racism in society
 

i've just been reading in the paper that the boy who killed all those poor kids at virginia tech was told things like ' go back to china' when he spoke in class. i just find that unbelievable, i am not saying he was just in what he did, not at all, but what kind of society are we living in when kids growing up, kids that should be more tolerant, more open minded (supposedly) than their parents generation are still taunting this way? i'm sickened by all of it, the killings and the abuse. no one deserves that, an ex boyfriend of mind was regularly beaten at school for simply being the only chinese kid.

do we live in a more tolerant society or is it all a lie?
discuss...
x

we live in a less vocal society, not a more tolerant one.

I hope we live in a society where people say 'go back to China' and then get the tar kicked out of them by a few Chinese people after class.

I agree with will, except it would be even better if the kicking were applied by a bunch of South Koreans.

Good point. Still, it's gunny when it's done by the Chinese because it was equally culturally insensitive to them.

Edit: that's a Freudian slip that I can't bring myself to edit. Gunny....heh.

I am constantly annoyed by people who insist on using the wrong country of origin to describe orientals. Not everybody is Chinese (although we may be soon).

And just to clarify, I am also annoyed by people who think oriental is a derogatory term, it is not.


PS I got a chuckle out of that as well.

It wasn't derogatory back in the 60s and 70s, but it can be now. Asian is the politically correct term when using it as a noun. When used as a noun (i.e. There's an oriental in my class), it is disrespectful. When it's used as an adjective, I believe it's okay.

I think we live in a more tolerant society....it's certainly not perfect though :( My (white) mother-in-law called black girls pickininnies (sp?) while my (white) dad called/s black people second class citizens....they are both in their mid 80's though. It takes time to wash brains.

I call black people black, not African-American. I call orientals just that, unless I know specifically where they are from.

I don't cringe at all when someone refers to me as an occidental (not that that commonly happens).

You may have noticed that PC and I don't get along to well. I believe it to be worse in a way than censorship, for it is sophistry, and far more damaging.

We do not live in a more tolerant society, we just cover our intolerance with a honeyed tongue.

I'd love to end bigotry today. I'll settle for shutting up bigots, though. Baby steps.

I consider myself one of many sub-types. My wife finds my use of THAT term offensive. Go figure.

We live in a fucked up society which is why people get so disturbed, confused, and pissed off.

We live in a society that is sex obsessed, but refuses to acknowledge that young, unmarried people are having sex and/or are ashamed of their own sexual perversions and obsessions.

We live in a society where the area with the most churches generally has the most porn shops and bars.

We live in a society where everyone is scared to say anything for fear of running the risk of being racist or prejudice. People bottle up hate and anger and then forget why they are angry in the first place. People sit around and have discussions, but do nothing to solve the issues because what can one, two, or twenty people really do? We are a helpless society.

We live in a society where media is a circus and instead of trying to solve problem and report the news it tries to pull on heartstrings and twist stories. Of course, I'm not sure what the goal of the media is so maybe we should just accept this one and enjoy the animal segments and the water cooler gossip and forget that there are serious problems in the world.

I think that if people didn't hide in a bubble and bury their head in the sand everyone would go insane and begin massive shooting sprees.

This society is fucked up with a few realists around to attempt to keep everything in balance. I, mysellf, am becoming more jaded by the day. I've been questioning society and trying to make sense of it. All I've concluded so far is that I better make my own bubble and keep the horrible realities of the world out of sight/out of mind if I want to continue a happy existence. This is against everything I believe, but honestly I see no hope for improvement anytime soon.

"Oriental" is dated and normally reserved for Eurocentric references. Academic circles associate "Orientalism" with the European colonial attitude toward specific Asian nations. This is why it can be offensive in certain areas of the world.

This may be related to why "Eskimo" has been replaced with "Inuit" for many of the peoples who were labelled with the former term. "Eskimo" assumed a pejorative value over time. "Indian" vs. "Native" vs. "First Nation" is another example. So is "East Indian" vs. "Southeast Asian," "Negro" vs. "Black." There are many more examples, and they have varying degrees of offensiveness.

All of these changes in our language are examples of how we deal with racism. Language shifts to ensure that we apply appropriate references to groups that we address. This is not sugar-coating; language is powerful. They are not just words; they are meanings rich with signifiers more complex than many may realize.

[Note: I would argue that "Oriental" is nearly as dated and pejorative as "Negro." I wouldn't any sooner say "there is an Oriental in my class" than I would "there's a Negro in my class."]

The 'go back to China' thing could have been because this guy was such a freak, not because he was asian. The kid wrote disturbingly violent stories, stalked girls, etc. People are going to use what they can to verbally attack someone that weird.

wait: i am bewildered by no. 14.

what are you saying, kevpdx? that the use of racist categories is just dandy as a way for presumably inarticulate people to lash out and someone they do not like, someone "that weird," someone so "not like 'us'"?
uh...what do you think racist categories do in general?
how is your post not a de facto justification not only of the categories, but of the logic behind these categories?
unless you mean that the logic of racism is ok when you agree that individual or group x should be targetted in that way, using that kind of speech...but that's no better: how is this not simply a repetition of the logic that any racist would use? even the most vicious anti-semites that i have known, for example, make exceptions for the "good jews" that they know personally; even the most avowed racists i have encountered will react to being accused of racism by ticking of elements of a list of "good" individuals as a way of attempting to deny that they are racist.

another way: not all social deviance results in a murder-suicide. but this particular guy's pathologies were such that he did end up committing murder-suicide. how do you parse this? from no. 14 it seems that you must imagine there is some objective measure of relative "deviance" that authorizes you to in some cases endorse racist remarks (or their equivalent) in order to enforce consequences to the violation of exceeding the "limits" of "acceptable deviance"---but what is that standard, what are these limits and who decides on them?

this standard cannot possibly be based on something as stupid as taking the fact that cho snapped and did what he did as a general pattern and moving from there to backwrite it into any "deviant" pattern that you feel like....
but if you push at such logic as there is in no. 14, this is more or less where you'd land.

well, to my mind it would be a pretty fucked up result of this horrific massacre/suicide were "normal" folk--you know, regular people who live in a context of more-or-less continually manufactured fear---to decide to become militant against any behaviours that they see as "socially deviant" because there is some tiny probablility that Bad Things Will Happen...

but hey, maybe this will result in delightful spectator sport on the order of the christian persecution of witches, which worked so well: it gave "normal folk" an easy peasy way to isolate the "socially deviant" or marginal..once these folk were turned over the the Inquisition, it was a simple application of a tautological argument to concoct series of Bad Things that Might Happen as a function of that person's "deviance" or marginality (read intercourse with Natas)---once that was in place, then the "secular arm" could rush in to "save the day" by executing them, proactively stomping out "evil" that may or may not have existed even as potential in the first place.
that worked out really well.
we know this because nothing bad has happened since, what, 1720, when Victory was Declared and the persecution of witches was finally abandoned.
qed.

Oriental is a type of rug. Not person.

I was eating with my boss and one colleague yesterday when they got onto talking about comedians and the colleague began to describe a scene from an old-ish british comedy detailing a somewhat racist joke. His point was that whether or not it was politically correct that that there shouldn't be a problem with racist jokes in sitcoms. I have very strong feelings toward racism having grown up in a predominantly white area and being mixed race I have been subjected to enough persecution, therefore I suppose in some ways I am biased. But it really infuriates me that there are people that think it's not a big deal and if anything is something to laugh about. I didn't want to cause any unneccesary tension at lunch and just said nothing but part of me wanted to ask if he would feel the same way if he grew up in a place where he was a minority and people were mocking him on the TV.

This is exactly my point Umpa - it is a big deal. It shouldn't be something people are just gliding over in the coverage of the killings - racism is abuse, pure and simple - I'm not on that boy's side but I can't imagine how miserable he must have been. If somebody was taunting my accent, my looks everyday I don't know how I'd react - especially a huge majority of people around me, singling me out. He must have been very alienated, I don't care how 'weird' in personality people think you are they have no right EVER to use racial slurs. I pity everyone involved.

Man....you put my thoughts into words! :thumbsup: :)
And after about 80 years....you really can't take the crazyness any more, and you are happy to die. :|

Considering how mentally disturbed he was, and he literally was here on a student visa, I wouldn't think "go back to china" would have anything to do with him being anything other than a crazy loner.

I think we can all agree that as far as comedic genius goes, that kid had about the ability of carrot top. And that's the real crime in America: unfunny people being tolerated.

If someone's not funny, don't laugh. You'll just be encouraging him or her to make more people cry.

Oriental - Originating from the East.

If you don't choose to use it that way, good for you. The world is short on individuality these days.

This is how racism will be reduced. I think people naturally tend to segregate themselves and be racist, but the parents who have been trained by society to hide their racism will not pass it on to their children as strongly.

You should at least flesh it out appropriately. It deserves as much, and so do we:


oriental

• adjective of, from, or characteristic of the Far East.

• noun often offensive a person of Far Eastern descent.

— DERIVATIVES orientalism noun orientalist noun orientalize (also orientalise) verb orientally adverb.

— USAGE The term oriental is now regarded as old-fashioned and potentially offensive as a term denoting people from the Far East. In US English, Asian is the standard accepted term in modern use; in British English, where Asian tends to denote people from the Indian subcontinent, specific terms such as Chinese or Japanese are more likely to be used.

Yeah... as in food and goods. Not people.

Cool, when I start drawing my sense of morality from a dictionary that might come in handy. As I said, if I know the persons origin I refer to them by that, otherwise oriental is far more specific than Asian.

If I describe a person as Asian, am I refering to someone from Jordan, Russia, Korea or Indonesia? It's a useless moniker, and as such I don't use it.

Do you disagree that this kid is a freak? Like I said, he was a stalker, wrote disgusting stories, and eventually killed 32 people. Mentally stable people don't do shit like that.

"People are going to use what they can to verbally attack someone that weird". That is not saying that racist comments are ok. It is saying that these people most likely attacked him because he was a freak, not because he was Asian. Don't twist my words into racism.

When some are pissed off enough, they will use insults regarding to race or other uncontrollable things, not because they hate that thing, but because they are attempting to use whatever they can against them.

:thumbsup:

No, really. I love it. :D

This is where I find this country rolling down hill with the speed ever increasing.

This over sensitivity needs to just stop. They're words, yeah words like oriental, Asian, Chinese, or worse like nigger, wop, rag head are all very derogatory.

But I honestly don't see why the massive media circus over this shit is happening, those who use them are just pointing them selves out to the rest of us that "Hey, look at me, I'm an ignorant tool."

I just don't get the need to make such a big deal out of it. There are simply much more important events in this world that needs to be taken care of first.
(Economy, War on Oil, Fossil Fuel replacements, Car Emissions, Global Warming, etc)

But to take a war-on-words? Give me a break.

Maybe I'm insensitive, but I'm not about to get pissed off for someone else's feeling like too many others do.

Racism is one of those things that will probably never go away, its human nature. We simply are wired to categorize people and things. Its how we work. Some just take it to the extremes, just like anything else in life. There are and always will be, extremists that stand out in the crowd.

If you want to be specific in your use of "Asian," consider the following; these terms are more modern than "the Orient":

• South Asia
• East Asia
• South-East Asia
• Asia and the Pacific
• the Pacific Rim
• the Pacific Basin

Why consider these? Well, that's because aside from "the Orient" being a Eurocentric term that has fallen out of disuse because of its pejorative connotations, it also causes "Oriental" to be more vague a term than "Asian." The Orient traditionally refers to the following areas:

• Persia
• Mesopotamia
• Asia Minor
• Egypt

Come the late 19th century, it widened to include:

• China
• Japan
• Korea
• and surrounding nations

This means the Orient refers to both modern-day Asia and the Middle East. "Oriental" is more vague than saying "Asian." If you truly want to avoid getting people's post-colonial backs up, you might want to shift your views on the word. If you don't know a person's specific origin in Asia, then I'd call them "Asian"--which I'd say is most appropriate. "Oriental" is worse than useless.

As a side note, the British no longer call Americans "colonists." You know, those unusual settler folk over in the New World; kind of strange and primitive, those "colonials." This is because the United States of America is now a nation of its own. Things changed. For the same reason, we can no longer see the value in the word "Orient" as applied to people currently living in Asia. Things have changed. The word should be reserved for references to history and the exotic.

It never hurts to broaden our horizons when it comes to learning about our fellow people and their respective cultures.

You might want to consult the dictionary for semantics. If I were to misuse the word 'simply' (i.e. "He was simply raised", to mean that he was raised in a simple way), someone could correct me by saying, 'well in the dictionary, the definition of simply is....'. You're arguing against the definition of the word 'oriental'. All you need to do to understand the definition of a word is to look it up. My dictionary says it's derogatory when used to describe people. Everyone else agrees. You can continue using the word as you see fit, but understand that the rest of the world comprehends the word in a very different way than you, and as such they will be offended whether you intend it or not.

I understand that you refuse to accept that language is fluid and, as such, the meanings and connotations of words can change. However, you should still probably at least *appear* open-minded to the possibility that some portion of your vernacular has become outmoded and is now a little insensitive/racist/stupid.

Believing that the meaning/usage of a word never changes connotation and that you are correct simply because it was correct at some point in history is *almost* as ignorant as intentionally using it as a slur.

...Does it really matter what you call someone? Whatever happened to "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me"? People today have too little self-worth...

I see what you are saying, I'm just having trouble caring. Perhaps I am just stubborn or curmudgeonly. Perhaps it's sort of a litmus test as to whether or not the person in question is too soft to continue talking to. Whatever the case may be, I really don't see myself not using the word in the future. As I mentioned above, the alternatives are useless.

If I point to a crowd of people containing a Russian, an Arab, an Indian, and a Korean and tell anybody in the US about the oriental guy, they will know exactly who I am talking about.

Being of European descent, I have no problem whatsoever using eurocentric terms (as one poster above mentioned) in my everyday vocabulary.

Actually, if you point to the same crowd of people in the US, and point out the Asian guy, they know exactly who you are talking about too. I'm American, but in general, at least in the English use of the word, we are not talking about someone from Paraguay or Costa Rica, but someone from the US. It's just how it works.

Use of oriental here in California, where there is a significant Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese presence, is very much frowned upon, and, if said in the presence of most Asians, will cause friction.

Every racial incident I have seen or know of from primary sources basically doesn't get past some jerk exploited inflated sensitivities for jerk reasons, and if it escalates to violence it's all about vanity and ego. Some jerk going about his jerkly business is nothing to get out of shape about until he directly interferes with your operation. I mean, if some guy were standing four feet away from me and was shouting all varieties of meanness it isn't logical to get angry, it's stupid to empower that chap more than he ever could by himself.

Then again I'm debilitatingly blase. :-|

Ah, but our (I'm also of European descent) ancestors haven't been subjugated for a long, long time. Asians are still treated like crap by many people (just as blacks are treated like crap, etc.). My German ancestors haven't had it hard since the Romans were invading Northern Europe. My Irish ancestors probably had it pretty crappy from the Brits, but they immigrated centuries ago. As a white male, I really can't tell you what it's like to be subjugated. Yes, I'm an atheist, but it's really not that bad.

When you suggest that people are being soft, you're playing down the fact that there still is very serious racism in our society. If you don't know what I'm talking about, name 3 movies in the past 10 years that have featured Asians that didn't use martial arts. Name one show on TV where the main character is Asian. Name an Asian American politician.

http://inouye.senate.gov/biography.html
Didn't he also give the Democrat response to the State of the Union a couple of years back?

For a bonus, Gary Locke was elected governor of Washington state in 1996 and enjoyed an approval rating of 70% plus. Norman Mineta is our Secretary for Transportation. Robert Matsui and Doris Matsui are/were members of the House (had to look that one up)

Movies: Anna and the King, Brokeback Mountain (directed by Ang Lee), Lucky Number Slevin, Memoirs of a Geisha (borderline), Harold & Kumar

TV: Lost (Sun and Jin), Ally McBeal, ER

Other: Yo-Yo Ma, Connie Chung, Kristy Yamaguchi, Yao Ming, Michelle Kwan, Eric Shinseki, Hidecki Matsui (go Yankees!), Margret Cho

How'd I do? My point is just that your point is hyperbole.

I'm not going to bother adding any more.

I think my point still stands.

I'm not playing down the seriousness of racism, just the fact that some people are overly sensitive toward terms that have no real perjorative meaning, like oriental. If there is some sort of shame that comes with originating from the east, I could understand the problem. But there is not, so I don't see it as an issue.

I might also add that I have never had any of my oriental friends so much as bat an eye at the word, and most use it in the same context as I do.

Will: I don't. I think it's total hyperbole.

debaser: I think the term's connotation might be somewhat regional. When I lived in NYC, it was almost common knowledge that Oriental was demeaning. Besides, now that you know, why would you want to risk going around offending people and appearing tactless when there are other words that mean the same thing?

Some of my black friends wouldn't give a shit if I used the word nigga, but I don't out of respect to them. I'm not suggesting that oriental is in line with the n word, but it is still derogatory. That's the bottom line.
That's fine. Prove me wrong.

Will, you asked for someone to name one Asian-American politician and 3 movies made in the last 10 years featuring asians w/o martial arts, and one TV show with a main character who is asian.

Within 20 minutes I gave 5 politicians, 3 movies (two more related but not meeting your criteria), 3 TV shows with asian actors playing major recurring parts (not starring, admitted), 1 musician, 1 comedian, 1 newscaster, 4 athletes, and 1 member of the Joint Chiefs.

I think your point was made through hyperbole.

Cho would agree with you, except he chose to shoot them instead.

Perhaps it would be better if our society were less anxious to be offended.

DING DING DING!

African describes a continent of origin, not a person. African-American is inherently contradictory.

It means an American of African descent. It's not contradictory.

Perhaps it would be better if your society were less offensive to cause anxiety.

Now, in comparison, imagine white or black actors, politicians, etc. I think you'll find that it's one sided. Also:

- Anna and the King did feature martial arts
- Ang Lee was the FIRST Asian to win an Oscar, which speaks in volumes about my so called hyperbole
- Brokeback Mountain didn't feature one Asian actor

Who are you to make that call? Are you Asian? If not, then you have no authority to decide what is pejorative or not, for that group. In many places it IS shameful, very much so, to come from the East. If you do not recognize that, then we have no basis for discussion.

Will, why did you write this if it didn't mean anything?

If you were going to make your point regardless, why didn't you start there? I'm still not denying that there is a disproportionately large deficit of Asian people portrayed in our media. I'm just trying to figure out why you are trying to make the point in such a way.

Agreed, we have nothing to discuss. I would appreciate if you would let me know where it is shameful to be an oriental though, so I can avoid such places like the plague.

Lucky them.

Don't forget the Chinaman that peed on The Dudes rug. It really tied the room together.

Come to Iceland, where Asians of all background get to be called "grjóni" behind their backs, which translates as the Asian equivalent of "nigger" or "wetback." Quite a few Icelanders hate immigrants "contaminating" their country here, and the majority of the factory workers and domestic workers (immigrants) here are Polish and Asian. You'd better believe the Asians, with their easily-identifable dark hair and different features, are the ones that stick out, and for whom there is an entire political party whose platform is based on trying to get them all "back where they came from." It is quite shameful, at the moment, to be an Asian residing in Iceland.

I couldn't think of more than a few in the past 10 years. I don't really watch ER, I've not seen Brokeback, or Geisha.

Are you really going to disagree that Asians (or minorities in general) are underrepresented in media and government?

That is a real pity, my opinion of Icelanders has dropped a few notches. Of course the only thing I held them in high esteem for in the first place was hot springs and Björk, but I may need to reconsider...

Words are words; They have no power over you unless you let them.

With that being said, I don't see what the big debate is here. If someone wants to call me a nigger, then more power to them. It doesn't affect me in any way, shape or form.

You're speaking on behalf of yourself. If I, being white, were to walk up to a black person on the street and call them the n word, how do you think they'd take it?

Words have power and racism is alive. As long as those facts remain, racist language will exist and effect people.

This stuff DOES happen, but if it were really the driving force behind Cho's rage, he would've mentioned it.

Do you know what angers me the most? Americans treat everybody like crap who is a minority, but Americans are also the most traveling of students in the world. What? So they expect to treat people with xenophobia and contempt, but then be welcomed with arms wide open in foreign lands? Sad to say, they actually are welcomed quite hospitably, despite.

I'm American, but I'm a minority American, and I have never seen imrovements in society. Instead, the government has paid the media to say that things are better, and paint that picture, and have Martin Luther King Day and other such type observances, so that when someone DOES complain of racism and being treated like crap, people simply accuse them of being arbitrary and "playing the race card," and no action is taken.

Words have the power they're given. He'd take it like he'll have himself take it.

I tend to become a big caustic gorilla without realizing it, I'm trying not to, so bear with me but I'm really not following you on the importance of representation. Your whole viewpoint seems odd to me. Am I underestimating the prevalence of racism, resultantly underestimating what's requisite to induce proper cultural relevance, and wrong in assuming that most applications of corrective measures are inefficiently addressing the issues for which race is a false front (socioeconomic? Race! etc.) so as to enable greater extraction of votes and ratings? I also imagine that most of what goes on regarding race relations in the media are so superficial as to actually retard the solving of problems as it's all so divisive and angry.

I was watching PBS and I saw a little short that appeared intended to show how unreasonable racism is, as it basically outlined the path of cotton from a farm in Africa to the robes of clansmen, but it seemed more divisive and contrived than anything else. Factoring in that I usually get rude responses I figure I'm quite sorely missing the point on a lot. Given that I still can't get a good mental construct of what the opposing view point is and that my introduction to politics was a hardline libertarian radio talk show host when I was 12 some discourse would be downright useful as I'm practically built to scratch my head on these issues and ask, "Are we on different teams?" and then go be inconsistent.

What he said was true, they only have power if you let them. He spoke on behalf of himself, to him words do not have power, to me they do not have power either.

I think that is basically proof that words don't have power unless you allow them. If they really did they would effect people the same way.


Racism is alive true, not to the extent people like sharpton and jackson would like you to believe though.

The kid was a introvert, basically never spoke unless he was forced to. If he was black they'd have told him to go to africa. If he was white you can tell him go back to the trailer park.

Kids are kids, it's too bad they are little fucks, I was one too, I got teased just as much as the next guy, and I teased just as much as the next guy.



Anyway, like 5 minutes after this happened I knew there would be threads/news articles/ debates about this. Could video games be at fault? or violent movies? What else can we throw on there? Racism?

The kid was fucked up in the head, there were 100s of warning signs that he was not mentally stable. Not all people are born with a good head on their shoulders, and anyone forced into the kind of mental illness this kid had, was not all there in the first place.


Thats what you get for listening to Bjork ya fuckin occidental

You made coffee come out of my nose.

LOL, there's the one artist I like that unites the rest of my family together. Unites them in utter hatred, that is.

When I was younger I foolishly thought that racism and bigotry would be a thing of the past by the time I grew to manhood. Now it seems that the problem only gets worse, tacking huge strides backwards. Bigotries that I once thought to be a thing of the past, such as antisemitism, are rearing their heads once again.

I have come to believe that bigotry may be in our genes. An individuals dislike of any particular race or nationality isn't, of course. But, foreign ideas or people may bring up feelings of uneasiness in people. In would be a person's culture and upbringing that would shape their interpretations of the feelings; who we see as being a part of our tribe (“us”) and who we see as not being not a part of our tribe (“them”). Just a thought.

The oriental/Asian debate is confusing. I rejected the term “Asian” for awhile (I have since come around). I do realize that “Oriental” is old fashioned and verboten because of the historically negative connotations that it holds. But, I rejected changing because : 1) The term Oriental has never had any negative connotation to me, so I really didn't understand that it appeared negative to others. 2) “Asian” is a poor word replacement. Israel is in Asia, but a person of Israeli decent is not referred to as Asian. 3) Replacing a word is too easy and doesn't solve any problems. Removing the negative connotation is the real goal. Replacing the word ignores that goal.

That's sadly not something that's specific to Iceland.

In my travels, I've seen racism far worse outside the US than in the US. In Russia people from the causcus region (Chechnya, Georgia) are referred to as "black people", when I first heard a Russian refer to some people as black, I looked around confused until it was pointed out to me that the so called "black people" are only slightly darker than Russians in skin color and have black hair. If you look like you're from the causcus region or the middle east, you're screwed. Every time you turn around there will be a not so friendly Russian police officer wanting to see your documents, and the police officer is at best only slightly corrupt as he comes up with excuses to why the person's documents aren't up to standards.

In Germany, racism has been on the rise (particulary in the former East Germany) and the Turkish immigrants are getting the brunt of it. More and more often, I see graffitti in Germany that says, "Deutschland für die Deutsche!" (Germany for Germans!) If you ask a German how he or she feels about the Turkish immigrants, you will get a very watered down version of the extent of the racist attitude, but that's mainly because the Germans are still very sensitive about sounding racist because of their huge historical racism scar. On the other hand, I've been in Germany hanging out in stores run by Turks and generally found them to be nice people only looking to make a life for themselves and their family that is better than what they had in Turkey.

From my experience abroad, I would place the US among the least racist countries. Are we perfect? No, no country is. But are we more sensitive to racial issues than other countries? Absolutely

Yes, but you could almost call Israelis "oriental," considering the fact that their territory is situated in the Orient:

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/histo...tal_empire.jpg


Words and connotations are two parts of the same thing:

http://www.pep-web.org/document.php?...423.fig001.jpg


I'm feeling visual tonight.

Well, Set the Way Back Machine to 1652. How old is that map? Yes, the Middle East was considered the Orient once, but I think it refers to Eastern Asian as of late.

This is my point. The meaning of the word has changed over the years. Language does that. It discards certain meanings, while retaining others.

You can expand the definition of "the Orient" to include the problem of "Orientalism" and it's Euro-centric pejorative meaning (i.e. colonialism and European empire). This is a bad thing. As I hinted at earlier, it would be like hoity-toity Britons referring to Americans as backward uncultured colonials, and, let's face it, the British do have a much richer history and deep tradition of culture than Americans do. It's a matter of etiquette and sociability that those Americans simply lack.

I'll step out in front of the bus here:

Why is Euro-centrism and colonialism automaticaly assumed to be a bad thing? It was a phase of our (europeans and decendants) cultural growth. Was Mongol expansionism a bad thing? What about Apache raiding on nieghboring tribes? Surely the domination of the Oyo empire was a travesty, and I think we can all condemn in the strongest possible terms the ecological policies of the Maoi while we are at it.

Yes, and guess what makes the US more sensitive to racial issues... BEING SENSITIVE about this kind of stuff. Race, class, ethnicity, what have you. Some people think it's unnecessary political correctness... but why not err on the side of caution and just plain ol' being considerate, instead of persisting deliberately in being insensitive, boorish, and perpetuating ignorance? That is my question. What is so wrong with being sensitive (I am not talking about being OVER sensitive, but simply being aware of other people's perceptions of things, and the role of power and that big bad word, "hegemony")?

nice debaser:

colonialism was just a phase of euro-development, in the way that the extermination of native americans was a phase in american development, the genocide of the armenians was a phase in the turkish nationalist project and the holocaust was a phase in the unfolding of german-ness----all aspects of shouldering the white man's burden i guess, accepting the unintended consequences of showing backward elements what civilization looks like.

and the history of white men who heroically shouldered that burden is made up entirely of folk who had "toughened up" in the face of racist discourse--yup--they sure didnt allow themselves to imagine that their particular forms of racism were in any way problematic and they too could look to just the kind of absurd pseudo-history of domination that you outline in no. 69 and arrive at the same conclusion: we are toughened up and racism is only a problem that affects the weak and unmanly---our forms of colonialism are ok because we are more efficient at domination than were, say, the mongols. see, we care about the environment and all the things it includes, even those backward elements many many many of whom will have to die as a function of the bildungsroman of euro-boys that has been visited upon them. it is obvious that these backward elements only have importance as occaisons for the Long Manly March of european "civilization": why folk who were pressganged into working and often dying for european need for industrial raw materials should have been grateful for the chance they got to participate in a Historical Narrative of Consequence, to be rescued from the Historical Obscurity that they otherwise would have been born into, lived through and died in. "we" did "them" a favor. where is the fucking gratitude? why didnt these backward elements ever seem to understand that they only matter--hell, they only exist---to the extent that they have had the great good fortune to be assimilated into History.

where is the gratitude?
where is the "thank you for allowing us to matter?"
it's always the same: we give and give and give and what do we get?
we give them jesus, we give them jobs in those nice mines, in those nice rubber plantations, in those nice colonial export-oriented agricultural formations we were beneficient enough to develop and bestow upon them...and are they grateful? hell no: backward elements continue to confuse colonialism with a form of domination.

what is to be done?
maybe kutz was right: exterminate the brutes.

RB gets a big-ass :thumbsup: from me... nicely done.

Are you seriously comparing colonialism with genocide? Wow. I thought we were just testing the waters of moral relativism here, not sinking to the bottom like a rock.

Europeans were nowhere near as efficient as the Mongols. I would ask you what gives you the right to pass smug judgement on one particular group while ignoring far more hienous acts that had gone before. Or is your soapbox standing on a belief that white people should know better than the poor noble savages that we unfairly and brutaly forced ourselves upon (which was a matter of self interest, not racism, by the way).

Blah, blah blah. You read a bit into my post didn't you? Again, what is the difference between Europeans doing it and someone else doing it. Because Europeans were the last in a long line you feel more comfortable spitting your bile at them? Sad.
Crossing the Tigris on a causeway of books.
Zipping up his pants in Nanking.
A musket for every able bodied man.
we give them Itzamna, we give them jobs in those nice mines, in those nice rubber plantations, in those nice colonial export-oriented agricultural formations we were beneficient enough to develop and bestow upon them...and are they grateful? hell no: backward elements continue to confuse colonialism with a form of domination.

Yawn.
Wow, you really got the point of my post...:rolleyes:

They are often joined at the hip.
He's a history professor. Just fyi.

Thats cool. My math teacher in 6th grade insisted that a kilometer was longer than a mile.

If he would like to enlighten me as to how the "europeans" (who are actually made up of many distinct cultures) are somehow more efficient at dominating other cultures than the mongols (arguably the best in history), I would love to hear it.

Don't confuse being trite with being educated.

Are you sure you didn't just misunderstand? I mean it's been a few years...

debaser, I think you're confusing military with cultural domination. With the possible exception of the Chinese, the Mongols left the cultures alone when they invaded.

The all-time masters of domination, in my opinion, were the Romans who basically assimilated (or tried to) every culture that they defeated on the battlefield. They basically just expanded their pantheon of gods to include whatever local ones were around and accepted the newly-defeated into the fold. Then they made them economically dependent and wore away at the cultural edifices that way.

The Mongols were a bunch of highly mobile archers that basically swept back and forth across Asia. The fact that Russia isn't significantly Mongol-influenced despite being ruled by the Mongols for 300 or so years basically disproves your entire point.

IT IS JUST US HERE PEOPLE: "DEBATING" SUCH A CONCEPT AS RACISM ENCOURAGES THOSE WHO MIGHT OPPRESS US BY USING IT TO FURTHER THEIR AGENDAS. I HATE HATE, AND HAVING TO DO IT AT ALL.

I hate those who would do it.

You bring up an interesting point. Was colonialism cultural or military domination? I would say that it was a bit of both. As I noted above, colonization was driven by greed, not racism. I would put to you that it took varying guises (both cultural and military) dependant upon location and situation, but most of all dependent on profitt. The French, British, and Dutch did not colonize America to assimilate its population, they did it for the enourmous amount of wealth they could aquire.

That being said, you can point to many Mongol influences in Russia, from the prominance of Moscow (perhaps just coincidence) to the superb Cossak cavalry, to the Russians continued blame of the Mongols for their "second class" status in Europe. I would say that they influenced the areas they were in as much as any "bunch of highly mobile archers that basically swept back and forth across Asia" could have.

Very sure, it's one of those things that is burned into the mind...

PS And hey, I'm not that old...

The Cossaks are generally seen as a product of the geography rather than an outright copy of the Mongols. The Ukraine is a calvaryman's dream, much the same as Mongolia. There's also the note that the Mongols were so successful because of their mounts, as were the Cossaks, but the horse stock was at opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of size and use.

Moscow rose to prominence because of Ivan III, who was the one who threw off the Mongol shakle, not because the Mongolians willed it. They recognized Kiev as the capital of "Russia", such as it was.

Russia as a part of the "East" is more a question of geography than anything else, especially when you realize that the Russia of the 17th Century had borders well east of anything today.

To get back on track here, colonialism is military AND cultural. It must have both to fit the definition. There's also the issue of time, as seen by the fact that 200 years of British rule left an indelible mark on India whereas 50 years of British rule did virtually nothing for Palestine.

But in the same vein you could argue that the true Mongol Empire (prior to fracture) lasted less than a hundred years, and that was in the 13th century, so their influence could be seen as porportional to 50 years in Palestine in the last century...

except that the Mongols made no attemt at assimilating conquored peoples.

I have coffee up my nose, again.

Please stop being so funny.
The British have had so little, argumentativeness might have become part of their culture. Others, (having more), might have been more gentle.
The gentleness of the partner relies on the gentleness of the other.

This will towards dominance I don't understand.

The British never really assimilated people either. Sure they set up proxy governments which mirrored their own, but nobody was ever made "British", at least not in the sense the brits would recognize.

But it is moot point, since comparing the mechanisms of Mongol and British expansionism is apples to oranges. I will stick to my earlier guns: if you want to condemn Britsh expansionism, you have to be willing to condemn all other expansionism. If not then please explain the difference (the ends, not the means) between the British (or European, since that was the original argument) and other, earlier expansionist movements.


Edit - This is really not the intent of the original post, so if you would like to start another thread I would be happy to continue there...

Generally speaking, the problem with Eurocentrism in the context of Orientalism is that the West traditionally viewed the East as inherently inferior. This is why "oriental" as applied to people has negative connotations. It still carries its historical signifier to some degree. Edward Said wrote a whole book on this, cryptically entitled Orientalism.

And the problem with European expansionism (and its resulting Eurocentrism) is also evident in Africa, where many of the people had Christianity thrust upon them. Europeans viewed Africans as a backward people who needed to be "saved" (i.e. modernized, civilized, etc.). They viewed Africans as inferior because they hadn't yet accepted Christ. This among other things.

debaser:

i dont think you have your basic facts together.
for example, estimates of the death toll in the congo alone, under the belgians, from 1885 to 1910 run as high as 10 million people.

here's a review/little net doodad:

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COMM.7.1.03.HTM

or you might read a book:

Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa (from the site above)

or if something more pissed off is more your cup o tea, chinweizu's "the west and the rest of us":

http://ad.doubleclick.net/adi/amazon...x90;ord=35118?

there are entire sections in any university library on this stuff....
books are good.

and this pertains to the belgians in the congo alone...so i dont know what "moral relativism" you are talking about.
but whatever.
this is not interesting.
there's no point in a debate.
there's no need to respond.

Well, as a history professor you will of course realize that during the period you refer to in your post the Belgian Congo was not technically a colonial possesion, but rather a personal possesion of the King, call the Congo Free State. If you wish to pass the blame for one homocidal butcher onto the whole of the Belgian people, I suppose that is your right as an esteemed member of academia.

An' as fer bookz, I don't read to good nohow.

Or, if you'd rather something lighter, albeit satirical and fictionalized, yet based on real issues, read Mongo Beti's Poor Christ of Bomba. A highly enjoyable read.

Calm down. I'd hate to see anyone banned for making personal attacks.

Attacks? Perhaps, but his insinuation that I don't read sort of pissed me off, especially when he obviously hasn't read the very books he cited.

And I have to say that I honestly do wonder about the credentials of any supposed academian who would come into a discussion like this and use the words:
Is this what we have sunk to in this country?

I mean to say that while comments like "there's no point in debate" could be considered rude, comments like "You seem far to arrogant to be a professor, high school teacher I can see, but not a professor." are a pretty clear personal attack and are in breach of TFP rules. I'm just posting this as a friendly reminder.

Granted. I have edited my post, but my contempt still stands.

Understood and appreciated.

On an unrelated note, I have a lot of trouble separating you from your avatar, so it always seems that I am arguing with Pierce Brosnan.

You are the only person on this board I have that problem with...

You think you got it bad? I keep waiting for you to propose that we live underground and breed a new race of super-people whilst trying to control your Nazi-leaning mechanical arm.

I guess you don't know your American History because the Irish had a hard time in America, "NO IRISH NEED APPLY" was common signage in 19th century America (1850s). Many lived in shanty towns and lived in extreme squalor.

Or that you don't know your European history to know that the Germans kicked Roman ass and were never subject to Roman rule.

For your movies:
Better Tomorrow
Crash
Sideways

But lets get a little more granular since you think your point still stands.

Any movie with Lou Diamond Phillips early as 1988 and Tia Carrere 1991 almost 20 years my friend. Or did you think that Lou Diamond Phillips was hispanic because of his role in La Bamba and Stand and Deliver?

edit: Tia Carrere had the show Relic Hunter for 3 seasons 99-02, and Dean Cain had Lois and Clark for 4 seasons from 93-97.

truly I don't know what your point is but to try and make someone answer some trivia questions to diffuse and misdirect the fact that you have no idea what you are talking about and pulling things outta thin air.

That's not till page 5...

debaser:

i didnt ask that what i do for a living come up in this thread: i dont think it relevant and do not operate here in that mode--i rarely refer to it, and do not rely on it to legitimate what i say.

that said, i do not think you know what you are defending on this colonialism question.
the history of european colonialism--i know more about africa than other places/versions---it difficult to assimilate. it is deeply shocking, and is of a magnitude that changes you a little for knowing it. it is one of those areas where information corrodes.

had this gone another way, i would have preferred to introduce more and more of information, figuring that this would have done more damage than any amount of tedious messageboard bluster.

but it didnt.

i wondered about my last post after i put it up, whether the last three lines of it were necessary. they weren't. they did nothing constructive. mea culpa.

well, that didnt go well, did it?
sometimes its just like that.

I'm less only a small fraction Irish. I'm mainly German. When I talk about my ancestors, I'm usually referring to East Germans who settles in Oklahoma about 150 years ago. yes, the Irish had it tough when they came here. Of course, they came over by the millions, so I'm not sure why they couldn't just organize (a la Gangs of NY) quickly and simply overwhelm those racists who would subjugate them.
Ah, I guess I know more about this one than you. Northern Europeans, including what could now be called Germans, were enslaved and served in Rome. The Northern Europeans got their asses handed to then for decades before Rome started to implode. It was only late in the Empire that the Northern Europeans started to pwn.

I see from what I've learned the Northern Europeans you are speaking of were just a portion of the Germanic tribes, but again, Germania was never conquered by the Roman Empire in the manner you are implying.

Obviously the Irish at that time coiuld not organize because they were impoverished, if that is what you are implying then why don't the Hispanics/Latinos do what you are saying? Because as history is written the Irish didn't have people in any power, finance, or white collar business, they held the same labor type postions domestic service, building, and factory work. Or maybe they haven't made a movie about that yet...

I still don't get your point of asking about Asians in any type of movies, politics, etc. again, you're diffusing and misdirecting to avoid defending that "point that still stands."