6 ms·

Those are racist undertones, even when put in context.

meri_dian 9y ago
But it's important to put them in context because it makes them more understandable.
andrey-p 9y ago
I have to agree. This sort of hatred kind of made sense 150 years ago when it was part of a liberation struggle, but it's just plain racism at the moment. People should be better than this. (Disclaimer: I'm a Bulgarian who's lived in the UK for the past decade. Most Bulgarians who have lived in Bulgaria their whole lives would probably disagree with me.)
- golergka 9y ago
  The fact that it was a part of liberation struggle didn't make it not racism.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    Actually it did. Jews in Germany in 36 hating on the German people for what they're doing to them is not "racism".
    - said 9y ago
      That's a sinister use of the word "they". Do you allow non-Jewish Americans to resent Jews for their dramatic over-representation in positions of power, influence, and information gate-keeping (e.g. journalism, entertainment media, the Supreme Court, Congress, academia, the Federal Reserve)? Do you allow non-Black Americans to resent blacks for their disproportionate violence and anti-social behavior; for their dramatic over-representation in entertainment media; and for the astronomical net tax burden they foist upon everyone else (just over $10,000 per black American per year)? When you abuse the word "they", it's going to be abused back at you.
      - coldtea 9y ago
        >That's a sinister use of the word "they". No, it's a pragmatic use. When you're persecuted, burned in furnaces, kept in concentration camps, gassed, etc -- and the rest of the population don't lift a finger about it, if not cheering, then you don't sit to ponder whether 100% of the German population does that to you, or it's just 70%, or maybe "merely" 30%. >Do you allow non-Jewish Americans to resent Jews for their dramatic over-representation in positions of power, influence, and information gate-keeping (e.g. journalism, entertainment media, the Supreme Court, Congress, academia, the Federal Reserve)? They sure are allowed to suspect people of the same roots helping out each other -- as opposed to a meritocracy. But even so, that's nowhere even remotely close to what the Jews themselves suffered, it's so lighter an offense that it's not even in question. Besides, it's not what you "allow" or not "allow". It's what people will do anyway. >Do you allow non-Black Americans to resent blacks for their disproportionate violence and anti-social behavior; for their dramatic over-representation in entertainment media; and for the astronomical net tax burden they foist upon everyone else (just over $10,000 per black American per year)? Allowing it or not, they do. And if one statistically lives in areas where e.g. blacks are predominantly doing crimes, or they have suffered (like a friend who was shot in Atlanta mowing his lawn, because some dude had to get "initiated"), they also get to be fearful and even resentful. It's pragmatic, and it includes the whole group (and not just the bad apples in it) for plain statistical reasons. You can never know exactly all the actual bad apples (it's not like someone will hand you a list in advance) to avoid. But you learn to be more careful when around group A or B in certain situations or surroundings, for purely statistical reasons. That's not the same as racism -- just a generalization. Heck, you can consider blacks perfectly equal, and capable of anything any white can do, and persecuted unjustly by the police, and redlined, and so on, and still not want to walk alone through central Los Angeles at 3:00 AM. Southern slave owners, on the other hand, were racist without any provocation -- if anything, they DID the provocation by abducting and enslaving people, and they still considered them inferior. (Not sure about the $10K per black/year amount. Even if true, it could be a drop in the bucket compared to state owned recuperations for past deeds such as, I dunno, the whole slavery thing. Continuity of state and all -- countries still pay for what they did in wars decades and centuries ago). >When you abuse the word "they", it's going to be abused back at you. Perhaps, but I don't see how.
    - golergka 9y ago
      Yeah, I had most of my family killed in Holocaust and I still think that if a Jewish person would be hating on a random German person (like what happened to German colony in Haifa right about this time) is still racism. We're so hardly conditioned to believe that "racism is wrong" that when we see instances of racism that actually make sense, we instinctively want to name it something else.
      - coldtea 9y ago
        >We're so hardly conditioned to believe that "racism is wrong" that when we see instances of racism that actually make sense, we instinctively want to name it something else. Part of it is that. Another part is that we conflate any collective tension or precaution or generalization to "hating". You might not hate blacks, but you still wont want to walk alone in 3AM in downtown L.A. Even if 99% of the people you meet there are great with you, it only takes 1-2 persons to attack or rob you to make the precaution (and thus the generalization) perfectly rational. That doesn't make you a racist, just a person aware of crime statistics. Few, if anyone, can just say, "I'll just visit downtown L.A. at 3 AM without a care in my mind, and judge people I meet there on an individual basis". And even the few that do that, if they end having it bad, they rarely keep to the same ideal.
coldtea 9y ago
When you live in a country with actual history (as opposed to rural Iowa where nothing ever threatened it), it's not racism. You don't start because you believe the neighbors are somehow inferior, you start because you know that you have dangerous differences, or that they occupy some parts of you country that should be freed, or because they are in the offensive every now and then and so on. Words have a meaning. Not all situations where a group is cautious or even hates another are racism. The same way blacks in the US being cautious of whites is not racism -- they do have a long history of suffering in their hands that justifies that as the prudent behavior.
- meri_dian 9y ago
  That's the critical point about racism that no one seems to mention though. Every racist person is racist ultimately because of fear. Regardless of how justified their fear is, they hate because they are consumed by fear and mistrust of the other, which is a natural human reaction. We may not empathize with their fear but to them it is very real. When you understand racism in this context it becomes clear that the narrative of people being racist because they are hateful is far too shallow. It goes much deeper than that.
  - mistermann 9y ago
    You make it sound as if it can be nothing but emotional, whereas there actually can be an objective, reasoned aspect as well.
    - meri_dian 9y ago
      No one is objective and we are very often ruled by emotion.
      - coldtea 9y ago
        Which is neither here, nor there. We might be "very often ruled by emotion" but there's also an objective reality out there. A black guy flirting with a white woman in the 20's Alabama would indeed find themselves hanging from a tree -- whether they were "objective" or not.
jotm 9y ago
Oh yeah? Man, Russia has been subject to racism so much, they might win billions in a court case...
Yetanfou 9y ago
Indeed, they are. The same should be said against those who look down upon Caucasian Europeans because people from Europe bought slaves from Arab traders and took them to the Americas, about British ex-prisoners who took land from the Aboriginals, about Europeans who took land from native American tribes, about... well, you get the gist. What happened in historical times is just that, history. The inhabitants of modern Turkey carry no guilt for the atrocities of the Ottoman empire, just like modern-day Japanese (except for surviving war criminals) are not to blame for the misdeeds of the Japanese empire, nor are current Europeans the same as those who traded in slaves or established colonies in Africa. It is good to have this sorted out so people can get on building functional societies based on the here and now, not on old feuds and historical misdeeds.

But it's important to put them in context because it makes them more understandable.

I have to agree. This sort of hatred kind of made sense 150 years ago when it was part of a liberation struggle, but it's just plain racism at the moment. People should be better than this. (Disclaimer: I'm a Bulgarian who's lived in the UK for the past decade. Most Bulgarians who have lived in Bulgaria their whole lives would probably disagree with me.)

golergka 9y ago
The fact that it was a part of liberation struggle didn't make it not racism.
- coldtea 9y ago
  Actually it did. Jews in Germany in 36 hating on the German people for what they're doing to them is not "racism".
  - said 9y ago
    That's a sinister use of the word "they". Do you allow non-Jewish Americans to resent Jews for their dramatic over-representation in positions of power, influence, and information gate-keeping (e.g. journalism, entertainment media, the Supreme Court, Congress, academia, the Federal Reserve)? Do you allow non-Black Americans to resent blacks for their disproportionate violence and anti-social behavior; for their dramatic over-representation in entertainment media; and for the astronomical net tax burden they foist upon everyone else (just over $10,000 per black American per year)? When you abuse the word "they", it's going to be abused back at you.
    - coldtea 9y ago
      >That's a sinister use of the word "they". No, it's a pragmatic use. When you're persecuted, burned in furnaces, kept in concentration camps, gassed, etc -- and the rest of the population don't lift a finger about it, if not cheering, then you don't sit to ponder whether 100% of the German population does that to you, or it's just 70%, or maybe "merely" 30%. >Do you allow non-Jewish Americans to resent Jews for their dramatic over-representation in positions of power, influence, and information gate-keeping (e.g. journalism, entertainment media, the Supreme Court, Congress, academia, the Federal Reserve)? They sure are allowed to suspect people of the same roots helping out each other -- as opposed to a meritocracy. But even so, that's nowhere even remotely close to what the Jews themselves suffered, it's so lighter an offense that it's not even in question. Besides, it's not what you "allow" or not "allow". It's what people will do anyway. >Do you allow non-Black Americans to resent blacks for their disproportionate violence and anti-social behavior; for their dramatic over-representation in entertainment media; and for the astronomical net tax burden they foist upon everyone else (just over $10,000 per black American per year)? Allowing it or not, they do. And if one statistically lives in areas where e.g. blacks are predominantly doing crimes, or they have suffered (like a friend who was shot in Atlanta mowing his lawn, because some dude had to get "initiated"), they also get to be fearful and even resentful. It's pragmatic, and it includes the whole group (and not just the bad apples in it) for plain statistical reasons. You can never know exactly all the actual bad apples (it's not like someone will hand you a list in advance) to avoid. But you learn to be more careful when around group A or B in certain situations or surroundings, for purely statistical reasons. That's not the same as racism -- just a generalization. Heck, you can consider blacks perfectly equal, and capable of anything any white can do, and persecuted unjustly by the police, and redlined, and so on, and still not want to walk alone through central Los Angeles at 3:00 AM. Southern slave owners, on the other hand, were racist without any provocation -- if anything, they DID the provocation by abducting and enslaving people, and they still considered them inferior. (Not sure about the $10K per black/year amount. Even if true, it could be a drop in the bucket compared to state owned recuperations for past deeds such as, I dunno, the whole slavery thing. Continuity of state and all -- countries still pay for what they did in wars decades and centuries ago). >When you abuse the word "they", it's going to be abused back at you. Perhaps, but I don't see how.
  - golergka 9y ago
    Yeah, I had most of my family killed in Holocaust and I still think that if a Jewish person would be hating on a random German person (like what happened to German colony in Haifa right about this time) is still racism. We're so hardly conditioned to believe that "racism is wrong" that when we see instances of racism that actually make sense, we instinctively want to name it something else.
    - coldtea 9y ago
      >We're so hardly conditioned to believe that "racism is wrong" that when we see instances of racism that actually make sense, we instinctively want to name it something else. Part of it is that. Another part is that we conflate any collective tension or precaution or generalization to "hating". You might not hate blacks, but you still wont want to walk alone in 3AM in downtown L.A. Even if 99% of the people you meet there are great with you, it only takes 1-2 persons to attack or rob you to make the precaution (and thus the generalization) perfectly rational. That doesn't make you a racist, just a person aware of crime statistics. Few, if anyone, can just say, "I'll just visit downtown L.A. at 3 AM without a care in my mind, and judge people I meet there on an individual basis". And even the few that do that, if they end having it bad, they rarely keep to the same ideal.

coldtea 9y ago

When you live in a country with actual history (as opposed to rural Iowa where nothing ever threatened it), it's not racism. You don't start because you believe the neighbors are somehow inferior, you start because you know that you have dangerous differences, or that they occupy some parts of you country that should be freed, or because they are in the offensive every now and then and so on. Words have a meaning. Not all situations where a group is cautious or even hates another are racism. The same way blacks in the US being cautious of whites is not racism -- they do have a long history of suffering in their hands that justifies that as the prudent behavior.

meri_dian 9y ago
That's the critical point about racism that no one seems to mention though. Every racist person is racist ultimately because of fear. Regardless of how justified their fear is, they hate because they are consumed by fear and mistrust of the other, which is a natural human reaction. We may not empathize with their fear but to them it is very real. When you understand racism in this context it becomes clear that the narrative of people being racist because they are hateful is far too shallow. It goes much deeper than that.
- mistermann 9y ago
  You make it sound as if it can be nothing but emotional, whereas there actually can be an objective, reasoned aspect as well.
  - meri_dian 9y ago
    No one is objective and we are very often ruled by emotion.
    - coldtea 9y ago
      Which is neither here, nor there. We might be "very often ruled by emotion" but there's also an objective reality out there. A black guy flirting with a white woman in the 20's Alabama would indeed find themselves hanging from a tree -- whether they were "objective" or not.

jotm 9y ago

Oh yeah? Man, Russia has been subject to racism so much, they might win billions in a court case...

Yetanfou 9y ago

Indeed, they are. The same should be said against those who look down upon Caucasian Europeans because people from Europe bought slaves from Arab traders and took them to the Americas, about British ex-prisoners who took land from the Aboriginals, about Europeans who took land from native American tribes, about... well, you get the gist. What happened in historical times is just that, history. The inhabitants of modern Turkey carry no guilt for the atrocities of the Ottoman empire, just like modern-day Japanese (except for surviving war criminals) are not to blame for the misdeeds of the Japanese empire, nor are current Europeans the same as those who traded in slaves or established colonies in Africa. It is good to have this sorted out so people can get on building functional societies based on the here and now, not on old feuds and historical misdeeds.