Spain colonized Western Sahara for almost 100 years. Just the tiniest bit of research would have uncovered this for you.
The issue isn’t what Spain did or did not colonize. The issue is who is considered “Hispanic.”
Has it occurred to you that the thing that makes “ethnic” cultures notable is that they’re distinct from what you experience every day? That stuff you’re experiencing every day? All that “normal” stuff? The movies and television you watch, the books you read, the food you eat, the music you listen to, that “normal” stuff that is the stuff of your daily life? That’s white culture.
That depends upon the individual. I’m proud of things I’ve done personally; neither proud nor ashamed of the accomplishments and crimes of my ancestors.
Since you’ve shown yourself before to be a racist asshole, I don’t expect anything helpful from you in this thread.
Sure, and that’s probably something Cisco should have stated explicitly in his response to the idiot in question. But defending the existence of the NAACP isn’t the same as saying that it’s okay to be abusive to white people, which is what you accused him of in your first post. There are real, historical and contemporary iniquities that are particular to certain minorities in this country, and the organizations and social programs that the MySpace moron called out as examples of racism were created to counter those iniquities. When you have organizations that are specifically dedicated to keeping black people down, it’s not racist to create an organization specifically dedicated to lifting them up. Of course, at some point, these organizations become obsolete. We’ve certainly made great strides in that direction with race relations, but I don’t think we’re yet to the point where something like the NAACP is totally unnecessary. There is still a lot of racism in this country, and while it’s not nearly as institutionalized as it used to be, that doesn’t invalidate the idea of having an institution to fight against it.
The concept of racial pride is a little more thorny. The whole idea of white pride is intrinsically ridiculous to me. But then, I’ve never lived in a society that took it for granted that there was something inherently inferior in being white. I think, had I grown up in that environment, the concept of white pride would not only be attractive, but in many ways necessary. While we clearly no longer live in a society where “black equal inferior” is an openly stated assumption, we are not all that far removed from a time when that was true. I think there is still enough residual, cultural racism in our country that the concept of black pride still serves as a necessary antidote, in way that white pride does not, and never has.
Which is certainly not to say that there are no disadvantaged white people in the country, or that no white person is more disadvantaged than any black person. Clearly, it’s better to be Barrack Obama, president of the United States, than it is to be Cletus, Cops’ most frequent guest star. But the number of white people who have been disadvantaged in this country specifically because of their race is vanishingly small, and the number who have been systematically disadvantaged is non-existent. Which, again, is not to say that there are no disadvantaged enclaves that are primarly white. Rural Appalachians have gotten just about the shortest end of the stick you can get. But that’s not because they’re white, and trying to cure their problems by peddling them white pride isn’t going to fix anything. It’s the wrong cure for their problem. You can get everyone in the country to agree that being white is just the best gosh-darned thing ever, and people are still going to treat them like trash, because they’re hillbillies from Appalachia. It’s not their race that gets them discriminated against, it’s their economic status and region of origin.
oooo…
ITT: a global warming denying troll called “Brazil84” doesn’t know Brazilians speak Portuguese.
Ouch.
I don’t engage with this poster because he/she misrepresented my position in a debate. Unsurprisingly, he/she is lying in this thread.
:shrug: If your father had accomplished something important, most reasonable people would say that you have something to be proud of.
Lol. i.e. you disagree with me.
:shrug again: then don’t read my posts.
I think the “Michael Richards” rant is asking two things:
- Why can’t I be a total racist asshole?
- Why can’t I have white pride/WET/White History Month, etc.
Most of my response was directed at question 2, because as I already said, question 1 is ridiculous and mostly a strawman. To question 1, though, I did say:
, which I think pretty explicitly states “racism isn’t ok.”
brazil84: I’m pretty much certain that I’m going to regret responding to you, but I like taking chances on people. Please prove me wrong, or I will not make the same mistake again.
Yeah, I do. And it’s simply this: I can’t look at an Irishman, a Frenchman, an Italian, a Brit, a German, a Swede, etc, etc, etc and tell where they’re from, beyond probably being European. You can look at a black person and know that their ancestors are ultimately African.
On preview: :smack: It just occurred to me why you’re bringing up Kenya. Obama’s ancestory is Kenyan, isn’t it? What’s your point?
No. Say it with me: Brazillians. Are. Not. Hispanic. Period. End of discussion.
Now say this with me: In the style of the Spanish. Do some people in Western Sahara and Equitorial Guinea live in the style of the Spanish, and speak Spanish? Probably some do. They are hispanic. The majority do not. They are not hispanic. Western Sahara today is largely a muslim region, to my knowledge. Just because Spain ruled a territory at some point does not mean it is hispanic today. They ruled the Philippines for hundreds of years and the Philippines is majority non-hispanic today.
I’m not going to give you a history or geography lesson here, but look up Argentina sometime. It is incredibly complex and diverse culturally, but it is more hispanic than Brazil (Brazil being, I reiterate, not hispanic at all.)
Edit: I just did a little reading on Equatorial Guinea. They speak Spanish and are mostly Catholic, but also have a unique cultural background of their own. So they are somewhat hispanic. It’s not on on/off switch.
Oh man, are you ever going to regret it. Arguing with brazil84 is the verbal equivalent of King Arthur vs the Black Knight in Monty Python & The Holy Grail.
Also, you have to play by his rules or you’ll get banninated from your own thread, most likely via violent :shrugging: and :loling:.
That’s hardly fair; the Black Knight was amusing. And brave, after a fashion. brazil84’s the opposite: he’s a clueless douche and it’s useless to talk to him, but more importantly he’s an intellectual coward who’s constantly inventing phony excuses to ignore people after he’s run out of responses to their arguments. Every time he gets involved in a thread he’s likely to tell at least one poster ‘you are misrepresenting my arguments, I demand an apology.’ This gives him an excuse (in his mind) to then proclaim he won’t respond to that poster at all.
Yeah, there was a Global Warming thread in GD a couple of days ago, and I thought to myself “Enjoy your discussion while you can, because Super Pedant Ninja brazil84 is going to waltz in here shortly and completely demolish it.” And sure enough…
Fair enough. I didn’t mean that as criticism, really. I just would have hit the, “Who says it’s okay for blacks to be racist?” point a little harder. Difference in tactics, I suppose.
Heh listening to the Director of the NAACP after that incident with the stupid chimp cartoon in the New Yorker or the Post or wherever it was I was kind of thinking that it’s reaching the point of parody. Of course the news panned across the usual suspects, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, with a group of ‘concerned’ citizens behind them. When the head of the NAACP said that they needed to come up with a ‘Diversity Strategy’, to confront it…well my intrinsic eye muscles aren’t made for rolling back as far as they did.
Cultural pride is the real issue. Generic white people have no culture of their own and are constantly being denigrated for it. ‘Stop trying to act black.’ There is a generic hispanic idea and a Generic black idea, but not too much in terms of the generic white idea. The lack is more of a cultural consciousness than it is a racial one.
Right, it’s not racial.
Cisco I’ll concede that you did say it, but I would have put it more explicitly myself. I guess my gripe is over style more than substance. Carrion.
Dude, I have absolutely no idea what your point is. Assuming this is true (and it probably is), how does it contradict my claim at all?
I’m not sure how to make it any clearer. Your typical black American has ancestors from Africa but those ancestors are are from nowhere near Kenya. Similarly, your typical Irish-American has ancestors from Europe but those ancestors are from nowhere near Italy.
To avoid a semantic argument, I already agreed to assume for the sake of argument that Brazillians are not Hispanic. Please do not pretend that this is what we are arguing over.
Look, you stated that “Hispanic” is a culture. (Post #21) You then cited a source (in post #28) which stated the following:
According to your source, then, the people of Western Sahara are “Hispanic,” as are the people from Argentina.
It seems you are saying that your own source doesn’t define the word “Hispanic” properly. But anyway, the bottom line would seem to be that “Hispanic” is a rather loose category. Just as “white” is a somewhat loose category.
Seems to me an analogous thing could be said about whites and blacks. Granted, these 2 groups are defined more in terms of race or ethnicity than culture, but still.
That’s correct, but it’s not such a big deal. For example, I have no interest in debating with people, like Marley23 who debate by misrepresenting other peoples’ positions.
I’m not saying he/she is a terrible person, just that I do not care to engage with him/her.
Trust me, “dude”, the feeling is mutual.
My basic point is pretty simple. If a white person identifies with another white person – for example an Irish American identifying with an accomplished German American – it’s fundamentally no different from a black person who identifies with another black person, for example your typical black American who identifies with Barak Obama. (A similar point could be made about the group known as “Hispanics.”)
Honestly, I don’t see why anyone would dispute this.
This is changing, but the difference, historically, is that a black kid could look up to, say Charles Drew, and think, “hey, there really is hope for me.” Black people can look at Obama and say “I really can be anything.” There is no equivalent for whites. We always could be doctors. We always could be president.