What is your interpretation of "racism?"
 

There used to be these signs around Los Angeles / Orange County that showed people in everyday situations with text bubbles above them, having them say things like, "You know, the mexican guy down at the store."

Then the ad basically said something like, "Racism is everywhere..."

At what point does it just go too far?

I notice that when people are trying to tell you who someone is, they almost look around before they use the person's race as part of the line of descriptors.

I mean, people are by default a certain, identifiable color. If you don't know my name, describing me as a bald white dude is no problem.

Hating/disliking someone for the color of their skin is racism to me

I think people are WAY too sensitive these days with that shit though

Not giving somebody a chance specifically because of color of skin or ethnicity would be racist.

I should be able to say "the black dude at the store". I should also be able to say "that black dude at the store is a total dickhead". Neither of those are racist, merely opinions.

Being racist has a real emotion behind it, a real hate. I grew up in a city that had cross burnings, THATS racism.

Racism = thinking that people who come from a certain place or share certain physical commonalities BEHAVE similarly.

And now the thread has legs :)

I disagree. Having that thought process is human. If you don't think like that, you're probably stupid.

Would you stroll into the bad neighborhoods of New York, DC, Chicago, and LA at night without being scared shitless? And if not, why not? Does that make you racist or aware?

Racism is often looke at negatively but it can be POSITIVELY viewed as well. I mean, I'm Asian and when I was in college my white fraternity brothers would always come up to me for help with Physics and Calculus. I keep saying "DUDE, I'm a History major!" LOL

Anyway, racism (per my definition above) is NEUTRAL it totally depends on the person who subscribe to that thinking (group commonality = predictor of individual behavior) to put a negative or positive spin to it.

See post #8. It is a NEUTRAL mode of thinking, it's up to the person to put a negative or positive spin to it. Let's not resort to name calling, please.

shutup honkey

It's funny, but in Central and South America, in Spanish, it's very common to call somebody by their race.

"Hey Chinese. blah blah blah" etc. It's not considered racist.

Where was I name calling?

racism is wierd to me...cause there are things like "black people love chicken and watermelon"....a terrible stereotype that I always hated, until I lived in Atlanta. When we lived in South Atlanta it was almost common place for you to drive by a chicken wings stand and see a watermelon truck parked next to it with about 20 black people standing around eating chicken and watermelon

it was then I realized that sometimes stereotypes are there because history has shown us that they DO exist for a reason

so, I don't feel bad about certain stereotypes anymore, because they are usually true.

I really thought I was a huge racist when I used to think that shit though...and I know logically I am not at all, but my mind would get the better of me

Padre?


Pedro
El Presidente Go Fock Youself

spoken like someone who has never actually lived in a place where everyone acts the same and is the same race

I have lived many places where people shared certain physical commonalities, and 90% of the time they DID behave similarly

Racism to me is when a certain group of individuals, grouped only by race/creed/colour, are deined certain opportunities because of these characteristics.

Someone saying "all black people are thieves" is denying them the right to be perceived as honest individuals. Not hiring someone due to their colour is denying the ability for them to make a living.

This part "If you don't think like that, you're probably stupid." Although I can see your point, another way to think would be "I just don't go to PLACE X not because it has Y people in it is because PLACE X just has a lot of bad crime there."

I wasn't calling you stupid or even referring specifically to you. It was a general statement. As in, if you don't take things like that into consideration you can really get yourself in a pickle.

a lot of the dumb motherfuckers who post on THIS board

I lived in California for 24 years and lived among Latinos. They share a strong physical commonality but are a VERY DIVERSE people. Diverse behaviors (usually along class lines, countries of origin, levels of acculturation/assimilation). Many of my buddies were Latino. The same diversity applies to, I would say, all groups. So just because you share the same physical commonalities, doesn't mean you all ACT alike. You have to factor in other elements.

Hmmm...Racism...
When a new driver gets into NASCAR it's because he wants to racism.

Seriously, it can have SO many varying definitions, there almost can't be a clear, concise one.

According to Objectivist philosophy (Ayn Rand) racism is a crude form of collectivism that holds that a man's intellectual ideas and moral character are formed by his race, rather than his individual characteristics.

Only white people can be racist and only black people can tell you how they are being racist :thumbsup

Stereotyping is a natural human function and it's done not only by race but by age , gender, dress code, and so forth. A cab driver in a large urban city is more likely to pick up an old granny over a young person, a woman over a man, a white man over a black man etc. Insurance companies charge young males drivers more than females for a reason - and it's unfortunate that while most young male drivers are responsible drivers, the minority of the bad young male drivers ruins it for them.

i see where you are coming from, but if you hang out in or around certain cultures long enough you begin to see their differences. you can even say that about identical twins that dress the same, eventually you will see their differences and diversity.

I personally don't think racism has ANYTHING to do with behaviour....it is as simple to me as culture/race/nationality...if you dislike or treat anyone bad because of their nationality/race/culture then you are a racist

treating someone negatively because of their behaviour is just not liking them, but when you add the skin or nationality element into it then it crosses over into racism

all asians are horrible drivers

black people love chicken and watermelon

mexicans love to have too many children and make them all live in a 1 bedroom apartment

Some stereotypes are more accurate than others. Some are also completely false and concocted and perpetuated by racists. All things being equal one should judge others on an invididual basis.

i am afraid of racists, though i am white. i am afraid that i will find myself in the district of blacks and they will turn to be racists. and will kill me :(

people are too sensitive, and not sensitive enough... depends who and where

racism sucks

i always thought that racism has a negative feeling - a sort of a fight between people.

When you feel that race factors in, despite lack of evidence, or evidence to the contrary, or "just because".

Is it racist to search all Arab people flying in from Iran at LAX?

The business class I just took spent at least 1/3 of the class preaching against racism, for diversification, talking about discrimination, etc.

The last employee manual I had was as Sprint. That was around 18 years ago. I swear I don't think discrimination was even mentioned in the entire manual (and it was a big manual).

People use the "racism" and "discrimination" card waaaay too often, IMO. If someone's black, they're black. If they're fat, they're fat. If they're stupid, they're stupid. If 99% of crimes in an area are caused by 18 year old black men, then all 18 year old black men should be watched more closely than the 18 year old black women - no racism there.

when someone calls me a jackass

Who cares, everyone is fucking everyone, in 50 years everyone will just be a nice middle brown color anyway...

If only the Arab people from a flight where all passengers were NOT Arab were searched, I'd say it's racial profiling and racist by the common use of the word. Thats assuming no specific threat related to the flight.

So all the people, or the nervous looking people, or a certain age group, or something that makes real sense. But not "search all the Arabs on that flight".

True that.

It's a sticky question because one has to weigh rational profiling against racial profiling - sometimes they're one and the same, and sometimes not. Of all the high jackings in recent years how many were done by Arabs? But even better, how many of those highjackers led completely normal lives and would go undetected if security was simply searching people who "looked shady"? Maybe another question would be, if you were a passenger on that flight, would you be for or against the search since it is your safety that is in question? To take heat off Arabs for a moment let's ask what if a cross was found burning in front of a black person's house - what would the profile of the possible suspect look like? Remember that in these specific situations people don't necessarily have the opportunity to get to know who they're dealing with on an individual basis so perhaps some type of profiling is acceptable (nobody is having their rights taken away, just a quick search inconvenience and everybody is on their way). I would be curious to ask somebody of Arab decent if they would be for or against not only a brief search of themselves but other Arab passengers. I'm sure that everybody incuding Arab passengers don't want that flight to be their last.


As for the compisition of "races" - that won't change for a long time to come. The distribution might change but we're not all going to be brown people in 50years. In America alone there are 300 million "white people" (50 million which have "black" genes in them) and interracial marriages are relatively few. This is partly due to race/culture issues but also socio-economics, status, and proximity (you won't find many blacks in small all-white towns across the country and you won't find many whites in all black urban areas where the majority of blacks in the US are concentrated, so the chance of intermarriage is nil).

IMO, racism is an action to unfairly discriminate.

By my definition, many affirmative action programs are racist.