Racism - Lets keep it civil. Also, Gravy is white.

Tarrant

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A racism thread in the grown up forum? What could go wrong!
Yeah, I bet it goes as badly as if we had one about people's relationships or one where people talked about how depressed they were and possibly wanted to kill themselves.

Oh wait...

It's fine so far.
 

Sylverlokk

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Thats a variation of #1, where you just say everyone should be treated equally because reasons. Even when they aren't equal but it has nothing to do with race.
No individuals are unequal and there are differences in physiology in race which undoubtedly served some evolutionary purpose meaning races are unequal too, but its a minor thing and not worth considering and even if it was a major thing it doesn't mean people should be treated differently.
 

Adebisi

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I see a well dressed black college student walking towards me. I walk past without thinking anything of it.

I see a group of thug life purple drank pants riding low kids walking towards me. I cross the street asap.

Am I racist?
 

Lanx

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I see a well dressed black college student walking towards me. I walk past without thinking anything of it.

I see a group of thug life purple drank pants riding low kids walking towards me. I cross the street asap.

Am I racist?
Well your first mistake would be to cross the street asap, the thug kids will take offense to that and run you down.

are you racist?
did you also mean that the thug life kids are black too?

if so, replace black with russian and if you feel the same way, then no.
 

Palum

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You sound very out of touch with the realities of small town America and/or ghettos.
No, I grew up in a small town, I just don't think it's an excuse anymore. In a real 3rd world country or secluded island nation, sure, but even the kid of that crazy WBC preacher eventually realized he was raised wrong and his father was shitty. People leave their Amish families to join modern society.
 

Lanx

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No, I grew up in a small town, I just don't think it's an excuse anymore. In a real 3rd world country or secluded island nation, sure, but even the kid of that crazy WBC preacher eventually realized he was raised wrong and his father was shitty. People leave their Amish families to join modern society.
Uh, fuck the Amish, are they a race? if so i'm racist against those disgusting fucks.
 
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Good lord am i only professed non-whitey on here? Where my pplz who can get a tan and not burn in the sun like a lobster at? It'd also be nice to see who the Arabs or Muslims are, the majority of my negs come from the Islam thread, or maybe that's just from the cray cray SJW's.
I'm Italian so I don't burn either. Jokes on you! Then again I've got a hefty dose of Sicilian in me so not sure if I'm white at all.

Edit for contribution:

I think palum is right about your local environment not being as large a factor in your outlook and life choices any more. Most of my highly liberal and open-minded friends are from small rural towns. The only two Turkey racist tadpoles i know are from san Francisco and Boston respectively.

Edit: Turkey racist tadpoles... meh just gonna leave it.
 

Khane

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No, I grew up in a small town, I just don't think it's an excuse anymore. In a real 3rd world country or secluded island nation, sure, but even the kid of that crazy WBC preacher eventually realized he was raised wrong and his father was shitty. People leave their Amish families to join modern society.
It takes a very special kind of intelligence and independence to leave the hive mind you grew up in (if you grew up in that kind of environment). The internet tends to reinforce beliefs for people just as well as disarming them and it all depends on which path a young person chooses. And that depends a lot on whether there is an adult they respect and admire pointing them in a certain direction. Most kids don't just figure shit out on their own and the longer they stay in any kind of environment the harder it becomes to break away from whatever belief system exists in that environment.
 

Palum

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It takes a very special kind of intelligence and independence to leave the hive mind you grew up in (if you grew up in that kind of environment). The internet tends to reinforce beliefs for people just as well as disarming them and it all depends on which path a young person chooses. And that depends a lot on whether there is an adult they respect and admire pointing them in a certain direction. Most kids don't just figure shit out on their own and the longer they stay in any kind of environment the harder it becomes to break away from whatever belief system exists in that environment.
I think you are taking my point too much in the one direction. The issue is two-sided: 1) racial stereotypes being supported by typified behavior/actions, ala thug life, etc. feeding racist viewpoints and 2) racists bringing up racist kids living in secluded communities without any contact from the outside world.

I agree with you that the internet can reinforce that behavior for people who seek confirmation bias (see religion on Facebook), but I also think the 'barrier to entry' for learning and understanding is a lot less than you claim, certainly in the internet age. I guess my point is if at this point I am unwilling to give a pass for say some KKK member for being a racist bigot just because they were raised that way, why do so many people keep seeking to give passes to members of minority groups (aka racism of lowered expectations) without cause? It just seems absurd that the dual (really multitude of) standards persists as a way for 'fairness' and if you hold anyone accountable for their actions in a vacuum, as long as they have a race (or religion, color, disability, gender, sexuality, etc.) they can simply call you a racist.
 

Big Phoenix

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It takes a very special kind of intelligence and independence to leave the hive mind you grew up in (if you grew up in that kind of environment). The internet tends to reinforce beliefs for people just as well as disarming them and it all depends on which path a young person chooses. And that depends a lot on whether there is an adult they respect and admire pointing them in a certain direction. Most kids don't just figure shit out on their own and the longer they stay in any kind of environment the harder it becomes to break away from whatever belief system exists in that environment.
"My upbringing" is an awesome excuse when you turn out to be a fuck up and do incredibly stupid things you shouldnt do.
 

Koushirou

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People leave their Amish families to join modern society.
And yet, one of my employee's daughters who got amazing grades in high school, loved the shit out of chemistry, and missed aceing her SAT by 2 points decided to say fuck all that shit and went and joined the Amish. Fucking bright ass girl and now she's out there making fucking quilts and baking fucking bread and will be doing that the rest of her life. Her mother nearly broke down in tears when she was telling us because of all the wasted potential of her kid (her mother didn't grow up in this little shitter town and has actually seen the world).

All these young people here in western ass MD have the internet, yet all they still seem to know is that as soon as they graduate HS (if they do) the only thing left to do in life is get married then the guys go work in the fields or the mines and the girls stay home and shit out babies while everyone praises Jesus and waves their confederate flags in one hand and their beer in another. It's so fucking depressing to see people have access to all this knowledge and yet this is still the only existence they know. The culture pull is strong as fuck. Sorry for the rant.
 

Palum

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I am still unclear why I should give people a pass for that, though. If they had opportunities to make better decisions and they did not, oh well?
 

Erronius

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The problem I have with #2 (All races are inherently equal and most of what we see as racial differences are cultural differences, and treating people differently based on race is stupidity in general) is that the culture issue cuts both ways and someone who is racist can argue that"all blacks are lazy"isn't racist because it's based on black culture, or that saying all Muslims are rapists and use specific cultural examples to then extrapolate onto everyone.

I had an argument along these lines on FB not long after Ferguson:

Person on FB:"All blacks are too lazy to work, they want handouts and to burn stuff"
Me:"Um...don't you think that's a LITTLE racist? I guess maybe that fits SOME people, but all black people? C'mon now"
Person on FB:"No, bro, you don't get it. It's not because they're black, it's because of black culture, so I'm not being racist."
Me:"Bullshit, that's totally fucking racist. You can't just say that about an ENTIRE RACE and then use culture as an excuse"
Person on FB:"You need to educate yourself. This is why we have a problem with blacks in America, it's their culture"

My argument with Fanaskin over Ben Carson went in a similar direction. Fana wanted to cherrypick specific areas of the Muslim world (Syria/Iraq) and apply that to all Muslims, as if that is justification to take such a broad brush to Muslims everywhere. But if I had argued that this was racist, he and others would likely have fallen back to what I had been arguing...that it was cultural. Except I wasn't making an"All Muslims are X because of Shithole Y"argument, I was more pointing out that you cant just call all Muslims child-rapists because there are some idiots in Afghanistan who support bacha bazi.

I'm probably just pissing in the wind here and am alone on this, but whatevs.
 

Koushirou

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I am still unclear why I should give people a pass for that, though. If they had opportunities to make better decisions and they did not, oh well?
I wasn't really saying they should get a pass, more just bitching about how shitty the situation is and just how strong an influence the culture someone grows up in has on their brain. I guess it's just hard for me to understand why people would willing go into such a dismal, boring existence if they know there's other opportunities available to them. Either that or this shit is just so ingrained in them that they don't even realize those opportunities are there. Either case is just sad to me.
 
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It's hard to say either way erronious. I mean are most Muslim governed/black majority nations/areas shit holes because the people that are there are muslim/black or is it because the cultural history of the area caters to being a shit hole?

Was it caused by outside oppression from white/foreign/religious influence or do they happen to be just a bunch of pricks from the get go?

It's easy to see your FB friends point in a vacuum. But things get murky when you start to consider outside factors. One of the guys I mentioned in my previous post has this theory that basically black people are okay until they reach a critical mass, like community sized, then they basically become a bunch of useless welfare using dregs like some weird racial blob. So basically like normal people in small numbers but wastes of society whenever they have cultural dominance in an area. He feels the same way about Muslims. Was an interesting insight into the mind of a self admitted bigot.
 

Palum

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1) Culture and a belief system are two distinct things. You can be part of a culture and have different viewpoints or attitudes or variations in following customs. Having a belief system and then not following it just makes you a hypocrite or not really part of that belief system.
2) It's not fair to call all Muslims child rapists just because the Afghanis do it (honestly not sure if it's specific regions or what), but at the same time you cannot make that claim and then double down saying it's unfair to criticize Afghani culture (or whichever relevant parts) because it's 'just the way they do things' which seems to be the natural extension of SJW protectionism for shitty ideas.

So the point I would make is in your example there is a toxic (lololol SJW word) culture in parts of Ferguson and other cities of crime, lack of community, respect, etc. that does need to be vilified yet no one appears to be willing to call it out because it would be racist to say that you're an asshole for stealing from and burning down your neighbor's convenience store and that has nothing to do with civil rights.
 

Lendarios

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No individuals are unequal and there are differences in physiology in race which undoubtedly served some evolutionary purpose meaning races are unequal too, but its a minor thing and not worth considering and even if it was a major thing it doesn't mean people should be treated differently.
What evolutionary purpose does slant eyes have? Or Samoan features? Or blonde hair. Or whatever brown people have.