BS: Racism: Why?

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 05 Sep 08 - 06:26 PM

Yes, that's true, and very strange!

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 05 Sep 08 - 08:25 PM

Skivee,

A noble and well made point, only that you are confusing the terms "race" and "species".

Inter species diversity exists between species while intra species diversity exists within a particular species.

Racial distinctions don't exist outside the human species, so they are a form of intra species diversity.

But as you point out, species may not cross breed wihout scientific intervention, (and if they do their offspring are sterile), whereas there is no barrier to procreation between different races.

We are all human.

And all different.

My daughter and I are apparently both white, but I have taught her to respect differences between people by showing her that her skin and mine are very different in colour.

When I hold may arm up against hers, she can see for herself that we are different. And I then point out to her that everyone is different to everyone else.

So she has no illusions of "them" and "us" - she has an idea of a world full of individual humaans with an equal right to exist and pursue happiness.

Next time you are in the company of another person of the same colour as you, put your hands next to theirs and observe the differences.

It is illuminating.

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 06 Sep 08 - 04:54 AM

Thanks 'GUEST, Ifor' for supporting my economic theory of racism.

Following on from your point about the Atlantic Slave Trade, economics is probably at the heart of racism in the American Deep South, after the abolition of slavery there. Once African Americans living in the region could no longer be exploited through slavery they became potential competitors with 'European Americans'. It was in the economic interests of the latter to maintain the de-humanisation of the former in order to prevent them from sharing in the wealth of the region.

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 06 Sep 08 - 05:09 AM

What's racism?...I'm clear.

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: GUEST,Ledbury
Date: 06 Sep 08 - 05:32 AM

No one can say they have never been racist at some point in their life. I was watching a black and white film made in England in the 1950's last week and yearned for those days again. I couldn't get an appointment with my dentist for six months. The receptionist said it was due to the influx of migrant workers in the town. All I want is my England back. You can't speak out because your called a racist by some scrounger or loafer. Our once wonderful nation is an open sewer.

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 06 Sep 08 - 05:38 AM

Full of shits like you, Ledbury

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: Emma B
Date: 06 Sep 08 - 06:04 AM

Ledbury? you were guest Folkestone last time (same xenophobic content and contempt) - are you posting with the aid of a road guide to the British Isles?

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: GUEST,Ledbury
Date: 06 Sep 08 - 06:50 AM

Sorry Emma B either you have mistaken me for someone else or you are mischief making. I am neither xenophobic or giokaphobic regarding my country or viewpoint. Can you say the same ?

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: Emma B
Date: 06 Sep 08 - 07:07 AM

Sorry Lebury maybe I should have said are you using a Bradshaw guide :)

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 06 Sep 08 - 09:26 AM

So, 'Ledbury', you're not xenophobic regarding your country??

I can't seem to get my head round that!

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 06 Sep 08 - 10:56 AM

Only xenophobic regarding your dictionary eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 06 Sep 08 - 11:10 AM

Slaps own forehead and rolls eyes, sighs, 'Jeeez'!!

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: Jeri
Date: 06 Sep 08 - 11:36 AM

Just curious: does the name 'Efexor1' ring any bells? 'RoseBudCafe'?

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: Lox
Date: 06 Sep 08 - 06:02 PM

Racism starts before economics.

It starts in the school playgroud before kids have a clue about economics.

That is just one example.

But one exception is all you need to prove a rule isn't a rule.

Economics is an excuse for racism.

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 06 Sep 08 - 06:32 PM

I don't agree with you, Lox. It really is the other way round!

When I was a kid members of other ethnic groups began to appear in my home town - a bit strange at first but I soon got used to it and it soon became obvious that these were just people - just like me. Fifty years on and I see kids of all ethnic backgrounds getting along together - if anything they appear to be even more tolerant than I was.

But would it be the same if those in authority started to demonise representatives of different ethnic groups - as happened in Nazi Germany in the 1930s, or the Deep South in the first half of the 20th Century or in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s? And there are many counter-examples, of multi-ethnic societies, where racism wasn't institutionalised and wasn't an issue (the Ottoman Empire is one such example).

To repeat my position. It's probably true that many people have an in-built fear of strangers - maybe it's even part of 'human nature'(?) - but racism is largely a top-down phenomenon and elites have to work quite hard to get people to seriously discriminate against their neighbours. And when they do so they usually have an economic motive.

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: Emma B
Date: 06 Sep 08 - 06:32 PM

Lox I suspect you are right
My nephew when he was very young had an almost pathalogical fear of spiders and would immediately kill any on sight.
He had never been at any risk from any insect and had just learned this at his 'mother's knee'
So is racism passed on.......

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 06 Sep 08 - 07:05 PM

I went to school in a multicultural international expat school in Hong Kong.

Everyone at that school was more than comfortably off.

It wasn't as bad as some schools, but racist taunting, and sometimes bullying of Jews, Indians, Chinese, Irish etc etc (there were 37 nationalities) was pretty commonplace in the playground.

We had One Chinese teacher who got zero respect ... guess why ...

I'm a grown up now and able to make conscious judgements and I am able to be honest about my school days.

I both received and dished out racial abuse.

Economics had nothing to do with it.

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 06 Sep 08 - 08:36 PM

TRIBALISM !!!
Every one belongs to a tribe - And its SO easy to get your own tribe - Look at teenage gangs - Tribalism - Look at the problems in Africa - Tribalism - Europeans drew lines on maps to decide which country owned which bit of territory regardless of who lived where , and where the Tribal boundaries were .
So YOUR tribe has 'this' distinction - Of Language , Accent , Birth , Eye Colour , or what ever . Even Post Code these days (Zip Code for our American Tribes )
And any one who is not YOUR tribe , is your enemy .

Some of us have progressed away from the simple tribalism , but too many havent , and that's where the trouble starts .

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 06 Sep 08 - 09:44 PM

"where racism wasn't institutionalised and wasn't an issue (the Ottoman Empire is one such example)."

Oh? Armenians come to mind...

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 07 Sep 08 - 04:49 AM

"Oh? Armenians come to mind..."

'Beardedbruce'

The persecution and massacre of the Armenians came after the Ottoman Empire had collapsed.

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 07 Sep 08 - 05:01 AM

Lox,

I suspect that you are one of those people who just can't believe that those in authority would manipulate 'human nature' for their own selfish and venal ends. Try reading Niall Ferguson's appalling history of the 20th Century, 'The War of the World' (Penguin Books, 2006) - and then try telling me that economics has nothing to do with racism!

Oh yes, 'Beardedbruce', the above book also deals with the Armenian genocide and it is part of Ferguson's thesis that racism and racist wars are always at their worst following the collapse of empires.

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 07 Sep 08 - 08:11 AM

"The persecution and massacre of the Armenians came after the Ottoman Empire had collapsed."

Some of it- but it started BEFORE 1918.

The Armenian Genocide (Armenian: Հայոց Ցեղասպանութիւն, Turkish: Ermeni Soykırımı), also known as the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, by Armenians, the Great Calamity (Մեծ Եղեռն)—refers to the deliberate and systematic destruction (genocide) of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I. It was characterised by the use of massacres, and the use of deportations involving forced marches under conditions designed to lead to the death of the deportees, with the total number of Armenian deaths generally held to have been between one and one-and-a-half million. Other ethnic groups were similarly attacked by the Empire during this period, including Assyrians and Greeks, and some scholars consider the events to be part of the same policy of extermination.[1]
It is widely acknowledged to have been one of the first modern, systematic genocides,[2][3] as many Western sources point to the sheer scale of the death toll as evidence for a systematic, organized plan to eliminate the Armenians.[4]
The date of the onset of the genocide is conventionally held to be April 24, 1915, the day that Ottoman authorities arrested some 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. Thereafter, the Ottoman military uprooted Armenians from their homes and forced them to march for hundreds of miles, depriving them of food and water, to the desert of what is now Syria. Massacres were indiscriminate of age or gender, with rape and other sexual abuse commonplace. The Armenian Genocide is the second most-studied case of genocide.[5]

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: Lox
Date: 07 Sep 08 - 11:57 AM

"I suspect that you are one of those people who just can't believe that those in authority would manipulate 'human nature' for their own selfish and venal ends"

No I am not. I absolutely agree that those in authority do manipulate human nature whenever it suits them.

You have just agreed with me.

How?

Well you can't manipulate human nature unless there is something there to manipulate.

Human nature is constructed of irrational instincts as well as the capacity to reflect on them.

Advertisers manipulate our sexual instincts.

Politicians manipulate our fears.

The least subtle politicians tell us that the reason why we have no jobs is that johnny foreigner has taken them all.

The reason many people don't question this is that it strikes a chord with their irrational fear that johnny foreigner is up to no good.

Sometimes I find myself lapsing into fears of black stereotypes, especially when I am tired and walking through deprived areas at night.

Then when I go round to the houses of black people I am close friends with and I enjoy the warmth and depth of our friendships, I reflect on how powerful my irrational fear is and how grateful I am for the ability to discriminate intelligently.

Sometimes, as some of my black friends live in deprived areas, I face both sides of this challenge in a single episode. I walk through a deprived area with my radar and my defences on full alert before arriving at a friends house and breathing a sigh of relief.

If it wasn't for my choice to discriminate intelligently rather than instictively I wouldn't have those friends and I would be infinitely the poorer.

I have a wide and challenging life experience, I'm 6'2" tall, I can handle myself and tackle any challenge thrown my way and yet I jump in the air and make a weird strangled YAWP noise at the sight of a daddy-long-legs dropping into my washing up bowl.

Part of being human is having irrational weaknesses.

Growing up is about acknowledging them, accepting them, understanding them and overcoming them.

I would like to add that I don't think instinct is a bad thing.

I think we should listen to our instincts, but each time they have had their say we should continue to stage two and scrutinize them objectively to decide how we wish to respond to them.

Sometimes they are good!

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 07 Sep 08 - 12:26 PM

Thank you, 'Beardedbruce' for cutting-and-pasting information on the Armenian Genocide - which, as it happens, I am completely incapable of googling for myself! It's a pity that you didn't include the references ... Dooohhh!!

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Sep 08 - 12:34 PM

Well, in the words of Bruce Springstein, "Sooner or later it all comes down to money...."

Waht we have is a history of the wealthiest using wahtever they can to divided us and make us fearfull of others... That is the "divide and conquer" game and they ahve used it as effectivelu as Hitler used the brownshirts in the 30's...

The reality is that 5% of the people have corraled 82% of the wealth and they want to keep it just that way and so they dool out a smidgen of it into various hate campaigns to "keep 'um seperated" and until the other 95% catch on to thei pea-under-the-shell game then things will stay this way...

B`

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: GUEST,Ledbury
Date: 07 Sep 08 - 12:37 PM

I am proud of my country, proud of it's achievements and I am proud to be British. Am I really so wrong to wish to conserve it for future generations of my family ? How can I possibly pose a threat to anyone ? Would I vote to elect someone who shares this view ? of course I would. So because of this you castrate me as a racist ? I am not going to change my views to please anyone, I am not going to alter my opinions to confirm to silly rules brought in by sunflower seed-eating pressure groups. Understand that attitudes in Britain are changing I am very glad to say.

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 07 Sep 08 - 01:13 PM

guest Ledbury,

Its fine to be proud of your British culture but conserving it by discriminating against others is ignorant. If British culture includes a false sense of superiority than it isn't worth hanging on to. In fact, your attitude is just a hold over from the days of colonialism and, as you know, the British Empire no longer rules the waves.

btw - Don't blame migrant workers for your rotten teeth. Get with it.

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: Emma B
Date: 07 Sep 08 - 01:35 PM

'So because of this you castrate me as a racist ?'

Thanks for the best laugh of the day LOL

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: Emma B
Date: 07 Sep 08 - 02:03 PM

I wouldn't wish to castigate someone for their ignorance of 'our' English language
- perhaps Ledbury has another little problem besides his teeth?

'Em' - unapologetic omnivore

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: Sorcha
Date: 07 Sep 08 - 02:09 PM

Castrate.....ROF here.....I guess that could be done too....eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: GUEST,Ledbury
Date: 07 Sep 08 - 02:17 PM

I see Emma B now posting under my handle. Naughty naughty Emma. I see now what giok meant last month on the forum !

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: Emma B
Date: 07 Sep 08 - 02:26 PM

I have NEVER posted under anyone else's handle Ledbury and I think you should put your money where your mouth is or shut up here.

Better still, stop hiding under silly guest names and just post under your own mudcat handle.

Subject: RE: BS: Racism: Why?
From: Sorcha
Date: 07 Sep 08 - 02:36 PM

Ledbury, tell us WHERE you think Em has posted under YOUR handle. Yes, money where your mouth is.