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| Is there a need for a new definition of racism?
Posted: 5/13/2008 3:44:48 PM | Wolf,
thanks for the clarification, but I think that your original post was also on target because there is a need "to seperate the fact and the fiction."
I appreciate your input. That is the kind of contribution that I was hoping to elicit and bring into a rational discussion of the issues. I don't pretend to speak for others, but rest assured that I have great confidence that you will get "open, reasonable discussion and debate" in this thread.
We need to get to the core of the current issue. We know what racism was, at least I hope I hope that we all know. There are some people who think that there is a great need to remind us of the evil that racism was. They may even think that racism still exist, and want us to be on the alert to guard against its evil. They may even understand that there are some innate tendencies in the human being that may lead us into racist behavior, and want us to work towards reaching an understanding of the pitfalls lurking in the human spirit. Should we call those people "racists" in order to silence them and deny them the right to exercise their "freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and freedom of expression"?
I honestly don't know if the country is at a point where an examination of the policies intended to level the playing field such Affirmative Action is needed. Perhaps there are problems in some areas of the country, maybe there are abuses that are causing people to react in a negative manner towards those policies. I trust that the American people will know when the dream of MLK is no longer a dream but the reality of this nation.
Let's keep this discussion going in the tone that you and other contributors have already set for us. | |
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| Is there a need for a new definition of racism?
Posted: 5/13/2008 4:28:54 PM | MG,
Thank you very much. Your input always gives me always food for thought.
There is an idea that caught my interest. It has something to do with something that you mentioned in your post: the idea that human beings (you were talking about men and women) are the same -- but different.
When I started this thread I was motivated by the desire to elicit opinions of those that were calling Wright and his church "racists." I honestly would like to understand them. I didn't know much about the preacher other than the clips that I had seen on TV. I watched the speech that he gave at the meeting of the NAACP but that is all that I have seen. I didn't see him preaching racial superiority, although he spoke of the past wrongdoings based on racism.
The most impressive part of the speech for me, apart from the "colorful" presentation, was the warning to the audience not to fall prey to the evils of racism themselves, meaning that they should not look upon the new minorities of this nation as "deficient" (inferior) but as "different."
That for sure is not preaching racism, at least for me. | |
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| Is there a need for a new definition of racism?
Posted: 5/13/2008 5:07:48 PM | We are not the same, although we may be totally equal. These are not the same concept at all.
It means we all have the same rights, but we are not clones.
Men and women are different, and I don't think you can argue that. That does not imply, in any way, that there is a superiority or inferiority involved. Biochemistry, biology, and cultural norms make people different in some ways, when it comes to men and women.
It's the same with various cultures and races.
Those cultures place filters in front of our eyes, and those filters blind us to certain things.You can say the same for political systems , as well.
If you look at the Canadian and European models, versus the American one, one can see one very great difference.
Collective rights vs individual rights.
Now both have their values, but they are indeed a very different "filter" towards seeing our society. Each is important to the culture it springs from.
Neither is right or wrong, in each of those societies, either.
But they are different.
And that's what I am trying to drive for here. We can be together as one, but that doesn't mean we can't appreciate our differences, and that they should not overshadow the common respect for those differences.
Think of it a bit like individual people. The differences we have actually make us far stronger, compared to a world where everyone thought exactly the same way about everything.
Those differences are actually essential to our existence. The fact that we differ means we can talk about those differences, and gain from them. | |
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| Is there a need for a new definition of racism?
Posted: 5/13/2008 7:17:29 PM | Racism also includes hate speech, which I don't think that anyone argues Reverend Wright uses, and uses often. So the good Rev. is a racist.
My opinion is that Obama tolerates racism rather than actually being a racist himself. He kept Wright as a close personal friend for over 20 years, so he must have been somewhat familiar with his opinions.
In a recent Newsweek article, it was reported that Oprah Winfrey quit Rev. Wright's church because:
(She) was never comfortable with the tone of Wright's more incendiary sermons, which she knew had the power to damage her standing as America's favorite daytime talk-show host.
In the same article, one of Obama's campaign staff said:
Early on, he was in search of his identity as an African-American and, more importantly, as an African-American man. Reverend Wright and other male members of the church were instrumental in helping him understand the black experience in America.
So Obama went to a racist to find his identity as a black person, and it seems while he loved his mother and her family, he didn't identify with them at all. Guess this is the reason he threw grandma under the bus when explaining why he belonged to Wright's church.
It doesn't really matter if Obama is a racist or not, because if he knew about Wright's hate speech (and how could he not having him as a close personal friend over 20 years) he certainly tolerated racism. If he didn't know, he's a total idiot.
Either way, he's not qualified to be presideint.
I don't even understand the argument. | |
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| Is there a need for a new definition of racism?
Posted: 5/14/2008 2:01:05 AM |
MG says,
So, like racism (at it's core) it's a separation of one group from the other, with an assumption of superiority on the group that's doing that separation. That mentality also mandates, by extension an inferiority of all those excluded.
I live in a country where all races, cultures and ethnicities have come together to supposedly co-exist as one….Australia. But it is far from the truth and it is falsely advertised around the globe as a harmonious multi-cultured society. However, racism exists in all its bigoted glory in every corner of this land and I doubt that it will change a great deal for several generations yet to come.
Australia is essentially a black man’s country much the same as say, South Africa. Except black native Australian’s are in the minority, whereas in South Africa the black native Africans are in the majority. The Australian native Aboriginal has been overwhelmed by white Europeans whom number around 98% of the 20 million in total population. The other 2% is made up of Aboriginals, Asians and others.
(I often separate myself, assuming a non participating invisible observer role, in order to form a non-partisan opinion in debates such as this which can tend to be on the more volatile side of observable facts.)
The old adage of “racism is a white man’s disease” certainly applies here. I’ve not discerned any deep seeded feelings of prejudice in the other 2% of the population, as mentioned above, to other races whether black or white, except for as a retort to racially abusive remarks or actions. For the majority white population, that is certainly not the case and mind-sets of superiority are ubiquitous.
So why is this?
IMHO, mankind moves in cycles much like the earth does with ice ages followed by a thawing and an upsurge in life. In the Eastern Hemisphere which stretches from Ireland in the west to Japan in the east and includes everything in between, Europe was the first to be industrialised in modern day terms. The Europeans required natural resources that they lacked to advance their industries even further and so began to spread out of their homelands to conquer, colonise and take what they needed from the old worlds.
Although civilisation had its first beginnings in Asia and North Africa with great cities like Mesopotamia in Iraq, the great cities of North Africa, Damascus in Syria and the cities of China, Indo-China and India these civilisations had reached their peaks when Europe was still a frozen block of ice and then for some reason, unbeknown they died off.
When Europeans arrived in those lands it was an easy task to enslave the indigenous populations and take all the resources manufactured and natural that they wanted. Because of their complexion and “mastery” of the conquered people they believed themselves to be racially superior and in the beginning were perceived as such.
This onslaught out of Europe continued into the Western Hemisphere, into the Americas, into the only other civilisations that existed independently of the Eastern Hemisphere.
With the passing years a culture of superiority was now biologically impressed into the minds of Europeans and this has continued down through to modern times.
Many times I have noticed a profound feeling of “bloody impertinence of em” being voiced by Europeans towards Asian and coloured people in the interactions of normal daily life. There is a markedly different view to that type of prejudicial opinion by the generations born in the mid 80’s and onwards.
To redress the issue, the commodities and beliefs of other lands that were taken and then adopted by Europeans as their own should be credited with that fact. That they are not originally European and were merely adopted from wherever it is they came from. Otherwise this culture of “us versus them” hatred will continue ad infinitum.
Some examples,
Apples, oranges, lemons, limes, apricots, peaches, nectarines and cherries etc. etc. are Asian in origin, not European. Coffee comes from Africa. Tea comes from Asia. Chocolate comes from the America’s the same as chilies, tomatoes and potatoes. Sheep, cattle, goats, chickens originated in Asia and were introduced to Europe. Pepper the master spice is Indian not European. Sugar comes from Asia, even the name is Hindi. A bungalow is a style of house that originated in India and was brought out by the British whom ruled that land for 300 years. Worcestershire sauce is Indian not English. Words such as shampoo, pajamas, verandah, thugs, khaki and many more are all Hindi as there were no English equivalents, the Indian word was adopted. The rose bush is Asian not English, the same as the tulip is Asian not Dutch. Just about all the flowering plants in European gardens were adopted from Asia, Africa or the America’s. Wheat was first grown as a crop, harvested and then processed into flour to make bread in Asia not Europe the same with many of the other cereals.
According to Judean and Islamic scriptures God ordered Abraham, his wife Sarah out of Mesopotamia (Iraq) and later Hagar (his Egyptian handmaiden), into Canaan (Palestine), where he had two sons. Ishmael and Isaac. The two sons were the founding ancestors of the Semitic Tribes of the Negev, now southern Dead Sea and adjacent Jordan. Ishmael the Arabs and Isaac the Jews and their story is well documented in the first 5 books of Mosses in the Torah (Jews) and Koran (Arabs).
The Holy Scriptures whether they are fact or fiction, are the religious beliefs of the Children of Abraham, they pertain exclusively to them and are not inclusive of those that are not of Abraham’s lineage. These are Asian beliefs that were adopted by Europeans and then adapted to fit into European culture; they are not of European origin.
Throughout the history of the Holy Scriptures, Europeans had their own religions and gods, all were pagan. Jesus (who spoke Aramaic, was brown skinned, black haired with either black or brown eyes), never addressed the Europeans in the land of Canaan at the time (Romans), nor did He attempt to change their ways or address any other than the Children of Abraham. When the Jews or the Arabs (it could be either as the original writers of the Scriptures are unknown), wrote that He had died on the cross for our sins, the “our” was exclusively in reference to the Children of Abraham in their known world at that time.
Yet the Children of Abraham are known as “ragheads” and are deserving of nothing but a nuking if you follow popular belief in European (white), countries of today. Where’s the consistency in that view if the speaker practices a “raghead” religion and worships a “raghead” as his or her God?
There is some confusion regarding the meaning of the term “Caucasian”. The term is short for Caucus Asian and describes the people that inhabit the eastern slopes and plains of the Caucus Mountains in south west Asia. It was coined by German anthropologists in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, from human skull measurements that were noticed to be the same as skull measurements of native Germans. It has nothing to do with skin tones. George Bush, Tony Blair, Osama bin Ladin and Mahatma Gandhi are all Caucasians. The largest single repository of Caucasians on the planet is India. The term has been dropped in the EU as attempts to categorise racial groups is seen as redundant and meaningless.
You can walk from France to China without hindrances and I’m not talking modern hindrances here, proving that it is one land mass and one continent. Europe does not exist in its own right as a separate continent from the greater land mass of Asia that it does, is purely for racially prejudicial reasons. Europeans do not want to be the western appendage of Asia. Some say it is considered a separate continent due to the large cultural differences between Europe and Asia.
Then again one would encounter the same large cultural differences if one were to walk from the most distant southern point of South America to the most distant northern point in Northern America, but it’s still viewed as one continent.
This fact has been the bane of geographical academia for a very long time and some have suggested that the name of the super continent be changed to Eurasia and the revising the number of inhabited continents down to 4. Others say that then it should be further revised down to 3 as the African continent is also joined to Asia by a thin strip of land much the same as a thin strip of land that joins North and South America making them one. It’s an ongoing debate.
An interesting point though is that Europe takes its name from Europa a Phoenician lady from Greek mythology whose major claim to fame is that she was raped by the Greek God Zeus or was that whisked away by Zeus? But the ancient land of Phoenicia is in Asia and so Europa was an Asian lady!
In the end different skin tones appear in humans depending on the latitude of their abode on the surface of the planet. The further you are from the equator the lighter your skin. That’s so the skin can produce sufficient quantities of vitamin D that the body requires given the reduced amount of available UV rays at higher latitudes. Thus the lighter the skin is, the easier it is to absorb larger amounts of the limited sunlight. This is why Europeans and northern Asians have pale or white skin. The closer you are to the equator the darker your skin. The darker skin reduces the amount of vitamin D produced due to the greater amounts of sunlight and protects the skin from cancers.
Australia has the world’s dubious record for the greatest amount of skin cancers amongst its majority white population as they are out of synch or harmony with their natural abode in the northern latitudes of Europe.
Not necessarily hard core facts just an opinion.  | |
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| Is there a need for a new definition of racism?
Posted: 5/14/2008 8:24:16 AM | quote]Take nationalism versus patriotism. Patriotism can be a good thing, even a great thing. Nationalism, on the other hand, can be quite destructive. One features a promotion of things that are different (patriotism), while the other assumes a superiority (nationalism).
Sorry,I could not disagree more,in fact this statement flies in the face of common sense,and is errant in its definition.Patriotism is simply a love for ones country,and in no way implies the promotion of something different.In fact you could say,that if you love your country,there is a reason,and you would be less likely to want to change it than someone who does not.
The promotion of something different would more accurately be linked to liberalism.which can also be dangerous,when the reason for change is not reasoned out,for example(i will simplify this so even blind demogogues can understand)If ti ain,t broken,don't fix it.Not all change is good,or well reasoned.
It is also not the belief that ones country is superior that is dangerous.that belief by itself is benign.Nationalism by its very definition is simply putting the interests of ones nation before international interests..which some could call selfish,though they would be hypocritical,as when it comes to family,they would have the same attitude(family comes first).It is more an attitude of taking care of yourself and minding your own business.
Furthermore,the idea that the belief that your country is somehow superior to another is dangerous would assume that all countries are morally,financially,and -or socially equal.
and that no country can be superior in any way.What poppycock.this would equate a country like Sudan,with its mass murder and chaos with Canada.It would equate nations who execute people because they will not submit to the state approved religion,with nations who allow freedom of religion.can you say that a state that puts someone to death for speaking out against the actions of its leader to a country that allows free speech?Kind of flies in the face of common sense does it not?
The real danger is not patriotism,or Nationalism,but globalism.which is based on a belief that there is an ideology so superior that it should be international,and above all other interests,such as national interests,religious interests,cultural interests,etc..
Equally dangerous is the assumption everything is equal in merit,and one can not judge anything or anyone to be superior in anyway to anything or anyone else.This devotion to equality over liberty would ignore the fact,that while we all have equal potential,not everyone does their best to live up to this potential.One man may work hard to make good grades in school,go to college and work even harder to get a medical degree and devote 60 hrs a week to curing cancer,while another will slack off,and spend his life sponging off the folks and smoking pot all day.It is much the same with leaders and nations as a whole. In order to believe that nothing is superior in any way to anything else,you first have to subdue your common sense(some would call this education,or enlightenment)then you have to believe that there is no such thing as good or evil,or at least that they are relative,allowing you to move the line separating them at will.then you also have to believe that there is no such thing as absolute truth(a good mathematician would probably disagree).then you could only come to the conclusion that nothing can be right or wrong,but simply appropriate or inappropriate to any particular situation.
Which brings me back to the point which I made earlier,The definition of racism,for many,no longer relies on truth,reason,right or wrong,or even the actual dictionary definition of the word,but whether or not its use will achieve a desired emotional response and serve the agenda of those who use it. | |
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