Sorry, Balrog, but her view is pretty pervasive. The thing is, in a town that's almost all white, it never really comes up, so you don't know what people are thinking. You don't find out until you move back to town with a mixed-race family, then the truth comes out. I'm sure it's better now than it was in the '90s, but after the experience we had, I'm only coming back for visits.

    My prediction is this lady isn't going to win, but she'll still get a significant percentage of votes. People are flipping out in public now, but in the secrecy of the voting booth, they don't have to hide anything.

    Edit: Didn't see your question until I reread it. Believe it or not, I'm in Virginia, Northern Virginia, but Virginia none the less. I was surprised when I first moved here, I had heard that this area was welcoming, but still, it was the SOUTH! My wife had lived in this area before we met, so she assured me it would be better. I remember when we first got here, thinking that there were more black people living in the area, but when I checked, it was actually significantly less. (9% vs. 13% or something like that) But there's more mixing here. Suburban neighborhoods around here are visibly more diverse. You see far more minorities here in white collar jobs and management positions. It's just a whole different "vibe" here. Also, the diversity is more diverse. You don't just see black/white/occasionally asian like we did back there.

    I actually think she might win. 3 spots for 5 candidates in a municipal election? People will turn out just to vote for her because she is “refreshing” and anti political-correctness.
  • BillyYankBillyYank Member Posts: 2,768
    deltago wrote: »
    BillyYank wrote: »
    Balrog99 wrote: »
    BillyYank wrote: »
    So, yesterday, this happened in Michigan:

    Candidate: Michigan City Should Be as White ‘as Possible’
    “Husband and wife need to be the same race. Same thing with kids,” she said. “That’s how it’s been from the beginning of, how can I say, when God created the heaven and the earth. He created Adam and Eve at the same time. But as far as me being against blacks, no I’m not.”

    One thing I have never regretted in my life is moving away from Michigan.

    Boo! Marysville is an Evangelical stronghold city like Grand Rapids. That's like saying Oklahoma sucks because of Tulsa or Colorado sucks because of Colorado Springs or Florida sucks because of Pensacola. What state are you in that's so much better?

    Sorry, Balrog, but her view is pretty pervasive. The thing is, in a town that's almost all white, it never really comes up, so you don't know what people are thinking. You don't find out until you move back to town with a mixed-race family, then the truth comes out. I'm sure it's better now than it was in the '90s, but after the experience we had, I'm only coming back for visits.

    My prediction is this lady isn't going to win, but she'll still get a significant percentage of votes. People are flipping out in public now, but in the secrecy of the voting booth, they don't have to hide anything.

    Edit: Didn't see your question until I reread it. Believe it or not, I'm in Virginia, Northern Virginia, but Virginia none the less. I was surprised when I first moved here, I had heard that this area was welcoming, but still, it was the SOUTH! My wife had lived in this area before we met, so she assured me it would be better. I remember when we first got here, thinking that there were more black people living in the area, but when I checked, it was actually significantly less. (9% vs. 13% or something like that) But there's more mixing here. Suburban neighborhoods around here are visibly more diverse. You see far more minorities here in white collar jobs and management positions. It's just a whole different "vibe" here. Also, the diversity is more diverse. You don't just see black/white/occasionally asian like we did back there.

    I actually think she might win. 3 spots for 5 candidates in a municipal election? People will turn out just to vote for her because she is “refreshing” and anti political-correctness.

    Also because there are a lot racist people in Michigan who don't like interracial couples.

    Fun fact: Michigan was the only northern state that still had an anti-miscegenation law on the books in 1967 when the Supreme court struck them down. Though I've read that it hadn't been enforced for a long time.
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    edited August 2019
    BillyYank wrote: »
    deltago wrote: »
    BillyYank wrote: »
    Balrog99 wrote: »
    BillyYank wrote: »
    So, yesterday, this happened in Michigan:

    Candidate: Michigan City Should Be as White ‘as Possible’
    “Husband and wife need to be the same race. Same thing with kids,” she said. “That’s how it’s been from the beginning of, how can I say, when God created the heaven and the earth. He created Adam and Eve at the same time. But as far as me being against blacks, no I’m not.”

    One thing I have never regretted in my life is moving away from Michigan.

    Boo! Marysville is an Evangelical stronghold city like Grand Rapids. That's like saying Oklahoma sucks because of Tulsa or Colorado sucks because of Colorado Springs or Florida sucks because of Pensacola. What state are you in that's so much better?

    Sorry, Balrog, but her view is pretty pervasive. The thing is, in a town that's almost all white, it never really comes up, so you don't know what people are thinking. You don't find out until you move back to town with a mixed-race family, then the truth comes out. I'm sure it's better now than it was in the '90s, but after the experience we had, I'm only coming back for visits.

    My prediction is this lady isn't going to win, but she'll still get a significant percentage of votes. People are flipping out in public now, but in the secrecy of the voting booth, they don't have to hide anything.

    Edit: Didn't see your question until I reread it. Believe it or not, I'm in Virginia, Northern Virginia, but Virginia none the less. I was surprised when I first moved here, I had heard that this area was welcoming, but still, it was the SOUTH! My wife had lived in this area before we met, so she assured me it would be better. I remember when we first got here, thinking that there were more black people living in the area, but when I checked, it was actually significantly less. (9% vs. 13% or something like that) But there's more mixing here. Suburban neighborhoods around here are visibly more diverse. You see far more minorities here in white collar jobs and management positions. It's just a whole different "vibe" here. Also, the diversity is more diverse. You don't just see black/white/occasionally asian like we did back there.

    I actually think she might win. 3 spots for 5 candidates in a municipal election? People will turn out just to vote for her because she is “refreshing” and anti political-correctness.

    Also because there are a lot racist people in Michigan who don't like interracial couples.

    Fun fact: Michigan was the only northern state that still had an anti-miscegenation law on the books in 1967 when the Supreme court struck them down. Though I've read that it hadn't been enforced for a long time.

    It isn't even really about certain states, it's about rural areas and cities. As I've said many times before, rural Minnesota might as well be Alabama. You'll still see shitheads running around with Confederate flags on their pick-up trucks even in what were UNION states (which is why the whole "culture" thing has always been nonsense to me). It's almost as if people who live among non-white Americans in large population centers don't have any problem with them because they actually know them, talk to them, work with them, date them, marry them, have kids with them. You will only start seeing areas on the map turn red (and please god don't post the red/blue land mass map) when you start getting to the suburbs and then more outlying areas, where a higher generational income level has allowed some to segregate themselves into their own version of Leave it to Beaver. Go further out than that, and you will get people who generally haven't and have no interest in leaving the 50-100 mile radius they were born in. And people wonder why these areas are dying. Could it possibly be because kids increasingly have no interest in staying in a dead-end town, and they strike off to where there are actually large amounts of people in a concentrated place where there are tons of job options, people to meet, and things to do?? If you don't want to inherit dad's farm that is increasingly being threatened by corporate agriculture, there are no factories left, why the hell would most people stay??

    At least for the first 5 years after high school in my rural Minnesota home town, almost everyone who wasn't a generational farmer IMMEDIATELY moved to either the Twin Cities or Fargo. Some people did eventually go back, but this was mostly because they had gotten a degree in education and started teaching at the local school, and while I have no doubt to their qualifications for these jobs, there is ZERO chance that their upbringing in the same community didn't help in landing these positions. In other words, unless you were explicitly cashing in on connections and who you knew for decades, you were moving on to other pastures. And thank god a majority (though certainly not all) of the community was at least willing to invest in the school twice over the last twenty or so years with significant property tax hikes to keep it afloat and eventually build a new one, because if it wasn't there, the town would be as dead as a door-nail. And still you had certain prominent community members who fought it tooth and nail because (surprise!!!) THEIR kids were already done with school.
  • Balrog99Balrog99 Member Posts: 7,367
    BillyYank wrote: »
    deltago wrote: »
    BillyYank wrote: »
    Balrog99 wrote: »
    BillyYank wrote: »
    So, yesterday, this happened in Michigan:

    Candidate: Michigan City Should Be as White ‘as Possible’
    “Husband and wife need to be the same race. Same thing with kids,” she said. “That’s how it’s been from the beginning of, how can I say, when God created the heaven and the earth. He created Adam and Eve at the same time. But as far as me being against blacks, no I’m not.”

    One thing I have never regretted in my life is moving away from Michigan.

    Boo! Marysville is an Evangelical stronghold city like Grand Rapids. That's like saying Oklahoma sucks because of Tulsa or Colorado sucks because of Colorado Springs or Florida sucks because of Pensacola. What state are you in that's so much better?

    Sorry, Balrog, but her view is pretty pervasive. The thing is, in a town that's almost all white, it never really comes up, so you don't know what people are thinking. You don't find out until you move back to town with a mixed-race family, then the truth comes out. I'm sure it's better now than it was in the '90s, but after the experience we had, I'm only coming back for visits.

    My prediction is this lady isn't going to win, but she'll still get a significant percentage of votes. People are flipping out in public now, but in the secrecy of the voting booth, they don't have to hide anything.

    Edit: Didn't see your question until I reread it. Believe it or not, I'm in Virginia, Northern Virginia, but Virginia none the less. I was surprised when I first moved here, I had heard that this area was welcoming, but still, it was the SOUTH! My wife had lived in this area before we met, so she assured me it would be better. I remember when we first got here, thinking that there were more black people living in the area, but when I checked, it was actually significantly less. (9% vs. 13% or something like that) But there's more mixing here. Suburban neighborhoods around here are visibly more diverse. You see far more minorities here in white collar jobs and management positions. It's just a whole different "vibe" here. Also, the diversity is more diverse. You don't just see black/white/occasionally asian like we did back there.

    I actually think she might win. 3 spots for 5 candidates in a municipal election? People will turn out just to vote for her because she is “refreshing” and anti political-correctness.

    Also because there are a lot racist people in Michigan who don't like interracial couples.

    Fun fact: Michigan was the only northern state that still had an anti-miscegenation law on the books in 1967 when the Supreme court struck them down. Though I've read that it hadn't been enforced for a long time.

    I'm pretty sure there are a lot of racist people in Virginia too. I'd also bet that the percentage of racists increases the further you get away from D.C.
    BillyYank
  • SorcererV1ct0rSorcererV1ct0r Member Posts: 2,176
    But why when people talk about racism, they automatically think on white against blacks?
    Here is an interesting video, not from an conservative.

    • 0:42 - China and anti african sentiment due scholarships gave by government + removing black characters from movies
    • 1:30 - Argentina
    • 2:11 - Japan
    • 2:52 - Australia
    • 3:45 - Netherlands
  • BillyYankBillyYank Member Posts: 2,768
    Balrog99 wrote: »
    BillyYank wrote: »
    deltago wrote: »
    BillyYank wrote: »
    Balrog99 wrote: »
    BillyYank wrote: »
    So, yesterday, this happened in Michigan:

    Candidate: Michigan City Should Be as White ‘as Possible’
    “Husband and wife need to be the same race. Same thing with kids,” she said. “That’s how it’s been from the beginning of, how can I say, when God created the heaven and the earth. He created Adam and Eve at the same time. But as far as me being against blacks, no I’m not.”

    One thing I have never regretted in my life is moving away from Michigan.

    Boo! Marysville is an Evangelical stronghold city like Grand Rapids. That's like saying Oklahoma sucks because of Tulsa or Colorado sucks because of Colorado Springs or Florida sucks because of Pensacola. What state are you in that's so much better?

    Sorry, Balrog, but her view is pretty pervasive. The thing is, in a town that's almost all white, it never really comes up, so you don't know what people are thinking. You don't find out until you move back to town with a mixed-race family, then the truth comes out. I'm sure it's better now than it was in the '90s, but after the experience we had, I'm only coming back for visits.

    My prediction is this lady isn't going to win, but she'll still get a significant percentage of votes. People are flipping out in public now, but in the secrecy of the voting booth, they don't have to hide anything.

    Edit: Didn't see your question until I reread it. Believe it or not, I'm in Virginia, Northern Virginia, but Virginia none the less. I was surprised when I first moved here, I had heard that this area was welcoming, but still, it was the SOUTH! My wife had lived in this area before we met, so she assured me it would be better. I remember when we first got here, thinking that there were more black people living in the area, but when I checked, it was actually significantly less. (9% vs. 13% or something like that) But there's more mixing here. Suburban neighborhoods around here are visibly more diverse. You see far more minorities here in white collar jobs and management positions. It's just a whole different "vibe" here. Also, the diversity is more diverse. You don't just see black/white/occasionally asian like we did back there.

    I actually think she might win. 3 spots for 5 candidates in a municipal election? People will turn out just to vote for her because she is “refreshing” and anti political-correctness.

    Also because there are a lot racist people in Michigan who don't like interracial couples.

    Fun fact: Michigan was the only northern state that still had an anti-miscegenation law on the books in 1967 when the Supreme court struck them down. Though I've read that it hadn't been enforced for a long time.

    I'm pretty sure there are a lot of racist people in Virginia too. I'd also bet that the percentage of racists increases the further you get away from D.C.

    I'm sure there are, but I didn't go to highschool with any of them. And none of them have said what weasel-lady said in front of a local news camera lately.
    Balrog99
  • smeagolheartsmeagolheart Member Posts: 7,963
    semiticgod wrote: »
    I would honestly be incredibly surprised if there was a single country on the planet that did not have significant racism issues.

    That being said, this is something each country should work hard to improve today.

    We're all human beings. We all want love and a long happy life for our families and friends. For me to get ahead doesn't mean you should suffer.
    semiticgoddessArvia
  • SorcererV1ct0rSorcererV1ct0r Member Posts: 2,176
    semiticgod wrote: »
    I would honestly be incredibly surprised if there was a single country on the planet that did not have significant racism issues.

    Antarctica before 1500? Just kidding, anyway, tribalism and racism is natural of an human being(This doesn't means that is right), even babies have racial bias > https://nypost.com/2017/04/13/your-baby-is-a-little-bit-racist-science-says/

    I believe that is due the fact that human being EVOLVED in tribal societies and is natural to fear an "stranger", this doesn't means that as an civilized species we should't aim to correct those flaws on human nature but imo we can only minimize, not completely erase any type of racial bias.
    Grond0Balrog99semiticgoddess
  • BelleSorciereBelleSorciere Member Posts: 2,108
    semiticgod wrote: »
    I would honestly be incredibly surprised if there was a single country on the planet that did not have significant racism issues.

    Depends, but it's really hard to beat the racism issues in the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia. I'm not going to make any claims about the rest of the EU at this time. In general, however, countries that engaged in or were a product of colonialism (or both) tend to have much more severe issues as in actual genocides in their history or involvement in the Triangle Trade and slavery. And many other parts of the world were subjected to colonialism and colonial governance to their detriment.

    re SorcererV1ct0r's post:

    To frame this as a natural part of the human psyche is not accurate, nor does it particularly help deal with the issue. In fact, it likely leads people to the rather hopeless conclusion that there's nothing to be done about it, and this is simply not true.

    Also, that study's methodology doesn't demonstrate racial bias, given that race isn't even real. What it does show (despite what articles claim) is that babies are more likely to focus on faces that resemble the faces they most frequently see. I wrote this before I actually looked at the full study and that's literally what the introduction says. That this is due to asymmetrical exposure to own race vs. other race faces. The second study attempts to measure whether such asymmetrical exposure leads to differences in learning as a child grows older. This is not an innate tendency to see people who have different skin colors as "other" and it is very likely that a child with more symmetrical exposure would be less likely to display such behaviors.

    These are the two studies, or at least their abstracts:

    https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/desc.12537
    https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cdev.12798

    Overall it'd be great to see more studies on this effect to see if it actually pans out over larger populations than those covered in these two studies (183 infants in the first and the second had 32 Chinese infants of over a year old for two different experiments). Right now we see a possible trend, and further research will establish if it has any significant impact as opposed to racist socialization (that is, their parents, other family members, relatives, media, etc. expose them to racist ideas).

    I don't think this study shows that a) infants are racist or b) that racism is inherent to humans. Given that "race" as it is understood in modern times is only a few centuries old, it'd be very strange for that to be the case.
    ThacoBellGrond0
  • Balrog99Balrog99 Member Posts: 7,367
    semiticgod wrote: »
    I would honestly be incredibly surprised if there was a single country on the planet that did not have significant racism issues.

    Depends, but it's really hard to beat the racism issues in the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia. I'm not going to make any claims about the rest of the EU at this time. In general, however, countries that engaged in or were a product of colonialism (or both) tend to have much more severe issues as in actual genocides in their history or involvement in the Triangle Trade and slavery. And many other parts of the world were subjected to colonialism and colonial governance to their detriment.

    re SorcererV1ct0r's post:

    To frame this as a natural part of the human psyche is not accurate, nor does it particularly help deal with the issue. In fact, it likely leads people to the rather hopeless conclusion that there's nothing to be done about it, and this is simply not true.

    Also, that study's methodology doesn't demonstrate racial bias, given that race isn't even real. What it does show (despite what articles claim) is that babies are more likely to focus on faces that resemble the faces they most frequently see. I wrote this before I actually looked at the full study and that's literally what the introduction says. That this is due to asymmetrical exposure to own race vs. other race faces. The second study attempts to measure whether such asymmetrical exposure leads to differences in learning as a child grows older. This is not an innate tendency to see people who have different skin colors as "other" and it is very likely that a child with more symmetrical exposure would be less likely to display such behaviors.

    These are the two studies, or at least their abstracts:

    https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/desc.12537
    https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cdev.12798

    Overall it'd be great to see more studies on this effect to see if it actually pans out over larger populations than those covered in these two studies (183 infants in the first and the second had 32 Chinese infants of over a year old for two different experiments). Right now we see a possible trend, and further research will establish if it has any significant impact as opposed to racist socialization (that is, their parents, other family members, relatives, media, etc. expose them to racist ideas).

    I don't think this study shows that a) infants are racist or b) that racism is inherent to humans. Given that "race" as it is understood in modern times is only a few centuries old, it'd be very strange for that to be the case.

    Racism isn't 'recognizing' that somebody is different. It's 'treating' people differently because they're different.
  • Balrog99Balrog99 Member Posts: 7,367
    Wow, Joe Walsh is going to take on Trump in the primaries. Rocky Mountain Way is one of my favorite songs!

    https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/08/25/politics/joe-walsh-take-on-trump-in-2020-republican-primary/index.html?r=https://www.cnn.com/
  • BelleSorciereBelleSorciere Member Posts: 2,108
    Balrog99 wrote: »

    Racism isn't 'recognizing' that somebody is different. It's 'treating' people differently because they're different.

    In this case, it's babies responding differently to people because they don't find them familiar, not discriminating against them because of their skin color. Babies aren't able to do that yet. They're simply going to respond more to people who look more familiar to them.

    The study simply doesn't show babies are racist, and the New York Post's article, like most science reporting, is pretty much useless for understanding either study.

    Anyway, these don't establish that it's the case all the time. As the replicability crisis shows, we can have a study demonstrate all kinds of things but then no one can replicate it. Or as with ego depletion, several studies can show it, and then all later studies fail to show any such thing. It's indicative of a possibility, not a clearly defined truth.
    ThacoBell
  • Balrog99Balrog99 Member Posts: 7,367
    Balrog99 wrote: »

    Racism isn't 'recognizing' that somebody is different. It's 'treating' people differently because they're different.

    In this case, it's babies responding differently to people because they don't find them familiar, not discriminating against them because of their skin color. Babies aren't able to do that yet. They're simply going to respond more to people who look more familiar to them.

    The study simply doesn't show babies are racist, and the New York Post's article, like most science reporting, is pretty much useless for understanding either study.

    Anyway, these don't establish that it's the case all the time. As the replicability crisis shows, we can have a study demonstrate all kinds of things but then no one can replicate it. Or as with ego depletion, several studies can show it, and then all later studies fail to show any such thing. It's indicative of a possibility, not a clearly defined truth.

    Lol, I know that babies aren't going to be racists! I'm just trying to explain that recognizing differences is not the same as treating people differently because of differences. There is no way you can get rid of 'discrimination' because that's merely recognizing that there's something different about another person. What we should really strive for is the 'discernment' that every single person is an individual and who cares if they're different?
  • BelleSorciereBelleSorciere Member Posts: 2,108
    Anyway, racism is prejudice + power, and skin color is a metric used to claim that some people are lesser than others. The United States was founded on white supremacy (the 3/5ths compromise, protections for slave owners, slave owners writing the Constitution) and when the post-Civil War Reconstruction began many white men donned sheets and started murdering black people to disrupt said reconstruction and insure another century of Jim Crow BS until the civil rights movement started making headway. There's also the laws against Chinese people immigrating that were on the books for a long time, after which anti-Chinese (and Asian in general) racism was "recuperated" into model minority myths positioning them as the "good kind" of people of color, but benevolent racism is still racism.

    The US' protection of white hegemony in fact frequently resulted in lethal and massive violence. For example, "Black Wall Street," the violent destruction of an affluent black community in Greenwood, a suburb of Tulsa, OK. Also, slavery was not 100% abolished in the 13th amendment, as it makes an exception for those convicted of crimes and sentenced to prison. Which makes statistics regarding the incarceration of black people stand out: In 2013, 37% of male prisoners were black, and 32% were white. This despite the fact that 12.3% of the US population is black and 60.7% is white. And before bringing up relative crime rates, black people are almost four times as likely as white people to be imprisoned for marijuana-related crimes.

    Also, there's the whole "school to prison pipeline," the disenfranchisement of people convicted of felonies, the difficulty getting work for people with a conviction on their record, the overall difficulty for many leaving prison to reintegrate with the rest of the population, and the fact that the prison system is about punishment and not reform. Never mind the privatization of prisons in the US to exploit that loophole left in the 13th amendment - which is to say the use of convicted prisoners for cheap or even free labor.

    Oh and who can forget redlining? The practice of denying loans to people who live in poorer areas, which most black people have and do. Or how black families have considerably less net worth than white families.

    Racism is an institutional problem. It's not specifically about individuals treating other individuals differently, but about a society that was specifically constructed to disadvantage people of color at every possible turn.

    Or how one of the reasons for white supremacy in the past decade (and I'll say here this definitely goes back to the Tea Party) was that we had a black president for eight years. It's no coincidence that the man leading the charge on Obama supposedly not being born in the US is now president himself.
    jjstraka34ThacoBell
  • deltagodeltago Member Posts: 7,811
    "Anyway, racism is prejudice + power"

    False.

    Racism doesn't have to involve power what so ever. Racism basically is making an assumption about a person based on the colour of their skin.

    Balrog99ThacoBellsemiticgoddess
  • Balrog99Balrog99 Member Posts: 7,367
    Anyway, racism is prejudice + power, and skin color is a metric used to claim that some people are lesser than others. The United States was founded on white supremacy (the 3/5ths compromise, protections for slave owners, slave owners writing the Constitution) and when the post-Civil War Reconstruction began many white men donned sheets and started murdering black people to disrupt said reconstruction and insure another century of Jim Crow BS until the civil rights movement started making headway. There's also the laws against Chinese people immigrating that were on the books for a long time, after which anti-Chinese (and Asian in general) racism was "recuperated" into model minority myths positioning them as the "good kind" of people of color, but benevolent racism is still racism.

    The US' protection of white hegemony in fact frequently resulted in lethal and massive violence. For example, "Black Wall Street," the violent destruction of an affluent black community in Greenwood, a suburb of Tulsa, OK. Also, slavery was not 100% abolished in the 13th amendment, as it makes an exception for those convicted of crimes and sentenced to prison. Which makes statistics regarding the incarceration of black people stand out: In 2013, 37% of male prisoners were black, and 32% were white. This despite the fact that 12.3% of the US population is black and 60.7% is white. And before bringing up relative crime rates, black people are almost four times as likely as white people to be imprisoned for marijuana-related crimes.

    Also, there's the whole "school to prison pipeline," the disenfranchisement of people convicted of felonies, the difficulty getting work for people with a conviction on their record, the overall difficulty for many leaving prison to reintegrate with the rest of the population, and the fact that the prison system is about punishment and not reform. Never mind the privatization of prisons in the US to exploit that loophole left in the 13th amendment - which is to say the use of convicted prisoners for cheap or even free labor.

    Oh and who can forget redlining? The practice of denying loans to people who live in poorer areas, which most black people have and do. Or how black families have considerably less net worth than white families.

    Racism is an institutional problem. It's not specifically about individuals treating other individuals differently, but about a society that was specifically constructed to disadvantage people of color at every possible turn.

    Or how one of the reasons for white supremacy in the past decade (and I'll say here this definitely goes back to the Tea Party) was that we had a black president for eight years. It's no coincidence that the man leading the charge on Obama supposedly not being born in the US is now president himself.

    What you're describing is the problem regarding assholes with power. Get rid of the assholes, the problem disappears. Color-blindnesss, race-blindness and religion-blindness should be the norm. Instead of putting a microscope on every case of discrimination, I personally think it's high time to put a microscope on the cases of people from other races and backgrounds having no bearing on their potential for success. I know for a fact that race has no bearing on intelligence, work ethic or will to succeed. I know this because I work with people with varied backgrounds. That's the message that needs to be preached. Positivity trumps negativity...
    semiticgoddess
  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,305
    I accept that a new definition of racism has been put forward in recent years that requires there to be a power imbalance between the parties, but I think that's pretty unhelpful. To define an action by one party as racist and the same action by another as not racist seems to me to only provide support to those who argue that there's no real racism at all these days.

    Perhaps it's too utopian, but it would be nice to get to a situation where people were judged as individuals rather than on the basis of any of their social characteristics (race, class, gender, sexuality or anything else).
    ThacoBellsemiticgoddess
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    It may not be the definition of plain old racism, it's absolutely the definition of institutional racism. Which was codified into US law for the VAST majority of it's existence as a country. You cannot fix a problem that existed for 300 years in 50, but that is very much what many Americans want to tell themselves as a nice bedtime story.
    BelleSorcieresemiticgoddessAmmar
  • BelleSorciereBelleSorciere Member Posts: 2,108
    edited August 2019
    Grond0 wrote: »
    I accept that a new definition of racism has been put forward in recent years that requires there to be a power imbalance between the parties, but I think that's pretty unhelpful. To define an action by one party as racist and the same action by another as not racist seems to me to only provide support to those who argue that there's no real racism at all these days.

    Perhaps it's too utopian, but it would be nice to get to a situation where people were judged as individuals rather than on the basis of any of their social characteristics (race, class, gender, sexuality or anything else).

    So, is there any particularly burning reason that prejudice against white people needs to be considered equal to the many ways violence, discrimination, imprisonment, genocide, enslavement, murder, disenfranchisement, and more have been done to people of color? Perhaps you could detail the centuries of horror visited upon white people in the name of black, Chinese, indigenous, etc. supremacy? You can show there's a history and institutions in place to promote that kind of bigotry and violence against white people? What exactly do you lose if we acknowledge prejudice against white people as substantially weaker and less meaningful than racism against people of color?

    Perhaps you can point me to the US communities in which black people ban white people in the same way sundown towns made it clear any person remaining within the town's boundaries would likely be violently murdered? Perhaps you can point to how white people have been considered suspicious and potential terrorists for wanting to come into the US? Or how Trump proposed a white travel ban? Surely, if you think that there really is racism against white people that's equally bad to the racism against people of color, then you must have examples showing that white people are institutionally disadvantaged for being white.

    Perhaps any people of color en masse doing the equivalent of white people marching in Charlottesville, carrying tiki torches, and chanting Nazi slogans?

    Ammar
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    @BelleSorciere "So, is there any particularly burning reason that prejudice against white people needs to be considered equal to the many ways violence, discrimination, imprisonment, genocide, enslavement, murder, disenfranchisement, and more have been done to people of color?"

    That's easy. Racism of any kind is bad and should be treated with zero tolerance, regardless of the target. To suggest anything else is to encourage racism against "more acceptable" targets.
    Balrog99semiticgoddess
  • BelleSorciereBelleSorciere Member Posts: 2,108
    edited August 2019
    ThacoBell wrote: »
    @BelleSorciere "So, is there any particularly burning reason that prejudice against white people needs to be considered equal to the many ways violence, discrimination, imprisonment, genocide, enslavement, murder, disenfranchisement, and more have been done to people of color?"

    That's easy. Racism of any kind is bad and should be treated with zero tolerance, regardless of the target. To suggest anything else is to encourage racism against "more acceptable" targets.

    So a black person who doesn't trust white people is just as bad as an employer who tosses resumes if the name on the resume looks "too black" them? Even though said black person may have had numerous, probably hundreds or even thousands of experiences of racism against him and people like him over his lifetime and may simply be tired of dealing with racist white people? And the employer's negativity toward black people is likely constructed entirely from stereotypes and negative bias?

    What I described isn't a new definition of racism. That was always the definition of racism but many white people decided that "reverse racism" was a thing that happened to them if a person of color got a promotion they wanted or got hired over them or whatever. What racism is has been a topic of black scholarship for over a century. Try reading someone like W.E.B. DuBois, or look up Sojourner Truth,

    And there's only one kind of racism and it's never done to white people. It's just plain old prejudice in that case. And often, when you think a person of color is being racist to white people it's because they're sick of the racism they get from white people. Why do you need a word coined to describe the mistreatment of people of color in countries predominantly populated or colonized by Europeans to describe the times a latino might have been rude to you? It's nonsense.

    Further, we have "scientific" racism - pseudoscience about skull shapes (phrenology) being one glaring example, but "The Bell Curve" is also an example of this. Or the modern "human biodiversity (HBD)" movement.

    There is no point at which any kind of bias against white people can be remotely considered to be "equally bad, regardless of target." Unless of course Aamer in the video in my previous post can get that time machine.
    Ammar
  • deltagodeltago Member Posts: 7,811
    edited August 2019
    Grond0 wrote: »
    I accept that a new definition of racism has been put forward in recent years that requires there to be a power imbalance between the parties, but I think that's pretty unhelpful. To define an action by one party as racist and the same action by another as not racist seems to me to only provide support to those who argue that there's no real racism at all these days.

    Perhaps it's too utopian, but it would be nice to get to a situation where people were judged as individuals rather than on the basis of any of their social characteristics (race, class, gender, sexuality or anything else).

    So, is there any particularly burning reason that prejudice against white people needs to be considered equal... [/blockquote]

    Who said anything about being equal?

    If I was to slap someone in the face, that's still violence even if someone else punches another person in the face. One maybe more severe but both are still bad and I shouldn't get away with the slap just because it wasn't as bad as being punched.
    ThacoBellsemiticgoddess
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    @BelleSorciere "So a black person who doesn't trust white people is just as bad as an employer who tosses resumes if the name on the resume looks "too black" them? Even though said black person may have had numerous, probably hundreds or even thousands of experiences of racism against him and people like him over his lifetime and may simply be tired of dealing with racist white people? And the employer's negativity toward black people is likely constructed entirely from stereotypes and negative bias?"

    All racism must never be tolerated. Or do you think otherwise?
    Balrog99
  • Balrog99Balrog99 Member Posts: 7,367
    Discrimination against white people might not be relevant in a country with a white majority but it could be a major problem in a country with a white minority. This is precisely why there should be no differentiation between races when discrimination is investigated. It doesn't matter 'who' is discriminated against!
    ThacoBellsemiticgoddessSorcererV1ct0rGrond0
  • Balrog99Balrog99 Member Posts: 7,367
    I find it so ironic hearing CNN talk about John McCain like he's some kind of Saint now. They had nothing good to say about him when he was running against Obama.
  • Balrog99Balrog99 Member Posts: 7,367
    Apparently sexual abuse of children isn't only a 'Catholic' problem. Disgusting...

    https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/08/25/us/yeshiva-university-sexual-abuse-lawsuit/index.html?r=https://www.cnn.com/
  • Balrog99Balrog99 Member Posts: 7,367
    ThacoBell wrote: »
    @BelleSorciere "So, is there any particularly burning reason that prejudice against white people needs to be considered equal to the many ways violence, discrimination, imprisonment, genocide, enslavement, murder, disenfranchisement, and more have been done to people of color?"

    That's easy. Racism of any kind is bad and should be treated with zero tolerance, regardless of the target. To suggest anything else is to encourage racism against "more acceptable" targets.

    So a black person who doesn't trust white people is just as bad as an employer who tosses resumes if the name on the resume looks "too black" them? Even though said black person may have had numerous, probably hundreds or even thousands of experiences of racism against him and people like him over his lifetime and may simply be tired of dealing with racist white people? And the employer's negativity toward black people is likely constructed entirely from stereotypes and negative bias?

    What I described isn't a new definition of racism. That was always the definition of racism but many white people decided that "reverse racism" was a thing that happened to them if a person of color got a promotion they wanted or got hired over them or whatever. What racism is has been a topic of black scholarship for over a century. Try reading someone like W.E.B. DuBois, or look up Sojourner Truth,

    And there's only one kind of racism and it's never done to white people. It's just plain old prejudice in that case. And often, when you think a person of color is being racist to white people it's because they're sick of the racism they get from white people. Why do you need a word coined to describe the mistreatment of people of color in countries predominantly populated or colonized by Europeans to describe the times a latino might have been rude to you? It's nonsense.

    Further, we have "scientific" racism - pseudoscience about skull shapes (phrenology) being one glaring example, but "The Bell Curve" is also an example of this. Or the modern "human biodiversity (HBD)" movement.

    There is no point at which any kind of bias against white people can be remotely considered to be "equally bad, regardless of target." Unless of course Aamer in the video in my previous post can get that time machine.

    @BelleSorciere
    I'll give you one very good reason not to turn a blind-eye to reverse discrimination. The majority has the numbers by definition. It won't end well for minorities if it comes to a head. Sorry, but it's the truth. It's far better to fight discrimination in every form in my humble opinion.
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