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General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: Religious Dick on May 26, 2008, 01:16:46 PM

Title: The State of Englishness
Post by: Religious Dick on May 26, 2008, 01:16:46 PM
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Published on The Brussels Journal (http://www.brusselsjournal.com)
The State of Englishness
By A. Millar
Created 2008-05-26 10:13
A few days ago (Friday, May 23rd) 18 year-old Ben Smith was stopped, in a routine check by a police officer, while driving his Vauxhall Corsa to his home in Melksham, Wiltshire. The officer found nothing amiss, but noticed an England flag on the parcel shelf (which Mr. Smith used to cover his music system from potential thieves) and ordered him to remove it. According to Smith:

    He saw the flag and said it was racist towards immigrants and if I refused to take it down I would get a ?30 fine. I laughed because I thought he was joking, but then I realized he was serious so I had to take it down straight away. I thought it was silly ? it's my country and I want to show my support for my country.


This is merely the latest in a long line of such ?politically correct? discrimination on the part of England?s authorities or its employees. In January 2007, a 27 year old man was ordered by Bedford Council to take down an England flag, that he had hung on the side of his house. In 2006 a fire station was ordered to remove an England flag, because, they were told, it might offend ethnic minorities (despite the local mosque protesting that it did not), and earlier this year a government report revealed that children were routinely punished for wearing clothing bearing the English flag.

But, then, ?England? is a subversive idea to a government that wants to hold the United Kingdom (UK) together, to sink it into the homogenizing machine of the European Union (EU). And ?England? and English nationalism are anathema to political correctness. We have seen this before, of course. A few decades ago a rising Scottish nationalism was considered a threat to the UK.

To combat this rise, the chief secretary of the Treasury in James Callaghan?s Labour government, Joel Barnett, was asked to devise a system of distributing funds between England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. While this was supposed to be a fair, as well as temporary system, the Barnett formula remains, and, today, means that 8 billion pounds (approximately 16 billion U.S. dollars) are diverted to Scotland every year, giving the Scottish government approximately 1,500 pounds more per person. Wales enjoys a similar financial advantage. Moreover, in 1998 the British government granted devolution to Scotland and Wales, creating a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh Assembly. It did not, however, devolve any powers to England, which remains the only country in Europe without national representation. Consequently, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs are able to vote the House of Commons, on matters that are limited to England, though English MPs have no reciprocal right.

All of this, in practical terms, has meant that residents of Scotland enjoy free college tuition, free parking, free healthcare, free dental check-ups, etc., while residents of England do not. Some medications are also free in Scotland that must be paid for in England. Similar benefits are afforded residents of Wales and Ireland. The Times recently commented, ?As they contemplate higher food and fuel costs, rising council tax and poor services, they increasingly ask: why should the English get so much less than the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish?? This question is being asked, though mostly by those who live close to Scotland or Wales. The town of Berwick-upon-Tweed has even voted to become a part of Scotland, and the village of Audlem, Cheshire, to become a part of Wales, although such protests probably have little effect beyond highlighting the disparity.

Nevertheless, a turn toward localism is already making strides across Europe, and there is a growing sentiment toward devolution and even the eventual independence of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The S.N.P. is fighting to make Scotland (population of just over 5 million) an independent country, Plaid Cymru is seeking the same for Wales (3 million), as Sin Fein is for Northern Ireland (slightly less tan 1.75). Sin Fein also wants an eventual reunification with Southern Ireland.

Independence might seem a difficult sell to the electorate of these countries, but their nationalist parties have long been established. Plaid Cymru and the S.N.P. point out on their websites that some of the richest nations on the planet are likewise some of the smallest (e.g., Norway and Iceland), and both see independence as advantageous in negotiating with the E.U. It will be worth mentioning that Plaid Cymru is unhappy with the Barnett formula, and cites this as another reason for full independence:

    [?] the current ?Barnett Formula? for the funding of Wales is outdated and unfair. It is not a question of whether Wales can afford to be independent but whether it can afford NOT to be independent.

    [?] the amount of public expenditure devolved to Wales is based on population rather than needs of Wales. Under the current devolution settlement the Barnett Formula should be altered to ensure a fairer funding formula for Wales.

The issue is pressing. A referendum on Scottish independence looks set to take place in 2010. England has a population of over 50 million (i.e., approximately 10 times that of Scotland), but is ill prepared for an independence that seems increasingly likely. Its dominant political parties remain committed to keeping the U.K. Conservative leader David Cameron, has denounced ?narrow English nationalism,? and what he calls, ?the ugly stain of separatism.? The B.N.P. even seeks to enlarge Britain, welcoming Eire, ?in a federation of the nations of the British Isles.? Labour and the Liberal Democrats are both staunchly pro-UK and pro-EU.

However, several organizations have been established in recent years, calling for an English Parliament (which is supported by nearly 70 percent of England?s population), and England?s first, and, indeed, only civic nationalist political party ? The English Democrats ? was founded in 2002. According to its manifesto, the English Democrats aims, ?to build a society which accommodates the interests of all the people of England,? which would have its own ?parliament and executive,? and a ?wide-ranging Bill of Rights founded on traditional English civil liberties.?

The party also calls for a ?complete end? to mass immigration, tougher border controls, ?the deportation of all illegal immigrants,? and fines, and ?possible withdrawal of trading rights [?]? for companies employing them, etc. On, ?England and Multiculturalism,? it says:

    It is a fact that during the past forty years people of many different cultures have come to live in England. Our country is in that sense a multi-cultural society.

    However, multiculturalism is an ideology which suggests that a mix of many cultures in one society is desirable and that it is the duty of government to actively encourage cultural diversity within the state. Further, it suggests that all cultures should be treated as equal. A logical extension of this is that all languages, histories and law codes should be treated equally. This is clearly impossible in a unified country. All ethnic groups should be free to promote their own culture and identity but the public culture of England should be that of the indigenous English. This position is consistent with the rights of indigenous nations everywhere.

A certain pragmatic localism is inherent in its position on the composition and democracy of England. Devolution should not be merely to England, but ?within England,? through the current structure of local government. It aims, it says, ?[?] to enable local people to identify with Local Authorities,? and would use referenda to allow people a greater say over local issues. In regard to composition, while the EU is attempting to impose regions on its now member countries, that effectively divide them up, marrying them to those of other countries, the English Democrats not only support withdrawing from the EU, but favors, ?recognition for traditional counties, which would include the reunification of Yorkshire.? This county, has existed for 1100 years, but, reflecting EU strategy, has been broken up over the years into various administrative regions. Respect for traditional counties may seem a minor point to many, but it might prove the only option in a future that is looking local. In the last couple of weeks we have heard about the rise of Cornish nationalism (i.e., of the county of Cornwall), with its language (which has only 300 fluent speakers) looking set to gain official recognition.
Source URL:
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3288
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Stray Pooch on May 27, 2008, 02:45:53 AM
Trust me, the American flag is WELL on its way to being banned (unless it is in the process of being burned which is, of course, an act of free speech).
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Religious Dick on May 27, 2008, 02:55:52 AM
Well, apparently the good citizens of England and other European countries have had enough and are finally starting to rebel. Which gives me some hope for America. Perhaps, like alcoholics, nations have to hit bottom before they start to recover....
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Xavier_Onassis on May 27, 2008, 03:35:27 AM
Trust me, the American flag is WELL on its way to being banned (unless it is in the process of being burned which is, of course, an act of free speech).
===============================================================
On the shoulder of every cop in the country, flying from the pole of over half the Toyota and Hyundai dealers, supposedly part of the uniform of every public official or candidate for public office. Every kid in the country has to swear loyalty to it and include God in the statement.

Yeah, sure, it'll be banned at any moment.

Perhaps you have said something more worthy of trust here.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Stray Pooch on May 27, 2008, 08:04:53 AM
On the shoulder of every cop in the country, flying from the pole of over half the Toyota and Hyundai dealers, supposedly part of the uniform of every public official or candidate for public office. Every kid in the country has to swear loyalty to it and include God in the statement.

Yeah, sure, it'll be banned at any moment.

Perhaps you have said something more worthy of trust here.

There have already been cases of the flag being ordered off of firetrucks by mayors and other such things.  The reasons were exactly the same - supposed "racism" or other such political incorrectness.  It won't happen quickly or completely, but it will happen.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Amianthus on May 27, 2008, 08:53:17 AM
Every kid in the country has to swear loyalty to it and include God in the statement.

The Oath of Allegiance hasn't been said in schools for many years.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Xavier_Onassis on May 27, 2008, 09:14:31 AM
The Oath of Allegiance hasn't been said in schools for many years.

It's called the PLEDGE of Allegiance, and it is said daily in every school in Miami-Dade County.

In any event, the US Flag, is not going to be banned, restricted, or otherwise restricted in the US, as was alleged by Stray Pooch.

It is not "well on its way to being banned", nor have I seen that proposed by anyone, ever.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: _JS on May 27, 2008, 12:56:22 PM
The article is idiotic.

The "Barnett Formula" is not what is used to determine the apportionment to the other countries of the United Kingdom. It is a decision made every year by the Chancellor and passed by a Sovereign Parliament. A rudimentary knowledge of the UK Government would recognize that all Parliaments are sovereign. They cannot be restricted by previous Parliamentary law.

There are small, wealthy nations in Europe. What the article does not tell you and what RD would never dare to tell you is that they are primarily socialist. Norway, Iceland, and Denmark (notice that thew article selects two Nordic states ;) ).

No, instead it bitches and moans about one anecdote of a guy with a flag, where indeed one does NOT get the entire story.

Wales has been a part of England for nearly eight centuries. Scotland has been in union with England and Wales for slightly longer than the United States has existed. It is one nation with one sovereign Parliament. Northern Ireland is a different matter completely.

All of these issues are unique to the United Kingdom. This is not some horrible disaster of multiculturalism. There were Welsh and Scottish independents long before immigrants arrived from the colonies into the UK. What a rubbish article.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Religious Dick on May 27, 2008, 03:25:48 PM
So where have you been, JS? Under the bed looking for racists?  ;D
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: kimba1 on May 27, 2008, 04:08:02 PM
I find strange no mention of anyone just saying it`s not racist
almost feel like the charge that the flag is racist .
I get the idea from people protesting the right to wave the conferderate flag and show minorities thier place.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: _JS on May 27, 2008, 06:00:08 PM
Things like the confederate flag, racist language, etc...are just secondary factors of racism. They are symbols.

Racism is a function of an entire system.

F(racism) Domination = Prejudice + Exploitation

Essentially, racism, at least in the western world as we know it, is the establishment of white = human and white = normal. There is a very interesting book that a psychiatrist named Kovel wrote in the 1970's called The Psychoanalysis of Racism. I've read much more modern views, but have rarely read better books than that one.

It is extremely interesting to read and understand what actions and words tell you about the individual and society that promotes racism. You see very common themes appear in the United States, South Africa, and many other places.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on May 27, 2008, 06:11:17 PM
Quote from: The Brussels Journal

The issue is pressing. A referendum on Scottish independence looks set to take place in 2010. England has a population of over 50 million (i.e., approximately 10 times that of Scotland), but is ill prepared for an independence that seems increasingly likely.


Alba gu bra!

Quote from: The Brussels Journal

Its dominant political parties remain committed to keeping the U.K. Conservative leader David Cameron, has denounced "narrow English nationalism," and what he calls, "the ugly stain of separatism."


Yeah, some years ago here in the U.S. we had some states try to separate themselves in the name of protecting their sovereignty and their culture. That didn't really work out so well.

Quote from: The Brussels Journal

All ethnic groups should be free to promote their own culture and identity but the public culture of England should be that of the indigenous English. This position is consistent with the rights of indigenous nations everywhere.


The indigenous English? Does that include the Normans? The Saxons? Well, it would have to include the Saxons, now wouldn't, since we're talking about the English (the word English being derived from an old Anglo-Saxon name for themselves). But then, where does that leave the Celts?

Quote from: The Brussels Journal

This position is consistent with the rights of indigenous nations everywhere.


And here in the U.S., we plan on reforming our culture so it better reflects that of the Native Americans... no, no we're not. Can you tell yet that I find worrying over protecting indigenous culture to be just a bit ridiculous?

And by the way, what, exactly, is "Englishness" anyway?
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Rich on May 27, 2008, 06:17:25 PM
>>And by the way, what, exactly, is "Englishness" anyway?<<

(http://www.chard.ic24.net/famous/benny-hill.jpg)
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: _JS on May 27, 2008, 06:19:23 PM
The protest, Prince, of what you said would be that you are dealing with countries in the United Kingdom, not merely states.

The other side of the coin is that you are exactly right in that the English, Welsh, and Scottish are so inter-mixed that it is ridiculous to promote nationalism in those countries. This is especially true of Wales, where the English and Welsh are for all practical purposes one people.

England is just as divided as any country as well. Northern England is far different than Southern England (especially the Southeast). Ask any Mancunian or Scouser what they think of London, then ask a Londoner what he or she thinks of Manchester or Liverpool. You'll find as much difference there as that between Cardiff and Glasgow.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Rich on May 27, 2008, 06:20:49 PM
>>no, no we're not. Can you tell yet that I find worrying over protecting indigenous culture to be just a bit ridiculous?<<

Jews in Europe felt much the same. As did the Spanish before the Muslim's hords stormed in. History is full of examples.

(http://static.flickr.com/64/167143829_8ab59e7685.jpg)

(Sorry, but the pics just felt right)
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Rich on May 27, 2008, 06:22:18 PM
JS has abviously never discussed this with the Welsh, or a Scott. Never mind the Irish.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on May 27, 2008, 07:30:33 PM

>>no, no we're not. Can you tell yet that I find worrying over protecting indigenous culture to be just a bit ridiculous?<<

Jews in Europe felt much the same. As did the Spanish before the Muslim's hords stormed in. History is full of examples.


What indigenous culture were the Jews in Europe going to be protecting? And while I know some folks think of immigration as an invasion, the two are not the same.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Rich on May 27, 2008, 08:10:45 PM
>>What indigenous culture were the Jews in Europe going to be protecting? And while I know some folks think of immigration as an invasion, the two are not the same.<<

Jewishness? Living Jewry?

Immigration isn't the same as in invasion of course. However, what we are seeing today is certainly looking like one. Immigration presupposes that immigrants want to be part of the country they immigrate to. That isn't what Muslim immigrants want. They want to remove all vestiges of the old culture and replace it with their own Islam based culture, by force if necessary. You see it in Norway, France, and now in England.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on May 27, 2008, 11:56:00 PM

Quote
What indigenous culture were the Jews in Europe going to be protecting?

Jewishness? Living Jewry?


This apparently indescribable (and possibly vague) culture was indigenous exactly where in Europe?


Quote
And while I know some folks think of immigration as an invasion, the two are not the same.

Immigration isn't the same as in invasion of course. However, what we are seeing today is certainly looking like one. Immigration presupposes that immigrants want to be part of the country they immigrate to. That isn't what Muslim immigrants want. They want to remove all vestiges of the old culture and replace it with their own Islam based culture, by force if necessary. You see it in Norway, France, and now in England.


The notion that the newest wave of immigrants does not want to become part of the country to which they have immigrated is as old as immigration itself. Yes, our ancestors immigrated, but these people blah blah blah yackity schmackity. I'm not saying there are not legitimate issues here, I'm just saying the notion that we in the West somehow have a pure culture, an indigenous culture to maintain is simply humbuggery. If we lived on a tiny and isolated island in the middle of the ocean, or in some remote part of some remote rainforest, and had never changed our culture in thousands of years, the "indigenous culture" argument might have some truth to it. But we don't and it doesn't. We live in a constantly changing culture with influences from many different groups of people. And within Western culture, heck within U.S. culture, are many sub-cultures that are quite different from one another. I'm not saying the argument to protect Western culture cannot be made. I'm merely suggesting that to do so properly requires honesty about what our culture is and how it came to be.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Stray Pooch on May 28, 2008, 12:23:53 AM
Things like the confederate flag, racist language, etc...are just secondary factors of racism. They are symbols.

Racism is a function of an entire system.

F(racism) Domination = Prejudice + Exploitation

Essentially, racism, at least in the western world as we know it, is the establishment of white = human and white = normal. There is a very interesting book that a psychiatrist named Kovel wrote in the 1970's called The Psychoanalysis of Racism. I've read much more modern views, but have rarely read better books than that one.

It is extremely interesting to read and understand what actions and words tell you about the individual and society that promotes racism. You see very common themes appear in the United States, South Africa, and many other places.

It sounds to me like you subscribe to the ridiculous notion that only white people can be racist- or perhaps even the insane notion that ALL white people are inherently racist.  Do you?

Racism is simply the belief that one's race is superior to other races.  All of the semantical nonsense that has been invented to excuse black racism (which is currently rampant in this country) is just so much revisionism. 

There is, of course, such a thing as White Supremacy (that is, the belief in it - not the actual situation).  There is institutionalized racism, as was obviously the case in the US for a large part of its history.  Those forms of racism are white, and the latter DOES require a "system" (or more correctly, it pervades the system of which it is part).  But there are parallels in virtually all cultures throughout history.  In spite of political correctness, indigenous Americans did, in fact, discriminate and practice horrible atrocities against one another.  So did Africans, Asians and quite probably the penguins in Antartica.  Western culture just happens to have been the most aggressive the most recently. 

The suggestions that only white people are racist or all whites are inherently racist are, in themselves, racist.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: kimba1 on May 28, 2008, 02:06:37 AM
I find it quite unfair to lump people together
I know
I`m chinese and somehow I`m supposed to relate to japanese,koreans,tibetans and all other asians
all with distinct language and culture
people don`t get it,we`re not the same people
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Religious Dick on May 28, 2008, 02:25:21 AM

Yeah, some years ago here in the U.S. we had some states try to separate themselves in the name of protecting their sovereignty and their culture. That didn't really work out so well.


Yeah, and here in the colonies we had 13 of 'em try to separate themselves from the Crown in the name of protecting their sovereignty and their culture. That didn't really work out so...

Oh wait....
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on May 28, 2008, 03:11:55 AM

Yeah, and here in the colonies we had 13 of 'em try to separate themselves from the Crown in the name of protecting their sovereignty and their culture.


The American Revolution was about protecting the culture and sovereignty of the colonies? Huh. Interesting perspective. So does this mean you think Lincoln was wrong to make war to prevent the southern states from seceding?

More importantly, are you in fact advocating the end of the United Kingdom via the separation of Scotland, England, Wales, Yorkshire, Cornwall and whoever else prefers the nationalistic notion of protecting their "indigenous" sovereignty and culture from the influence of others? Between the article you posted and your comment about the American Revolution, you seem to be suggesting something like that might be a good idea. If so, how would any of that protect "Englishness"? And how would it address the problem of immigration?

Anyway, I notice you picked out one line from my initial reply and ignored the questions I asked. Does the group of "indigenous English" include the Normans (and presumably their descendants)? If it includes Saxons, does it also include Celts? And what, exactly, is "Englishness" anyway? (One hopes that Benny Hill is not the sum total of "Englishness".)
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Plane on May 28, 2008, 06:37:17 AM

Yeah, and here in the colonies we had 13 of 'em try to separate themselves from the Crown in the name of protecting their sovereignty and their culture.


The American Revolution was about protecting the culture and sovereignty of the colonies? Huh. Interesting perspective.
One of the pressing issues to the Colonists was the outcome of the French Indian war , many felt that the deference the Crown was paying to the French was inappropriate and that a despotic form of governhment was being shown preference , such that Ohio and the Missippi valley was going to be made into Canadian territory and halt the western expantion of the Colonists in their accustomed freedom as English citizens.
Quote



So does this mean you think Lincoln was wrong to make war to prevent the southern states from seceding?

That is an interesting question , his leagal rights under the Constitution were shakey , but he felt at liberty to impose Northern Culture on the South bvecause doing otherwise might destroy the Constitution anyway.
Quote


More importantly, are you in fact advocating the end of the United Kingdom via the separation of Scotland, England, Wales, Yorkshire, Cornwall and whoever else prefers the nationalistic notion of protecting their "indigenous" sovereignty and culture from the influence of others? Between the article you posted and your comment about the American Revolution, you seem to be suggesting something like that might be a good idea. If so, how would any of that protect "Englishness"? And how would it address the problem of immigration?

Anyway, I notice you picked out one line from my initial reply and ignored the questions I asked. Does the group of "indigenous English" include the Normans (and presumably their descendants)? If it includes Saxons, does it also include Celts? And what, exactly, is "Englishness" anyway? (One hopes that Benny Hill is not the sum total of "Englishness".)[/color]


If you watch "Bravehart" three times in a row you will be thirsting for revenge against those dastardly English , was it a propaganda peice for the idea of Scottish independance?
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Religious Dick on May 28, 2008, 07:17:17 AM

Yeah, and here in the colonies we had 13 of 'em try to separate themselves from the Crown in the name of protecting their sovereignty and their culture.


The American Revolution was about protecting the culture and sovereignty of the colonies? Huh. Interesting perspective. So does this mean you think Lincoln was wrong to make war to prevent the southern states from seceding?

Yes. You don't believe a people has a right to self-determination? That government derives it's just powers from consent of the governed? And that they're free to withdraw that consent at their choosing? Interesting perspective from a libertarian.

More importantly, are you in fact advocating the end of the United Kingdom via the separation of Scotland, England, Wales, Yorkshire, Cornwall and whoever else prefers the nationalistic notion of protecting their "indigenous" sovereignty and culture from the influence of others? Between the article you posted and your comment about the American Revolution, you seem to be suggesting something like that might be a good idea. If so, how would any of that protect "Englishness"? And how would it address the problem of immigration?
Again, I advocate they do whatever suits them, for whatever reason it suits them. See above.

Anyway, I notice you picked out one line from my initial reply and ignored the questions I asked. Does the group of "indigenous English" include the Normans (and presumably their descendants)? If it includes Saxons, does it also include Celts? And what, exactly, is "Englishness" anyway? (One hopes that Benny Hill is not the sum total of "Englishness".)[/color]

I doubt anyone but a geneticist could sort out the Saxons from the Normans at this point. However, that's irrelevant. What is relevant is that however they came by their identity, the current inhabitants of the country known as England identify themselves as "English". This identity is a composite that includes customs, mannerisms, culture, language, traditions and ethnic characteristics.

I certainly have no trouble identifying an Englishman when I've met one. Do you?
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Plane on May 28, 2008, 07:52:24 AM

Quote
What indigenous culture were the Jews in Europe going to be protecting?

Jewishness? Living Jewry?


This apparently indescribable (and possibly vague) culture was indigenous exactly where in Europe?


There was a very distinct culture , more than one really that arose ammong the jews in exile , Yiddish language is a product of Jewishness in a German environment .

One of the arguements for the existance of Isreal is that it is hard to defend a culture with out haveing a homeland for it.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Xavier_Onassis on May 28, 2008, 08:21:14 AM
One of the arguements for the existance of Isreal is that it is hard to defend a culture with out haveing a homeland for it.
   

=============================================
Being as the Jews had no homeland from 44 through 1947, this is not really a valid argument. Jews have been changed immensely in this time, but they still manage to defend the culture, such as it is. Here in Miami, every Saturday, one sees hundreds of Jews dressed in what used to be 18th century Polish middle class village attire (broad brimmed black hats over yarmulkes, long black frock coats and such) walking to temple. The only bit of original Land of Judea attire is the prayer shawl and the yarmulke and the odd terfillen.

Of course, traditional American attire was once knee breeches and a tricorn hat.


Armenians have had a homeland for maybe 400 years in the past 2000. Gypsies have had no homeland, even in myth, for centuries. The word 'Gyspsy' comes from the word 'Egyptian', because they passed themselves off as Egyptian Coptic Christians in Catholic Europe when the arrived there c. 1400 AD. Until recently, Georgia (in the Caucasus) was not independent since the Russians took over centuries ago. Were Ossetia and Chechnya even independent at all?

How many years have Estonians, Lithuanians, and Latvians had a homeland? Or Karelians, Uigars, Lapps or Eskimos? This is a spurious argument.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: _JS on May 28, 2008, 11:31:51 AM
JS has abviously never discussed this with the Welsh, or a Scott. Never mind the Irish.

As a matter of fact, I've had some very interesting conversations with all three and a number of Englishmen as well.

You realize that Wales has voted against leaving the union? And Scotland has done the same?

As I've said a number of times, Northern Ireland is a completely different situation. It was a by-product of the Irish Free State and the Irish Civil War and was never intended to be a separate country of its own.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: _JS on May 28, 2008, 12:40:08 PM
Things like the confederate flag, racist language, etc...are just secondary factors of racism. They are symbols.

Racism is a function of an entire system.

F(racism) Domination = Prejudice + Exploitation

Essentially, racism, at least in the western world as we know it, is the establishment of white = human and white = normal. There is a very interesting book that a psychiatrist named Kovel wrote in the 1970's called The Psychoanalysis of Racism. I've read much more modern views, but have rarely read better books than that one.

It is extremely interesting to read and understand what actions and words tell you about the individual and society that promotes racism. You see very common themes appear in the United States, South Africa, and many other places.

It sounds to me like you subscribe to the ridiculous notion that only white people can be racist- or perhaps even the insane notion that ALL white people are inherently racist.  Do you?

Racism is simply the belief that one's race is superior to other races.  All of the semantical nonsense that has been invented to excuse black racism (which is currently rampant in this country) is just so much revisionism. 

There is, of course, such a thing as White Supremacy (that is, the belief in it - not the actual situation).  There is institutionalized racism, as was obviously the case in the US for a large part of its history.  Those forms of racism are white, and the latter DOES require a "system" (or more correctly, it pervades the system of which it is part).  But there are parallels in virtually all cultures throughout history.  In spite of political correctness, indigenous Americans did, in fact, discriminate and practice horrible atrocities against one another.  So did Africans, Asians and quite probably the penguins in Antartica.  Western culture just happens to have been the most aggressive the most recently. 

The suggestions that only white people are racist or all whites are inherently racist are, in themselves, racist.

Did you miss where I said "in the western world?"

I am speaking of "primary racism." Differentiating groups and attacking those differences has long been a part of humanity.

Dominating a group through exploitation and prejudice is a part of the white world we live in today and is only a modern invention. Look at your own wording, "was obviously the case in the US for a large part of its history."

No, Pooch, it IS the case for the United States. You don't take 400 years of racism away in a five year span of rewriting a few laws. What is interesting is that slavery grew worse, harsher in the United States (starting with the colonies) as time went on. In the early 1600's slaves were never considered permanent. They could own land, livestock, and eventually purchase freedom or simply earn it (as in Biblical times). Yet, it grew harsher, punishments more severe. White America took everything from Africans. Their families. Their futures. Then they gave them freedom - but did they?

No. The original Republicans were the Free Soil movement of the Midwest. They wanted to seize the Southern plantations and divide the land amongst the former slaves. Yet, the Northeast capitalists had taken over the GOP by then. It was no longer the grassroots abolitionist party it once was. Racism was permitted to thrive once more. And it does to this day. Secondary racism, of which you speak, is more taboo thanks to the much maligned multiculturalism. Yet, primary racism lives on.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Stray Pooch on May 28, 2008, 03:09:39 PM
No, Pooch, it IS the case for the United States. You don't take 400 years of racism away in a five year span of rewriting a few laws.

Nonsense.  Racism exists in all parts of the world, and black racism is MORE pervasive now than white in the US.  The reason for this is that it is now acceptable to be a Black Racist, as it once was acceptable to be a White Racist.  (It's just not acceptable to LABEL it racism.)  The very appropriate (and long overdue) backlash against White Racism that took place in the fifties and sixties led to a lot of laws, court decisions and the like that changed the legal landscape.  But the more lasting effect of that backlash was to change the mind of the majority of Americans.  Of course there are white racists in America, and the first amendment even allows the most brain-dead of them to spout off their nonsense in public.  But unlike fifty years ago MOST Americans do not agree - not even tacitly - with what they say.  They are no longer leaders, they are the lunatic fringe.  Far more Americans still have racial prejudice, but they sublimate it into personal prejudice.  They know better than to endorse discrimination.  Most of them don't even WANT to discriminate.  They accept the idea that races are equal, they just can't overcome their natural prejudices.  This is not an American condition, it is a human condition, as you have pointed out. 

African-Americans, however, consider themselves justified in their brand of racial hatred.  It isn't racism, they say, because you have to have POWER to be a racist.  That's just a self-serving redefinition of the word.  Black people use racial slurs and stereotypes in describing white people with impunity.  Oprah Winfrey can build a school, recruit all black children to attend and then when questioned about it say "I don't have to explain myself to white people."  (Yeah, I know, that's not the exact quote but it is an accurate representation.)  Imagine if Rush Limbaugh did that with the appropriate racial adjustments.  Oprah Winfrey is a racist.  She is even a racist by the PC definition, because there are few people in America with her clout.  There's a real good chance that had she endorsed Hillary, this wouldn't even be a race.  But why endorse a white person - even a woman - when there is "one of us" running.  But nobody will call her a racist, because Blacks can't be racist.

African-Americans continue to use the tired old "racism" excuse for all of their social ills, personal failures and bad decisions.  And yes, I am broad-brushing, but there IS a cultural mindset among African-Americans that says the White Man is their real problem.  Even Barak Obama, who is very likely to reach the highest office in the land, still whines about the White man.  The justification for hatred of White people is that Whites have always been - and are still - holding blacks down.  Horsecrap.  White people held black people down for a long time, but that time is past.  While some residual barriers still remain from the slavery and Jim Crow years, most Black people today are held down by Black people - very often themselves.  One of the biggest barriers to many black people is their own prejudice.  They use it as an excuse to fail - and then blame that failure on others.  That, too, is a human condition - it's called rationalization.

Now there is one possible difference between White Racism and Black Racism in America.  White Racism was a function of the idea (once widely-accepted) of White Supremacy.   Whites believed that their race was naturally superior to other races.  That's what gave them the right to enslave blacks and steal land from indigenous peoples.  Black racism OTOH, though sometimes based on Black Supremacy, is more often based on White Inferiority.  It is the belief that, whatever place the black race may hold on the totem pole (if there even is one) White people are at the bottom.   Whites are the evil overlords who rape and pillage the world.  The mindset, while racist and wrong, is at least far more justifiable and easy to forgive.  It's hard to view people in a good light who have treated your people like hell for centuries.  But however good the excuse for the attitude may be, it is not correct and it IS racism.   When I can't get hired because a less-qualified black man is up for the same job, when someone picks a fight with me just because I'm white in the wrong part of town,  when juries free a murderer just because he is black and they are too, it's the same damn thing as when the shoe is on the other foot.  Racism is racism and, at the risk of creating an awful pun, I tend to like to call a spade a spade.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on May 28, 2008, 03:56:38 PM

Quote
The American Revolution was about protecting the culture and sovereignty of the colonies? Huh. Interesting perspective. So does this mean you think Lincoln was wrong to make war to prevent the southern states from seceding?

Yes. You don't believe a people has a right to self-determination? That government derives it's just powers from consent of the governed? And that they're free to withdraw that consent at their choosing? Interesting perspective from a libertarian.


Wow. You assume very quickly. Slow down there, bub. Do I believe a people have a right to self-determination? Sure. Do I believe the government derives it's just powers from consent of the governed? Of course. Do I believe the governed are free to withdraw that consent at their choosing? Yes, I do. I've not said anything to indicate otherwise.

Anyway, I find interesting that you think the Confederacy had a right to protect their culture. Not many people will say the culture of the South was worth defending. But what would be really interesting is finding out why you think the northern states, as led by Lincoln, were not attempting to defend what they perceived as the culture of the Union.


Quote
More importantly, are you in fact advocating the end of the United Kingdom via the separation of Scotland, England, Wales, Yorkshire, Cornwall and whoever else prefers the nationalistic notion of protecting their "indigenous" sovereignty and culture from the influence of others? Between the article you posted and your comment about the American Revolution, you seem to be suggesting something like that might be a good idea. If so, how would any of that protect "Englishness"? And how would it address the problem of immigration?

Again, I advocate they do whatever suits them, for whatever reason it suits them. See above.


Okay, but that doesn't answer the other questions. How would that protect "Englishness"? And how would it address the problem of immigration?


I doubt anyone but a geneticist could sort out the Saxons from the Normans at this point. However, that's irrelevant.


Well, I'd say so, but then, I'm not the one who posted an article talking about "indigenous" English culture.


What is relevant is that however they came by their identity, the current inhabitants of the country known as England identify themselves as "English". This identity is a composite that includes customs, mannerisms, culture, language, traditions and ethnic characteristics.

I certainly have no trouble identifying an Englishman when I've met one. Do you?


Not usually, but that generally stems more from the accent than anything else. Anyway, what you seem to be ignoring is that all those customs and language and traditions are not some pure culture that has arisen in a wholly indigenous people. Like the rest of us, the U.K. has a mix of customs and language and traditions that come from many different peoples. While I am all for devolving power to local people, the notion that some how an indigenous "Englishness" is going to be served by trying to separate people into small cultural groups is laughable at best.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on May 28, 2008, 04:00:07 PM

That is an interesting question , his leagal rights under the Constitution were shakey , but he felt at liberty to impose Northern Culture on the South bvecause doing otherwise might destroy the Constitution anyway.


Destroy the Constitution? In what way would allowing the southern states to secede have destroyed the Constitution?


If you watch "Bravehart" three times in a row you will be thirsting for revenge against those dastardly English , was it a propaganda peice for the idea of Scottish independance?


That's cute, but it doesn't answer my questions.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: BT on May 28, 2008, 04:02:05 PM
Quote
Not many people will say the culture of the South was worth defending.

Depends on the definition of Southern Culture.

Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on May 28, 2008, 04:08:52 PM

Depends on the definition of Southern Culture.


True enough. At the time, however, slavery was a big part of the culture of the South. And so, as I said, not many people will say the culture of the South was worth defending.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on May 28, 2008, 04:09:40 PM

There was a very distinct culture , more than one really that arose ammong the jews in exile , Yiddish language is a product of Jewishness in a German environment .

One of the arguements for the existance of Isreal is that it is hard to defend a culture with out haveing a homeland for it.


Okay. So, back to my question, this culture was indigenous exactly where in Europe?
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Plane on May 28, 2008, 04:10:45 PM

There was a very distinct culture , more than one really that arose ammong the jews in exile , Yiddish language is a product of Jewishness in a German environment .

One of the arguements for the existance of Isreal is that it is hard to defend a culture with out haveing a homeland for it.


Okay. So, back to my question, this culture was indigenous exactly where in Europe?

Yiddish? Germany and Poland.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on May 28, 2008, 06:09:01 PM

Yiddish? Germany and Poland.


I could be wrong, but to the best of my knowledge Yiddish is primarily a language rather than a culture. So I'm not convinced that answers my question.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Xavier_Onassis on May 28, 2008, 06:14:50 PM
I could be wrong, but to the best of my knowledge Yiddish is primarily a language rather than a culture. So I'm not convinced that answers my question.

===============
Yiddish is a language derived from German, with a large number of words from Hebrew, Polish and Russian, that was spoken in Germany, Poland, Lithuania and parts of Russia, such as stetls in the Ukraine. It is basically 14th Century German with modifications in phonetics and inflection and a large number of words added from Hebrew and Slavic languages.


There is a culture, perhaps several cultures, related to it. Not all Eastern Ashkinazim Jews spoke Yiddish, nor was the culture identical over the entire area.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: _JS on May 28, 2008, 07:50:14 PM
Quote
Nonsense.  Racism exists in all parts of the world, and black racism is MORE pervasive now than white in the US.  The reason for this is that it is now acceptable to be a Black Racist, as it once was acceptable to be a White Racist.  (It's just not acceptable to LABEL it racism.)  The very appropriate (and long overdue) backlash against White Racism that took place in the fifties and sixties led to a lot of laws, court decisions and the like that changed the legal landscape.  But the more lasting effect of that backlash was to change the mind of the majority of Americans.  Of course there are white racists in America, and the first amendment even allows the most brain-dead of them to spout off their nonsense in public.  But unlike fifty years ago MOST Americans do not agree - not even tacitly - with what they say.  They are no longer leaders, they are the lunatic fringe.  Far more Americans still have racial prejudice, but they sublimate it into personal prejudice.  They know better than to endorse discrimination.  Most of them don't even WANT to discriminate.  They accept the idea that races are equal, they just can't overcome their natural prejudices.  This is not an American condition, it is a human condition, as you have pointed out.

Utter nonsense. As I've indicated, Primary racism is a condition of domination through exploitation + prejudice. You're simply stuck on petty secondary racism, which is nothing more than a byproduct. Of course it is offensive, but it isn't the foundation upon which the house is built. This country was built on the notion that blacks were subhuman - less than whites. You may not like that, but that is the truth. There is 400 years of history, of conditioning whites to believe in their superiority and the inverse - to condition blacks to their inferiority. Despite all the well-wishing and togetherness that one would love to bestow upon the current state of affairs, the truth is that five years does not change 400 years of conditioning, teaching, and living.   

Quote
African-Americans, however, consider themselves justified in their brand of racial hatred.  It isn't racism, they say, because you have to have POWER to be a racist.  That's just a self-serving redefinition of the word.  Black people use racial slurs and stereotypes in describing white people with impunity.  Oprah Winfrey can build a school, recruit all black children to attend and then when questioned about it say "I don't have to explain myself to white people."  (Yeah, I know, that's not the exact quote but it is an accurate representation.)  Imagine if Rush Limbaugh did that with the appropriate racial adjustments.  Oprah Winfrey is a racist.  She is even a racist by the PC definition, because there are few people in America with her clout.  There's a real good chance that had she endorsed Hillary, this wouldn't even be a race.  But why endorse a white person - even a woman - when there is "one of us" running.  But nobody will call her a racist, because Blacks can't be racist.

No offense Pooch, but this sounds like whining to me. Oprah's school is in South Africa. Do you know the history of South Africa? Do you know who supported that country's regime?

Quote
African-Americans continue to use the tired old "racism" excuse for all of their social ills, personal failures and bad decisions.  And yes, I am broad-brushing, but there IS a cultural mindset among African-Americans that says the White Man is their real problem.  Even Barak Obama, who is very likely to reach the highest office in the land, still whines about the White man.  The justification for hatred of White people is that Whites have always been - and are still - holding blacks down.  Horsecrap.  White people held black people down for a long time, but that time is past.  While some residual barriers still remain from the slavery and Jim Crow years, most Black people today are held down by Black people - very often themselves.  One of the biggest barriers to many black people is their own prejudice.  They use it as an excuse to fail - and then blame that failure on others.  That, too, is a human condition - it's called rationalization.

So Detroit and Memphis are predominantly black and exceptionally poor because individual blacks have "personal failures and make bad decisions?" You are somewhat correct, but you stray off the path. Blacks are held down because the people American society demonstrates to be successful are white. White = normal. White = human. Blacks still live in a society dominated by white economic exploitation. More than that, it is a society dominated by white psychology. That is not innate to humanity, that is learned. That is 400 years of dehumanization. The white heterosexual Protestant male is held in the highest regards. Onto people who do not fit into that select group are projected all of the deviancies of the white male. In your terminology I would say, "it's called projection."

So we have a group that gets saddled with terms like: lazy, sexually deviant, stupid, manual laborers, thieves, dirty, unwashed, ugly, unclean, etc. These are not terms that reflect on any genetic reality, but are projections of the Id from the dominant group (in this case white males). The great fear of Southern whites were black slaves storming the plantation house and raping the delicate and virtuous white women. Of course, in reality many slave owners slept with and even forcibly raped their female slaves. As I said, it is called projection.

This projection is taught, not innate. It has been taught for centuries. The Roma and Jews in Europe, the blacks in America and South Africa, the Aborigines in Australia have all been on the receiving end. And it is taught to the groups being dehumanized as well. The Roma, Jews, Aborigines, Blacks, and Native Americans are taught that they are "wrong" that "right" is a European white male. And it is there where you come close Pooch, but you start blaming the individual blacks, when they are only living up to what white society has taught them to be.

Many people in here, both left and right love using the phrase color-blind. If they don't use it they use the meaning. They pretend to believe that it was the goal of the Civil Rights Movement and the Civil War.

Yet, a color-blind society is typically nothing but a well-intentioned, but incorrect wish for a society that is all white. It is a society where the Roma, Jews, Blacks, Muslims, Homosexuals, and women are never free to be themselves. They are simply mimics of white male society and projections of white male deviancies. Differences are not celebrated, but are truly "viewed" as if we were all blind.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Plane on May 28, 2008, 07:54:11 PM



 Primary racism is a condition of domination through exploitation + prejudice. You're simply stuck on petty secondary racism, which is nothing more than a byproduct.

Racism in power is a diffrent animal than racism out of power?

What is diffrent other than the power?


Suppose we were to elect a black person who suffered from racism , would his previously harmless racism become evil as soon as he were sworn in?
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: _JS on May 28, 2008, 07:58:10 PM



 Primary racism is a condition of domination through exploitation + prejudice. You're simply stuck on petty secondary racism, which is nothing more than a byproduct.

Racism in power is a diffrent animal than racism out of power?

What is diffrent other than the power?


Suppose we were to elect a black person who suffered from racism , would his previously harmless racism become evil as soon as he were sworn in?

I never mentioned power.

Domination and exploitation, are what I mentioned. It takes more than one elected president to implement these.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Plane on May 28, 2008, 08:00:14 PM



 Primary racism is a condition of domination through exploitation + prejudice. You're simply stuck on petty secondary racism, which is nothing more than a byproduct.

Racism in power is a diffrent animal than racism out of power?

What is diffrent other than the power?


Suppose we were to elect a black person who suffered from racism , would his previously harmless racism become evil as soon as he were sworn in?

I never mentioned power.

Domination and exploitation, are what I mentioned. It takes more than one elected president to implement these.

Champion hairsplitting!

True I used the word "power " and you didn't.
Perhaps domination and exploitation can flow from racism without power but I did not realise it.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: _JS on May 28, 2008, 11:32:03 PM
Regardless, it takes more than a single elected president Plane. It took 400 years of learned behavior to create the racist system we currently have. It would take a hell of a lot longer to create a black racist system where black = normal and white = subhuman in America.

I think that's a bit beside the point though.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: BT on May 28, 2008, 11:38:47 PM
Quote
Regardless, it takes more than a single elected president Plane. It took 400 years of learned behavior to create the racist system we currently have. It would take a hell of a lot longer to create a black racist system where black = normal and white = subhuman in America.

If Atlanta is any indication it takes about 30 years. It seems it really isn't about black or white, it's about green.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Plane on May 28, 2008, 11:43:38 PM
Regardless, it takes more than a single elected president Plane. It took 400 years of learned behavior to create the racist system we currently have. It would take a hell of a lot longer to create a black racist system where black = normal and white = subhuman in America.

I think that's a bit beside the point though.

No, I don't see why time would be a factor.

It didn't take 400 years to reach its worst expression in Jamaca , it was practicly instant there.


Nor are there any 400 year old people running around carrying on an attitude.

If I am wrong then the racism of the out of power isn't new anyway , as Obama's pastor has demonstrated , there is plenty of prejudice ready to use on day one.

So what is directly to the point?  That an abismally racist attitude in a person who isn't white is totally excused?
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: kimba1 on May 29, 2008, 12:04:24 AM
Guess I`ll be the racist again

speaking of oprah
do you know why she open a school in africa ,instead of the U.S.
She wants to make sure people who really want to learn goes to that school
many rich african american have tried to open schools here,but quite afew had to shut down .
magic johnson tried but had to stop before he lose all his money
It`s that chris rock joke
I love black people,but I hate Ni&&&@rs
even bill cosby broke down and yelled about the situation on TV
I very much doubt blaming white people will stop this problem
I`m not saying it`s not true but must be acknowledged nothing will be gained from it.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Religious Dick on May 29, 2008, 12:18:18 AM


Anyway, I find interesting that you think the Confederacy had a right to protect their culture. Not many people will say the culture of the South was worth defending. But what would be really interesting is finding out why you think the northern states, as led by Lincoln, were not attempting to defend what they perceived as the culture of the Union.

There are plenty of cultures I wouldn't bother protecting, however none of those happen to be my culture. But that's beside the point. I'm entitled to defend mine, others are entitled to defend theirs. They don't need my permission.

How do you equate defending one's own culture with outsiders imposing their culture?


Okay, but that doesn't answer the other questions. How would that protect "Englishness"? And how would it address the problem of immigration?

That one ought to be simple enough - they'd be succeeding from a government with other interests besides those of the English, and whose policies aren't necessarily conducive to their interests. Obviously, if a government uniquely interested in the interests of the English differed from the government of the UK on immigration, they'd be free to implement their own policy.


I doubt anyone but a geneticist could sort out the Saxons from the Normans at this point. However, that's irrelevant.


Well, I'd say so, but then, I'm not the one who posted an article talking about "indigenous" English culture.

"Indigenous" is relative - arguably, their isn't even indigenous life on the planet, according to some scientists. Indigenous, in this case, refers to the culture of the people who have inhabited what is known as England for the last 1000 years or so. I think that would satisfy most anthropologists.

Not usually, but that generally stems more from the accent than anything else. Anyway, what you seem to be ignoring is that all those customs and language and traditions are not some pure culture that has arisen in a wholly indigenous people. Like the rest of us, the U.K. has a mix of customs and language and traditions that come from many different peoples.

What you seem to be ignoring is that at this point that's irrelevant. The composition of the population stabilized a long, long time ago.

I could point out that the geography of North America is partly the product of long ago volcanoes and glaciers. That doesn't necessarily mean the introduction of more volcanoes and glaciers now would make it more livable.



Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on May 29, 2008, 02:18:11 AM

How do you equate defending one's own culture with outsiders imposing their culture?


I don't. However much I dislike Lincoln and his policy choices, I recognize that trying to keep the Union together was not outsiders imposing anything.


they'd be succeeding from a government with other interests besides those of the English, and whose policies aren't necessarily conducive to their interests. Obviously, if a government uniquely interested in the interests of the English differed from the government of the UK on immigration, they'd be free to implement their own policy.


So are the English all in 100% agreement about what is conducive to their interests?


What you seem to be ignoring is that at this point that's irrelevant. The composition of the population stabilized a long, long time ago.


So forget the past, just so long as they protect the "Englishness" of now, is that it?


I could point out that the geography of North America is partly the product of long ago volcanoes and glaciers. That doesn't necessarily mean the introduction of more volcanoes and glaciers now would make it more livable.


Indeed. On the other hand, if a society has come to a place of prominence and prosperity as a result (in part yes, but a large part) of cultures and differing groups of people mixing, then trying to stop that process seems like it would be rather myopic and possibly even stupid.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Xavier_Onassis on May 29, 2008, 10:04:31 AM
Guess I`ll be the racist again

speaking of oprah
do you know why she open a school in africa ,instead of the U.S.
She wants to make sure people who really want to learn goes to that school

=======================================================================
I don't blame Oprah for putting her school in South Africa. It is because she has realized that that is where she could change the greatest number of lives for her money.

Talented Black Americans that have a lot of gumption can nearly all get scholarships to the best schools in this country. They do not need Oprah's help. Oprah did not need an Oprah top get where she is today: she had all sorts of obstacles in her path, being passed around between relatives, raped as a young girl, a goofy name, all the problems that befall thousands of Black women. But she managed to get where she was today by sheer talent and force of character.

What she is trying to do in South Africa is to help the talented and driven, who cannot expect to rise as she did, because South Africa is a much poorer country than the USA. Black women get a lot less respect in the RSA than in the USA, where they are nearly as successful as men. There are no Black South African Oprahs.

I spent 32 years teaching at a mostly Black private college here in Miami. We seldom get students that are both talented and driven like young Oprahs and Bill Cosbys. Many of those that are talented tend to lack the drive, and those that have the drive lack the talent. Those who have both get scholarships to Ivy League schools, or Howard, Moorehouse, or the better state universities. We graduate students who are capable of coping with standard middle-class jobs, just as Punxatawney State graduates  dependable White drudges.

About two thirds of my students are women. In a typical class of 25, I will have an average of 2 women drop out due to pregnancy. None of them has been married. I doubt that the early months of pregnancy are normally an unsurmountable barrier to finishing the class, but they invariable ask for an incomplete, and then fail to finish the requirements by the deadline. Typically, they will show up two days before the deadline and ask what they need to pass. Usually this is to complete several written assignments, take one or two exams and the final. Typically, they know no Spanish, quite often including stuff that everyone in Miami should know, like "Buenos d?as, ?C?mo se llama usted?,  el sombrero, caballeros and damas (the words on restroom doors)". Typically, they fail and drop out of college.

I have no idea why they can't just use some form of birth control. I am sure they do know were babies come from, and can only surmise that they have gotten pregnant because they prefer raising a child on welfare to studying.

There is a great amount of anti-intellectuality present in White American culture, but this is greatly multiplied in Black American culture. Sports and rap music are seen as the best ways to rise above the ghetto, and of course, neither of these is the sort of career that will typically result in success for more than a dozen years or so. In the same way, advertising of the sort that suggests that expensive crap will buy respect and success seems to be a lot more pervasive among Black Americans than among White Americans.

Rural Southern culture is divided among Blacks and Whites. Most American Blacks have their roots in the rural South. When the son of a sharecropper goes to college and joins the middle class, he is indistinguishable to White culture by the second generation, if not the first, from educated White middle class society. The Black son of a sharecropper is still Black, and can make this obvious to the rest of society only by improving his diction and a very careful attention to wardrobe, living quarters and such. The majority of poor Blacks that surround him are always a threat that can pull him down. White middle class people can have a drinking problem or a drug problem, but Black middle class people can only be seen as drunks and junkies by Blacks and Whites alike.

I know a number of Black Bohemian intellectual types here in Miami, some are my best friends, and they have a very difficult time winning respect from anyone. Not that White Bohemians get much respect in Miami, either. We do have the King Mango Strut, which has outlived not just the Orange Bowl Parade, but the Orange Bowl itself. I drove down NW 7th St yesterday, and it has all been razed except the scoreboard. I suspect it won't be long that this city-owned land will change hands with some corporation that will enrich some city officials and build something we really don;pt need, like condos or a shopping center.
 

Oprah and Bill Cosby are dead right about what they do and say. I am pretty sure that Oprah agrees with Cosby on damn near everything, but she is still in mid-career and making the sort of speech that Cosby makes would tend to wreck her career, and that would accomplish nothing positive for either her or anyone else. Cosby is retired, richer than God, and speaks out of desperation. Cosby has shown by his actions what he is sure is the ideal role model: after his success on I Spy, he took time out to work with the Children's TV Workshop, and then went to the University and got a PhD in Education. I can't think of any White American actors who have done half as much.  Oprah simply has sought to do the most good for the most people, and has seen that bestowing a capable, talented and driven female elite on the RSA will have far more effect than anything that twice as much money could do in the USA .
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Plane on May 29, 2008, 01:02:30 PM
There is a great amount of anti-intellectuality present in White American culture, but this is greatly multiplied in Black American culture. Sports and rap music are seen as the best ways to rise above the ghetto, and of course, neither of these is the sort of career that will typically result in success for more than a dozen years or so. In the same way, advertising of the sort that suggests that expensive crap will buy respect and success seems to be a lot more pervasive among Black Americans than among White Americans.



http://www.greggriffin.com/Editorials/CrabBucket.htm
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Xavier_Onassis on May 29, 2008, 01:07:06 PM
I have heard about the crab bucket syndrome from three or four other people. It appears to be a useful analogy.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: kimba1 on May 29, 2008, 01:35:30 PM
whew
thought i would get attacked for that one
thanks
I never heard of crab bucket,But i totally understand it
not in race ,but culturally
in alot of jobs in order to get a promotion you need to focus quite abit of energy in that job to get it.
But in alot of family cultures it`s frown upon to divert so much attention away from family
so many don`t understand a person needs to work overtime to pay for the additional expense of having a child.
the most common response is don`t worry it`ll all workout.
a good portion of my debt is family related

Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: _JS on May 29, 2008, 03:48:37 PM
Regardless, it takes more than a single elected president Plane. It took 400 years of learned behavior to create the racist system we currently have. It would take a hell of a lot longer to create a black racist system where black = normal and white = subhuman in America.

I think that's a bit beside the point though.

No, I don't see why time would be a factor.

It didn't take 400 years to reach its worst expression in Jamaca , it was practicly instant there.


Nor are there any 400 year old people running around carrying on an attitude.

If I am wrong then the racism of the out of power isn't new anyway , as Obama's pastor has demonstrated , there is plenty of prejudice ready to use on day one.

So what is directly to the point?  That an abismally racist attitude in a person who isn't white is totally excused?

Do you bother to read the posts? Seriously, I'm asking sincerely.

It isn't about 400 year-old people. It is about the establishment of a system. Primary racism is learned to create Domination through prejudice and exploitation.

Secondary racism, of which you speak, is merely a by-product. I made no value-judgment on it.

The point is that 400 years of dehumanizing Africans is not going to be erased in five years of Civil Rights law. Nor will it be fundamentally changed by lip service to "color-blind" society from people who still project their fears and deviancies onto the Africans.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: kimba1 on May 29, 2008, 03:58:47 PM
uhm even africans are not crazy about them
I`ve read articles about african cab drivers won`t pick up black fares
quite a few african immigrants look down on african americans.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: _JS on May 29, 2008, 04:01:12 PM
uhm even africans are not crazy about them
I`ve read articles about african cab drivers won`t pick up black fares
quite a few african immigrants look down on african americans.


That's not the point kimba, you're looking again at secondary racism...built upon the foundation of primary racism which is the 400 years of constructing a system, a nation, that dehumanized blacks.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Plane on May 29, 2008, 04:01:35 PM
Regardless, it takes more than a single elected president Plane. It took 400 years of learned behavior to create the racist system we currently have. It would take a hell of a lot longer to create a black racist system where black = normal and white = subhuman in America.

I think that's a bit beside the point though.

No, I don't see why time would be a factor.

It didn't take 400 years to reach its worst expression in Jamaca , it was practicly instant there.


Nor are there any 400 year old people running around carrying on an attitude.

If I am wrong then the racism of the out of power isn't new anyway , as Obama's pastor has demonstrated , there is plenty of prejudice ready to use on day one.

So what is directly to the point?  That an abismally racist attitude in a person who isn't white is totally excused?

Do you bother to read the posts? Seriously, I'm asking sincerely.

It isn't about 400 year-old people. It is about the establishment of a system. Primary racism is learned to create Domination through prejudice and exploitation.

Secondary racism, of which you speak, is merely a by-product. I made no value-judgment on it.

The point is that 400 years of dehumanizing Africans is not going to be erased in five years of Civil Rights law. Nor will it be fundamentally changed by lip service to "color-blind" society from people who still project their fears and deviancies onto the Africans.

I think it would be nice if you read mine too....

It did not take anything like 400 years to establish the very worst racism , it can be done almost instantly. Notice the history of Jamaca where Slaves were treated as expendable from day one. Or the history of Hati where the whole system was reversed in the course of a single war.

It is not neessacery to have a 400 year old person to have a 400 year old tradition , but in a thirty year old person no learning is older than thirty years.

I do not accept you premise as valid or provable , history is loaded with contradiction for it.

Also I do not accdept that Secondary racism isn't racism or is really a diffrent thing than racism in any respect , why is sauce for the gander no good for the goose?
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: _JS on May 29, 2008, 04:09:09 PM
Where did I say that secondary racism is not racism? It most certainly is. Nor did I say it was excusable or justified. What I said is that it is built upon the foundation of primary racism.

And yes, it is provable and has been done through psychology, sociology, and history.

Haiti is an extremely interesting story. It has also been used and abused by the United States in modern times. Haiti was the greatest fear of Southern planters. The 400 years refers to American history, it is not set in stone for all nations. My point is that in this country, 400 years of teaching white supremacy and black inferiority has not and will not be reversed in a five year span of changing laws.

That is why Bill Cosby is full of shit.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: kimba1 on May 29, 2008, 04:11:43 PM
ok
but what`s the solution?
I already stated blame will not solve the problem
if anything it may perpetuate it.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Plane on May 29, 2008, 04:15:20 PM
Where did I say that secondary racism is not racism? It most certainly is. Nor did I say it was excusable or justified. What I said is that it is built upon the foundation of primary racism.



What you are saying is that it is diffrent , and I am saying it is not.

The origional reason is important to know if one is trying to avoid repeating a mistake , but it sin't a diffrence in present effect.

I don't see why there should be any distinction made for secondary racism  it is a useless distinction.

As if the treatment for my phenumonia will be diffrent because I caught it on a snowy day from yours which you caught in a rainstorm.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: _JS on May 29, 2008, 05:17:18 PM
Where did I say that secondary racism is not racism? It most certainly is. Nor did I say it was excusable or justified. What I said is that it is built upon the foundation of primary racism.



What you are saying is that it is diffrent , and I am saying it is not.

The origional reason is important to know if one is trying to avoid repeating a mistake , but it sin't a diffrence in present effect.

I don't see why there should be any distinction made for secondary racism  it is a useless distinction.

As if the treatment for my phenumonia will be diffrent because I caught it on a snowy day from yours which you caught in a rainstorm.

It is important, because Primary Racism is the foundation. Without it, secondary racism does not exist or at most, has little effect.

Primary racism includes the projection from the dominant group onto the weaker groups.

Look at it this way. Secondary racism is nasty and mean. Yes. It is irrational. But it has no real affect without Primary racism. On the other hand, Primary Racism packs the punch. It is what relegates a group to economic misery. It ensures that the poor of the dominant group get their table scraps and remain loyal to the racist institutions.

Who ensures that blacks read a white version of American history? Who ensures that MLK is castrated and presented as a saint who preached the gospel of a "color-blind" society? Who makes certain that kids don't grow up to learn about how this country supported South Africa's Nationalist Government?

I know that I've done a poor job explaining, but look at it this way:

Secondary Racism is the basic racism that comes from a mix of innate fear of the unknown and different + learned behavior. How many blacks or Hispanics move into your neighborhood before you get uncomfortable and change your behaviors? Do you feel different in a room full of a different ethnicity? What myths do you associate with Roma, Jews, Catholics, African-Americans, Native-Americans that might not be true? Or it can be much more straightforward - "I hate those people."

Primary Racism is a fully learned system of racism. It is second nature and developed over time through society. Think of American individualism. It is second nature to most Americans. We aren't born with it - it is not genetic. We learn it, but not deliberately - it is pervasive throughout American society. It comes from our myths, stories, legends, films, celebrities, politics, history, heroes...make sense? Primary racism is passed the same way. It comes not through birth, but through passive knowledge. It is in our myths, stories, legends, films, commercials, television shows, history, heroes.

We lavish praise on Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers for their wisdom and their love of freedom. We've turned the constitution into a sacred document and Christopher Columbus into a secular saint. Yet, Jefferson was a slaveholder and likely slept with at least one of his slave women. Some people justify this by saying that he treated his slaves well. The Constitution enshrines slavery - the holding of human beings as property. This is taught as the defining moment of freedom, but in reality it was freedom for whites and primarily for white men. It is white men who make the law, who write the history, who run the corporations. When "freedom" was given to the slaves, they were simply economic slaves to the same white plantation owners and political slaves to the whims of an hysterical white Southern culture.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: kimba1 on May 29, 2008, 05:39:08 PM
We lavish praise on Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers for their wisdom and their love of freedom. We've turned the constitution into a sacred document and Christopher Columbus into a secular saint. Yet, Jefferson was a slaveholder and likely slept with at least one of his slave women. Some people justify this by saying that he treated his slaves well. The Constitution enshrines slavery - the holding of human beings as property. This is taught as the defining moment of freedom, but in reality it was freedom for whites and primarily for white men. It is white men who make the law, who write the history, who run the corporations. When "freedom" was given to the slaves, they were simply economic slaves to the same white plantation owners and political slaves to the whims of an hysterical white Southern culture.>

we forget the fact that a good percent of the slaves are bought in africa from rival tribes .
it not just white people at fault here.
and the idea that slavery in africa is benevolent abit of a strecht.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: _JS on May 29, 2008, 06:58:29 PM
I don't think anyone is forgetting that Kimba.

But even that is used as a justification for the slavery here and the harsher and stricter treatment of slaves in America.

Does that justify slavery to you?
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: kimba1 on May 29, 2008, 08:17:09 PM
not at all
I`m just trying point out the blame is already been placed and continueing to focusing on it is causing damage
blaming brings a culture of victimhood.
I`m not saying blacks are not being denied jobs.
but that doesn`t mean turning down lower paying job that immigrants will take and get accused of stealing jobs.

but on the subject slavery and how bad it is
it still exist today worldwide
by the definition human beings sold for various service
and race has nothing to do with it.
economic breakdown is so far the common thread .

Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Stray Pooch on May 29, 2008, 09:19:35 PM
Utter nonsense. As I've indicated, Primary racism is a condition of domination through exploitation + prejudice.

No, that's a redefinition of the word "racism" to fit a political viewpoint.  Racism is the belief that your race is superior.  You can redefine it any way you want, that won't make it a fact.  

This country was built on the notion that blacks were subhuman - less than whites. You may not like that, but that is the truth.

No it isn't.  It's a radically exaggerated statement of opinion.  This country was built on the notion that representative government was better than monarchy.  It happens that slavery was PART of the building of this country, and black slaves contributed (albeit involuntarily) to the economic success of the country.  But making a sweeping statement like "This country was built on the notion that blacks were subhuman" is ridiculous.  SLAVERY was built on that notion, and that institution contributed to the economic success of the nation, but that is only a part of our history - not by any stretch of the imagination the notion upon which this country was built.  You may not like that, but that is the truth.

There is 400 years of history, of conditioning whites to believe in their superiority and the inverse - to condition blacks to their inferiority. Despite all the well-wishing and togetherness that one would love to bestow upon the current state of affairs, the truth is that five years does not change 400 years of conditioning, teaching, and living.   

400 years and 5 years.  Interesting numbers, neither of which are accurate or relevant.  Racial interaction has been in this country,  and really in much of the world, an evolutionary process.  Laws against racial discrimination have existed for many decades - not five years - and those laws have had effects beyond their initial social change.  Further, in many parts of the country and in many subcultures, such discrimination has been outlawed or at least socially unacceptable for far more of American history.  The federal government outlawed racial discrimination decades ago, and many states before then.  Since this country - as a European derivative - has existed only just some 400 years, the argument that blacks have been abused for four hundred years is nonsense.  Some few slaves were around near the beginning but wholesale slavery existed as a thriving industry for only some 200 years.  Racial discrimination has existed since the beginning of time, in all cultures, and it exists today on BOTH sides of the racial divide in America.  Antidiscrimination laws have existed at the federal level for nearly half a century.  So at best, there is a real claim for 250-300 years of institutional racism.  Complaining that racism still exists will get no sympathy from this corner.  So what?  Some blacks can't get hired by whites.  There are an awful lot of whites who can't get hired by blacks - or whites who have to consider any race EXCEPT Caucasian as a qualifying factor for hire, for acceptance at a school or for other privileges.  Some whites burn flags at KKK rallies.  Some blacks denounce whites in church.   Some whites follow David Duke.  Some blacks follow Louis Farakhan.  So what?  It would be wonderful to live in a world wher everyone got along and thought fairly.  It never has happened and it never will.  It is far more than enough to live in a country where the law recognizes equality and tempers the nature of humans.    

No offense Pooch, but this sounds like whining to me. Oprah's school is in South Africa. Do you know the history of South Africa? Do you know who supported that country's regime?

None taken, JS.  I am perfectly familiar with Apartheid and the long history of racism in South Africa.  That has nothing to do with Oprah's comments.  I take that back, it DOES have something to do with it, but it is a poor excuse.  "We get to be racist because we have been the victims of racism."  To quote a wise person, no offense, but that sounds like whining to me.  I have always said, and I find it to be true both historically and in the present case, that the yoke of the oppressed often becomes the rod of the oppressor.  This, again, is an example of how black racism is excused because of the past.  This is the present.  If keeping black kids out of Alabama schools was wrong in the sixties, keeping white children out of Oprah's school in the 21st century is wrong, too.  Mind you, since it is her school she can do what she wants.  But don't expect me to excuse her racism on grounds of property rights.  She is within her rights, but she is still wrong.  

So Detroit and Memphis are predominantly black and exceptionally poor because individual blacks have "personal failures and make bad decisions?" You are somewhat correct, but you stray off the path. Blacks are held down because the people American society demonstrates to be successful are white. White = normal. White = human. Blacks still live in a society dominated by white economic exploitation. More than that, it is a society dominated by white psychology. That is not innate to humanity, that is learned. That is 400 years of dehumanization. The white heterosexual Protestant male is held in the highest regards. Onto people who do not fit into that select group are projected all of the deviancies of the white male. In your terminology I would say, "it's called projection."

That was true thirty years ago.  It no longer is.  In fact, the white heterosexual Protestant male is in about the same place as the black, gay or woman was in the 1950's.  To wickedly paraphase John Lennon, "White Man is NOW the nigger of the world."  That's really not true, of course, especially in the context that Lennon used it, but it is true that white men are now the acceptable target of hatred, discrimination and ridicule.  You can argue, and I would not disagree, that the social condition of African-Americans (or at least a large portion of them) today is based on the racial abuse that the group as a whole has suffered in the past.  But that is still just an excuse.  When a black man doesn't get hired because of his race, he is directly suffering from racism.  The same is true of a white man in the same condition.  But there is a pervasive excuse mentality in African-American culture that says any time something happens to them it is because of the white man.  If a white man is hired instead of a black man, it's dscrimination.  If the white man happened to have a better education, it's still discrimination because the white man had the advantage of being able to afford to go to school.  If they both attended the same schools, but the white man made better grades, it is because the curriculum was racist (even though everyone was required to study afro-centric history and concepts like "western civilization" were considered taboo).  If the black man had a drug bust in his past and the white man didn't, it's because the white man created crack to dominate the blacks.  It could never be that an employer hired the better qualified man because he was better qualified.  It could never be that the white man grew up in a poorer home and struggled harder to achieve his educational goals.  It could never be that the black man refused to get good grades in high school because that was considered "too white" and therefore was not accepted at a better college.  No, it's always the white man's fault.  And anyone who points these things out is usually labelled a racist.  It is unwise, in today's culture, to apply proper nomenclature to entrenching tools.

So we have a group that gets saddled with terms like: lazy, sexually deviant, stupid, manual laborers, thieves, dirty, unwashed, ugly, unclean, etc. These are not terms that reflect on any genetic reality, but are projections of the Id from the dominant group (in this case white males). The great fear of Southern whites were black slaves storming the plantation house and raping the delicate and virtuous white women. Of course, in reality many slave owners slept with and even forcibly raped their female slaves. As I said, it is called projection.

That's true, although it is also true that a lot of blacks who were lynched for raping white women probably did - and deserved what they got.  Now of course, the fact that white men who raped white women probably were a lot more likely to get a fair trial (and white men who raped black women probably got away with it) puts the racism of lynching into perspective.  And I would bet large amounts of money that a lot of the lynching that occurred was the organized mob murder of innocent men, or men guilty of minor social infractions like Medgar Evans.  I neither condone lynching nor deny the inherent racism thereof.  Obviously, few rational people condone slavery, because this is the twenty-first century and we are blessed with the perspective of history.   But that is where we part ways in the racial question.  Those of us on the "oppressor" side of the equation recognize that slavery was THEN and it was wrong.  That, too, is a learned behavior.  But those on the "oppressed" side of the equation too often think that slavery is NOW and is still condoned (at least metaphorically).  That, again, is a learned behavior and it is taught not by white heterosexual Protestant males but by the leaders and the rank-and-file of the African-American community.  That is just as clearly racist as anything the Klan ever taught.  

The Roma, Jews, Aborigines, Blacks, and Native Americans are taught that they are "wrong" that "right" is a European white male. And it is there where you come close Pooch, but you start blaming the individual blacks, when they are only living up to what white society has taught them to be.

But in fact blacks are taught today that black is "right" and white is "wrong."  How does that differ from any of the situations you speak of?  White people used to have a power-hold on this country, but that is largely not the case today. In many places, that situation still exists - and that racism clearly exists as well - but in predominately African-American areas the opposite is true.  Understand, I am not denying the reality of racism.  I am saying it exists on both sides and it is NOT a purely white phenomenon in America today.

Many people in here, both left and right love using the phrase color-blind. If they don't use it they use the meaning. They pretend to believe that it was the goal of the Civil Rights Movement and the Civil War.

Yet, a color-blind society is typically nothing but a well-intentioned, but incorrect wish for a society that is all white. It is a society where the Roma, Jews, Blacks, Muslims, Homosexuals, and women are never free to be themselves. They are simply mimics of white male society and projections of white male deviancies. Differences are not celebrated, but are truly "viewed" as if we were all blind.

"White male deviances" is a racist term.   Please define what the specific deviances are that all white men share, and what "black female deviances" are.  What are "Asian gay deviances" or "Hispanic transgendered deviances?"  When such tools of the oppressor as Martin Luther King Jr. talked about a "color-blind" society he did not mean to suggest that all Americans should look, think, dress, eat or enjoy art like each other.  He simply meant that the laws, mores, and social values we hold should have no basis in race.  The law is depicted as blind-folded because it ought to be concerned only with justice, no other issues.  He was suggesting that diversity should extend only to our choices, not our place in society.  I subscribe to that dream, and I think that the concept that "white male deviances" or any other such ideals, just detracts from it.  
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Plane on May 30, 2008, 12:27:51 AM
Where did I say that secondary racism is not racism? It most certainly is. Nor did I say it was excusable or justified. What I said is that it is built upon the foundation of primary racism.



What you are saying is that it is diffrent , and I am saying it is not.

The origional reason is important to know if one is trying to avoid repeating a mistake , but it sin't a diffrence in present effect.

I don't see why there should be any distinction made for secondary racism  it is a useless distinction.

As if the treatment for my phenumonia will be diffrent because I caught it on a snowy day from yours which you caught in a rainstorm.

It is important, because Primary Racism is the foundation. Without it, secondary racism does not exist or at most, has little effect.

Primary racism includes the projection from the dominant group onto the weaker groups.

Look at it this way. Secondary racism is nasty and mean. Yes. It is irrational. But it has no real affect without Primary racism. On the other hand, Primary Racism packs the punch. It is what relegates a group to economic misery. It ensures that the poor of the dominant group get their table scraps and remain loyal to the racist institutions.

Who ensures that blacks read a white version of American history? Who ensures that MLK is castrated and presented as a saint who preached the gospel of a "color-blind" society? Who makes certain that kids don't grow up to learn about how this country supported South Africa's Nationalist Government?

I know that I've done a poor job explaining, but look at it this way:

Secondary Racism is the basic racism that comes from a mix of innate fear of the unknown and different + learned behavior. How many blacks or Hispanics move into your neighborhood before you get uncomfortable and change your behaviors? Do you feel different in a room full of a different ethnicity? What myths do you associate with Roma, Jews, Catholics, African-Americans, Native-Americans that might not be true? Or it can be much more straightforward - "I hate those people."

Primary Racism is a fully learned system of racism. It is second nature and developed over time through society. Think of American individualism. It is second nature to most Americans. We aren't born with it - it is not genetic. We learn it, but not deliberately - it is pervasive throughout American society. It comes from our myths, stories, legends, films, celebrities, politics, history, heroes...make sense? Primary racism is passed the same way. It comes not through birth, but through passive knowledge. It is in our myths, stories, legends, films, commercials, television shows, history, heroes.

We lavish praise on Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers for their wisdom and their love of freedom. We've turned the constitution into a sacred document and Christopher Columbus into a secular saint. Yet, Jefferson was a slaveholder and likely slept with at least one of his slave women. Some people justify this by saying that he treated his slaves well. The Constitution enshrines slavery - the holding of human beings as property. This is taught as the defining moment of freedom, but in reality it was freedom for whites and primarily for white men. It is white men who make the law, who write the history, who run the corporations. When "freedom" was given to the slaves, they were simply economic slaves to the same white plantation owners and political slaves to the whims of an hysterical white Southern culture.


So why did you tell me you wern't talking about Power?

None of this is right at all ,there is no secondary Racism , there is racism and raceism none of it should not be excused for being one generation younger .

As soon as you say that you are not excuseing it , you proceed to provide a long list of excuses for it!

If there is a diffrence at all ,between primary and secondary racism ,let me invoke the old Russian proverb , there may be a lot of diffrence between Cat shit and Dog crap but they both make a poor soup.

Every diffrence in reason for racism fails to justify the racism and fails to mitigate its harm.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Plane on May 30, 2008, 12:32:52 AM
And then there is this.....


http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/05/29/obama_again_apologizes_for_a_p.html

Quote
Sen. Barack Obama was forced today to answer again for a preacher at his place of worship, the Trinity United Church of Christ. This time, it was Father Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina in Chicago and a well-known activist Catholic priest in the city.

From the pulpit at Trinity last Sunday Pfleger, who is white, spoke about white supremacy. His remarks were captured on video and today an except from them began to circulate online in a YouTube video (above).



Not to worry !

This racism is "secondary" and isn't really intended to harm the canadacy of Barak Obama .
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Stray Pooch on May 30, 2008, 12:48:00 AM
From the pulpit at Trinity last Sunday Pfleger, who is white, spoke about white supremacy. His remarks were captured on video and today an except from them began to circulate online in a YouTube video (above).
[/quote]

OK, now I gotta say, poor Obama isn't catching a break at all. 

Statistically, his preachers cancel each other out.  Now if Sharon Stone could only say that the Dalai Lama was exiled due to karma, we might get this all behind us.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Plane on May 30, 2008, 01:02:45 AM
From the pulpit at Trinity last Sunday Pfleger, who is white, spoke about white supremacy. His remarks were captured on video and today an except from them began to circulate online in a YouTube video (above).

OK, now I gotta say, poor Obama isn't catching a break at all. 

Statistically, his preachers cancel each other out.  Now if Sharon Stone could only say that the Dalai Lama was exiled due to karma, we might get this all behind us.
[/quote]


No , they would cancell if they were out of phase , being on the same beat causes reinforcement.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Stray Pooch on May 30, 2008, 01:07:54 AM
From the pulpit at Trinity last Sunday Pfleger, who is white, spoke about white supremacy. His remarks were captured on video and today an except from them began to circulate online in a YouTube video (above).

OK, now I gotta say, poor Obama isn't catching a break at all. 

Statistically, his preachers cancel each other out.  Now if Sharon Stone could only say that the Dalai Lama was exiled due to karma, we might get this all behind us.

No , they would cancell if they were out of phase , being on the same beat causes reinforcement.
[/quote]

I assumed, since I didn't see the youtube clip, that "speaking about white supremacy" indicated he was endorsing it.  If that was wrong, then my whole point is negated.  But if I was right, it means that Wright was trashing whites, and Pfleger was trashing blacks.  That would be heroically ironic.  If that is not the case, I just had a lot of fun for no apparent reason.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Stray Pooch on May 30, 2008, 01:35:29 AM
OK.  Saw the video.  The guy's nuttier than Wright.

Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Xavier_Onassis on May 30, 2008, 08:15:14 AM
I can agree with Pfleger that Hillary is not entitled to be president, but then again, no one else is, either.

The election is not about redressing past wrongs against Blacks by electing one president, but it is also not about teaching Trinity Church to seek more rational preachers, either.

These are all non-issues. It is pretty clear that if the nominee is Obama,
If Hillary is the nominee, thenthen every person who thinks all Blacks are incapable of being president for every reason they can come up with will vote against Obama (and the vast majority of these for McCain).


In the odd instance that Hillary is the nominee, then every person who thinks all women are incapable of being president for every reason they can come up with will vote against Hillary (and the vast majority of these for McCain).


This will happen whether McCain disowns them or not. And the rest of the world will see the election as a demonstration on the political maturity of American society, and they will, to some degree, be entirely right to do so.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: _JS on May 30, 2008, 04:59:25 PM
No, that's a redefinition of the word "racism" to fit a political viewpoint.  Racism is the belief that your race is superior.  You can redefine it any way you want, that won't make it a fact.

It won't make it false because your definition is what you believe either. It is simply a categorization, and one backed by science mind you. I've provided the book and author. 

Quote
No it isn't.  It's a radically exaggerated statement of opinion.  This country was built on the notion that representative government was better than monarchy.  It happens that slavery was PART of the building of this country, and black slaves contributed (albeit involuntarily) to the economic success of the country.  But making a sweeping statement like "This country was built on the notion that blacks were subhuman" is ridiculous.  SLAVERY was built on that notion, and that institution contributed to the economic success of the nation, but that is only a part of our history - not by any stretch of the imagination the notion upon which this country was built.  You may not like that, but that is the truth.

Not radically exaggerated at all. The British did not invest in America because they liked to vacation here. They did not defend these colonies because of the charm or "representative government." That's simply bullshit. They did so because there was economic benefit to them. It was primarily tobacco in the 17th century. Anyone who has worked in tobacco fields and has familiarity with the crop understands that it is very labor intensive. At first it was possible to use indentured servants and a smattering of slaves. Those slaves were often given broad rights (under British and colonial law - NOT American).

Later, when tobacco plantations grew in size and the first major slave revolt took place in the Tidewater area of Virginia, slavery was fought by the House of Burgesses (you're shining beacon of representative government) the laws surrounding slavery were made far more strict. Slavery began to grow. As the country spread west it was discovered the another labor-intensive crop was able to provide for the economy of the textile mills in the North and in England - cotton became king. African slavery became even more integral to the economics of the United States. Dehumanizing blacks became more and more crucial both to economics and to society to justify itself.

Quote
400 years and 5 years.  Interesting numbers, neither of which are accurate or relevant.  Racial interaction has been in this country,  and really in much of the world, an evolutionary process.  Laws against racial discrimination have existed for many decades - not five years - and those laws have had effects beyond their initial social change.

Both are accurate. The first slaves arrived in 1619, sue me for rounding. The five years comes from the period where the Civil Rights Movement was able to effectively enact legislation to remove Jim Crow. The environment of white = normal and white = right still exists, so 400 years is spot on.

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Racial discrimination has existed since the beginning of time

Proof? Evidence?

I'd certainly like to see it. I don't mean idle speculation, but real evidence. Let's see it. Discrimination based not on religion (that has been common, but is also learned), not on other differences, but purely on "race."

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Complaining that racism still exists will get no sympathy from this corner.

I'm not complaining, I'm stating a fact.

Quote
So what?  Some blacks can't get hired by whites.  There are an awful lot of whites who can't get hired by blacks - or whites who have to consider any race EXCEPT Caucasian as a qualifying factor for hire, for acceptance at a school or for other privileges.

You are still stuck on the minutiae. You and Plane both. This goes to the center of society as a whole. This is learned behavior, second nature of centuries of what is simply accepted to be fact. You're still talking about the fringe idiots like David Duke and the KKK. I'm talking about everyday society, not the extreme racist fringe.

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That was true thirty years ago.  It no longer is.  In fact, the white heterosexual Protestant male is in about the same place as the black, gay or woman was in the 1950's.  To wickedly paraphase John Lennon, "White Man is NOW the nigger of the world."  That's really not true, of course, especially in the context that Lennon used it, but it is true that white men are now the acceptable target of hatred, discrimination and ridicule.

Angry white male horse shit. Excuse my language, but that's a load of garbage and you know it. I'm a white man too, lest you forget, and I'm not the target of hatred and discrimination. I can see a system that is built for whites to succeed.

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But there is a pervasive excuse mentality in African-American culture that says any time something happens to them it is because of the white man.

So this is why Detroit and Memphis are poor? Because of this "pervasive excuse mentality in African-American culture?" Or was it because black individuals just make a lot of bad choices or failures?

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Obviously, few rational people condone slavery, because this is the twenty-first century and we are blessed with the perspective of history.   But that is where we part ways in the racial question.  Those of us on the "oppressor" side of the equation recognize that slavery was THEN and it was wrong.  That, too, is a learned behavior.  But those on the "oppressed" side of the equation too often think that slavery is NOW and is still condoned (at least metaphorically).  That, again, is a learned behavior and it is taught not by white heterosexual Protestant males but by the leaders and the rank-and-file of the African-American community.  That is just as clearly racist as anything the Klan ever taught.

You talk about the Klan a lot. Are you forgetting that the Southern Baptist Church taught that Blacks were lesser than whites into the 1970's? Are you forgetting the White Citizen's Councils, which became the CCC to which Haley Barbour and Trent Lott addressed? There are quite a few people today that defend the Confederacy and claim that slavery had nothing to do with the Civil War. Don't pretend that this racism was just a part of the KKK fringe. It permeates society.   

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But in fact blacks are taught today that black is "right" and white is "wrong."  How does that differ from any of the situations you speak of?  White people used to have a power-hold on this country, but that is largely not the case today. In many places, that situation still exists - and that racism clearly exists as well - but in predominately African-American areas the opposite is true.  Understand, I am not denying the reality of racism.  I am saying it exists on both sides and it is NOT a purely white phenomenon in America today.

Did I say that it is purely white? But how many blacks are taught this? And bullshit that white people don't have the power today. Go to a state legislature, Capitol Hill, the Fortune 400 boards and you honestly tell me that. You know that is a load of crap.

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"White male deviances" is a racist term.

No it isn't. I am speaking of societal projections and even provided a very good example. Plus, scientific studies have shown this to be true. I never said "all white men," I am speaking in societal terms through the creation of myths.

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When such tools of the oppressor as Martin Luther King Jr. talked about a "color-blind" society he did not mean to suggest that all Americans should look, think, dress, eat or enjoy art like each other.  He simply meant that the laws, mores, and social values we hold should have no basis in race.

MLK was not a tool of the oppressor of course, but has been turned into something he was not. He was a Christian Socialist. How many people learn that in school? How many people learn that he wanted to redistribute wealth to the poor and that he was a major supporter of unionization? Ever wonder why? Because the powers that be write the history books. MLK is written up as a guy who preached nonviolence and got everything he ever wanted when the Civil Rights Act was passed. Now we can all eat peaches and cream and watch Pollyanna!

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The law is depicted as blind-folded because it ought to be concerned only with justice, no other issues.  He was suggesting that diversity should extend only to our choices, not our place in society.  I subscribe to that dream, and I think that the concept that "white male deviances" or any other such ideals, just detracts from it.

I think that bitching about how white males have lost their place in society when clearly that isn't the case doesn't help either.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Plane on May 30, 2008, 10:50:02 PM
Quote
So what?  Some blacks can't get hired by whites.  There are an awful lot of whites who can't get hired by blacks - or whites who have to consider any race EXCEPT Caucasian as a qualifying factor for hire, for acceptance at a school or for other privileges.

You are still stuck on the minutiae. You and Plane both. This goes to the center of society as a whole. This is learned behavior, second nature of centuries of what is simply accepted to be fact. You're still talking about the fringe idiots like David Duke and the KKK. I'm talking about everyday society, not the extreme racist fringe.


You are talking about that 400 year old guy again?

I would like to meet him, even if he is a racist.

Learned behavior is no older than the learner , unless you beleive in race memory , which I don't.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Plane on May 30, 2008, 11:04:34 PM
Quote
When such tools of the oppressor as Martin Luther King Jr. talked about a "color-blind" society he did not mean to suggest that all Americans should look, think, dress, eat or enjoy art like each other.  He simply meant that the laws, mores, and social values we hold should have no basis in race.

MLK was not a tool of the oppressor of course, but has been turned into something he was not. He was a Christian Socialist. How many people learn that in school? How many people learn that he wanted to redistribute wealth to the poor and that he was a major supporter of unionization? Ever wonder why? Because the powers that be write the history books. MLK is written up as a guy who preached nonviolence and got everything he ever wanted when the Civil Rights Act was passed. Now we can all eat peaches and cream and watch Pollyanna!

MLKjr isn't remembered for thaings he did not accomplish  nor things non-tangental to the things he did accomplish. With Non-violence as a principal he shortcircuited a brewing race war that might have killed hundreds of thousands , for this alone he would be a hero. He is also rightly enshrined as one of our historys greatest orators on the strength of his insightfull and inspireing remarks on the steps of the Lincon memorial , this is a grand example of the right word at the right time.

He need not be celebrated as infallible , I didn't know he was a phalinderer untill pretty recently and I didn't know he was a socialist till just now , I don't consider either of these faults to be important enough to tarnish my admiration .

Nor has anyone ever stated that the Civil Rights bills of fourty years ago brought about instantainious utopia , I did see someone state that this was a five year period of progress that saw no further progress afterwards , but I disagree with him. I think that a great leap forward was accomplished , followed by four decades of further progress . This is the time it takes to raise two generations ,even though it is all within liveing memory.

Human beings are adaptable and teachable but none of us can learn anything over a period longer than we can personally survive , the majority of the US population has been born since 1970 and none of the US population is 400 years old.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on May 31, 2008, 12:44:24 AM

You are talking about that 400 year old guy again?

I would like to meet him, even if he is a racist.

Learned behavior is no older than the learner , unless you beleive in race memory , which I don't.



Human beings are adaptable and teachable but none of us can learn anything over a period longer than we can personally survive , the majority of the US population has been born since 1970 and none of the US population is 400 years old.


I don't get your obsession with this 400 year old person. No one is arguing that anyone is 400 years old. Why do you keep talking about this? I do get that in some way it is supposed to be clever, but frankly it seems more to me like you're missing the point. Yes, learned behavior is no older than the learner, I get also that is your point. But the point about centuries of learned behavior is not about one guy. Centuries of taught racism does more than just make a single person a racist. It shapes a culture. So why do you keep harping on some 400 year old guy?
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: kimba1 on May 31, 2008, 12:46:42 AM
what i find incredibly amazing about non-violent protest
soo many people say it won`t work and when it does the leaders usually get killed.
for something that`s supposed to be ineffective it sure get`s people upset
even now people are trying to invalidate ghandi.
the concept of non-violence is still a upsetting thought.


Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Plane on May 31, 2008, 01:21:29 AM

You are talking about that 400 year old guy again?

I would like to meet him, even if he is a racist.

Learned behavior is no older than the learner , unless you beleive in race memory , which I don't.



Human beings are adaptable and teachable but none of us can learn anything over a period longer than we can personally survive , the majority of the US population has been born since 1970 and none of the US population is 400 years old.


I don't get your obsession with this 400 year old person. No one is arguing that anyone is 400 years old. Why do you keep talking about this? I do get that in some way it is supposed to be clever, but frankly it seems more to me like you're missing the point. Yes, learned behavior is no older than the learner, I get also that is your point. But the point about centuries of learned behavior is not about one guy. Centuries of taught racism does more than just make a single person a racist. It shapes a culture. So why do you keep harping on some 400 year old guy?


It makes the point that each of us is a new beginning , tradition may be multi generational , but no learning has more force than the people who have learnd it.

If there is a tradition of fifty thousand years age I can't have known of it longer than fourty nine years in any respect, a traditon of fifty years duration is equal to me if I learned it at the same time.

For the 400 years of tradition to count for more than recent developments of equal import requires a person of that age and it requires nothing less.

Therefore I reject the premise that an anchient tradition requires an equal length of time to complete its eradication or reversal , there is just no truth in the argument.



Of course I could be mistaken....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Year_Old_Man
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Plane on May 31, 2008, 01:29:30 AM
what i find incredibly amazing about non-violent protest
soo many people say it won`t work and when it does the leaders usually get killed.
for something that`s supposed to be ineffective it sure get`s people upset
even now people are trying to invalidate ghandi.
the concept of non-violence is still a upsetting thought.





It isn't perfect , it can fail.
So can every other thing.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on May 31, 2008, 03:15:22 AM

For the 400 years of tradition to count for more than recent developments of equal import requires a person of that age and it requires nothing less.


Nonsense. Again, centuries of tradition shape a culture. As much as the idea that we can wipe out racism in a single generation might be appealing, it simply isn't true.


Therefore I reject the premise that an anchient tradition requires an equal length of time to complete its eradication or reversal , there is just no truth in the argument.


Maybe not an equal length of time, but that doesn't mean the amount of time is short or merely a single lifetime. You can reject the argument all you like, but talking about a 400 year old man does not counter the argument. Cultures do not change overnight. The outlawing of slavery hardly made ill treatment of black workers go away. As I said before, I get that in some way the 400 year old man is supposed to be clever, but you're missing the point. No learning has more force than the people who have learned it, sure sounds nice, but I don't see it born out in reality.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: BT on May 31, 2008, 03:28:43 AM
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Cultures do not change overnight.

No but they can easily change generation to generation.

Ponder this.

What cultural effect did the introduction of the birth control pill have on american society?

What cultural effect did air conditioning have on the political landscape of america?

Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on May 31, 2008, 05:50:08 AM

What cultural effect did the introduction of the birth control pill have on american society?

What cultural effect did air conditioning have on the political landscape of america?


I had a sharply sarcastic reply, but I'll try to control myself.

How about the introduction of mechanized farm equipment? Yes, cultures can change. When someone invents the racial equivalent of the air conditioner, we'll see quick change, no doubt. In the mean time, we still live in a culture that was, in part, shaped by racism and similar irrational prejudices. These prejudices are not gone from our culture, and the effects of the past prevalence of them are also not gone. Arguing that they will be not be slow to disappear because there are no 400 year old people is a nonsense argument. Yes, in ideal conditions perhaps these prejudices could vanish from our culture in a generation or two. But then again, in ideal conditions these prejudices would not have existed in the first place. In the meantime, distrust of the other is taught every damn day.

Not that long ago, a set of photos from some youth at our church was posted on a bulletin board (I think it might have been a list of graduates or something like that) and some people remarked at how wonderful the diversity of the group was. By diversity, they meant the range of skin colors. I had seen the photos and had to go look again, because quite honestly I had not noticed the diversity. Not because it wasn't there. It was. But I didn't pay attention to there being light-skinned and dark-skinned youth. Not as such. I just saw photos of people. Maybe someday that is what most people will see. (Yeah, I guess I just tooted my own horn. I'm modest enough to notice it, and still arrogant enough to say it anyway. Live with it.) In the meantime, most people still notice these differences because these differences are supposedly important. I'm not sure what sort of invention is going to change that.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Plane on May 31, 2008, 06:00:22 AM

For the 400 years of tradition to count for more than recent developments of equal import requires a person of that age and it requires nothing less.


Nonsense. Again, centuries of tradition shape a culture. As much as the idea that we can wipe out racism in a single generation might be appealing, it simply isn't true.


Therefore I reject the premise that an anchient tradition requires an equal length of time to complete its eradication or reversal , there is just no truth in the argument.


Maybe not an equal length of time, but that doesn't mean the amount of time is short or merely a single lifetime. You can reject the argument all you like, but talking about a 400 year old man does not counter the argument. Cultures do not change overnight. The outlawing of slavery hardly made ill treatment of black workers go away. As I said before, I get that in some way the 400 year old man is supposed to be clever, but you're missing the point. No learning has more force than the people who have learned it, sure sounds nice, but I don't see it born out in reality.


 I do not see these assertions borne out in reality.

Anchient customs can be fragile and difficult to preserve , when General McArther was in charge of Japan he realised that there were several crafts in danger of being forgotten . The "liveing treasure " program garuntees that a small number of masters of the traditional crafts receive a stipend and an oppurtunity to teach.

I wish I could have realisd sooner what a liveing treasure my father was , I could have learned flint knapping , the names and uses of many plants , how to break a horse , blacksmithing ,like a dozen things that I failed to learn when I might have, it makes me so sorry now.I did learn a few things probly half what I could have.

I don't disagree with My fathers attitudes twards race though , I don't need to change much in that tradition because he made that change himself before I was old enough to have formed a mature opinion. He also trained himself to speak very precicely which shows up in my accent , I seldom say "ain't " for example.

On a wider scale modern communication is evening out reagional diffrences in accent and opinion , there is little lore that is confined to a region anymore , if it is really interesting it will become a movie and travel the planet.

It is popular to paint people as unmoveing and unadaptable , but the evidence of history is very much to the contrary , preserveing a tradition takes work.

Now explain to me how a learning could possibly have more force than the people who have learned it , the people who beleive in it etc., perhaps it sounds nice, but that is a poor argument against it being true.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Plane on May 31, 2008, 06:11:23 AM

What cultural effect did the introduction of the birth control pill have on american society?

What cultural effect did air conditioning have on the political landscape of america?


I had a sharply sarcastic reply, but I'll try to control myself.

 When someone invents the racial equivalent of the air conditioner, we'll see quick change, no doubt. In the mean time, we still live in a culture that was, in part, shaped by racism and similar irrational prejudices.


That invention is the television , is MTV a cuttural impediment to change? I might even argue that the Radio began the culture conditioning process.

Is there a sub culture of young white guys listening to rap?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7-E1qTVJgE

Or more basicly just how old is Rock and Roll and what is its origin?
It isn't anchient in our culture so it can't be much of a cultureal shapeing influence.

The changes you think glacial have the potential of changeing like lightning , whether they change fast or slow depends on the choices made by individuals , society as a unit doesn't do thinking or make chioces , that happens on an individual basis .

Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on May 31, 2008, 06:41:18 AM

I do not see these assertions borne out in reality.


Then I respectfully suggest you're not paying attention.


Anchient customs can be fragile and difficult to preserve , when General McArther was in charge of Japan he realised that there were several crafts in danger of being forgotten . The "liveing treasure " program garuntees that a small number of masters of the traditional crafts receive a stipend and an oppurtunity to teach.


And these customs were in danger of vanishing because the day, the week, the month, the year before people quit caring about them? Or because there had been a gradual decline over a long period of time? Your example does not say.


It is popular to paint people as unmoveing and unadaptable , but the evidence of history is very much to the contrary , preserveing a tradition takes work.


Congratulations, you just took down a strawman. No one said anything about people being unmoving or unadaptable.


Now explain to me how a learning could possibly have more force than the people who have learned it , the people who beleive in it etc., perhaps it sounds nice, but that is a poor argument against it being true.


Gee, I don't know. I must be wrong. When the slaves were freed, I guess they never again had to worry about being oppressed or discriminated against. Good thing the Civil Rights movement got rid of all the discrimination. No? Well, I'm not sure what part of "centuries of tradition shape a culture" is difficult to understand or not patently obvious if one just looks around a bit. Well gee, how do you know people still paint their houses? I don't know. I'm sure it could be that the paint just gets there all by itself. Well golly, how do you know "a learning" can shape a culture or have more force than just the people who have learned it? Well, I guess I could be wrong, but then we live in just such a society.

Irrational prejudices have shaped Western culture since before anyone thought to call it Western culture. Even now people who claim to fight racism are so shaped by it, they don't see the damage their actions do. In some segments of the population, becoming educated and working hard to prosper in capitalistic endeavors is called derogatorily called acting "white". In some segments of the population, some folks who will claim some of their best friends are black will not voluntarily drive through predominately black neighborhoods. In some segments of the population, some people are certain that any large gathering of Hispanic/Latinos/people with light brown skin is full of people who are criminals. Yet if asked, none of these people will say they are racist in anyway. Indeed, they would probably deny it. They live in a culture that teaches them these attitudes. Not all prejudice is handed down parent to child. Much of it comes from the culture.

Yes, I am sure if everyone rose up tomorrow and threw off racism, the culture could be changed in a short time. But that would require come sort of consensus on what racism, and clearly we don't have that. In any case, the point about racism having been around for centuries is not that it cannot be unlearned or diminished. The point is merely that it is not going away any time soon. That anyone wants to argue against this makes no sense at all to me. That anyone would start talking about 400 year old people as if that were the only way racism could be around for a long time, well, that seems like complete nonsense. Clearly we don't have 400 year old people, and yet racism is still around and impacting the culture and many of the people who live in it. So the 400 year old man argument is about as substantial as an imaginary bowl of nothing.


perhaps it sounds nice, but that is a poor argument against it being true.


Physician, heal thyself.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on May 31, 2008, 07:03:19 AM

Is there a sub culture of young white guys listening to rap?


That's going to wipe out racism in a generation is it? I'm skeptical.


Or more basicly just how old is Rock and Roll and what is its origin?
It isn't anchient in our culture so it can't be much of a cultureal shapeing influence.


Oh no, more strawmen just died.


The changes you think glacial have the potential of changeing like lightning , whether they change fast or slow depends on the choices made by individuals , society as a unit doesn't do thinking or make chioces , that happens on an individual basis .


On an individual basis? Really? Wow. I never would have though of that by m... oh, wait, except that I did. Duh.

Parcheesi on a chess board, Plane, I'm not arguing that society as a unit does thinking or makes choices. Does anyone pay attention to anything I say around here? Or is there some sort of board policy that whatever I say is to be ignored and one just imagines total nonsense and then just assumes that must be my argument? What do most of my arguments about policy, politics and society usually center around? The individual. I've said here more times than I can recall or probably bother to count that society is a group of individuals. Why then, in the name of all things capitalism, would I argue that society as a unit does thinking or making choices? Oh wait, I wouldn't.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: BT on May 31, 2008, 08:07:25 AM
Why do you think you are the exception and not the norm.

What percentage of people in your life are racists?

In mine, easily less than 5%, and i live in the deep south.

Why are we still considered a racist society, if the vast majority of people we come across don't fit that label?
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on May 31, 2008, 12:37:42 PM

Why do you think you are the exception and not the norm.


Because that is what the evidence around me indicates.


What percentage of people in your life are racists?


I could not say. I hope a low percentage if any. Mind you, I'm not saying the people who saw diversity in the set of photos were racist. I was merely pointing out that they noticed the skin color difference where I did not. The point being that the differences are still considered important in our culture. If the differences were not still considered different in our culture, then the fact that an African-American has a serious shot at winning the Presidency of the U.S. would not be such a big deal. We would not see posts with subject lines like "Half of white women now have a negative perception of Obama". I'm not implying anyone here is a racist, but it is a big deal and we do see those subject lines.


In mine, easily less than 5%, and i live in the deep south.

Why are we still considered a racist society, if the vast majority of people we come across don't fit that label?


Almost no one cares what hair color we have, but an awful lot of people seem to care what color skin we have. We've even subdivided our culture into skin color based groups. There is "white culture", and there is "black culture". Some people in "white culture" make fun of "whites" who try to embrace "black culture". Some people in "black culture" are derogatory regarding "blacks" who do things considered "white". In my multiracial but mostly white church, we have actually gained a few non-pale skinned members because they claimed people in our church did not look at the non-pale skinned folks as if they were outsiders. Which means people in other churches were looking at them that way. Do we live in a racist society? Sure seems that way sometimes.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Plane on May 31, 2008, 02:20:50 PM

I do not see these assertions borne out in reality.


Then I respectfully suggest you're not paying attention.

[


To What?

I live in a world in which whole language familys are dieing of disuse , and one of the worlds greatest complaints against my people is "cultureal imperalism" in which our culture is overtakeing and chokeing out the results of ages of development .

How are negative traditions on your planet more durable than positive traditions on mine?
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Plane on May 31, 2008, 02:25:30 PM
In some segments of the population, becoming educated and working hard to prosper in capitalistic endeavors is called derogatorily called acting "white".


How old is this cultureal feature?

I am old enough to remember when Black people would consciously emulate White ones, the revulsion that revereses this is within my lifetime , entirely.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Plane on May 31, 2008, 02:36:32 PM

Is there a sub culture of young white guys listening to rap?


That's going to wipe out racism in a generation is it? I'm skeptical.


Or more basicly just how old is Rock and Roll and what is its origin?
It isn't anchient in our culture so it can't be much of a cultureal shapeing influence.


Oh no, more strawmen just died.


The changes you think glacial have the potential of changeing like lightning , whether they change fast or slow depends on the choices made by individuals , society as a unit doesn't do thinking or make chioces , that happens on an individual basis .


On an individual basis? Really? Wow. I never would have though of that by m... oh, wait, except that I did. Duh.

Parcheesi on a chess board, Plane, I'm not arguing that society as a unit does thinking or makes choices. Does anyone pay attention to anything I say around here? Or is there some sort of board policy that whatever I say is to be ignored and one just imagines total nonsense and then just assumes that must be my argument? What do most of my arguments about policy, politics and society usually center around? The individual. I've said here more times than I can recall or probably bother to count that society is a group of individuals. Why then, in the name of all things capitalism, would I argue that society as a unit does thinking or making choices? Oh wait, I wouldn't.


Yes I remember you being on the other side of this idea when we were discussing Islamic attitudes  , but I am game for swapping sides once in a while if you are.

But I am not understanding your insistance that racism has power to preserve itself as if it had its own mind and force of will , what ever racism has in terms of thought or deed it has borrowed from its beleivers.

Each one of whom is an individual capable of learning , or refuseing to learn.

Cultural change does indeed include abrupt reversals , though the acendancy of Rock and Roll from its African origins to wide acceptance in our society seems to have taken two generations or three , for some people the change was overnight.

When I was young , lots of white people would listen to Otis Redding but very few were emulateing him, right now many thousands of young men are dressing gansta even if they are quite white. There is not enough racism left to prevent the admiration of Black artists even to such extremes .  I dress more like Jonny Cash myself but that is because baggy pants don't look good on me.

 
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Plane on May 31, 2008, 02:39:51 PM
Mind you, I'm not saying the people who saw diversity in the set of photos were racist.



No?


Then what is your complaint against them , what made you feel superior for not observeing what they observed?
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on May 31, 2008, 10:46:47 PM

How are negative traditions on your planet more durable than positive traditions on mine?


So there is no racism on your planet?


How old is this cultureal feature?

I am old enough to remember when Black people would consciously emulate White ones, the revulsion that revereses this is within my lifetime , entirely.


Yes, I'm sure that must be it. No way could this have started happening before your lifetime. And yes, I am being sarcastic. I have doubts that your personal experience marks the boundaries for U.S. cultural history.


But I am not understanding your insistance that racism has power to preserve itself as if it had its own mind and force of will


I respectfully suggest part of the problem you're having in understanding that has to do with the fact that I am not insisting anything remotely like that. I somewhat less respectfully suggest that you let me know when you are ready to quit frakkin' around and want to discuss what I actually said.


Then what is your complaint against them , what made you feel superior for not observeing what they observed?


I don't recall making any complaint against them. Merely an observation. If my tone seemed superior, and it probably did because even I noticed it, that would be because I believe my perspective of not caring about skin color any more than I care about hair color is better. You should not assume that means I have judged these other people to be racists or less than myself. Their perspective and mine just aren't the same. If I thought theirs was better, I'd probably have it instead. I could be wrong, after all, but I just don't believe I am. If I didn't believe my opinions and perspectives were correct, what would be the point in having them? If that makes me arrogant, well, too damn bad.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Plane on May 31, 2008, 11:39:29 PM

Then what is your complaint against them , what made you feel superior for not observing what they observed?


I don't recall making any complaint against them. Merely an observation. If my tone seemed superior, and it probably did because even I noticed it, that would be because I believe my perspective of not caring about skin color any more than I care about hair color is better. You should not assume that means I have judged these other people to be racists or less than myself. Their perspective and mine just aren't the same. If I thought theirs was better, I'd probably have it instead. I could be wrong, after all, but I just don't believe I am. If I didn't believe my opinions and perspectives were correct, what would be the point in having them? If that makes me arrogant, well, too damn bad.

It doesn't sound as if any of you had a harmfull intent or an attitude of supremicy.Nor were any of you feeling threatened , if this is racism at all it is a mild variety. What made you think it noteable?

[Quote ]

How are negative traditions on your planet more durable than positive traditions on mine?

...............................................

So there is no racism on your planet?[/Quote ]


I have not even implied that there is no racism , nor that further reductions in racism would be unwelcome , I am stating that people can learn during the course of just their lifetime everything that a person can learn. Having two lifetimes implies two persons and each one can only learn as much as one person can learn , it doesn't stack .

There is little new development involved there are reasons to change and there are reasons to avoid change , when the reasons are compelling change can be very rapid for a person , and society is made up of persons.

I am arguing against the notion that there is an overwhelming cultural inertia that builds up directly in purportion to years and multiplies by the number of generations. There are indeed places in which social racism gained its greatest extremes of evil in very short times and individuals who gave over racism in instants of Epiphany.


Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: kimba1 on June 01, 2008, 12:58:16 AM
  Re: The State of Englishness
? Reply #77 on: Today at 12:29:30 AM ? Quote 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quote from: kimba1 on May 30, 2008, 11:46:42 PM
what i find incredibly amazing about non-violent protest
soo many people say it won`t work and when it does the leaders usually get killed.
for something that`s supposed to be ineffective it sure get`s people upset
even now people are trying to invalidate ghandi.
the concept of non-violence is still a upsetting thought.






It isn't perfect , it can fail.
So can every other thing.

--------------------------------------------------------------
true
it happened in korea in the 80`s
but that incident was caused by the protesters fighting back
the thing about a non-violent protest is the acceptance people will get hurt or killed.
the trick is the willingness to let it happened.
it`s very hard for anyone to look good hurting or killing anyone who don`t fight back.
and ironicly still  non-violence yeald the least amount of casualty.
which is easy to understand since there very little chance of escalation.


Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on June 01, 2008, 01:00:10 PM

It doesn't sound as if any of you had a harmfull intent or an attitude of supremicy.Nor were any of you feeling threatened , if this is racism at all it is a mild variety. What made you think it noteable?


I'm not saying it is racism of any sort. As for what made me think it notable, I thought I made that fairly clear when I first spoke of it.


I am stating that people can learn during the course of just their lifetime everything that a person can learn. Having two lifetimes implies two persons and each one can only learn as much as one person can learn , it doesn't stack .


No one said it did. Between JS and myself, the point is that culture and traditional expectations within culture matter, and these things build up over many years, and even if some people learn not to be racist, the culture does not automatically change. You keep trying to make this about what an individual knows/learns. That is not the beginning and end of how racism effects culture. Why you seem unwilling to recognize this, I don't know. Particularly since you were the one arguing not that long ago about how racism is supposedly so complex and ingrained in humanity. Your stances seem contradictory.


I am arguing against the notion that there is an overwhelming cultural inertia that builds up directly in purportion to years and multiplies by the number of generations. There are indeed places in which social racism gained its greatest extremes of evil in very short times and individuals who gave over racism in instants of Epiphany.


That's real nice, but that doesn't mean there isn't still racism in our culture. Yes, culture can change. No one is saying it cannot. But the cultural effect of centuries of racism is not something that is going away in one or two generations. We've been working on this here just in the U.S. for at least 150+ years, and wow, we still have racism in our culture. Huh.

Yeah, believing that we no longer have racism in our culture would be nice. I believed that once. I knew racism still existed, but I thought those folks were the fringe kooks. They might be racist, but not the rest of us. Yeah, well, eventually reality started to poke through. One major scales falling from the eyes event was the Dubai Ports World scandal. I watched almost a whole country, Democrats and Republicans, conservative and liberals, who had no issue with a British company running our ports throw a collective hissy fit that a company from Dubai might end up doing no more than what the British company did. Possibly even less. But we, as a country, were not going to have it. So you can argue against cultural inertia till your fingerprints rub off, but as best I can tell, the reality of the situation does not support your position.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Xavier_Onassis on June 01, 2008, 01:37:20 PM
Racism exists even among Black Americans. Those with darker skin, especially the women, resent lighter-skinned women, and claim that they are less authentically Black, which they are, at least genetically. But lighter-skinned women have greater appeal with White audiences, so they are more successful. Beyonc? is the best example of this, but there are others, like Vanessa Williams the ex-Miss America.

On the other hand, for some reason, darker-skinned actors like Wesley Snipes, seen to have more appeal than lighter-skinned ones, like Sinbad.

You will find rather a lot about this by googling the word "color-struck". There is a whole sequence about this in Spike Lee's film "School Daze", which has a verbal dance number between the 'Wanabees' and the 'Jigaboos'.

In Haiti, this phenomena is even more prevalent, it seems.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Plane on June 01, 2008, 06:06:42 PM

It doesn't sound as if any of you had a harmfull intent or an attitude of supremicy.Nor were any of you feeling threatened , if this is racism at all it is a mild variety. What made you think it noteable?


I'm not saying it is racism of any sort. As for what made me think it notable, I thought I made that fairly clear when I first spoke of it.


I am stating that people can learn during the course of just their lifetime everything that a person can learn. Having two lifetimes implies two persons and each one can only learn as much as one person can learn , it doesn't stack .


No one said it did. Between JS and myself, the point is that culture and traditional expectations within culture matter, and these things build up over many years, and even if some people learn not to be racist, the culture does not automatically change. You keep trying to make this about what an individual knows/learns. That is not the beginning and end of how racism effects culture. Why you seem unwilling to recognize this, I don't know. Particularly since you were the one arguing not that long ago about how racism is supposedly so complex and ingrained in humanity. Your stances seem contradictory.


I am arguing against the notion that there is an overwhelming cultural inertia that builds up directly in purportion to years and multiplies by the number of generations. There are indeed places in which social racism gained its greatest extremes of evil in very short times and individuals who gave over racism in instants of Epiphany.


That's real nice, but that doesn't mean there isn't still racism in our culture. Yes, culture can change. No one is saying it cannot. But the cultural effect of centuries of racism is not something that is going away in one or two generations. We've been working on this here just in the U.S. for at least 150+ years, and wow, we still have racism in our culture. Huh.

Yeah, believing that we no longer have racism in our culture would be nice. I believed that once. I knew racism still existed, but I thought those folks were the fringe kooks. They might be racist, but not the rest of us. Yeah, well, eventually reality started to poke through. One major scales falling from the eyes event was the Dubai Ports World scandal. I watched almost a whole country, Democrats and Republicans, conservative and liberals, who had no issue with a British company running our ports throw a collective hissy fit that a company from Dubai might end up doing no more than what the British company did. Possibly even less. But we, as a country, were not going to have it. So you can argue against cultural inertia till your fingerprints rub off, but as best I can tell, the reality of the situation does not support your position.


OK it is not gone , but no amount of tijme is ever going to make the elimination of racism total.
It has gotten a lot better in liveing memory , we do not need to mark time and wait for four hundred years to pass as if time itself were the essence of racism.



Hhahahahahahahahah  "Your stances seem contradictory."hahahahahahaha!

You noticed this?
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: _JS on June 01, 2008, 08:33:30 PM
I am arguing against the notion that there is an overwhelming cultural inertia that builds up directly in purportion to years and multiplies by the number of generations. There are indeed places in which social racism gained its greatest extremes of evil in very short times and individuals who gave over racism in instants of Epiphany.

Where and when?

If you dare to say Germany in the 1930's I'll show you how Jews were treated by Christians in Europe for multiple centuries and how that hatred built over time. Just like African slavery, Antisemitism became second nature to the Christians of Europe.

There are very few places in history where racism has evolved spontaneously. There are very few places where racism has declined quickly.

The 400 year old man analogy is wasted because the institutions of society are older than one human being's lifetime. We do not live in a nihilistic world where every generation starts again from scratch. We build civilizations. Or to use a cliche, we stand on top of the shoulders of the previous generation for good and ill. No one is born a racist, it is learned.

Detroit and Memphis aren't poor and predominantly black because the individuals somehow make worse decisions or are failures. The American institutions are still built upon a society that engenders success for whites and provides little opportunity for blacks. It is not an accident, just as it is no accident that Native American Reservations are often like driving into third world countries. Our society was built to provide for white Europeans.

Bill Cosby doesn't help any with his rant. What will help is when those oppressed groups overcome the psychology placed upon them and the societal structures are changed or are destroyed to make a truly different society that does not punish one for his or her skin color. As Prince said, that is no different than punishing one for his or her hair color. It is completely irrational and emotional.

As an aside, here was a story on NPR recently:

Race Anxiety (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90880032)

Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on June 01, 2008, 10:09:42 PM

Hhahahahahahahahah  "Your stances seem contradictory."hahahahahahaha!

You noticed this?


I was being polite. Would you prefer I not be?
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: BT on June 01, 2008, 10:16:51 PM
I am beginning to get the impression that being a racist is ok. Can't help it.
Embedded in our culture dontcha know.

Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Religious Dick on June 01, 2008, 10:21:26 PM
I am beginning to get the impression that being a racist is ok. Can't help it.
Embedded in our culture dontcha know.


Today's taboos are tomorrow's fashion statements. Get caught in last night's sweater, and you're dead....
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Plane on June 01, 2008, 10:36:41 PM

Hhahahahahahahahah  "Your stances seem contradictory."hahahahahahaha!

You noticed this?


I was being polite. Would you prefer I not be?

No, nononono!

I had noticed also that we had switched , but I am happy to have you show what you learned from last time.

You are makeing my points much better than I was.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on June 02, 2008, 12:57:24 AM

I had noticed also that we had switched , but I am happy to have you show what you learned from last time.

You are makeing my points much better than I was.


I haven't switched anything. My position is the same now as it was before.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on June 02, 2008, 12:59:21 AM

I am beginning to get the impression that being a racist is ok. Can't help it.
Embedded in our culture dontcha know.


Pooh yi.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: BT on June 02, 2008, 01:05:21 AM
Quote
Pooh yi.

Brilliant reply.

Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on June 02, 2008, 01:19:52 AM

Brilliant reply.


Better and nicer than deserved by "being a racist is ok. Can't help it." Apparently those arguments you cannot argue against you oversimplify and then ridicule the oversimplification. Bravo. To that, "pooh yi" is indeed a brilliant reply. A stupid reply would be to try to explain the actual argument again.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: BT on June 02, 2008, 01:45:11 AM
The actual argument is that society is racist because historically it has been racist. It doesn't matter one bit whether individuals who make up that society are racist or not The group association sticks.

So why go against the flow. Why bother. Just surrender to that which you can not control. It's in our DNA, We are victims, it's an illness just as if we had diabetes.

Mikey says racism is zipcode specific. Both you and JS say racism can't be cured in this lifetime, in this generation, or in this moment.

To be honest i don't buy any of the above arguments. Racism ends when individuals are no longer racist. And that change happens one person at a time. And there is no required duration or waiting period  for that change.


Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on June 02, 2008, 01:51:41 AM

The actual argument is that society is racist because historically it has been racist. It doesn't matter one bit whether individuals who make up that society are racist or not The group association sticks.


Pooh yi. Yes, by all means, just make up nonsense, denounce the nonsense and claim intellectual victory. You win! Bravo! Best debate ever. Congratulations on a job well done.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: BT on June 02, 2008, 02:15:00 AM
You can stick your sarcasm up your ass for all i care.

Meanwhile what part of my summary was incorrect.

Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on June 02, 2008, 02:38:56 AM

You can stick your sarcasm up your ass for all i care.


Nah. I figure you can stick it in your pipe and smoke it, Mr. "I am beginning to get the impression that being a racist is ok."


Meanwhile what part of my summary was incorrect.


Hey, that looks like a question. The actual argument is not that society is racist regardless of the individuals in it. The actual argument that there is racism in the culture because the culture has been shaped in part by a history that has included racism both institutionalized and at the individual level. I hesitate to speak for JS, but I'm pretty sure he is not saying everyone in society is racist. And I know for a fact that I'm not saying that at all. So basically, the parts of your summary that were incorrect were the beginning, the middle and the end.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: BT on June 02, 2008, 02:48:56 AM
In your travels what percentage of people that you have encountered would you consider  racist?

Do you consider the people you met participants and or shapers of american culture.

Is the culture of a people fluid or static?


Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on June 02, 2008, 03:28:20 AM
Ah, I had a feeling we'd get to the Socratic questions eventually.


In your travels what percentage of people that you have encountered would you consider  racist?


I've encountered many people, and few of them have I gotten to know well enough to say whether or not they were racist, so I am not in a position to fairly answer that question.


Do you consider the people you met participants and or shapers of american culture.


Yes.

We are born into a world we have not made. The culture exists before we arrive as individuals. Yes, individuals contribute to the culture and shape it, but they are also shaped by it. We grow up in the culture, shaped by the culture at least as much as we contribute to it. We who have grown up here in the U.S. are shaped in part by the culture that exists here in the U.S. Do you deny this?


Is the culture of a people fluid or static?


I have to address this again? Okay, one more time: yes, the culture can and does change, and no one said that it cannot or does not. Whether or not the culture can change has never been the issue. By now we should all have noted that we all agree the culture can change. So can we now please move on past that pointless part of the discussion? Thanks.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: BT on June 02, 2008, 03:45:37 AM
Quote
Ah, I had a feeling we'd get to the Socratic questions eventually.

If you aren't up to providing clarification let me know.

Quote
I've encountered many people, and few of them have I gotten to know well enough to say whether or not they were racist, so I am not in a position to fairly answer that question.

Nice dodge, of those you know well enough, what percentage?

Quote
We are born into a world we have not made. The culture exists before we arrive as individuals. Yes, individuals contribute to the culture and shape it, but they are also shaped by it. We grow up in the culture, shaped by the culture at least as much as we contribute to it. We who have grown up here in the U.S. are shaped in part by the culture that exists here in the U.S. Do you deny this?

Since our culture is racist and we are shaped by our culture, we are therefore racist.

Is that the gist of what you are saying?

If it is what was so god awful about me saying we should accept who we are. I can no more change the fact that i am german irish than you can change the fact that you are sarcastic. It's the nature of the beast.


 
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on June 02, 2008, 04:19:30 AM

If you aren't up to providing clarification let me know.


I'm more than up to it. And quite willing to do so most of the time, as I think my record here proves. The question is not whether I am up to providing clarification. The question is whether you're going to pay attention or just stick to making up nonsense.


Nice dodge, of those you know well enough, what percentage?


Was that a dodge? Well, you would know. Anyway, given that I have never attempted to quantify this in any way, I'll have to guess at an answer. My guess would be probably 15 to 25%.


Since our culture is racist and we are shaped by our culture, we are therefore racist.

Is that the gist of what you are saying?


No. When you're ready to pay attention, let me know.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: BT on June 02, 2008, 10:26:08 AM
Quote
No. When you're ready to pay attention, let me know.

I did,

Did you not say our culture was racist?
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on June 02, 2008, 02:33:52 PM
No, I did not.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: BT on June 02, 2008, 02:44:56 PM
If our culture is not racist, then what is the problem?
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on June 02, 2008, 02:53:56 PM
See, you're not paying attention.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: kimba1 on June 02, 2008, 03:03:55 PM
sigh
but what do you about(racism) it?
look it I`ll say racism is bad ,but I brought up complaining about it isn`t exactly helping .
I`ll also point out people are racist about thier very own race.
ex. despite what said african amercicans do say the n-word with the exact negative meaning.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on June 02, 2008, 03:30:47 PM

sigh
but what do you about(racism) it?


You don't participate in it. You try to teach other people that it is wrong. Some folks will listen. Some won't.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: BT on June 02, 2008, 04:31:49 PM
Quote
See, you're not paying attention.

Sure i am. Perhaps you just aren't being clear.

Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on June 02, 2008, 05:15:30 PM
Yes, I'm sure that must be it. (Pooh yi.) Okay, you go back to reply #109 (http://debategate.com/new3dhs/index.php?topic=6317.msg63332#msg63332), and ask me questions about anything you believe is unclear. Is that fair enough?
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: BT on June 02, 2008, 05:20:08 PM
Quote
Hey, that looks like a question. The actual argument is not that society is racist regardless of the individuals in it. The actual argument that there is racism in the culture because the culture has been shaped in part by a history that has included racism both institutionalized and at the individual level. I hesitate to speak for JS, but I'm pretty sure he is not saying everyone in society is racist. And I know for a fact that I'm not saying that at all. So basically, the parts of your summary that were incorrect were the beginning, the middle and the end.

How does that differ from saying our culture is racist?
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on June 02, 2008, 06:32:22 PM

Quote
The actual argument that there is racism in the culture because the culture has been shaped in part by a history that has included racism both institutionalized and at the individual level.

How does that differ from saying our culture is racist?


How does saying there are carrots in the stew differ from saying the stew is carrots? Does saying there are carrots in the stew mean every piece of the stew is a carrot? Okay, enough stew.

There is conservatism in our culture. There is liberalism in our culture. So is our culture then conservative or liberal?

There is racism in the culture. The culture has been shaped in part by a history that has included racism. Is there some part of those two sentences that is wrong? Has there been racism in our history or not? Is culture shaped by history or not? Does culture reflect only those currently alive, or does it include influences from past events? Are people shaped by culture at all?

Racism has been a part of our culture for a long time. The Civil Rights movement did not sweep that all away. Why is this even a point of contention? Is there some argument for denying that people are influenced by the culture in which they live?
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: BT on June 02, 2008, 06:53:25 PM
Is culture a stew or a buffet where people can pick and choose what parts of the whole they want to emulate?


Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on June 02, 2008, 08:24:25 PM

Is culture a stew or a buffet where people can pick and choose what parts of the whole they want to emulate?


Ahem. Is there some argument for denying that people are influenced by the culture in which they live?
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: BT on June 02, 2008, 09:16:12 PM
Quote
Ahem. Is there some argument for denying that people are influenced by the culture in which they live?

The question is whether the influence is an all or nothing proposition.

If i recall you told me to ask away, so i am.

Then again, have we defined culture cultural influences, racism and the rest of the terms being bandied about?

For example, in your estimate of 15-25% of the people you know well enough to judge what percentage disagree with your position on illegal immigration and are considered racists for doing so.



Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Stray Pooch on June 02, 2008, 11:20:47 PM
It won't make it false because your definition is what you believe either. It is simply a categorization, and one backed by science mind you. I've provided the book and author. 

The definition of a word is backed by science?  Now I've heard everything.  Tell me, what experiments were run to test the definition.  What controls were put on the experiment?  What was done to eliminate bias?

No, providing a book and an author doesn't prove anything.  Science was used to prove eugenics was true, too - and that was far more scientific than anything supporting a definition.  We are talking semantics, not mathematics.  Your author may well have documented some ideas to support his definition, and those incidents/statistics/etc. might all be true in themselves.  That does not entitle him to redefine the word.

Not radically exaggerated at all. The British did not invest in America because they liked to vacation here. They did not defend these colonies because of the charm or "representative government." That's simply bullshit.

You didn't say the British colonized this country for slavery (which would also have been nonsense).  You said this nation was built on slavery.  I repeat that is nonsense, and whatever the original colonial powers did here is irrevelant except as historical background.  The United States was built on the concept that representative government was superior to monarchy.


They did so because there was economic benefit to them. It was primarily tobacco in the 17th century. Anyone who has worked in tobacco fields and has familiarity with the crop understands that it is very labor intensive. At first it was possible to use indentured servants and a smattering of slaves. Those slaves were often given broad rights (under British and colonial law - NOT American).

Later, when tobacco plantations grew in size and the first major slave revolt took place in the Tidewater area of Virginia, slavery was fought by the House of Burgesses (you're shining beacon of representative government) the laws surrounding slavery were made far more strict. Slavery began to grow. As the country spread west it was discovered the another labor-intensive crop was able to provide for the economy of the textile mills in the North and in England - cotton became king. African slavery became even more integral to the economics of the United States. Dehumanizing blacks became more and more crucial both to economics and to society to justify itself.

Thanks for the history lesson.  Now why don't you try looking at the history of the NATION, rather than the history of SLAVERY, which is only one small part thereof.  This is, again, an example of bias.  You view the United States as a racist nation, rather than as a nation which had - as virtually all nations have had - a history that includes racial strife.

Both are accurate. The first slaves arrived in 1619, sue me for rounding. The five years comes from the period where the Civil Rights Movement was able to effectively enact legislation to remove Jim Crow. The environment of white = normal and white = right still exists, so 400 years is spot on.

Baloney.  Neither are acccurate.  You overinflate the reality of the long history of racism in America to suit your view of this nation.  You grossly exaggerate the progress of equality in this country by confining it to the few "effective" years of legislation.  What absolute nonsense.  So society is exactly where it was in 1964, huh?  So Brown vs Board of Education in 1954 had no effect on schools?  Hey wait, that's TEN years between a MAJOR civil rights victory and another MAJOR civil rights victory.  That is DOUBLE your estimate without even considering the effect of the forty and fifty years we have lived since those decisions.  And what about all of the court decisions that were still being made in the 1970's concerning school desegregation some 20 years after Brown?  There is FOUR TIMES your estimate.  So I would classify your estimates, even as estimates of effective government action to overturn racism, as the third kind of lie.

Proof? Evidence?  [of racial problems since the beginning of time]

Shall I really get into scientific evidence of how certain groups of early homo species destroyed others?  Or can we just get into looking at how early civilizations banded together to prey on other races?  Shall I discuss rivalries between different groups, tribes, clans, religions, and all of the other kinds of distinctions?  ANYTHING that sets one group apart from another, and that includes race, is a cause for strife.  It wouldn't matter.  I have seen the silly arguments that ancient civilizations didn't compete because of RACE but because of political rivalries, resources, etc.  All of that is exactly true of American racism.  But again, because it doesn't fit YOUR definition, you can excuse it as "different."  I'm not an anthropologist, and the research (which would be quoted in vain anyway) is too time consuming to be worth it.

I'd certainly like to see it. I don't mean idle speculation, but real evidence. Let's see it. Discrimination based not on religion (that has been common, but is also learned), not on other differences, but purely on "race."

I rest my case.

I'm not complaining, I'm stating a fact.

The sky is blue.  That is also a fact.  And it is exactly as relevant to life in the United States in 2008 as your fact is.

You are still stuck on the minutiae. You and Plane both. This goes to the center of society as a whole. This is learned behavior, second nature of centuries of what is simply accepted to be fact. You're still talking about the fringe idiots like David Duke and the KKK. I'm talking about everyday society, not the extreme racist fringe.

Everyday society is not racist.  You are making a false claim.  Blacks are as racist as whites.  Black culture is as racist as white culture, in fact far more so today.   Black racism is just as real as white racism and is just as wrong.

Angry white male horse shit. Excuse my language, but that's a load of garbage and you know it.

I'm not worried about your language, I'm worried about what it conveys.  What I stated is fact, not Angry White Male horseshit.  THAT COMMENT is racist.

I'm a white man too, lest you forget, and I'm not the target of hatred and discrimination. I can see a system that is built for whites to succeed.

That's Angry White Guilty Liberal White Male Bullshit.

So this is why Detroit and Memphis are poor? Because of this "pervasive excuse mentality in African-American culture?" Or was it because black individuals just make a lot of bad choices or failures?

All of the above.  More often than not the latter due to the former.

You talk about the Klan a lot. Are you forgetting that the Southern Baptist Church taught that Blacks were lesser than whites into the 1970's? Are you forgetting the White Citizen's Councils, which became the CCC to which Haley Barbour and Trent Lott addressed? There are quite a few people today that defend the Confederacy and claim that slavery had nothing to do with the Civil War. Don't pretend that this racism was just a part of the KKK fringe. It permeates society.   

Yes.  Black churches TODAY teach that white men are evil.  There are even white liberals who insist that only white people can be racist.  There are people who defend Reverends Wright and Pfleger and other racists.  Don't pretend that black racism is just part of the lunatic fringe.  It permeates society.  There is NOTHING you can point to today in white culture or in American culture in general that does not have a counterpart in American Black culture - or in any culture in history.  Racism isn't a special discrimination, it is just another way of separating people by difference.  It is not a worse evil than sexism or religious oppression or political domination.  And it is no more a part of our culture than it has been for any other culture EXCEPT that ours is one of the few in history that deliberately tried to put people of many different backgrounds together and make one people out of them, so we get to see the real results, and that includes slavery, Jim Crow, religious oppression and sexism.  This is one of the few societies who took those accepted differences of perspective, examined them, found them wanting and rejected them.   THAT is also a part of our history which you choose to minimize, but it is what makes us unique as a nation.

Did I say that it is purely white? But how many blacks are taught this? And bullshit that white people don't have the power today. Go to a state legislature, Capitol Hill, the Fortune 400 boards and you honestly tell me that. You know that is a load of crap.

You've told me twice now what I "know."  You have been wrong both times.  I don't KNOW these things and in fact I know otherwise.  How many blacks are taught that white is wrong?  Oh, I'd say about twice the number (per capita) of whites that are taught black is wrong.  But of course, I am making that number up.  Fabrication works pretty well for the left, I thought I'd give it a try.  In reality, I have not done a "scientific" study of how many black people are taught to hate whites.  I wonder if those who have done your so-called "scientific" studies have done so?  It seems that if we are studying "white male deviances" and other such myths, we ought to be studying the whole picture instead of just the self-serving portions.

Quote
"White male deviances" is a racist term.

No it isn't.

Yes it is.


I am speaking of societal projections and even provided a very good example. Plus, scientific studies have shown this to be true. I never said "all white men," I am speaking in societal terms through the creation of myths.


Myths like "white male deviance" perhaps?  Scientific studies have shown that black people are intellectually inferior to whites.  They have also show that homosexuality is a mental disorder probably caused by mothers being too close to their sons.  Scientific studies have a history of proving whatever the sponsors want them to or whatever the individual biases of the observers support.  In fact, such studies are seldom "scientific."  They are, instead, statistical.  They find trends and present them as facts.  My son likes to find mathematical relationships in things that do not actually have relationships.  It's easy to do.  It is far more easy to do when you define the result in advance.  I have, for fun, shown several correlations between Lincoln and Bush in another thread, similar to the Lincoln-Kennedy series of coincidences that have been played up for years.  There is no real relationship between those Presidents (other than the obvious historical ones) but the game is fun to play.  That's all your "scientific" proof is.  It's the same, incidentally, with the "scientific" proof that homosexuality is genetic. 

MLK was not a tool of the oppressor of course, but has been turned into something he was not. He was a Christian Socialist. How many people learn that in school? How many people learn that he wanted to redistribute wealth to the poor and that he was a major supporter of unionization? Ever wonder why? Because the powers that be write the history books. MLK is written up as a guy who preached nonviolence and got everything he ever wanted when the Civil Rights Act was passed. Now we can all eat peaches and cream and watch Pollyanna!

I understand what Cornel West calls the "Santa Clausification" of King.  But he was, in spite of his personal politics (with which I differ) and his moral deficiencies (which make him no less of a great man - we all have faults) a leader who did dream of an end to racial  disharmony.  I expect if he were alive today he would be a crochety old hell-raiser screaming like Al Sharpton and demanding slave reparations.  But I hope that is not true.  As it is, he died young and left a legacy that everyone can benefit from.  Adams and Jefferson were political rivals who were often out to cut each other's throats, and best friends as well.  We get differing opinions and theories of the union from them both, but we can benefit from both.  And Jefferson was a slave holder who probably boinked at least one of them (as I believe you may have pointed out).  So what?  The work he did was not the completion of the dream of a free, classless, equal society, but it was damn sure a pretty big step in the realization of that dream.  Even MLK said his dream was deeply rooted in the American Dream - and he wasn't talking about home ownership.  The fact is, King's dream has a lot more to do with moving beyond racial differences than your "white male deviance" and mathematical miscalculations do. 


I think that bitching about how white males have lost their place in society when clearly that isn't the case doesn't help either.

I think that if you are characterizing my posts as bitching about how white males have lost their place in society you have more than proven my point.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on June 02, 2008, 11:28:25 PM

The question is whether the influence is an all or nothing proposition.


Really? I thought the question was "Is there some argument for denying that people are influenced by the culture in which they live?" Did someone say the influence of culture was an all or nothing situation?


If i recall you told me to ask away, so i am.


Yes, indeed. I am fairly certain, however, that I did not also say "ignore all of my questions." Not that I expect you to answer my questions, because you've made clear in the past you have no intention of doing so. I find I'm having trouble drumming up motivation to answer silly questions like, "Is culture a stew or a buffet where people can pick and choose what parts of the whole they want to emulate?" when you won't even bother to address a simple, straightforward and basic question like, "Are people shaped by culture at all?" If you cannot even bring yourself to either address the question or admit that people are shaped, at least in part, by the culture in which they live, then there seems little point believing that you intend to hold up a serious end of this conversation.


Then again, have we defined culture cultural influences, racism and the rest of the terms being bandied about?


Perhaps not, but then, there is little point in asking you to provide definitions for what you mean by those terms.


For example, in your estimate of 15-25% of the people you know well enough to judge what percentage disagree with your position on illegal immigration and are considered racists for doing so.


I'm not sure which is worse, when you make up nonsense and claim it to be my position or when you wrongly assume I've taken a particular position and then indirectly criticize me for that position.

You're making assumptions. Simply disagreeing with me on immigration is not an indicator of racism. At least I don't believe it is. Odd that you talk about it as if it was. More odd is that you talk about it as if I have a need to defend myself on a position that I haven't taken.

Anyway, I don't keep tallies of these things, and the 15 to 25% is purely a guess, and now you want me to figure out a percentage of a percentage of something on which I have no quantifiable data. Is your goal to see how completely ridiculous this conversation can become?
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: fatman on June 02, 2008, 11:37:24 PM
Scientific studies have shown that black people are intellectually inferior to whites.  They have also show that homosexuality is a mental disorder probably caused by mothers being too close to their sons.  Scientific studies have a history of proving whatever the sponsors want them to or whatever the individual biases of the observers support.  In fact, such studies are seldom "scientific."  They are, instead, statistical.  They find trends and present them as facts.  My son likes to find mathematical relationships in things that do not actually have relationships.  It's easy to do.  It is far more easy to do when you define the result in advance.  I have, for fun, shown several correlations between Lincoln and Bush in another thread, similar to the Lincoln-Kennedy series of coincidences that have been played up for years.  There is no real relationship between those Presidents (other than the obvious historical ones) but the game is fun to play.  That's all your "scientific" proof is. 

I liked this part of your post, and largely, I agree with it.  I am curious though, as to what constitutes "good" scientific research and fact finding, in your opinion?  To me (and this is just my personal view), this type of "science" is very much like some people's faith, in that they can find justification for their actions, whether through the Bible or through shoddy, sloppy scientific study.

It's the same, incidentally, with the "scientific" proof that homosexuality is genetic.

So far that I'm aware, there is no "proof"...yet.  I think that someday, when the genome is mapped out, there will be more information.  Speaking for myself, and this is an opinion and not a fact, it's my belief that homosexuality is probably a little bit of both, a genetic predisposition with behavioral mitigators.  I am aware that there is some evidence of hypothalamus (sp?) size in gay men vs. straight, but this issue has been hotly debated in the scientific community, and so far as I'm aware, is not accepted as fact.

Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Plane on June 02, 2008, 11:51:45 PM

The question is whether the influence is an all or nothing proposition.


Really? I thought the question was "Is there some argument for denying that people are influenced by the culture in which they live?" Did someone say the influence of culture was an all or nothing situation?

[/quote]I would not disagree that persons are profoundly affected by the culture they grow up in , but this was not the question we started with , we started with the question of whether a lot of time was required to make changes in the state of racism. American culture is as adaptable and changesble as any culture has ever been , I don't see why a change in racism can't be accomplished in small periods of time. How much time did any of the changes we have seen in recent decades take?


  Since Dr.MLKJr has already been brought up let me remind everyone that he had an answer for those who told him to settle for gradualism ....."HOW LONG?"
Quote


Anyway, I don't keep tallies of these things, and the 15 to 25% is purely a guess, and now you want me to figure out a percentage of a percentage of something on which I have no quantifiable data. Is your goal to see how completely ridiculous this conversation can become?


We are just haveing a Debate , you know enough somehow to assert your opinions , let us oppose you by fairly examineing the origions of your assertions.

Don't call your statements rediculous , that is our job.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on June 03, 2008, 12:18:20 AM

We are just haveing a Debate , you know enough somehow to assert your opinions , let us oppose you by fairly examineing the origions of your assertions.


Please, by all means do so. I welcome it. If fairly examining the origins of my assertions is what you desire to do, then I suggest you start with my actual assertions. If on the the other hand the action taken is to make up nonsense, ascribe it to me and then criticize me for it, I don't have any reason why I should oblige you.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Stray Pooch on June 03, 2008, 12:25:26 AM
Not that long ago, a set of photos from some youth at our church was posted on a bulletin board (I think it might have been a list of graduates or something like that) and some people remarked at how wonderful the diversity of the group was. By diversity, they meant the range of skin colors. I had seen the photos and had to go look again, because quite honestly I had not noticed the diversity. Not because it wasn't there. It was. But I didn't pay attention to there being light-skinned and dark-skinned youth. Not as such. I just saw photos of people. Maybe someday that is what most people will see. (Yeah, I guess I just tooted my own horn. I'm modest enough to notice it, and still arrogant enough to say it anyway. Live with it.) In the meantime, most people still notice these differences because these differences are supposedly important. I'm not sure what sort of invention is going to change that.[/color]

UP, this is a perfect example of one of the things that indicates change.  Obama got upset with some white friend of his who, being the only white man at a party of blacks, pointed out that the experience had taught him something about feeling racially left out.  Obviously, that can feel awkward, and a wiser course might have been to keep that lesson to himself.  But it was actually a learning experience for him, and he was, I'm sure, honestly trying to convey a sense of that insight to Obama.  The people that made those comments about the photos are in a state of evolving.  You are right to point out that they are actually demonstrating (inadvertantly) a prejudice, but they are also learning to recognize (at least subconciously) and counter it.  You are right to say that racial disharmony will not disappear in a generation, but it has certainly taken more than a body blow since the 1960's.  And an honest appraisal of our generation, our father's generation, and our children's generation will show a striking change in racial attitudes.  My kids are SHOCKED to see the kinds of racial stereotypes that were common in our day, much less our father's.  Kate Smith singing "That's Why Darkies Were Born" couldn't happen today, and certainly wouldn't be considered a kind gesture towards African-Americans as it was then.  Art Linkletter once corrected a person who said "We sent the nigger around for our car" by saying "Excuse me, madam, I believe you meant 'We sent the NEGRO around for our car'."  He pointed that out to show how proud he was of his refusal to accept racial prejudice.  It would never happen today, because nobody would ever consider using the "N" word on TV, even inadvertantly (as this lady claimed was the case) and nobody correcting it would make it "negro."  

The fact is, I am like you.  When I see a person or a group of photos, race seldom comes to mind.  But when we have a woman and an African-American running for President for the first time on a major ticket, it is something to notice.  It is a good piece of proof that racism IS going away in this nation, and that kind of change HAS happened in a couple of generations.  As a society, we ARE ending racism.  As individuals, racism will almost certainly alwats exist somewhere.  But the history of this country has been, and will continue to be, one of racial evolution - and that is all anyone can ask of a maturing civilization.



Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on June 03, 2008, 01:03:32 AM
Well said, Pooch (as usual).

I have never suggested that the culture is not changing or has not changed. Of course it is and has. If the notice of Barack Obama was merely, hey look, a dark skinned man is running for President, I guess I might agree with you more. But we have poll after poll of how many whites are voting for him because this is still important in our country. Yes, the country and the culture have changed over time. But this notion that there is no racism or only 5% racism in the culture and only 400 year old men would be effected by centuries old cultural influences struck me as completely absurd. I'm not saying changes cannot or do not take place. But I see no reason to deny the influence of culture on the people that live in it, particularly that grow up in it.

Your mention of the Linkletter incident is a good example. Linkletter no doubt did not consider himself racist, and probably was not consciously or overtly so. But being in part shaped by his culture, he likely thought he was being good by suggesting the word "negro". Another example might be Hollywood allowing more sympathetic portrayals of American Indians while still having the parts mainly played by guys like Jeff Chandler. To the other end of the spectrum, not that long ago I read a story about someone who found some salt and pepper shakers that were supposed to portray a Chinese couple, and this person found the slanted lines that were the eyes to be an offensive stereotype, only to find out later that such items were immensely popular with Chinese people.

Culture has an influence on us, and I frankly do not understand the objection to saying so. Yes, we can overcome that influence, but that does not negate the presence of that influence on society. And that an individual can quickly change does not mean the culture is soon to be completely free of racist influences. Again, I'm not sure why this seems so controversial.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Stray Pooch on June 03, 2008, 01:03:54 AM
Scientific studies have shown that black people are intellectually inferior to whites.  They have also show that homosexuality is a mental disorder probably caused by mothers being too close to their sons.  Scientific studies have a history of proving whatever the sponsors want them to or whatever the individual biases of the observers support.  In fact, such studies are seldom "scientific."  They are, instead, statistical.  They find trends and present them as facts.  My son likes to find mathematical relationships in things that do not actually have relationships.  It's easy to do.  It is far more easy to do when you define the result in advance.  I have, for fun, shown several correlations between Lincoln and Bush in another thread, similar to the Lincoln-Kennedy series of coincidences that have been played up for years.  There is no real relationship between those Presidents (other than the obvious historical ones) but the game is fun to play.  That's all your "scientific" proof is. 

I liked this part of your post, and largely, I agree with it.  I am curious though, as to what constitutes "good" scientific research and fact finding, in your opinion?  To me (and this is just my personal view), this type of "science" is very much like some people's faith, in that they can find justification for their actions, whether through the Bible or through shoddy, sloppy scientific study.

There are two types of scientific procedure cited today.  The first - and in my opinion the most valid - is that of what I would call "pure" science.  That is, observing a certain phenomenon, developing a hypothesis for it's occurence, testing that hypothesis for truth and then adjusting the hypothesis as necessary until it can be proven to conform to the facts observed.  This is pretty easily applied to things like whether a particular substance is a good conductor or insulator, whether a certain organism can be killed by another organism to defeat a certain disease, or whether a certain sequence of events might lead to a predictable result (like how the universe might have formed or how effective interstellar travel might be achieved).  

The second is different, and, while it has its place, is not as reliable as direct observation and experimentation.  That is the use of statistical analysis to establish correlations between events.  This can be very useful when, for example, testing drugs for effectiveness and potential side-effects.  If we find that using a particular drug correlates to a higher percentage of heart attacks than the general population, then we might well conclude that heart attack risk is higher when using that drug.  But the method has many flaws that are not as easy to control for as in direct observation.  As an example, a drug I was taking (and it was working well) was Avandamet.  This includes Avandia, which has been implicated as a higher risk of heart attack.  Well, maybe that is the case.  But maybe the fact that diabetics tend to be far more prone to HA than the general population has skewed some of the data.  I am sure some kind of control has been put into place, but I still think there is a great risk that the results are being affected by other variables.  

This problem becomes far greater when we extend this "scientific" method to anthropological studies because we are dealing now with arbitrary issues.  Why one group of people may hate another, why one person may be attracted to another, why certain social traits develop among groups can be very subjective issues, and a person who starts seeing relationships where none really exist can be hopelessly caught up in a pet theory.   People are not cattle, and to some extent even cattle aren't cattle, in that one individual differs in complex and irreplicable ways from another - even a close sibling.  To ascribe a set of predictable behaviors to a group of like individuals is dehumanizing in the most real sense.  We are social critters but we are individuals as well, and what is true for you is not necessarily true for someone else.  If penicillin kills a particular sort of bug, it is not likely that a particularly liberal strain of penicillin is going to refuse to go to war with the disease.  Free electrons will not suddenly boycott light bulbs because they are tired of having their freedom away.  Syphillis will not suddenly decide that white people deserve to die, but itwill certainly not attack blacks.  People are too arbitrary and complex to characterize in such a way as inanimate phenomena.

So we have "science" that is, in reality, only a set of statisics being interpreted by people who, perhaps by their very nature, are prejudiced about the likely outcome.  I think that is very dangerous.

It's the same, incidentally, with the "scientific" proof that homosexuality is genetic.

So far that I'm aware, there is no "proof"...yet.  I think that someday, when the genome is mapped out, there will be more information.  Speaking for myself, and this is an opinion and not a fact, it's my belief that homosexuality is probably a little bit of both, a genetic predisposition with behavioral mitigators.  I am aware that there is some evidence of hypothalamus (sp?) size in gay men vs. straight, but this issue has been hotly debated in the scientific community, and so far as I'm aware, is not accepted as fact.


I agree with that analysis.  My point is that many people sight "scientific proof" of the hypothesis.  Some even say, as the global warming folks do, that disagreemnent is silly since the argue is already settled.  So often people say "well,science disagrees with you."  I'm not convinced that it does on this issue at all.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Xavier_Onassis on June 03, 2008, 07:37:41 AM
Anthropology is a social science, and as such is not as precise or as absolute as mathematics.

This does not mean that one may not apply hypotheses and act upon them, it just means that less accuracy will result from doing so.

If homosexuality were exclusively the result of mother-son or perhaps mother-daughter relationships, since these vary from one society to the next quite a bit, then it would be expected that the percentage of gays and lesbians would also vary immensely. But this is not the case.

Of course, it is also not clear that gay male homosexuality ad lesbianish are the results of the same cause or causes, either.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Stray Pooch on June 03, 2008, 09:06:32 AM
Anthropology is a social science, and as such is not as precise or as absolute as mathematics.

This does not mean that one may not apply hypotheses and act upon them, it just means that less accuracy will result from doing so.

If homosexuality were exclusively the result of mother-son or perhaps mother-daughter relationships, since these vary from one society to the next quite a bit, then it would be expected that the percentage of gays and lesbians would also vary immensely. But this is not the case.

Of course, it is also not clear that gay male homosexuality ad lesbianish are the results of the same cause or causes, either.

I agree completely.  My point in citing that ages-old "mama's boy" study is that such studies, as they are more subject to inaccuracy, cannot be cited as "proof."   They can be cited as evidence (which is different) but they are not definitive. There is a built-in weakness with statistical analysis, the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.  Those who did that study (and similar ones) viewed homosexuality as a mental disorder, for which a cause and cure needs to be found.  Those who do studies seeking genetic causes have a bias that homosexuality is a perfectly natural state seek a biological factor to prove the contention.  There can always be uncontrolled variables including, but not limited to, experimenter bias in statistical studies.  Even with highly ethical studies with careful controls (and many are not) the human mind tends to find relationships where none really exist because it helps us make sense of the world.  The sorts of "scientific" studies that JS is citing are exactly that sort of thing.  Anyone who uses terms like "White Male Deviance" has a bias that is unacknowleged, and this will invariably lead to skewed results in studies.  Another great example of this is "The Bell Curve" which, I'm sure, the author of JS's book would be willing to denounce as biased and racist with little consideration.  And there's a pretty good chance the author would be right. 
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Amianthus on June 03, 2008, 09:10:50 AM
There are two types of scientific procedure cited today.  The first - and in my opinion the most valid - is that of what I would call "pure" science.  That is, observing a certain phenomenon, developing a hypothesis for it's occurence, testing that hypothesis for truth and then adjusting the hypothesis as necessary until it can be proven to conform to the facts observed.

You missed a part. A theory in "pure science", in addition to explaining observed data, also has to be able to predict future finds. If it cannot do so, then it is not scientific.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: BT on June 03, 2008, 10:23:02 AM
Quote
Is your goal to see how completely ridiculous this conversation can become?

My goal is to seek clarification and therefore have a better understanding of your position, if you indeed have one.

My definition of culture is not relevant when it is you who is insisting that we are shaped by our culture, whatever that is.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Xavier_Onassis on June 03, 2008, 12:27:24 PM
I find it curious strange that some of those who state that homosexuality is deviant behavior and does not occur in lesser animals, seem entirely oblivious of male dogs to hump any human knee or other dog regardless of gender.

There have always been homosexuals, just like there have always been neurotics, great athletes, dullards and geniuses. If society had a cure for homosexuality, we would have probably had no works by Leonardo or Michaelangelo. Withourt neurotics, there would be no Woody Allen movies or Cather in the Rye type novels.
So curing them would probably not be a great idea, even if a cure were possible.

Turn Leonardo into a fundamentalist and forget about the Mona Lisa. He'd be writing Jack Chick comix in Italian.
 
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: kimba1 on June 03, 2008, 01:29:06 PM
 homosexuality is deviant behavior and does not occur in lesser animals


lol

a friend of mine had 2 male rats ,because he didn`t want to deal with the very possible population growth.
lets just say those rats tried thier darndest to make more.
and very very loud.
I think the diiference between humans and animals is animals won`t shun others for being gay.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Rich on June 03, 2008, 01:35:35 PM
>>and very very loud.<<

One of them must have been straight.

 :D
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: kimba1 on June 03, 2008, 01:58:45 PM
I had to take care of them for a week once.
at night I`m always throwing something at cage to quite them.
I think more likely thier both straight but get bored easily.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Xavier_Onassis on June 03, 2008, 02:52:19 PM
Dare we even ask whether anal sex is possible for rats?
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: kimba1 on June 03, 2008, 02:56:09 PM
when i figured out what they were doing
i covered the cage  left them alone til they make too much noise
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on June 03, 2008, 03:48:29 PM

My goal is to seek clarification and therefore have a better understanding of your position, if you indeed have one.


I do. It's been stated. The real question right now is, do you?


My definition of culture is not relevant when it is you who is insisting that we are shaped by our culture, whatever that is.


On the contrary you are either denying or refuse to address the notion that people are shaped by the culture in which they live, so I'd say your definition of culture is quite relevant. And I know how this game works. This is a set up. I expose my thinking, and you criticize, meanwhile you remain guarded and refusing to answer questions. And then I'm supposed to accept that this somehow isn't about criticizing me. Well, I've been nice and played this way long enough. So I'll make a deal. You give your definitions, and then I'll give mine. If you don't want a discussion of ideas, if you're just here to criticize, say so now and we can both move on to more fruitful pursuits.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: BT on June 03, 2008, 05:04:52 PM
If you can't answer questions about your position, a position you have stated numerous times, by simply defining the parameters of that position, then you are correct, there are more fruitful ways for me to spend my time.

Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on June 03, 2008, 05:30:29 PM

If you can't answer questions about your position, a position you have stated numerous times, by simply defining the parameters of that position, then you are correct, there are more fruitful ways for me to spend my time.


I can and have answered questions about my position. Notably, you have not answered questions about yours. And I said quite clearly I'd give my definitions. As I recall my exact words were, "You give your definitions, and then I'll give mine." So obviously this is not about me being unable to answer questions, but rather about you being deliberately unwilling to do so. Whether you refuse because you cannot or because you simply will not, discussion with you is apparently an exercise in being criticized, sometimes for ideas that you make up on your own, and there is absolutely nothing constructive or profitable in that.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: BT on June 03, 2008, 05:38:21 PM
You haven't defined "culture", which is a central part of your statement.

Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on June 03, 2008, 06:02:24 PM
And you still have not answered questions that are about the nature of your objection. As I said, discussion with you is apparently an exercise in being criticized, sometimes for ideas that you make up on your own, and there is absolutely nothing constructive or profitable in that. When that situation changes, let me know.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Xavier_Onassis on June 03, 2008, 06:34:21 PM
You haven't defined "culture", which is a central part of your statement.
=====================
Come now. Used the Wikipedia or dictionary definition and get on with it.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: BT on June 03, 2008, 10:36:02 PM
Quote
And you still have not answered questions that are about the nature of your objection.

What objection is that?

BTW since when did your positions become exempt from criticism and or examination.

Are we supposed to accept your declarations as infallible or else face the sharp edge of your sarcasm or possibly be subjected to a snit fit because your position is parsed?

Talk about nonsense.

Sheeesh


Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Stray Pooch on June 03, 2008, 10:36:51 PM
You missed a part. A theory in "pure science", in addition to explaining observed data, also has to be able to predict future finds. If it cannot do so, then it is not scientific.

I figured if anything needed correcting you would be there to take up the slack.  Thanks.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Stray Pooch on June 03, 2008, 10:38:31 PM
Dare we even ask whether anal sex is possible for rats?


Apparently, you did - and I wish da heck you hadn't!!!!!!
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on June 03, 2008, 11:44:17 PM

What objection is that?


At this point, the apparent objection to the notion that people are influenced by the culture in which they live.


BTW since when did your positions become exempt from criticism and or examination.

Are we supposed to accept your declarations as infallible or else face the sharp edge of your sarcasm or possible be subjected to a snit fit because your position is parsed?

Talk about nonsense.

Sheeesh


Says the man who refuses to answer questions. Sheesh indeed.

Yeah, what you said is nonsense. Because I never said my positions were exempt from criticism or examination. I believe said the opposite. Plane said, "We are just haveing a Debate , you know enough somehow to assert your opinions , let us oppose you by fairly examineing the origions of your assertions." To which I replied, "Please, by all means do so. I welcome it." But once again, rather than pay attention to what I said, you're making up nonsense and ascribing it to me. By no honest stretch of the imagination is that in any way criticism or examination of my positions. That would, in point of fact, be you tilting at strawmen.

Please, by all means, pay attention to what I say and criticize it as suits you. Even though I know you refuse to answer my questions, I will still be happy to explain my position (at least once or twice), or even correct it if I discover I'm wrong (as I did regarding the Jena 6 matter). When you make up nonsense on your own and criticize me for it, that is decidedly not criticizing what I said. When you indirectly accuse me of considering people to be racist merely because they disagree with me on immigration, that is not an examination of my position. Your choice of words, your choice to ignore my questions, you choice to criticize me for things you try to ascribe to me that I have not said, these choices indicate clearly that this conversation is about criticizing me, not about criticizing merely my comments and certainly not about examining my positions.

I've had good and lengthy conversations with others about my positions on various subjects. I am not afraid of criticism or defending my positions, and I think my record here will bear this out. So this notion that I am claiming my positions are above criticism merely because I refuse to play along with your apparent desire to criticize me, it is simply more nonsense from you.

I'm not going to apologize for refusing to lay down so you can walk over me, and I refuse to accept responsibility for your unwillingness to address straightforward questions or even to engage in an exchange merely of definitions.

No, I'm not being sarcastic, and yes, this is the nice version.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: BT on June 04, 2008, 12:09:15 AM
And yet you still haven't defined the terms culture or racism as you use them in you position.

So when i ask whether being influenced by the culture is like a buffet where you get to pick and choose your influences you call it a nonsense question yet in this same thread you qualified your statement to say influenced "in part"  which to me at least indicates that it is not in fact an all or nothing proposition.

So who is the criticizer in this thread?
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on June 04, 2008, 12:18:07 AM

And yet you still haven't defined the terms culture or racism as you use them in you position.


We've been over this. You give your definitions, and then I'll give mine.


So when i ask whether being influenced by the culture is like a buffet where you get to pick and choose your influences you call it a nonsense question yet in this same thread you qualified your statement to say influenced "in part"  which to me at least indicates that it is not in fact an all or nothing proposition.


Actually, I said it was a silly question. If you wanted to ask me about my "in part" qualifier, then why didn't you? In part, in this case, means there are other influences besides culture.


So who is the criticizer in this thread?


You. Still you.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: BT on June 04, 2008, 12:38:59 AM
Quote
We've been over this.

Yes we have. My definitions are not relevant to your position. Your definitions are relevant to your position.

Quote
Actually, I said it was a silly question. If you wanted to ask me about my "in part" qualifier, then why didn't you? In part, in this case, means there are other influences besides culture.

How would we know that if you haven't defined the parameters of "culture".

Perhaps you can give examples of "other influences".



Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on June 04, 2008, 01:52:58 AM

My definitions are not relevant to your position. Your definitions are relevant to your position.



As I said before, you are either denying or refuse to address the notion that people are shaped by the culture in which they live, so I'd say your definition of culture is quite relevant. To the discussion and to your position, if you have one, not to my position. I never said your definition was relevant to my position. In any case, I'm not asking you for anything difficult. This is not the twelve labors of Hercules. You give your definitions, and then I'll give mine.


Quote
If you wanted to ask me about my "in part" qualifier, then why didn't you? In part, in this case, means there are other influences besides culture.

How would we know that if you haven't defined the parameters of "culture".


Easy. By asking me about the "in part" qualifier. I'm not using obscure language. If you had a question about the "in part" and you did not ask it, that is in no way my fault. It would, in fact, be your fault. So stop blaming me.


Perhaps you can give examples of "other influences".


Perhaps you can answer questions.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: BT on June 04, 2008, 10:28:07 AM
Quote
As I said before, you are either denying or refuse to address the notion that people are shaped by the culture in which they live, so I'd say your definition of culture is quite relevant.

Hard to address a notion if you don't know the parameters of the notion.

But in the spirit of debate i will firmly state that i am agnostic about your position, pending further clarification.

I'm certainly not interested in playing "what do you think i meant by that?"

And apparently you are fearful that if you clarify your position it will be criticized.

So it goes.

Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on June 04, 2008, 01:48:04 PM

Hard to address a notion if you don't know the parameters of the notion.


Is it? You seemed to find it easy enough when you said, "I am beginning to get the impression that being a racist is ok. Can't help it. Embedded in our culture dontcha know." You didn't seem to find it that hard when you said, "The actual argument is that society is racist because historically it has been racist. It doesn't matter one bit whether individuals who make up that society are racist or not The group association sticks." But now you can't address this particular notion because someone else hasn't defined the word "culture" for you? You're being ridiculous.


But in the spirit of debate i will firmly state that i am agnostic about your position, pending further clarification.


Perhaps someday in the spirit of debate, you will answer questions. Or at least clearly provide and argue for an opposing position, you know, like in a debate.


I'm certainly not interested in playing "what do you think i meant by that?"


Neither am I. You give your definitions, and then I'll give mine.


And apparently you are fearful that if you clarify your position it will be criticized.

So it goes.


Actually, I know it will. But no, I don't fear criticism, as I have already explained (http://debategate.com/new3dhs/index.php?topic=6317.msg63579#msg63579). Your childish attempt to shame me into giving in didn't work. Next time trying making chicken noises and saying "'fraidy cat, 'fraidy cat" repeatedly. It won't work any better, but it would be more honest.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Plane on June 04, 2008, 03:01:08 PM
I noted a point of dimishing returns a while ago.

Is there some diffrent way to say these things?
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: _JS on June 04, 2008, 03:39:34 PM
The definition of a word is backed by science?  Now I've heard everything.  Tell me, what experiments were run to test the definition.  What controls were put on the experiment?  What was done to eliminate bias?

No, providing a book and an author doesn't prove anything.  Science was used to prove eugenics was true, too - and that was far more scientific than anything supporting a definition.  We are talking semantics, not mathematics.  Your author may well have documented some ideas to support his definition, and those incidents/statistics/etc. might all be true in themselves.  That does not entitle him to redefine the word.

*sigh* If you wish to argue semantics that's not a problem. Just let me know.

Quote
You didn't say the British colonized this country for slavery (which would also have been nonsense).  You said this nation was built on slavery.  I repeat that is nonsense, and whatever the original colonial powers did here is irrevelant except as historical background.  The United States was built on the concept that representative government was superior to monarchy.

The United States, in practical economic terms, was built upon slavery.

Quote
Thanks for the history lesson.  Now why don't you try looking at the history of the NATION, rather than the history of SLAVERY, which is only one small part thereof.  This is, again, an example of bias.  You view the United States as a racist nation, rather than as a nation which had - as virtually all nations have had - a history that includes racial strife.

As if your view is not one of bias. Obviously I'm looking at it from a view of racial strife, that is the point of this discussion.

Quote
Baloney.  Neither are acccurate.  You overinflate the reality of the long history of racism in America to suit your view of this nation.  You grossly exaggerate the progress of equality in this country by confining it to the few "effective" years of legislation.  What absolute nonsense.  So society is exactly where it was in 1964, huh?  So Brown vs Board of Education in 1954 had no effect on schools?  Hey wait, that's TEN years between a MAJOR civil rights victory and another MAJOR civil rights victory.  That is DOUBLE your estimate without even considering the effect of the forty and fifty years we have lived since those decisions.  And what about all of the court decisions that were still being made in the 1970's concerning school desegregation some 20 years after Brown?  There is FOUR TIMES your estimate.  So I would classify your estimates, even as estimates of effective government action to overturn racism, as the third kind of lie.

You speak of how far American society came and then you disprove yourself by stating this: "what about all of the court decisions that were still being made in the 1970's concerning school desegregation some 20 years after Brown?" Yes, what about those? Don't you see the problem right there?!?

Quote
Shall I really get into scientific evidence of how certain groups of early homo species destroyed others?  Or can we just get into looking at how early civilizations banded together to prey on other races?  Shall I discuss rivalries between different groups, tribes, clans, religions, and all of the other kinds of distinctions?  ANYTHING that sets one group apart from another, and that includes race, is a cause for strife.  It wouldn't matter.  I have seen the silly arguments that ancient civilizations didn't compete because of RACE but because of political rivalries, resources, etc.  All of that is exactly true of American racism.  But again, because it doesn't fit YOUR definition, you can excuse it as "different."  I'm not an anthropologist, and the research (which would be quoted in vain anyway) is too time consuming to be worth it.

Nice strawman. You defeated it with impressive gallantry and courage. The truth is that racism is a much more modern phenomenon, but it is accepted that "humans have been racist since the dawn of time."

Quote
Everyday society is not racist.  You are making a false claim.  Blacks are as racist as whites.  Black culture is as racist as white culture, in fact far more so today.   Black racism is just as real as white racism and is just as wrong.

Wait. Everyday society is not racist, but "Black culture is as racist as white culture?" You need to make up your mind.

Quote
All of the above.  More often than not the latter due to the former.

I see.

Quote
Yes.  Black churches TODAY teach that white men are evil.  There are even white liberals who insist that only white people can be racist.  There are people who defend Reverends Wright and Pfleger and other racists.  Don't pretend that black racism is just part of the lunatic fringe.  It permeates society.  There is NOTHING you can point to today in white culture or in American culture in general that does not have a counterpart in American Black culture - or in any culture in history.  Racism isn't a special discrimination, it is just another way of separating people by difference.  It is not a worse evil than sexism or religious oppression or political domination.  And it is no more a part of our culture than it has been for any other culture EXCEPT that ours is one of the few in history that deliberately tried to put people of many different backgrounds together and make one people out of them, so we get to see the real results, and that includes slavery, Jim Crow, religious oppression and sexism.  This is one of the few societies who took those accepted differences of perspective, examined them, found them wanting and rejected them.   THAT is also a part of our history which you choose to minimize, but it is what makes us unique as a nation.

I choose to see reality and push for something better as opposed to idealizing fiction.

Quote
You've told me twice now what I "know."  You have been wrong both times.  I don't KNOW these things and in fact I know otherwise.  How many blacks are taught that white is wrong?  Oh, I'd say about twice the number (per capita) of whites that are taught black is wrong.  But of course, I am making that number up.  Fabrication works pretty well for the left, I thought I'd give it a try.  In reality, I have not done a "scientific" study of how many black people are taught to hate whites.  I wonder if those who have done your so-called "scientific" studies have done so?  It seems that if we are studying "white male deviances" and other such myths, we ought to be studying the whole picture instead of just the self-serving portions.

I offer the scientific studies for you to see. Go look and criticize them for what they are. No one here is saying that scientists are gods. I can read a scientific report or journal just as easily as you can. On the other hand, you just flat out lied and beforehand refused to offer any evidence by setting up your strawman to which you conveniently knocked down. Convenient for you, but difficult for peer review.

Quote
Myths like "white male deviance" perhaps?  Scientific studies have shown that black people are intellectually inferior to whites.  They have also show that homosexuality is a mental disorder probably caused by mothers being too close to their sons.  Scientific studies have a history of proving whatever the sponsors want them to or whatever the individual biases of the observers support.  In fact, such studies are seldom "scientific."  They are, instead, statistical.  They find trends and present them as facts.  My son likes to find mathematical relationships in things that do not actually have relationships.  It's easy to do.  It is far more easy to do when you define the result in advance.  I have, for fun, shown several correlations between Lincoln and Bush in another thread, similar to the Lincoln-Kennedy series of coincidences that have been played up for years.  There is no real relationship between those Presidents (other than the obvious historical ones) but the game is fun to play.  That's all your "scientific" proof is.  It's the same, incidentally, with the "scientific" proof that homosexuality is genetic.

Wow. You've seen the difference between correlation and causation. That's Statistics 101 and I'm really happy for you. Most people who have studied social sciences understand that concept as well and that is why peer review exists. The genetics of homosexuality, if they do exist, would have nothing to do with correlation and causation. But nice try at changing the topic.

Quote
I understand what Cornel West calls the "Santa Clausification" of King.  But he was, in spite of his personal politics (with which I differ) and his moral deficiencies (which make him no less of a great man - we all have faults) a leader who did dream of an end to racial  disharmony.  I expect if he were alive today he would be a crochety old hell-raiser screaming like Al Sharpton and demanding slave reparations.  But I hope that is not true.  As it is, he died young and left a legacy that everyone can benefit from.  Adams and Jefferson were political rivals who were often out to cut each other's throats, and best friends as well.  We get differing opinions and theories of the union from them both, but we can benefit from both.  And Jefferson was a slave holder who probably boinked at least one of them (as I believe you may have pointed out).  So what?  The work he did was not the completion of the dream of a free, classless, equal society, but it was damn sure a pretty big step in the realization of that dream.  Even MLK said his dream was deeply rooted in the American Dream - and he wasn't talking about home ownership.  The fact is, King's dream has a lot more to do with moving beyond racial differences than your "white male deviance" and mathematical miscalculations do.

Classless & equal societies won't exist under this economic system and King saw that (and spoke to that by the way). But, what is your point here other than taking a shot at me? 

Quote
I think that if you are characterizing my posts as bitching about how white males have lost their place in society you have more than proven my point.

Anything sensible to say as opposed to the above?
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: BT on June 04, 2008, 04:53:32 PM
Quote
Is it? You seemed to find it easy enough when you said, "I am beginning to get the impression that being a racist is ok. Can't help it. Embedded in our culture dontcha know." You didn't seem to find it that hard when you said, "The actual argument is that society is racist because historically it has been racist. It doesn't matter one bit whether individuals who make up that society are racist or not The group association sticks." But now you can't address this particular notion because someone else hasn't defined the word "culture" for you? You're being ridiculous.

Since when do you own exclusive rights to sarcasm. Talk about ridiculous.


Quote
Or at least clearly provide and argue for an opposing position, you know, like in a debate.

If i am agnostic, pending clarification, i don't have an opposing position.

Quote
I don't fear criticism, as I have already explained.

Yet throughout this thread you accuse me of asking questions so i can criticize you, not just your response.

like here:
Quote
On the contrary you are either denying or refuse to address the notion that people are shaped by the culture in which they live, so I'd say your definition of culture is quite relevant. And I know how this game works. This is a set up. I expose my thinking, and you criticize, meanwhile you remain guarded and refusing to answer questions. And then I'm supposed to accept that this somehow isn't about criticizing me. Well, I've been nice and played this way long enough. So I'll make a deal. You give your definitions, and then I'll give mine. If you don't want a discussion of ideas, if you're just here to criticize, say so now and we can both move on to more fruitful pursuits.

and here:
Quote
So obviously this is not about me being unable to answer questions, but rather about you being deliberately unwilling to do so. Whether you refuse because you cannot or because you simply will not, discussion with you is apparently an exercise in being criticized, sometimes for ideas that you make up on your own, and there is absolutely nothing constructive or profitable in that.

So if there is no fear, why the reluctance to clarify.




Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Plane on June 04, 2008, 05:10:52 PM
"Classless & equal societies won't exist under this economic system......"


Why not?
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on June 04, 2008, 05:52:49 PM

Since when do you own exclusive rights to sarcasm. Talk about ridiculous.


Okay, I will. Ridiculous is you suggesting I claimed exclusive rights to sarcasm when, in point of fact, I did no such thing. Ridiculous is you complaining about how hard it is to address a notion without my definition when clearly you've easily done so before, even if it was in sarcasm. Ridiculous is you criticizing me for not giving you a definition when you refuse to answer any and all of my questions.


Quote
Or at least clearly provide and argue for an opposing position, you know, like in a debate.

If i am agnostic, pending clarification, i don't have an opposing position.


Yeah. I got that. Hence my "like in a debate" remark as a reply to your proclamation of claiming agnosticism as being "in the spirit of debate".


Quote
I don't fear criticism, as I have already explained.

Yet throughout this thread you accuse me of asking questions so i can criticize you, not just your response.

[...]

So if there is no fear, why the reluctance to clarify.


If there is no fear, why the reluctance to answer my questions?

As previously stated, I'm not reluctant to clarify. I am reluctant to continue if the only reason you're here is to criticize me. That I have no fear of criticism does not mean I desire to have a conversation where all you do is criticize me. Maybe you think you're too good to answer my questions, maybe you're as afraid of criticism as you keep claiming I must be, maybe there is some other reason. Whatever it is, this conversation with you is not a debate, and certainly is not an examination of my position. That I can recognize your attempts to criticize me does not mean I fear them, it just means I know what is going on. And once again you have shown that criticizing me is the reason you're in this conversation. I've explained my willingness to continue discussion of this topic, and I gave you a choice. Several times now, I have repeated the offer that if you give your definitions, then I'll give mine. Rather than give your definitions, you chose instead to repeatedly criticize me.

As Plane pointed out, we've passed the point of diminishing returns. You're unwilling to discuss beyond criticizing, and I am tired of waiting for you to provide any sort of response that is actually in the spirit of debate. So we're done.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Plane on June 04, 2008, 06:12:55 PM
Sometimes you just have to quit , because quitting is the best choice offered.

I thought this thread had better potential than what we saw it develop.

Oh well , U can't win them all , though UP does seem capable for winning many.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: _JS on June 05, 2008, 03:37:18 AM
"Classless & equal societies won't exist under this economic system......"


Why not?

Because a basic product of capitalism is class and inequality. If you're honest, and not simply prone to contradict everything I post, you'll admit that the history of capitalism is a history of extremely unequal and class-based societies.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: BT on June 05, 2008, 09:56:59 AM
Quote
Because a basic product of capitalism is class and inequality. If you're honest, and not simply prone to contradict everything I post, you'll admit that the history of capitalism is a history of extremely unequal and class-based societies.

Why is a broad spectrum of wealth in society a bad thing?
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Xavier_Onassis on June 05, 2008, 11:47:24 AM
Why is a broad spectrum of wealth in society a bad thing?

==============================================
It isn't. But when 1% of the population owns 50% of the producing land and assets of the nation, that IS definitely a bad thing.

Suppose you could be born a Peruvian or a Dane. What would you choose?
 
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Plane on June 05, 2008, 12:54:10 PM
"Classless & equal societies won't exist under this economic system......"


Why not?

Because a basic product of capitalism is class and inequality. If you're honest, and not simply prone to contradict everything I post, you'll admit that the history of capitalism is a history of extremely unequal and class-based societies.


I do feel a duty to contradict everything , am I not doing this well enough?

The classes you speak of what is the bad thing or the bad effect of them?

They are not heriditary , people move up in class constantly .

I would be frustrated if I were trapped in a caste , but I don't feel that anyone is.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Religious Dick on June 05, 2008, 01:11:40 PM

Because a basic product of capitalism is class and inequality. If you're honest, and not simply prone to contradict everything I post, you'll admit that the history of capitalism is a history of extremely unequal and class-based societies.

So, show me a "classless society". Even in socialism, somebody gets the corner office, and somebody else doesn't...
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: _JS on June 05, 2008, 01:42:51 PM
"Classless & equal societies won't exist under this economic system......"


Why not?

Because a basic product of capitalism is class and inequality. If you're honest, and not simply prone to contradict everything I post, you'll admit that the history of capitalism is a history of extremely unequal and class-based societies.


I do feel a duty to contradict everything , am I not doing this well enough?

The classes you speak of what is the bad thing or the bad effect of them?

They are not heriditary , people move up in class constantly .

I would be frustrated if I were trapped in a caste , but I don't feel that anyone is.

You asked me a question and I answered it. Apparently you agree with my answer, judging from your questions now. So why did you ask the question if you knew the answer - that capitalism cannot produce a classless society?
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: _JS on June 05, 2008, 01:43:42 PM

Because a basic product of capitalism is class and inequality. If you're honest, and not simply prone to contradict everything I post, you'll admit that the history of capitalism is a history of extremely unequal and class-based societies.

So, show me a "classless society". Even in socialism, somebody gets the corner office, and somebody else doesn't...

If you think that a corner office is what constitutes class then you clearly have never read Marx.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: _JS on June 05, 2008, 01:51:32 PM
Quote
Because a basic product of capitalism is class and inequality. If you're honest, and not simply prone to contradict everything I post, you'll admit that the history of capitalism is a history of extremely unequal and class-based societies.

Why is a broad spectrum of wealth in society a bad thing?


I was watching a television program where some scientists were arguing that the world is facing a devastating overpopulation problem over the next half-century. One of the folks on the panel even went as far as endorsing China's population control methods as well as India's 1970's policies - both extremely coercive and amounting to gross human rights violations. Behind their argument lay this notion: there aren't enough resources to sustain a growing human population.

What they did not mention, not once during the program, and this was on BBC Newsnight, was that there are enough resources for everyone to live a fine modest life. The issue is not that we do not have enough resources. The issue is that the minority in the world live very well-to-do lifestyles while the majority struggle.

Historically, this must be so until class consciousness is reached and capitalism has done an effective job of doing what it is capable of doing - both good and bad.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Xavier_Onassis on June 05, 2008, 02:00:09 PM

What they did not mention, not once during the program, and this was on BBC Newsnight, was that there are enough resources for everyone to live a fine modest life. The issue is not that we do not have enough resources. The issue is that the minority in the world live very well-to-do lifestyles while the majority struggle.

Historically, this must be so until class consciousness is reached and capitalism has done an effective job of doing what it is capable of doing - both good and bad.

=====================
Eventually, if the population continues to grow, people will run out of resources. We have not yet reached that point.

There are easily enough resources for each American to live in a nice doublewide and drive a motorcycle with a sidecar, even.

There are not enough for everyone to drive a Hummer and live in a mansion like Donald Trump's Palm Beach Mar a Tierra.


Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: sirs on June 05, 2008, 02:00:30 PM
Why is a broad spectrum of wealth in society a bad thing?

I was watching a television program where some scientists were arguing that the world is facing a devastating overpopulation problem over the next half-century. .... What they did not mention, not once during the program, and this was on BBC Newsnight, was that there are enough resources for everyone to live a fine modest life.  

And who gets to define modest?  Who gets to mandate the limit of success??  Who gets to tell someone "No, you can't become any more successful than you are??  The complete antithesis of what the American Dream is all about


Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on June 05, 2008, 03:10:48 PM

that capitalism cannot produce a classless society?


That depends greatly on what you mean by class.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: _JS on June 05, 2008, 04:44:07 PM
Why is a broad spectrum of wealth in society a bad thing?

I was watching a television program where some scientists were arguing that the world is facing a devastating overpopulation problem over the next half-century. .... What they did not mention, not once during the program, and this was on BBC Newsnight, was that there are enough resources for everyone to live a fine modest life.  

And who gets to define modest?  Who gets to mandate the limit of success??  Who gets to tell someone "No, you can't become any more successful than you are??  The complete antithesis of what the American Dream is all about

Clearly success for you is defined by how much wealth one accumulates. Who got to define that as the measure for success? Who got to determine that consumerism defines society?

Who determined that the American Dream meant that some should live like kings while others starve?

As I said, capitalism will do well for what it does best. But class and inequality are unavoidable. Eventually the majority will become class conscious and the lifestyles of the minority will be redefined, not just in America, but throughout the world. The elite will have little say in the matter and the bourgeoisie will have a choice I suppose.   
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: _JS on June 05, 2008, 04:51:39 PM

that capitalism cannot produce a classless society?


That depends greatly on what you mean by class.

Class is defined by one's relation to labor and the means of production. When I say "class" I do not mean the common capitalist bourgeoisie meaning of grouping by income (e.g. $20,000 to $45,000 per year). That is a relatively useless definition subject to countless variability.

At the broadest level is the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, but there are a number of class distinctions within those broad categories.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: sirs on June 05, 2008, 04:52:59 PM
Who determined that the American Dream meant that some should live like kings while others starve?


News Flash Js, the American Dream is all about being given the opportunity to be the BEST at what you could possibly be.  There are no restrictions to the American Dream, so long as you're not doing something illegally.  At least they're not supposed to be



Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: _JS on June 05, 2008, 04:57:14 PM
Who determined that the American Dream meant that some should live like kings while others starve?


News Flash Js, the American Dream is all about being given the opportunity to be the BEST at what you could possibly be.  There are no restrictions to the American Dream, so long as you're not doing something illegally.  At least they're not supposed to be

Interesting answer to my question...poignant too.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: sirs on June 05, 2008, 05:00:47 PM
You're welcome
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Plane on June 05, 2008, 05:18:45 PM
"Classless & equal societies won't exist under this economic system......"


Why not?

Because a basic product of capitalism is class and inequality. If you're honest, and not simply prone to contradict everything I post, you'll admit that the history of capitalism is a history of extremely unequal and class-based societies.


I do feel a duty to contradict everything , am I not doing this well enough?

The classes you speak of what is the bad thing or the bad effect of them?

They are not hereditary , people move up in class constantly .

I would be frustrated if I were trapped in a caste , but I don't feel that anyone is.

You asked me a question and I answered it. Apparently you agree with my answer, judging from your questions now. So why did you ask the question if you knew the answer - that capitalism cannot produce a classless society?

Mostly because I enjoy talking with you.

Class distinction is defined differently sometimes , if all you mean is income level then I don't mind it. Lots of people rise to a level at which they are comfortable enough and decide that gaining more is not worth the work.

I do not think that cash in hand defines a persons worthiness , or determines his potential for happiness.

The American system has got some warts , but a lot of starvation isn't happening , one the benefits of capitolism is efficient production and distribution. It really works better to make food and necessaries cheap and available than to make them free but rationed.

Several times in history the goal of making people equal became overemphasized , the French Revolution is one such disaster , with the committee in charge of making everyone equal killing everyone that seemed to make this goal difficult , do you know the story of Antoine Lavoisier's death?

I think a certain amount of socialism can be tolerated , as long as the poor number more than the rich they will outvote them in a democracy and ensure a minimum of socialism is maintained. The best choice for the capitalist in this circumstance is to ensure that too few people think of themselves as poor to vote in extremes of socialism.

I 'm not sure whether Henry Ford came up with the idea or not , but he wanted a workforce that could afford to buy its own product , this strikes me as one of his better ideas.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Plane on June 05, 2008, 05:23:15 PM

Because a basic product of capitalism is class and inequality. If you're honest, and not simply prone to contradict everything I post, you'll admit that the history of capitalism is a history of extremely unequal and class-based societies.

So, show me a "classless society". Even in socialism, somebody gets the corner office, and somebody else doesn't...

If you think that a corner office is what constitutes class then you clearly have never read Marx.


Does Marx still matter?
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Universe Prince on June 05, 2008, 05:32:20 PM

Who determined that the American Dream meant that some should live like kings while others starve?


No one. The American Dream is about the notion that no one decides the individual's place in society except the individual. Poor can become rich. A school dropout can create something that changes the culture. No, it's not going to rid the world of poverty, but it can change what poverty means. (I recall reading about how Stalin allowed the film The Grapes of Wrath to be shown in the Soviet Union in order to show what capitalism does to people, and the Soviet citizens were impressed that even poor people in America had cars.) Yes, there is abject poverty here, and yes, we should something about it. Deciding for others how much success they should have, imo, does not accomplish helping people in poverty. Instead, we need to find new ways to help the poor participate in the American Dream, which would include getting the government out of their way, not creating a system of dependency.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: Religious Dick on June 06, 2008, 05:36:20 PM

Who determined that the American Dream meant that some should live like kings while others starve?


The point is, the American Dream doesn't mandate anything - it is merely the assurance that birth need not equate to destiny. It's not a guarantee of anything.
Title: Re: The State of Englishness
Post by: kimba1 on June 06, 2008, 09:12:51 PM
actually in the early days of capitalism it was quite dangerous to people.
people live by the phrase buyer beware.
things didn`t need to be safe in those days.
and poverty was a good deal more severe compared to todays standards.
note very few companies ever impose thier own safety standards.
people keep forgetting capitalism is just a system.
neither good or evil ,