Kudos to Tom for the excellent housekeeping, and to those who are participating in an adult manner. We all have prejudices of one sort or another. It is common for people to rag on the OP in threads like these after making fun of “fundies” in the Pit or “rednecks” in Cafe Society. The sheer intolerance among those who flaunt how tolerant they are is the most embarrassing and enigmatic aspect of this board, as far as I’m concerned.
To the OP:
I am nearly full-bloodied Cherokee, but “look white”. If you and I were good friends and you “discovered” my heritage, would it change your views toward me? Would you begin to wonder whether you could trust me? Would you hide your valuables and your liquor? And for the opposite sort of bigotry, would you begin to shy away from Tonto jokes and FSU football games?
Exactly. What’s next? Ask me why I hate The Family Guy? What exactly is the debate? The OP hasn’t brought any facts into the discussion. It’s just a random person that wants people to ask why he/she supposedly hates people.
How can that lead to any sort of meaningful discussion without some point of view? Do we just lob softball questions politely at the OP unil someone posts something he/she choses to answer?
Geez, Liberal, once again you have shown yourself to be one of the most decent posters on this board. Too bad all liberals are tree-hugging, baby-killing commies otherwise we could be friends! JK.
To the OP:
You mentioned that you developed your prejudice in college and the blacks you had issues with had “entitlement complexes”. Did you base this from perceived preferential treatment in the form of Affirmative Action financial support? Or did this come from discussions with some blacks about reparations? Did your changed view come from greater exposure to “black culture” constantly being pushed through rap with the negative stereotypes of sexism, violence, drug use, materialism and disrespect for authority?
Please don’t interpret my questions as a way of saying, “I am intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.” I would like to know what were the events and situations that helped to build this view.
So far, this is a civil discussion. I was reading through your responses and one post, in particular stood out. You stated that you are currently a college student which, combined with your reading experience, leads me to view you as a unique class of bigot. Being in an institution of higher learning as well, I am fairly certain that I have run across similar types of black students. You get people who are qualified and motivated, qualified and unmotivated, unqualified and motivated and finally you have the dissatisfied (the nature of their qualification is negligible in this discussion because of their focus on the negative). This is an oversimplification but it is easier to generalize in this case. Correct me if I am wrong but you seem to me like the type of person who has run across a sizable portion of dissatisfied black students. Are these the types of blacks that offend you the most? Additionally, are you able to at least recognize their point of view? What effect, if any, have the works of Douglass, Malcolm X and Wright had on your view of black students?
Just to be sure you aren’t misled, I am a liberal in the classical tradition — in the manner that the term was used before it was synonymous with socialist, and in the manner it is still used in most of the world.
The program of liberalism, therefore, if condensed into a single word, would have to read: property, that is, private ownership of the means of production… All the other demands of liberalism result from his fundamental demand.
He hasn’t said he hates anyone. In fact, yours was the first post in the thread to use the word “hate”. I don’t know of a more insidious expression of prejudice than reporting what another man has said without even the courtesy of reading it.
Ok, I misspoke. Apology to the OP if he/she comes back. They used the word strong dislike.
“It’s just a random person that wants people to ask why he/she supposedly **strongly dislikes ** people.”
Better? It doesn’t change the fact that the OP really isn’t about anything. Unless you just want to criticize me. I’d be happy to participate politely in a discussion regarding race if the OP had more to offer up than just a few selective responses to posters.
Okay, but you still didn’t get it quite right. He doesn’t strongly dislike people; he strongly dislikes aggregates of people. In a diagram, “people” isn’t even on the same line as the predicate. I’m just saying that it’s easy to ascribe to him something that he isn’t even saying. And that’s based on prejudices of our own. I’m just as guilty as you, generally, but this time I happened to give a careful read.
Whew! I was worried for a minute there!
Thanks for the clarification. I’ve never been much into reading economics treatise (I’d much rather have a root canal preformed by a near-sighted dentist with rusty Craftsman tools and no anesthetic) but Mises sounds interesting.
Could be. I do not interact much with higher socioeconomic classes outside of work, though. I’m lower-middle class myself.
FRDE
Russian-Jewish. Came to US at elementary-school age.
monstro
No.
Not consciously.
Not to the extent that other people notice.
I have never been in a situation to hire people and do not know in practice; if I were to hire for a firm of fifteen or more people I’d consciously suppress any such urge in favor of not having to deal with legal issues. (I have read the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in its entirety and would prefer to strike Titles II and VII, but on the grounds of libertarian beliefs rather than personal prejudice.)
Deciding where to live - yes. I do not plan to have kids, but for the sake of the hypothetical, I would likely send them to private school. Public schools have been an amalgam of daycare and prison with occasional tatters of education in my experience. I would not discourage them from choosing their own company.
I would teach them to think independently. Whether they turn out to be Amnesty Internationalists or Stormfronters of their own will, that’s their thing. My own parents have exerted too much pressure on me over the years. I would not inflict this on even hypothetical kids.
I would not, however, allow rap at home without headphones.
astro
Please see above.
dinsdale
My own benefit. One of my closest friends is Afro-Caribbean. He looks (in his own words) like a good candidate for holding up a liquor store. If I had not met him at a chess club, I would have avoided him like the plague, and it would have been my loss.
DrCube
Please see erie below.
Pbear42
No. I do not believe it is a legitimate basis for police action. Liberal
Firstly, I’ve lurked here for a while, and you are one of my favorite posters, although I fail to grasp most of your philosophical arguments. Please do not feel besmirched by this.
If I already know you well, even if you were A-A, why would it change things? I have not been around people of self-proclaimed Native American lineage. I’ve encountered the “untrustworthy/thief” stereotype - in Tom freaking Sawyer. The alcoholic stereotype comes from a simple historical combo of no fermented drinks and no dehydrogenase (sp?) enzyme. Should I hold Louise Erdrich’s disjointed, unreadable crap against you? Even that would require me to lump you in with a different tribe.
I do not get the Tonto/FSU references. Please elaborate. For race/ethnicity, please see above.
erie774
No, not from the political side of things. I do not like affirmative action in practice or in concept, but I can think of at least a few dozen things I’d change as far as government programs/actions before I’d touch something that minor. I do not take the idea of reparations very seriously, given the time span involved. There’s a war going on somewhere, and the state can still impose involuntary military servitude on its young men if it so desires (I’d probably fail the physical but the principle stands).
By “entitlement complexes” I mean people who feel they are The Center Of The Universe: people who answer their cell phones in class (and are not emergency response personel); people who insist on getting their grades raised now! in the middle of class; people who repeatedly take a shortcut through the fire exit at the college library in spite of the six-inch letters proclaiming something to the effect of “DO NOT USE EXCEPT IN CASE OF EMERGENCY. ALARM WILL SOUND;” people who use the library computers to listen to music that comes out at conversation level or louder to the people around them, through freaking headphones; people who stiff you on a previously agreed-upon fee; people who do not so much as attempt their share of a mandatory school/college project in a preassigned group; people who blast music at headache-inducing/amplifying levels on a public bus, ignoring polite requests to turn it down, and often ignored by the bus driver if their ethnicity happens to coincide.
They’re not Hitler, Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot. They’re not even Mussolini. They are unrepentant dipshits of the sort that is routinely lambasted in the Pit. And my high school and college, the several percent of African Americans among the population contained the majority of the above.
Rap - I find it painful to listen to. I do not judge the lyrics.
FrostedGlass
Please see above. I do not care about their motivation. My main beef is with egregious violations of elementary courtesy, though I suppose my prejudice rolls over beyond that. Reading the perspectives of great minds that started with next to (or in Douglass’s case, entirely) nothing helps me understand their background. The contrast also enhances my vitriol a bit.
Dunno… seems quite appropriate actually. I can’t escape the feeling that the OP knows, quite consciously, he’s at least partly wrong, but chooses not to do anything about it.
FWIW, I think the debate is shaping up nicely. Unlike so many flash-in-the-pan guests, Morfane is sticking around and actually answering questions. Two more, by way of background, where did you grow up here in the States and where are you going to school? City and state for each will do. I ask these things because black culture is not monolithic. Knowing which windows into it you’ve seen will help us understand where you’re coming from.
Now to substance. My take on this is that the behaviors to which you object are indeed objectionable. But, in my experience, they are neither characteristically black nor exclusively black. (That’s the term preferred in the circles in which I travel, BTW, though this varies with locale.) Maybe there is a correlation, but broadly speaking only a weak one. And, as has been suggested, the stronger correlation appears to be with socio-economic status rather than race. Therefore, to draw conclusions as to a whole class is inappropriate, for the same reason driving-while-black-syndrome is inappropriate. What matters is the behavior, not the weak correlation. What say you?
It has been said that there are two kinds of racial prejudice, one that discriminates based on race and the other that refuses, based on race, to discriminate. It is one kind of bigotry to make Tonto jokes at a person because of his race. It is another kind to avoid telling Tonto jokes just because of his race. We will not have eliminated bigotry until we can all both tell jokes about race and laugh at them.
@Morfane
It sounds as if you don’t much like yobs - not unusual
Personally I don’t like extreme political correctness, it reeks of hypocricy to me.
I also object to being told what to think - especially by poor thinkers, and I was at Uni with a current doyen of the ‘equality industry’.
Obviously people are biased by their experiences, influenced by their elders and the media.
‘Rules of thumb’ are used in most areas, to flatly deny them when it comes to people strikes me as a bit inconsistent - and possibly asking for trouble.
Actually being prejudiced against certain groups can be pleasantly surprizing.
The reverse might be problematic, I’m rather prejudiced in favour of people from the Indian sub continent - but was alarmed to hear from a friend that after 7/7 (London Tube bombs) a local town was full of young lads driving around hooting and cheering.
I’m actually finding it quite hard to get my head round the fact that some people hate me, simply because of the colour of my skin - or maybe my lack of religion.
It sounds as if you started the debate to see how other people felt, well I’ll bet we are a mass of prejudices - with some people prejudiced against people who admit to them.
@Monstro, you need a sense of humour implant - that or more exposure to a wry English sense of humour
That is the second time that you have wilfully misunderstood what I was saying.
SoCal on both counts. In my experience, the correlation is in fact pretty strong. I know that the preferred term is black, but in this instance the usage is intended for clarity.
As for “driving while black,” and my personal reactions, there is a clear distinction. One involves positive action, while the other entails avoidance. I do not initiate force on the basis of my prejudice.
Liberal
Sorry, I was unclear. I follow your line of thought. I do not know what Tonto and FSU are.
Morfane, I would like a clearer response both to my previous post and PBear’s. The issue is most important. In summary, you say you dislike blacks who behave like inconsiderate jerks. The question that would make the distinction between you being racist or intolerant of jerkness is: Do black jerks bother you because they are black or because they are jerks? If you smile and wave at white jerks, then fine, you are racist and we can work from there. If you also dislike white jerks, then congratulations, you are just human. Everybody hates jerks. Nothing wrong with that.
Even that would require me to lump you in with a different tribe.