I’d be glad to do the same.
BINGO! Greed is the magic word, boys and girls. Who benefits from racism? Not I, not you, not anybody. What it’s all about is money and power. As long as the peasants/proles/serfs [choose your own term] are fighting amongst themselves, the lords aren’t in any danger of losing their precarious positions of privilege.
Incidentally, I’m only 30 years old. I haven’t enjoyed 200 years of anything. Neither have my parents, nor my grandparents. The point I’m trying to make that everybody refuses to catch is that you’re not affected in any way by what happened 150 years before you were born.
I think Afirmative Action was begun with all good intentions, but the lesson is that you cannot legislate morality. It doesn’t work. When you’re forced to do something, even the right thing, you are resentful of the forcing. Which fosters the abuse that Tomndebb and Biggirl described. I think it was a good thing at its inception, but I firmly believe that it has overstayed its welcome. AA has accomplished all it can, because it is being widely misinterpreted, misapplied and abused. It’s time to let the changes that are already in the works continue.
Wrong. They were not brought about by anything so rational. Fear of police brutality is not relieved by smashing your neighbor’s shop window and stealing a tv or vcr or whatever you’re able to carry. There’s even a song about it by Sublime. excerpt:
“But when you look at the streets it wa’n’t about Rodney King
And this fucked up situation and these fucked up police
It was about comin’ up and stayin’ on top
and screamin’ 1-8-7 on a motherfuckin’ cop”
Yeah, it’s only a song, but that’s exactly the attitude I saw on TV. By the way, riots of that magnitude don’t just “break out”. I believe that was organized and premeditated.
Is there racism?
Yes.
Are some police guilty of racist behavior and attitudes?
Yes.
Did that justify a huge citywide riot?
Hell No.
You are so far off my point that I don’t even know if you were reading the same post I wrote. I don’t find anything offensive about blacks or jews or anybody. I find stupidity and racism offensive in all people, regardless of color.
What I find bothersome, not even offensive, about the things mentioned is that they revolve around “BLACKNESS”, not life situations. You don’t have to pander to one group of people and exclude another in order not to discriminate against the first. Besides, I’ve never accused Hollywood of being a paragon of virtue or an institution to be emulated.
And as I said above, but you seem to have failed to read, there IS no comedian who has made an entire career of “white jokes” (…although there is Martin Lawrence…), but it is the staple topic of the majority of black comedy that I’ve been exposed to. That’s like saying “show me a comedian who makes an entire career of dick jokes” in response to an allegation that there are too many dick jokes in comedy. That’s a stupid response (not necessarily a stupid responder) because obviously nobody can make a whole career out of dick jokes. Except maybe Eddie Murphy.
But, I’ll go ahead and admit that maybe entertainment was a poor example. It was only an illustration of the way black children and teenagers are indoctrinated by black culture to be distrustful and suspicious of white people (this was confirmed first-hand by my roommate and sort of by biggirl).
I thought I had been clear before. I turned it down because I don’t want to acknowledge the implication that because my last name is Spanish that I can’t get to college on my own merit.
I did no such thing. you insist on missing my point! I said that rappers with violent music use the excuse that “It mirrors society, we are the reporters of the black community” when it is simply not true. It’s about greed again, not societal change. They glorify violence because it sells records, not because that’s what it’s like in the 'hood. Dr. Dre lived in a nice area, for crying out loud! He lived a comfortable lifestyle, as did the rest of N.W.A., until they became rappers and decided it was time to have “street credibility” and become hard. (the only exception was Eazy-E who was the neighborhood drug dealer. they included him because he had the money to finance the venture). Reporters of the street indeed.
In case I’m not clear enough: I know that a lot of white musicians have violent music. I wasn’t attacking rap because it’s violent or claiming it’s any less violent than metal (give punk-rock a listen sometime. metal and rap are nothing). I was attacking the lie that they were reflecting existing attitudes and behavior, not influencing it.
At last. the root of the problem. Parents passing their prejudices on to their children. The very same thing that white racists do. But with white people it makes them trailer park trash, rednecks, etc. When black people do it, they’re simply responding to what the white man did to them.
Paint it all with the same brush. One is no different from the other.
Again, you seem to have me confused with somebody else. God bless you for coming to your senses and not actively proliferating the prejudices that were taught to you. I was fortunate enough never to have been taught the idea that blacks/jews/orientals/what have you were anything BUT people. I’ve always viewed skin color as not significantly different from eye or hair color. We don’t have all the blue-eyed people gather in a corner whispering about browns and greens, do we? Of course not. This is the same thing.
Yes, my attitude drips anger and resentment. but not towards black people. It’s directed towards people who perpetuate the idea that white people are bad because of the evils their ancestors did. Once again, I enslaved nobody. I segregated nobody. The majority of segregation that occurs now is done BY the minorities, not TO them. I am angry and resentful when I’m told that I have some burden of guilt to bear for wrongs committed centuries before I was born. I’m angry and resentful when those same evils and wrongs are committed by the very people who complain that it was done to them.
And I’m especially angry and resentful when it is excused from an ethnic minority because “they have a reason to be angry”, since “WE” were bad first.
A riot is a riot is a riot. Everybody has the right to express anger. Nobody has a right to run around and smash things and steal from people.
As far as I am aware, The WTO “riot” was a completely different animal. The so-called “rioters” were peaceful demonstrators who were fired upon by the police. The actual problems were caused by people looking for attention and who, in my opinion, were planted in the crowds as an excuse for a large forceful police presence.
If I’m wrong, then it was just as wrong as any other.
