African-Americans comprise 9% of the population of Los Angeles County, but are victims in 59% of all race-hate crimes

[Heracles 417]

One of the best and most intellectual posts I have seen for a while in VJ.

Only because you agree with it.

Well there are a lot of good points.

It seems to be okay for someone black to publicly say and promote a black agenda or state how they want black people to rise etc. But those exact same words would be condemned by everyone if the word black was replaced with white.

Speaking about influential people. What do you think would have happen if any other non-black mayor had said the same comments. Be it white or hispanic..

"This city will be a majority African-American city. It's the way God wants it to be," Nagin said. "You can't have it no other way. It wouldn't be New Orleans."

MAYOR RAY NAGIN: "We as black people, it's time, it's time for us to come together. It's time for us to rebuild a New Orleans, the one that should be a chocolate New Orleans and I don't care what people are saying uptown or wherever they are, this city will be chocolate at the end of the day."

Edited September 2, 2007 by Boo-Yah!

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

One of the best and most intellectual posts I have seen for a while in VJ.

Only because you agree with it.

Well there are a lot of good points.

It seems to be okay for someone black to publicly say and promote a black agenda or state how they want black people to rise etc. But those exact same words would be condemned by everyone if the word black was replaced with white.

Speaking about influential people. What do you think would have happen if any other non-black mayor had said the same comments. Be it white or hispanic..

"This city will be a majority African-American city. It's the way God wants it to be," Nagin said. "You can't have it no other way. It wouldn't be New Orleans."

MAYOR RAY NAGIN: "We as black people, it's time, it's time for us to come together. It's time for us to rebuild a New Orleans, the one that should be a chocolate New Orleans and I don't care what people are saying uptown or wherever they are, this city will be chocolate at the end of the day."

Well lets see some specific examples rather than all this innuendo.

I believe the point was made elsewhere that Nagin's comments were taken out of context (specifically about the reconstruction of NO and the continuance of the city's historical ethnically influenced culture.

[Stabu 0]

People worry more about white extremism because historically you worry more when a more powerful group rails against a less powerful group. It's not that people on both sides can't be prejudiced, it's just that when prejudice is backed up by political power, it's more dangerous. There are some people who think that racism can only happen given a sort of power structure. I don't think that's true. Because there are two separate questions: whether someone is prejudiced, and whether they have enough influence to make that a problem. In other words, in 1936 I'm more worried about Hitler railing against the Jews than the other way around. If the guy Boo-Yah posted was actually influential, he'd be a problem. But he isn't.

Individuals have political power, not groups. There aren't any aggregates of Whites or Blacks; there are just White and Black individuals. Some of these individuals possess more political power than others, but this doesn't mean that the physical characteristics of those individuals in power would somehow mean that other individuals who look the same would gain any power advantages. If you choose an American by random you will find a person who has no affect of the politics of his own state and even less on the US as a whole. Most of the whites who are blamed for racism are nobodies (just like me for example) who just use the wrong word, refuse to associate with certain groups of people, refuse to hire certain persons or equal. These individuals are blamed of being racist even if they don't have any ideological afflictions with this view. On the other hand the guy Boo-Yah talked about is far from harmless, if he would only hire a one man aeroplane and purchase 50 ounces of Ebola virus he could succeed in his mad dream. He is smart and ideologically motivated. Still, people see him less of a threat than they would see a drunk white homeless man yelling ni**er on the street.

Yes Hitler killed a lot of people but in comparison to say Stalin or Mao he was harmless. I've never understood why he is considered worse than Stalin or Mao simply because he killed of minorities instead of killing off his own people. After the end of the war that was supposed to end all wars the average German didn't hate Jews, they were against killing Jews, but the average German had no political power in comparison to Hitler so they had to go along with what ever he ruled. A mad leader is far more dangerous than any form of institutional racism. Hitler, Stalin and Mao (among others) where all mad men who favoured a totalitarian socialist society.

"White Pride" is associated with silly Neo-Nazi extremism because it's absolute rubbish to think that the only people who have contributed to civilization as we know it are white people. The rest of the world did not live in caves before the White man got here, and a number of the civilizations that created a lot of what you think of as Western culture wouldn't have been thought of as really 'white.' Really. Italian, Jewish, Greek, Irish: earlier in the U.S. they were considered not really white, for various reasons. They'd corrupt White America. You can read writings from a couple centuries ago talking about how it's only the pure white Northern Protestant man who could innovate, those dirty stinking Catholics being too swarthy and too under the influence of the Church. This ignores the Renaissance in Italy, of course, but like I said, 'white' seems to be redefined pretty easily. Probably in 30 years it'll include Hispanics, too.

That was not the point. The point was why is it condemnable to be proud of being White but its okay to be proud of being Black or gay? But you are right that I exaggerated about saying that we would all live in caves. Most likely we would all be small scaled farmers living in small villages and suffering from easily treatable diseases and chronic undernourishment. When I use the term White of course I don't mean a definition of a WASP. In short the Western civilization can be said to be the end result of the cumulative achievements of Greeks, Romans, French, Germans, English and Americans - these where all Whites. Many of these achievers where Jewish but they still lived in the White world among Greeks, Romans etc... Many smaller civilizations such as the Irish or the Romanians or the Finnish haven't really done that much, they just happened to belong to the Western cultural sphere and thus have been lucky enough to be affected by it for a very long time. The best thing with this White Greko-Roman culture is that it produces great results and it spreads rather easily because it is a culture of reason. What separated the West from all the rest was that in the West people learned to ask the question "why?". In other cultures around the world this question was seldom asked, things where believed to just happen.

Your civilization doesn't make it out of the dark ages without the Arabs. Are we saying that China and Japan didn't contribute anything? India?

Fair enough, Arabs did keep the two most important people alive (namely Plato and Aristotle) during the middle ages. Chinese and Indians advanced the civilization project fairly little in the past, even if they have had Golden Ages of their own. This was mostly because they never interacted with the Greeks or Romans and thus their achievements became known to the West far later. Japan was again a back warded country till around the late 19th century. After that the Japanese achievements have been extraordinary great. With a global capitalistic economy the project of civilization has been spread all around the world and every nation on earth can add to the accumulating intellectual and physical capital. Still this project was started by the Greeks and advanced by the White man for almost three millennia before any non-Whites got the chance to contribute to it. For this reason alone the White man should have a right to be proud of his achievements.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Gee what could be the difference - that formerly repressed minority groups like Black Americans are still trying to find their cultural identity and where they fit in in the overall picture of American society? A society created by Whites with the blood of Native Indians, Blacks and other minorities.

Edited September 2, 2007 by Number 6

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Still this project was started by the Greeks and advanced by the White man for almost three millennia before any non-Whites got the chance to contribute to it. For this reason alone the White man should have a right to be proud of his achievements.

Must have forgotten the Mesopotamians (creators of the first written language). They weren't exactly 'white'.

[Heracles 417]

Gee what could be the difference - that formerly repressed minority groups like Black Americans are still trying to find their cultural identity and where they fit in in the overall picture of American society? A society created by Whites with the blood of Native Indians, Blacks and other minorities.

repression aside, if I was to start a white achievement channel (WAC) would people brand it racist or not?

Still this project was started by the Greeks and advanced by the White man for almost three millennia before any non-Whites got the chance to contribute to it. For this reason alone the White man should have a right to be proud of his achievements.

Must have forgotten the Mesopotamians (creators of the first written language). They weren't exactly 'white'.

lol The word itself is a Greek word..

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

lol The word itself is a Greek word..

If you say so. But it's a word used to describe a number of transitional civilizations (Specifically the Sumerians) which dates to at least 1000 years earlier than the Greeks.

Gee what could be the difference - that formerly repressed minority groups like Black Americans are still trying to find their cultural identity and where they fit in in the overall picture of American society? A society created by Whites with the blood of Native Indians, Blacks and other minorities.

repression aside, if I was to start a white achievement channel (WAC) would people brand it racist or not?

Given the reason you'd be doing it - I'd say so yes.

Again. More innuendo - is that all you have up your sleeve?

[Heracles 417]

lol The word itself is a Greek word..

If you say so. But it's a word used to describe a number of transitional civilizations (Specifically the Sumerians) which dates to at least 1000 years earlier than the Greeks.

Gee what could be the difference - that formerly repressed minority groups like Black Americans are still trying to find their cultural identity and where they fit in in the overall picture of American society? A society created by Whites with the blood of Native Indians, Blacks and other minorities.

repression aside, if I was to start a white achievement channel (WAC) would people brand it racist or not?

Given the reason you'd be doing it - I'd say so yes.

Again. More innuendo - is that all you have up your sleeve?

The toponym comes from the Greek words μέσος "between" and ποταμός "river", referring to the basins of the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers and the area in between.

So let me get this straight a BET channel is a okay while a white achievement channel would be racist? You mention reasoning behind it but what do you actually mean. Is it because its not an entertainment channel.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

The toponym comes from the Greek words μέσος "between" and ποταμός "river", referring to the basins of the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers and the area in between.

My guess is the Greeks came up with the name after the Mesopotamians lived there...

So let me get this straight a BET channel is a okay while a white achievement channel would be racist? You mention reasoning behind it but what do you actually mean. Is it because its not an entertainment channel.

I've not seen the BET and I'd wonder if you have too - to make much of any real determination that the content of it is racist. Isolated quotes and second-hand anecdotes do not a good case make...

However I'd contend that its rather easier to promote a subculture (i.e. the experience of being black in America) than it would be to promote the historical achievements of the so-called white race.

What is the "White Experience" BTW - how would you boil all those different historical heritages and cultural traditions to a homogenous idea of what it means to be white?

Need only look at New York - the Italians and the Irish are both considered 'white', but have broadly different cultural traditions. Does being white mean the same thing to an irishman as it would to an italian? I'm not sure how I'd even go about answering that question.

I think in this example you're mistaking 'culture' for 'race'. Sorry to say - but that says a lot more about your assumptions than it does about mine.

Edited September 2, 2007 by Number 6

[Heracles 417]

So let me get this straight a BET channel is a okay while a white achievement channel would be racist? You mention reasoning behind it but what do you actually mean. Is it because its not an entertainment channel.

I've not seen the BET and I'd wonder if you have too - to make much of any real determination that the content of it is racist. Isolated quotes and second-hand anecdotes do not a good case make...

However I'd contend that its rather easier to promote a subculture (i.e. the experience of being black in America) than it would be to promote the historical achievements of the so-called white race.

What is the "White Experience" BTW - how would you boil all those different historical heritages and cultural traditions to a homogenous idea of what it means to be white?

I am talking about the principal of a channel rather that what will be on it. As Stabu mentioned is it okay, in America, for me to beat the white man drum to the same level as someone black??

I have never heard anyone white beat that drum once let alone over and over again. How many times do you hear black this black that. And I am not talking about extremists either.

Edited September 2, 2007 by Boo-Yah!

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

So let me get this straight a BET channel is a okay while a white achievement channel would be racist? You mention reasoning behind it but what do you actually mean. Is it because its not an entertainment channel.

I've not seen the BET and I'd wonder if you have too - to make much of any real determination that the content of it is racist. Isolated quotes and second-hand anecdotes do not a good case make...

However I'd contend that its rather easier to promote a subculture (i.e. the experience of being black in America) than it would be to promote the historical achievements of the so-called white race.

What is the "White Experience" BTW - how would you boil all those different historical heritages and cultural traditions to a homogenous idea of what it means to be white?

I am talking about the principal of a channel rather that what will be on it. As Stabu mentioned is it okay, in America, for me to beat the white man drum to the same level as someone black??

I have never heard anyone white beat that drum once let alone over and over again. How many times do you hear black this black that. And I am not talking about extremists either.

No. But you're still talking in innuendo. I just keep wondering what you actually have to back it up...

Moreover, if you've never watched the BET how do you know what the principle of it is? Let alone the content. Again seems to me there's' a tendency to confuse 'race' with 'culture'.

Again - how would you sell what it means to be a white person? Given the specific niche occupied by blacks and other minorities - its easier to sell minority culture than an amorphous mass of disparate traditions.

Edited September 2, 2007 by Number 6

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Most of the whites who are blamed for racism are nobodies (just like me for example) who just use the wrong word, refuse to associate with certain groups of people, refuse to hire certain persons or equal.

Stabu,

My reading of your statement above leads me to believe that you consciously refuse to associate with certain groups of people.

Care to share with us which groups those are?

Also, if a white man consciously refuses to associated with, say, men of African descent - does that make him racist, in your opinion? What if the same white man consciously refuses to hire a men of African descent, as a matter of principle? If he a racist?

[Heracles 417]

Most of the whites who are blamed for racism are nobodies (just like me for example) who just use the wrong word, refuse to associate with certain groups of people, refuse to hire certain persons or equal.

Stabu,

My reading of your statement above leads me to believe that you consciously refuse to associate with certain groups of people.

Care to share with us which groups those are?

Also, if a white man consciously refuses to associated with, say, men of African descent - does that make him racist, in your opinion? What if the same white man consciously refuses to hire a men of African descent, as a matter of principle? If he a racist?

Vice versa. Does your question also apply to someone of African decent who refuses to associate with someone white??? Or is it okay because they are a minority..

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Most of the whites who are blamed for racism are nobodies (just like me for example) who just use the wrong word, refuse to associate with certain groups of people, refuse to hire certain persons or equal.

Stabu,

My reading of your statement above leads me to believe that you consciously refuse to associate with certain groups of people.

Care to share with us which groups those are?

Also, if a white man consciously refuses to associated with, say, men of African descent - does that make him racist, in your opinion? What if the same white man consciously refuses to hire a men of African descent, as a matter of principle? If he a racist?

Vice versa. Does your question also apply to someone of African decent who refuses to associate with someone white??? Or is it okay because they are a minority..

Yes, vice versa.

My post was in response to a statement Stabu made. Once I understand what he means, we can get into that as well.

[Heracles 417]

No. But you're still talking in innuendo. I just keep wondering what you actually have to back it up...

Don Imus.. Where his comments not taken out of context?? Was he not left to hang?

I am still waiting for the apology from people like Jesse Jackson who publicly condemned the guys involved with Duke Lacrosse AND turned it into a race issue.. Or is he, conveniently, an extremist as well??

Edited September 2, 2007 by Boo-Yah!