racism and reverse-racism (long)

In My Humble Opinion
1

Ok, so this has obviously been debated before, but here’s my question: Every time you note an ethnic difference for anything other than a physical description, aren’t you being racist? Aren’t you, if only in your mind, stereotyping them? My big problem is in groups who try to combat racism and, IMHO only further the problem. For example: The United Negro College Fund.

All they’re saying is that blacks need help, and they’re not smart enough to get scholarships on their own. That’s an unfair (and untrue) assessment, and I believe it’s racist and manipulative. If young blacks are hearing every day of their lives that they’re not expected to be great, and that they’ll just get a handout, what do they have to aspire to?

Now, I understand most of these groups are trying to get minorities out of poverty, but is that really the problem? Why worry how many black people, or native americans, or asians, or hispanics are poor - I worry about how many americans are poor. We should have a United College Fund for the Impoverished. Honestly, why does it matter what color skin you have if you’re living in the ghettos? My dad grew up in the white projects in New Orleans, and now he’s running the computer division of an entire company. No one helped him.

Now, you may say this is easy for me to say, since I’m white… but I’m also a woman. I don’t care how many women have high ranking jobs! If a woman ran for president, I wouldn’t vote for her unless I honestly believed she was a better candidate than anyone else. Why should her gender have anything to do with anything except who she sleeps with (unless she’s homosexual in which case all bets are off). I just wonder why the people so worried about being considered different are the first to differentiate.

2

I think maybe these individuals have one ultimate goal.
To enjoy & master the art of soap boxing. They use a cultural difference, to manipulate their position, and milk it for all it’s worth.

The last time i checked (May of this year)
Federal Student Aid did not require that anyone list their
race. It’s there for anyone who is financially in need, and seeks an education. And ill probably get tomatoes thrown in my face for this, but you are 150% right.

Lazy people have a knack for finding a way to take everything personally, or opressively. And for that, there is no cure. I doubt it will ever end. And while it drives me batshit, on a daily basis -
(As I work in a Social Work setting) Ive had to come to terms with the fact that you cant cure someone who is happy enough in their ignorance, that the desire to learn better - will never exist.

The lazy mans way out is to blame someone else.
Or to blame the most obvious/different thing about themselves for their downfalls. This way, they don’t have to look at what the real problem might be.

I think the differentiating is used to make certain people feel set apart, special, deserving of preferential treatment for one reason or another. (Which, we ALL deserve, and shouldnt need to use tactics as such to make other people aware of our worthiness for a chance @ various things in life)

I dont give a rats cheese dipped ass what religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or financial background someone comes from.
If they’re an asshole - they’re an asshole. And if they rightfully earn the title, they can damn sure wear the name tag. =)

Sorry Mand… Im in high agreement with a good portion of what you said. Maybe so much, that i became over aggravated thinking about the truth behind it. Off to the liquor cabinet with me for a White Russian! (OhShit, I said White… am i a racist now?) LoL

3

I can’t say about the UNCF, as I really haven’t researched their program.

However, I imagine the same rule (possibly) applies to them, as does to the Rainbow/PU$H* group. (Hell, to be fair, ANY lobby)
Money.

These groups are huge, and they employ a lot of folks. Quite a few have become rich off of them, (Cough Jesse Cough) and are not eager to see their incomes go away.

Due to this, we will probably NEVER see true equality in America.

[sub]*I’m not being snotty about the $…Look at the logo on the website. www.rainbowpush.org At least they are being honest about it! :D[/sub]

4

Crap! I didn’t mean to post yet. I was going to add:

That it would appear a lobby, such as Rainbow/PUSH, must constantly transform itself so that it has something to lobby against. I.e., Jesse Jackson getting in on the middle east action, by talking with Arafat. (I’m sure Yasser paid rapt attention to an American Christian.:rolleyes: ) Perhaps the UNCF hasn’t caught on to that yet. (Yes, I realize the UNCF is not a lobby, but the same theory applies)

5

The ‘black issue’ has never actually had a moral cause in America.
Slavery builds nations, if we could actually zombify people we would have done that! What’s so ironic about slavery (whites and blacks were slaves); is that Indians were not made into slaves. It cost more money to make an indian slave on native American soil than to lose 80% of a shipment of displaced blacks from another continent! Slavery has always been a financial issue in America; with a fear lurking in the backround of the ‘stronger’ black population (also more numerous than us) taking over America and enslaving us in our own society. The civil war was an issue of tarifs and taxation; the decision to free blacks was begrudgingly made by Lincoln, realizing that black incentive was vital to win the money war, and destabilize the south. The civil rights movement was a result of bottom lines being higher when racism did not exist in the industrial workplace - racism made inefficient workforces; end of story. A racist miner missed more work and wasted valuable seconds being hatefull; this cut into profits.
While the financial end was being tweaked; violence was also being used to descend a shadow upon any notion of thinking blacks could get together and take America over. These types of organizations are used to screen and monitor any potential black movements before they start.
We’ve always known slavery was wrong, you couldn’t possibly run a plantation if you actually thought that blacks were somehow inferior to whites. You should take a look at the intelligence manuals the federal government sent to plantation owners, on how to subvert humanity out of a human and sap their will - if it had been ‘Native Americans’ on Africain soil, and Blacks on American soil; we would have had Native American slaves instead of black ones; breaking up their families and sending them over the ocean in brutal conditions, seperating males from females and beating the wholly living shit out of people was vital towards destabilization into slave mentality.
There have actually been long periods where more blacks have been on this continent than whites! We abused them, and we fear that they will fundamentally be as screwed up as us, should they ever have such an opportunity.
In addition, you still have the fact that a capitolistic model requires slaves to exist. 70% of the population is considered slave population in a capitolistic model… you always need the bums on the street to remind you why you’re scrubbing toilets in a burger joint. Dissemination of cocaine into black neighborhoods was a way to make money, and to cripple/discredit a black movement that may emerge; it also creates slaves. The media-zation of ‘gangsta-rap’ and these stupid sitcoms we see from blacks is still part of that concerted effort to demoralize the society. Media (DoD) has basically decided that: “If we’re going to give them success and money, the only focus will be this, and nothing else.” It’s basically a counter-intelligence OP to make blacks believe that this well known crappy behavior is the meaning and equivilent of black power; that, and rewarding black ‘athletes’ as these bohemouths of indomidable will; who have merely been bred like cattle for a millenia to have those physical and psychological habits.
Much of this is changing slowly, the ebb and tide of hostility towards blacks in America being dependant on intelligence and statistics regarding the bottom line.
You’re absolutely right IMO, these people are given power because they are idiots and crooks, and still keep the line, that has become American habit, still defined, by ensuring that highly publisized Black outlets exist on the models of racial pride, so as to incite reverse discrimination.

-Justhink

-Justhink

6

I’ve noticed that the skin of my next-door neighbours is a different shade to mine. I’ve noticed that the food they cook is different to that which I normally prepare. I’ve noticed that they speak a language amongst themselves that is not English (they speak reasonable English too). I’ve noticed that the pattern of activity that makes up their day is not quite similar to my own. I’ve noticed that the interior of their house is decorated in a style that I wouldn’t choose. I’ve noticed that they seem to attach priorities to various activities and objects that are different from my own.
The sum of these(and more) observations causes me to treat them differently than I do my neighbours on the other side, who are a reasonably generic white English family.

Is my behaviour racist?

7

I can’t remember the exact figures or states; but I believe it was Maryland in the early Colonial Slave trade that at one point had 6 million blacks to 100,000 whites. Many of those whites were slaves themselves. There was definately a policy that blacks should be seperated from their relatives and kin, from white slaves and from Native Americans… this was a fire waiting to happen; which is why run-away slaves needed to be caught.
You cannot have white slaves, blacks and American Indians sitting around a campfire together talking to each other… each was told that the other was their problem and they were kept divided. Native Americans needed to be killed on their own soil, as they could survive MUCH better than the displaced whites and Africans. We destroyed their crops, made the buffalo extinct (nearly) and spread disease. America from the get-go was founded on the concept of division; dividing into states, into counties etc… more to ensure that people could not congregate than anything else. America was founded on pitting person against person in ignorance disseminated from intelligence from ‘above’… the entire philosophy of America revolves around this concept. It’ll be interesting to see what the internet ultimately creates; what kind of counter-intelligence we’ll see as that aspect of America goes through withdrawl symptoms into death pangs and finally lays to rest. It may end up being as simple as taxing the internet; you always have Eschelon too…detecting content for deletion review…
CIA OPs spamming some opinions with rows upon rows of ‘flames’, or creating dual opinion sites that both act to subvert a more fundamental principal simply by the axiom required to focus the duality. The internet already is being infused with data flooding; also part of the medium intrinsically - I imagine if people had the gobs of money, and then the ‘certification’ requirements for radio and television dropped; the medium would again start the flooding process - currently; there do not seem to be enough channels ‘allowed’ at this point… this is obviously still not considered an option.

Anyways… bit of a ramble. Clearly, there are other tangible factors involved here, intelligently as they may have been deterninedly excecuted; still the product of ‘retards’. I would hope that anyone could take it upon themselves to not become that which they dispise;… one of the oldest human wishes in the ‘book’. Unfortunately, we all dispise killing people; except for those that will kill people to meet their percieved needs. To not become like them; is to have a shattered ego; to ‘lose’ the game; to act as ‘they’ need us to act to subvert us. If we play the game, we become like them; killers and they win by virtue of seeing their behavior validated. The point however, is that murder is a form of logical corruption shrug, discrimination and reverse discrimination are the tools used for it. Knowledge is the only thing that can actually fight ignorance… hence; this board =)

-Justhink

8

Mangetout wrote: “Is my behaviour racist?”

“I’ve noticed that the skin of my next-door neighbours is a different shade to mine.”

“…causes me to treat them differently…”

This is melatoninism…

“I’ve noticed that the food they cook is different to that which I normally prepare.”

“…causes me to treat them differently…”

This is pH balance-ism

"I’ve noticed that they speak a language amongst themselves that is not English (they speak reasonable English too).

“…causes me to treat them differently…”

This is linguicentrism…

“I’ve noticed that the pattern of activity that makes up their day is not quite similar to my own.”

“…causes me to treat them differently…”

This is just old fashioned ego-centrism, unless you mean to infer that they should be acting outrageously dissimilar from you…

Then it’s: self-loathe-ism

"I’ve noticed that the interior of their house is decorated in a style that I wouldn’t choose.

“…causes me to treat them differently…”

decorism

“I’ve noticed that they seem to attach priorities to various activities and objects that are different from my own.”

“…causes me to treat them differently…”

self-attentionism
self-reverse-congruism

-Justhink

9

There is no such thing as “reverse racism.”

10

Vive la difference.

11

Errr…thanks…for clearing that up Justhink :confused: :wink:

There’s hardly any single aspect neighbours that causes me to alter my behaviour (apart from their less-complete grasp of the English language, which is a direct stimulus to me to speak clearly and simply (i.e. avoiding metaphor, irony etc) wherever possible), but the sum* of my observations leads me to interact with them generally in different way than I do with my other (generic white English) neighbours.

*This is quite important, I feel, although I cannot determine why.

12

Without going into the rest of your rant, I’ll just note that this little factoid is untrue. Plenty of defeated tribes in early colonial America ended up with part of their population being enslaved. I’ll note the Tuscarora as just one example.

Although you are correct that African slaves could ultimately be procured less expensively, far the more important was that they could be procured in the much greater numbers necessary for the intensive agriculture of cash crops.

As to the OP - No, noticing ethnic differences is not stereotyping and is not racism. Treating people as inferior due to ethnic differences is racism. No reason to be “color-blind” - There are a lot of things to admire in our differences.

The reason some folks are concerned in particular with, say, American Indian poverty, is that there is proportionally a lot more of it compared to whites and culturally directed programs can, potentially, be more efficient than general programs in alleviating it. Both have utility IMHO.

  • Tamerlane
13

Mangetout: Without knowing the details of how you treat them differently, I’d say in general that if the difference is relatively trivial and not condescending or hostile, I wouldn’t worry about it. We all treat folks differently for a variety of reasons, whether it be due to age, personality, or what have you and sometimes it is appropriate to do so.

If you think it might be a little more than trivial ( and it isn’t warranted by unpleasant behavior on their part ), well most of us are a little uncomfortable, unconscious or not, with the “other”, whatever that other might be. Just be aware of it and try not to let it rule you.

  • Tamerlane
14

““Without going into the rest of your rant, I’ll just note that this little factoid is untrue. Plenty of defeated tribes in early colonial America ended up with part of their population being enslaved. I’ll note the Tuscarora as just one example.””

Indians were made into slaves, they were just VERY hard to keep… The numbers issue is not relevant; an estimated 70 million are thought to have occupied this continent when caucasians arrived; the issue is environment displacement, family separation… Once you caught blacks in Africa and marched them to the ships, the process was complete for the most part. The strong survived on the journey to the ship, the strongest survived on the journey here; their ‘spirits’ were considerably damaged by this stretch though…

What is an African American going to do when they escape? They stand out because they are not native; they don’t speak the language (Indian) and they don’t know the land…

An ‘Indian’ is fundamentally on their soil, when forced into slavery… help from ‘friendly tribes’ or even a window of escape was staggeringly more likely to mean succesful escape than for the imported blacks.

Slavery was not economically viable simply because of the home advantage that indians possessed.

The point I was making; is that to have been a successful plantation owner, you had to understand that blacks were not inferior and accomidate for this; proof being, that the indians just a few miles down the road were not economically viable as slaves (even considering the death rate of blacks on the journey here - and the difficulty and expense of travelling to Africa at the time). What was valuable is that you actually had slaves (by virtue of the conditions) by the time they arrived. Such was not the case for Native Americans.

-Justhink

15

“There is no such thing as “reverse racism.””

Agreed. The statement itself is racist… “only white people can be smart enough to actually be racist, other racism is ‘reverse racism’”

-Justhink

16

**

I don’t think this is what they are saying at all. Of course these are all opinions but IMHO they want to set higher education as a goal amoung young black Americans and they want to help pay for it.

**
Yes this is a problem. And the whold ‘I worry about how many Americans are in poverty’ line is just that. It is a line. If it weren’t a line then elementary schools in urban (with mostly minorites) wouldn’t be underfunded as opposes to subarban white schools being overfunded.

**

Really? Are you sure about that? How did he learn the skills to do this? Did he go to any sort of school? Even if he went to a college and paid full tuition if it was a STATE school then tax dollars went to build and fund that school. So he got help. Did he ride the bus to get to school. That is help from the government as well. You might think you are all on your own but you really are not. And arent’ the projects government housing? Putting a roof over his head isn’t help?

There are tons of scholarships that are available only to people who don’t have a penis. Plus you as a woman do not have to register with Selective Service (aka the draft) in order to be eligible for federal money.
When it comes to things like The United Negro College Fund or private scholarships that are only for women, the thing about it that it is their money and they can spend it or give it away as they please.

17

Are you aware there are scholarships for people of Italian, Irish, Native American and Polish decent?

How on earth did you arrive at the conclusion that the existence of the UNCF equates to black students not being smart enough to get scholarships on their own? Yes, I do realize in your next sentence you say that’s not true, but how’d you even arrive at that conclusion to begin with?

By the way, the UNCF offers scholarships for the children of victims of the September 11th terrorist attacks, regardless of race.

18

I agree that given the definition of racism, any discrimination on the basis of skin color is racism, period. However, there is a difference between institutionalized discrimination by the oppressive group against the oppressed, and resultant discrimination of the historically oppressed against the historic oppressor. I believe the distinction of reverse racism is useful because the power levels of the groups involved differ.

As far as the OP is concerned, I’m not sure no one helped your father, and perhaps fewer people stood in his way. Perhaps he was intrinsically helped by the system being the way it was. That’s not to begrudge him his success, but just to say that maybe it wasn’t quite as hard for him as it would have been for a person of color.

And I’m not sure people mind differentiation, just equal levels of power and respect despite differences.

19

Actually, since you’re all wondering who helped my father, let me elaborate. He put himself through catholic school from the time he started (he worked at the school cleaning up to pay his tuition). He worked two jobs (one fulltime and one parttime) throughout college. No, there were no school busses - he was in very good shape and rode his bike (even during college) through all the bad neighborhoods in New Orleans. His parents were divorced and on some heavy drugs (as were his brother and sister), so it’s not like he had a role model. You say the projects were help, but I disagree. My point was that people act as if you need substantial help to get OUT of the project (if you’re born there, you assume you’ll die there) so they don’t do much of anything to get out.

Furthermore, let my try to reestablish my point on your other questions - sorry if I miss something. Juanitatech: I understand there are scholarships and funding and programs (and quotas) for all different ethnic groups. I merely gave an example of one group that I was pretty sure everyone would recognize.

Also, I agree that there’s no such thing as reverse-racism. I figured that term was the easiest way to prepare you for what this thread was about. Perhaps I should have tried something else.

My point about getting Americans (rather than minorities) out of poverty will help everyone. If you target hispanics, you’ll give scholarships to some who’ve done very well for themselves. Same with blacks, asians… whoever else. However, if you target poor people, you’ll always be helping someone who needs it. I just don’t understand how breaking people up into ethnic groups is good at all. We’re Americans. I don’t even know what half my ethnicity is, and I like it that way!

I’d also like to point out that I mentioned that when you note an ethnic difference (as anything but a description - as you would with hair or eye color), you’re being racist. I stand by that statement. I grew up in a very small town in Western NY where race was absolutely not an issue. I didn’t find out till Jr year in hs that one of my best friends was black - we just didn’t notice things like that, since they didn’t matter. I always thought she just had a really great tan, honestly. I didn’t ever know Michael Jordan was black - he was American. I’m not trying to sound like I’m some wonderful person who got it figured out, cause it wasn’t because of me - it was my town.

I’ve been in Southern Louisiana now for about two years, and I’m ashamed to say race is one of the first things I notice now. Everyone makes such a big deal of it all down here. The only two minorities I’ve met down here who don’t make it obvious that they’re different and expect to be treated that way are Richard a Moussa. Richard’s amazing to me cause he grew up here, and he still hasn’t been influenced. He’s black, but he doesn’t throw it in your face, and he has friends of all colors. Moussa’s from a small town in Senegal. He told me the first time he ever came accross racist attitudes was in the USA. It’s just sad.

What I’m saying is that if we can all be like my home town, none of this would matter. Let’s get everyone out of the ghettos. Let’s all realize our potential, and not let groups (pretending to help us) tell us we have no chance. Let’s just be Americans first. I’m not saying to dismiss your culture. My boyfriend’s family is Cuban, and I love getting a taste of that culture when I’m over there. His parents came as immigrants and made something of themselves - why can’t anyone who’s already in this country do the same?

20

This might be enlightening.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/columnists/leonard_pitts/3826600.htm