racism

[Aimiel]

How is black this or that indicative of racism?

Black-only dating sites. Black-only magazines. It isn't ONLY to send a message to whites or boost blacks' egos but it's racist by nature. I find them offensive. I've seen too much racism in the new TV show: "Black-ish," for my taste. It only encourages old stereotypes, far too often.

Maybe it's different where you live, but my experience in the South is that most "white" churches have few black members.

I've left more than one for just that reason. One I attended for years had one black family who always came in late and left immediately after the message, just to avoid the prejudice.

 

[Town Heretic]

Black-only dating sites. Black-only magazines. It isn't ONLY to send a message to whites or boost blacks' egos but it's racist by nature.

I don't see it as inherently racist. Like suggesting there's something wrong with wanting to date a Baptist or only someone who shares your particular political views. Race carries a lot of cultural markers. If you want to marry Irish, fine. It doesn't mean you think being Irish makes you better than, say, a Scot (though it really does). It could be as simple as your comfort level, or shared experiences.

I find them offensive. I've seen too much racism in the new TV show: "Black-ish," for my taste.

Haven't watched it. I imagine there's some intentional bits of that put in. Can't really speak to it. I hear it's funny.

It only encourages old stereotypes, far too often. I've left more than one for just that reason. One I attended for years had one black family who always came in late and left immediately after the message, just to avoid the prejudice.

That's too bad. I think racism will die by generation, a bit a time. My grandfather hated the race and loved the individuals he knew. My father would have been uncomfortable with my dating a girl of color (though he wouldn't now) and my son won't likely think of it at all.

That's a happy thought.

 

[musterion]

Maybe it's different where you live, but my experience in the South is that most "white" churches have few black members.

Why might that be? If there's a church that is unwelcoming of anyone because of skin color, it's a church that is not abiding by the Bible and will likely be small and/or dying anyway. Discerning whites will avoid it sooner or later, too.

Or could it be simply that some/many/most people prefer to be around people who look like them and have their own experiences, with no thought of prejudice against others?

Or could it be that instead of cold racism at those churches, the opposite was the problem: black people felt inordinately love-bombed due to their color, and were insulted?

Just some possibilities. Not saying any of them are right, but any of them are possible.

 

[Town Heretic]

Why might that be?

Because most of the South is still comprised of smaller communities with long traditions of the same families going to the same churches. So there are blacks who attend the churches their families have, generationally, and whites likewise. It's more about that these days than anything else.

If you want more mixed congregations you usually find them in the newer media savvy churches with bands and jumbotrons and that sort of thing.

 

[musterion]

Because most of the South is still comprised of smaller communities with long traditions of the same families going to the same churches. So there are blacks who attend the churches their families have, generationally, and whites likewise. It's more about that these days than anything else.

If you want more mixed congregations you usually find them in the newer media savvy churches with bands and jumbotrons and that sort of thing.

Won't disagree with any of that. It's just not necessarily deliberate racism on either side that causes it anymore.

 

[aikido7]

You're the worst bigot on TOL. You hate everybody.

Just because someone disagrees with you does not mean they hate you or that you must hate them.

I notice that Meshak brings up Jesus of Nazareth quite often. This is the different Jesus than the one emphasized by most believers.
This is the Jesus who lived in the world and tried to carry out the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven.
The Jesus stressed by the conservative, heaven/hell Christians tends to be a heavenly figure who demands that today's faithful believe in a short list of theological, first-century beliefs about him.

Most Christians focus on the Book of John, the last gospel written.
A massive consensus of historians recognize that it is full of a late form of Christian philosophy.

John's account shows a Jesus unconcerned about the poor, who does not speak in parables and who goes around saying long, dense, theological monologues all about himself and the importance of believing in him.

Today's believers stress a series of beliefs and not behavior.

Meshak goes for the behavior and irritates and outrages many of the believers on this forum. Because of this, they label and mock her.
The questions and facts she posts about Jesus are answered by poking fun of her hat, labeling her as some sort of anti-Christ, or imputing the worst of motives to her.

 

[Aimiel]

I don't see it as inherently racist.

It is.

If you want to marry Irish, fine. It doesn't mean you think being Irish makes you better than, say, a Scot (though it really does).

You couldn't have said anything more offensive if you tried. I'm a Scot.

 

[aikido7]

I was born in Tyler, Texas and we moved around a lot until I was in 5th grade. Then we went north.

Most of my adulthood has been trying to be accountable for my own racism.
I can now see how it was just a normal part of my life back then. I have since been amazed at how my perceptions are based in my early exposure to racism.

I remember asking my mother if I could drink from the drinking fountains marked "colored." I thought the water would be the color of a rainbow!

What bugs me now are those photographs of hanging black youths strung up on the oak trees in the town squares in the early 1900s. Looking at the expressions on the faces of the crowd below are truly chilling.

 

[Town Heretic]

It is.

Well, no. You're just choosing to see it that way. I've given you reasons for any number of associations and you're not giving me reasons against them or for why you feel the way you obviously do about it. That's something that should give you pause.

You couldn't have said anything more offensive if you tried. I'm a Scot.

Only if you're humorless or invested in finding offense where no reasonable reading would really advance it.

So is it that you're determined to find it in both to support something else you'd feel less comfortable asserting absent it? I know what your quick response would be, but I'm only suggesting you might want to mull it.

 

[rainee]

Wow I hope I don't make a confused mess here but I am from Texas too. The Heart of Texas it's been called and I was born there as my mother was and her mother before her.

My great grandfather grew cotton and had a farm. He had a main house (unfinished upstairs) where his family lived - his boys were upstairs. And he had
about four little houses around where black families who worked for him lived.

So my point? If Greenville had cotton they had workers. And though my grandma as a child picked cotton - most of the workers probably weren't white.

So what about Greenville?

Also another point would be "Blacks" may be a relatively new term for what my Grandma called "Nigras" - yes I know it may should have been "Negro" but -please take note - it wasn't the other "n" word either. That is how she talked.

So depending on how old the town is and how modern their language was
black land and white people may not have been very smart but it may not have been racial either. Blacks may have been washed whiter than snow to them too.

 

[Quincy]

What you're describing, though, is just the natural trepidation that we have for people who are different from us. But I don't think that's a form of prejudice or bigotry, per se. Not even in the case of the man who looks like a rapper. It's not illogical to be nervous of someone who deliberately makes themselves look like someone to be feared, as is the case with people who dress like rappers, or bikers, or red-neck survivalists, or whatever other "tough-guy style" that tends to arise in our culture.

I think bigoted bias, like racism, is different. I think in this instance the bigot projects all sorts of negative connotations onto someone they otherwise have no reason to fear, or loath, and who they actually know little or nothing about. Racism is bigotry based on race, and bigotry is essentially scapegoating. It's making the scapegoated person into a vessel for all of one's own emotional crap, and then wanting to punish them as the representation of it.

I don't disagree with you, there are people out there who do hate other people based on skin color alone. They treat everyone with that skin color the same, I agree. My point, though, is that most of the people who get labeled racist aren't necessarily like that. They're more ethnocentric than they are purely racist. The phrase "whitest people" doesn't have to mean the town was made up of all blonde hair, blue-eyed nazis. A lot of the people we tend to consider to be racist aren't hateful towards someone of African or European descent, but rather stereotypes.

So, a sign like that doesn't always have to be negative if you consider race to be specifically identifying something genetic. Maybe somewhere there is a town of mostly albino people, :chuckle: . If you believe racism is an ethnicity thing, then that sign is very racist.

 

[Desert Reign]

Wow I hope I don't make a confused mess here but I am from Texas too. ...

So depending on how old the town is and how modern their language was
black land and white people may not have been very smart but it may not have been racial either. Blacks may have been washed whiter than snow to them too.

It's nice to hear from you too Rainee. In this country a great many people are quite tired of being told what to, what to say and what to think by socialist idealists (including the right wing conservatives). Because e are afraid of saying no to someone in case e get sued for racial prejudice the hospitals are overwhelmed, the schools are utterly brim full and you have to fight for a place and go before committees to prove you are eligible for the one place left for your two children and 25 other children are not. We were told if there was an emergency over Christmas and New Year holidays we should take a taxi to the accident and emergency department at the local hospital because there weren't enough ambulances to cope. And we have to pay huge bills in welfare because our laws say we are not allowed to discriminate against people due to their race, so the many recent immigrants get vast child benefits and health benefits which they promptly send out of the country to support their relatives abroad.

People are tired of this. The country cannot cope. For a country of 60 million people we cannot sustain a net immigration figure of 250,000 per year. People now see that this talk of social equality was a lie. Because new immigrants vote 95% for socialist labour governments and that's why they did all this.
But next year our country has a new opportunity waiting for it. A new political party has arisen in which people are not afraid to speak out their views. These views are not racist but they are honest. We are fed up with being called bigots and racists I am sure that the new party will get a very significant vote next year. The other parties are all wetting their pants with fright because they know the writing is on the wall. We are going to be able to say openly that we want to cut immigration without being labeled fascist or that we want to leave the EU without being labeled xenophobes. Or that we think homosexuality is wrong without being called bigots.

 

[Aimiel]

Amen. Go T.E.A. Party!!! =)

 

[The Berean]

Insofar as how racist we could determine them as having been per our definition(s) of the term, I'd consider cutting Jefferson and Lincoln a bit - just a bit - more slack than LBJ, as they were (at risk of cliche) the products of a relatively unenlightened time. LBJ had no such excuse.

LBJ was born in 1908 in Texas. That means his youth was the mid 1910's to mid 1920's, when Jim Crow was in full force in the South. What enlightened era was LBJ supposed to be a part of? :idunno:

 

[Town Heretic]

Insofar as how racist we could determine them as having been per our definition(s) of the term, I'd consider cutting Jefferson and Lincoln a bit - just a bit - more slack than LBJ, as they were (at risk of cliche) the products of a relatively unenlightened time. LBJ had no such excuse.

I don't know why. They're all products of their day. In fact, I cut Jefferson less slack because he knew better and profited directly and willfully by slavery. Lincoln was bigoted but acted against that bias and gets more appreciation. LBJ had the prejudices of his turn of the century upbringing but acted to assist those he was biased against, however tied some of his actions were to political self interest. So with me it would be Lincoln, then LBJ and then a distant Jefferson in terms of wielding a condemnation stick of any sort.

 

[musterion]

LBJ was born in 1908 in Texas. That means his youth was the mid 1910's to mid 1920's, when Jim Crow was in full force in the South. What enlightened era was LBJ supposed to be a part of? :idunno:

The '60s. But then I forgot it was Democrats who opposed civil rights laws and actually filibustered them, iirc.

 

[Town Heretic]

The '60s. But then I forgot it was Democrats who opposed civil rights laws and actually filibustered them, iirc.

And most of those people who are still around have been republicans for quite a while. The democratic hold over them fractured with the civil rights movement and its success.

 

[musterion]

Yet Robert Byrd is still considered a saint by some on the left.

 

[oatmeal]

It was a sign that hung over main streets for years and years.
(Orignially was a large canvas sign. After many years of weathering, it was replaced by the metal sign in the pic.)
It stayed hanging there until the civil rights commotion in the mid 60's, when it was taken down.

I see more racism amongst people like Obama, and Sharpton and organizations like the NAACP than I do amongst whites.

Frederick Douglas stated that there would be blacks who would make make a lot of money continuing to foment racism, using the race card even where none was to be found.

My brother was telling me about a study that reviewed the jail sentences handed out to blacks and whites for the same crimes.

People were in an uproar that blacks were getting longer and more severe sentences than whites.

However, some looked deeper into the facts presented by the study and it was clear that the blacks were more often multi-repeat offenders than the whites.

When that was factored in, the accusation for racism was false.

Equal opportunity is a sham. It ruins more blacks because they are given opportunities they have not earned. Our black Supreme Court justice was targeted because he basically earned his law school degree. He did not take the easy route but the honest route

My brother called me "fatman" at times while growing up. It bothered me a bit, but since I was bigger and rounder than he was, I let it slide.

 

[The Berean]

The '60s. But then I forgot it was Democrats who opposed civil rights laws and actually filibustered them, iirc.

That a white man born in Texas in 1908 would refer to black people as "ni66ers" is not so surprising to me. :noid: