wnker85

I understand what you are saying. My hic family says that to explain they way they act. I really feel bad for the way that my uncles and grandparents act and look at things like this.

But what I have noticed growing up in the south and traveling around the country, is that its not a race issue its a money issue. It seems that those that are poorer lesser educated tend to be the more sterotypical ones.

I wish that we could get over all this race stuff. Its extremly silly. What we really need to be counrtist(don't ask me where i came up with that word). Well as an AMerican we should look out for Americans, and the same for The french, Canadians, Germans, and so on and so forth. Its kind of tribal thing, anyone who assoicates themselves with thier "tribe" helps everyone out. And these tribes will co-exist peacfully. Without the hatered from within tearing them apart.

Suave

I can honestly not think of a single prejudicial conception that I believe at the moment. If I have a thought that is prejudiced though (assuming I remember this thread), I'll notify you guys.

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"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions." - Albert Einstein

"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." - Plato

drakers

I think your right for the most part, but I think it depends how deeply closet racial someone is by where they grew up and who you grew up with. If someone grew up in LA it is going to make even more racial or not care at all. It usually depends on the family values toward different cultures, your parents usually mold you into the person you are today. Can be scary to think that some of the stupidist people in the world are able to cohabitate.

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Friends don't shake hands, friends 'gotta HUG!

flamingdog

Is that a joke?

World's King

It's all a choice.


As you already know. Most stereotypes take pride in their stereotype. Which I will never understand. Jeff fuckin' Foxworthy made millions off of it.



"If you're to fuckin' stupid to know you're being made fun of...

You might be a redneck."

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heavy is the head that wears the crown

alicat

In Dec. hubby and I went to South Africa for his job for two weeks. I don't mean to offend anyone, but since this thread is about prejudice, I am going to say things about it from both sides of the Atlantic (this is from a U.S. perspective). This is by no means scientific and is mostly from hubbies perspective from working for two weeks at a S.A. company (and myself experiencing day to day life).

There seem to be 3 classes people fall into there. Afrikaans, colourd's, and niggers. I'm sorry for stating the last word but that is a fact there. Afrikaans are mostly white people and a few black that make up the "upper" class. Colourd's are black people that have one foot in the white world and one in the tribal (so to speak, this is all second hand through hubbies limited experience at one company, but dealing with all classes). "Niggers" refers to the tribal people, and they refer to themselves as that, as well as the Afrikaans and Colourd people do. I've posted before about my experiences there, but I feel like posting again for those of you who may not have read it.

In my experience, the so called "niggers" were in the most menial positions: cashiers, security guards, parking attendants, maids, etc.. One day, I had nowhere to go, so I went down to the dining room for breakfast to give the housekeepers time to do our room. I must have miscalculated the time needed as when I got back to our room the "maid" was only half-way done. I offered to leave and come back later but she insisted it was ok that I stay. I felt like a complete asshole as this poor woman literally got down on her knees and "swept" the entire room with a brush and a bucket of water. Hello? Had this hotel never heard of vacume cleaners? Even the cheapest fleabag motel in the US has vacumes for the housekeepers. This was a 3 star hotel which in my opinion (all else considered) should have been a 4 star. And the maids had to get down on their knees and brush the carpet. Obviously, human labor is cheaper there than buying a vacume per floor. I gave her a huge tip and cried once she left our room.

I know I might receive some angry reponses because of my forthcoming statements, but so be it. I wholeheatedly agree that the civil rights movement needed to happen. Unequality needs to be challenged and fought. But, the majority of black people living in America today were not slaves. Yes, their ancestors or (very, very, lucky to be still alive) older relatives might have been, but they were not. If even a fraction of black Americans were able to go to South Africa as I was lucky enough to, they quite possibly would not be complaining as much about what they have to deal with in the U.S. as far as racism or equality goes. Being there reminded me of what the U.S. may have been like 10 yrs. after the (legal) end of slavery.

Pay attention to that. Not the beginning of the civil rights movement, but the "end of slavery", therefore the late 1800's. Thats how far behind South Africa is in comparison to our country. Yes, hubbie and I laugh at "Timah" (Timmy) on South Park, even though it's making fun of a stereotype, but it is just a momentary chuckle and not representative of the way we deal with or judge people. Being in S.A., we didn't find anything to chuckle about. We loved the people (mostly the tribal people) and we left the country feeling mostly negative about the "white" people that we were forced to interact with through his job. Frankly, the white people disgusted and saddend us with their snobby attitudes and obvious prejudice against anyone who wasn't white (almost laughable given that white's are very much the minority there).

Ali

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'Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun, The frumious Bandersnatch!'--Jabberwocky, Lewis Carroll

"You cannot do a kindness too soon because you never know how soon it will be too late."--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Manic_Skafe

You can call me an uptight-politically-correct-asshole if you'd like but this is what I believe and what is a man if not the sum of his moral convcitions?

We can choose to look at the concept of race as it is today: a seemingly irrefutable fact because it's so widely believed and makes comes off as so self-evident - or we can take a realistic look at ourselves, the role we play in this world, and exactly how much the concept of race has done for us as a species.

I don't scold myself everytime I classify someone into whatever group they'd go in to but I do take a moment to aknowledge the fact that the concept of race is completely groundless and by writing someone off by their race I learn nothing worthy of any value about the person.

What starts off as a thought in my mind can easily become the words of another person and the fuel and justification behind another's hatred. It's easy to assume that there's no harm in it all but if you take a look at all the people whom you have infleunce over and exactly how large a role you play in this world you'll realize that something larger than you'd ever imagine can grow from something you'd assume to be so small.

None of us can help but to classify people into certain groups but the classification defeats it's own purpose. You attempt to come to a useful conclusion about one person in particular and all you get in return are nothing but impersonal, preconcieved notions that give you nothing useful to go on.

....I could go on for pages but it'd be just as useless as the topic I'm discussing.

To be on-topic for once, we can accept our knee-jerk reactions as involuntary is an option but it certainly isn't a realistic option. I can understand how in a world of "mass media mind control" and constant psychic wars it seems impossible to change how you think but it's possible and to do anything less than try only perpetuates the problem.

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"Porn is a zoo of exotic animals that becomes boring upon ownership." -Nersesian

muttonglutton

Racial slurs happen. I try not to be racist, but... It happens. The only group that I think I truly cannot stand are black thugs. Pull your pants up, take the off the gang colours, and your leg isn't broken, stop limping (or if that a product of the knee-pants?)

As for interracial couples... It's the same thing. I don't enjoy (probably becuase I just don't understand) seeing a good white girl (not all white girls are good, mind you. A lot of them still do drugs, smoke up, get drunk four times a week, sleep with every other man she sees, and verbally abuses the rest.) hooked up with one of them, hanging off his arm. But... I can't stand seeing good white girls hanging off of white thugs too.

I don't understand attraction to the base elements of thuggery. Maybe they're looking for a challenge, or a fixer-upper. Or an adulthood of shouting matches, bruises and broken bottles.

Maybe I'm a little bit racist too.

Lockjaw

I'm going to refute a few of your opinions don't take this as an attack or anything as this is coming from a place of complete calm but just putting up a disclaimer since disagreements over beign stuff like this occurs often over the intraweb. So again I'm not mad at you just disagreeing slightly. Oh and also don't take me as some militant acolyte either. I'm probably a harsher critic of my race than any white person can be but I think I have a little more experience on the other side that many do not have. That said....

Both my grandmothers and several of my older aunts did minial labor like that up to and immediately after the civil rights movement so such racism isn't that long dead in this country. And while it might not be blatant it's far from dead and in many ways subtle unspoken racism is much more damaging in the long run. But to say the concerns of some people in America are invalid because of the plight of somebody else in another country isn't living in the reality of the situation. I can go find areas of the world where "white" people live that are well below the level that just about any "white" person in America lives but that doesn't invalidate the American's complaint or concerns about certain things.

We have to deal with these things based upon what's in OUR society and by no other yardstick. I don't care if the black people in England or Canada are supposedly less descriminated against. I don't care if the black people in South Africa are more oppressed. Call me an asshole but I only care about what goes on in the 50 nifty United States and if there are unfair things going on here then well I think it should be spoken against because societies can't progress if they are just looking at people in worse situations and saying "Hey see how bad they have it? You should be thankful for what you have." That not only goes for minorities but also you women folk as well.

How would you like it if say somebody during the women's sufferage movement said, "Hey I was just over in Egypt and they don't let their women out of the house!(Not that this is factual just making a point so all you Egyptoligst give me a little leeway). You women folk should be happy we even let you roam around in public."
See what I mean?

Lockjaw

If you don't have the same attitude towards the biker element,the trailer park ruffians,the latino vatos,Italian tough guys,so on and so forth...then yes you probably are just a tiny bit racist.

Perfectly good white girl....huh.

EDIT:And racial slurs don't just "happen". It's a product of a deep seeded or not so deep seeded bias against that group. Just like calling a homosexual a "faggot" or "dyke". That doesn't just happen you had to have thought that at some point deep down for it to come out of your mouth.

RCAlyra2004

Personally I have made my share of mistakes too. I have offended people from differeing races and groups because of generalizations that I have made about them, in my attempts to act intelligent or politically astute. I have had prejudiced thoughts.

The reality of the situation for me is this:

I jump to a generalization about groups or situations often. Especially when I am viewing the media or following a news story etc. Apparently it is a normal trait in a healthy Human being to generalize like this. We do it in order to condense ideas so that we can see the larger more complex patterns and ignore the familiar ones. BUT... if I don't rethink after such a generalization I sometimes come to an overtly racist conclusion...

For instance I thought many terrible thoughts about Muslims in the days following september 11, 2001. I fretted over the fact that people from this religion hated americans so much, and how they treated others. I hated them!

It was hard NOT to generalize because of the strong emotional response that the situation seemed to stimulate. but....After a few Days of doing this I started to rethink.... "hey they were just human beings"... "how did they get to the place where they hated someone enough to fly a plane into a large building killing themselves and others?" Obviously these people had let someone 'Dupe' them into killing others and themselves. They were indeed responsible! They did a terrible thing, but they weren't alone, they had the help of a fundamentalist network.

If I had not generalized at first I would not have grown to a deepr understanding of the situation through experience.

I now see Muslims in a completely different way because the generalizations (prejudices?) that I had never tested before Sept 11 failed under my scrutiny of the situation. I now know and understand much more about the Muslim religion, how it has Liberals and Conservatives and even Fundamentalists just like Christianity. People are just people.There are very many Loving Muslims who hate what happened that day. They would never have wished such a tragedy on anyone.

But... I am sure that I will be forced to test other generalizations of mine sometime soon... hopefully I will grow! It's just a matter of time before i am made aware of another prejudice I may have...

I guess the difference is that I am willing to let my prejudices go as I am made aware of them. Sometimes it is very hard to do... but I am willing to try.

Thats why I beleive that although I am Prejudiced in nature, I am not a racist in action.

I would love to hear comments on my thoughts


RCALYRA

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Living on the edge of sanity

billege

I am very comfortable in my interracial marriage to a beautiful, wonderful, woman of mixed race herself.

When we're shopping for groceries, and I want some saltines for my chili, she says "but I already have a cracker." She just cracks her self up with that one.

Nothing feels more right than watching my wife laugh.

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I can sum up the clash of religion in one sentence:
"My Invisible Friend is better than your Invisible Friend."

ScottKuma

Of course it's going to be around - but just "acknowledging skin color" is, I think, one way to superficially ignore some profound differences in culture! I think our self-professed "color-blindness" will ultimately hurt intra-group relations by not allowing us to take into considerations differences in group norms.

Jesus Pimp

I used be a racist of the human race. I had to deal with racism from everyone being the Chinese kid who grew up in white suburbia. I had to deal with racism from everyone whites, blacks, mexicans, indians, and shockingly other asians. Think it sucks being on one side of racism? Try it from all angles and see what it feels like. People seriously need to get their heads out of their asses and stop the hate. It's not going to go away if you forget that it exists. Give everyone the same respect you expect from other people.

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Never date anyone who doesn't make your dick hard.

william

Why does it really have to matter? I'm a Southern boy, through and through. Raised rural and will probably always stay that way (in basic thinking [another thread]). I grew up to be a redneck; but when I left for basic, I saw the bigger world. I love the country-way of living, but that's about so much more. People are people. What my father would call a white N-, was white trash. But trash is trash. You should always base a person on who he/she is. Judge the individual on what you know about that individual - not what you preceive. Perception can be a mother-fucker.

Sage

My crazy coot of an uncle used to say "There's black people, and then there's niggers" and I think that was just a very colorful way of saying - either you're an asshole, or you're not. My godmother came from a dirt poor family in rural Appliachia, and she's still pretty darn poor. She and my godfather raise chickens, and have a dirty kinda house and a beater car, and talk in the most hillbilly dialect possible. Yet she's such a sweet woman, and raised me alongside my mother, and is just a wonderful person altogether. And then, there's the Barker family, who are in the exact same situation and are a bunch of inbred hillbilly assholes. So, if you're an asshat, I'm going to treat you like one, and if you happen to be an asshat and a hillbilly/ "african-american"/ "latino"/ "semite", it basically all boils down to you being an asshat.

And you know, I think a lot of the bigotry directed at black people is a product of the self-fufilling prophecy of "I'm black, and I'm nothing, and I'm never going to amount to nothin" attitude. By thinking you're unable to get an education and a job, you defeat yourself before you even start. So, black people store up a lot of unfocused rage at their percieved inability to "better" themselves, and thus lash out in socially destructive ways, which is negatively percieved by the rest of society. But this is the opnion of a white middle class woman, so obviously I'm racist.

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tspikes51

Racism has existed in virtually every culture since pretty much the dawn of man. It's been an issue for a long time.

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"I'm telling you, we need to get rid of a few people or a million."
-Maddox