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So, rather than continue to spar with billi over on his "What isn't" thread, I thought a more cogentn and measured examination of the issue might be in order. We've been here before, of course, but it might be worthy of some attention again.
Firstly, from the Merriam-Webster English Language Technical Manual (that's engineerspeak for "dictionary" :lfao: ):
So, one definition says that belief that race determines traits and capacities is racist, or that differences produce an inherent superiority is racist, or that prejudice or discrimination are racist.Let's roll with that.
When Obama called his grandmother a "typical white person" that was somewhat racist. Was it less racist than Rush Limbaugh saying that the NFL had a vested interest in a successful black quarterback (at a time when there were numerous black quarterbacks) or Jimmy the Greek talking about black athleticism being a consequence of selective breeding of slaves? I don't know. I know Jimmy the Greek got shafted-there's an element of truth to what he was saying, but no one dares to speak of it. I know Rush Limbaugh is a big, fat idiot-and what he said was racist , superfluous, and idiotic: at the time he made those comments about Donovan McNabb, the NFL had a bunch of successful black quarterbacks, and had for years. It was pretty silly. Whether either of those instances is more racist than Obama's calling his grandmother "Toot," a "typical white person" I couldn't say, though I'd say they're all equally silly.
Racism often is silly. I was in the grocery store in Los Alamos a few years back, talking with a colleague from Arkansas (Mark is a delightfully intelligent and gentle man, and a remarkably competent and coherent physicist-I stole the whole "explain it to my mother" paradigm from him) and another colleague in Spanish. A cashier in the store (who was Hispanic) remarked that she didn't know anyone with a Southern accent could speak Spanish. A silliness which points out the real root of racism: ignorance. In this country, we all too often assume that those from the south are less intelligent-that a southern accent means that a person is less smart than the rest of us. This is, of course, simply ignorant. People with southern accents are no more or less intelligent because of their accent, and to assume otherwise is a kind of racism, a sort of prejudice that assumes inherent superiority based upon a racist-or, in this case, regional trait.
I can't tell you about all the instances in my life when racism has had an impact on me. The first time that I took note of was probably in third grade, when one of my teachers, Mrs. Marantz, told me that I'd have to be a janitor when I grew up. I laughed at her: my parents had probably been telling me I was going to college since I was born, and that's what I told her: I was going to college, and going to be a marine biologist. Of course, it was 1968, in New York, not 1957 in the deep south, and my parents about tore the school down when I told them the story.
Mrs. Marantz was a silly racist, but to someone with less ego and support than myself, she could have been very hurtful.
Likewise, because of my mixed heritage, and somewhat exotic appearance( I dunno, I got curly hair, big lips and this lump of cartilage at the end of my nose; is it really that complicated? :lfao: ) people think it's perfectly alright to ask me-in variously invasive ways-what my ethnic heritage is. Like, What are you, anyway? or, sometimes, Excuse me, but what's your ethnic heritage? This isn't racist, exactly, but simply curiosity-of course, I tend to think that they wouldn't ask the "typical" Scotch-Irish/Cherokee person from Oklakhoma or Georgia this question; they'd just assume they were "white."
Native Americans-Indians, what I call 'em, 'cause we always have, and because we were "Native" before "America"-have their own little racisms, and their own little games around them. Lots of them have been really surprised at my heritage, though a few knew all along, or right from the start. Navajos, for whom the blood quanta is coupled with an entire catalogue of clan affiliations, have their own little slights and needles for black people, or people of mixed-blood. They'll nod at me about white people, call them bilgaana-"the ones you fight constantly," and call me nakaii, which means "dark Mexican," :lfao: , or zhinni, which means "ape."
Seems like everyone's racist, one way or another, given a chance.
When I was in 8th grade, I asked a girl out. She was white, and had come to my birthday party. We were friends, but going out? She said, and I quote, No ****ing way. Of course, I didn't know that she'd gone out with another -erm-"colorful fella", and her dad had beaten the crap out of her for it. Oh well.
Is Obama racist? Well, I'd tell anyone who wants to know to read his books, and read between the lines-make up their own mind. In my opinion, yes, Obama's racist. Maybe no more or less than the rest of us, but almost certainly racist in a-oddly enough-very typically black American way. He doesn't like white people very much. Of course, from what I've seen of black America, he's not at all alone in this, and often with good reason. While the ravings of Jeremiah Wright are viewed by mainstream America as insane, they're all too frequently believed by members of the African American community. When you have history that includes the Tuskegee "experiment," it isn't too much of a stretch to AIDS being a government invention to wipe out black people. In Obama's case, it has a lot to do with how his mother raised him, and the places where he lived, and his grandparents. It's strange, and.....sad, kinda. The man is lost, adrift in an America he has always had to make a place for himself in.
I've listened to more than my fair share of "raps" from members of the Nation of Islam, a religion that masquerades as Islam, and is racist to the core in its ideology. Blecchh!- and a :lfao: ! I also don't have much use for Afrocentrism, though it seems mostly misguided and the product of poor scholarship,desperate rather than outright malevolent. In fact, most of the afrocentrists are missing where they would be right, and looking in all the wrong places. Oh well.
I took my diver's certification at a relatively early age. Took lessons in the VA pool. Took the bus to the VA. Rode with deranged Viet Nam vets. Worst, though, was this black woman who got on the bus, and raved about how much she hated white people-scared the crap out of everyone, including me, but especially the white people.
Was she racist? Or did she come by her hate honestly? Is there such a thing as "honest hatred?"
Who's to say?
I brought a girl home from college, once. In college I went on a pretty serious Asian girl tear.:lfao: Was that racist? I dunno-I think attraction to a phenotype isn't necessarily racist, but probably has a racial component-though I didn't wind up taking an Asian bride. ANyway, I had my reasons, in retrospect.I've always thought it was partly a reaction to my frustration from 14 months of celibacy in Japan....:lfao:.... Anyway, I brought a Korean girl home from college, and my parents were nice, and polite. Later, my mother took me aside and told me to never bring a "filthy Japanese" into their home again. I pointed out that Audrey was Korean, but my mom said What's the difference? Now, mom was a kid during WWII-just old enough to understand the rape of Nanking, and all atrocities Japanese ,and to take all anti-Japanese propaganda to heart. Even 30 years later, though, that doesn't excuse her racism for me. I'm not even going to get into her anti-Semitism, which, given all the Jewish friends that she had, I've never completely understood-except that she's from Wyoming, and didn't know any Jews before coming to New York, and was taught as a child that Jews were "Christ-killers." My parents taught me to never hate anyone, and I've tried my best not to. I think I've succeeded pretty well-I raised my kids the same way, and they certainly don't hate anyone.My dad didn't hate anyone, or even make judgements based on ethnicity-he judged people by how they behaved. I try to judge people by how they behave, rather than how they appear, and that usually has worked for me, white, black or whatever.
Of course, I deal with all sorts of reactions to all sorts of things: my professional position (guy who has my job has to be white) my gorgeous, super intelligent, hyper-tomboy,Playboy girl (women of the forest service, 1987) one you were looking for when you settled for whoever you're married to, white, blonde! wife . My singing "country" music. No really. Okay, make that western music. I sing-occasionally in public, playing guitar, mandolin, banjo, harmonica and everythingelse they'll let me. If you're ever in New Mexico, maybe you'll find me at Los Ojos Saloon, which is right down the road from my old house,has animals and guns mounted on the walls and bullet holes in the ceiling, and where i've played a time or two. It's also where a rather gap-toothed, rednecked, Confederate flag wearing, beer-swilling, bullying ******* insisted that I couldn't be singing "Marty Robbins and Johnny Cash songs," because " a n-i-g-g-e-r has no business singing those songs." :lfao:
Of course, I wanted to kick his testicles clear up to his spectacles, but Joe Grider, the owner and fellow lab employee, had him thrown out, and had the Sandoval county sherrif waiting to take him away for drunk driving, etc., etc., etc., which was very satisfactory, since I got to keep singing......:lfao:
What is racist? Usually something ugly-though sometimes silly. Not always what we expect it to be, certainly.
Almost certainly not disbelieving in man-made global warming, or wanting the government to spend less.
Of course, the case could be made that the "tea party" is at least partly a racist reaction to a black President, but what the hey.....
What do you think?
Firstly, from the Merriam-Webster English Language Technical Manual (that's engineerspeak for "dictionary" :lfao: ):
So, one definition says that belief that race determines traits and capacities is racist, or that differences produce an inherent superiority is racist, or that prejudice or discrimination are racist.Let's roll with that.
When Obama called his grandmother a "typical white person" that was somewhat racist. Was it less racist than Rush Limbaugh saying that the NFL had a vested interest in a successful black quarterback (at a time when there were numerous black quarterbacks) or Jimmy the Greek talking about black athleticism being a consequence of selective breeding of slaves? I don't know. I know Jimmy the Greek got shafted-there's an element of truth to what he was saying, but no one dares to speak of it. I know Rush Limbaugh is a big, fat idiot-and what he said was racist , superfluous, and idiotic: at the time he made those comments about Donovan McNabb, the NFL had a bunch of successful black quarterbacks, and had for years. It was pretty silly. Whether either of those instances is more racist than Obama's calling his grandmother "Toot," a "typical white person" I couldn't say, though I'd say they're all equally silly.
Racism often is silly. I was in the grocery store in Los Alamos a few years back, talking with a colleague from Arkansas (Mark is a delightfully intelligent and gentle man, and a remarkably competent and coherent physicist-I stole the whole "explain it to my mother" paradigm from him) and another colleague in Spanish. A cashier in the store (who was Hispanic) remarked that she didn't know anyone with a Southern accent could speak Spanish. A silliness which points out the real root of racism: ignorance. In this country, we all too often assume that those from the south are less intelligent-that a southern accent means that a person is less smart than the rest of us. This is, of course, simply ignorant. People with southern accents are no more or less intelligent because of their accent, and to assume otherwise is a kind of racism, a sort of prejudice that assumes inherent superiority based upon a racist-or, in this case, regional trait.
I can't tell you about all the instances in my life when racism has had an impact on me. The first time that I took note of was probably in third grade, when one of my teachers, Mrs. Marantz, told me that I'd have to be a janitor when I grew up. I laughed at her: my parents had probably been telling me I was going to college since I was born, and that's what I told her: I was going to college, and going to be a marine biologist. Of course, it was 1968, in New York, not 1957 in the deep south, and my parents about tore the school down when I told them the story.
Mrs. Marantz was a silly racist, but to someone with less ego and support than myself, she could have been very hurtful.
Likewise, because of my mixed heritage, and somewhat exotic appearance( I dunno, I got curly hair, big lips and this lump of cartilage at the end of my nose; is it really that complicated? :lfao: ) people think it's perfectly alright to ask me-in variously invasive ways-what my ethnic heritage is. Like, What are you, anyway? or, sometimes, Excuse me, but what's your ethnic heritage? This isn't racist, exactly, but simply curiosity-of course, I tend to think that they wouldn't ask the "typical" Scotch-Irish/Cherokee person from Oklakhoma or Georgia this question; they'd just assume they were "white."
Native Americans-Indians, what I call 'em, 'cause we always have, and because we were "Native" before "America"-have their own little racisms, and their own little games around them. Lots of them have been really surprised at my heritage, though a few knew all along, or right from the start. Navajos, for whom the blood quanta is coupled with an entire catalogue of clan affiliations, have their own little slights and needles for black people, or people of mixed-blood. They'll nod at me about white people, call them bilgaana-"the ones you fight constantly," and call me nakaii, which means "dark Mexican," :lfao: , or zhinni, which means "ape."
Seems like everyone's racist, one way or another, given a chance. When I was in 8th grade, I asked a girl out. She was white, and had come to my birthday party. We were friends, but going out? She said, and I quote, No ****ing way. Of course, I didn't know that she'd gone out with another -erm-"colorful fella", and her dad had beaten the crap out of her for it. Oh well.
Is Obama racist? Well, I'd tell anyone who wants to know to read his books, and read between the lines-make up their own mind. In my opinion, yes, Obama's racist. Maybe no more or less than the rest of us, but almost certainly racist in a-oddly enough-very typically black American way. He doesn't like white people very much. Of course, from what I've seen of black America, he's not at all alone in this, and often with good reason. While the ravings of Jeremiah Wright are viewed by mainstream America as insane, they're all too frequently believed by members of the African American community. When you have history that includes the Tuskegee "experiment," it isn't too much of a stretch to AIDS being a government invention to wipe out black people. In Obama's case, it has a lot to do with how his mother raised him, and the places where he lived, and his grandparents. It's strange, and.....sad, kinda. The man is lost, adrift in an America he has always had to make a place for himself in.
I've listened to more than my fair share of "raps" from members of the Nation of Islam, a religion that masquerades as Islam, and is racist to the core in its ideology. Blecchh!- and a :lfao: ! I also don't have much use for Afrocentrism, though it seems mostly misguided and the product of poor scholarship,desperate rather than outright malevolent. In fact, most of the afrocentrists are missing where they would be right, and looking in all the wrong places. Oh well.
I took my diver's certification at a relatively early age. Took lessons in the VA pool. Took the bus to the VA. Rode with deranged Viet Nam vets. Worst, though, was this black woman who got on the bus, and raved about how much she hated white people-scared the crap out of everyone, including me, but especially the white people.
Was she racist? Or did she come by her hate honestly? Is there such a thing as "honest hatred?"
Who's to say?
I brought a girl home from college, once. In college I went on a pretty serious Asian girl tear.:lfao: Was that racist? I dunno-I think attraction to a phenotype isn't necessarily racist, but probably has a racial component-though I didn't wind up taking an Asian bride. ANyway, I had my reasons, in retrospect.I've always thought it was partly a reaction to my frustration from 14 months of celibacy in Japan....:lfao:.... Anyway, I brought a Korean girl home from college, and my parents were nice, and polite. Later, my mother took me aside and told me to never bring a "filthy Japanese" into their home again. I pointed out that Audrey was Korean, but my mom said What's the difference? Now, mom was a kid during WWII-just old enough to understand the rape of Nanking, and all atrocities Japanese ,and to take all anti-Japanese propaganda to heart. Even 30 years later, though, that doesn't excuse her racism for me. I'm not even going to get into her anti-Semitism, which, given all the Jewish friends that she had, I've never completely understood-except that she's from Wyoming, and didn't know any Jews before coming to New York, and was taught as a child that Jews were "Christ-killers." My parents taught me to never hate anyone, and I've tried my best not to. I think I've succeeded pretty well-I raised my kids the same way, and they certainly don't hate anyone.My dad didn't hate anyone, or even make judgements based on ethnicity-he judged people by how they behaved. I try to judge people by how they behave, rather than how they appear, and that usually has worked for me, white, black or whatever.
Of course, I deal with all sorts of reactions to all sorts of things: my professional position (guy who has my job has to be white) my gorgeous, super intelligent, hyper-tomboy,Playboy girl (women of the forest service, 1987) one you were looking for when you settled for whoever you're married to, white, blonde! wife . My singing "country" music. No really. Okay, make that western music. I sing-occasionally in public, playing guitar, mandolin, banjo, harmonica and everythingelse they'll let me. If you're ever in New Mexico, maybe you'll find me at Los Ojos Saloon, which is right down the road from my old house,has animals and guns mounted on the walls and bullet holes in the ceiling, and where i've played a time or two. It's also where a rather gap-toothed, rednecked, Confederate flag wearing, beer-swilling, bullying ******* insisted that I couldn't be singing "Marty Robbins and Johnny Cash songs," because " a n-i-g-g-e-r has no business singing those songs." :lfao:
Of course, I wanted to kick his testicles clear up to his spectacles, but Joe Grider, the owner and fellow lab employee, had him thrown out, and had the Sandoval county sherrif waiting to take him away for drunk driving, etc., etc., etc., which was very satisfactory, since I got to keep singing......:lfao:
What is racist? Usually something ugly-though sometimes silly. Not always what we expect it to be, certainly.
Almost certainly not disbelieving in man-made global warming, or wanting the government to spend less.
Of course, the case could be made that the "tea party" is at least partly a racist reaction to a black President, but what the hey.....
What do you think?
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