No, the definition of racism includes the facet of wielding power against someone.
that's institutional racism. You probably know this but for clarity's sake, racism pure and simple is believing that someone's genetic make up makes them inferior and predetermines how they will behave. There's a whole lotta racist mother f@ckers out there on BOTH sides of the tracks. That ain't no whitey violin playing, it's just a fact.
I never said a thing about whites being inferior to anyone else though. I merely pointed out the obvious, which a lot of white people nowadays want to sweep under the rug, that overwhelmingly white people still think of themselves as superior to non-whites. Is that genetically derived? I don't even pretend to know...I'm just calling the end product as I see it in practice.
But I guess I also pointed out how whites feel so left out of the victim scene that comes from living under white racist rule...that they are now bending over backwards to come up with any way to get in on portraying themselves as victims too. Again, this has nothing to do with inferiority and everything to do with just how it is.
Defintiion: Psychological projection or projection bias (including Freudian Projection) is the unconscious act of denial of a person's own attributes, thoughts, and emotions, which are then ascribed to the outside world, An example of this behavior might be blaming another for self failure. The mind may avoid the discomfort of consciously admitting personal faults by keeping those feelings unconscious, and redirect their libidinal satisfaction by attaching, or "projecting," those same faults onto another. Projection reduces anxiety by allowing the expression of the unwanted unconscious impulses or desires without letting the conscious mind recognize them.
No, the definition of racism includes the facet of wielding power against someone.
that's institutional racism. You probably know this but for clarity's sake, racism pure and simple is believing that someone's genetic make up makes them inferior and predetermines how they will behave. There's a whole lotta racist mother f@ckers out there on BOTH sides of the tracks. That ain't no whitey violin playing, it's just a fact.
I never said a thing about whites being inferior to anyone else though. I merely pointed out the obvious, which a lot of white people nowadays want to sweep under the rug, that overwhelmingly white people still think of themselves as superior to non-whites. Is that genetically derived? I don't even pretend to know...I'm just calling the end product as I see it in practice.
But I guess I also pointed out how whites feel so left out of the victim scene that comes from living under white racist rule...that they are now bending over backwards to come up with any way to get in on portraying themselves as victims too. Again, this has nothing to do with inferiority and everything to do with just how it is.
I recognise the same end product as you, not in such stark terms, but I see the fundamentals. I don't thinks it's based on some belief in genetics as much as some handed down, self affirming and lazy predjudical shite. That don't change the end product and it's consequences nor mitigate against the anger it instills. Unless it 's for something serious, most whites crying victim should sit the f@ck down and chill because they know it probably won't happen again and that their lot in life could be a whole lot worse.
It gets complicated though in some poor mainly white neighbourhoods in the UK for instance where, say, means-testing means that you could be on a "waiting list" all your life cos a constant flow of even worse off immigrants means that you're never the #1 priority for subsidised housing even though you've been waiting longer than anyone else (which makes a mockery of the term "waiting list"). These guys feel like victims and they are, but of a dumb system, not of some racial injustice, and the intelligent ones know it and vote accordingly.
I've been on the road for a week in places like North Carolina, West Virginia, Kentucky and am about to go to Tenn......I've met some incredibly stupid and disgusting white folks and some equally stupid and disgusting black folks........let's put the blame where it belongs.....stupidity, ignorance and the lack of ambition to be anything but.
These things have no racial profile.
And for all you diggers out there......it's ROUGH out here in 2010.
I've been on the road for a week in places like North Carolina, West Virginia, Kentucky and am about to go to Tenn......I've met some incredibly stupid and disgusting white folks and some equally stupid and disgusting black folks........let's put the blame where it belongs.....stupidity, ignorance and the lack of ambition to be anything but.
These things have no racial profile.
And for all you diggers out there......it's ROUGH out here in 2010.
Dig harder!
At least you're going through some pretty country.
On the plus side, most of the race-baiting Arizona immigration law was struck down today. At least for now.
Please quote me the 'race baiting' aspects of the az immigration law. Thank you.
Of course, there are no 'race baiting' aspects to the Arizona law. This legal debacle that the DOJ (under orders from Obama) has initiated against the state of Arizona is just the latest of the many Obama administration outrages (so far) that are going to bite Democrats nationwide in the ass hard come Nov. 2.
I really haven't posted on here in a long time but I find this post interesting. Anyway, as a person of color who grew up in the 70's and 80's in Boston I have a fair amount of experience dealing with racism. Those early experiences have allowed me to deal with the crap that is going on today. It just seems though that many whites in this country are "losing" their mind that Barack Hussien Obama is president! Now I have to admit there was some seriously disrespectful shit said about Bush, but the stuff being said about Obama right now is sooo unacceptable. Obama being portrayed as a witch doctor!?! I mean come people. The Shirley Sherrod situation is only the tip of the Iceberg...millions of people of color in this country take it on the chin everyday when it comes to racism. Only they have no one apologizing to them or tellling their story.
I knew that when Obama was elected that racism would not end. I mean duh!!! In fact, I knew it was going to get worse because this country has not had the guts to deal with it's dirty past. When I used to listen to my father speak about how he could not even buy a house for his family after WW 2 because he was Black iI still get angry. I laugh now (but back then I didn't in the 80s) when I think of how many times I was called nigga and denied certain things in High School. It was sooo much that I thought nigga was my middle name! I fought almost everyday in grade school trying cats off of me..."go home nigga back to Roxbury"...I am from Dorchester!! Bottom line is that until this country deals with it's racist past we aren't going to progress ever!!
amir
I really haven't posted on here in a long time but I find this post interesting. Anyway, as a person of color who grew up in the 70's and 80's in Boston I have a fair amount of experience dealing with racism. Those early experiences have allowed me to deal with the crap that is going on today. It just seems though that many whites in this country are "losing" their mind that Barack Hussien Obama is president! Now I have to admit there was some seriously disrespectful shit said about Bush, but the stuff being said about Obama right now is sooo unacceptable. Obama being portrayed as a witch doctor!?! I mean come people. The Shirley Sherrod situation is only the tip of the Iceberg...millions of people of color in this country take it on the chin everyday when it comes to racism. Only they have no one apologizing to them or tellling their story.
I knew that when Obama was elected that racism would not end. I mean duh!!! In fact, I knew it was going to get worse because this country has not had the guts to deal with it's dirty past. When I used to listen to my father speak about how he could not even buy a house for his family after WW 2 because he was Black iI still get angry. I laugh now (but back then I didn't in the 80s) when I think of how many times I was called nigga and denied certain things in High School. It was sooo much that I thought nigga was my middle name! I fought almost everyday in grade school trying cats off of me..."go home nigga back to Roxbury"...I am from Dorchester!! Bottom line is that until this country deals with it's racist past we aren't going to progress ever!!
amir
Amir,
I hope you come here more often and post......while I understand your comments above what is it you feel will be the solution? What can/will happen that will indicate that we have dealt with our racist past? Honestly, if you're hoping for a country that is totally color/class/ethnic blind it will never happen and certainly you understand that. Any country/community that has diversity will have hatred on many levels.
You mention the disrespect shown towards Bush and only the fact that he was white diminishes it's scope and impact. The people of this country have been conditioned to draw lines and hate those on the other side. It's disgusting and depressing but it's not going away....ever. The fact that you experienced it in a place like Boston shows that it exists everywhere. As individuals we can strive towards treating each other with respect and I suggest many do, but as a whole, in a society that feels the need to "blame" someone/a group for it's ills this type of behavior will be omnipresent.
One great lesson I learned early on in NYC was when one of my African-American friends scolded me for hanging out with those %^%*%$ Jamaicans.....he felt that Jamaicans who came here and "took 3 crappy" jobs to survive were setting back the Civil Rights that his father and grandfather had fought for. I was young and naive and could not understand the hate. Now older and hopefully wiser I realize that every group of people seem to need someone to "be above" regardless of color/race/religion.
What happened in this country to the black man and woman is horrific. My white trash ancestors dropped out of school at 10 and picked tobacco side by side with many poor white and black people....some respected each other, some hated each other. As individuals what we ALL need to do is respect each other based on our actions and nothing more. And while this will not solve the big picture problem it will go far in setting examples for future generations. And what all of us should realize is this doesn't just mean respecting people of color, it means respecting all people unless they have given you reason to disrespect them on a personal level. This means a black man, a white man, a Christian, a Democrat, a Republican, etc. At 52 it's taken many years for me to learn this and I am still learning and will to my dying day. But the key is to spend your time learning, not hating.
Would love to hear your further thoughts.
Respect,
Rich
P.S. Please excuse any typos as I'm posting this from the lobby of a Hotel in Brentwood, Tennesse pre-caffiene.
I don't want to wade into this topic too deeply, and I'm sure O***** can speak to this point much better than I can, but I have to echo R***'s point that we will never have a society without some sort of racial/economic/cultural/religious division. The human psyche requires some manner of self-identification ??? a sense of self and place in relation to the rest of the world ??? in order to function. Part of that identity-building process is defining oneself as part of particular groups ??? be they family, community, cultural, religious, etc. ??? and not a part of others. As a product of evolution, the psyche and the societal structures we have built to express the needs of the individual and society as a whole require competition, be it for resources, mates, or primacy within the group. As long as the competitive element is hard-wired in the human psyche and expressed throughout our society, and as long as the individual and group identification process creates "us"s and "them"s, there will be some form of division, with the attendant animosity that comes with it.
You mention the disrespect shown towards Bush and only the fact that he was white diminishes it's scope and impact. The people of this country have been conditioned to draw lines and hate those on the other side.
I guess it depends on how you would define 'modern'...but still, divisions by class and religion would apply, no?
Of course it's a completely vague term, but I was sort of being anthropological and defining 'modern' as the advent of religion, money, countries (and agriculture).
You mention the disrespect shown towards Bush and only the fact that he was white diminishes it's scope and impact. The people of this country have been conditioned to draw lines and hate those on the other side. It's disgusting and depressing but it's not going away....ever.
"The Boston Globe reports that a new internal Congressional Research Service report and government sources say there are an unprecedented number of death threats against President Obama -- and that the Secret Service is insufficiently funded and staffed to deal with them.
According to The Globe, a report issued by the Congressional Research Service shows that the Secret Service is investigating more threats against government officials than ever before, and questions whether the 144-year old agency should continue probing financial crimes, as was its original mandate.
In total, the Secret Service regularly protects 32 people and arranges security for high-profile events. But the election of Barack Obama has increased threats against the president's life by 400 percent from his predecessor, according to "In the President's Secret Service," Ronald Kessler's account of presidential security. The Secret Service has looked into a number of race-based threats since Obama took office, and a Facebook poll that asked "Should Obama be killed?" President Obama also had a Secret Service detail 18 months before the election, the earliest of any Presidential candidate."
Remember that old Sesame Street song/game "One of these things is not like the other"?
Well, pretending that there's some sort of equivalency between the "disrespect" show Bush and the intense racial hatred being shown to Obama is just peculiar. One of these things is not like the other.
I will certainly try my best to post here more often but life seems to get in the way sometimes..if you know what I mean. Anyway, I am under no illusion that racism in the world will ever go away but I do think America can do better..much better! Being from Boston aka the Mississippi of the North was hard to deal with but it prepared me for later in life. All i am sayin is that this country is trying to have a "discussion" about racism without addressing the horrific wrongs of it's past. We cannot just sweep that shit under the rug. There needs to be a serious discussion on all levels in this country about race, class, gender, etc. However, we have people in this country who are intellectually dishonest and down right liars that seek to continue the hatred and lies. Honestly, those type of people are not Americans at all. They are traitors!! Some Benedict Arnold steez. And you know what we do to traitors in this country!!
oh yeah, and I think a good solution would be for all parties involved in trying to make this a better country to sit together in a hall, room, or whatever and lay everything all our cards all the table. Kinda like the Ghetto Brothers called all the gangs of new york together in rec hall after the killing of their brother Darnell...they ironed shit out for the most part...shit why cannot we as a country do the same.
oh yeah, and I think a good solution would be for all parties involved in trying to make this a better country to sit together in a hall, room, or whatever and lay everything all our cards all the table. Kinda like the Ghetto Brothers called all the gangs of new york together in rec hall after the killing of their brother Darnell...they ironed shit out for the most part...shit why cannot we as a country do the same.
Probably because no one can figure out how to make money by doing it.
However, we have people in this country who are intellectually dishonest and down right liars that seek to continue the hatred and lies. Honestly, those type of people are not Americans at all.
Comments
Defintiion: Psychological projection or projection bias (including Freudian Projection) is the unconscious act of denial of a person's own attributes, thoughts, and emotions, which are then ascribed to the outside world, An example of this behavior might be blaming another for self failure. The mind may avoid the discomfort of consciously admitting personal faults by keeping those feelings unconscious, and redirect their libidinal satisfaction by attaching, or "projecting," those same faults onto another. Projection reduces anxiety by allowing the expression of the unwanted unconscious impulses or desires without letting the conscious mind recognize them.
I recognise the same end product as you, not in such stark terms, but I see the fundamentals. I don't thinks it's based on some belief in genetics as much as some handed down, self affirming and lazy predjudical shite. That don't change the end product and it's consequences nor mitigate against the anger it instills. Unless it 's for something serious, most whites crying victim should sit the f@ck down and chill because they know it probably won't happen again and that their lot in life could be a whole lot worse.
It gets complicated though in some poor mainly white neighbourhoods in the UK for instance where, say, means-testing means that you could be on a "waiting list" all your life cos a constant flow of even worse off immigrants means that you're never the #1 priority for subsidised housing even though you've been waiting longer than anyone else (which makes a mockery of the term "waiting list"). These guys feel like victims and they are, but of a dumb system, not of some racial injustice, and the intelligent ones know it and vote accordingly.
Filed under millstone/neck
I'm sorry, we were talking about everything coming easily to someone or something like that?
These things have no racial profile.
And for all you diggers out there......it's ROUGH out here in 2010.
Dig harder!
At least you're going through some pretty country.
Please quote me the 'race baiting' aspects of the az immigration law. Thank you.
Of course, there are no 'race baiting' aspects to the Arizona law. This legal debacle that the DOJ (under orders from Obama) has initiated against the state of Arizona is just the latest of the many Obama administration outrages (so far) that are going to bite Democrats nationwide in the ass hard come Nov. 2.
Also, I'm sure I'm stating the obvious, but Islam is not a race (in regards to the first two videos in the initial post).
Yeah, you're right, no doubt there will be lots of Canadians deported under the awesomely color-blind statute.
You betcha!
I knew that when Obama was elected that racism would not end. I mean duh!!! In fact, I knew it was going to get worse because this country has not had the guts to deal with it's dirty past. When I used to listen to my father speak about how he could not even buy a house for his family after WW 2 because he was Black iI still get angry. I laugh now (but back then I didn't in the 80s) when I think of how many times I was called nigga and denied certain things in High School. It was sooo much that I thought nigga was my middle name! I fought almost everyday in grade school trying cats off of me..."go home nigga back to Roxbury"...I am from Dorchester!! Bottom line is that until this country deals with it's racist past we aren't going to progress ever!!
amir
Amir,
I hope you come here more often and post......while I understand your comments above what is it you feel will be the solution? What can/will happen that will indicate that we have dealt with our racist past? Honestly, if you're hoping for a country that is totally color/class/ethnic blind it will never happen and certainly you understand that. Any country/community that has diversity will have hatred on many levels.
You mention the disrespect shown towards Bush and only the fact that he was white diminishes it's scope and impact. The people of this country have been conditioned to draw lines and hate those on the other side. It's disgusting and depressing but it's not going away....ever. The fact that you experienced it in a place like Boston shows that it exists everywhere. As individuals we can strive towards treating each other with respect and I suggest many do, but as a whole, in a society that feels the need to "blame" someone/a group for it's ills this type of behavior will be omnipresent.
One great lesson I learned early on in NYC was when one of my African-American friends scolded me for hanging out with those %^%*%$ Jamaicans.....he felt that Jamaicans who came here and "took 3 crappy" jobs to survive were setting back the Civil Rights that his father and grandfather had fought for. I was young and naive and could not understand the hate. Now older and hopefully wiser I realize that every group of people seem to need someone to "be above" regardless of color/race/religion.
What happened in this country to the black man and woman is horrific. My white trash ancestors dropped out of school at 10 and picked tobacco side by side with many poor white and black people....some respected each other, some hated each other. As individuals what we ALL need to do is respect each other based on our actions and nothing more. And while this will not solve the big picture problem it will go far in setting examples for future generations. And what all of us should realize is this doesn't just mean respecting people of color, it means respecting all people unless they have given you reason to disrespect them on a personal level. This means a black man, a white man, a Christian, a Democrat, a Republican, etc. At 52 it's taken many years for me to learn this and I am still learning and will to my dying day. But the key is to spend your time learning, not hating.
Would love to hear your further thoughts.
Respect,
Rich
P.S. Please excuse any typos as I'm posting this from the lobby of a Hotel in Brentwood, Tennesse pre-caffiene.
Sayin'.
Class
Nationality
Religion
Many of the cornerstones of modern society are used as tools of division.
Any real fight against this will have to be perpetual, there's no 'mission accomplished'.
Sexes
I was going to include that, but I didn't think that it was strictly a feature of modern society.
YES!
Nothing like a morning does of Rock-a-Logic!
Of course it's a completely vague term, but I was sort of being anthropological and defining 'modern' as the advent of religion, money, countries (and agriculture).
"The Boston Globe reports that a new internal Congressional Research Service report and government sources say there are an unprecedented number of death threats against President Obama -- and that the Secret Service is insufficiently funded and staffed to deal with them.
According to The Globe, a report issued by the Congressional Research Service shows that the Secret Service is investigating more threats against government officials than ever before, and questions whether the 144-year old agency should continue probing financial crimes, as was its original mandate.
In total, the Secret Service regularly protects 32 people and arranges security for high-profile events. But the election of Barack Obama has increased threats against the president's life by 400 percent from his predecessor, according to "In the President's Secret Service," Ronald Kessler's account of presidential security. The Secret Service has looked into a number of race-based threats since Obama took office, and a Facebook poll that asked "Should Obama be killed?" President Obama also had a Secret Service detail 18 months before the election, the earliest of any Presidential candidate."
http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/10/new-report-find-secret-service-overwhelmed-by-increased-threats.php
Remember that old Sesame Street song/game "One of these things is not like the other"?
Well, pretending that there's some sort of equivalency between the "disrespect" show Bush and the intense racial hatred being shown to Obama is just peculiar. One of these things is not like the other.
I will certainly try my best to post here more often but life seems to get in the way sometimes..if you know what I mean. Anyway, I am under no illusion that racism in the world will ever go away but I do think America can do better..much better! Being from Boston aka the Mississippi of the North was hard to deal with but it prepared me for later in life. All i am sayin is that this country is trying to have a "discussion" about racism without addressing the horrific wrongs of it's past. We cannot just sweep that shit under the rug. There needs to be a serious discussion on all levels in this country about race, class, gender, etc. However, we have people in this country who are intellectually dishonest and down right liars that seek to continue the hatred and lies. Honestly, those type of people are not Americans at all. They are traitors!! Some Benedict Arnold steez. And you know what we do to traitors in this country!!
just my two cents....
Probably because no one can figure out how to make money by doing it.
Dishonesty is as American as Apple Pie.