Racism

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Well saying it doesn't make it true. Why is it so evil is the question?

I stand corrected then. It was indeed something I heard second hand. I don't know the precise stats or even where one would find them. It may just be that the difference between 100% African and 85% African is significant in terms of physical appearence so people drew a false conclusion and made up statistics.

I doubt the term race even applies to humans because we are all pretty much alike, besides color and a few things, any human is fundamentally similar from one continent to the next. We do however use it on dogs and cats because they have a lot more physical traits that we have shaped to our uses. In any event, i'd rather use the term "ethnia" when speaking about humans, rather than race (at least we all grasp the worldly concept of being part of the human "race" which i can't speak for the other animals).

ever heard of the Holocaust? 6 million people killed for racial reasons?

or how about apartheid, don't they teach you people about those things at school?

You'd be surprised how much time my school spends teaching about the holocaust, since I attend a Jewish school. I might also point you in the direction of the crusades, the inquisition, and denote religion as one of the greatest evils of our time.

Come on, you can come up with more pertinent examples than that.

People should be judged for what they as individuals have done -- I don't want to be held responsible in any way for what some jerks who share some superficial characteristic to me do. And I don't know about you, but being accused of something I haven't done just infuriates me.

There are practical issues, also. Racism interacts with certain common human instincts such that a lot worse than what you're saying tends to end up happening. (Basically people tend to slide into genocide if not impeded enough...) People end up getting denied things like the right to vote, a fair trial (lynching), equal protection under the law (it tends to be easier to get away with murdering, say, a gay person ('gay panic' defense)), and the opportunity to rise through hard work (i.e. the first black U.S. Navy Master Chief diver -- he suceeded, but it was in spite of efforts being sabotaged at many levels. There was a pretty good movie made about him called "Men of Honor.")

I make distinction between domestic and imperialistic racism. Domestic racism is never truly blind. It's always a sort of generalized retaliation against another form of racism. People don't realize this but jews in Europe were extremely racist and didn't integrate that good with other europeans. They always put their religion first hand, generally speaking. Muslims in Europe today are the same. They ARE indeed racist and demand special benefits because of race and culture. They spark the islamophobia by being the way they are. When jews in Austria were forced to scrub the streets while austrians pointed and laughed at them the feeling among many austrians was that "finally these racist, arrogant, hateful bastards get what they deserve!" not "they are inferior so they must scrub our streets, it's simple fact".

Imperialistic racism on the other hand was a way to justify stealing and slavery. Political racism is usually imperialistic while the racism of people is domestic racism. The leaders have ulterior motives with their racism while the people just want to "get even" as a reaction to being the target of racism themselves.
Nazis got to power because of the racism among many jews. If the jews hadn't been racist the "superior race" theory wouldn't have gained that much support in Germany and Austria. Of course, once the wheels had begun to turn hundreds of thousands of non-racist jews suffered as well, but what triggered the antisemitism was in fact a counterreaction to the well known racism among jewish communities.

The idea that racism is just a blind way for misfits to express anger is wrong. The "misfits" are just overrepresented because they usually are the most victimized by immigrant racism while succesful people live protected lives and can blame all the "evil" racism on others.

Imperialistic racism still exists but it's not as common as reactionary/domestic racism.

I imagine you would be many times more likely to be murdered by a white person in the US than you would in Canada. What does this say about whites...not much that I can think of.

You’re correct. The races are different, and there is nothing wrong with acknowledging that fact. And there’s nothing wrong with preferring the company of members of one’s own race. And racial profiling makes perfect sense.
You will often see all of these things labelled as ‘racism’ though. The word is a political tool. It’s a good illustration of what George Orwell talked about: control the language and you can control the minds of the people. You can delegitimise perfectly reasonable observations (such as ‘the races are different’) and perfectly reasonable sentiments (such as loyalty to one’s own kind) by conflating them with things such as ‘hatred for others’ under one big, bad umbrella term: racism.

I don’t know what the best way to deal with this sort of propaganda is. Perhaps rather than asking ‘why is racism wrong?’ it would be more apt in certain circumstances to throw this overused term back in people’s faces.

Why do you insinuate that all ‘racism’ flows from the majority races? Do you actually believe this, or is this just self-serving propaganda?
And maybe you haven’t noticed, but the only government sponsored racial discrimination in Western nations now is against the majority populations



‘A problem’ for whom? For yourself rather than ‘for humanity’, I presume?
If so, that would be understandable. Since you are not white, it is understandable you might find Portland too white for your liking.
I take it, then, you would understand if a white person said they found Detroit or New Orleans too black for their liking? If not, why not?



“Every form of discrimination is wrong”? That’s an incredibly broad statement, but unfortunately it’s one I suspect has been made in one form or another a zillion times already in this forum.

The majority of people who have ever lived instinctively understood and understand that ‘discrimination’ is perfectly natural and healthy. We are not all the same. Men are different to women. Heterosexuality is different to homosexuality. The young lack the wisdom of the old. And we have greater natural bonds with our families than with strangers, and greater natural bonds with members of our ‘tribes’ and/or races than with members of outgroups.

There is no equality in human nature, and a society that makes ‘equality’ its highest ideal will crumble.



The subject of the Holocaust makes its obligatory appearance ...

It’s a cliché, but I’ll say it anyway: Communism killed more people in the name of ‘equality’ and ‘the brotherhood of man’ than Nazism killed in the name of racial discrimination.
Why then do we still hear so much about Nazism and so little about the gulags?
Hint – it’s about control of what you think.

I think you make an important point. I would prefer to use the words aggression and defence though.

For example, we have Africans and Asians expanding into the ancestral homelands of the European peoples. This is ethnic aggression. European protests are an act of ethnic defence. But we are constantly told that the ‘racism’ in this instance is with the defenders and not the aggressors. It’s a complete nonsense.

The situation in the US is slightly different of course. The US as a nation was built by whites, and white Americans should expect white elites to look after white interests (which they are not doing, just like in Europe), but the building of the nation of course involved acts of ethnic aggression against Indian tribes. Still, the situation for the American Indians is not going to be improved by opening America’s borders to the entire world. I sometimes wonder what American Indians make of the fact that whites took the land they once occupied only to give it away to just about every other race on earth.

That would be "speciesism". Racism is usually considered to be a human intra-species thing, and different human races are much less different than even closely related species or subspecies. A lot of racism is really about culture, too, which is also quite different from species membership.

(Unless, of course, I misunderstood you. In that case, ignore this.)

I wonder why it would matter at this point in time. The fact is there is not a single American Indian alive today who ever had land taken from them. The attitude that whites still owe them anything for the past only fuels racism in my opinion.

An instinct to lie & steal is also perfectly natural, but that doesn't make it healthy.

And human cooperation and allegiance is not so simplistic or static as self > family > village > country > etc. Soldiers go off to fight wars for their country, not just their single family. Veterans who come back talk about wanting to go back to help their comrades who are still fighting (who aren't likely family members). Anyone with a risky job, i.e. fire fighting or law enforcement, is in some respects putting strangers' families ahead of their own.

The 'everyone is about pure self-interest' view is not completely false, but neither is it completely (nor glibly) true.

I'm not suggesting they do. I'm suggesting that if naive white Americans are so keen to give away the country their ancestors and fellow whites built, it would be morally preferable to give it away to American Indians than to Pakistanis, Chinese, Hmongs, Somalians etc.