posted September 05, 2003 07:46 PM         

If reptiles ie snakes are a race, I`m racist against them buggers.

posted September 06, 2003 01:30 AM         

I was raised in a mostly white community (my lower school was about 90% white) and so have had much less contact with blacks and hispanics than I should have. I know a fair number of asians, though. I don't consider myself a racist, but at the same time I'm also aware that race is a very significant factor in a lot of things. I don't ignore that factor.

posted September 06, 2003 01:05 PM         

Just my opinion!

posted September 06, 2003 03:17 PM         

hehehee
Well I am a bit biased on this because my son is half caucasion and half Filipino and he is beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful! And usually when people see him they ask if he's of mixed race because "Oh you can usually tell the mixed race ones because they are so pretty!"

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we dreamt we'd be the ones - and we would never lose.. you made me speechless - and fearless - yet it made you fearless too.. oh how we dreamt to be so fearless - no matter what they do.. i don't know where you are now -we shared a dream of being together.. you led me to the light, yeah - for this i would like to thank you forever

posted September 06, 2003 06:25 PM         

My partner, who never gets "involved", called the police on him early on, given the threats. We never knew if the cops came. The people being yelled at don't seem to bother with calling the police or complaining to their landlord. They come from a country with a civil war going on, so I don't imagine one loudmouth whose language they don't understand all that well bothers them so much as it does us. (although thank gourd for gun control laws here)

This week my partner noticed a different neighbour complaining about the racist to two officers taking a report. So maybe it's time for another phonecall from us this week.

Sorry for the rant folks but, yeah, there are some racists around. This guy is on welfare, but I've met them from every level of income, and of every colour.

We have a long way to go.

Lunargirl

posted September 06, 2003 07:56 PM         

Uhh scatbug, just who are you talking about when you say that some people should shut their trap about how "your people have opressed mines for two hundred years"? I can take a guess. I will say that I am offended because while some people do need to let certain things go for their own good, I cannot concure that the oppression of the Irish is comparable to these people that you speak of. Irish people can trace their heritage and can tell you everything about their culture if they want to. Why? because while they were being opressed, their culture was not stripped from them and they were not beaten and killed until they truly denounced their culture (which includes not speaking their language, or teaching their children and ostrasizing those that would remain true to their culture etc.) took up the new and then all of sudden set free and expected to navigate through a culture that was still foreign without proper/fair wages so that they could have a decent life and be able to feel like they truly belonged to the whole.
While I do not think that people should run around willy-nilly talking about two hundred years of opression in this day and I do agree that sometimes it is used as an excuse, it is certainly not for you to say, seeing as how you know exactly where you come from, you have a sense of self because you can strongly identify with a culture, two in fact and no matter how much your people were "opressed" you will never understand what it means to be someone who's culture is to hate themselves because it was taught to them in that way; passed down and down and down. "Opression" is more than starvation and even mass murder. So I suggest that you do some real research. Better yet, can you honestly give one or two cultural trademarks of "these people" that you are so annoyed with. I guarantee you that you cannot come up with one, not one that is not a result of the true opression that took place.
Now, I don't believe that people should point their finger at people in modern times and say: YOU IT WAS ALL YOU; YOUR FAULT THAT I AM IN THIS CONDITION!! But if enough people are saying it then you should at least see WHY they are saying that, if there is ANY truth whatsoever to it. It is not always an excuse, I don't see anyone saying: "Oh be quiet, that was not anti-semitism" But if one of these "certain people" says something, oh well let's discount it immediately without really and truly trying to see where they are coming from. Why is that?
That is exactly what is wrong with people, we want everyone to understand us but we are not going to really stretch to put ourselves in the other person's shoes and see where they are coming from. We just give them a quick once-over, tell them to shut-their-trap and keep on truckin; probably to walk down the street and into the neighborhood store where everyone will be exceedingly polite to us And tell us to have a nice day and the police will make some really nice comment about the weather or something.

posted September 06, 2003 08:12 PM         

anyway, silver, that is an interesting question. ive been reading this thread to see what comes up. i would honestly not expect any racists to openly declare themselves though, but still. its nice we can talk about this in an open and noncharged way. a lot of people are a little racist, from *all* cultures, but they dont share their feelings as they are concerned with decorum. that doesnt bother me so much, although i wish they would consider other options of thinking. i cant police peoples thoughts though, nor would i want to. what a job that would be. i would just expect in this day and age that people would treat everyone as fairly as they can. sad that those are my highest hopes, but honestly? i dont expect too much from humanity as a whole at the moment.

its the 21st c. and race, sexual identity, etc things like that are STILL an issue. that astounds me. you'd think wed be beyond that by now. i dont know, i just dont get the predjudice thing. i would prefer to judge a person by their actions, not what they look like or who they love. the rhetoric is true, we all bleed red, and what someone does in their bedroom has nothing to do with me. i think there is so little love in this world to be had, that if you love another it doesnt matter who they are. barring vulnerable members of society of course, like children and animals. anyway, this is rather scattered so...

race doesnt matter squat to me. my fathers side of the family is racist, and family gatherings are a stressful time to me. i either have to suck up their comments and just try not to let them bother me, or i have to take them to task which creates a lot of hostility toward me. at one family gathering i said something innocuous like 'i love chinese food' and my stupid old aunt (who consequently weighs about 400-450 pounds) said that she would never eat cats and dogs. you would think that someone who has probably felt predjudice for how *she* looked would be a bit more understanding.

other times they will use horrible epithets describing african americans, and then they look at me with this look of 'oooh the liberal is going to b*tch us out now' and its like they gang up on me to dare me to bother protesting. they are jerks. i have tried everything with these people, i have been nice, i have said why would you feel that way, i have fought, i have glared, i have left in a huff from family gatherings, i have cried, its all to no avail. i have had black boyfriends in my life, and i never had them meet my family for obvious reasons. COLOUR DOESNT EFFING MATTER! gah! thats the one thing i truly hate about the people in my family. once i kicked my dad and his exgf out of my house because she would not stop insulting indocanadians so i said look, if you are going to talk like that in my home, then just leave. i dont want to hear it.

it was all i could do at that point because they were disrespecting me, and they knew full well that theres nary a racist bone in my body, and that i strongly do not approve of racist cr@p. i was not about to have people in my house talking like that, i dont care what the relationship.

im with what andy said about the blender. honestly, with all the issues in the world today and all the hurting people, do we really need to create more negativity and hurt, due to something people have no choice about? i didnt choose to be white, nobody chooses their colour, its not like we can change it although plenty of white people tan so they are dark. its just a really silly thing and people should give up that garbage, it has no place in the coming age. to be racist is to have a ridiculous issue that you create yourself because you are deeply very insecure in yourself, is what ive found. its the classic case of transferance. i have found in my own family that the more openly racist ones are ones that i know are very insecure and feel they are powerless. they have to put down another type of person to feel superior. its pathetic.

that said, i am not ultra pc. i dont think other races should be racist either, and i have been a target of white racism myself. it hurts. i understand that there are left over hurts especially due to the ignorance of the whites with the slave trade, and similar things were done in my province in the pioneer days with asian people. they were the ones that got blown up when they were sent to tnt through tunnels of rock so the white boys could build a railroad. they figured asian people were expendable. that makes me shamed, that fact of history of this province.

i believe we should celebrate our differences (which are based in CULTURE, not race) while having equality for everyone. nobody should be judged or put down because of the colour of their skin, or what country they came from. i loathe imperialism.

on the same token, i am not a feminist but an equalist. some of the feminists scare me cause it aint right, yes there was a lot of crap done to women and to non white races, but cmon. we dont need to go backward, no one particular type of person is supreme. we need to move away from patriarchal/matriarchal society structures and just be people doing the best we can for other people so we can be a world that can be proud of ourselves. all the stuff we cant control like gender, race etc needs to just be a non issue. same with the black power stuff, it doesnt need to be that way, two wrongs dont make a right. perhaps it might make a white person see how it feels to be a minority, but i dont know. most would probably hate other races more if they were oppressed that way. i can see both sides.

i think its like a pendulum. it starts high on one side, then swings back the other way a bit lower, and it goes back and forth lower each time till it comes to rest in the center where it should be.

i am soooooo libra. lol. rereading this post i really do show my sign, dont i?

anyway love you all

sorry this post was so scattered, but it did help me to write this a little. i have to go relax now. take care everyone.

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where i end and you begin there's a gap in between there's a gap where we meet where i end and you begin
and i'm sorry for us the dinosaurs roam the earth the sky turns green where i end and you begin

posted September 06, 2003 08:24 PM         

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where i end and you begin there's a gap in between there's a gap where we meet where i end and you begin
and i'm sorry for us the dinosaurs roam the earth the sky turns green where i end and you begin

posted September 06, 2003 08:28 PM         

its nice to see you too!! *hug*

we will talk more soon.

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where i end and you begin there's a gap in between there's a gap where we meet where i end and you begin
and i'm sorry for us the dinosaurs roam the earth the sky turns green where i end and you begin

posted September 06, 2003 10:12 PM           

I'm
Scottish
Scotch-Irish
English
Belgian
German
Cherokee
Blackfoot
and
Crow
(and, according to my cousin's geneaology search, African-American if'n ya wanna go by the 1-drop rule )

The Scottish through the Germans (listed above) were oppressed, pressed into indentured servitude, invaded, murdered, and hated each in their own turn, often by others in that first subgroup - and, earlier on, by those who lived on the hill over from them.
They were considered different, as not part of someone's anthropological "in-group", and treated accordingly.

The Cherokee, Blackfoot, and Crow (listed above) were oppressed, pressed into indentured servitude, invaded, murdered, and hated each in their own turn, more often than not by their close neighbors, and then...well, we all know the story. Genocide is sure made easier with the use of grossly disproportionate weaponry and a seemingly unending human wave to wield it.
They were considered different, as not part of someone's anthropological "in-group", and treated accordingly.

And, ohgeeze, I hate to think of how my apparently lone African American ancestor's ancestors made it over here. I'm betting that they didn't win a fabulous cruise. It's fair to say that they were probably captured in a raid, a war, or a series of such, and traded by others from just a village or two over so that they could be sent to the coast in order to be sold and loaded on a ship to (perhaps) make it across the Atlantic alive and still standing...because, well, they were considered different, as not part of someone's anthropological "in-group", and treated accordingly.

The funny thing is that all of the above, besides being targeted at some point in time, also acted as the targeters at another. They were considered in- or sub- human by so-and-so, and they most likely held that feeling mutually. Thousands upon thousands of years ago, it was the norm that the people over the hill or in the next valley were considered to be outsiders, to be "others" which were to be feared and reviled (although it should be noted that such is the case still in some parts of the world; take a gander at just how many very localized languages give the name of "real people" or "humans" to their speakers, and refer to anyone else as "others" or "not humans").
Gradually, though, as people through necessity came into greater and greater contact with those immediately around them, they found those surrounding to be pretty much the same as them. Chiefdoms and then Confederations and/or Kingships formed. Then, those within those groupings were considered "self", and safe. Hatred of those outsiders over the hill gave way to community and brotherhood. The perimeter grew.
Population densities increased; greater need dictated closer ties with people further and further away, and these ties soon became ties of fraternity, of recognition, as well. As we got - as we get - to know one another more and more, we find that there are very few fundamental differences. Individual differences, sure - those are found within the smallest town - but everywhere you have people who want to live in peace and prosperity, and want to see that their wish is fulfilled for their children and for following generations. Everywhere you have people who look into the night sky and are struck speechless by its beauty, some who fall so in love that they rhapsodise and give up their whole existance for a taste of their beloved, and others who see mostly what is tangible and can directly benefit them in the here and now.

posted September 06, 2003 10:49 PM         

What she said.

Prox For President!!

posted September 07, 2003 01:32 AM         

<Ed. -- well if he hasn't, he will!>

Well the Canucks have spoken. I second that motion!

posted September 07, 2003 02:16 AM         

Wych,is'nt your sons name Hunter; oi have seen his pics and he IS very cute.even my sis who is a born critic loved him.