Am I racist in your opinion? - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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Polls on politics, news, current affairs and history.

Am I racist?

Yes
14
56%
No
11
44%
#15097129
I do not want to be racist I want to purge myself of any such bigotry. However, I can be honest. I don't think Native American tribes and African tribes would have credit cards, cell phones, internet, computers, and or other technology had it not been for European colonisation. Instead of beating myself up with white guilt, I can look at the positives and how indigenous people are profiting from the European invasion. If an indigenous person needs knee replacements they get it and other things that would not otherwise be available to them. I actually had a black case worker say she was glad her ancestors were brought over as slaves, because she could not imagine living in Africa, and so many people in Africa want to live in America.

In Africa they still have villages where people live in mud huts. There's also an enormous water scarcity and the violence is so bad on that continent that if that many conflicts were going on in Europe, we would call it World War 3. So, a lot of people are benefiting from slavery right?

I believe these views to be true. Does that make me racist? I do not believe that hatred of another race is justified, and such hate groups are toxic and a disgrace, so I hate being labeled or in that group when I explain I'm a Fascist, I certainly do not like being in groups with a lot of the people that wind up at the far right politically. Fascism isn't racist and I think people of color are the future of Fascism.

I love to see friendships between whites and blacks, Arabs and Jews. Fascism is about working together. It's about unity.

I think everybody should be judged by their behavior not their ethnicity.

You tell me. Am I racist?
#15097136
Most white people are socialized from childhood with racist assumptions about the world. But this is an interesting topic. In the social circles I roll with white people don't refer to themselves as non-racists, they refer to themselves as anti-racist allies. It's a pretty important distinction because if someone is just insisting that they are personally non-racist in their heart of hearts, they probably have an ulterior motive to make it about themselves and signal that hard.
#15097207
Donna wrote:Most white people are socialized from childhood with racist assumptions about the world. But this is an interesting topic. In the social circles I roll with white people don't refer to themselves as non-racists, they refer to themselves as anti-racist allies. It's a pretty important distinction because if someone is just insisting that they are personally non-racist in their heart of hearts, they probably have an ulterior motive to make it about themselves and signal that hard.
did you vote that I am racist?
#15097218
What is racism? This is the most important question.

Racism is to associate negative traits with another race, ethnicity or religious group or to discriminate against them.

Your position that Native Americans and African tribes would not enjoy modernity is racist. Why? Because you are suggesting that these peoples would not have reached modernity by themselves and only received it from Europeans. This is not historically or anthropologically correct. It is a Eurocentric position.

Spider-Man wrote:In Africa they still have villages where people live in mud huts. There's also an enormous water scarcity and the violence is so bad on that continent that if that many conflicts were going on in Europe, we would call it World War 3. So, a lot of people are benefiting from slavery right?


There are many reasons for why Africa is less economically developed than the countries of the global north. Colonialism held Africa back for generations. Poltical instablity was fostered, the continent was robbed of its resources and meddling by foreign powers along with other awkward arrangments have hindered the development of the African continent. Africa used to have many great civilisations before colonisation.

The reason why Africa is suffering is not because of the inadequacy of its people but because of history and contemporary politics.

Spider-Man wrote:You tell me. Am I racist?


Just think more and use more nuance. In the end we can all respect each other. If you hold negative or disrespectful opinions about entire peoples this is racism. So find explanations that lie outside cultural or racial reasons for why the world is the way it is.

Racism whether this is anti-white or anti-black or whatever else must always be condemned. Mutual respect is most important.
#15097238
Donna wrote:I did. It's nothing personal, you're generally polite and courteous.

Well if you say I'm racist. I guess I'm guilty as charged. However, don't forget or suggest that I have any hatred towards other ethnicities, because I keep Malcolm X on my wall and pray to the brave martyr for his courage and noble qualities. He's my hero for standing up to the White man and fearlessly taking a stand against the nation of Islam as well which cost him his life. Where there was corruption, he stood up to it, making his own people dislike him because he exposed everybody's errors. Mussolini would have liked him.

Mussolini's favorite visitor who left the biggest impression on him was Gandhi. Mussolini was kinda a monster but he had a sensitive endearing ecumenical and multicultural side to him that was ahead of his times. I want everyone to be euphoric so even the minorities who cause problems, I pity them and see myself too full of errors to condemn. I just want people's dreams to come true , so would never advocate causing suffering to a minority, despite the fact that I am technically racist.

I know what it's like to be jealous too. It's unpleasant. Some people are jealous of other races and that fuels their hate. So, I pity them rather than wish them to suffer more. People that inflict suffering on others are more tortured than their Victims. There were Holocaust Victims who realized they were more free than the guards that ran the camp. Hate groups are living in fear and panic. They have no freedom but are in bondage. Anyway, I'll try not to be racist but it isn't something I can just choose to be free of. At least there is no hatred or resentment in the racism I adhere to.
#15097251
Believing that your own race is inherently superior is racist. That makes you a racist.

You can love your people and the qualities you associate with your people, as long as you don't consider others inferior, you are not a racist. You don't have to go through life judging others. You can be curious about foreign traditions or prefer your own tradition without making a value judgement. Personally, I think that honour killings still practiced in the ME are totally retarded, yet that doesn't mean that Middle-Easterners are racially inferior. Historical accident has just placed them in a sociopolitical environment that retarded social and political development. Given half a chance, Middle-Easterners will perform just as well as Westerners.

Today, I live in a mud-hut without running water, yet I'm happier than I was in my previous corporate employment with first class air-travel and 5-star hotels. With the lockdown I can't even hear the rumble of the occasional truck passing in the distance or see the airplanes overhead. It's the closest you can get to paradise on Earth. While I don't deny the advantages of technological innovation, I don't believe in progress. Each innovation has had its price. Being cooped up in a city apartment feels like a prison sentence to me.

To cut a long story short, considering other people as inferior because they have a different culture is racist. People living in mud huts did not cause climate change. They were better stewards of the earth.
#15097272
Donna wrote:if someone is just insisting that they are personally non-racist in their heart of hearts, they probably have an ulterior motive to make it about themselves and signal that hard.


It could be that or they could just be responding to baseless personal smears made by ludicrous little militants.
#15097276
Donna wrote:I did. It's nothing personal, you're generally polite and courteous.


Donna votes that every white is a racist so you gotta take Donna's vote with an infinite mountain of salt.
#15097278
Atlantis wrote:Believing that your own race is inherently superior is racist. That makes you a racist.

You can love your people and the qualities you associate with your people, as long as you don't consider others inferior, you are not a racist. You don't have to go through life judging others. You can be curious about foreign traditions or prefer your own tradition without making a value judgement. Personally, I think that honour killings still practiced in the ME are totally retarded, yet that doesn't mean that Middle-Easterners are racially inferior. Historical accident has just placed them in a sociopolitical environment that retarded social and political development. Given half a chance, Middle-Easterners will perform just as well as Westerners.

Today, I live in a mud-hut without running water, yet I'm happier than I was in my previous corporate employment with first class air-travel and 5-star hotels. With the lockdown I can't even hear the rumble of the occasional truck passing in the distance or see the airplanes overhead. It's the closest you can get to paradise on Earth. While I don't deny the advantages of technological innovation, I don't believe in progress. Each innovation has had its price. Being cooped up in a city apartment feels like a prison sentence to me.

To cut a long story short, considering other people as inferior because they have a different culture is racist. People living in mud huts did not cause climate change. They were better stewards of the earth.

But I don't believe any race is superior
#15097378
Atlantis wrote:To cut a long story short, considering other people as inferior because they have a different culture is racist.

So if the French consider the British inferior because they have a different culture, that makes the French racist? Doesn't that just make them Francophiles, or Chauvinists? How does it make them racist unless you have a different race?

Do you consider Saudi Arabia's culture inferior? A lot of people here seem to loath it. Does that make the people hear who loath Saudi culture racist?

The last foreign country I visited was the United Arab Emirates. I found it interesting that the malls had men and women's restrooms, just like the West. They also had men and women's prayer rooms. Muslim men and women do not pray together, apparently. The UAE even has pink taxis for women, that only pick up other women so that Muslim women do not have to be driven by a strange man that is not their husband.

Atlantis wrote:People living in mud huts did not cause climate change. They were better stewards of the earth.

So you're saying their culture is superior? Does that make you a racist?
#15097399
Spider-Man wrote:But I don't believe any race is superior


In the OP you tried to justify the colonial conquest of allegedly primitive people “living in mud huts” by the bequest of the benefits of Western civilisation such as “credit cards and Internet.” To justify the annihilation of a civilisation because it is allegedly more primitive does imply a belief in your own superiority. You claim that this is not racist because you believe that your superiority corresponds to the facts, ie. that credit cards are superior to mud huts.

There are a number of issues with this:

- The people killed during the conquest didn’t benefit. 90% or more of some American tribes were killed during the conquest.

- Having lost their ancestral land, the descendants of the survivors are reduced to second class citizens in their own country.

- The pillaging by white colonials led to poverty, enslavement and the disruption of local economies.

- Before colonization India’s GDP represented 24.4% of the global economy. By the time the British left it was down to 4.2%.

- Even if they didn’t have credit cards, there were more developed cultures with better means of payment than Europeans before the colonial conquest.

- Western development came at the expense of impoverishing the colonies.

- Even today, Western domination disrupts local economies.

- Is a civilisation with an unsustainable development that leads to the destruction of our natural habitat and the climate really superior to civilisations that were sustainable for millennia?

These are just a few of the elements that put into question your claim to superiority.

And why do you insist so much on the alleged superiority of your culture? You didn’t invent the Internet anymore than the African living in a mud hut. For better or for worse, you both inherited the same development, some of it Western and some of it not.

@blackjack21, don’t play silly; the rivalry between Brits and French has nothing to do with racial discrimination. If people living in mud huts are characterized as inferior, it needs to be pointed out by juxtaposition that this is an ethnocentric view and not an objective fact.
#15097403
Not all cultures are divided on ethnic lines - obviously.

If British Person says their culture/way of life is preferable to French is it racist? What if we swap them for and African nation of the Irish?

What is we swap "preferable" for "better" or superior.

The French/British example is useful because I am sure a survey would reveal each side both preferring and thinking theirs superior. Is that wrong? Is it more or less wrong of their is an ethnic difference? Where is the line between preference and discrimination. Does my Scottish town have the right to not want a sudden influx of immigrants on the basis of culture? Does it make a difference if those immigrants are Whites from the USA or Nigerian blacks?

Now there is historical context which I accept is a factor but imo it isn't enough to define these things.

The problem with this poll is "racist" is generally though of as binary a thing when the definition has been stretched this far. Especially when the label has such extreme potential consequences.
#15097406
I guess there is nothing wrong with believing in your culture's superiority over others. Real racist people tend to act aggressively towards others based on their background or color of their skin. In my case, it was a brown woman in Australia who made my life a living hell with her microaggressive behaviors.

Lea Michele is under fire following accusations made on Twitter by her former “Glee” co-star Samantha Ware, who said Michele made her life a “living hell,” while working on the show.

In the midst of the controversy, many of Michele’s former colleagues from various productions have backed up the sentiment expressed by Ware, establishing a pattern of her apparent on-set behavior.

Ware came forward with her claims when Michele tweeted about George Floyd with the Black Lives Matter hashtag. Ware wrote, “Remember when you made my first television gig a living hell?!?! Cause I’ll never forget. I believe you told everyone that if you had the opportunity you would ‘s— in my wig!’ amongst other traumatic microaggressions that made me question a career in Hollywood.”

https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/lea-mi ... 234625000/
#15097408
@layman, you can hate the bl**dy French all day long and the French can hate the bl**dy Brits as much as they like, it's got nothing to do racial discrimination. They don't have cops in the Paris Metro to pull over British tourists to give them a hard time. Quite on the contrary, as a white Brit you'll likely be waved through any police control even if you forgot your passport, while the black African walking next to you will likely be pulled over and subjected to aggressive questioning even with valid papers.

It's that sort of systematic racial discrimination colored people have to put up with every day of their life.

White privilege does exist.
#15097488
Atlantis wrote:White privilege does exist.


Can whites ever be racially discriminated against in your opinion?

Discourse seems to be moving in the direction that whites can never face racial discrimination under any circumstances.

We have documented cases of hate crimes against whites. How would the emerging discourse understand such crimes when the emerging consensus is that whites can never face racism?

Systemic discrimination against POC is real and must be opposed on all fronts with ceasless effort but it seems as though there is an important piece of the conversation missing, how we treat anecdotal or documented examples of violence against whites within the context of this critical discourse.

In the past we have discussed the Rotherham gang issue and I dismissed any connection between the ethnicity or religion of the perpetrators and the crimes, a link the far right have attempted to establish, but I also believed ethnic hatred and contempt on the part of the criminals was a factor in the exploitation whereas you didn't. I am sure I can find the link to the discussion if you would like a source.
#15097545
@Atlantis white privilege is a clumsy term but it is basically true .. in certain places. It is not universal and not timeless.

Discrimination is a broad church though and can include white on white. Often based on nationality. Eastern European's or the Irish of recent history are good examples.

Anyway, no one in this thread is denying black Americans experience. I am just questioning some of the assumptions people make in the wider issue. As we are entering the Asian century, this will start getting clearer I expect.

I hear the Han Chinese have their own versions identity politics with a completely different historical context.

@Political Interest in western countries there is some anti white sentiment but it isn't institutional or systematic. This makes it infinitely less potent. This is what I meant by the binary term racism. For it to mean anything really useful you need to qualify which sub category you mean.

Someone who is basically good but has some unconscious bias could be considered racist. Calling such a person by this term is unhelpful and counter productive though.
#15097551
Political Interest wrote:Can whites ever be racially discriminated against in your opinion?


Sure, there are undoubtedly cases in which whites are discriminated against, but it's unlikely to be systematic. In 50 years abroad as a white European, I have occasionally experienced discrimination, but more because people preferred locals to foreigners and not because of racial discrimination. For example, when applying for a job, an employer may give preference to a local over a foreigner because the foreigner may not have the same language or cultural competence as the local, or the employer suspects that the foreigner may not stay in the country for very long. That doesn't really amount to racial discrimination.

Even in cultures like in Japan and China, which have very strong national identities, discrimination is usually leveled at other Asians or at colored people and not at whites. In Asia and much of the 3rd world, whites usually enjoy a privileged status. In fact, there are plenty of low-lives from Europe or the US who emigrate to the 3rd world to enjoy a status they would never enjoy at home. Their only qualification is often being a 1st world citizen and speaking English reasonably well.

Even if some whites may occasionally experience discrimination for whatever reason, the systematic discrimination experienced by many colored people all their life on a daily basis is a very different thing. It forms a person to the point where discrimination is suspected even where non is intended.

@layman, there are many shades of white. Are Romanians or Portuguese as white as Brits? I guess many Brexitters wouldn't think so. At least in the EU we are all citizens with equal rights. Whatever informal discrimination there may be, we can go to the European court of justice to demand our rights, even if it means suing the state. That does give us legal certainty.
Last edited by Atlantis on 04 Jun 2020 21:42, edited 1 time in total.
#15097552
Political Interest wrote:Discourse seems to be moving in the direction that whites can never face racial discrimination under any circumstances.


That's not what racism discourse is remotely saying.
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