even there, that’shardly the case
You will find exceptions to everything. I hope this doesn’t violate Godwin’s Law, but the Karaite sect of Jews, for instance, were not persecuted by the Nazis.
The reason you are getting this response to your off-hand comment is that you appear to be suggesting that there is some inherent quality about African Americans that has made them, collectively, collapse into poverty as a response to adversity and some inherent quality about Asians that has made them, collectively, thrive in the face of comparable adversity.
That’s about as clearly racist a position as a person can hold, and if that is what you are espousing, I think you ought to own in openly and not just imply it.
What other people are suggesting is that the reasons for the different, broadly generalizing, outcomes of Asian and African-American populations may be related to the vastly different natures of the challenges they faced (and “better” or “worse” are pretty meaningless here: it’s the different types of challenges that shape people differently, not some sort of absolute pain index). If you agree with this position, I think you should confirm it because it should stop this hijack pretty quickly.
That’s kind of the point. See, this is how the goalposts move - first you’re talking about Asian-Americans, then it turns out no, you’re talking about Indian-, Chinese-, Korean- and Japanese-Americans, and Vietnamese-,Thai-, Philipino- and Bangladeshi-Americans don’t count.
Eventually it turns out you’re only talking about left-handed 3rd generation Han Chinese from a Taoist background and those descendants of Korean immigrants who arrived in San Francisco on months without “R” in them, and we’re so far away from any accepted concept of “race” that maybe you shouldn’t have started with the idea of race in the first place, and looked at culture right from the start, instead.
I was under the belief that racism was when you believed that your race was somehow inherently superior in some way to other races.
It seems that the word has devolved into meaning that you are a racist if you make any distinction whatsoever between people based upon race.
I have always been talking about culture, I do not believe races are inherently more superior than the other, I was simply speaking of the absurdity of affirmative action.
Like, superiorly attractive, say?
I’d say “evolved”, actually. Finally language reflects reality - there is no such thing as biological race and “ethnicity” is a more faithful substitute for other uses of the term.
“Asian” is not a culture.
Except when it comes to recovering from past oppression, apparently…
No, you weren’t “simply” doing anything. You were playing some sort of false equivalence card.
WTF? I thought the OP was about whether views on Interracial relationships are racist or not. Somehow now this is affirmative action?
You want to start over again? How’s about trying to be clear instead of going for some twisted kind of gotcha’ya, ok?
Wow.
I wouldn’t start any more threads about race if I were you Curtis. You just dug yourself into a nice little corner, which says more about you than what you attempted to elicit from others.
Wait. What?
Asiatic cultures.
[/QUOTE]
No, I do believe its a fault of the attitudes of many blacks and their culture, but not because they are naturally inferior.
Well someone on the first page made a comment about affirmative action which led to this…
That doesn’t really help, because it’s still too broad to be useful. It includes Yemeni Arab culture, the Vietnamese, Siberian shamanic tribal groups, Russians, Chinese… there isn’t really anything all Asians have in common that all humans do not also have in common.
It’s a convenient shorthand in the US because only a few groups are present in large numbers, but it doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny even then.
“Black” is slightly different, because although African cultures are nothing like homogenous, Black Americans are an ethnicity created on this continent from out of a genetically diverse group with a common historical experience and enforced social separateness. A lot of people assume that because Black Americans are both a “race” and an ethnic group that all races must be ethnic groups. Not so. And even Black Americans are a pretty large and diverse set: Black culture in Michigan is not the same as Black culture in Mississippi.
PS: I was guilty of the affirmative action comment, but it was only to try to head off a debate about it. Better to have let sleeping dogs lie, but too late now…
Curtis, you do, of course, realize that “Asiatic” is considered offensive by enough people in the US to carry that designation in dictionaries? Frankly, the only use of “Asiatic” I can think of is the “Asiatic Review” by Harvard, and that’s probably still the case because it is Harvard and they’ve had the Asiatic Review for ages. Somewhat akin to NAACP. And if you didn’t know, now would be a good time to bone up on the topic.
Well to remember that Curtis is only 16 years old, isn’t he?
That’s news to me. Thanks.
It’s cool, he’s taking it back.
ETA: Sorry Curtis, didn’t see you posted ahead of me, but still think it’s kind of germane . . .
- Yes. Not wanting a relationship because of race is racism. A person who will not date any Martian or consider any Martian for a date is a racist.
- Yes. By definition in this category a person is disapproving of relationships on the basis of race.
- Yes, no different than number 2, but elevating it to the level of making it law.
[QUOTE=Qin Shi Huangdi]
(3)Wanting to ban or otherwise block interracial relationships
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=askance]
How would you define the word “racism” if the answer to, say, (3) was to be “no”?
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Qin Shi Huangdi]
Hating other races or believing a particular race to be superior.
[/QUOTE]
OK, I’ll say it. OP is a racist, simple as that, but thinks that you have to be even more out there than he is to count as a real racist. IOW this is a classic "I am not a racist but … " sentiment. Apparently wanting to ban interracial relationships is not racist because it prima facie does not involve overt hatred or superiority. Yet what other reason could there be for such a ban?
- Depends on the reason. E.g. “My peer group opposes interracial relationships, and I don’t want to deal with their disapproval”, while not an admirable attitude, doesn’t strike me as racist.
However, if someone feels the need to make a blanket statement like “I don’t want a relationship with members of race X”, I’d be inclined to suspect they’re racist. Otherwise, why would they feel compelled to make such a statement? Do you go around making proclamations about all the traits that would make you want not to be in a relationship with someone?
- and 3) Sounds like straight-up racist bigotry to me.