How to combat racism

[nightflight]

How about stop using the charge of racism to score political points?

 

[ScottA]

What does this even mean? Why 100? What do my own personal heroes have to do with racism and prejudice?

It means if a person admires people of other races AND also hates them...they are not a racist, they are a hypocrite.

100 is just a safe number, in case, say your top 10 are of one race, and yet you do admire people of different races but for no particular racial reason, they are just further down the list.

 

[Armoured]

Yes, admiration and racism do not mix...because, if it does, it's not racism, it's hypocrisy.

Um... I don't think it works that way.

But for the sake of argument... let's say you're right and there's no racism, these police beatings and such are the result of hypocrisy, how does that materially change the problem?

 

[bhsmte]

It means if a person admires people of other races AND also hates them...they are not a racist, they are a hypocrite.

100 is just a safe number, in case, say your top 10 are of one race, and yet you do admire people of different races but for no particular racial reason, they are just further down the list.

Sure they can be racist. If certain people only admire blacks who are celebrities and are racist towards others, they are indeed, a racist.

 

[ScottA]

Sure they can be racist. If certain people only admire blacks who are celebrities and are racist towards others, they are indeed, a racist.

By definition that would not make them a racist, but a hypocrite.

What you have described is an admiration for "celebrities" (not race) and a dislike for another for NOT being a celebrity. That IS messed up, maybe even schizophrenic...but NOT racism.

 

[Armoured]

By definition that would not make them a racist, but a hypocrite.

What you have described is an admiration for "celebrities" (not race) and a dislike for another for NOT being a celebrity. That IS messed up, maybe even schizophrenic...but NOT racism.

Whether you call it racism or hypocrisy, how do we address the problem? Arguing over the exact word used to describe it doesn't actually help much.

 

[ScottA]

Whether you call it racism or hypocrisy, how do we address the problem? Arguing over the exact word used to describe it doesn't actually help much.

It IS important to call the problem what it is, and NOT call it what it is not. That is where we start.

Once a problem is correctly identified, only then, can it be addressed.

So...if we can all agree that the REAL problem is hypocrisy...then we have a character problem, a moral problem.

People of great moral fiber and good character DO NOT treat some people one way and other people another way. They just don't. Good people (and bad) come in all colors. That's not the problem.

How do you fix moral decline after a generation of free-fall?

That's HUGH.

I'm starting with me.

 

[bhsmte]

By definition that would not make them a racist, but a hypocrite.

What you have described is an admiration for "celebrities" (not race) and a dislike for another for NOT being a celebrity. That IS messed up, maybe even schizophrenic...but NOT racism.

They would be a hypocrite in the fact they are only racist towards some, but still racist.

Racist behavior can't be excused away by calling it hypocrisy.

 

[ScottA]

They would be a hypocrite in the fact they are only racist towards some, but still racist.

Racist behavior can't be excused away by calling it hypocrisy.

The problem cannot be fixed without first identifying it correctly.

Selective behavior toward people IS NOT racism. Racism stereotypes ALL.

Unfortunately, this generation has been brainwashed by guilt into thinking there is no cure...and THAT is the new put down, and the root of the problem

 

[KarateCowboy]

Unfortunately, this generation has been brainwashed by guilt into thinking there is no cure...and THAT is the new put down, and the root of the problem

Not only that, but they are wrongly told that if you are treated how you should be then that is a privilege, as if abuse were somehow the norm and what they deserve

 

[Armoured]

Unfortunately, this generation has been brainwashed by guilt into thinking there is no cure...and THAT is the new put down, and the root of the problem

So tell us the cure, then?

 

[SuperCloud]

If you want your child to do well in school, is it a good idea to constantly call him stupid? No.
Does that apply to adults too? Yes.
So, if you constantly call people racist, will that make them more or less racist?

I think people often misuse the term racism or racist where it does not apply.

The definition of racism is essentially subscribing to the belief in the superiority of one race over another. This applies to the sociological construct of race too. So, even if race is merely a social construct, a person can still be racist and racism can still be a real thing sociologically.

If your raised in a particular society you can often pick up cues that a person from that society is racist. So, one is not always wrong to think a person in their company is racist.

But not every negative critique of an ethnic (not necessarily racial) culturally derived trait is racism. People confuse this and think it is. A lot of black Africans that move to the United States hold ethnic Black-Americans in contempt. Yet they are black like Black-Americans. But they have disdain for some of the cultural characteristics often found among ethnic Black-Americans. Some of them don't have contempt for Black-Americans but rather pity. They view us in Black-America as a lost people, really with no "family values," and often preying on each other in our own ethnicity. Whatever happened to us they view as having been a moral and spiritual Holocaust, and nuclear bomb that hit the soul and heart of the people.

But sometimes outsiders can see certain things better than those immersed in something. Not always, proably not even usually, but at times it does happen. And so it is that supposedly, one of the best most monumental critiques of Americans as a nationality, came not from an American but a Frenchman traveling through the USA.

I think it makes the problem worse. Liberals are really trying to push the idea that lots of Americans are still racist. Sometimes they call it institutional racism.

I'm not sure how anyone becomes unaffected by racism. immune to it, especially as it has been perpetuated at the institutional level (church, police force, media, elected officials etc.). Through out all of the Americas a racial caste system was created. From Brazil to the USA. And it fueled an unofficial hyper-Affirmative Action benefiting whites for a very long time. Hundreds of years.

Dark skinned black people, light skinned blacks, mulatto have all been affected to varying degrees by this history and sociology of racism. You have lighter skinned blacks holding disdain for darker skinned blacks. I think my father's grandmother on his father's side did this in her family towards her own grandchildren. Creates division. There was a strong history and culture of this with Black-America for a very long time. And it bred resentment in darker blacks, some of whom have utter contempt for light skinned Black-Americans and especially biracial mulattoes such as myself.

What is termed "institutional racism" is still very strong in the United States. It's not as strong as it once was but it is still very strong. Institutional racism is basically how institutions embrace racism and perpetuate it. Say... in Milwaukee you won't find that in the teachers union (Democrats mostly) but you will in construction unions (Democrats mostly).

Economic development through building booms (and the urban sprawl they created/create) have exhibited institutional racism too. So, in the metro (suburbs and surrounding counties economically integrated into the major city) Milwaukee the term "Milwaukee" often becomes code word among whites for "black people." And billions of dollars of building construction booms for businesses being built take place outside of the City of Milwaukee and even outside the County of Milwaukee. But little to no such "booms" take place in the city proper of Milwaukee itself.

Malcolm X grasped the power of money more so than Martin Luther King Jr. did I think. Malcom X thought it was ridiculous to focus your energies on getting Federal legislation that would force black men and white men to urinate beside each other in bathrooms. From a purely social relations stand point, in my view it was not ridiculous, and Brazilians had been doing it since forever, assuming they were of the same economic level and not "the help." But Malcolm X envisioned a Black-America that were a close-knit community socially and economically, kind of like the ethnic Jews. And Malcolm X--like the Nation of Islam today--have morals pertaining to work and study and behaviors akin to the Republican Party. The NOI probably wouldn't be popular among Black-Americans today because of that except for the fact they bash white people and call white people the "devil" and so forth.

In truth, the Democratic Party simultaneously helps and undermines ethnic Black-Americans. Applying the Red Queen hypothesis in biology to the sociological realities of Black-America, we might think in terms of social pathologies that this is why Black-America no matter how fast they run are stuck in the same place. When Obama got up in a public forum to berate black men, and exclude black women from any culpability in the spread of HIV or any problems in Black-America, he drew applause. But the great number of women willing to dismiss the advances of blue collar working black men, and make love and time to drug dealers, in fact is a piece of the sociological puzzle as to why and how Black-America found itself where it was. Back to the Red Queen and no matter how fast you run you find yourself in the same place. Young men are pulled towards doing and being those things that attract young women. And hands down, one of the most offensive things black women found to be, over 10 or 20 years ago was the "DL" thing. The idea that "thug-like" men in hyper-masculinity, a section of manhood black women had more faith were 100% the strongest and most manly of heterosexual men, could actually be "gay" or "bisexual" was devastating. Traumatic. Worse than Klan lynchings or hundreds of years of slavery. These were men that everyone knew were tougher, smarter, braver than Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, Marines and so on.were the best of the best. Most young black boys aspired to one day join their ranks. And then the bomb of the "DL" was dropped. It posed a contradiction (really, it was not one to me but most Black-Americans found it to be so). And Obama fed into that whole hurt, anger, and the cultural roots it was born out of, and yapped on berating black men spreading HIV. No matter how fast you run you're in the same place.

That sort of talk will irritate or anger many people; nobody likes being accused of evil. It pushes some toward despair or apathy; if after all we've done trying to be fair and colorblind we're still racist, what more can we do? Better just give up.

White people (excepted they live in predominately black neighborhoods) incur a 10th of the contempt and prejudice I receive as a racial mulatto that is ethnically Black-American, from the prejudice of a section of Black-Americans.

When I was stationed on ship--in fact anywhere in the USA--I have never seen Black-Americans corner some white person and interrogate them about their parents and what exact hue they are. But that was done to me as an E-2 or E-3 aboard ship by two black NCO's.

Honestly, it helps me that I'm ethnically Black-American. If I were not then as a biracial mulatto I'd catch some serious trouble from a good section of Black-Americans. On the other hand... being ethnically Black-American only makes white people that don't like black people like me even less.

You know... I have to hear how light skinned dudes can't fight. How I'm not attracted to black women (you know how many times I've heard that when exactly courting a very dark black woman, as if that is the indicator a man is not attracted to a woman, he tries talking to her and persuading her to him her number and go out etc.). How light skinned people think they're better etc.

So, what is your beef? Black people pointing out they get their heads cracked more often by cops?

Okay, black people are not exactly "American women." The former actually is screwed. The latter actually has it better than the group they claim to be more worse off than.

And this may be what the liberal elite wants. If racism really goes away, they lose their position of prestige and influence as spokesman for the downtrodden races.

I partly agree with you on that. There is money and political influence to be made off of racism or being a perpetual victim. If the Democrats didn't have racism and sexism as a Holy War to fight against they'd lose a lot of their political influence. They'd still have the LGBTQ to fight a Holy War defense for. Maybe the environment too. They'd have to find a new group to champion though so they could pull in more votes and money. Maybe they'd finally fight a Holy War for the freedom of drug users and drug addicts?

Today, there aren't many hateful white racists willing to lynch a black man for dating a white woman. That kind of racism has been virtually extinguished. And being biracial or triple-racial or quad-racial or just "mixed-race" has become cool he United States. Though, there are some Klan-like racist wanting to lynch or beat blacks in the United States, they are really a small minority.

But if racism ever was extinguished in the USA for good--that includes most especially institutional racism--it would never fully die because political figures would have to keep claiming it was alive so they'd have a Holy War to fight and draw people around in camaraderie.

Part of the problem with the USA in my view is that it has a two-party political system. That always helps create Holy Wars of black and white issues of good vs. bad.

 

[bhsmte]

The problem cannot be fixed without first identifying it correctly.

Selective behavior toward people IS NOT racism. Racism stereotypes ALL.

Unfortunately, this generation has been brainwashed by guilt into thinking there is no cure...and THAT is the new put down, and the root of the problem

Let me sum this up.

As long as you are respectful to one black person, but racist towards 100 more, you aren't racist, just a hypocrite.

That takes some serious psychological gymnastics to rationalize.

 

[Hetta]

If you want your child to do well in school, is it a good idea to constantly call him stupid? No.
Does that apply to adults too? Yes.
So, if you constantly call people racist, will that make them more or less racist?
I think it makes the problem worse. Liberals are really trying to push the idea that lots of Americans are still racist. Sometimes they call it institutional racism. That sort of talk will irritate or anger many people; nobody likes being accused of evil. It pushes some toward despair or apathy; if after all we've done trying to be fair and colorblind we're still racist, what more can we do? Better just give up.

And this may be what the liberal elite wants. If racism really goes away, they lose their position of prestige and influence as spokesman for the downtrodden races.

Being color blind doesn't do anything for anyone. Far better to recognize that other people have different racial make-up and culture.

And calling people racist makes them racist? LOLing at that.

 

[Alithis]

If you want your child to do well in school, is it a good idea to constantly call him stupid? No.
Does that apply to adults too? Yes.
So, if you constantly call people racist, will that make them more or less racist?
I think it makes the problem worse. Liberals are really trying to push the idea that lots of Americans are still racist. Sometimes they call it institutional racism. That sort of talk will irritate or anger many people; nobody likes being accused of evil. It pushes some toward despair or apathy; if after all we've done trying to be fair and colorblind we're still racist, what more can we do? Better just give up.

And this may be what the liberal elite wants. If racism really goes away, they lose their position of prestige and influence as spokesman for the downtrodden races.

i get that .

how to combat it /overcome it ..? LOVE & forgiveness .

 

[SuperCloud]

For a while you couldn't criticize anything about him without being accused of being racist, but Obama did nothing to take a stand against that to open the way for a meaningful dialogue. It doesn't matter if anyone is racist, if you repeat the lie often enough people are going to believe and view themselves as victims, which increases racial tensions even if nothing racist was actually done. But the left survives on telling people believing they are victims so that they can champion their cause, so it would be political suicide if they were to eliminate racism. If there were no victims, it would be necessary for liberals to invent them.

Have you ever read some of the remarks under yahoo news articles made against Obama? Yeah, I'd say it's fair to say a lot of them were and are racist.

I think you are right about the Democratic Party that is no victims existed they'd have to make up some.

But here is one problem: not always but often it is the case that those on the politic right, namely Republicans, lack empathy for those struggling or simply beaten down and have given up. Unless, of course it's a rich person like Robin Williams then all of a sudden "depression" and "giving up" makes total sense and something x person has no choice over. Then the right and left alike have so-called "bleeding hearts."

The Democrats at least look out after those struggling or those so beaten down they have given up. In no small part because such struggling and beaten people exercise their citizenship* (a concept of responsibility and participation in the political life) and vote for candidates that say they will favor them and defend them in politics and legislation.

This in contrast to too many Republicans who simply say: your just a loser.

Tax dollars are to the political right what the Blessed Sacrament used to be for Catholics. Forgetting tax dollars are not theirs no more than the money they gave to a baker for a loaf of bread is theirs once they relinquish the money under no duress.





*A "subject" under a monarchy is different from a "citizen" in that a subject does not participate in the political life.

 

[ScottA]

So tell us the cure, then?

Once a problem is correctly identified, only then, can it be addressed.

So...if we can all agree that the REAL problem is hypocrisy...then we have a character problem, a moral problem.

People of great moral fiber and good character DO NOT treat some people one way and other people another way. They just don't. Good people (and bad) come in all colors. That's not the problem.

How do you fix moral decline after a generation of free-fall?

That's HUGH.

I'm starting with me.

...I guess I started to talk about the cure (above). It is a problem of character and moral fiber. It begins at home, with "respect" being a part of ALL dealings, casually and personally with family and friends, as well as professionally. And just maybe, after a generation, it might turn around. That's what it took to destroy it.

We (Americans) actually had racism on the run, cured for all practical purposes, with heroes of all races in every walk of life. But then things got all political. People got spoiled, and forgot just what we had learned, how we got to where we were. We forgot that we didn't tackle our problems and make such great gains for human kind, by being tolerant and leveling the playing field. We got there by being fair, but challenging ourselves and each other, and by fight for good. Not long ago John Wayne was EVERYONE'S hero, now, and what we have come to, is his kind (that great character of right and wrong that made us great) are looked down upon, the brunt of jokes.

We might start by learning to paddle our kids again, and flunking them if they don't make the grade. Unfortunately, they will suffer for what we let slip away. We let respect slip away, now we have none.

 

[Vylo]

It means if a person admires people of other races AND also hates them...they are not a racist, they are a hypocrite.

100 is just a safe number, in case, say your top 10 are of one race, and yet you do admire people of different races but for no particular racial reason, they are just further down the list.

You can still be racist and admire people of other races. You have probably heard the statement "you are a credit to your race"

 

[SuperCloud]

Why do both parties have to blow things out of proportion? It was ridiculous the cops treated the cigarette smoking like they saw him huddled in some corner smoking [illegal] crack cocaine. I'm surprised to see this was taking place in Salt Lake City. A big city.

I can't imagine something like that going down in Milwaukee by the cops here. They'd think the whole thing stupid. Actually, I remember seeing a uniformed cop in a unmarked car--a white dude--with a big, thick cigar in one hand, with a slight gangster lean behind the wheel, chillin at the stop light. A car of young black dudes speeds up to the red light with their music bumping loud with cement cracking base. They spot the white cop sitting in his slight gangster lean, hurriedly reduce the volume of their music. The cop just glanced over at them as if he didn't really care if they were breaking the law, disturbing the peace, with their decibels. When the green light flicked on he bounced but at medium speed, like he was neither in a rush nor was taking his time.

I was thinking to myself--standing on the bus stop--"I got to be a cop like that!"

Man... I'm not stopping no person over cigarettes. I'm not bothering peeps over drinking from open containers of alcohol right on the streets. If I have to say something it'll be just that. And keep it moving.

The other big think is this dudes responses in the video.

That was a fine looking female cop. I would have answered her question in a polite way, possibly with a little humor, and I would have tried to lure her into a conversation with me. I'd would have probably tried to get her number.

I speak from some experience. I tried speaking (flirting) with a white female uniformed cop called to a house. Her and the two white male cops were operating in the line of duty. They were outside on a sunny day. The two male cops didn't seem to like the fact I was "hitting" on a white female cop operating in the line of duty. She seemed to be flattered though.

 

[SuperCloud]

...I guess I started to talk about the cure (above). It is a problem of character and moral fiber. It begins at home, with "respect" being a part of ALL dealings, casually and personally with family and friends, as well as professionally. And just maybe, after a generation, it might turn around. That's what it took to destroy it.

We (Americans) actually had racism on the run, cured for all practical purposes, with heroes of all races in every walk of life. But then things got all political. People got spoiled, and forgot just what we had learned, how we got to where we were. We forgot that we didn't tackle our problems and make such great gains for human kind, by being tolerant and leveling the playing field. We got there by being fair, but challenging ourselves and each other, and by fight for good. Not long ago John Wayne was EVERYONE'S hero, now, and what we have come to, is his kind (that great character of right and wrong that made us great) are looked down upon, the brunt of jokes.

We might start by learning to paddle our kids again, and flunking them if they don't make the grade. Unfortunately, they will suffer for what we let slip away. We let respect slip away, now we have none.

When was this before, during, or after the Vietnam War with racially integrated units in the US military?

I don't recall this time period you speak of. I was born in 1971. I learned as a child I was "different." And not in a good way. When attending the Catholic grade school I did, at recess, the children self racially segregated themselves. The white kids played in one area. The black kids in another. My black cousin and I tried joining the football game the black kids were playing. But they responded (about me, not him) "No [racial slur for white people] allowed."

My cousin and I tried to persuade them to allow me in the game, reasoning, arguing back that I was half black. But it was to no avail.

So, my cousin relented and joined the game.

I stood alone during the remainder of recess as the white kids and black kids in the self racial segregation played. I must have been in the 1st grade then. That was the first time I really knew I was different.

When my black grandmother, drunk along with my father, got into some drunken argument and she yelled at him not to bring that "halfbreed" back around there I was much younger than I was in 1st grade and too young to know what that meant. I just remember my father slamming her down and his siblings pulling him off her.

My white grandfather--before I was born--told his children not to attend my mother's wedding and told her the doctor told him her child (me) was going to come out a zebra. LOL!!!!!!!! (some things are too funny to take seriously ).

But my grandparents were all from a different time. The WWII "Greatest Generation" I think. They in their generation had their strong points and their weaker points. And in my grandparents defense they all loved me incredibly. Both racial sides of my grandparents. After I was born my grandfather lost his racism. And my black grandmother was in a drunken state, I in fact became her favorite grandchild. Something I'm very happy about. My black grandmother came from out of Jim Crow Mississippi and had an incredibly hard life, racially and otherwise. If were condemned for every drunken thing I've ever said then there'd be no hope for me.