Can Anyone Explain Why?

[Kev H]

Wow, Colleen, you have (I hope) clarified what I failed to do. You have intellectualized a non-intellectual tendency. (Though....I can't resist here...does not that also lead to "looking down" on those underevolved people? And if not contained with simple pity and nothing further, could not that attitude deceptively lead right back the trap that ensnares those you discriminate against?)

And TC, you get a and a warm smile for your treasured innocence (which presumably comes from your early and possibly unconscious evolution beyond any such tendencies - just be sadly aware that so few are as fortunate).

Also, Mala postulates a conceivable explanation from the standpoint of our ancient history/tendency. This is accentuated in wartime, in the "demonization/dehuminization of the enemy." Most of us dream of a time where we can evolve away from this, as a whole of humankind.

 

[neonlyte]

I am so 'colour blind' in the sense of racisim I actually managed to do a crit on an inter-racial story on SDC forum without realising the thrust of the story was about inter-racial sex. Of course I panned the story because I simply didn't 'get it'.

I just don't think about people in racial terms - and I don't understand anyone who does. I see kids in the street here completely integrated, they don't seem to have a problem with it, yet I know their parents do. So my hopes are with the next generation. Unfotunately, when I travel around Europe, I find racisim is entrenched in many communities and many countries, and as Colly says (paraphrasing) 'it is all too easy to build a dogma from a difference and a hatred from a prejudice'.

 

[Aurora Black]

Unfotunately, when I travel around Europe, I find racisim is entrenched in many communities and many countries...

*cough* Greece! *cough*

 

[HappyLlama]

The Welsh on the other hand...

As long as they're furry, I don't care.

 

[Tom Collins]

TC, Rob has said more than once that hatred is an addiction, and I think he's right. It is also an addiction that can be passed from generation to generation, witness the Phelps family.

Leaving the serious stuff behind us, I can think of many reasons for all the "pink inside" people to unite, starting with your very sexy brain.

Unite under the TC flag...lol
*more es for Miss Jammies*

 

[Tom Collins]

With respect to those who don't like it, Racism is easy to understand. It's a very natural phenomena. Creatures, will, when given the opportunity, more often than not gruop with like creatures. I dive and you see it a lot on a reef head. The parrot fish will, more or less, be near each other, the angels will too. Some of it is habitat preference, but some of it is just a social instinct.

That dosen't excuse racism in higher creatures. It's also our instinct to piss on the carpet, but we generally will not let nature take it's course till we find the bathroom.

I think tom, your problem understanding is, you are approaching something intellectually that is really not an intellectual activity. I'm white. If you drop me in a gymnaisum and the white folks are segregated in one corner, the blacks in another, the asiains in another and the hispanics in the other, I will, more often than not, gravitate to the corner with the white folks. Similarly if the humans were grouped in one corner and the other three helds lions, tigers and giraffes, I'd probably go where the humans were. But if the situation was exactly the same and Renza, or Des or Luna wolf or Blacksnake was there, I'd more than likely drift to the corner with my freinds, rather than with my race. In my case, race is irrespective in making friends.

For a racist, that isn't the case. They haven't overcome their natural propensity to group with like critters. They have, in effect carried that natural proclivity out to a dogma. Only then do they apply their intellects and that most often is used to present rationalizations for the dogma. Racism then, is almost anti-intellectual. It has to be. No one can support the statement Jerry Rice was not the best reciever of his era. Jerry is black. No amount of wanting or wishing is going to produce a white reciever or one of any color for that matter, who was better. A racist then, won't address the question, but will obliquely try to support his stance by minimizing the accomplishment.

If you ever listen to a real racist, they most often speak in poleminics, citing Axioms and maxums and wildly over generalizing. That's one of the better indicators of a lazy or lesser intellect in debate. That isn't to say you can't be highly intelligent and be a racist, it is to say you can't defend your racism without a fall back set of naked assertions that are failsafes.

I was raised in a place where prejudice was the norm. If you haven't been brought up in it, it's very difficult to understand. If you have, it takes an almost monumental effort of will to critically evealuate your beliefs. You have to challenge some of the very basic assumptions your world view is built upon. That's hard even for a disciplined and adapative mind. Try it. Pick something you absolutely are sure is correct, something you've never doubted in your life and try to argue against it. It's tough. Really touugh. Now imagine what you are arguing against is something that has a natural support to it, i.e. the support grouping with like critters does. Now lower your educational level, set yourself up in a community where your base assumption is everyone's base assumption and try it. It's getting exponenitally more difficult to do isn't it?

With many racists, this is the intellectual feat you are asking of them. To challenge something that has become as much a part of their world view as the law of gravity is to you. the vast majoity of them will fail in that exercise as will the vast majority period.

Jesus wept, Colly! I think that's probably the 10th time you've expressed something on a subject that I was having intellectual difficulty with and made me understand. I think what you said is what I've been feeling about it all my life but couldn't express in words so couldn't wrap my mind around it.
Thank you

 

[Tom Collins]

Tom, I can only offer what I've gleaned from my own questions about this. The idea of "us" and "them" seems to originate in our prehistory. Tribal thinking (second chakra, etc) is all about having everything for "us" and being afraid "they" will take it all, because of course "They" are their own "us" and want it, just like we do, around and around. "Them" is anyone unknown. What is unknown is therefore scary and dangerous, and easily hated. Most people will tend to hate what scares them, especially if it scares them without reason. If it's scary, dangerous, and unknown, better to attack and destroy it than risk it attacking and destroying you.

As people have moved beyond tribes and small groups into a larger, more mixed world. some people more than others cling to those ways, the way some people more than others cling to childhood habits and ways of thinking. Few people really have "tribes" anymore in the ancient sense. We mix and intermingle among groups of people, change locations as individuals more than as groups. But those primative behaviors travel along. What isn't "like me" is "them" and therefore dangerous, etc.

I don't think it ever enters into the arena of reason. I think it stays at a very primative level, a childish level, and is reinforced that way.

I am also of the pink skins. But if I'm outside for two long, I become a REAL redskin. Irish/German here -- amazingly, my mother was very DARK skinned! We didn't look related.

again...this is what i've been feeling and couldn't intellectualize.

 

[Kev H]

They are indeed treasures of this Hangout. I'd really like to see if other people (and horses) have something to contribute.

 

[Guest]

again...this is what i've been feeling and couldn't intellectualize.

Colly and I have strange timing, but she said it better -- I'd say I gave a grade 7 answer and she gave at least junior year college.

 

[CharleyH]

If someone could explain to me how the depth and quality of a person's pigmentation has a relavence beyond this I'd like to hear it.

I don't know what the hell colour has to do with anything as we were all born of the same primordial soup in Africa. In fact, we are all Africans, really. I think colour/ prejudice in general has more to do with traditions and religions long passed down - ownership of culture and peoples. Prejudice is a learned behaviour, not much of anything else, though. Just as Christmas or any other holiday is a tradition, so to is prejudice handed down generation after generation.

 

[rgraham666]

Although it isn't about racism per se, the essay I did for last year's Free Speech contest, Information Disease addresses what is in my mind one of the root causes of racism.

It's short.

And yes, it's a plug.

 

[elsol]

I don't know what the hell colour has to do with anything as we were all born of the same primordial soup in Africa. In fact, we are all Africans, really. I think colour/ prejudice in general has more to do with traditions and religions long passed down - ownership of culture and peoples. Prejudice is a learned behaviour, not much of anything else, though. Just as Christmas or any other holiday is a tradition, so to is prejudice handed down generation after generation.

Why do you think the sudden upsurge of the 'Holy Book' being a true historical text came about... cause some scientist tried to convice the wrong white people 10^10 Great-grand-mammy was of the 'African' influence...

Can you imagine when little Bobby got home...

"Daddy, did you know that at one time we were all nig....

Sincerely,
ElSol

 

[Tom Collins]

Wow, Colleen, you have (I hope) clarified what I failed to do. You have intellectualized a non-intellectual tendency. (Though....I can't resist here...does not that also lead to "looking down" on those underevolved people? And if not contained with simple pity and nothing further, could not that attitude deceptively lead right back the trap that ensnares those you discriminate against?)

And TC, you get a and a warm smile for your treasured innocence (which presumably comes from your early and possibly unconscious evolution beyond any such tendencies - just be sadly aware that so few are as fortunate).

Also, Mala postulates a conceivable explanation from the standpoint of our ancient history/tendency. This is accentuated in wartime, in the "demonization/dehuminization of the enemy." Most of us dream of a time where we can evolve away from this, as a whole of humankind.

That is really too sweet of you, Kev. I don't know that I would refer to myself in such terms but if you want to I won't complain.
Sorry it took me so long to get back to the thread but I had to get to work, which is where I am now.

 

[Tom Collins]

Although it isn't about racism per se, the essay I did for last year's Free Speech contest, Information Disease addresses what is in my mind one of the root causes of racism.

It's short.

And yes, it's a plug.

I RVCed, Sir Rob.
I adore the way your mind works.
Will you marry me?

 

[Tom Collins]

Why do you think the sudden upsurge of the 'Holy Book' being a true historical text came about... cause some scientist tried to convice the wrong white people 10^10 Great-grand-mammy was of the 'African' influence...

Can you imagine when little Bobby got home...

"Daddy, did you know that at one time we were all nig....

Sincerely,
ElSol

How about all this bullshit about trying to teach "Intelligent Design" along side Evolution in public schools. It's nothing more than the Creationists renaming themselves. It's my opinion that if you want your child to be taught Creationism in school then you should send them to a Catholic school. If you aren'ty Catholic then send them to Bible study at your church or bloody well teach them yourselves. Why do all these people insist that the public school system teach their children what should be taught at home, anyway?
Never mind...that's a whole other subject....lol

 

[Evil Alpaca]

Racism, and prejudism in general, is about in-group vs. outgroup. In order to feel more powerful, you need someone to be more powerful than. Social boundaries shift, and other people are found on the outside. I hate to take the cynical view, but I don't believe it is even POSSIBLE for that to completely vanish.
I must admit that I still use the terms "black" and "white" quite often when I'm referring to people. It's much faster than saying "salmon-colored-skin-person-of-European-descent" when trying to make a quick visual differential.

 

[Guest]

 

[neonlyte]

Racism, and prejudism in general, is about in-group vs. outgroup. In order to feel more powerful, you need someone to be more powerful than. Social boundaries shift, and other people are found on the outside. I hate to take the cynical view, but I don't believe it is even POSSIBLE for that to completely vanish.
I must admit that I still use the terms "black" and "white" quite often when I'm referring to people. It's much faster than saying "salmon-colored-skin-person-of-European-descent" when trying to make a quick visual differential.

I don't see anything wrong with describing people as black or white or asian - it is 'coloured' that I object to, that is just plain disdainful.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Racism, and prejudism in general, is about in-group vs. outgroup. In order to feel more powerful, you need someone to be more powerful than. Social boundaries shift, and other people are found on the outside. I hate to take the cynical view, but I don't believe it is even POSSIBLE for that to completely vanish.
I must admit that I still use the terms "black" and "white" quite often when I'm referring to people. It's much faster than saying "salmon-colored-skin-person-of-European-descent" when trying to make a quick visual differential.

In my stories I use black, white, asian, Indian. I've also used less hard and fast descriptivces like or mediterrainaina origins, or of scotch/irish extraction, dark skinned, light skinned.

I don't really think it's the words, I think it's the intent behind those words. I use the words as short hand descriptives, and almost always provide follow up descriptives because to me, saying, she was a black woman, is only a start. the cariety in shape, form and features among black women is huge and thus, letting you know her ethnicity doesn't do much to tell you what she looks like, other than to set the stage for a deeper description.

For a racist, saying she was a black woman says all he/she needs to know. And I really think that's where the difference is most keenly observed.

To them, black is an epitaphdescription beyond that is superfoulous to their intent. For me, it's just the begining, and in and of itself tells me little. It's just a loose descriptive.

I don't intend with the word to impart any connotation of the person, beyond that loose descriptive. For a racist, just the word provides all the back ground he/she needs interms of physical traits AND other traits that they infer.

So myself and David Duke could both be writing and we could both use the setntence, she was a black woman, but what you get from one is not even in the same ball park as what you would get from the other, if you take it as the author intends.