Racism: We Are All Guilty

toshman,

That's a cop out. Well, there was more than one  copout in your posts.

So specifically, that's a cop out about anybody being able to claim that their definition is the right one.

In fact, so far, Nferyn, Myself and Shango are really in agreement.

So it is just you who has a different opinion.

toshman,

'cop out' means something like avoidance by making banal statements

i.e. Well who can tell who is right?

every issue does not have 2 sides to it.
every issue is not up for debate

toshman,

It means you add nothing or take away nothing.

Useless statements.

You see two people arguing over who should take the bus to whose house.

You interject into the argument that they both love each other and will be able to work this out.

That is a banal (useless) statement.

The idea that we can never say: Whose definition is the right one ONLY, doesn't add anything to a conversation about definitions.

We knew that before we started, it was common knowledge and therefore added or took away nothing.

toshman,

I'm sure I will. Smile. Take your time.

Nferyn,

When I posted that I just grabbed the first definition of racism that even begin to hit on the fact that the racism we fight is not something so simplistic as a bad feeling in someone's heart albeit for most, that is the walking around reality i.e. what they experience as "racism".  So I understand that sentiment that it is just a feelingin one's heart.

However after later reading it. I did find toshman's quick critique of it to be valid. Too many 50 dollar words, when a 5 cent word would have done.

This did cause a loss of lucidity.

As to your concern that it is problematic because it is Americancentric.

I agree that it is true that it is indeed Americancentric, however, there seems to be some (and I am not sure what or where it comes into play)validity to the idea that (and I have never fleshed this out before, even though it has been in the back of my mind, from some of our other conversations, so expect mistakes) America is the Empire of the world and that I can leave my home here in America and find for instance people in Japan selling Sambo dolls, putting on blackface and wearing hair rollers and slippers as a way to symbolism a specific Americancentric type of racial insult.

It seems that the specific type of racism of America, is going all over the world, along with our troops that now exist in 2/3rds of the world and our rapstars, blue jeans and Marlboro's.

Thus I am not yet able to see how or to what extent being Americancentric would be that problematic if applied in other parts of the world.

Including the systematic, etc racism against white or whiter/ against black or darker.

Every where you look, it seems to be a pattern, even if asian, the darker asians experience the most racism.Even if India, the black indians experience the racism. Certainly in South America, the black and darker ones experience the racism.

I am not sure how much changing the conversation from "white or whitened"/"black or blackened" which is very Americancentric in India for instance would be helpful.

The system in America may be an extreme form of this European cultural normative but then European culture norms have had a world wide effect because of their world wide domination.

let me attempt to reply u drusilla. it may be a bit long but this is b/c i want to reply some of the issues raised in your LONG posts.

1. i repeat myself, the white man came to africa to buy slaves. whatever u may say, remember that a great proportion of the slaves in the slave era were from the west coast of africa. there were a lot of inter tribal wars and the losers of such wars were converted into slaves by the conquerors and sold to the white man who paid in cash, or through gifts such as guns.

2. it is not totally appropriate to blame the white man for the war in rwanda. the white man has some blame,yes,but the rwandan tribes ane militia are to take primary responsibility for maiming and killing their fellow blacks to the point of annihilation just because the other person does not look precisely like you. there is no excuse for that violence and don't tell me the tutsis deserve it because, just like in lebanon now, there are many innocent people who are suffering because of what they are not directly involved in. those tutsis are human beings too. why kill them.

3. u say in america there is a distinction between racism and prejudice. have u heard of racial prejudice. america wont want to hear the word racism because of their history so i'm not surprised if the lump some stuff under prejudice to save their face.

4 in 2002, i remember the majority leader in your senate, trent lott, made a statement that caused so much racial tension all over the states. he ended up loosing his office as majority leader as the republicans in a bid to persuade americans that they are not racist removed him as their leader. he attacked no one, yet that statement alone which he made was the most racial event in high political scenario in the states in recent years.

5. talking about harm. when u make racial statements against someone,do you realise that you may have harmed that person's feeling. it may be more dangerous than physical injury. just like most men will prefer being beaten up than to have their wives raped infront of them.

6. i really dunno what u mean by no one had to die in rwanda. what has happened has happened and people are to blame. it is nothing but a racist attempt by a group of people to completely wipe out another. there is no justification for that.

7. just for correction, the shia moslems in iraq are the majority and not minority. the sunnis are the minoritu but they have been ruling for long. saddam is sunni.

8. the definition that i gave recently is my definition and not that of a white men but mine. that is racism as i see it.the white man won't want the definition of racism to include merely habouring hatred in the heart because that will make him racist forever. iti s my definition and by that definition it is obvious that many people from virtually all races are guilty in some way. the intensity varies though. the white man remains racist number 1, but there are others in the line. the arabs in sudan, the japanese vs chinese. germans vs jews (then), english vs welsh, etc etc etc

9. finally, i thought  we were having a civilised discussion but i saw somewhere along your posts u called me parrot. why? i did not expect that from you? in another area u refered to my statement as that of the white man and their house boys only. knowing that i am not white that leaves only house boy for me. i know u feel hurt about this racism thingy, believe me ,u dont dislike the whites more than me. but i was just thinking, others may be bad too. i've been in the uk for a while now i am yet to get direct abuse from a white guy, but a black british who thinks he is superior has made me feel bad. anyway, please let's keep this debate civilised.

10. thanx.looking forward to your reply.

dear drusilla, (smiling)

1. the white man also bought slaves from black slave dealers. the arabs did not come down the whole west coast of africa to sell slaves to the white man. which arab guys sold slaves from the calabar port. did the arab sell king jaja of opobo to the whites who were located in present day rivers state. the black man also sold his fellow black man to the whites. note it.

2. what's myown with hitler? i don't get your point. as head of state he has the responsibility for all those attrocities anyway. really don't get your point
3.dont know what u want to say in #3 and #4 don't get it.
4.obviously the senegalese must have been in pain but what i meant is that if the senegalese had been verbally abused it would still fall under my definition of racism. u see, there are two types of communication, verbal and non verbal. the verbal form is often abused, like here in the UK we are used to seeing polite whites pretending to like u. but the non verbal communication is more authentic. here we have your body language which tells more what is inside of u. so when there is intense hatred inside, against another race, it usually shows from the body language. it mustn't be by violence.

5. inrwanda there is only one race, yet there was a division, and one division wanted to wipe out the other. what was the difference in the two, the tutsis were said to be more elegant and fairer. and purportedly had characteristic features that distinguish them from the hutus. so that was the dividing criteria that directed such mayhen unheard of in african history where one group wanted to entirely wipe out the other from the face of the earth. That, to me, is racism.

6. u are welcome (for the correction)
7.i dunno much of japanese history, but if in india the fairer population is discriminating against the darker population it goes to prove that i'm right in saying that other races are also guilty of racism. is it not racism for the darker skinned southern indians are discriminated against by their fellow indians. what are we arguing then.
8. i dislike the whites, experience has thought that a white man regards me as inferior. any white person i see i regard as someone who sees me as inferior until proven otherwise. i dislike them. hoha.i apologise if i made errounous statements about u or your feelings towards the white race. sorry. but u refused to apologise or even mention the statement u made somewhere calling me a parrot. or the other statemnet i made which is not good to be repeated. i thought u'd be civilised enough to apologise. and for the other thread(funsho) i think u were too hard.(anyway let's discuss that in funso thread.if need be)

9. waiting for your reply

10. smiling still

great question mr argument.

that's what this thread is all about. what of the other races, are they incapable of being racist. i say no. all races have this ability of being racist and many atimes individuals from different races display signs of racism

Of course all races have that ability. Ethnocentrism is part and parcel of our evolutionary survival-toolkit. When you combine ethnocentrism with power you get racism. There's far less black-on-white racism than vice versa for two main reasons:
1. generally speaking blacks hold little power over whites
2. the experience of being on the receiving end of racism makes blacks more sensitive when it comes to falling prey to racist thinking

i think macol-x is always gona be right! so what u are sayin in this 21st century is because black people hold little power they are more likely to be in the reciving end of emm,  fine but if they hold massive power they are more likely to be racist as your gulity master! hmmm so justified ! maybe white man dnt even understand black man at all! of cause with the little power the man was holdin on his possesion during the mediveal age i mean when he was livin in the jugule with no televion on or mean of viewing the outside world i think they welcome your gulity ass with love which i think was betrayed!

hmmm u making this superman to beleive white man all inherented that evil gene from their gulity master!

yes clever argument

zebudaya  i think u prove the point! you dnt need to be patronize now! we are not all gulity ! hope they get that!

it not time to shout for alleluhah now! i lie stay true bro

god bless nigeria

superman,

can you please try to construct something resembling an argument. Your prose is incoherent.

what in the 21st century?

follows logically from what exactly?

racism is a historical process of stratification used to justify the expansion of capitalist production mode. It is historically tied to precise events in the rise of European power. Trying to reason on what might have happened is pointless: we cannot know. The potential for a role-reversal is in no means a justification or a whitewash (pun intended) of what occured and still occurs.
Now, that being said, do you have any evidence that there is some magical quality that non-whites posses that makes them incapable of being racist? Your stereotypical groupthink is not really supporting such an argument.

Meaning?

Who are you addressing? By the way, your portraying of livin in the jugule with no televion on or mean of viewing the outside world is demeaning and, if you're talking about African societies, shows how meagre your knowledge really is.

Difficult to answer such poorly constructed sentences, but who's gulity master are you talking about? What evil gene are you talking about?
Are you trying to make the point that whites are genetically evil?

Maybe, maybe not. Anyway, your poor attempts at constructing sentences have very little to do with argumentation.

So are all forms of racial oppression. The main driver behind the trans-atlantic slave trade and slavery was not some inate hate for Africans, it was the search for profit and the opportunity to exploit. The racist superstructure is a rationalisation of that exploitation. As it leeches on our inate ethnocentrism, it has become so pervasive that it endures, even after it's economic utility has long worn out. Racism is a very powerful meme, almost as powerful as religion.

Very unlikely

It is far more than that. If it were only intense hate, it could have been remediated long time ago.

Up to a certain extent, yes, but that's insufficient to explain the pervasiveness of racism in western societies.
1. There is an inate aspect to it (ethnocentrism that forms a fertile soil for racism)
2. It is tied to structural power inequality
3. It is supported by a complex of ideas that either justify or rationalise that inequality

Oh yes we do, or would you call the treatment of e.g. the Philipino's in WWII by the Japanese caused by an infection of the European racist meme? I highly doubt this to be the case.

I don't see where that line of reasoning is leading you to. Since when should there be taboos on truth seeking because it might be politically inconvenient? The idea that  white man enslaving Blacks and then finding as if by magic, that blacks seemed to be made for slavery presented here is just sloppy scholarship, pure and simple. Determining the truth value of anything should be left to scientific inquiry, as it provides the best guarantees for truthworthiness and is intensely self-correcting.
No holy cows, no sacred ideas, everything should be questioned, especially those ideas that people hold dear.

Meaning?

Superman,

First of all, on a personal note, my sister who does not post here but comes and reads me, absolutely thought that you were the funniest and best person posting here with your: I do not play games stand and refusal to even entertain these type of things going on here. We must have laughed for a half hour as she insisted on reading all of your posts in this thread we could find. Keep up the good work. It's gonna take all of us in our various ways. Smile.

Secondly, Your dead right. In plain language: whites find that European Culture is under attack understandably from the horrible values that it has polluted the world with and all these attempts to say we are all the same, we are all guilty, is it's last best effort to save itself.

Before what distortion exactly? Do you have any idea how the japanese perceived the Koreans before Europeans entered the stage? How much influence did European Culture have one Japan really before WWII. The influence was limited to technology and military organisation; It didn't go much further than that.

Wouldn't surprise me. Buddha was Indian, after all. As to their view one black skin (did they really have much of a view on black skin anyway? I would like to see the sources for that info). Maybe that's why they considered Koreans as nearly subhuman, they were lighter skinned, weren't they?

I am yet to see one Japanese that feels inferior to a European. Can you introduce me to that rare specimen?

Indeed, how many divisions does the Pope command? The Japanese colonialism was just as much a manifest destiny as the Europeans carried their white man's burden. Why exactly is this relevant?

Does the Chinese colonisation of what is now Vietnam suffice? Genocide and all? or is that too long ago?