Racism.

[Ouroboros]

That wacky character LordSatanas gave me the idea for this topic.
Racism exists. We might as well deal with that fact. It's inescapable. It's a bad thing, we keep telling ourselves, 'cause it disrupts the unity that should exist among all human beings. Also, the more fanatical/rednecked followers of this conception have a tendency to take it to aggressive extremes, resulting in a whole new breed of violence: the hate crimes.
So far, we all agree, right? This is where things will start to get weird.
We are all racist. Generalizing is stupid, I know. So maybe I should say something like, "many of us" and "at least mildly racist".
Even if we don't hate the other races, we are aware of them. We are conscious they are not like us. We realize they have physical or mental advantages or disadvantages on us and the race each of us belong to.
This is not necesarily a bad thing. It's just a thing that exists. I can give you an example. Living in Mexico, I get to see black people very seldom. So when I do, or when anyone else does, for that matter, one can't help but, for a moment at least, stare. It's a rare sight. Am I being racist? Maybe. The poor guy probably hates me and my hick country staring at him all fucking day long. Am I being hateful? Hell, no. And I'm betting neither are the other eight out of every ten Mexicans staring at this dude. There might be that tenth guy who could be, but I wouldn't comment on that.
Racism exists, even if only for the sake of descriptions. What really pisses me off is when minorities get all touchy about being "repressed", when it is them pushing their racial stereotypes on everyone else! When they are as every bit as racist and race-consious as the people thay claim "keep them down".
If I were to keep annoying you people with mexican idioms, shit like "you taco-breath motherfucker!" or posted every message with the rebel cry of "¡viva mexico, cabrones!", how would I dare call you racist? I'd be doing all the job, here! I'd be stereotyping, and thus, alienating myself! If you were to develop a racist attitude towards me, would you really be to blame?
Bottom line is, if being racist is such a social no-no, so should the members of a race be held in contempt for aiding the denigration of it. I know I'd be a hell of a lot less race-consious if Mr. Get-rich-or-die-tryin' 50 Cent were a little less proud of living beneath my oppressive heel!

... or something like that.

P.D.: I just realized this is the kinda post that could destroy me utterly, if slightly misinterpreted!

[ofdarkblood]

Even if we don't hate the other races, we are aware of them. We are conscious they are not like us. We realize they have physical or mental advantages or disadvantages on us and the race each of us belong to.

This I agree with.

[Ouroboros]

Yay. I'm not nuts, after all.

... or we both are.

[Kidthorazine]

one of the first things my prof taught me in psych 101 was that group favoritsm i.e. preferance to ones race, gender, nationality, or some other soicial, ethnic or religious group, is built in to the human psyche and is inavoidable sure in some cases it is much more extreeme in some cases but it always happens this is how all forms of descrimination occur and every one descriminates a few groups of people to some degree although for a lot of people it isnt very servere and some people dont really act according to theese descriminations altough they often do.

[Morning Glory]

if you don't like will and grace, there's nothing wrong with you. there's something wrong with will - he's a homosexual. white power!

[Morning Glory]

no, but seriously, why is it that whenever someone says "I'm not a racist..." they immediatly follow it up with some totally racist statement and that's like supposed to justify it cuz they said that they weren't? fuck you you fuckin racist peice of shit.

[koolagh]

I'm not racist......I hate everybody equally.

[Forestghost]

Our "politically correct" world is a foolish one. We are forced to hide our views about anyone and anything. I'm not just talking about racism here, I'm talking about ageism, sexism....all that stuff.
Am I racist if I say that the majority of Chinese people in my old highschool were better at math than me? I'm isolating them as a race and labeling them with a specific characteristic, however I'm not insulting them or suggesting that I dislike them as a group. (and there is a really good language/psychology theory about this involving how much faster they can say their numbers in their heads, but anyway)....

Society has dictated what we are and are not allowed to feel. We are allowed to say "I hate the Nazi's" but can't say "I hate teenagers/some race/poor people". Why? If it's because of the actions of that group in the past, then we should be able to say things like "I hate people from the middle east", but we aren't, it isn't "politically correct" (even though a certain countries government displayed the ultimate racism when it decided to go kill many innocent and not-so-innocent people in some eastern countries).

We have to watch what we say no matter what, and it's sad. I like dogs better than cats, but that doesn't mean I hate my cat, just that I like dogs better. Am I an evil, hateful person who should be condemned for my opinion about different types of pets? FUCK NO! I have an opinion, I'm going to express it! I don't think we should have to tip-toe around eachother trying to be "politically correct". We've backed ourselves into a corner where our freedom of thought and speech is threatened....hateful actions, that's a different story...but having to watch everything we say "mail-person instead of mailman" is silly!!!!

Ummm, yeah, I have to go to work now...yay for me giving my two cents!

[SindelChaos]

Hahahaha, oh my god. I just had the most hilarious conversation. This guy on Gothic Match claims to be a Nazi, but he wanted to be my friend. I told him that's not a possibility and he asked why. I told him that I have over 70% Native American blood running through my veins the rest is German, French, Black Irish, and African American. He didn't understand why and I told him he should learn his f*cking belief system before he started preaching it around. I blocked him. Some people are so freaking stupid.

[HempKnight]

Ok... well.... you knew I would be along to give my input on this oh so very touchy and hot subject. To catch everyone up to speed, since I know not everyone has read my posts or knows who I am, this is for the newbies and others... I am an ex-skinhead, originally from Detroit, MI who is currently living with the most wonderful and sexy as hell black girl I've ever known. I spent many years of my youth and young adult life being very militant about my views on the subject of race, being very involved with the neo-facist/racist movement and perpetuating the stereotypical bullshit that has been spewed from angry whites for the last couple of centuries.

Let's get one thing clear, there is nothing wrong with racial pride, it's a good thing to be proud of who you are and where you came from. But to say something along the lines of because of Hitler, all Germans are the same would be stupid... I am in fact German, I am very proud of my ancestors and had actually at one time thought that Hitler was a very great man and to an extent he was... before anyone gets the wrong idea, here's why: at no other time in the world's history did a leader bring such a depressed country back into an economic state as he did... but that is as far as I will go on that. The rest of what he did was the act of a madman, I have been to the camps and have talked with ex-Nazis as well as survivors of the death camps... all very chilling to me now as those voices haunt me as a reminder of what I used to be proud of in being a facist.

As far as how I became such a racist piece of shit is in fact another story, mostly having to do with how I was reared by a very hateful father - not only hateful to those of colour but to myself as well and all those around him. This stereotypical behaviour was then enhanced by events and persons in my life from then on, growing up in Detroit you learn hate early on... to hate the city, the people, the crime... all of it especially when you have no idea what is really there when you can only see one side of things. I was always told you can polish a piece of shit but it still remains a piece of shit... so no matter what other influences there may have been, I only saw the bad side of things.

All hate groups as well as cults and the ilk feed on this fact, they recruit the weak-minded and those who have been abused metally and physically. Now with an IQ in the 180s, you would think that I would be too smart for that kind of thing and not fall into it, but not so, the recruiter I had worked that to his advantage as all 'good' soldiers do. Spending time in jail and prison only enhanced my beliefs in that only white was right and made me more angry and militant for the cause. I rose through the ranks and became a recruiter myself as well as sergeant-at-arms and liaison between other groups, I was a 'good' little facist doing what I was told and spouting the mantra.

As time went along there started to be shit showing though the polish, a good number of my fellow skins were in fact involved in homosexual activities and relationships... now how could this be? That is strictly forbidden, the goal is to further the white race by having as many pure white children as possible to induct into the ranks for the the great race war. Another was the fact that we actually had a black member in our ranks... not that he was of mixed race or looked white, but he was black... black as pitch, but he too spewed the same hateful shit against his own people and took part in bringing violence against them as well. He indeed detested his own race and peoples so much that he had wished he was white. So many other inconsistencies were starting to come through that started to change my mind about my misspent years of hatefulness.

I began to go out 'undercover' in the community, to see firsthand for myself if all that we had been taught was the truth after all. The more time I spent with those who I thought I had hated I found that they were no different than anyone else. They still had the same problems and complaints about life and living in general, taxes and such, how to provide for their families, these were not the monstrous people that we were taught to mistrust, fear, hate and take every chance to cause harm to. These were humans, people just like everyone else, who wanted nothing more than to live their life, getting by and hopefully the chance to live the American dream.

A couple of events really changed the tide for me, one was a homeless man I had met... he went by the name of 'theorginal******incebeforethedaysofjimihendrix', no shit, really, that was how he would announce himself. He was a Vietnam vet, one of the only to survive in his unit of all coloured grunts, it was through him that I saw the greater injustices of how here was a man who was willing to die for a country he believed in even after the bullshit that had been heaped upon not only him but his people for decades on end. Here was a man who had fought and killed to protect all Americans freedoms who was giving nothing but trinkets in return... a few metals and awards, citations but not given proper medical treatment or heathcare for serving a country that he so loved and still was willing to fight for.

Another event that had really changed everything was when I had moved to another state, in a very white part of a college town, thinking that it was 'safe' and very unlikely that I would be robbed or killed... by this time I had given up most of my ways of thinking as far as being hateful but still was leary of certain parts of town and such. Late one night I woke to someone in my apartment, being that I've always had guns and had been a state pistol marksman, I ventured out to find that I was being robbed, announcing my intentions I raised my pistol shooting the shadowy figure. To find out it was a white guy who just did it for the thrill of doing it changed it all for me. I had moved out and back to MI where I did my part to repent for my evil ways.

I spent several years working with the homeless, disadvantaged inner city youth, the VA and such places on a volunteer basis. I worked at a fish fry in the heart of the ghetto, where the white business owner was afraid to set foot in after sundown and the white patrons were less than 1% and those were mostly police officers. All of these actions by no long shot make up in the slightest way for how I had acted previously, but in a small way I had wanted to contribute something back to the people I had been so hateful to, even if they had no idea. I became a business owner myself giving job opportunities to all who applied, being colour-blind I found many good employees, many I would have never given the chance to otherwise nor had even considered... most became my friends.

I've taken alot of shit from people over the years, been called everything but a decent white man by many and some have even made the attempt to take my life for what I now believe in. It wasn't so very long ago, about 15 years ago or so that if someone had told me that I would end up in love with a black girl, wanting to make her my wife and being the happiest I've ever been in my life, they probably would have drawn their last breath by the time they had said it. I have been all over the world and have experienced a great deal, probably more than I should have ever had, but I know what I believe in and that I was so very wrong for many years.

To make more of a point, all of this I have never hidden or diluted from Nudemuse and to show just how much true heart can overcome anything, she still loves me... so much that it floors me and sometimes can't understand why. She even thinks that there was a grander purpose for it all and that it was something that I had to go through to become the person I am today, which I do believe but have a hard time grasping it on occassion.

Hatred is a learned response, you do not come from the womb with seething hate for another person or group of people. But I will concede that prejudice is an ingrained response, ALL people are prejudiced to one extent or another, everyone will pre-judge others based on apperance or whatnot... I get this most often from little old ladies, who see the leather jacket and the tattoos, they hold their purses a little tighter with a nervous look in their eyes. I get the same response from cops and business owners and bankers of being looked at like I'm there to fuck up their day.

All I can say is live your life how ever you think you should, maybe no one is right in the end... but life is too short to go around hating someone because they are different... colour, race, creed, religion or whatever, it may end up that it is one of 'those' people who saves your life, it maybe the cop or EMT or the blood or organ donor who gives of themself just to save someone who wouldn't return the favour, let alone be thankful for it.






----Rant over----

You may now return to your regularly scheduled Blue Blood, already in progress.

[Trotter]

as a comedian put it> Why can't we have racism thats ignorant, but positive. You know those chinese people....they can fly. You heard about the PuertoRicans right.....they're made of candy.

[Amelia G]

I posted this in the shame thread, but I think it bears repeating here. I actually find both racial prejudice and racial pride kinda lame.

I think my point of view on bigotry is probably pretty clear to anyone who has tried to type certain racial epithets on this board. Those are some of the only words which autocensor. That and certain terms child abusers google for and certain spammer sites.

Fun fact to know and share: My parents were two of the first 100 card-carrying members of the NAACP. They could never figure out how to explain racism to me, so they just never told me there was any difference. Racism was something I first heard of in school during our Civil War units. I thought it was something primarily in the history books only, until pretty late in life.

Both racial pride and prejudice struck me as baffling and horrid because you really do have to be taught that stuff. Human beings do not naturally come to those conclusions.

When I was in college and went to hear Spike Lee speak and he said he was interested in giving black students of my school jobs, I was depressed for ages afterwards. I was impressed with him for having been creative on his own. I was impressed with him for being an indie filmmaker and not for being a black one. Of course, I later saw stuff of his which I felt condoned date ****, but that is a topic for another thread.

[Amelia G]

Basically, I'm saying that it might be natural for a child who has, for example, never seen someone black before to stare, but it is not natural for them to assume the color of someone's skin means something unless they are taught that it means something.

[author unknown]

there's no such thing as race. race is not biological nor psychological. it's not genetic, it's nothing. think about it. can you change your race? no. why not? it's a product of human imagination. you can change your nationality, your religion, your social customs, everything... except your race. why is that? would it be fair to say that if i was born in china, live in china, am officially a chinese citizen, follow their social customs and their religious beliefs, that i am technically chinese, regardless of my skin color?

racism annoys me. it's elaborate stereotyping that people see as justified because they have biological evidence that is bullshit because race does not exist. we gave race this genetic definition when that's not so. we are one race, the human race, with sub-sections. the only reason skin color is different and all that is because of geograpical circumstance.

i'm actually doubting how on-topic this is. but yeah, that's what race and racism is all about in my opinion. it's nothingness at its best.

[Nudemuse]

Basically, I'm saying that it might be natural for a child who has, for example, never seen someone black before to stare, but it is not natural for them to assume the color of someone's skin means something unless they are taught that it means something.

That is very true. When I was in Japan most of the kids I met had never and probably will never see a black person up close and personal ever. It's entirely natural for someone who comes from a basically homogenous (I probably spelled that wrong I'm exhausted) to be curious about someone different.

As I explained to a girl from New Zealand I used to know when I take offense is when someone else gives me reason to. For example, the number of stupid/offensive questions I've been asked in my life.

Personally I don't really care what beliefs people hold. If you want to think that all black people are actually from the planet Mars and breathe nitrogen by all means go ahead. What I have a problem with is other people imposing the stereotypes that they have allowed themselves to believe on me.

If someone is easily led enough to believe whatever about me on sight for the most part I have no time for them. On the other hand I have known and been friends with many people who have never known someone outside of their own culture.

I find it beyond asinine that so many people still seem to be so stuck on skin color as a measure of ethnicity, and worthiness. Really, with all the other things going on in the world right now why worry about that too?

[TheDeathKnight]

I think the real cool experience I had, was meeting people who were adopted or raised by some other race than their own. I have a freind who is russian/mongolian, but was adopted by a white Irish family in the midwest. So he talks and thinks like a country boy. And I have met totally ghetto people of all races, and very intelligent minorities. It really makes you realize that you are a product of your environment, and your parents, and it is not dictated by your race. So I try to keep that in mind at work, and during social interactions. I will get to know people, regardless of their race. But I still find myself more cautious around minorities, when I am in a bad neighborhood. But I am less worried about white people in my own neighborhood. I think I probably have more "prejudice" against any people in a bad neighborhood, regardless of race, than I do against people at work, etc... Maybe it is just a survival instinct or something.

But I do really like it when people of different races prove people wrong. Where they show they are smart, successful, interesting, etc... I love it when I see someone, and people make assumptions about them, and I see them blow it out of the water. I try to do the same thing myself. I try to look different, in some ways, to show people that they should not judge people based on how they look. I know people look at me weird. But then I open my mouth, and show that I have a brain, and I show that I am doing well, so that they might not make the same assumptions about other people who choose to look different. It shouldn't only be rock stars that can look weird and still survive in this world... Same way people should not assume that a black man with money must be a drug dealer or a sports star.

[One Eyed Cat]

Basically, I'm saying that it might be natural for a child who has, for example, never seen someone black before to stare, but it is not natural for them to assume the color of someone's skin means something unless they are taught that it means something.

A number of my family members came from Ukraine and had literally never seen a black person in real life. I think people often resort to xenophobia as a defense mechanism when they feel threatened by the unkown or "other". To truly overcome racism, we must all own up to the latent xenophobia we may have to some degree (kudos to the gentleman in the other thread for doing so). I've never been a racist but I know I have tendencies towards xenophobia which I only overcome thru interacting with members of the "other". I have been accused of bigotry due to my tendency towards "nationalism" in Eastern Europe. My actual viewpoint is one of equal rights for all people of a given country and an opposition to empires which make this impossible. The former USSR is a prime example of this. It take time, especially, to overcome xenophobia towards members of a group which a country may have historically been at war with. In the United States, there simply is no excuse. I see racism as an excuse for the failings of the racist to succeed under a system of open competition. I can understand it, to a point, by members of a minority group. It is still utterly unacceptable.



OEC

[pelelaka]

i just looked up the definition of racist in the dictionary (forgive my spelling if it's wrong)

1. the belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability AND that particular race is supirior to others

2. discrimination or prejudice based on race

i think what somebody way up at the top tried to say was that everyone is racist because they recognize that races have their differences. according to this definition, that's not being racist. it's when you think that one race is supirior to another because of those differences.

for example: growing up in florida there are a lot of spanish families. these families like to hang out on their tailgates in their drive ways and stare at you while you walk by their house. it's annoying, but i don't think that white people are better than mexicans because they don't stare (which some white people do from time to time but if you stare back they get embarrised and look away). yes i realize the changes in personality's and appearances in different races but i don't think that white people are the best race in the world, i think that all races are equal with ups and downs for every person.

[Morning Glory]

why don't you look up the definiation of discrimination then douche bag?

Main Entry: dis·crim·i·nate
Pronunciation: dis-'kri-m&-"nAt
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): -nat·ed; -nat·ing
Etymology: Latin discriminatus, past participle of discriminare, from discrimin-, discrimen distinction, from discernere to distinguish between —more at DISCERN
Date: 1628
1 a : to mark or perceive the distinguishing or peculiar features of b : DISTINGUISH, DIFFERENTIATE
2 : to distinguish by discerning or exposing differences; especially : to distinguish from another like object

[Morning Glory]

to spell it out for you, when you judge people by thier "race" that is what racism is. for example: to say in my highschool there was a lot of kids that did better than me on tests. non racist. to say that most of the chinese students did better than me on the test is racist, even though it is not insulting and you don't perceive it as so, you are making an asumption about people based on thier race by equating smartness with chinese ethnicity, instead of judging them by thier own individual characteristics as people like yourself.

[Amelia G]

i just looked up the definition of racist in the dictionary (forgive my spelling if it's wrong)

1. the belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability AND that particular race is supirior to others

2. discrimination or prejudice based on race

i think what somebody way up at the top tried to say was that everyone is racist because they recognize that races have their differences. according to this definition, that's not being racist. it's when you think that one race is supirior to another because of those differences.

for example: growing up in florida there are a lot of spanish families. these families like to hang out on their tailgates in their drive ways and stare at you while you walk by their house. it's annoying, but i don't think that white people are better than mexicans because they don't stare (which some white people do from time to time but if you stare back they get embarrised and look away). yes i realize the changes in personality's and appearances in different races but i don't think that white people are the best race in the world, i think that all races are equal with ups and downs for every person.

What I am saying is that if you extrapolate your minimal limited experience and say that all or even most Mexicans are a certain way, then that is racism.

I am not denying the existence of demographics. If you say that most of the members of most of the Latin families on your particular street like to drink a particular brand of beer and stare at you for X and so reason, that is demographics. If you say Mexicans are just like that, then that is racism.

I also do not believe we all have latent xenophobia. But I may have a unique perspective. I was always the new kid in town as a kid and maybe there were times xenophobia made that more difficult for me.

Perhaps I lack a socioeconomic/racial/ethnic center from which to hate and pre-judge. I think I'm okay with that.

[ravenofdeath]

I'm not racist......I hate everybody equally.

Hey thats my saying. and I agree I hate everyone equally.

[One Eyed Cat]

I also do not believe we all have latent xenophobia. But I may have a unique perspective. I was always the new kid in town as a kid and maybe there were times xenophobia made that more difficult for me.

I'm sure it did. I'm thinking more in terms of how members of different nationalities that have historically been at conflict tend to interact.

Perhaps I lack a socioeconomic/racial/ethnic center from which to hate and pre-judge. I think I'm okay with that.

That's cool. Racism and prejudice in the United States are ridiculous and unacceptable. I can insure you that each new group of immigrants has to overcome it in some ways.


OEC

[BurntSoulWalking]

Looks like the PC brainwashing has taken over the thread...

Look, everyone is predujice. We have to be. We don't have the time to learn everything there is to know about someone right when we meet them. When I'm trying to get high, I don't ask the guy in the blue uniform with the shiney badge and the gun. Oh, he might be willing to sell me some on the side, but I'm going to pre-judge him to be the kind of person I don't want to ask for that sort of thing. When I need help understanding a concept in math, I don't ask the guy in dreads wearing flip-flops outside in the snow. Again, he might be a math major who is helping to redefine some of the more arcane areas of study, but he's not proving he's capable of doing to much thinking.

We all make those prejudices. Get over it. Hell, get used to it, and do what you can to make those predujices more accurate. Take advantage of the fact that people tend to follow patterns. And guess what, some patterns do follow race. Probably has something to do with a common upbringing or something.

However, basing a desicion soley on someones race, especially when the time and means for an actual examination of that person exists (like a 5min interview, etc etc), is total crap. Which is why I protest any organization that has a racial name in it. Like the Hispanic Professional Engineers Society. or the United Negro College Fund. These are the things that are the embodyment of modern evil racism. We might have stopped telling someone "Your black, therefor you are property", instead we say "Your black, so here is some extra help... you'll need it"

[Nightingale]

I firmly believe that I am not racist; I try to judge individuals for themselves and decide if they are my sort of person regardless of where they come from but according to who *they* are.

[purplepixie]

I went to the pub with an ex a couple of weeks a go there were some blokes in there from some extreme violently charged racist group (that i cant find the name for right now) goin on about pakistanni's how they steal benefits attack whites and **** women ............etc etc this was 11.30 in the morning and they were both completely pissed already BLATENLY sponging off the benefits threatening to KILL the first 'pakki' they saw!!!! well thats just plain hypocriticism is it not!
What kind of example they setting about there 'ELITE' (white british) group I dont see any of these asian groups in the pub sluring words an hour after openning do you?
Plus they convinced my EX he said that they made 'good points' and that he was going to join! How glad am I that I dumped him

[purplepixie]

I firmly believe that I am not racist; I try to judge individuals for themselves and decide if they are my sort of person regardless of where they come from but according to who *they* are.

That is exactly how I answered the drunken racist

[Morning Glory]

yeah, for reals.. i'm not disputing the fact that some people are racists, but some people aren't, so you racist assholes really need to shut the fuck up and stop saying that everyone is a racist, why trying to like tap dance around the fact that means you too. You are a racist, I am not. I don't judge people by thier race, I judge people by whether they are a stupid fucking moron, or an intelligent person.

[deathandcold]

tea.. i agree to.

[OliX]

I've Been Called Racist And It Had Nothing To Do With Racism. I'm Not Guilty If Someone Is Stupid And If I Don't Like Them Doesn't Mean I Don't Like Them Because Of Their Color. Don't You Hate That? Such Behaviour.....

[grebo]

hate is a wasted emotion, but if i dont like someone i dont like the individual not what or who they are.

i have friends visiting other countrys that have been abused then realise how fucked what they did at home is, and what it feels like to be on the receiving end of racism.

[Cafe_Post_Mortem]

I am a little behind on the thread, but I gotta say the every one is racist idea is not new, and it is still bullshit.

Everybody has prejudices (and spelling deficincies), however not everybodies prejudice is based on race. It is just as stereotyping to assume everybody is racist as anything. Prejudice is either built up from experience or is taught. Depending on what you are taught or experience, your prejudices may be based on race, or style of dress or accent. Not everyone is taught or learns to judge by race. Some are taught nationality, social class, style of dress or whatever else you can think of. To assume you know everyones is based on race is just another form of prejudice.

Which ges to the next part of the thing I need to call bullshit on. As a white man, if I decide to live shoeless in a trailer in Oklahoma with my shotgun and pabts blue ribbon, that is my fuckin buisiness. If I go the yuppy route, or rich liberal hippy route and live up to every stereotype set for my race, my choice. Sure people shouldn't try to live up to the stereotypes, but people have the right to be whatever they want, even if it is what the racists expect.

Fifty cent has every right to live up to the thug lifestyle, and still call you racist if you assume someone else will just because they are black. Likewise, I have the right to shave my head and wear army boots and wife beaters and expect people to not assume I am a nazi. If you think fifty cent is an asshole in his own right, no problem, it is only when you associate it with the color of his skin instead of his behavior that it becomes racism. If he wants to live the thug life, it is no worse than when som OC white boy does it.

[inox]

Are there differences in character and ability between our various races/nationalities? Probably, much like the various breeds of dogs can be quite different, yet are all still dogs.

Is one race superior? No. Should we treat each other differently because of race, or focus on these things? No.

[Toe Cutter]

I think the majority of racism in america today has it's roots in the politics of a class war. Beyond that it's simply ignorance.

[tinstar]

Racism is the stupidest, lamest, most utterly basic form of collectivism on the market. And y'all know how I feel 'bout collectivism.

[TheDeathKnight]

It's mostly caused because people who are raised in a ghetto environment, act stupid, sound stupid, and do not do much with their lives. So since a lot of blacks live in ghetto environments, people tend to think their race is predisposed to certain behaviors. But in reality, it's the environment, not the race. Thus the same behaviors are observed in trailer park white people, etc... The same lack of education, etc... It has nothing to do with race. Raise a white kid in a lower class, ghetto black neighborhood, and he will talk the same, act the same, etc... Raise a black kid in an upper-class white neighborhood, and that kid will probably go to college, sound smart, do well, etc... People assume a lot about asians, blacks, hispanics, etc, but it's not about race. It's about culture and environment... Thus the idea behind bussing kids from inner cities, to rural schools, etc...

[Mr Karl]

Raceism never made any sense to me , I've always thought that hatred of subclasses of the human race to fall under bigotry, wich as bill cosby said in his movie on bigotry hates everyone

oh well maybe we'll get a visit from raceist aliens who hate humans

[Titus]

to spell it out for you, when you judge people by thier "race" that is what racism is. for example: to say in my highschool there was a lot of kids that did better than me on tests. non racist. to say that most of the chinese students did better than me on the test is racist, even though it is not insulting and you don't perceive it as so, you are making an asumption about people based on thier race by equating smartness with chinese ethnicity, instead of judging them by thier own individual characteristics as people like yourself.

I absolutely agree -- couldn't have put it better.

[Titus]

[QUOTE=I am in fact German, I am very proud of my ancestors and had actually at one time thought that Hitler was a very great man and to an extent he was... before anyone gets the wrong idea, here's why: at no other time in the world's history did a leader bring such a depressed country back into an economic state as he did... but that is as far as I will go on that. QUOTE]

As a matter of fact (non-propagandastic-historic) it wasn't Hitler who helped Germany out of economic depression, he just claimed it, together with a bunch of other propaganda-lies which are still current grace a people like you and people like my grand-parents.
In fact, Brüning from the Republic of Weimar did most of the effort to restore the 'Reich' but then was knocked over by Hitler who took all
the credits. I'm tired to hear these lame arguments for a secret admiration of Hitler.
Hitler was a mediocre painter - this is where souls reveal -and his immense appeal to the masses link us to a mediocre and narrow-minded character. He was like - so many others! 'The Banality of Evil', it's called. Stalin and Pol Pott were, in fact, very common.
Causing the world's greatest genocides doesn't need special characters, common derangements are already enough.

ps: why so proud?? did your ancestors join the resistance in Germany???

[VelvetKisses]

mmmmmmmmmm........ racism does exist and we do have to deal with it. where i come fromt here are a lot of different minorites so i'm used to beign around black, asian, white and chinese people. i don't think of them any differently but, if i'd never seen one before or grown up in an area with only one race in it then i might.

but i have also seen what racism and ignorance can do. i live in west yorkshire and was only a few miles away from the bradford riots a few summers ago. the things i was seeing a one of 'my' cities were terrible. i promised myself then that i'd never discrimintate against anyone for any reasona nd i've pretty much stuck to that.