University to students: 'All whites are racist'

Setting yourself apart as a group is counterproductive, it plays into the hands of the opposition.
Stating that anyone can be gay, the stereotype is a falsehood and choosing to ignore it, instead turning your back on those who are ignorant instead of playing into their hands, has always been the most effective means of fighting.
You remove the target, call it guerrilla warfare.

[DanaC]

Setting yourself apart as a group is counterproductive, it plays into the hands of the opposition.

That would make sense as an argument if hitherto well accepted and respected groups of socety had decided to separate themselves in that way. Actually Gay Pride is e response to the fact that they were already separated off from and by society and singled out as worthy of moral opprobrium purely on the basis of their sexuality.

They didn't single themselves out, they were singled out by the rest of society. LIkewise the Black Pride movement was a response to a particular cultural norm which sent a message, loud and clear, to anybody with dark skin that they were less than those with white skin. Again, they did not choose to separate themselves from a previously harmonious situation. They were separated off by both de facto and de jure segregation and treated as second class (and earlier as less than human) citizens.

When society, government and law all tell black people that their legal status, intelligence, capability and culpability and even attractiveness is dicated by their skin colour/racial heritage and that to be considered truly competant, culpable, intelligent and beautiful they need to be white or of European descent, then it is a reasonable and appropriate response to attempt to redress that. You cannot bring the see saw back into balance if you don't apply weight to the other side.

[lookout123]

ok, so once upon a time someone thought people with dark skin were inferior and discriminated against them. so a movement based on the idea that "we are not inferior" blossomed. yay. but how do we get from there to discriminating against another group as the solution?

[Cicero]

Like I said lookout:

Racists are now an inferior race and we need to take them out.
Racists are white...not brown...not yellow..not red. Nope...I've never met a brown racist. They are all white. They need to recognize their inferiority.


What a goat-fuck.


One of those paradoxes that I reject and give no validity to.

[DanaC]

Well...once upon a time makes it sound an awfully long time ago Lookout. That kind of attitude is relatively recent and the socio-economic effects are still playing out. The reason discriminating against another group can be seen as a possible solution is that in order to remove the historic (and statistically still current) inequalities is to impose a control mechanism.

If some of the political parties in the UK hadn't enforced all-women shortlists in a limited set of circumstances, the number of women currently serving in Parliament would be minimal. It's still a long way from representative, but without some kind of imposed control mechanism to force change, we'd be looking (at the old rate of progress)at taking another three or four hundred years to reach something approaching parity.

This means that some women who are excellent candidates and who would have stood little chance of being able to follow that path were given that chance. The cost of their getting that chance, was that some men who'd have made excellent candidates and for whom the old system would have given them an excellent chance of being able to follow that path, were not given that chance.

The number of women in Parliament is still low compared to male participation. This means that despite the fact that some men lose out to the all-women shortlists, overall, it is still more advantageous to be male in politics.

[lookout123]

Dana if there was a male who would have been better in a position then the people certainly receive no benefit from a servant who was selected simply due to their lack of a penis. any job selection process that takes into account anything other than someone's qualification and ability to do the job is wrong. full stop.

[Sundae]

Lookout it's a case of changing cultural bias - the women weren't inferior but if they were up against a man the fact he did have a penis gave him a better chance.

We haven't had universal suffrage in this country for even a century yet - it takes time to change things. In fact if there had ever been a referendum on the subject we probably wouldn't have it yet.

And do remember that Star Trek (that ancient historical document) was ahead of its time with its mixed race crew. It's not all that long ago you know.

I don't care what someone else did, when, it is not my job to pay for it and I will not accept it and will fight against it.

[DanaC]

Good okay, you fight against it. Meanwhile, other groups who've been subject to far greater discrimination are fighting against that.

I discriminate against no one and will not own shit I did not personally do.
All group-think is the same.

[Sundae]

I am a product of my country's history, my family's history and my own personal history.

I will celebrate the culture in which I was raised and I consider myself lucky in that it was the culture my parents were raised in and that my grandparents were raised in. Before that generation the countries were different but the cultures were at least similar.

If other people want to celebrate the cultures in their history, then I wish them the pleasure of it. However I would like to continue to enjoy the things that I celebrated in childhood as well as what they celebrated, especially if their childhood was in a different country/ culture. My mantra would probably be, "Don't step on my festivals and cultural icons as I have no intention of stepping on yours," except being a Brit I'd probably add, "if you don't mind." And soddit, I am proud I was raised with manners.

[Cicero]

Originally Posted by Sundae Girl

I am a product of my country's history, my family's history and my own personal history.

I will celebrate the culture in which I was raised and I consider myself lucky in that it was the culture my parents were raised in and that my grandparents were raised in. Before that generation the countries were different but the cultures were at least similar.

If other people want to celebrate the cultures in their history, then I wish them the pleasure of it. However I would like to continue to enjoy the things that I celebrated in childhood as well as what they celebrated, especially if their childhood was in a different country/ culture. My mantra would probably be, "Don't step on my festivals and cultural icons as I have no intention of stepping on yours," except being a Brit I'd probably add, "if you don't mind." And soddit, I am proud I was raised with manners.

But the question is: Do you believe you are a racist because you are white?

In fact, you are as white as I am (really white)...does this mean that we are really racist?

[Sundae]

No. I absolutely refute that idea.
To me racism denotes some form of hatred or discrimination.

Sure, I do form immediate impressions on the colour of people's skin. But in the same way I make assumptions re age or dress.

If I am waiting at a bus stop and there is an old granny there, I will be pleasantly surprised if a teen of any colour lets her on first. If I am walking down the street behind two mothers side by side with pushchairs I will be pleasantly surprised if one of them has peripheral vision and drops back to let me past. In the same spirit as the above, I have found Chinese students crowd you on pavements (end up brushing your shopping bags or your shoulders) and Asian men push to the front of queues.

It's all generalisation, but I do not hate any of these people and do not feel superior to them. Sometimes I have to accept what I call manners is not the way they were raised - and that includes white Brits.

[Cicero]

I wonder what couples who are married to a contrasting skin color think about their racism.

[Aliantha]

Originally Posted by Cicero

I wonder what couples who are married to a contrasting skin color think about their racism.

We weren't married but we lived in a defacto relationship for six years. My husband had darker skin than me. We both used to make jokes which people from the outside would have considered extremely racist. An example of this is if I was relaxing and he asked me to do something, I might reply by saying, "do I look black to you?" He'd usually respond by saying something like, "get off your arse you lazy palangi (white person)".

It depends on your perspective and how you feel about racist remarks. To us it was a joke and a way of accepting our differences through humour.