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.
