Teenagers passing out racist fliers

[John Layfield]

Don't dance around definitions and semantics.

Racism is the discrimination of a person or persons based on their race. This applies to minorities, majorities. It applies to what you find attractive and what you find unattractive. It applies if it negatively impacts a specific race and if it positively impacts a specific race. If you prefer girls of Asian extraction over those of black or white or any other extraction, you are racist, and so on.

Racism as a word carries an extremely heavy negative meaning. However, it is the extent of that racism which determines whether it becomes a problem and a detriment to society or people as a whole.

If anyone thinks Scarlet Assassin has discriminated against anyone based on their race, you think he's a racist. It IS really that simple. His line about "all the breaks in life" was in fact a comment made ABOUT him. Fact is, SA was racially discriminated against by what happened in that incident.
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One day, I shall come back. Yes, we shall all come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine.

[Himuro]

I said that it's not racism because for the most part it is the creator of the channel, who is very well black, who has made a lot of those ideas and decisions. So are you saying he's racist against black people because he decided to sell out, and allow only stereotypical things about black people to appear on his channel? No, he's most definitely not racist, but he's not really doing us a favor either.

Also, just thinking someone discriminated against another person's race makes them a racist, is not only illfounded but also a shortcut to a much bigger answer. Everyone here has discriminated against someone or held SOME prejudice in their life. Sometimes it's race, sometimes it's body weight (see Arcana's obese thread), sometimes it's sex. I think a lot of females are awful drivers, well golly John, I must be sexist because I discriminated against a woman, huh? I think many black people are annoying, and I'm black myself. I can't stand ebonics and make fun of people who use it on a daily basis. I discriminate against my race. Through your logic, my Texas compadre, I must be racist!
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She knows stuff.

[John Layfield]

Would you automatically assume a bad driver is a woman or if you heard a story of a bad driver would you automatically assume the driver was female without any indication given? If so then, by golly, yes you are whether you want to say it or not.

Besides, I am following the definition of racism. You are not. You are making your own little sub-categories and the like based on what you want to attempt some sort of yoga-like contortion where you only have to use the term 'racism' on the really mean people.

Racism is the discrimination against someone based on race. If that makes you uncomfortable for whatever reason and you want to change it so it only applies to only the top dogs in the racism charts then go ahead but don't expect me to pretend that the dictionary definition is wrong just because you feel bad about it.

EDIT: By the way, it's not impossible to discriminate against your own race and I don't feel you get magic immunity just because by fate you happened to be born black or white or purple with green stripes.
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One day, I shall come back. Yes, we shall all come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine.

[Himuro]

I don't it's not impossible to discriminate against your own race, but since I hang out with many black people, I wouldn't identify myself as racist either.

But alas, I'm off to go out to eat with a few folks, I'll continue this later.
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She knows stuff.

[Keo]

I think there just some dumb group of kids.

Sure they do have a right to there own thoughts, but when they go and hand it out it becomes wrong.

I also think its wrong that only 1 out of the 5 of theme got nailed is wrong.

[Arcana]

Teacher suspended for calling his student a "niggah".

http://www.whas11.com/sharedcontent/VideoPlayer/videoPlayer.php?vidId=4 9293&catId=49

It's actually a pretty amusing video. :P



As for the topic.

[John Layfield]

[Geddoe]

It's going to take me a year and a half to quote everything and respond to everything, so I'm going to start fresh and give my perspective and run from there.

First off, I describe myself as Cablinasian [like Tiger Woods - White, Black, Native American, and Chinese]. Up until recently though, the only thing I could check off was 'Black, Non-Hispanic'. Gotta love those new census forms, where you can check off everything and its mother. My father is white [he looks like he could be cast as an extra in 'The Sopranos' and my mother is black.

Growing up, I grew up in what most people would call a poor neighborhood. High crime, lots of drugs, prostitution, all sorts of undesirable things. I went to a lower-income elementary school, where the teachers were some of the best teachers I ever came into contact with, and regardless of our income, every kid there wanted to learn. The problem was at that time [the early 80's, no less], my poor school wasn't funded enough to have a special program for Gifted / Talented kids. I skipped two grades in school for that reason alone. My parents then decided to transfer me to a school where there was a Gifted program. This school was in an all-white neighborhood, and from then on, I was usually the only black kid in the entire class and I took a lot of abuse for it. I've even heard one parent in my earshot tell me that it had to be some sort of mistake that I was in that Gifted class - that someone felt sorry for me and that was why I was there. I was in those classes because regardless of my income or where I lived, I had parents that wanted me to work hard and stayed on me about my grades and wanted me to do my very best so that nobody could say anything about where I came from, my achievements would define who I was, and not my skin color or my street address. I feel bad that not every school now can be funded equally, but you ever notice that most of the so-called 'good' schools in the white neighborhoods, they have parents that show up to everything, PTA meetings and clubs and tutoring, all sorts of things like that. In lower income schools, you don't see half the parent involvement.

Anyway, all through Elementary School, on to Junior High School and up into 10th grade at the mostly-white high school, I was always looked down on. Hell, the high school I went to, the principal flat out told my mom that it would look great for them to have as many minorities as possible in their Gifted program. [Of course, that man got promoted into School Administration..Oy, incompetence...] but I ended up leaving that school to go to another school for their Orchestra program. At my new high school I experienced black-on-black racism for the first time - tell me all you want to about white people hating on black people for all sorts of things, but black people are horrendous about hating on their own. Poor black people see light-skinned me in the hallway and call me all sorts of names because I was actually trying to get ahead in life instead of just hanging around all day, and my perception was that every person darker than I was was always up to no good and wouldn't ever have anything going for them in life. To this day, I won't date anyone darker than I am. I don't doubt for a minute that schools can be racially charged places to be, but you can't ever use that as an excuse for where you are in life. In school, you do your best and let your works speak for you. My last year in high school, I actually got a National Merit [Negro] Semi-Finalist award. Can you believe that? In 1992, an award that actually says NEGRO on it.

So I ended up going to college. I won a good number of minority scholarships, but the one that paid for all four years wasn't based on race, it was just like a job interview - fill out the form, send it in, and wait for a board to review it and send you a letter back. College opened my eyes to a lot of things - racism is a lot more subtle there, and black people subscribe to the 'crabs in the pot theory' [where one crab tries to get out and do better, and the others drag the back in] even worse than they did in high school. We as black people do enough to ourselves without having to continually and consistently point the finger at others for our own failings.

Now I'm 30, and I am on the low end of middle-class, and mother of a 3 year old. I don't doubt that someone with more money would have increased opportunities to make their child's life as good as it can be, but I sure as hell am not going to subscribe to the notion that I can't do well for my child because I don't have all the money in the world. I'm an involved parent, I go to meetings and help with homework and donate what little time I have to my child's school. If I fail my child, it's not because of some system that's designed to 'keep her down', it's because I as a parent didn't do enough to help my child learn, or keep her away from the bad things that could set her down the wrong path. Don't you think Black parents in some part would be a little better off if they all had that particular mentality, instead of letting their kids be guinea pigs for what the media expects them to do? I'm a firm believer in personal responsibility, and half of the things that Black people attribute to 'racism' to me are just excuses to not get out there and just try harder or work harder.

That being said:

I myself do not have a problem with Black History Month, however I think there should be a more concerted effort to include the efforts and achievements of African-Americans into daily learning. Example: Next time you eat a peanut butter sandwich, you've got George Washington Carver to thank for it. See? You learned something, and it's March [which, technically, is now Women's History Month]! ^_^

I have mad issues with BET - they used to be a pretty good channel until as someone pointed out earlier, they started pandering to the lowest common denominator and flaunting every bad stereotype about us. At least now, there's TvOne, another channel showing positive black people and thank you very much, NO RAP. I can't say all rap is bad, just most of what is shown on BET. MTV does the same thing.

I have issues with Affirmative Action - what would be so wrong about turning in a resume that has no mention of race and being selected to a school that way? If there aren't enough Black people in the school, that just means that you have to try harder to get your grades up, do more community service and extra-curricular activities to make your profile look better. Why blame a program or other people for one's own shortcomings?

In closing, with all of my words, I do believe there is racism in this world, on both sides, and even within our own races. What I would like to know is, where does it stop being a matter of racism and it starts being a matter of an individual's responsibility to themselves and their community to succeed? When do our failures stop being someone else's fault?

[Arcana]

[Timbo]

I am going to do a slight change of topic and talk about the dominance of Western History in history courses and why it is done, because it's not to take focus off of other cultures and diminish them or to say that Western culture and history is more important. It may do this, but it is not the intention.

First off, I want to talk about why I believe history is taught in school and the benefits of education for a society and why governments want people to be educated. I believe that education is around to help create more intelligent members of the work force so that they may contribute more to their professions and advance the society that they are in. Departments in school (history, math, etc) are chosen to be taught to advance society by thier relevance in the current society. American education forces people to take more English and Math courses in High School because English and Math are everywhere in American society and underadning those subjects will benfeit a peron in AMerican society more than a diffent subject. American society doesn't force a foreign language ( I wasn't made to learn a foreign language to graduate, this might be a prerequisite for graduation now as the rise of non- English speakers in America rises) because it's not as beneifical to the majority of the American population as arithmeitc and reading are. Given that time is a factor, the more important classes are going to need to be focused on as there won't be time to take all the classes. This may seem like common sense, but I just wanted to get this pointed out. Essentially, I want to say that education is around for the practical day-to-day benefit of members of a society in their interaction with said society.

Going by what I see education's worth for society being, I think it is understandable why Western Culture is focused on in history. Since Western Culture is (some may disagree here) the most worldy influential culture in our present age and it is definitely the most influental in Western countries, it being taught about it would seem to the logical goal if you are going to teach people how to interact in their society. Africa has many rich cultures and a very interesting history, but knowing about that won't benefit people as mcuh as knowing how the dominant force on the planet came to be how it is or how to interact with said force. It's a about practical value. I'd love for schools to teach more about Africa, but I see very little practical value in it and I see much more in learning about Western cultures,
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"There is no normal life, there's just life. Now get on with it"

[John Layfield]

And this excuses the following, as supplied by a school teacher in Philadelphia...

- Lynching, which killed thousands of blacks and was one of the primary instruments for enforcing the racial caste system that existed in America from the 1880's until the 1960's, gets two paragraphs.

- Woodrow Wilson's personal racism, his segregation of the Federal government, his role in the rebirth of the Klan in the 1910's and 1920's, is not mentioned at all.

- Northern complicity in segregation gets a few sentences.

- Redlining is not mentioned, let alone the fact it was official Federal government policy until well into the 1940s.

- The Harlem Renaissance is virtually a footnote in the Roaring 20's chapter.

...how?
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One day, I shall come back. Yes, we shall all come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine.

[Arcana]

You say that Western history is taught because it "advances society by its relevance in its current society", and state that Western culture is focused on in history. The implication here is that, because Western culture is important to today's society, and Western culture is the focus in history, therefore, we should teach Western history.

How can Western culture ever not be the focus of history then, by this logic, if Western culture is always important (and thus, will be recorded in history as "important")? I cannot help but feel that your assumptions are too strong.
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Woo, 2000 posts as of Tuesday, 2007 August 28.

[Timbo]

[Arcana]

The argument seems to be circular. "Because Western Culture is relevant in our present, and is based on history, Western history relevant in our present."
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Woo, 2000 posts as of Tuesday, 2007 August 28.

[Himuro]

Every part of history should be relevent, not just one part.
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She knows stuff.