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Originally Posted by Ceci
It's fine that you are aware. But what are you going to do with that information? Sit on it? Or try to have an honest discussion about race without accusing anyone of racism?  |
I see. You say an "honest" discussion of race means we cannot identify racism and those who practice it. That's ridiculous, dishonest and frankly, it's impossible to discuss race relations without mentioning racists.
Unless you mean any mention of Black beople being racist is off the table, even though you are very quick to point this out with Whites.
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Who said I was being quick to judge anyone? I'm talking about how I view the issue of race-related talk in America.
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I never said that. Do you see the word "YOU" or ANY reference to you yourself anywhere in the quote you used?
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I don't think it is very racist to say that whites do not take seriously non-white people as a collective group if it is true.
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It is most certainly NOT true, and that makes it a racist statement.
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After all, if whites did take people of color seriously, there wouldn't be quick accusations of racism and there wouldn't be any patronizing, blanketed assumptions to boot.
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If WHITES...? Not "some" Whites, or "many" Whites? THAT is a blanket statement. Since I'm White, what do you think I should take from it?
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You can discuss how much you denounce Don Imus until you are blue in the face, but what does it really solve if there are other white people who think the way he does and actively do so without any repercussions to them?
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I don't denounce Don Imus. I denounce what he said. I've listened to him long enough to know he doesn't seem like a racist at heart. I have a sneaking suspicion you just rode the anti-Imus wave without having listened to him.
And of course, talking about Imus doesn't SOLVE anything as regards other people. There are plenty of people in EVERY ethnic group who hate others without reason. Plenty of Blacks hate Whites too, but I don't see anyone singling out all of them either.
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You assumed wrong. Sometimes in race-related talks I've had with white people, they have thrown in references to Sharpton and Jackson as a way to separate the "good blacks" and the "bad blacks" in their view.
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I'm sure White people use those terms when speaking to Black people all the time.
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Furthermore, then they mention Bill Cosby's so-called tongue-lashing at the Black community as a "good thing" when it actually disparages poor Black people.
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I actually heard the things he had said and they were aimed primarily at lazy, unproductive people who blame others when they come up short on success. He was NOT addressing poor people. You might want to check your facts before criticizing others.
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It makes sense to me. You said on a personal level white people relate to non-white people more. Collectively, you said, this wasn't entirely the case. I think that's because that sometimes the dominant culture thinks in a "self-oriented" way opposed to a "community-oriented" one. And, that presents a problem when it has to do with discussions of race especially on the grounds of a semantic disconnect.
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Everyone acts in a "self-oriented" way, and so do you when you continually refer to "Whites" as a collective group.
For starters, there IS no "collective" white group, nor is there a collective Black group. Both groups are individuals first, and then smaller groups. There are VAST differences in the people who make up a race, and that includes Whites. Your unwillingness to even use the word "some" seems to illustrate you either don't understand that or you are willing to omit that critical fact for your own purposes. Either way you are wrong in assuming Whites are part of a "collective" based on race alone.
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Because white people don't see themselves as a collective group, they can easily dismiss some of the experiences that non-white people make. And, they can't take responsibility for what has happened in a collectively, social basis. Now do you think that is fair?
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Absolutely not, and for the reasons I just mentioned. We are not a "collective group" and the term itself is racist by definition, especially when you try to hang blame on people who are completely uninvolved in the problems you mention because YOU have deemed them as part of a collective group and therefore to blame for the actions of ANY other Whites. Again, a race is a collective group ONLY in terms of pigmentation.
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How can you say that? White privilege is not a thing of the past. It still happens and it has been documented. There must be something going on because the social disparities between whites and people of color still exist. Someone has been doing this and as a result all whites have benefitted from it because of skin color.
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There's that odious term again. I fail to understand where all these privileges are that I am granted. My next door neighbor is Black. Does this "privilege" mean I pay less for gas than he does, or pay lower taxes? Is the air less polluted on my side of the fence? Do I drive on the "good" highways while he must take the bad roads?
Oh yeah, my neighbor has a better job than I do.
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That's not racist. It's just a factor of institutional racism and its repercussions.
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And Whites are ALL part of these "institutions". I get it.
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Semantics aside, should white people be aware of their history, heritage and social standing in America? Should white people acknowledge the fact that their history has had these eras in time in which celebrated their supremacy legally, socially, and in practice?
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More racist, blanket statements. As I said before, I don't think you even SEE lumping all Whites together in collective guilt as a racist attitude.
I'm sure you'll find this amazing, but a LOT of White people in this country, most I would say, are well aware of things like slavery and how Blacks were at one time owned by whites, and how bad segregation was, etc. But guess what? They are all DEAD and plenty of people walk this earth bearing no guilt for the actions of others.
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Should they not take responsibility for these things and work with it in order to deal with race-relations from a non-white perspective?
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People, ALL people should take responsibility for their own actions.
You ask me to try and see things from a minority perspective, and I do to the best of my ability. However, I'll now ask YOU how you would feel if you were a first-generation American whose parents came from Europe, say, 20 years ago, and someone like yourself kept insisting you were somehow responsible for the wrongs committed in a country your grandparents never even SAW. There are plenty of White people in this country who descended from Immigrants. I don't see you making that distinction.
I wish you could be a little more honest about these blanket statements of yours.
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Why do you keep on assuming anything? I could say from the few posts you've written that you conveyed some very subtle racist attitudes about non-white people and their perceptions--especially when you keep on assuming things that you think you know about people of color.
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Like what? No generalities. Show me some specific comments I have made that make you think I'm a racist. In fact, ANYONE here show me some of these comments, here or in ANY other thread on this forum.
And on a side note, kindly refrain from using the "rolleyes" emoticons after every paragraph. They are insulting and dismissive.
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Neither does assuming anything about me or any other people of color. But, I guess it is always by your rules and not anyone else's.
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Another cop-out. I'm trying to conduct and honest debate about race, but I suppose when you have nothing to offer in substantive rebuttal it's only because I am discussing this "by my rules." So, since you can spot these "rules" so easily, why not tell me what you think they are.
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It definitely is, especially when they target the Latino community repeatedly when associating undocumented workers and illegal status. Do you think if a bunch of Europeans started crossing the border would other white people coin the term "illegal"?
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If they were here illegally, they would be called illegal immigrants.
The ones you mention come from MEXICO, so why should it surprise you that the illegals we talk about are identified as latino?
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He showed that Blacks could run for President in America, despite his failure in this fact. He and Jesse Jackson were the first to do so.
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You need THEM to show you Blacks could run for president?
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But it hasn't escaped your attention that Barack Obama now has to have a security detail due to his sudden popularity as a Presidential candidate. He was the first to do so.
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Why is that? And please provide HIS reason, not yours.