BS: How to End Racism

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: Kim C
Date: 08 Jan 03 - 05:23 PM

Es ist allerdings eine kleine Unterscheidung.

(sorry, y'all, practicing my German. :-) What I think I said was, it's certainly a small distinction.)

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: Wolfgang
Date: 08 Jan 03 - 04:41 PM

Kim, I wish it would be that easy, the difference between a racist statement and an observation.

"In Germany, criminality is higher among dark skinned people" is as far as I know a true statement and in that sense an observation. But used without qualifications and without background information, it borders to a racist statement and is surely meant as such by some who use it.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: Cluin
Date: 08 Jan 03 - 03:24 PM

We're all racists, We're all species-ists. We're all gender-ists. We're all still tribal. It's just the self-preservation and competition instinct gone haywire in today's world where we don't know what to do with our lower-brain instincts most of the time.

If only we could recognize it ever time it rears its ugly head and not let it get in the way....

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: stevetheORC
Date: 08 Jan 03 - 03:23 PM

How to end racism thats easy just kill all bigots!! and those that disagree with this message Ah sod it kill everyone :-)

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: Kim C
Date: 08 Jan 03 - 03:19 PM

I think there is a difference between making an observation, and making a racist statement. If I said, "Purple people have a different color skin than me," that's simply an observation. But if I said, "Purple people have a different color skin than me, therefore, they're not as good as me because of their purple skin," that would be a racist statement. In my mind, anyway.

Your mileage may vary.

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: Ebbie
Date: 07 Jan 03 - 10:04 PM

Guest/pete, you reminded me of an older, quite wealthy friend of mine (he has since died). He was a lovely, smart WASP but he was 'self-made' and assumed he would never pay full price on anything. I was with him when he bought a refrigerator. After the deal was made- with a hefty discount, I might add- he noticed that the back corner had a very small dent in it. He demanded another discount. At length, I heard the manager say to the salesman 'Give him what he wants and get him out of here.' I was mortified.

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Jan 03 - 09:38 PM

Can't we all just get along (pic)
http://www.angelfire.com/md2/customviolins/chickena1.jpg

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: GUEST,Al that God nonsense YUK!!!!!
Date: 07 Jan 03 - 04:11 PM

In a nutshell...its not what we think or say in public that counts re: fairplay to all we come into contact with regardless of race etc...its how we treat others..."Do unto others as you would have done to you" (not all that bible stuff is wrong ha ha) is the name of the game long college education inspired rants are more for the consumption of the ranter....

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: GUEST,pete
Date: 07 Jan 03 - 02:41 PM

I daresay that if we all examine ourselves we'll find some racist thoughts. I lived in Japan a few years ago, and experienced it a number of times. (I.e. walking into a bar and being told 'sorry Japanese only', can you imagine that happening in Vancouver now)
my Japanese girlfriend at the time asked me whether or not there was racism in Canada and would never have considered herself to be racist and yet she made comments about Chinese, or Koreans. (I once mentioned to her that she looked Chinese more than Japanese) It was more an observation, I wouldnt know how to describe the differences other than to say there are certain characteristics that are Japanese and some that are Chinese. I found out later she was deeply hurt and offended by that casual remark, and yet at the same time she would remark, oh that man crossing the street, hes a customer at our store, hes very nice for a Korean. She was a lovely sweet person, who would never hurt anyone, and yet she never did get it.

I will admit that, in my business I dont like dealing with people from certain cultural backgrounds (ie. haggling to get the best price, once the deal is done trying to get more than was originally agreed, and finally trying to find something wrong and get a discount
after the job is complete) I had a number of customers who were like that everytime, and got a general impression from other business people that this is the way business is done where they come from..
Of course not all people from this cultural background who came into my shop were like that, and certainly the deadbeats came from all backgrounds, and yet I get red flags whenever a customer of that type comes in.
I wont go into the cultural background as it is beside the point,
and yet whenever I got into this discussion with a former girlfriend
she would get upset and call it racist. And yet from time to time she
would make blanket comments about 'fucking Brits' (she grew up in a Canadian city with a sizable British population).

which brings me to the point that there is one group, that is ok
to make fun of. white men.

he who likes to generalize, generally lies.
(a self-refuting statement)

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: GUEST,Fred Miller
Date: 07 Jan 03 - 11:37 AM

I got the impression you had misunderstood me, Yuk, and you seem to prefer to continue to, unless you're just being a bit flippant, I can't tell. I tried to to think whether you might have a point, and you may, my comments were mostly in joke form, which I confess to have a weakness for. But I really can't get a clear idea what you think about this question, except whatever it is, you're pretty sure about it, and we're all pretty stupid not to get it.

Oops, it's 'X'enophobia.

Less jokingly, I don't expect cartoony and generalised judgements about people are going to go away, but does anybody think that meaningful connections doing satisfying work might help? At least on the small scale, people tend to put aside biases when they have something else worth doing. So I'm thinking, as a confessed liberal, it may well be we are all one big family, but in the unidealised sense that it's quite easy to use whoever's handy to vent the garbage we bring home from work. Even conservatives might agree that their ideal of a free market doesn't always play out ideally. The U.S. seems to have an awful lot of violence for an inspired free-thinking country with a thousand points of light and ten thousand maniacs. What is it that produces all that rage? Again I think race and other differences may just be the rationales as to who to target, when we happen to need targets.

    At any rate, it might be really naive to assume that racial hatred is rooted in race, instead of simply in the roots of hatred--to keep thinking that it has to really make sense, that there's a real innate logic to it. That's what I was joking about. Maybe I shouldn't be flippant about it, since most people take race more seriously as a question than I've decided to. That's my idea, without the smart-ass reducto ad absurdum format. Naturally I myself form intelligent and insightful appraisals of the innermost character of everyone in the world, as Yuk has correctly understood me to imply.

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: The Shambles
Date: 07 Jan 03 - 06:26 AM

More informed comment in today's Independent.

http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=366976

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: The Shambles
Date: 07 Jan 03 - 02:12 AM

May as well add music and guns to this thread. Our culture minister is now called a racist.

Howells accused of failing to understand that gun culture in black music is reflection of society in which fans live

Fiachra Gibbons, arts correspondent
Monday January 6, 2003
The Guardian

The outspoken culture minister, Kim Howells, last night found himself at the centre of a race row after claiming that the time had come to stand up to the "idiots" of rap culture.

Mr Howells, who previously attacked exhibits at the Turner Prize show as "cold, mechanical conceptual bullshit", launched into an extraordinary attack on black British music hours after the police had criticised the music industry for "glamorising guns".
During a radio discussion on the killing of two black teenagers caught in the crossfire between rival gangs in Birmingham after a new year party, Mr Howells laid part of the blame at the door of British rappers.

"The events in Birmingham are symptomatic of something very, very serious," he said. "For years I have been very worried about these hateful lyrics that these boasting macho idiot rappers come out with.
"It is a big cultural problem. Lyrics don't kill people but they don't half enhance the fare we get from videos and films. It has created a culture where killing is almost a fashion accessory."
He reserved his greatest fury for the controversial south London garage outfit, So Solid Crew, three of whose 30 members have been convicted or are awaiting trial on gun offences.

"Idiots like the So Solid Crew are glorifying gun culture and violence," the minister claimed. "It is something new. I heard very interesting comments about [violence] in Victorian times and thugs on the street. But they didn't have these methods of popularising this stuff. It is very worrying and we ought to stand up and say it."
Rappers who carry guns in their videos are "particularly sick", he said.

Earlier, So Solid Crew were singled out for criticism by Metropolitan police assistant commissioner Tarique Ghaffur, who blamed a "backdrop of music" for alienating young men and encouraging them to use weapons as fashion statements.

But last night Conor McNicholas, editor of the music magazine NME, described the minister's outburst as "deeply racist".
"He doesn't understand the culture. It is this idea again that we have to do something about these out-of-control black people in our streets and the nasty culture they are perpetuating," he said.
"They are deeply racist sentiments. We have to be absolutely clear, the gun culture is a function of urban deprivation and not because of the music. The music reflects the experience of young people and doesn't create it.

"There is more rap music listened to and bought by white kids in Swindon than there is by black kids in Hackney, and nobody is talking about the gun culture on the streets of white suburban Britain."
Mr McNicholas said he was surprised that Mr Howells had chosen to roam so far from his brief, which mainly involves tourism.

"He clearly doesn't know what he is talking about. We have to recognise that these are young kids who are growing up in very difficult environments who happen to make music as a way of expressing themselves and their frustrations. Just because these guys are making music about the situation they are in does not mean they are perpetuating the culture. The music is not creating the problem."

So Solid Crew, in common with many black musicians and promoters contacted by the Guardian yesterday, said they were sick of being tarred with the "drugs and violence" stereotype, and several refused to comment, claiming that debate only reinforced prejudice. Promoter Lance Lewis said it was nonsense to see rap as bloodthirsty and perverse. "No rapper con dones killing, anyone who says that doesn't know what they are talking about."

A spokeswoman for So Solid Crew did say that the rise in gun violence had nothing to do with music. "It's poverty and crime which are escalating. Cocaine addiction is escalating too. They are just reflecting what they see around them. Their music is reflecting society just as Robert de Niro reflected American gangster society in his film roles. They are out there trying to make a positive difference in British black culture."

She pointed to the fact that Ms Dynamite, whom the police have praised for her stance against drug dealers and black- on-black violence, has defended the band, who played a key part in her own emergence.

Ms Dynamite has dismissed as "bullshit" the idea that the garage scene is inextricably linked with violence. "The media have blown it out of all proportion. Garage is a young London scene. That's why people in power are afraid of us and try everything to shut us down," she said. "There is violence wherever you go and the rave is a small part of it. It is a metaphor for life in general."
She also refused to condemn So Solid's Ashley Walters, aka Asher D, who was released from jail in October after an 18-month sentence for possessing a gun. Walters, a former child actor, had been the subject of several death threats before his arrest following an altercation with a traffic warden.

"I'm not one to judge, but he was naive," Ms Dynamite said. "Anyone who thinks they can carry a gun in this country is in for a shock."
Academic Ben Bowling, of King's College, London, who is studying the effects of gun culture, claimed rap was hugely misunderstood.
"Not only Ms Dynamite but lots of other bands like De La Soul and Us Three sing out against violence and drug culture. Rap is a very wide church," he said.

He believed it was unfortunate that Mr Howells' comments had come at a time when "there is a movement on the street and in the music industry saying 'no' to violence". The only way gun crime was going to stop, he said, was for communities themselves to reject it, as had happened in the United States.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/gun/Story/0,2763,869428,00.html

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: GUEST,Al that God nonsense YUK!!!!!
Date: 07 Jan 03 - 01:58 AM

More black people in the family sounds just about as patronising and racialy prejudiced a load of old wishy washy nonsense as i've heard since Freddy entered this conversation....I say fellows lets have lots more yellow people and brown people and olive skinned and milky white skinned people in the family..after all whats the point of owning a coulour TV if you aint got colour......

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: Ebbie
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 07:32 PM

I think race 'awareness' adds to the richness of the fabric of this world, right along with the various strengths of multiple cultures. I didn't always feel that way- it's certainly not the way I was reared to be- but like McGrath implied above, eventually you become aware that shoe size is just as significant in defining virtue or the lack of it as the color of one's skin.

There are two black men in my family- one is blue-black, from West Africa and the other is the normal run-of-the-mill American black kid. I hope that eventually we'll get more color into our family. The 'white' person's skin, if you judge by mine, is nothing to drool over.

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 07:17 PM

Not so easy Lardingo because all group have their prejudices.

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: GUEST,lardingo
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 06:50 PM

It's easy. Just appoint a committee to determine which groups have been racist toward which groups. Then, require the guilty groups to transfer some of their wealth to the group that has been discriminated against. Problem solved.

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: GUEST,Al that God nonsense YUK!!!!!
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 05:23 PM

Alas that seems to be a problem with you Freddy..you think you are above racism and anybody else who finds your milky white perceptions different..

For an impartial bystander you've already managed to single out interior decorators,the mathematicaly challenged,poor spellers(of which I count myself),and Humpty Dumpty..now come on folks w,what did poor old Humpty Dumpty ever do to arouse minoriy hate..not to mention the pigmentaly challenged Teletubbies ..need I say anymore ????

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: Kim C
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 10:43 AM

Familiarity! That's what I meant but couldn't put a finger on it. Familiarity could have to do with sameness, but not necessarily. That's it exactly. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: *daylia*
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 10:35 AM

Tinky Winky the gay teletubbie you thinky? That's just pinky!!! he he he he - BTW good morning YUK!!! Here's a little loving uplifting energy for you ...

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{ :-) }}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}} xxooo

Don't spend it all in one store now!!

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: GUEST,Fred Miller
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 10:08 AM

Al Yuk, at least there are your brilliant insights to keep the thread going. You're back to your typical style, after your previous post.

   My post which you called smug conceited old claptrap wasn't meant to be, but if it seemed I was pretending to be above any racist perceptions, I guess it's fair. I meant only that I felt ridiculously arrogant when I used to try to hold an opinion on race at all. It's not really an intellectual sort of thing, and I don't feel I need to have a big opinion about it. As for old, I thought this was my own thinking , I don't know where you've heard it before, and it doesn't matter. I'll try to be fresher. As for sociological something or other, I'm not sure if you meant me or other posts in general, but I was actually making fun of a intellectual or sociological approach, because I think it has nowhere to go. It's a reaction to the pseudo-intellectual rationales of racism, and winds up making the same sort of error, to oppose it. Just my thoughts, in case they were misunderstood to mean that I think I'm above it all.

   I think you've confused humility with arrogance and not just about my post, but about people who are particularly religious, you've confused this thread about rascism with your zenophobic and nationalist feelings about immigrants, and you're just plain rude about all your half-baked ideas, offering little insight from your life, and continue criticising generally as if everyone has turned in their thoughts and core beliefs for your approval. Talk about arrogant. In this way, dude, you make a convincing impression of a pretty messed-up puppy.

   The teletubbies are different colors, and they all get along fine, even the gay one, Tinky Winky, I thinky.

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: GUEST,Al that God nonsense YUK!!!!!
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 05:54 AM

The quality of this discussion deteriates more by the day ..We'll be discussing what the Teletubbies have to add to the debate on racism next.....

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 05 Jan 03 - 07:59 PM

McGrath, did I imply to more than one human race? If I did it was in error. I mean to say colors of the race.
Bill D-I will have to check out your clickies later. The Uranchia ideas are similar to many of my beliefs, especially with ufo's and the bible, but that's another thread, and the knowledge of people being on earth way before the biblical Adam and Eve, and many other things but I apologize, for this is definitely thread drift.
Peace, Rustic

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: Cluin
Date: 05 Jan 03 - 07:41 PM

How to end racism?

Well, first of all, become a doctor and discover a marvellous cure for something, and then, when people really start to take notice of you, you can jolly well tell them what to do and make sure they get everything right so there'll never be any racism ever again.

Thanks, Jackie! That was great!

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Jan 03 - 06:32 PM

The Urantia Foundation website....great dollops of religion, flying saucers, social theory, and psychic babble all mixed up in a stew with a recipe thousands of pages long. Something to curl up with on a cold winter's night.

When you are done, you can start on Oahspe, where you get actual drawings of the path of the Great Serpent across the galactic phalanx! Such a deal!

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Jan 03 - 02:27 PM

The book is Urantia 1935 and was an attempt at some kind of "esperanto" philosophy, religion, anthropology and physics that is all full of crap except their shot gun approach got a few things right by accident.

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Jan 03 - 02:25 PM

There is only one human race, with a few pretty insignificant variations. There used to be a few more, bur not since thusands of years ago.

Except a lot of people treat some of the insignificant diffeences as if they were significant. Colour of skin, I ask you! Why not shoe size?

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 05 Jan 03 - 02:03 PM

Homogeneity of the human race is not desirable until the peoples of an evolving world attain comparatively high levels of spiritual development.

Homogeneity-the same in structure,quality,etc.;similar or identical.

This line came from the book of Uranchia, anyone familiar with this book? This book details a long line of how the races started, how they interbred, how they(or we)killed each other off, and how we evolved and formed new races. This book could possibly blow some people away, being the claim of the first color of races were-orange, blue, green, indigo, brown and yellow. Maybe red in there, but what-ever, my point is racial discrimination goes way back to the beginning of evolution, and the fight for land, food, creating a more advanced race.
So, if you would choose to look at it, as an Uranchian point of view, racial predjudice was and will be until that enlightened race evolves.
OK, with that said, carry on!
Peace, Rustic

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: *daylia*
Date: 05 Jan 03 - 01:50 PM

I've heard it's not our job to be judging. I've heard it's our job to learn how to love better. Starting with ourselves. And that's all!

Gonna go give myself some big hugs right now ... yumyumyum ...

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: GUEST,Al that God nonsense YUK!!!!!
Date: 05 Jan 03 - 01:41 PM

Do you see the shallowness of all that happy new year nonsense now...Good wishes humbug....Of course another evolutionary trait is the instinct of the human pack animal...no one can doubt it is an excellent mechanism for preservational purposes, then no one can realy deny when such instincts surface that it is surely a betrayal of the alleged higher capacity of the human being to have truly independant thought.... Gods, hymm books...the only true rationale is attack...Hardly the actions of a higher species truly capable of abandoning prejudice...So spare me your humbug platitudes about racial tolerance...is that why the American people voted for an inarticulate dimwitted rich kid in hock to the oil industry to run what is allegedly the last remaining superpower...is this the rational impartial socialy aware mass mind you are refering to that is also capable of judging each race of people irrespective of their skin colour or racial origins...surely not ????/

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Jan 03 - 12:13 PM

The various evolutionary adaptations that various human races have developed are a successful means of dealing with a particular enviornment and climate.

The Asian skin folds to ward off the wind
The white skin to produce the maximum vitamin D from minimum sunlight
The black skin to stop penetrating equatorial sun and hide from prey
etc.

When an outsider comes to interbreed and alter those adaptations aggresion is one means to prevent the dissolution of those special life saving traits.

In a modern civilation the various traits have little or no advantages whatsoever.

But the reptilian mind of agression and self/tribal preservation lives on.

Add nuclear weapons to the mix and you can see what is coming.

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Jan 03 - 11:54 AM

I have to admit to being a bit prejudiced against YUKs.

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: CarolC
Date: 05 Jan 03 - 11:18 AM

I mean, he was Moroccan too, and we'd no more (and no less) in common with him than anyone else in the street, but he looked just like the blokes we were used to seeing in the street markets back home in London. And the whole place felt much less scary.

I think this story very nicely makes my point that exposure is more important (in the absence of any training in bigotry) than sameness. This man felt comforting, not because he was the same as you in any way, but because you were accustomed to seeing people like him in your day to day environment.

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: GUEST,Fred Miller
Date: 05 Jan 03 - 11:14 AM

Yuk, come off it. You're just pissed that 'wetbacks' seeking asylum in Britain and the U.S. can spell more words of english than you can, can operate a tape measure, and they go around smoking and believing in God, yuk. You still write like a drunk talks, saying the same thing over with new emphasis, congratulating yourself for having a ratty scrap of a second-hand opinion.

   If you weren't so disappointed in yourself you wouldn't have to hate a lot of people you don't even know. Whatever it was, try forgiving yourself for it guy.

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: *daylia*
Date: 05 Jan 03 - 10:06 AM

Ahhhh Yuk how can you be so sweet and charming first thing in the morning? May you be first when good things come, and may all your YUKS turn into YUMS ...

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: How to End Racism
From: GUEST,Al that God nonsense YUK!!!!!
Date: 05 Jan 03 - 09:59 AM

Fred or is it windy..What a conceited smug load of old claptrap you come out with.....Theirs nothing yummy old boy about hypocrasy and socialiological psycho babble....Yummy is not what this dicussion is about....This racism thing has become an industry in its own right...funny isnt it how so many people seek asylum in such alleged terribly racist nations as Britain and the US.....

Subject: RE: How to End Racism
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 04 Jan 03 - 10:51 AM

How right you are, McGrath - and I think the more the young ones see of the world the more they become familiar with its diversity.
With the Boy Scouts we had no class limits, and we greeted the foreign scouts as they were: white, black, yellow, brown and so on - all brethren. Here we learned to respect the foreigners in their ways and learned a lot of and about them, could teach them something, too.
This attitude helped me a lot when travelling in three continents. Wherever I have been, I first looked for scouts and firemen with whome I have more in common than with my fellow countrymen of the big travel agencies (mostly bad manners abroad).
So my advice to fight racism, jingoism, intolerance &c. is to accomodate the young as soon as possible to the diversity of the world and its people. Give them good literature about this theme. In English literature I remember the Merchant of Venice, where the Jew deplores his fate in a subdued minority: Is his blood not as red as that of the majority &c.? Isn't he a human being, too? Very strong text.

Wilfried

Subject: RE: How to End Racism
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Jan 03 - 07:20 AM

True enough people tend to associate with people they find similar, especially when they are in a stressful situation.

The question is though, what similarities do they pick out? And the odd thing is how, rather than age and appearance and general style (scruffy, sharp etc) people so often pick out "race" as the relevant factor.

I always remember how years ago on a trip to Morocco we were wandering through the souk, and it was a but scary. All around us were Arabs and Berbers, friendly enough, but looking so different from what we were used to - and suddenly we saw this black guy selling corn-on-the-cob, and he looked so familiar. I mean, he was Moroccan too, and we'd no more (and no less) in common with him than anyone else in the street, but he looked just like the blokes we were used to seeing in the street markets back home in London. And the whole place felt much less scary.

Subject: RE: How to End Racism
From: GUEST,Al that God nonsense YUK!!!!!
Date: 04 Jan 03 - 05:58 AM

CarolC ...yiu are becoming less clear by the day..perhapsa I should rename myself "all that CarolC nonsense ha ha...

Subject: RE: How to End Racism
From: kendall
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 08:09 PM

Dani, that woman's tirade says more about her than about you.

Subject: RE: How to End Racism
From: kendall
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 08:08 PM

Our reptilian brain creates fear. Fear creates hate and hate creates racism. Only evolution can eliminate this process.

Subject: RE: How to End Racism
From: GUEST,Fred Miller
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 07:46 PM

I have no desire to end racism, I'd rather see it play out as far as it can go, instead of staying mired in bulk notions. I used to oppose it, and would argue with people about it, but came to feel I had no more to go on than anyone else, saw we were just being self-important to each other about stuff none of us knew anything about. I don't believe in equality of races, except as a practical averaging measure, to hedge our bets until we find out who is best and why, and what follows from that. For now I don't know, don't know how I'd get that information, or what use I'd have for it.

But some years ago I was glad to see The Bell Curve being hailed as brave scholarship investigating the question. The race question. I keep forgetting what exactly is the race question--who is better, smarter, faster? Who are the six million dollar men? I hope one day we'll be able to track the relative worths of races and demographics of people like issues on the stock market, daily, so that White guy intelligence might close four points lower today, loyalty in Pigmy Teenagers up a point and a half, Cuteness of kittens--but maybe that's digressing? I don't know.

I don't think racism ever was a real idea, just a seductive rationalization, and taking it seriously perpetuates it. I agree with Bobert, because affirmative action is a reasonable averaging method of policy that makes sense until we learn to really separate the wheat from the chaff. It doesn't matter if it's discriminatory, everything is anyway. Might as well have a half-decent reason every now and then.

Herc, my kids have gender ideas that didn't come from us--we think--but what can you do, kids meet up with stuff. There would appear to be an innate tendency of boys to make vvrroom sounds, which was probably very strange before motors. But my kids don't know to call a black kid black, have to describe each kid, and my daughter has never said anything about it in weighing her crushes on boys with darker skin, or tall hair like Jimmy Neutron, or whatever.

Yuk, you might want to know that--among other things--you sound like a humpty-dumptyish interior decorator who can't work a tape measure but with vast intellectual pretensions, with your yuks, and spare me pleases. I look forward to your finding something "yummy" a "treat" or perhaps "kind of wonderful." You seem to be styling opinions to flatter yourself, to pose with, as some of us do, as I know I do, but jeez, ease up. Offer something else in the b.s. bargain. Some people actually mean something when they talk about religion, doesn't hurt to listen, even if, like me, you have trouble seeing it. It might do you some good you seemingly utter high-handed doofus.

Subject: RE: How to End Racism
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 06:23 PM

The last thing I wanted to do this Friday night was spend several hours writing, editing, and typing this post. However, I needed to do it, because it's certainly the best way to help us reflect and reexamine our views on GUEST, Al that God nonsense YUK!!!!!. What follows is a series of remarks addressed to the readers of this post and to GUEST, Al that God nonsense YUK!!!!! him/herself. Someone once said to me, "GUEST, Al that God nonsense YUK!!!!! should just face the facts." This phrase struck me so forcefully that I have often used it since.

On a more pedestrian level, s/he should not manipulate public understanding of mendacity. Not now, not ever. Someone has been giving GUEST, Al that God nonsense YUK!!!!!'s brain a very thorough washing, and now GUEST, Al that God nonsense YUK!!!!! is trying to do the same to us. This is no way to spend a Friday night!

I hope I have made myself perfectly clear.

Subject: RE: How to End Racism
From: GUEST,Al that God nonsense YUK!!!!!
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 04:52 PM

Ooooohhhh Jesus this discussion is reaching new heights of wooliness.....We've gone from religious rhetoric to socialogical gobbledygook to anthropology......Spare me please...every branch of the human race has it prejudices against others,thankfully here in the more organised western nations we have (particularly) since the attrocities of Nazi Germany sought to put safeguards into how we organise our societies...which it has to be said is constantly being undermined by the saturation of unfettered immigration from the third world and the problems it brings to us the indigenous populations of our respective nations...face it fellows prejudice there is,and prejudice there always will be...Please dont go burduning our
with more soppy wetback sociological teaching during their schoolday....Children go to school to learn how to read write and add up not to be guinea pigs to those who would like to manipulate their young thoughts with the latest batty branch of ideology...

Subject: RE: How to End Racism
From: GUEST,Frank Hamilton
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 03:27 PM

In my view, racism could be lessened considerably if in the educational system there were classes in anthropology. It's one of the most important subjects there is. Anthropology is the basis for folk music as well. If we were to understand other cultures and the true significance of racial differences in this light, a lot of preconceptions would be thrown out.

Racial classifications on a social scientific level are arbitrary.
They have no meaning aside from the culture. A black person can be raised to be "whiter" than a white person and vice-versa. There are genotypical aspects such as a propensity for folks with broader features to sing a different way or to have physical attributes, but the use of these things is dependent on their respective cultures.
A scientific understanding of physical as well as cultural anthropology would do more for this country than relying on military, political or economic solutions to solve national or international problems.

If we had a governmental department of anthopology instead of domestic defense against terrorism, we would not need the latter.

Music, which is obvious to everyone here, is a great antitdote to racism. It's hard to be angry at anyone when we're singing together.

Frank

Subject: RE: How to End Racism
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 03:11 PM

To bring a bit of music to the thread perhaps

What we need is great big melting pot
Big enough to take the world and all it's lot...

Now, no prizes:-) Who sang that and for bonus no prizes, who knows the rest?

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: How to End Racism
From: Kim C
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 01:20 PM

Right! But that's still something they had in common. I guess what I'm trying to say is that everyone has something in common with somebody and it doesn't necessarily have to do with race, religion, or culture. Sometimes it does, but not always. And wherever you are, you might look for people who are like you - whether that has to do with gender, race, age, common interests, whatever.

Maybe the idea in my head is just bigger that what I have the words for.

Subject: RE: How to End Racism
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 12:07 PM

I understand, Kim. Still, when I think back on the racial, ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds, and the interests of the friends my son had in both high school as well as middle school, I can't help but disagree with you. What they had in common, mostly, was that they all went to the same school. That's a proximity issue more than a sameness issue.

Subject: RE: How to End Racism
From: Kim C
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 10:36 AM

Carol, I didn't mean "only." I meant in general. What qualifies as "like me" can be a whole lot of different things, depending on the situation.

Subject: RE: How to End Racism
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 09:58 AM

There's a quote I like where a US Northerner visiting down South asks a non-bigoted white local: "What do you call black folks hereabouts?".
To which the reply was: "I call 'em friends until and unless they prove otherwise."
I would hope we treat all people thus -as individuals,not as stereotypes. The more saintly among us would continue to treat everyone as friends even if they prove otherwise but I'm not that good!
RtS

Subject: RE: How to End Racism
From: Celtic Soul
Date: 02 Jan 03 - 11:29 PM

To answer the original poster, all colors yes...but the women are shunted to the side, and not allowed to worship alongside men. Sexism is no better than racism.

Thanks but no thanks.