|
|
JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
|
posted November 17, 2008 05:18 PM |
|
|
That is UTTER and COMPLETE nonsense: I see no reason to have a special word that signifies "non-white ancestry", and of course just communicating this extremely (un)important piece of information - apart from the fact that you claim different things:
Quote:
If people were extremely used to saying cuss words in any conversation, be it political etc... then those words would NOT be considered cuss anymore, from an American viewpoint.
Quote:
If people didn't consider it anymore, or even more extreme, changed its meaning then it would just get accepted if people "get used to it" first of course.
People ARE extremely used to cussing and most don't consider it anymore - but it's still considered cussing...
Anyway, this is wildly off-topic, and it's useless at that. Of course there is no racism in the US, there has never been any and there won't ever be any again.
|
|
Minion
Legendary Hero
|
|
posted November 17, 2008 05:49 PM |
|
|
Quote:
Of course there is no racism in the US, there has never been any and there won't ever be any again.
There IS. And people are fighting against it. There were people who voted for Obama just because he is black, and people who didn't vote for him because he is black. No doubt about it. I am sure there is racism in every frigging country.
However, the word BLACK is not a racist word. Calling ANY person black is, by definition, not racism. No matter what way you put it. You comparing snow and Black is rediculous, because the other is slurr and the other isn't.
I already stated that there needs to be a part of INFERIORITY or DISCRIMINATION involved in the sentence, for it to be racism. Calling someone black has neither. Even if he was 100% white, it is still not racism to call him black. The media also happened to call Bill Clinton the first black president, mind you.
____________
"These friends probably started using condoms after having produced the most optimum amount of offsprings. Kudos to them for showing at least some restraint" - Tsar-ivor
|
|
JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted November 17, 2008 08:26 PM |
|
|
Quote:
However, the word BLACK is not a racist word. Calling ANY person black is, by definition, not racism. No matter what way you put it. You comparing snow and Black is rediculous, because the other is slurr and the other isn't.
I already stated that there needs to be a part of INFERIORITY or DISCRIMINATION involved in the sentence, for it to be racism. Calling someone black has neither. Even if he was 100% white, it is still not racism to call him black. The media also happened to call Bill Clinton the first black president, mind you.
And I already told you that you are WRONG, dammit. Claiming SUPERIORITY is racism as well since it implies an inferiority.
BLACK has a specific meaning, just as WHITE. Neither white nor black are grey or brown or yellow or tan or any other color. Black is BLACK and white is WHITE. No racism is involved, as you say, if no inferiority or superiority is involved.
So, if used for people, why does WHITE mean PURE white, and why does BLACK mean everything not pure white? Suddenly WHITE is something specific while Black is something that is defined using white. Suddenly it's like CLEAN and DIRTY (or UNCLEAN, if you prefer that).
However, that's not the point. That's one-drop-rule which is KNOWN to be racist, but it's past. The claim is, that while it WAS expression of a racist attitude, NOW it's just pure habit. Black is HABITUALLY used to discribe people with some vague ancestry involving non-white skin.
Which means, it's STILL the old differentiation: it doesn't matter what you are EXACTLY, what your ancestry is EXACTLY, whether you are Puertoricanian, or African, whether half or 3/8 or whatever else may have been part of it, and you cannot be just a US citizen either. NOPE, you are either BLACK or WHITE, you either have some part dark skin or you are pure white.
THAT is an expression of a racist attitude, result of a couple of centuries of racism. It's the same with women Women have been oppressed so long that some chauvinist attitudes and habits are so deep-rooted that no one would actually think of them being an expression of an implicit male superiority.
The fact that it's so important that Obama is "black" (as in not white) shows that there still is some way to go with integration. Let's not forget that slavery has been abolished 140 years now which is a lot. I mean, think about how long WOMEN are considered equal. They got the right to vote only 90 years ago, and look at a movie made in the 50s if you want to know something about the male attitude towards women.
|
|
TheDeath
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
with serious business
|
|
posted November 17, 2008 08:31 PM |
|
Edited by TheDeath at 20:32, 17 Nov 2008.
|
Quote:
That is UTTER and COMPLETE nonsense: I see no reason to have a special word that signifies "non-white ancestry"
You may see no reason, but languages don't always have reason. Some people see no reason in using "1337 speak" or "n00b" or "p0kemOn SpeAk", but that doesn't mean others aren't "used to it" or that they don't use it maybe because of that.
Quote:
People ARE extremely used to cussing and most don't consider it anymore - but it's still considered cussing...
People are extremely used to cussing AS CUSSING, they KNOW it is CUSSING. They are used to it AS CUSSING, not as child words. That's what they are used to.  In this case, they are used to the cussing words as CUSSING, they know it is cussing, so they are used to THAT.
In the black case, they are used to say "black" to whoever looks a little more black than white, or let's say, with AT LEAST a bit of african ancestry.
____________
The above post is subject to SIRIOUSness.
No jokes were harmed during the making of this signature.
|
|
Asheera
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Elite Assassin
|
|
posted November 17, 2008 08:35 PM |
|
|
@JJ: I fail to see the point why if you say Black to anyone who isn't 100% white (as in both parents white) it is considered racist
____________
|
|
Elodin
Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
|
|
posted November 17, 2008 08:52 PM |
|
|
Quote:
But now in germany, the new leader of the GREEN party is Cem Özdemir. His parents are both turkish, he was born in germany in the 60ies.
Related news to the "fact" there won't be a political leader of an ethnic minority group in any other country than USA. What now?
Who said that? I said did not have ethnic minority leader in position of prime minister or president and not proprotionally represented in parliment. Also I said Europe likely would follow lead of America and elect such person in near future. Europe many times follow American trends.
|
|
JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted November 17, 2008 10:16 PM |
|
|
Quote:
@JJ: I fail to see the point why if you say Black to anyone who isn't 100% white (as in both parents white) it is considered racist
Becaue if both "races" would be considered equal "black" would be both parents black and everything else "pale" or even white: Same right for everyone. Which would be absurd since a lot of people than would be black AND white, depending on the pov. However, we have the WHITE vocabulary that's still the vocabulary that has been coined in a time when racism was rabid.
Mind you, that does not mean that everyone who uses the word "black " in that sense is a racist or something. It just means that the speech is still reflecting a racist attitude.
|
|
angelito
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
|
|
posted November 17, 2008 10:23 PM |
|
|
Quote:
Europe many times follow American trends.
Like financial crisis for example...
____________
Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.
|
|
JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted November 17, 2008 10:26 PM |
|
|
Quote:
Quote:
That is UTTER and COMPLETE nonsense: I see no reason to have a special word that signifies "non-white ancestry"
You may see no reason, but languages don't always have reason. Some people see no reason in using "1337 speak" or "n00b" or "p0kemOn SpeAk", but that doesn't mean others aren't "used to it" or that they don't use it maybe because of that.
Quote:
People ARE extremely used to cussing and most don't consider it anymore - but it's still considered cussing...
People are extremely used to cussing AS CUSSING, they KNOW it is CUSSING. They are used to it AS CUSSING, not as child words. That's what they are used to. In this case, they are used to the cussing words as CUSSING, they know it is cussing, so they are used to THAT.
In the black case, they are used to say "black" to whoever looks a little more black than white, or let's say, with AT LEAST a bit of african ancestry.
You demonstrate that you are just conjuring stuff. Language always has a reason, and people cuss thoughtlessly. They cuss, even though certain cusses are forbidden in the Bible, and 4-letter words are used without people even realizing it. Saying that something is ****ing cool isn't cussing. It's just using "bad" language.
|
|
TitaniumAlloy
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Professional
|
|
posted November 18, 2008 02:34 AM |
|
|
Joker do you feel a little bit strange that you are the only person who thinks that this is racist?
Isn't racism defined by how the segregated race is subjected to a certain activity?
If no one except you sees anything wrong with it, then it's not really racist.
It's just you having a whinge.
|
|
JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted November 18, 2008 07:49 AM |
|
|
No to both questions.
Quote:
Many people in the United States are rejecting the one drop rule and are questioning whether a person with one black parent should be considered black or biracial. Although politician Barack Obama self-identifies as black, 55 percent of whites and 61 percent of Hispanics classified him as biracial instead of black after being told that his mother is white. Blacks were less likely to acknowledge a multiracial category, with 66% labeling Obama as black.
Quote is from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_people
|
|
TitaniumAlloy
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Professional
|
|
posted November 18, 2008 08:41 AM |
|
|
|
i'm gonna be honest with you, who really cares what they call him?
|
|
JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted November 18, 2008 09:29 AM |
|
|
Language is important.
You see, the situation will be "normal", when someone's race will be of no or minor relevance and consequence. Black, white, yellow, bi-, tri-, multi-racial - who cares?
THEN it will be possible to say, "Obama is a jerk", WITHOUT someone standing up calling it racist and whatnot.
As long as speech puts people into categories there is a division. You can do that with whites as well: Italo-Americans, Irish-Americans, Russo-Americans and so on. As long as the HERITAGE or ANCESTRY is important and noted (instead of just accepting that the US had an influx from a plethora of countries, but were US citizens once they got there), there are divisions.
I think that the situation is pretty clear: a very big part of the white population in the US seems to have actually overcome all race problems and is willing (and has done so) to really live racial equality - doing it already, in fact. Because of the past, of course the situation for black people is on average worse than that of white people, so when you are sitting at the bottom you may get the impression that all this talk about equality is nothing but talk, when in fact it's been (only) a bad start.
In any case it looks like the black people need something for assurance - a visible symbol of equality - that will show them, yes, we can make it, nor only when we play Basketball or Gangsta Rap for entertainment of white people, but no, we can make it up to the top.
That's why for the US this presidency of Obama is extremely important, and the fact that so many unite under the "black" label: it's their president, and the white people will be in second row for a change.
I say again, I didn't say that using "black" here is racist, I said that it is a reflexion of the racist attitude that was in the US, since they actually seem to need the "assurance" I mentioned to prove that the racist period has been overcome, even though Obama actually isn't black but as much white as blak, making him a symbol of racial unification, actually, which seems to be a lot less important, though, than the assurance part.
In this sense it DOES matter how he is called - in fact it's extremely important.
|
|
del_diablo
Legendary Hero
Manifest
|
|
posted November 18, 2008 01:21 PM |
|
|
Quote:
Quote:
The fact remains liberal elitist Europe have no racial minority in position of power and not representative percentage of minority in parlimentary bodies. One can only conclude racism is reason.
Quote:
Quote:
But now in germany, the new leader of the GREEN party is Cem Özdemir. His parents are both turkish, he was born in germany in the 60ies.
Related news to the "fact" there won't be a political leader of an ethnic minority group in any other country than USA. What now?
Quote:
I did a quick google search to discover that 1.8% of the population of the United Kingdom are black (approx 1 million), compared to 13.4% (approx 41million) in America, and much less in Germany and France obviously.
Also the UK elected a female Prime Minister.
I'm not english I'm not supporting them, just saying, the argument that Europe hasn't elected a black head of state doesn't really hold up.
Quote:
Who said that? I said did not have ethnic minority leader in position of prime minister or president and not proprotionally represented in parliment. Also I said Europe likely would follow lead of America and elect such person in near future. Europe many times follow American trends.
Quote:
Asking why there hasn't been a black person as chancellor in Germany is the same as asking why there hasn't been a chinese president in the United States.
You have to look up how many persons out of these ethnic cultures are active in politics at all. I know some "turkish" (major foreign group in germany) politicians here, but can't think of any black or chinese. So if there isn't any black here who WANTS to be active in politics and WANTS to get elected as member of the board of managment of a party, there will never be a black chancellor. That easy.
Quote:
Asking why there hasn't been a black person as chancellor in Germany is the same as asking why there hasn't been a chinese president in the United States.
You have to look up how many persons out of these ethnic cultures are active in politics at all. I know some "turkish" (major foreign group in germany) politicians here, but can't think of any black or chinese. So if there isn't any black here who WANTS to be active in politics and WANTS to get elected as member of the board of managment of a party, there will never be a black chancellor. That easy.
Quote:
But watch and see now if some European countries might elect ethnic minority leader in near future since America is leading the way.
See?
I REALLY wonder what would have been standing here if Hillary won the dam election?
My guess: "America got the first female leader, Europa as far behind as they are will follow".
Norway had Gro Harlem Brundtland already, and several other countries already had. But we never bothered to attempt to brag US back to hell.
Stop it and get over it, Europa already got MANY minorities up in their goverment. Beides Europa is newly immigrated compared to the US where black people have been living over 140 years.
And for the love of somebody consider using numbers of numbers when you se at numbers because if a country only got 1% non-white the chance of having any non-white controlling the country dimishes kind of fast in comparision to what it would be if it was 40%.
There are ofcourse exceptions, UK is one of them. Mainly because slaveri was abolished early.
____________
|
|
nocaplato
Adventuring Hero
Lover of Ancient Philosophy
|
|
posted November 18, 2008 03:38 PM |
|
|
Hey, no offense to any of the posters involved here intended, but this racial discussion is boring the CRAP out of me now. I'd like this to get back on topic (woot, woot OmegaDestroyer).
Could you open up a new thread for this discussion please. Or something.
|
|
angelito
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
|
|
posted November 18, 2008 03:41 PM |
|
|
Jolly Joker...could you finally tell us what your ranting is about? I still have problems to see the main point of your posts....
____________
Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.
|
|
TheDeath
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
with serious business
|
|
posted November 18, 2008 03:47 PM |
|
|
And JJ, you ignored what I said. You say languages always have a reason, yes the reason could be "that they are used to speak that way" (from the past). This isn't BAD. It's because people are used that way.
Here is my quote:Quote:
You may see no reason, but languages don't always have reason. Some people see no reason in using "1337 speak" or "n00b" or "p0kemOn SpeAk", but that doesn't mean others aren't "used to it" or that they don't use it maybe because of that.
A lot of people use so-called "p0kemOn SpeAk" and some see no reason to use it (after all it only complicates matters). If it were the norm for 90% of people then people would stop thinking about a reason for it, well the average citizen anyway.
____________
The above post is subject to SIRIOUSness.
No jokes were harmed during the making of this signature.
|
|
JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted November 18, 2008 04:09 PM |
|
|
I dared to mention that Obama was actually not black but had a white mother and a black father. To show that this is not some single idiot opinion, I repeat this quote.
Quote:
Many people in the United States are rejecting the one drop rule and are questioning whether a person with one black parent should be considered black or biracial. Although politician Barack Obama self-identifies as black, 55 percent of whites and 61 percent of Hispanics classified him as biracial instead of black after being told that his mother is white. Blacks were less likely to acknowledge a multiracial category, with 66% labeling Obama as black.
In spite of that basically everyone insisted on Obama being black, and I responded, daring to say that calling every non-white person black would be an expression or a consequence or a residue of the racist mindset dominating in the US only a couple dozen years ago. A vestige, so-to say, (and with some probably a bit more than that), that works in both directions.
Frankly, some people seem to have a problem envisioning how powerful language is, and so I tried to explain for instance that language is not about the whims of a developing society when it comes to things like racism, oppression, injustice and so on, and that language regulations that are expressing an inequality are mirroring either the society or at least how their members view it.
Now, if YOU could be so polite and explain what the other participants are ranting about and what THEIR point actually is, because I have trouble to see theirs actually, except that it's completely ok to call everyone black who is not completely white which sounds a bit 1984ish, if you know what I mean.
|
|
JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted November 18, 2008 04:18 PM |
|
|
Quote:
And JJ, you ignored what I said. You say languages always have a reason, yes the reason could be "that they are used to speak that way" (from the past). This isn't BAD. It's because people are used that way.
Here is my quote:Quote:
You may see no reason, but languages don't always have reason. Some people see no reason in using "1337 speak" or "n00b" or "p0kemOn SpeAk", but that doesn't mean others aren't "used to it" or that they don't use it maybe because of that.
A lot of people use so-called "p0kemOn SpeAk" and some see no reason to use it (after all it only complicates matters). If it were the norm for 90% of people then people would stop thinking about a reason for it, well the average citizen anyway.
You are mistaking some "group code" with language. Language is the stuff that makes it into the media. Group code may make it into language when it's an influential group, but group codes come from some comic, movie, TV series, music and so on and have a limited lifetime. Most are apolitical as well.
In this context that stuff is simply irrelevant.
|
|
TheDeath
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
with serious business
|
|
posted November 18, 2008 04:32 PM |
|
|
Quote:
You are mistaking some "group code" with language. Language is the stuff that makes it into the media. Group code may make it into language when it's an influential group, but group codes come from some comic, movie, TV series, music and so on and have a limited lifetime. Most are apolitical as well.
In this context that stuff is simply irrelevant.
Ok technically white means a color (or light), so the word "white race" can be considered group/slang since you should use "caucasian" in that context. Same with black, only that in this case, this "slang" (not really slang) means at least a bit of african ancestry.
Or the word "pwn" which can now be considered part of a language (not technically YET but remember it took a lot more for the black racism so it is just how people got used to saying it, it doesn't mean they are racist at all). Here some good quote:Quote:
If you would trace the cause of prejudice to its primal elements, you will find yourself looking into our own language. Language is a very powerful tool, and as with anything else that is powerful, it can be powerful in a good way or in a bad way. Labeling is an act of giving a word to an entity. What this entity is, is a big question of the modern philosophy. We see similarities and differences in the world around us. Without seeing similarities or differences, we cannot use language. For instance, a book and a pencil are different. So, we have different words for them. But if you think about it, they are not all that different. Both are made out of trees. For some space aliens who have never seen books or pencils, they may just look like some *junks* that they have no interest in distinguishing. How about books and magazines? You may find some people on this earth who would not care about the distinctions and call them both books. So, whether something is given a word or not is determined by similarities and differences that we perceive. If we saw absolutely no differences in the whole world, we would not have any languages. But these differences are not absolute. In the end, all differences that we perceive are interpretive, that is, they are only in our heads. After all, everything in this world is made out of quarks or super-strings, or whatever the smallest unit of all matters is.
____________
The above post is subject to SIRIOUSness.
No jokes were harmed during the making of this signature.
|
| |
|
|
This thread is pages long: 
