This site makes extensive use of JavaScript.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser.
Classic Theme
Thottbot Theme
Racism
Post Reply
Return to board index
Post by
gamerunknown
One can acknowledge that people act under the assumption that there are races and make steps to correct the negative effects of that assumption, or one can ignore the fact that people make those assumptions and those experiencing the negative effects will only have recourse to neutrality (well, if they can find sufficient evidence of discrimination, they can take the individuals or institutions responsible to court).
I agree that positive discrimination is still discrimination, but I don't think it's racism: racism is discrimination based on the belief in races.
Edit: Apparently, "government #$%^&*" was used as an insult similar to "welfare queen" and may have been a dog-whistle to those old enough to remember the term.
Double edit:
Text of Stand Your Ground law:
A law enforcement agency may use standard procedures for investigating the use of force as described in subsection (1), but the agency may not arrest the person for using force unless it determines that there is probable cause that the force that was used was unlawful.
Even if it were not cited in the police report, it makes officers wary to arrest suspected murderers.
Post by
170994
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Adamsm
I....Huh....What? Watching the news, which is talking about the final episode of Little Mosque on the Prairie airing tomorrow night, and they were talking about how they are trying to get it picked up in the States....and they talked about the show All-American Muslim, which was on TLC and was cancelled/criticized because it "Showed Muslims as too normal"; really? What kind of logic is that?
Post by
MyTie
It isn't "cultural" enough. Americans want only the most "cultural" things so they can display their sensitivity to all things "cultural".
It's just stupid crap, Adamsm.
Post by
Adamsm
Well, since someone dim bulb at Wikileaks apparently tried to get the US Government focused on Little Mosque for the way they showed an American before(
Dave Foley
playing a customs officer or DMV worker), guess it's to be expected of the standard 'complaining about things you don't watch'; in response to that, the creator of Little Mosque(a 'true' Muslim herself) sent some copies of the DVD's to the White House and got a letter back from Hillary Clinton, telling them to keep up the good work on the show and breaking through the barriers of stupidity.
Post by
gamerunknown
Oh, to clarify, it was a US embassy worker in Ottowa that sent those notes about stereotyping back to the US which Wikileaks intercepted. I found it a little hard to believe that Wikileaks would concern themselves with 1. negative portrayals of the US in Canadian media or 2. helping the US government, but exposing US government neuroticism certainly seems more their area of expertise.
Post by
MyTie
78 year old man beat
by both black and white teens, who should "kill the white man" and "this is for Trayvon". Police said not enough evidence for a hate crime. What are the odds that Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton will not be staging protests for him?
Post by
MyTie
Here is a writer
for CNN who sees a parallel between American Muslims and Trayvon Martin. Supposedly, she sees this bigotry on the national scale. She points to Gingrich's comments that oppose Sharia Law. HOW THE HELL does that translate to bigotry against Muslim peoples? She also points to O'Riley's comment that there is a problem in the Muslim world with some Muslims who do not want freedom for other Muslims. Again, WTF does that have to do with bigotry against Muslims.
I deplore the violent actions done against individuals in any community, based on any reasoning, but this is NOT a reason to paint entire groups of people as victims, and demonize anyone you don't agree with as a bigot. The writer has taken a genuine issue, and politicized it. CNN then pandered that garbage. This sort of stuff infuriates me.
Post by
Palapower27
She points to Gingrich's comments that oppose Sharia Law. HOW THE HELL does that translate to bigotry against Muslim peoples? She also points to O'Riley's comment that there is a problem in the Muslim world with some Muslims who do not want freedom for other Muslims. Again, WTF does that have to do with bigotry against Muslims.
Because, as she states immediately after providing the links, both stories provide misinformation. Misinformation leads to misunderstanding, which is one of the primary causes of bigotry and racism.
In O'Reilly's case, I wouldn't blame him as much as the Huffington Post for the title "O'Reilly: Half The World's Muslims Don't Want Democracy And Human Rights". For the average reader scrolling through article names on the front page, this would be grossly misleading.
Post by
MyTie
It's difficult to show or not show a 50%, because Iran doesn't let us in to poll. However, there IS a big problem with Muslim on Muslim oppression and violence. I assert that O'Reily points to a very real issue. His use of 50% is questionable, but I reject the CNN author's conclusion that this is a direct cause of bigotry and racism. That's a pretty flimsy argument for such a serious topic. The author's intent is to smear O'Reily, smear Gingrich, and victimize herself and other Muslims. When you take a genuine victim, and then you decorate the issue with cheap political tinsel, you degrade the cause for which you profess to argue.
Post by
557473
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Orranis
It's difficult to show or not show a 50%, because Iran doesn't let us in to poll. However, there IS a big problem with Muslim on Muslim oppression and violence. I assert that O'Reily points to a very real issue. His use of 50% is questionable, but I reject the CNN author's conclusion that this is a direct cause of bigotry and racism. That's a pretty flimsy argument for such a serious topic. The author's intent is to smear O'Reily, smear Gingrich, and victimize herself and other Muslims. When you take a genuine victim, and then you decorate the issue with cheap political tinsel, you degrade the cause for which you profess to argue.
50% of white Christians are racist. It's difficult to disprove as may racists may not admit to or consider themselves racist. However, there IS a big problem with Christian racism leading to violence. I assert that I point to a very real issue. My use of 50% is questionable, but I reject the idea that stereotyping a vast group of people as having a single negative opinion is bigoted or racist. That's a pretty flimsy argument for such a topic. Obviously they are intending to decry me and victimize themselves and other Christians. When you take a genuine victim, and then you decorate the issue with cheap political tinsel, you degrade the case you profess to argue.
Arguments are not degraded by arguing semantics, but by making wild and completely unbacked estimates, assumptions, and especially judgements.
Post by
MyTie
It's difficult to show or not show a 50%, because Iran doesn't let us in to poll. However, there IS a big problem with Muslim on Muslim oppression and violence. I assert that O'Reily points to a very real issue. His use of 50% is questionable, but I reject the CNN author's conclusion that this is a direct cause of bigotry and racism. That's a pretty flimsy argument for such a serious topic. The author's intent is to smear O'Reily, smear Gingrich, and victimize herself and other Muslims. When you take a genuine victim, and then you decorate the issue with cheap political tinsel, you degrade the cause for which you profess to argue.
50% of white Christians are racist. It's difficult to disprove as may racists may not admit to or consider themselves racist. However, there IS a big problem with Christian racism leading to violence. I assert that I point to a very real issue. My use of 50% is questionable, but I reject the idea that stereotyping a vast group of people as having a single negative opinion is bigoted or racist. That's a pretty flimsy argument for such a topic. Obviously they are intending to decry me and victimize themselves and other Christians. When you take a genuine victim, and then you decorate the issue with cheap political tinsel, you degrade the case you profess to argue.
Arguments are not degraded by arguing semantics, but by making wild and completely unbacked estimates, assumptions, and especially judgements.
Egyption elections.
Pwnt.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
You mean the elections where, per the news thread, we established that about 11% of the population voted for the party that took the lead, a third of which probably couldn't read? And this was in a country where the population's access to information is filtered through the very people that are a danger to the rest of the world?
Post by
MyTie
You mean the elections where, per the news thread, we established that about 11% of the population voted for the party that took the lead, a third of which probably couldn't read? And this was in a country where the population's access to information is filtered through the very people that are a danger to the rest of the world?
What a wonderful illustration. Re-read this to yourself. Look at the problem here. Now compare that to Orranis's comparison problem. He tried to draw some parallel to Christianity to show me the big problem with O'Reily's comments. I'm just showing how that doesn't hold up.
Now I see that O'Reily's use of 50% is inaccurate. I don't need that demonstrated. I never said it was accurate. I'm just saying that pointing that out as the cause of, what, a brutal murder? No. Just, no. This is pure demonization of people with differing political beliefs.
This is like a cook putting to much salt in my biscuits, and I'm like, "Hey cook, there is too much salt in this biscuit and it caused the holocaust", and the cook is like "That didn't cause the holocaust", and I'm like "Have you tasted the salt in this biscuit". 50% accurate? Perhaps not. The cause of bigotry in the US? No. No. NO. Resoundingly NOOOO.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
Then I'm confused how the mention of the Egyptian Elections was pwning someone. Please explain.
And to elaborate on the issue at heart of the discussion- racism and bigotry is, as a definition, attributing certain traits (other than measurable things like melanin content of the skin) to a group as a whole, or the majority of a group. When you make statements that are true about some members of a group, but you present them as being indicative of all the group, of most of the group, or of a larger percentage of the group than they actually are, then that would promote or create the idea that a trait or action is much more uniformly associated with a certain race than the numbers would indicate. That then reinforces stereotypes, and lends credence to racist statements like "Most X people are violent, or half of those people are completely ok with murdering innocents."
The comparison Orranis drew is spot on. In every religious discussion we have, when people bring up specific instances of violence or other horrible things done in the name of a Christian religion, you get upset because you feel that people are waving around several incidents- major incidents, involving whole countries and large numbers of people- in an effort to say something about the majority of people in that religion. You don't dispute the crusades or the inquisition happened, but you dispute that they represent Christianity, and you get mad when people tend to imply that they do because you feel that using specific incidents to represent a much larger group of people is untrue and unfair.
And you never in those instances would accept the argument that it doesn't matter if they are misrepresenting how many Christians were involved in those things, because the greater issue is that those things happened, and scale is less important than acknowledging what people of that religion have done.
Post by
MyTie
Then I'm confused how the mention of the Egyptian Elections was pwning someone. Please explain.
Because Christian bigotry didn't just elect a government that is and will be responsible for the repression of millions of people, namely, other Christians.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
Then I'm confused how the mention of the Egyptian Elections was pwning someone. Please explain.
Because Christian bigotry didn't just elect a government that is and will be responsible for the repression of millions of people, namely, other Christians.
Hmmm....well, many homosexuals would argue that Christian bigotry does in fact elect governments that repress the rights of millions of people, many of whom consider themselves Christians. Technically, if you're pro-life, we currently elect people based on their promise to allow us to kill millions of babies.
Egypt just shed a dictatorship for free elections. They are making decisions based on campaign promises. Some of them will be about protecting them from their enemies, who are trying to kill them (not true, but dictators love their propaganda), many will be about food, clothing, jobs, etc. From the outside, we have a very good view of that group's history of violence, but not a very good view of how much of that information was available to the Egyptian public, or if their campaign painted a much different picture of the group.
And none of that, really, had anything to do with the fact that if you're going to combat a problem you need to do it with real information and not made up inflated figures which make the problem seem different that it is. To say the Egyptian government is corrupt, has the people fooled as to their credibility and are dangerous is a problem with one solution. To say 50% of the people in Egypt want to kill all Americans, is a problem with a totally different solution. It's not semantics.
Post by
MyTie
You could argue against any government you want. I think you're still missing the point. This problem in the Muslim world is huge. O'Reily pointed it out. This writer used that as a reason to demonize him.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
I'm not missing the point- are you reading my arguments? I'm explaining that changing the scope of a problem does in fact change the nature of a problem. If certain countries are in the control of people who are violent, dangerous, and power-hungry, and those people use their influence to keep their citizens ignorant of what is going on in the world and fearful of an extermination by an enemy that they have fabricated to keep their people scared enough to stay in line, then the solution is to fight dictatorships and promote education and free information to get those people out from under those pricks. If the problem is that 50% of the total population are violent and hateful, independent of the lies of their leaders, then you have to find a way to either eliminate or subjugate 50% of the population. Do you see the problem in not defining the scope correctly?
Post Reply
You are not logged in. Please
log in
to post a reply or
register
if you don't already have an account.
